text:
River Valley … one step ahead
Freelance journalist Pippa Brown looks at how an experience riding horses using a "Natural Horsemanship" way of doing things can be so much more rewarding.
1 / 4
Tired, bored, plodding horses – nose-to-tail, following the leader, just going through the motions. It could be just like any other trekking business and Brian and Nicola Megaw, owners of River Valley Lodge and Stables, "knew things had to change".
Unlike their successful rafting business the trekking operation was going nowhere. Nicola, who runs River Valley Stables, had been feeling despondent and frustrated about it all, until five years ago when she came across a demonstration by international Parelli instructor and horse development specialist Russell Higgins.
"We needed to introduce something unique. "I was ready to try these new ideas, for myself, our staff, our customers and the horses."
It was the first time Nicola been exposed to the idea of natural horsemanship, where the human-equine relationship is taken to another level – a meld of human personality and horse "horseanality".
The Parelli system is a fun way of understanding the world from the horse's point of view. Building up a partnership on the ground, around the principles of love, language and leadership it advances to one of ultimate trust between horse and rider and riding free, without contact and any form of bondage.
Riding with a loose rein, in a halter as opposed to a bit and bridle, can be a bit difficult for experienced riders to get used to she says.
"Some people want to try it again, or with their own horse. "Others don't know what the difference is, but no one has refused to go a trek because the horse is in a halter.
"While some are happy just to sit on the horse and not try anything new, for those that are interested we can show them more, or give them some idea of where they can gain additional knowledge once they leave us. "We have a package called The Home on the Range, which is an opportunity to spend up to five days riding and learning more about these methods as well as having fun with the horses."
Nicola says it's hard to remember what the horses were really like before they adopted these techniques. "It's been a gradual change - if they went too fast you could bring them to a stop by pulling on their mouths and if they didn't move you could always make them go with a stick," she says.
"One of the most touching things is when you see the horse actually wants to be with you. "They do want to get along with us if we can let them."
The horses are happier, more expressive, trusting and relaxed. Brian, who seldom works directly with them, says the biggest change he's noticed is he can walk up to any of them in the paddock and they'll greet me with an alert ears-forward stance.
Everyone at River Valley has benefited from these new partnerships. The staff embrace it and want to learn more. "It's a journey for all of us."
Brian cannot imagine it any other way. "I see happy horses in good condition, and staff, and sometimes riders - definitely on half day or longer treks - making real connections with their horses. "For me this is part of the whole deal of being connected with the landscape, and ultimately with each other."
"I'd support closing the trekking operation rather than revert to the sad sight of lines of bored horses, doing the same thing day in and day out," says Brian.
River Valley is near Taihape, about halfway between Auckland and Wellington and a short distance off State Highway 1. For more information go to www.rivervalley.co.nz
Artigo de
River Valley Stables
Experience the freedom of riding using Natural Horsemanship techniques. River Valley Stables has something for everyone – from a half day horse trek, to a multi-day horse riding holiday. We have rides for all abilities.


text:
Sorry, this item is not available anymore for purchase online. Please see our recommended replacement product.
OptiPlex 980 Desktop
As the highest-performing Dell™ OptiPlex™ desktop ever, the OptiPlex 980 meets the challenges of complex IT environments with a strong combination of secure, enterprise-class performance, energy-conscious design and leading technology for remote systems management.
- Up to 35% increase in desktop performance over previous-generation OptiPlex systems
- Advanced management options to empower IT
- Energy-conscious design options featuring a 90% efficient power-supply units and the exclusive OptiPlex EcoKit advantage

subset: commoncrawl


text:
2016 Nissan Patrol will undergo changes to face the tough competition car SUV. The all New Nissan Patrol SUV will be one of the latest of a series of gasoline which will strengthen the position of Nissan. Nissan Patrol will be featuring some of the latest variant of the powerful machine. Nissan Patrol will provide a refresher on the look out for the more modern and elegant. This article will discuss about the changes and specifications of 2016 Nissan Patrol for car SUV lovers.
2016 Nissan Patrol Specs Design
2016 Nissan Patrol will give updates on the look out. New Nissan Patrol looks modern with a new lighting system using LED lights. To the front of the Nissan Patrol will provide design grill with a new look and a new wheel design for use as well. As for the interior design of the 2016 Nissan Patrol will offer a more modern and sophisticated. The all New Nissan Patrol is rumored to be adding some new features that will enhance the value of leisure and entertainment in the cabin. We hope the Nissan Patrol will give the latest features and advanced equipment that will improve security and fun for the passengers. We are waiting for official information about the specifics of the latest Nissan Patrol 2016.
2016 Nissan Patrol Engine
2016 Nissan Patrol is car SUV will offer some variants of engines has an impressive performance. The all New Nissan Patrol Base trim to be V8 5.8 power that will produce 317 horsepower and 385 lb.-ft. While the New Nissan Patrol to trim high will use engines that provide power to 400 horsepower and 413 lb.-ft.
2016 Nissan Patrol Release Date and Price
2016 Nissan Patrol SUV is one which gives the look out with a new design and offers some of the powerful engine variants. Nissan has yet to provide official information about the release date of 2016 Nissan Patrol. But Nissan Patrol estimated the latest edition will come in 2016. As for the 2016 Nissan Patrol price information according to rumors in circulation will be sold for about $ 45,000.


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# Florida State added linebacker Aaron Gresham of Mayo-Lafayette, Fla.
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FAQs, Downloads & Videos
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text:
- Sleeping Dogs is long dead.
- Definitive Edition was a lazy cashgrab.
- Triad Wars was a cool concept but ultimately a bad idea.
- And as of today, UFG is officially closed.
But really, the golden days have long gone, UFG's death is just the final nail in the coffin.


text:
Independent Global Leaders Bringing
Expert Advisory and Technology Solutions
to the Debt and Derivatives Markets
Through our blend of advisory services and proven technologies, we provide companies the solutions br>
they need to support their investment and risk management strategies.
Serving Clients Worldwide
Our solutions serve the investment and risk management needs of 2,500 clients across a spectrum of industries and markets. As such, we have offices in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia.


text:
Platinum Galleria Glass - Chinaprice: contact company for price
370ml 135mm 190mm YC- 10- I04
Lead time
The delivery time should be in 15 days after receipt of
If the products you ordered is out of stock, we'll advise
you in time, generally the delivery time should be within 4
Price Terms
1. FOB Tianjin China
2. CNF or CIF main ports
Payment Terms
1. T/ T 30% before shipment, and balance 70% within 15 days
of receipt copy of the shipping documents
2. L/ C at sight
Hand- made, environmental friendly,
healthy, popular style,
very low MOQ policy,
competitive prices,
prompt delivery
Company Contact:
- Phone: 863165218061
- Address: Wanda Plaza,Langfang City, Hebei Province, China, Langfang City, China
- Email:
- Website: http://www.lfyechuan.com
Published date: May 15, 2014 -
- Business Description: Yechuan is one of the leading hand made glassware suppliers in China.
We have a wide variety of high quality items, including stemware,
tumblers, beer mugs, pitchers, decanters and vases as well as
candleholders and votives.
Related listings
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Hot sale drinking glasses popular glass mason jar tumbler for smoothie, juice, cocktail, etc for home, for party, for wedding, for festival, etc round shaped with handle clear glass material: food grade, eco- friendly _ The glassware has drinking gla...
2015 New Arrival Engraved Clear Glass Candle HolderGlassware - Shenzhen Sunny Glassware Co.,Ltd - China - April 22, 2015 - contact company for price
Item no: SGLYP15031901 Top dia: 73mm Bottom dia: 38mm Height: 58mm Max dia: 76mm Capacity: 99ml Weight: 263g Material: High white glass Craft: Handblown Sample time: 5~7 days after confirming Packaging: 6pcs per inner box, 48 pcs per carton Delivery ...
Liu Li Hippocampus Applique Lighting AccessoriesGlassware - Shenzhen Artop Crafts Co., Ltd - China - December 6, 2014 - contact company for price
Product Description Liu li Hippocampus Applique for Lighting Accessories Liu li( colored glaze) , Regarded as the first among the ' Top Five Wares' of China, and one of the ' Seven Treasures' of Buddhism. It' s a new item of lighting accessories, it'...
Safe Trade Tips
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- Get to know more about scams to avoid: Internet Crime Complaint Center - International Financial Scams
- This site is never involved in any transaction, and does not handle payments, shipping, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer "buyer protection" or "seller certification"


text:
Europe and North America
Helsinki Action Plan
Monitoring Survey
The results of the first
Helsinki Action Plan Monitoring Survey
for Europe are now available.
Analysis of the overall results of the survey
You can download the full text of the survey questions here.
National Focal Points for Europe participated in the survey to track progress on projects and activities planned and/or underway towards advancing the priorities of the Helsinki Action Plan.
An analysis of the results of the survey will be examined by the World Heritage Committee at its 41st session (Krakow, 2-12 July 2017).
World Heritage in Europe Today
World Heritage attracts and fascinates: media around the world publish thousands of articles about it every year and countries invest a great deal of work and money to get sites inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Yet not enough is known about the conservation and management efforts that go into protecting the Outstanding Universal Value of the 1000+ sites that are currently on the World Heritage List.
World Heritage in Europe Today, a UNESCO publication, brings together the experience, challenges and success stories of the thousands of people who are directly involved with World Heritage in Europe - a region which accounts for close to half of the World Heritage List.
View Online
PDF version
Hard copy
Share your World Heritage story
with the rest of the World!
#OurWorldHeritage is a social media campaign where people are invited to share their unique World Heritage stories and experiences with our global community. Whether they are close to home or oceans away, World Heritage properties fill us with wonder and tell incredible stories of cultural and natural diversity on our planet.
Share a photograph of yourself at a UNESCO World Heritage site and tell us why you enjoyed that experience for a chance to win a prize! Follow UNESCO's Instagram to participate and to know more about this competition.
Top entries will have a chance to win a prize.
Read the terms and conditions
Periodic Reporting
Every six years, all States Parties to the World Heritage Convention are invited to carry out a Periodic Reporting exercise concerning World Heritage on their territory. The Second Cycle, which was completed in 2012-2015 for the Europe and North America region, allowed the respondents to provide a self-assessment on the implementation of the World Heritage Convention at national and local levels and facilitated the update of information about the properties, recoding any evolution of their state of conservation.
Second Cycle Reports
Periodic Reporting Second Cycle Reports
© German Commission for UNESCO / Kolja Matzke
At its 39th session in July 2015, the World Heritage Committee adopted the Second Cycle Periodic Report for Europe, one year after adopting the Second Cycle Periodic Report for North America.
These detailed reports summarise the core outcomes of the Second Cycle of Periodic Reporting in the region and provide a unique insight into the state of conservation or properties across the region.
Action Plans
For Europe and for North America
© Our Place / Amos Chapple / Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout
Action Plan
for Europe
The Action Plan for Europe was developed jointly by the Focal Points of the Europe region, independent heritage experts, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies.
This innovative Action Plan is presented as a framework. Rather than focus exclusively on region-wide priority needs, it also allows the users to set sub-regional priorities among the actions identified by the Focal Points themselves.
Action Plan
for North America
Following the adoption of the Periodic Report for North America, and in accordance with Decision 38 COM 10A, the States Parties of Canada and the United States of America have submitted an Action Plan for North America.
This Action Plan is structured to speak to the Strategic Objectives of the Convention (also known as the 5Cs) and is structured around 5 Result Areas with an implementation timeframe of 5 years.
A Follow-Up Survey
The World Heritage Committee endorsed the World Heritage Centre's proposal to ensure a follow-up process for the Action Plan in form of a short biennial survey.
This survey would allow each State Party to
- Select which actions have been deemed of high priority
- And give, for those actions only, quantifiable information on the progress accomplished in the past two years.
Experiences of Periodic Reporting exercise
in the Europe region
© Christophe Graz
World Heritage National Focal Points and Site Managers play a very important role in the Periodic Reporting exercise process. They are the ones who best know the situation, challenges, opportunities and difficulties related to the management, protection, conservation and development of the World Heritage properties for which they are responsible.
Views and Opinions
As the Second Cycle of the Periodic Reporting is now closed, the World Heritage Centre has collected feedback from some Focal Points and heritage experts to give their views and opinions on the exercise.
This platform was made possible with the kind support of
the Principality of Andorra
Activities (6)
- #OurLakeOhrid Photo & Story Contest
- Follow-up of the First Cycle of the Periodic Reporting exercise in Europe and North America (2006-2011)
- Periodic Reporting 1st Cycle: Europe and North America
- Periodic Reporting 2nd Cycle: Europe and North America region (2012-2015)
- UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Sites in Europe
- World Heritage in Europe Today
News (19)
- A new network of young cultural heritage professionals emerges from a UNESCO/EU project Tuesday, 11 June 2019
- Fire ravages Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a UNESCO World Heritage Site Tuesday, 16 April 2019
- Joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN Advisory mission to the World Heritage property "Durmitor National Park" (Montenegro) Friday, 9 November 2018
- State of Conservation of "Venetian Works of Defence between the 16th and 17th Centuries: Stato da Terra – Western Stato da Mar" Wednesday, 25 July 2018
- Third Meeting of European World Heritage Associations, 5 and 6 October 2017 Tuesday, 22 August 2017
- Celebrating new UNESCO World Heritage sites in Europe Friday, 18 November 2016
- Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre expresses distress after earthquake in Italy Tuesday, 1 November 2016
- Official Launch of the Helsinki Action Plan Monitoring Survey Monday, 17 October 2016
- Reactive Monitoring Mission to take place at Wood Buffalo National Park World Heritage property (Canada) Friday, 16 September 2016
- Historical Monuments of Mtskheta, Georgia, removed from List of World Heritage in Danger Wednesday, 13 July 2016
Events (37)
- Sub-Regional Conference on Archaeological World Heritage Properties 04-Dec-2019-05-Dec-2019
- A new network of young cultural heritage professionals emerges from a UNESCO/EU project 20-May-2019-24-May-2019
- 5th Transboundary Platform Meeting for the safeguarding of the Lake Ohrid region 09-Feb-2017-10-Feb-2017
- Nature Management Training in the Lake Ohrid region 06-Dec-2016-07-Dec-2016
- 4th Transboundary Platform Meeting for the safeguarding of the Lake Ohrid region 27-Oct-2016-28-Oct-2016
- Second Meeting of European World Heritage Associations 20-Oct-2016-21-Oct-2016
- Periodic Reporting in Europe and North America: Follow-up activities to the Helsinki Action Plan 15-Jul-2016-15-Jul-2016
- Promotional meeting for the Polish edition of "Managing Cultural World Heritage – World Heritage resource manual" 25-Nov-2015-26-Nov-2015
- International Conference on Risk Management for World Heritage 19-Nov-2015-20-Nov-2015
- Malta's World Heritage sites are learning cases for interdisciplinary training on Disaster Risk Reduction 14-Nov-2015-19-Nov-2015


text:
Police are appealing for information after several satellite dish/telephone line cables were cut at properties in the Harpur Hill area over the weekend.
All three incidents occurred overnight on Sunday February 2/Monday February 3, when cabling was cut and stolen from two properties on Burlow Road and another on Kirkstone Road.
Anyone who saw anything suspicious, or has information on the thefts or CCTV in the nearby area, should contact PC 2725 Twort at Buxton police station on 101, quoting the crime number 4750/14.


text:
Aberdeen believes, given the inefficiency of markets, that superior long-term returns are achieved by identifying good quality stocks cheaply and holding for the long term. Sound fundamentals drive stock prices over time. We identify good companies from first-hand research, and add value from active management, which constitutes intensive and ongoing scrutiny at the company level, and not from portfolio trading.
We hold absolute return to be more important over the long term than index-relative. We do not see indices as providing meaningful guidance to the prospects of a company or its inherent worth. Neither market capitalisation nor index membership is a guarantee of quality either. As such, we do not use indices as a starting point for building a portfolio, preferring to rely on common sense checks and the principles of diversification.
We are comfortable taking decisive bets against the benchmark, underpinned by convictions from proprietary analysis. We do not equate risk with divergence from benchmark, but with investing in companies that do not deliver.
Investment Process
We follow a bottom-up process based on a disciplined evaluation of companies through direct visits. Stock selection is the major source of alpha. No stock is bought without our managers having first met management, and detailed notes then written. We estimate a company's worth in two stages, quality then price. Quality is defined in reference to management, business focus, balance sheet and corporate governance. Price is calculated relative to key financial ratios, market, peer group and business prospects.
Top-down factors are secondary in portfolio construction, with diversification rather than formal controls guiding geographical and sector weights. Little regard is paid to stock size, other than to ensure liquidity. Aberdeen portfolios are generally conservatively run, with an emphasis on traditional buy-and-hold, with top-slicing/topping up preferred to outright trades, resulting in low turnover. Typically they have higher return on equity/assets and lower debt–to-equity than market average.
Funds are managed on a team basis, with investment managers doing their own research and analysis. Desks operate independently but each has a model portfolio that contains its best ideas, and forms the basis for portfolios, be they retail or institutional. All ideas are shared via formal committees and common databases, with desk heads and the CIO enforcing consistency across the Group.


text:
Tips for using this website:
Note: This site is currently under construction. Some pages may not have complete information.
If you are a guest:Please browse through Our History to learn about our heritage, and through Ministries to discover opportunities for learning, worship, and service for various age groups. Get to know our ministry staff in the Staff section. Locate Highland Hills and get driving directions in the Contact area. Hear recent sermons on the Pastor's Page.If you are a member:Use Announcements to catch up on upcoming events. Browse through the Members area (an option under the Home menu) to view prayer requests, Family Matters articles, and committee reports. Take advantage of the Calendar to stay up-to-date on events and ministries. Use the Ministries area to learn more about opportunities for the age groups represented in your family.


text:
LG Optimus F70 Overview :
The LG Optimus F70 is a dirt-cheap Android phone that is as basic as it gets. No large screen, no fancy features, no frills. It's a super compact device that not just fits, but almost gets lost in a hand. The L1 II Dual features a 3-inch display, a barebones 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera, dual SIM connectivity and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
LG Optimus F70 Sim Unlocking :
Unlock Virgin Australia LG Optimus F70 to use any where in the world with any supported service provider like
Optus Australia Brasil, Straight talk, FamilyMobile, Vodafone, Personal, Claro, O2, Digicel, Telcel, Orange, Telenor, Optus, Tele2, MTN Rogers, Fido, Chatr, Bell, Virgin, Sasktel, MTS, PC telecom, Tbaytel, Telus, Koodo
Click here to buy Unlock code
How do I check my LG Optimus F70 phone is locked or Not?
- Insert Other Carrier Sim card. if phone shows any message like below list so your LG Optimus F70 phone is locked. if it accepts other Carrier Sim Card so your phone is Unlocked.
- Enter restriction code or SIM card rejected
- Enter special code
- Enter Correct SIM
- Incorrect SIM
- Invalid Network SIM…Enter Code
- Invalid SIM"
- Phone disabled! NETWORK LOCK
- Invalid Network SIM
- Enter Network Unlock Pin
- Enter Sim Network Unlock Pin
- Enter Network Unlock Code
- Enter MNC2 Code
- Enter Unlock Code
*Supported carriers can vary based on your locked to carrier and your region, please confirm with your service provider, before placing order
How to place the order for your unique unlocking code?
- Go to the WorldGSMCodes web page and fill in the order form with 3 pieces of information:
- The IMEI of your phone (dial *#06# on your phone and press the Call button)
- Your email address (the unlocking code will be emailed to you)
- The country and network where your phone operates (NOT the one you want to use it with)
How you will receive your unlocking code?
Once your order is been submitted, you will receive your unlocking code via email.
The time you have to wait for your unlocking code to arrive in your inbox depends upon the country and network you originally bought your phone from – it might take a few hours or a few days. Don't worry! When ordering your unlocking code you have the possibility to choose the time-frame that suits you best.
How to insert your unlocking code?
The email containing your unlocking code includes instructions about how to insert your unlock code.
The process is really simple: you have to insert into your smartphone another SIM card from a different network provider. When you turn on your device, the message 'Sim Network Unlock Pin' will be displayed along with an empty space where you have to input the unlocking code.
Voila! Your LG Optimus F70 is permanently unlocked and you can use it with any carrier around the world.
Benefits of using WorldGSMCodes:
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"Information wants to be free" has long been the mantra of the Internet. Once a video, a song, or a news story is on the Web, it's harder to rein in than a roomful of curious cats.
Free introductory offers are a business staple. But as a long-term strategy, "free" doesn't make much sense: How can content creators afford to keep producing if they aren't paid?
Advertising is one way to pay the bills. But Web companies are still scrambling to understand and measure the impact of online ads. Meanwhile, many advertisers remain skeptical of the medium and question how heavily to rely on it.
Now both the news and entertainment industries are experimenting again with online payment plans. Someday, 2010 may be remembered as the year when companies finally scrapped the idea of a "free" Internet.
Among the recent efforts:
• Google now is experimenting with YouTube Rentals. The new service allows companies to charge users to view certain videos, such as TV shows or movies. Content originators can also try out different pricing schemes to see how they affect sales.
• The Times of London, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is about to erect a "pay wall," requiring online readers to spend about $3 a week or $1.50 a day to read articles. To further fend off freeloaders, search engines such as Google will be banned from linking to The Times's stories.
• The New York Times announced plans to put most of its content behind what appears to be a fairly porous pay wall. The Times will ask for money only after a reader returns to the site a certain number of times per month. To lure in new readers, the paper says visitors who arrive via a search engine or other intermediary will always get a free pass.
• The New Yorker magazine plans to offer a "one price pays for all" plan later this year, according to Advertising Age magazine. Subscribers would pay one fee and then be able to read the magazine in all its forms – print, Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle, possibly other e-readers – all for one price, rather than having to buy access to each separately.
• Wired Magazine charges $4.99 to view an issue on the iPad tablet computer, the same as its newsstand price. The iPad version includes interactive features not available in print.
• The free video website Hulu may soon begin charging viewers to see its popular content, such as TV episodes, and perhaps release Hulu software for the iPad and the Xbox 360 video-game system.
The forgotten half of the 'free' quote
Part of this change has to do with the long-forgotten part of the famous "wants to be free" quotation: "On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable," said writer Stewart Brand at the Hackers' Conference in 1984. "The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."
Somehow, only the second half stuck.
"Free distribution of premium content is like eating your babies. You will give value away until you go bust," says a recent report from Group M, the media-buying agency of the international media and advertising giant WPP. The report calls people who use search engines to find news or information "useless tourists" who don't pay their way and have little value, even to advertisers.
Others are less sure that the Internet has hit a "time to pay up" moment. "I can make one prediction," said Arianna Huffington, founder of the popular Huffington Post website, at a recent panel discussion of the future of the news media. "Pay walls are not going to work."
"Historically, consumers have not demonstrated a willingness to pay for electronic access to news," writes Dave Morgan, a successful online entrepreneur and an expert on online advertising, in an e-mail interview. "It's very hard to build paid subscription businesses in electronic news. There just aren't many examples of success in creating stand-alone consumer-oriented digital news subscription businesses."
The Wall Street Journal places much of its news content behind a pay wall, though it can be accessed indirectly through a search engine or via other websites. But the Journal is considered by some to be an exception to the rule, since subscriptions often are paid for by employers, not individuals.
The New York Times abandoned an earlier effort to place some of its content behind a pay wall, presumably because it found that a smaller number of readers reduced its attractiveness to advertisers.
One difference today may be the explosion of mobile devices, including smart phones and tablet computers. (A slew of iPad competitors is on the way. One industry analyst projects that tablet sales will exceed those of small, inexpensive laptops known as netbooks in 2012 and will surpass sales of desktop computers by 2013.)
With mobile phones, "Customers have been trained to pay for everything, from text messaging to voice mail to minutes [of call time]," says Darren Tsui, CEO of mSpot, a mobile music provider in Palo Alto, Calif. "So paying for content really isn't that foreign for them, versus Internet users, who are used to getting everything for free."
For Mr. Tsui, Apple's iTunes represents the model for developing paid content: Offer a valuable, free service and then incrementally enhance it with other paid features. iTunes began as a way for people to organize their own music. Only later did it become a way to buy new music, he says.
MSpot is among several companies that store people's music and movies online, where the files are available from anywhere on a variety of devices, from phones to laptops. MSpot offers a modest amount of storage free of charge. More storage space costs a small fee, beginning at $2.99 per month.
As mSpot tracks its users' musical interests, it also suggests other songs the person might want to buy. If the customer purchases enough songs, mSpot might suggest switching to a subscription plan, such as $10 per month for unlimited access to a library of millions of songs.
"Trying to get someone to go from free to $10 per month abruptly is very difficult," Tsui says. "If we can make that transition very, very slow and methodical, I think then that you'll have a better chance of converting the users."
Readers have never fully paid for their newspapers, points out Forrester analyst James McQuivey in his blog. Most of the cost of gathering and printing the stories and other features has always been borne by advertising. The same applies for programming on old-fashioned, over-the-air TV and radio.
Today, he says, consumers have grown accustomed to paying for "access" to content – through cable TV, Internet plans, and mobile phone charges – rather than for the content itself. But this means less revenue goes directly to the content creators and more flows to its distributors.
Surprise: A bad economy is no deterrent.
Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Association, is more optimistic that consumers will pay for online content.
The fact that smart-phone and iPad owners will pay for "apps," small software programs such as games or new reading material, is an early indicator that Americans will pay for content if it's packaged well, she says. "The key will be for publishers to deliver not only compelling content but compelling and new experiences," Ms. Horan writes in an e-mail. "Something like the iPad has it all – the visual impact of paper, enhanced by interactive elements like video and social-media integration tools."
Over the next year, "I think we'll see news and information sites explore ways to build complementary revenue streams to the current dominant advertising-supported model," she adds.
A bad economy isn't necessarily a deterrent to getting users to pay, Tsui says. He cites the "lipstick effect" after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when sales of lipstick went up. During hard times, people will often gravitate to low-cost items that make them feel better about themselves. "Our business is actually doing pretty well," he says.


text: Remnant patches of Brazilian rain forest, the world's most biologically diverse habitat, edge land chainsawed, bulldozed, and scorched to make way for crops and cattle. Hard-to-remove trees may be left standing. At current clearing rates, and with climate change continuing, scientists predict that 40 percent of the Amazon will be destroyed and a further 20 percent degraded within two decades. 40 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 LAST OF THE AMAZON BY SCOTT WALLACE • PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEX WEBB In the time it takes to read this article, an area of Brazil's rain forest larger than 200 football fields will have been destroyed. The market forces of globalization are invading the Amazon, hastening the demise of the forest and thwarting its most committed stewards. In the past three decades, hundreds of people have died in land wars; countless others endure fear and uncertainty, their lives threatened by those who profit from the theft of timber and land. In this Wild West frontier of guns, chain saws, and bulldozers, government agents are often corrupt and ineffective—or ill-equipped and outmatched. Now, industrialscale soybean producers are joining loggers and cattle ranchers in the land grab, speeding up destruction and further fragment(Continued on page 49) ing the great Brazilian wilderness. Manoki Indians displaced from their ancestral territory—a fate shared by many of Brazil's 170 indigenous Amazonian peoples—return to reclaim the land ritually and lament its degradation. Industrial-scale soybean farms such as this 100,000-acre operation in Nova Mutum in the state of Mato Grosso help make Brazil the world's second largest exporter of the legume. Highly mechanized, the farms employ only one person for every 400 acres. A boy mourns activist Dorothy Stang at a gathering to mark the first anniversary of her murder. The 73-year-old nun, who dedicated her life to saving the forest and helping workers, was killed by hired gunmen in 2005 after trying to stop ranchers from clearing land. White crosses represent 772 victims of land wars in the state of Pará, and 48 red crosses symbolize local people now under death threats. 48 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 (Continued from page 43) During the past 40 years, close to 20 percent of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down—more than in all the previous 450 years since European colonization began. The percentage could well be far higher; the figure fails to account for selective logging, which causes significant damage but is less easily observable than clear-cuts. Scientists fear that an additional 20 percent of the trees will be lost over the next two decades. If that happens, the forest's ecology will begin to unravel. Intact, the Amazon produces half its own rainfall through the moisture it releases into the atmosphere. Eliminate enough of that rain through clearing, and the remaining trees dry out and die. When desiccation is worsened by global warming, severe droughts raise the specter of wildfires that could ravage the forest. Such a drought afflicted the Amazon in 2005, reducing river levels as much as 40 feet and stranding hundreds of communities. Meanwhile, because trees are being wantonly burned to create open land in the frontier states of Pará, Mato Grosso, Acre, and Rondônia, Brazil has become one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases. The danger signs are undeniable. All of it starts with a road. Except for a handful of federal and state highways—including the east-west Trans-Amazon Highway and the controversial BR-163, the "soy highway," which splits the heart of the Amazon along 1,100 miles from southern Mato Grosso north to Santarém in Pará—nearly every road in the Amazon is unauthorized. There are more than 105,000 miles of these roads, most made illegally by loggers to reach mahogany and other hardwoods for the lucrative export market. In Brazil, the events set in motion by logging are almost always more destructive than the logging itself. Once the trees are extracted and the loggers have moved on, the roads serve as conduits for an explosive mix of squatters, speculators, ranchers, farmers, and, invariably, hired gunmen. The land sharks follow the roads deep into previously impenetrable forest, then destroy tracts to make it look as if they own them. Land thievery is committed through corruption, strong-arm tactics, and fraudulent titles and is so widespread that Brazilians have a name for it: grilagem, from the Portuguese word grilo, or cricket. Grileiros, the practitioners, have been known to age phony land titles in l a s t of t h e a m a zon 49 Cowboys herd prime assets: Beef exports earn Brazil three billion dollars a year. With cattle numbers now topping 60 million, the demand for new pastureland drives much deforestation. Sawdust flies as a logger illegally fells a hardwood on a private ranch. "The Amazon is too big for police to shut down all illegal operations," says Enrico Bernard of Conservation International. a drawer full of hungry crickets. When Brazil's agrarian reform agency, Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária, reviewed Amazonian land ownership records over the past three years, it voided more than 62,000 claims that appeared to be fraudulent. Guarantã do Norte, a city of 32,000 at the northern extremity of the paved section of BR-163, is the regional headquarters of Brazil's environmental protection agency, Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA). With only a handful of inspectors to monitor thousands of square miles of territory, Márcio da Costa, the IBAMA chief, is overwhelmed. He works from a makeshift office behind the charred wreckage of the former headquarters, which was torched by an angry mob in 2004 after IBAMA agents and police broke a ring of timber traffickers, shutting down illegal sawmills and issuing millions of dollars in fines to loggers in the nearby town of Alta Floresta. The inquest into the arson failed to produce a single suspect. A sputtering air conditioner barely churned the soupy air as da Costa showed me a 2004 logging certificate, along with a carbon copy. The technology and remote sensing to alert them to the work of grileiros. Yet even when officials spot a desmatamento, or illegal clearing, they are usually hamstrung by a lack of manpower or equipment. And when the police do react, the resources they manage to scrape together can be modest. 50 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 copy, signed by an export inspector 1,500 miles away in southern Brazil, listed thousands of cubic feet of wood nowhere to be found on the original document—all contraband. "Yesterday, we seized five trucks loaded with timber coming out of the same area," da Costa said. In 2005, after gunmen hired by grileiros murdered Sister Dorothy Stang, an American-born nun and environmental activist, the Brazilian government accelerated a crackdown, suspending logging permits throughout the Amazon— most of which had been falsified to launder illegal timber. Federal police and IBAMA intensified their investigation into irregularities in the timber business. Waves of troops were dispatched to Mato Grosso and Pará. They seized truckload after truckload of contraband timber. Of the more than 300 people arrested, about 100 turned out to be IBAMA officials involved in a far-reaching conspiracy to sell millions of cubic feet of endangered hardwoods to the U.S., Europe, and Asia. To reduce fraud, Brazil will soon introduce electronic logging certificates. Meanwhile, to aid in policing the sprawling Amazon hinterland, government agents are turning to satellite S uch was the experience of José Rosa, a rancher in the frontier town of Matupá, 20 miles south of Guarantã do Norte, who had discovered that grileiros were cutting trees on his property. It's not that Rosa objected to the idea of clearing land—he himself plans to plant 2,500 acres in the coming year—it's just that someone else was blatantly trying to steal his. Despite federal pledges for more resources to combat timber mafias and land sharks, the only help Rosa could round up was a tiny posse of two IBAMA agents and a local cop. Among them, they carried a single pistol and a pump-action shotgun—not much of an arsenal against heavily armed grileiros. To buy gasoline for their pickup truck, the IBAMA agents had to dig into their own pockets. Evanoir Tibaldi, 42, the commander of this ad hoc detail, has spent 15 years working for IBAMA on the front lines in northern Mato Grosso. When I asked about the satellite imaging system that is supposed to give field agents the data they need to catch grileiros red-handed, Tibaldi replied, "We don't even have Internet in our office—it's a joke." Rosa, in his grimy red sport shirt and battered hat, didn't look the part of wealthy fazendeiro, or plantation owner, with an 18,000-acre spread and 3,500 steers. Getting to his land required a two-hour drive east from town, down a dirt road and across flat plains and rolling hills, where blocks of forest still stood amid brilliant green fields of rice and soybeans. "The land here is perfect for soy," Rosa said. On his property, we headed uphill through fenced-off pasture and entered the darkness of the forest along a two-rut road made by grileiros. We crossed a stream, so clear and inviting that we stopped for a drink. As I beheld the green cathedral that towered above us, I had the sense that we were day-tripping in a sacred place that should have taken weeks of arduous trekking to reach. An iridescent blue morpho butterfly lilted past, one of a million (Continued on page 59) l a s t of t h e a m a zon 51 THE EMBATTLED AMAZON Each year, thousands of square miles of Brazil's rain forest fall to agriculture and development. Though 16 million acres of protected land have recently been set aside, the Amazon Basin's decline continues. EXPLOITING THE FOREST Brazil holds about 30 percent of Earth's remaining tropical rain forest. The Amazon Basin produces roughly 20 percent of Earth's oxygen, creates much of its own rainfall, and harbors many unknown species. But the Amazon is under constant attack as settlement spreads and exploitation of its natural abundance continues. Between 2000 and 2005, Brazil lost more than 50,000 square miles of rain forest. The Amazon Basin extends more than 2.6 million square miles through seven countries, with nearly 70 percent in Brazil. KEY DEFORESTATION DEFORESTATION Deforested area: Clear-cutting for ranching and farming is the main destroyer of Brazil's rain forest. Undetected selective logging consumes additional forest. About a fifth of the Brazilian Amazon's 1.6 million square miles of natural cover has been stripped. Fire: Red crosses (main map and inset at right) represent forest fires on one day, September 17, 2005. The number of fires nearly doubled early this decade. Half are accidental; the rest are set to clear land. The resulting release of carbon dioxide helps make Brazil a leading contributor of greenhouse gases. FIRE Urban zones: Tens of thousands of square miles are classified urban in the Brazilian Amazon, where development and habitat destruction keep swallowing up wilderness. The region now contains 13.5 million people, 70 percent of whom live in or near cities. Land reform: Since Edge effects: In cleared areas, wind, human activity, and the presence of livestock degrade adjacent patches of rain forest. 1994, more than half a million poor, landless families have been granted property in agrarian reform settleAGRARIAN REFORM ments. Many of these SETTLEMENT settlers make quick money by illegally selling timber and land. Road networks creating fish-bone patterns through forest are the visible imprint of this activity (above). Roads: Ecological destruction follows roads. Eighty percent of deforested land is within 30 miles of a road. PROTECTION Protected areas: Hundreds of state and federal parks and reserves cover 15 percent of the Brazilian Amazon. About half is strictly off-limits to any kind of development (though enforcement is lax), while sustainable production is allowed elsewhere. Indigenous areas: About a quarter of the Brazilian Amazon is set aside as Indian land. Indigenous peoples' respect for ancestral grounds can preserve islands of pristine wilderness amid destruction (right). Timber mills spew smoke across BR-163, Brazil's "soy highway," in Mato Grosso. Environmentalists fear that when the road is fully paved, assaults on the forests flanking its 1,100-mile length will intensify. (Continued from page 51) wonders still harbored by this primal forest. But for how much longer? Recalling the murky stew I'd seen in streams already overrun by farmland farther south, I figured it would be only months—not even a year—before these deep, mysterious shadows were exposed to scorching sunlight and the cool, clean water no longer fit to drink. Bouncing along washed-out tire tracks overhung by low branches, we suddenly emerged onto a wider, newly graded road. "These aren't poor people doing this," Rosa said. "These are land grabbers. They have a lot of money. If they find me out here alone, they will kill me." The invaders were brazen enough to have erected and locked a gate across the road. We proceeded on foot. Tibaldi signaled for silence as he pulled his Beretta 38 from his shoulder bag. A short way on, we came to a clearing and a ramshackle structure of lashed poles topped by an orange tarp large enough to shield a dozen men. Tibaldi reached under a table and pulled out a box filled with supplies: sugar, flour, coffee, utensils. "They've run from us," he said. All was silent, except for the yelping of a pair of toucans in the treetops. The day was growing long, rain clouds were building in the east, and no one wanted to be caught here with darkness falling. Someone had evidently tipped off the grileiros. Rosa was furious. Next time he'd try to enlist the help of the federal police—men from outside the area. "It's the only way they won't know in advance," he hissed, eyeing the local cop. "But you can't say that here. To survive in Brazil, you have to shut your mouth and play dumb." T Golden cargo on the Madeira River, this boatload of soybeans belongs to Blairo Maggi, the "King of Soy." The world's largest producer, growing 350,000 acres of soybeans, Maggi is also the governor of Mato Grosso. He insists that concerns about Amazon deforestation are exaggerated. 58 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 he Amazon land rush has its roots in the 1970s, when Brazil's military dictatorship pursued a policy of "integrar para não entregar," meaning "occupy it or risk losing it." Destitute settlers followed the central axes of penetration, the Trans-Amazon and BR-163, into the jungle, escaping poverty in Brazil's overcrowded south and northeast. Many perished or gave up, but others survived and adapted to the harsh life, practicing slash-andburn farming. The poorest settlers were rarely given title to the land they worked, but the government awarded concessions to the well connected—blocks of up to 7,400 acres—to encourage logging, ranching, and other development. If grantees (usually l a s t of t h e a m a zon 59 IN BRAZIL, THE EVENTS SET IN MOTION BY LOGGING absentee landlords) failed to put the land to productive use within five years, they would forfeit the right to permanent ownership, and control was to revert to the federal government. Most grantees did nothing but still considered themselves the rightful owners. Meanwhile, landless squatters moved in from adjacent lots, working plots whose ownership the government failed to resolve. That has fueled a bloody showdown pitting the powerful absentee elites who raze forest for agribusiness against family farmers who clear small patches for crops but still depend on intact forest around them for survival. "What's happening today in Amazonia is a clash between two models of development," said Felicio Pontes, one of a new breed of government lawyers seeking to prosecute corruption, land fraud, and environmental crimes in the Amazon. We were standing in a mock cemetery of 820 crosses that symbolized the human cost of the land wars in Pará, on the first anniversary of the murder of Dorothy Stang."The first model was implanted during the military dictatorship, based on timber extraction and cattle. It's predatory because it causes death, it's not renewable, and it devastates the forest." The alternative model, preached by Stang, is what Pontes calls social environmentalism. The first concentrates wealth, the second calls for its dispersion in small-scale agroforestry collectives. Dorothy Stang, born and raised in Ohio, a sister of Notre Dame de Namur, was revered for her dedication to the ideal of family farmers who extract their sustenance in harmony with the forest. From her base in the frontier town of Anapu, she worked unceasingly to transform settlers along the Trans-Amazon Highway into environmentally conscious, cohesive, and combative communities, able to resist violent cliques of ranchers and speculators who would lay claim to the same land. Stang saw human rights and environmental conservation in the Amazon as inextricably intertwined. Though poor settlers themselves damage the forest, Stang believed they could learn to manage their land sustainably as a matter of self-preservation. "The death of the forest is the end of our lives," she told her followers. Her last mission, to save a remote tract of jungle known as Lot 55, ended on the morning of February 12, 2005, when two gunmen confronted the petite 73-year-old nun on a secluded jungle path. A conversation ensued, overheard by a witness who later testified at the men's trial. Stang admonished them—the land was not theirs, they had no right to plant pasture grasses for livestock. "So, you don't like to eat meat?" one of the assailants taunted. "Not enough to destroy the forest for it," she replied. "If this problem isn't resolved today, it's never going to be," the man snarled. Stang saw him reach for his gun. She opened WORLD DEMAND FOR BRAZIL'S PRODUCTS SOY BEEF TIMBER Soybean production in the Brazilian Amazon soared after heat-tolerant varieties were introduced in 1997. Brazil may soon lead the world in soybeans, surpassing the U.S. The world's largest exporter of beef since 2004, Brazil now supplies nearly every country, including emerging markets such as Algeria, Romania, and Egypt. Demand for Brazilian hardwoods in Europe, the U.S., and Asia has been growing in recent years. Most timber from the Amazon Basin is taken illegally and stays in Brazil. 60 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 SOURCE: ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE, USDA ARE ALMOST ALWAYS MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN THE LOGGING ITSELF. her Bible to Matthew and read from chapter five, "Bem-aventurados os que têm fome e sede de justiça, pois serão satisfeitos—Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied." As she turned to go, Rayfrán das Neves Sales leveled his revolver and squeezed the trigger. B lairo Maggi, governor of the state of Mato Grosso, is seen by the environmental movement as the poster boy for predation. Maggi is "O Rei da Soja," King of Soy, the world's largest single producer. Maggi acquired a less flattering honorific when Greenpeace gave him its Golden Chain Saw award in 2005, Mato Grosso having led Brazil in Amazon deforestation for the third straight year, coinciding with his first three years in the governor's palace. Besides growing soy, corn, and cotton on three gigantic ranches and several smaller ones— almost a million acres in all—Maggi extends credit to and buys soy from some 900 midsize growers. His company, the Maggi Group, built an entire city, Sapezal, in western Mato Grosso to service a single plantation. And rather than waiting for the federal government to pave BR-163 all the way to the Amazon River at Santarém for transshipment of soy overseas, the Maggi Group created an infrastructure of silos, tugs, and barges to store and transport it down the Madeira River to its own deepwater port at Itacoatiara. With reddish hair and a spreading paunch, the l a s t of t h e a m a zon 61 Corner store hangouts are a common sight in the dirt-road neighborhoods around frontier cities such as Altamira in Pará. In the 1990s, after the government offered new agricultural subsidies, powerful elites drove squatters off rural land. Many settled on urban fringes. Federal police in Pará drill a hole for explosives, preparing to blow up one of many illegal landing strips used by absentee ranchers and farmers to inspect their holdings. Agents from IBAMA, Brazil's understaffed environmental protection agency, join a local police officer (with shotgun, at center) for a raid on grileiros, land grabbers, illegally clearing forest. 50-year-old Maggi retains a boyish air that belies his reputation as a foe of the forest. His tough, can-do image has made him intensely popular in his home state and a rising star on the national scene; he does not discount a run for the presidency. Maggi is of Italian descent, having inherited land—and his business acumen—from his father, André, who once sold seed to farmers in the southern state of Paraná, then worked his way north, opening the agricultural frontier of Mato Grosso and founding an agribusiness empire. Blairo Maggi's fortunes have paralleled Brazil's accelerating deforestation and emergence as a global agricultural powerhouse. The country is the world leader in beef exports and second only to the U.S. in soybeans. "The only place left for serious expansion of soy is Brazil," says Oswaldo de Carvalho, a biologist with the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM). That means more trees will fall in Pará and Mato Grosso. To Maggi, deforestation is an overblown issue, a "phobia" that plagues people who can't grasp the enormity of the Amazon. "All of Europe could fit inside the Amazon," he says, "and we'd still have room for two Englands." What does he think of Dorothy Stang's conditions on his growers: no illegally cleared land, no slave labor, no spraying of agrotoxins within 500 meters of a stream. "There is potential for a win-win situation," says Nepstad, who believes that three-way partnerships among NGOs, the government, and the private sector offer the best hope for stopping rampant clearing. 64 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 vision of small growers carrying out sustainable projects in harmony with the land? "Totalmente errado—Completely wrong," Maggi says, adding that without heavy subsidies, such projects run counter to the march of history and are doomed to failure. "All business tends toward concentration. Unit prices fall, and you need huge volumes to survive." Not all environmentalists see Maggi in unqualified negative light. "He has seen the wisdom of doing things right on private property as he tries to position Mato Grosso as a world economic superpower," says Dan Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. The center, together with IPAM, its Brazilian counterpart, is conducting research at Maggi's 202,000-acre Tanguro Ranch, located in the headwaters of the Xingu River. One of their experiments involves assessing the ability of mulch made from microbe-rich rain forest leaf litter to regenerate soil depleted by years of monoculture and ranching. With prodding from Nepstad and others, Maggi supports proposals to certify soy grown by internationally accepted environmental and social standards—standards yet to be written. Maggi has already imposed "W e're very responsible environmentally and socially," Maggi said, as we began a tour of Tanguro. "Everything we're doing is aboveboard and within the law." He pointed proudly to the ranch's gleaming cafeteria and the spotlessness of the grounds. "Look around," he said,"you won't find a single scrap of plastic here." Motioning to a barnlike structure that stored herbicides and pesticides, he said, "We keep all our agrotoxins properly ventilated until use." In a steady rain, our vehicle fishtailing in the mud, we approached a denuded gully straddling a narrow stream; a closer look revealed hundreds of saplings. "When we bought this property," Maggi said, "this riverbank was totally stripped. Now we're regenerating the area." We continued on a service road, straight as a ruler, along the edge of a mile-long field of yellow-green soy. On one side, row after row of calf-high bushes presented a perfect scene of modern mechanized agriculture. A casual observer might have marveled at the bright green luster of the plants, unaware of the toxic mix required to achieve that sheen. Soybeans need large amounts of acid-neutralizing lime, as well as fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. From scientists to native villagers, nearly everyone but Maggi spoke to me with alarm about toxins seeping into the watershed. Indian communities such as the Enawenê-Nawê in Mato Grosso complain of poisoned water and dying fish. Maggi does not perceive any ill effects from soybean cultivation. "It's environmentally beneficial," he said, looking me straight in the eye. "The land here is very poor. If you don't take the right corrective measures, you couldn't produce anything. It's not true that soy degrades the soil. On the contrary, it puts into the soil what naturally isn't there. Afterward, you can grow anything you want." Researchers agree that proper management of soy fields can increase soil productivity. But in reality, no one knows for sure how long the thin, highly acidic l a s t of t h e a m a zon 65 When the paving of BR-163 is complete, land speculators may pressure 300 surviving Panará Indians in their village of Nãnsêpotiti. Once scattered in nine settlements in southern Pará, the Panará were decimated by diseases in the 1970s, when the road was built. ARE "THESE LAND GRABBERS. " Amazon soils can be propped up, raising the possibility of an eventual two-headed catastrophe: environmental and economic. On the other side of the service road, a line of magnificent 100-foot-high trees draped in lianas—the very core of an ancient primeval forest—was starkly revealed in cross section. Such vistas of geometric fields carved from virgin jungle have become commonplace in Pará and Mato Grosso as the soy frontier advances. While many of the incursions are illegal, many are not. Farmers are entitled to clear up to 20 percent of their land, as long as they maintain the other 80 percent as a so-called legal reserve. If the vegetation on their land is "transitional"— somewhere between rain forest and savanna —they're allowed to clear 50 percent. But laws are only as good as the will to enforce them. "Satellite imagery shows that in many frontier zones there is nearly zero compliance," says Stephan Schwartzman of Environmental Defense, a U.S.-based NGO. "People have to believe breaking the law has consequences." It appears that landowners are starting to believe it. In the crackdown since Stang's murder, farmers who have cleared more forest than their legal limit have been looking for ways to legitimize their holdings. Sympathetic to their situation, Governor Maggi is allowing them to buy up tracts of non-contiguous forest to comply with the legal reserve statute. He promises stiff fines for violators, but he enforces the law reluctantly. "Brazilian producers are the only ones in the world who are obliged to maintain a reserve," Maggi said. "There should be a royalty for leaving those areas intact—they need to be compensated in some way." B razilians are not the only people profiting from soybeans. Along the 500-mile paved stretch of BR-163 between Cuiabá and Guarantã do Norte, there are no fewer than five John Deere dealerships. And at harvest time, fleets of the trademark green-and-yellow combines rumble across the fields flanking the highway, pouring rivers of golden soy into 68 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 open-bed trucks bound for shiny new silos belonging to ADM, Bunge, and Cargill—all American multinationals. Because BR-163 is not yet paved to the Amazon River, most of Mato Grosso's soy still leaves the state in diesel-belching convoys that must ply 1,200 treacherous miles to Brazil's congested southern ports. In 2003, when the government announced plans to lay asphalt on the last 650 miles of BR-163 from Guarantã do Norte to Santarém, a frenzied land grab ensued. The scale of devastation forced officials to suspend the paving until they could formulate a forestmanagement strategy for the region. That plan was unveiled in February 2006, one year after the death of Sister Dorothy Stang, when President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the protection of 16 million acres of rain forest on the western flank of BR-163 between Guarantã and Santarém. (This is nowhere near Lot 55, the patch of forest Stang died defending, where grileiros are still felling trees.) Within the protected area, companies deemed environmentally responsible will be given limited logging concessions, but no clear-cuts or settlements will be allowed. The new district adds to an expanded mosaic of parks, reserves, and conservation units that, together with indigenous territories, forms the bulwark of defense against the expansion of the frontier in the central Amazon. These measures may be paying off. Deforestation rates fell more than 30 percent in 2005, and preliminary numbers for 2006 are also down. Indian lands in the Xingu watershed are proving an especially effective barrier. There, militant Kayapó and Panará warriors armed with clubs and shotguns patrol their borders using satellite images furnished by international NGOs to pinpoint illegal clearing. As Stephan Schwartzman puts it: "Where Indian land begins is where deforestation ends." But Brazil's measures to protect the Amazon must be weighed against its other ambitions. These include plans to build seven dams on the environmentally sensitive Xingu and Madeira Rivers, as well as roads, power lines, oil and gas pipelines, and large-scale mining and industrial projects. The dams will power aluminum smelters, and shipping channels will facilitate river transport of exports to Chinese markets. The dams will also flood millions of acres of forest, releasing methane and other greenhouse gases, destroying biodiversity, and forcing indigenous communities to flee ancestral lands. As indigenous people intuitively grasp, the benefits the Amazon provides are of incalculable worth: Water cycling (the forest produces not only half its own rainfall but much of the rain south of the Amazon and east of the Andes), carbon sequestering (by holding and absorbing carbon dioxide, the forest mitigates global warming and cleanses the atmosphere), and maintenance of an unmatched panoply of life. But the marketplace has yet to assign value to the forest: It's far more profitable to cut it down for grazing and farming than to leave it standing. "Tropical deforestation is a classic example of market failure," Schwartzman says. Oddly enough, Maggi would probably agree with Schwartzman's solution: "It's urgent to find mechanisms to compensate forest peoples, and their governments, for the ecosystem services their forests provide." For Cargill, a Minnesota-based food conglomerate, the greatest urgency lies in getting soybeans to market as cheaply as possible. Anticipating the eventual completion of BR-163, Cargill opened a warehouse and deepwater port in Santarém in 2003. Until it can transport soy there by road, Cargill, like Maggi, has been moving much of it by barge via the Madeira River. "We've exported close to two million tons," Douglas Odoni, the plant's operation manager, told me with pride. We stood on a catwalk above the Cypriot-flagged freighter Evdoxos as a giant nozzle disgorged soybeans into the vessel's belly at the rate of 1,350 tons an hour. Within two weeks, the Evdoxos would dock in Amsterdam and unload 52,000 tons of Brazilian soybeans at a crush plant that makes oil and animal feed. "They buy only from us," Odoni yelled above the din of the machinery. THEY HAVE A LOT OF MONEY. IF THEY FIND ME OUT HERE ALONE, THEY WILL KILL ME." —JOSÉ ROSA, RANCHER Cargill's operations in the Amazon have been controversial from the start. Federal prosecutors are suing the company over its alleged failure to provide an adequate environmental impact study of the port. Cargill's installation of a soybean washer and dryer has infuriated forest defenders, whose protests have repeatedly closed down the plant. To avoid spoilage, soybeans must be cleaned before they're transported, and for farmers around Santarém, it was only after the arrival of the washer and dryer that they had a buyer for soy and an incentive to grow it. Deforestation in the area has soared. "Maybe it's true that if Cargill weren't here, they wouldn't plant soy," Odoni conceded. But "if they couldn't sell soybeans to us, there would be no taxes and revenues for the local community." L ast summer, Cargill and Brazil's other big soy traders agreed to a two-year moratorium on buying soy grown on newly deforested land in the Amazon. The agreement is sending a signal to soy producers that the environmental impact of their operations is increasingly important in the world marketplace. For many in the community of Belterra, an hour's drive south of Santarém, the moratorium comes too late. As the head of the Rural Workers Union local, Auricelia Núnes, 33, represents some 5,000 farming families. These people, she said, had been coaxing a decent l a s t of t h e a m a zon 69 living from their small plots, when, in the late 1990s, outsiders from southern Brazil began buying up property for a pittance. "There are many small farmers who don't know the value of money," Núnes said. "They thought the money would last, but it doesn't." Now they languish in Santarém's growing slums. Those who refused to sell found themselves encircled by an encroaching wasteland, as whining chain saws and raging fires consumed the trees right up to the edge of their land. Their yards were overrun with vipers, bees, and rodents escaping the apocalypse, and when tractors began spraying the cleared fields, toxic clouds of pesticides drifted into their homes. "Their health was in jeopardy," Núnes said. "Many started getting sick. Their animals started dying." Núnes and her husband, Everaldo Pimentel, still live as traditional family farmers, growing corn, squash, and beans and raising livestock on their 70-acre plot. But Pimentel wanted to show me another place, 15 minutes away by car. We followed yet another dirt road past miles of soy before turning onto a narrower track that traced the edge of a freshly plowed field—the driveway to the farmhouse his grandfather had built in the shade of a large mango tree. This, Pimentel said, was where he had grown up. Four years ago, his father sold the farm to a stranger. Workmen immediately cut down every tree. "In 30 seconds," he said, "they can cause more devastation than a small farmer who's been on the land for 30 years." Pimentel couldn't have cared less that we were trespassing—there were no hired guns to be seen. He pointed to a cracked slab of concrete in the ground, overgrown with weeds and vines. "The house was here." A dozen giant mango trees lay on the ground, toppled by chain saws and left to decay under the blistering sun. "We never would have sold it if we knew what this guy was going to do," Pimentel said. He hoisted himself onto the stump of an old mango. "My grandfather planted this one a hundred years ago," he said, looking out across a desolate, empty field. Pimentel buried his face in his hands and began to weep. "It was beautiful here," he said. "You should have seen it." j O Disappearing Forests Join our online discussion and share your thoughts on the global impact of the diminishing Amazon rain forest at ngm.com/0701. 70 nat i onal ge o g raphic • j anuary 2 007 Ten-year-old Jeremias Silva lives with his parents and two brothers in an isolated government settlement in Mato Grosso. His father, a farmer, sells illegal timber to make ends meet. "I hope for better days," Jeremias says. "Here in the forest it's not so good." l a s t of t h e a m a zon 71


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Update: According to some reports from commenters here, some e-mails I've received and updates on Twitter, it seems that a number of people have gotten through on the website and gotten their rebates.
I also just received an e-mail from the Office of Energy Security, which I'll include below:
So keep trying online at www.mnappliancerebate.com or by phone at 1-877-230-9119.
Like I keep telling people, it's like a doorway that thousands are trying to fit through: slowdowns will happen, but eventually people will get through.
Here's a tip I got from one of the lucky ones who got through today: open up the website in about a dozen windows. Some won't open, but some will go through. That's how he got his rebate reservation.
The site, which was expected to launch this morning at 8, was experienced a "tech glitch," which the Department of Commerce reports might be a "malicious attack" from a third-party site.
My advice: be patient and if you really want one of these rebates, be diligent.
I will update this blog as soon as more information becomes available.


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Future Fashion: Wearable Computing Comes of Age
I want a tricorder, and I want it now! Well maybe not a tricorder specifically but I certainly want my technology to take the natural next step and become more and more wearable with products such as iPod watches, heads up display (HUD) glasses, and smart fabric available. This doesn't seem so far fetched given the recent buzz that Google will be launching smart glasses that are Android-based. These glasses will include a small screen that sits a few inches from someone's eye. The glasses will also have a 3G or 4G data connection and a number of sensors including motion and GPS. The smart glasses would be navigated via tilting and nodding which would make those folks talking on Bluetooth devices you can't see look darn normal in comparison. So from Google Goggles to Google Glasses, looks like wearable computing is becoming an imminent reality.
Smart glasses are only the beginning though.
According to a recent CNN article Ray Hammond, a futurologist whose career is built on accurately forecasting technological leaps, believes phones and tablets of today will be broken into tiny pieces and scattered about the body, even implanted in the skin. And glasses such as what Google is believed to be making will provide "a complete physical interface to the digital and virtual worlds," according to Hammond.
I know this all sounds like a science fiction story, probably because the idea of wearable computing is a consistent theme/idea leveraged for the genre. For example in Rainbows End written in 2006 by Verner Vinge, augmented reality is a dominant factor, with humans interacting with virtual overlays of reality pretty much constantly. They do this by wearing smart clothing and contact lenses that can overlay and replace what the eye would normally see with computer graphics, using advanced virtual retinal display (VRD) technology. But like a lot of good science fiction these novels really just tapped into what the authors thought was a natural progression in our technological advancement and with wearable computing they hit the nail on the head.
Many academics have been exploring e-textiles and wearable computing for years now. They would agree with the SciFi authors that humans will be integrated and intimate with technology in ways that are not on most of our horizons right now. For example Tom Martin, a computer engineer at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, says, "E-textiles are a way for us to build wearable computers that look like normal clothing to build pervasive computing devices that fit in seamlessly with the environment." And of course I blogged about the MIT Sixth Sense project a couple of years ago which is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world with digital information and engages natural hand gestures to interact with that information.
So my hats off to Google for appearing to dive heads first into the wearable computing market, I'll keep my glasses on though 😉
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I have a gold coloured token that I can't find much information about. One side is inscribed with "Crowned May 12th 1937 Visited Canada 1939" and the other side has the king and queen in profile with lettering "King George VI - Queen Elizabeth". Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Crowned May12th Torken
General discussions on tokens and medals.
3 posts • Page 1 of 1
Re: Crowned May12th Torken
Just look at the bottom of this page Under tokens and medals. this will take you to the right category. The medal you are looking for is :MEDAL ROYAL VISIT 1939
Re: Crowned May12th Torken
Thanks la cenne for your reply.
Maybe I'm having a brain cramp but I can't find the link you reference.
Maybe I'm having a brain cramp but I can't find the link you reference.
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The Obamacare report card
Time's up, Obamacare. Ready for your grades?
After six months, the first enrollment season is coming to an end. So it's time to take stock, with POLITICO's report card that covers the highs and lows of the rollout.
Story Continued Below
If you're a supporter of the law, you might be cringing right now — you know the areas where the grade is not going to be good. It's pretty obvious that the Obama administration wasn't ready for the launch, despite three and a half years to prepare. The political messaging hasn't impressed anyone; Democrats are scampering away from what was supposed to be a legacy achievement. No one's going to forget that notion that everyone could keep their plans.
( VIDEO: Timeline of Obamacare deadlines)
But the critics will have to round out their picture of the law, too. The signups have now hit 6 million — a feat that seemed impossible in the worst days of the website failures — and the administration's outreach efforts are better than they used to be. And although there are lots of complaints about the prices, some low-income customers seem to be genuinely happy with the rates and subsidies they're getting.
It's also important to judge the rollout against the political headwinds the law has faced. White House officials argue that the battles against Obamacare have been stronger and longer lasting than even the fights against breakthroughs like Social Security and civil rights laws. "There's no other law that has had to overcome all the obstacles that have been thrown at this law by its opponents," said White House health care adviser Phil Schiliro.
But this is also a program that will affect millions of Americans, and Republicans say it's such a bad student it should repeat a grade. "For gross incompetence, the thing should be held back a year," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. "The law is clearly not ready for prime time — not that it ever will be — and that's why the House has voted to delay it."
Here's where Obamacare was a good student and where it needs to show more effort, based on the latest research and interviews with health care experts across the board:
At this point, it's all about expectations — and after months of lowering the bar, the White House has finally cleared it.
( PHOTOS: Obamacare in the Mississippi Delta)
Thanks to the fumbled launch and an unspectacular February, health care experts had been convinced that the total enrollment would be roughly five and a half million people. That turned around quickly once the enrollment websites became flooded with last-minute signups, as the White House had predicted.
And on Thursday, President Barack Obama had his best day in months when the total hit 6 million, earlier than even optimistic experts thought it would.
That's not nothing. It's a big recovery from October, and it's enough to avoid a financial disaster for the insurers. It's certainly enough to give Democrats the talking point they want against Republicans: "Do you really want to take health insurance away from millions of people?"
It's just not the original 7 million goal, as declared by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Republicans won't ever let the administration forget it. (There was even a time when CBO was predicting 8 million, right when the law passed.)
( PHOTOS: Hobby Lobby protests)
Keep in mind , too, that enrollment numbers will come down if people don't pay their premiums — currently as many as 15 percent to 20 percent of those who have signed up haven't paid up. Numbers could also tick up during the rest of the year, because people can sign up later in special cases like getting married or having a baby, just like they can with workplace insurance.
Those aren't the only people getting coverage. Another 4.4 million people who visited the exchanges are eligible for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. More are signing up through state Medicaid agencies. But that may fall short of expectations, too — CBO predicted 8 million people in Medicaid in the first year.
So yes, the Obama administration needlessly lost almost two months because of an incompetent website — but the last-minute numbers show it has made up a lot of lost ground since then.
Grade: A-
Mix of customers
It's not where it needs to be — yet.
To keep premiums stable, health plans need a good mix of healthy customers to help pay for the sicker ones. Until they actually start racking up medical bills, the best substitute we have is to look at the ages of the people who have signed up. And so far, they've trended older.
( PHOTOS: 25 unforgettable Obamacare quotes)
By the end of February, 25 percent of the health exchange customers were ages 18 through 34, and 69 percent of them were 35 or older. That varies from state to state, of course, but overall the exchanges have been underperforming in signing up young adults.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the 18-to-34 adults make up 40 percent of the potential market for individual health insurance, while 54 percent are age 35 or older. That doesn't mean the final mix has to line up exactly that way, but it's not going to build confidence among insurers if the young adults don't sign up in greater numbers.
Obama himself says the age mix is important. The enrollment is already big enough to keep premiums "stable," but "the impact in terms of the program has always been based more on the mix of people who sign up," Obama told WebMD earlier this month.
Still, there are mechanisms built into the law to help insurers who don't get enough healthy people in the first three years — and health insurers knew that going in. "I don't think plans got into this thinking everything was just going to work out in the first year," said Mark McClellan, who ran the Medicare agency under President George W. Bush and presided over the start of the Medicare drug benefit.
And there could still be a big surge in the next few days as 20-something procrastinators finally sign up — there's some evidence that it's already happening outside the official health exchanges. But it would have to be pretty big to change the mix significantly. So for now, it, too, gets a "not bad but not great" grade.
( Also on POLITICO: The Obamacare numbers game)
Grade: B
Who's actually new?
There's still a pretty broad disagreement about how many uninsured people are getting covered, which is much of the point of the law. But there are signs of at least some progress.
Gallup surveys have now found the uninsured rate declining three months in a row. In the latest survey, released earlier this month, 15.9 percent of Americans were uninsured, down from 17.1 percent in the last quarter of 2013. Health care analysts were cautious about the first surveys, warning that it could be a one-time dip, but that becomes less likely with each survey that finds the same results.
The studies by McKinsey and Co. tell a different story. In a survey released earlier this month, more than seven out of 10 of Obamacare's new customers had health insurance before, and just 27 percent were previously uninsured. That was up a bit from its January survey, when only 11 percent were previously uninsured.
None of those surveys tell us exactly what we need to know. McKinsey doesn't include Medicaid, and Gallup doesn't prove exactly why the uninsured rate dropped.
( Also on POLITICO: Obamacare enrollments: W.H. says 6 million signed up for coverage)
And since the Obama administration isn't tracking the progress on the uninsured in real time, we're probably going to have to wait a long time for more definitive numbers, however maddening that is.
Grade: Incomplete
There's no point in spending a lot of time on this one. Does anyone really believe the Obama administration was ready to launch the biggest program of Obama's presidency on Oct. 1? Even the president doesn't think that anymore.
The administration needed to prove that government can still do big things. As Obama said on the day he signed the Affordable Care Act into law in March 2010: "We are not a nation that does what's easy … We are a nation that does what is hard. What is necessary. What is right." The disastrous launch of the federal enrollment website gave the whole program a reputation of incompetence — and once a program has earned that kind of reputation, it's just about impossible to shake it off completely.
Grade: F
Website repairs
Once it became clear how badly HealthCare.gov was built, the administration scrambled an all-out repair effort that, against the odds, helped the federal website make a remarkable recovery.
( Also on POLITICO: Obama downplays Vatican Obamacare talk)
For customers, at least, the website became much more user-friendly by the end of November than just about anyone expected. The administration didn't have to scrap the website after all, a prospect that even Obama reportedly considered. Now, just about anyone who wants to can actually sign up for health coverage. And so far, at least, it's holding up under the crush of last-minute traffic.
If that were the end of the story, the administration might get an A+ for the repair effort. But it's impossible to ignore the fact that the "back end" of the website still isn't built. Customers don't see those sections — but insurers do. Those are the parts that handle the payment of Obamacare subsidies to the insurers, the compensation for health plans that draw too many sick people and the confirmation of each enrollment.
So there's a lot of manual work being done to take care of all that. For example, one industry source says health insurers are having to use "glorified Excel spreadsheets" to request their subsidy payments.
It's almost as if the Obama administration did a big extra credit project, raised its grade, and then blew off some homework. It gave the highest priority to the most important part: fixing the customer side. But was it really too much to ask that the whole website would be ready after three and a half years of lead time?
Grade: B-