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A Decade of Secrecy Smashed (and the Cauldron FOUND): The WB Studio Tour
Mar 29, 2012
Before we even start this, let's do something important. Yesterday we found something that people on this Web site have been searching out since its inception. Yes, I'm talking about the Leaky Cauldron. Not the place. THE CAULDRON. Check it out.
And if you think that working on a Harry Potter Web site for nearly 11 years could make you jaded, or make finding the physical object upon which your Internet enterprises are based any less flabberghasting, well, I encourage you to look at this:
That's what happens when a Leaky webmistress stumbles upon the site's eponymous cauldron used in a fictional pub during the third film of the Harry Potter series. (And, you've got to know I love you to put it here. Yeesh.)
Of course, it's not the real one. There is no real one. That last sentence was inserted just for people who scoff at how we all take it too literally. Shuttup, you. We know. We are SANE. We know it's all fiction and fantasy.
But that's what's somewhat amazing about all of this: I have seen every set since I went to Prisoner of Azkaban in 2003, when I was the very first and only fan reporter to set foot on those now famous flagged stone floors – something which, though common now, at the time was secret and careful and precious. It felt like an experiment in a fan's ability not to cause medical emergencies while surrounded by Potterania. Will she survive? Will she restrain herself from nervous collapse?
For nearly a decade the WB warnings have rung in my head: Don't take a picture! Don't sneak a shot! You can't talk about this part! That part's a secret! If you tell ANYONE about ThisorThat thing we will have your head. We will send 13 scary clowns and, for good measure, the cast of Jersey Shore to your apartment WHILE YOU SLEEP! Beware the wrath!
We have beworn the wrath. And beworn it well. So I cannot overestimate what it is like to walk back into Leavesden for the something-something-number time, and hear the words, "Take whatever pictures you want."
What? Seriously? Can I just…touch this table here? Can I really lay myself down on the flagged stone? (We don't recommend this! It's just hard and cold. No magic will get into you by osmosis, though you do risk the chance of a few diseases.) Is it all right to just take my telephoto lens and zoom into the microfibers of Luna's Christmas tree dress? What about if I just cop a feel on Buckbeak? Can I really peer into Weasley Wizard Wheezes? And is security really not going to attack me in V-formation if I just…put my toe on the Knight Bus?
Going to these places and writing about them for Leaky all of these years has made them feel as though they only existed behind a veil. You couldn't know what it was like to be there unless, well, you had been there. Not really. Words are magic but they are not teleportation devices. Yesterday, I stood in the Great Hall, having a casual conversation with an old friend. A few minutes in I and stopped and said, "Hang on. I'm having a casual conversation with you. In the Great Hall."
Over the next few weeks you will see all the pictures, hear all the stories, get all the tidbits (yes, tons of cats in Umbridge's office; yes, that's a real stone statue; yes, filling the school hourglasses caused a bead shortage in Britain; yes, the Chamber door is that big). All of that is a ton of fun, and we will certainly be giving you lots of it (starting later today with press junket coverage).
Forgive me, but I don't think that's the real story here. After more than a decade of the type of tight security that had to include using doubles to fake out paparazzi and enough confidentiality waiver-waving to make the most gung-ho lawyer blush, it's all out there in the open. What other franchise could sustain a memorial this complicated and artful? What other movie series or cultural enterprise could expect success across multiple theme parks, a touring exhibition, eight blockbuster movies, seven still-record-breaking books, and now a museum of no-longer-in-use props and sets?
Star Wars and Lord of the Rings come to mind, as they often do in comparison to Harry Potter, but there's something bigger at work here: this franchise has ushered in a period in which moviemaking holds high the value of fidelity to source material. Look (yes) at Twilight; look most especially at The Hunger Games. Important, hugely commercial, big-even-for-Hollywood films that trust the source material: and it's more and more common, and Harry Potter is partly (perhaps even mostly) to blame, along with Lord of the Rings. If anyone thought that doing all that was easy, or involved cutting corners, or that all the stories of the hundreds of thousands of hours of worksmanship involved were bunk or even a tiny bit exaggerated, all they need to do is head to Leavesden. Which you can DO now. Legally. You don't have to hover around the outside like a big ol' creeper anymore.
It's also not just about the minutia: great effort has been made to make this a theatrical and intense experience for even the most hard-core fan, from the opening videos to the transition into the actual space, to the highlighting of the important fanly moments (the front gates of Hogwarts are right there for prime photo-taking opportunities, and it is not a let down to stand under them and imagine).
There were several times while finally seeing the finished product that I turned a corner and gasped: a combination of what I was leaving to what I saw just around a corner, and the placement of the music (which, while expectedly the film score, is curated in such a way as to heighten the entire thing) really made the whole experience come alive. I won't spoil the big finale here (or the entrance moment: and those who are should stop! Come on now, we have limits!). I will, however, talk about the thing that happened right before the gift shop, which was perhaps my favorite thing I've seen on any Harry Potter set, park, experience, whatever:
Instead of a wand shop where you can gawk at the thousands of boxes and stand in slackjawed awe at the artistry, you find yourself surrounded by the boxes of wands who have already found owners. On each of the 4,000+ boxes in that room, you will find the name of someone who worked on the films, in random order. From Daniel Radcliffe down to the very last grip, these names are jumbled and celebrated equally. A lovely man wielding a wand helped point out a few for me: the person who held Dan's second oxygen tank underwater while filming for Goblet of Fire; the janitors; the chefs, and the man who created that giant cauldron which filled me with such unique glee. A perfect, lovely touch: Just like a film, it ends with credits.
style="text-align: -webkit-auto; ">I've seen people grumble about prices, but let me tell you from an event-planner's perspective: these are reasonable rates and the (albeit giant) gift shop has things for all budgets. So maybe you won't buy the hundred-pound earrings, but there's some sort of keychain or mug in there for a reasonably sized wallet. I bought the following trinket as a reminder of MY LIFE:style="text-align: -webkit-auto; ">
style="text-align: -webkit-auto; ">
style="text-align: -webkit-auto; ">If you've ever bought a picture of yourself on a ride at a theme park, you will also appreciate the pricing on the (really cool) images that you can have made of yourself flying on a broom or in the Ford Anglia. Plus, you know. There's Butterbeer. It's not like we won't all be there.
It's not a theme park. It's not a competitor to Disneyland. If you think that, you're going to be disappointed. Think of it as what it is, and be just as happy: an actual look inside some of the most complicated films ever made. I heard someone at a press conference say it was nice Britain finally "had something" to compete with theme parks. This is untrue. But it does not make this less, or that more. To be frank, I wish the United States had this.
(Disclaimer: I consult for Pottermore, Ltd., but that company is not the same, or a subdivision of, or a parent or owner or child or sister or brother or aunt or uncle or third-cousin-once-removed of Warner Bros. or Warner Bros Studio Tour. So, I can still say I like the Butterbeer and mean it. 🙂


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If your squeamish then look away now, because gout is back with a vengence in the UK.
Historically regarded as a rich man's complaint owing to its link to overindulgence on food and alcohol, gout is caused by drinking too and being obese as factors in its development.
Other factors include having high blood pressure or diabetes, having close relatives with gout or having long-term kidney problems.
Gout is caused by a build-up of uric acid in the blood. Uric acid is a waste product that is usually excreted by the body. If somebody produces too much uric acid, or too little is excreted in urine, it can build up and cause tiny crystals to form in and around joints.
These hard, needle-shaped crystals are formed slowly over several years.The most common symptom is sudden and severe pain in the joint, alongside swelling and redness. A form of acute arthritis, gout most commonly affects the big toe, but may also be found in the heel, ankle, hand, wrist or elbow.
The latest research, published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, involved analysing patient data to estimate how common gout was from 1997 to 2012.
Among more than 4.5 million people on the database in 2012, almost 116,000 already had gout, giving a prevalence of 2.5%.
Men were significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with the condition than women, peaking at a ratio of 11:2 between the ages of 35 and 39. More than 7,000 new diagnoses of gout were also identified by researchers.
Between 1997 and 2012, the prevalence of gout rose by 64%, increasing by around 4% every year. Rates were around four times higher in men across the entire period.
The number of new cases rose by 30% during this time, increasing by around 1.5% each year. Only around half of patients in 2012 were receiving any treatment or consultation. Furthermore, not enough patients (only around a third) were given treatment to lower levels of uric acid.
The authors said: "In recent years, both the prevalence and incidence of gout have increased significantly in the UK.
"Suboptimal use of urate-lowering treatment has not changed between 1997 and 2012. Patient adherence has improved during the study period, but it remains poor."
In 2012, fewer than one in five patients were prescribed urate-lowering drugs within six months of their diagnosis, while one in four was on this treatment a year after diagnosis.
The experts, including a team from the University of Nottingham, said the management of "gout patients has remained essentially the same over the past 16 years".
They said the prevalence of gout in the UK is higher than recent estimates in other European countries, specifically Germany and Italy.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Thank you for reading my blog, I read all the comments and publish them all except those which are anonymous, have links, or may be offensive to others. I love to read your comments, and if I have time I will reply to the comments but often that is not possible. Please be assured I do read and appreciate all that you say. Please come again :-)


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Special Report: Dr. A'fia Siddiqui: VICTIM OF BUSH RAPE AND KIDNAP SQUAD
Source : http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=62041
By Gordon Duff
|January 10, 2010
By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Next week, a mother of 3 children is facing trial for, supposedly, wrestling an M-16 away from a CIA torture squad and trying to kill them. How did the CIA get her? They bought her. She was sold to them by a corrupt official in Pakistan as a "terror suspect," a common problem and a well known ploy in the George W. Bush phony war on terrorism.
Was she a terrorist? There is no evidence of this, even after years of torture. The only serious crimes we find her guilty of is being a house wife, mother and Islamic and, I forgot, having an education. Her victims? Crippled and 100 pounds, she took on a room full of former Navy Seals, Special Forces and "private interrogators." The obvious truth, of course: the charges are a fabrication by a pack of cowards and liars.
What do we really know? We really don't know anything at all. Nobody has any evidence that this woman, a scientist educated in the US did anything at all. There is talk, empty talk about her sending money to charities that might be tied to terrorism. The amount of money is about 2% of a typical payment from one of the Saudi royals that have funded terrorists and suicide bombers for years, but none of them are kidnapped, raped, shot or beaten.
They have oil.
The case against her is made, at length, in the Wikipedia article about her. It is a good read. It makes me proud to be an American. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aafia_Siddiqui
What we see exposed, however, is the slave trade in "terror suspects" created during the Bush Administration fear frenzy when intelligence agencies around the world started dragging innocent people off the streets and selling them to the US for millions of dollars to supply the needed number of "terrorist arrests" to justify wild claims of a successful war on terror continually being made by Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the rest of the gang.
The crime is an amusing one. A woman who was either just arrested or had been in custody for 5 years, depending on which of her captors you listen to. This should seem like an interesting read:
"On 4 August 2008, shorty after press rumors suggested that Siddiqui had been in Bagram for the last five years, the US government announced that Aafia Siddiqui was arrested on charges related to her attempted murder and assault of United States officers and employees in Afghanistan
The US claims that Siddiqui was not captured in March 2003, that she was arrested on July 17, 2008 outside the home of the Governor of Ghazni.[24][25] The US account of the July 18, 2008 shooting is that FBI agents, interpreters, and several GIs entered arrived at the Afghan facility where Siddiqui was being held. The personnel entered a second floor meeting room—unaware that Siddiqui was being held there, unsecured, behind a curtain.
The Warrant Officer took a seat and placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor next to the curtain .[26] According to the US account the GIs set down their weapons, whereupon Siddiqui burst from behind a curtain, grabbed an M-4, and opened fire. One interpreter who was accompanying the officers seized the firearm from her.
US officials claim they have no idea where Siddiqui has been in the five years since she was captured on March 17, 2003.
Siddiqui arrived in New York on August 4, 2008, and was presented before a United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Siddiqui refused to accept the charges.[27][28][29] Siddiqui's lawyer stated that no one can believe the FBI story and that Siddiqui had actually been captured in Karachi, Pakistan along with three of her children.
On August 8, 2008 the Daily Times reported that Aafia was captured in Ghazni with her eldest son, Muhammad Ahmed.[31] The report stated that documents existed that confirmed that Affia and her children had been captured in March 2003."
This woman and her three children were kidnapped, and illegally held for 5 years under the most brutal conditions imaginable without any legal reason. She had been accused of no crime. After years of imprisonment, rape and torture, she is finally arrested for attacking those who tortured her.
After 5 years of imprisonment, Dr. Siddiqui was a total physical wreck, barely able to walk, and seriously disabled from hundreds of torture sessions. Yet she is accused of overpowering several Navy Seals and US Army Special Forces unarmed combat specialists, seizing a weapon and nearly killing all of them, this at a weight of 100 pounds.
"Nearly killing" is a bit of an overstatement. In fact, nobody was injured at all. The more we investigate this, the more this sounds like an outlandish war story cooked up to file for PTSD.
She faces 20 years for this crime and only this crime. Since when was it a crime to attempt to escape from illegal imprisonment? Any American who is illegally detained and imprisoned without due process can't be charged with a crime for resisting torture or imprisonment.
Americans consider such actions their patriotic duty.
Attorney General John Ashcroft considered the kidnapping of this woman, along with her 3 children, one of the great victories of the War on Terror. However, after 5 years of interrogation and 7 years of confinement, no charges could ever be filed against her other than trying to single handledly crawl out of her death bed and dispatch a room full of "drug store" Rambo types.
Ashcroft has many success in his career. He is the only person in American history to have lost a seat in the US Senate to a dead man.
In an unpublicized but much more interesting case, Ashcroft and his band of merry US Attorneys, in their attempt to rack up arrests for terrorism without doing adequate homework actually managed to drag in an entire CIA intelligence organization which had, until broken up by John Ashcroft and gang, penetrated the highest levels of Al Qaeda.
Not much more can be said, but several top CIA operatives now have the embarassing history of having been arrested for terrorist related charges. Ashcroft and later Gonzales have, through incompetence, done more to cripple US intelligence efforts than any group other than the Mossad.
Even the "outing" of CIA nuclear proliferation specialist Valerie Plame, believed to be responsible for North Korea getting nuclear weapons, involved much less utter bungling and inanity.
Nearly every legal expert in the world, including almost universal outrage among the legal community is Israel, has called this one of the most insane acts of abuse of any country that claims to have a functioning legal system and representative form of government.
Even the alleged "suspicious acts," which are, by the way, buying totally legal and harmless gun accessories, is in itself totally insane. Am I going to have to register that dangerous combat assault flashlight I keep by my desk for when I drop my reading glasses?
Any idiot who goes to gun shows knows that the weapons that small children carry around in Afghanistan are ten times better than the things Americans can get from sporting good stores or thru mail order. Every time an American collector sees a photograph of a Taliban member who owns 2 goats carrying an AK rifle with forged receiver and top quality ART sniper scope, something worth $3000 or more in the US, the insanity of purchasing 3rd rate clone parts in the US to ship to a country that has enough assault rifles to supply the world for centuries begins to sink in.
Where is the NRA and ACLU?
Even if we weren't dealing with a kidnapped and raped mother facing trial for, not terrorism but for showing super human powers and violating, not terrorist laws but, moreover, the laws of physics themselves, I can't help but come back to an old theme.
If I buy a semi-automatic shotgun and the Black Helicopter Secret Police raid my home, is a US Attorney going to call it a "ultra-high powered special operations assault mid caliber artillery piece?"
Is my Ruger 10/22, purchased for plinking tin cans going to be an assault machine gun?
However, when Dr. Hasan went on his terror campaign at Ft. Hood using an FN Herstal 5.7mm 20 round assault pistol with classified ammunition available ONLY to our special operations troops, ammo specially designed for penetrating body armor, newspapers, TV, everyone was silent. We can be so very "uncurious" when we need to. I am still waiting to find out why we are concealing this.
These things are obvious. We paid criminals to kidnap an innocent person for cheap public relations gain, elections were coming up and our War on Terror was looking as phony as, well as phony as it actually is.
Then, after years of rape and torture, this frail Islamic woman tries to fight back, or so we are told, told by people who imprison innocent people, rape and torture. Are these witnesses we would have in an American court?
She already considers herself dead. What human can survive such brutality, injustice, humiliation and abuse. Who are the real victims here?
Americans who know nothing of the trial, American who sat silently while this went on, Americans who thought their cowardice was buying them "safety."
We are the victims because we are despised around the world for brutality and injustice we know nothing of because we gave up our free press and our love of honor for, well, I don't actually know. A picture of Sarah Palin comes to mind, her or "Joe the Plumber."
and so it goes


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Political scientist Joel Skousen predicts what's in the pipeline for 2012
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.tv [1]
Friday, February 18, 2011
Author and political commentator Joel Skousen gives an in-depth discussion on how the election process is controlled by the establishment, with a particular focus on the 2012 election and the co-opted Tea Party movement. Skousen gives a detailed explanation of how he thinks the 2012 election will play out, with either Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin emerging as the victorious Republican candidate.
Looking back to 2008, Skousen notes how Rudy Giuliani was promoted early on as one of the top Republican candidates when in fact he was a cross-dressing hardcore liberal. Judging from the poll numbers that Giuliani was going down in flames, the establishment had a big problem on their hands, especially given the candidacy of Ron Paul, and it was then that six major newspapers endorsed John McCain even though he was polling at only 2-3 per cent.
Knowing that McCain did not have a good record with conservatives, he was reviled in some quarters for promoting amnesty for illegal immigrants under the Bush administration, Sarah Palin was brought in to make conservatives bite the bullet and acquiesce to having John McCain be the candidate. Palin was picked because she would be very easy to manipulate, explains Skousen, and although initially Palin proved difficult to influence, she did finally succumb. Palin is now used to co-opt the Tea Party movement, and will be just as easily manipulated as was George W. Bush if she ever becomes President.
Skousen explains how the Tea Party movement was founded by grass roots Ron Paul supporters, but is now in very real danger of being destroyed by the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who so often resort to excessive generalities in demonizing their political opposition that they can easily be debunked by the establishment. Skousen says Palin is being groomed for prominence in 2012, but that Newt Gingrich will probably become the primary establishment frontrunner for the Republicans, a man who has completely betrayed all constitutionalist principles and is clearly a globalist masquerading as a conservative. If Mitt Romney runs, then Mike Huckabee will act as his spoiler, predicts Skousen.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Should the movement behind Palin be strong enough and she wins the Republican primary, "I believe the establishment will throw another four years to Barack Obama," predicts Skousen, saying that Palin's campaign will be sabotaged by mud-slinging, noting that Democrats tend to be given eight years rather than four by the establishment because they can do more damage than compromised Republicans, for example as bad as George W. Bush was, he could never have got Obamacare passed under a Republican administration. Alternatively, Palin could be paired with Newt Gingrich as a vice-presidential candidate to make Gingrich more palatable for conservatives.
Perhaps most chillingly, Skousen predicts that the eight year period after the Obama administration will be the most traumatic for Americans and that it will be characterized by major wars, if not a world war, and that during that period of time, the globalists want Newt Gingrich to be in office as a war President.
We encourage all our subscribers to watch this interview now at Prison Planet.tv by visiting the "video reports" section. Not a member? Please click here to subscribe [2] and get instant access to this interview, along with thousands of hours of material, including daily access to the live video stream and video archives of The Alex Jones Show.
Not only do you get first exclusive access to video and audio archives of the Alex Jones Show on demand, every Alex Jones movie in high quality and a plethora of other multimedia content, but you also get instant access to over a dozen special interviews that we have posted in the last few months alone.


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Oman Air Cargo unveiled its Pan-GCC Custom Bonded Truck services connecting Muscat with Salalah and other GCC countries. Hailed as a milestone in the annals of Oman Air achievements, this service will be effective from 1st June 2011.
It is the first time in Oman's freight history that a scheduled custom bonded trucking service is being introduced for customer's use, connecting cargo from one airport to another both domestically as well as to selected airports in the GCC. The trucking services of Oman's National Carrier will be operated by its business partner M/s. Able Logistics Group (Oman) LLC, providing airport to airport connectivity which is expected to play a major role in improving export and import growth in the country by adding faster and more efficient connections. Able logistic Group (Oman) LLC, is an Omani registered company with established transport and freight forwarding roots in the Sultanate of Oman. Able Logistics Group (Oman) is specialized in transporting customs bonded cargo from airport to airport and non-bonded cargoes cargo throughout the GCC and Middle East Region.
Oman Air will link from and to its cargo hubs in Muscat and Salalah to all the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, namely, United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi airports), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (King Fahad Abdul Aziz Ad-Dammam, King Khalid Riyadh and King Abdul Aziz Jeddah airports), Kuwait (Kuwait International Airport), Bahrain (Bahrain International Airport) and Qatar (Doha International Airport). The domestic markets that will be covered under this service are: Salalah and Sohar, followed soon by Adam, Nizwa, Duqm and Sur.
Oman Air will complete its present Online destinations Network with additional new Offline destinations adding Ground Transport Services along with its Flight Programmes.
Speaking on the occasion of unveiling the new service, Abdulrazaq Alraisi, Chief Commercial Officer, Oman Air said: "We are happy to join hands with Able Logistics to provide Pan GCC trucking services. We are confident that the local importers and exporters will welcome our Road Feeder product and turn this into their advantage to grow their businesses. The Road Feeder Services (RFS) will be offered as scheduled services while keeping open the option of adhoc requests. We are sure that this new service will complement and supplement our narrow bodied aircrafts flying within the gulf region."
Mohammed Noor Mohammed, Chairman of Able Logistics LLC,Oman, said:
"We are proud to be partnered with the National Carrier of Oman in bringing our service to an ever wider customer base. Able Logistics LLC is committed to offering transportation solutions throughout the region to its customers. Able Logistics's business philosophy has always been to provide its customers with reliable, efficient and cost effective transportation services by eliminating costly delays, by reducing transit times and above all maintaining product integrity by delivering its customers cargoes safely to their final destination."


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There are three things that are guaranteed for Doubt About It football coverage:
1.) Wannstache delivers this time of year. The man beats out every prognosticator in the country in predicting the draft, likely knows the shoe size of Sean McHugh, and does so without getting the credit he deserves. He knows football and doesn't get the hype; truly the anti-Wannstedt.
2.) Looking to make a little bit of cash? If all four of us pick the same team on a given week in the picks table, its just about guaranteed to be wrong. Which brings me to...
3.) I fucking suck at football predictions. (Well, maybe baseball too...but my judgement there is drowned out by homerism. I actually try to be unbiased in football.)
With that third rule in mind, I knew I had two options: either pick the team I thought would be the worst, thereby ensuring their success, or pick the team I thought had the best shot and enjoy their season crumble around them.
I went with option 2, and hereby give the fatal kiss of death to the New York Jets.
Removing any and all emotion, the Jets, on paper, look to challenge for a wildcard spot. They have a great offensive line, solid WRs, and an improved defense with new NT Kris Jenkins and emerging star Derrelle Revis. They also have a solid veteran QB, who, according to Merrill Hoge on DVE Wednesday morning, can throw 22 yard comeback routes. Apparently, this was the only thing missing from the Jets aerial attack.
I hope the Jets suck, mostly because of Favre. There's enough whining about him on the blogosphere, though, so I'll save it. He's a big reason why I drafted Aaron Rodgers in fantasy football. The younger QB showed a lot of grace the entire summer, and I have a feeling karma is going to pay him back.
Faneca and the complaining he did last year about making only a few million dollars doesn't help either. There's also the proxy hatred for anyone or anything that had to do with the Patriots success, including Eric Mangini. The AFC East is quickly becoming my most hated division, with the Bills the only team I feel apathetic about.
So the Jets are my sleeper pick, and if they do well you'll see a post at the end of the year gloating to my fellow writers about how silly they were to doubt Brett Favre. If they suck, I'll also take credit for jinxing them. Ballsy.
Here are the picks for tonight:
Redskins (+4) at Giants
Pat: Redskins
IWTFTB: Giants
Wannstache: Redskins
Sam: Redskins
The full table will be up tomorrow.


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Product Implementation
Get started with SAP Global Trade Services
Follow detailed steps to implement or upgrade your software with our comprehensive master guide.
Plan your implementation
Confirm that you have a license key
Gain a permanent license key before commencing installation of SAP Global Trade Services, or extend your existing authorization details.
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Follow step-by-step guidance
Gain an overview of the configuration process for SAP Global Trade Services.
Optimize your operations
Manage your SAP applications
Learn how to manage, maintain, and run SAP Global Trade Services at peak performance using our operations guide.
Protect your software
Find out more about important security topics, including network and communication security, application security, and data protection.
Get support for your implementation
SAP Digital Business Services
Get guidance on your digital transformation journey – from creating a strategy to implementation, optimization, and maintenance.
SAP Enterprise Support Academy
Prepare for your digital transformation with high-impact enablement offerings.
Upgrade your product
Move to the latest version
Find details about the upgrade process, including a list of required tools and associated documentation.
Why upgrade?
See what's new
Discover new features and enhancements in the latest release of SAP Global Trade Services.
Plan your upgrade
Identify your upgrade path
Download our product availability matrix to review upgrade paths for SAP Global Trade Services.
Plan landscape changes
Visualize your existing system landscape, simulate changes, and analyze their impact with our landscape planner.
Identify dependencies
Use the upgrade dependency analyzer to determine if your upgrade will have an impact on your other systems.
Understand the scope of your implementation
Use our Web-based Quick Sizer tool to help you select an economically-balanced system based on your requirements.
Simplify your upgrade
Complete the upgrade steps
Refer to the upgrade master guide for an overview of the upgrade process, including a list of required tools and associated documentation.
Get technical release information
Access technical details about the latest version of SAP Global Trade Services and how to implement the software.
Access support packages and patches
Ensure the success of your upgrade of SAP Global Trade Services with support packages and patches.
Get support for your upgrade
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True, but you can always set the property of the command window to minized as well.
I run a lot of small batch files to handle processes and I don't care to see the windows pop up all the time or take the focus from what I am working on. By running hidden, you can have your process run and keep your focus on what your working on.


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Florida Snake Identification Key
Eastern Ribbon Snake
Scientific name: Thamnophis sauritus (LINNAEUS 1766)
The following will separate the three Eastern Ribbon Snakes found in Florida. If you are unable to distinguish between them based on the characteristics in the key below, you probably can do so using the geographic location alone.
Select the box below that is the closest match to your snake:
Pale blue side stripes; Florida Gulf coast from Withlacoochee River to Wakulla County.
Your snake could be a Bluestripe Ribbon Snake, Thamnophis sauritus nitae.
Yellow side stripes, and yellow or greenish-orange back stripe; Florida panhandle north to New Hampshire and west to Louisiana and Indiana.
Your snake could be a Eastern Ribbon Snake, Thamnophis sauritus sauritus.
Yellow side stripes, with tan back stripe; peninsular Florida to southern South Carolina
Your snake could be a Peninsula Ribbon Snake, Thamnophis sauritus sackenii.
I'd like to start over from the beginning
I'd like to try identifying my snake another way.
More resources:


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Chicken Cheddar Stuffing Casserole
Total TimePrep: 15 min. Bake: 30 min.
Makes2 casseroles (6 servings each)
- 2 packages (6 ounces each) chicken stuffing mix
- 2 cans (10-3/4 ounces each) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
- 1 cup 2% milk
- 4 cups cubed cooked chicken
- 2 cups frozen corn
- 2 cans (8 ounces each) mushroom stems and pieces, drained
- 4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- Prepare stuffing mixes according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine soup and milk; set aside. Spread the stuffing into two greased 8-in. square baking dishes. Layer with chicken, corn, mushrooms, soup mixture and cheese.
- Cover and freeze one casserole for up to 3 months. Cover and bake the second casserole at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until cheese is melted.
- To use frozen casserole: Remove from the freezer 30 minutes before baking (do not thaw). Bake at 350° for 1-1/2 hours. Uncover; bake 10-15 minutes longer or until heated through.
Nutrition Facts1 each: 373 calories, 21g fat (12g saturated fat), 96mg cholesterol, 822mg sodium, 21g carbohydrate (3g sugars, 1g fiber), 26g protein.
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Mar 9, 2015
Hubby raved about this and said I could make it all the time. I'll admit it's pretty basic and could easily be jazzed up with different vegetables and less cheese. I would definitely go with reduced fat ingredients where possible.
Apr 1, 2014
the chicken stuffing gets soggy.
Dec 16, 2013
gave points for ease of preparation. not a bad dish, just okay. If I revisit this, I will definitely try to add more complexity/depth to it. No ideas yet but....
Nov 26, 2013
Very bland....definitely needs more seasoning. I should have known better. I always end up adding some of my own seasoning to these recipes, but this one I didn't because I was in a hurry with hungry kids. I would not make this again.
May 3, 2013
I made half this recipe for two of us cuz we were in the mood for comfort food. Although good and satisfying it needs more flavor - definitely salt and lots of pepper. I added about 1/2 cup chopped onion and about half of a diced red pepper. I also subbed peas for the corn (personal preference) and fresh mushroom. I sauteed the veggies before adding them to the chicken. I also layered the cheese on the stuffing then the veggie/chicken mixture then on top of the soup. The stuffing turn into a very soft, velvety texture and would be better if it were a little crispy.
Feb 7, 2013
Hubby liked it ok but not really my type of meal. I think it would taste better as a pot pie. Just my taste
Nov 12, 2012
I cooked this recipe from frozen and it was very good. However, it did not cook in the time stated. Most freezer recipes instruct to thaw the dish overnight in the refrigerator and then bake. Next time, I think I will thaw and then bake. Or at least defrost in the microwave for 15 minutes first which is what I did tonight when I removed it from the oven and it was still frozen after 1-1/2 hours. Placed it in the microwave on defrost for 15 minutes and then put it back in the oven uncovered for 15 minutes as stated in the recipe.
Oct 9, 2012
Everyone LOVED it! Plus, it reheats really well.
Mar 19, 2012
I have not made this particular recipe but have one that is similar-no cheese. I use chicken, turkey, or pork tenderloin, onions, mushrooms and celery and they are all mixed with the prepared stuffing, To answer the dorm food question: it freezes well and reheats in the microwave. That's how we heat up the leftovers. I am definitely going to make this recipe. It sounds delicious.
Feb 6, 2012
My family doesn't like mushrooms so I left them out and used cream of chicken soup and it was wonderful! To try and balance the meal better I used mixed frozen corn/peas/carrots/lima beans... the kids loved it and they are such picky eaters!


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Jody Taylor / Sixty5Media
The 70-year-old driver, who wasn't identified, was suspended for about 40 minutes in his car, which was stuck in the side of a children's clinic Wednesday, Feb. 6, near San Diego.
Published 6:50 p.m. ET: A driver trying to retrieve a ticket from a toll booth hit the gas and rammed into a California children's clinic Wednesday, leaving him and his car bizarrely hovering 20 feet over a stairwell impaled into the side of the building.
The 70-year-old driver, who wasn't identified, was pulled out through a passenger door about 40 minutes after the crash, which occurred in Sierra Mesa about 9:45 a.m. He was taken to a hospital for evaluation, authorities told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Witnesses told NBC 7 of San Diego that the driver was having trouble pulling a ticket from a toll booth several yards away when he began rolling backward in neutral. He then hit the gas, jumped a curb and speeded at about 30 mph into the side of a clinic run by Rady Children's Hospital.
More details and photos from NBC San Diego: Car crashes into building, traps driver
The car, a Toyota Camry, stuck there, its back end resting on a walkway and its front left wheel on a ledge. It was about a 20-foot drop to the stairwell below, firefighters told the Union-Tribune.
Bystanders said they had to dive out of the way to avoid getting hit. No one was injured.
"I would've been right in front of his car," said Jody Taylor of Sixty5 Media, who took several photographs at the extraordinary scene. "So he flew through — almost hit a van pulling out ... and then went right into the building."
Taylor told NBC 7 that she yelled at the driver, who had started to unbuckle his safety belt, to stay in the car.
"You could see the glass in the windows below cracking," Taylor said. "So the security guard, I looked at him and I said, 'Get everyone out of that building, 'cause you don't know what's going to happen.'
"Six inches more, and he would've gone straight down or through the window, because they said that's an exam room right there."
No one was in exam room at the time, hospital officials said. The man's car was removed about 1 p.m.
Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.


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Roomy SUV with contemporary technology.
Sport Utility Vehicles
Editor: New Car Test Drive
$29,100 Base Price MSRP
$32,115 As Tested MSRP
Model Lineup: "Ford Explorer ($29,100); XLT ($32,680); Limited ($38,100); Sport ($40,780)"
Standard Engine: 2.0-liter dual overhead cam turbocharged inline-4
Engine Options: 240-hp 2.0-liter I4; 290-hp 3.5-liter V6; 365-hp twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Standard Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Transmission Options: 6-speed automatic
Basic Warranty: "3 years/36,000 miles"
Assembled In: "Chicago, Illinois"
Model Tested MSRP: "Ford Explorer 2.0L Ecoboost FWD ($30,790)"
Standard Equipment: "fabric upholstery, six-way power driver's seat, air conditioning with particulate filter, AM-FM stereo with six speakers, single CD and auxiliary input, power windows, side mirrors and locks, cruise control, tilt/telescope steering wheel with audio controls, MyKey parental control, center console with storage box, overhead console with map lights, illuminated vanity mirrors, eight cup or bottle holders, four 12-volt power points, 60/40 split folding second row and 50/50 third row seats, cargo light, cargo hooks, carpeted floor mats, rear privacy glass, halogen projector-beam headlights, roof rails, 175-amp alternator, no-cap fuel filler, 17-inch steel wheels with plastic covers"
Options As Tested: "SYNC with MyFord ($295): voice activation and telematics system with Bluetooth audio streaming, SiriusXM satellite radio capability with 6-month subscription; cargo shade ($135)"
Standard Safety Equipment: "dual-stage front-impact airbags, front passenger side-impact airbags, full-cabin head protection curtains, front passenger knee airbag, antilock brakes (ABS), AdvanceTrak electronic stability control (ESC) with rollover stability protection and trailer sway control, tire-pressure monitor, SOS crash alert"
Optional Safety Equipment: "inflatable rear seatbelts, blind spot warning system with cross traffic alert, rearview camera, reverse sensing system, adaptive cruise control"Destination Charge: $895
New for 2013 is an Explorer Sport trim with a twin-turbocharged version of Ford's 3.5-liter V6 engine, a sport-tuned suspension and all-wheel-drive. Using Premium gas, Explorer Sport makes up to 365 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque.
New options on 2013 Explorer Limited models include a lane departure warning system, heated steering wheel and a power tilt-and-telescoping steering column. All 2013 Explorer models come standard with a front-passenger knee airbag.
This latest generation of the Ford Explorer, introduced for 2011, features a one-piece, unibody design rather than a ladder-type truck frame with a separate, bolted on body. The result is more car-like driving dynamics, as well as significant weight savings, which translates to better fuel economy.
Powering all 2013 Ford Explorer models except the Sport is 3.5-liter V6 that makes 290 horsepower and 255 pound-feet of torque, paired with a 6-speed automatic transmission. Front-wheel drive is standard, four-wheel drive is optional. Although the Explorer does not come with low-range gearing, 4WD versions of the Explorer get Ford's Terrain Management system, which allows the driver to select from four modes for optimal traction in a variety of driving environments. It also includes hill start assist and hill descent control.
Fuel economy with the base V6 engine on front-wheel-drive Explorer models is an EPA-estimated 17/24 mpg City/Highway, or 17/23 mpg City/Highway on 4WD models.
Even with regular all-season tires, the Explorer will blast through sand or traverse deep ditches and steep hills, no problem. We know. We did it. And it has the smoothest ride we've encountered over such terrain.
For maximum fuel economy, front-wheel-drive versions of the 2013 Ford Explorer can be equipped with an optional 2.0-liter, four cylinder EcoBoost engine. It has more power than the standard V6 in the previous-generation Explorer, with 240 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque, and delivers an EPA-estimated 20/28 mpg City/Highway.
The 2.0 EcoBoost is sufficiently powerful, and acceptable if mileage is the absolute priority. Still, depending on gas prices and how many miles you drive, it can take time to recover the four-cylinder's $1,000 up-front cost in fuel savings. We prefer the standard 290-horspower V6 with its smooth, strong acceleration.
Explorer's chassis is super rigid, which not only makes for great crash-test scores, but also a quiet cabin, excellent ride quality and solid handling that belies the Explorer's considerable size.
Inside, there is plenty of legroom in the second row, real space for passengers in the third, and up to 80.7 cubic-feet of cargo space. It can be reconfigured in seconds, with split rear seats that fold with a button on each side and bounce back up with the pull of a lever. The interior is smartly styled and well finished. The materials and build quality are quite good.
The base Explorer comes well equipped. The upgraded Limited trim is leather-upholstered, with heated-seats and offered with premium audio, navigation and rear-seat DVD entertainment. The MyFordTouch interface is optional, but can be cumbersome and at least a little annoying.
Other SUVs to consider in this class include the Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, Dodge Durango, GMC Acadia, Honda Pilot or Mazda CX-9. All provide similar or slightly better cargo space, but lack the history and cachet of the Explorer nameplate."
"The 2013 Ford Explorer comes in four variants: Base, LXT, Limited and Sport. All models except the Sport come with a choice front-wheel drive or four-wheel-drive and are powered by a 3.5-liter V6 engine that makes 290 hp and 255 pound-feet of torque. Fuel economy is an EPA-estimated17/24 mpg City/Highway and 17/23 mpg City/Highway on 4WD models. An optional 2.0-liter Ecoboost inline-four-cylinder engine is optional on these same models, which produces 240 hp and 270 lb.-ft. of torque with an EPA-estimated 20/28 mpg City/Highway.
Explorer ($29,100) comes standard with fabric upholstery, air conditioning, a six-way power driver seat with manual recline, a tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel with audio controls, power windows, locks and outside mirrors, a trip computer, 60/40 split-folding second-row seats, 50/50 split third-row seats, a six-speaker audio system with single CD player and auxiliary audio jack, rear privacy glass, roof rails and 17-inch steel wheels with wheel covers. Options include a tow package ($570) and a Sync with MyFord pakage ($295), which adds voice activation, Bluetooth and SiriusSX Satellite radio capability with a six-month subscription.
Explorer XLT ($32,680) adds a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob, Ford's Sync voice activation with satellite radio capability, a USB audio port, a keyless entry touchpad on the driver's door, automatic headlamps, rear parking sensors and 18-inch alloy wheels.
Explorer Limited ($38,100) gets leather upholstery, heated front seats, dual-zone automatic climate control, a 12-speaker Sony audio system with HD radio, power adjustable pedals with memory, a cargo net, a rearview camera, remote start, a 110-volt outlet, 20-inch painted aluminum wheels, and the MyFordTouch touchscreen interface. Options include second-row captain's chairs and a 301A package that bundles ventilated front seats, an eight-way power passenger seat, heated steering wheel with power tilt-and-telescoping function, navigation, a power-folding third-row seat and a power liftgate.
Explorer Sport ($40,780) comes standard with four-wheel drive and is powered by a twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 that makes 365 hp and 350 lb.-ft. of torque (using premium fuel). EPA fuel economy estimates are 16/22 mpg City/Highway. Standard features include sport front seats with fabric upholstery, unique interior and exterior trim, and many of the standard features found on the Limited model.
Safety features include Ford's Curve Control, which monitors vehicle speed going into a corner and applies braking to individual wheels as needed, as well as MyKey, which allows owners to set limits for vehicle speed and stereo volume. Other standard safety features include front side airbags, side curtain airbags, a front passenger knee airbag, stability control, traction control and trailer sway control.
Optional safety features include a blind spot warning system with cross-traffic alert on Explorer XLT models and above. Limited and Sport models also get an available lane-departure warning and keeping system, as well as forward collision warning."
Walk Around
"The Ford Explorer is rugged but refined, familiar but fresh. It's a foot longer than the Ford Edge crossover, a few inches shorter than the Dodge Durango SUV and about eight inches shorter than the Chevy Traverse. Yet it's several inches wider than all of them.
Beautiful headlights complement the graceful fenders and transform the inherently square nose. The amber indicators sweep back like narrow wings atop tidy main projector beams. The plastic grille is gray on the base Explorer, body-colored on the XLT and satin-chrome on the Limited. The hood looks short from the side, but long when looking straight down it. It's got two parallel humps and a scoop in the center. Rear taillights are LED, and also look good.
The window outline is clean, bold and symmetrical, with blackened A-, B-, and D-pillars, and body-colored C-pillars that slant down and back and impart forward motion to the vehicle. With standard dark privacy glass, from the shoulders up, in white at least, the Explorer looks like a sleek yacht.
You'll also see design cues from other Ford vehicles. The fender flares are inspired by the Mustang and body sides follow the lines of the Taurus. The three-bar grille strikes resemble those of the Range Rover, which was once-upon-a-time a member of the Ford family.
Wheels are 17-inch steel with plastic covers on the base Explorer, 10-spoke 18-inch painted aluminum on the XLT, and 20-inch painted aluminum with spokes like flower petals on the Limited. The optional 20-inch polished aluminum wheels have spokes like shriveling flower petals or crab pincers, and don't do justice to the car."
"Fit and finish inside the Explorer is excellent, and we particularly like the Limited's leather seats.
The front seats sit up high, which is good because the hood looks long from the driver's seat. The slanted center stack has a clean design and uses stylish satin-finish trim materials. The doors have metal speaker grilles, and curve into the dash panel. There's a big glovebox with a shelf, leather grab handles and armrests on Explorers with leather interior, and long door pockets with space for a bottle.
One reason we like the base model is its conventional gauges, relatively simple 4.2-inch LCD screen at the top of the center stack, and familiar mechanical knobs below. The base Explorer doesn't come with the MyFordTouch driver connect technology, and neither does the XLT, unless it's chosen as an option.
Cars equipped with MyFordTouch have two driver-configurable LCD screens in front of the driver on either side a big speedometer, and an 8-inch color touch screen at the top of the center stack. The screens come in four quadrants and colors: yellow for phone, red for audio, blue for climate and red for navigation. You have to scroll through a lot of stuff to get information, for example engine temperature, and even after you figure it all out, it can take your focus off the road to perpetually configure.
It can all be a bit overwhelming, as many of the features and functions can be adjusted in four separate ways: by voice command, by thumb buttons on the steering-wheel spokes, by touching the display screen itself or by using the buttons in the switch stack below, should you choose to do it the old-fashioned way.
We found the voice recognition system to be problematic. During one test, we said, Climate,"" and it replied, ""Climb in."" We said, ""Seventy-two degrees,"" and it replied, ""Eighty-two degrees.""
In terms of spaciousness, the Ford Explorer cabin doesn't disappoint. Second-row legroom measures an impressive 40 inches; third-row legroom comes in at 33.2 inches. Because the rear doors swing wide and open easily, and because the second-row seat flips forward in a heartbeat, reaching the rear row is an easy climb, even for adults.
Cargo volume measures 21 cubic feet behind the third row (comparable to trunk space in a big sedan, and among the best in Explorer's class), 43.8 cubic feet behind the second row (comparable to a compact SUV or crossover with the rear seats folded), and 80.7 behind the front seats. The cargo space is substantially less than what's available in GM's longer trio of crossovers (Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave), but competitive with the rest of Explorer's competition. There's a little bit more maximum cargo volume in a Dodge Durango or a Honda Pilot.
Still, it's very easy to change configurations in the Explorer. The second seat folds like magic at the touch of a button on each side, bouncing back up with the pull of a lever.
Cubby storage adds convenience. A lidded bin in front of the shift lever is designed to hold two cellphones, and cup holders are provided to the right of the shifter."""
Driving Impressions
"The Ford Explorer has the practicality, function and family-friendly features of good minivans, with a more rugged appeal and real off-road capability.
The optional 2.0 EcoBoost engine packs significant wallop for its size. With a peak of 240 horsepower, the 2.0 EcoBoost makes 50 fewer horsepower than Explorer's standard 3.5-liter V6, or 17 percent less. Yet the four-cylinder is nearly 50 percent smaller than the V6 by displacement. It has more torque than the V6, and better EPA mileage ratings.
Yet the problem with the 2.0 EcoBoost engine in the Explorer is that a lot of drivers will be keeping it floored a lot of the time. It often seems like it's working really hard, with a lot of sound and fury to minimal effect. If fuel-economy is a very high priority, the 2.0 EcoBoost will get the job done. But we'd guess most owners would be happier with the 290-horsepower, 3.5-liter V6.
Ford's dual-overhead cam, all-aluminum V6 is quite efficient in is own right. Mated to a six-speed automatic transmission with optional manual shifting, the V6 is smooth and responsive, with good acceleration and plenty of torque to maintain 80 mph on an uphill freeway, after a smooth and welcome kickdown to fifth gear.
We drove nearly 200 miles in a V6 Explorer, mostly at about 60 mph on casual two-lanes with about a dozen freeway miles running uphill to 80 mph, and averaged about 17 mpg. Before we got on the throttle on the freeway, we saw a 20-mpg average.
Ford put all the engineering effort it could muster into the Explorer, and got the ride, handling, and NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) results it hoped for. The rigid chassis and careful tuning of the independent suspension produce a superb all-around ride. It takes corners and undulations flat, and the speed-sensitive electric power steering allows it to turn relatively tight and quick.
We sampled the AWD Explorer on an off-road course, and we've never tested anything off road that absorbed deep ruts and huge humps so smoothly. We're talking 10 mph here. It was as if the Explorer had a few extra feet of travel in the suspension.
The Explorer's optional all-wheel drive system has no transfer case. That saves weight, and minimizes the fuel-mileage penalty that invariably comes with AWD. Instead, the Explorer maximizes off-road traction with a fancy electronic-control system called Terrain Management.
There are four modes to the system, which the driver sets with a knob behind the shift lever. In the Normal mode, on dry pavement, the vehicle runs at about 90 percent power to the front wheels, 10 percent to the rear. Torque shifts to the rear as needed, if the front wheels lose traction and can't do as much work. Normal mode is what you'll use most of the time, rain or shine.
The Snow/Gravel mode allows less wheelspin, provides conservative throttle control, and enables earlier transmission upshifts. This should help stabilize handling, making the Explorer easier to control in sloppy conditions, though you'll still need to exercise care when slowing down.
The Sand mode provides more aggressive throttle, holds the transmission in gear longer, and desensitizes traction control. Because, unlike in snow, to make progress in sand you need wheelspin. Mud/Ruts allows more torque as throttle increases. Stability control is desensitized to help maintain momentum over soft or uneven surfaces.
Terrain Management also includes Hill Descent Control, which proved itself on a steep downhill on the off-road course, holding the Explorer's speed to 4 mph without driver input. It's proven itself in many vehicles we've tested, including many Land Rovers. On an icy hill, it could save your life or at least help you avoid crashing and damaging your vehicle. If you think you'll need this feature, it's worth learning how to use it most effectively.
Of course, the standard front-drive Explorer and its various traction enhancing systems do an excellent job in their own right, even in a driving snow, if the travel surface is pavement.
The Explorer will tow 5000 pounds when equipped with the tow package, and includes trailer sway control, which works with the stability control. There's also a rearview camera with zoom, which will guide you to position the hitch ball directly under the trailer hitch cap, and make you feel like an astronaut docking his spacecraft."
"The Ford Explorer is large, good-looking and relatively fuel efficient crossover SUV with a long heritage that comes nicely equipped at any trim level.
Sam Moses filed this report to NewCarTestDrive.com after his test drive of the Ford Explorer near Portland, Oregon, with Laura Burstein reporting from Los Angeles."
Top Cars


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Under their newly founded label 'Pour les Alpes' the Swiss designers Tina Stieger and Annina Gaehwiler presented their collection of furniture at the Mint shop during this year's London Design Festival.
The collection 'echos' is an award-winning furniture serie of the 'echoes' competition announced by the Swiss Arts Council 'Pro Helvetia'.
"The three chests of drawers have been created in close cooperation with five different artisan craftsmen from two Swiss regions, Grisons and Appenzell. Shingle-making, wood-carving and lace-making: artisanal techniques, which are still present in the Swiss alpine region and above all, deeply rooted in everyday life."
"The individual objects are a tribute to the Swiss Alps and are, in a formal and symbolical way, referring to an identity rooted in the alpine culture. They are telling exceptional new stories, which awake familiar memories but still offer enough space for own interpretations. The names of the pieces of furniture are 'Ehrfurcht' (reverence), 'Neugierde' (curiosity) and 'Sehnsucht' (desire). They all describe a personal point of view of the alpine surroundings."


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While we get ready to kick back over Memorial Day weekend and welcome the unofficial start of summer, those high flying pilots are kickin' it up above, in the sky over Jones Beach. This spectacular two-day display of flying stunts — always an eagerly awaited annual prelude to summertime — on Saturday and Sunday, May 26-27, starting at 10 a.m., is headlined by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.
Besides the Blue Angels the lineup features the return of the Royal Canadian Air Force Snowbirds and a special appearance by the U.S. Air Force's elite F-22 Raptor. The stealth fighter aircraft will strut its stuff in a performance, which includes the Air Force's Heritage Flight Team, that demonstrates its air dominance in fulfilling its air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.
The renowned Blue Angels Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron always delights air show visitors with unparalleled displays of flight precision, in keeping with the squadron's time-honored tradition. A total of 16 officers voluntarily serve with the Blue Angels. Each year the team typically selects three tactical (fighter or fighter/attack) jet pilots, two support officers and one Marine Corps C-130 pilot to relieve departing members.
This year's lineup also includes the U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Team, the renowned air show pilot Sean Tucker performing in his custom-built Oracle Challenger II biplane; aerobatic pilot Matt Chapman; Lt. Col. John Klatt flying the Jack Links' Screamin' Sasquatch Jet Waco; the popular GEICO Skytypers and their flight squadron of vintage World War II aircraft; the American Airpower Museum Warbirds; the 106th Air Rescue Wing, with a HC-130 and HH-60 fly-by demonstration; along with the SUNY Farmingdale State College Flying Rams, who fly seven of their 22 college-owned aircraft, in a fly-by piloted by their top academic professional pilot performers.
As always, air show favorites the GEICO Skytypers showcase the best of old and new. The Skytypers use six of the remaining 11 World War II-era North American SNJ-2 planes left in the world, which have been meticulously restored with the latest technology.
The GEICO-sponsored team is a familiar sight along beaches in the northeast with their skytyped messages generated at an altitude of 10,000 feet with puffs of smoke in dot matrix-style letters. Each letter is higher than the Empire State Building and messages can be seen from as far as 15 miles away.
But when it comes to their air show participation, it's all about the flying. Much of the team's low-level demonstration takes place in front of the crowd, The historic roar of vintage engines fills the air as the team demonstrates more than 20 different period-specific tactical maneuvers in a new 18-minute routine, introduced for this year's air show season.
"The SNJs flown by our team were originally used as training aircraft for World War II pilots," says Team Flight Lead Larry Arken. "We consider it an honor to demonstrate the amazing abilities of these vintage warbirds on behalf of our sponsor, GEICO, while sharing some rarely seen aviation history with air show crowds. At more than 75-years-old the SNJ-2 is a testament to the engineering genius of the Greatest Generation. These planes are a dream to fly."
The Skytypers team remains based in Farmingdale, at Republic Airport, where the planes are maintained by a full-time staff of mechanics.
"Many of our team members [who live in the New York metro area] earned their wings in the military and we always pay tribute to the brave combat pilots who originally trained in our aircraft as well as those currently serving in the Armed Forces," Arken adds.
"We are eager to perform our new routine. It's extremely dynamic with totally new maneuvers, with added interaction within the air show space. In one of our new maneuvers the six aircraft turn into each other and cross paths. It's a cool sight to see."
"The pilots are excited every time they get in these planes to demonstrate their capabilities and love our new show. They're very engaged, all professional aviators who want to bring their best to the spectators."
"Be sure to come out to Jones Beach over the weekend," he says. "It's a great venue and a great family day. We love being here in front of our New York friends and family. It's one of our favorite shows and we're tremendously excited about this year's lineup, with the Blue Angels and the Snowbirds."
Bethpage Air Show
When: Saturday and Sunday, May 26-27, 10 a.m. Admission is free; standard $10 vehicle use fee will be collected upon entry.
Where: Jones Beach State Park, Wantagh. For up-to-date information, visit


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Founded in 1906 in South Bend, Indiana, South Bend Lathe, at one time, controlled almost half of the U.S. domestic metalworking lathe market.
South Bend did a lot of things right, to earn their market share and reputation, and one of the smartest was to produce clear, well-illustrated, low-cost instructional materials describing not just how to set up and run their tools, but how to use them to perform all kinds of basic and advanced machining operations. Their classic pamphlet How to Run a Lathe was updated and reissued annually for decades, and has often been reprinted. The 1942 edition, in particular, is highly regarded, and has been a centerpiece of the Lindsay Technical Books catalog for years.
Today, South Bend lathes are sold through Grizzly Industrial dealers, and much of their classic instructional library is available on-line. Document sharing site Scribd, for instance, hosts freely-browsable PDFs of How to Run a Lathe's 1913, 1930, and 1966 editions, as well as several of South Bend's topic-specific bulletins including How to Grind Lathe Tool Cutter Bits, The Installation and Leveling of the Lathe, and How to Cut Screw Threads in the Lathe. Enthusiast W.E. Williams also maintains a large online library of original South Bend publications, many of which I have not seen anywhere else.


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Tea is wonderful, however it's enjoyed, and I think there is special pleasure in enjoying tea from a handmade clay cup which has been thrown on a potter's wheel. When you drink tea from such a cup, it's easy to feel the revolving energy which created it. And for each of us, as with the ball of wet clay that becomes a vessel, the challenge is to become centered as the wheel whirls and spins.
The feeling of turning, turning is upon us. Fall is officially here. It is a time of harvest and celebration, and our table is heaped with ripeness and abundance. Then, there is emptiness.
If you've ever lived or worked on a farm, or even picked apples or grapes in an orchard or vineyard as a fun family outing, you know this feeling of stillness when all of the fruit has been gathered. The spaces which are created invite gratitude, and contemplation.
The same feeling is also in our cities and towns this time of year. Trees drop their leaves, and we see more sky, even in the middle of Seattle, London, or LA. Looking up, birds migrate in patterns across the new openings. These openings are opportunities for renewal in ourselves, as the old year releases us and a new year begins.
Speaking as someone whose life and work depends intimately upon the renewal of plants, this is just one of the many lessons that the natural world offers. By releasing old patterns, we make space for new growth. Renewal requires this letting go of the old.
With this is mind, you may find inspiration in steeping a pot of tea with a friend, and pouring out your intentions for the new cycle, the new year.
What old patterns would you like to release?
What debris can you clear, in order to make room for more prolific flowering?
What would you intend to "turn around" in your life?
Art of Tea's "Feel Better Blend" is a customer favorite for letting go of stagnation. This signature blend brings together Ayurvedic and Western herbs. The twist of bracing, autumnal zest and spice— including Organic Fennel, Orange Peel, Licorice, Cinnamon, and even a bit of heat from Chili Pepper—may inspire you to view Fall as a time of new beginnings.


text: It's the time of the year when we look back and reminisce all the things that have happened for the past 365 days. OpinionWorld has grown to be one, if not the most, successful online survey panels in Australia. We are delighted to let you know that our community has grown bigger and better as we review our 2015 experiences. It is not only our hard work that has paid off, it is our partnership with you, our wonderful members that made all things possible and gave us a progressive year-end result. As we face another exciting year ahead, we do hope that you will still be with us as we seek for an even better 2016. We need your help, as always, to reach our aspirations providing the best quality opinions for market research. Without your honest and thoughtful answers, OpinionWorld is just an ordinary online survey site. You have brought the "Extra" in our "Ordinary". Together, let's aim for another "Extra Ordinary" year in 2016, as we work hand-in-hand towards another fruitful year. Rest assured that we will strive harder to give you the best survey and rewards experience no other survey panel can give as our token of appreciation. It has been a memorable year for the community and we owe our success to you who have trusted us and loyally stayed with us through the ups and downs, that is the nature of survey participation to complete a year of growth and success. We sincerely hope that you have enjoyed your experience in our community, more so with our surveys and rewards. May you all have a Merry Christmas, a fun and delightful Boxing Day and an absolutely wonderful New Year! You are all the best OpinionWorld has ever had. Thank you for staying with us! Not a member yet? What are you waiting for? Become a member of the best online survey community! Join us now for Free! Not quite convinced? How about you take a peak on our Rewards here first?


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Kenny Kane & Able Wayne - Highway [Unsigned Hype]
"New Memphis Artist Kenny Kane Able Wayne Da Dranka & the Smoka Available on ITUNES NOW! [m]
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Buffalo Bill Meets Dancing with the Stars? Rumor Patrol
Technically, @DWTSGossip beat me to this one. 🙂 It would not surprise me if he ends up on the show this season – we had no NFL last season, did we?? Anyway, from Erin Kelly's Twitter:
Thoughts?? Seems like a nice guy, but I know nothing about him.
ETA: Erin says her dad declined because he needs to "continue to recover." He recently finished his chemo treatments for cancer.


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Restart: Life at CARE's youth shelter for male refugees in Greece
"Youth Shelter: A Home to Restart" presents our ECHO funded Youth Shelter for male refugees from 18 to 22 years old, through the eyes of two young men from Pakistan. What makes this shelter Read More
Refugees take first steps toward integration in Greece
By Dora Vangi, CARE Greece
One of the biggest obstacles refugees and asylum seekers face in their daily lives in Greece is the language barrier. Not being able to communicate with Read More
Syrian refugees in Jordan: Living in limbo
by Holly Frew, CARE USA
Life as a refugee is a life in waiting. They are safe from violence but their lives are on hold. They cannot legally work. Many try to make ends meet by Read More
What do refugees want from the London Conference on Syria?
by Holly Frew, CARE USA
February 4 could be a momentous day for Syrians, both refugees and those displaced inside Syria. A major global summit in London focused on finding a Read More
Firewood rations for Syrians, not a solution
by Abu Malek
I can only hope the situation will not be as bad as last year. Last winter, it was freezing cold. Even the weather did not have mercy with us. Every few days, we faced Read More
To the Girls of the World: Don't Wait for War to Discover Your Strength
Raneem Alhomsi, 16 – from Daraa, Syria, now living in Jordan as told to Mary Kate MacIsaac, CARE Regional Syria Response Communications Coordinator
Even before the war, life wasn't Read More
Chocolate as a Force for Change
What do you think about when you hear "cocoa"? Of course, chocolate comes to mind. Chocolate cake. Hot chocolate. Chocolate truffles. Whatever the cocoa or chocolate product, one thing is certain Read More
World Humanitarian Day: Being human means feeling the pain of others
Since my childhood, I have pursued a life of good health. I have enjoyed eating nourishing foods, playing sports, singing songs, writing and drawing. They are a part of my weekly routine. Each can Read More
World Humanitarian Day: Mohammad Speaks from Turkey
"Mohammad"*, 30, holds a leadership role in a CARE partner NGO working in Syria, but based in Turkey
When I was still living in Syria, I knew that my future would be in the Read More
I Am Powerful
I had the idea of photographing various refugee and Jordanian women for the International Women's Day while holding a sign that read: "I Am Powerful."
A task that proved to me Read More


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After seeing the film, 12 years a slave, I went away and read the book by Solomon Northup, published in 1853 on which the film is based. There are numerous features which aren't in the film but are in the book. One that I thought was really interesting was that the film doesn't make explicit some of the things that Northup says. Northup is very keen to bring out the hypocrisy of the Washington establishment: for example, he talks of Washington, and says of the house that he was imprisoned in
Strange as it may seem, within plain sight of this same house, looking down from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality and the rattling of the poor slave's chains, almost commingled. A slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol.We can support Solomon's insight with other sources. Solomon also mentions a time when the ships sailed bearing him south, as they passed Mount Vernon, the White Men bared their heads to the memory of George Washington, whether the black slaves did is left to us to imagine.
There were probably good artistic reasons to leave these things out. Slavery is not a live political issue today- but I think they also demonstrate the change of genre that the film represents as opposed to the book. The Book is quite clearly a political polemic: its saying, look America is the land of the free and Washington fought for justice for all- look at how you don't do this. The film is talking about the suffering of the slaves in the past- a suffering that thanks to the sacrifice of US citizens (both black and white) has passed. I can imagine reading the book in 1853 would have been a completely different experience to how we see the film in 2014: the latter is a shocking artefact, the former something more akin to reading about an atrocity today. Our responses are different therefore: the book is trying to rouse anger, the film, understanding and regret. The book fights against actual southerners who believed in slavery, the film against forgetting the suffering.


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Listening to the Community Helps Choctaw Nation Fight Teen Pregnancy
Funding from the Family and Youth Services Bureau is enabling the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to battle teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in two rural counties with some of the highest teen birth rates in the state.
The federally recognized Tribe, which extends over 10 ½ counties, is using its $412,000 Personal Responsibility Education Program grant to put in place an evidence-based curriculum at three public middle schools in Choctaw County and at Jones Academy, a residential school for Choctaw students in Pittsburg County. FYSB's 3-year Tribal PREP grants enable Tribes and Tribal communities to develop and implement culturally relevant, comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention programs.
Christi Hammons, who directs the Choctaw Nation's PREP grant, says listening to teens and parents has guided the Tribe's approach to launching its teen pregnancy prevention program.
"By talking to high school students, we felt we really were too late for some students," says Hammons of focus groups they held. "High school students told us if they would have known more about how to prevent teen pregnancy and STDs at an early age, they would have done things differently."
That feedback led to the Tribe's decision to teach the Draw the Line/Respect the Line sexual health curriculum to 6th through 8th graders.
"Hopefully we can catch them at that age so we can educate them about risky behaviors," Hammons says, and make them less likely to have risky sex.
Choctaw Nation also listened to parents' concerns. Hammons says some local parents are reluctant to let their children learn about sex at school, and feel home is the place for sexual health instruction. For that reason, students will opt into the program, and an eighth-grade lesson on using condoms will be taught at a community center, instead of at school.
Hammons and other Choctaw Nation staff will meet with parents before the lesson, go over the demonstration with them, and provide incentives—a gift card for students who attend and a gas voucher for parents, so they can get their children to the center.
"The important thing is to get them there," she says.


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Google debuted an animated Google Doodle tribute to classical French composer Claude Debussy Thursday to commemorate the musician's 151st birthday.
The animated doodle features a moonlit riverside scene set to the tune of "Clair de Lune," perhaps Debussy's most famous and recognizable piece.
The doodle begins with floating balloons that transition to a slow-moving riverside panorama of cars, cyclists and a windmill, highlighted by a full moon and flickering lights. The flickering lights correspond to the cadences of the song.
The doodle eventually follows a boat and then transitions to two lonesome boaters crossing paths that end up sharing a red umbrella as a light rain begins.
Debussy was born on Aug. 22, 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. His revolutionary musical structure in the 20th century is often compared to the work of Impressionist and Symbolist painters, according to The Guardian.
The eldest of five children, Debussy's father owned a shop that sold crockery and his mother was a seamstress, according to The Independent. He was apparently encouraged to pursue music by Madame Mauté de Fleurville, who claimed to have studied with Polish composer Frédéric Chopin.
Debussy entered the Paris Conservatory in 1873, where he studied piano and composition. He later won the Grand Prix de Roma in 1884 at the age of 22.
He died of colon cancer at his home in Paris on March 25, 1918, at age 55.


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2007's Top Products No one could have missed the recent mass of media attention surrounding the impending UK, European and Australian launch of Sony's PlayStation 3. And after months of prolonged waiting, it has arrived. We conduct an in-depth review of this eagerly-awaited games console and discover what all the fuss was about.
The newest addition to the games console arena is a no-nonsense piece of hardware: big, black and looking like it means business. The PS3 weighs in at a whopping 5kg - substantially heavier than either the Xbox 360 or the Wii, which respectively register 3.5kg and 3.1kg on the scales. The rounded edges and polished surfaces give it a sleek and stylish appearance - a world away from the look of the ageing, angular PS2.
The new machine feels sturdy and well-built, yet at the same time like it deserves to be treated with the upmost care. Maybe it's the luxurious-looking shiny black casing with the silver highlights. Or maybe it's the thought of having just spent £425 on the thing. Either way, the PS3 is a product you immediately want to treasure.
Like its predecessor, the PS3 can placed horizontally or on its side, its slot-loading optical drive easily accessible in both orientations. A lift-up cover discreetly hides the memory-card slots, which include Compact Flash, SD and Memory Stick Duo. Four easily accessible USB ports sit under the main body of the console to connect controllers for charging. The primary power switch, slots for the AC cord, and the AV and HDMI ports used to connect the PS3 to a TV, are situated at the back of the unit.


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Birthday girl talks about violent shooting
"It was my party," said Mariah Boulden, wrapped in a white sheet and standing on a sidewalk splattered with blood near her front door.
Saturday night, while she had walked out to invite some neighbors to the party, her brother and others continued with pat downs at the front door of her Cypress home. Two men refused to be searched and walked away, she recounted Sunday morning.
From what she's pieced together, the two jumped a neighbor's fence then walked through her back gate.
"They wasn't supposed to be here whoever they was," Boulden, 18, said.
Just as she was walking back to her house, Boulden said she heard gunshots. She ran to the front door, but it was locked. A cousin grabbed her and they ran down the street, calling 911.
"I didn't expect none of this to happen," she said.
Two people were killed and at least 22 others were wounded in the shooting.
Partygoers scrambled after the first gunshots rang out about 11 p.m. in the 7300 block of Enchanted Creek Drive, near Fry and FM 529.
Officials with the Harris County Sheriff's Office are looking for two suspected gunmen.
More than 100 people, mostly young adults, were at the house, officials with the sheriff's office said.
On Sunday morning, after detectives took down crime scene tape and a fire truck washed away the largest blood stain on the cement, neighbors walked past, taking silent looks at the house with a garage door hanging skewed and bowed out, speckles of blood for hundreds of yards down the street. Friends struggled to find nearby parking, but gathered in groups on the front lawn or in an emptied living room. One friend and neighbor drove up, her young son jumped out and handed a woman in the front yard two dozen donuts. She said thank you and waved at the driver as the boy scrambled back into the backseat.


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With the PBoC's currency announcement last Saturday and the surge (!) in the value of RMB on Monday (all very kindly timed to add zest to my meetings this week in Boston, New York, and Washington), you would assume that today's entry would be all about the RMB and the effect of the PBoC announcement. But aside from a brief aside to say that I am a little skeptical that this announcement adds up to much beyond a desire to head off China-bashing at the G20 meeting – bad news for Germany, who will now have to absorb much of the heat – I plan instead to discuss what I think the history of sovereign debt crises might tell us about the recent events in Europe.
The Greek crisis may in many ways seem unprecedented, but of course it isn't. I think by now everyone already knows that Greece has spent much of the past 200 years – more than half by some counts – in default or in one form or another of debt restructuring, but in fact there are plenty of other periods of sovereign default and restructuring that can tell us something about what is happening and what will happen. I would suggest that there at least five things we can "predict" with some degree of confidence from looking at historical precedents:
1. The euro will not survive in its current form.
We should always have been skeptical about the survivability of the euro. There is a history of currency unions from which we can draw two reasonable conclusions. First, without fiscal integration such as occurred in the US after the Civil War or in the German Customs Union under Prussian dominance, currency unions are no more permanent than other forms of monetary integration, such as adherence to gold or silver standards.
Without robust mechanisms to absorb imbalances that emerge in different parts of the economy, and Europe embodies many very different economies, countries normally are forced to rely on monetary adjustment. The European currency union eliminates this type of adjustment mechanism, leaving countries with only two, brutally difficult options for adjustment besides opting out – sovereign default or long periods of deflation and unemployment.
So along with very high levels of capital mobility (which Europe possesses to some extent) and labor mobility (of which it has much less), Europe also needed to assign a substantial amount of fiscal sovereignty to some entity. I have already explained elsewhere why I think this was always very unlikely. Difficult as it might be, opting out of the euro is likely to be much less unpalatable for many countries than sovereign default or long periods of high unemployment.
Second, when currency unions are successful, it is almost always during periods of rising global liquidity and expanding international capital flows. No currency union has been able to survive the great monetary contractions that spell the end of a globalization period. The 19th Century's Latin Monetary Union and the Scandinavian Monetary Union, to take the most obvious examples, were both once considered great successes, but were forced into retreat when global monetary conditions turned sour.
So when will countries opt out of the euro? Ernest Hemingway once described the process of going broke as "Slowly. Then all at once." That is not a very precise description, I know, but I would guess that support for the euro will erode very slowly until suddenly it seems inevitable and then the process will happen breathtakingly quickly.
2. This is the big one
One of the myths that we often hear repeated is that financial crises have been occurring with increased frequency in the past one or two decades. I think we only believe this because we remember the big crises of the past, which seem to occur every twenty to thirty years, and then look back all crises of the past two decades – Mexico in 1994, East Asia in 1997, LTCM and Russia in 1998, Brazil in 1999, the Internet Bubble in 2000, the Sub-Prime crisis in 2007, and Greece in 2010 – and conclude that there are an awful lot more crises nowadays.
But in my book, The Volatility Machine, I made sure to distinguish between the short-term liquidity crises that occur within globalization cycles, of which there are a lot and seemed to occur every two or three years, and the long-term liquidity contractions that spell the end of each of the major globalization cycles. The former can be brutal, but they are usually short-lived and the overall market recovers very quickly.
So, for example, although most of us know that the world experienced a deep and long-lasting crisis in 1873, which began a long period of contracting international trade, reduced capital flows, and the massive bankruptcies of the high technology companies of the period, including most notably the railroads, very few people seem to know about the Overend Gurney crisis of 1866, which seemed pretty horrific at the time but from which the markets recovered fairly quickly. Likewise the great and well-known LDC debt crisis beginning in 1982 was preceded by several smaller crises, most importantly I think in 1976 by a Mexican peso crisis, which two years later had all but been forgotten by the market.
In my opinion the current set of crises, beginning with the sub-prime crisis in the US and spreading throughout the world, is not a short-term liquidity crisis like LTCM, the Asian Crisis, or the Mexican crisis of 1994. I think this is likely to be one of those big events, one that represents a major re-adjustment in the world during which time the massive imbalances that had been built up during the long globalization cycle that started around the late 1980s and early 1990s are finally worked out.
Not only will Greece, in other words, get worse, but it is by no means the end of the crisis. A lot more countries in Southern Europe, Latin America and Asia are going to be caught up in this before it ends.
3. The European crisis will be accompanied by a trade shock.
In the early 1980s Latin America countries were suddenly cut off from funding during what was subsequently called the LDC Debt Crisis, or the Lost Decade. These countries had been running large current account deficits, and of course current account deficits require capital account surpluses. These surpluses were financed by the the huge petrodollar recycling of the 1970s, when commercial banks around the world made staggeringly large loans to many developing countries.
Of course after 1981-82 it became clear that the loans exceeded the repayment capacity of the borrowing countries, and suddenly financing dried up – almost overnight. What's worse, the debt crisis had already been preceded by flight capital, so that when financing dried up, a capital account surplus quickly became a capital account deficit. Of course once Latin America began to experience capital outflows, its trade deficit necessarily had to become a trade surplus. This is exactly what happened.
The deficit countries of Europe, whose combined trade deficits are nearly two-thirds the size of the US trade deficit, will also be forced into a rapid contraction in their trade deficits for the very same reasons – they are going to find it hard enough simply to refinance themselves, let alone receive net capital inflows. Without a capital account surplus, however, they simply cannot run current account deficits. This contraction must, one way or another, be absorbed by the very unwilling rest of the world. I describe what this will entail in a May 19 entry.
4. The economic recovery in the countries hit by crisis will not begin until they are recognized as insolvent and receive debt forgiveness from their creditors.
Preceding every sovereign default is the fiction that the obligor country is simply facing a short-term financing problem, and that with a lot of discipline and a little bit of good will it will be able to work its way out of the crisis. During this period a number of restructuring "solutions" are proposed – all of which involve increasing debt, and often in the most financially destabilising way – which inevitably make the final resolution of the crisis much more difficult and which sharply raise financial distress costs. The most notorious recent example of these terrible "solutions" was Argentina's disastrous debt swap in 2001, in which it dramatically increased the country's total obligations while it desperately tried to maintain the fiction that it could somehow grow its way out of its impossible debt burden.
Greece, and probably two or three other countries, simply cannot repay their outstanding debt amounts. Ultimately they are going to default, and then in the restructuring process they will receive enough debt forgiveness that allows them to return to a sound footing and with a reasonable repayment prospect. But as long as they maintain the pretence that they can and will repay the full outstanding amount, and struggle with the burden, the resulting distortions in the economy will mean that businesses will disinvest and the country will not grow.
Historical precedence makes it clear that as long as the sovereign borrower is forced to struggle with an unrepayable debt burden, it will not grow. Eventually, as has happened in nearly every previous case, creditors and borrowers will acknowledge reality and will work out a debt forgiveness plan that will allow the economy to return to growth. Until then, expect weak growth, high unemployment, and constant battles over debt.
How long will it take for the world to recognize the inevitable? That leads us to the fifth thing we can learn from historical precedents.
5. Greece's insolvency will not be recognized for many years.
When most of the obligations of an insolvent sovereign were widely dispersed among a wide variety of bondholders, market forces acted relatively quickly to force debt forgiveness. Defaulted bonds trade at deep discounts, and it is a lot easier for someone who bought the debt at one-quarter its face value to agree to 50% debt forgiveness than for someone who made the original loan.
But things are different with the current crop of insolvent European sovereign debts, as they were with the sovereign loans of the 1970s. They are heavily concentrated within the banking system, and the banks cannot recognize the losses without themselves collapsing into insolvency.
That cannot be allowed to happen. The LDC debt crisis of the 1980s raged on nearly a full decade – a decade of stopped payments, capital flight, and agonizingly low growth – before creditors formally acknowledged that most struggling borrowers could not repay their debt and would need partial debt forgiveness. The first formal recognition of debt forgiveness occurred with Mexico's Brady Plan restructuring in 1990. Growth returned to most countries only after it became clear that they would receive debt forgiveness.
Why did it take so long? Were the banks stupid? No, banks knew full well that they weren't going to get their money back as early as the mid-1980s, but to have acknowledge this would have required them to set aside more capital to absorb the losses than most of them possessed. The recognition of the obvious had to wait nearly a full decade so that banks could build a sufficient capital cushion to absorb the losses.
So too with the European crisis. Much of the Greek debt is held by European banks, and they simply do not have enough capital to absorb losses on Greek debt, let alone if Greece were to be joined by Portugal, Spain and others. The banks will need first to rebuild their capital bases before they can admit the obvious, and this could take several years.
So we are condemned to spend much of the next decade postponing a resolution of the crisis while banks rebuild their capital base. Until they do, we will all pretend that Greece isn't insolvent and that other European countries will not face a crisis. Meanwhile none of these countries will be able to grow.
by Michael Pettis