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PERG 8.17 Financial promotions concerning agreements for qualifying credit
Section 21 applies to financial promotions concerning agreements for qualifying credit and relevant consumer credit.4 PERG 8.17.1A G to PERG 8.17.18 G has guidance about the treatment of financial promotionsconcerning agreements for qualifying credit. PERG 8.17-AG has guidance about financial promotions concerning relevant consumer credit.4
Section 21 also applies to financial promotions concerning home reversion plans,3 home purchase plans and regulated sale and rent back agreements3. Guidance on these activities and related financial promotions is given in PERG 14 (Guidance on home reversion, home purchase and regulated sale and rent back3activities).
2Controlled investment: agreement for qualifying credit
Rights under an agreement for qualifying credit are a controlled investment. Qualifying credit is defined in paragraph 10 of Schedule 1 to the Financial Promotion Order (Controlled activities) as credit provided pursuant to an agreement under which:
- (1)
the lender is a person who carries on the regulated activity of entering into a regulated mortgage contract (whether or not he is an authorised or exempt person under the Act); and
- (2)
the obligation of the borrower to repay is secured (in whole or in part) on land.
An agreement for qualifying credit includes the following types of loan in addition to those that would be a regulated mortgage contract, but in each case only if the lender carries on the regulated activity of entering into regulated mortgage contracts:
- (1)
6 - (2)
secured loans for buy-to-let or other purely investment purposes;
- (3)
loans secured on land situated outside the United Kingdom;
- (4)
loans that include some unsecured credit such as a flexible mortgage that includes an unsecured credit card; and
- (5)
commercial mortgages.
Controlled activities
Providing qualifying credit is a controlled activity under paragraph 10 of Schedule 1 to the Financial Promotion Order. In the FCA's view, 'providing' means, in this context, providing as lender; an intermediary does not 'provide' qualifying credit.
Arranging qualifying credit is a controlled activity under paragraph 10A of Schedule 1 to the Financial Promotion Order; that is, making arrangements:
- (1)
for another person to enter as borrower into an agreement for qualifying credit; or
- (2)
for a borrower under a regulated mortgage contract entered into on or after 31 October 2004 or a borrower under a legacy CCA mortgage contract7 to vary the terms of that contract in such a way as to vary that person's7 obligations under that contract.
This means that invitations and inducements relating to the services of mortgage arrangers will potentially be within the scope of section 21 of the Act.
Advising on qualifying credit is8 a controlled activity under paragraph 10B of Schedule 1 to the Financial Promotion Order; that is, advising a person if the advice is:
8- (1)
given to the person in his capacity as a borrower or potential borrower; and
- (2)
advice on the merits of that person's7 doing any of the following:
- (a)
entering into an agreement for qualifying credit; or
- (b)
varying the terms of a regulated mortgage contract entered into by that person's7 on or after 31 October 2004 or the terms of a legacy CCA mortgage contract entered into by that person7 in such a way as to vary that person's7 obligations under that contract.
- (a)
This means that invitations and inducements relating to the services of mortgage advisers will potentially be within the scope of Section 21 of the Act.
Agreeing to carry on each of these three controlled activities is also8 a controlled activity under paragraph 11 of Schedule 1 to the Financial Promotion Order.
8Application of exemptions to financial promotions about agreements for qualifying credit
The exemptions in Part IV of the Financial Promotion Order (Exempt communications: all controlled activities) will apply to financial promotions about qualifying credit . Some of the exemptions in Part VI of the Financial Promotion Order (Exempt communications: certain controlled activities) will also apply. Those of particular note are referred to in PERG 8.17.10 G to PERG 8.17.12 G.
2Article 46 (Qualifying credit to bodies corporate) exempts any financial promotion about providing qualifying credit (or relevant consumer credit or consumer hire)4 if it is:
- (1)
made to or directed at bodies corporate only; or
- (2)
accompanied by an indication that the qualifying credit to which it relates is only available to bodies corporate.
Article 28B (Real time communications: introductions) exempts a real time financial promotion that relates to one or more of the controlled activities about regulated mortgage contracts, as well as home reversion plans, home purchase plans,4 regulated sale and rent back agreements3, certain consumer hire agreements and relevant credit agreements4. The exemption is subject to the following conditions being satisfied:
224- (1)
the financial promotion must be made for the purpose of, or with a view to, introducing the recipient to a person ('N') who is:
- (a)
an authorised person who carries on the controlled activity to which the communication relates; or
- (b)
an appointed representative, where the controlled activity is also a regulated activity in respect of which the appointed representative is exempt or in relation to which sections 20 (1) and (1A) and 23 (1A) of the Act do not apply by virtue of section 39(1D) of the Act (see SUP 12.2.2AG (3));4 or
- (c)
an overseas person who carries on the controlled activity to which the communication relates; for this purpose, an 'overseas person' is a person who carries on any of the controlled activities about home finance transactions2 or of providing relevant consumer credit or consumer hire4 but does not do so, or offer to do so, from a permanent place of business maintained by him in the United Kingdom; and
- (a)
- (2)
the person ('M') communicating the financial promotion:
- (a)
must not receive any money paid by the recipient in connection with any transaction that the recipient enters into with or through N as a result of the introduction, other than money payable to M on M's own account; and
- (b)
before making the introduction, must disclose to the borrower the following information where it applies to M:
- (i)
whether M is a member of the same group as N;
- (ii)
details of any payment which M will receive from N, by way of fee or commission, for introducing the recipient to N; and
- (iii)
an indication of any other reward or advantage arising out of M's introducing to N.
- (i)
- (a)
Introducers can check whether a person is an authorised person or an appointed representative by visiting the FCA's register at www.fca.org.uk/firms/financial-services-register.If an authorised person has permission to carry on a regulated activity (which can be checked on the FCA's register) it is reasonable, in the FCA's view, to conclude that the authorised person carries on that activity (but not a controlled activity which is not a regulated activity). The FCA would normally expect introducers to request and receive confirmation of other facts necessary to satisfy the condition in PERG 8.17.12G (1), prior to proceeding with an introduction.
In the FCA's view, money payable to an introducer on his own account includes money legitimately due to him for services rendered to the borrower, whether in connection with the introduction or otherwise. It also includes sums payable in connection with transfer of property to an introducer (for example, a housebuilder) by a borrower. For example, article 28B allows a housebuilder to receive the purchase price on a property that he sells to a borrower, whom he previously introduced to an authorised person or appointed representative to help him finance the purchase in return for a fee payable by the borrower, and still take the benefit of the exclusion. This is because the sums that the housebuilder receives in connection with the introduction and the sale of his property to the borrower are both 'payable to him on his own account'. The housebuilder could also receive a commission from the person introduced to.
In the FCA's view, the provision of details of fees or commission referred to in PERG 8.17.12G (2)(b)(ii) does not require an introducer to provide an actual sum to the borrower, where it is not possible to calculate the full amount due prior to the introduction. This may arise in cases where the fee or commission is a percentage of the eventual loan taken out and the amount of the required loan is not known at the time of the introduction. In these cases, it would be sufficient for the introducer to disclose the method of calculation of the fee or commission, for example the percentage of the eventual loan to be made by N.
In the FCA's view, the information condition in PERG 8.17.12G (2)(b)(iii) requires the introducer to indicate to the borrower any other advantages accruing to him as a result of ongoing arrangements with N relating to the introduction of borrowers. This may include, for example, indirect benefits such as office space, travel expenses, subscription fees. This and other relevant information may, where appropriate, be provided on a standard form basis to the borrower. The FCA would normally expect an introducer to keep a written record of disclosures made to the borrower under article 33A of the Regulated Activities Order including those cases where disclosure is made on an oral basis only.
Interaction with providing relevant consumer credit
4Rights under a relevant credit agreement are also a controlled investment. A relevant credit agreement is a credit agreement other than a regulated mortgage contract or a regulated home purchase plan. Entering into a relevant credit agreement as lender, or exercising or having the rights to exercise the rights of the lender under such an agreement, is a controlled activity under paragraph 10BA of Schedule 1 to the Financial Promotion Order, except where the agreement is for the provision of qualifying credit. Further guidance on providing relevant consumer credit is given in PERG 8.17-A.
4CONC 3 contains rules about financial promotions relating to credit-related regulated activity. CONC 3 does not apply, however, to the communication, or approval for communication, of a financial promotion to the extent it concerns qualifying credit. MCOB 3A5 applies to the communication or approval of a financial promotion of qualifying credit. This means that a financial promotion about credit will not usually be subject to both MCOB 3A5 and CONC 3 unless it is about secured and unsecured lending. Guidance on the potential application of MCOB 3A5 and CONC 3 to particular types of financial promotion of credit is given in the table in PERG 8.17.21 G. Firms must also comply with Principle 7 (a firm must pay due regard to the information needs of its clients, and communicate information to them in a way which is clear, fair and not misleading).
5554Guide to potential application of MCOB 3A5 and CONC 3 to financial promotion of credit. This table belongs to PERG 8.17.20 G.
5Subject of promotion |
5 | CONC 3 may apply |
(1) |
Yes |
No |
(2) |
credit agreements secured on land where the lender also enters into regulated mortgage contracts as lender |
Yes |
No |
(3) |
credit agreements not secured on land, whether or not the lender also enters into regulated mortgage contracts as lender |
No |
Yes |
(4) |
credit agreements secured on land where the lender does not enter into regulated mortgage contracts as lender |
No |
Yes |
(5) |
credit agreements partly secured on land that include some unsecured credit and where the lender enters into regulated mortgage contracts as lender |
Yes |
No |
(6) |
credit agreements with features as in (1), (2) or (5) promoted in combination with other unsecured credit agreements |
Yes |
Yes |


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</ iframe>
Planet Granite is accepting walk-ins or feel free to call and schedule an appointment today.
We are taking measures for best safety and health practices and will have PPE available upon entry for your visit.
If you prefer to stay at home please note Planet Granite also offers slab selection via FaceTime.
Additionally, we are in the process of adding our current inventory to the Stone Gallery for you to view and select slabs from home. Please write down the name and code on the thumbnail, e-mail us, and we will have someone contact you.
Feel free to e-mail us your drawings for a quote too, in order to get your project started!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Our products are sold FOB, Alpha, NJ or FOB Shanghai, China.
We ship with many carriers and methods.
Direct to Consumer; FED EX Ground, UPS Ground or a method that you prefer.
DSD- FED EX Ground, UPS Ground or truck
Warehouse to Distribution Centers- RBI has many trucking contracts with discounts in place to pass on.


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Dashing Through the Snow, in a One-truck Radar Dish
SCHUSS. The term for a straight, downhill ski run. In the land of the "Greatest Snow on Earth"--Utah--SCHUSS is also the moniker for storm-chasing, Old Man Winter-style.
In the Storm Chasing Utah Style Study (SCHUSS) funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), chasing snowstorms is "as exciting as chasing tornadoes," says University of Utah atmospheric scientist Jim Steenburgh, the project's director.
He and colleagues are "looking at the guts," Steenburgh says, "of winter storms in the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding Wasatch and Oquirrh Mountains."
The researchers peer through ice pellets and into the eye of a snowstorm, taking meteorological CAT scans to see a storm's inner workings.
The CAT scanner, in this case, is a truck-mounted radar dish called the Doppler-on-Wheels, or DOW. It's operated for NSF by the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) in Boulder, Colo.
"Usually the DOW is squarely in the path of a tornado," says Josh Wurman, director of CSWR. "But braving the winds that funnel down the Wasatch and howl into the Salt Lake Valley is just as hair-raising for the crew that sits inside."
The DOW, with a control room that rivals that of any airport tower, took up residence in Salt Lake City and environs from Oct. 21-Nov. 21, 2011.
More than a dozen University of Utah graduate students were trained to drive the truck and use the 6-foot-diameter radar dish transmitter and receiver.
"Radar on Board," a sign on the DOW might say.
The DOW's portable radar transmits and receives radio waves horizontally and vertically, providing more detailed information than radar instruments currently used by the National Weather Service. The weather service plans to upgrade to the new radars--called polarimetric Doppler radars--in the next few years.
The DOW can tell the sizes and shapes of snowflakes and raindrops; collect data on lower-elevation valley precipitation, and park very close to storms, getting an up-close-and-personal view of snow that sometimes falls literally sideways.
"Winter storms in Utah are a challenge to predict," says Steenburgh. "That's where the DOW comes in. It can be placed anywhere, allowing us to get a grip on lake-effect and mountain-driven storms, and to improve our weather prediction computer models."
The difference between snowstorm-chasing and tornado-chasing, he says, is that when the DOW is used on funnel clouds, "you're constantly driving to keep up. Tornadoes move really fast. But in a long-lived, multi-day snowstorm, we let the storm come to us."
During its Utah stint, the DOW shivered in the icy air of a dry cold front that snaked across the Great Salt Lake, withstood winds blowing off the lake and into Rush Valley, and caught a heavy snowfall in Little Cottonwood Canyon, home of the famed Alta ski area.
There it obtained images of the transition zone where snowflakes turn to raindrops.
The elevation of this transition zone is critical to forecasting whether a city like Salt Lake will see weather that's 32 degrees Fahrenheit with heavy snow--or 35 degrees with rain.
"The DOW helps us identify where precipitation is turning from rain to snow," says Steenburgh. "That's a big piece of figuring out how much snow is likely to fall at any particular location."
Sometimes it takes an all-nighter to find the answer.
Steenburgh and students--and the DOW--were sleepless in Salt Lake on November 4th and 5th, when a big snowstorm enhanced by the Great Salt Lake dumped several inches of snow on the Wasatch Front.
"Lake-effect snow is an important weather phenomenon in places like the Great Salt Lake Basin, and in many eastern regions of the Great Lakes," says Chungu Lu, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funds SCHUSS. "These snows can cause extremely hazardous conditions."
The scientists obtained never-before-gathered data on lake-effect snows from this early November storm. "It was phenomenal," says Steenburgh.
It was also the precursor to a wallop of a winter in the Wasatch.
"Compared with last winter's snowpack," says Steenburgh, "we're dealing with a far more insidious beast this year. We've already had one avalanche fatality and natural and human-triggered avalanches continue to be reported in the backcountry."
Early season snows are to blame.
"What happened," says Steenburgh, "is that the mid-October snow sat for a few weeks on high-altitude northerly aspects [slopes], was fairly thin in depth, and developed faceted [loosely-fitted] snow crystals due to the presence of a large temperature gradient."
Mother Nature, he says, then dropped a load of snow on top of the earlier, weaker snow, "so we're dealing with a 'cranky' snowpack. We need even more of that 'Greatest Snow on Earth.'"
Once the region receives enough snow to deepen the snowpack and reduce the temperature gradient, cooling things down, the snowpack will strengthen.
"But it will still have some places where it remains thin and may continue to be weak," says Steenburgh. "I call this a 'Russian roulette snowpack' because it can be strong in some areas, but be weak and loaded for an avalanche in others."
Who ya gonna call to schuss through such conditions?
The DOW has moved on to chase its next storms, but the data it retrieved will help skiers find safe snow--and meteorologists discern the next winter weather forecast.
Steenburgh writes a meteorological blog called "Wasatch Weather Weenies: Musings About the Weather, Climate and Powder of the Wasatch Front and Beyond."
Who ya gonna call when snowflakes turn to whiteout? Salt Lake City residents say Jim Steenburgh and the Weather Weenies.
But Steenburgh says there's something far better: It travels on the back of an ice-encrusted truck, dashing through snow, sleet, hail or whatever nature can dish out.
When the going gets tough, the tough call the Doppler-on-Wheels. Or the mountain of data its face-off with winter left behind.


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We open this episode with a fond farewell to Sophie, who is leaving the show after a tremendous two years! Memories are shared, tears are shed, and hugs are skyped. But the show must go on, and we are then joined by this month's guest: author, editor and film critic Britt Hayes. Britt and Lee look at some of the key films from this month, including Christopher Nolan's World War II drama Dunkirk, Sofia Coppola's civil war era remake The Beguiled, the Matt Reeves prequel-sequel War For the Planet of the Apes, and Marvel Studio's first solo Spider-man film, Spider-man: Homecoming. Then, Britt takes us through the films, career and style of her favourite filmmaker: American indie writer-director Wes Anderson.
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Azerbaijan hosted the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, casting an international spotlight on the government's deteriorating human rights record. The atmosphere for political activists and independent and pro-opposition journalists grew acutely hostile. Authorities used imprisonment as a tool for political retribution and forcibly dispersed a number of peaceful demonstrations, indiscriminately arresting activists and passersby. Restrictions on freedom of religion and the prosecution of unregistered religious groups continued. The government intensified its urban renewal campaign in the capital Baku, forcibly evicting thousands of families and illegally demolishing homes.
Foreign actors failed to fully realize the potential of their relationships with the government to press it to honor its human rights obligations.
Freedom of Media
In June, the Supreme Court released Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, a social media activist who had been serving a two-year prison sentence for allegedly avoiding mandatory military service. But Azerbaijani journalists continue to face prosecution on bogus charges, harassment, intimidation, and physical attacks.Defamation remained criminalized.
In November 2011, a court sentenced Aydin Janiyev, a Khural newspaper correspondent, to three years in prison on hooliganism charges, apparently in retaliation for his articles criticizing the authorities. Avaz Zeynalli, Khural's editor, in custody since his October 2011 arrest, was at this writing on trial on dubious extortion charges brought by a member of parliament from the ruling party. Khrural, which regularly published allegations of government corruption,closed in October 2011, when a court ordered that bailiffs seize its property to pay fines imposed in three defamation cases.
In March 2012, police arrested the executive director and editor-in-chief of KhayalTV, a local station, who remained in custody at this writing pending trial on charges of organizing social unrest and abuse of authority. The charges are linked to a video posted on YouTube showing the governor of the northern city of Guba insulting local residents in a speech, which many believe was the catalyst for the March 1 mass protests in the city.
In June, a court convicted Anar Bayramli, a journalist for the Iranian satellite television station Sahar TV, on trumped-up charges of illegal drug possession. In July, the Appeals Court halved his two-year prison sentence.
Hilal Mammadov, the editor-in-chief of Tolishi Sado newspaper who was arrested in June on bogus drug possession charges, remained in custody pending trial. In June, police also detained Mehman Huseynov, a blogger and photographer at the Institute for Reporters' Freedoms and Safety, a local media monitoring organization, and released him pending investigation on trumped-up charges of hooliganism.
In August, a court sentenced Faramaz Novruzoglu, a freelance journalist, to four-and-a-half years in jail on bogus charges of illegal border crossing and inciting mass disorder, stemming from spring 2011 Facebook postings, written using a pseudonym, calling for riots. Novruzoglu has denied the allegations and claims they are retribution for his investigations into business ties of high-level officials.
In April, police and private security personnel beat unconscious Idrak Abbasov, a journalist who was filming forced evictions and house demolitions. A police investigation was pending at this writing.
In March, unknown persons attempted to blackmail Khadija Ismailova, a Radio Liberty journalist, in retaliation for her investigation into the business holdings of the president's family and close associates.
In November 2011, Rafig Tagi, a journalist with Sanet weekly, was stabbed on the street near his apartment, and died of the wounds. No one had been charged for the attack at this writing.
In September 2012, the opposition daily Azadlig faced eviction threats from its premises at the state publishing house for failing to pay its outstanding debts, while at the same time a court fined the paper 3o,000 AZN (about US$40,000) in a defamation suit brought by the head of Baku metro system.
Freedom of Assembly
The government limited freedom of assembly by breaking up peaceful protests, in some cases violently, and arresting protesters. In March, at the first sanctioned opposition protest since 2006, police detained two popular musicians as they played at the peaceful gathering. Police beat and denied them access to their lawyer. They were released after five and ten days of detention.
In April, police detained 20 activists distributing flyers encouraging people to attend an opposition rally. Courts sentenced 7 of the activists to 10 to 15 days of detention, and fined or released others.
In the days before and during May's Eurovision Song Contest, police broke up several protests in Baku's center. Police rounded up dozens of peaceful demonstrators, forcing them onto buses, and beating some as they did so. The demonstrators were released several hours later.
In October, police rounded up dozens of protesters in an unsanctioned rally in central Baku, roughed them up and forced them into buses. Courts imprisoned 13 on misdemeanor charges for up to 10 days, and fined several others.
In November, the parliament increased sanctions for participating and organizing unauthorized protests, establishing fines of up to 1,000 AZN ($ 1,274) for participation, and 3,000 ($ 3,822) for organization.
Political Prisoners
Imprisonment on politically motivated charges is a continuing problem. A June 2012 report by a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) described the cases of 89 political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Just before the report's publication, nine were released under a presidential pardon. The PACE report documents the cases of journalists, human rights defenders, and activists who remain in detention in Azerbaijan on a range of trumped-up charges in retaliation for their work.
Ill-Treatment and Deaths in Custody
Torture and ill-treatment continue with impunity, and two men died in police custody in 2012. In the first eight months of 2012, the Azerbaijan Committee Against Torture, an independent prison monitoring group, received 136 complaints alleging ill-treatment in custody.
Forced Evictions and Illegal Demolitions
Since 2008, the authorities in Azerbaijan have been implementing a program of urban renewal in Baku, involving illegal expropriation of hundreds of properties—primarily apartments and homes in middle class neighborhoods—to make way for parks, roads, and luxury residential buildings. Most evictees have not received fair compensation based on market values of their properties. In 2012, hundreds of homeowners were affected as the authorities accelerated construction for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Freedom of Religion
The government continued to tighten restrictions on freedom of religion. In December 2011, the president signed legislative amendments criminalizing the illegal production, distribution, and import of religious literature not approved by the state; they were previously administrative offenses. A new criminal code article punishes the creation of a group that undermines social order under the guise of carrying out religious work.
According to Forum 18, an independent international religious freedom monitoring group, police raided several private homes on religion-related grounds.
Human Rights Defenders
Police arrested two human rights defenders associated with Kur Civil Union in retaliation for protecting flood victims in southern Azerbaijan. In April 2012, police arrested Ogtay Gulaliyev, the organization's coordinator, and charged him with hooliganism. In June, police released him, pending investigation and arrested Ilham Amiraslanov, another Kur activist. In September, a court sentenced Amiraslanov to two years imprisonment on trumped-up weapons possession charges. No investigation was made into Gulaliyev's claim of ill-treatment in custody, and after a preliminary inquiry the prosecutor's office refused to investigate an ill-treatment complaint by Amiraslanov.
In April, a court sentenced Taleh Khasmammadov, a blogger and human rights defender from Goychay, to a four-year prison term on charges of hooliganism and physically assaulting a public official. Khasmammadov investigated allegations of abuse and corruption by law enforcement officials. Another human rights defender from Goychay region, Vidadi Isganderov, remained in jail after being convicted in August 2011 on false charges of interfering with parliamentary elections.
Azerbaijan Human Rights House, a member of the International Human Rights House Network, remained closed following the Ministry of Justice suspending its registration in March 2011.
Key International Actors
While expressing concern about Azerbaijan's worsening human rights record, the European Union, United States, and other international and regional institutions did not impose policy consequences or make their engagement with Azerbaijan conditional on concrete improvements.
A great number of foreign governments and international organizations condemned President Ilham Aliyev's decision to pardon Ramil Safarov, a military officer, whom Hungary extradited to Azerbaijan so that he could serve out his life imprisonment term there. In 2004, a Hungarian court convicted Safarov for murdering an Armenian colleague at a NATO-sponsored training in Budapest. Safarov confessed to the crime, which he justified by citing his victim's ethnicity.
The EU, Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), and the US Embassy in Baku all condemned the assault on journalist Idrak Abbasov, and called on the government to launch a prompt and thorough investigation, to no avail.
In its May European Neighborhood Policy progress report, the EU highlighted Azerbaijan's failure to meet its commitments regarding electoral processes, human rights protections, and judicial independence. It also, for the first time, addressed concrete recommendations to the authorities.
The European Broadcasting Union, which oversaw the Eurovision Song Contest, made a public commitment to promote freedom of expression in Azerbaijan, but declined to take a strong public stand on the Azerbaijani government's record. It also refused to urge the government to properly compensate homeowners whose apartments were demolished in connection with the construction of Eurovision-related infrastructure.
While in Baku in June, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, and urged the authorities to release others imprisoned on politically motivated charges.
In a landmark vote on June 26, the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly adopted a report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. The government had refused to cooperate with the committee's rapporteur and denied him access to Azerbaijan.
In its March 2012 concluding observations, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) criticized Azerbaijan, for, inter alia,the lack of improvement in the juvenile justice system, and the lack of alternatives to institutionalization for children without families.


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Baby Storytime In-Person
Stories, rhymes, movement and songs that will engage you and your baby. Develop your baby's social, motor, and literacy skills while having fun! Intended for children ages 0-18 months and their caregivers. Best for children who are pre-walkers or crawlers.
Registration is required and will open two weeks before the event.
- Date:
- Wednesday, August 21, 2024 Show more dates
- Time:
- 12:30pm - 1:30pm
- Time Zone:
- Central Time - US & Canada (change)
- Location:
- Meeting Room
- Location:
- Looscan Neighborhood Library
- Age Group:
- Babies (0-18 months)
- Categories:
- Storytime & Play
Registrations open at 12:30pm Wednesday, August 7, 2024


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Original equipment on trucks like the Ford F-250 and F-350 and Chevy and GM C-K Series trucks, the Steeltex A/T is an all-terrain tire designed for use at any wheel position. It delivers all-season traction on virtually any road surface, while being comfortable in tough, off-road conditions as well. On two wheel drive vehicles it may also be used as a drive tire when matched with the Steeltex R4S on the front axle. Whether it's getting to the job site or working while it's there, the Steeltex A/T is one solid choice for rugged commercial use.


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- 80 PLUS Bronze
- Low Ripple & Noise
- Output over voltage protection
- Short circuit protection on all outputs
- Resettable power shut down
- INTERNAL 4 cm fan
- Mutiple +12V output (+12V/1,+12V/2, +12V/3 and +12V/4)
- 100% burn-in under high ambient temperature(50℃)
- Vacuum-impregnated transformer
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- 100% Hi-pot tested
- Line input fuse protection
FSP700-801UK is an industrial level of switching power supply. The power supply comes to offer the total power capacity up to 700 Watts, and uses unique active PFC (Power Factor Correction) circuit design with its high-load electrical components, makes it to be perfectly used in an industrial environment. In addition, with its full range of input and output electrical features, the power supply is ideally the best choice for server, workstation, communication or any other automation applications to use. The product also complies with the latest safety and EMC standards, which is perfectly to meet various regulations worldwide.


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You're invited!!! Don't miss Vizcaya's FREE Bridal Open House on March 25th, from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., at Vizcaya in Sacramento! Will we see you there?
Stop by our booth and register for a chance to win $100 to Nothing Bundt Cakes – Folsom and pick up a complimentary copy of Real Weddings Magazine along with Real Weddings Magazine's The Planning Guide!
Scroll down for all the details to this great event!
Event details:
When: Sunday, March 25, 2018
Time: 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Where: Vizcaya at 2019 21st Street in Sacramento
Cost: FREE Admission
What You'll Experience: Looking for a wedding ceremony and/or reception venue? Stop by Vizcaya's bridal open house to check out the gorgeous grounds and facilities available for your wedding. And, you'll get to meet some of the area's top wedding professionals to give you helpful information and inspiration for your big day.
RSVP: Please RSVP to email@example.com by March 21st.
For more information and directions, please visit Vizcaya's Web site here. And, be sure to "like" them on Facebook here.
We'll be there handing out complimentary copies of Real Weddings Magazine along with Real Weddings Magazine's The Planning Guide! Also, we always have our awesome Real Weddings Magazine bags to help you carry all of your goodies!
Be sure to tell them you found out about the event from Real Weddings Magazine!
Hope to see you there!
Before you head out to the area's bridal shows, check out this handy little list of tips to make the most of the experience:
- Create a "wedding" only email— you'll want to have a specific email address just for your wedding business. You'll be getting a lot of information sent to the email that you register with at bridal shows, so it's nice to have it all in one place separate from your work and/or personal email.
- Don't go it alone—bring a bridesmaid, your mom or a friend (or dare we suggest, your fiancé?). It will be helpful (and more fun!) to have their input and advice.
- Bring labels—many vendors offer prizes and contests, and additionally, you may want to request more information from selected vendors. By bringing pre-printed labels, you will save time and the hassle of having to complete this information booth after booth. Information that you might want to include: your name, address, phone, email, fiancé's name and when you're getting married.
- Bring a notebook—no matter how good your memory is, you'll want to take some notes on vendors and ideas that catch your eye.
- Bring a sturdy tote bag—you'll be picking up business cards, brochures, etc. Or, come to the shows where Real Weddings Magazine will be and we'll give you one of our groovy reusable bags!
Blog post by Real Weddings Magazine's Social Media Maven, Aimee Carroll.
Photo courtesy of Vizcaya.
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January 13th, 2014
Okay weaklings, time for a new year, and NEW. AWESOME. BODIES. Disembodied Resolutionbot X-15735 is here to get you started on Project: Rebuild 2014. Time to give up alcohol, give up food, and mostly give up goddamn comics, get off the sofa and get some exercise to other parts of your bodies than your Tweetin' thumbs!! Now drop and give me 8,123 you maggots! Time to feel the burn. Feel it! Feel that burn!!! BUUUUUUUURN!
But first Disembodied Resolutionbot X-15735 will make you a delicious nutritious podshake to get you ready for the burn!
Silence Podshake
– One part Gary Lactus and one part The Beast Must Die
– Two parts Sponsorship Admin
– a liberal dose of Read Along-A-Silence
– One large Silence! News story covering (what else) THAT Alan Moore interview
– A fresh bunch of comics, picked freshly from The Reviewniverse (containing The Saviours, Action comics, All New Marvel Now Wow 1111.0001, Black Widow, Fatale, Detective 27, Shaolin Cowboy, Prancercise, Walking Dead, Sex Criminals, Origin 2, Wolverine, Doop Translator, Young Avengers, Batman B+W, Beware The Batman and Buck Rogers
– Add in some seasoning with Chris weston, At Home With The Kuberts, Editorials, Dr Who, Sherlock and Dogging
Now blend together with some technical ineptitude and a healthy dose of opinions, and force it down your birdlike gullets. We'll have those bums, tums, tongues and gums skinny as a rake in no time!
Contact us:
[email protected]
This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE'S COMICS of Brighton.
It's also sponsored the greatest comics shop on the planet GOSH! Comics of London.


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Chile: Obstinate Memory and Battle of Chile Part 2: The Coup
I went out of curiosity to the interesting documentary double billing of Chile, Obstinate Memory and The Battle of Chile Part Two: The Coup d'Etat by Patricio Guzman. The second was the 90-minute central episode extracted from Guzman's three-part Marxist epic of 1978 and shown first; the first, shown second, was the hour long postscript that he made only last year, on return to a Chile where it was again possible to talk openly about the military coup of 1973 in which Salvador Allende, Chile's elected communist president, was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet and other leaders of the Chilean armed forces. The generals said Allende killed himself; Guzman says he was "killed in combat"
Now Pinochet has at last stepped down from the presidency, having brought to his country peace, the most prosperous economy in Latin America and, finally, a restoration of democracy. In the meantime, the Communist dream for which Allende stood has collapsed. It is in ruins everywhere in the world except among the idle, subsidized intellectual classes supported by the universities and foundations of the wealthy West. Would this seemingly essential datum have managed to impress itself, even in the smallest degree on Señor Guzman, I wondered? American Spectator readers will not be too surprised, I fancy, to learn that the answer is no. "Obstinate" memory is certainly the right word here. Not only Guzman but everybody who makes an appearance in his film and, seemingly, everybody in the small audience who saw it with me, has willingly embraced ideological fossilization. There they are, continuing to spout their Marxist gibberish in defiance of all experience. It would be rather splendid if it were not so boring.
For example, the voiceover narration of the black and white Battle of Chile goes like this: "The imperialists and bourgeoisie decide on a coup [in June]
but they are not supported by the rest of the armed forces. The bourgeoisie has blundered. . .The fascist tanks begin to withdraw. . . The workers pour into downtown Santiago to show their support for the Allende government. . . But President Allende's request [for martial law] is not approved by the so called 'democratic' sectors of the opposition. . .President Allende makes every effort. . .to avoid extraconstitutional action. . .but the fascist violence claims an officer close to the President. . .The class nature of the state repressive apparatus becomes apparent and the rest of the officers side with fascism. . . Fascist groups trained by US intelligence services organize the [transport] strike. . .This is a purely political strike. If the trucks were running there wouldn't be any queues. . .On August 27, the bourgeoisie as a whole breaks with the constitutional regime. . .Three years of economic warfare have enabled imperialism and the bourgeoisie to win over important segments of the middle class."
Blah, blah, blah. Imagine an hour and a half of that nonsense and you have some idea of what boredom can be. You'd think that at least there would be some striking pictures of the fighting. Or perhaps just the strikes. But there are very few. Most of the images are of talking heads—attractive ones jabbering in Marx-speak and unattractive ones trying vainly (of course) to parry their arguments. Apart from those of the Chilean Air Force jet strafing La Moneda palace, almost the only memorable images I retained after the sad story had been told was one of a government spokesman earnestly speaking against the coup under a poster that read "Viva Chile, Viva Cuba" (coups obviously being an entirely different matter in Cuba!) and another of a crowd of mindless slogan chanters marching past a cinema marquee in downtown Santiago where, briefly, one could make out the words: "Peter O'Toole" and "Petula Clark" and "Adios Mr Chips."
In the coup of September 11, as the sexless female narrator bitterly informs us, "the US Army acts in an advisory capacity." But her consolation must be that "the junta fails in its aim to destroy the revolutionary awareness of the people." In order to demonstrate this highly dubious proposition, we return to a peaceful Chile nearly a quarter century later and watch, in color, and listen, as Guzman interviews probably all the people left in Chile who pine for the lost leader. And nobody else. One hilariously mixed up young woman turns to the camera, full of emotion, and tells us "I was wrong." Hard as it is to admit her mistake, she says, she now must do so: she had welcomed the Pinochet coup as a restoration of order but now (in ordered, prosperous, democratic Chile) she can see how wrong she'd been.
Almost the only other moment lightening the oppressive gloom of self-deception comes as one rather proud and patriotic young man opines that the CIA could not have been involved in the coup because it was perfectly designed and executed and was carried out without a hitch. He was also proud of the fact that the number of victims, including "the disappeared" of the anti-Communist repression in Chile, about 2100, was the smallest of any country in Latin America. One supposes he was meant to be discrediting himself with his own words, but for anyone living in the world as it is, it was hard to avoid a comparison with the millions slaughtered by Salvador Allende's heroes, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and the thought that Chile had had a comparatively lucky escape.
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The transition from the battlefield to the boardroom is not always proving easy.
As with a growing number of colleges and universities, the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management is launching what it sees as a unique initiative to recruit and support veterans for its master of business administration (MBA) program, selling itself as military friendly with the marketing slogan "Change your stripes."
"This is a population we've long identified we want to help out with as underserved," said Philip Miller, assistant dean of the full-time and part-time MBA programs. "It changes the complexion of the class."
Despite recent programs to address the high unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, joblessness for that group remains stubbornly high at around 10 percent, 2 percentage points higher than the rest of the population. The answer to the problem often has been to turn to education and the lucrative benefits of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. More than 800,000 veterans and their family members are using GI Bill benefits, and that number is expected to rise as the U.S. military draws down its forces and sends active-duty troops back into the civilian world.
Carlson is not unique in recognizing a growing market for veterans seeking MBAs. Syracuse University, State University of New York-Empire State College and the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg were awarded $1.5 million in grants last year to develop innovative MBA programs specifically designed for veterans, including course credit that recognizes military training and experience.
"Why not lower the cost and ease the transition of military service members by giving them credit for their leadership experience and training?" asked Michael Dakduk, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Student Veterans of America (SVA), which has 500 chapters on campuses in 50 states and three countries. "Why is that such an innovative concept?"
Last month, the Graduate Management Admission Council, the association that administers the graduate management admission exam, announced it was partnering with the SVA to assist student veterans interested in MBAs and other business-related master's degrees. A website called Military MBA has been developed to direct veterans to the best MBA programs for their needs.
Business schools at Dartmouth College, the University of Michigan, Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon and Duke University have been ranked as the top five "best value schools" in previous surveys by Military MBA. The University of Tennessee has an Aerospace and Defense MBA program.
Officials of the Carlson School say its program is likely the only one in the country with an on-staff retired military coordinator, a dedicated pool of scholarship funding and as deep an experiential learning program.
The school's military initiative has so far focused on veterans and service members in midcareer, often in their late 20s and early 30s, many from the ranks of captains and lieutenants or at the higher enlisted ranks. The latest group includes several graduates of West Point and the Naval Academy and the 2008 Army Enlisted Soldier of the Year, whose brother is a Carlson graduate and was promised a job at Cargill when he returned from Iraq. There are nine veteran full-time students in the MBA program and the school hopes to add 10 to 15 veterans for this year's recruitment class.
As they make their way around the building, it's hard to distinguish the veterans from the rest of their classmates, except that their posture may be a little more upright and their handshakes a little more knuckle-crunching.
The university recently hired Charles Altman, a retired commander in the Navy, to expand its military initiative. Altman, a former associate dean at the Marine Corps War College, not only recruits veterans (the Carlson School has advertised in places such as the football program for the Air Force vs. Idaho State game) but also connects them to services and financial resources once they arrive on campus.
While many students are able to use GI Bill benefits to fund much of their schooling, others use a complicated mechanism of federal aid and other scholarships. The cost of the two-year program ranges from $70,000 to $90,000, depending on whether you are an in-state or out-of-state student.
The school hopes for a springtime offensive to boost its endowment. On Friday, the school announced final confirmation of a nearly $7 million gift toward a goal of $10 million that would allow Carlson to award 10 two-year scholarships per MBA class of $40,000 each. The gift is from two MBA alumni who are Vietnam vets. Carlson pledges its success at job placement after graduation and leaving school with little or no debt. The online magazine G.I. Jobs named the school one of its military-friendly schools for 2013, citing its 99 percent graduation rate for veterans. The average starting salary for a graduate last year was slightly more than $100,00.
Even before the initiative began, the Carlson school worked with veterans. Severin St. Martin, a West Point graduate with two deployments to Iraq, is a 2012 graduate now working at Boston Consulting. Karly Mangen, a captain in the Minnesota National Guard who deployed to the Persian Gulf, is an associate marketing manager at General Mills.
Mike Conroy, who spent four years in the Marines and 15 years as a St. Paul cop, is now a second-year student. He has tweaked a résumé that includes a stint guarding the president. He said his military and police experience means his résumé may land on a second-look file but that much still remains before getting hired.
"A friend said it best: After all you've got going for you, if someone still doesn't want to hire you, maybe that's not the place you want to work," he said.
Miller, the assistant dean, hired about a dozen former military members while working in the private sector, including a former Navy diver who was a SEAL for nine years. At one point the former SEAL was one of a group of MBAs working on a particularly stressful strategic plan directly for the CEO of the company. The SEAL had his head down working on his laptop. Concerned about the pressure, Miller asked how he was doing.
"He said, 'I'm not cold. I'm not wet. I'm not bleeding. And I'm going to be sleeping in my bed tonight. So I'm good.' "
Mark Brunswick • 612-673-4434


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NEW YORK (AP) — Get ready for strikes by robots.
No, overworked machines aren't walking out in a labor protest.
Computers will be used for ball/strike calls starting April 28 in the independent Atlantic League, where the distance between home and first will be shortened by 3 inches. The ground between the mound and home plate will lengthen by 2 feet for the second half of the season beginning July 12.
The 60-foot-6-inch distance between the front of the pitching rubber and the back point of home plate has been standard since 1893, but Major League Baseball reached a three-year deal to experiment in the Atlantic League, an eight-team circuit that occasionally produces big leaguers. Infield defensive shifts will be limited. Pitchers there will have to get used to 62 feet, 2 inches this summer.
"That'll make a bigger difference than the 3 inches at first," New York Yankees first baseman Greg Bird said.
Plate umpires will wear earpieces and be informed of ball/strike calls by a TrackMan computer system that uses Doppler radar. Umps will have the ability to override the computer, which considers a pitch a strike when the ball bounces and then crosses the zone. TrackMan also does not evaluate check swings.
"The beauty of baseball is that it's not foolproof. You've got to hit a round ball with a cylindrical bat square, and then you've got to get it past people," said Joe West, who umpired his first big league game in 1976. "The game is typically American. It's always somebody else's fault when they lose — and usually it's us."
MLB has evaluated its umpires since first starting to install a QuesTec system in 2001 that umpires initially criticized as being inaccurate. Questec was used at a maximum of 11 ballparks in 2008, its final year.
A PitchF/x system, a partnership of MLB Advanced Media and Sportvision, was the basis of evaluations from 2009-16, and the TrackMan system was tested during the final year of that span. TrackMan has been used to evaluate umpires since 2017.
West, who has umpired more than 5,000 big league games and is on track to break Bill Klem's record in 2020, said the 2016 test was far from perfect.
"It missed 500 pitches in April, and when I say it missed 500 pitches, that didn't mean they called them wrong. They didn't call them at all," he said.
In addition, bases will become 18-inch squares in the Atlantic League, up from the 15-inch squares that have been standard since 1877. That will in effect cut the distance from the front of home plate to the front of first base from 87 feet, 9 inches to 87 feet 6 inches. The 90-foot measurement between bases is from the back of the plate to the back corner of first and third along the foul line.
While the distance between the mound and the plate will be lengthened, the height will remain 10 inches — its level since 1969.
"Changing the distance, that seems a little odd to me," Yankees manager Aaron Boon said. "I know lowering the mound is an interesting one, obviously, something that would favor offense and maybe in some level help with some pitching injuries."
Other changes for the season:
— Infield shifts will be restricted by requiring two infielders to be on each side of second base when a pitcher releases his pitch. Infielders also will be prohibited from setting up on the outfield grass.
— Each pitcher must face at least three batters or complete the half-inning, unless injured.
— Between inning breaks will be cut from 2 minutes, 5 seconds to 1:45.
— Mound visits are banned, except for pitching changes or medical issues.
Atlantic League teams are in Bridgewater, New Jersey; Central Islip, New York; High Point, North Carolina; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; New Britain, Connecticut; Sugar Land, Texas; Waldorf, Maryland; and York, Pennsylvania.


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In this one year, am almost nearing to my 700th post also hosted many events, won some cookbooks, been tagged and awarded by many blog friends..Big thanks to my family members,without them nothing is possible and definitely nothing is possible without my regular followers & friends...Am celebrating this first blog anniversary with you all with some delicious Ganesh Chathurthi sweets which i prepared for Indian Cooking Challenge as challenge for this month of August..
Modak from Maharashtra:
2 cups freshly grated coconut
1 cup jaggery (grated)
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tsp cardamom powder
one pinch nutmeg (optional)
2 tbsp water
1 cup rice flour
1.25 cup water
pinch of salt
1 tbsp oil
Preparation for Stuffing:
Roast poppy seeds in a small skillet and let it cool down. Grind it coarsely and keep it aside.
In a heavy bottom kadhai mix all the ingredients for stuffing except poppy seed powder and let it sit for 15 min. Now start heating the mixture over medium heat. In about 10-12 minutes, the mixture starts boiling and stuffing will turn yellowish brown and will be sticky. Take the kadhai off the heat, add poppy seeds powder and mix well. Set it aside to cool down.
Preparation for cover:
Take vessel that has tight fitting cover. Start boiling water in that vessel, add salt and oil. When water starts boiling, lower the heat and slowely add rice flour. Please do now dump everything at once. Start mixing vigourously with a heavy spoon. Now close the lid and take the pot off the heat. Let the covered pot cool down for 15 minutes or so. Then with wet hands, mix the dough properly. It will warm so be careful and use cold water to keep your hands from burning but do not use too much water.
Making Modak :
Start boiling water in a large vessel that can fit a steamer. Oil the steamer and set it aside.Make about 20 balls of the dough and 20 parts of the stuffing. Start making small puri with the dough ball on a oiled paper/aluminum foil. Keep one part of stuffing in the middle of the puri and gather the puri gently to make shape like modak with modak mould.Now dip each modak in cold water and put it in the steamer. Put the steamer on boiling water and cover it. Let themodaks steam for 20 minutes on medium to high heat. Take the steamer off the vessel and let it sit for 5 minutes before removing moodak from steamer.
Boorelu from Andhra:
For the outer layer:
Black gram dal/ Urad dal - 50 gms
For the Filling:
Bengal gram/Channa dal - 1 cup
Grated Jaggery - 1 cup
Fresh grated Coconut - 1/4 cup (opt)
Cardamom powder - 3/4 tsp
salt to taste
oil for deep frying
Method to prepare:
Wash and soak Urad dal for 4-5 hrs. Place in a big vessel as it will expand after soaking.
Then drain water from the Urad dal and grind to fine paste adding very little water. The batter is almost like the thick dosa batter before you make dosas. Add salt and leave it aside covered.
Pressure cook the channa dal with just enough water to cover it. Even if excess water is there, you can always use the water for chaaru. But less water is better.Cook the jaggary to remove any scum. Then once the dal is well cooked, drain and cook it along with the jaggary. It should become very soft enough for you to mash well. Add Cardamom powder and grated coconut, when the dal starts to leave the sides its done.
Remove and cool. Divide them into equal balls.Heat a thick bottom kadai for frying. Once the oil is hot, turn to sim. Then dip each ball in the Urad dal batter. Then gently drop them into the hot oil. Turn and cook on all sides. Once couple of batches are done, strain the oil to remove the scum.It hardly takes more than 2-3 mins to get cooked. Drain them on to a kitchen towel.
Panchakhadya from Maharashtra
1 cup grated dry coconut (i used dry roast grated coconut)
4-5 tbsp powdered sugar
2 tbsp poppy seeds
4-5 dried dates
1/2 tbsp cardamom powder
4-5 tbsp coarsely powdered mixed nuts (almonds,cashews, pistachios)
pinch of nutmeg powder
Dry roast grated coconut on a very light heat and set aside..dry roast poppy seeds and grind them coarsely after cooling them for 5 minutes...take the seeds off the dried dates and grind them coarsely as well. Mix all these ingredients and nuts powder, cardamom, nutmeg, powdered sugar together..Panchakhadya is ready...
Nugul-Untallu from Andhra:
Wash the black sesame seeds and dry it over a towel or else under sun..dry roast the sesame seeds and keep aside, grind together the sesame seeds and jaggery...make 12-15balls from this mixture..


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Read our new food blog on www.lakesfood.net
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Woodlands Guest House Windermere, Bed and Breakfast Windermere Welcomes you to their lovely Guest House, in Windermere in The Lake District they want to help you to have the best luxury break in Englands most stunning destination.
The Woodlands Guest House in Windermere is a five star luxury Guest House, ideally located within short walking distance to both Windermere and Bowness in Windermere villages. Our Guest House Windermere is centrally located in the Southern Lakes, making it easy to explore all the hightlights the Lake District has to offer.
The Woodlands Guest House Windermere invites guests from all over the world, from business to pleasure, or from guests who want to experience the adventurous outdoors, or those who simply want to kick back and relax.
We hope you enjoy our website, but please do pick up the phone and speak to us in person. We are more than happy to help plan your trip beyond booking a room in our Lake District guest house, Wiindermere. We have excellent local knowledge and really want you to enjoy your stay in the Lake District.


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Under most conditions, a salt needs only to be unique, not cryptographically unpredictable. So in that case, yes as long as your RNG is properly seeded. Another common technique to improve salt quality is to concatenate a random number to the current time, then hash that (e.g. SHA1), textually e...
$ time sync real 0m20.800s
a = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE id = " + request.GET['id']
Update 2: In 2013, several experts initiated a Password Hashing Competition which should result in improved and more usable methods, with winners selected by 2015. For excellent background on the need for that, and good advice in the interim, see Password security: past, present, future from Pas...
echo file_get_contents(__FILE__);?


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I have shot for many businesses and individuals. I can come to your office or location with all gear and guarantee a quick and easy shoot with great results. I also offer shots on solid color backgrounds either in my studio in Queens or at your location. All images can be delivered same day via Dropbox or on the spot if you provide a hard drive. Typical turnaround time for edits is 48 hours. Thanks! References and client list available on demand.
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February has been a short, but exciting month for SQL Data Warehouse. You might have noticed improvements to stability, reliability, and scalability, as well as some of the customer-driven functionality listed below.
TSQL for implementing SSMS
One of the top requests we've received is the desire to use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to query and manage SQL Data Warehouse. We are working hard to add support for SSMS, and in February we took some significant steps towards this. We enabled the following TSQL functions as part of SSMS support:
- SET NOCOUNT ON|OFF: Sets whether or not a message is returned with a count of the rows affected by a TSQL operation
- SET PARSEONLY ON|OFF: Checks code for errors without running or compiling it
- IS_MEMBER() and IS_ROLEMEMBER(): Queries to see if a database user is a member or a certain role/group
- COLLATIONPROPERTY: Returns the property of a specified collation in SQL Server 2016
- @@MICROSOFTVERSION: Returns the Microsoft Version of a SQL Database or SQL Data Warehouse
PolyBase public data sets
In addition to loading data from your personal storage accounts, PolyBase can now connect to and query public Azure blob storage containers without the need to specify a key or credential to access the data. This allows you to read large public data sets into SQL Data Warehouse quickly. For example, you could load a large amount of data for a trial. To access public data, simply create an external data source that points to the storage without specifying a credential. The update syntax for external data sources can be found here.
Self-service Geo-Restore
You will now be able to restore a SQL Data Warehouse from any of the geo-redundant backups automatically taken by the service. Data warehouses can be restored into any Azure region, and on any server. Since SQL Data Warehouse uses geo-redundant backups, you can recover a database even if the database is inaccessible due to an outage. This adds an additional layer of availability and reliability.
This operation was previously available, but recent updates make the process easy and widely available through the Azure Portal, PowerShell or REST APIs.
DWU Limit and DWU Used measures
We're often asked: How do you compare DWU to your workload? What's the right amount of DWU to use?
We now have two new metrics (DWU Limit and DWU Used) you can use in the Azure portal to monitor DWU for your workload. DWU Limit and DWU Used are designed to help you understand your usage so you can better size your data warehouse and plan for future growth. The two metrics are setup as follows:
- DWU Limit: This metric shows how many DWU are currently assigned to your data warehouse. This is the maximum amount of DWU your workload can use at any time. You can increase or decrease the limit by scaling up or down.
- DWU Used/DWU Percentage: These metrics show the amount of DWU that their currently running workload is consuming. Since the two metrics driving DWU are IO and CPU usage, we use a special combination of these two measures taking into account all of the nodes of the service.
These measures are both exposed in the metrics section and the main page of SQL Data Warehouse as shown below. In the below workload you can see that 1000 DWU is provisioned, but the data warehouse is only using a little over 300 DWU on average. However, there are points within the past week where the workload needed the full power of the instance. Given this for your own workload, you can think about times you may want to scale up or down to minimize costs and better tune your data warehouse.
Documentation Updates
The SQL Data Warehouse documentation is now more clear and complete than ever before. The service team has migrated 600+ reference topics to MSDN and made numerous updates to our online documentation. The new "APPLIES TO" marker makes it easy to compare and contrast syntax for SQL Database, SQL Server and SQL Data Warehouse. As you can see below, the CREATE COLUMNSTORE INDEX applies to multiple products, whereas the SQL Data Warehouse has a separate CREATE DATABASE topic.
If you would like to contribute to how we improve SQL Data Warehouse in the future, submit suggestions for features or complete our feedback survey.


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Students across the world are going green, encouraging the movement to spread to college campuses as well. Some universities have made massive strides towards protecting our planet. Whether it be oragnic and locally sourced ingredients, green-building designs, or waste reduction, universities in the US & UK are stepping up their green game.
Check out the list of universities below 'going green' and encouraging their student bodies to follow suit!
Stanford, California
Stanford's Redwood City Campus remains a cornerstone of sustainability for the university, having implemented several initiatives to reduce energy used and waste generated. This includes building designs that monitor temperature and outside light to maximize efficiency, migration to becoming a zero-waste facility, fixtures that monitor water usage levels, and sustainable commuting. The city is committed to local, organic, humanely raised, fair traded food, as well as family-owned farms and sustainable fisheries, with 47% of dining hall food sourced this way.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harvard's Climate Action Plan sets an ambitious path to shift campus operations away from fossil fuels, with targets to be fossil fuel-free by 2050 and fossil fuel-neutral by 2026. In 2017, Harvard planned to implement several policies by 2020 to increase sustainability. So far, Harvard has reduced their waste per capita by 44% and water use by 26%. They have also moved towards organic living, planning to be 75% organic by 2020.
Amherst, Massachusetts
UMass provides opportunities for students, faculty and staff to discover all the ways they can move the campus towards sustainability. Since 2002, UMass has reduced its total greenhouse gas emissions by 29% and the campus continues to explore the various ways to reduce energy consumption and building energy intensity. The Real Food Challenge requires 20% of the university's food to be local or community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane food sources - by 2020.
Durham, New Hampshire
University of New Hampshire is a leader in sustainability, and even provides students with the option to pursue a sustainability dual major, giving students the opportunity to understand and act on the environmental and social challenges and solutions needed to create a more sustainable world. UNH is committed to single stream recycling. This has required a full rebrand of what people associate as waste. They have made marginal improvements, but are hoping to make bigger strides by 2020.
Oxford, England
The Kellogg College Hub at the University of Oxford is the first to make use of the high Passivhaus sustainability design approach. This has resulted in exceptionally low energy demand. This design is echoed in the compostable packaging used in the building's cafe. Food is locally sourced and waste is recycled through a council scheme. They also stock ethical mineral water brands that fund life-changing water projects in poorer countries.
Davis, California
UC Davis has implemented several initiatives towards sustainability. This includes reducing campus waste and promoting healthy food, teaching students how to take action from riding a bike to recycling waste, reducing emissions from activities, buildings and vehicles, turning waste into energy with technology, and more! Twenty-five of UC Davis's buildings have green-building certifications from LEEF (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
Nottingham, England
University of Nottingham has taken on the saying "reuse, refill, refuse" to make a difference in the sustainability on campus. They house several sustainability programmes financed by the university. Nottingham is committed to developing low carbon buildings as well as enforcing cycling, public transportation, electric vehicles and car sharing. They offer volunteering and job opportunities for students and staff interested in getting involved in the movement.


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What's bigger than dinosaurs? Giant robots. What's bigger than giant robots? Godzilla. What's bigger than Godzilla? Freakin' outer space! Where a bunch of aliens are busy guarding the galaxy.
There's nothing that can compare with bigness. But sometimes, even the thought of "bigness" is an understatement when you find something that can contain all these things and add in a huge dose of fun and thrills. Prepare for the biggest one yet! It's time for TOYCON 2014!!
The Philippine Toys, Hobbies and Collectibles Convention, or TOYCON as it's more widely-known, is Asia's biggest and longest running convention for collectibles, toys, anime, comics, cosplay, gaming and anything and everything related to hobbies and collections. The convention has been ongoing since 2002 so it is now on its 13th year of thrilling fans and aficionados alike. It is, simply put, the biggest pop culture event in the country.
This year's TOYCON will highlight the 75th Anniversary of DC Comics' caped Crusader, Batman with a huge Batman display area, a life size Batpod, a kids' activity area, exciting new Batman merchandise, and a gallery of art and collectibles of the Dark Knight Detective.
Also catch the Samurai X fever as Warner Brothers previews the Rurouni Kenshin live-action film trilogy Parts II and III with a display of original costumes from the sensational Japanese hit movie.
Get ready to be blown into space with Marvel's latest epic movie, The Guardians of the Galaxy, with awesome displays, sneak peeks at the movie's trailers and behind-the-scenes, special fan activities, and the Marvel roster of superstar artists like Leinil Yu, Carlo Pagulayan, Stephen Segovia, Roy Allan Martinez and Kim Jacinto.
The TOYCON also gives you the biggest gathering of toy collections with the following prominent toy exhibits –
The G.I. Joe 50th Anniversary exhibit, Philippine Lego Users Group exhibit, the Coca-Cola Collectibles exhibit, One Sixth Republic and Pinoy Sixth Scale collectors exhibit and the awesome Toycon Gallery exhibit area which showcases the best of the local toy group community.
Fans of a galaxy far, far away unite with the 10th Anniversary of the Star Wars 501st Philippine Outpost. Enjoy a parade of your favorite Star Wars characters, Stormtroopers, Jedi Knights and droids and, of course, the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Darth Vader as they invade the Philippine ToyCon stage.
The TOYCON also features the biggest in Cosplay with the Philippine Finals of the World Cosplay Summit happening at the event and TOYCON's own Cosplay Universe unleashes a barrage of individual and group cosplayers led by Asia's Cosplay queen, Alodia Gosiengfiao.
Gaming takes center stage also at the TOYCON with the biggest game companies, like Level-Up, War Gaming, Cherry Credits and Uplink releasing the latest versions of their top games.
And off course, TOYCON would not be complete without the biggest exhibitor floor of all pop culture merchandise in terms of apparel, collectibles and memorabilia, graphic novels and comics, cosplay paraphernalia, and toys, toys, TOYS!
The Philippine TOYCON 2014 will be held on June 20-22, 2014 at the SM Megatrade Halls 1, 2 and 3, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City.
This is co-presented by Collectibles Unlimited and the SM Megatrade Halls, and sponsored by Maxi Collector, Toy Kingdom, Toy Empire, Warner Brothers Pictures and Pacific Licensing. With special thanks to Big Boys Toy Store, Great Toys, Arigatoys, Authority Hoodie, Transfer It, Otaku Asia, War Gaming, Uplink, Level-Up, Cubizone, Canon, Level-Up, Cherry Credits, CIIT, Loctite, Walt Disney Studios, gaming Library and Resorts World Manila. With media partners, ABS-CBN, Flip Geeks, Reimaru Files, WheninManila.com, Chalk Magazine, UNO Magazine, Manila Bulletin, Inquirer.net and 99.5 PLAY FM. Also supported by Anime Alliance and World Cosplay Summit.
For more information on schedule of activities and event details please visit:


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Before you head to the polls, The Constitution Project encourages you to learn more about the principle One Person, One Vote. This notion is synonymous with American democracy, but did you know that the decisions that ensured that right almost tore the Supreme Court and the country apart?
Watch our film One Person, One Vote and learn more about the series of landmark Supreme Court cases that guaranteed our right to fair and equal representation in our state legislatures. And make sure you vote!