text:
Concrete Proof of Tiger's Secret Rendezvous
We told you the story -- now we have the black and white proof that Tiger Woods' childhood friend and employee secretly flew Tiger's alleged mistress Rachel Uchitel to Australia to be with him.
TMZ has obtained the flight itinerary along with emails between Rachel and Bryon Bell -- detailing how Bryon organized a trip for Rachel to fly last month from New York to L.A. to Australia to Dubai and back to L.A.
In the emails, Bryon wrote, "Here are the details for all the flights. Sorry for all the changes. I look forward to meeting you tomorrow. Bryon." Rachel sent an email to someone afterward, forwarding the itinerary and saying, "My schedule so u have it in case the plane goes down."
As we first reported, Bryon Bell, President of Tiger Woods Design, purchased the plane ticket for Rachel and flew with her to Australia, where Tiger was playing the Australian Masters. He also paid for Rachel's room at the Crown Towers Hotel in Melbourne -- the same place Tiger was staying.


text:
Clip In Extensions: Fuchsia
Clip-In Weft Hair Extensions details:??
- Total pack is 100 grams
- 7 pieces per pack
Piece 1:??10" double wefted (4 clips)
Piece 2:??8" double wefted (3 clips)
Piece 3:??6" double wefted (2 clips)
Pieces 4 & 5:??4" single weft (2 clips)
Pieces 6 & 7:??1.5" single weft (1 clip)
Easy Hair Extension Application:
- Backcomb the hair that you wish to clip in your extensions
- Clip in your Straight Clip In Hair Extensions. Use the single clip pieces near your temples and use the longer clip pieces for the back of your head
- Cover each clip in piece under layers of hair while placing the next clip in piece higher towards your crown

subset: commoncrawl


text:
27 September 2011 - Almaty, Kazakhstan
Hosted by the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE), the first meeting of the Group took place on 27 September 2011 with the participation of capital market authorities, ministries, stock exchanges, international organisations, NGOs, academia, private and state owned company representatives in the region. The meeting was organised back to back to with the 17th Annual General Assembly of Federation of Euro-Asia Stock Exchanges.
There were four sessions adressing the corporate governance and capital market landscape in Eurasia, recent reforms and priorities for improving corporate governance and capital market development, and the roles of securities market regulators and stock exchanges in these processes.
The meeting attracted high level policy makers from both the region and out of the region. 12 Eurasian countries were represented by regulatory agencies and stock exchanges at the director or higher level, with more than 100 participants.
Prominent speakers included Daniyar Talgatovich Akishev, Deputy Governor of National Bank of Kazakhstan; Kadyrzhan Damitov, President of Kazakhstan Stock Exchange; Vedat Akgiray, Chairman of Capital Markets Board of Turkey and IOSCO Emerging Markets Committee; Dmytro Tevelev, Head of State Security & Stock Market Commission of Ukraine; and Huseyin Erkan, President of the Federation of Euro-Asia Stock Exchanges and Chairman & CEO of Istanbul Stock Exchange.
Meeting documents
See also
More about the Eurasia Group on Corporate Governance for Capital Market Development
Related Documents


text:
BBB National Programs Archive
NAD Reviews '#1" Claim for Gurwitch 'Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer'
New York, NY – June 19, 2013 – The National Advertising Division has recommended that Gurwitch Products LLC provide a more detailed disclosure in print advertising for the company's "Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer."
NAD is an investigative unit of the advertising industry's system of self-regulation. It is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus. As part of its routine monitoring program, NAD requested substantiation the following claim:
• "The #1 selling Tinted Moisturizer.*"
*Based on The NPD Group, Inc. U.S. volume sales in prestige retail YE 2012.
NAD questioned whether the claim implied that the product is the top-selling tinted moisturizer in the United States.
The advertiser argued that the disclosure was clear and conspicuous and featured in a font that contrasted with the background image. Further, the advertiser noted that the disclosure referred to the "prestige retail" category, which it said was commonly understood in the industry as retail stores that offer relatively high price-point items within a product category, as distinguished from "mass retail" or value-oriented department stores.
Following its review, NAD recommended that the disclosure be modified to make clear that the claim is based on NPD sales data from "better" department stores and online retailers.
NAD further determined that the disclosure as it appeared in Internet advertising was clear, conspicuous and in close proximity to the qualifying claim. However, NAD recommended that the disclosure in the print advertisements be modified to be more conspicuous and appear in immediate proximity to the "#1" claim.
Gurwitch, in its advertiser's statement, said it "disappointed with NAD's findings regarding the format of the disclosure language in some versions of its print advertising and NAD's concern regarding possible interpretations of what constitutes a 'prestige' retailer, and respectfully disagrees with NAD's analysis. Nevertheless, as a strong supporter of the self-regulatory process, Gurwitch will take NAD's recommendations into consideration."


text:
Orko Shareholders Approve Arrangement with Coeur
Orko Shareholders Approve Arrangement with Coeur
VANCOUVER, British Columbia & COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Orko Silver Corp. ("Orko") (TSX-V: OK) (Frankfurt: OG3) (OTCUS: OKOFF) and Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation ("Coeur") (NYS: CDE) (TSX:CDM) are pleased to announce the positive results of the Orko shareholder vote to approve the previously announced plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") whereby Coeur will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Orko (the "Orko Shares").
99.72% of the Orko Shares represented at Orko's special shareholders' meeting held earlier today were voted in favor of the special resolution approving the Arrangement.
Orko will apply for a final order of the Supreme Court of British Columbia approving the Arrangement on Friday, April 12, 2013 and, assuming receipt of court approval and the satisfaction or waiver of all remaining closing conditions, Orko and Coeur expect the Arrangement to be effective on or about April 16, 2013.
Gary Cope, Orko's President and CEO, said, "We are extremely pleased to have received such overwhelmingly positive shareholder support for the Arrangement. The combination with Coeur will allow our shareholders to participate in a company with geographically diverse projects and robust growth prospects while retaining upside related to La Preciosa. We look forward to a smooth transition."
Mitchell J. Krebs, Coeur's President and CEO, said, "We look forward to leveraging Coeur's financial and operational resources to realize the true value of Orko's La Preciosa project. As a combined company, we will have enhanced asset and geographic portfolio diversification and robust growth prospects for our combined shareholder base."
Orko shareholders with questions regarding the deposit of Orko Shares to the Arrangement can contact Kingsdale Shareholder Services Inc. toll free in North America at (888) 518-6812 or call collect outside North America at (416) 867-2272 or by email at firstname.lastname@example.com.
About Orko
Orko Silver Corp. is developing one of the world's largest undeveloped primary silver deposits, La Preciosa, located near the city of Durango, in the State of Durango, Mexico.
About Coeur
Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation is the largest U.S.-based primary silver producer and a growing gold producer. The Company has four precious metals mines in the Americas generating strong production, sales and cash flow in continued robust metals markets. Coeur produces from its wholly owned operations: the Palmarejo silver-gold mine in Mexico, the San Bartolomé silver mine in Bolivia, the Rochester silver-gold mine in Nevada and the Kensington gold mine in Alaska. The Company also owns a non-operating interest in a mine in Australia, and conducts ongoing exploration activities in Mexico, Argentina, Nevada, Alaska and Bolivia.
Special Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements
This News Release may contain forward-looking statements, including but not limited to comments regarding the completion of the transactions contemplated herein and the ability to realize the potential economic benefits of the La Preciosa Project. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements and Orko and Coeur undertake no obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Orko Silver Corp
(604) 687-6310
Kingsdale Shareholder Services
Wes Hall
(416) 867-2342
Wendy Yang, Vice President, Investor Relations
(208) 665-0345
Stefany Bales, Director, Corporate Communications
(208) 667-8263
KEYWORDS: United States Mexico North America Central America Canada Australia/Oceania Idaho
The article Orko Shareholders Approve Arrangement with Coeur originally appeared on Fool.com.
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text:
So, just finally made time to port the last project out of my old Google code repo. So here are all the links for the new packages and repositories:
BPlusTree (and supporting parts of Library) -> CSharpTest.Net.Collections
Library\Commands -> CSharpTest.Net.Commands
RpcLibrary -> CSharpTest.Net.RpcLibrary
Library\Tools\* -> CSharpTest.Net.Tools
The former package for CSharpTest.Net.BPlusTree has been deprecated. This package depended upon the CSharpTest.Net.Library and I wanted to make the package stand-alone. To avoid causing unneeded headaches I've chosen to rename the package to eliminate the confusion with the previous version(s). The new Collections package contains all the BPlusTree code, plus the code within the Library that it depended on. Hopefully this stand-alone version will make it much more usable.
For all the packages, my goal was to not change code, add features, or fix bugs during the move. This is 99% the case, a few changes were made to reduce dependencies in some cases, but the overall code remains basically the same.


text:
Elizabeth Ann Black
November 25, 1948 ~ August 1, 2011
Elizabeth Black, age 62, passed away August 1, 2011. She was having a wonderful day, camping in the mountains, in the place she loved, with her entire family surrounding her.
She was born on November 25, 1948 in Monticello, UT to Melvin and Virginia Hurst. She was the second of six children.
She grew up in Blanding, UT. She participated in many activities in school and church throughout her young life. She was a loving big sister and often took on the role of "mother". She graduated from San Juan High School in 1967.
She married her high school sweetheart, Dale Black, on November 11, 1967. They moved to Monticello in 1970. Together they had three beautiful daughters; Karla Dawn, Sheila Ann, and Brandi Lee. Dale, Liz, and their daughters were sealed as a family in the Manti Temple on May 22, 1987.
Liz is the proud grandmother of 14 grandchildren; Ashley (Chris), Taran, Caleb, Makelle, Colton, and Tanner Wright; Madison, Avery, Kayla, Quinn, and Preston Nielson; Curtis, Drew, and Journey Baird.
Liz was a devoted and loving wife, mother and grandmother.
She enjoyed serving others through church and the community and loved everyone she met. She always had a positive outlook and lived life to the fullest. She loved the outdoors and spending time with her family, especially Dale. They were the light of each other's lives. Liz adored her children and grandchildren and tried to attend all the activities they participated in.
Liz was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where she served for 19 years in the Young Women's program, worked in the Primary, activities chairperson for nine years, Relief Society President for five years, and many other callings.
She was employed as an Area Specialist for the USDA Rural Development for 23 years. She loved her work and enjoyed helping people achieve home ownership, and she secured funding for many other community projects. She was a people person and could make friends anywhere.
Liz was an amazing woman and will be missed greatly by her family, friends, and the community. She is survived by the love of her life, her three children Karla (Maughn), Sheila (Ryan), Brandi (Chris), 14 grandchildren who she adored, a brother, two sisters, and many nieces and nephews who loved her.
Funeral services were held Monday, August 8, 2011. Interment in the Monticello Cemetery.
Card of thanks
The family of Liz Black would like to thank the entire community for all of the love and support that has been shown to them during the passing of their wonderful mother.
We would especially like to thank the San Juan County EMTs and San Juan Hospital for their efforts and quick response in behalf of our dear mother.
Dale Black
Maughn and Karla Wright and family
Sheila Nielson and family
Chris and Brandi Baird and family
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text:
By Wayne Veysey | Chief Correspondent
Mohamed Diame is poised to put pen to paper on a new West Ham contract on Thursday, Goal.com has learned.
The midfielder, who has been pursued by a string of Premier League big-hitters during the January window, arrived at Upton Park on Thursday afternoon for talks with the club's vice-chair Karren Brady.
It is expected that Diame will sign an extended deal on improved terms that will remove the release clause inserted into the agreement he signed last summer when he joined on a free from Wigan Athletic.
Manager Sam Allardyce suggested on Tuesday that there remained a possibility that the midfield powerhouse could leave before Thursday night's transfer deadline.
However, West Ham appear to have won their battle to hang on to the Senegal international after offering improved terms earlier this month.
Arsenal, who identified him as a target in early December, and Tottenham were among the clubs who made enquiries for Diame but it is understood they were put off from making bids by the confusion surrounding the value of the buy-out clause
The player's agent Willie McKay had gone on record to say it was £3.5 million (€4m), but in reality it is believed to be a far higher figure.
Diame had held back on signing the deal on the table but is now set to stay at Upton Park and sign an agreement that will considerably enhance his current wages of £30,000-a-week (€35,000).


text:
October 01, 2012
Accenture Acquires IPTV Assets from Nokia Siemens Networks
NEW YORK; Oct. 1, 2012 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired the software and skills of Nokia Siemens Networks Internet Protocol television (IPTV) business. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The newly-acquired IPTV software, assets and capabilities will be integrated with the Accenture Video Solution – a software product and a suite of services that enables companies to launch new over-the-top TV and services quickly and economically while reducing the initial costs of IT and infrastructure set-up – to create the industry's most comprehensive, feature-rich video software and services platform currently available for video service providers and their subscribers
The acquisition adds key IPTV skills and experience to Accenture's existing over-the-top video capabilities, enabling Accenture to provide end-to-end technology integration services to any vendor for any video platform. Accenture will be able to help clients provide end users with a dynamic and interactive video experience with virtually any video content, in any format, across every network, on any device – from smart phones and tablets to personal computers and television sets.
Additionally, Accenture's enhanced broadband video services – with a platform that manages seamless integration of devices – will give end users the ability to control their viewing experience, such as accessing content through a tablet, pausing whatever they may be watching and continuing to view that content at a later time – at home on a TV, a laptop computer, smart phone, or tablet.
"The combination of Nokia Siemens Networks' IPTV assets with Accenture's over-the-top TV software and capabilities, will deliver an exciting new combination of services to the global video industry," said Marco Vernocchi, managing director of Accenture's Media & Entertainment industry group. "The scalable and flexible end solution we are creating will help video service providers dramatically change the way they approach content distribution while balancing costs."
Accenture has a long history of providing video capabilities to service providers. The Accenture Video Solution, which has been deployed to several large video providers, delivers a seamless consumer experience for accessing linear video content, such as traditional, real-time video, through the broadcast network, as well as non-linear services, such as catch-up TV and video on demand (VOD) through a broadband network. These services can be delivered to virtually any IP-enabled device: connected TVs, set-top boxes, gaming consoles tablets, PCs and mobile phones.
"Consumers want to control the content they view, but they also want to manage where and when they view that content," said Vernocchi. "They also want to be able to choose the device on which the content is delivered. Consumers also want the flexibility to watch a video while posting comments on social media sites or chatting with their friends about the content they are viewing. Access to content in a personalized way is here to stay, and we can expect to see even more features that allow users to make viewing a personal, mobile, dynamic video experience."
For more about Accenture Software, please visit www.accenture.com/software.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with 257,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world's most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
Accenture Software combines deep technology acumen with industry knowledge to develop differentiated software products. It offers innovative software-based solutions to enable organizations to meet their business goals and achieve high performance. Its home page is www.accenture.com/software.
# # #
Gary Morgenstern
+ 973 301 3347


text:
It was 12 years ago, on March 14, 1983, that the commandant of
the Marine Corps sent a highly unusual letter to the secretary of
defense expressing frustration and anger at Israel. General R.H.
Barrow charged that Israeli troops were deliberately threatening
the lives of Marines serving as peacekeepers in Lebanon. There
was, he wrote, a systematic pattern of harassment by Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) that was resulting in "life‑threatening
situations, replete with verbal degradation of the officers, their
uniform and country."
Barrow's letter added: "It is inconceivable to me why Americans
serving in peacekeeping roles must be harassed, endangered
by an ally...It is evident to me, and the opinion of the U.S.
commanders afloat and ashore, that the incidents between the
Marines and the IDF are timed, orchestrated, and executed for
obtuse Israeli political purposes."1
Israel's motives were less obtuse than the diplomatic general
pretended. It was widely believed then, and now, that Israeli
Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, one of Israel's most
Machiavellian politician‑generals, was creating the incidents
deliberately in an effort to convince Washington that the two
forces had to coordinate their actions in order to avoid such
tensions. This, of course, would have been taken by the Arabs as
proof that the Marines were not really in Lebanon as neutral
peacekeepers but as allies of the Israelis, a perception that
would have obvious advantages for Israel.2
Barrow's extraordinary letter was indicative of the frustrations
and miseries the Marines suffered during their posting to
Lebanon starting on Aug. 25, 1982, as a result of Israel's
invasion 11 weeks earlier. Initially a U.S. unit of 800 men was
sent to Beirut harbor as part of a multinational force to monitor
the evacuation of PLO guerrillas from Beirut. The Marines,
President Reagan announced, "in no case... would stay longer
than 30 days."3 This turned out to be only partly true. They did
withdraw on Sept. 10, but a reinforced unit of 1,200 was rushed
back 15 days later after the massacres at the Palestinian
refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila that accompanied the
Israeli seizure of West Beirut. The U.S. forces remained until
Feb. 26, 1984.4
During their‑year‑and‑a‑half posting in Lebanon, the Marines
suffered 268 killed.5 The casualties started within a week of the
return of the Marines in September 1982. On the 30th, a
U.S.‑made cluster bomb left behind by the Israelis exploded,
killing Corporal David Reagan and wounding three other
Corporal Reagan's death represented the dangers of the new
mission of the Marines in Lebanon. While their first brief stay had
been to separate Israeli forces from Palestinian fighters
evacuating West Beirut, their new mission was as part of a
multinational force sent to prevent Israeli troops from attacking
the Palestinian civilians left defenseless there after the
withdrawal of PLO forces. As President Reagan said: "For this
multinational force to succeed, it is essential that Israel withdraw
from Beirut."7
"Incidents are timed, orchestrated, and
executed for Israeli political purposes."
Israel's siege of Beirut during the summer of 1982 had been
brutal and bloody, reaching a peak of horror on Aug. 12, quickly
known as Black Thursday. On that day, Sharon's forces launched
at dawn a massive artillery barrage that lasted for 11 straight
hours and was accompanied by saturation air bombardment.8
As many as 500 persons, mainly Lebanese and Palestinian
civilians, were killed.9
On top of the bombardment came the massacres the next month
at Sabra and Shatila, where Sharon's troops allowed Lebanese
Maronite killers to enter the camps filled with defenseless
civilians. The massacres sickened the international community
and pressure from Western capitals finally forced Israel to
withdraw from Beirut in late September. Troops from Britain,
France, Italy and the United States were interposed between the
Israeli army and Beirut, with U.S. Marines deployed in the most
sensitive area south of Beirut at the International Airport, directly
between Israeli troops and West Beirut.
It was at the airport that the Marines would suffer their Calvary
over the next year. Starting in January 1983, small Israeli units
began probing the Marine lines. At first the effort appeared
aimed at discovering the extent of Marine determination to resist
penetration. The lines proved solid and the Marines'
determination strong. Israeli troops were politely but firmly turned
away. Soon the incidents escalated, with both sides pointing
loaded weapons at each other but no firing taking place.
Tensions were high enough by late January that a special
meeting between U.S. and Israeli officers was held in Beirut to try
to agree on precise boundaries beyond which the IDF would not
No Stranger to the Marines
However, on Feb. 2 a unit of three Israeli tanks, led by Israeli Lt.
Col. Rafi Landsberg, tried to pass through Marine/Lebanese
Army lines at Rayan University Library in south Lebanon. By this
time, Landsberg was no stranger to the Marines. Since the
beginning of January he had been leading small Israeli units in
probes against the Marine lines, although such units would
normally have a commander no higher than a sergeant or
lieutenant. The suspicion grew that Sharon's troops were
deliberately provoking the Marines and Landsberg was there to
see that things did not get out of hand. The Israeli tactics were
aimed more at forcing a joint U.S.‑Israeli strategy than merely
probing lines.
In the Feb. 2 incident, the checkpoint was commanded by Marine
Capt. Charles Johnson, who firmly refused permission for
Landsberg to advance. When two of the Israeli tanks ignored his
warning to halt, Johnson leaped on Landsberg's tank with pistol
drawn and demanded Landsberg and his tanks withdraw. They
Landsberg and the Israeli embassy in Washington tried to laugh
off the incident, implying that Johnson was a trigger‑happy John
Wayne type and that the media were exaggerating a routine
event. Landsberg even went so far as to claim that he smelled
alcohol on Johnson's breath and that drunkenness must have
clouded his reason. Marines were infuriated because Johnson
was well known as a teetotaler. Americans flocked to Johnson's
side. He received hundreds of letters from school children,
former Marines and from Commandant Barrow.12 It was a losing
battle for the Israelis and Landsberg soon dropped from sight.
But the incidents did not stop. These now included "helicopter
harassment," by which U.S.‑made helicopters with glaring
spotlights were flown by the Israelis over Marine positions at
night, illuminating Marine outposts and exposing them to
potential attack. As reports of these incidents piled up, Gen.
Barrow received a letter on March 12 from a U.S. Army major
stationed in Lebanon with the United Nations Truce Supervisory
Organization (UNTSO). The letter described a systematic pattern
of Israeli attacks and provocations against UNTSO troops,
including instances in which U.S. officers were singled out for
"near‑miss" shootings, abuse and detention.13 That same day
two Marine patrols were challenged and cursed by Israeli
Two days later Barrow wrote his letter to Secretary of Defense
Caspar W. Weinberger, who endorsed it and sent it along to the
State Department. High‑level meetings were arranged and the
incidents abated, perhaps largely because by this time Ariel
Sharon had been fired as defense minister. He had been found
by an Israeli commission to have had "personal responsibility"
for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.15
Despite the bad taste left from the clashes with the Israelis, in
fact no Marines had been killed in the incidents and their lines
had been secure up to the end of winter in 1983. Then Islamic
guerrillas, backed by Iran, became active. On the night of April
17, 1983, an unknown sniper fired a shot that went through the
trousers of a Marine sentry but did not harm him. For the first
time, the Marines returned fire.16
The next day, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was blown up by a
massive bomb, with the loss of 63 lives. Among the 17
Americans killed were CIA Mideast specialists, including Robert
C. Ames, the agency's top Middle East expert.17 Disaffected
former Israeli Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky later claimed
that Israel had advance information about the bombing plan but
had decided not to inform the United States, a claim denied by
Israel.18 The Iranian‑backed Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Veteran correspondent John Cooley considered the attack "the
day [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini's offensive against
America in Lebanon began in earnest." 19
Still, it was not until four months later, on Aug. 28, that Marines
came under direct fire by rocket‑propelled grenades and
automatic weapons at International Airport. They returned fire
with M‑16 rifles and M‑60 machine guns. The firefight resumed
the next day with Marines firing 155mm artillery, 81mm mortars
and rockets from Cobra helicopter gunships against Shi'i Muslim
positions. Two Marines were killed and 14 wounded in the
exchange, the first casualties in actual combat since the Marines
had landed the previous year.20
From this time on, the combat involvement of the Marines grew.
Their actions were generally seen as siding with Israel against
Muslims, slowly changing the status of the Marines as neutral
peacekeepers to opponents of the Muslims.21 Israel could hardly
have wished for more. The polarization meant that increasingly
the conflict was being perceived in terms of the U.S., Israel and
Lebanon's Christians against Iran, Islam and Lebanon's Shi'i
Accelerating the Conflict
Israel accelerated the building conflict on Sept. 3, 1993 by
unilaterally withdrawing its troops southward, leaving the Marines
exposed behind their thin lines at the airport. The United States
had asked the Israeli government to delay its withdrawal until the
Marines could be replaced by units of the Lebanese army, but
Israel refused.22 The result was as feared. Heavy fighting
immediately broke out between the Christian Lebanese Forces
and the pro‑Syrian Druze units, both seeking to occupy positions
evacuated by Israel, while the Marines were left in the crossfire.
23On Sept. 5, two Marines were killed and three wounded as
fighting escalated between Christian and Muslim militias.24
In an ill‑considered effort to subdue the combat, the Sixth Fleet
frigate Bowen fired several five‑inch naval guns, hitting Druze
artillery positions in the Chouf Mountains that were firing into the
Marine compound at Beirut airport.25 It was the first time U.S.
ships had fired into Lebanon, dramatically raising the level of
combat. But the Marines' exposed location on the flat terrain of
the airport left them in an impossible position. On Sept. 12, three
more Marines were wounded. 26
On Sept. 13, President Reagan authorized what was called
aggressive self‑defense for the Marines, including air and naval
strikes.27 Five days later the United States essentially joined the
war against the Muslims when four U.S. warships unleashed the
heaviest naval bombardment since Vietnam into Syrian and
Druze positions in eastern Lebanon in support of the Lebanese
Christians.28 The bombardment lasted for three days and was
personally ordered by National Security Council director Robert
McFarlane, a Marine Corps officer detailed to the White House
who was in Lebanon at the time and was also a strong supporter
of Israel and its Lebanese Maronite Christian allies. McFarlane
issued the order despite the fact that the Marine commander at
the airport, Colonel Timothy Geraghty, strenuously argued
against it because, in the words of correspondent Thomas L.
Friedman, "he knew that it would make his soldiers party to what
was now clearly an intra‑Lebanese fight, and that the Lebanese
Muslims would not retaliate against the Navy's ships at sea but
against the Marines on shore." 29
By now, the Marines were under daily attack and Muslims were
charging they were no longer neutral.30 At the same time the
battleship USS New Jersey, with 16‑inch guns, arrived off
Lebanon, increasing the number of U.S. warships offshore to 14.
Similarly, the Marine contingent at Beirut airport was increased
from 1,200 to 1,600.31
A Tragic Climax
The fight now was truly joined between the Shi'i Muslims and the
Marines, who were essentially pinned down in their airport
bunkers and under orders not to take offensive actions. The
tragic climax of their predicament came on Oct. 23, when a
Muslim guerrilla drove a truck past guards at the Marine airport
compound and detonated an explosive with the force of 12,000
pounds of dynamite under a building housing Marines and other
U.S. personnel. Almost simultaneously, a car‑bomb exploded at
the French compound in Beirut. Casualties were 241 Americans
and 58 French troops killed. The bombings were the work of
Hezbollah, made up of Shi'i Muslim guerrillas supported by
America's agony increased on Dec. 3, when two carrier planes
were downed by Syrian missiles during heavy U.S. air raids on
eastern Lebanon.33On the same day, eight Marines were killed
in fighting with Muslim militiamen around the Beirut airport.34
By the start of 1984, an all‑out Shi'i Muslim campaign to rid
Lebanon of all Americans was underway. The highly respected
president of the American University of Beirut, Dr. Malcolm Kerr,
a distinguished scholar of the Arab world, was gunned down on
Jan. 18 outside his office by Islamic militants aligned with Iran.35
On Feb. 5, Reagan made one of his stand‑tall speeches by
saying that "the situation in Lebanon is difficult, frustrating and
dangerous. But this is no reason to turn our backs on friends and
to cut and run."36
The next day Professor Frank Regier, a U.S. citizen teaching at
AUB, was kidnapped by Muslim radicals.37 Regier's kidnapping
was the beginning of a series of kidnappings of Americans in
Beirut that would hound the Reagan and later the Bush
administrations for years and lead to the eventual expulsion of
nearly all Americans from Lebanon where they had prospered for
more than a century. Even today Americans still are prohibited
from traveling to Lebanon.
The day after Regier's kidnapping, on Feb. 7, 1984, Reagan
suddenly reversed himself and announced that all U.S. Marines
would shortly be "redeployed." The next day the battleship USS
New Jersey fired 290 rounds of one‑ton shells from its 16‑inch
guns into Lebanon as a final act of U.S. frustration.38 Reagan's
"redeployment" was completed by Feb. 26, when the last of the
Marines retreated from Lebanon.
The mission of the Marines had been a humiliating failure—not
because they failed in their duty but because the political
backbone in Washington was lacking. The Marines had arrived
in 1982 with all sides welcoming them. They left in 1984
despised by many and the object of attacks by Muslims. Even
relations with Israel were strained, if not in Washington where a
sympathetic Congress granted increased aid to the Jewish state
to compensate it for the costs of its bungled invasion, then
between the Marines and Israeli troops who had confronted each
other in a realpolitik battlefield that was beyond their competence
or understanding. The Marine experience in Lebanon did not
contribute toward a favorable impression of Israel among many
Americans, especially since the Marines would not have been in
Lebanon except for Israel's unprovoked invasion.
This negative result is perhaps one reason a number of Israelis
and their supporters today oppose sending U.S. peacekeepers
to the Golan Heights as part of a possible Israeli‑Syrian peace
treaty. A repeat of the 1982‑84 experience would certainly not be
in Israel's interests at a time when its supporters are seeking to
have a budget‑conscious Congress continue unprecedented
amounts of aid to Israel.
Ball, George, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, Washington, DC,
Foundation for Middle East Peace, 1984.
*Cockburn, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison:
The Inside Story of the U.S.‑Israeli Covert Relationship, New
York, Harper Collins, 1991.
Cooley, John K., Payback: America's Long War in the Middle
East , New York, Brassey's U.S., Inc., 1991.
*Findley, Paul, Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts About
the U.S.‑Israeli Relationship, Brooklyn, NY, Lawrence Hill
Books, 1993.
Fisk, Robert, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, New
York, Atheneum, 1990.
Frank, Benis M., U.S. Marines in Lebanon: 1982‑1984, History
and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,
Washington, DC, 1987.
*Friedman, Thomas L., From Beirut to Jerusalem, New York,
Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1989.
*Green, Stephen, Living by the Sword, Amana, 1988.
*Jansen, Michael, The Battle of Beirut: Why Israel Invaded
Lebanon , London, Zed Press, 1982.
MacBride, Sean, Israel in Lebanon: The Report of the
International Commission to enquire into reported violations of
international law by Israel during its invasion of Lebanon ,
London, Ithaca Press, 1983.
Ostrovsky, Victor and Claire Hoy, By Way of Deception, New
York, St. Martin's Press, 1990.
Peck, Juliana S., The Reagan Administration and the
Palestinian Question: The First Thousand Days , Washington,
DC, Institute for Palestine Studies, 1984.
*Randal, Jonathan, Going all the Way, New York, The Viking
Press, 1983.
Schechla, Joseph, The Iron Fist: Israel's Occupation of South
Lebanon, 1982‑1985 , Washington, D.C.: ADC Research
Institute, Issue Paper No. 17, 1985.
*Schiff, Ze'ev and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, New York,
Simon and Schuster, 1984.
Timerman, Jacobo, The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon, New
York, Vantage Books, 1982.
Woodward, Bob, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981‑1987,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1987.
* Available through the AET Book Club.
1 New York Times, 3/18/83. For a detailed review of these
clashes, see Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 177‑92, and Clyde
Mark, "The Multinational Force in Lebanon," Congressional
Research Service, 5/19/83.
2 See "NBC Nightly News," 6:30 PM EST, 3/17/86; also, George
C. Wilson, Washington Post, 2/5/83.
3 Ball, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, p. 51; Cooley, Payback,
pp. 69‑71.
4 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982‑1984, p. 137.
5 Frank, U.S. Marines in Lebanon: 1982‑1984 , Appendix F.
6 New York Times, 10/1/82. Also see Cooley, Payback, p. 71;
Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 175‑77
7 The text is in New York Times, 9/30/82. Also see Peck, The
Reagan Administration and the Palestinian Question, p. 76.
8 Schiff & Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, p. 225.
9 "Chronology of the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon," Journal of
Palestine Studies, Summer/Fall 1982,
p. 189.
10 Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 178‑80.
11 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982‑1984, pp. 45‑46.
12 Ibid.
13 Green, Living by the Sword, p. 182.
14 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982‑1984, p. 56.
15 New York Times, 2/9/83; "Final Report of the Israeli
Commission of Inquiry," Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring
1983, pp. 89‑116.
16 Frank, U.S Marines in Lebanon: 1982‑1984, p. 56.
17 New York Times, 4/22/83 and 4/26/83. For more detail on
CIA victims, see Charles R Babcock, Washington Post, 8/5/86,
and Woodward, Veil, pp. 244‑45.
18 Ostrovsky, By Way of Deception, p. 321.
19 Cooley, Payback, p. 76.
20 New York Times, 8/30/83.
21 Ball, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, pp. 75‑77.
22 New York Times, 9/5/83.
23 Fisk, Pity the Nation, pp. 489‑91; Friedman, From Beirut to
Jerusalem, p. 179.
24 New York Times, 9/6/83.
25 Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 505.
26 New York Times, 9/14/83.
27 New York Times , 9/13/83.
28 Philip Taubman and Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 12/11/83.
Also see Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison, p. 335; Fisk, Pity the
Nation, p. 505; Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem , p. 210.
29 Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, pp. 200‑01. Also see
Green, Living by the Sword, pp. 190‑92.
30 New York Times, 9/29/83.
31 New York Times, 9/25/83; David Koff, "Chronology of the War
in Lebanon, Sept.‑November, 1983," Journal of Palestine
Studies, Winter 1984, pp. 133‑35.
32 Philip Taubman and Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 12/11/83.
Also see Cooley, Payback, pp. 80‑91; Fisk, Pity the Nation, pp.
511‑22; Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, pp. 201‑4;
Woodward, Veil, pp. 285‑87.
33 New York Times , 1/4/84; Cooley, Payback, pp. 95‑97.
34 New York Times, 12/4/83.
35 New York Times, 1/19/84. Also see New York Times,
1/29/84, and Cooley, Payback, p. 75. For a chronology of
attacks against Americans in this period, see the Atlanta
Journal, 1/31/85.
36 Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 533.
37 New York Times, 4/16/84. Also see Cooley, Payback , p.
111; Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 565.
38 Cooley, Payback, p. 102; Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 533;
Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 220


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Inked. is a modern and stylish 1 page WordPress template perfect for any tattoo, body art, piercing studio or creative studio.
The theme not only offers fantastic support but many features including –
- Drag & Drop page design
- Extensive Redux options framework
- Easy to use page setup
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- Clean and stylish design
- Bootstrap responsive layout
- Easy to customise
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- Google fonts
- Booking modal
- Image modal
- Calendar design
- CSS3 transitions
- Parallax scrolling
- Styled Google map (Doesn't include IE)
- Sample data included
Remember to subscribe to my mailing list for new releases and updates to items!
Included Google Maps API Fixed hero title on mobile devices Fixed testimonials slider on mobile devices
NEW - Can now select fonts for heading/body New - Carousel for testimonials Replaced parallax plugin with something more stable Fixed unindexed logo issue Fixed WordPress favicon for version 4+ Fixed hero text alignment and responsive text
Mobile/Desktop hero fixes Updated options framework Included animate page loading Fixed logo input
Ability to enter logo width Fixed lot/lang mix up Ability to upload favicon Updated options framework
Fixes for responsive views Altered portfolio view Included dropdown menu
Version 1.1
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text:
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged five supposed members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army with hacking into computers and stealing trade secrets from six U.S. organizations in the nuclear power, steel and solar industries, the agency announced Monday.
The charges, stemming from grand jury indictments in Pennsylvania, are the first time the DOJ has filed hacking charges against so-called state actors, Attorney General Eric Holder said during a press conference. The computer hacking, targeting Westinghouse Electric, United States Steel, subsidiaries of SolarWorld, and other organizations between 2006 and this year, focused on those organizations in an effort to provide the stolen information to Chinese companies, Holder said.
"The range of trade secrets and other sensitive business information stolen in this case is significant and demands an aggressive response," Holder added. "The alleged hacking appears to have been conducted for no reason other than to advantage state-owned companies and other interests in China, at the expense of businesses here in the United States."
The charges should "serve as a notice" that the DOJ takes state-sponsored cybertheft seriously, Holder added. "This administration will not tolerate actions by any nation that seeks to illegally sabotage American companies and undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market," he said.
Such hacking leads to lost U.S. jobs, said David Hickton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. "The important message is cybertheft impacts real people in real and painful ways," he said. "When these cyberintrusions occur, production slows, workers get laid off and lose their homes. This 21st century burglary has to stop."
Holder said he hopes the Chinese government will honor the indictments and allow the DOJ to bring the defendants to face their charges in U.S. court.
Facing charges in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania are Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu, and Gu Chunhui, alleged to have been officers in Unit 61398 of the Third Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The indictment alleges that Wang, Sun, and Wen, among others, hacked or attempted to hack into U.S. organizations, while Huang and Gu supported their conspiracy by managing infrastructure used for hacking.
The defendants each face 31 charges, including economic espionage, with a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison; conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse, a 10-year sentence; and trade secret theft, also 10 years.
Other organizations named as victims were Allegheny Technologies, Alcoa, and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (USW), a union representing steelworkers and other trades.
In some cases, the victim companies were involved in trade disputes with China or joint ventures with Chinese companies. The steelworkers' union, in 2012, was involved in public disputes over Chinese trade practices involving two industries. At around the time of the disputes, Wen allegedly stole emails from senior USW employees containing sensitive, nonpublic information about USW strategies, including strategies related to pending trade disputes, the DOJ alleged.
Representatives of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., didn't immediately respond to a request for comments on the charges.
Heading off potential criticism that the U.S. government also engages in surveillance, Holder denied that it engages in cyberespionage on behalf of U.S. business interests. "This is a tactic that the U.S. government categorically denounces. As President Obama has said on numerous occasions, we do not collect intelligence to provide a competitive advantage to U.S. companies, or U.S. commercial sectors," he said.
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Navy SEALs abort mission to capture al-Shabab leader in Somalia
MOGADISHU, SomaliaIn a stealthy seaside assault in Somalia, U.S. special forces on Saturday struck out against Islamic extremists who have carried out terrorist attacks in East Africa, before eventually aborting the mission to capture a leading terrorist suspect linked to last month's Nairobi shopping mall attack after a fierce firefight.
A U.S. Navy SEAL team swam ashore near a town in southern Somalia before militants of the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group al-Shabab rose for dawn prayers, U.S. and Somali officials told The Associated Press. The raid on a house in the town of Barawe targeted a specific al-Qaeda suspect related to the mall attack, but the operation did not get its target, one current and one former U.S. military official told AP.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the raid publicly.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman George Little confirmed that U.S. military personnel had been involved in a counterterrorism operation against a known al-Shabab terrorist in Somalia, but did not provide details.
U.S. officials said there were no U.S. casualties in the Somali operation.
The Somali raid was carried out by members of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout in 2011, another senior U.S. military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.
But this time, SEAL Team Six members encountered fiercer resistance than expected so after a 15-20 minute firefight, the unit leader decided to abort the mission and they swam away, the official said. SEAL Team Six has responsibility for counterterrorism activities in the Horn of Africa.
Within hours of the Somalia attack, the U.S. Army's Delta Force carried out a raid in Libya's capital, Tripoli, to seize a Libyan al-Qaeda leader wanted for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 220 people, the military official said. Delta Force carries out counterterrorism operations in North Africa.
The Pentagon identified the captured al-Qaeda leader as Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, who has been on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list since it was introduced shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Al-Libi "is currently lawfully detained by the U.S. military in a secure location outside of Libya," Pentagon spokesman Little said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the two U.S. military raids against militants in Africa sends the message that terrorists "can run but they can't hide."
Saturday's raid in Somalia occurred 20 years after the famous "Black Hawk Down" battle in Mogadishu in which a mission to capture Somali warlords in the capital went awry after militiamen shot down two U.S. helicopters. Eighteen U.S. soldiers were killed in the battle, and it marked the beginning of the end of that U.S. military mission to bring stability to the Horn of Africa nation. Since then, U.S. military intervention has been limited to missile attacks and lightning operations by special forces.
A resident of Barawe - a seaside town 150 miles south of Mogadishu - said by telephone that heavy gunfire woke up residents before dawn prayers.
The U.S. forces attacked a two-story beachside house in Barawe where foreign fighters lived, battling their way inside, said an al-Shabab fighter who gave his name as Abu Mohamed and who said he had visited the scene. Al-Shabab has a formal alliance with al-Qaeda, and hundreds of men from the U.S., Britain and Middle Eastern countries fight alongside Somali members of al-Shabab.
A separate U.S. official described the action in Barawe as a capture operation against a high-value target. The official said U.S. forces engaged al-Shabab militants and sought to avoid civilian casualties. The U.S. forces disengaged after inflicting some casualties on fighters, said the official, who was not authorized to speak by name and insisted on anonymity.
The leader of al-Shabab, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, also known as Ahmed Godane, claimed responsibility for the attack on the upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya, a four-day terrorist siege that began on Sept. 21 and killed at least 67 people. A Somali intelligence official said the al-Shabab leader was the target of Saturday's raid.
An al-Shabab official, Sheikh Abdiaziz Abu Musab, said in an audio message that the raid failed to achieve its goals.
Al-Shabab and al-Qaeda have flourished in Somalia for years. Some of the plotters of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania hid out there.
Barawe has seen Navy SEALs before. In September 2009 a daylight commando raid in Barawe killed six people, including Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one of the most-wanted al-Qaeda operatives in the region and an alleged plotter in the 1998 embassy bombings.
In Somalia, a resident of Barawe who gave his name as Mohamed Bile said militants closed down the town in the hours after the assault, and that all traffic and movements have been restricted. Militants were carrying out house-to-house searches, likely to find evidence that a spy had given intelligence to a foreign power used to launch the attack, he said.
"We woke up to find al-Shabab fighters had sealed off the area and their hospital is also inaccessible," Bile told The Associated Press by phone. "The town is in a tense mood."
Al-Shabab later posted pictures on the Internet of what it said was U.S. military gear left behind in the raid. Two former U.S. military officers identified the gear as the kind U.S. troops carry. Pictures showed items including bullets, an ammunition magazine, a military GPS device and a smoke and flash-bang grenade used to clear rooms. The officials could not confirm if those items had come from the raid.
In Kenya, military spokesman Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir on Saturday gave the names of four fighters implicated in the Westgate Mall attack as Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Kene and Umayr, names that were first broadcast by a local Kenyan television station.
Matt Bryden, the former head of the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, said via email that al-Kene and Umayr are known members of al-Hijra, the Kenyan arm of al-Shabab. He added that Nabhan may be a relative of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the target of the 2009 Navy SEALs raid in Barawe.
The identities of the four men from the mall attack came as a Nairobi station obtained and broadcast the closed circuit television footage from Westgate. The footage shows four attackers calmly walking through a storeroom inside the complex, holding machine guns. One of the men's pant legs appears to be stained with blood, though he is not limping. It is unclear if the blood is his, or that of his victims'.
Government statements shortly after the four-day siege began on Sept. 21 indicated between 10 to 15 attackers were involved, but indications since then are that fewer attackers took part, though the footage may not show all of the assailants.
Navy SEALs abort mission to capture al-Shabab leader in Somalia - CBS News


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Got tired of finding some meaning the clouds as my plan was about to land in Luxembourg I could not stop myself from clicking the below panoramas. I thought this was the consolation:
On coming out of the Airport I was greeted with not so crowded roads and green belt surrounding the roads. That was miles away from my expectations, Being a cosmopolitan and one of the biggest financial centers on this earth I was expecting a welcome to a concrete jungle and crowded roads. Pretty exciting to start.
I am very sure by the time you will finish reading this blog,
you will fall in love with this place; the way I did by the time I finished
composing it.
Luxembourg has a population
of 450,000 which becomes 650,000 in the morning and comes back to 450,00 at the
evening. Strange. No, it's very simple people from neighbouring
countries of Belgium, Germany, France, Portugal drive in daily to
attend their workplaces and to refuel their vehicles, thanks to a low taxation
rate on fuel in Luxembourg. Do not get too greedy, if you will refuel daily,
customs might catch you. "Depending on the time of visit, Luxembourg
gives an impression of a BIG CITY or a SMALL TOWN."
Luxembourg is also the headquarters of Arcelor Mittal, biggest steel making company on this earth. While going around the city I kept on looking for the industries, but what I got instead were the captivating "WINE FARMS" in the Moselle valley.
No doubts the wines of this place are so charming that no one can stop praising about them. |
Culture of wine
growing is in the Luxembourg for a thousand years and goes back to Roman times.
Moselle valley stretches 42 km. from Schengen in the south to Wasserbillig in
the north.
Luxembourg is a small country with a stretch of
82km. x 55 km. It has a police force of 1,300 and military of 500. There are several
hotels and numerous tour operators which provide customized tour itinerary for
Luxembourg. If you plan to visit this place, either you can contact tour
operator or arrange yourself by searching "Luxembourg" on www.google.com and
booking hotels online. As we were talking on the demographics, we have reached
the Schengen border, here Luxembourg shares borders with Germany and France.
There were no check-posts and heavily armed soldiers, but a very beautiful river separating Luxembourg from Germany.
Houses visible on the other side of the river are in Germany. |
That's the beauty of European Union that one can drive into the other member nations on the VISA of any of the member nations without any formalities and questioning at the check-posts. How come the borders be so beautiful. Other nations need to learn a lot, Is it so difficult to co-exist peacefully...?
Orderly traffic, imposing architecture makes a visual delight for anyone:
Other day I had to travel to Germany. While I was sitting cozily inside a bus, the drive was no less than a fairy-tale ride with a meandering river, lush green valleys and highlands on both sides of the highway. My binocular which I always keep with me had doubled the joy. At times clicking the scenes was looking dull.
My car would have clocked 200 Kmph on this road, but I missed the fun of driving at this very sexy road |
While returning back we took a break for lunch at a German restaurant. Apart from the delicious food, we had a lot of fun filled moments.
There was much more outside the restaurant, a parking bay for the boats/ yachts:
And there was a huge grassland waiting to welcome us for a heavenly walk:
Do not miss out on great deal on wines, olive oils, enless variety of cheese and...Chocolates |


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Allies during World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union disagreed over a number of issues after the war. These included control of Eastern Europe, division of Germany, atomic energy, international loans, and the Middle East. On February 9, 1946, Soviet premier Josef Stalin asserted that the continued existence of capitalism in the West would inevitably lead to war. Foreign Service senior diplomat George Kennan sent President Harry Truman, still forming a Soviet policy, a lengthy telegram advocating containment. Commerce Secretary Henry A. Wallace—Secretary of Agriculture (1933–1941) and Vice-President from (1941–1945)—was one of the few liberal idealists in Truman's cabinet. Wallace envisioned a "century of the common man" marked by global peace and prosperity. In the following excerpt from a letter dated July 23, 1946, Wallace urged Truman to build "mutual trust and confidence" in order to achieve "an enduring international order." Truman asked Wallace to resign. In March 1947, Truman asked Congress for money "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Thus articulated, the "Truman Doctrine" of containment served as the rationale for future American Cold War foreign policy initiatives.
The Secretary of Commerce Washington 25
July 23, 1946
The President
The White House
My Dear Mr. President:
I hope you will excuse this long letter. Personally I hate to write long letters, and I hate to receive them.
My only excuse is that this subject is a very important one—probably the most important in the world today. I checked with you about this last Thursday and you suggested after Cabinet meeting on Friday that you would like to have my views.
I have been increasingly disturbed about the trend of international affairs since the end of the war, and I am even more troubled by the apparently growing feeling among the American people that another war is coming and the only way that we can head it off is to arm ourselves to the teeth. Yet all of past history indicates that an armaments race does not lead to peace but to war. The months just ahead may well be the crucial period which will decide whether the civilized world will go down in destruction after the five or ten years needed for several nations to arm themselves with atomic bombs. Therefore, I want to give you my views on how the present trend toward conflict might be averted. . . .
How do American actions since V-J Day appear to other nations? I mean by actions the concrete things like $13 billion for the War and Navy Departments, the Bikini tests of the atomic bomb and continued production of bombs, the plan to arm Latin America with our weapons, production of B-29s and planned production of B-36s, and the effort to secure air bases spread over half the globe from which the other half of the globe can be bombed. I cannot but feel that these actions must make it look to the rest of the world as if we were only paying lip service to peace at the conference table.
These facts rather make it appear either (1) that we are preparing ourselves to win the war which we regard as inevitable or (2) that we are trying to build up a predominance of force to intimidate the rest of mankind. How would it look to us if Russia had the atomic bomb and we did not, if Russia had 10,000-mile bombers and air bases within a thousand miles of our coastlines, and we did not?
Some of the military men and self-styled "realists" are saying: "What's wrong with trying to build up a predominance of force? The only way to preserve peace is for this country to be so well armed that no one will dare attack us. We know that America will never start a war."
The flaw in this policy is simply that it will not work. In a world of atomic bombs and other revolutionary new weapons, such as radioactive poison gases and biological warfare, a peace maintained by a predominance of force is no longer possible.
Why is this so? The reasons are clear:
FIRST. Atomic warfare is cheap and easy compared with old-fashioned war. Within a very few years several countries can have atomic bombs and other atomic weapons. Compared with the cost of large armies and the manufacture of old-fashioned weapons, atomic bombs cost very little and require only a relatively small part of a nation's production plant and labor force.
SECOND. So far as winning a war is concerned, having more bombs—even many more bombs—than the other fellow is no longer a decisive advantage. If another nation had enough bombs to eliminate all of our principal cities and our heavy industry, it wouldn't help us very much if we had ten times as many bombs as we needed to do the same to them.
THIRD. And most important, the very fact that several nations have atomic bombs will inevitably result in a neurotic, fear-ridden, itching-trigger psychology in all the peoples of the world, and because of our wealth and vulnerability we would be among the most seriously affected. Atomic war will not require vast and time-consuming preparations, the mobilization of large armies, the conversion of a large proportion of a country's industrial plants to the manufacture of weapons. In a world armed with atomic weapons, some incident will lead to the use of those weapons.
There is a school of military thinking which recognizes these facts, recognizes that when several nations have atomic bombs, a war which will destroy modern civilization will result and that no nation or combination of nations can win such a war. This school of thought therefore advocates a "preventive war," an attack on Russia now before Russia has atomic bombs.
This scheme is not only immoral, but stupid. If we should attempt to destroy all the principal Russian cities and her heavy industry, we might well succeed. But the immediate countermeasure which such an attack would call forth is the prompt occupation of all Continental Europe by the Red Army. Would we be prepared to destroy the cities of all Europe in trying to finish what we had started? This idea is so contrary to all the basic instincts and principles of the American people that any such action would be possible only under a dictatorship at home. . . .
In general there are two overall points of view which can be taken in approaching the problem of the United States-Russian relations. The first is that it is not possible to get along with the Russians and therefore war is inevitable. The second is that war with Russia would bring catastrophe to all mankind, and therefore we must find a way of living in peace. It is clear that our own welfare as well as that of the entire world requires that we maintain the latter point of view. I am sure that this is also your opinion, and the radio address of the Secretary of State on July 15 clearly indicates that he is prepared to negotiate as long as may be necessary to work out a solution on this basis.
We should try to get an honest answer to the question of what the factors are which cause Russia to distrust us, in addition to the question of what factors lead us to distrust Russia. I am not sure that we have as a nation or an Administration found an adequate answer to either question, although we have recognized that both questions are of critical importance.
Our basic distrust of the Russians, which has been greatly intensified in recent months by the playing up of conflict in the press, stems from differences in political and economic organization. For the first time in our history defeatists among us have raised the fear of another system as a successful rival to democracy and free enterprise in other countries and perhaps even our own. I am convinced that we can meet that challenge as we have in the past by demonstrating that economic abundance can be achieved without sacrificing personal, political and religious liberties. We cannot meet it as Hitler tried to by an anti-Comintern alliance.
It is perhaps too easy to forget that despite the deep-seated differences in our cultures and intensive anti-Russian propaganda of some twenty-five years standing, the American people reversed their attitudes during the crisis of war. Today, under the pressure of seemingly insoluble international problems and continuing deadlocks, the tide of American public opinion is again turning against Russia. In this reaction lies one of the dangers to which this letter is addressed.
I should list the factors which make for Russian distrust of the United States and of the Western world as follows: The first is Russian history, which we must take into account because it is the setting in which Russians see all actions and policies of the rest of the world. Russian history for over a thousand years has been a succession of attempts, often unsuccessful, to resist invasion and conquest—by the Mongols, the Turks, the Swedes, the Germans and the Poles. The scant thirty years of the existence of the Soviet Government has in Russian eyes been a continuation of their historical struggle for national existence. The first four years of the new regime, from 1917 through 1921, were spent in resisting attempts at destruction by the Japanese, British and French, with some American assistance, and by the several White Russian armies encouraged and financed by the Western powers. Then, in 1941, the Soviet State was almost conquered by the Germans after a period during which the Western European powers had apparently acquiesced in the rearming of Germany in the belief that the Nazis would seek to expand eastward rather than westward. The Russians, therefore, obviously see themselves as fighting for their existence in a hostile world.
Second, it follows that to the Russians all of the defense and security measures of the Western powers seem to have an aggressive intent. Our actions to expand our military security system—such steps as extending the Monroe Doctrine to include the arming of the Western Hemisphere nations, our present monopoly of the atomic bomb, our interest in outlying bases and our general support of the British Empire—appear to them as going far beyond the requirements of defense. I think we might feel the same if the United States were the only capitalistic country in the world, and the principal socialistic countries were creating a level of armed strength far exceeding anything in their previous history. From the Russian point of view, also, the granting of a loan to Britain and the lack of tangible results on their request to borrow for rehabilitation purposes may be regarded as another evidence of strengthening of an anti-Soviet bloc.
Finally, our resistance to her attempts to obtain warmwater ports and her own security system in the form of "friendly" neighboring states seems, from the Russian point of view, to clinch the case. After twenty-five years of isolation and after having achieved the status of a major power, Russia believes that she is entitled to recognition of her new status. Our interest in establishing democracy in Eastern Europe, where democracy by and large has never existed, seems to her an attempt to reestablish the encirclement of unfriendly neighbors which was created after the last war and which might serve as a springboard of still another effort to destroy her.
If this analysis is correct, and there is ample evidence to support it, the action to improve the situation is clearly indicated. The fundamental objective of such action should be to allay any reasonable Russian grounds for fear, suspicion and distrust. We must recognize that the world has changed and that today there can be no "one world" unless the United States and Russia can find some way of living together. For example, most of us are firmly convinced of the soundness of our position when we suggest the internationalization and defortification of the Danube or of the Dardanelles, but we would be horrified and angered by any Russian counter-proposal that would involve also the internationalizing and disarming of Suez or Panama. We must recognize that to the Russians these seem to be identical situations.
We should ascertain from a fresh point of view what Russia believes to be essential to her own security as a prerequisite to the writing of the peace and to cooperation in the construction of a world order. We should be prepared to judge her requirements against the background of what we ourselves and the British have insisted upon as essential to our respective security. We should be prepared, even at the expense of risking epithets of appeasement, to agree to reasonable Russian guarantees of security. . . .
We should be prepared to negotiate a treaty which will establish a definite sequence of events for the establishment of international control and development of atomic energy. This, I believe, is the most important single question, and the one on which the present trend is definitely toward deadlock rather than ultimate agreement.
We should make an effort to counteract the irrational fear of Russia which is being systematically built up in the American people by certain individuals and publications. The slogan that communism and capitalism, regimentation and democracy, cannot continue to exist in the same world is, from a historical point of view, pure propaganda. Several religious doctrines, all claiming to be the only true gospel and salvation, have existed side by side with a reasonable degree of tolerance for centuries. This country was for the first half of its national life a democratic island in a world dominated by absolutist governments.
We should not act as if we too felt that we were threatened in today's world. We are by far the most powerful nation in the world, the only Allied nation which came out of the war without devastation and much stronger than before the war. Any talk on our part about the need for strengthening our defenses further is bound to appear hypocritical to other nations.
This proposal admittedly calls for a shift in some of our thinking about international matters. It is imperative that we make this shift. We have little time to lose. Our postwar actions have not yet been adjusted to the lessons to be gained from experience of Allied cooperation during the war and the facts of the atomic age.
It is certainly desirable that, as far as possible, we achieve unity on the home front with respect to our international relations; but unity on the basis of building up conflict abroad would prove to be not only unsound but disastrous. I think there is some reason to fear that in our earnest efforts to achieve bi-partisan unity in this country we may have given way too much to isolationism masquerading as tough realism in international affairs.
The real test lies in the achievement of international unity. It will be fruitless to continue to seek solutions for the many specific problems that face us in the making of the peace and in the establishment of an enduring international order without first achieving an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence. The task admittedly is not an easy one. There is no question, as the Secretary of State has indicated, that negotiations with the Russians are difficult because of cultural differences, their traditional isolationism, and their insistence on a visible quid pro quo in all agreements. But the task is not an insuperable one if we take into account that to other nations our foreign policy consists not only of the principles that we advocate but of the actions we take. Fundamentally, this comes down to the point discussed earlier in this letter, that even our own security, in the sense that we have known it in the past, cannot be preserved by military means in a world armed with atomic weapons. The only type of security which can be maintained by our own military force is the type described by a military man before the Senate Atomic Energy Commission—a security against invasion after all our cities and perhaps 40 million of our city population have been destroyed by atomic weapons. That is the best that "security" on the basis of armaments has to offer us. It is not the kind of security that our people and the people of the other United Nations are striving for.
I think that progressive leadership along the lines suggested above would represent and best serve the interests of the large majority of our people, would reassert the forward looking position of the Democratic Party in international affairs, and, finally, would arrest the new trend towards isolationism and a disastrous atomic world war.
[Signed] H. A. Wallace
Source: Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace to President Harry S. Truman, July 23, 1946, in Papers of Harry S. Truman, President's Secretary's Files, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.


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This article is more than 1 year old
CodeGear: still for sale
New strategic direction: Borland competes with itself
Keeping up with Borland's corporate plans is a challenge. In early 2006, it said it would sell its IDE tools business, including the Delphi and JBuilder products. Nine months later it formed CodeGear, but as a wholly-owned subsidiary, saying that nobody came up with a good enough offer. "It was obvious that the positive cash flow from the IDE business was much more attractive for us," Borland's Mike Hulme told Reg Dev here.
Now CodeGear's recently appointed CEO Jim Douglas says his company is still for sale. "Borland went through the process of attempting to sell it. They had numerous offers. But it was so difficult, financially and operationally, to separate the two that it couldn't get to the type of transaction that made sense.
So they decided to complete the operational task of separation, and then move forward and sell. The plan of record is still to do that." Douglas says that Borland needs the capital to grow by acquisition in the ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) market. "It's very difficult to compete being a $300m player." Might some of the original buyers still be interested? "Yes. And I'm not making any commitment to timing. Our focus is optimization of the organisation."
I asked Douglas how CodeGear can compete when many excellent tools are both free and open source, or heavily subsidised by platform vendors. "Our company had its head in the sands about open source, just hoping it was a fad and would go away," he says. "A great example was JBuilder. We had the dominant product in the market, and we let open source usurp that market."
The strategy now is to embrace open source, adding value through proprietary extensions and integration. Douglas says this began internally. "We scrapped our complete development environment and built a brand new one using only open source components. We used things like Bugzilla for bug tracking, Subversion for source control, XPlanner for project planning. We found that although individually these are very good solutions, there was zero integration. We ended up developing an infrastructure to integrate those capabilities around our IDE. We ship that whole stack with our product." The same approach is being used for the forthcoming Ruby on Rails Eclipse-based IDE. "The team-oriented stack will also be moving into the second revision of our Rails product. Our biggest focus across our product line is team design."
So is CodeGear, detached from an ALM company in order to sell tools, now itself becoming an ALM company and competing with its parent? "It's a detente," says Douglas. "Both companies are part of Borland, but both groups have to optimise for their market," he explains. JBuilder ships with an open source ALM stack, but CodeGear has a parallel JBuilder line that integrates Borland's ALM suite.
The Microsoft factor
The old Borland tried to market a suite of .NET tools, but failed to keep pace with Visual Studio, and the latest Delphi 2007 does not support .NET at all. Has CodeGear given up on .NET? "We've got to be more complementary rather than to duplicate what Microsoft do. We've got a game plan to do some things that are more complementary and additive." Might that mean a Delphi plug-in for Visual Studio? "That's one of many approaches. I'm not going to comment specifically, but thematically you are in the right direction," says Douglas.
He is more upbeat about native code development. "Microsoft has effectively abandoned that side of the market, and that continues to be an extremely important part of software development. Microsoft's OS group love us for that because their tools group doesn't have an equivalent."
So, somebody still loves CodeGear - that's OK then. ®


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The 1916 election was also a presidential one where we elected Woodrow Wilson. Here are the election results for all of Eagle County, including Ruedi, Wolcott, "Lakes", Red Cliff, Gypsum, Burns, Eagle, and others. The election also includes several towns that no longer exist: Gilman, Pando, Sheephorn, and Fulford.
In Eagle County, Wilson was easily their president-elect.


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We're using Playtex drop-in bottles, and they say not to microwave. I don't know much about bottle warmers because our daughter would drink room-temperature milk until just recently (she's 1 y.o. now and we're trying to get her to sippy cups rather than bottles).
The only two ways I've tried are (with 1 being my preference):
- Heating up water in a coffee mug, then putting the milk filled bottle in the coffee mug full of hot water. (This keeps me from heating up the milk too hot)
- Heating up the milk in a microwave safe container, then pouring that into the bottle liner. I've gotten it too hot this way a few times and had to cool it off.


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Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明 Toriyama Akira, born April 5, 1955) is a Japanese manga artist, game artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for his highly successful manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball—his best-known work—and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon. Toriyama is regarded as one of the artists that changed the history of manga, as his works are highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration. He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen or shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successful anime series, with a second anime created in 1997, 13 years after the manga ended. His next series, Dragon Ball, would become one of the most popular and successful manga in the world. Having sold more than 350 million copies worldwide, it is the second best-selling manga of all time and is considered to be one of the main reasons for the period when manga circulation was at its highest in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Overseas, Dragon Ball's anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting anime's popularity in the Western world.
Известный для: Writing
День рождения: 1955-04-05
Место рождения: Aichi, Japan
Также известный как:


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Chuck Vinci
Posted on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2019 by John Wood
Chuck Vinci was another great olympic weightlifter from York, Pennsylvania. Though he stood only 4'11" and weighed 123 pounds, he could clean & jerk well over 300 pounds and snatch 220+. Vinci was a Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist (1956 and 1960), Seven-time world Senior National Champion (1954-1956,1958-1961) and set Twelve World Records during his career.


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Now you can find out how hard it is raining outside without leaving the confines of your mancave/womancave. Pictured above is the sensor portion of what [Frapedia] calls his visual rain sensor.
Most rain gauges just use a graduated cylinder to capture water as it falls from the sky. That will give you a reasonably accurate measure of how much it rained, but it tells you nothing about how hard it rained. The measurement made here is based on sound. The harder it rains, the lounder the sound will be from water hitting an up-turned metal bowl. The unit above turns the system on when water bridges the traces, then a microphone is used to monitor the sound from the bowl. This is visualized by a VU-meter chip on a column of LEDs mounted inside the house.
After the break you can see the project box that houses the status display. We say it's too small an needs to be replaced with a much larger LED meter.


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With all of the focus on object-oriented languages such as Java, C#, and VB.NET, it might seem odd that we would spend time talking about the lowly function. However, whether you're working in an object-oriented or a traditional procedural language, you still must break the execution of the program into pieces. In an object-oriented language, the breakdown is through objects and methods. In the procedural language, it is into modules and functions or procedures. Although the names change, the concepts don't.
In this article, we'll explore the breakdown of programs into functions, as well as ways that you can try to design your functions so they can be easily understood and reused. Our first stop is to understand how software developers develop software.
Software development is a complex task, one that without special techniques is too complicated for the human mind. It is for that reason that we break down the problem of software development into small chunks. Each of these chunks is something that our human brains can comprehend. In an object-oriented language, we bundle data in the form of properties, and actions in the form of methods, into a chunk called a class. In non-object-oriented languages, we bundle data into structures, and actions into functions or procedures.
By bundling pieces of the software development process into chunks we can use abstraction to ignore the other pieces of the solution. We focus solely on the one chunk while assuming that all the others will work as intended. This is the heart of abstraction. You focus on a small part of the problem—ignoring other parts so the software development problem becomes manageable.
No matter what we call the chunks that we create, we are attempting to develop an organizational structure that will allow the software to be created by our limited human minds. By encapsulating the software development activity into these chunks, we can abstract in our minds the rest of the solution. The result is a problem small enough to be pondered by the human brain.
Every software developer uses abstraction to manage the difficult task of creating software. He or she uses abstraction, either through the use of functions that were previously written, or through the use of application programming interfaces that exist with software packages or in the operating system itself. One of the key differences between good software and poor software is the ability to easily understand what each chunk does and how the chunks fit together.
An extension of the idea of breaking the software into chunks is to develop reusable libraries of software code. These libraries are just reusable chunks of code that are applicable to more than one problem. When designing software, it's important to keep in mind the possible similarities between the problem being solved and other, future, problems. So, one of the objectives of writing functions is to create an organization of functions within the solution or library that is readily understandable and readily adaptable to the next task. This goal must be kept in mind when deciding how to name a function, what parameters it should take, and how it is presented to other developers.
Target Audience
In writing, one of the first things that you learn is that there is always a target audience. Your writing will be much cleaner and more concise when you clearly understand to whom you are speaking. In this article, the target audience is the software developer. That doesn't mean that there will not occasionally be others that read your work; however, it allows you to tailor your message to a certain group.
The same is true of functions. When you create a function, you should have a specific mindset of how the function will be used and by whom. For instance, there are some functions that are designed for internal use only. These functions would be declared as private and therefore not exposed to the general developer running across your code.
Let's say that you created a set of functions that controlled a robotic arm. At the end of each operation, you might need to check whether any of the safety limits for the robotic arm had been exceeded or if the emergency stop button had been pressed on the arm itself. The function that performs this check is a function that is for internal use only. There is no reason why the developer using your functions for the robotic arm should ever need to call the function directly. For this reason, the function would be declared such that the scope is very small. In an object-oriented language, it would be declared as private or protected. In a procedural language, it would be declared as private so that only the procedures in the same module could call it.
On the other hand, the robotic arm operations functions—such as move—may have a primary audience of programmers with little or no knowledge of how exactly a robotic arm works. They may be a programmer who is more familiar with the way that material moves through a warehouse, or what pressures can be applied to the product before damage occurs. They should not need to worry about the internal operations that your functions need to perform to accomplish their goal.
It's critical that, when you are developing a function, you identify the kind of audience that will use the function. This will help you to identify the kinds of work the function should do, the kinds of parameters it should take, and how it should return its results.
The overall goal of the functions that you create, whether for a library or in an application, must be to make it easier for other software developers (including yourself) to solve the needs of the user. This means hiding unnecessary complexity from other developers through choosing parameters, returns, and actions that don't require extra effort for the software developer.
Perhaps the most difficult part of creating functions is determining what the parameters should be. Most developers initially struggle to create a function with as few parameters as possible so that they don't have to remember the parameters when the function is called. While the idea is laudable because it minimizes the chance of a mistake, it also creates functions that are highly specialized to the type of work being done by the program and that do not migrate well between applications.
There are a few basic rules about the kinds of parameters that a reusable routine should have. They should be followed no matter how large or small the application may be:
- Global constants should be used within a function only when the constant will never change, no matter what the use of the function is. The function could use constants such as the acceleration of a falling object on earth or the value of mathematical constant Π (pi). However, it should not use a global constant for sales tax rate, rate of climb, or any other numeric variable that may be constant within the current application but may not be of broader applicability. Those variables should be passed as parameters.
- No global variables should be used. Global variables make it hard to change and control the operation of a function. All variables should be passed in, even if they are global. This applies to the working functions; as discussed in a moment, shim functions can be used to simplify the calling structure.
- Pass parameters that the software developer is likely to have. Often there is a choice in terms of the information that the software developer provides to the function. The developer should emphasize ease of use for the user, rather than ease of use for the function's developer. If the developer is likely to use a standardized unit of measure, make sure that all of the parameters are accepted in that unit of measure.
These rules tend to create functions that take a lot of parameters. Incidentally, you'll notice that most API functions, particularly those in the operating system, contain a large number of parameters. This is not accidental. It is the result of designing functions to meet the needs of the broadest audience.
To address the real issue of limiting the change of error, other functions, called shim functions, may be created. These shim functions take a smaller number of parameters and provide the application defaults back to the master functions. They are not designed so that they can be reused; they are designed specifically to make it easier to call the master functions.
In cases where the language supports overloading, the shim functions are really overloaded versions of the master function. This allows for a simple interface without the problems of managing shim function naming.
Overloading is the process of creating a function with the same name and a set of parameters different than those of a similar function with the same name. In other words, you can create a function called FunctionA that takes a parameter of an integer, and another FunctionA that takes a parameter of a string. The compiler figures out which version of FunctionA needs to be called at compile time based on the parameters that you're passing.
The beauty of function overloading is that you can use it to develop shim functions with the same name as the master functions. You might have one function that takes only one parameter and all of the other parameters are defaulted. That shim function calls the other, master, function with the same name by supplying defaults for the additional parameters that the master function takes.
Overloading is a useful technique to bridge the gap between coding functions to use global variables and migrating to an environment where more parameters are passed.
Sometimes a language doesn't have the ability to overload functions, or you need to create functions that do something very similar to, but not exactly the same as, another function. The difficulty is defining names for the functions that reflect their unique purpose without causing the names to be excessively long.
There are no hard-and-fast rules for naming functions. However, here are some guidelines that you may want to consider when naming your functions:
- Pick your verbs carefully. The differences among display, prepare, process, and present may seem subtle but could be important if you have functions doing similar functions.
- Consider suffixing your low-level functions with "raw." The keyword "raw" will help distinguish the low-level functions from the higher-level functions. It is easily assumed that the higher-level function without the "raw" suffix will call the function with the "raw" suffix.
- Consider a global search and replace when a name is misleading or inaccurate. Although as software developers we have been conditioned against the use of search and replace, it has a purpose. One very valid reason to use a global search and replace of text is to change the name of a function when it is misleading, inaccurate, or imprecise. Sometimes when trying to determine what to name a new function, you run across the situation where the function name already exists. In some cases, this is because the function with the same name is imprecise, or is in some other way not adequate. A global search and replace can solve this problem. Obviously, it would be difficult or impossible to do this if the function is in a shared library or is already used by a large number of other functions.
As with the guidelines for selecting parameters for a function, these are not hard-and-fast rules. They must be tempered with the individual requirements of the project—and how your team works on projects.
The lowly function is a basic foundation for software development whether in an object-oriented language or not. The function is one of the basic ways in which we as humans can break the software development problem into small, meaningful units that we can develop without error.
Critically important to the development of functions is the ability to understand their purpose in terms of allowing us to break the software development problem into smaller, manageable pieces. It is also equally important to consider the kind of developer who might use the functions that we write. We must minimize the amount of complexity that these functions impose upon other developers.
All information that a function needs should be passed in and not taken through global variables. The only way to provide flexibility and portability of functions between projects is to pass parameters. If it is necessary to reduce the number of parameters to eliminate the possibility of entering the parameters incorrectly, a shim function should be used. A shim function is a function that serves no purpose other than calling a master function and providing the correct parameters.
Equally important is choosing a name for the function. Choosing a name that concisely conveys the action of the function is necessary to ensuring that the function architecture can be easily understood.
Good luck on creating your next set of functions.
About the Author
Robert Bogue, MCSE (NT4/W2K), MCSA, A+, Network+, Server+, I-Net+, IT Project+, E-Biz+, CDIA+ has contributed to more than 100 book projects and numerous other publishing projects. He writes on topics from networking and certification to Microsoft applications and business needs. Robert is a strategic consultant for Crowe Chizek in Indianapolis. Some of Robert's more recent books are Mobilize Yourself!: The Microsoft Guide to Mobile Technology, Server+ Training Kit, and MCSA Training Guide (70-218): Managing a Windows 2000 Network. You can reach Robert at email@example.com.


text: > > > Sandia National Laboratories has C-Plant that runs Linux in addition to several > > layers of home-grown OS on several thousand nodes. The basic node is a DEC > > ev6 with myranet (sp). They use no local disk, opting for a huge disk farm. > > do you happen to know how they manage the huge disk farm??? > - resumably raid5 systems... > - are each raid5 sub-system dual-hosted so that the other cpu > can getto the data if one of the cpu cant get to it > - does all nodes access the "disk farm" thru the gigabit ethernet > or dual-hosted scsi cables ?? > - how does one optimize a disk farm ?? (hdparm seems too clumbsy) > > -- in the old days.... 1980's ... there used to be dual-hosted > disk controllers where PC-HOST#1 and PC-HOST#2 can both access the same > physical CDC/DEC/Fujitsu drives > - wish i could find these dual host scsi controllers for todaysPCs > The Cplant clusters use a parallel I/O system called ENFS, which is a modified version of the NFS protocol that avoids locking and doesn't provide full UNIX semantics. Compute nodes send parallel I/O requests via ENFS to a set of proxy I/O nodes that mount a back-end filesystem through gigE uplinks. In the case of the 1792-node cluster, the back-end is an SGI O2K running XFS (I think). -Ron