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UNICRI and UNEP, in partnership with the Italian Ministry for the Environment and the Italian Ministry of Justice, organized an International Conference on Environmental Crime. The Conference took place at the F.A.O. Headquarters in Rome on 29-30 October 2012 with the support of Compagnia di San Paolo.
The Conference sought to address current and emerging threats posed by environmental crime, highlighting its links with organised criminal networks and other crimes of serious nature, with a specific focus on illegal trafficking of e-waste. Moreover, the Conference touched upon existing legal issues which permit these crimes to continue largely without prosecution.
The objective of the Conference was to serve as a platform for competent institutions and experts to discuss how to move forward and address these issues in a more effective and efficient way. The Conference was also guided by the account of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012.
The two-day Conference benefited from the active participation of representatives from governmental authorities, environmental and law enforcement agencies, civil society organisations, and of prominent scholars in the field. The Conference saw the participation of 130 experts from around the world and international organizations such as UNDESA, UNEP, CITES Secretariat, OSCE, CoE and INTERPOL.
The stakeholders assessed emerging forms of eco-crimes in three thematic roundtables devoted to the discussion of different environmental crime aspects and proposed recommendations which will be included in the final conference documents: Report of the Conference and Action Plan on Combating Environmental Crime.
More details on the Conference including the work plan, points for discussion of the three expert groups and presentations of the experts can be found below.
For any further questions please contact ecocrime.conferenceunicri.it
The conference was opened by presentations from renowned experts introducing the main topics related to environmental crime.
The Expert Group looked at improving international legislation and its implementation. Participants discussed flaws in the current international legal framework in relation to environmental crime at the regional and international level, and developed specific recommendations to promote compliance with and enforcement of international and regional legal framework.
The Expert Group looked at the role of organised crime and corruption in different environmental crimes. Participants discussed case studies from different countries and regions to identify trends, patterns and modalities of intervention and prepared specific recommendations on how to improve investigations and prevention, and better exchange information across borders.
The Expert Group discussed the issue of illicit trafficking in waste (including toxic waste, e-waste, plastic etc.) as an emerging international threat, the increasing role of organised crime groups, its links with other serious crimes, such as counterfeiting, corruption, money laundering, and the role played by the different actors into this crime. Participants presented data and case studies and developed specific recommendations on how to improve data collection and analysis, exchange of information, and international investigations in this field.
To increase awareness of the threat of environmental crime, in December 2011 Legambiente, Consorzio Polieco and UNICRI co-organized a conference in Rome entitled Illicit Trafficking in Waste: A Global Emergency, with the participation of the Ministry of the Environment of Italy, parliamentarians, international partners such as the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), and stakeholders involved in countering trafficking in and dumping of toxic waste.
The Conference aimed at providing an overview of the situation and in particular represented an opportunity to make a comparison of current legislative and operational tactics in countering the phenomenon. The ultimate goal was to identify appropriate responses.
Illicit trafficking and disposal of waste, the harm posed to human health and environment, versus sound waste management and recycling as precursors to economic growth, innovation and sustainable development: these are the topics discussed during the workshop Recycling or illicit disposal? Waste: an occasion for development, an opportunity for organized crime? organized by UNICRI in collaboration with Environment Park on 6 September 2012. The seminar focused on various aspects of sound waste management and emphasize its potential for sustainable development and innovation. It has also presented measures to prevent the infiltration of organized crime in waste management.


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My friend Liza Galon sent me this, very nice...
My mother was a fanatic about public toilets. As a little girl, she'd bring me in the stall, teach me to wad up toilet paper and wipe the seat. Then, she'd carefully lay strips of toilet paper to cover the seat. Finally, she'd instruct, 'Never, never sit on a public toilet seat.' And she'd demonstrate 'The Stance,' which consisted of balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the toilet seat. But by this time, I'd have gotten wet down my leg. And we'd go home. That was a long time ago. Even now in our more mature years, The Stance is excruciatingly difficult to maintain when one's bladder is especially full.
"When you have to go to a public bathroom, you find a line of women that makes you think there's a half-price sale on Mel Gibson's underwear in there. So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies, also crossing their legs and smiling politely. And you finally get closer. You check for feet under the stall doors. Every one is occupied. Finally, a stall door opens and you dash, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the
stall. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter. You hang your purse on the door hook, yank down your pants and assume 'The Stance.'
"Relief. More relief. Then your thighs begin to shake. You'd love to sit down but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold 'The Stance' as your thighs experience a quake that would register an eight on the Richter scale. To take your mind off it, you reach for the toilet paper. The toilet paper dispenser is empty. Your thighs shake more.
"You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on-that's in your purse. It would have to do. You crumble it in the puffiest way possible. It is still smaller than your thumbnail.
"Someone pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn't work and your purse whams you in the head.
"Occupied!" you scream as you reach out for the door, dropping your tissue in a puddle and falling backward, directly onto the toilet seat.
"You get up quickly, but it's too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with all the germs and life forms on the bare seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper, not that there was any, even if you had enough time to. And your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew, because her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, 'You don't
know what kind of diseases you could get.'
"By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, sending up a stream of water akin to a fountain and then it suddenly sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged to China. At that point, you give up.
"You're soaked by the splashing water. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a Chicklet wrapper you found in your pocket then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.
"You can't figure out how to operate the sinks with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past a line of women, still waiting, cross-legged and unable to smile politely at this point.
"One kind soul at the very end of the line points out that you are trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as long as the Mississippi River! You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and say warmly, 'Here. You might need this.'
"At this time, you see your spouse, who has entered, used and exited his bathroom and read a copy of 'War and Peace' while waiting for you.
"'What took you so long?' he asks, annoyed. This is when you kick him sharply in the shin and go home.
"This is dedicated to all women everywhere who have ever had to deal with a public toilet. And it finally explains to all you men what takes us so long."
Other noteworthy immortal words of wisdom from my mom included:
(1) Pinch your nose every evening so that it would grow to be aquiline (didn't work).
(2) Never mix drinks. (Ignored up to the point when I woke up one morning after and thought my head would fall off.)
(3) "Nice girls don't smoke." (No comment.)
(4) Make sure your underwear has no holes on it; you never know when you'll meet with an accident.
(5) Don't wear pencil skirts when your behind is completely flat! (Also ignored.)
(6) No matter how pretty or smart you are, there'll always be someone prettier or smarter.
(7) The fate of a plain woman is often envied by a pretty woman.
(8) Never say, of these waters I will not drink.
(9) If you don't stop frowning, your face will freeze and you'll be ugly forever.
(10) Never go out into the sun without an umbrella or headgear; you don't see farmers in bikinis, do you?
(11) If you don't stop showing off how smart you are, no one will ever marry you.

subset: commoncrawl


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The CDC has removed fever from the Ebola Case Definition, and replaced it with the a more nebulous definition of "Elevated body temperature or subjective fever or symptoms". The CDC has also added "Fatigue" to the case definition.
Here is the relevant part of the prior case definition:
Person Under Investigation (PUI)A person who has both consistent symptoms and risk factors as follows:
- Clinical criteria, which includes fever of greater than 38.6 degrees Celsius or 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and additional symptoms such as severe headache, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, or unexplained hemorrhage; AND
- epidemiologic risk factors within the past 21 days before the onset of symptoms, such as contact with blood or other body fluids or human remains of a patient known to have or suspected to have EVD; residence in—or travel to—an area where EVD transmission is active*; or direct handling of bats or non-human primates from disease-endemic areas.
Here is the relevant part of the current case definition:
Person Under Investigation (PUI):
A person who has both consistent signs or symptoms and risk factors as follows:
- Elevated body temperature or subjective fever or symptoms, including severe headache, fatigue, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, or unexplained hemorrhage; AND
- An epidemiologic risk factor within the 21 days before the onset of symptoms.
Other important changes have also been made to loosen up CDC's Ebola case definition; we will update this post as time permits:
UPDATE 1: The CDC's new Ebola case definition greatly increase the category of persons who may be forcefully quarantined to anyone who was in proximity of an Ebola case even if the Ebola victim was not actively showing symptoms at the time of proximity. (more to follow)
After a more detail reading, the CDC has greatly increased the at risk Ebola category to include the following:
1) Direct contact (hand shake) with Ebola victim 21 days PRIOR to symptom onset
2) Airborne contact, ie even "brief proximity" (such as being in the same room for a brief period of time) with an Ebola victim AFTER their symptom onset
Any person who meets those two above definitions and in the subject eyes of an examiner has any "signs" of concern such as elevated body temperature (98.7 deg F) is now defined as a "Person Under Investigation" for Ebola. And as such, that person is subject to forceful quarantine
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/case-definition.htmlArchived CDC webpage from Oct 25
ONE DROP OF AEROSOLIZED EBOLA BLOOD CAN INFECT 1,104 SqFt Room Such That Only 1 Breath Inhaled Can Result In Infection


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According to digital marketing experts only one in five organizations are good in digital marketing. Lack of innovation and dearth of value-added thinking are challenged which organizations need to address and optimizing their digital operations remains a high priority.
The average marketing budget will increase by 6.3 % in 2013 – as per Aberdeen Business review (Aug, 2012). So where will marketing spend this budget in 2013? In most of the cases this can be a tricky question. However the most likely answer is that marketing will spend in whatever's working. Best in class organizations are setting the pace for establishing consistent, measureable lead management processes, establishing marketing and sales alignment and systematic tracking marketing revenue performances. The need of the hour is expanding the utilization of marketing automation systems. Revenue Performance Management capabilities like a process to define ROI on account based marketing, cost of customer acquisition, and closed loop reporting which gives marketers ability to optimize lead management processes are being rapidly adopted. More and more companies have began to integrate social media with their demand generation and customer acquisition programs, the trend is that companies use social as a signal for lead scoring and content personalization.
As content marketing capabilities continue to mature, companies need to become more strategic in their implementation of content marketing. They need to align content to the buyer's journey and measure its impact. Today's dynamic marketing environments make it certain that marketers need to have much greater control on the content. As digital marketing experts try to understand how to transition to modern content marketing, the data gained from granular metrics is invaluable in a transition that meets the demand generation requirements of the business.
In order to overcome the challenges in managing the overall digital experience, marketers should think about their owned digital channels as a part of a unified marketing system – which is comprised of multiple best of breed digital platforms for web content management, marketing automation, CRM etc. All the platforms and technology should talk to each other as part of an integrated digital solution.
How to leverage an integrated digital solution:
The closed loop engagement cycle is the model used to gain customer understanding:
´ Use analytics and forms to capture behavior and profile
´ Analyze the customer context
´ Package the content to align with the customer context
Use the buying cycle to understand how, when and with what to engage prospects at each step of buying process:
´ Understand your customer's mindset through the buying cycle journey
´ Determine the target groups within your audience
´ Understand and align the messages with the segment and their objections
´ Implement the multi-channel platforms
Leverage Digital Platforms to achieve multi-channel engagement that aligns with customer expectations and drives acquisition:
´ Leverage the Three Key Digital Platforms (CMS, Marketing Automation and CRM)
´ Integrated the three platforms to get a common view of the customer across all channels
´ Both web CMS and marketing automation enable marketers to define rules that govern what content is displayed in a context
´ Automate the engagement cycle
´ Nurture leads through the buying cycle to the point at which they are ready for sales
´ Deliver leads that are ready to engage with the sales team
Moreover as the dynamic of the digital marketing is continuously evolving, the digital solution must rely on user feedback and data analytics to adjust your message to fit the ever-changing demands of each segment of your target audience.


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Serving Our Community Since 1951Burial Services
There are different elements you can choose from when arranging a burial, depending upon your individual needs and preferences:
- Immediate Burial means that your loved one's physical remains will be buried or entombed without a public service or gathering
- Visitation (also called a "viewing," "wake" or "calling hours") allows family and friends to gather in a room with the departed loved one (in an open or closed casket) and gives everyone the opportunity to say goodbye and offer their support and sympathy to the bereaved.
- Funeral or Memorial Services can take place at a funeral home, in a church, or even at your home. The service is a ceremony which serves to celebrate, honor, and remember the life of the deceased. Whether traditional or unique, both the visitation and the funeral service can be personalized to reflect the individuality of your loved one. For more information on personalization, visit our page on Celebrating Life.
- Graveside, Chapel, or Committal Services are held at the cemetery, and allow family and friends to be present as their loved one is transferred to his or her final disposition through ground burial.
When a family chooses burial, the funeral service is traditionally designed to involve three distinct phases: visitation, the funeral, and the burial service. These generally follow the casket from the funeral home through the final burial at a cemetery. While this arrangement works for some families, it's not the only option available and it might not be the ideal solution for others. We'll work with you understand your needs and create the perfect plan for you and your loved one.


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So it's been FIVE years since I last updated this website.
A lot had changed, so I'm going to start to refocus the content on what I'm doing now and in the future, rather than what I've done in the past.
Starting with my new logo!
So it's been FIVE years since I last updated this website.
A lot had changed, so I'm going to start to refocus the content on what I'm doing now and in the future, rather than what I've done in the past.
Starting with my new logo!
Just upgraded to a new host!
If you see any issues with the site, add them to the comments.
So, here it is, the new and improved FunkyJ.com for 2016.
When I started writing for dB Magazine and inthemix in 2002, the web was nascent and you had to look hard for material on the various artists I interviewed. Nowadays with wikipedia and google it's really simple to find information, and I hope this writing will be added to that pile, and be useful to others.
It's a little laborious copying and reformatting all my old interviews, so it will take a while to get all my content online again.
However I feel my writing is still valuable, not only for myself as both dB Magazine and inthemix have changed radically over the last 14 years and some of my stuff has vanished, but I also hope it's useful for anyone who may interview these people in the future.
Oh, and just a note about the articles – the wordpress publishing dates I wrote them – or at least the creation dates the computer recorded me writing them. Publishing dates would have usually been a week or so after the creation dates. There may be some errors with this and the articles in general, but I present them as I wrote them, not as they were edited.
The Hilltop Hoods shot to prominence with 'The Calling', becoming the first Australian hiphop act to gain a Gold record. The follow up, 'The Hard Road' has a hard act to follow, and not only in terms of sales, but also in of 'keeping it real' for the Hilltops. I'd heard rumours and stories that the new album was 'commercial', and that the band were tearing themselves apart from within. But talking to Suffa a day after the album was finished made me realise that the Hoods still have it very much together, and no matter what happens, they will always be The Hilltop Hoods.
I asked Suffa if there was any extra pressure to record The Hard Road. "It wasn't a struggle to record it, but when we started mixing it Baz (Debris) went on holiday to Vietnam," he laughs. "So that made the mixing down a little bit more difficult." Of course not having heard the album, I asked Suffa to describe how it sounded. "It's similar to The Calling but it's sort of a darker version of The Calling," he mutters. Dark hey… Could this be a reflection of the way the band is feeling the pressure? "I don't know," he chuckles. "It just turned out that way. We don't plan albums. As the beats are made, as we like certain beats and the album makes itself. There's a couple of party tracks on there, a couple of jazz influenced tracks, it's not like it's some kind of melancholy beast," he grins.
The Calling's most popular track is the Nosebleed Section, containing the Melanie Safka sample. Seeing as how she was apparently enamoured of the tune, I wanted to find out what Suffa thought of her and how she came into knowing about this little group from Adelaide. "She got sent the track by a fan she has here, but to be honest I'd rather not talk about that because", he hesitates, "we're not having legal issues, but it's not sorted out completely and I really shouldn't be talking about it," he says, and fair enough too.
He does openly speak of how that whole exercise has changed the way the group approaches sampling, however. "We had to either use things on this album that didn't need sample clearance, or the ones that did need sample clearance we had to chase after and get it," he explains. "You can sort of take care of it in the processes (of making a track). If you're sampling a funk artist, they're sampled so much they've got the process in place to legally sample them. You just need to contact their people, they're people tell you how much it'll be and how much royalties they want, blah blah blah, and that's sort of easy. If you go into other genres and sample someone not used to it, it can become difficult. And also during the process you try not to sample records you know you're going to have trouble with," he adds with a smirk.
Thanks to the efforts of the likes of Hilltop Hoods, Delta, Downsyde, the Triple J Hiphop Show, and the seminal Aussie hiphop label Obese Records, Aussie Hiphop has blossomed and become a lot more respected by the wider community. "Yeah, the scene, if you compare it to 5 or 10 years ago, the amount of exposure, the amount of groups, the amount of interest, the amount of media attention, it's a lot healthier than it was," Suffa exclaims. But when I ask him about the down side of it, he's quite frank in his answer. "I don't really want to say negative things about it, you know? I just don't want to sound like one of those guys who's gone all cynical," he laughs.
Although I didn't like to keep the interview on a negative vibe, I had heard rumours that there was some tension with in the group over creative control. Having chatted to both Suffa and Debris in the past, I found it hard to believe, and of course Suffa set those rumours to rest with a big laugh. "It's absolute shit!" he cries. "The reason why those rumours come about, and we've even seen things where people said we should have a media coach," he laughs incredulously, "is because we're such close mates all we do is fucking hang shit on each other all day, so even if we're being interviewed or there's a camera there we're still hanging shit on each other, it's just the way we always have been. So you know, I don't know why people want to turn it into some kind of… thing, maybe the people starting these rumours are trying to turn us against each other or something, but it's just not going to happen. We know each other so well, we just don't care what they say."
To help the launch of the Album, the trio will be hosting ABC's Rage. "We've always been so disappointed when hiphop artists go on Rage because for some reason whenever hiphop artists program one of these shows they try to show how open minded they are and play anything but hiphop," he groans. "Our sole mission was to go on there and play nothing but dope hiphop. So we played 40 songs of just straight up hiphop. We were limited a little by what catalogue they had, but we tried our best to play clips that just don't get seen and the artists we think should get a little more exposure."
It was quite early in the morning when I called the UK, and computer problems meant I called a little late and had to cut my interview short, but Tayo, the Don of the breakbeat world, was gracious and kind, and let me conduct the interview without any sense of annoyance, although he did stifle a few yawns every now and then. Having been around since year dot, working with Adam Freeland, being head of Mob Records, who gave Stanton Warriors a push start, and with his radio show 'Dread at the Controls' on KISS FM, he is at the forefront of pushing new sounds and keeping the breaks scene vibrant and alive.
He has also put out many a compilation including Beatz and Bobz and Y4K, and his new Mix CD "These Are the Breaks" is the follow up to Krafty Kuts' fantastic double album from 2003. "They wanted me to do it," Tayo says about the new compilation. "DMC got in touch and said they were re-igniting the series and they wanted me to do this one. I guess the label wanted to do a breaks series and they already had a brand in place, so they called me in." The mix is quite different from Krafty Kuts mix. Whereas Krafty blends hiphop, funk, breaks and even dnb, Tayo is straight up dubby breaks, a sound which Tayo has made his own.
"It's very much the music I'm involved in and that I make," he notes, "and I'm just trying to bring my own interpretation of the breaks so people don't get bored of the breakbeat formula. I think sometimes it can be a little straight ahead and know what you're getting, you know?" and I agree, but also say how I think breaks one is the most interesting scenes out there. "There's a lot of interesting music out there," Tayo agrees, "and I was just trying to put my own stamp on it. It does have a few of my own productions on there because this style (dubby breaks) is hard to find," he adds, "but at the same time making tunes is what I have been doing for the last year or so."
And that doesn't mean Tayo is bored with breaks, on the contrary he is enjoying the broad brush that breaks DJs paint with. "If I look through my record box I'm quite happy with what I've got at the moment. I've been looking out to other scenes, all related to the breaks genre, but not quite so much nu-school breaks, which can seem a little formulaic sometimes. But it was a chance to get some of the stuff I've been involved with out there."
Tayo has been rather busy in the studio. "I've got a track coming out on Mantra Breaks I did with Acid Rockers called 'Shorty the Pimp', I've got another coming out on Aquasky's label Passenger called 'Wildlife Dub', I've just done a remix of Basement Jaxx, and I've got a single coming out on Finger Lickin' later this year, and they want me to do some more stuff and make an albums worth. I'm going to let stuff incubate for the next few months and get it done," he says of the deal, which will be his first artist album. "It's going to be whole new stuff, because the mix album was done so I could get my stuff off my hard drive and out there. Now I want to concentrate on less dancefloor tracks and more album tracks, with vocalists and so on. It'll still be dancefloor," he assures me "but just less 12 inch, shall we say? There will be stuff I've worked on but haven't released… I've got a grand idea for it, but whether it works out like that is another thing, but I'm going to have fun trying."
Tayo is also looking forward to coming to Adelaide. He says he's only had one 'big' show in Adelaide, and that was at the Beach Party in 2004, but I assure him that breaks is a lot bigger now through the efforts of Blake of Stardust, Los Proyectos Magicos, Hi-Fi, and the Adelaide Breaks Collective. Being reassured after I told him about the massive Krafty Kuts and Stanton Warriors show late last year, Tayo is looking forward to "having fun and getting a good crowd" at the end of March.
In the world of dance music, it's sometimes difficult to remember that having a career that spans over 10 years is in fact a long time to be in the biz. Many DJs come and go, having taking it up as a hobby in their younger days, or as a way to supplement their incomes, but then they have a home and a family, or get a 'real' job and don't have the time, or doing something lame like music journalism. Jay Cunning, whilst still only relatively young, has been at the game since 1989, starting in acid house and working his way through musical styles until he settled with breakbeat in the late 90s.
Cunning is your pretty typical "hard work pays off with a bit of luck and lot of skill" DJ story. His main break into the spotlight was a two-pronged attack with his skills pricking up the ears of listeners on BreaksFM, and also the editors of both Musik and iDJ magazines. "I used to always go to this record store in Kensington," Cunning begins, "and that's where I started buying stuff that was a little bit different from house or drum and bass. I started listening to the early Freskanova stuff, early stuff from Matt Cantor (Freestylers) and Andy Gardner (Plump DJs), and I had been buying it for ages but not really doing anything with it, just playing it to myself. And I saw a flyer in the shop for BreaksFM, so I called the guy up and had a chat with Alex (Orton-Green aka Uncouth Yoof) and we spoke for a couple of hours and we got along very well, and he said, 'send us a CD, and if we like it we'll put it on the show'. They stuck it on the show and next thing I'm doing the weekly radio show."
His other opportunity came from the Pressure Breaks mix CD that Cunning puts out. "It's quite funny, a lot of people think the Pressure Breaks CDs are officially released and you can buy them in shops and stuff, but these are all purely promotional material though," he chuckles. "It was a way for me to get a mix CD together and out there. The way I was looking at it as a new DJ coming into it was these labels and promoters are getting CDs left right and centre and I needed to do something that was going to get me noticed and really stand out," so with a friend Cunning worked on the artwork as if it was an actual release. "The first one I did I sent it off to iDJ and Musik magazine and I actually won the competitions with the same CD twice!" he laughs, which was a little embarrassing with the two most popular dance magazines having the same mix out in the same month, but a bonanza for Cunning's DJ credibility.
And Cunning thinks aspiring DJs need to learn from his example. "I'd say it to anyone who's starting out DJing, put as much effort as you can. With picking the tunes and doing the mix you could be the best in the world, but I've been given CDs with "Bob" written on a blank CD and there isn't any motivation to listen to it. If you're getting X amounts of CDs a week, and some one's gone to the effort of doing art work, as a label boss or promoter you go 'hold on a minute, I'll take a listen to that'", he smiles.
Whilst Jay has been busy producing tracks with 2Sinners and Smithmonger, and running Menu Music, his label that he runs with partners in crime Atomic Hooligan, they've also squeeze in a mix for the latest "Beats and Bobs" on Functional. "Both Terry (Ryan of Atomic Hooligan) and I said from the start this should represent what people would hear in a club if Jay Cunning and Atomic Hooligan were on the decks," Cunning explains. "I will say it is quite conservative, and I use the word loosely, but we're a lot more cut and paste with rough scratching thrown in and dropping stuff down on it when we play live, but with a mix CD it's got to be a little more structured. The Mix CD shows a diversity in breaks, there's techy stuff, funky stuff, tougher stuff, but when you see me and Terry out, you really don't know what you're going to hear next; it might be house, it might be drum and bass, it might be a hiphop thing. And this is very much the Menu ethos – creating a party vibe," he grins.
Talking to Matt Black was a dream come true. It was he, along with partner Jonathan Moore who got me into writing about music backstage at a gig in Sydney. Fearing I'd never get to talk to them again, I picked their brains until they asked if I was a music journalist, planting the seed in my mind. I must have been asking the right questions this time, because we talked for quite a while, with Black giving me some very verbose answers and some incredible insight into the world of Coldcut.
Their biography fills two pages in small print, and although they have been working for two decades that still doesn't go far to explain just how much they have achieved. Responsible for the 80s dance smash hit Only Way Is Up by Yazz, Black and Moore went on to form the radical Ninja Tune record label. The label introduced such artists as Kid Koala, Amon Tobin, Jaga Jazzist, and Roots Manuva to the world. They've collaborated with political shit stirrers like Jello Biafra and Saul Williams, and campaigned in both the UK and USA against right wing governments and their oppressive policies. They've created new ways of performing using audio/video with their V-Jamm software, and they've produced on of the best records of 2006 even though the year has only just begun.
Black laughs when I ask if they sleep, given the volume of work they've created. ""I actually love sleeping, and find it quite difficult to get up in the morning! I suppose I'm an artist, and one's work and one's life are intermingled", he continues, "there is no separation. Apart from my work, sleeping, and having a life with my family, I really don't do a lot of other stuff. I don't really have hobbies as such. I find that my time is filled with what I love doing and different aspects of that, and I don't really need hobbies. I don't think Jonathan thinks the same," he adds, "I think he has a more rounded life in some ways, but he certainly works very hard as well."
The album Sound Mirrors has been seven years in the making, but the wait is well worth it. Combining magnificent production with amazing collaborations, they've produced a stunning piece of musical artwork that warps boundaries and challenges the listener intelligently. Coldcut have always seemed to be able to capture the 'sound of now' and extend it to be more relevant to more people, and this album is no exception. One sound that stands out on tracks like This Island Earth and True Skool is the ragga riddims, dubby Jamaican style electronic rhythms which is finding dominance on the dancefloors of both dance and R&B clubs.
"We were working with a guy called Ross Allen, who's a very switched on London club DJ," explains Black, "who we used as a sounding board for the album and to keep us in touch with what's going down on dancefloors at the moment, to give us a different perspective to the Ninja Tunes posse. He turned me onto these Jamaican Riddims and he'd come in with a bunch of new 7 inches every week. I've always loved reggae and I thought "yeah, fuck it, I fancy having a bit of this" and went about deconstructing them and finding out how they were made and do our own version of it."
The collaborations done for the album are inspired, and include Jon Spencer, Robert Owens, John Matthias and Saul Williams amongst others. "It wasn't so much people coming to us, it was more we'd work on a track and think about who would be good to collaborate to do a vocal with," Black clarifies. "In the case of Jon Spencer we had that chorus for 'Everything Is Under Control' and we were looking for someone with that rock character and energy. We did try out a couple of people who didn't work out, and then Jon Spencer was suggested to us. We contacted him and he turned out to be a great person to work with – he didn't hand us a 40-page contract, he just said 'yeah, I like the track, I'll give it a go and sort out a deal afterwards,'" Moore laughs.
"That actually worked out very well, because he's done some live dates with us, which has been off the hook because he's a great live performer. He adds that rock energy and charisma to the shows. Some of the other tracks were done little or no brief for the artist at all," he continues. "The Saul Williams track was presented to him as a free canvas to do with what he wanted. We don't tell the poet what to write the poem about. And he came back with the rather marvellous 'Mr Nichols' which for my money is my favourite track on the album."
Speaking of live dates, I ask eagerly if there are any plans to come to Australia, as their show in Sydney 1999 was simply incredible and is still in my top ten of live gigs. "Not soonish," Black laments, adding "but in the foreseeable future. Most of our year is booked up but we are hoping to get over sooner than later, and it is on the agenda so hold tight".
Despite having a wealth of releases between them, Terry Ryan, Matt Welch (of Atomic Hooligan) and Jay Cunning discovered a mutual love for a certain type of breaks that were funky and full of bass. Yet this trio weren't feeling what other record labels were putting out, so they put their money where their mouths were and set up their own label.
"Me and Jay were in a fish and chip shop in Queens Park in London after doing a radio show a few years ago," Terry Ryan explains, "and we knew we needed a name for the label. I was saying 'we can call it chair records or ketchup records, it doesn't really matter, as long as it's got a name' then I pointed to the menu and said 'we can even call it Menu Music' and it just stuck. We even went back there to do some of our press shots!" he laughs.
Setting up a music label in this day and age isn't an easy thing. Many fold from financial pressures, or lose their focus as the green rolls in. Even Adam Freeland's Marine Parade had to close briefly last year. With so many out there, how will Menu Music stand out? "Well, there's really only one true way to make a label stand out," states Ryan, "and that's the music. You can have promo, good press, radio and all that stuff, but if the music ain't good, the label won't stand out. Plus, I think we have a good package. We have the radio show and the multi-deck show that Cunning and me do, so Menu will always have a presence in the clubs on the airwaves. And we have a really clear view of what we like and what we want to play, and that spills over into our A&R for Menu. I don't think there are many labels at the moment that are really consistent. We are very, very selective with what we want to release. And we wanted to hear music with funk but with enough ass in the bottom end to make the walls shake. That's what we wanted to hear, and that's what we want on Menu. That's quite a broad statement, we realise, but when you hear the first release from Rico Tubbs you will hopefully understand what we mean. Flashlighter and Brazilia sum this up perfectly. And we have even more of this kind of ass funk to come!"
Their style of breaks is hard to define, but it certainly gets the body moving. Rico Tubbs' tunes are the bomb, being full of funk with a phatass booty-shaking bassline, while on Atomic Hooligan's new You Are Here the music unfurls in a confident and stylish manner, eschewing the 'laddy' tag that breaks sometimes conjures up and presents a much more mature and interesting side. "We have a couple of new guys I'm really excited about," Ryan enthuses. "Jay Stewart really has the sound we want for Menu. The next release is by J-Cat who has made this amazing little, half big beat/half ripping breaks number, that's also got an Atomic Hooligan remix. We have Majool from Argentina who has again given us something completely different but fits into the Menu ethic. And of course there's Rico – we still have the best to come from him!"
With iTunes and legal internet downloading becoming widespread, I was interested to find out they view vinyl as very important for the label. "Menu will always release on vinyl as our primary format. Just because there are new formats doesn't mean the old trusted ones are going to disappear. I think there is space for all the various ways for music to be heard, but I love vinyl, no two ways about it," Ryan declares, "and so does Jay. Personally, vinyl still holds so much magic and potential."
That said, they also embrace digital music. They sent me a pre-release copy of Flashlighter via email, a process that is becoming far more common. "It puts us closer to the consumer. With no middleman you can really see what's going on," Ryan says. "And it's a worldwide format. On a real practical level, someone in South Africa, someone in Russia and someone in London can all buy the same tune on the day of release, and that's very positive. No waiting around for weeks for it to get to your local record shop. Plus, it's unlimited. Once the shops run out of the release, it may take a week or may never get re-stocked; this way, a release can just tick over forever. So if someone gets into the label at a latter date, they will have full access to past releases."
Zach Sciacca doesn't like to define himself by media produced terms like 'mash-up'. "In one sense I totally am accepting of it," Sciacca, better known as DJ Z-Trip, says of the 'mash-up' label that's often applied to his style. "People are going to call me what they're going to call me, and if that's how they know me and describe me then that's fine. But at the same time as I evolve as an artist people are going to want to put me in my own category, my own sound. To me 'mash-up' is a very disposable name, it's a name that came on the scene recently, and I don't necessarily like to look at myself as being something that is that disposable."
"But I don't call it mash up, I've always seen it as blending or mixing, and just as something that DJs do," he explains to me. "It's what DJs have been doing for years, and it's only just now seeing its own light and people are starting to identify it. But really at the end of the day if people identify with me, period, and they identify with my music, however they want to label me I don't really care, as long as they're getting to hear stuff and keeping an open mind," he smirks.
With the release of his debut album, Shifting Gears, Sciacca was hoping to smash the 'mash-up' term, and have people call him "'that really good DJ, guy that you need to check out, really top priority' rather than 'that mash-up guy'", and it's certainly moved him towards that goal. The album is a collection of straight up old-school party hiphop, with a little bit of rock thrown in for good measure. It features many big named hiphop MCs, alongside lesser known but equally talented performers. "A lot of these MCs I am a fan of and dug what they've done," he says. "The goal was to put really well known people with those not so well known, and old and new. Put Grand Master Cas and Whipper Whip and Chuck D on there with people like Busdriver and Luke Sick, MCs people might not know, to make it as wide open as possible."
But considering the album is so non-commercial, being devoid of modern day hiphop clichés like sped up vocals and dirty beats, I had to ask Sciacca why he put it out on a major label like Hollywood Records, rather than a more appropriate indie label. "I wanted to go with someone who would put my stuff out a little bit further and whom I thought would have a little bit more steam behind them", he says. "But it's funny, in hindsight I'm wondering if that was the right choice. On the one hand they definitely did the job of getting it out there, but on the other hand I still find myself doing a lot of other stuff an independent would do, like pressing up my own promos, and paying for my own tour support, that type of thing. The dream of 'Yay, I'm gonna get signed, and then I'm never gonna have to worry about it again' is more of a pipe dream. I learnt that through this whole experience with Hollywood. It wasn't a bad experience, but it was definitely a learning experience," he adds philosophically.
When it comes to live performances, you simply have to witness Z-Trip in the mix to believe it. Never have I been so enraptured by a DJ, never before has a DJ held my attention from start to finish like he did. One minute we were dancing to the Who, the next Run DMC, the next moment Credence Clear Water was juggled with Eric B & Rakim's Paid in Full and then we'd find ourselves grooving to some drum & bass. "My thing is I've always tried to find the common thread with music. And good music is good music, period. No matter what genre and where it comes from, if it's good and it rocks you and is good quality, I can throw it in the mix. It's really been my deal – if it's dope, and I flip it a certain way and keep it dope, people technically should be open minded and appreciative of that and should get it," Sciacca proclaims.
We can expect to see Z-Trip in top form when he plays Adelaide, as it's his first gig in the country, and in addition we get to see MC Supernatural, one of the world's greatest freestyle MCs. "I'm looking forward to it," he enthuses. "I don't get to perform with Supernatural often. To fit Supernatural in the mix obviously we'll perform some songs off my record, and then do some freestyle stuff, and then do some stuff off his new record. It's nice to actually have a bona fide MC that I know can handle it. If anyone has seen him, they know what to expect, if not… whoa!" he whistles, "He's definitely one of the best freestyle MCs out there. To have him in with my mixing is going to be something interesting and really fun."
Originally going to be called The Fifth Dimension, but with a group already with that name, Five Deez is all about getting in your headspace, twisting the notions you have of hiphop and rapping. "When you experience music", explains the main producer / DJ, Fat Jon, named so for his ample girth, "it is in five dimensions. You have the first three that we experience daily, and then there is another dimension of time and space, and finally a dimension of spirituality."
Five Deez music attracts your attention subtly, not with harsh swearing or stolen 70s hooks common to hiphop, but with sweeps and processes common to trance or electronica, and a very different sound all around, even compared to other alternative hiphop. Beginning in Cincinnati in the 90s, now separated between Berlin, New York and Cincinnati, the groups' sound is standout in a world of sameness and label clones. My favourite track on the album Kommunicator is BMW, which is to be the first single, and also Fat Jon's favourite. "I think that track is a good synopsis of the album actually, the sound of it, the energy of it. It's funky, it's different, but as far as hiphop goes its familiar, but not really, you know?"
I ask Jon if he thinks living in Berlin has given this album more of a techno edge, with him hearing more techno there than he would in the USA, but he hesitates to agree. "I've always done different kind of things with hiphop production," he explains. "This record being a hybrid of hiphop and electronic beats is to really try and make something different; as our third album and also for hiphop too, to try and take it in a different direction. The truth is, I've been doing music a long time, and I want to do something to challenge myself. Making the same stuff over and over is just boring. Being in the studio and doing the same thing you did years ago is just not fun. Trying to do something new, and making it sound dope, is hard," he laughs, "and that challenge is fun for me, it keeps me on my toes."
"The general hiphoper is close minded, and they just want to hear what's on the radio," Jon states. "They don't like thinking. They wanna turn on a song and not have to think about it, just background music and they do whatever. My music requires your brain to come on and process it. It's not club music on the radio; it's something that requires a little bit more from the listener. I've heard this a thousand times, but with the Five Deez stuff, people come up and say 'I don't really like hiphop but I like your stuff.' But my stuff IS hiphop. It gets to people who aren't really into rap and hiphop, and I find that really interesting."
"I think if you listen to my stuff, you need a certain level of imagination to appreciate it," he says when I bring up the very obvious sci-fi elements contained in the Five Deez works. "I'm all about space, time travel, different dimensions, all of that – I think about it every day. I think science fiction reflects real life. I've always been enamoured with the concept of the future, and where man can go in the process if we don't destroy ourselves before we get there. And a lot of the concepts are 'yeah, right, bullshit' and completely untrue, but at their root they're based on some type of theory that does exist that needs exploration and experimentation."
Fat Jon has also got his own record label up and happening, and he plans to bring out re-releases of older tracks and stuff released only in Japan. "A lot of those releases I'm going to be releasing internationally on my new label, Ample Soul. I started it to release some other side project material that I'm working on. It's a way for me as an artist to have another avenue for my stuff, and maintain the kind of control a lot of artists want over their music. We had our first release back in November with Rebel Clique, featuring Ameleset Solomon, who I worked with on Black Rushmore and BMW on the Kommunicator album." When I ask about the Japanese only releases, he says, "I release stuff in Japan only mainly for fun, actually. I've been to Japan and lived there for a minute, and produced a record strictly for the fans… I feel in some connected to Japan –. Even when I'm there, I don't know I can't explain it; I feel like I'm some long lost Japanese dude or something, you know?" he chuckles.


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In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled. So why are children being taught to behave like machines?
Children learn best when teaching aligns with their natural exuberance, energy and curiosity. So why are they dragooned into rows and made to sit still while they are stuffed with facts?
We succeed in adulthood through collaboration. So why is collaboration in tests and exams called cheating?
Governments claim to want to reduce the number of children being excluded from school. So why are their curriculums and tests so narrow that they alienate any child whose mind does not work in a particular way?
The best teachers use their character, creativity and inspiration to trigger children's instinct to learn. So why are character, creativity and inspiration suppressed by a stifling regime of micromanagement?
There is, as Graham Brown-Martin explains in his book Learning {Re}imagined, a common reason for these perversities. Our schools were designed to produce the workforce required by 19th-century factories. The desired product was workers who would sit silently at their benches all day, behaving identically, to produce identical products, submitting to punishment if they failed to achieve the requisite standards. Collaboration and critical thinking were just what the factory owners wished to discourage.
As far as relevance and utility are concerned, we might as well train children to operate a spinning jenny. Our schools teach skills that are not only redundant but counter-productive. Our children suffer this life-defying, dehumanising system for nothing.
The less relevant the system becomes, the harder the rules must be enforced, and the greater the stress they inflict. One school's current advertisement in the Times Educational Supplement asks: "Do you like order and discipline? Do you believe in children being obedient every time? … If you do, then the role of detention director could be for you." Yes, many schools have discipline problems. But is it surprising when children, bursting with energy and excitement, are confined to the spot like battery chickens?
Teachers are now leaving the profession in droves, their training wasted and their careers destroyed by overwork and a spirit-crushing regime of standardisation, testing and top-down control. The less autonomy they are granted, the more they are blamed for the failures of the system. A major recruitment crisis beckons, especially in crucial subjects such as physics and design and technology. This is what governments call efficiency.
Any attempt to change the system, to equip children for the likely demands of the 21st century, rather than those of the 19th, is demonised by governments and newspapers as "social engineering". Well, of course it is. All teaching is social engineering. At present we are stuck with the social engineering of an industrial workforce in a post-industrial era. Under Donald Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and a nostalgic government in Britain, it's likely only to become worse.
When they are allowed to apply their natural creativity and curiosity, children love learning. They learn to walk, to talk, to eat and to play spontaneously, by watching and experimenting. Then they get to school, and we suppress this instinct by sitting them down, force-feeding them with inert facts and testing the life out of them.
There is no single system for teaching children well, but the best ones have this in common: they open up rich worlds that children can explore in their own ways, developing their interests with help rather than indoctrination. For example, the Essa academy in Bolton gives every pupil an iPad, on which they create projects, share material with their teachers and each other, and can contact their teachers with questions about their homework. By reducing their routine tasks, this system enables teachers to give the children individual help.
Other schools have gone in the opposite direction, taking children outdoors and using the natural world to engage their interests and develop their mental and physical capacities (the Forest School movement promotes this method). But it's not a matter of high-tech or low-tech; the point is that the world a child enters is rich and diverse enough to ignite their curiosity, and allow them to discover a way of learning that best reflects their character and skills.
There are plenty of teaching programmes designed to work with children, not against them. For example, the Mantle of the Expert encourages them to form teams of inquiry, solving an imaginary task – such as running a container port, excavating a tomb or rescuing people from a disaster – that cuts across traditional subject boundaries. A similar approach, called Quest to Learn, is based on the way children teach themselves to play games. To solve the complex tasks they're given, they need to acquire plenty of information and skills. They do it with the excitement and tenacity of gamers.
The Reggio Emilia approach, developed in Italy, allows children to develop their own curriculum, based on what interests them most, opening up the subjects they encounter along the way with the help of their teachers. Ashoka Changemaker schools treat empathy as "a foundational skill on a par with reading and math", and use it to develop the kind of open, fluid collaboration that, they believe, will be the 21st century's key skill.
The first multi-racial school in South Africa, Woodmead, developed a fully democratic method of teaching, whose rules and discipline were overseen by a student council. Its integrated studies programme, like the new system in Finland, junked traditional subjects in favour of the students' explorations of themes, such as gold, or relationships, or the ocean. Among its alumni are some of South Africa's foremost thinkers, politicians and businesspeople.
In countries such as Britain and the United States, such programmes succeed despite the system, not because of it. Had these governments set out to ensure that children find learning difficult and painful, they could not have done a better job. Yes, let's have some social engineering. Let's engineer our children out of the factory and into the real world.
Source: theguardian.com, George Monbiot
Picture: photl.com


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Climategate and the Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
What the science says...
The Independent Climate Change Email Review found the CRU scientists were unhelpful and unsympathetic to information requesters and at times broke FoI laws. However, CRU is a small research unit with limited resources, and they perceived the requesters were not acting in good faith. The same inquiry found the rigour and honesty of the scientists are not in doubt, and their behaviour did not prejudice the advice given to policymakers.
Climate Myth...
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored
"The emails suggest that the authors co-operated (perhaps the word is "conspired") to prevent data from being made available to other researchers through either data archiving requests or through the Freedom of Information Acts of both the U.S. and the UK." (Pajamas Media)
Exhibit No. 1 of the climate conspiracy theory is a collection of emails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA), which appeared on the internet in November 2009. Though some of these "Climategate" emails can sound damning when quoted out of context, several inquiries have cleared the scientists. The most comprehensive inquiry was the Independent Climate Change Email Review.
One allegation arising from the emails (and arguably the only instance where there is actually a case to be answered) is that Freedom of Information requests received by CRU were wrongly denied. Meanwhile, defenders of CRU "have suggested that a number of these FoIA requests were inappropriate or frivolous." [10.2]
Below I have reproduced some of the emails often quoted in support of these allegations (all were written by Phil Jones):
7/5/2004: Many of us in the paleo field get requests from skeptics (mainly a guy called Steve McIntyre in Canada) asking us for series. Mike and I are not sending anything, partly because we don't have some of the series he wants, also partly as we've got the data through contacts like you, but mostly because he'll distort and misuse them. Despite this, Mike and I would like to make as many of the series we've used in the [Reviews of Geophysics] plots available from the CRU web page.
2/2/2005: [D]on't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites — you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does! […] Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it—thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.
21/2/2005: I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!
27/4/2005: I got this email from McIntyre a few days ago. As far as I'm concerned he has the data — sent ages ago. I'll tell him this, but that's all — no code. If I can find it, it is likely to be hundreds of lines of uncommented fortran ! I recall the program did a lot more than just average the series. I know why he can't replicate the results early on — it is because there was a variance correction for fewer series.
29/5/2008: Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. […] Can you email Gene and get him to do the same? […] We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
3/12/2008: When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions — one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA […] became very supportive. […] The inadvertent email I sent last month has led to a Data Protection Act request sent by a certain Canadian, saying that the email maligned his scientific credibility with his peers! If he pays 10 pounds (which he hasn't yet) I am supposed to go through my emails and he can get anything I've written about him. About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little — if anything at all.
10/12/2008: Haven't got a reply from the FOI person here at UEA. So I'm not entirely confident the numbers are correct. One way of checking would be to look on CA, but I'm not doing that. I did get an email from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn't be deleting emails — unless this was 'normal' deleting to keep emails manageable! […] According to the FOI Commissioner's Office, IPCC is an international organisation, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on, unless it has anything to do with our core business — and it doesn't. I'm sounding like Sir Humphrey here! McIntyre often gets others to do the requesting, but requests and responses all get posted up on CA regardless of who sends them.
The general allegation is that CRU incorrectly denied FoI requests. In particular, the Review focused on the question of whether UEA's formal processes for dealing with FoI requests were "fair and impartial".
The Review Team interviewed the relevant UEA and CRU staff, as well as representatives of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). UEA's FoI process is centred around their Information Policy & Compliance Manager (IPCM). In the two years after current laws came into effect at the start of 2005, no requests for information were logged with the IPCM, though we know from the emails that there were such requests. We know from the IPCM log that CRU received four requests in 2007, two in 2008, and one in the first half of 2009 (four were fully granted and three rejected).
Then came the storm. Between 24 July and 28 July, CRU received no less than 60 FoI requests, and 10 more between 31 July and 14 August. The requesters demanded access to both raw temperature station data and any related confidentiality agreements. The Review found evidence that this was an organized campaign (one request asked for information "involving the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested]"). The Review says "such orchestrated campaigns [have] literally overwhelming impacts on small research units."
The Review found there was "insufficient priority given from the UEA centre to motivating staff and to prompting continuing education" about their legal requirements under FoI law. Similarly, they found "a lack of engagement by core CRU team", as well as "a tendency to assume that no action was required until precedents had been set". Some of the emails suggest a "lack of sympathy with the requesters" and "a tendency to answer the wrong question or to give a partial answer." [10.5]
"There seems clear incitement to delete e-mails, although we have seen no evidence of any attempt to delete information in respect of a request already made." (The former is legal but not the latter.) The email dated 3/12/2008 included "a clear statement that e-mails had been deleted […] It seems likely that many of these 'deleted' e-mails subsequently became public following the unauthorized release from the backup server." [10.5]
The Review found that the IPCM "may have lacked […] the authority to challenge the assertions of senior professors" and "the UEA senior staff need to take more explicit responsibility for these processes". He told the Review he felt "very much the bull's eye at the centre of the target". He explicitly denied that he "became very supportive" as suggested by Jones. The 10/12/2008 email provides "evidence that the IPCM did try to warn Prof. Jones about deliberate deletion of information". [10.5]
In general, "[t]he Review found an ethos of minimal compliance (and at times non-compliance) by the CRU with both the letter and the spirit of the FoIA and EIR. We believe that this must change". The Review also made it clear that CRU did not receive enough support from UEA management, and made recommendations to the university on how it should handle future information requests. It also recommended to the ICO that it engage more with universities and clarify how FoI law applies to research.
However, as Steve Easterbrook commented, the Review "never really acknowledges the problems a small research unit (varying between 3.5 to 5 FTE staff over the last decade) would have in finding the resources and funding to be an early adopter in open data and public communication, while somehow managing to do cutting edge research in its area of expertise too." The Review does point out that in the years since CRU was founded climate science has developed from "a relatively obscure area of science […] into an area of great political and public concern."
The Review concluded:
[W]e find that a fundamental lack of engagement by the CRU team with their obligations under FoIA/EIR, both prior to 2005 and subsequently, led to an overly defensive approach that set the stage for the subsequent mass of FoIA/EIR requests in July and August 2009. We recognize that there was deep suspicion within CRU, as to the motives of those making detailed requests. Nevertheless, the requirements of the legislation for release of information are clear and early action would likely have prevented much subsequent grief. [10.6]
As Phil Jones has admitted, CRU did the wrong thing with regard to Freedom of Information requests. However, they clearly perceived that the requests were not being made in good faith. The Review apparently made no attempt to investigate the motivations of the requesters.
But all this must be considered in the context of the Review's general findings (summarised here): although the scientists failed to display the proper degree of openness, their rigour and honesty are not in doubt, and their behaviour did not prejudice the advice given to policymakers. Despite being heralded as "the final nail in the coffin of anthropogenic global warming", Climategate has not even invalidated CRU's results, let alone the conclusions of the climate science community. In any case, the entire work of CRU comprises only a small part of the large body of evidence for anthropogenic global warming. That mountain of evidence cannot be explained away by the behaviour of a few individuals.
Last updated on 4 November 2016 by James Wight. View Archives


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SCORE is the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors. More than 17 million small business owners have been helped since 1964.
With all of those mentoring experiences, what are the benefits business leaders personally receive by serving as a business mentor?
To identify these benefits, we asked expert business mentors about their experiences in guiding entrepreneurs towards success.
Here are eight benefits of business mentoring from business mentors.
- Increased Confidence
- Seeing Business Through Fresh Eyes
- Watching the Growth of a Hungry Business Professional
- Shifted Priority Towards Investing in People
- You Win a Big Fan
- It Reinvigorates Your Own Business
- It Drives You to Think Differently
- Mentorship is Simply Fun
Increased Confidence
Being a business mentor personally benefits me by giving me confidence! By mentoring someone, I am constantly able to test my skills and solidify my expertise in various verticals. With this confidence, I am able to take more risks in my career and reap the benefits of those risks.
-Nikitha Lokareddy, Markitors
Seeing Business Through Fresh Eyes
The biggest benefit I receive when mentoring is seeing a business through fresh eyes. I've been in my industry for over 30 years, the ways I built my business are still relevant, but often an idea is brought up that expands on those methods with new technology. For instance, following up with a client is key to getting the sale. Today, you can have software do that with texts, emails, and calls that are automated. Merging that with personal outreach has been a game-changer for new businesses. Exploring ideas with my clients has helped me grow at the same time.
-Anthony Baumer, Old Grey Tiger Consulting
Watching the Growth of a Hungry Business Professional
It feels good to help someone hard-working, smart, hungry and puts in the work. You get to watch them grow and mature as a business professional and a person. Kinda like watching a kid grow up into a stud. Then you have friends for life, you can always call on them in the future to help you when needed, and they pay it forward. It feeds your soul.
-Loren Howard, Prime Plus Mortgages
Shifted Priority Towards Investing in People
Serving as a business mentor is a way to "pay forward" the investment my mentors made over the years. I always enjoyed building programs and platforms, but when I began to see the results of growing people, my priorities shifted dramatically. I take time with those who display talent and a strong work ethic, regardless of their title. I challenge their assumptions, inspect their work closely, and draw them out of their comfort zone, being careful to set the stage for personal and professional success if they will accept the challenge. Engaged and inspired people are contagious within an organization. It is the best way to ensure future success.
-Crystal Mullins, TechnologyAdvice
You Win a Big Fan
Your mentees can become great contacts Anyone enterprising enough to reach out to you for mentorship is probably going places. By mentoring someone, you're going to win a big fan in the process. It may not benefit you in a concrete way, but serving as a mentor could very well give you good contact, a client, or maybe even someone who can mentor you down the road.
-Elliot Brown, OnPay
It Reinvigorates Your Own Business
There are few things as exhilarating as first starting your business. Those first few years are a constant adrenaline rush, like a roller coaster that never stops. As your business hits its stride, though, the roller coaster slows down and can even become monotonous. When this happens it\'s easy to forget the passion that you had when you were starting. You've traded passion for experience and wisdom. When you become a business mentor, though, you can trade that wisdom for another shot of adrenaline. Helping a small business owner who's just starting can remind you of the passion you once had and reinvigorate you when it comes to running your own business.
-Phil Strazzulla, Select Software Reviews
It Drives You to Think Differently
I love what I learn when working with my mentees! They are hopefully learning a few things from me as their mentor, but their curiosity and questions drive me to think about things differently, research issues I might never have otherwise, and stay more current with issues that are important to those who are less seasoned in the profession. I often ask for their opinions and input on my projects, which provides me with more insights prior to finalization, as well as giving them some 'real world' ways to contribute while they are learning.
-Colleen McManus, Senior HR Executive, and Consultant
Mentorship is Simply Fun
It's fun for me to see other business owners not have to go through the same struggles as I had to. That probably sounds weird. It's rewarding to see the look on their faces when you tell them something that they then realize is a truly good piece of advice. Not everyone knows what they are talking about, and tons of people will offer advice that shouldn't be given out advice, so being able to truly help someone else is fun for me. I certainly don't know all the answers, I do know some of them though.
-Ben Walker, Transcription Outsourcing, LLC


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I kind of dream of getting an iPod Touch, but I don't actually have one, so I just play with my little sister's smartphone. Since I don't have one, then, I can't promise my idea doesn't already exist.
Anyway, I'd really like to have an app that helps me find stores that sell fair trade coffee. I'm a nerd about my coffee and I like supporting the fair trade movement, so this would be perfect for me.


text:
Ok, you probably can't make the baby grand in this picture, and even the metronome is likely to be a serious DIY challenge — but you can definitely make a pretty accurate DIY scale, and you can do it cheaply and easily.
I needed an accurate scale for a science project and knocked this baby together (based on this design) using found parts. I was able to easily measure to centi-gram precision and with a little care, a scale like this could be tuned to measure to milligram precision.
Precision (the ability to discriminate between differences in mass) is largely a matter of careful construction — accuracy (the ability to weigh to an agreed upon standard) is another matter altogether, and it basically hinges on having an accurate reference. Fortunately, a great institution, born of Philly — the U.S. Mint — was wise enough to make Nickels and Pennies in rather convenient dimensions. It turns out that nickels are 5.000 grams and pennies are 2.500 grams — so you not only have sub-milligram accurate references of convenient size — you also have an easy way to cross-check your scale by using nickels to weigh pennies and vice-versa.
The zoomed in photo shows most of the essential elements of construction. Basically, I used a threaded 10-24 rod for the balance (10-32 would have been a better choice). I used a wall-board razor as my knife-edge pivot point. Two angle-brackets served as a hard, flat surface for the knife edge. A nickel with a hole in it and some thread served as a reference weight (I wound up with a whole array of perforated nickels and pennies). A wall-board T-square served to measure the distance from the pivot to the reference weight. I used an index card and a small mirror to make a sliding mirror in order to read the position of the weight w/o parallax error. The whole shootin'-match was held on a stand that was salvaged from a cheap drill-press. Measurements were performed by reading the distance between the movable weight and the pivot point, and entering that value in a Google Docs spreadsheet.
I definitely could have purchased a milligram scale for far less than this cost me in terms of spare time, but I learned a lot about scales in the process. Almost all of it was stuff that I knew "in principle" — but actually building the scale infused my arm-chair knowledge with real-world experience, yielding an alloy whose properties seem to have exceeded its constituent parts.
The scale was nowhere near large enough to measure my satisfaction, but I estimate that this exercise yielded just about one metric ton of fun.


text:
This week's Tebow-themed guest-post over at Yahoo's Dr. Saturday makes something very clear:
For all the subplots over the last few months -- particularly last week's pep rally at The Swamp -- the expectations for Tim Tebow and Florida remain: National title or failure. And that includes three components: (1) 12-0 regular season. Done. (2) SEC title. This weekend. (3) BCS title-game win. A month from now.
And so we reach the SEC title game, and if Florida doesn't win -- yes -- Tim Tebow's legacy is nicked a bit. Oh, he will still be considered ONE OF the best college football players ever, but the argument for "best ever" will be diminished, if only slightly.
I turn to a recent historical analogy: Matt Leinart and Vince Young. When they played in the national-title game, two things happened: Vince Young put on a performance that was so good, he vaulted himself into the Pantheon of greatest college players ever (Doc Sat ranks him as the best player of the decade, although caveating that Tebow's career isn't over yet).
Matt Leinart COULD have been considered the greatest ever... if USC had won the game. It wasn't his fault -- USC's defense was mediocre and VY was spectacular. But it's not like he didn't lead USC to a ton of points on Texas' defense. But he didn't win the game, and any talk -- all talk -- of Leinart's place in history (regardless of what he did before) was eroded fundamentally.
(I go back another decade for one more historical analogy: Why is Tommie Frazier on the short list for greatest players/QBs of all time? Because of how ridiculously awesome he was in championship games, which is all anyone really remembers -- fairly or not.)
For all the individual accomplishment and accolades and for all of the off-field mythologizing, the essence of Tim Tebow is the winning. The MVP-ish role, off the bench, on the 2006 national title team. The 2008 title. The winning streak.
Winning trumps everything.
Read the whole column here.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
1 comment:
- Michael W said...
But winning doesn't trump everything. I'll take Barry Sanders over Emmit Smith any day of the week.
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