text:
Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister, sentenced to death
BAGHDAD — Iraqis thirsting for vengeance as much as justice welcomed the death sentence Tuesday of one of Saddam Hussein's best-known officials, Tariq Aziz.
"The men of the former regime were all criminals - they killed many Iraqis, and it is about time to taste what the people were suffering," said Kareem Ahmed Jassim, a retired government employee playing cards at a coffee shop in central Baghdad.
But some politicians condemned the sentencing of the former deputy prime minister as a politically motivated move that could drive even more of a wedge into efforts to form a new government.
The judge who handed down the sentence, Mahmoud Saleh al-Hassan, ran unsuccessfully for parliament as part of the State of Law coalition of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. A major part of the trial was related to main targets of Hussein's campaign against Islamic parties - including Maliki's Shiite Dawa Party.
"We believe that the sentences announced today are intended to serve the interests of nominating Maliki for the prime minister's position," said Maysoon al-Damluji from the rival Iraqiya bloc, a secular coalition with strong Sunni support. She said the sentence was also aimed at diverting attention from leaked U.S. military documents linking Maliki's office to secret prisons and other abuses.
More than seven months after Iraqis went to the polls in national elections, Maliki is struggling to win enough support to lead a coalition government.
Aziz, who also served as foreign minister, is best known as the international face of the regime. A fluent English speaker, he was the only high-ranking Christian in Hussein's circle.
The high tribunal ruled that Aziz was guilty of crimes against humanity related to murder, torture, and forced exile of members of Islamic parties opposed to Hussein's leadership. Two other Saddam-era officials, including the former president's chief aide, were also sentenced to hang.
Aziz looked ashen and clutched the handrail in front of him as Judge Hassan literally shouted out the sentence, at one point asking the former foreign minister if he understood.
International experts have criticized the proceedings, saying former regime officials should be tried in an international court, free from political influence and intimidation.
But many Iraqis had little sympathy for Aziz, who is seen by some as having shown no remorse in the 10-month trial aired on Iraqi TV, during which he argued that he had not been involved in the regime's decisions.
"Are you kidding? I would have executed them even without a trial," said Younis Hassan, a butcher playing cards at the same coffee shop in central Baghdad.
"The videos that are being shown on TV every day are enough evidence against them," he says, referring to footage of atrocities by the former regime played on Iraqi television stations. "They are criminals and they must be executed as soon as possible."
Aziz is elderly and in ill health. His family and lawyer have argued that he should be released for humanitarian reasons.
The verdict is subject to automatic appeal.
Aziz, who dealt extensively with the United States in the 1980s, when Washington backed Iraq during its war with Iran, gave himself up to U.S. authorities in 2003. He was believed to have surrendered in exchange for his family being flown out of the country to safety.
He has been in prison ever since and was handed over to the Iraqi detention system by U.S. authorities earlier this year, along with most of the other accused former officials.
Before this latest trial began, Aziz was sentenced last year to 15 years in prison for involvement in the sentencing to death of merchants convicted of price manipulation in 1992. He was also sentenced to another seven years for a campaign against Iraqi Kurds.
In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper in August, Aziz said President Barack Obama was abandoning the country and "leaving Iraq to the wolves."
(Special correspondent Laith Hammoudi contributed to this report)


text:
Re: Editing features for advanced usersby meonkeys (Chaplain)
|on Apr 27, 2002 at 20:16 UTC ( #162552=note: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
gmax++. Excellent article! I've been delving into so many features of vim I don't think I'll ever be able to use another editor. Exporting to syntax-highlighted, numbered HTML is cool. I've also never seen the 'showmatch' option, but always wanted it!
I just have one question for you, which may be more of a ctags question--I don't know. Say you have some perl...
When I run pltags.pl on this, it just returns "No tags found.". Isn't the function call a tag? I would expect it to make a tags file with a hyperlink to Business::CreditCard that points straight to the line where validate() is defined. Is this possible? I would so love to know the answer to this riddle. If I could do this it would be incredibly easy to navigate my perl code.
"A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack."
In Section Meditations

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I bought a box of books at a sale and in the box was a family bible with an inscription. I searched the Ancestory site and found a member of the family looking for info on her relatives. I emailed her and offered to send her the book. She sent me her address and off the book went. She emailed me and said thanks. She did not offer to pay the $10.00 it cost for postage, not that I would have accepted anything if she would have offered. I was doing a PIF because I wanted to.
Several months ago I was going to make a pattern from a magazine and I discovered that some of the pages were missing. A wonderful lady had two copies of the magazine and sent me one. I offered to pay her and she said Pay it Forward. I have done it before and I will do it again, but I do wish that the book lady would not have broken the chain of PIF.


text:
Dedicated to bearing witness to Christ in contemporary culture.
While speaking out against the status quo of his day, Jesus referred to himself, his message, and its recipients as new wine poured out into new wineskins: Jesus was scandalous and intoxicating.
"No one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins." – Luke 5:37-38
Jesus is still scandalous and intoxicating. The problem is that we who claim to follow him—no matter our status or stage in life—are so prone to pour the new wine of his life and word into the old rotten skins of "Churchianity" that cannot contain it, ruining both in the process.
Find out about us, our mission, partnerships, and our various engagement and advocacy programs.
New Wine Tastings
Our online think tank of theologians, pastors, and ethicists reading cultural currents and engaging with the revolutionary message of Jesus.
Join us for one of our conferences, dialogues, or forums.


text:
Huawei Service helps enterprises and governments worldwide with their Digital Transformation.
Cloud Chronicles is written by Network World Senior Writer Brandon Butler, who tracks the ins and outs of the cloud computing industry.
Scott Hogg is the CTO for Global Technology Resources, Inc. (GTRI). Scott provides network engineering, security consulting, and training services to his clients.
Andy Patrizio is a freelance technology writer based in Orange County, California. He's written for a variety of publications, ranging from Tom's Guide to Wired to Dr. Dobbs Journal.
Delight your agents, customers, and end users with purpose-built remote support. With LogMeIn Rescue, you have secure, scalable support for all your devices that fit in your existing workflows.
This blog provides insights and advice on monitoring networks, applications, and data centers in the world's most demanding service delivery environments.
Thought-provoking commentary on technologies that are changing the way mankind does things.
The next advance in Wi-Fi – 802.11ax – is fast approaching. As the industry works to raise the performance bar yet again for the sixth generation of Wi-Fi, and WLAN access point and device vendors
APC by Schneider Electric's Edge series simplifies and dissects the buzz around Edge Computing to provide clarity, insight and actionable next steps for you.
HP Helion is leading the charge with hybrid cloud. Our blog provides valuable insight into the best practices for successfully building, managing and consuming workloads in a hybrid cloud environment.
Akamai is the world's largest and most trusted cloud-delivery platform, making the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers.
Nearly every business is moving to become analytics-driven. A big challenge for IT is that analytics is a highly demanding workload. As the volume of analytics workloads increases exponentially, exist
Steve Patterson's observations and writing are based on his 20 years of experience working in the primordial ooze of start-ups in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.


text:
|Oracle® Real User Experience Insight Installation Guide
12c Release 1 for Linux x86-64
Part Number E26358-03
|PDF · Mobi · ePub
This appendix highlights the most common problems encountered when installing RUEI, and offers solutions to locate and correct them. The information in this appendix should be reviewed before contacting Customer Support.
Information on Oracle Enterprise Manager is available at the following location:
Detailed technical information is available from My Oracle Support:
If you experience problems with the installation or configuration of the RUEI, you can contact Customer Support. However, before doing so, it is strongly recommended that you create a Helpdesk report file of your installation. To do so, select System, then Configuration, and then Helpdesk report. This file contains extended system information that is extremely useful to Customer Support when handling any issues that you report. Please note that this file contains information in a proprietary format. Do not try to modify its contents.
In addition, extended information about internal errors is available by enabling Session debugging. To do so, select the Session debug option from the Help menu. For further information, see the Oracle Real User Experience Insight User's Guide.
It is recommended you use the
ruei_check.sh script to troubleshoot installation issues. When first run, the script requires you to specify an installation type (
collector, or
database). Be aware this selection is saved to file. Therefore, if you want to run the script and be able to specify a different installation type, you need to delete the file
/tmp/ruei-system-type using the following command:
rm /tmp/ruei-system-type
You can specify the parameters shown in Table F-1.
Table F-1 ruei-check.sh Parameters
Performs basic system checks, as well as a a number of prerequisites checks. These include interfaces that can be monitorable interfaces, that the Oracle database starts correctly, and that the Apache Web server, PHP, and Zend optimizer are correctly configured.
Checks whether the Oracle database is correctly configured.
Checks if the RUEI RPMs have been installed correctly.
Performs all the above checks in the indicated sequences.
For example:
cd /root/RUEI/121 ./ruei-check.sh all
If the
ruei-prepare-db.sh script fails, this can be because the database listener has not been started correctly due to a failing DNS look up. To resolve this problem, do the following:
Ensure the
/etc/hosts file includes your host.
Ensure entries in the
/etc/nsswitch.conf file are specified in the required (sequence hosts: files DNS).
ruei-prepare-db.sh script can be run with the
delete option to remove the current database and install a new one.
If the system does not seem to start, or does not listen to the correct ports, do the following:
Restart each Collector service. To do so, select System, then Maintenance, then Network data collectors, select each attached Collector, and select the Restart option from the menu. This is described in more detail in the Oracle Real User Experience Insight User's Guide.
Review your network filter definitions. This is described in the Oracle Real User Experience Insight User's Guide. In particular, ensure that no usual network filters have been applied. This is particularly important in the case of VLANs.
Ensure that RUEI is listening to the correct protocols and ports. This is described in the Oracle Real User Experience Insight User's Guide.
Verify that the Collector interfaces are
up. This is described in the .
If during, or directly after running the Initial setup wizard (described in Performing Initial RUEI Configuration), the system returns an error, there are the following resources and log files available to help you in debugging:
/var/opt/ruei/processor/log/gui_debug.log: a proprietary debug and log file that shows low-level system information. Although it contents may be difficult to read, you can find standard system error messages listed here.
/var/log/httpd/access_log and
/error_log: the Apache daemon access and error log files. If any part of the HTTP or PHP execution of the RUEI user interface is in error, it will show up in these log files. (Note that these are not the log files used by RUEI for HTTP data analysis).
Before starting to address specific issues, it is important to understand the basic operation of data collection, data processing, and data reporting. Any root-cause analysis of RUEI problems should take the following:
Verify data collection. Select System, then Status, and then Collector status. Select a Collector from the displayed list, and verify that the system interfaces are showing traffic activity on TCP, Ethernet, and HTTP level.
In addition, verify that there are no problems with the SSL data decryption. It is normal that some errors occur (especially shortly after startup). But if SSL traffic is to be decrypted, the error rate can never be 100%.
Verify data processing. Select System, then Status, then Data processing. A screen similar to the one shown in Figure 4-6 appears. It should indicate some activity.
If the data collection service is not running, or will not start, do the following:
Use the TCP diagnostics facility to verify that RUEI "sees" all required network traffic. The use of this tool is described in Appendix E, "Verifying Monitored Network Traffic".
Ensure the network cards used for data collection are running in promiscuous mode. This can be verified by issuing the command
N (where
N is the number of the network interface being used for data collection). It should return an output similar to the following:
ethn Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:17:3E:26:AF UP BROADCAST RUNNING PROMISC MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 GiB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 GiB) Memory:b9120000-b9140000
If the network interface is not available, make sure the
ONBOOT parameter is set to
YES, as described in .
If the network interface is not yet in promiscuous mode, set it by issuing the following command:
promisc (where
N is the number of the network interface being used for data collection).
Verify there is no IP address assigned to the network interface being used for data collection. If there is a configured IP address, remove it.
Note:Do not set to 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1. Remove the configured IP address completely.
If, for any reason, data processing does not start, try to restart it by selecting System, then Maintenance, and then System reset. The System reset wizard appears. Select the Restart system processing option. Note that restarting system processing can take between 5 and 30 minutes.
In general, if no data is being processed, verify your system's configuration as described in Verifying and Evaluating Your Configuration. If you do not apply any configuration to the system, no data processing will take place.
If you are using an environment with multiple Collectors, ensure all Collectors are up and running normally. To do so, select System, then Status, and then Collector status. A failing Collector can become a block to further data processing of the system's data.
Sending E-mails is RUEI functionality that is handled on a system level, together with your Mail Transfer Agent (MTA), such as Sendmail or Postfix. If problems occur when sending E-mails, do the following:
If mail is sent correctly by RUEI to your MTA, the user interface will report "Message sent successfully" when you attempt to send a daily, weekly, or monthly report manually.
If mail could not be sent correctly by RUEI to your MTA, verify that the MTA is up and running. Alternatively, analyze the mail settings by selecting System, then Maintenance, and E-mail configuration.
If the mail was sent successfully, but not delivered to the recipient, analyze the operation of your MTA to further identify the root cause of the mails that are not delivered.
Refer to the
/var/log/maillog file for reported mailing issues.
Common issues with E-mail delivery often involve an incorrectly configured MTA, or an MTA that is not allowed to send E-mail within the Data Center or corporate network.
In order to decrypt SSL traffic, the Collector needs to have the SSL key and certificate available. To enable SSL decryption, you should do the following:
Upload the SSL key through the appropriate Collector.
Enable the SSL key by entering the required decryption passphase (when applicable).
The certificate needs to be uploaded to the Collector(s) by selecting Configuration, then Security, and then SSL keys. To check the status of the SSL decryption, select System, then Status, and then Collector status, and select the Collector for which you want SSL decryption analysis. Within the SSL encryption page, note the following:
Decryption errors will occur if there is no SSL key uploaded.
The percentage of successful decryption will be a low number shortly after uploading and activating the appropriate SSL keys.
This percentage should rise in the first minutes and hours after uploading the SSL keys.
RUEI accepts PKCS#12 and PEM/DER encoding of SSL keys and certificates. Basically, this means both the certificate and key should be concatenated into one file. If you have separate key and certificate files, you can create a PKCS#12-compliant file by issuing the following command:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in certificate.cer -inkey key.key -out pkcs12file.p12 -passout pass:yourpassphrase
certicate.cer is your CA root certificate file.
key.key is the server's SSL key file.
pkcs12file.p12 is the output file name for the PKCS#12-encoded file.
yourpassphrase is the passphrase you want to use to protect the file from unwanted decryption.
For example, consider the situation where the CA root certificate filename is
ca_mydomainroot.cer, the server's SSL key is
appsrv12.key, you want the output file to be called
uxssl.p12, and want to protect this file with the passphrase
thisismysecretpassphrase. The following command is required:
Openssl pkcs12 -export -in ca_mydomainroot.cer -inkey appsrv12.key -out uxssl.p12 -passout pass:thisismysecretpassphrase
It is strongly recommended that you follow the installation procedure and settings described in . In particular, you should not perform a "minimal" installation of Oracle Linux. If you do so, it can lead to a wide range of reported problems, depending on the components not included in the installation, but required by RUEI.
The most common of these are reported
fontconfig error messages in the
/var/log/http/error_log file. These can be fixed by installing the following fonts:
urw-fonts-noarch v2.3
ghostscript-fonts-noarch v5
dejavu-lgc-fonts-noarch v2
liberation-fonts v0.2
bitmap-fonts v0.3
bistream-vera-fonts-noarch v1.10
Depending on your language settings, install all other required fonts.
However, other possible error messages include reported missing packages (such as
When a Yum repository is available, all dependencies available on the Linux 5.x DVD can be installed by issuing following command:
yum -y install gcc gcc-c++ compat-libstdc++-33 glibc-devel libstdc++-devel \ elfutils-libelf-devel glibc-devel libaio-devel sysstat perl-URI net-snmp libpcap \ sendmail-cf httpd php php-pear php-mbstring phpldap bitstream-vera-fonts \ librsvg2 xorg-x11-xinit net-snmp-utils perl-XML-Twig
However, be aware that additional RPMs shipped with the RUEI installation zip file still need to be installed according to the procedure described in .
If you receive any Oracle database errors, do the following:
Ensure that the
/etc/sysconfig/httpd file contains the following lines:
source /etc/ruei.conf
If you have to add these lines, restart the Apache Web server using the following command:
service httpd restart
Ensure that the
ewallet.p12 file is readable by the RUEI_USER specified user. Additionally, the
cwallet.sso file should also be readable by the RUEI_GROUP specified group. On Linux/UNIX, this can by accomplished by issuing the following commands:
chmod 600 ewallet.p12 chmod 640 cwallet.sso
Ensure the same host name is specified in the
/etc/sysconfig/network, and
/etc/hosts files.
Note if you make changes to any of these files, you may need to reboot the server.
Verify the Oracle database is up and running by changing to the
moniforce user and obtaining an SQL*Plus prompt with the following commands:
su - moniforce
sqlplus /@connect-string
connect-string is either $RUEI_DB_TNSNAME or $RUEI_DB_TNSNAME_CFG.
You should receive the SQL*Plus command line without being prompted for a password. This indicates that the Oracle wallet authentication was successful.
If necessary, re-start the Oracle database using the following command:
If you are experiencing problems with the reporting module, or find its interface unstable, it is recommended that you do the following:
Clear all content caching within your browser, and re-start your browser.
Examine the error log. This is described in the Oracle Real User Experience Insight User's Guide.
Select System, then Status, and verify correct operation of the core components by then selecting Data Collection, Logfile processing, and Data processing. If any of these components are in error, try to resolve them using the advice provided in this appendix.
If the network interface you intend to use for data collection is not
Up (that is, the
ONBOOT=YES parameter was not set), you can bring it immediately using the following command:
ifconfig ethN up
N represents the necessary network interface.
In order to start isolating OAM-related problems, you should do the following:
Logon to the Reporter system as the
moniforce user.
To obtain a sample value of the cookie, issue the following command:
EXAMPLE_VALUE=$(zgrep ObSSOCookie \ $WEBSENSOR_HOME/data/wg_localhost/http/`date +"%Y%m%d"`/*/http-*|\ tail -1 |sed 's,^.*ObSSOCookie=\([^;[:space:]]*\)[;[:space:]].*$,\1,g')
To view the obtained sample value, issue the following command:
echo $EXAMPLE_VALUE
You should check that the returned output is not empty and does not contain errors. The following is an example of the possible output:
To specify the obtained value as the OAM cookie, issue the following commands:
project - cp $WEBSENSOR_INI/../evt/OAM2* $WEBSENSOR_INI mklookup --match $EXAMPLE_VALUE '%' '%1[$OAM2UserName]' %0
If the following error is received:
*ERROR* - obssocookie: could not dlopen() /opt/netpoint/AccessServerSDK//oblix/lib/libobaccess.so: /opt/netpoint/AccessServerSDK//oblix/lib/libobaccess.so: cannot open shared object file: Permission denied
This indicates that the
moniforce user does not have the necessary permissions. You should logon to the Reporter system as the
moniforce user, and issue the following commands:
find /opt/netpoint/AccessServerSDK -type d -exec chmod o+rx {} \; find /opt/netpoint/AccessServerSDK -type f -exec chmod o+r {} \;
If the following error is received:
*ERROR* - obssocookie: could not dlopen() /opt/netpoint/AccessServerSDK//oblix/lib/libobaccess.so: /opt/netpoint/AccessServerSDK//oblix/lib/libobaccess.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32
This indicates that the 32-bit version of the Access Gate SDK was installed instead of the required 64-bit version. The procedure to download and install the required Access Gate SDK is described in Downloading and Installing the Access Gate Software.
Note that the Access Gate SDK installation package includes a utility to uninstall the 32-bit version (
If the following error is received:
Server is not authenticated to access the the OAM environment
This indicates that the creation of a trust between RUEI and the access server (described in Configuring the Access Gate Software on the RUEI Server) was not successfully performed, and should be repeated.
If the following error is received:
*ERROR* - obssocookie: environment variable OBACCESS_INSTALL_DIR not set
This indicates that the procedure described in Chapter 6, "Configuring the Oracle Access Manager (OAM)" was not followed.
The following error is reported by the
ruei-check.sh script:
Checking if the PHP timezone has been set correctly: [FAIL] PHP and OS timezones do not match (os: winter +0000, summer +0100. php: winter +0100, summer +0200)
This can easily be fixed by setting the TZ environment variable at the bottom of the
/etc/ruei.conf file on the Reporter system as follows:
export TZ=Europe/Lisbon
If this error is reported, you will need to increase the maximum number of processes available to the databases within your environment. To increase the maximum number of processes from the default (150) to 300, do the following:
Logon as the
oracle user to each database within your RUEI deployment.
Obtain an SQL*Plus prompt by issuing the following command:
sqlplus /@as sysdba
Issue the following commands:
SQL> alter system set processes=300 scope=spfile; System altered. SQL> shutdown immediate Database closed. Database dismounted. ORACLE instance shut down. SQL> startup ORACLE instance started.


text:
I have to totally agree with Hanna Perkins and I think that if we got a petition going and got enough signatures how could they say no! I have been down on that side of town and I'mm sorry but it's a dump and the animal shelter would be a drastic improvement. Everything from Motor Inn to the storage units needs to be remodeled anyway and this would be a great way to start. All the ones who voted against this have no wish to make our town a better place for the future. If you are so afraid of change you need to get off the city council and let the ones with hope for the future take the chair. I think all of Estherville needs to rethink who we have on the council and rethink who we have representing our town. We need change and we need to grow WAKE UP! I think Hanna should run for council and I will be her first vote!
Mandy Hoss,


text:
May 6, 2009
American Idol's First Duets: Adam Lambert And Allison Iraheta's "Slow Ride"
We are down to what Snarkista thinks is by FAR the best final four American Idol contestants, and last night the show paired them off and had them perform duets. Fab idea! Danny and Kris did a great job with their performance, but NOTHING could rock the Idolship on "Rock Night" like Adam Lambert and […]Read More..>>


text:
{Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I Thought of That Email Newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the left.} Customers are much more likely to talk about your stuff when they're knowledgeable about it. Try these techniques […]
Tag Archives: Parelli Natural Horsemanship
Newsletter #727: The "Educate Your Customers" Issue
April 16, 2009
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Aha! #3: Social media strategy from Ron LaBrec of the US Coast Guard
April 15, 2009
We're gearing up for our next BlogWell: How Big Businesses Use Social Media event on April 29 in New York — and in doing so, we're sharing a bunch of presentations from our last BlogWell. I'm always amazed at the ideas and stories that are shared by some of the biggest companies in the world […]
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text:
BenfotiamineJanuary 2007
By Dale Kiefer
When treating diabetes, today's doctors focus on establishing blood glucose control, but often overlook the need to protect against common diabetic complications such as blindness, stroke, endothelial dysfunction, and loss of limb.1
Fortunately, benfotiamine, a little-known fat-soluble form of vitamin B1, has been shown to help prevent the development and progression of many diabetic complications. As a result, benfotiamine has become a critical nutrient for those seeking to ward off the potentially lethal impact of sustained high blood sugar levels.
Used for decades in Europe as a prescription medication, benfotiamine ameliorates the progression of diabetic nerve, kidney, and retinal damage, and relieves the painful symptoms of diabetic neuropathy.2-8 Diabetic neuropathy makes it difficult for nerves to carry messages to the brain and also impairs the function of the microvasculature (tiny blood vessels) in the extremities. The result of this pathological blood-vessel damage is numbness and painful tingling in the feet (and hands) that can eventually result in amputation of the lower extremities.
Benfotiamine acts through a novel mechanism, blocking the biochemical pathways by which high blood sugar damages cells throughout the body.8 Now available as a low-cost dietary supplement, benfotiamine can help diabetes sufferers protect their nerves, kidneys, eyes, blood vessels, and heart. Benfotiamine's multifaceted effects in preventing dangerous diabetic complications make it an essential supplement for people with elevated blood sugar levels.
Benfotiamine Differs from Conventional Diabetes Drugs
Diabetes drugs are among the most widely prescribed pharmaceuticals on the market today. Current medications for type II diabetes seek to reduce the dangerous buildup of excess sugar (glucose) in the bloodstream by either increasing insulin production or enhancing its effectiveness.
Benfotiamine is one of the most effective yet overlooked treatments for preventing the debilitating complications of diabetes. Benfotiamine is a chemical sibling of the essential nutrient thiamine (vitamin B1). Thiamine helps to convert fats and carbohydrates into glucose, a form of fuel for the body. As such, thiamine is essential for the proper regulation of glucose metabolism.9
However, while thiamine is soluble only in water, benfotiamine is fat soluble, a characteristic that allows it to enter cells far more readily than thiamine and thus help to prevent diabetes-related dysfunction within the cells. This enhanced bioavailability makes benfotiamine particularly effective in treating hyperglycemia-related damage to tissues and organs.10-12
Benfotiamine's Biochemical Response to High Blood Sugar
Diabetes treatments that seek to increase insulin output or improve the cells' response to insulin do not provide adequate protection against the many complications of the disease. While diabetes medications help tackle the problem of inordinately high levels of plasma glucose, only benfotiamine reduces elevated levels of intracellular glucose and alters the body's biochemical response to the toxic breakdown products of excess sugar. Benfotiamine stimulates the production of transketolase, a naturally beneficial enzyme that efficiently converts these potentially toxic glucose breakdown products into harmless compounds that can be safely eliminated by the body.
Numerous studies have shown that benfotiamine inhibits three major pathways that lead to the formation of toxic substances such as advanced glycation end products (AGEs).5,8,13
AGEs have been implicated in the development and progression of numerous disorders in diabetics. These include:
Interestingly, AGE-associated damage to the cardiovascular system is also seen in aging adults without diabetes. In fact, aging itself is considered a major risk factor for the development of cardiac dysfunction, due to the accumulation of AGEs over time, even in non-diabetics. AGEs are believed to act through several mechanisms to promote vascular damage, scar tissue formation, and inflammation.14 Unfortunately, this process is simply accelerated in diabetics,17 which suggests that even non-diabetics can benefit from benfotiamine's ability to inhibit AGE formation.
Years of use as a prescription drug in Europe have shown that benfotiamine is safe and well tolerated.3,6,7,18,19 Now that it is available in the United States as a low-cost dietary supplement, researchers are turning their attention to benfotiamine and uncovering evidence that it helps to offset the dangers of numerous complications of diabetes and high blood sugar.
Benfotiamine Protects Delicate Nerve and Brain Tissue
The nervous system can suffer in numerous ways from the damaging effects of high blood sugar. Comprising brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves, the nervous system controls the functions of muscles and organs, coordinates thoughts and actions, and conveys sensory information.
Neuropathy, or nerve disease, is one of the most prevalent and painful complications of diabetes. Characteristics of diabetic neuropathy include:
Clinical trials demonstrate that benfotiamine effectively relieves diabetic polyneuropathy. A recent random, double-blind study in Germany found that diabetes patients with polyneuropathy who supplemented with 100 mg of benfotiamine four times daily for three weeks demonstrated statistically significant improvement in nerve function scores. A decrease in pain was the most pronounced effect noted. The study authors said their findings support the results of two earlier randomized, controlled trials, which also found evidence of benfotiamine's beneficial effects in patients with diabetic neuropathy.3 Diabetes has been associated with increased oxidative stress, a contributor to many age-related disease processes. Delicate brain tissue is especially susceptible to the damaging effects of oxidative stress. As a result, diabetes is increasingly associated with cognitive decline, including dementia and Alzheimer's. (See "The Deadly Connection Between Diabetes and Alzheimer's," Life Extension, December 2006.)
A newly released study indicates that benfotiamine may protect the brain against oxidative stress associated with diabetes. Investigators experimentally induced diabetes in a group of test subjects. Following two weeks of induced high blood sugar levels, the subjects received two weeks of benfotiamine supplementation. Benfotiamine alleviated the oxidative stress in the brain that typically occurs with diabetes, leading the research team to conclude that benfotiamine may avert diabetes-induced cerebral oxidative stress through a novel mechanism.20
This important finding means that benfotiamine offers critical protection for the delicate nervous system by shielding the peripheral nerves and brain from damage caused by diabetes.


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While we continue to work on the exciting release on track for the end of this year, we wanted to get these few features out before the holiday season.
We are excited to announce a new partner on the Zenfolio platform: PictureItPostage by Endicia. This new vendor allows you to order customized USPS Postage stamps
in almost any denomination with your favorite image. These are large high quality stamps and they will look great on a holiday card or a wedding or baby invitation.
You can give personalized stamps as special gifts, and Zenfolio Premium users can sell stamps with their own markup. Photos must comply with the
USPS allowed images guidelines.
You can see the list of all available stamp products in the PictureItPostage product list. These products are available in US Dollars only.
We know many of you have been asking for this feature, and we are happy to make this available. You can now keep the photos public and only give out password for downloading
original files to those few who need them. The password assignment is under the
Access Control | Image Protection tab, and there is an optional password hint.
Responding to your requests, we have added the following enhancements to the embeddable Slideshow:
We are now focusing on the next major release scheduled for the end of the year. This release will include Theme customizations and new Home page layouts.
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Stereotactic frame and introducer needles, Bristol, England, 1958
Stereotactic (or stereotaxic) apparatus pinpoints areas of the brain. This is for targeting electrodes, delivering radiation or surgery. Investigations involving the brain, whether animal or human, must be precise and careful. This is so they do not unnecessarily damage the surrounding tissue. The patient is put under general anaesthesia. This stainless steel frame is then secured to the skull using the four pointed screws. Once it is in place and the plain is exposed, long needles are inserted into the parts of the brain being treated or tested. The apparatus was made and used at the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol. The institute was founded by the Reverend Burden in 1939. It is an independently-funded research unit. It specialises in the human nervous system and human neurological disorders.
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Glossary: stereotaxic apparatus
Apparatus for a system of three-dimensional coordinates to locate the site to be operated on during brain surgery.
Glossary: neurosurgery
A surgical speciality that treats diseases and disorders of the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system.


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HARRISBURG - A Republican state lawmaker on Friday publicly urged Gov. Tom Corbett to support an expansion of Medicaid eligibility, a sign that Corbett may be facing a split in his own party as several other Republican governors of heavily populated states embrace the expansion.
House Human Services Committee Chairman Gene DiGirolamo said in a statement that rejecting an offer of increased federal funding to expand Medicaid threatens hospital finances and ensures many low-income Pennsylvanians will miss out on primary health care.
DiGirolamo, R-Bucks, said he understands Corbett's present stance against going along with the expansion. But DiGirolamo also made a vigorous argument for accepting it.
'New jobs, employees of small businesses gaining health care coverage, new tax revenues based on federal monies, improved health care for our citizens, savings on emergency treatment and putting our federal tax dollars to work here in the state - these are the benefits of the Medicaid Expansion,' DiGirolamo wrote.
Republican governors of three other heavily populated states, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, say they're going along with the expansion that begins in 2014.
Corbett first said two weeks ago that he would not take part in the expansion unless Pennsylvania gets more ability to shape Medicaid's insurance plans and make the program more cost effective.
Corbett's insurance commissioner, Michael Consedine, reiterated that position to senators Thursday during an Appropriations Committee hearing.
'We're not willing to build on a system that we think is broken,' Consedine said.
Administration officials also complain that they are waiting for answers from the federal government to their questions about how the expansion would work.
In a separate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Corbett's budget secretary, Charles Zogby, added that the federal government cannot necessarily be trusted to follow through on its promises of delivering funding to states and that it will be difficult to afford the costs the administration foresees being associated with the expansion.
Democratic lawmakers say that the Corbett administration is overestimating the costs associated with the Medicaid expansion and that it would be a net tax benefit to the state.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature have made no public move to embrace the expansion, and conservative lawmakers have publicly opposed it.


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I have been really into this year long blog-a-thon focused on meat preserving skills. Charcuterie and cheese personally has always represented the good life to me. If I was doing well I would always have more cheese and cured meats around. So I was thrilled to hear about Charcutepalooza started by Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen.
If you haven't paid it any attention you are really missing out. Hundreds of blogs are participating in trying out the techniques and skills covered in Michael Ruhlman's book – Charcuterie
I haven't tried any of the challenges yet, but my good neighbor and Mistress of Pigs Terrie Beech is on notice that I will be needing a big chunk of pig someday soon.
I am delaying for now because I need to rig up a curing box like this one from the good folks at Oink Joint. A shout out to Oink Joint and Pork Dork for having the best blog names about all things pig!
Have any of you guys done any charcutrie?


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Stoney Creek
Weight: 24 to 33 lbs per sq ft (Depending on Thickness)
Thickness: 2" up to 2-3/4"
Material: Pressed Concrete
Stoney Creek Pavers are available in six factory sealed colors. Custom colors available. Standard thickness is 2" to 2 3/4".
There are so many uses for concrete pavers. Choose an installation that best meets your requirements for use and desired look of the finished project. Your Tectura Designs representative can assist you in determining which installation best suits your needs, or answer any other questions you may have. Each installation listed shows a pedestrian or vehicular method.
Compressive Strength =>8,000 psi average with no individual unit liss than 7,500 psi ASTM C140
Flexural Strength =>800 psi Average ASTM C293-14
Water Absorption <6% ASTM C140
Freeze/Thaw =<1% loss of dry weight (50 cycles) ASTM 1262
Center Load 1,850 lbs. WTCL 99
NOTE: Your monitor or printer may not accurately represent the actual production color or finish. Please request a sample before placing order.
- Bituminous Set Installation Spec 1123JC_0.doc
- Lok Down Installation Spec 1123JC.doc
- 2018 -Mortar Set Installation Specification.doc
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- Terra Stand 7-6-16.pdf
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- Typical Architectural Details- 716JC.docx
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- SRI - PAVING LEED IMPACT.pdf
- Waffle reducer Inst 2018-12.pdf


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Islamist militants attacked a gas production field in southern Algeria on Wednesday, kidnapping at least nine foreigners and killing two people including a French national during a dawn raid, local and company officials said.
The raid, claimed by an al-Qaeda affiliate, came after Islamists had vowed to retaliate for France's military intervention in Mali, where its forces have been in action against al-Qaeda-linked militants since last week.
The attack also raised fears that the French action could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.
The al-Qaeda group said it had carried out Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas facility in Algeria, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported.
The Algerian interior ministry said: "A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 am against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km [60 miles] from the Algerian and Libyan border."
The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil, and Algerian state company Sonatrach.
A French national was killed in the attack, a local source said, but it was unclear if the victim was one of those kidnapped.
Algeria's official APS news agency said that one security guard had been killed and seven people were injured including two foreigners.
Five Japanese nationals working for the Japanese engineering firm JCG Corp were kidnapped as well as a French national, local officials said. An Irishman was also seized, the Irish government said, while a diplomatic source said an American had been kidnapped.
Also kidnapped was a Norwegian gas worker, the newspaper Bergens Tidende said, quoting the man's wife.
"I received a phone call from my husband this morning and he said he was kidnapped," the woman said. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry could not confirm the report.
The Algerian interior ministry said the attack was directed at bus taking gas field workers to an airport. The number of hostages remained unclear.
Foreigners taken
The foreigners were taken from In Amenas in the morning. Algerian troops had mounted an operation to rescue the hostages and had also surrounded the workers' camp at Tiguentourine, a local source said. A French source said that the raiders had come from Libya.
Algeria has allowed France to use its air space during its military intervention against al- Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels in Mali, although officials have yet to make a link between Wednesday's attack and the conflict in Algeria's southern neighbor.
ANI, which has regular direct contact with Islamists, said that fighters under the command of Mokhtar Belmokhtar were holding the foreigners seized from the gas field.
Mr. Belmokhtar for years commanded al-Qaeda fighters in the Sahara before setting up his own armed Islamist group late last year after an apparent fallout with other militant leaders.
BP confirmed there had been a "security incident" at the In Amenas field but could give no more details.
Statoil, a minority shareholder in the venture, said it was notified of the incident on Wednesday morning but could not say if any of its fewer than 20 employees were affected.
Statoil described the incident as serious and called it an emergency situation.
BP said the field was around 825 miles from the capital, Algiers.
The five Japanese work for the engineering firm JGC Corporation, Jiji news agency reported, quoting company officials. JGC has a deal with Sonatrach-BP-Statoil Association for work in gas production at In Amenas.
A reporter for Japan's NHK television managed to call a JGC worker in Algeria.
The worker said he got a phone call from a colleague at the gas field. "It was around 6 a.m. this morning. He said that he had been hearing gunshots for about 20 minutes. I wasn't able to get through to him since."
The Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said it was gathering information on the situation but could not comment. French Foreign Ministry officials also said they had no immediate comment and were trying to verify the reports.
France troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in a crucial action to dislodge al-Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes.
(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi in Algiers, additional reporting by Catherine Bremer in Paris; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Giles Elgood)


text: MOST FAVOURED CUSTOMER ("MFC") AND BENCHMARKING CLAUSE FROM COMPETITION LAW PERSPECTIVE Most Favoured Customer ("MFC") and Benchmarking clauses are the most important and critical clauses in any service agreement and the outsourcing contracts. The drafting and negotiation of these clauses are most onerous task requiring dexterity and expertise. MFC clause has virtually similar meaning… Read more »


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A stunning little villa with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, done out in true Caribbean style. Renovated and refurbished in 1999, it has tasteful and stylish decorations and details, with a spectacular view out over the Caribbean Sea and Rodney Bay from its commanding hillside position.
The villa also benefits from trade winds blowing from the Atlantic and is kept cool by the soothing breeze year-round.
All the bedrooms have ceiling fans and netting for your comfort.
The ground floor is home to two double bedrooms. Bedroom 1 has two single bed that can be joined to make a king size, with louvered windows looking out on the gardens. There is an en-suite shower room. Bedroom 2 has a four-poster queen size bed, with en-suite and access out onto the sundeck and pool area.
The master bedroom sits higher up on the property and features a four-poster queen size bed, full en-suite bathroom and a private patio where you can enjoy fabulous views.
Communal Areas
An open-plan arrangement makes the most of the space in the villa, with louvered windows throughout opening out onto the lovely view and the patio areas. There is a kitchen and living/dining area with an entertainment centre comprising of a music centre and cable TV. The decking area is wooden and centred around a grand tree, leading to the sensation of a tree house with a relaxed atmosphere.
The patio leads to the pool by a bridge, all of which is surrounded by tropical flowers and plants.
A housekeeper visits the villa 6 days a week.
Please note that our housekeepers are not trained nannies and should not be expected to look after and/or babysit infants and children. If you do make babysitting arrangements with the staff, please be advised this is at your own risk.Request a quote


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Many analysts, and leading Democrats, have attributed Donald Trump's impressive 2016 vote margin among white working-class voters to his embrace of economic populism. In the wake of Trump's victory, Senator Bernie Sanders suggested that "millions of Americans registered a protest vote on Tuesday, expressing their fierce opposition to an economic and political system that puts wealthy and corporate interests over their own. … Donald J. Trump won the White House because his campaign rhetoric successfully tapped into a very real and justified anger, an anger that many traditional Democrats feel."
Senator Elizabeth Warren also identified possible common ground on economic issues: "When President-elect Trump wants to take on these issues, when his goal is to increase the economic security of middle-class families, then count me in."
Democrats can take obvious comfort in a story about Trump winning in large measure because he stole our ideas. And there may be strategic value in this argument for Democratic leaders, who hope either to nudge Trump in a progressive direction or—more plausibly—lay the groundwork for accusing him of breaking promises when he fails to do so. When Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says, "President Trump ran as a populist and still talks like one, but his first month has been a boon for corporations, the wealthy, and elite in America," he is trying to box Trump in and to start developing a 2018 campaign message.
However, as an analysis of why so many white non-college voters pulled the lever for Trump, this assessment misses the mark in important ways. In order to develop strategies for winning back these voters, it's important to get the story right. Trump's populism surely played a role in the surge of white working-class voters to the GOP ticket in 2016. But Trump's brand of populism—and more importantly, that of working-class whites—differs in important ways from the populism of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. I don't mean only that Trump's populism incorporates racial grievance and crude nationalism, though that is clearly a critical distinction both morally and politically. Even setting aside Trump's ethnonationalism, these two populisms have less in common than it may appear.
Sanders and Warren are the champions of what we can call economic populism, a worldview centered on contrasting the interests of working people with those of economic elites. In Warren's now famous formulation, the system is rigged:
People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.
For economic populists, the bad guys are the wealthy, corporations, and CEOs—with a special place in hell reserved for Wall Street. Trump, however, tells a fundamentally different story about how the world works, and who has been winning and losing. Here is Trump's rendering of populism, as expressed in his inaugural address:
For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished—but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered—but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
Warren speaks of the power of economic elites to further enrich themselves at the expense of average people. But in Trump's tale, it is political elites who wear the black hats. This is political populism: The people have been betrayed by their government.
Progressives mock Trump for claiming he wants to "drain the swamp" while promising to deliver deregulation, regressive tax cuts, and other goodies to special interests. But in Trump's view, the "swamp" is inhabited by bureaucrats, not billionaires. His answer to "corruption" is to rescind civil-service protections for federal workers, not limit political spending. His political reform agenda consists almost entirely of telling politicians what they cannot do—banning lobbying by former members of Congress and executive branch officials—rather than restricting powerful interests.
It is true that Trump has embraced some economic ideas that depart from traditional Republican free-market orthodoxy, most obviously his hostility toward free trade agreements. But even on the trade issue, where the two populisms converge most closely, they offer distinct narratives. Compare Sanders and Trump:
Sanders: I voted against NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China. I think they have been a disaster for the American worker. A lot of corporations that shut down here move abroad. … TPP was written by corporate America and the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street. That's what this trade agreement is about.
Trump: For too long, Americans have been forced to accept trade deals that put the interests of insiders and the Washington elite over the hard-working men and women of this country. As a result, blue-collar towns and cities have watched their factories close and good-paying jobs move overseas, while Americans face a mounting trade deficit and a devastated manufacturing base.
Bernie Sanders greets supporters in Portland, Maine, on April 17, 2017.
Trump does tap into blue-collar whites' worries about job loss and stagnation in declining manufacturing communities, but note who benefits: not multinational corporations or their CEOs, but the "Washington elite." Sanders speaks of corporations moving overseas, but in Trump's account it is the "jobs" that move, and the bad actors once again are politicians (and the foreign countries that take advantage of their incompetence). In political populism, corporate interests and the wealthy remain invisible. Indeed, one might even say that is its primary purpose.
Trump's political populism is, fundamentally, a story about the failure of government. And unfortunately, there is good reason to believe it deeply resonates with white working-class voters. Just 20 percent of them believe they can trust the federal government more than half of the time (a rather low bar). While 61 percent of white working-class voters have an unfavorable view of corporations, a stratospheric 93 percent have an unfavorable view of politicians. Given a choice between positive and negative statements about government's capacity and performance, white non-college voters consistently pick the negative view in a recent poll conducted by my firm:
38 percent chose "We need a government that does more to solve problems and help people."
62 percent chose "We need a government that is smaller, less expensive, and interferes less in people's lives."
32 percent chose "When government tries to solve a problem, it usually does more good than harm."
68 percent chose "When government tries to solve a problem, it usually does more harm than good."
27 percent chose "Government has helped me achieve my goals."
73 percent chose "Government has made it harder for me to achieve my goals."
This anti-government sentiment is mainly driven by antipathy toward political leaders, rather than governmental agencies and departments. When white non-college voters think about the government in Washington, 83 percent say they think first about elected officials, while just 17 percent say that programs and agencies are what first come to mind. In focus groups I conducted with white working-class voters last year for Americans for a Fair Deal, it was clear that confidence in politicians and the political system was virtually nonexistent. Among the comments:
They put their political career first. It seems like it's all self-interest in government. It's [that] they're never agree[ing] on anything. It's always … about them.
Everybody that's in the government is a lawyer. They're from a very well-to-do family. They've always had everyone doing things for them, and they're like the silver-spoon-in-their-mouth kind of scenario. So they've never struggled. They don't really understand the little people like the average American, because they're not average Americans.
We asked our focus group participants what they want from their political leaders, and the answers are revealing. They did not talk about jobs, or trade deals, or any other policy goal. Again and again, they told us they just want leaders who care about the people and not just themselves.
Focus on the needs of the people, not special interests.
Care more about the people they represent and less about the office they hold.
Have the best interests of the common American in mind.
Care about the people of the country instead of making their wallets bigger.
This distrust of government is, by far, the least-appreciated factor underlying Trump's 2016 victory. Much of the post-election analysis has debated whether Trump's appeal was three parts economic populism to two parts racism, or 70–30 the other way, when hostility to politicians and government was likely just as important as either of these other two factors.
Political distrust has developed over decades, and has many causes. But let us give the devil his due, and acknowledge that Senator Mitch McConnell, more than any other single person, is the father of Trumpism. By grinding Washington to a virtual halt for years, his blanket opposition to Obama helped ratchet up public disgust with the federal government to previously unseen heights. Even while the economy was recovering, confidence in Washington fell steadily, an impressive if perverse feat.
United Auto Workers member Harry Van Uden attends an Election Day rally on November 6, 2012, at the UAW Region 1 technical training center in Warren, Michigan.
In such a climate, the appeal of an outsider like Donald Trump is readily apparent, as is the enormous handicap imposed on Hillary Clinton, who was perceived by much of the public as the nearly perfect embodiment of "career politician." White working-class voters did not fear electing someone with no political experience, because those with experience had so clearly failed. Warnings of Trump's unfitness for office from institutions that historically play a vetting role in our political system, such as newspaper editorial boards, were largely disregarded because the "experts" had gotten so much else wrong.
WHILE PARTICULARLY WELL-SUITED to the conditions of 2016, the threat posed by Trump's political populism continues. As a means of winning white working-class votes, it represents a quantum leap forward for Republicans. The small government vision of Paul Ryan had limited appeal to these voters, and that remains true even while their anger at government has grown. Non-college whites believe government has let them down, but most have no principled or ideological objections to government playing a strong role in the economy. Although just 20 percent trust the federal government, 50 percent also say it should take a more active role in solving the nation's economic and social problems. Indeed, two-thirds (68 percent) say the federal government should do more to create jobs and improve wages, and majorities also say it should do more to improve K–12 education, to make college affordable, and to regulate banks and the financial sector.
Trump's political populism is more compelling to these voters than Ryan's small government message because it is less abstract and ideological. It speaks to their economic concerns in a powerful way and provides a plausible explanatory narrative: Americans are struggling because they have been betrayed by their political leaders, and taken advantage of by foreign nations. Of course, Trump is also careful not to threaten their Social Security and Medicare benefits, no small thing.
While the anti-government sentiment that Trump exploits and encourages may differ in important respects from Ryan's vision, functionally it poses many of the same challenges for progressives. White working-class voters' negative view of government spending undermines their potential support for many progressive economic policies. While they want something done about jobs, wages, education, and health care, they are also fiscally conservative and deeply skeptical of government's ability to make positive change. So political populism not only differs from economic populism, but also serves as a powerful barrier to it.
Looking forward, progressives must find ways to puncture the belief of working-class whites that Trump's government is "controlled by the people." Many Democrats hope that Trump's cabinet of billionaires has undermined his populist credentials, and each successive appointment has been met with howls that he is betraying his promises to the working class. But if billionaires were anathema to Trump's white working-class supporters, they probably wouldn't have elected one to the presidency. They wanted to kick out the career politicians and try something different, and Trump's reliance on CEOs and military generals has largely honored that wish. The lack of government experience in Trump's administration may frighten many Democrats, but in the eyes of his followers, it's the best recommendation imaginable.
My guess is that Trump will lose ground if and when white working-class voters see that he is not delivering for them, and is in fact serving others. Democrats must aggressively contest Trump's core promise to the white working class: that he is putting the government to work for them. Much of Trump's actual agenda is of course devoted to helping millionaires and large corporations. Our job is to make it impossible for working-class Americans to miss, or deny, that reality.
We don't know yet which specific issues will provide the best openings for accomplishing that task. Republicans' as-yet unsuccessful assaults on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, and their ongoing attacks on food stamps, workplace safety, financial regulation, and many other protections for working people all represent policy catastrophes, but also potential political opportunities.
One issue that particularly engages the working class is also at the top of Republicans' agenda: taxes. Working-class voters are passionate in their insistence that wealthy individuals and large corporations are not paying their fair share, and efforts to give new tax cuts to those at the top will meet with strong resistance. In a recent poll my firm conducted for the Center for American Progress, in 2018 Senate battleground states, 54 percent of white working-class voters had an unfavorable reaction to GOP plans to pass across-the-board cuts in tax rates that would give a large tax cut to millionaires, and 52 percent objected to large rate cuts for corporations. If Trump delivers huge tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy, he will shake the faith of many of his blue-collar supporters.
In terms of a broader message, Democrats' traditional economic populism offers a starting point, but we need to also borrow a bit from Trump's playbook. We must speak not only about inequality and unfairness in our economy, but also about politicians who use their political power on behalf of corporations and the wealthy. White working-class voters are less interested in cutting down the size of government (38 percent) than in taking back their government so that it works for all Americans (62 percent). In another survey we conducted for CAP, we identified a particularly powerful way of articulating that idea from a progressive perspective:
We need to take back our government so that it works for all Americans, not just billionaires and special interests. The size of government is less important than who it works for. Instead of giving tax breaks and subsidies to big corporations, we should create jobs, improve education, lift wages, and help people retire with dignity. And we should get big money out of politics, so that our government is accountable to the people.
By 64 percent to 36 percent, our white working-class respondents reported they would vote for a candidate with this message over a conservative candidate promising to cut government waste and "revive the American dream by curbing big government."
Trump and his team will work hard to keep his political outsider brand alive. Ongoing wars with the mainstream media and the federal bureaucracy will give the story some plausibility, and they will enjoy plenty of air cover from the Fox/Breitbart propaganda machine. Still, it will become increasingly hard for Trump, now that he's president, to pose as the slayer of "political elites." He runs the government now, and campaigning against Washington will increasingly seem more like ducking responsibility than brave truth-telling.
Moreover, Democrats can assign clear responsibility for every shortcoming of the federal government to what Paul Ryan helpfully calls our "unified Republican government." Republicans control every branch of the government, and they will own what they break. The message task for Democrats is to identify the underlying problem not as "politicians" generically, but those politicians who rule on behalf of millionaires and corporate titans. We now have a tremendous opportunity to leverage public disgust with government, while focusing it on its proper target: Republicans' determination to use government power to enrich the rich and empower the powerful.
The focus group research described in this article was conducted for Americans for a Fair Deal and the surveys were conducted for the Center for American Progress; however, the views expressed here are solely those of the author, not the organization's. Click here to read the rest of our series on the White Working Class and the Democrats.


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They say necessity is the mother of invention. JLEW bags originated this way.
Going from the boxing gym daily straight to meetings, Jamie Lewis (aka JLEW) found herself carrying multiple bags and appearing less than put together. She could not find a true carryall sufficient to hold all of her workout and work gear that also looked fashionable so she decided to make her own. About six months and seventy self-made prototypes later she decided to go back to school at FIT – Fashion Institute of Technology (a little different from her Columbia MBA) – and learn more about pattern making and bag construction. In class one day she looked down at the bag she was making and smiled realizing she had chosen a silver lining! That was her aha moment.
JLEW bags is her passion project. These bags energize her even more than boxing does; please help spread this happy energy using the hashtag #bagswithasilverlining as you incorporate #jlewbags into your routine.
Jamie hopes you see it sparkle back at you when you go to pack it in those early morning hours pre coffee . . . when you look down at it from your desk eagerly anticipating gym time later in the day . . . in between airport shuffles, errand runs, mom duty . . . and again when you put your gear back inside it after a good workout . . . or when you look down from your barstool at happy hour and the secret of skipping the gym stays safe between you and your JLEW bag.
JLEW lives by the motto "do one thing a day that scares you" and loves to surround herself with #girlswithguts . . . join us on this journey as we share more about these awesome women.
+1 (646) 791-9915
JLEW Bags
217 Centre Street, Suite 189
New York, NY 10013 USA
She created an authentic movement believing female energy is invigorating, calming and yet can fire you up!
JLEW and TO THE MARKET collaborated to create a stunning beaded clutch – designed by Jamie and produced through TO THE MARKET's artisan network


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NASA chief recalls astronaut days in shuttle trainer
When NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was an astronaut, he would tie his sleep restraint to the rudder pedal in the flight space shuttle's flight deck and sleep floating above his seat.
"I always wanted to see Vietnam from space, having been a Vietnam veteran, but my first couple of launches were always daylight launches, so Vietnam was always dark when we were awake working," he explained at the Museum of Flight, in Seattle, on Tuesday. "So I had to get up in the middle of the night if I wanted to see that and photograph it."
The real space shuttles were sealed off before being delivered to museums in Washington, D.C., Florida, New York and Los Angeles. But Bolden got a chance Tuesday to climb back into a flight deck where he trained many, many times.
Having lost out on its bid for an actual shuttle, the Museum of Flight "won the prize when it comes to education," Bolden said during his first visit since the museum installed NASA's only full-fuselage shuttle trainer last year.
The real shuttles "are great exhibits, but you can't put students in them," he said. "A kid can go in (the trainer), and if they stop and think about it, they can close their eyes and they see somebody doing work up on the ceiling floating up there, somebody doing work down on the floor and then somebody floating down in between. That's the way we used to do it."
Bolden recalled how all shuttle astronauts, including 77-year-old John Glenn (on his return to space as a U.S. senator) had to practice climbing out of a hatch in the flight deck and rappelling down the side of the trainer by rope, under the watch of cameras.
"You did not want to be memorialized as one who slipped and fell and looked like an idiot laying down there on the mat," he said. "I hope I can do that when I'm 77."
After climbing back out the lower escape hatch, a reporter asked Bolden how many times he had done that before.
"A lot more than I care to remember," he answered. "It's a lot harder now."
The Museum of Flight's Space Gallery tells the story of how astronauts lived and worked in space during the shuttle era, while also chronicling the emerging world of commercial flight into low orbit.
That's what NASA wants to see, Bolden said. "What we've encouraged people to do is pridefully display the shuttle as part of our history and heritage, but also for the benefit of the kids that are coming and are dreaming about things they're going to be able to do, find a way to effectively display what they are more than likely going to be able to do."
The gallery includes pictures of vehicles by commercial space entrants such as Space X, Virgin Galactic, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Blue Origin, and an actual Blue Origin test vehicle.
Space X has been the most successful of these companies so far, docking a loaded Dragon capsule with the International Space Station.
"We're battling for one of those Dragon capsules right now," museum President and CEO Doug King said Tuesday.
Once flights really get going, he said: "We're going to have a board over there, like a departure board at an airport."
Read more aerospace news. Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle news.


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Firefox Add-ons
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Reviews for Selection Context Search
Selection Context Search
Rated 4.4 out of 5
4.4 Stars out of 5
Review by Latisha Chan
Rated 5 out of 5
by Latisha Chan,
a year ago
121 reviews
Show all reviews
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Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14403620,
15 days ago
Rated 4 out of 5
by Firefox user 14732542,
22 days ago
Can you open several searches with one click?
Rated 4 out of 5
by Mike,
2 months ago
Excellent and works perfectly! Brilliant configuration setup.
Would be a great help if we could turn off the favicons as they seem very slow sometimes to appear and just "pop" in.... quite distracting.
Rated 5 out of 5
by SyIris' K,
2 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by Boray Eris,
2 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by Marco Santos,
3 months ago
This is truly a fabulous work. Thank you very much!
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 15031834,
4 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14986768,
4 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by Honza B,
4 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14966762,
4 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by BlackWinny,
4 months ago
By far the best ! And with separators, submenus, and even submenus of submenus !
With almost fifty entries (at this day) spread in seven submenus regarding categories, it is one of my main permanent tools in Firefox.
If there is a donation page, tell me where it is and I'm in !
Rated 5 out of 5
by Saud,
5 months ago
Rated 4 out of 5
by IntelliMoo,
5 months ago
Pretty awesome. I just wish separators would show on the popup.
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14748126,
5 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by varmed,
6 months ago
Rated 3 out of 5
by NietEenDoktor,
7 months ago
The addons works for the most part, but the reason I installed it was to use my bookmark searches for images and none of them work. The "%s" isn't replaced by the image URL, so I have to copy paste all my bookmarks into the addon :/
Rated 4 out of 5
by Joe ,
7 months ago
Excellent for reading or general browsing, the popup is perfect.
However, it's very annoying when editing. The extension needs: (A) a toolbar icon to quickly enable/disable the popup. (B) an option to disable the popup on selections inside inputs or textareas. (C) perhaps whitelists and blacklists of pages/domains where the popup will/won't be used.
Also, it's somewhat concerning that this is not open-source -- for more easily vetting the safety and for submitting pull-requests.
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14633341,
7 months ago
Rated 2 out of 5
by Firefox user 12727415,
8 months ago
Excellent functionality, very useful - until it prevented the saving of bookmarks.
Disabling the extension restores normal bookmarking operation.
Linux, FF v64 and at least one version earlier.
I bookmark a page, it's visible in the bookmarks list, but when restarting FF it's no longer there.
Also, after bookmarking one page on a tab and moving to the next (un-bookmarked) page on a different tab, that page shows as bookmarked: the star in the address bar is filled in blue - but this is bogus: clicking on it does nothing and neither does the menu entry "Bookmarks|Bookmark This Page".
Essentially I find the same problem as poster m4758406 (5 months ago at the time of this post).
A very poor workaround can be had by keeping an external list of sites, and then copy/pasting each URL one at a time. Bookmark one tab, close FF, restart (bookmark was saved) - then copy/paste bookmarking the next in the same way.
I'm not sure the developer is still actively supporting this and his other extensions: the last updates for them are showing as a year ago.
That's unfortunate. Aside from the bookmarking problem this extension was very useful.
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14537961,
9 months ago
its excellent
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 14535245,
9 months ago
I found the culprit for the Icons not showing up on the pop up, it's the "Fanboy's Enhanced Tracking List" filter from uBlock Origin. That is the only filter that blocks the icons,also it does this only on pages FETL is actively blocking something. It would be good if you could get it to work with it if it's possible.
Thank you for the addon, it's great and I use it all the time. I recommend it, deserves a donation button.
FETL github: https://github.com/ryanbr/fanboy-adblock
Rated 5 out of 5
by KKTT007,
9 months ago
Rated 5 out of 5
by 小星星,
9 months ago
非常实用 ,感谢作者
Rated 4 out of 5
by Firefox user 14204953,
10 months ago
it's nice, but in firefox, the icon, isn't show to up right bar with extensions
Rated 5 out of 5
by Karin.soy,
10 months ago


text:
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text:
Like summer temperatures, gasoline prices show few signs of cooling off.
According to a report by USA Today, after dipping to $3.33 a gallon and flirting with $3 in the South, the nation's average gas price climbed 17 cents over 26 consecutive days in July. It was the first monthly gain since March and the biggest July jump since at least 2000, AAA said Tuesday (July 31).
Nationally, regular gasoline now averages $3.50 a gallon, although it's pricier in 25 states.
"More and more locations say prices are above where they were last year — and last year was the most expensive for motor fuel," says Oil Price Information Service analyst Tom Kloza. Gas averaged $3.71 a gallon in July 2011.
The Midwest is particularly pinched. Refinery woes in Indiana and Illinois have crimped output, propelling prices to as high as $4.29 a gallon in Chicago and to near $4 levels in several regions of the Rust Belt.
"It's been pretty lousy," says Patrick DeHaan, senior energy analyst for price tracker gasbuddy.com. "In some states, there's been a 40- to 50-cent increase."
Hawaii has the nation's highest average gas price at $4.15 a gallon, followed by Alaska at $4 and Connecticut at $3.82.
The three states with the lowest prices are in the South: South Carolina at $3.20, Mississippi at $3.24 and Alabama at $3.25. State taxes, which can tack on up to 42 cents a gallon, explain part of the difference.
Nationally, prices have climbed in tandem with crude oil. Although benchmark West Texas crude lost 2% Tuesday, it was up about 3% for July — the first monthly gain since April. Much of that came on speculation that Europe's debt crisis would finally be resolved and hope that the Federal Reserve would launch new measures to stimulate the U.S. economy, DeHaan says.
August prices are likely to climb to a national average of about $3.60 before pulling back after Labor Day, says Kloza, who still expects gas to slip to $3 a gallon by November as seasonal demand slips.


text:
Some nice b/w value paintings from our Term 2 and 3 students. Plus some cool "ruins" sketches.
Line Sketching
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Sci-Fi Fine Art 2
More Sci-Fi randomness demo. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Sci-Fi Fine Art
Random image generated during brush testing. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
B/W Values
Today's b/w value demo. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Monday, June 25, 2012
ImagineFX Issue 85
Four paintings I did for ImagineFX, issue 85. Full video tutorial with audio is on their DVD included in the magazine. :) DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Thursday, June 21, 2012
More B/W Value demos
b/w value demos from last night's digital painting class. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Line drawing demo. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
B/W Environment Demo
Term 02 b/w value demo. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Monday, June 18, 2012
Lighting Demo
School is back in session. Week 1, lighting demo in b/w. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Design Cinema Episode 55
Images from this week's Design Cinema. Please download the high-res image from below. First two images are from a Russian Mig-15/19. Bottom image is from a lamp in Chinatown, Los Angeles. DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
Friday, June 8, 2012
FZD Graduation Show + Open House
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text:
Home >> Course Descriptions >> College of Business Administration
Seminar in Global Systems Management
Three semester hours.
Managing in an information-intensive environment requires skills and knowledge of business and systems change. This course teaches strategies for aligning a firm's information systems with rapidly changing business environments, taking both the perspective of organizational and technical issues. In addition, this course has a major emphasis on IT leadership and the skills necessary to be a successful leader in information-intensive, global environments. This course focuses on the interdependence between organizations, people and information technology by examining several key areas, from both a global and an organizational perspective, including: Managing Business Process Redesign and Software Development Managing Projects and Changes Information Technology and Leadership Managing Enterprise Information Systems Prerequisite: Consent of the instructor and the Graduate Advisor.
Home - General Information - Student Services -
Academic Undergraduate Regulations -
Undergraduate Degrees - Academic Graduate Regulations -
Graduate Degrees - Course Descriptions - Faculty -
Appendix A - Appendix B - Appendix C - Appendix D


text: Tri-Align Caliper Positioning System Another original Avid technology making your life better—there's never been an easier brake to install and adjust. With Avid's Tri-Align™Caliper Positioning System™, aligning the caliper to the rotor literally takes seconds. Just loosen the CPS™ bolts a little, and then squeeze the brake lever while re-tightening the bolts. Perfect caliper alignment—just like that.


text:
Michigan Outspends Florida on Education But Does Worse Than The Sunshine State
Study: Despite lowest increase in education spending, Florida students had second highest gains over past two decades
Over the past two decades, public school students in Florida have made the second-highest gains in the nation on standardized test scores while overall spending on education has increased the least.
By contrast, and despite the impression given by unions and school officials in the conventional public school system, district spending in Michigan increased substantially higher than Florida while returning lower results.
A comparison of the two states documenting the numbers as well as answering why this is happening comes from a new study from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
"From 1998 to 2011, Florida students' average test scores increased by 9.1 percent in fourth-grade reading," the study reports. "In Michigan, these same scores increased by just 1.3 percent, and the national average increased by just 3.4 percent. In fourth-grade math, Florida students improved their scores by 11.2 percent from 1996 to 2011, while Michigan students improved by only 4.5 percent and the nation by 8.1 percent."
Yet, every year from 1990 to 2009 Michigan spent more per pupil than Florida and the Sunshine State served a larger share of low-income students.
"Florida's students, especially those from low-income backgrounds, have been making substantial and unmistakable learning gains for more than a decade," said Michael Van Beek, director of education policy at the Center and the author of the study. "Michigan policymakers should take notice. There's a lot to learn from this other peninsular state."
Van Beek said the reason for the gains are likely due to educational reforms in Florida leading to greater accountability for schools, and educational choice for parents and students. He wrote in the study:
Immediately prior to and during Florida's remarkable improvement, the state made substantial changes to the policies that govern its public education system. These included a new school accountability system, clear limits on social promotion, considerable expansions in the schools that parents could choose from, resources on literacy, and alternative routes to certification for aspiring teachers. Some of these policies have been rigorously studied and shown to have a positive impact on student achievement in Florida.
Some specific recommendations include: "expanding parental choice through a tuition tax credit scholarship for private school enrollment; eliminating all geographical limitations to public school choice and online learning opportunities; creating an easy-to-understand A-through-F school accountability system; expanding alternative teacher certification; and limiting social promotion of third-graders who are not proficient in reading."
"Florida's reform model focuses on creating the incentives for public schools to improve, both from the state level and the local level, through parent-driven accountability," Van Beek said. "There's no silver bullet here, but Florida's example should be considered when setting the agenda to improve Michigan's public education system in the years to come."
See also:
Study: Michigan Should Look to Florida to Improve Public Education


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text:
News Release
Lancaster County
Date: January 31, 2013
For more information contact
David J. Shively
(402) 441-7311
Election Commissioner Reminds Potential Candidates
of Filing Deadlines for Lincoln City Elections
Lincoln - Lancaster County Election Commissioner David Shively announced today that filing deadlines for the April 9th Lincoln City Primary Election are quickly approaching. Shively also reminded potential candidates that filing deadlines are different for the Lincoln Board of Education than they are for Lincoln City Council and Lincoln Airport Authority.
Candidates for Lincoln Board of Education, Districts 1, 3, 5, and 7 must meet the following filing deadlines. Incumbent officeholders have until 4:30 p.m. on Friday, February 15th to file for the Board of Education. An incumbent is an officeholder of any elected office who would like to file for the same office or for a different office. The filing deadline for non-incumbent candidates for the Board of Education is 4:30 p.m. on Friday, March 1st.
Candidates for Lincoln City Council and for the Lincoln Airport Authority have until 4:30 p.m. on Friday, March 8th to file. There is no incumbent filing deadline for City Council and Airport Authority candidates.
Shively also reminded candidates filing for City Council and Airport Authority that they must pay the appropriate filing fee to the Lincoln City Treasurer. City Council and Airport Authority candidates are required to have petitions signed by at least 150 registered voters.
Shively encourages those filing for City Council and Airport Authority not to wait until the last minute to file as the petition signatures must be verified once they have been filed with his office. All candidates file with the Lancaster County Election Commissioner. Petition forms and a packet of candidate information are available at the Election Commissioner's office which is located at 601 North 46th Street, Lincoln and is open week-days from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.
For more information on filing procedures and qualifications, please call the Lancaster County Election Office at (402) 441-7311 or visit the Election Commissioner's web site.


text:
More than 60 letters due to be delivered by post company TNT have been found dumped in a residential street.
The post was found last night in Charlton Road, Kenton, and included letters from banks, hospitals and schools, all with TNT stamps on.
In February this year TNT announced it was expanding its postal operation into north west London with new delivery operations in Harrow and Brent.
Nirmal Valjii 42, who found the letters, said: "It's very worrying to be honest. You expect your mail to be delivered properly and not just dumped in the street for anyone to find.
"Now I'm worried about my mail being delivered to me or it whether it's being left in the street.
"It is very frustrating. You expect a level of service and professionalism because these are important letters which have just been left for anyone to find."
This is not the first time mail has been found dumped by TNT, with some people forced to deliver letters to their neighbours.
MP for Harrow East Bob Blackman voiced concerns about the reports.
He said: "It's certainly alarming that vital business post, including sensitive financial documents, failed to be delivered. Even more so that this is not the first incident that has been reported.
"Anecdotally, I was informed of someone being asked for directions by a lost TNT delivery man, which is concerning because I visited the TNT delivery office last week and was assured that their postmen were given informed of the local area routes as a matter of course before being sent out."
Mr Blackman said the deliveryman may have had difficulty finding the correct address but said that was "no excuse" to provide such a "lackadaisical" service.
The MP added: "I will be taking the matter up with TNT's management in order to encourage appropriate action to be taken now, before any similar incidents can take place."
A TNT spokeswoman said: "The mail has been collected from the police and we are now investigating this case and will work to resolve it as quickly as possible.
"We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. On the very rare occasions when an operative has deliberately failed to deliver mail we will take the necessary disciplinary and legal action.
"Their isolated actions do not reflect the dedication and hard work of the vast majority of our employees."
Earlier this year Royal Mail raised concerns about over the expansion of TNT into north west London.
Anton Harding, delivery director from Royal Mail, said: "Royal Mail operates to one of the highest regulatory requirements of any postal services provider throughout the EU.
"Royal Mail's competitors are not required to meet regulated standards for delivery.
"A level playing field in direct delivery competition would benefit consumers and secure the long term sustainability of the universal service. There is a need for transparency around service quality and mail integrity."