text:
Personal Log #475
August 28, 2010 - September 1, 2010
Last Updated: Sun. 10/24/2010
page #474 page #476 BOOK INDEX
11,799 Sold. Want to know what the competition
actually thinks? Look no further than the reporting of monthly sales
numbers. The spin for August is truly amazing. Remember last
year this time? It was the madness of "Cash For Clunkers" pushing the
purchase of more efficient vehicles. But they don't take that into
account. The weak economy now is affecting the entire industry,
keeping sales of everything down. But they don't take that into
account either. The big surge of sales from the initial release of the
newest generation of Prius was totally disregarded too. It's very
frustrating to see how narrow their view is and how easily they exclude
certain information. 12,000 per month has represented the "solid"
sales. It's been the indicator steady market penetration. Less is a
bit disappointing, but not the end of the world. Numbers differ from
month to month anyway. More is great, sometimes enough to push Prius
into the top-seller list. Overall for the year has showed it to be a
dependable business product. Yet this time, the count is being spun to
look bad. Can't they see how Prius is helping to replace traditional
production? Don't they notice more and more of them on the road now?
'Range Anxiety' Campaign. Much discussion erupted all over the internet about the trademark announcement. The word "fear" came up over and over again. That was definitely the theme emerging already. This makes it overwhelming clear why Toyota was in no rush to release the PHV. Fallout of some sort from the initial rollout of Volt was inevitable. Seeing it emerge already could be a sign that the market will be turned upside-down by introduction of plug-in vehicles this way. It certainly will get consumers talking about the issues involving battery power. Sadly, without out much real-world data available, many misconceptions could emerge as a result. See how Toyota's effort to collect real-world data from actual consumers prior to rollout could really pay off? Observations of consumer driving, as well as consumer feedback, will indicate what to promote. They'll point out what interests them in a purchase. Propaganda is often attributed to things like fear. No catch-phrase necessary when you have facts to support claims. Offering a solution to a problem that may not actually exist doesn't inspire confidence. It looks more like an effort to undermine competition.
Trademark Spin. It's somewhat bizarre commenting on problems GM creates for itself. Today, they announced their intent to trademark the "range anxiety" phrase. Why? Creating an identifier unique to Volt to emphasize a trait specific to its design, you place Volt into a category of its own. That pushes away from the mainstream, what many would call a niche. Mainstream equates to becoming ubiquitous, which is not the direction we're seeing from Volt at this phase... a reality which really upsets the enthusiasts, hence the growing attitude problem lately. They've basically given up on the first-generation model. Most replies to missed goals simply get diverted to the second-generation instead. How does this trademark help? It appears to be nothing but an attempt to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) about plug-in vehicles without engines. When the battery becomes depleted, you're screwed. Really? Do people with a 40-mile commute and a 100-mile capacity really worry that much? If so, how come CS-mode efficiency isn't ever promoted? Looks like retaliation is inevitable. Focus on the engine could easily backfire. Stay tuned.
Early Adopter. With so many uncertainties about Volt
still and no other engine, motor, battery configuration expected within the
next few years, some are now exchanging that "leap frog" idea with a
"building for the future" approach instead.
They're the ones calling this phase of rollout as "early adopter" saying the
next generation is intended for mainstream consumers. That's an
obvious backpedal, but I'll give credit for their acceptance of "over
promise, under deliver" with the hopes that they'll see the "competition" as
helpful now. Unfortunately, there are others being far less
constructive... smug as ever, in fact. The situation is getting out of
hand. Of course, you have to ask yourself if those with attitude are
actually planning to buy one. Becoming an early adopter says much more
than simply putting the competition down and continuing to drive a guzzler.
Cruze Estimates. There still is no official word, but GM announced anticipated efficiency estimates today. The 1.4 liter 6-speed automatic is expected to deliver 36 Highway, 24 City. That's really disappointing MPG, no matter how they spin it. Remember all the boasting about numbers above 40? The combined value will likely be just 28. Makes you wonder what that same engine will deliver for efficiency when used in Volt. 50 seems highly unlikely when the direct-drive version doesn't come even remotely close. The discussions online don't exactly reflect a positive outlook either. Rather than it being a revolutionary vehicle leading the way to profit for GM, it looks to be just another offering to match the competition. That puts even more pressure on Volt... which is already struggling with previous promises.
Selling Fear. Supposedly, that's how Prius was sold in the early years. I couldn't help but to be amused by reading that. Gas was dirt cheap and our reliance on oil wasn't even a concern until $4 gas. Even then, the solution was to "Drill, Baby, Drill" rather than use less. Anywho, this idea of fear helping to sell Volt is now becoming a hot topic. Enthusiasts justify it by claiming it was used for Volt. They even found an old advertisement showing Prius next to big oil pumps... equating that to fear rather than the "taking responsibility" message that was actually being conveyed. I responded with: It's easy to spin history by looking back many years later. Back then, things were very different. Americans were encouraged to guzzle. Remember the rise of Hummer and all the "good for the economy" promoting of giant SUVs when that ad was printed. It wasn't fear. It was the growing interest environmental concern, hence the SULEV emission rating from Prius as well as high MPG. Getting both from one vehicle was very rare in that time.
It Gets Better. This was the response to the previous quote: "The Volt is 5X better than the Prius at reducing pollution and at least 3X at reducing gasoline consumption." Talking about digging yourself into an even deeper hole. Without any data available, he's making claims that don't even sound reasonable. Of course, it ultimately boils down to overall production anyway. Even if those wild claims were true, the fact that Prius will be selling at least 5X the rate of Volt offsets everything entirely. Remember, if the consumer doesn't buy a Volt, they are probably just going to get an ordinary 30 MPG car. It's the entire fleet that needs to change, not just a few token vehicles. Then there's the matter of distance driven between plugging it. And what about other unknowns, like Winter warm-up using the engine? And since when is comparing Volt to the non-plug model of Prius constructive anyway?
Gotta Love This. The quote says it all: "Performance, handling, economy, comfort, technology, made in USA, etc. etc. Volt has Prius beat on all. Welcome to the second decade of the 21st century, Toyota fanboys... the Prius is yesterday's news." Naturally, the enthusiast who posted it got very angry by my one-word reply: PRICE. He claimed all, but left out something very important. And of course, others sounded off to that too. EMISSIONS was another big one. CS mode efficiency remains a mystery, so that's more of a matter of denial we will patiently delay comment about directly but will point out that it is a requirement of consumers. Seeing a MPG too low limits the market even further. Remember, Volt depends upon a plug. That lack of choice is a source of concern. With Prius, the plug will simply be a model to select from. Consumers who don't have an outlet available or will do lots of daily driving will still have an option available. Driving an Volt not plugged in often that only delivers around 35 MPG and the emissions-rating is only ULEV for $41,000 isn't exactly a winner.
Marketing & Data. Remember many years back when some didn't know (or didn't acknowledge) the difference between want & need. The same seems to be happening with marketing & data. I find it hard to believe, but online comments support that. You can't find much better evidence of being greenwashed than that. It's a sad commentary on our situation. The spin is that because the PHV model Prius uses gas on the highway, it is so inferior to Volt that no one will want to buy it. Telling them... the point has always been to quickly electrify the mainstream ending traditional vehicle production but not necessarily delivering the purity of an absolute... falls on deaf ears... so does the fact that using a modest amount of combustible fuel is just fine. Mainstream consumers will see well over 100 MPG on the highway from plugging in available at an affordable price. That's what will draw in buyers. The typical Camry or Corolla purchase is to fulfill the purpose of reliable family transportation. They could spend more for higher performance, but don't. What would compel them to do that? Marketing? Sounds like the "Live Green, Go Yellow" nonsense of the past. Remember that pathetic excuse to sell more guzzlers?
Dual-Fuel Vehicle. The EPA proposed several new window-sticker label designs today. The benefit is intended to make the variety of upcoming choices easier to understand for comparison of efficiency, cost, and both types of emissions (carbon & smog). The plug-in vehicles with engines were placed into the "Dual Fuel" category but are broken up into "series" and "blended" types. Charge time in hours and range in "miles before switching to Gas Mode" were common values displayed for both. MPG-equivalent were common too, but the "series" included a secondary value for "KW-hrs per 100 miles" and the "blended" a secondary value for "gallon gas equivalent per 100 miles". The "blended" also included an "Electric only" value to indicate the EV distance available if the engine wasn't used. Obviously, both had a "Gas Only" value, which interestingly was displayed only as a combined value. (Yeah! That eliminates the City & Highway greenwashing we've been plagued by.) In short, I liked them. As for comments from the Volt daily blog, they were all over the place. There was far from any agreement. You'd think after all this time there would be some type of common desire from them. Makes you wonder what the Volt Well, marketing will be like. At least the EPA will be providing a standard to follow.
PHV - More Photos. I went nuts with the digital
cameras, snapping off as many as I realistically could when the opportunity
presented itself. Knowing I'd have a hard time remembering exactly
what happened and when, it was important to snap a few from time to time.
So, even if they weren't ever been seen by anyone but me, a record of the
exact sequence of events would be preserved. After all, I figured my
only chance to relive driving a plug-in Prius for awhile would be through
the photos. Turns out, many shots of the display ended up in focus and
not washed out by bright light. Sweet! The wild button pushing
really paid off. There's a nice variety
from this batch, which shows what I saw on my first commute with the PHV,
including 2 wide ones featuring both the Eco-Meter and Speedometer...
photo album 155
Happy? Supposedly: "We will all be happy if the CS mileage
[for Volt] is around that 48 mpg mark."
You can imagine what my feeling after reading that was. It's the
failure to take the big-picture into account that makes me crazy. You
can't just pick certain aspects of engineering or business to focus on.
Success of a vehicle is all inclusive. It's the same old story. Here's what I
posted in response:
Not if it was achieved through expensive means. The addition of direct-drive
using a system derived from Two-Mode is an approach that would accomplish that.
Gain efficiency by sacrificing affordability. It works in the short-term. But for mainstream acceptance (high-volume production & sales) that
design decision could prove to be quite a barrier to overcome. Some would
not be happy.
All-Electric. At first, pushing the belief of electric-only propulsion at all speeds as a necessity makes sense. Fortunately for those doing it, that's all the longer consumers typically have paid attention in the past. Quick judgment was all most sales required. In other words, impulsive & reactionary responses were enough. Nothing else was needed. In a world of few choices, you could get away with shallow & vague arguments. It was simple. Not anymore. That "full power" debate stance falls apart when price and overall efficiency are taken into account. With a wide variety of designs about to hit the market, how much does all-electric matter? How much are people will pay for it? Will they actually care? Since the PHV model Prius delivers well over 100 MPG even at 70 MPH and avoids the short-trip efficiency penalty, I think it's going to be a very appealing choice for middle-market.
That Past. It was absurd how bad things got with Hummer. Remember all that nonsense, where the lifetime of a Prius was claimed to be only 100,000 miles and that monster-size beast 300,000? That so grossly skewed calculations in favor of the guzzler that it was hard to believe consumers actually accepted such blatant greenwashing. Antagonists treated the well-informed like idiots, hoping mass delusion would actually keep wasteful vehicle appeal from turning sour. It didn't work. Consumers aren't that stupid. The solution called "Two-Mode" fell apart too. Cost was a major factor. Pressure from monthly expenses (vehicle payments and fuel) simply could not be just argued away with clever reasoning. And as technology improves, it's obvious how such reasoning just becomes a pile of excuses. That past puts a heavy burden on the upcoming plug-in vehicles. It's why Toyota is working so hard to come up with an affordable configuration. It's also what puts Volt in a very awkward position. The future depends on mainstream purchases. Cost still is a major factor.
PHV - Display Photos. It's hard to know where to begin. There's such a variety of photos to share. I started by showing the shots of the Consumption screen revealing the results of my longest trip 69.4 MPG from 64.7 miles and the overall average 84.0 MPG from 316.5 miles. Then I tossed in a bunch of photos including Energy Monitor, Eco-Motor, and of course the new EV Ratio. The ultimate, though, was the couple of special moments I captured on the ScanGauge. Seeing 0 RPM while driving at 60 MPH was incredible. I certainly waited a long time to finally get an opportunity to see that... and it was totally worth it! Seeing 992 RPM while at 70 MPH was a vindication for me. Until then, I didn't know how much the electric motor would be able to contribute at that speed. Turns out, it's quite a bit. The best though was my first discovery of just how high that efficiency boost could be. It left me scrambling for the camera. 315 MPG while going 63 MPH was amazing. Anywho, this is what I saw... photo album 153 photo album 154


text:
Media Planning
& Buying
There is a real art to getting your advertising seen or heard by the right people. Our account managers can plan a media schedule tailored to your campaign objectives and then manage the entire booking process for you. This means you only have one point-of-contact, and a whole lot more time on your hands. Simple!
Campaign Strategy
When it comes to producing your advertising creative, we've got you covered. From graphic design, script writing, animation, filming and post-production to CAD approvals and distribution of your advertising material, our team is well equipped to take your campaign from initial concept through to final execution, across any platform.
Idea Creation
Script Writing
CAD Approvals + Distribution

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Several hundred customers, both residential & commercial, rely on Cardinal Heating & Air Conditioning's Preventative Maintenance Service Plan each year. With the Preventative Maintenance Service Plan, you will enjoy peace of mind, priority service and value rate discounts on all your service calls, repair parts, and specialty filters that may be needed for your HVAC and plumbing systems.
You depend on your equipment to run at its best, season after season, so depend on Cardinal Heating to give your equipment proper maintenance to protect both your comfort and your investment.
For more details and current pricing on our Preventative Maintenance Service Plan, give us a call today. We look forward to hearing from you!
What's Included?
Our Preventative Maintenance Service Plan also includes cleaning & checking your Furnace and A/C unit each year.
Heating Unit Clean & Check List:
- Check burners and clean
- Check gas valve and pressures
- Check venting
- Carbon Monoxide test
- Check heat exchanger
- Check and clean drain traps and condensate traps
- Inspect air filter and change if necessary
- Check all safety
- Check vent motor and blower motor
- Change belts or grease bearings if necessary
- Check thermostat and adjust if necessary
- Test complete heating cycle
Cooling Unit Clean & Check List
- Check and clean condenser coil
- Check voltage, wiring, and connections
- Check refrigerant level
- Check system operating pressures and temperatures
- Check condensate pump and drain lines
- Check thermostat and adjust if necessary
- Inspect air filter and change if necessary
- Check compressor contacts
- Check belts and drives
- Clean and adjust controls
- Lubricate moving parts
- Test complete cooling cycle


text:
- Powder-free.
- Excellent elasticity.
- Completely skin friendly.
- Chemical resistant.
Nitrile Gloves. Black powder-free, textured nitrile gloves, with excellent elasticity and chemical resistance. Completely skin friendly, free from phthalates/softeners and allergenic latex proteins. Tested and certified according to 1935/2004 – suitable for food contact and medical requirements.
CE category III, CE class I examination gloves, medical device class I.
Chemical breakthrough time tests: Sodium Hydroxide 40% – more than 480 minutes (level 6), Hydrochloric Acid 10% – more than 480 minutes (level 6), Ethidium Bromide 1% – more than 480 minutes (level 6), Ethanol 20% – more than 10 minutes (level 1)
All prices shown excl. VAT.
Out of stock
We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.
You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible.
Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly necessary cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.


text:
Click here to view and discuss this page in DocCommentXchange. In the future, you will be sent there automatically.
Data definition statements (CREATE, ALTER, and DROP) are not replicated by SQL Remote unless they are executed in passthrough mode.
Discuss this page in DocCommentXchange.
|Copyright © 2012, iAnywhere Solutions, Inc. - SQL Anywhere 12.0.1


text:
Client Testimonial – Meet Stephen P.
Hi Andrew,
I just want to say "thank you" from the bottom of my heart for being with me on this seven year journey of "redemption". Thank you for believing in me and taking me on as a client when I did not expect much of anything at all. I cannot tell you how much of a blessing you have been to me and my family. God's timing! Your phone call – my realtor – God's timing! LOL!
Blessings – Stephen P.


text:
With ITeck Solutions LLC help desk support, quick resolution to minor problems is only a phone call away. The ITeck help desk staff has a broad range of experience in many issues and applications to help you trouble shoot software and hardware issues.
One of ITeck's key skills is our ability to communicate with our clients in a way that is effective and easy to understand when assisting them. No mater what your skill level, you can count on the ITeck help desk to guide you to a resolution in a respectful and professional manner.
ITeck's help desk can assist in the following areas:
- Workstation troubleshooting
- Minor connectivity issues
- Print issues
- Application issues
- General how-to questions
Contact Information
Phone: 1-866-483-2544
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Address: ITECK Solutions, LLC
4909 Morning Glory Court, Suite 250
Rockville, MD 20853


text: On Sat, 2006-08-12 at 03:52 +0200, Marc Weber wrote: > 1.) > I know I can use > Build-Depends: lib == <version>, lib2 < version, lib3 >= version > and so on. > > Do you think it would be useful to introducue some notation to indicate > a "tested with" ? > > Reason, purpose: I think its sometimes the case that a author/ mantainer > is quite busy with other projects and misses that some dependencies > break things.. If you want to try out you're left with some compiler > errors and a dependency and have to try out which version works. > > I would propose using this syntax: > lib-1.3 >=1.1 > to indicate that lib 1.1 is required at leeast and tested with up to > 1.3.. Cabal might then give a warning if you try to use 1.4 or greater > "using newer version than tested" or similar.. > > What do you think? > Would this be useful? Well there is actually already a "tested-with:" field that you can put in a .cabal file, however at the moment it refers only to the Haskell implementation, eg ghc-x.y, hugs-x.y etc not to versions of libraries. Yes, I think it's a quite reasonable argument to extend this to include exact versions of libraries that it has been tested with. What do others think? Duncan


text:
As Above, So Below, an exhibition of recent work by Scherer & Ouporov at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, offers an intimate look at their compelling art. Borrowing its title from an ancient dictum that describes in part a mirroring of macrocosms with in the microscopic, the exhibition and accompanying catalogue address the many dichotomies that take form, and are dispelled, within the artists' work. Since meeting at the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute in 1989, Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov have worked together as a team in the production of their diverse art.
The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections
480 pages, illustrated
Edited by Renee Price
9 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.
Cloth bound
This publication accompanies the exhibition Gustav Klimt: The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections, which presents paintings and drawings from the collections of the co-founders of Neue Galerie New York. Together, these collections comprise the finest gathering of works by Klimt in the United States.
Essays examine Klimt's earliest patrons; his studios; the role of photography in his erotic work; profiles of the most important women in Klimt's life; his relationship with Gustav Mahler and Auguste Rodin; his never-before-published 1917 notebook; and an interview by Neue Galerie director Renee Price with Maria Altmann, heir to the five Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis that were recently returned to her by the Austrian government. This lavish volume on Klimt's life and art also includes an exploration of the influence Klimt has had on popular culture.
|Several of Scherer & Ouporov's paintings are included in the important traveling international exhibition and accompanying hard cover publication, Dreams 1900-2000, Science, Art and the Unconscious Mind, edited by Lynn Gamwell with essays by D onald Kuspit and Ernest Hartmann, published by Cornell University Press, Binghamton University Art Museum, State University of New York, 2000.
|An in-depth interview and photos of the artists and their works are included in the recent publication, Intimate Creativity: Partners in Love and Art, by psychologists Irving and Suzanne Sarnoff, published by The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. The celebrated couples profiled here include Scherer & Ouporov, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, and Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel. The authors also draw on historical and contemporary literature about similar couples, ranging from Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber to Gilbert and George to Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.


text:
by Peter Griffith
Robbie's father has left the family. All that remains of him is the empty chair – a constant reminder of his absence. Robbie's mother does her best to look after Robbie, but life is difficult. Then one day a stranger appears. Where has he come from? – is he an alien from outer space? Robbie's mother is delighted and soon the stranger is living as part of the family. But Robbie remains mistrustful. It takes a whole year of incidents and adventures in the family before Robbie begins to trust the new man in her mother's life. And even then, will Jared ever be able to fill the empty chair?
This moving play examines the stresses and emotions in a single-parent family, and traces with deep sensitivity the gradual development of the relationship between a child and her mother's new partner.
Photos of 'The Empty Chair'
Season 19/20
Formers productions
Extract from the script 'The Empty Chair'
|Oh come along, Robbie. You must do your homework. Now come over here.
|You can't tell me what to do! You're not my father!!!
|Well no, I'm not your father. I know that. Of course I'm not your father. But your father's…not here…at the moment…Is he?
|My father's coming back.
|Good. I'm glad he's coming back…
|I'm waiting for him.
|Yes. But while he's away – I'm here. Because I think your mother wants me to be here. And…I hope…that you like me to be here too. No-one can take your father's place. But I can try to help you and your mother. To help you in the house – and to help you to be a bit happier, sometimes.
|But you don't belong here, do you?
|Well, as you know, I come from a very long way away. But perhaps I can try to belong here…just a little bit. Perhaps I can be your friend.
|Not if you make me do my homework…


text:
My personal opinion as a go programmer is that rust is fantastic, however there is one thing that really bothers me:
The rust community has (in my opinion) prematurely embraced async to the point that simple tasks become very complicated. It seems like the async obsession is such that you can't do things like make simple http requests without buying into an async runtime. I consider myself a competent programmer, but struggle at times with the extra setup and mental complexity of using async.
Forcing users into async due to the infection of the whole ecosystem made me wonder why bother with rust over Go to begin with. I fear it will get to the point no useful libraries will exist that are not using async, and the whole ecosystem will become worse because of it.
One of the main selling points of rust was that it isn't supposed to require a runtime, so don't force an async one on me by essentially starving the synchronous ecosystem of mind share.
I've been using Rust for a long time, and I don't think I've used async anything even once. Granted, my domain (low level text search) is kind of what lets me do that. But I guess that's my point: there are entire domains where you don't need to touch async at all.
Plus, there are HTTP libraries in pure Rust that don't use async at all.
With that said, I think you have a valid point. The async ecosystem is extremely overwhelming right now, even for me. But, I'm not disheartened just yet as it's still quite early early days for the async ecosystem. But, I don't think Rust will ever get to the level of Go here. This is exactly where Go really shines. I mean, they built it into the language. It's hard to compete with the user friendliness of that with a runtime-as-a-library. I think the question is whether Rust can get to that "close enough" sweet spot.
My most pleasant uses of rust have been non web related cli programs dealing with POSIX, threads and other low level things.
My most frustrating uses have always been when dipping my toes into the web ecosystem and dealing with async. I spent a while trying to find a way to avoid async to write a simple web application, but was irritated to find nearly every web framework that isn't async has an open github issue to migrate to async, which scared me off as I didn't want to deal with breaking changes like that.
I then decided to look into just a rust CGI binary, however all the database drivers I saw that I wanted to use were also async.
Which database are you looking to use? I know rusqlite and rust-postgres are both synchronous. I think even diesel is as well.
w.r.t rust-postgres
This crate is a lightweight wrapper over tokio-postgres.
So I still need to deal with tokio and and a bunch of confusing dependency issues. I'm not saying they aren't usable, I'm just saying they were more annoying to use and install than they needed to be.
I was also bitten by two different libs depending on two different versions of tokio.
At least for me, one of Go's best strengths is painless async. Just taking something synchronous and being able to throw it in a goroutine is super powerful.
I've seen exactly what you've mentioned with some crates, but I also saw it early on with Go as well. My preference is for parsing packages to not come with specific transport or concurrency requirements. It's much easier to throw something in the background than to try and force it into the foreground (at least in go).
As I mentioned in the article, async is a huge pain point in Rust at the moment, but if the community manages to figure that out and the ecosystem stabilizes a bit, I don't know if I'd end up using Go much any more.
The Go ecosystem has had multiple years to improve and the Rust async ecosystem is less than a year old. I'm hopeful it will improve.
[Comment removed by author]
It's true that some http clients switched to async-per-default (for example reqwest), but there are still enough capable of handling sync. For me this meant changing my
use reqwest::{Client,ClientBuilder} to
use reqwest::blocking::{Client,ClientBuilder}. Yes it'll create a new thread and run a single threaded tokio engine inside that, but that's fine for how well reqwest works. Also I'd rather have them implement the logic once than twice, creating bit rot for one path.
Implicit background threads aren't the nicest thing to deal with when you want to do things like privilege separation and setuid, which is one of the reasons i would chose rust over go, better integration with the host OS.
I don't think that's the complaint. As someone who just started writing something in Rust coming from Go, the problem seems to be that making everything async increases API complexity (and program setup) for simple things that would be perfectly served by a sync call. The converse thing in Go was when people would use channels for everything even when they weren't needed (for a bit, using channels and a goroutine was seen as a way to implement Python-like iterators, without consideration of what really happens with those channels and goroutines if they aren't properly consumed).
I can see the async-craze taking over Python too, to a certain extent. It seems like everyone and their mom are writing async versions of every non-async library in the world, without first wondering if it's worth doing.
Yeah, I think rust people love to make maximally generic implementations, so when given the choice between async or not, they just say "Well, async can be called anywhere with a wrapper, so it is more generic to always choose async". However as you said, people don't consider the complexity or overhead in this decision.
I kind of disagree on the compile errors. IMO, the compile errors in Rust generally tend to be much more clear and helpful than other compiled languages. The worst-case messages when doing complex things with generics can get pretty ugly and indecipherable, sure. I suppose it's better to be able to do complex things with types and suffer the errors when you get it wrong then to be forbidden from doing complex things at all.
I mostly agree on the async. I just finished updating a few of my basic projects to async/await, and I still find it confusing exactly what it's doing. Though most of my projects are at the scale where I'd rather just run whatever it is synchronously, since they're just simple CLI tools that don't really do anything else. It seems like the way to work now is just sprinkling async/await everywhere like magic pixie dust, and it'll all work somehow, but you have no idea what it's really doing.
Definitely agree on package management. It's very disappointing that Go package management is still kind of a mess, mostly as a result of many projects not having really bought into the mod system yet, since Go existed for many years with either no module system or like 5 competing ones to choose from.
Also result and option. They're great, and so is the built-in ? pattern. IMO, Go could really stand to have some syntax sugar around the
if err != nil { return err } pattern.
I also don't understand the complaint about switches needing to be exhaustive. You can easily set a default case with
_. You just have to create it explicitly and define exactly what happens there. Seems like a good thing to me.
I haven't had much trouble with the borrow checker and lifetimes lately either. Maybe I'm just writing simple things, or maybe I've come to a more rust-y way of thinking that makes it easier to avoid those kinds of errors before they happen.
The compile errors are generally good, but complex generics will make compilation errors in any language incomprehensible.
Exhaustive switches are really a small issue for me, just a difference. I understand why they need to be exhaustive and why that can be good. That'a why they were in the middle category.
Async started making more sense to me once I started putting stuff in Arcs, but because everything gets moved into async blocks, it can be painful to copy everything in. Especially if the goal is to just run something like the DB in a different thread pool. You have to clone all values you need to use for lookups (and the DB handle) outside the async block then queue up the task to await on it… this can be fairly painful if you need to run multiple queries, doing this multiple times… maybe I'm missing something
There's an RFC to solve the "clone everything before moving into closure" issue:
The compile errors are generally good, but complex generics will make compilation errors in any language incomprehensible.
Agreed. Just ran into some of those when working with some Typescript. All of the generics and inference everywhere tends to make things messy.
Async started making more sense to me once I started putting stuff in Arcs, but because everything gets moved into async blocks, it can be painful to copy everything in. Especially if the goal is to just run something like the DB in a different thread pool. You have to clone all values you need to use for lookups (and the DB handle) outside the async block then queue up the task to await on it… this can be fairly painful if you need to run multiple queries, doing this multiple times… maybe I'm missing something
Now I'm not completely sure about this - like I said, I don't feel like I really understand async that well, and I don't know your DB library. But I think that async is meant to fix that exact problem. Full threads generally need things to be moved into them, because the compiler can't prove that they end at a particular time. It should be possible to borrow when calling an async function that you're awaiting though, because now the compiler does know that the task will end before the rest of your function.
At least with
tokio, I believe when you try to use something like spawn_blocking, it requires you to use an
async move block meaning you can't pass borrows, even if you await on that spawn_blocking because it requires that the async block is
'static as well.
EDIT: with additional research, I've stumbled across block_in_place which doesn't have the static requirement and should still pass control back. Just need to figure out how to best clean up the API and I think that will be enough of an improvement.
I've never used go, but I have to agree that Rust is a very hard language to learn.
For me the pain points were the size of the language (lots of commonly-used data structures:
Arc, …), error handling and the borrow checker.
Over time I've gotten used to it, but I totally sympathize with new users and sometimes I still get caught out.
Switches must be exhaustive.
I think that's a good thing. You can always wimp out using the
_ pattern if need be.
It's been a long time since I've had to think about actual memory management, so having to wrap everything in an Arc (and make sure it's owned rather than borrowed) in order to make it work with async has been frustrating.
It's true that Rust forces you to think about memory, but on the other hand it does give you some control over the performance trade-offs. For example,
Arc has reference counting overheads, which may or may not be acceptable, depending on what you are doing.
I pretty much agree with al of the rest, although I have not used async much, so can't comment on that.
I thought for a second you posted the same article. :)
Generics, traits, and macros all had a similar learning curve for me.
As a C programmer, I aways wanted C with generics and interfaces (in this case traits), without inheritance.
Switches must be exhaustive.
You can use
_ => to make a pattern for all other cases. This feature is pretty useful for some one that works a lot with states (game development here).
String/&str/Cow. There are places for all of these, but understanding where they fit in has taken a lot of time and experimentation.
Agreed. Not that this is bad, but it's not straight forward for a newcomer.
You can use _ => to make a pattern for all other cases. This feature is pretty useful for some one that works a lot with states (game development here).
Yep, there's even
#[non_exhaustive] which you can apply to an enum to cause an error if that default case isn't handled for forward compatibility in libraries. At first I thought it did the opposite.
String/&str/Cow. There are places for all of these, but understanding where they fit in has taken a lot of time and experimentation.
Agreed. Not that this is bad, but it's not straight forward for a newcomer.
Yeah, playing around with an IRC message type that can either be owned or borrowed (similar to
Cow) was what made some of it click for me.
This article was also really insightful in regards to strings. https://fasterthanli.me/blog/2020/working-with-strings-in-rust/
[Comment from banned user removed]
This mentions the two usual points of difficulty: the borrow checker and the distinction between
String and
&str. It would be interesting to see a meta analysis of posts of this genre to see if these bother people with a C++ background less than these bother people coming from garbage-collected languages.
After all, if you are already writing OK C++, you need to write in ways that would satisfy the (post-NLL) borrow checker. Also, C++ also has the distinction between
std::string and
Switches must be exhaustive. Because one of my main personal projects deals with strings, I'm often dealing with matching against them. With IRC, you only have a small number of message types you probably want to match on, but Rust enforces you to cover all cases.
How does this work in Go? Will Go allow you to write a match statement that only encompasses a finite number of exact strings? What happens if the value to match on is a string that isn't in the set, does it crash?
Idiomatic rust would suggest creating an enum type to represent every IRC command you care about, converting the raw string to that type early on (or failing if the input string isn't a valid IRC command), and then using that type in the rest of the code.
Switches in Go have a 'default' case (which is optional / 'noop if not specified').
There are type switches too, but I don't think you could use subtyping with string enums the way you could in rust (I could be wrong, but I've done quite a bit of go and have never seen that sort of technique used).
The reason why Rust cannot have the
default case is that
match in Rust is an expression while it is statement in Go. That mean that it is possible to do something like
let foo = match value {
Foo => 1,
Bar => 2
In Go this would need to be written:
var foo int
switch value {
case "foo":
foo = 1
case "bar":
foo = 2
in Rust is an expression while it is statement in Go.
That's an interesting observation. I'm about to expand it; this is mostly for my own understanding, I don't think I'm about to write anything you don't already realize.
switch constructs are imperative and each branch contains statements, which means every branch's type is effectively Any-with-side-effects-on-the-scope.
match constructs are expressions, which means (in Rust) that every match arm is also an expression, and all must have the same type T-with-no-side-effects-on-the-scope.
(Both languages are free to perform side effects on the world inside their match arms.)
Then, if I understand what you're getting at, statement blocks have an 'obvious' null/default value of 'no-op, do nothing', which is why Go's compiler can automatically add a
default handler 'do nothing if no match'. If the programmer know that is the wrong default action, they must explicitly specify a different one.
Types, on the other hand, have no notion of a default value. Which is why the Rust programmer must match exhaustively, and specify a correct value for each match arm. The compiler can't add `_ => XXX_of_type_T', because it cannot know what XXX should be for any type T.
Yes, in theory it could use
Default::default() if defined, but it is not defined for all values, so it would be confusing for the users. Also forcing exhaustive matching reduces amount of bugs, in the end you can always write:
match value {
1 => foo(),
2 => bar(),
_ => unreachable!()
To tell compiler that
value should be
1 or
2 and it can optimise rest assuming that this is true (and will result with meaningful error otherwise).
unreachable!() returns bottom type
! which match any type (as it is meant for functions that do not return at all).
Small nit:
unreachable!() doesn't allow for optimizations, that's
unreachable_unchecked. On the other hand, _unchecked can cause undefined behavior if your expression can actually be reached.
[Comment removed by author]


text:
Reiki Level One
Reiki One seminar teaches
Gaetano Vivo Lineage
Hawayo Takata, Phyllis Furumoto, William Rand, Gaetano Vivo
- History of Reiki
- Positions of Reiki ( How to treat other people)
- SelfReiki (Reiki on yourself)
- Quick Treatment
- Treatment on others, on Animals, Plants, Food, Water and Environment.
- Aligning the 7 chakras
- Meditation and energy channeling
- Four Reiki Initiations
The seminar last a whole weekend Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 5pm.
You will receive the Reiki one level certificate issued by the ReikiVivoInternational School


text:
4698 Convoy Street Suite 203
San Diego, CA 92111
San Diego area dentist Dr. Gary Sigafoos offers dental payment plans so you can afford the treatment you need. Just talk with our friendly team about your needs.
We'll be happy to work with you to find the solution that fits your situation. We're committed to making your oral health a reality.
At San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers we offer a range of treatment options for sleep apnea. If snoring or obstructed breathing is a problem, call Dr. Sigafoos today to learn how we can help you breathe easier.
Left untreated, sleep apnea can cause serious health problems, so contact us now to schedule an examination.
San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers is a trusted San Diego area dental implants practice providing natural-looking, comfortable tooth replacement. We make it our mission to use a gentle touch during the process.
We hold ourselves to the highest standards to replace missing teeth and provide you with natural-looking results. Our goal is to restore your confidence and your bright, healthy smile.
Dr. Sigafoos has extensive experience providing gingivitis treatments in the San Diego area. Bleeding gums can lead to more serious health problems if not treated promptly.
Our friendly, professional team will evaluate your needs and design a personal treatment plan. We'll help you have healthy gums and teeth for life.
Gary Sigafoos, D.D.S., in the San Diego area accepts Delta Dental® insurance. Our experienced team at San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers will file your insurance claim for you.
We want your dental treatment to be affordable for you. We're committed to helping you maintain your life-long oral health.
9420 Mira Mesa Blvd Suite D
San Diego, CA 92126
If you need gum disease treatment, La Jolla area gum disease dentist, Dr. Sigafoos offers extensive experience. Unhealthy gums can be a risk factor for more serious health problems if not treated promptly.
Our professional team will assess your situation and create a personalized treatment plan. We're committed to your life-long healthy gums and teeth.
Dr. Sigafoos has extensive experience providing gingivitis treatments in the La Jolla area. Bleeding gums can lead to more serious health problems if not treated promptly.
Our friendly, professional team will evaluate your needs and design a personal treatment plan. We'll help you have healthy gums and teeth for life.
New and safe sedation dentistry with La Jolla area sedation dentist Dr. Gary Sigafoos means you can have years of dental treatments done quickly while you're lightly sedated, with little or no discomfort. If you've been putting up with discomfort, hiding your smile, or delaying scheduling dental work because you're too busy, your life is about to change. Make a sedation dentistry consultation appointment today with Dr. Sigafoos.
For comfortable tooth cleaning in the La Jolla, California area, Dr. Gary Sigafoos is known for having a gentle touch. The friendly team at San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers provides dental hygiene treatments for a whiter smile.
Maintaining good dental hygiene is the foundation for healthy teeth and gums. We're committed to helping you have a lifetime of oral health.
At San Diego Sleep Apnea Centers we offer a range of treatment options for sleep apnea. If snoring or obstructed breathing is a problem, call Dr. Sigafoos today to learn how we can help you breathe easier.
Left untreated, sleep apnea can cause serious health problems, so contact us now to schedule an examination.
Dr. Jeffrey Fruin, D.D.S.
3257 Camino De Los Coches
Carlsbad, CA, 92009
Neal J. Chu, D.D.S.
7040 Avenida Encinas Ste 102
Carlsbad, CA, 92011-4653
(760) 431-9211
Maricelle R. Ortiz - Luis, D. D. S.
2515 Pio Pico Dr Ste B
Carlsbad, CA, 92008-1560
(760) 434-3119
Carlsbad Plaza Family Dental
2588 El Camino Real # H
Carlsbad, CA, 92008-1212
In most cosmetic dentistry practices, good health and sound oral function are their primary goals. But these days, both can be achieved with a third factor in mind, good looks.
Good looks are all around us. In consumer magazines, TV, media, politics, and business. Both men and women are flashing bright, near perfect smiles. It's a pleasure to see. We're not all born that way, and they probably weren't either. Dental makeovers have contributed to a large part of the self-esteem of models, movie stars, and recently, the grocery clerk or the grandmother next door, who seek cosmetic dental care.
Surprisingly, most tooth restoration procedures are fairly conservative. That is, removal of healthy enamel is kept to a minimum, or dispensed with altogether. Teeth bleaching, tooth bonding and contouring are quick, easy, and fairly inexpensive. Porcelain veneers lend new form and youthfulness to front teeth. Tooth-colored fillings can replace discolored amalgams. A new denture can restore a more youthful appearance. The choices are yours.
Notice the people you know who are proud of their teeth. They smile more often. Great teeth build self-confidence. Most people respond more readily to an attractive smile in a very positive way. The psychology is simple, the impact great.
We are lucky to have new materials and techniques that make a beautiful smile within everyone's reach. Take advantage of cosmetic dentistry, for yourself and the people around you.
Give your cosmetic dentist a call today to find out how your smile can benefit from today's technical innovations.
A healthy, beautiful smile should be part of your wardrobe. When you're getting dressed in the morning, don't forget that a perfect smile is a vital part of your total image.
Your smile is often the first impression people have of you. A psychological study reported in Perceptive Motor Skills found that people judged a person's physical attractiveness by "the mouth, eyes, structure of the face, hair, and nose" in that order!
Psychologists have trouble defining "beauty." But they agree that beauty is important in every social relationship. For example, it was found that mothers cuddle their physically attractive babies more than their so-called "ugly" babies.
Take a moment to smile at yourself in the mirror. Do you have white teeth? Is your smile attractive, appealing? Or, is your smile weakened by cosmetic dental problems? Do you have a broken or missing tooth? If so, you can do something about it.
Cosmetic dentistry has made great strides in the last 20 years. Not only do cosmetic dentists make it possible for people to keep their natural teeth all their lives, they help people look and feel better about themselves.
A cracked tooth, or stained and uneven teeth can be restored. Gaps between teeth, poorly positioned teeth or a jaw that recedes or protrudes, can often be successfully fixed with orthodontics. Did you know that dentists do 95% of all face reconstruction in this country? Through procedures called maxillofacial surgery or orthognathic surgery, many bone and jaw deformities or conditions caused by accidents can be corrected.
Developing a beautiful smile - even if you weren't born with one - is important at any age. Make your smile your strongest fashion asset.


text:
Playfortuna.com is operated by NETGLOBE SERVICES LTD, a company with registered address at 79 Spyrou Kyprianou Avenue, Protopapas Building, 2nd floor, office 201, 3076 Limassol, Cyprus.
GLOBONET B.V., a company with registered address at Kaya Richard J. Beaujon Z / N, Curaçao, is licensed by the Government of Curacao under the No.1668 / JAZ.
Copyright © 2012-2019. All rights reserved.


text:
Debian always got this criticism of long release cycles. 2 years in development of GNU software is revolutionary, but still Debian continues to churn out new stable distros at a snail's pace.
But actually, in my experience this kind of cycle is good for casual users who require only a few set of software to survive instead of complications like the latest DE, software or Window manager.
In KDE and Libreoffice at least, it happens that after each upgrade, there's a regression. And you know those regressions will be ignored long to cause major annoyance (you know the KDE devs will be implementing 'features' instead in their 6 months release cycle), and ultimately these buggy updates with regressions will be pushed to unstable and testing... and nothing can stop it from being pushed.
So, after each update of the distro, there's an element of surprise.
But the sable branch on the other hand will remain with the old version, the few tolerable bugs that existed will continue to exist and people will find workaround for them, and many times the fixes will be backported and updates will be provided, then for the newer software we have the backports, the only problem with them is that it's difficult for the average joe to install form backports. Maybe Ubuntu software centre should be modified show graphical packages form backports also.
Also drivers and kernel can be backported, solving most of the hardware compatibility issues.
People who ask for comparatively newer packages (5%) can usually handle the small inconvenience with testing, but not the average non-IT guy.
So ultimately: Debian's stable's release cycles matches the average user's requirement of a stable and secure desktop.


text:
Hitler is 123 today, and he is alive and well. The Führer is going strong not because a vast neo-Nazi conspiracy is about to take over the Western world, kill the Jews, expel the Muslims and make April 20 the Day of Aryan Rebirth, but because he is an all-time favorite of the neoconservative-neoliberal duopoly at home and abroad.
When you advocate bombing a faraway nation of which we know little, call its leader a new Hitler (and, by extension, condemn the failure to bomb as a new "Munich"). When you want to discredit domestic opponents of migratory population replacement or abortion, compare them to Hitler. When you want to demonize the European civilization, Christian religion, national identity, or traditional culture, Hitler is ready. Six decades after the phenomenon was defined by Leo Strauss as reductio ad Hitlerum, the practice is more widely spread than ever. If you dislike a person/policy/idea, find a Hitlerian point of contact and thus prove that the PPI in question is a priori bad, mad and worthy of criminalization.
The final corollary of the concept is that we are all potential Hitlers, and only by vigilantly guarding against deviant thoughts ("I like Americans better than Somalis"), emotions ("I enjoy the Master Singers more than Porgy & Bess") and practices ("I enjoy walking my German Shepherd in the Bavarian Alps") can we protect ourselves from the lure of the inner Adolf.
There are literally thousands of offerings to illustrate the syndrome, starting with A for AHMADINEJAD…
- Newt Gingrich calls Iran's president a new Hitler, says that he is as big a threat to global security as Adolf Hitler was in the 1930s.
- In interview (April 2009), acting Israeli prime minister Olmert said the Iranian president "speaks as Hitler did in his time …"
- U.S. Senator compares Ahmadinejad to Hitler and makes fun of his name.
- Mitt Romney likened Ahmadinejad to Hitler in a speech to Jewish university.
- Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post on "finishing Hitler's work": "His successors now reside in Tehran… Hitler was only slightly more direct when he announced seven months before invading Poland that, if there was another war, 'the result will be . . . the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.' … When Iran's mullahs acquire their coveted nukes in the next few years, the number of Jews in Israel will just be reaching 6 million. Never again?"
… and ending with T for TRIFKOVIC (e.g., with Michael Sells on "Hitler in full oratorical flight" in Breivik, Trifkovic, and Radical Serb Ideology) and W for WAGNER.
One-hundred twenty-three years after Hitler's birth, an attempt to advance towards normalization of his person and legacy is both possible and necessary. It need not and must not end up either in trivializing his grotesque record or in succumbing to the temptations of the historian's prejudices. Perhaps a barrier will always separate us and him, but the effort is intellectually and morally legitimate.
It cannot be done for as long as he is alive and well, thanks to those who profess to abhor him. On current form the world deserves him. Many happy returns, Adi!


text:
In this podcast we discuss the recent MUBI showings of King Hu's Dragon Inn (967) and A Touch of Zen (1971), its relationship to the Wuxia genre and its influence on films such Crouching Tiger/ Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000), Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) and House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004,) its later influence on more recent Taiwanese cinema, so obvious in Tsai Ming Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) and Hou's own The Assassin (2015). We discuss the beauty of its widescreen images, try to relate it to the work of Sergio Leone in relation to its use of landscape, and ruminate on the filming of action as 'pure cinema'. We also discuss the distinctiveness of its use of female action heroines, particularly in relation to Western Cinema.
The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT
and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546
Listeners might be interested in the following reviews:
José Arroyo


text:
EU-Morocco fishing deal casts doubt on EU future foreign policy
In early January, the European Commission proposed to open negotiations with the Kingdom of Morocco over a new fisheries protocol with the EU.
The current agreement, which will expire on 14 July 2018, authorises European vessels to fish off the coast of Morocco in exchange for financial compensation.
Join EUobserver today
Become an expert on Europe
Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.
Choose your plan
... or subscribe as a group
Already a member?
Nothing seemed to cast doubt on the success of these negotiations until January 10, when the EU advocate general Melchior Wathelet advised the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) to invalidate the protocol.
According to Wathelet, the deal should be broken off because it applies to the shores of Western Sahara, an "illegally occupied" area.
An eventual court adoption of Wathelet's view would have far-reaching implications not only for future EU-Morocco relations but for the entire external policy of the EU.
The case concerns a question submitted by a British court to the CJEU following a complaint by Western Sahara Campaign UK, a lobbying group supported by Polisario.
For the first time, the EU court is seized on a question regarding EU's international agreements, which highlights the utmost importance of the decision expected on February 27.
Whatever legitimacy we may attribute to the Moroccan administration in Western Sahara (also known as southern provinces), the United Nations regards the region as a "non-self-governing territory".
Legal void
Back in 2002, a UN legal counsel even recognised the possibility for Morocco to exploit natural resources of Western Sahara as an "administrative power" under certain conditions.
While acknowledging that the unachieved decolonisation process created some legal void, it is unjustifiable to argue that the EU Court of Justice could substitute for the UN Security Council by redefining a very complex situation, especially when even the European capitals' positions on this decades-old conflict remain elusive.
Advocate general Wathelet seems to place human rights above all, and especially the right of peoples to self-determination.
That may indeed look like a very noble principle – putting aside that the EU has to face the rise of separatism and nationalism within its own borders. However, if the respect of human rights were a condition sine qua non for the EU to conclude any international agreement, then the Union's political leverage to spread fundamental rights in third-countries would be paradoxically weakened.
This would not only hamper the future negotiations on a new fisheries agreement with Morocco, but also any cooperation or partnership agreement with countries such as Turkey and Armenia.
Following the advocate general's logic could, hence, deprive the EU of any manoeuvring power in its foreign relations while compromising its external policy priorities, such as the European Neighbourhood Policy or the Cotonou Agreement, whose very principle is to enhance democracy and ensure respect of human rights in EU partner countries.
Not just human rights
Moreover, the EU-Morocco relations could not be only viewed through the lens of human rights.
Since 1960, the EU and Morocco have developed a strategic partnership in a wide range of areas, such as fight against terrorism and migration.
Intelligence sharing between the two sides allowed the EU to stop many terror attacks, greatly contributing to the Union's security. The two sides are also working closely together to counter illegal immigration from Africa, which has been labelled "Europe's biggest challenge".
Let us also recall that that the Dakhla-Oued Eddabad and Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra administrative regions, both located in the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, alone received 68 percent of the total sectoral support foreseen by the current fisheries protocol, according to the 2017 assessment report.
The non-renewal of the agreement would deprive local populations of these advantages.
Without tariff preferences and sectoral support, no level playing field could be guaranteed for local operators, to allow them to compete on international markets.
How could Sahrawi people be better off then? Instead of paving the road to hell with good intentions for the Sahrawi people, the EU should focus on speeding up the resolution of this lingering conflict under the UN auspices.
Jeanne Laperrouze is a former policy advisor at the European Parliament and a post-graduate student at the faculty of law at the University of Toulouse, France.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.
Site Section
Related stories
- EU seeks to extend Morocco fish deal, despite legal opinion
- Morocco deals don't cover Western Sahara, EU lawyer says
- Top court strikes down EU Western Sahara policy
- EU promises to respect Western Sahara trade ruling
- EU can't fish off Western Sahara coast, rules top court
- Why should taxpayers pay for private fishing fleets in third countries?


text:
Chapter 12 of Witches Posted
Happy Friday! I present to you Chapter 12 of the Witches of Ming Ung, "Making Peace":
Hardi scoffed. "Give it up. Give us the antidote. They'll get you eventually, and another ten thousand people might be dead in the meantime."
His jaw set, but he didn't say anything.
"I've got a deal for you…" taunted Hardi.
I want to go home and play with my computer now.


text:
The Burning Man community and bicycles
Our supporters are stewards of the Burning Man community.
Fewer Burners transporting bikes across Nevada and the rest of the country makes it easier to combine resources and rideshare. This means fewer car miles (and pollution) and fewer CARS at Burning Man. This equates to shorter lines at the gate (and LESS DUST IN BLACK ROCK CITY!) and more space on the Playa for the art. And of course, fewer vehicles mean safer roads and reduced surface wear and tear.
Hammer And Cyclery delivers reliable bikes to the Playa and provides a sustainable alternative to the "disposable" bicycle that is often used up by the intense environment and experience that is Black Rock City. Our fleet returns to Burning Man year after year nearly eliminating the environmental impacts of manufacturing new bicycles.
Manufacturing one Wal-Mart bicycle can produce as much as 200 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution. At best these abandoned bikes are stripped and scrapped (also a resource intensive process). At worst they take up space in our landfills. Hammer And Cyclery bikes live close to Black Rock City and return to the Playa year after year.
Bikes abandoned on the Playa become a logistics headache for Burning Man Public Works. These have to be collected and transported to processing facilities. Good bikes can be saved and put back on the road (good). But most abandoned bikes have not survived the week and simply have to be disposed of (bad).
Our supporters help us help others help themselves. Rental fees make it possible for us to spend a week giving bicycle repair to anyone that needs it. Our interactive approach involves cyclists in their own bike's repair and helps us all be more self-reliant year round. We touch hundreds of bicycles during our repair hours. Sometimes it's just a quick tire pressure check that shows a Burner how to have a more efficient ride. Other times it's bike saving repair work that means a Burner doesn't have to spend the rest of the week on foot. This can really make a Burner's trip. We get to see it on their faces. Renters make camp Hammer And Cyclery possible. From the bottom of hundreds of hearts, THANK YOU!
Support Hammer And Cyclery and help make Burning Man better (if that's possible)!
Find out about the 700 bikes we shipped to Africa last year at Stars And Bikes.com.
Find out about our year round efforts at MoreThanABicycle.com in Minneapolis.
Hammer And Cyclery and Re-Cycle, Inc share no official affiliations with Burning Man or Black Rock City, LLC.
Burning Man on bikesIn Burning Man's own words, "having a bicycle at Burning Man is crucial." But what kind of bike to bring? How do we park bikes at our theme camp? Do I always need to lock my bike? Yes. ...
Bicycle survival guide for Burning ManBicycle travel is the most practical way to get around. The Playa is not like a soft sandy beach. It is more akin to a well trodden dirt road and it makes for a surprisingly good cycling surface. ...
On-Playa bike repairSomebody you know is going to have a problem with their bike. Bring some basic tools and become familiar with some common problems that can arise in one of the most punishing environments your bicycle will ever endure. ...
Learn to ride a bicycleThis is your chance to taste the freedom that bike riders have been enjoying for more than a hundred years. ...
A tube change on the PlayaSo your bike has a flat tire. You're out on the Playa, hundreds of yards from anyone that can help. Don't worry, you can handle this. ...
Burning Man Yellow BikesA Yellow Bike is a bicycle that has been given to the public. Anyone can grab an unoccupied Yellow Bike, take it to their destination of choice, and leave the bike in an obvious place for the next rider. ...
Cleaning your bike after Burning ManMix up a solution of water and vinegar (half and half) and use a spray bottle to apply the mixture to your Playa bike (and anything else you want to use next year...or next week, like your lock). ...
(Playa address announced in July)
Open Daily 10:30am-5:30pm
Saturday Aug 29 - Monday Sept 7, 2020
Contact Us


text:
Since my previous post, I have been discussing with some of my clients the ways in which the 'circle of control' concept can be applied at the personal, business unit and organisational levels. This short post arises from those reflections, and can therefore be considered a postscript to the previous one.
While the visual metaphor of nested matryoshka dolls came to mind, I nonetheless settled on the schematic in the above header image as the simplest way to suggest that they consider applying Dr Covey's injunction to "Be Proactive" (Habit 1 in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) beyond the personal, to include first their business unit, and then their entire organisation.
CEOs may feel there is little difference in their analysis of how they can increase their controls at each of these levels, however, the separation of these charts encourages them to think about how responsibility and accountability for various controls are assigned and implemented.
The ways the organisation and its constituent business units think about what is 'beyond their control' (or influence) are also important in supporting the resilience of your team, and therefore addressing wider occupational health and safety 'concerns'.
The schematic has been helpful for a number of my clients, and so I trust it might now resonate with a wider readership through this post.


text:
I like to think that this blog is a little collection of life experiences, written from different places and locations. This one happens to be on the floor of the Orlando airport at 3 am.
For the past several weeks, I have been running into situations of slight chaos. The most recent has come in the form of air travel.
After waking up early for a doctor's appointment, I checked my email to see an email from JetBlue with the subject line CANCELLED. I knew that there was going to be a storm, but figured we would wait it out. (D.C. is pretty notorious for being wimps when it comes to the cold- I remember too many snow days in school when ultimately nothing happened.)
I went to the airport that was fortunately a 10 minute drive and went to try and get on an earlier direct flight. Nothing. There were also nothing going out until 7 pm the next day, and even with the snow, that was likely to get cancelled. The only hope was for T.R. and I to get on a standby flight to Orlando early that night that would then make it easier to get to San Juan. The problem was that T.R. was in Boston (he was planning on coming home that night and then flying with me the next morning). No problem- we would try to get him on a flight from Boston to San Juan, however he would have to go to the airport immediately from my grandparents...and didn't have any of his clothes. Ultimately he did get on a flight that got him in at 3 am...and didn't have a hotel booked because we had to leave early.
By a miracle, I was able to fit both of our stuff into a carry on and got on the flight to Orlando. Our flight however, was waiting for seven people from Boston for two hours and meant I missed my connecting flight. No problem! But the next one didn't leave until 6 am the next morning. That is where I find myself now. Sitting alone in the terminal at 3:30 am listening to the cacophony of The Weather Channel and distant flute music.
I think there are a lot of things to take away from this experience. First to start, I know that this is a problem of privilege and ultimately doesn't matter much in the long run. Even reading this on a computer, we are so blessed. I often think about these words, especially when traveling. Nothing ever goes the way it's intended and winter storms happen. I am grateful that we were even able to make it out at all. Taking one bite at a time and a step back is everything and even in the most stressful situations, we get a good story and by a miracle, make it out to the other side. {Image}
Thoughts...from the Orlando Airport FloorTuesday, March 14, 2017
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
|Ray Allen
Special to Page 2
Ray Allen's a sharp-dressed man, an actor, an avid reader, a philanthropist and a bit of a philosopher. He's also a stone-cold shooter from anywhere on the floor and the calm at the eye of the Milwaukee Bucks storm, putting up 22 and five every night and making it look easy.
1. If the playoffs started today, you guys would be playing the 76ers in the first round. You and Iverson go way back. Do you get especially keyed up to face him?
Ray Allen: There's always a thrill to see a guy's face when you sent 'em packing because you're gonna be the last person they thought about, the whole offseason.
Have you been thinking about him since last year's conference finals?
Allen: Not really because now I feel like my team is better, and we have an opportunity to do some better things this season.
Iverson said Philly's still the best team in the East. Do you buy that?
Allen: No, not at all. The best team in the East has the best record in the East.
Allen: As a human being, it's in your nature, when somebody says something about you negatively, to defend yourself and lash back. That's what we all have to learn not to do. You have to forgive a person. And when you forgive a person, you have to forgive yourself. He was lashing out because he was upset and discontent with his team and, you know, my natural reaction was to get pissed off and lash back out at him and be mad. But in the overall scheme of things, I try to remember that everybody is doing something that they love, and we all get frustrated, and, finally, when you win, it shouldn't matter.
A few weeks after Karl said all that, Anthony Mason started saying the Bucks weren't tough enough. How big a part does toughness play in succeeding in the NBA?
Allen: Well, you definitely have to hold your ground, you've got to be firm to play this game. It doesn't mean you have to beat people up. It's a war of wills out there on the court. You have to have a stronger will than your opponent, and every guy on your team has to feel that same way against the guy he's guarding.
3. People describe your game as smooth and graceful. Do those descriptions bother you?
Does style count in the NBA?
Allen: No, at the end of the day, it doesn't. I don't think Ben Wallace has style, for example. But we played them the other day and he had a triple-double. That's a hard day's work right there, 10 points, 10 assists, 10 rebounds ... he had 17 rebounds, actually. And there wasn't any style about it. He just got it done. And I think we respect getting it done, as opposed to being stylish out on the floor.
4. You're in the new Air Jordan ad, the "All Rhythm, No Blues" thing. Was it good to work with Spike Lee again?
Allen: It worked out well. Once you work with Spike, he knows you, he knows what you can give him. There's a friendship there. We're on the same page, and, no matter how much time elapses from one meeting to the next, we can always catch up.
One of the things about the ad that was kind of disappointing is that it really focuses on you as a jump shooter. Why no breakdown moves, why no taking it to the hole?
Allen: I think that with the spots that they had ... you know they did spots with Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson ... and that was kind of the angle, because you know, they categorize those guys that way, and me as a shooter. Plus, at the time, I had a knee injury. I couldn't do much anyway. And if my opponents think I only shoot jump shots, that's fine by me.
Allen: If time allows. You think about putting together a good movie, having a good role, you need two solid months. And the way my schedule is, even in the offseason, it's almost impossible.
5. The new Nike ads feature a mix of jazz and hip-hop. Are you a fan of that music? What are you listening to these days?
Allen: I have a taste for a lot of different kinds of music ... everything, from hip-hop to jazz to R&B to top 40 to alternative. There's a lot of good music out there. Every now and then, I'll flip through VH1 and watch the videos ... the only thing I really don't listen to is country.
Do you ever play with a song in your head?
Allen: Yeah, it's not really any particular song. I just want something with a nice beat to it, a nice flow, maybe something that's inspirational.
Do you listen to music to get up before a game?
Allen: I listen to it on my drive in from home. On the road, I listen to the radio, when I get out of the shower and I'm ironing my clothes. You know, it's a crap shoot when you're in hotels, because depending on what city you're in, the music might not be that good on the radio.
Allen: My favorite book is probably "The Alchemist," by Paulo Coelho. Yesterday, I just finished Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie." That was good.
Do you ever do the Phil Jackson thing and give books to your teammates?
Allen: Yes, I do. For the holidays, I give them to my teammates. I gave them all "The Alchemist" one year. If you haven't read it, you should definitely read it ... it will inspire you. The first time I read it, I bought 10 copies and gave them to all my family members and friends. I gave everybody, coaches included, Tony Robbins books once. Dr. Phil, the guy that's always on the Oprah show, I like his books, too.
I always want to inspire people to achieve more than what they think they can achieve. Books can help. I mean, we've all achieved greatness, because we're all here in the league. But there's always something more that can get everybody over the hump, because some people are still struggling. Some people have made it here because they were destined to be here, but there's something in life that's telling them that, you know, hey, there's still more I can do.
Getting ready for this interview, I found a Ray Allen superhero comic book online. What's the story?
Allen: Yeah, I have a friend back in Hartford, an artist ... he did the world's longest comic. Anyway, he asked if he could do one about me, so he put it together. It's pretty neat.
Allen: Definitely. There are a lot of black pioneers that allow me to do what I do today. I couldn't imagine living at the time when they lived, going through what Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. and some others lived through. Young people today are soft by comparison, they don't have the gumption to go through what young black people went through back in the '50s and '60s.
8. It doesn't happen very often, but what goes through your mind when you just can't get shots to fall? Do you just assume you'll break out of it?
Allen: You just have to dribble the ball, get to the hole and get fouled, that's all I'm thinking about. I figure I'll get my rhythm going shooting free throws. You can't start to put pressure on yourself, or start thinking about it, saying, I hope this one goes in.
Everything else being equal, would you rather dunk or hit a 3-pointer?
Allen: I'd rather hit a 3. And this has changed over the years. I used to think dunking was so demoralizing, and that was the case, you know, back in the day, when I was in high school. Not many people could dunk in high school, and I was one of the only guys on the floor who could dunk. So when I dunked, everybody wanted to see it, everybody got so hyped, and it demoralized the other team.
Then you get to college and more people could dunk. Then you get to the NBA and everybody can dunk. You have to really dunk over somebody, really make somebody look bad, make it to the point where they're humiliated to really have it mean something. But if you shoot the 3, not everybody can do that. It's a big momentum changer when you shoot a 3, especially from where I can shoot them. The opponent, they just don't know what to do because they think that they're on you, but they're not.
Now, the hottest commodity in this game is the big guy who can shoot. The more a big guy can shoot, there's a mismatch on the floor. As the game evolves, you're going to see more and more big guys who can shoot the 3. Guys like Arvydas Sabonis.
You think about the game now, I mean, yeah, you can dunk the ball, whatever. But there's always some new way to make somebody fall, and break their ankles. I'd rather do that.
9. Who is the best practice player you've ever played with?
Allen: I have to say Jack Haley. Jack didn't get any playing time, so practice was his game. That's the case with a lot of guys on NBA rosters, but Jack, he was the best player in practice all the time. He set screens, he talked trash. He was out there really playing hard. A couple of times, guys had to tell him to slow down, take it easy. This is when we were losing, and the guys didn't understand the effect he should have had on guys. People were intimidated by his work ethic.
10. Do you still think about the loss in the conference finals last year or are you past that?
Allen: I don't worry about it.
What makes the difference in a series like that? It was so close. Is there anything you guys take away from it. Is there anything you'll try to do differently next time?
Allen: No. We hope to get put in that same predicament, with another year of experience under our belts.


text:
Hand Painted
Hand painted seagull can only be found on the rear pockets of the highest quality EVISU denims, usually from the Private Stock collection. Created by the brand's founder Hidehiko Yamane in 1991, the seagull is a widely perceived "trademark" of EVISU. 8 hand painting colors are available here - all to be freely mixed and matched (except for the fixed embroidery sets) according to your preference.


text:
Dark Chocolate Tart with Sea Salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, soft
- 2/3 cup Imperial Sugar Confectioners Powdered Sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour*
- 1 cup coconut milk (not light)
- 4 tablespoons Imperial Sugar Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
- 8 oz (1 cup) high quality dark chocolate, 55-65% cacao
- 1/4 cup macadamia nuts, optional
- 1/4 cup cacao nibs, optional
- Sea salt for topping, if desired
- *Spoon & Sweep method: Use a spoon to fill measuring cup with flour until required amount is obtained. Scooping measuring cup directly into flour bag will firmly pack flour resulting in too much flour required for recipe.
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Using a paddle attachment, mix butter and powdered sugar until well blended. Add egg and mix until well combined. Add salt and vanilla. Add flour in one step and on low speed mix until just combined. Do not over mix.
- Press dough evenly flat onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Place dough in refrigerator or freezer for at least 30 minutes or until well chilled.
- Meanwhile chill work surface by placing 1 or 2 cookie sheets filled with ice cubes on area.
- Set aside 6 individual tart pans/rings or an 8 or 9-inch tart ring or tart pan.
- Sprinkle chilled area lightly with flour and roll dough slightly thinner than 1/8-inch. Place and press dough into pan(s) and remove excess.
- Place in oven and bake until golden light brown, about 15 minutes. During baking process, dough should not slide down on sides. However, if any area does slide down, remove tart shell from oven and patch with a piece of remaining dough, return to oven. Let cool.
- In a saucepan, large enough to hold all remaining ingredients combine coconut milk and sugar. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Let sit for 3 minutes.
- Add chocolate and whisk to combine.
- Pour into tart shells and place in refrigerator. Remove from refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.
- Decorate with macadamia nuts and cacao nibs. if desired. Sprinkle surface with sea salt.


text:
Sjava Visits Home In His New Music Video For 'Umama'
Watch Sjava's new music video for 'Umama.'
South African B.E.T Award-winning and Grammy nominated artist Sjava's new music video for the song "Umama" shows just how genuine the man his. Instead of following rap video clichés, Sjava decided to show his mother and place of birth some love.
The video shows the artists trekking to rural KwaZulu Natal where he was born. He spends time with his mother, who burns impepho and asks the elders to keep an eye on her son.
The community also joins in on the video, gyrating in celebration of their icon.
"Umama," which is taken from Sjava's latest album, his 2018 sophomore, Umqhele, sees the artist share how he misses his mother and has some words of endearment for her.
Watch the music video for "Umama" below and revisit Umqhele underneath.
Sjava - Umama (Official Music Video)www.youtube.com


text:
Now so many of you sent me various versions of this article it would be impossible to thank you all, but the really interesting thing about it is, that it occurred when there were two other significant international stories about what our "good friends" in the world of high international
mafia .... er... finance have been up to.
The first story is that it only took 18 days into the new year before there was yet another suspicious banker death. The trouble here is, which banker one is talking about. We could, for example, be talking about Michael Flanagan, a United Kingdom/New Zealand banker found in the U.K.'s lake district. Oh, did we mention that he used to work for the Royal Bank of Scotland and for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation(HSBC)?
Missing Hawke's Bay man's body found in UK
Or was that suspicious death that of First Global banker Kirt Adlam, found shot to death in his car in Jamaica's capital, Kingston?
Jamaika: First Global-Banker in seinem Auto erschossen
Or was it the death of Omar Meza, a vice president for (please note) AIG(Body of missing exec., San Diego native, found in Palm Desert), who was
"...found Thursday in a pond at a Marriott resort where he had been staying, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said Friday."
So that's three bankers in a week.
Ok... "Nothing to see here, move along folks..." So let's move along to the second bizarre story about banking to hit in more or less the same time period. Germany, you'll recall, was "a tiny bit miffed" when it learned that not only was the USA spying on Frau Merkel's cell phone, but that the New York Federal Reserve was reluctant to return some of Germany's gold, which the latter had requested be repatriated. (And, as I've pointed out, the episode has a curious resemblance to a similar episode in 1928, recounted[no doubt only in part] by then Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht in his memoirs. For those who don't know the episode, Hjalmar was visiting his good friend Mr. Strong, Governor of the NY Fed, who was taking him on a tour of the facilities, when Hjalmar asked to see the vault with the Reichsbank's gold. Oddly, the Fed's staff came up empty, unable to locate it[!], and Herr Schacht simply smiled at his friend, and said, "That's ok, I know you're good for it.")
Well, to make a long story very short, you'll recall that the popular movement in Germany to repatriate its gold from the NY Fed stalled, and finally the Bundesbank revealed that it had only been able to repatriate about five tons. Well, not so, according to the latest stories. The repatriation went ahead, but quietly and secretly, to the tune of about 120 tons:
Germany's Bundesbank Resumes Gold Repatriation; Transfers 120 Tonnes Of Physical Gold From Paris And NY Fed
This comes, as the article notes, at a time when the "European" central bank is considering its own round of "quantitative easing" to help stitch together another patchwork repair to the European Union quilt. But, as the Zero Hedge article avers, the German gold repatriation may be connected, not just to issues of mistrust of the NY Fed, but to that "quantitative easing" itself:
"And the punchline:
"The Bundesbank assures the identity and authenticity of German gold reserves throughout the transfer process - from when they are removed from warehouses abroad until they are stored in Frankfurt am Main. As soon as the gold was removed from the warehouse locations abroad, Bundesbank employees cross-checked the lists of bars belonging to the Bundesbank against the information on the bars removed. Finally, once they arrived in Frankfurt am Main, all the transferred gold bars were thoroughly and exhaustively inspected and verified by the Bundesbank. When all the inspections had been concluded, no irregularities came to light with regard to the authenticity, fineness and weight of the bars.
"A curious amount of precautions and safeguards when transporting the "safe" and "untainted" gold held at the NY Fed to Frankfurt. Almost as if the Bundesbank, gasp, did not trust the quality and content of the NY Fed-held gold, nor its well-meaning intentions.
Which leads us to the only relevant question: now that the "diplomatic difficulties" have been overcome and the Bundesbank is back on track to repatriating precisely the right amount of gold from the NY Fed to indicate that it has far less faith in the US central bank than it did when it was barely conducting any transfers in 2013, just how worse as the diplomatic difficulties now? We expect to get at least a partial answer on Thursday when Mario Draghi finally announces his long-overdue €500 billion QE program, with Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann, sitting quietly in a corner, and ignored by the ex-Goldman head of the ECB, contemplated just how much more, if not all, gold (there is still some 517 tonnes of gold left to be repatriated to Germany from NY and Paris) he should withdraw now in preparation for the "next steps"?"(boldface Zero Hedge's emphasis, italicized emphasis mine)
Then there's story number three, which follows our earlier blog this week, about Russia and China opening their own credit ratings agency, being fed up with S&P, Moody's, and Fitch, for not only are the two largest BRICSA nations fed up with the clear signs of fraud and favoritism at work in the Western system, Russia is going one step further:
Russian Central Bank Bans Western Ratings Agencies
To put it in Russian Bureaucratese:
"On dates of credit ratings' use for the purpose of Bank of Russia regulations
"In line with scope of authority established by Bank of Russia Ordinance No. 3453-U, dated 25 November 2014, 'On the Specifics of Credit Ratings' Use -to Implement Bank of Russia Regulations', the Bank of Russia Board of Directors determined the dates when credit ratings shall be assigned to implement Bank of Russia regulations.
"Under this Ordinance, should any Bank of Russia regulation contain information on credit rating assigned by Standard&Poor's or Fitch Ratings or Moody's Investors Service to credit institutions or other Russian legal entities, constituent territories, municipal entities, their issued securities or other financial instruments, the date when the mentioned rating is assigned (hereinafter, the rating date) may be determined by the decision of the Bank of Russia Board of Directors in the corresponding regulation.
"According to Bank of Russia Board of Directors' decision, the rating date for credit institutions and their issued financial instruments, including securities, to implement Bank of Russia regulations, shall be 1 March 2014; as for other entities, listed in the Ordinance, and their issued securities, this rating date shall be 1 December 2014."(Boldface emphasis Zero Hedge's)
Or, take your ratings and go, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. One suspects that Russia and China's move to form their own credit ratings agency might be followed by similar moves this year from other countries, perhaps even in Europe.
The real temptation here is to view all these things as connected, and indeed, I suspect the second and third stories are related in a very simple way via growing mistrust of the "stable" institutions and corporations of western, i.e., American, finance. The real question, though, is whether there's a connection to the sad story of more dead bankers. In my high octane speculation of the day, I suspect there is, and its revealed by a few "bland" statements in the wikipedia article about AIG:
We note first its gigantic scale of business:
"AIG's corporate headquarters are in New York City, its British headquarters are in London, continental Europe operations are based in La Défense, Paris, and its Asian headquarters are in Hong Kong. The company serves 98% of the Fortune 500 companies, 96% of Fortune 1000, and 90% of Fortune Global 500, and insures 40% of Forbes 400 Richest Americans. AIG was ranked 40th largest company in the 2014 Fortune 500 list.[5] According to the 2014 Forbes Global 2000 list, AIG is the 42nd-largest public company in the world.[6] As of June 1, 2014, it had a market capitalization of $78.48 billion, per Google Finance."
And secondly its little "accounting problems":
"In 2005, AIG became embroiled in a series of fraud investigations conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Justice Department, and New York State Attorney General's Office. Greenberg was ousted amid an accounting scandal in February 2005.[29][30][31] The New York Attorney General's investigation led to a $1.6 billion fine for AIG and criminal charges for some of its executives.[32]
"On May 1, 2005, investigations conducted by outside counsel at the request of AIG's Audit Committee and the consultation with AIG's independent auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP resulted in AIG's decision to restate its financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2003, 2002, 2001 and 2000, the quarters ended March 31, June 30 and September 30, 2004 and 2003 and the quarter ended December 31, 2003.[33] On November 9, 2005, the company was reported of delaying its third-quarter earnings report because it must restate earlier financial results to correct accounting errors.[34]"
And finally, what a great deal of its business is in:
"Expansion to the credit default insurance market
"Martin J. Sullivan became CEO of the company. He began his career at AIG as a clerk in its London office in 1970.[35] AIG then took on tens of billions of dollars of risk associated with mortgages. It insured tens of billions of dollars of derivatives against default, but did not purchase reinsurance to hedge that risk. Secondly, it used collateral on deposit to buy mortgage-backed securities. When losses hit the mortgage market in 2007-2008, AIG had to pay out insurance claims and also replace the losses in its collateral accounts.[36]
"AIG purchased the remaining 39% that it did not own of online auto insurance specialist 21st Century Insurance in 2007 for $749 million.[37] With the failure of the parent company and the continuing recession in late 2008, AIG rebranded its insurance unit to 21st Century Insurance.[38][39]
"On June 11, 2008, three stockholders, collectively owning 4% of the outstanding stock of AIG, delivered a letter to the Board of Directors of AIG seeking to oust CEO Martin Sullivan and make certain other management and Board of Directors changes. This letter was the latest volley in what the Wall Street Journal called a "public spat" between the company's board and management, on the one hand, and its key stockholders, and former CEO Maurice Greenberg on the other hand.[40]
"On June 15, 2008, after disclosure of financial losses and subsequent to a falling stock price, Sullivan resigned and was replaced by Robert B. Willumstad, Chairman of the AIG Board of Directors since 2006. Willumstad was forced by the US government to step down and was replaced by Edward M. Liddy on September 17, 2008.[41] AIG's board of directors named Robert Benmosche CEO on August 3, 2009 to replace Mr. Liddy, who earlier in the year announced his retirement.[42]"
In other words, AIG is a major player insuring all those quadrillions of dollars in credit default swaps and derivatives that seem to have fallen right off the financial radar in recent years. AIG, to put it somewhat simplistically, is not only "too big to fail" it's also "too big to bail."
Perhaps, just perhaps, the story of the dead bankers is related, not simply to bank owned life insurance, as some have speculated, nor simply to the possibility that some of these bankers may have discovered anomalies in the high frequency trading mechanisms conducting much international commerce within the west(anomalies that may have led them to conclude there may be some "outside factor" at work in those trading networks, revealing its footprint in those algorithms, as I myself have speculated), but perhaps, just perhaps, it is also related not simply to banking, to but insurance, the real hidden power and player, and to the insurance of derivatives. If so, then this puts Germany's, Russia's, and China's financial moves in the past few years into a new interpretive context, for perhaps those nations and their financial and intelligence services have connected some unusual dots, and reached some unusual conclusions, conclusions that require them to build a parallel redundancy into international financial clearing, and to establish their own credit ratings agencies.
It's going to be an interesting year.
See you on the flip side...
(My thanks to all of you who sent so many articles concerning these stories).
16 Comments
Help the Community Grow
Please understand a donation is a gift and does not confer membership or license to audiobooks. To become a paid member, visit member registration.


text:
Centre Newsletter
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for the latest news
and events happening in stem cells at the University of Melbourne and surrounding medical research institutes.
We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.
See previous editions of our Newsletter: