text:
REUTERS Sunday, 10 February 2013 12:47 PM EST
No longer.
Concern is growing about risks to U.S.-based multinationals in a country where American audit regulators are locked out by the Chinese government and bribery and fraud are routine.
Questions about transparency and integrity weigh heavily on China, the world's second-largest economy, as it assumes greater economic leadership and responsibility. These doubts test its ability to adhere to international standards.
Stories of business deception - confirmed by corporate sleuths, former business executives, court filings and experts on accounting in China - are commonplace.
There was the Chinese company that billed itself as a high-tech television screen manufacturer, but had a factory that turned out to be a man selling fireworks from a shack.
Or there was the Chinese biodiesel plant that sat idle for months, then sprang to life one day - when investors showed up for a tour - only to fall silent again.
Last month, there was the scandal at a Chinese unit of Caterpillar Inc, the world's largest construction equipment manufacturer, based in Peoria, Illinois.
On Jan. 18, Caterpillar disclosed "deliberate, multi-year, coordinated accounting misconduct" at the Siwei unit of ERA Mining Machinery. Caterpillar said it would write off most of the $654 million it had paid to acquire ERA only months earlier.
Caterpillar's Siwei stumble was not the first for a U.S. multinational in China, but the scope of the problem stood out.
Caterpillar has provided few details, but it has disclosed inventory discrepancies, inflated profits and improperly recorded costs and revenue at Siwei.
Caterpillar declined further comment.
Part of Caterpillar's problem may have been inadequate due diligence work prior to the ERA acquisition. Companies often try to keep fees down for this type of work, but in China that may be asking for trouble, says Paul Gillis, an accounting professor at Peking University in Beijing.
Acquiring firms typically do some of their own due diligence while also relying on deal advisers, legal experts and auditors. Due to the risks in China, efforts should be beefed up to uncover fraud, Gillis said. "When you start cutting corners on audits ... you're enabling those who commit fraud."
Of course, it is not as if the United States has not had its own share of egregious accounting frauds over the years. In 2001-2002, a series of major scandals involving the likes of Enron, WorldCom and Tyco shook the U.S. economy.
Legislation followed that strengthened oversight of auditing and accountability of companies' top officers. That has not stopped U.S. accounting fraud, but it has made it easier to identify and deter some of the most egregious behavior.
In China, where large U.S. corporations are making some very big bets, a new frontier of accounting risk is opening up.
Lured by an economy growing much more quickly than the United States, U.S. companies have directly invested $54 billion in Chinese businesses, factories and property, most of it in the past decade, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data.
Despite a cooling off of China's growth last year, demand from its massive consumer class is still lifting revenues at companies that range from coffee seller Starbucks Corp to casino operator Wynn Resorts.
The Caterpillar experience and the growing catalog of smaller instances of deception and abuse have some experts wondering if U.S. companies' Chinese results can be trusted.
Though China is shifting to a market economy, much business is still done on a handshake, China experts say. State secret laws hinder investigations by outsiders. Audits done in China of U.S. corporate units there cannot be inspected by U.S. regulators because the Chinese government refuses to allow them.
A former executive at a large, U.S.-based multinational active in China recalled the firm's auditor being fired for trying to correct improper accounting at a joint venture in China. Managers there were trying to book sales early, sometimes for unassembled products, to avoid a coming tax increase, said the executive, who asked not to be named. He said he had the auditor reinstated and the accounting changed.
Dealings with a Chinese joint venture did not end well for California-based RAE Systems Inc, which makes chemical detection monitors. It had to pay nearly $3 million to the U.S. government to settle complaints in 2010 that it did too little to stop bribery at a Chinese joint venture.
Despite well-known risks in China, auditors there often are not inquisitive enough or alert to possible fraud, some experts say.
Auditors in China may pore tirelessly over documents and yet "fail to spot the red Ferrari parked on the doorstep and fail to ask who it belongs to, how it was paid for," said Peter Humphrey, founder of ChinaWhys, a Shanghai-based anti-fraud consultancy that has investigated white-collar crime and fraud at scores of multinational firms in China.
China experts said it is difficult to do business there without encountering demands for gifts or kickbacks.
Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, surveyed business executives who said Chinese firms in 2011 were second only to Russian companies in being most likely to pay bribes abroad.
But six U.S. companies, including technology group IBM and drugmaker Pfizer Inc, were charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the past two years for improper payments or gifts in China.
Retailer Wal-Mart Stores has said it is investigating allegations of bribery in China, among other countries, and cosmetics group Avon Products Inc is dealing with probes of possible bribery in China.
There have been plenty of other red flags. For example, U.S. regulators have deregistered dozens of Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges after fraud probes, and some major U.S. investors have been caught flat-footed.
Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson suffered big losses after a disastrous bet on Chinese forestry company Sino Forest. Sino Forest was rocked by allegations in 2011 that it falsified its timber assets and later filed for bankruptcy.
Chinese software company Longtop Financial Technologies was accused of seizing audit documents when its auditor, Shanghai-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, tried to double-check cash amounts at the company's bank. Longtop admitted cash had been faked. It was deregistered by the SEC.
The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which is responsible for regulating auditors of U.S.-listed companies, has been trying to get access to China to inspect audits there. But China has resisted because of sovereignty concerns.
Being unable to inspect in China "continues to create a gaping hole in investor protection," James Doty, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based PCAOB, said in a statement.
The PCAOB recently reached deals with France and Finland to inspect in those countries, adding to its growing list of cooperation agreements with 16 nations. The SEC has hit a wall trying to get documents out of China to investigate fraud. In December the commission began legal proceedings against the Chinese affiliates of five of the world's biggest audit firms - Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG BDO and PricewaterhouseCoopers - over their refusal to turn over audit papers for fear of violating state secrets laws. Meanwhile, investment in China continues. Over the past five years, U.S. companies and investment groups have announced or completed about $25 billion of whole or partial acquisitions in China, according to Thomson Reuters data.
© 2024 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
Receive breaking news and original analysis - sent right to your inbox.
Newsmax, Moneynews, Newsmax Health, and Independent. American. are registered trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc. Newsmax TV, and Newsmax World are trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc.


text:
Mortising Machines
Select manufacturer
Results 1 - 7 of 7
Mortising Machines
Thursday, 05 July 2018
The NSE-X model is a circular saw with fixed or tilting blade designed and built by RS Wood starting from the NSE 3200 Model.
We are talking about a woodworking machine certainly cheaper than the basic model since it does not have the front wagon and is not inclinable.
The NSE-X can be used to cut wood and solid wood panels, polystyrene, aluminum and light alloys, plastics and insulating materials.
The machine is mainly dedicated to craftsmen and industry because the dimensions and the power of the engines are adapted to processes that require greater complexity.
Thursday, 14 September 2017

subset: commoncrawl


text:
An easy day trip from New York and Philadelphia, New Jersey offers a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of city life. Miles of sandy beaches connect quiet towns along the famous Jersey Shore, while Atlantic City pulses with busy casinos and nightlife. Beyond the Shore, the Garden State boasts an incredible array of history, culture, and nature. From bird watching in the Meadowlands District to hiking in the Delaware Water Gap, uncovering New Jersey's hidden treasures during your pet friendly trip is part of the fun!
Best Time To Visit
New Jersey sees most of its visitors at the height of summer when families plan their trips "down the shore." It's certainly busier and pricier, but the hot weather helps to warm up the chilly water. For your pet friendly trip to New Jersey, fall is a nicer time to visit. More beaches welcome pets after Labor Day, and the weather is perfect for exploring the fantastic state parks. From late September until the end of October, the daytime highs hover in the 60s and 70s, and the skies are usually clear and sunny. The crowds return when the trees begin to turn and finding hotel deals becomes more difficult. For the best rates on lodging, plan your trip for the quiet months between November and April.
Things Not To Miss
Look for the gigantic fire hydrant marking Wildwood Dog Beach, where dogs on leashes are welcome all day, every day.
Pack a picnic and enjoy views of the Manhattan skyline, Hudson River, Liberty Island, and Ellis Island from the two-mile promenade at Liberty State Park.
Stroll the seaside resort of Cape May, a National Historic District known for its 600 grand Victorian buildings. Then hop aboard the Lewes-Cape May Ferry for a fun day in Delaware's rapidly growing Cape Region.
Explore dozens of intact buildings and several nature trails in the beautifully preserved ghost town of Batsto Village, located in New Jersey's Pine Barrens.
Pets in carriers or wearing muzzles can go for a ride on the free Staton Island Ferry for amazing views of lower Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.


text:
Access to Information Systems is provided to authorized students under the direct supervision of identified district personnel to enrich and augment their education and training during the time that they are members of the student body of the Dearborn Public Schools (the "District"). The term "Information Systems" includes, but is not limited to, computer hardware, software communications equipment (such as telephones, pagers, computers, palmtops, scanners, digital cameras, and photocopy and facsimile machines), and all communications and information communicated thereby, including e-mail and voice-mail and all communications and information transmitted by, received from, entered into, or stored in these systems. Access to Information Systems will: (1) assist in the collaboration and exchange of information, (2) facilitate personal growth in the use of technology, and (3) enhance information gathering and communication skills. This Information Systems Acceptable Use Policy Guidelines ("Guidelines") document applies to all Dearborn Public Schools students ("Students") using any District Information System.
The primary use of the District's Information Systems is to support the academic programs of the District to allow bona fide research and to support school related activities. Other important uses are to facilitate communication and the dissemination of information by, between, and among Students to further the academic programs of the District. Through this and prior versions of its Information Systems Policy Guidelines, the District has restricted the use of all Information Systems to appropriate school-related, educational purposes. At all times and in all instances, Students must adhere to the District's Acceptable Use Policy.
No Expectation of Privacy; Monitoring
All usage of any Information System, and any electronic data created, sent, received, or stored in the system are, and remain the property of, the Dearborn Public Schools. The District treats ALL electronic data sent, received, or stored over its Information Systems as its business information. As a result, the District has the right to and will periodically assess whether specific Students are using the District's Information Systems for authorized purposes. Because the Information Systems and all electronic data generated by it and stored in it are the property of the District, Students should understand that they have NO expectation of privacy in their access and use of the District's Information Systems. Individual requests for unfiltered access to the internet will be requested through the building media specialist and decided upon by a committee consisting of the building media specialist, principal, district media coordinator, and district computer services supervisor.
To safeguard and protect the District's proprietary, confidential, and business-sensitive information, and to ensure that the use of the District's Information Systems is consistent with the District's educational purposes, the District reserves the right to monitor the use of its Information Systems. This may include the monitoring of a Student's computer or Internet usage, printing and/or reading of e-mail, and viewing of any other electronic data on its Information Systems. Accordingly, the District reserves the right to monitor and log each Student's computer and Internet usage to maximize e-mail and fileserver space utilization.
Protection, Safety, Security of Minors, CIPA Regulations; Review, Deletion & Disclosure of E-Mail; Remote Access
Students should be aware that e-mail messages, chat room discussions, instant messaging, and any other form of direct electronic communication, including District correspondence, might be read by other students, District employees, or outsiders under certain circumstances. The District has the capability to access, review, copy, delete, or block any form of direct electronic communication sent, received or stored on the District's Information Systems. The District may be required to produce, and thus reserves the right to access, review, copy, or delete, or block all such messages for any purposes and to disclose them to any party (inside or outside the Dearborn Public Schools) that it deems appropriate or necessary to protect the safety and security of minors. The District is in complete compliance with CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act).
Should Student users make incidental use of the e-mail systems to transmit personal messages, such messages will be treated no differently than other messages; the district reserves the right to access, review, copy, delete or disclose such messages for any purpose.
Access to the District's Information Systems shall be from the student's class workspace and no remote tie-in to the district's Information Systems shall be allowed without the prior written approval of the District. Any problems or unauthorized charges, which arise from the use of a Student's remote access account, are the responsibility of the student's parent/guardian.
Passwords; User Responsibilities
All Pass codes, passwords, ID.'s and encrypted information are the property of the Dearborn Public Schools. No Student may use a pass code, password, I.D. or method of encryption that has not been issued specifically to that Student by the Dearborn Public Schools. In other words, no Student may give, even on a temporary basis, his or her pass code, password, or I.D. to another Student or staff member without prior written approval by the District. No Student may use, even on a temporary basis, the pass code, password, or I.D. of any other Student or staff member without prior written approval by the District. Every Student is responsible for, and should take all reasonable precautions to protect, his or her pass code, password, and I.D.
Each Student is advised that transferring files, shareware, and other software can transmit computer viruses and should exercise extreme care and caution in doing so. The Student will be liable to pay the cost or fee of any file, shareware, or software transferred or affected, whether intentional or accidental.
Prohibited Uses; Filtering; Enforcement
While cognizant of freedom of speech and equal access to information concerns, the use of the District's Information Systems to engage in any communications that are in violation of District policy or applicable laws, including but not limited to obtaining, transmitting or posting defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, sexually explicit, pornographic, offensive or harassing information, material, or messages or disclosing personal information, in the form of visual depictions, text, or sound without authorization from a committee consisting of a building media specialist, principal district media coordinator and district computer services supervisor, is prohibited. Students may not at any time access areas of the Internet that the District considers unsuitable for viewing. To actively enforce this guideline, the District has reserved the right to load filtering software on its Information Systems to prohibit access to such sites.
The use of the District's Information Systems is a privilege, which may be revoked by the District at any time and for any reason. The District reserves all rights to any material stored in files which are generally accessible to others and may remove any information which the District, in its sole discretion, deems to be unauthorized. Any misuse of the Student's access to the District's Information Systems or violation of any other provisions of this guideline may result in the suspension or termination of the Student's access to the District's Information Systems and/or other disciplinary action as the District may determine.
Disciplinary action may include:
- Banning the student's use of school information technology
- Having the student make full financial restitution for any unauthorized expenses incurred or any damages caused
- Facing other disciplinary action in keeping with the disciplinary policies and guidelines of the school district up to litigation and / or expulsion
Each Student is responsible for adhering to this guideline as well as any specific security guidelines and procedures issued periodically by duly authorized representatives of the District. Students learning of any misuse of the District's Information Systems or violations of this guideline shall immediately notify their instructor. Any building instructor who learns of misuse or who is notified of misuse shall immediately notify the building principal. The building principal will take appropriate disciplinary action as outlined in the District's Student Code of Conduct. Any of the following activities shall be deemed violations of this guideline.
A. Unauthorized attempts of hacking or any other unlawful online activities to access any Information Systems, whether belonging to the Dearborn Public Schools or any other institution, organization or individual.
B. Any alteration of the District's Information Systems without prior written authorization.
C. Introducing viruses, applications, scripts or applets which may harm or impede the operation and functioning of the District's Information Systems, whether such introduction is in public or private files and/or messages.
D. Authorship, dissemination or viewing of unauthorized information or material on the District's Information Systems, in the form of visual depictions, text or sound, including information that is strictly for personal purposes or which is not in furtherance of the educational purposes of the District; unlawful, obscene, sexually explicit, pornographic, discriminatory or abusive material, or any material that disparages students or staff material which is for commercial or for-profit purposes including, without limitation, advertising; material consisting of political lobbying; and any other material which the District deems to be unauthorized.
E. Using District time and resources for personal, commercial or for-profit purposes or other non-District related gain.
F. Sending or posting the District's confidential materials outside the District or inside the District to non-authorized personnel. This includes the non-authorized disclosure of personal identification information of minors.
G. Unauthorized downloading and/or installing of any computer application on the District's Information Systems, whether purchased, shareware, or freeware.
H. Refusing to cooperate with a security investigation.
I. Using the District's Information Systems, whether directly or indirectly, for any
malicious act.J. Using the District's Information Systems to plagiarize, copy, download, forward and/or
transmit any form of intellectual property protected by copyright laws.
No Warranty; No Liability; Release
The District will neither warrant that the Information Systems will meet any specific requirements the Student may have, nor that the Information Systems will be without error or provide uninterrupted service. The District shall not be liable for any direct or indirect, incidental, or consequential damages (including lost data, information, or time) sustained or incurred in connection with the use, operation, or inability to use the Information Systems. The District shall have no liability for any cause of action or other claim arising from the use of the Information Systems, including both authorized and unauthorized uses thereof. By using the District's Information Systems, each Student releases the District and its operations and administrations from any and all claims of any nature arising from any use or inability to use the District's Information Systems resources.
Modification of Guideline
From time-to-time, the District may modify or amend its Information Systems Acceptable Use Policy Guidelines including its acceptable use rules and guidelines.


text:
Day 2 Adtech New York 2016
November 3, 2016
[Download MP3s: Walt Horstman, President of Audience Xpress Chris Pfaff, CEO of Tech Media LLC. Steve Latham, GM of Encore by FlashTalking Anis Uzzaman, CEO of Fenox Venture Capital Joe Lavan, VP of data and insights from NetMining David Smith, CEO of MediaSmith Darren Marble, CEO of CroudFundX Doug Weaver, CEO and Founder of Upstream Guy Primus, CEO and Founder of The Virtual Reality Company Andrew Theodore, CEO and Founder of Social Vend Tami Kelly, VP, Account Management and Operations for Qualia Media Dan Slivjanovvski, CMO for RythmOne Tom Goodwin, EVP Innovation for Zenith Media Mark Kapczynski, Executive Committee member UCLA Venture Capitol Fund Michael Terpin, Founder and CEO of Transform Group] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Episode Description
John Durham Interviews Anis Uzzaman, CEO of Fenox Venture Capital
VoiceAmerica Live Events
Live and On-demand events from any Device!
Tune in for VoiceAmerica Live Events as we broadcast engaging events from all over the world. VoiceAmerica brings you the best in Live talk radio with influencers from the best sectors of business, empowerement, health and wellness and a variety of other topics! Live and On-demand events from any Device!


text:
Your recent searches
General Purpose Glass Awards ideal for presentation awards and sports competitions. Our General Purpose Glass Award range includes a selection of Hand Cut Crystal Awards, Crystal Vase Awards and Acrylic Glass Awards in a variety of colours and sizes.
Choose your Glass Awards & Crystal Awards from Trophy Store, the UK's largest Online retailer of Trophies, Medals and Awards with an extensive range all available to purchase online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
202 Products, page 1 of 5


text:
Grocery Stores, Healthcare, and the Case for Real Markets
Think of a supermarket. There are probably more than a hundred in the city of Dallas alone. I can walk into any of them—in most cases, at any time day or night—and buy thousands of different products. The only wait I experience is at checkout, but express lanes speed that along if I want only an item or two. When I go to purchase something I want, the product is always there. I can't recall an instance when a shelf space offering something I wanted to buy was empty. Further, the products being offered are produced by thousands of different suppliers, and they travel thousands of different routes to get to market. What is true of Dallas is true of every city of any significant size in the country.
Contrast that with the market for medical care, where almost nothing is available at the drop of a hat. Nearly one in four patients has to wait six or more days for a physician appointment. Less than one-third of physician practices have made arrangements allowing patients to see a doctor after hours when the practice is closed. Sixty percent of patients find it difficult to get care after hours or on weekends.[1] Newspaper reports around the country tell horror stories of the consequences of the shortage of cancer drugs and other life-saving pharmaceuticals. Four- and five-hour average waiting times at hospital emergency rooms are not uncommon.
In fact, the few places in healthcare where waiting is not a problem provide services that are peripheral to the orthodox healthcare system. Teladoc promises a physician will return your call within three hours or the telephone consultation is free. Most calls are returned in less than one hour—during which time, you are free to do other things. MinuteClinics in some CVS pharmacies give you an estimated waiting time so you can shop while you wait for your care. Think of these last two examples as services that developed in the part of medical care where normal market processes have not been suppressed.
Everything I purchase in a supermarket is fee-for-service. There is no pre-payment of the type that so many favor in healthcare. I pay the market price for what I get. There is bundling, to use another popular buzzword. I don't pay extra if I ask an employee for directions. There is no extra charge for the butcher to trim fat off tenderloin. These services are included in the price of the products I buy. But the bundling choices are made by the supermarket, not by the buyers of their products. There is no supermarket equivalent of managed care, integrated care, or coordinated care. Market prices are sending continuous signals to producers of thousands of products all over the world, and these prices accomplish the remarkable feat of making sure that everything we want to buy is on the supermarket shelf at the time we want to buy it.
The vast majority of goods sold in a supermarket are not produced by the supermarket itself, using its own employees. They are produced by independent entities in private practice, to borrow another term from the medical world. Supermarkets meet the needs of millions of people without the necessity of employing all of the people who produce all of the products they offer—unlike the Obama administration's plans to force virtually all doctors to become employees of hospitals.
Supermarkets have electronic inventory and monitoring systems—far more sophisticated than anything you will normally find in medicine. When Sam Walton first started electronic inventory control in his Wal-Mart stores, he did it in order to improve the quality of service and lower prices to attract more customers. Unlike healthcare, electronic inventory systems have emerged quite naturally in the supermarket business, without any government guidelines and without any government subsidies.
Now, you might be inclined to argue that healthcare cannot reasonably be compared to items on a supermarket shelf. Okay. I concede that. One is a product. The other is a service. But consider your Blackberry. Or your iPhone. Or your iPad. In some ways these have similarities with our bodies. Things can go wrong. When they do, we want someone to help fix them.
In my neighborhood, I can walk into almost any phone store (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, etc.) with no appointment, and most of the time I get service immediately. And the phone store has competitors. Independent phone repair companies are popping up every day. There are even tools on the Internet that help you start your phone repair business.[2] In most places, repair companies are within ten miles of their customers; repairs are done in fifteen minutes or less; and they are usually inexpensive ($40 to $60, say).[3] Shopping malls have phone repair kiosks. Some companies will come to your house to repair your phone.[4]
Consider customer education. Elderly buyers in particular often have difficulty mastering the electronic devices they buy. The market has a solution. Verizon offers its customers free two-hour classes in how to use their iPhones. Yet, I don't know anywhere in Dallas that will give Medicare patients free counseling (or even paid counseling) on how to manage their diabetes. That's unfortunate. This one disease is costing the country $218 billion a year.[5]
Why is the marketplace so much kinder to my iPhone than it is to my body? As I explain in Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, it's because one type of service is emerging in a real market, while the market has been suppressed in the other.
1. Karen Davis, Cathy Schoen, and Kristof Stremikis, "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Healthcare System Compares Internationally, 2010 Update," Commonwealth Fund, June 2010, http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Fund%20Report/2010/Jun/1400_Davis_Mirror_Mirror_on_the_wall_2010.pdf.
2. "How to Start a Cell Phone Repair Business," eHow.com, http://www.ehow.com/how_5635463_start-cell-phone-repair-business.html.
3. Daniel Vitiello, "Business Idea: iPhone Repair Business," PowerHomeBiz.com, December 4, 2010, http://www.powerhomebiz.com/News/122010/iphone-repair-business.htm.
4. Website for Onsite Cellular Repair: http://www.onsitecellularrepair.com/.
5. Timothy M. Dall, Yiduo Zhang, Yaozhu J. Chen, William W. Quick, Wenya G. Yang, and Jeanene Fogli, "The Economic Burden of Diabetes," Health Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 2, February 2010, pp. 297–303.
[Cross-posted at Psychology Today]


text:
Revisiting Motley Crue's 1983 Stint Opening for Kiss
In 1983, Motley Crue embarked on the most notable trek of their career at that point: opening for Kiss.
At the time, the Crue had only one album under their belts. Initially released in 1981, then pushed into mainstream circulation in 1982, Too Fast for Love had earned the group its first national attention. Even though it wasn't a commercial breakthrough at first, the LP spent more than a year slowly climbing the Billboard chart.
As Motley Crue's notoriety began to grow, Kiss began to take notice. At the time, the makeup-adorned rockers were in a commercial decline. After closing the '70s with four consecutive platinum-selling releases, the group's first three '80s LPs failed to reach similar success. As Kiss set out on their Creatures of the Night Tour/10th Anniversary Tour, the band was met with low audience turnout, with some concerts filling only 30-40 percent of the venues' capacity.
"At that point, we were hurting," Paul Stanley recalled during a 2012 appearance on Nikki Sixx's radio show Sixx Sense. "We were in a lull, we were on the West Coast, and we thought, 'Who can help us sell tickets?'"
The answer was Motley Crue. The band had already cut its teeth on Hollywood's Sunset Strip. While the idea of opening for such experienced showmen may have intimidated some bands, the Crue were energized by the challenge.
"I guess you could kind of look at it as a young band that was so hungry and so in its zone, and we had yet to break, being like a young boxer," Sixx later recalled. "We just wanted to get in the ring with anybody. The ring was getting on that stage, playing in front of anybody's crowd. We didn't care whose it was, because we believed in ourselves and we were in that place. We were in that positive place. Everything we were doing was working internally. We were just pushing it out and kicking ass."
The Crue were supremely confident, convinced they could hang with any band, regardless of their experience level. "I guess we were naive enough not to go, 'Whoa, they have all this stuff and we really have nothing,'" Sixx said. "We were just like, 'Wow, put us on that stage and cut us loose.'"
The short run wasn't perfect. In the Motley Crue autobiography The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, Sixx complained that Gene Simmons had chastised the young band for its hard-partying ways. Still, the experience gave the young band a glimpse at what its future rock stardom would hold.
"[Kiss] gave us our first taste of playing up and down the coast and on big stages," Sixx noted. "We'll always remember that. They're fond memories."
Even though Motley Crue opened for Kiss on only a handful of 1983 dates, they included some monumental performances. One, at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, featured a sold-out crowd celebrating the local group's rise in stardom. Another was the Crue's debut Las Vegas performance, the first meeting of Sin City and rock's most notorious bad boys.
That show occurred on April 1, 1983, at the Aladdin Theater. Across their 10-song set, Motley Crue delivered several tunes from their debut LP - including "Live Wire" and "Merry-Go-Round" - while also previewing songs like "Looks That Kill" and "Shout at the Devil," which would arrive on Shout at the Devil that September.
To commemorate the Crue's debut Vegas performance, Iconic by Collectionzz has created a new limited-edition poster. The distinctive design features band members Sixx, Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars adorning playing cards being held by a satanic hand. The poster, which comes in standard and mirror foil versions, can be seen below.


text:
Republished from Better Institutions with permission of the author.
On March 7th, Los Angeles is going to vote on the type of city it wants to be.
The vote will be over Measure S, formerly known as the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative (NII), which seeks to limit housing development in the city. Backers of the initiative claim that City Council is too beholden to developers, and that the pace of new housing and commercial development in the city is out of control. They also express concern that "mega projects" are making Los Angeles less affordable, since few new homes are being targeted at low and moderate income households.
Opponents, like myself, argue that passage of Measure S will be a catastrophe for the future of the city: New housing is the only thing keeping rents from growing even faster, and anti-development advocates are making a grievous error when they view new luxury housing as a cause of rising prices, rather than a symptom of them. It will throw the baby out with the bathwater, leaving us with fewer low-income units and more expensive housing for every other resident of L.A. Opponents also view the NII as a fundamentally pessimistic initiative—one which essentially asserts that Los Angeles' best days are long-since past.
It's a really bad plan, but calling Measure S "bad" doesn't go nearly far enough. It is, in fact, the Donald Trump of ballot initiatives. It's a cynical effort to co-opt a legitimate sense of frustration—frustration felt by those who haven't shared in the gains of an increasingly bifurcated society—and to use that rage and desperation for purely selfish purposes. It invites us to vent our frustrations and, in so doing, to further enrich those who helped to engineer our ill fortune. And as with Trump, a Measure S victory will roll back the clock on years of steady progress.
Since I think there are a lot of folks out there who genuinely haven't made up their minds about the initiative, or aren't yet familiar with it, I'd like to summarize some of the most important reasons to oppose it when it comes time to vote this March.
1 - It will mean fewer affordable housing units for low income households.
The Coalition to Preserve L.A., which is backing the initiative, is turning this into a referendum on housing development in Los Angeles. They're arguing that new homes have "wiped out thousands of net units of affordable housing and directly fed into L.A.'s spike in homelessness."
It's true that we're losing affordable housing units in L.A., but it's not because they're being torn down to build new luxury housing, by and large. Most affordable housing units have 30- to 55-year covenants which, upon expiration, cause the homes to revert back to market-rate. At that point, the owners are free to charge whatever tenants are willing to pay for the unit. From 2015 to 2020, about 15,000 such covenants will expire without additional public funding. By comparison, just 1,900 multifamily units were torn down between 2010 and 2014, and over 5,600 low- and very low-income affordable units were permitted. Many of those affordable homes were constructed at no cost to the public, as part of market-rate developments taking advantage of the state's density bonus program.
Measure S's additional restrictions on development mean that less new housing will be built while affordability covenants continue to expire. This isn't an issue of affordable housing being torn down to build expensive skyscrapers, it's a case of resting on our laurels. We've built less housing in the past three decades than at any time since before the 1940s—including housing with affordability covenants—and now the chickens are coming home to roost. The initiative seeks to solve our problems by paradoxically doubling down on this failed strategy.
Part of the problem with our inability to build affordable housing is that we're suffering from a severe shortfall in funding, with dedicated affordable housing funding sources falling by nearly 80 percent since 2008. But again, this has nothing to do with housing development more generally, and the NII's backers have no answer for how their initiative will create or preserve subsidized affordable housing.
On the contrary, the initiative actually includes a variety of new rules that will make it even more challenging to develop affordable housing. For example, it will force developers of permanently supportive housing to build excessive parking for formerly homeless individuals, adding approximately $30,000 to $50,000 per unit to the cost of development—despite evidence from past projects that the vast majority of residents will never own a car. Requiring millions of dollars' worth of parking that we know will never be used is not how we'll improve affordability in Los Angeles, nor are any of the other new laws and regulations that would be added by the NII.
2. It will also make the city less affordable for everyone else.
Measure S will make it tougher to build the few hundred (or thousand) affordable homes we permit each year, but it will be an absolute disaster for the more than one million market-rate homes in the city.
A variety of reports have linked the high cost of housing to an undersupply of housing, with a particular emphasis on the failure of coastal cities like Los Angeles. As a general rule, when a city grows its population and employment faster than its housing supply, prices increase more rapidly. This chart from the city's recently-adopted Comprehensive Homeless Strategy highlights how poor a job L.A. has done relative to peer cities:
The vacancy rate for rental housing in Los Angeles is now under 3 percent, fourth-lowest in the nation and a major contributor to rapidly rising rents. Higher vacancy rates mean landlords must compete for potential tenants; under about 5 percent, landlords hold the leverage as potential renters are forced to compete for a very limited supply of housing. We've been under 5 percent vacancy since 2011, and Measure S will guarantee that we stay there for the foreseeable future. That's good news for property owners, and bad news for the two-thirds of L.A. residents who rent their homes, and for anyone who cares about equity or affordability.
The pro-initiative folks will tell you that this is all irrelevant, since the new housing is all targeted at rich people anyway. Putting aside the fact that those luxury units are often accompanied by on-site affordable housing, they're still wrong. Going back all the way to the bungalow era, new housing has almost always been targeted at higher-income residents. Over time these new units age, better options become available, and the older ones "filter" down to moderate and lower income households. We understand this intuitively when it comes to cars—we would be surprised if we learned that a friend of modest means had purchased a 2016 Honda Civic, but not a 2008 model—but fail to apply the same logic to housing. In one paper, author Stuart Rosenthal found that residents living in 20-year-old housing earned about half as much as residents in new units. Unfortunately, Los Angeles has very little 20- and 30-year old housing thanks to decades of anti-development sentiment. The NII would guarantee that we're in the same position 20 more years in the future.
Other recent research has shown that Bay Area communities that built a lot of housing experienced about half as much displacement as communities that built very little. San Francisco is one of the few cities in the U.S. that has taken a stronger anti-development posture and has spent more on affordable housing (per capita) than Los Angeles. Despite this principled stand, San Francisco is now dramatically more unaffordable than L.A., and it is doomed. How will adopting more SF-like policies lead to a more affordable city? The initiative's backers have no legitimate response, and that should scare you.
They would love for you to believe that by supporting Measure S you will stop evictions and house-flipping—that you will "Save Our Neighborhoods." The bare fact, though, is that stopping new development will only make matters worse. New residents are moving here whether or not we build homes for them, as they have for decades; the question is whether investors are allowed to use their capital to build new units to house them, or they're forced by the NII's restrictions to spend their money elsewhere, upgrading existing homes, ultimately increasing evictions like those seen at the Westwood Senior Center and further supplementing the wealth of those lucky enough to own property in Los Angeles. Measure S does absolutely nothing to prevent this kind of investment, and by blocking new development it will only accelerate the impacts on our existing housing stock.
3. It's disingenuous.
As you've already read, there's a lot about this initiative that's rooted in false promises.
Perhaps the most disingenuous aspect of this proposal, though, is the apparent motivation behind it. Michael Weinstein, head of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has been the driving force behind Measure S, and was driven to action by a two-tower project adjacent to his Hollywood offices. He and his team have said that the project is out of scale with the neighborhood, but that claim rings hollow when the office of Weinstein himself is next door, on the 22nd floor of the Sunset Media Tower.
Given that this is just a few feet shorter than the proposed Palladium residences, one is inclined to ask: If a Hollywood tower was good enough for you and your organization to call home, what's so horrible about a few more springing up nearby, giving people new places to live and work just a few blocks from a Red Line subway station? Wouldn't that help create a more cohesive community character? Maybe, just maybe, it has more to do with the loss of a beautiful view and a cheap parking spot than anything as principled as "the future of the city." Just a thought.
Not only that, but the campaign moved Measure S from its initial place on the November 2016 ballot to the 2017 ballot. Why? They'll tell you that it was because they didn't want to be drowned out by the many other initiatives in a crowded election. The truth, though, is that they know this is an initiative that is targeted at older homeowners who have nothing to lose from a less affordable, less inclusive Los Angeles. It was naked ballot shopping, and its goal amounts to a subversion of democracy: rather than go to a vote when 70% of registered voters are participating, they delayed until the municipal election when turnout hovers around 15%, and when older voters dominate. It's a cowardly act, and an admission of their initiative's broad unpopularity. And if we don't turn out in March, it'll work.
4. It will destroy thousands of well-paying construction jobs.
Measure S would put a two-year moratorium on all development that requires a General Plan amendment, zone change, or height district change, including projects that have already been approved but haven't yet been issued a building permit.
There are approximately 223,000 people employed in the construction industry in the L.A. metro area; assuming employment is roughly proportional to population, about half are probably employed or perform a substantial amount of work within the city of L.A. Many of those individuals would lose their jobs, and be forced to either take poorer-paying jobs outside their field, or leave the city altogether, since two years is far too long to wait for the dust to settle and see if those jobs return. A recent study by Beacon Economics confirms this, estimating the loss of 12,000 jobs in just the first year of Measure S's passage.
If housing affordability is a sincere aspiration of this initiative (it's not), it's hard to see how putting tens of thousands of residents out of work will help achieve it. Amazingly, the campaign director brushed off this concern by arguing that L.A. "will be awash in jobs" thanks to the recent passage of Measure M—an initiative that the Measure S team opposed, by the way. These are not people who are actually concerned with the well-being of Los Angeles residents.
5. It will mean more traffic, not less.
Another argument made in favor of Measure S is that traffic is out of control, and that we need to limit new development to get a handle on it. Further, the initiative includes parking requirements that ensure every project builds plenty of parking, so no one has to hunt for a good spot.
Though intuitive, this is backwards thinking, yet again. For one, the parking requirements in the initiative will be counterproductive, leaving residents with less on-street parking and worse congestion. This is because as the supply of parking increases, it actually encourages more people to drive. And it's not a simple case of correlation rather than causation: More parking built in one 20-year period led to significantly more driving in the next; when the authors used the same method to see whether increased driving led to more parking, the relationship was far weaker. By forcing developers to oversupply parking spaces, neighborhoods will be inviting more people to drive there rather than bus, walk, or bike.
Traffic will also worsen as a result of the aforementioned affordability impacts. As rents continue to grow—due to the initiative's guarantee that vacancy rates stay under 5 percent—fewer and fewer low and moderate income households will be able to call Los Angeles home. Most of the "affordable" housing in L.A. is actually just cheap market-rate housing, and current residents will be able to stay so long as they're protected by rent control. But when they move out, their unit will go to a higher-earner. Higher-income households drive much more than low-income households, so future L.A. residents can expect considerably worse traffic in their affluent utopia.
If we want to fix our transportation system, it's going to require new infrastructure and redesigning our neighborhoods. Freezing our communities in amber will only ensure that more and more Angelenos of modest means are forced to leave. We will push out many of our neighbors who walk, bike, and take transit to work, replace them with those who primarily drive, and in the end we'll still be stuck with the same broken transportation network that we've got today. The only way out is through, not back. Let's not fall for the false Trumpian vision of Making Los Angeles Great Again.
6. It commits us to permanently under-funding our shared infrastructure.
As a justification for its many code amendments, Measure S argues the following:
The development of projects containing a significant component of multifamily housing has an adverse impact on health and safety when such projects are approved in areas that are not currently zoned for housing on such a scale or which do not currently permit housing on such a scale under the General Plan, because the City's infrastructure is threatened, in that fire response times do not consistently meet standards for safety, the City's water supply is reliant on an aging infrastructure that must be upgraded and streets that are in failing condition.
This harkens back to 1926, when in their Euclid decision the U.S. Supreme Court described apartments as "mere parasite[s], constructed in order to take advantage" of attractive residential districts. We're expected to believe that the quality of our city's infrastructure will be further degraded by the addition of new households—especially multifamily homes—but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, our infrastructure is in such bad shape because we have so much of it, per capita, which is a result of our sprawling single family character. There are too many roads, pipes, and cables for us to maintain because we're so spread out; the best way to fix that problem is to reduce the amount of infrastructure that every person is responsible for. We can't really tear out most of our roads and sewers, so that leaves adding more people as the obvious solution.
Smart Growth America has reported that increased density saves cities an average of 10 percent on service delivery, and this shouldn't surprise anyone. If you build a new apartment building in Hollywood you don't need a new fire station or police precinct—there's already one that services the area. You don't need new mainline water or sewer pipes because they're already in the road and have plenty of extra capacity. The developer pays for connections to all of these citywide infrastructure systems, and the residents' tax dollars help contribute toward much-needed upgrades. Half-full buses and trains become 75-percent full at no additional cost to Metro, increasing their revenue and funding additional service. Fifty people live along the sidewalk rather than 30, so each person's share of maintenance drops just a bit.
The Coalition to Preserve L.A. wants to pit existing residents against future ones, but we have every reason to be friends. Our city has the jobs, amenities, climate, and quality of life that they desire; they have the tax dollars that will help us preserve and upgrade our city's infrastructure. And hey, people can be pretty great. All my best friends are people. We should welcome them with open arms.
7. It's a fundamentally pessimistic vision for L.A.'s future.
To me, this last point is the most important reason to oppose Measure S.
As Civic Enterprise co-founder Mott Smith said in an interview last year, this initiative is "a choice between thinking that L.A.'s best years are behind us, or thinking that L.A.'s best years are in front of us." The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative sees no promise in the Los Angeles of the future.
It's a belief, made law, that L.A. can never become better than it is today. That it can never again reinvent itself for the better, as it has numerous times in the past. That our city has reached its pinnacle, and now the best we can hope for is to balance precariously upon this perch, neither adapting to the future nor rediscovering our past.
It is ironic that in our most liberal cities—where the affordability crisis is at its most severe—we are at once passionately supportive of immigration to our country, while staunchly opposed to the migration of new residents to our cities. We belittle conservatives for turning their backs on poor, ambitious immigrants, and yet we deny millions of potential neighbors the freedom to join us in the world's most productive and exciting communities. We welcome diversity and celebrate inclusion, but only if you already live here. But just as welcoming new residents to our country has always led to a stronger, more resilient population (albeit with growing pains along the way), so too is growth an essential, positive, and equitable trajectory for our cities.
This March, I hope we're able to re-capture that spirit of inclusion, and that we can come together in favor of a more hopeful vision for the future of Los Angeles. I think we've had enough of fear and false promises, don't you?
Measure S will appear on the March 7 ballot; you should receive election information from the city sometime in February. This initiative is only for City of Los Angeles voters. The last day to register for the March 7 election is February 20, fifteen days before the vote. If you need to register or are unsure of your voter registration status, you can quickly check on it here.
Turnout in municipal elections is extremely poor (10 to 15 percent of registered voters actually cast a ballot), so your vote really matters in this election. Please show up and vote No on Measure S!
Shane Phillips is the Project Director of Los Angeles Streetcar, Inc. and volunteer Policy Director for Abundant Housing L.A. He blogs at Better Institutions and blogs at Better Institutions.


text:
Why should police officer read Legal Juice? If they did, they would know, as all regular Juice readers do, that the Constitution allows folks to flip them off, and to cuss. Sure, they can make an arrest, but in the end, the flipper or cusser will be walking away with some cash. (For example, see this recent Juice post.) Until Legal Juice is required reading for all police officers, The Juice has no doubt that this will happen over and over again. The most recent example was reported by The Marietta Daily Journal.
Amy Barnes, a member of the Occupy movement, says she flipped off police and cussed at them as she was on her bike on Austell Road near her Marietta home. Two Cobb Police officers had teenagers stopped outside a store as Barnes showed her displeasure from the moving bike.
A two-fer – flipping and cussing. Whether she was disrespectful or not is irrelevant. The First Amendment applies regardless. So what happened next?
Police followed and arrested her couple of blocks away."They told me I shouldn't be presenting a lewd gesture in front of children," said Barnes.
The children!
Police charged Barnes with disorderly conduct. She says she spent 23 hours in jail — six in solitary confinement. The misdemeanor is still making its' way through the courts, but Barnes' attorney, Cynthia Counts, says police violated Barnes' constitutional rights.
"It's infringing speech; the government cannot just chase down a citizen and arrest them when they speak their mind," said Counts.
Yes, it is. Now stop wasting everyone's time, dismiss the criminal case, and pay the lady. And next time, as difficult as you may find it, just walk away. Here's the source. (Image via Thirteen-Fifty/Shutterstock.com)


text:
I have sold a property at 404 19366 65 AVE in Surrey.
This top floor, west facing condo looks out onto green space. Light oak laminate floors, light cabinets, granite countertops and vaulted ceilings makes this open concept floor plan very spacious. Large master bedroom with walk in closet and access to the bathroom. The den is big enough to be a 2nd bedroom w/window. Animals allowed, no age restriction, Clubhouse includes gym, kitchen, pool table, rec hall, and guest suite. Great location, just minutes to Downtown Langley, Willowbrook Mall, Superstore and a variety of Restaurants.


text:
Dear Rabbi,
Why does G-d try the righteous? And why did G-d try Abraham with 10 different trials, culminating in the command to sacrifice Isaac?
Our Sages asked, "Why did G-d try Abraham?" They answered with three parables: To what may the matter be compared? To a seller of earthenware vessels who bangs on his jugs; to a grower of flax who beats on his produce; to a mule driver who spurs his animal along the way.
This teaching needs explanation. If all three parables are alike, why did the Sages mention all three? If they are different, what is each intending to teach that the others don't? A closer look at each parable will demonstrate the difference between them, and what each is intended to teach.
Why would a merchant bang on his jugs? To demonstrate in front of passersby their durability. To do so, he beats on the strongest of his jugs to show their ability to withstand even the strongest blow. So too, G-d "banged" on Abraham in order to demonstrate to the world the strength of his belief and loyalty to G-d. In general, the trials of the righteous and the way they overcome them demonstrate to us their greatness. And even more importantly, they show us what a person is capable of such that each of us will be encouraged to withstand our own trials.
Why does a grower beat on his flax? Beating the stalks of flax while they grow in the field causes the flax to grow fuller and more robust, similar to the way pruning encourages growth. So too G-d "beat" on Abraham in order to engender spiritual growth, elevating him level above level in closeness to G-d. In general, the trials of the righteous and the way they overcome them encourages them to grow, and makes them more sensitive and able to help and guide us to grow through our own trials as well.
Why does a driver spur his animal along the way? To ensure that the animal, lured by various diversions off the road, will remain on the path and ultimately reach the intended destination. So too G-d "spurred" Abraham to ensure that he would continue in His way. This is the meaning of the verse, "For I know Abraham, that he will command his children after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord" (Gen. 18:19). The loyalty Abraham maintained to G-d acquired for his progeny, the righteous as well as the simple Jew for all generations, the fortitude necessary to keep the faith despite adversity, and reach the final destination.
Thus our Sages relate the famous story of Hannah and her seven sons: A wicked Roman ruler wanted to break Jewish loyalty to G-d and force them to commit idolatry. He summoned Hannah's oldest son, demanding that he bow to an idol or be killed. One after another, each of Hannah's sons was taken out for execution. In a last ditch effort to save face, the ruler pleaded with the seventh son, yet a child, to make a mere semblance of bowing by picking up a sweet he'd throw in front of the idol. The lad refused. On his way to execution, Hannah whispered in his ear, "Tell Abraham our father, 'You built an altar, Hannah offered seven sacrifices!' "
Hannah's declaration to Abraham is peculiar. Was she boasting that her sacrifice was greater than that of Abraham's? The commentaries explain that she meant to convey the idea mentioned above. Namely, Abraham's building an altar with full intention to sacrifice Isaac instilled within even the most simple Jew for all generations to come a willingness to endure even the most severe trials in order to ensure that the merchandise — our precious Jewish heritage — is ultimately safely delivered to the intended destination — with the Jewish people until the arrival of Mashiach.
- Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, Dean of Yeshivat Ohr Somayach


text:
It was a cloudy day on Monday, perfect for our storytime all about clouds. This is a storytime that one of my staff members planned and I didn't get to use all the fun props she developed, but I'll share everything with you and let you know which ones I used and how they went. Here's what I did:
I played the theme from "Singin' in the Rain" as the kids came in for storytime. We had it on the CD Over the Rainbow: Songs from the Movies.
Opening Song: My Hands Say Hello
Memory Box: This week's Memory Box item was a feather from Thirsty Thursday by Phyllis Root.
Book: It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw. I had one little guy who kept saying "What is going ON?" every time I told them "It looked like ___, but it wasn't ___..." I've used it before with groups that got it right away and kept shouting "It's a cloud!" but this was definitely a hit with my group this week.
Prop: Cloud Board. I used this board to talk about how clouds come in lots of different shapes. Sometimes they're thick and puffy, sometimes they're thin and feathery. Sometimes they're BIG gray storm clouds! And sometimes they're tiny little white clouds like...
Book: Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld. I wanted to give this one a try because the illustrations are so cute and it's a nice story about perseverance and the big things a little being can do. I was worried it might be too long, but I think it was a nice fit for my group except the little siblings got really squirrelly. The kids who were in the planned-for age range did fine with it.
Song: Little April Showers from the Bambi soundtrack. I passed out bells and told the kids we were going to be raindrops (remember how Cloudette rained at the end of the book?). We didn't listen to the entire song, but I had them "rain" faster and faster as the storm picks up. Then we rang our bells fast and slow and high and low and put them back in the basket.
Book: Thirsty Thursday by Phyllis Root. This is a short, gentle, silly book that worked great for storytime.
Prop Activity: Color Raindrops. A made this cloud out of a donated (new, clean) pizza box and laminated construction paper. I passed out the raindrops of different colors and as I called the colors up, kids brought theirs up and put it in the box to "feed" our cloud.
Closing Song: Do You Know What Time It Is?
Craft: A little hanging cloud!
Other Activities:
A made a couple more props, but I ran out of time because I got started a little late and Cloudette was a longer title. So I didn't actually use these with my group, but you might want to!
Felt Rhyme: Five Little Clouds. This is patterned off of "Five Little Pumpkins", so I'd read it with that cadence.
Five little clouds, so white and plain.
The first one said, "I want to make it rain!"
The second one said, "Where are we?"
The third one said, "In the sky, don't you see?"
The fourth one said, "Let's go, go, go."
The fifth one said, "Look out below!"
Then out came the stars, out came the moon,
And the clouds rolled away but they'll be back again soon!
Felt Rhyme: Fluffy cloud, fluffy cloud, what do you see? This one is modeled after the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin.
Fluffy Cloud, Fluffy Cloud, What do you see?
I see a hot sun looking at me!
Repeat with: airplane, brave bird, bright star, rainbow, lots of tiny raindrops.
Alternate Books:
If you don't like or don't have any of the above books, consider using some of these:
Little Cloud by Eric Carle
The Cloud Book by Tomie DePaola
Once Upon a Cloud by Rob D. Walker
Sector 7 by David Wiesner
You can also supplement with books about rain or weather. I posted about a weather storytime we did last year and Storytime Katie has posted a storytime about clouds and rainbows.


text:
Hallmarked Sterling Silver Handmade Rectangular and Square Pendant by Gabriella Nanni of Florence. Approx. Pendant weight g. Approx. dimensions mm x mm. Supplied with 16" 2 row leather cord with silver trigger clasp. Please note exact weight and dimensions differ from piece to piece due to the handmade nature of both the glass and the setting.
Gabriella Nanni Sterling Silver Rectangular Square Blu/Bianca


text:
[Dave Jones] from EEVBlog.com takes "Arduino fan boys" off the garden path getting down and dirty with different methods to capture, evaluate and retransmit IR remote control codes. Capturing and reproducing IR remote control codes is nothing new, however, [Dave] carves his own roads and steers us around some "traps for young players" along the way.
[Dave] needed a countdown timer that could remotely start and stop recording on his Cannon video camera, which he did with simplicity in a previous EEVBlog post using a commercial learning remote control unit. The fans demanded better so he delivered with this excellent tutorial capturing IR codes on his oscilloscope from an IR decoder (yellow trace) as well as using an IR photo transistor (blue trace) which showed the code inclusive of 38 KHz carrier frequency. Either capture method could easily be used to examine the transmitted code. The second lesson learned from the captured waveforms was the type of code modulation being used. [Dave's] remote transmitted NEC (Japanese) pulse length encoding — which can be assertaind by referencing the Infrared Remote Control Techniques (PDF). Knowing the encoding methodology it was trivial to manually translate the bits for later use in an Arduino transmitter sketch. We find it amazing how simple [Dave] makes the process seem, even choosing to write his own sketch to reproduce and transmit the IR codes and carrier instead of taking the easy road looking for existing libraries.
A real gem of knowledge in the video was when it didn't work! We get to follow along as [Dave] stumbles before using a Saleae Logic analyzer to see that his transmitter was off frequency even though the math in his sketch seemed correct. Realizing the digital write routine was causing a slowdown he fudged his math to make the needed frequency correction. Sure, he could have removed the performance glitch by writing some custom port control but logic dictates using the fastest and simplest solution when hacking a one-off solution.
[Dave's] video and links to source code after the break.
Continue reading "Learn To Translate IR Codes And Retransmit Using Arduino"


text:
The internet is full of BitTorrent search engines, but what if you're just trying to decide what your weekend movie should be? TorrentButler presents new releases in a visually attractive fasion, linking to standard and high definition torrents for each.
The problem with most torrent sites is that they don't offer a lot of ways to just browse around the catalog. If you want to download something, you have to know what you're looking for. If you just want to just see what's out there, web site TorrentButler is a web site that is, essentially, just a giant mosaic of movie posters. You can filter them by popularity, genre, or date released, and search through them if you get an idea of what you're looking for. Clicking on a poster will link you to that movie's page, which contains a movie trailer, description, and links to a number of high and standard definition torrents.
Apart from the convenience of being able to actually browse new releases, this site is gorgeous — almost like XBMC for the web (notice the fanart-like view for the movie page to the left). Even if you're not a BitTorrenter, this site is pretty sweet for browsing new releases and deciding on your weekend movie — much better than making the trek out to Blockbuster. Hit the link to check it out.
TorrentButler [via TorrentFreak]


text:
Standardised protocols would greatly enhance clinical and research potential of BTMs
An expert working group of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) and the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) has released a new position paper which reviews the evidence of bone turnover markers (BTMs) in fracture risk prediction and monitoring of osteoporosis therapy. More importantly, it identifies research priorities and recommends that specific markers be used as reference analytes for BTMs in clinical and observational studies.
BTMs have been extensively studied in relation to fracture risk assessment and have been found, in some cases, to predict fracture risk independently of bone mineral density (BMD). However, the use of different markers and a number of measurement methods, even for the same marker, has resulted in incomparable and inconsistent data and therefore currently limits the incorporation of BTMs in fracture risk prediction tools, such as FRAX®.
In clinical practice, BTMs are used to monitor osteoporosis treatment. BTMs generally show large and rapid responses to the treatments used for osteoporosis, which make them an appealing tool to inform physicians and patients on treatment efficacy. Some evidence suggests that changes in BTMs following treatment with antiresorptive agents may explain a greater percentage of the fracture risk reduction than does the change in BMD. However, further population studies, with correct sample handling and statistical methods, are needed to confirm these findings.
In its position paper* the Joint IOF-IFCC Bone Marker Standards Working Group identified several research priorities to address the gaps in the literature. It recommends that specific markers of bone formation (s-PINP) and of bone resorption (s-CTX) be used as reference analytes for bone turnover markers in clinical and observational studies. Professor Cyrus Cooper, Co-chair of the Joint IOF-IFCC Bone Marker Standards Working Group and Chair of the IOF Committee of Scientific Advisors, stated "Whilst no perfect 'gold standard' marker exists, these were chosen based on a number of criteria. These include adequate characterisation and clear definition of the marker; their specificity for bone and performance in clinical studies; wide availability; biological and analytical variability; sample handling; stability; ease of analysis and availability of method in routine laboratories; and the medium of measurement (urine vs. serum)."
Professor John Kanis, IOF President, urged the adoption of the reference standards by the scientific community, "Without precluding the use of other BTMs, the adoption of these reference standards would facilitate comparison between studies and allow data from different studies to be pooled in order to facilitate their incorporation into routine clinical practice." He also noted that standardised protocols would greatly increase the clinical and research potential of BTMs, with improved value in patient management and other uses, such as prediction of the rate of bone loss, identification of secondary osteoporosis, prediction of response to therapy, and in improving treatment adherence.


text:
Retailers want you to shop early this holiday season. However, the pandemic has caused delivery service companies to work overtime and that strain is only expected to get worse during the holidays.
Shipmatrix is a shipping consulting company. Experts there tell us that starting Thanksgiving, 56 million packages are expected to be shipped per day, including weekends.
That's an excess of 7 million packages that delivery services will have to deal with, resulting in a delay if you're opting for free shipping.
Experts say this season, it may be worth paying for shipping, even if you qualify for the free option.
"Retailers are trying to use the cheapest form of transportation, which is the ground service that can take up to five, six days. And during this holiday season, it may take an extra day or two," said Satish Jindal, President of ShipMatrix.
If you're shipping gifts to loved ones and are a little bit of a procrastinator, it's advised that you pay for express shipping this year. You'll also want to get that package in the mail before December 18.
At the end of the day, all carriers, including UPS, FedEx and USPS all have similar shipping times.


text:
Aloo Gobi Curry -Dry Version Recipe:
(serves 2-3)
2 cups Cauliflower florets or 1 small Cauliflower
2 medium Potatoes,cut into 1"sticks
1 big Onion,sliced
1 tsp Coriander leaves,chopped
2 Green chillies,finely chopped
1 tsp grated Ginger
1/2 tsp Red chili powder
1/2 tsp Garam masala
1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
1/2 tsp Amchur powder
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
a pinch of Asafoetida
2 tbsp Oil
Salt to taste
- Cut cauliflower into florets and clean them.Drop them in salted hot water and keep them for a while(approx 10 mins),this process will helps in floating any unseen worms.
- Cut potatoes into thin slices,cut them to match the size of cauliflower florets which helps in even cooking.
- Heat oil in a big heavy bottomed kadai and crackle cumin seeds.Add asafoetida to it and fry for 10 seconds.
- Add finely chopped green chillies and grated ginger and fry well for 30 secs.
- Add thinly sliced onions and fry well until they are translucent.
- Add chopped potatoes and fry well for 3-4 mins by stirring in between.
- Add cauliflower florets to it and mix well.Fry for 2-3 mins and add 2 tsp water and cover it and cook over low-medium flame for 7-8 mins until the vegetables are cooked.Please check in between and also give a stir,if needed add little more water.
- Once the vegetables are cooked increase the flame and let the vegetables roast a bit for 2 mins.
- Add red chili powder,salt,turmeric powder,garam masala,amchur powder and mix well.Cover it and cook for 2-3 mins.
- You can even add tomato to the recipe.Add 1 finely chopped tomato after the vegetables are added.
- You can add green peas to the same recipe.
- You can adapt the same recipe(with or without tomatoes) and make combinations like potato-capsicum,gobi-matar,potato-peas,potato-brinjal.The recipe works well for all these combinations and you can experiment with many other as well.
- You can skip amchur powder in the above recipe and add juice of 1/2 lemon at the end.
- You can add Ginger-Garlic paste instead of ginger in the above recipe.
- You can boil the potatoes and cauliflower florets ahead and while making the recipe skip the cooking part and proceed with the same recipe.


text:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify the steps in constructing an outline.
- Construct a topic outline and a sentence outline.
Your prewriting activities and readings have helped you gather information for your assignment. The more you sort through the pieces of information you found, the more you will begin to see the connections between them. Patterns and gaps may begin to stand out. But only when you start to organize your ideas will you be able to translate your raw insights into a form that will communicate meaning to your audience.
Longer papers require more reading and planning than shorter papers do. Most writers discover that the more they know about a topic, the more they can write about it with intelligence and interest.
Organizing Ideas
When you write, you need to organize your ideas in an order that makes sense. The writing you complete in all your courses exposes how analytically and critically your mind works. In some courses, the only direct contact you may have with your instructor is through the assignments you write for the course. You can make a good impression by spending time ordering your ideas.
Order refers to your choice of what to present first, second, third, and so on in your writing. The order you pick closely relates to your purpose for writing that particular assignment. For example, when telling a story, it may be important to first describe the background for the action. Or you may need to first describe a 3-D movie projector or a television studio to help readers visualize the setting and scene. You may want to group your support effectively to convince readers that your point of view on an issue is well reasoned and worthy of belief.
In longer pieces of writing, you may organize different parts in different ways so that your purpose stands out clearly and all parts of the paper work together to consistently develop your main point.
Methods of Organizing Writing
The three common methods of organizing writing are chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance. You will learn more about these in Chapter 8 "Writing Essays: From Start to Finish"; however, you need to keep these methods of organization in mind as you plan how to arrange the information you have gathered in an outline. An outline is a written plan that serves as a skeleton for the paragraphs you write. Later, when you draft paragraphs in the next stage of the writing process, you will add support to create "flesh" and "muscle" for your assignment.
When you write, your goal is not only to complete an assignment but also to write for a specific purpose—perhaps to inform, to explain, to persuade, or for a combination of these purposes. Your purpose for writing should always be in the back of your mind, because it will help you decide which pieces of information belong together and how you will order them. In other words, choose the order that will most effectively fit your purpose and support your main point.
Table 7.1 "Order versus Purpose" shows the connection between order and purpose.
Table 7.1 Order versus Purpose
Order | Purpose |
Chronological Order | To explain the history of an event or a topic |
To tell a story or relate an experience | |
To explain how to do or make something | |
To explain the steps in a process | |
Spatial Order | To help readers visualize something as you want them to see it |
To create a main impression using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound) | |
Order of Importance | To persuade or convince |
To rank items by their importance, benefit, or significance |
Writing a Thesis Statement
One legitimate question readers always ask about a piece of writing is "What is the big idea?" (You may even ask this question when you are the reader, critically reading an assignment or another document.) Every nonfiction writing task—from the short essay to the ten-page term paper to the lengthy senior thesis—needs a big idea, or a controlling idea, as the spine for the work. The controlling idea is the main idea that you want to present and develop.
For a longer piece of writing, the main idea should be broader than the main idea for a shorter piece of writing. Be sure to frame a main idea that is appropriate for the length of the assignment. Ask yourself, "How many pages will it take for me to explain and explore this main idea in detail?" Be reasonable with your estimate. Then expand or trim it to fit the required length.
The big idea, or controlling idea, you want to present in an essay is expressed in a thesis statement. A thesis statement is often one sentence long, and it states your point of view. The thesis statement is not the topic of the piece of writing but rather what you have to say about that topic and what is important to tell readers.
Table 7.2 "Topics and Thesis Statements" compares topics and thesis statements.
Table 7.2 Topics and Thesis Statements
Topic | Thesis Statement |
Music piracy | The recording industry fears that so-called music piracy will diminish profits and destroy markets, but it cannot be more wrong. |
The number of consumer choices available in media gear | Everyone wants the newest and the best digital technology, but the choices are extensive, and the specifications are often confusing. |
E-books and online newspapers increasing their share of the market | E-books and online newspapers will bring an end to print media as we know it. |
Online education and the new media | Someday, students and teachers will send avatars to their online classrooms. |
The first thesis statement you write will be a preliminary thesis statement, or a working thesis statement. You will need it when you begin to outline your assignment as a way to organize it. As you continue to develop the arrangement, you can limit your working thesis statement if it is too broad or expand it if it proves too narrow for what you want to say.
You will make several attempts before you devise a working thesis statement that you think is effective. Each draft of the thesis statement will bring you closer to the wording that expresses your meaning exactly.
Writing an Outline
For an essay question on a test or a brief oral presentation in class, all you may need to prepare is a short, informal outline in which you jot down key ideas in the order you will present them. This kind of outline reminds you to stay focused in a stressful situation and to include all the good ideas that help you explain or prove your point.
For a longer assignment, like an essay or a research paper, many college instructors require students to submit a formal outline before writing a major paper as a way to be sure you are on the right track and are working in an organized manner. A formal outline is a detailed guide that shows how all your supporting ideas relate to each other. It helps you distinguish between ideas that are of equal importance and ones that are of lesser importance. You build your paper based on the framework created by the outline.
Instructors may also require you to submit an outline with your final draft to check the direction of the assignment and the logic of your final draft. If you are required to submit an outline with the final draft of a paper, remember to revise the outline to reflect any changes you made while writing the paper.
There are two types of formal outlines: the topic outline and the sentence outline. You format both types of formal outlines in the same way.
- Place your introduction and thesis statement at the beginning, under roman numeral I.
- Use roman numerals (II, III, IV, V, etc.) to identify main points that develop the thesis statement.
- Use capital letters (A, B, C, D, etc.) to divide your main points into parts.
- Use arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) if you need to subdivide any As, Bs, or Cs into smaller parts.
- End with the final roman numeral expressing your idea for your conclusion.
Here is what the skeleton of a traditional formal outline looks like. The indention helps clarify how the ideas are related.
- IntroductionThesis statement
- Main point 1 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 1
- Supporting detail → becomes a support sentence of body paragraph 1
- Subpoint
- Subpoint
- Supporting detail
- Subpoint
- Subpoint
- Supporting detail
- Subpoint
- Subpoint
- Supporting detail → becomes a support sentence of body paragraph 1
- Main point 2 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 2
- Supporting detail
- Supporting detail
- Supporting detail
- Main point 3 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 3
- Supporting detail
- Supporting detail
- Supporting detail
- Conclusion
In an outline, any supporting detail can be developed with subpoints. For simplicity, the model shows them only under the first main point.
Formal outlines are often quite rigid in their organization. As many instructors will specify, you cannot subdivide one point if it is only one part. For example, for every roman numeral I, there must be a For every A, there must be a B. For every arabic numeral 1, there must be a 2. See for yourself on the sample outlines that follow.
Constructing Topic Outlines
A topic outline is the same as a sentence outline except you use words or phrases instead of complete sentences. Words and phrases keep the outline short and easier to comprehend. All the headings, however, must be written in parallel structure. (For more information on parallel structure, see "Refining Your Writing: How Do I Improve My Writing Technique?".)
Here is the topic outline that Mariah constructed for the essay she is developing. Her purpose is to inform, and her audience is a general audience of her fellow college students. Notice how Mariah begins with her thesis statement. She then arranges her main points and supporting details in outline form using short phrases in parallel grammatical structure.
Writing an Effective Topic Outline
This checklist can help you write an effective topic outline for your assignment. It will also help you discover where you may need to do additional reading or prewriting.
- Do I have a controlling idea that guides the development of the entire piece of writing?
- Do I have three or more main points that I want to make in this piece of writing? Does each main point connect to my controlling idea?
- Is my outline in the best order—chronological order, spatial order, or order of importance—for me to present my main points? Will this order help me get my main point across?
- Do I have supporting details that will help me inform, explain, or prove my main points?
- Do I need to add more support? If so, where?
- Do I need to make any adjustments in my working thesis statement before I consider it the final version?
Writing at Work
Word processing programs generally have an automatic numbering feature that can be used to prepare outlines. This feature automatically sets indents and lets you use the tab key to arrange information just as you would in an outline. Although in business this style might be acceptable, in college your instructor might have different requirements. Teach yourself how to customize the levels of outline numbering in your word-processing program to fit your instructor's preferences.
Constructing Sentence Outlines
A sentence outline is the same as a topic outline except you use complete sentences instead of words or phrases. Complete sentences create clarity and can advance you one step closer to a draft in the writing process.
Here is the sentence outline that Mariah constructed for the essay she is developing.
The information compiled under each roman numeral will become a paragraph in your final paper. In the previous example, the outline follows the standard five-paragraph essay arrangement, but longer essays will require more paragraphs and thus more roman numerals. If you think that a paragraph might become too long or stringy, add an additional paragraph to your outline, renumbering the main points appropriately.
Writing at Work
PowerPoint presentations, used both in schools and in the workplace, are organized in a way very similar to formal outlines. PowerPoint presentations often contain information in the form of talking points that the presenter develops with more details and examples than are contained on the PowerPoint slide.
Key Takeaways
- Writers must put their ideas in order so the assignment makes sense. The most common orders are chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance.
- After gathering and evaluating the information you found for your essay, the next step is to write a working, or preliminary, thesis statement.
- The working thesis statement expresses the main idea that you want to develop in the entire piece of writing. It can be modified as you continue the writing process.
- Effective writers prepare a formal outline to organize their main ideas and supporting details in the order they will be presented.
- A topic outline uses words and phrases to express the ideas.
- A sentence outline uses complete sentences to express the ideas.
- The writer's thesis statement begins the outline, and the outline ends with suggestions for the concluding paragraph.
1. Using the topic you selected in "Apply Prewriting Models," develop a working thesis statement that states your controlling idea for the piece of writing you are doing. On a sheet of paper, write your working thesis statement.
2. Using the working thesis statement you wrote in #1 and the reading you did in "Apply Prewriting Models," construct a topic outline for your essay. Be sure to observe correct outline form, including correct indentions and the use of Roman and arabic numerals and capital letters. Please share with a classmate and compare your outline. Point out areas of interest from their outline and what you would like to learn more about.
3. Expand the topic outline you prepared #2 to make it a sentence outline. In this outline, be sure to include multiple supporting points for your main topic even if your topic outline does not contain them. Be sure to observe correct outline form, including correct indentions and the use of Roman and arabic numerals and capital letters.


text:
Microsoft's 'Napa': Tools for building apps for the new Office, SharePoint
Microsoft released on July 17 a preview build of a new toolset codenamed "Napa," which is aimed at those building application add-ins for the coming versions of Office and SharePoint.
The Office 365 development tools (Napa) are designed to accommodate the "new Cloud App Model" in the more cloud-centric Office 15 wave of products, according to a new blog post from Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jason Zander. This new model allows apps to be hosted on SharePoint, Windows Azure Web sites or a user's own server.
The new Office apps and add-ins -- which are codenamed "Agaves" -- can be hosted in the cloud and/or published and sold through the new Office Store. Enterprise IT users also can be privately distribute Napa-developed apps via an internal App Catalog, Zander noted.
Microsoft's definition of Office apps is worth noting. A new MSDN article about Office Apps explains:
"An app for Office is basically a webpage that is hosted inside an Office client application. You can use an app for Office to extend the functionality of a document, email message, meeting request, or appointment. Apps for Office can run in multiple environments and clients, including rich Office desktop clients, Office Web Apps, mobile browsers, and also on-premises and in the cloud. After you develop and publish your apps for Office to the Office Store or to an onsite catalog, they will be available to consumers from their Office 2013 Preview applications."
"We wanted to provide a lightweight, in-browser experience, so that you could quickly build your SharePoint or Office web app in the same browser where they would run," Zander blogged.
Napa is going to be a free development-environment app for SharePoint, and is meant to be "an online companion to Visual Studio," Zander explained. Because Napa is Web-based, developers won't need to install anything on their machines; they'll be able to start coding inside their browsers. But if and when Office developers need more "advanced" tools, they will be able to switch to Visual Studio 2012 and continue their work in that IDE, he said.
"Of course, in parallel with 'Napa,' you can still continue using the existing extensibility models for Office and SharePoint, like VBA, COM, VSTO, and SharePoint solutions," Zander said. However -- and this is key -- apps developed using these tools will not be able to be submitted to the new Office Store, Zander added.
As is the case with Windows 8, Microsoft is hoping and encouraging developers to write their next-genearation apps using HTML5, XML, CSS3, JavaScript, and REST APIs.
Napa will allow the development of "all of the app types for Office and SharePoint allowing developers to run in both the web app and rich client versions of the Office applications (i.e. Excel, Word)," Zander said.
Microsoft launched a preview of the coming Office Store on July 16. There already are two dozen Office 2013 and SharePoint 2013 add-ins in the store, including ones for Twitter, LinkedIn, dictionaries, forms and more.


text:
The French law n°2018-771 for the freedom of choice regarding employees' professional future, dated from the 5th of September 2018, aims to guarantee, for all the companies employing at least 50 employees, the professional equality between women and men, making this principle a "must-have".
Swarovski supports and strongly believes in the professional equity between women and men, and will publish, on a yearly basis, the global grade obtained, based on the indicators defined by the Law.
For the year of reference 2023, the global grade is 90/100, result of our strong commitment in this gender equality and willingness to fight against discrimination. Here are the results obtained for each indicator allowing the calculation of the final Index:
Pay gap between women and men: 35/40
Difference in the rate of individual increases (excluding promotions) between women and men: 20/20
Difference in promotion rate between women and men: 15/15
Number of employees increased on their return from maternity leave: 15/15
Number of people of the under-represented sex among the 10 highest paid: 5/10
We are determined to continue our progresses and will do all our best to improve the current situation, with the strong ambition to reach 100/100.