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Vikings stadium now in Mpls. council's hands
What may be the final act in Minnesota's NFL stadium drama -- at least on the political stage -- may play out this week, starting at Minneapolis City Hall on Monday. That's when the Minneapolis City Council's Ways and Means committee will start off a week of deliberation on the stadium bill signed by Gov. Mark Dayton.
The entire council, meeting as a different committee, is scheduled to take up the matter again on Thursday. The council is expected to take final action on a proposed billion dollar Vikings stadium on Friday.
The city is required by the state constitution to ratify the stadium plan. The deal depends on a shift of sales and hospitality taxes to pay for stadium debt, after the taxes pay off the city's Convention Center bonds in 2020. That money is expected to pay off the $150 million the city has pledged up front to the project, as well as debt for the Target Center, now footed by property taxpayers.
The issue already won narrow council approval in a test vote this spring.
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National Workers Memorial Park, Canberra
In May 2011, funding was provided for the design and construction of a national memorial in Canberra to honour and pay tribute to working Australians who have died as a result of work-related accidents, incidents and disease. The National Workers Memorial serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of work health and safety and the need for a determined and continued effort by all to prevent work-related accidents and disease. It is also a place to reflect on the evolving values, ideas and aspirations of the Australian community in relation to work health and safety.
The Memorial provides a place for visitors to lay a tribute for a loved one, a location to pause and reflect within earshot of the National Carillon's bells, as well as allowing a space for congregation, interaction and ceremony. The National Workers Memorial was officially opened on 28 April 2013 and provides an important focal point for the commemoration of Workers' Memorial Day, recognised internationally on 28 April each year.

subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bob Corker is hardly the only Republican lawmaker raising dark concerns about harm President Donald Trump might cause the U.S. and the world. But he's one of the few willing to air those worries in public.
Most GOP senators were silent Monday, a day after Corker charged that the White House was an "adult day care" and Trump could set the nation "on the path to World War III."
The only senator who publicly hinted at similar concerns was Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who said both Trump and Corker should "cool it."
"And I think it would help if the president would be the first to cool it," he added.
Tennessee's Corker, with his Twitter broadsides and an explosive weekend New York Times interview, gave voice to concerns that circulate widely on Capitol Hill about an unpredictable president whose tendency to personalize every issue creates risks for the GOP agenda. But Trump's enduring popularity with a segment of the GOP base serves as a political muzzle that keeps most elected Republicans from saying anything similar, even those who believe it to be true.
Grassley, who won't be up for re-election until 2022, responded bluntly when asked about the situation.
"I don't see how it's productive, and I think that two words would kind of answer your question from my point of view: Cool it," he said. "I think it would be better if we stuck to the issues and leave personalities out of it."
A few other Republican senators who provided public views Monday avoided aligning themselves with Corker.
"You'll have to ask Sen. Corker what led him to make that statement. I haven't made that statement," Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said of Corker's suggestion that Trump could take the country into another world war.
Sen. Jeff Flake has been outspoken in his criticism of Trump, who's attacked him in return. But the Arizona Republican was restrained during a joint interview with Rubio after a re-election fundraiser in Scottsdale.
"Any of us who've worked with Sen. Corker know that he speaks his mind," Flake said, demurring on whether he shares Corker's view that the White House has become an "adult day care center."
"I agree with him on some things, I've supported a lot of his agenda, some things I've disagreed with and continue to do so," Flake said of Trump.
The Associated Press sought to contact all 52 Republican senators Monday for their response to Corker's comments and ask whether they believe Trump is fit for office, a question Corker declined to answer in the Times interview. With the Senate on recess this week and many offices closed for Columbus Day, the inquiries elicited few responses, and those who did largely declined comment.
Corker offered no solution to the problem he identified so graphically. Trump is the president, and few doubt that he will remain so, despite constitutional provisions for impeachment or for the vice president to take over if the commander in chief cannot discharge his duties.
Moreover, Republicans' political fortunes remain tied to the president's. They need his signature if they are to rescue a flagging agenda and pass a tax overhaul, a goal many believe is imperative if the GOP is to retain control of Congress in next year's midterm elections. So unlike Corker, who recently announced he is not running for re-election in Tennessee, even GOP Trump critics will continue to mute their concerns about his behavior and try to work with the administration.
"Sen. Corker, who's been a strong supporter of the president in the past, is essentially saying the emperor has no clothes," said Michael Steel, who served as spokesman to former House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.
But, Steel added: "The president was elected under our constitutional system and that's where we stand. Congressional leaders are going to continue concentrating on doing everything they can to get big things done for the American people, and they hope to have as much support from the administration as possible."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the target of Trump attacks after the Senate's failure to pass health care legislation, didn't directly answer when asked at an event in Hazard, Kentucky, whether he shared Corker's sentiments.
"Sen. Corker is a valuable member of the Senate Republican caucus and he's also on the Budget Committee and a particularly important player as we move to the floor on the budget next week," McConnell said.
His comments underscored what has frustrated Republicans most about the Trump-Corker feud, which burst open Sunday when Trump began tweeting, inaccurately, that Corker had begged for his endorsement and decided not to run for re-election when Trump turned him down. Trump will need Corker if he is to get big tax changes through the Senate, where the narrow GOP majority was unable to pass McConnell's efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And Corker also figures to be a key player if Trump moves as expected to unwind the Iran nuclear deal.
Vice President Mike Pence, in a statement that never mentioned Corker, praised the president for "achieving real results on the international stage. While critics engage in empty rhetoric and baseless attacks."
Republicans do frequently complain about Trump's attacks on fellow Republicans like McConnell, his failure to stay focused on his legislative agenda and his tendency to make demands on Congress and then blame lawmakers for poor results. But those GOP comments are nothing like Corker's apocalyptic statements.
For House Republicans, who face voters every two years and largely represent conservative districts where support for the president remains strong, there's even less incentive to turn against the commander in chief. Sixty-eight percent of Republican voters approve of Trump, though that's down from 80 percent in March, according to a recent AP-NORC poll.
Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, criticized Corker, saying he finds "those type of comments to not be appropriate especially coming from the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and certainly not in keeping with what I know of the way that things are conducted in the West Wing, having been there multiple times."
"It's really easy to be bold when you're not coming back," Meadows added of Corker.
(Copyright (c) 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)


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NEW YORK (AP) — The fastest growth in U.S. manufacturing in 10 months gave stocks a lift Tuesday and pushed the Dow Jones industrial average to its highest close in more than four years.
Manufacturing expanded last month at the strongest pace since June, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Orders, hiring and production all rose.
A measure of manufacturing employment also reached a nine-month high, a hopeful sign ahead of Friday's monthly jobs report.
The manufacturing news jolted stock indexes out of a morning stupor, although the gains waned throughout the afternoon. The Dow added 65.69 points to 13,279.32, its highest closing mark since Dec. 28, 2007, during the first month of the Great Recession.
"It definitely changed the direction of markets," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank.
Treasury prices fell, and benchmark crude oil rose $1.29 to settle at $106.16 per barrel. Both of those things tend to happen when investors expect stronger economic growth.
Ablin saw an irony in the reaction to the ISM report. Europe's debt crisis has knocked markets around for months, jerking stocks down on worries its troubles could cross the Atlantic. But Europe's woes have made U.S. manufacturers look more attractive to companies, Ablin said.
"It's gotten to a point over last 10 years where it's better to manufacture here than in pretty much any other developed country in the world," he said.
In a separate report Tuesday, the Commerce Department said construction spending ticked up in March, following two months of declines.
Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, said the two reports looked like evidence that the U.S. economic recovery is solid despite turmoil in Europe and weaker job creation in March.
"I think investors are encouraged there's at least one place in the world where it's still worth investing," Stovall said. "They're not ready to give up on this bull market yet."
Other indexes pushed higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose eight points to 1,406. The Nasdaq composite climbed four points to 3,050.
All 10 industry groups within the S&P 500 climbed, led by energy companies. Chesapeake Energy Corp. jumped 6 percent on reports that the company will strip CEO Aubrey McClendon of his chairman's title.
McClendon, Chesapeake's founder, was under fire for taking out more than $1 billion in loans using the company's wells as collateral. Chesapeake recently agreed to end the program that allowed McClendon to take personal stakes in the wells.
The S&P finished April in the red, its first losing month since November. The Dow managed a tiny gain.
Judging by its track record, May isn't a promising month for stocks. Since World War II, the S&P 500 has gained an average of 0.31 percent in May. For all months, the average gain is 0.67 percent.
"It's a very undistinguished month," Stovall said.
Among stocks making big moves:
— Sears Holdings Corp. soared 15 percent, the biggest gain in the S&P 500. The operator of Kmart and Sears stores expects to post a first-quarter profit thanks to a gain from the sale of some U.S. and Canadian stores. The company's stock has jumped 99 percent so far this year.
— Archer Daniels Midland Co. gained 7 percent after the food conglomerate reported profits that beat analysts' expectations. Profits dropped by nearly a third over the past year, pulled down by one-time charges and lower weaker results from its ethanol and oilseeds businesses.
— Avon Products Inc. fell 8 percent, the largest drop in the S&P. The company said earnings plunged 82 percent, hurt by a bigger restructuring charge, commodity costs and rising labor costs. The results were worse than analysts had expected.


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Veteran actor John Noble, famous for his acclaimed tenure as eccentric scientist Walter Bishop on FRINGE, will appear in a recurring guest-starring role on the new hit drama SLEEPY HOLLOW. Noble will appear later in the season as Henry Parrish, a kind and reclusive man who possesses supernatural powers that have the potential to help the series' protagonist, Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison).
The role marks a return to FOX for Noble, as well as a creative reunion with SLEEPY HOLLOW executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Heather Kadin, all of whom collaborated with the versatile actor on FRINGE.
On the next episode of SLEEPY HOLLOW, airing Monday, Sept. 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, Ichabod Crane (Mison) and Lt. Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) move forward in their mission to unravel the mysteries lurking in Sleepy Hollow. A frightful vision from Ichabod's former wife, Katrina (Katia Winter), sends the unlikely duo on the hunt for a vengeful witch from the 1700s, who has been awoken by unknown evils and is on a path of destruction in the quaint town.
SLEEPY HOLLOW premiered on Monday, Sept. 16 to an impressive 10.1 million viewers, making it FOX's most-watched fall drama premiere in seven years.
For his role on FRINGE, Noble was nominated in 2012 for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and won the category in 2011. Best known worldwide for his portrayal of Denethor in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Noble began his career on the Australian stage, where he was a leader in the country's cultural expansion of the 1970s and 1980s. As artistic director of the Stage Company of South Australia for 10 years, he produced and directed more than 70 new plays, spent time in London directing "Sons of Cain" in the West End and produced "Percy and Rose" for the Adelaide Festival of Arts. His film credits include One Night with the King, opposite Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif; The Last Airbender; and Risen. He also played Dr. Helpman in Australian soap opera HOME AND AWAY.
SLEEPY HOLLOW is from K/O Paper Products in association with 20th Century Fox Television. The series is co-created by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Phillip Iscove and Len Wiseman. The series is executive-produced by Kurtzman, Orci, Wiseman, Mark Goffman, Ken Olin and Heather Kadin. Iscove serves as supervising producer. Wiseman directed the pilot.


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Veelgestelde vragen
The conditions depend on the type of publication:
- Apartments with full management: Signing a exclusivity contract between Barcelona-Home and the owner, having a certain number of the apartment key copies (depending on the apartment characteristics).We will take care of each reservation from the booking process until after the check-out.
We will handle the marketing of the property, confirming/declining reservations, updating calendars taking the decisions which will bring the maximum benefit for the owner.
We will transfer you the money charged for every booking deducing our commission..
- Apartments without management: This service is 100% free for the owner, we will only charge a small booking fee to the client before sending you each reservation. You will not need to work exclusively with our company and you can receive reservations from Barcelona Home and other websites or platforms at the same time. We only ask you keep the calendar and prices updated daily. If the calendars and prices are not up to date, your property will loose visibility in our ranking.
Keeping the calendars and the prices updated allows us to work with an immediate reservation system. Our experience has shown us that this system benefits both our customers and the owners.
- For the customer, it is frustrating and unfair when a booking is cancelled by the landlord.
- For the landlord, not updating the calendars and the prices may result in a loss of reservations, income and loosing positions in the ranking.
- For us, a cancellation signifies a cost in terms of management and brand image/reputation.
Owners of fully managed properties cannot cancel any booking. If the reason for not accepting the booking is due to a serious and proven incident (works on the building, equipment malfunctions, etc) Barcelona Home will review the case and the owner will be exempt from any penalties. To do this you should contact us as soon as possible by calling us or sending an email to email@example.com
For owners of non-managed apartments, these are the measures Barcelona Home will take if you cancel a booking:
- The apartment will go to the bottom of the listings of apartments on our web page.
- The apartment will appear as not available for your reservation between 30 and 60 days.
- If this happens on recurrent basis: elimination of the property file on our website.
For any question about a booking you have received please email us at email@example.com
- Apartments with full management: If you need help or any other changes please send an email to email@example.com.
- Non-managed apartments: From your owner account you can modify the prices, including increases and discounts on the specific dates, as well as the availability calendars. If you need help and for any other modification please send an email to email@example.com.
It is very important that you familiarise yourself with the operation of legislation of the city in which you have the property you want to rent.
Some cities have regulations that limit the possibility of you gaining economic benefit by renting your property for short periods of time. These laws are often part of the urban and/or administrative laws of the city and in many of them you will need to register to obtain a license permitting you to advertise a space to rent. Nevertheless, in some cases, certain types of short-term accommodations can be prohibited no matter what. The degree of implementation of these laws depends on each local administration. Penalties for the breach of these regulations may include fines or other measures. We recommend that you check local laws before posting your advertisement on Barcelona Home. Remember that by accepting our Terms of Service and publishing your ad on our website you certify that you are informed of and meet local laws and regulations.
Of course, this is not a problem. Properties that can be rented for two different uses have two different files, one for accommodation and one for events.
We only ask you to provide us with the following information, so we can evaluate if your property is appropriate for the different requests that we receive.
- Maximum capacity
- Minimum duration
- Maximum duration
- Price per day (approx.)
- Price per hour (approx, for events less than one day)
- Tourist license
- Uses (weddings, corporate events, bachelor parties, photo shoots, etc.)
- Special conditions


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Call the Planning Department at 706-613-3515, email email@example.com, or visit us at 120 W. Dougherty Street from 8 AM – 5 PM Monday through Friday.
Show All Answers
The Hearings Board, Historic Preservation Commission and Planning Commission all have monthly public hearings for projects placed on their agendas. Meeting agendas are posted online and information about the projects is sent out through required legal notice procedures and through the Neighborhood Notification Initiative. Anyone may attend a board or commission meeting and comment on record about a proposed project, as follows:
The Planning Department relies upon a variety of media to issue public notice. For public notices required by local ordinance and state statutes, a legal advertisement is placed in the Athens Banner Herald and a sign is posted on the subject property. Notification letters are mailed to all property owners within 400 feet of a proposed rezone, special use, or planned development, and within 400 feet of some demolitions (if the district commissioner requests a 90 day review of a proposed demolition, notices are mailed). Email notifications are sent out via the Neighborhood Notification Initiative.
Applications for rezoning, planned developments, special use permits, variances and certificates of appropriateness require public notification via legal advertisements and sign postings at the subject properties. By adopted policy of the Mayor and Commission, all of the above except variances and certificates of appropriateness also require mailed notices to surrounding property owners. Demolition proposals require a mailed notice and sign posting if the district commissioner requests a 90 day review. Preliminary plat applications also require public notification via legal advertisement.


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I grew up listening to bipolar speakers. My father's Mirage M5si speakers were monoliths crafted in the likeness of those found in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. They stood far taller than I did as a child, and occasionally I would touch the black sock that covered one of them, especially over its woofer, curious about what lay beneath. It wasn't until I was older that my brother explained to me that the Mirages had drivers at the front and rear. And were they ever punchy. LPs of the Cars' "Hello Again" and Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" rang out as often as compositions by modern Russian composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Igor Stravinsky. It was all great fodder for lengthy table-tennis duels between father and son. (My backhand is vicious, by the way.)
Definitive Technology BP-8020ST SuperTower
Unpacking Maryland-based Definitive Technology's BP-8020ST SuperTower floorstanding speakers ($1198 USD per pair) evoked thoughts of the Mirages, which still sit in my parents' basement, though the DefTech is significantly smaller -- the bipolar BP-8020ST measures just under 36"H x 5.5"W by 11.5"D. The included stabilizer feet add to the speaker's height and width, but ultimately it's quite compact and weighs only 34 pounds. Connecting the feet and spikes (or floor-friendly glides, also included) took me about ten minutes, finished off by clipping on the included plastic, gloss-black top panels. Unlike the Mirages, the BP-8020STs' drivers are on the narrow, rather than the wide baffle of the rectangular chassis. The front of the speaker is slightly tapered, its 5.5"-wide front baffle kept that narrow to minimize diffraction.
The Definitives are specified as being 92dB efficient, with a power handling of 20-250Wpc, and should prove a fairly benign load to even modestly powered tubed amplifiers. The nominal impedance is listed as 8 ohms, while the claimed overall frequency response is 30Hz-30kHz, with no mention of a ±3dB tolerance.
The fabric skin of the diminutive SuperTower hides a fair bit of technology. On the baffle is a 1" annealed aluminum-dome tweeter almost identical to that used in DefTech's largest bipolar tower, the BP-8080ST, which Roger Kanno recently reviewed. It has the same voice coil, dome, carrier, and faceplate as the tweeters used throughout the four-tower line, but makes use of a smaller motor level-matched to the speaker's two front 3.5" midrange drivers. Those midranges sit above and below the tweeter in a D'Appolito-like configuration, but DefTech doesn't specify a crossover frequency.
On the rear of the speaker is a third 3.5" midrange driver, this one left to play out to its -3dB point of 10kHz, with useful output to 14kHz. This allowed Definitive to forgo the expense of including a tweeter on the rear panel while still being able to produce usable treble energy there. To further reduce costs, DefTech didn't use their patented, second-generation Balanced Double Surround System (BDSS) midrange drivers, which are found in the rest of the line, but their heavily modified non-BDSS drivers, which can provide the same peak output as their younger, larger siblings.
The BP-8020ST does without the passive radiators of the larger models in the range, instead having a port that vents to the rear. A single 8" bass driver mounted on the lower left side panel of each tower is powered by a built-in, class-D, 150W amplifier. On the rear panel is an LFE input so that the sub can be used in a home-theater system, a dial for tailoring the bass response, and a pair of vertical binding posts.
Unlike bipolar arrangements of yore, Definitive Technology's SuperTowers use a patented Forward-Focused Bipolar driver array. In their research and development efforts, DefTech found that when the output of the rear-facing driver(s) in a given speaker model was 6dB lower than that of the front drivers, good imaging was achieved without diminishing the sense of spaciousness that makes bipolar sound so appealing. In fact, they found that the imaging produced by the FFB array was superior to that of traditional bipolar and direct-radiating arrays.
Greater care is needed in positioning bipolar than direct-radiating speakers, as the formers' rear-facing drivers typically need to be some distance from the front and side walls to sound their best. I placed the BP-8020STs in exactly the same spots as my bipolar Mirage OMD-28s: 8' apart, a little over 2' from my front wall, and 3' from my sidewalls. Unlike with the Mirages, however, I wouldn't recommend bringing the BP-8020STs much farther out into a room -- their vented design and relatively modest built-in subwoofer mean that taking advantage of room gain is probably preferable to ratcheting up the bass with the rear dial. To achieve the best balance in my room, I wound up setting those dials to 1:30, from a base setting of high noon.
The BP-8020STs saw use with more equipment than just about anything else I've recently had in for review, but I got the best sound when I hooked them up to Hegel's exceptional H300 integrated amplifier with built-in digital-to-analog converter. I played my collection of lossless iTunes files from an Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer via an Apple Airport Express, using a generic TosLink interconnect between the Airport and the Hegel. A Nordost Blue Heaven power cord fed current to the Hegel, which drove the DefTechs via Dynamique Audio Caparo speaker cables. I used the BP-8020STs' included power cords to provide power to the speakers' subwoofer sections.
Holy clarity
The BP-8020ST SuperTowers arrived in my listening room around the same time as GoldenEar Technology's Triton Threes. Each is a reasonably sized tower speaker with a powered bass section. I expected the DefTechs and the GoldenEars to sound similar.
They sounded dramatically different. The BP-8020ST's sound was one of utmost crispness, with startling levels of clarity. It would be unfair to describe the sound as bright or tipped up, but it was decidedly not warm or sweet. For $1198/pair, however, I was quickly impressed by the DefTech's ability to resolve detail. The increase in performance quality when transitioning from my ten-year-old Krell integrated to Hegel's reference-level integrated was clear, and a testament to the quality of the BP-8020ST's tweeter and midrange drivers. Given that each 8" bass driver has its own amplifier, bass performance should be identical in every system (if not every room).
The standout performer in the Definitive was arguably its tweeter, which is similar to the one used to great effect in the larger BP-8080ST. I suspect it has solid dispersion characteristics, as the imaging remained strong well outside my listening position, an impression certainly helped by that rear-firing midrange driver. It had a crystalline quality that I think many listeners will appreciate -- the treble was as clear and sharp as I've heard. Those fond of a warm, sweet, or soft sound should look elsewhere. In "Tamarack Pines," from George Winston's Forest (16-bit/44.1kHz AIFF, Windham Hill), the pianist's fingers gradually ascend to the far right end of the keyboard, starkly exploring the upper boundaries of what his Steinway can do. It's quick-fire, staccato stuff, and the BP-8020STs' tweeters were surgical in their precise rendering of it.
The midrange felt agile and well defined. As with the tweeter's part of the audioband, the midrange never sounded rich or lush, and the combination of the drivers sounded ever so lean. But the midrange had a purity that pervaded everything I played through the SuperTowers. "Evening Falls," from Enya's breakthrough album Watermark (16/44.1 AIFF, Reprise), was emblematic of this. The four-time Grammy winner's hallmark voice was airy, delicate, and three-dimensional, that last quality one that can be difficult to find in a $1200/pair floorstander, many of which sound somewhat flat. The rear midrange must have contributed to this; the size of the sound produced by the BP-8020STs was not commensurate with their small stature -- it was huge.
While the BP-8020STs didn't sound quite as wide, deep, or effortless as my Mirages ($7500/pair when first released), they sounded bigger than GoldenEar's Triton Threes ($2000/pair) or MartinLogan's ElectroMotion ESLs ($2200/pair), both of which I've recently reviewed. I suspect that moving up to the larger models in DefTech's bipolar BP line -- which are taller, have rear-mounted tweeters, and better midrange drivers -- will produce even grander soundstaging. But given the BP-8020ST's tiny footprint, the scale of sound they produced was impressive.
Imaging was also a strong suit of the BP-8020STs. Edvard Grieg's signature In the Hall of the Mountain King, originally composed as incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's 1876 play Peer Gynt, with the San Francisco Orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomstedt (16/44.1 AIFF, London), was laid out before me with authority. The opening cellos were being plucked in the right foreground, as the bassoons crowed centrally from farther back. As the tempo increased, the higher strings sounded with alacrity from the left front of the orchestra. If there's a showcase for the virtues of bipolar designs, it's larger orchestral works such as this that are pregnant with depth and dynamic range -- and the Definitives excelled in this regard.
The DefTech's active bass driver was both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, finding a floorstanding speaker with a built-in powered subwoofer for only $1198/pair is almost impossible. The BP-8020ST offered excellent extension for the money -- I estimate that the speaker is flat down to 35Hz or so -- and was quite punchy. "Pro Victoria," the opening track of VNV Nation's Of Faith, Power and Glory (16/44.1 AIFF, Anachron Sounds), proceeds with a number of deep, thumping, large-diameter drums being struck in a large recording space. The BP-8020STs' subs captured most all of the energy on the recording, barely abbreviating the lowest notes, in the process producing near-full-range bass. It was pretty composed, even at higher volumes, and perfect for a listening room of small to medium size.
The subwoofer's weakness was that it sounded somewhat disconnected from the rest of the BP-8020ST's output. With the similar, albeit significantly more expensive GoldenEar Triton Three, the sound was almost seamless from bottom to top. Here there seemed to be a leanness in the upper bass, presumably where the midrange drivers are crossed over to the sub, the admirably tight-sounding sub then taking over as the frequencies descend. Keep in mind that I'm comparing the BP-8020ST to a product that costs $800 more; considering that, this quibble is minor. In the design of affordable products, compromise is inevitable.
A valuable conclusion
At $1198/pair, the Definitive Technology BP-8020ST SuperTower is a near-full-range speaker that sounds far larger than its tiny footprint would suggest. Its active bass section and high efficiency should make it an easy load for any amplifier, and it offers shocking clarity for the price. I imagine that the BP-8020ST would be an easy choice for listeners who have limited space or smaller rooms. I may have been predisposed to like this unassuming-looking bipolar design, but it took only a few minutes of actual listening to determine that it is an excellent little speaker. Cheers to Definitive Technology.
. . . Hans Wetzel
Associated Equipment
- Speakers -- GoldenEar Technology Triton Three, Mirage OMD-28
- Integrated amplifier -- Hegel H300
- Source -- Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer running Songbird and iTunes via an Apple Airport Express
- Speaker cables -- Dynamique Audio Caparo
- Power cables -- Nordost Blue Heaven LS
Definitive Technology BP-8020ST SuperTower Loudspeakers
Price: $1198 USD per pair.
Warranty: Five years parts and labor; three years on amplifier electronics.
Definitive Technology
11433 Cronridge Drive, Suite K
Owings Mills, MD 21117-2294
Phone: (800) 228-7148, (410) 363-7148
Fax: (410) 363-9998
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Website: www.definitivetechnology.com


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The Proposed European Blue Card System: Arming for the Global War for Talent?
In October, the European Union unveiled its proposals for a Blue Card system with a flourish.
Comparable in theory to the U.S. green card, which grants lawful permanent residence based on employment in addition to family relationships or refugee/asylee status, this legislation aims to make Europe a player on the emerging global labor market, enhancing its competitiveness and luring highly skilled workers to Europe — and away from countries like the United States and Australia.
The scheme is based on the rationale that Europe is stronger when it works together to attract skilled workers than as individual Member States. Comparisons are often made with North America. The European Commission itself noted in a memo that, while nonnational highly skilled workers make up 3 percent of the labor force in the United States and 7 percent in Canada, highly skilled non-Europeans form just 1.7 percent of the employed population in Europe.
But there are disparities between EU Member States. While tertiary-educated migrants form nearly half the employed foreign-born population in countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, and Sweden, they are a far smaller proportion in southern European countries, such as Greece and Italy according to a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In theory, a Blue Card system would aim to reduce these differences, and increase Europe's attractiveness as a whole.
The Proposal Itself
The central tenet of this proposal is the enhanced freedom to access labor markets that comes with Blue Card status.
Though restricted for the first two years, after this probationary period, Blue Card holders may seek and gain employment in any other Member State without going through further immigration processes. This is intended to promote flexible circulation of labor for European countries, as well as to provide an additional attraction to skilled workers.
In addition, the proposal has a number of innovative aspects. For example, the Blue Card would have a three-month "grace" period if employment is lost, and would allow immediate family reunification and the right to work for spouses.
Blue Card holders would be treated equally in relation to national workers, limited only in their access to study grants, housing, and social assistance. Also, individuals under age 30 would face lower hurdles in qualifying for Blue Card status, recognizing the need to attract young talent to Europe.
Guarding the Labor Market
The current institutional context for building common EU immigration policies means Member States retain firm control over who enters their countries. As a result, the proposal contains a number of safeguards, which in turn raise questions as to how much value the Blue Card can offer EU labor markets or the migrants applying for the card.
First, the proposed system does not replace the 27 immigration systems of the Member States but merely offers an additional channel of entry via a new common process. This is not harmonization in the traditional EU sense, which seeks to break down barriers and differences between the various national regulatory systems across Europe, as was achieved with the single market, for example.
Second, potential Blue Card candidates would have to secure at least a one-year work contract and meet any national quotas or labor market tests in place before reaching the fast-track procedure. The proposal is far from Commissioner Franco Frattini's original idea of a "job seekers" permit, which would have allowed highly skilled migrants to enter the EU area and search for work in any of the 27 EU Member States.
Third, instead of replacing current national systems, the legislation would prevent Member States from applying more advantageous rules to attract the highly skilled. This approach does not reflect the reality that European countries increasingly compete with each other.
Fourth, the proposal aims to create a level playing field but may be perceived as constraining those countries already capable of attracting workers, such as the United Kingdom. For them, the Blue Card system offers little.
Unanswered Questions
Beyond labor-market safeguards that may do more harm than good, the proposal raises a number of other questions, not least, "What is highly skilled?" The proposal includes several criteria, including education, experience (in lieu of education), and a minimum salary threshold.
The focus on salary reflects again the difficulties reconciling very different national approaches toward the highly skilled. While some countries see salary as a proxy for skills in demand, or create lists of sectors and jobs where vacancies persist, others take a broader approach, valuing tertiary education. The Blue Card proposal attempts to allow for those needed skills that cannot be obtained through study while setting a financial threshold to minimize abuse of the system.
The proposal says little about the way qualifications from outside Europe might be recognized. Within Europe, recognition of qualifications has been a notoriously difficult process.
Efforts to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010 through the Bologna Process have been ongoing since 1999, and they include all Member States and a number of neighboring states from Iceland to Azerbaijan. This system of equivalization should mean that an engineer qualified in France may work in the Czech Republic without undergoing additional training.
Many EU countries lack sufficient legal frameworks for recognizing qualifications from outside the European Union, and there is no common EU framework for determining qualifications earned in third countries. Consequently, a degree that one Member State recognizes as qualifying for a Blue Card may be rejected by another Member State. Such differing national standards may cause friction once Blue Card holders have the right to move across the continent.
For many countries outside Europe, the difficulties are compounded. In the absence of national educational authorities in third countries that can vouch for qualifications, verification and equivalence is hard to determine.
The recommended wage threshold for the Blue Card is three times the national minimum wage. However, the minimum wage varies hugely across EU Member States, another factor that could cause friction between countries with respect to determining entry.
Member States are also free to set their own minimum salary threshold for Blue Card qualification. This may well allow them to "opt out" of the legislation by setting unfeasibly high thresholds.
Germany's current immigration policy for the highly skilled sets a minimum annual salary threshold for desperately needed IT workers at 85,000 euros. Despite vocal lobbying by German businesses, which would like to see the threshold lowered substantially, the government refuses to do so, in an effort to prioritize domestic workers.
The combination of wage disparities across Europe and the freedom to set national threshold levels sets the stage for intra-EU competition for Blue Card workers. Highly skilled workers could be lured away by higher wages in other EU countries once their probationary period is over, while businesses could focus on poaching Blue Card workers when restricted by national policies.
Structural Barriers to Mobility
These disparities raise a deeper issue the Blue Card proposal does not address: structural barriers to mobility, such as portable social security contributions, including pension schemes. These barriers, which currently affect EU nationals, would also affect third-country nationals entering on Blue Cards.
Labor mobility in the United States is much higher than within the European Union, despite the freedom of movement for EU citizens, and, while the comparison is unfair, it highlights the work the European Union has to do in order to compete with such flexible opportunities overseas.
Differences in taxation, labor markets, salaries, and adequate recognition of skills (not just qualifications) all play a role in a migrant's decision to move to a European country. Further, issues such as the portability of social security contributions, mentioned above, and access to services in the host country could feed into the decision-making process.
The European Union is beginning to build strategies in many of these areas but, critically, they occur within a separate portfolio, that of Employment and Social Affairs, while the Blue Card proposal comes from the Justice, Liberty and Security Directorate General. While Commissioner Frattini has created a Task Force on Migration, bringing together the commissioners from six Directorate-Generals, the separate priorities, and the legal bases that exist in each policy area make deep cooperation difficult.
National Approaches
Following several initial discussions of the Blue Card scheme, most recently during a joint meeting of the ministers for immigration and employment from the Member States, a number of European countries expressed doubts that the European Union could help them become more competitive.
At the joint meeting, Germany argued that its level of unemployment means that skills can still be sourced domestically. At the same time, the immigration minister emphasized that — on principle — determinations of economic migration are purely a national matter.
Other countries do not see the need for the legislation at a time when they are developing their own Blue Card-type systems.
The United Kingdom, for example, is already far ahead of the EU average in attracting the brightest and best, and its new points system aims at enhancing that ability even further. Under this system, which the government will roll out in stages beginning in early 2008, those who reach a threshold of 75 points, based primarily on their age, qualifications, salary, and English proficiency, will be able to come to the United Kingdom to look for work.
Thanks to newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy, who instituted immigration policy changes while still interior minister, France is moving toward an overt scheme of "selective immigration." This means recruiting highly skilled workers while limiting family reunification and rights of residency for other entrants. Based on sectoral and geographical recruitment needs, those selected for their "skills and talents" will be offered three-year resident permits.
Some countries have disputed the Blue Card scheme on principle. Ministers from the newer Member States, notably the Czech Republic, feel that a common migration system for the highly skilled is inappropriate when transitional arrangements limiting the labor mobility of EU citizens from the new Member States are still in place.
Finally, some countries have expressed concern that such a scheme would exacerbate the problem of brain drain from the African continent.
Interestingly, the proposal has caught the attention of non-European competitors in the race for talent. Numerous media reports from Australia and the United States reveal the concern that Europe might be about to move up the ranks in the global competition for workers. Indeed, Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel, believes the EU initiative reflects political courage lacking in the United States.
Are the Member States right to be so cautious and on so many grounds? At root, their reluctance is based on general suspicion of efforts to create any common immigration policies in Europe.
Legislation to harmonize economic migration, particularly of the low skilled, has been difficult to approach at the European level, and the Blue Card proposal reflects the continuing tension between national sovereignty and European integration.
As an instrument of harmonization, however, it is also arguable that the Blue Card proposal has been overestimated both by those fearing new EU power consolidation and those who want to improve Europe's ability to attract high-quality workers.
Creating Opportunities
To what degree do immigration policies affect the attractiveness of a country or continent? Surveys of highly skilled migrant workers in a variety of sectors suggest that immigration policies per se are not their primary concern.
Rather, the quality of the opportunity offered — whether a high salary, career advancement, or the chance to work with leaders in the field — plays a dominant role in pulling migrants to a country.
Government efforts to foster the creation of centers of excellence, both in business and academic terms, can help ensure the future success and competitiveness of Europe. Centers of excellence would not just improve the European Union's chances of winning the global battle for talent, but they could play a role in expanding the pool of homegrown talent.
The European Union is establishing a European Institute for Innovation and Technology to stimulate the creation of innovation and knowledge within Europe. Initiatives like this, combined with flexible, open policies towards the highly skilled, may have a greater long-term impact than EU measures that have to protect national immigration and labor market policies.
Ackers, L. 2005. Moving People and Knowledge: Scientific Mobility in the European Union, International Migration, Vol 43(5);
The Age Australia. 2007. EU Aims to Woo Skilled Migrants. 24 October. Available online.
Agence France Presse. 2007. German high-tech sector needs Asian talent, leaders say. December 11.
Associated Press. 2007. EU Plan to set up U.S.-style Green Card to lure skilled labor to Europe gets lukewarm support. November 8.
Associated Press. 2007. Germany, others pour cold water on EU immigration plans. December 6.
Barrett, Craig. 2007. A Talent Contest We're Losing. The Washington Post. December 23. Available online.
EUObserver. 2007. EU work permit 'blue card' faces opposition. December 7.
European Commission. 2007. Attractive conditions for the admission and residence of highly qualified immigrants. MEMO/07/423. October 23.
European Commission. 2007. Proposal for a COUNCIL DIRECTIVE on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of highly qualified employment. COM (2007) 637. October 23.
Home Office Border and Immigration Agency. Information about the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme. Available online.
Mahroum, S. 2000. Highly-skilled globetrotters: mapping the international migration of human capital. R&D Management 30(1).
Murphy, Kara. 2006. France's New Law: Control Immigration Flows, Court the Highly Skilled. Migration Information Source. November. Available online.
National Science Foundation. 2007. Why did they come to the United States? A Profile of Immigrant Scientists and Engineers. June.
NGO Network of Integration Focal Points. 2007. Policy Brief on the assessment of skills and recognition of qualifications of refugees and migrants in Europe.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. International Migration Outlook. SOPEMI 2007 edition.
SiliconValley.com. 2007. Turning away talent can only hurt Silicon Valley's future. Available online.


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I was asked to build a Windows Store Application for the Developer.com Network. This was to be a reader app running on Windows 8. The request was for the first version to provide you (the reader) with a list of posts with summaries, that when selected will allow you to read the full article. The first version of this Win8 application would be limited to reading from just a few of the Developer.com Network sites; CodeGuru.com, Developer.com, DevX.com, HTMLGoodies.com and PHPBuilder.com.
I started this assignment about a week ago. The Windows 8 platform provides quite a few tools that make life easier for us. Today is launch day and the application is built and has been submitted to the Widnows 8 App Store. You should have access to it within a few days. In the meantime, I'll share with you what I built, including the code!
First things first, we need to be able to pull down the rss feeds from the 5 sites. The first thing that comes to mind may be to use the WebClient, pull down the XML and use LINQ to XML to parse out the items. While this approach would in fact work; however, we can take advantage of the SyndicationClient from the Windows.UI.Xaml.Media namespace. The SyndicationClient allows you to request an RSS feed by URL and the client itself will take care of the headache of parsing out the XML elements. To get started, I've created two helper classes Feed and FeedItem as listed below:
class Feed { public string Title { get; set; } public string URL { get; set; } public string ItemIcon { get; set; } public string ItemBackground { get; set; } public string ItemTextColor { get; set; } } class FeedItem { public string Title { get; set; } public string URL { get; set; } public string ID { get; set; } public string Description { get; set; } public DateTime PublicationDate { get; set; } public string Author { get; set; } public string Site { get; set; } public string ItemIcon { get; set; } public string ItemBackground { get; set; } public string ItemTextColor { get; set; } }
The feed class is used to define an RSS feed we want to pull as well as other info we need later for the UI including the site icon, and colors. The feed item is used to capture information about individual items pulled back from the feeds. The FeedItem itself will be used later for binding to the UI in an ObservableCollection<FeedItem>.
Using the feed class, we can create the required info for the developer.com site as shown below:
Feed f = new Feed() { Title = "Developer.com", URL = "http://www.developer.com/rss.xml", ItemIcon = "Assets/logo150x150.png", ItemBackground = "#FF0021B5", ItemTextColor = "#FFFFFFFF" };
Next we can make use of the SyndicationClient and pull back a complete list of items for the feed using the following method. This method makes use of async/await programming styles which are quite different from traditional styles. If you are not familiar with this technique check out the CodeGuru on "Creating and Managing Asynchronous Operations in Windows Runtime (WinRT)" The purpose for using this technique is to minimize the impact on the user interface thread.
private async Task<List<FeedItem>> UpdateFeed(Feed f) { List<FeedItem> items = new List<FeedItem>(); SyndicationClient client = new SyndicationClient(); var feed = await client.RetrieveFeedAsync(new Uri(f.URL)); foreach (var item in feed.Items) { FeedItem newitem = new FeedItem(); newitem.ID = item.Id; newitem.PublicationDate = item.PublishedDate.ToLocalTime().DateTime; if (item.Id != null && item.Id.Trim().Length > 0) { newitem.URL = item.Id; } else { //Grab the Link newitem.URL = item.Links[0].NodeValue; } newitem.Title = item.Title.Text; newitem.Description = StripHTML(item.Summary.Text); newitem.Author = String.Join(", ", item.Authors.Select(x => x.Name).ToArray()); newitem.ItemIcon = f.ItemIcon; newitem.ItemBackground = f.ItemBackground; newitem.ItemTextColor = f.ItemTextColor; newitem.Site = f.Title; items.Add(newitem); } return items; }
The UpdateFeed method pulls down the RSS feed using the provided information. From there it pulls out the fields needed and returns a List of FeedItem within a Task. At the point in which the method returns the UpdateFeed method is still in the process of pulling down data which is why the List of FeedItems is contained within a task. To get those we would need to do use an await statement as follows.
List<FeedItem> items = await UpdateFeed(f);
For the developer.com network reader app we need to go to the next level and process a list of feeds and come up with a combined list of items. If we add each of the Feed objects to a list called Feeds we could use the following code snippet to pull down the complete list of items and put them all within a single list.
List<FeedItem> TempFeedItems = new List<FeedItem>(); foreach (var ff in Feeds) { Task<List<FeedItem>> itemtask = UpdateFeed(ff); foreach (var item in await itemtask) { TempFeedItems.Add(item); } }
This code will loop through the feeds, call the UpdateFeed method on each and produce a combined list called TempFeedItems. This list will contain all of the items; however, we would want to have all of the items sorted by publish date descending. To accomplish this we would want to add the following snippet.
foreach (var item in TempFeedItems.OrderByDescending(i => i.PublicationDate)) { CombinedFeed.Add(item); }
The CombinedFeed mentioned above should be an ObservableCollection<FeedItem> so we can use this final list for binding to the UI.
At this point, we are ready to bind the observable collection to the UI elements. The binding for the CombinedFeed to the UI is fairly normal, create the Resource on the page for the itemsViewSource as shown below:
<CollectionViewSource x_Name="itemsViewSource" Source="{Binding Items}" />
Next, attach the CombinedFeed from above with the itemViewSource.
this.DefaultViewModel["Items"] = CombinedFeed;
For this app we are using a GridView to display the feed items in a horizontal scrolling pattern like other metro style apps.
<GridView x_Name="itemGridView" AutomationProperties.AutomationId="ItemsGridView" AutomationProperties.Name="Items" TabIndex="1" Grid.RowSpan="2" Padding="116,136,116,46" ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource itemsViewSource}}" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource FeedItemTemplate}" IsSwipeEnabled="false" SelectionMode="None" IsItemClickEnabled="True" ItemClick="itemGridView_ItemClick"/>
Next we need the data template used to display individual items, which can be somewhat complicated to define the look and feel you are going for.
<DataTemplate x_Key="FeedItemTemplate"> <Grid Height="200" Margin="6" Background="{Binding ItemBackground}" Width="400"> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/> <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="Auto" /> <RowDefinition Height="*" /> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <Border Background="{StaticResource ListViewItemPlaceholderBackgroundThemeBrush}" Width="75" Height="75" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" VerticalAlignment="Top" > <Image Source="{Binding ItemIcon}" Stretch="UniformToFill" AutomationProperties.Name="{Binding Title}"/> </Border> <StackPanel Grid.Column="1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="10,0,0,0"> <TextBlock Style="{StaticResource TitleTextStyle}" Foreground="{Binding ItemTextColor}"> <Run Text="{Binding Title}" /> </TextBlock> <TextBlock Style="{StaticResource CaptionTextStyle}" Foreground="{Binding ItemTextColor}"> <Run Text="Published " /> <Run Text="{Binding PublicationDate}" /> </TextBlock> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Site}" Style="{StaticResource CaptionTextStyle}" TextWrapping="NoWrap" Foreground="{Binding ItemTextColor}"/> </StackPanel> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Description}" Grid.Row="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Margin="10,10,10,10" Style="{StaticResource BodyTextStyle}" Foreground="{Binding ItemTextColor}"/> </Grid> </DataTemplate>
Since going through all of the fine details of data templating is outside of the scope of this article, I'll provide an example of the output generated by this template.
Example of Output
You may have noticed from the GridView definition above, the itemGridView_ItemClick click handler. This is essential for allowing the user to click on items and view the full text. Within the click handler, the GridView provides us with the FeedItem the user clicked on in the e.ClickedItem property. You will need to cast it back to FeedItem; however, it does provide all of the details we need. If you want to just send the user to a browser to view the details you could use the following statement.
Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(new Uri(((FeedHandling.FeedItem)e.ClickedItem).URL));
Alternatively you could create a custom page and embed the browser within your app. If you have access to the full content on the site you may choose to make a secondary call to pull the content.
As you can see from above, the SyndicationClient makes the process of pulling down RSS feeds easy and painless. Furthermore, combining the techniques of asynchronous programming and XAML data binding you can quickly create a feed reader app to pull down and display one or more feeds and display them in a new way for users.


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XSLTdoc - A Code Documentation Tool for XSLT
XSLTdoc is a Javadoc-like tool for all versions of XSLT (1.0, 1.1, 2.0). It defines conventions to document XSL "code elements" directly in the source code. These "documentation elements" are then extracted by the XSLTdoc tool to build a documentation consisting of several linked HTML pages which provide easy browsing through the documentation. The XSLT source code is available with syntax highlighting.
XSLTdoc was developed in a project funded by the European Space Agency under contract 18664/04/NL/LvH.XSLTdoc is written in XSLT 2.0 and is documented with XSLTdoc (This page). It is freely available on a GPL licence.
Project Page on SourceForge.
Please use the Forum on SourceForge if you need help or have comments on XSLTdoc.
Table of Contents
- News
- Features
- Installing XSLTdoc
- Running XSLTdoc
- Documenting the code
- Download
- Copyright And License
January 16, 2009
A bugfix release 1.2.1 is available for download.
- Changed output format from XML to XHTML
- Changed output encoding to UTF-8
- Fixed a bug where xd:detail was not printed
inline tag supports anhref
attribute which allows to include external XML markup- Enabled the Forum on sourceforge
December 14, 2007
Release 1.2 is available for download.
Thanks to Johannes Katelaan and Sascha Mantscheff for their contributions.
New Features
- added section for documentation on xsl:variable
- added section for documentation on xsl:attribute-set
- implemented
for referencing templates - supports
January 5, 2005
Release 1.1 is available for download
December 20, 2004
Released Version 1.0.1
- Documentation is embedded in the XSL program
- Documenting of XSLT 2.0 functions
- Syntax highlighted source code browsing
- Generates documentation a whole set of stylesheets
- Generates documentation for included and imported stylesheets
- Layout is customizeable with CSS stylesheets
- Site layout is based on a customizeable/interchangeable html template
- Easely extensible with new tags
- Open source under GPL license
- Written in XSLT
Installing XSLTdoc
Installation of XSLTdoc is simply done by unzipping the XSLTdoc distribution file in a dedicated target directory (usually called XSLTdoc).
Running XSLTdoc
XSLTdoc is written in XSLT 2.0. You need an XSLT 2.0 processor to run it. The downloadable package of XSLTdoc includes the free version of the Saxon XSLT and XQuery Processor from Saxonica Limited, which needs an installation of a java virtual machine to be run.
To generate a documentation for one or more XSLT programs you need to write a configuration file which inlcudes all the information needed for the generation process. The configuration file is a simple XML file. Use the template below as a starting point for your own configuration file. Not mandatory elements are marked.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <XSLTdocConfig> <Title>The title used on the main page</Title> <Introduction> This section is copied to the main documentation page. It can include any HTML tags. </Introduction>  <TargetDirectory path="../doc"/>  <SourceDirectory path="./"/>  <RootStylesheets> <File href="xsltdoc.xsl"/> <File href="test.xsl"/> </RootStylesheets>  <AdditionalCSS> <File href="print.css" media="print"/> </AdditionalCSS> </XSLTdocConfig>
To start the generation process use the configuration file as the input for the xsltdoc.xsl program. The command using Saxon 8 XSLT processor looks like this (while being in the XSLTdoc installation folder):
java -jar lib/saxon8.jar <configuration file> xsl/xsltdoc.xsl
Fonts, colors and layout of the HTML documentation are defined in two CSS files which can be found in the CSS folder of the installation. Copy both files to the folder where the documentation was generated. With ant this step can easily be automated. See the build.xml ant-file that is used to generate the documentation for XSLTdoc as an example:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?> <project name="XSLTdoc" default="xsltdoc" basedir="."> <description>Ant Build file for the XSLTdoc program</description> <path id="classpath"> <pathelement location="lib/saxon8.jar" /> <pathelement path="${java.class.path}" /> </path> <target name="xsltdoc"> <delete dir="doc" /> <copy todir="doc"> <fileset dir="css"> <filename name="*.css" /> </fileset> </copy> <xslt force="true" style="xsl/xsltdoc.xsl" in="xsl/XSLTdocConfig.xml" out="doc/log.txt">  <classpath refid="classpath" /> </xslt> <delete dir="doc/log.txt"/> </target> </project>
Documenting the code
Documentation elements are written in XML. Because XSLT is expressed in
XML too, it is necessary to define a new namespace for XSLTdoc to enable a
XSLT processor to distinguish between documentation and source code. The
URI for this namespace is
. This namespace must be
declared in any stylesheet which uses XSLTdoc for documenting. Example:
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xd="http://www.pnp-software.com/XSLTdoc" version="2.0"> ... <xsl:stylesheet>
General documenting rules
The documentation is normally added before the source element that should
be documented. Generally this looks like this (with the XSLTdoc namespace
mapped to xd
<xd:doc> ... </xd:doc> <xsl:...>
Any XSLTdoc documentation is enclosed in a xd:doc
If you just want to write a plain text comment the xd:doc
element can contain simple text.
Text before the first period is considered as short description, the remaining as detailed description:
<xd:doc> This is the short description. And here comes a more detailed description that appears in the detailed view of the documentation only. </xd:doc> <xsl:...>
If you use this technique no HTML elements are allowed in the text. If you want to use HTML tags within short and detailed description the text for the short and detailed description needs to enclosed in special XSLTdoc tags:
<xd:doc> <xd:short>This is the short description with HTML tags.</xd:short> <xd:detail> And here comes a more detailed description showed only in the detailed view of the documentation. <xd:detail> </xd:doc> <xsl:...>
Stylesheet documentation
The documentaion of a stylesheet is the only exception where the documentation
is written as a subelement of the target element (xsl:stylesheet). To mark a documentation element
as a stylesheet documentation the type attribute of the xd:doc
element must be set to 'stylesheet'.
A stylesheet documentation can have the following subelements (properties): xd:author, xd:copyright, xd:cvsId, xd:svnId:
<xsl:stylesheet ...> <xd:doc type="stylesheet"> ... <xd:author>ibirrer</xd:author> <xd:copyright>P&P Software, 2007</xd:copyright> <xd:cvsId>$Id: XSLTdocConfig.xml 42 2009-01-16 15:02:32Z ibirrer $</xd:cvsId> <xd:doc/> ... <xsl:stylesheet>
Properties can be added by writing a property extension. See the properties directory of the XSLTdoc installation for examples.
Stylesheet Parameter
To document a stylesheet parameter you can use the type attribute of the xd:doc element to define its type:
<xsl:stylesheet ...> ... <xd:doc type="string"> A Stylesheet parameter of type string. </xd:doc> <xsl:param name="outputDir"/> ... </xsl:stylesheet>
Function/Template Documentation
The parameter of a template or a function can be described with a
element. The name attribute is obligatory for
templates and functions while the type attribute is optional for
template definitions.
<xd:doc> A template with a parameter of the type string. <xd:param type="string">The string to be processed.</xd:param> </xd:doc>
Look at the source code of the XSLTdoc tool for more examples. The source code is accessible through this website. Just go to a detailed description of a template or function and click on the source link.
Inline tags
You can use so called inline tags to tag special parts inside a xs:short
or xd:detail
The xd:xml inline tag can be used to to print print an xml to the output. The whole xml inside the tag is transformed to html by XSLTdoc.
<xd:doc> <xd:detail> The following XML inside the xd:xml tag is printed exactly as it shows here: <xd:xml>    Bla   </xd:xml> <xd:detail> </xd:doc> <xsl:...>
Downloads are available through the sourceforge project page.
By downloading any of these files you are accepting the licence condition stated below.
Copyright And Licence
The software and documenation downloadable from this site is made up of the following items:
- Software and documentation for the XSLTdoc documentation tool. The copyright for these items belongs to P&P Software. These items can be downloaded and used under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence.
- The The Saxon XSLT and XQuery Processor from Saxonica Limited. This software is used and distributed in accordance with the terms of the Mozilla Public License Version 1.0.
- The XML to HTML Verbatim Formatter with Syntax Highlighting. This software was downloaded from http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~obecker/XSLT/. There was no license information available on this site at the time of downloading (October 2004).
THE XSLTdoc DELIVERABLES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE PROVIDER OF THE SOFTWARE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


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"I grew up on Ayn Rand," Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) recounted in a speech before the Atlas Society in 2005. The future vice presidential nominee went on to explain how the author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead inspired him to enter public service, adding that her books were "required reading" for his Congressional staff and interns. "There is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand's writings and works," he concluded.
Though Ryan has since tried to distance himself from Rand, his youthful devotion to the founder of Objectivism is not uncommon. Celebrities, a former Federal Reserve chairman, tech entrepreneurs, and tea partiers have claimed her as an inspiration, citing her unapologetic advocacy of selfishness, the pursuit of wealth, and unfettered capitalism. Rand's writings and ideas are arguably more influential now than ever.
Here are some longreads about Rand's personal history, her philosophy, her fans and foes, and her impact. For more longform stories from the pages of Mother Jones, check out our longreads archive.
"Possessed" | Thomas Mallon | The New Yorker | November 2009
If anything can be said about Rand, it's that she evokes strong reactions from readers. Reviewing two recent biographies of Rand, Mallon explores the cultish devotion she inspired, starting with the acolytes who began following her in the 1950s.
The young libertarians beginning to gather at Rand's feet in her Murray Hill apartment called themselves, with less irony than they believed, the Collective. Among them was Alan Greenspan, whom Rand nicknamed the Undertaker. By most accounts, the future Federal Reserve chairman behaved with less slavish subordination than the other self-professed individualists, who regarded Rand, according to Burns, "as a genius without compare." The philosopher's most famous directive was "Check your premises," but those in her orbit never dared question hers. They adopted Rand's tastes in everything from furniture to music (Rachmaninoff, good; Brahms, bad), and tightened themselves into a circle that came to be governed by loyalty tests and living-room show trials.
"The Bitch Is Back" | Andrew Corsello | GQ | October 2009
Rand's diehard fans can be as abrasive as she was. Corsello identifies the most extreme kind: the Ayn Rand Asshole. Take this guy:
Does Michael Malice admit to being an unreconstructed 33-year-old Ayn Rand Asshole? He does not—he proclaims it. "My reviews were incredible," he says of 2006's Ego & Hubris, the story of his life that Harvey Pekar of American Splendor fame told in graphic-novel form. "The Village Voice called me 'the face of jackassery.' Your magazine called me a 'slacker genius.' Did you know that? The Onion called me 'a hateful blowhard who touts his genius-level intellect and dismisses most of the world as inferior, deluded, or hypocritical.' They also called me a 'human cockroach,' because I'm indestructible. Which I am."
"Ayn Rand, in Spades" | John Hodgman | The New York Times Magazine | June 2003
Not all Randians are flaming ARAs. Hodgman entertainingly profiles a bridge champion who credits Objectivism for his success, to the annoyance of his fellow players.
But the heroic man does not require acceptance. Consider "Atlas Shrugged." After Francisco D'Anconia delivers his "Money is the root of all good" speech to a party of government moochers, fey intellectuals and moneyed socialists, he leaves them all to rejoin his fellow titans of industry and science in a place called Galt's Gulch. The gulch is the Objectivist utopia, a refuge for the heroic thinkers whom the world has rejected. In many ways it resembles a bridge tournament: thick with C.E.O.'s (Warren Buffett is a renowned player of the game, and Bill Gates made an appearance at last year's World Championships in Montreal) and as far away from the real world as it gets.
"Ayn Rand at 100" | Cathy Young | Reason | March 2005
Though Rand herself rejected the libertarian movement, she's still held in high regard by many libertarians. In this piece written for Rand's centennial, Young meditates on her contemporary appeal for opponents of big government.
While Rand was hardly the first philosopher to advocate an ethos of individualism, reason, and self-interest, no one formulated it as accessibly or persuasively as she did—or as passionately. In Rand's hands, the "virtue of selfishness" was not a dry, abstract rationalist construct with a bloodless "economic man" at its center. It became a bold, ardent vision of defiance, struggle, creative achievement, joy, and romantic love.
"Big Sister is Watching You" | Whitaker Chambers | The National Review | December 1957
While conservatives such as Ryan have found common ground with Rand, she's had her share of critics on the right. In this 1957 piece, Chambers, an ex-Communist turned conservative (who testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee), objects to the misanthropy and "dictatorial tone" of Atlas Shrugged.
Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. In addition, the mind which finds this tone natural to it shares other characteristics of its type. 1) It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it. 2) It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked. There are ways of dealing with such wickedness, and, in fact, right reason itself enjoins them. From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber—go!"
"And the Rand Played On" | Amy Benfer | Mother Jones | July 2009
But where some see hectoring prose, others see a call to action. Not long after Obama's election, conservative pundits declared that they planned to "Go Galt," taking their cues from John Galt, the single-minded protagonist of Atlas Shrugged. Benfer dissects the embrace of Rand in the tea party era.
Rand's particular genius has always been her ability to turn upside down traditional hierarchies and recast the wealthy, the talented, and the powerful as the oppressed. This topsy-turvy philosophy has echoed through the blame-the-victim ranting of CNBC host Rick Santelli and the tax-day tea parties. In this world, it is not possible to admit that the rich and the Republicans may have been undone by their own greed and cluelessness. Instead, the Galters have rewritten the story of how we got here with a dash of idealistic fantasy and a side of empty rebellion.


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Physcial Sciences Division
Staff Awards & Honors
September 2013
Johannes Lercher Receives Francois Gault Lectureship Award
IIC Director earns the 2013 Francois Gault Lectureship Award, Europe's highest honor in catalysis
Congratulations to Dr. Johannes Lercher, Director of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Institute for Integrated Catalysis, on earning the 2013 Francois Gault Lectureship Award, Europe's highest honor in catalysis. Lercher leads catalysis research at the national lab and is a Professor of Chemistry at the Technische Universität München, Germany. The award recognizes his groundbreaking contributions in understanding molecular interactions in solid catalysts through elegant combinations of physicochemical and kinetic analyses. His work includes research on catalyzed reactions involving fossil fuels and bio-based feedstocks.
As the award recipient, Lercher will give plenary lectures across Europe between the two biennial EUROPACAT meetings held in Lyon in September 2013 and in Kazan in September 2015.
The award is sponsored by EFCATS, a European federation of catalysis societies from 25 European countries. This honor is given every two years to a distinguished scientist in the field of heterogeneous catalysis.


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This just breaking: Three executives at MySpace are leaving the company to form their own startup, led by COO Amit Kapur (pictured here). He will be joined by senior VP of technology Jim Benedetto and and senior VP of product strategy Steve Pearman. They have internally announced their departures, we have been able to confirm with the company.
MySpace is well into its monetization phase, and is facing increasing competition from Facebook, which is larger worldwide than MySpace and may soon overtake it in the U.S. as well. The growth and the big rewards that go with growth, may now be easier to find elsewhere. Kapur, Benedetto, and Pearman are voting with their feet.
Possible successors to Kapur for the COO post include Adam Bain (a FIM hotshot who heads up the Fox Audience Network), Jeff Berman (head of sales and marketing for MySpace), and Travis Katz (head of MySpace international). External candidates, assuming they'd want the job, might be departing Yahoo Mobile exec Marco Boerries, former Yahoo SVP Brad Garlinghouse, Playlist CEO Owen Van Natta (who at one point was considering the MySpace Music CEO position), or Benchmark's Entrepreneur-in-Residence Dave Goldberg.
Below is the memo just sent out by MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe:
From: Chris Dewolfe
Sent: Tuesday, March 03
To: FIM MySpace All
Subject: IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM CHRIS DEWOLFE
Hi everyone,
I want to notify you of some changes occurring to the senior executive team at MySpace.
Amit Kapur, our Chief Operating Officer, will be leaving the company to start a new venture. Many of us who have been lucky enough to work with Amit can attest to his tenacity, passion, and creativity as a leader within MySpace and the larger industry.
Jim Benedetto, SVP of Engineering and Steve Pearman, SVP of Product Strategy will join Amit in this new chapter. Personally, I'm incredibly excited to see what this team creates together and wish them the best of luck as they transition from helping run a company to building a new one. Most importantly, Amit, Jim, and Steve depart as great friends of MySpace and of our senior executive team. They will remain on board for the next few weeks to ensure a smooth transition company-wide.
We recently celebrated the five year anniversary of the launch of MySpace—it's a major milestone and everyone should be extremely proud of the global business that we have created in such a short amount of time. At its inception, MySpace was a product of the new social Web and in the last few years we've developed the most robust and diverse business in the marketplace.
MySpace is a social portal that empowers its global community to interact with people, content, and culture by giving individuals a personal, portable, and secure social experience. Originally, Yahoo gave consumers an organized way of navigating the Internet. Then, Google made searching the Internet extremely easy. Now, MySpace is making it simple for users to organize what's important to them through a personal and social lens.
Despite what the market tells us, 2009 will be a big year for our business. This year we will mature our existing market leading advertising technologies such as MyAds and HyperTargeting, as well as continue to innovate new ways for companies big and small to best leverage the MySpace platform. We are effectively monetizing the stickiest sections of our site such as Music and Video by coupling the world's richest content offering with creative ad programming online and off. What will always differentiate MySpace from others in the industry is our commitment to balancing revenue and relevancy.
On the product side, this past year was full of innovation including a site-wide global redesign, the impressive growth of our mobile initiatives, and the beginnings of our Open Platform product suite including MySpaceID. We're at the tip of the iceberg with the Open Platform and in the coming year we expect major new launches including payments and virtual goods. Also in 2009, MySpace Music will deliver the next round of product development such its international rollout, and new functionality including charts, ticketing, and merchandise. Most important, we will remain committed to executing on our product vision in a manner that engages our users in the process and considers their feedback every step of the way.
Tom and I want to reiterate how passionate we are about MySpace—we love the people, the product, and we believe in the future of the company. MySpace has a dedicated team of senior executives and I'd like to take the opportunity to spotlight some of these individuals. I encourage everyone to get to know our executive team as they are an enormously capable group of professionals from successful media and Internet powerhouses such as eBay, Yahoo!, MTV, and Symantec that will lead our company into its next phase.
MySpace Executive Team:
· Tom Anderson—President and Co-Founder
· Aber Whitcomb—Chief Technology Officer
· Travis Katz—GM and SVP of MySpace International
· Courtney Holt—President of MySpace Music
· Jeff Berman—President of Sales and Marketing
· Lin Cherry—General Counsel
· Tom Andrus—SVP of Product
· Manu Thapar—SVP of Engineering Operations
· Allen Hurff—SVP of Engineering
· Tish Whitcraft—SVP of Customer Care
· Jason Oberfest—SVP of Business Development
· Angela Courtin—SVP of Marketing
· Abe Thomas—VP of Online Marketing
· Dani Dudeck—VP of Global Corporate Communications
In a tough economy, we're continuing to prove to the industry that we're a serious business defining a new social portal category for a Web that's more personal, portable, and collaborative than ever before. Thanks everyone for a record breaking year 2008—the coming year will be even more important for the company and our 130 million global users worldwide.


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Picturing yourself in retirement may be difficult. Retirement may feel so many years away that you can't even fathom the idea of ever being able to retire. Or possibly you're middle-aged and feel that retiring someday is completely impossible.
For a lot of people, retirement just doesn't resonate as a concept. If that applies to you, try thinking of financial freedom or financial independence as synonymous with the word retirement. Many people have absolutely no desire to stop working. However, those same people are looking for financial freedom and financial independence. They want to be able to choose what they do, when they do it, and for how long. You may be one of these people.
Every financial situation can be improved with proper planning. When it comes to retirement planning, you have the following four options:
>Spend less now and save more.
>Work longer.
>Die earlier (but that's not really a planning strategy!)
>Get better net, after-tax returns on your investments.
To some degree, you have influence over the first three variables. For many people, the most palatable retirement solution involves a combination of all three of the variables mentioned.
The first step in retirement planning is to determine what matters most to you and your spouse or partner. Spend a moment now, reflect on your lifestyle in retirement, and think about how it will change from the lifestyle you enjoy today.
>What are you doing?
>Where are you living?
>What activities are you enjoying?
How do you spend your time?
Review the What Retirement Looks Like to Me statement; then create your own.
As you reflect on your lifestyle in retirement, list issues that involve money — maybe earning money and definitely spending money to support your desired lifestyle in retirement. This information is necessary to determine how much money you'll need in retirement and how much you'll need to save to achieve financial independence.


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By fitting a bell curve to historical phosphate production data, the best fit is obtained by assuming an ultimate recoverable resource of approximately 9 billion tonnes (of which about 6.3 billion tonnes have already been mined). This yields a peak in around 1990. Of course, the USGS claims an ultimate recoverable resource of some 24.3 billion tonnes (i.e. 18 billion remaining), however using this value yields a bell curve that is an inferior match to the historical data. A hypothesis is thus presented whereby phosphorus is considered in two broad forms: "easy" which is able to be mined quickly, but already peaked in 1990, and "hard" which has large remaining reserves and is yet to peak, but cannot be mined as quickly. (In reality there are probably many different forms ranging from very easy to very hard.) Just as with oil, estimates that lump all types of reserve in together will yield a theoretical peak that is high and distant, however the true system may involve periods of decline after exhausting easy-to-get reserves before other supplies come online to replace them. Ultimately we must develop a recyclable phosphorus supply if humans are to continue living on this planet.
Phosphorus is absolutely essential to plant, animal and human life. Since the Green Revolution the global human food supply has grown to depend on high-yield agriculture using artificial phosphorus fertilizers. These are derived from finite, exhaustible reserves of guano (bird and animal droppings) and phosphate rock. For those of us who care whether our children will have food to eat, world phosphorus production is literally a life-or-death issue. White & Cordell have already made an excellent start at addressing this critical issue by applying Hubbert-type bell curves to gain insights into "Peak Phosphorus". Their analysis assumes a known Ultimate Recoverable Resource (denoted RURR), and uses this value to constrain the set of bell curves being fitted to the data.
If we assume a remaining resource of 18 billion tonnes of phosphate rock (in line with the stated USGS reserve estimate), and add to this the 6.3 billion tonnes that have already been mined, RURR is 24.3 billion tonnes[*]. Assuming cumulative production Q at time t conforms to the following basic relationship:
where a and k are positive constants, and are the fitting parameters.
It follows that the rate of production P is defined as the derivative
which is a symmetrical bell-curve, underneath which the area is equal to RURR. Figure 1 shows the annual and cumulative production predicted using this theory, based on RURR = 24.3 billion tonnes.
This is, for all intents and purposes, the result of White & Cordell's model, however they use it to urge planning for a low-phosphorus future. However, recent experience of the Peak Oil and Climate Change debates demonstrates the reluctance among politicians, industry, and community to accept a need to plan for even imminent crises. Urging action on a resource peak as far away as 2033 would most likely elicit zero response. White & Cordell's critical message could easily disappear over the planning horizon set by myopic governments. A far more urgent message is needed since the phosphate supply situation is almost certainly more pressing than suggested by White and Cordell's prediction of a 2033 peak at production levels approximately 50% higher than today. This is shown by the compelling predictions obtained when one uses the historical performance of the system (world phosphate mining) to predict future behaviour rather than forcing the behaviour to accommodate the URR estimates of the USGS.
Statistically, the predicted curve for P matches historical production with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.882. For Q, the R2 term is 0.911. Visually, it appears that the model could be improved since neither the annual nor cumulative production curves provide a match to historical data. The high production peak of 220 million tonnes per annum in 2033 is therefore questionable.
By allowing the phosphate reserve to be adjusted down from the USGS estimate, we can obtain a better fit to the historical data set, for both annual and cumulative production. Figure 2 shows the curves obtained by assuming an ultimate reserve of 9 billion tonnes (including the 6.3 billion already consumed – i.e. only 2.7 billion remaining).
What we see in Figure 2 can only be described as a perfect match for the cumulative production history, and a very good match to the historical annual production figures, including the downturn of the 1990s. The goodness-of-fit is reflected in the R2 values, which are 0.973 and 0.999 for P and Q respectively.
The critical outcome of this analysis is that it suggests the 1990 downturn is a final peak, with no recovery. That indeed presents an urgent message for governments to act on securing renewable, recyclable phosphorus supplies and transitioning towards more appropriate (less wasteful) agricultural methods.
While it may be somewhat overzealous to suggest that the USGS estimate of remaining reserves should be brought down from 18 billion tonnes to a figure as low as 2.7 billion tonnes, it is compelling to see that this figure results in such a good fit to the historical data. This at least suggests that the USGS reserves should be called into question.
Perhaps the best way to frame the debate from here is to suggest that, like oil, the world has been endowed with a given quantity of "easy" phosphorus (e.g. rich island guano deposits in places like Nauru) that can be – and have been – mined quite rapidly, as well as a larger endowment of lower-grade phosphate rock. While the easy phosphate has passed its peak, the low-grade phosphate should be considered separately. Figure 3 shows an example forecast where the total area under both curves (equal to RURR) is 24.3 billion tonnes, but the "easy" phosphorus (purple) is 9 billion tonnes as in Figure 2. Assuming the production history is mostly related to easy phosphorus, the fitting parameters (a and k) for the "hard" phosphorus cannot be established. Therefore, the height and timing of the secondary peak are unpredictable.
Like unconventional oil, the reserves may be big, and given the crucial role of phosphorus in the world food supply, we can expect heroic efforts to bring new supplies online from low-grade sources. However, several significant questions remain:
How quickly can "unconventional" low-grade phosphate supplies be brought online to replace dwindling conventional supplies, and how will we grow food in the interim?
What is the environmental cost (e.g. waste rock, greenhouse emissions, landscape degradation, heavy metal contamination) of mining low-grade phosphate?
How economic will it be to continue mining low-grade phosphate rock as energy costs rise, and how high must the price of fertilizer be to sustain this?
What will we eat when the low-grade phosphate rock runs out?
This last question is really the main subject of White & Cordell's website, where they are urgently recommending the rapid, widespread uptake of phosphorus recycling to prevent catastrophic starvation due to exhausting our finite fertiliser sources. Unlike oil (which is simply burnt), we have the opportunity to recover phosphorus by closing loops in our food-nutrient cycle. Furthermore, if we fail to learn how to recycle phosphorus, we will find agriculture disappearing – and us with it.
White & Cordell (2008) Peak Phosphorus – the sequel to Peak Oil
Historical data obtained from USGS minerals fact sheets:
[*] White & Cordell used tonnes of elemental phosphorus, not total phosphate rock, so their reserve and production figures were smaller than those used here; however, we are essentially talking about the same thing.


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3207.2 - Estimated Resident Population by Age and Sex in Statistical Local Areas, Victoria, Jun 1995
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 30/07/1996
Page tools: Print Page Print All | ||
Gives extensive data on Victoria's estimated resident population. Detailed figures are given on all statistical local areas in Victoria. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window. |


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New video's coming (on how to get steam into your oven); but we're two weeks from manuscript deadline, so here's a Roasted Red Pepper Fougasse…
… …and I'm having trouble finding time to finish editing the video. Zoe and I have two more busy weeks of last-minute editing for our pizza and flatbread book (which will be out in October of 2011). I'll get the new video up here as soon as possible (on how to get steam into your oven), but meanwhile here's a re-print of an old post– on roasted red pepper fougasse– a gorgeous stuffed flatbread from France, which looks ahead to next year when we'll be talking about flatbread all the time.
When interviewers ask me for my favorite bread from the book, I always give the same answer–it's this gorgeous roasted red pepper fougasse (foo-gass)– a stuffed flatbread originating in the south of France. It may be because of where I first ate it (perfect fall day, after a bike ride with my wife). The rustic colors and flavors of Southern France burst out of this flatbread– carmelization of peppers highlighted by thyme, olive oil, and salt. It's festive, but so easy to bake from stored dough.
Preheat the oven to 450F for at least 20 to 30 minutes, with a baking stone and a broiler tray in place to catch water for steam later. Let's start with a beautiful red pepper:
Now, quarter the pepper, discarding the seeds…
… and flatten the pieces. I used a cast-iron pan here, but you can use whatever you want, so long as it can withstand broiler heat.
Slide under the broiler (or put on the grill, or right on a gas burner), with the skins closest to the heating element or flame)…
… and char them– if you have a little more red remaining than this, that's fine too.
Now dump them into a saucepan and cover them so that they steam their own skins loose— about ten minutes covered (off any heat). Traditionalists do this in a paper bag but the pan is easier.
Peel them with your fingers. A little charred material will remain, and areas of the red flesh will be darkened.
Now, roll out one pound of any dough you like, to 1/8-inch (I used the basic Master Recipe from the book). I'd generally use a non-enriched dough here (no eggs or fat in the dough mix). Try to form an oval or rectangle. I assembled mine right on a liberally flour-dusted pizza peel, but you can assemble on parchment paper for an easier slide into the oven.
Slit one side (as in Mark Luinenburg's gorgeous photo below), and lay out the peppers on the other side (with their outer, peeled surface facing up). Sprinkle with thyme and coarse salt to taste. The salt is crucial to bring out the flavor of the roasted peppers. Use a pastry brush to paint a little water around the edges to help make a good seal:
OK, here's the tricky part. Fold the slitted half over the peppers and crimp it to the dampened side. If the edges don't meet nicely, just trim off the extra with kitchen shears.
Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with more thyme. If you're not using parchment paper, make sure that the fougasse is moving well on the pizza peel; if not, nudge some additional flour underneath using a spatula.
Slide the fougasse onto the hot stone. Quickly add 1 cup of hot water to the broiler tray and close the oven door. Bake at 450 F for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown. If you rolled the dough thicker than 1/8-inch, it will need more baking to develop nice color and prevent an over-moist interior crumb next to the peppers. Bon appetit!