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Discovery Japan Mall is a general mall that specializes in Japanese brand products. At the initial opening, the catalog is mainly toys, fishing gear, cosmetics, food, watches, and fashion, Approximately 100 Japanese companies have opened stores with Discovery Japan Mall, and about 15,000 Japanese brand goods can be purchased.
Shipping is available to more than 120 countries and regions and as part of the opening campaign, international shipping is free on orders over JPY 20,000 Yen until the end of October. In addition to credit cards, the mall supports payment by PayPal, UnionPay - AliPay, and WeChat, and the website can be displayed in English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, and Thai.
Purchases can be made easily using a smart phone, and because all orders include tracking and shipping insurance, delivery from Japan is safe and reliable, so you can purchase with confidence from the website.
In addition, there are plans to sell iPad and MacBook case handmade from material representative of the Nishijin-ori used to make Japanese kimonos.
There are future plans to lease by unique makers of handmade goods, in particular with the advanced embroidery technology used in Japan to make goods from kimonos, whose characteristic is "wafu" design that conjours up images of Japan.
Message from CEO
Japan is said to be the world's largest local market. With their advanced technology and superior craftsmanship, there a lot of hidden unique Japanese products that do not reach the overseas market. Discovery Japan Mall is coming together with craftsmen and the manufacturers of these products, to sell Japan's unique products through its website. We will increase the number of companies opening stores, with a target of 30,000 products by the end of 2018, and 100,000 in the 2019 fiscal year.
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The European Commission consults citizens and other stakeholders on all major policy initiatives. Opening up policy making can help the European Union (EU) to become more transparent, accountable, and effective.
Public online consultations are systematically part of the consultation strategy for:
- initiatives subject to impact assessments
- initiatives subject to evaluation and fitness checks
- Green Papers (policy discussion documents)
These consultations are open for a period of 12 weeks.
Open public consultations in the field of agriculture and rural development
Closed public consultations in the field of agriculture and rural development
Stakeholder feedback
Following the new better regulation package, stakeholders and the public at large will also be able to give feedback even earlier in the policy-making process:
- on roadmaps and inception impact assessments
- on legislative proposals (for eight weeks after their adoption)
- on draft delegated acts and important implementing acts (for a 4-week period)
Stakeholder Survey - A Protein Plan for Europe
Civil Dialogue Groups
Civil dialogue groups assist the Commission and help to hold a regular dialogue on all matters relating to the Common Agricultural Policy, including rural development, and its implementation.
The groups are composed of at least European-level non-governmental organisations, including representative associations, socio-economic interest groups, civil society organisations and trade unions.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Restoration of a Hotspot Begins
The Restoration of a Hotspot Begins
To stand in the small, dark reception building at the trailhead, examining its mournful stuffed-animal dioramas-this does not prepare you for the hushed, vegetable exuberance of the forest. Outside, the puma and coati mundi, the birds and assorted snakes all remained invisible to us. But we saw the giant trees enrobed in liana vines, the flowing queues of leaf-cutter ants bearing snippets of green, and the big, white butterflies hovering in the still air, or descending amidst shafts of light, like animated confetti.
We were in a fragment of the Mata Atlântica, the Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil. And for many years, it was the forest itself-not just the pumas-that had somehow remained invisible. This is a realm that was nearly destroyed before it was even discovered-in the sense of being recognized as a place distinct from other places. And yet it is a huge realm. In its original extent, it stretched along the coast from around South America's "snout," all the way to Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, and into neighboring regions of Argentina and Paraguay (see map, page 10). All told, the Atlantic Forest region accounts for 13 percent of Brazil's area, which makes it the third largest biome in the country, after the much more famous Amazon forest and the Cerrado, the savannah-woodland formation that lies inland from the Atlantic Forest.
But the vastness of this biome is not so much geographical as biological. The forest includes some 20,000 vascular plant species, of which nearly a third are endemic-that is, they occur naturally nowhere else. ("Vascular" means that the plant has tubes inside it for moving liquids; nearly all plants are vascular, except for some fairly simple groups like the mosses.) Botanists have found as many as 476 tree species in a single hectare of Atlantic Forest; some areas of the biome probably have the highest tree diversity per unit area in the world.
The forest's animal life is just as rich. Nearly two-thirds of its mammals are found nowhere else, including a variety of endangered primates. Among these are the muriquis (the two species in the genus Brachyteles), which are the New World's largest monkeys, and the diminutive lion tamarins (the four Leontopithecus species). The black-faced lion tamarin (L. caissara) was only discovered in 1990 and is believed to number fewer than 260 individuals. The biome is also a bird watcher's paradise: one area contains 52 endemic bird species. Much less is known about the other types of animals, but it's clear that, in terms of the number of endemics per unit area, the Atlantic Forest is one of the richest places on Earth. It is also one of the most threatened. Nearly three-quarters of all species officially recognized as endangered in Brazil live in the Atlantic Forest. To enter this forest is to encounter a world poised on the brink of extinction.
So it's not surprising that the Atlantic Forest is considered one of the hottest of the world's "biodiversity hotspots." The hotspots are areas that have been identified as global conservation priorities because they are unusually rich in biodiversity and highly threatened. (For a comprehensive survey of the hotspots, see Hotspots: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions, by Russell A. Mittermeier and others-an important resource for this article.) Less than 1.5 percent of the planet's land area falls inside the hotspots, yet they are the exclusive home of 35 percent of all terrestrial vertebrates and 44 percent of all vascular plants. (The hotspot analysis has not yet been extended to aquatic ecosystems.) Of the 25 hotspots, 15 are tropical forests. The Atlantic Forest is usually ranked fourth or fifth on the hotspot list. (See the table on page 11 for an overview of the forest's diversity.)
In general, the hotspots are highly populated; it's estimated that more than 1.1 billion people live within them. But even in this respect, the Atlantic Forest exceeds the norm. It's not just populated-to a considerable degree, it's urban, or at least suburban. That forest with the butterflies lies within Brazil's largest city, São Paulo. It contains São Paulo's old reservoir, still equipped with its antique steam-engine pumps, now preserved as a museum. Although it's no longer in use, the reservoir is powerful evidence of the forest's importance to the cities of the Brazilian coast. Even in its battered state, the Atlantic Forest is still critical for protecting the watersheds and soil that sustain roughly three-quarters of Brazil's population.
A 500-year war on the forest
On April 22, 1500, when the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral dropped anchor at Pôrto Seguro, on the coast of what is now the state of Bahia, he encountered a wet, luxuriant forest that cloaked the low mountains rising from the coastal plain and followed the meandering rivers back into the interior, sometimes for hundreds of kilometers, before giving way to cerrado. In Cabral's day, the forest is thought to have covered 1.3 million square kilometers, but hardly as a uniform carpet. Mangrove thickets lined river estuaries; evergreen rainforest covered most of the coastal plain. Inland and upslope, the forests became semi-deciduous in response to a "dry season" (the part of the year when it doesn't rain nearly every day). Here and there, more distinctive communities appeared, like the patches of fully deciduous forest at higher altitudes, or the coniferous araucaria "Brazilian pine" communities in the southeast.
The ecological fine points would not, presumably, have interested the colonists. But there was one species of tree that quickly caught their attention. The brazilwood tree (Caesalpinia echinata) became a major commodity during the second half of the 16th century; its beautiful, dense, red wood was in great demand for lumber and as a source of dye for the European textile industry. Eventually, the tree would lend the country its name: "Brazil" is from "brassa," a reference to a brazier of coals glowing red, like the color of the wood. But by the early 17th century, the tree itself had nearly been forced into extinction from uncontrolled logging. (It is now widely cultivated in special reserves.)
Over the next two centuries, much of the forest was lost to sugar cane plantations and cattle. Forest was often burned both to make way for pasture and to displace the native people. By the early 19th century, coffee plantations were swallowing up forest in the south, and the region's cities were demanding ever greater quantities of charcoal and fuelwood. A century later, mountains of charcoal were disappearing into the blast furnaces of the newly established steel industry. The state of Minas Gerais (in about the middle of the biome), lost half its forest to the furnaces in just 20 years, from 1920 to 1940. The cut-over ground was not replanted with native trees, but with monocultures of eucalyptus, fast-growing trees native to Australia. And all along the coast, many forests that had escaped the furnaces and farms succumbed to urban development and pollution. Today, half a millennium after Cabral came ashore, the forest's total extent is estimated at roughly 92,000 to 99,000 square kilometers, including the portions in Paraguay (perhaps 10,000 square kilometers) and Argentina (a mere 3,600 square kilometers). Less than 8 percent of the forest's original cover remains.
And yet, until very recently, few Brazilians were really aware that the ocean of trees Cabral faced was something that could be lost, because the biome itself had not yet come into view as a tangible, coherent entity. Roberto Klabin, the paper company magnate who is co-founder and president of the Brazilian nonprofit SOS Mata Atlântica, described this perceptual problem for a Reuters reporter in 1999: "there was this thick vegetation that everybody had to drive through on the way to the beach, but nobody really knew what it was or paid any attention to it." Some Brazilian environmentalists say the country also has a kind of cultural hostility to the forests. Mario Mantovani, SOS's director of institutional relations, explained to us that Brazilians tend to see forest as an obstacle-as something that is in the way of whatever it is they are trying to do, whether that's building a factory or getting to the beach.
It's difficult to get excited about protecting something you don't like-something that has had to be chopped away as a preliminary to virtually everything that you regard as progress. Such attitudes help to explain why, historically, Brazil has shown little political interest in forest conservation. IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental protection agency, is widely regarded as inefficient, underfunded, and corrupt. And while logging in the Atlantic Forest is now illegal, it is still common on both public and private land. Brazil's timber industry is notorious for its own corruption. On a national basis, estimates of the portion of timber cut illegally run as high as 80 percent.
But the existence of organizations like SOS is evidence of a very different set of attitudes-of a new forest ethic that is becoming a major political force. In the 1970s, the uncertain fate of the brilliant, little lion tamarins began to attract serious scientific attention. The tamarins had charisma; soon they also had scientific management committees and an international public constituency. By the mid-1980s, when SOS was founded, the first comprehensive studies of the biome were being conducted. Today, Brazil has some 700 environmental NGOs, of which 30 have annual budgets exceeding $300,000. Mantovani estimates that about 150 NGOs are active in the Atlantic Forest region. In terms of membership, the largest of these is his own, which now includes some 50,000 members.
Every day, a little bit
In 1993, pulpmaking operations clearcut thousands of hectares of native forest in Bahia and the neighboring state of Espirito Santo to make way for eucalyptus plantations. In 1999, Fernando Gomes, the mayor of the small Bahian city of Itabuna, illegally logged 50 hectares of lion tamarin habitat. Both of these incursions outraged environmentalists, but the differences between them are revealing. The nature of deforestation is changing. Although loggers still sometimes level large tracts of forest, especially in the southern reaches of the biome, most of the damage is now inflicted on the scale of Gomes's activities.
In a sense, the deforestation is becoming less "corporate" and more "populist"-more and more the aggregate effect of thousands of actions taken by individual people. Among the middle class, forest loss might take the form of a home in a new vacation development or a timber sale on the family farm. Among the poor, of course, its character is more compulsory: it is collecting firewood or finding fresh soil for subsistence agriculture. This is the new pattern of destruction, low-level and chronic. "Every day," says Klabin, "a little bit."
The deforestation is difficult to measure, especially since so much of it is now occurring in little patches. But over most of the biome, there appears to have been a recent and substantial decline in the rate at which original cover is being lost. Klabin says that around Rio de Janeiro, for example, 144,000 hectares were lost during the first half of the 1990s, but only about 3,500 hectares during the second half. And as the logging has eased, the conservation has picked up. A little more than one-third of the remaining Brazilian Atlantic Forest is now officially protected, in a patchwork of some 170 parks, reserves, and field stations.
Unfortunately, however, the trend to less chopping and more parks will not, by itself, save the biome. That's partly because official protection of a Brazilian forest doesn't necessarily mean much on the ground. The region's parks are often badly managed-or not managed at all. They're the subject of unresolved landclaims. They suffer the incursions of timber barons, developers, subsistence farmers, and hunters. And to begin with, they're not fully representative of the biome.
The parks are also far too small. (Although some Atlantic Forest parks cover thousands of hectares, most are under 500 hectares.) It's this problem of scale that is the real killer. Even if all the park boundaries were enforced, and even if the destruction of all the other forests stopped immediately, it's still likely that up to half the biome's species would eventually disappear, because their surviving populations are probably no longer large enough to be genetically viable over the long term.
This predicament results largely from a kind of ecological cancer called fragmentation. It begins with a simple, mathematical process: as a block of forest is carved up into progressively smaller pieces, an increasing proportion of the remaining forest will be near an edge, and the edge environment is different from that of the forest interior. The edge of a tropical moist forest tends to be hotter, drier, and windier than the forest is farther in. When a new edge is created, it usually exposes "deep forest" plants and animals to an environment less suitable to them. Gradually, they will tend to yield to other species, better adapted to edge habitats. The resulting edge communities are generally much less diverse than the old-growth communities of the interior.
Fragmentation is one of the biggest problems in forest conservation, for two reasons. First, recent research is demonstrating that in tropical moist forests, those artificial edges have a very long reach. A fairly distinctive edge environment generally extends some 100 to 300 meters into the forest. In these zones, the edge effect is pervasive and is likely molding the entire community. But more subtle effects can be detected much farther in-often as far as 1 kilometer from the edge itself-so even a block of forest 2 kilometers thick could show some degree of edge effect throughout. (A typical long-distance effect might be higher seedling mortality in deep forest plants.) In areas once heavily forested, fragmentation reverses the ecological norm: what was a relatively minor component of the biome-the edge-becomes a major component. What was the major component-the interior-becomes a minor one.
Then there's the second reason that fragmentation is so destructive: artificial edges are generally unstable. If you're familiar with temperate zone forests, you may know about a "healthy" form of edge instability. Many temperate forests will regenerate naturally, in one form or another, after they are cut-just as they will after some natural disturbance, like a fire or a blowdown in a big storm. If there is no further disturbance, the forest edges, in effect, move outward. This can happen in tropical forests too, where conditions on the open ground don't differ too greatly from those within the forest-that is, where the edge effects aren't too great. In the Atlantic Forest biome, where conditions permit, you can see strong pioneer growth on cut-over ground-the beginnings of a forest-in 15 or 20 years.
But many cut-over areas are too hot or dry to permit natural regeneration. In such places, the edge vegetation is not likely to "seal" the interior either, as happens under natural conditions, where the transition is not so abrupt. So the edges begin to move inward. The deep forest community dies back and the edge broadens. This kind of corrosion is often exacerbated by what happens on the cleared side of the edge. Herbicide pollution from eucalyptus or sugar cane plantations may poison adjoining forest. The burning of fields, a standard preliminary to replanting, scorches forest edge and offers an opening to non-native, "fire-adapted" shrubs and grasses. Such vegetation spreads by fire and usually burns readily. Afterwards, it resprouts or sheds its seeds, to take advantage of the open ground and the nutrients released by the fire. Even the native pioneer trees-the natural denizens of the edge-may not survive this onslaught. And so gradually the forest yields to an impoverished, waste-lot flora dominated by a few, very tough species that thrive on disturbance. The edges eat the interior.
An eroding fragment is in a kind of silent turmoil. The big trees near the edge are vulnerable to drying and wind, so more and more of them are likely to fall. The canopy becomes increasingly entangled in lianas, the woody vines that are a standard element of so much tropical forest. Lianas thrive on disturbance, and they can overwhelm big trees well into a fragment's interior. When a tree comes down, liana tangles form in the tree-fall gap, choking out saplings. Gradually, the high forest may give way to tangled low forest. A study in the southern part of the biome examined this problem in four fragments that had been isolated for more than a century; this type of low forest accounted for about a quarter of forest area on average. (In undisturbed old growth forest, such conditions are limited mainly to treefall gaps, which account for about 1 percent of forest area.) Such fragments are shrinking not only inwards, but downwards. They are losing not only species diversity but structural complexity.
Of course, the damage is not limited to the flora. From a burnt-over cane field, a forest fragment may look like an island of wilderness, but to the animals within it, it is a prison. Many animals cannot cross even relatively narrow gaps between one patch of forest and the next. Most Atlantic Forest birds, for example, will not cross more than a couple hundred meters of open space. The tendency to vegetational atrophy will likely reduce food and habitat for "deep forest" animals, forcing their populations, already isolated, into decline. Many mammals and birds face additional pressure from hunting and collection for the pet trade. In general, these activities are illegal in Brazil (although subsistence hunting is permitted). But little is done to prevent them and they are pervasive within the Atlantic Forest biome. Collection of wild animals is thought to be the third largest illegal industry in the country, after the illicit trade in guns and drugs.
The faunal decline will put even more pressure on the flora, since most tropical trees rely on animals, rather than wind, for pollination and seed dispersal. A recent study in the northern part of the biome, for example, found that more than 70 percent of the tree species depend on vertebrates (usually birds and mammals) to disperse their seed. Broad seed dispersal is essential to the survival of these species, because they won't usually reproduce by "in-breeding." (In general, that is, these trees are not self-pollinating, nor does pollination from closely related individuals usually produce viable seed.) So vegetational decline leads to faunal decline, which leads to yet more vegetational decline: whether the scale is decades or centuries, an unmanaged fragment will tend to be drawn into an intensifying vortex of extinction.
Macro connectivity
Conservation, in a narrow, traditional sense, is not likely to prevail against extensive fragmentation-not in the Atlantic Forest and not anywhere else. And that is why the discipline is undergoing a quiet revolution. In a variety of landscapes all over the world, conservationists are finding that the key to long-term preservation involves not just protecting natural areas but enlarging them. The preservation of the wild, in other words, frequently requires the restoration of the wild.
Replanting cut-over ground is (thankfully) not a new idea. In some regions, large-scale tree planting has been practiced for centuries as an economic operation, to maintain a timber supply. But replanting as an ecological enterprise-as a way of recreating, as far as possible, a disappearing ecosystem-this is an idea of much more recent vintage. In 1934, Aldo Leopold, the American naturalist who wrote A Sand County Almanac, proposed that the University of Wisconsin Arboretum reconstruct a sample of the original North American midwestern prairie, by then largely a memory. The eventual result was the Arboretum's "library" of small-scale prairie reconstructions. In the mid-1970s, restoration arrived at a level of major ecological significance when the ecologist Robert Betz and the horticulturist Ray Schulenberg launched the first large-scale prairie restoration, at Batavia, Illinois, outside Chicago. A decade later, the forest ecologist Daniel Janzen saw the promise of restoration for countering tropical deforestation. Saddled with the defense of his disintegrating field study site, the forests of Costa Rica's Guanacaste Province, Janzen had the ecological and tactical genius to realize that the only hope was to go on the offensive-and not incrementally but in a big way. He and his colleagues have since restored some 1,200 square kilometers (120,000 hectares) of high-diversity forest. (Costa Rica lies within the Mesoamerican hotspot.) Today, in eastern Brazil, restoration is being scaled up again, to include an entire biome.
At its best, restoration addresses the landscape as a whole. It's geophysical, as it relates to soil and water; it's biological in its concern for flora and fauna; it's political in its recognition of the need to recruit local support for the restoration process. And it is opening up possibilities for conservation that go far beyond the old dichotomy of parks versus development. In the Atlantic Forest, you can see this happening in three dimensions.
1: "Hands-on" ecological proficiency. Restoration is a kind of applied ecology, but the degree of application varies depending on the state of the land. In the Atlantic Forest, the possibilities run through the entire spectrum. At its least intensive, restoration simply informs the management of forest fragments. It may involve the control of liana infestations, for example, or "enrichment planting"-that is, increasing the seedling bank of plants native to a fragment. The latter activity is a good example of the ecological finesse that restoration requires: it's generally considered good practice to use only local seed stocks, when possible, to preserve the genetic characteristics of local plant populations.
At its most intensive, restoration brings the forests back onto ground from which they have vanished. The basic idea is to jump-start and manage a natural process called succession, the series of changes that a plant community goes through as it progresses from open ground to some reasonably stable climax state. In tropical moist forests, one way of analyzing succession is by grouping the tree species that specialize in the various successive states. The first trees to move out onto open ground are called primary species or pioneers; they are followed by early secondary species, then by late secondary species, and finally by the "deep forest" climax species. (In temperate forests, succession doesn't break down into species groups so easily; many climax species, for example, will also pioneer open ground quite happily.)
Recent research shows how critical an understanding of succession can be. Paulo Kageyama, a forestry professor at the University of São Paulo at Piracicaba, a small city about 150 kilometers northwest of São Paulo, has developed a kind of planting grid that regulates the density of each of the four tree groups just mentioned. With this simple but ingenious procedure, Kageyama has found that he can reduce the cost of open-ground restoration from $4,000 per hectare per year, to $1,500, because there are fewer dead trees to replace and less pesticide is needed. (Leaf-cutter ants often swarm over the seedlings and take them apart. But a healthy proportion of tough, fast-growing primary species-about 10 percent-greatly reduces the vulnerability of the entire planting.) Kageyama's system also truncates succession, by allowing climax species to be included in the initial planting. And it reduces the number of years required to achieve stability (when pesticide and tree replacements are no longer necessary) from about seven years to only three. Kageyama and his colleagues have used the system to restore several large areas around hydroelectric dams, and they are collaborating with Greenpeace on another large restoration project.
But a great deal of basic research is still needed to extend such efforts. In order to generate a supply of seedlings, for example, some of Kageyama's colleagues are studying the germination requirements of the biome's prodigious flora. By a very rough estimate, close to a third of the species they're working with cannot yet be reliably germinated in the laboratory.
2: Social engagement. The biggest challenges in restoration do not generally come from working with trees-they come from working with people. Deforestation is a kind of dysfunction between the land and the people who live on it; restoration must repair that relationship. In part, that means reforming the standard categories of land use. Conventional agriculture, for example, produces immense, pesticide-laced monocultures that isolate nearby natural areas and tend to exacerbate degradation within them. Organic, polycultural systems, on the other hand, can achieve a high degree of integration with natural areas and allow for a better functioning of the landscape as a whole.
But it's also important to recruit residents directly into the restoration effort, so that they have a stake in the outcome. In the Atlantic Forest biome, one of the simplest ways to do this is to contract with local farmers to grow tree seedlings. In Bahia, we visited a farmer who had joined a seedling program set up by a local NGO, the Instituto de Estudos Sócio-Ambientais do Sul da Bahia (IESB). Gilberto de Lima was sprouting both ornamental plants and tree seedlings, in black plastic "grow bags" lined up in neat rows, under a small shelter consisting of poles topped by shade cloth. He collected his seeds when doing trail maintenance in a nearby forest fragment. IESB provided some training and helped him sell his plants. He made up to $1.00 per plant. At the time we visited, there seemed to be about 2,500 seedlings in his shelter. Despite the modest size of such operations, IESB reports that the seedling program has tripled the average family income of its participants.
In some deforested landscapes, this type of social forestry could become an important part of the local economic fabric. In São Paulo state, the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (IPE) and its U.S. partner, the Wildlife Trust, have been working with about 80 families to plant a forest corridor connecting the 35,000-hectare Morro do Diabo State Park to a 400-hectare tract of forest outside the park. The tract is habitat for the critically endangered black lion tamarin, and for other vulnerable species, such as ocelets, tapir, and puma. The plantings themselves are not natural forest; they're "agroforest," that is, they're composed of trees and shrubs that can provide fruit, fodder, firewood, and so forth. The agroforests should ease the exploitation of the natural fragments, reduce edge effects, and allow forest animals to move between the park and the fragment. The families are former landless people who have only recently settled in the area. They design and plant their own agroforests, with seedlings supplied by community nurseries, and with advice from project staff. To participate, families must agree to maintain 10 to 15 percent of their land in forest. The corridor will emerge as the aggregate effect of many individual decisions-it's "populist restoration." It's also a kind of community investment in the landscape.
Restoration may even help create new economic instruments for conservation. In the coastal region of Guaraqueçaba, near the city of Curitiba, the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy is working with the Sociedade de Pesquisa em Vida Selvagem e Educacao Ambiental (SPVS) to restore 16,800 hectares of forest. SPVS had wanted to restore this area for several years, but could not afford to purchase the land. (Ownership was considered necessary because the goal, essentially, is to create a large park of restored natural forest.) So in a deal brokered by the Nature Conservancy, General Motors and American Electric Power contributed $15.4 million to the project, in exchange for the right to claim credit for the carbon that the restored forest will eventually sequester. If the climate treaty negotiations produce a carbon-trading system, those credits might actually acquire a tangible value. At present, however, their worth is presumably limited to public relations. A carbon-trading system might be an incentive to restoration, but it also entails serious risks. It could just as easily encourage ecologically destructive tree plantations, which obviously also sequester carbon, and the idea has already been used in the climate negotiations as a way of avoiding the basic need to reduce the emissions themselves. (See "Bogging Down in the Sinks," November/December 1998.) The article beginning on page 17 advocates another economic instrument: cocoa, the major tree crop in the northern part of the Atlantic Forest.
3: Landscape vision. All three of the projects just mentioned are local in the best sense of the term: they have been crafted to fit both the natural and the social character of their sites. But to resurrect the Atlantic Forest, another level of effort will be required, one that is informed with a vision of the biome as a whole. Essentially, the key is to do what _is being done around Morro do Diabo, but on a much larger scale. The best forest fragments will _need to find each other across a highly developed landscape. Restoring the biome will be a labor in macro connectivity.
This is the principle that underlies the large-scale forest corridor project launched by the government of Brazil in 1996. Seven corridors are planned, five in Amazonia and two in the Atlantic Forest: the Serra do Mar Corridor and the Discovery Corridor (see the map on page 10). The project is funded primarily from the G7 Pilot Program to Conserve Brazilian Rain Forests, administered by the World Bank, and it has numerous partners, both inside Brazil and abroad.
The term "corridor" may be slightly misleading, since the goal of the project is not to create narrow bands of forest. Instead, the corridors are regions where the planting will aim to create as many links between the fragments as possible, and to insulate them with buffer zones of restored vegetation. Some areas will be restored to natural forest, others to agroforest. Where large areas of undisturbed but as yet unprotected forest exist, new reserves may be created. The result should be a landscape matrix still containing plenty of human activity, but in which most of the native plant and animal populations have adequate living space.
The effort of bringing a corridor into existence is enormously complex, but this complexity creates opportunities not available solely through broad regulatory approaches. The Discovery Corridor, for example, is the scene of an innovative mapping effort conducted by Conservation International, a U.S.-based NGO that is a major participant in the corridor project, together with IESB, CI's local partner. The mapping is designed to pinpoint areas that have high ecological value but relatively low value for conventional uses (that is, they're poor sites for development or farming). Planners can use the tool to decide exactly where to purchase land, to get the most out of their expenditures. But outright purchases probably won't be the rule; instead, it should often be possible to work out compensation mechanisms for current landowners, who pledge in turn to keep portions of their property forested. Of course, the key to making the whole system work is serious enforcement of conservation measures, on both public and private land. Given the state of current enforcement, that may be the most difficult task of all.
If the system does work, the two Atlantic Forest corridors would protect a substantial portion of the best of the biome's remaining fragments. Overall, the seven corridors planned for the country would cover 15 to 20 percent of the two biomes concerned and could preserve more than three-quarters of Brazil's rainforest diversity. And of course, the approaches developed for building the corridors could be extended to the lands beyond them. If they work properly, as both economic and ecological instruments, such an extension should be, if not inevitable, at least probable.
That is why these tattered fragments hold such promise. "The Atlantic Forest," says Gustavo Fonseca, director of CI's Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, "will be the first success story for any biodiversity hotspot." If it comes, that success may mark the reversal of 500 years of landscape dysfunction. It may in effect inaugurate a new social contract with the land. And it may one day seem as dramatic a step as that which Pedro Alvares Cabral took when he first set foot on these shores.
Chris Bright is senior editor of World Watch and a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute. Ashley Mattoon, a former research associate at Worldwatch, currently teaches biology and chemistry at the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C.


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Donaldson's HR in 9th rallies A's past O's, 5-4
Donaldson's HR in 9th rallies A's past O's, 5-4Oakland Athletics' John Jaso drops his bat after hitting an RBI double off Baltimore Orioles' Chris Tillman in the third inning of a baseball game Friday, July 18, 2014, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Josh Donaldson swiped the spotlight from Manny Machado in the biggest way he could.
Donaldson hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning, sending the Oakland Athletics to a stunning 5-4 comeback victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Friday night.
''Certainly there's a little irony involved in the whole thing,'' A's manager Bob Melvin said.
Donaldson's drive over the wall in center field on a sinker from Zach Britton (3-2) sent the A's streaming out of the dugout in front of an announced crowd of 27,232 at the Coliseum.
It was the All-Star third baseman's 21th homer of the season, fifth career game-ending hit, and third career game-ending homer - including the second this season.
But this one was even sweeter for Donaldson and the A's because it took the attention away from Machado, who hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the seventh after creating an even bigger stir with his bat the last time he faced Oakland.
Machado threw his bat near Donaldson at third base during a plate appearance in Oakland's win at Baltimore last month after reliever Fernando Abad threw consecutive high-and-inside pitches.
Machado was suspended five games and was fined an undisclosed amount. Abad was fined but not suspended.
In the opener of that series, Machado yelled in Donaldson's face after the third baseman tagged him on the chest, knocking Machado off his feet. The dugouts cleared briefly.
Machado, who also singled in the fifth, said before Friday's game he has moved on from the incident. Melvin also said nobody on his club had even talked about it since.
''When you see J.D. come up in the ninth, you kind of have that feeling, 'Really? Could this happen?''' Melvin said. ''And it did.''
Donaldson said he sympathized with the boos Machado endured from A's fans during pregame introductions, when he ran to his spot at third base and every time he was announced at the plate. But he said he tried ''not to get caught up in all that jazz'' and instead focus on the task at hand.
''I enjoy those moments,'' he said. ''It's one of those things where you've got to try to relish the opportunity, and anytime I can step up to the plate with an at-bat to help our team win the game or win the game right there, I feel better about it.''
Machado quieted the hoots and hollers with his 10th homer of the season in the seventh to put the Orioles ahead 4-2. A fan threw the ball back on the field, and others stood and booed as he rounded the bases.
Machado high-fived teammates back in the dugout.
''The booing is part of the game and I have to get used to it,'' Machado said. ''You have to be able to block it out. You just try and channel your energy to do well. I have to gain everyone's respect back from everyone that I let down.''
Jonathan Schoop hit a two-run homer in the fifth that appeared to be enough for the AL East-leading Orioles. But beating the best team in baseball - especially at home - has never been easy this season.
Eric O'Flaherty (1-0) tossed one scoreless inning for the win as Oakland (60-36) extended the majors' best record.
It was just the type of victory that showed why the two-time defending AL West champion A's have major expectations, especially after acquiring pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel from the Chicago Cubs on July 4.
Samardzija looked ready to lose his second straight solid start for Oakland. He gave up six hits - including the two homers - in seven innings.
John Jaso's RBI double in the third gave Oakland a 1-0 lead, and Derek Norris' ninth homer in the fifth tied it 2-2. That was all the A's could muster against Chris Tillman the first 6 2-3 innings.
Baltimore had retired 10 straight batters until Yoenis Cespedes singled leading off the ninth. Brandon Moss followed with another single before Donaldson's homer handed Britton his third blown save in 18 opportunities this season and gave the A's another memorable victory in a season already full of them.
NOTES: Cespedes, the two-time reigning Home Run Derby champion, snapped an 0-for-19 skid - the longest hitless streak of his career - with two singles. ... Orioles RHP Ubaldo Jimenez, on the disabled list since July 11 with a sprained right ankle, is scheduled to throw a bullpen session Sunday and could make a rehabilitation start in the minors in the middle of next week. ... RHP Jason Hammel (0-1, 3.60 ERA) starts for the A's opposite Orioles lefty Wei-Yin Chen (9-3, 4.15 ERA) on Saturday.


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Dental coverage
Manulife Financial's Dental care benefits provide comprehensive dental services and supplies for plan members and their eligible dependants. It is the second most popular benefit sold and is typically sold with the Extended Health Coverage.
Dental treatment is generally not covered by any government plan but the coverage is used by almost all plan members.It provides reimbursement of expenses incurred by plan members, or plan members and their eligible dependants, for dental care services and supplies.
Flexibility means more choices for Dental care:
All provincial dental associations, with the exception of Alberta, publish a dental fee guide each year. The guide is a list of recommended charges for each dental procedure. It is used by dentists as a guide when determining what price to charge a patient and also by insurance companies when determining how much will be reimbursed. Manulife Financial publishes the Provincial Fee Guide Information annually for our advisors, clients, and field staff.
Alberta fee guide information:
The Alberta Dental Association (ADA) has not published a fee guide since 1997. As a result, insurers must develop their own guidelines and reimbursement limits for Alberta. Manulife Financial uses its own Alberta claims data when determining the increases and reimbursement limits. This data is reviewed and adjusted annually.
When establishing appropriate reimbursement limits for Alberta, Manulife Financial helps to ensure that approximately seven out of ten dental claims submitted will be eligible for full coverage, based on the previous year's claims data. Any difference between that which a dentist charges and the amount the benefits plan pays is ultimately the responsibility of the plan members.
To learn more about dental benefits in Alberta including:
• the annual Alberta dental fee guide review
• the Alberta dental fee guide by procedure code for plan members
• general information for Plan Members about dental coverage in Alberta
• a national summary of provincial fee guides
Visit the Provincial Dental Fee Information Page
This information is available to advisors, plan sponsors, and members alike.


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We are supported in our daily work by a strong network of Associate Experts and a big selection of experts brought together in the Wetlands International - IUCN Specialist Groups.
These are experts that we work with in implementing our field work, do research or develop proposals.
Specialist Groups are networks of expert scientists who provide information and advice in support of Wetlands International's programmes and projects. The Specialist Groups are coordinated by Chairs elected by the Groups and supported by its members.
There are currently 17 active Specialist Groups; 14 covering waterbird taxa, one on waterbird harvest issues, one on freshwater fish, and a thematic group on wetland restoration issues. Overall our Specialist Group network involves over 2,000 people. The network of Specialist Groups is a vital part of Wetlands International, essential for the delivery of wetland and wetland species expertise in support of wetland conservation globally.
The Waterbird Specialist Groups are operated as a 'Waterbird Network' jointly with IUCN - Species Survival Commission and are referred to as "Wetlands International - IUCN SSC Specialist Groups". In addition, the Freshwater Fish Specialist Group is jointly coordinated with the IUCN SSC. IUCN Species Survival Commission co-ordinates a wide range of other Specialist Groups apart from the ones shared with Wetlands International, covering different animal and plant taxa and themes. More information on their website.
At Wetlands International, the Specialist Groups are supported by Taej Mundkur, (+31318-660910).
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6th meeting of the WI/IUCN SSC Cormorant Research Group will be held in Osijek (Croatia) from 23 to 27 April 2014 details and further information here.
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Revocation of probation
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Will 2008 Be The Year Of The Linux Desktop?
from the probably-not deptPeople have been declaring the Year of Desktop Linux for years. Linus Torvalds himself declared the Year of the Linux Desktop way back in 2004, a prediction that now appears to have been a bit optimistic. Now, Forrester is predicting that 2008 will be the year that Linux becomes a "credible threat" to Windows. Color me skeptical. The suite of Linux desktop software—especially the excellent Open Office—has definitely improved over the years, with Ubuntu getting a lot of buzz over the last couple of years for putting out a polished and user-friendly product. But desktop users, and corporate desktop users in particular, tend to be very conservative. They want software they trust, and that they know will be compatible with other peoples' software. Unless Linux-based products offer compelling features that the Windows alternatives don't, it's just not going to be worth the risk of abandoning trusted software. Moreover, a lot of companies have a suite of specialized business software that was built around Windows that would be very costly to convert to another platform. Eventually, the cost savings may be compelling enough to get a significant number of companies to switch. Windows and Office are expensive, but switching your whole company to software that has unanticipated flaws is a lot more expensive. So the process of evaluating, testing, and transitioning to a new operating system is likely to take a decade, not a year. So I doubt that a significant number of companies will be providing Linux desktops to their (non-geek) employees by the end of 2008.
Filed Under: 2008, desktop, linux, operating systems


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The Smell
Like many, I can safely say that my college years were some of the best years of my life. There were friends, obscure liberal arts classes, house shows, bars, cheap beer cans, marijuana, lectures on saving the environment and various sexual rendezvouz that one would like to forget (or, for that matter, remember better). In the summer before my Senior year I moved into a one bedroom apartment on Watkins Avenue. It was a great pad, the ultimate hipster chill-zone - an attic apartment with plenty of space, a built-in bookshelf and some groovy windows.
The house was this large yellow victorian house with three floors. Each floor had two one-bedroom apartments on it, except for the first floor, which had a one-bedroom apartment and a two-bedroom apartment. I had really only met the girl that lived directly under me. She was an Art major and seemed like a good person. My apartment used to be inhabited by these dredlocked townies who grew weed in the back closet, so, naturally, my place always smelt a bit funky. But one day, the smell got strange.
My friends came over to hang out all the time, and the rental company had just turned on the heat, so we figured that the smell was coming from my radiator. Heat can smell when turned on for the first time in months. A few more days went by and the smell persisted. It was an old house, so we now thought there might be some type of deceased animal in the radiator. Also, second floor neighbor #2 (not the cool art major gal) - a strange, strange girl from a college 30 minutes away - had a cat, so we thought that she might not be cleaning the cat dung. The smell kept getting worse and worse. It got so bad that I couldn't have my friends come up the front entrance of the house. I made every visitor come up the back entrance, because it didn't smell as bad. Try bringing a girl back to your apartment with that smell? It wasn't good. Even incense couldn't clear this scent.
It was about 4 weeks when the smell started to become unbearable. My parent's came up for family weekend and I asked them to come up the front entrance, asking them if they smelled anything weird. They seemed to think it didn't smell too bad, and my mom decided that we should open the window in the hallway to air it out. I started to think that I was going crazy... was I the only one seriously smelling this?! My mom, dad and I ran into my second floor neighbor (the cool art major gal) and she said that she was experiencing the same phenomena with this smell!! I wasn't going mad...
The next day, the cool second floor neighbor gal called the rental company. I was in the library taking my literary theory midterm (it was an online exam). She says, "You'll never believe what that smell was." I said, "Tell me! Tell me!" Turns out that the old man in the two bedroom apartment on the first floor was dead for a month. I was ingesting the fumes of this dead man for a month. I was walking passed the door of a dead man everyday for a month. For all I know he was melted soup by then. This all got to me, but this isn't what bothered me the most. What really got me is that nobody even know this man was dead... no family, no rental company, no friends, no mailman.... not even the people who lived in his goddamed house! I wrote a poem for this man, "An Elegy for the Man Downstairs," and taped it to his door. I had hardly known him. He yelled at me once when I was moving in. He then spoke to me about Heidegger once. But I wrote this poem because I don't think anyone had actually ever done anything for this man; he lived alone, he died alone. I wanted this man to be remembered, although I never caught his name. He lives forever in my poem, "The Smell," which was published in my chapbook "Poems from Watkins: A Mosaic of Memories from the City of the Hills."
They say that you should know thy neighbor, and let me tell you, I will never forget him.
(I'm a HUGE fan of Snap Judgment... would love for the opportunity to share this story on the show. Happy holidays!)


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To the east of campus, near the Tokyo International University of America (TIUA), is the Willamette University Softball Field, which was completed in the summer of 1999. The stadium features covered dugouts, batting cages, bleachers and an electronic scoreboard
Take I-5 Exit 253 and drive west on Mission Ave. From the top of the overpass it is 2.2 miles to the Willamette University/City Center off-ramp. Once you take the off-ramp, turn right onto 12th Street. In 1/4 block turn right on Mill Street (right after train station) and then one block to 14th Street and turn right again. Enter the second gated parking lot.


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Chiptole, I've been seeing you for quite some time now. Moving to Minnesota, there was a stretch of years where I couldn't find a decent burrito. And you were there for me. You even knew how to make guacamole that didn't taste like green mayonnaise.
Unlike a lot of other fast food places, you were out front with your kitchen, so I could see how the food was prepared. I appreciated that. However, in an earlier post I did notice how strange it was that all the people who seemed to be cooking in the back had the pigment of a pinto bean, while the folks closest to the register had a tortilla tint. In other words, Latinos cooking, white folks running the money. This was the case in California, Minnesota, Maryland, Indiana, and Illinois.
Most other restaurants try to keep their immigrant labor a secret, but y'all was out with it. It gave the food authenticity, a certain panache, a certain elan, a certain gene se qua. Similar to what you might experience being served egg rolls by Asians at Panda Express or crackers by Crackers at Cracker Barrel.
But now the feds are investigating. Why, God, why?


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Republican-endorsed Dierdre Scozzafava has suspended her campaign for New York's 23rd district Congressional seat, "releas[ing] those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit." She evidently has not endorsed Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman.
Recent polling has shown Scozzafava's support collapsing, while the race between Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens is too close to call. It is not clear that that Scozzafava's withdrawal will help Hoffman, as by this point most of her support may well be coming from voters who are more closely aligned, ideologically, with Owens. Still, if Hoffman can win on Tuesday, it will be viewed as a watershed movement in the resurgence of conservatism.
UPDATE: If this polling, out today, is accurate, it may not matter: Public Policy Polling has Hoffman running away with the race. Let's hope it's true.
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"Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time." Winston Churchill
"Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." Inscription on the Liberty Bell


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On this day — sanctuary cities heads to the House, where Representatives might not agree with all of the changes Senators made; the House passes a version of a TWIA overhaul package that's almost identical to the last House bill that was struggling to find 16 votes in the Senate; more on Gov. Rick Perry's visit to New York, including new polling numbers from NBC; Texas Monthly unveils their 10 Best/10 Worst list; there's another development in the pledge card fight; and Michael Isikoff reports on why the Gingrich campaign imploded.
Wherever you are, whenever you need it — get the latest from the Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News Austin Bureau by subscribing to our RSS feed, following us on Tumblr and Twitter @txpoliticsblog , and get the latest in your Facebook news feed by liking us on Facebook.
***Fallout From Senate Passage of the 'Sanctuary Cities' Ban
Critics blasted the Senate for passing the 'sanctuary cities' ban bill late last night, calling the policy unworkable and claiming that it would prevent cops from doing real police work; Austin Bureau Chief Peggy Fikac and Chronicle writer Susan Carroll report:
Opponents said the bill raises some practical concerns, including how officers would verify a suspect's immigration status in the field.
Neither HPD nor HCSO has hand-held fingerprint readers, meaning officers cannot check the federal immigration database from their patrol cars. Even if they did, getting a return "hit" from the federal government's computer system routinely takes up to four hours, authorities said.
With no way to verify immigration status in the field and no charge worthy of a trip to jail, officers and deputies would be left to rely on ICE agents to meet them on the side of the road, critics charged.
There also are concerns about what – if anything – the federal government will do with a possible spike in referrals of illegal immigrants from local law enforcement. ICE already "does not respond as quickly as we want them to," Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez said. "There is no such thing as 'ICE on demand.'"
***House to Senate: Your Move on TWIA
The Houston Chronicle's Patti Hart reports that the House passed out their version of a TWIA overhaul package yesterday; however questions remain if there are the votes in the Senate to pass the House plan:
Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, said his bill overhauling the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association – a nonprofit group that covers some $70 billion in property as an insurer of last resort to coastal communities – will protect policy holders by requiring the Texas Department of Insurance to audit claims processes while allowing lawsuits under restricted circumstances.
He also argued that limits on lawsuits will improve TWIA's reputation in the bond market, which he called essential to returning it to strong financial footing.
Critics said the legislation will curtail the rights of coastal residents and business owners who now will not have the threat of punitive damages to force TWIA to promptly and fairly pay claims – at a time when the insurer has been accused of egregious treatment of policy holders.
According to an email obtained by trial attorneys suing TWIA, the insurer routinely denied Ike claims without cause: "We are basically refusing to pay a claim without conducting a reasonable investigation," an employee wrote. "This is a class action lawsuit in the making."
Such behavior justifies keeping the threat of extra damages, argued State Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, who offered an amendment permitting judges to award up the three times a claims' value for egregious conduct.
Below the fold — a cartoon by the Chronicle's Nick Anderson; more on Perry's trip to New York; 10Best/10Worst; and in 'EXTRA,' why the Gingrich campaign imploded.
***Some Jobs Line
***Notes from Twitter
– The Statesman's Jason Embry tweeted that Rep. Joaquin Castro will be meeting with Austin-area labor leaders today to discuss running for the proposed Austin to San Antonio district that current US Rep. Lloyd Doggett is eying.
– Rep. Van Taylor, R-Collin County, tweeted that House Republican Caucus Chair Larry Taylor won't sign a pledge card for current House Speaker Joe Straus.
Straus' office said they're not worried about pledge cards right now.
"The Speaker is focused on completing the work of the special session so members can go home to their districts and their families," said Tracy Young, Straus' spokeswoman.
***Campaign 2012 Roundup (Perry Edition)
– A new poll from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal has Governor Rick Perry polling in 4th place out of the current GOP contenders; Politico reports:
When tested against a group of nine other candidates, Romney takes 30 percent of registered GOP primary voters. His closest competitor is Sarah Palin, at 14 percent, followed by Herman Cain at 12 percent, Rick Perry at 8 percent, Ron Paul at 7 percent and Newt Gingrich at 6 percent. Four other candidates – Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman – are below 5 percent.
In a smaller field of six candidates – himself, Paul, Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich and Pawlenty – Romney's lead grows even more formidable, to 43 percent.
It's difficult to compare the survey to the last round of NBC/WSJ polling, back in April, when Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Haley Barbour were still in the mix. Since then, Romney's standing has improved and Gingrich's has deteriorated. Rick Perry and Herman Cain clearly have some appeal, at least at the starting gate.
– NBC's Andrea Mitchell, a longtime political reporter for the Peacock, discussed the possibility of Perry jumping in the race on her MSNBC program yesterday.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
– The Texas Tribune's Brandi Grissom and Emily Ramshaw report that Texas Democrats are attempting to up the political ante for Perry's national travels while he insists that he's preoccupied with the special session.
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said that even though Gov. Rick Perry kept lawmakers in Austin to finish up his priorities, and has told those speculating about his possible presidential aspirations that he's fully focused on the special session, the governor has been noticeably absent.
"While 150 of us here are bottled up in a room passing legislation because he ordered us to be here, you'd think he'd be along for the ride," Martinez Fischer said. "And the fact that he's criss-crossing America tells me he's certainly not engaged in what's going on here in Austin, Texas, and something else seems to have attention."
Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the governor is "actively involved in the special session," and is closely monitoring the bills moving through the legislative process. "It's unfortunate some Democrats would criticize the governor for promoting the Texas economy and job creation," Miner said, "which have been the focus of his remarks."
– The Texas Observer's Abby Rapaport has a list of questions that she thinks the national news media might want to begin asking.
In fact since becoming a buzzworthy could-be candidate, Perry's only major interview was with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, who's not exactly Woodward or Bernstein. "Methinks they think you're the guy," Cavuto mused Tuesday when Perry came on the show. For the most part, Cavuto let Perry extoll the virtues of the "Texas model"—low taxes and pro-business approaches. When Cavuto asked how Perry had lured Carl's Jr. restaurants to Texas, the governor flashed a trademark smile. "They love the smell of freedom," he explained. Public policy via olfaction! Perry even got in a couple plugs for his book, Fed Up! before heading over to Glenn Beck's stage for an ostensibly unscripted moment. "How many jobs did you create?" Beck asked as he finished drawing a chalk portrait of Perry. "Since June 2009, about 48 percent of all the jobs created in America were in Texas," Perry responded—before walking off set.
The job-creation theme has been big as media outlets have focused on Perry's potential strengths as a candidate. "In recent months, Mr. Perry has been talking up his success in Texas adding jobs in the face of a tough economy," reported the Wall Street Journal. "Many activists in the Republican Party have pined for a dark-horse candidate to enter the field, which they believe is lackluster in order to give the GOP a jolt of enthusiasm," wrote D.C. insider's paper The Hill. Bloomberg News began their piece on Perry with the headline: "Texas Governor Calls for Halt of Economic Ruin." Glad someone did.
Nowhere was a mention of the unprecedented fiscal crisis still plaguing the state that Perry oversees. While legislative efforts have spilled into a special session to determine just how to make controversial cuts to education, the governor seems far removed from the mess. There are the allegations that he's used the Enterprise Fund and Emerging Technology Fund as slush funds for pet projects. And few stories mentioned Perry's controversial role planning "The Response," a Christian prayer gathering he's organized in partnership with the vehemently anti-gay American Family Association, which has been labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even when it comes to job creation, this is hardly a flawless record; the San Francisco Chronicle was one of the only places to mention that most of the jobs created in Texas are low wage.
***The Clips
– Texas Monthly unveiled their 10Best/10Worst list for the 82nd session. Unlike 2005 and 2007, no Democrats made the list. Also, as is custom, no House freshmen made the list (even though they constituted more than a quarter of the body).
– The Houston Chronicle's Patti Hart reports that a group of UT alums, state and business leaders have put together a group of their own to lobby against the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Jeff Sandefer's support of the 'Seven Solutions.'
Described as a "nonpartisan group … comprised of more than 200 founding members including leading philanthropists, innovators, job creators, former office holders and long-time advocates for higher education in Texas," the new coalition was formed because "we know Texas can only lead the nation and world in creating the jobs and innovations of the future by supporting the highest quality research and teaching at our premier institutions of higher education. Texans want to lead, not follow; we want the world's next great discovery to come from Texas, and we are committed to supporting the high quality research and teaching that will allow that to happen. High quality universities are engines of economic growth and incubators of creativity. They attract the very best researchers, innovators, scholars and thinkers to our state."
The coalition's founders include "prominent Texans who served as gubernatorially-appointed members of the boards of regents for The University of Texas, Texas A&M University and The University of Houston, as well as former university chancellors, presidents and chairs of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board."
– The Observer's Melissa Del Bosque writes that the state's budget cuts will disproportionately affect minorities, who are rapidly becoming the majority in Texas.
– The Texas Tribune's Julian Aguilar reports that Sen. Eddie Lucio has asked that southbound checkpoints be added to the list of items for the special session to tackle.
State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, asked Perry today to include the establishment of southbound checkpoints to the list of items lawmakers are currently debating. He also filed Senate Bill 43, which would grant the Texas Department of Public Safety the authority to establish checkpoints 250 yards away from an international port of entry to search for illicit weapons and cash headed into Mexico.
"As mentioned in the State of the State Address, we must continue our investment in border security," Lucio wrote. "The special session affords us an opportunity to work together and pass SB 43, a bipartisan bill that strengthens the border."
The bill is identical to the legislation filed during the regular session that the Senate passed unanimously on a voice vote. It failed to get placed on the House calendar, however, and was also pulled from a House bill when it was attached as an amendment.
– The Associated Press' Sommer Ingram reports that a new poll shows Texans aren't as conservative on some social issues as many would think.
A majority of Texans want women to get sonograms before having abortions, but don't support legislative efforts to strip state funding from all hospitals and clinics where the procedures are done, according to poll results released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Texas Lyceum group.The poll showed that 58 percent of likely voters support a new law requiring doctors to do sonograms before performing abortions. Gov. Rick Perry had designated the measure as an emergency item at the beginning of the legislative session.
– So, were you wondering why Newt Gingrich's campaign blew up? NBC News/MSNBC investigative reporter Michael Isikoff (formerly of Newsweek) has the scoop.
Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign was crippled by behind-the-scenes blow-ups over the role of his wife, Callista, including her insistence that the campaign arrange for screenings of the couple's movies made by their for-profit production company, according to current and former campaign staffers and advisers.
The use of campaign resources to promote the Gingriches' private movie ventures made some senior staffers uncomfortable and led to repeated confrontations over the issue, they said. The campaign even carved out space on the home page of the Gingrich campaign Web site, Newt.org, where a section dubbed "Callista's Canvas" promoted the movies, with titles such as "Rediscovering God in America" and "A City Upon a Hill," about American "exceptionalism."
Four current and former advisers provided new details to NBC News about the internal conflicts that last week prompted 16 top staffers — including his campaign manager, Rob Johnson, and his longtime spokesman, Rick Tyler — to resign. The mass resignations have undermined Gingrich's efforts to raise money — he has barely collected $3 million, according to two sources — and left his struggling campaign on life support, the current and former advisers said.


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"ALBUQUERQUE — A state district judge on Tuesday sided with New Mexico's oil and gas industry, putting on hold legal appeals related to efforts by the industry to revamp rules for handling drilling and production wastes.
The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association had asked for the appeals process to be halted so the state Oil Conservation Commission could tackle the so-called pit rule administratively.
The commission has scheduled a weeklong hearing later this month to address the industry's proposed changes to the rule, but environmentalists are seeking to stop the proceeding. " More>>>>


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Schrödinger's Download: Whether Or Not An iTunes Music Sale Is A 'Sale' Depends On Who's Suing
from the that-cat-is-dead deptSteve Worona has a great post pointing out how the record labels have clear cognitive dissonance (the ability to hold two totally conflicting ideas in your head at the same time -- and argue for both of them) when it comes to the question of whether or not an iTunes purchase represents a "sale." He puts forth three examples of such cognitive dissonance in the legal context, with the final one being taken from two recent legal cases involving major record labels:
What's being discussed here, of course, are two cases that we've covered. The Eminem case involved whether or not an iTunes purchase counted as a "sale" like a CD, where there was a very low royalty rate (probably around 15%), or as a "license" like for a movie, where the royalty rate was more like 50%. Universal argued stringently, and continues to argue in a series of follow-up cases, that an iTunes purchase is just like a CD purchase, and the much lower rates apply. However, in the ReDigi case -- where the company is trying to argue that if an iTunes purchase is just like a sale, then clearly the "first sale doctrine" applies and those files can be resold -- EMI, which is in the process of being acquired by Universal, argues that an iTunes sale is a license, and thus there's no first sale.
Example 1, the case of the kettle. As summarized by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, "Readers who've been to law school may remember the chestnut known as the 'Case of the Kettle'. A man is charged with borrowing a kettle and breaking it. His reply is that, first, he never borrowed it; second, it was already broken when he borrowed it; third, it was intact when he returned it."
Example 2, the case of the dog. Paraphrasing from a 1978 Wall Street Journal article about well-known Texas defense attorney Richard "Racehorse" Haynes: You say my dog bit you, but I don't own a dog, and he doesn't bite, and you kicked him first.
Example 3, digital downloads. Two recent court cases hinge on how the sale of an MP3 download compares to the sale of a conventional physical recording, known as a "phonorecord" in Copyright-speak. In one case, the singer Eminem demanded that Universal Music Group calculate his royalties for downloads based on the higher rate for licensed material instead of the lower rate for phonorecord sales. UMG refused, arguing that the sale of an MP3 download was the same as a phonorecord sale. In the second case, EMI filed suit against ReDigi, a company that allows purchasers of MP3 downloads to resell those files under Copyright law's "first sale" doctrine. EMI argued that the MP3 files were not phonorecords and thus not subject to first sale.
Worona sums it up beautifully:
Putting these two arguments together, we see the music industry imagining transactions where what's sold is a phonorecord but what's purchased isn't.To me this seems like the Schrödinger's Cat of copyright law. According to the record labels, if we're talking about it from the seller's perspective, it's a sale. But the second you flip the equation and look at it from the buyer's perspective, it's a license. The cat is simultaneously dead and alive. Either the major labels are full of it... or they're breaking new ground in quantum physics. I'll assume it's the former, rather than the latter.
Filed Under: cognitive dissonance, downloads, licenses, sales


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Also love that we're trialing VAR and ironically the only thing stopping it from being a success is the referees.
Last edited by Yannik; 3rd July 2017 at 07:10 AM.
Arturo Vidal: "We beat Argentina, one of the best teams two years in a row. And we beat Portugal, who are the European champions. And if we win tomorrow, Chile would be the best NT in the world."
So according to Vidal, Chile's the 2nd best NT in the world behind Germany's B team


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Internal Emails Show Harris Corp. Misled The FCC On Stingray Device Usage In Order To Receive Approval
from the support-group-for-Stingray-lies-now-includes-roughly-everybody dept
Harris Corporation's Stingray cell tower spoofers are swiftly becoming synonymous with government lying. The FBI has specifically instructed law enforcement agencies to lie about the use of these products, which basically puts the agencies in the position of lying to courts when producing evidence or securing warrants.
Law enforcement agencies would probably lie anyway, even without the federal government's nudge. Many chose to read the restrictive non-disclosure agreements Harris includes as meaning they should withhold this information from local courts -- rather than simply seal the documents or redact them.
So, it comes as no surprise that the web of lies also includes lying to other federal agencies. The lies originate from Harris itself.
New documents obtained by the ACLU of Northern California appear to show the Florida-based Harris Corporation misleading the Federal Communications Commission while seeking authorization to sell its line of Stingray cell phone surveillance gear to state and local police. The documents raise the possibility that federal regulatory approval of the technology was based on bad information.Harris says its devices are FCC-approved, but what it doesn't specify is the very limited approval it has actually received. An email from a Harris representative to FCC employees [pdf link] contains the following paragraph.
Just want to make you aware of the question below we received regarding the application for the Sting Fish. I know many of these questions are generated automatically but it sounds as if there is some confusion about the purpose of the equipment authorization application. As you may recall, the purpose is only to provide state/local law enforcement officials with authority to utilize this equipment in emergency situations.As the ACLU points out, Stingray (or "Sting Fish") usage had long since surpassed the "emergency use only" restriction -- if that ever existed at all. Routine investigations utilize these devices all the time. Just one of several examples: when the Tallahassee police department's use of Stingrays came to light, the court noted that it had deployed the technology (without a warrant) more than 200 times, with less than 30% of the deployments being for department-labelled "emergencies."
Law enforcement agencies are secretly acquiring and deploying these devices in violation of the limited FCC approval, and have been doing so for years -- well ahead of this 2010 statement. And Harris is telling them that it's OK. The ACLU has written a letter to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler [pdf link] asking him open an investigation into the use of Stingray devices. If Wheeler obliges, the FCC is going to face a united front of zipped lips. The FBI already locks the Dept. of Justice out of its investigations. There's no chance it's going to be more obliging of a tangentially-related federal agency.
Filed Under: approval, cell phones, fcc, law enforcement, police, spectrum, stingray, surveillance
Companies: harris, harris corp.


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Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Delicious and crispy elderflower fritters
We're in the mood for fritters over here - which is weird, considering the heat-wave we've been having for the umpteenth day now. Last Friday I made deep-fried crispy stuffed courgette flowers, few days before that we all enjoyed these delicious elderflower fritters.
Elderflower as such is not new to Nami-Nami household. I've been using elderflower cordial to lend some floral notes and delicate flavour to a number of dishes - cold buttermilk soup 'koldskål', quick elderflower mousse, elderflower curd, strawberries with elderflower zabaglione, to name just a few that have made it to this food blog. We've been drinking elderflower fizz at home a lot. But I've always used a shop-bought cordial, as we didn't have an elderflower (Sambucus nigra) bush growing in our garden (they grow wild pretty much only on the Western isles). Two years ago, when we had to finalize the list of plants we wanted to have in our garden, elderflower was at the top of the list (alongside a proper quince tree and an Egremont Russet apple tree). Last year the elderflower was still too young to bear any blossoms, but this year was different.
When I first spotted this tiny promise back in late June, I was very, very excited, to say the least:
Some patience was needed, but eventually our black elder gave us these:
Like with all other fritters and donuts, these are best right after frying, doused with plenty of icing/confectioner's sugar that you can season with some vanilla powder or ground cinnamon.
Crispy elderflower fritters
(Frititud leedripuuõisikud)
Makes about 20-30 small fritters, enough for 5-6 hungry eaters
about 20-30 small elderflower clusters
200 g plain flour (330 ml)
a pinch of salt
1 large egg
300 ml soda water or light beer or milk
a generous splash of grappa, Limoncello or rum
mild-tasting oil for deep-frying (I used rapeseed oil)
icing sugar/confectioner's sugar to serve
Sift the flour into a bowl, add salt and mix. Make a hole in the middle, break the egg into the hole. Whisk until combined, adding the liquid (water, beer or milk) gradually and finally mixing in the alcohol. Put into the fridge for about half an hour.
Meanwhile, clean the elderflower clusters from various critters and bugs (if you cannot see any, you can place the flowers into the freezer for 10 minutes or so - apparently this "scares" them out. To keep as much of the precious pollen, it's advisable not to rinse the blossoms). Cut the stem end as short as possible.
Heat about 4-5 cm (about 2 inches) of oil in a small saucepan. The temperature is about right when a little peeled potato cube or bread cube begins to sizzle and turns into nice golden brown when you drop it into the oil.
Now, working with couple of elderflowers at the time, dip them into the batter, then lower them into hot oil. Fry for about 2-3 minutes, then gently turn them over and let them brown on the other side as well. (I loved how they puffed up so nicely when lowered into the hot oil).
Using a slotted spoon, transfer them into a double layer of kitchen paper to drain off the excess oil.
Fry the rest of the batter-dipped elderflower blossoms in a similar fashion.
Dust with plenty of icing sugar/confectioner's sugar that you can season with vanilla powder or cinnamon first.
More elderflower fritters:
Delicious Days
Nigel Slater
Lottie + Doof
Georgia Pellegrini
Hunter. Hanger. Gardener. Cook.
Doves Farm
8 comments:
- Alanna Kellogg said...
This may sound crazy but I love it that there are some things which just haven't yet become easily available across the world -- even if they're wonderful, which you've long ago persuaded me is true about elderflowers. :-)
- 4:59 pm, July 13, 2011
- Zarah said...
Wow!! I would never have thought of making fritters from them, but this looks delicious! :D
- 6:07 pm, July 13, 2011
- Gitte said...
Elderflower fritters - what a wonderful post. It seems to be the season right now for Elderflowers. I've been reading a lot about Elderflower juices on Danish food blogs and now I wish I had access to Elderflowers.
- 2:31 am, July 14, 2011
- Sandy Leonard Snaps said...
I love your blog.
Greetings from Boston.
- 6:05 am, July 14, 2011
- ChichaJo said...
They look so delicate and pretty Pille! Wish I could have a taste :) I have never tasted elderflower before, not even the cordial!
- 11:24 am, July 14, 2011
- misa said...
Wow, what the pretty fritters! I've never seen elderflower fritters, it looks amazing. I'd love to give it a try! And I love your blog, very beautiful photos.
- 7:53 pm, July 14, 2011
- Sarah said...
I am from Canada, and have been reading your blog for a little while now. Here we call this Queen Annes Lace, and most consider it a annoying weed, not everyone here knows it edible. And those that do, never even bother with them. I love this flower, one of my favorites. I have done many pieces of artwork with them in mind. Anyways - so incredibly interesting! I would have never dreamed of this.
- 6:15 am, July 23, 2011
What a great idea! I have 3 large bushes in my backyard here in Canada, covered in blossoms every June. I am reading this too late this year but wondering if you have ideas for the berries?....
- 4:43 am, July 27, 2011


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Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz wanted to rush through the renaming before a Manhattan community board – where Ferraro spent the last years of her life – could rename a street after her in that borough. The way we see it, with the impending Rapture this weekend, we're not really sure if all of this wrangling actually makes a difference. (The bright side of the Rapture? We'll finally be able to find parking on Austin Street!)
But anyway, in honor of the proposed renaming, we dug through the archives for this photo of Mondale and Ferraro on a campaign stop outside Queens Borough Hall. There's all sorts of Queens elected officials up on that dais: on the far right we believe is a very, very young congressman Gary Ackerman, who to this day is tsill in office, and standing between Mondale and Ferraro is former Queens borough president Donald Manes, who famously killed himself after he was forced from office due to scandal. And is that a young Peter Vallone, Sr. all the way to the left? We're not entirely sure.
However, We are sure there are plenty of other famous Queens elected officials up there that we don't recognize – when this photo was taken Pol Position was still making fun of the foibles of the principal and teachers for our middle school newspaper, but maybe some of our readers who have been around a bit longer can help us out.
If you can help us identify some of the other people up on the riser, either email us (firstname.lastname@example.com) or hit us up on Twitter (@queensledger). Or if you are particularly tech-savvy, send us a text at 21321 with the keyword "polposition" and your best guess. We look forward to hearing from you!


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May 18, 2017 – All those who did not keep their promises, all those who betrayed us and wasted our time – cannot get out unscathed now. The time has come to face their sins as somebody has actually taken up the baton now to slap on the face. A great round of applause for the Monday Sunshine – fame singer & composer Mrs. X as she lashes out to the time-thieves in her new single "Criminals" scheduled to release on May 17, 2017. It's an energetic pop number that has managed to bring a touch of humor amidst pathos and darkness.
The name of the single and the shrill siren at the start might give the feel of a cop & thief chase but Mrs. X is not talking about the "typical" criminals here. Rather she delves deeper into the black & blues of life and speaks out against the wrong doers and fake friends who stole our time and left us emotionally stranded – the "time-thieves".
In her own words-"In life, everything can be replaced, except time. If you are wasting time, you are actually wasting life. It's even worse when somebody takes advantage of your innocence and hangs up on you for his/her own selfish interest. All these people are time thieves who break you down at the end of the day. I have dedicated my new single 'Criminals' to these time thieves as I believe that people who steal something as irreplaceable as time are no less of a culprit than those behind the bars".
The singer with a mask has explained in detail about time-thieves in her new single. As per her lines, time-thieves are those who keep innocent people on hold with false promises and then one day leave them just like that. They are those so called friends who didn't think twice to drown into the abyss for their own vested interests. These are the people who rip off opportunities, block dreams and try to cut down wings by wasting valuable time.
"The time-thieves play with our emotions and they should not be left free. We must muster the strength to speak out against them. However, the hard truth is that you might not find anybody by your side on the way. So, be prepared to act alone".
Produced by award-winning producer and sound engineer Sefi Carmel, the new single comes with 3 tracks. Carmel is also the producer of the Mrs. X's ambitious project "Pop a lá Carte". "Criminals" is written & composed by Mrs. X and the great American singer Corei Taylor has supported her with his virtuoso backing vocals.
Much to the delight of club crowd, the single comes with 2 feet-tapping remixes. The first one was produced musical genius, producer and famous DJ Morsy and the second one was done by Australian star DJ Trash Dog.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/0vKQHsrHAUw
About Mrs. X
One of the latest pop sensations in the contemporary music world, Mrs. X is a highly talented singer, lyricist & music producer. Born in a cosmopolitan background, she follows her global spirit in her music career as well and her team boasts international performers from all over the world.
To know more about the single or contact Mrs X please visit the official website or contact her below.
Media Contact
Company Name: KTL Records, PR Delft Music
Contact Person: Kerstin Albersmeier
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Phone: +49 175 2527212
Country: Germany
Website: mrs-x.tv


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Fantasy enthusiasts of all ages will love The Great Dragon Ride On Toy. Created by artists in a socially-responsible environment, each realistic dragon is given a unique personality. Soulful eyes and expressive faces are lovingly detailed for a life-like look.
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This item is custom made especially for you upon order.Click here for our policy on custom made items.
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We'll call this the Continuing love of Ken Done Art and Fashion Post…
Imagine my reaction in August when the Ken Done Gallery team asked if I'd like to have *Ken Done* art nails done by the amazing 'I Scream Nails' gang…
It was my first real day off from The Social Outfit since opening, and it felt like a wonderful reward for all the recent hard work. Not surprisingly, I had a ball!
I went with the 'Sydney' nail choice… It felt right seeing as I have been living in this city now for over 14 years!
Here's Zinya who did my nails… And is that a two-piece vintage Ken Done track suit? Why, yes, yes it is! So ace!
I'm wearing a 1980s cotton Ken Done shirt, a new Ken Done sweater from their recent collection, and vintage Ken Done socks…
And I am completely in love with my 'Sydney' necklace by local artist and fashionista, Frida Las Vegas. Plus, yellow Fluevogs!
Here's me and the 'I Scream Nails' team, who were up in Sydney for the day, based out of the Ken Done Gallery. Thank you to them, and Camilla, and everyone at the Gallery for always being so welcoming and lovely to me. xo xo
*Good* times!


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Monday, January 9, 2012
Week at a Glance {free printable}
More Home Binder Printables:
2012 Calendar
Daily Quick Clean
Weekly Cleaning
Monthly Deep clean
Blogging Schedule
Important Dates
I'm join these fabulous link parties each week: Flamingo Toes, I heart naptime, Under the table and dreaming, Not your ordinary Recipes, Not just a housewife, The Project Queen, Creating my way to success, Craft Couture, Funky Polkadot Giraffe,The Kurtz Corner, Krafty Kat, Polly want a Crafter, Blue Cricket Design, Southern Lovely, Ginger Snap Crafts, Women who do it all, Eisy Morgan, Laugh, Love, Craft, Clean & Scentsible, House of Hepworths, Somewhat Simple, The Shabby Creek Cottage, The Shabby Nest, The Speckled Dog, Tatortots & Jello, Simply Designing, Chic on a Shoestring, Just a Girl ,Someday Crafts, Reasons to skip the housework, The Idea Room ,Between U and Me, Home Saavy
Pocket full of pink, For the love of cupcakes, Positively Splendid, Raising 4 Princesses , One Stop Shoppe,Oopsey Daisy
Unknown at 10:39 AM
8 comments:
Congratulations on your house! There is a lot of paperwork and official stuff to be done when you buy - but it's a very exciting time! Enjoy it all - and thanks for sharing the cute organising printables too!ReplyDelete
Thanks for linking to a Round Tuit!
Hope you have a fabulous week!
Jill @ Creating my way to Success
Oooo these are lovely! I will br printing these out to help me get organized!! Thanks so much for linking up to Wednesday's Wowzers and sharing your inspiration! XOReplyDelete
I like this LOTS! I'd love to have you link it to my party that just started! Overflowing with Creativity!!! Thanks LOTS!ReplyDelete
XO, Aimee
I'm excited to be your newest follower!!!ReplyDelete
XO, Aimee
Hi! Visiting from tt&j. I love cute printables.. and this one is awesome! Im going to use it next week. Thanks so much :)ReplyDelete
I would love for you to share this at my Friday link party if you get a chance :)
Love the colors/style of this one! I'm printing it out right now! :) Thanks for sharing and good luck with your new house - how exciting!ReplyDelete
I'm trying to download the free week at a glance printable calendar with no success. When I try to download I'm prompted to login in order to use the feature and then the process ends. Is there something that I'm missing?ReplyDelete
Robert, sometimes using a different browser helps. If you want to send me your email address I will email you the file. Sorry for the trouble!Delete


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Data Collection Requirements
MartinPacker 11000094DH Visits (12632)
Over the years I've written emails with data collection requirements dozens of times, with varying degrees of clarity. It would be better, wouldn't it, to write it once. I don't think I can get out of the business of writing such emails entirely but here's a goodly chunk of it. Another thing that struck me is that the value of some types of data has increased enormously... [More]
How Many Eggs In Which Baskets?
MartinPacker 11000094DH Visits (9855)
You wouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, CICSwise, would you? A naive reading of the CICS TS 5.1 announcement materials might lead you to suppose you could . This post is about thinking about your CICS region portfolio in the light of this announcement. While every CICS release introduces capabilities that makes it worthwhile to review your region portfolio, 5.1 majors on... [More]
Are You Being Served?
MartinPacker 11000094DH Visits (11452)
As you will've seen in WLM Response Time Distribution Reporting With RMF I've been thinking about WLM Response Time goals quite a bit recently. And this post continues the train of thought. It's very easy to think of WLM Service Classes as being self contained. For many that's true - and only their own performance numbers need to be considered for us to understand their... [More]
New CPU Information In SMF Type 30 Records
MartinPacker 11000094DH Visits (14444)
Round about now you'd be expecting posts to be geared towards the recent zEC12 announcement, or perhaps CICS TS 5.1 or the DB2 11 Preview, or IDAA V3. So what this post is about will probably have slipped by unnoticed. After all you don't spend all your time looking for obscure New Function APARs, do you? But I think some of you will find this one of value, or at least quite interesting. (I... [More]
Another Usage Of Usage Information
MartinPacker 11000094DH Visits (12321)
This post is about unusual ways of using the SMF 30 Usage Data information, some of which you're certain to want if you're managing z/OS systems' performance. A long time ago I noticed character strings in SMF 30 records that looked like product names. (As is my wont I was looking at the raw Type 30 records for a different purpose and spotted them.) Some time later I figured out these were Usage... [More]
The Low Down on Up Time
MartinPacker 11000094DH Visits (10137)
I can tell when a CICS region came up - without looking at CICS-specific instrumentation. What's more I can repeat the "trick" for any of MQ, DB2, IMS, etc - and so can you . I've just started work on a new piece of reporting. I'll call it "raddrspc" as that's the name of the REXX EXEC that I'm writing. It's about address spaces - most notably long-running ones. In the... [More]
He Picks On CICS
MartinPacker 11000094DH Comment (1) Visits (14551)
If you think this title is obscure bear in mind the original working title was "Send In The Hobgoblins". 1 When I started to write - actually before the "mind mapping" stage - it was going to be all about inconsistency in the way bits of systems are named. You'll see some of that reflected in the finished article (pun intended) but the post has mostly gone in a different... [More]
CICS and Batch
MartinPacker 11000094DH Visits (12099)
In my experience there are two kinds of CICS installations: Those that take CICS down at night - to run the Batch - and those that don't. There is a loose correlation between what the data manager is and which approach is taken: VSAM-based CICS applications tend to be less 24x7 than DB2 ones, though it's not that clear cut. This post is about how you (really I) might glean how you run CICS... [More]