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This privacy statement pertains to the collection of personal data by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and its affiliates ("Company", "us" or "we") of all customers, vendors, suppliers, etc. ("Data Subjects", "you"). We collect personal data through various means, digital or otherwise. Our collection via digital means includes our websites, mobile applications, digital products and services ("Online Services").
The Controllers of your personal data in the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") are Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany or its respective affiliates with which you have a business relationship or whose products/services you are using.
With this privacy statement we explain to you which personal data is processed for which purposes, and how you are able to exercise your data protection rights. "Personal data" is any information that relates to, or can be linked to, an identified or identifiable natural person.
1. | Which data do we process and for which purpose? | |
We process personal data that we receive from you as part of our business relationship, i.e., during the initiation, implementation and execution of the contract for the product or service you purchased or personal data that we collect about you in connection with the use of the product or service. We also process data that you voluntarily provide to us, including while attending tradeshows or through our web forms or surveys. Additionally, we process personal data we received from third party websites in case you fill out a form from one of our advertisements for example to receive a download or sign up for a newsletter. | ||
1.1 | Browsing our websites | |
By browsing our websites, you provide us with automatic information. The term "Automatic Information" is information automatically collected by our web server that your web browser makes available whenever you visit one of our websites. The browsing data we collect includes the website you are accessing, the time and duration of your visit, the pages you have visited, your searches and temporarily, your IP address(1) as well as the items you have added to your cart, if applicable(2). Your IP address is used to identify the city of from which you are accessing the site as well as the company to which the IP address has been registered. We use browsing data of our users for creating aggregated statistics, to learn what is of interest to users in order to improve various aspects of our websites and to provide services like troubleshooting, and to recognize users who have already visited our websites in order to customize their website experiences for their future visits. We also use the browsing data to study traffic patterns and maintaining or restoring the security of our websites or to detect and correct technical defects and errors. | ||
1.2 | Providing you with services you requested | |
In order to provide you with access to certain services, we ask for information from you like your name or an email address, for example, when you register for an account on one of our websites. We use your data to provide you with information or services that you have requested such as providing information about relevant products, services and/or promotions, answering questions about our products or services or sending you newsletters or other marketing/promotional materials based on your selections or providing access to one of our Online Services.(3) In order to provide you with the information that you have requested or that you may be interested in, we may individualize the content you requested based on the information we collect about you.(4) We use your information like your name, address, email address, financial information, job profession, area of expertise and your purchasing history to complete the sales transaction if you purchased one of our products via a website or to offer you any of our services you requested.(5) | ||
Please note that the provision of some information will be necessary in order for us to take action regarding an order for products or services that you have purchased. For example, we need your address to be able to send you the product you ordered. Our online forms clearly identify which fields are required in order for us to complete the transaction. If you don't provide this information to us, we will not be able to complete the transaction. | ||
1.3 | Customer Management | |
We process your personal data like your contact information in order to provide you with a satisfactory customer management experience, e.g., sales transaction follow-up or process your inquiries.(6) For this purpose we also process your personal data as part of our management and development of our client relationships in order to provide you with individualized content and to assess your needs as a customer.(7) We process your personal data to analyze your preferences and habits to improve our services and to ensure that we can deliver the highest quality services and support to our customers. | ||
1.4 | Legal obligation and legal enforcement | |
In some cases, we are under a legal obligation to process personal data.(8) A typical example is providing data to a government agency which has identified the potential misuse of a drug or the processing within the scope of the so-called pharmacovigilance, i.e., the obligation to investigate and share data when potential side effects of drugs become known. | ||
Where required, we can also use your data to enforce our or third-party rights (such as copyright infringements). | ||
1.5 | Providing you with information that may interest you | |
We aim to present you information that could be of interest to you and to communicate seamlessly over various channels (phone, email, SMS, mail, social media messages) without sending redundant information.(9) Our communication with you is based on the information we collect about you and are permitted to use. For example, we use the combination of your email address and your browsing data so we can provide you with information about a product you look up on one of our websites. Based on the information we collect, we may internally indicate that you are interested in certain categories of information. | ||
Generally, we will use collected information to inform you about our new products, innovations, promotions, seminars, webinars and events like trade and vendor shows. | ||
We only provide you with such information where we are permitted to, for example when you have chosen to receive our promotional emails and where you did not object to our use of your data for marketing-related purposes. | ||
1.6 | Profiling | |
"Profiling" means any automated processing of personal data consisting in the use of such personal data to analyze, evaluate or predict certain personal aspects relating to a natural person. We use profiling procedures to optimize and personalize our customer relationship management and our advertising measures.(10) To optimize and personalize our advertising measures, we create customer profiles and assign customers to specific customer segments on the basis of these customer profiles. On the basis of this segmentation, we can manage the type, content and frequency of specific advertising measures for specific target groups. For profiling purposes, we use data that we receive from you as part of our business relationship. This includes personal data like your purchasing behavior and browsing behavior. Profiling may be based in particular on usage data that we create with the customer's consent by measuring and evaluating the customer's interaction with electronic advertising, in particular by measuring and evaluating the opening and click rate in email newsletters. | ||
2. | Cookies, analytics tools, social plugins and advertising | |
2.1 | Cookies: | |
We use cookies in order to enable and facilitate the use of our websites (e.g. to optimize the presentation or display of country-specific content). "Cookies" are small text files that enable our websites to store information on your computer and retrieve it later (e.g. when you visit our website again later). The use of cookies, for example, enables our websites to "remember" the language in which we are allowed to present our content to you. | ||
We use cookies and similar technologies on our Online Services for several reasons, for example:
We include the following three categories of cookies on our Online Services: | ||
2.1.1 Necessary Cookies | ||
These cookies are necessary to safeguard the functionalities of our Online Services and for the Online Services to operate. Cookies are set, in particular, in response to your actions and depend on your specific service requests (e.g., setting your privacy preferences, filling out forms, or logging in). The processing is based on our legitimate business interest to be able to provide our basic Online Services in a secure and useful manner. Our Online Services cannot function without these cookies and they can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences. | ||
2.1.2 Functional Cookies | ||
These cookies enable the provision of advanced functionalities and are used for personalization. The cookies are set in particular in response to your actions and depend on your specific service requests (e.g., setting the language). The processing is based on your consent you provided to us in the course of the registration/subscription process. You either grant your consent by accepting all cookies in our cookie banner or by activating the cookie type(s) you have selected. Your consent is voluntary, and you may revoke it at any time with effect for the future. You can revoke your consent by reopening our cookie banner and deactivating the cookie type. If you do not grant your consent or revoke it, this will not result in any disadvantages for you. However, without your consent, the functions explained above will not be available to you. | ||
2.1.3 Targeting Cookies | ||
These cookies may be set to learn more about your interests and show you relevant ads on other websites. These cookies work by uniquely identifying your browser and device. By integrating these cookies, we aim to learn more about your interests and your surfing behavior and to be able to place our advertising in a targeted manner. The processing is based on your consent you provided to us in the course of the registration/subscription process. You either grant your consent by accepting all cookies in our cookie banner or by activating the cookie type(s) you have selected. Your consent is voluntary, and you may revoke it at any time with effect for the future. You can revoke your consent by reopening our cookie banner and deactivating the cookie type. If you do not grant your consent or revoke it, this will not result in any disadvantages for you. However, without your consent, the functions explained above will not be available to you. | ||
2.1.4 Management and Deletion of Cookies | ||
Some computer browsers automatically accept all cookies. In this case, you may not see the cookie banner which allows you to manage your cookies individually. However, you can change your browser settings to block all cookies. You may also be able to configure your browser settings so that only certain types of cookies are blocked or so that you are notified as soon as a new cookie is to be stored on your computer. In this case, you can accept or reject cookies individually. If this function is available to you, you will find more detailed explanations in the help function of your browser. There you will also find information on how to delete all or certain cookies for which you have given us your consent. For more information on managing and deleting cookies for popular browsers, please see the following links: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari. | ||
2.2 | Advertising | |
We work with third party online marketing services (e.g., Google Adwords, ResearchGate, Sprinklr, Facebook custom audience, LinkedIn Contact Targeting and Doubleclick), which provide our advertising to internet users who have previously visited our websites on their network or websites. The purpose of these services is to create advertising based on the needs and interests of the relevant internet users. | ||
2.3 | Links to other websites | |
Our websites contain links to third party websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that they have their own privacy policies which should be reviewed. We have no liability or responsibility for the content or practices of these websites. | ||
3. | Recipients of personal data | |
3.1 | Data transfer to the Merck group companies | |
As part of a global group of companies, we involve our affiliates to support us in hosting and administration. These group companies process the data solely for the purposes set out in this privacy statement. | ||
3.2 | Data transfer to third parties | |
We pass on your personal data as set forth below: | ||
4. | Data transfer to third countries | |
If you are a resident of EU/EEA/UK, please note that we may transfer your personal data outside the EU/EEA/UK. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to guarantee that your personal data are adequately protected according to the requirements of the applicable data protection laws. For example, with respect to transfer of EU personal data, we use Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the EU Commission. | ||
You have the right to contact firstname.lastname@example.com for more information about the safeguards we have put in place (including a copy of relevant contractual commitments) to ensure the adequate protection of your personal data when it is transferred as mentioned above. | ||
5. | Data retention | |
Unless otherwise stated, your personal data are regularly deleted as soon as we do not need them any more to meet our business interests, no statutory data retention obligations apply, or you withdrew your consent. | ||
We store data for as long as necessary for the provision of the service requested by you. For example, when you subscribe to a newsletter, we will store the associated data at least until you unsubscribe. Based on the information we collected, we may internally indicate that you are interested in certain categories of information. This information will be kept and updated as long as we consider engaging with you. | ||
Under certain circumstances, your data must also be kept longer, e.g., if a so-called Legal Hold or Litigation Hold (i.e., a ban on deleting data for the duration of the procedure) is ordered in connection with official or legal proceedings. Data without any personal identifiable information may be stored permanently. | ||
6. | Children's personal data | |
We do not knowingly process personal data of children under the age of 16, unless where we process personal data of children intentionally for our campaigns or events. If this is the case, we will inform you separately. Parents and legal guardians shall ensure that their children do not transmit any personal data through our services or websites without permission. If personal data has been transmitted by children, please inform us so that we can delete the personal data and any associated account. | ||
7. | Your Rights | |
As a data subject you have the following rights: | ||
These rights may vary based on the jurisdiction where you are located. If you want to exercise any of these rights or have any questions or concerns about how we treat your personal data, please contact email@example.com | ||
8. | California Consumer Privacy Act | |
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/legal/california-consumer-privacy-act. | ||
9. | Notifications of Changes | |
We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time with effect for the future, in particular to adapt it to a further development of the website or the implementation of new technologies, so please review it frequently. | ||
10. | Contact Details | |
If you have any requests or questions, please feel free to contact our Group Data Protection Officer: | ||
Address: Group Data Protection Officer Merck KGaA Frankfurter Straße 250 64293 Darmstadt, Germany |
Phone: +49 6151 72-0 | ||
E-Mail: email@example.com |


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Fall 2024 > Management & Business > MGMT.3800 > 082
Course No: MGMT.3800-082; SIS Class Nbr: 8010; SIS Term: 3410 Course Status: Open
This course will explore the intersection between business leadership and ethics in various context. It provides the opportunity for students to explore complex issues in societal and professional contexts while engaging in probing conversations with classmates.
Related Programs: A.S. in Information Technology, B.S. in Business Administration, B.S. in Information Technology, B.S. in Information Technology: Business Minor Option, B.S. in Information Technology: Population Health Informatics and Technology Minor Option
Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in this catalog. However, the Division of Graduate, Online & Professional Studies reserves the right to implement new rules and regulations and to make changes of any nature to its program, calendar, procedures, standards, degree requirements, academic schedules (including, without limitations, changes in course content and class schedules), locations, tuition and fees. Whenever possible, appropriate notice of such changes will be given before they become effective.
Additional Registration Information

subset: commoncrawl


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I'm so excited to be bringing you one of the most fun shows in our vast arsenal of great shows! It's TOTALLY 90S NOW! Remember the Gulf War, Bush 1, Hillary's husband Bill, Monica's dress and some of the best songs ever? Third Eye Blind, En Vogue, Collective Soul, Sheryl Crow, and so many more….they rocked our world as well as our airwaves! TOTALLY 90S NOW brings it all back in one fun filled five hour musical trip!
It was a time when I was raising my young family and working for Warner Music as the Midwest Promotion Manager for Elektra Records. Many of the artists I'll feature on this show, I've met and know personally and are even friends with to this day. For that reason, this is probably my most personal show because of my involvement with so many of the artists in this ten year span. With that, I'll share some fun stories of hanging out with these uniquely gifted and talented individuals.


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By Pete Dexter
By Pete Dexter
By Pete Dexter
By Pete Dexter
Part of Vintage Contemporaries
Part of Vintage Contemporaries
Category: Historical Fiction | Suspense & Thriller | Noir Novels | Literary Fiction
Category: Historical Fiction | Suspense & Thriller | Noir Novels | Literary Fiction
Feb 01, 2005 | ISBN 9780375714092
Feb 01, 2005 | ISBN 9781400096329
The Swimming-Pool Library
The Love Child's Revenge
The Snow Was Dirty
A Song Everlasting
The Office of Desire
"Extraordinary…. This masterful book is such a formidable achievement, it creates its own frame of reference. Other writers must now be measured against Pete Dexter." — San Francisco Chronicle
"Dexter is a superb writer. . . . The narrative flows and weaves, dips and dances like a boxer in a championship bout." — The Oregonian
"Spectacular, explosive…Mythic, comic and tragic, Train yields a treasure trove of harsh human wisdom." — St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"With an exhilarating crime novel that mixes race, sex, murder–and yes, golf–Pete Dexter hits a hole in one." —Newsweek
"A beautiful, stomach-churning novel, full of graphic descriptions and brutal plot turns. . . . Dexter's dark, hypnotic writing is in top form." — The Plain Dealer
"Riveting. . . . Brilliantly observed and psychologically incisive. . . . Confirms Dexter's place as the most lapidary American prose stylist since Hemingway." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Chilling. . . . Haunting. . . . Dexter's writing is a living thing." –USA Today
"Dexter gets violence on paper with a harsh precision, and the pages turn with a potboiler's fleetness. When the final boom rumbles, readers are likely to be up well past their bedtimes." —The New York Times Book Review
"Disturbingly magnificent. . . . As brutal as anything James Ellroy has rolled out. . . . Dexter crawls inside his characters to peel back the darkest ids." —Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Memorable. . . . Stylish and sinewy. . . . Dexter is an irresistibly fluid and engaging writer." —Newsday
"The strength of the novel lies far beyond its noirish setting or graphic plot twists. It is rather in Dexter's assured and direct handling of the ever-tangled subject of how ordinary people try to ford the nation's racial divide in pursuit of, or in flight from, deeper human truths." –Washington Post Book World
"Utterly gripping. . . . A superbly written book. . . . Illuminated by vivid flashes of humor and humanity. . . . Cunningly structured for maximum impact." —The Economist
"Taut, tight and unrelenting, this is Dexter's best novel since his National Book Award-winning Paris Trout. . . . . It's mean, tough, tender, and emotionally, and conceptually, highly charged." —Houston Chronicle
"Visceral, like a punch to the gut. . . . A gutty, gritty gem of a novel. . . . Dexter masterfully builds the suspense and each unwholesome character bounces off the other as the novel wends toward denouement. . . . This is Dexter in top noir form, as only he can pull it off." —The Denver Post
"Exquisite, painful. . . . He's the Faulkner of our time; just when you've passed judgment on a character, Dexter pulls the rug out from under you. . . . . You think you understand fear and race? Read Train." —Los Angeles Times
"Brilliant. . . . A strange and riveting book." –San Jose Mercury News
"Engrossing. . . . It's easy to get lost in Dexter's beautifully constructed sentences. Their attention to detail, their careful rhythms and brutal observations make Train satisfying to read. . . . It revels in its hardboiled dialogue and Chandleresque cadences, its sudden violence and cheeky humor." —Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Extreme noir. . . . Dexter's prose is muscular, dead-pan, hard-boiled." —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Don't expect some triumph-of-the-underdog sports story. . . . Dexter's vision of golf as a stark, brutal confrontation-with-self is unlike anything depicted on a sports page. . . . In his lean, powerful style, [he] digs into the complex dangers of race and love. And anyone who expects Dexter to keep it simple might as well tell the cat not to eat the birds." —The Miami Herald
"Takes the reader on a mesmerizing ride aboard a fast-moving Train." —The Orlando Sentinel
"Dexter's novels . . . tend to inhabit thriller country, but their dark lyricism and an inspired disregard for traditional plot carry them beyond this generic territory. . . . Dexter's skill resides in keeping an atmosphere of menace close to the surface at all times, so that violent collision of the worlds surrounding Packard seems inevitable." —The New Yorker
"Compelling. . . . Raw. . . . Train is the work of an American master at the top of his game." —Elle (Reader's Prize)
"Powerful. . . . In Packard, Dexter has created a flawed tough-guy hero, 'the kind of man who would hurt you'–yet one who transcends the hard-boiled-thriller model with his uncommon sensitivity to others' emotions and a self-awareness that his romantic idealism will probably lead to his own ruin. Grade: A." —Entertainment Weekly
"Dexter is a skilled writer who knows how to set the scene." —Pittsburg Post-Gazette
"Its period [are] details searing, its shifts of mood as remorseless as the Santa Ana wind." —Daily News
"Quick-witted, muscular and to the point. . . . The characters are tough, the words tougher." —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Superb. . . . Taut. . . . Rich in imagery." —People
"Intense and moving. . . . Dexter shows the light in the human soul mostly by contrasting it with the dark. . . . [Train] contains plenty of scenes of brutality and violence, but also passages of beauty and tenderness and clarity." —Philadelphia Magazine
"Pete Dexter fans, rejoice: The wait is over. . . . He writes with an accuracy and power that leave you wishing the book were longer." —The Dallas Morning News
21 Books You've Been Meaning to Read
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Posts Tagged 'DIY Homemade Magnetic Stirr Bar'
How To Make a Magnetic Stirrer – Quick, Easy & Cheap!
Simple DIY Magnetic Stirrer If you don't want to build your own simple inexpensive magnetic stirrer, shop here to purchase one from amazon affiliate link: Magnetic Stirrers: https://amzn.to/2MQZtxo Quickly and crudely made with spare parts laying around in just a matter of minutes. Click here to Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: http://goo.gl/DDfVab https://www.youtube.com/user/KGittemeier…
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By Mitchel Cohen
Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," raises the issue of global warming in a way that scares the bejeezus out of viewers, as it should since the consequences of global climate change are truly earth-shaking. The former Vice-President does a good job of presenting the graphic evidence, exquisite and terrifying pictures that document the melting of the polar ice caps and the effects on other species, new diseases, and rising ocean levels.
But, typically, the solutions Gore offers are standard Democratic Party fare. You'd never know by watching this film that Gore and Clinton ran this country for 8 years and that their policies — as much as those of the Bush regime — helped pave the way for the crisis we face today.
Gore never critiques the system causing the global ecological crisis. At one point, he even mourns the negative impact of global warming on U.S. oil pipelines. Oh, the horror! What it all comes down to, for Gore and the Democrats, is that we need to shift away from reliance on fossil fuels and tweak existing consumption patterns.Even there, Gore and Clinton did nothing to improve fuel efficiency in the U.S. — a topic which Gore talks about in the movie without any hint that he'd once actually been in a position to do something about it. The question Gore poses is, Who can best manage the relatively minor solutions he recommends, the Democrats or Republicans? For Gore, it's sort of "trust US, not THEM, to deal with this situation because they are liars and we're not." Well, should we trust him?
As Joshua Frank writes, during the campaign for president in 1992 Gore promised a group of supporters that the Clinton-Gore EPA would never approve a hazardous waste incinerator located near an elementary school in Liverpool, Ohio, which was operated by WTI. "Only three months into Clinton's tenure," Frank writes, "the EPA issued an operating permit for the toxic burner. Gore raised no qualms. Not surprisingly, most of the money behind WTI came from the bulging pockets of Jackson Stephens, who just happened to be one of the Clinton-Gore's top campaign contributors."(1)
But failing to shut down toxic incinerators is just the tip of their great betrayal. In the film, Gore references the Kyoto Accords and states that he personally went to Kyoto during the negotiations, giving the impression that he was a key figure in fighting to reduce air pollution emissions that destroy the ozone layer. What he omits is that his mission in going to Kyoto was to scuttle the Accords, to block them from moving forward. And he succeeded.
The Clinton-Gore years were anything but environment-friendly. Under Clinton-Gore, more old growth forests were cut down than under any other recent U.S. administration. "Wise Use" committees — set up by the lumber industry — were permitted to clearcut whole mountain ranges, while Clinton-Gore helped to "greenwash" their activities for public consumption.
Under Clinton-Gore, the biotech industry was given carte blanche to write the US government's regulations (paltry as they are) on genetic engineering of agriculture, and to move full speed ahead with implementing the private patenting of genetic sequences with nary a qualm passing Gore's lips.
You'd think watching this film that Gore is just some concerned professor who never had access to power or held hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Occidental Petroleum (driving the U'wa off their lands in Colombia), let alone was the Number Two man actually running the U.S. government!
"Gore, like Clinton who quipped that 'the invisible hand has a green thumb,' extolled a free-market attitude toward environmental issues," writes Frank, who goes on to quote Jeffrey St. Clair: "Since the mid-1980s Gore has argued with increasing stridency that the bracing forces of market capitalism are potent curatives for the ecological entropy now bearing down on the global environment. He is a passionate disciple of the gospel of efficiency, suffused with an inchoate technophilia."(2)
Before Kyoto, before the Clinton-Gore massive depleted uranium bombings of Yugoslavia and Iraq, before their missile "deconstruction" of the only existing pharmaceutical production facility in northern Africa in the Sudan (which exacerbated the very serious problems there, as we're seeing in Darfur today), there was NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The task of Clinton-Gore was to push through this legislation which not even strong Republican administrations under Reagan or Bush Sr. had been able to do. Since its inception, NAFTA has undermined U.S. environmental laws, chased production facilities out of the U.S. and across the borders, vastly increased pollution from Maquilladoras (enterprise zones) along the U.S./Mexico border and helped to undermine the indigenous sustainable agrarian-based communities in southern Mexico — as predicted by leftists in both countries, leading to the Zapatista uprising from those communities on January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA went into effect.
Clinton-Gore also approved the destructive deal with the sugar barons of South Florida arranged by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, which doomed the Everglades. (In fact, Clinton was on the phone with Alfonso Fanjul, Jr., the chief of the sugar barons, while Monica Lewinsky was busy doing her thing in her famous blue dress under Clinton's desk.)
Early in Clinton-Gore's first administration, they pledged they would stop the plunder of the Northwest forests, writes former Village Voice columnist James Ridgeway. "They then double-crossed their environmental backers. Under Bush Sr., the courts had enjoined logging in the Northwest habitats of the spotted owl. Clinton-Gore persuaded environmentalists to join them in axing the injunction. The Clinton administration went before a Reagan-appointed judge who had a record as a stalwart environmentalist and with the eco toadies in tow, got him to remove the injunction, and with it the moratorium on existing timber sales."(3) Then Gore and Clinton "capitulated to the demands of Western Democrats and yanked from its initial budget proposals a call to reform grazing, mining, and timber practices on federal lands. When Clinton convened a timber summit in Portland, Oregon, in April 1994, the conference was, as one might expect, dominated by logging interests. Predictably, the summit gave way to a plan to restart clear-cutting in the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest for the first time in three years, giving the timber industry its get rich wish."(4)
Gore and Clinton sent to Congress the infamous Salvage Rider, known to radical environmentalists as the "Logging without Laws" bill, "perhaps the most gruesome legislation ever enacted under the pretext of preserving ecosystem health." Like Bush's "Healthy Forests" plan, the Clinton-Gore act "was chock full of deception and special interest pandering. 'When [the Salvage Rider] bill was given to me, I was told that the timber industry was circulating this language among the Northwest Congressional delegation and others to try to get it attached as a rider to the fiscal year Interior Spending Bill,' environmental lawyer Kevin Kirchner says. 'There is no question that representatives of the timber industry had a role in promoting this rider. That is no secret.'"(5) What the Salvage Rider did was to "temporarily exempt … salvage timber sales on federal forest lands from environmental and wildlife laws, administrative appeals, and judicial review," according to the Wilderness Society — long enough for multinational lumber and paper corporations to clear-cut all but a sliver of the U.S.'s remaining old growth forests.
"Thousands of acres of healthy forestland across the West were rampaged. Washington's Colville National Forest saw the clear cutting of over 4,000 acres. Thousands more in Montana's Yak River Basin, hundreds of acres of pristine forest land in Idaho, while the endangered Mexican Spotted Owl habitat in Arizona fell victim to corporate interests. Old growth trees in Washington's majestic Olympic Peninsula — home to wild Steelhead, endangered Sockeye salmon, and threatened Marbled Murrieta — were chopped with unremitting provocation by the US Forest Service."(6)
The assault on nature continued with Gore's blessing.
Around the same time, Clinton-Gore appointee Carol Browner, head of the EPA, was quoted in the NY Times as having said that the administration would be "relaxing" the Delaney Clause (named after its author, Congressman James Delaney, D-NY). Congress had inserted this clause into section 409 of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in 1958. It prohibited FDA approval of any food additive found to cause cancer in humans or animals. Alone among all food-related directives, this legislation put the onus on the manufacturers to demonstrate that their products were safe before they were allowed to become commercially available. (7) A federal appeals court in July 1992 expanded the jurisdiction of the Delaney Clause, ruling that it was applicable to cancer-causing pesticides in processed food. Browner retracted her comment, claiming she'd never said it, but the proof was in the pudding. The ban on cancer-causing additives (the "Precautionary Principle") that had held through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush, Sr. administrations was finally removed, not by the Republicans but by the Clinton-Gore administration. Instead of expanding the Delaney clause to protect produce and other unprocessed foods, the new Food Quality Protection Act legislation permitted "safe" amounts of carcinogenic chemicals (as designated by the Environmental Protection Agency) to be added to all food. (According to Peter Montague, editor of Rachel's Weekly, "no one knows how 'safe amounts' of carcinogens can be established, especially when several carcinogens and other poisons are added simultaneously to the food of tens of millions of people.) Nevertheless, the Clinton-Gore administration spun this as "progress."
The Clinton administration, with guidance from Gore's office, also cut numerous deals over the pesticide Methyl Bromide despite its reported effects of contributing to Ozone depletion and its devastating health consequences on farm workers picking strawberries.
Much is being made these days about the need to save the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. But Clinton-Gore opened the National Petroleum Reserve " 24 million untouched acres adjacent to the refuge, home to a large caribou herd and numerous arctic species " to oil drilling. The chief beneficiaary of this was Arco, a major ($1.4 million) contributor to the Democratic Party. At the same time, writes James Ridgeway, "Clinton dropped the ban on selling Alaskan oil abroad. This also benefits Arco, which is opening refineries in China. So although the oil companies won the right to exploit Alaskan oil on grounds that to do so would benefit national development, Clinton-Gore unilaterally changed the agreement so that it benefits China's industrial growth."(8)
Not once in the entire film does Gore criticize this awful environmental record or raise the critical questions we need to answer if we are to effectively reverse global warming: Is it really the case that the vast destruction of our environment that went on under his watch and, continuing today, is simply a result of poor consumer choices and ineffective government policies? Is the global environmental devastation we are facing today rectifiable with some simple tuning-up, as Gore proposes?
Neither he — as point man for the Clinton administration on environmental issues — nor Clinton-Gore's Energy Secretary Bill Richardson (with major ties to Occidental Petroleum), nor the Democratic Party in general offer anything more than putting a tiny Band-Aid on the earth's gaping wounds, which they themselves helped to gash open.
Clearly, the vast destruction of the global ecology is a consequence not just of poor governmental policies but of the capitalist system's fundamental drive towards Growth and what passes for Development — Grow or Die. Environmental activists won't find in Gore the kind of systemic analysis that is needed to stop global warming. Instead, we need to look elsewhere for that sort of deep systemic critique.
1. Joshua Frank, <Counterpunch, May 31, 2006, Frank is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, and edits <a href="http://www.BrickBurner.org" www.BrickBurner.org
2. Jeffrey St. Clair, Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature, Common Courage Press, 2004.
3. James Ridgeway, "Eco Spaniel Kennedy: Nipping at Nader's Heels," Village Voice, Aug. 16-22, 2000.
4,5,6 Joshua Frank.
7. The battle over the Delaney Clause has been ably documented by Rachel's Weekly, at www.rachel.org
8. Ridgeway, op cit.
Mitchel Cohen is co-editor of "G", the newspaper of the New York State Greens. He can be reached at: email@example.com. This article originally appeared in Counterpunch, February 2, 2007. Reprinted by permission of the author.


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My family recently returned from an amazing beach vacation, and at first, I was hesitant to write about it; the place is so special, I don't want it overrun by tourists. It was a beach where we went as children with my parents. I wasn't sure what to expect, whether my memory served me correctly, or if the place was the same. To my surprise and happiness, it was exactly the same, but not in a cheesy, outdated way. Quite the contrary, the island and the natural habitats had been conserved by a local conservancy that prevented the place from being overdeveloped with hotels and high-rises.
The place is Kiawah Island in South Carolina, and it was teeming with life, both on the island and in the ocean. We saw deer around every corner while biking on the 30 miles of walking and biking trails, and alligators sunning themselves around dispersed lagoons. There are 10 miles of packed beaches where we biked and saw jellyfish, conch, horseshoe crabs, snails, crabs, and of course, the highlight for me, dolphins. The dolphins were about 15 feet off the beach. They were tail-slapping and clearly foraging for fish. Dolphins off South Carolina are also known for something called strand-feeding, where they chase fish off a shallow beach or sandbar and then strand themselves on the land to feed on the herded fish before falling back into the water. We didn't see this behavior, even though we did sail by some of the areas where they are known to do it. Hopefully, we will see it someday as I hope to visit Kiawah annually with my family. This special place reminded me why I wanted to be a marine biologist and encouraged me to start this blog again.


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A day that began with authorities confirming Lindsay Lohan was being investigated for battery on a female staffer at a California rehab facility treating the starlet ended with the worker fired after giving an interview about the incident.
Riverside County sheriff's detectives said Tuesday they are investigating the "Mean Girls" star for an alleged altercation with a worker at a Betty Ford Center facility in Palm Desert that occurred after 1 a.m. on Dec. 12.
The agency declined to say what prompted the fight, but said the worker was interested in pursuing charges against Lohan.
Betty Ford spokesman Russ Patrick said the staffer was fired for identifying patients at the center in an interview and "disclosing a privileged document."
Although Betty Ford and the sheriff's department did not identify the worker, she appeared in an interview on celebrity website TMZ on Tuesday afternoon and was promptly fired. She claims the 24-year-old Lohan and two other girls had sneaked out of the facility.
In the video, Dawn Holland claims she was trying to get Lohan to submit to a breathalyzer test when the actress became belligerent, pushed her and snatched a phone from her hand, straining her arm.
Attempts to reach Holland were unsuccessful. A phone number registered to her was not accepting calls Tuesday evening.
Lohan has not been arrested or charged in the incident. Her attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, said in an e-mailed statement that it was the actress who called for police.
She declined to offer additional details, citing the ongoing sheriff's investigation.
While the fallout for Holland was swift, Lohan's situation remains unclear. A judge has ordered her to remain at Betty Ford until Jan. 3 and remain out of trouble until Feb. 25. He also ordered her to submit to all drug and alcohol screenings or face up to six months in jail for violating her probation on a 3-year-old drunk driving case.
Riverside County sheriff's Deputy Herlinda Valenzuela said Lohan's case would be presented to prosecutors, who will decide whether Lohan faces a new charge.
Lohan has been receiving treatment at the Betty Ford Center and its facilities, about 120 miles east of Los Angeles, since late September.
Patrick's statement said that until Tuesday, Betty Ford had upheld the confidentiality of 96,000 patients who had received treatment there since it opened in 1982.
He said Holland's interview was a breach of trust and the rehab process.
"When patients come to the center for treatment, they come to a safe place where their identity is protected, where anonymity is safeguarded," he said in an e-mail. "Their simple priority when in treatment is to learn how to live a life free of alcohol and other drugs.
"Confidentiality and trust are key to the treatment and recovery process."
Lohan's stint at Betty Ford is her fifth stay in rehab and her second this year.
Beginning in July, she was jailed for 14 days, followed by three weeks at inpatient rehab. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox agreed to release her early from treatment at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in late August based on doctor's recommendations.


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Saltwater vs Chlorine
Getting a pool always comes with the big question, saltwater vs chlorine?
Today we'll be discussing the pros and cons of specifically using saltwater in your pools versus only chlorine.
Saltwater Vs Chlorine
Saltwater systems make chlorine, the exact same chlorine that is released from pool chlorine products. In a saltwater pool, when H2O + NaOCl are run through the salt cell, the electric charge breaks apart molecules to create chlorine (Cl) and a few other byproducts, which are generally reabsorbed. The chlorine that is instantly created, hypochlorous acid, is the same exact chlorine that is released from chlorine tablets, liquid chlorine, or granular chlorine.
Saltwater Pools Do Have Benefits
- You can't taste the salt, but it can make the water feel softer
- Less storage and handling of hazardous chlorine products
- Breakpoint chlorination inside the cell reduces chloramines constantly
- Easily raise or lower chlorine levels, and view status on a digital display
Saltwater Pools Are Not Maintenance Free Pools
- You still have to monitor the system, and test for salt, chlorine and stabilizer levels
- You have to maintain good water balance; saltwater pool pH and Alkalinity rises rapidly
- Salt cells need cleaning to remove scale, although some systems do it automatically
- The cells about 5 yrs; salt system parts like boards, sensors, and switches may last longer
You May Still Need To Use Chlorine Products
- To raise the chlorine level very fast for shock treatments
- Maintaining chlorine level during pump, filter or salt system equipment problems
- To clear the water during opening or closing the pool, or for treating various water problems
Saltwater can attack Soft & Shiny Surfaces
- Galvanic corrosion can oxidize chrome surfaces in the pool, although sacrificial anodes can be used
- Salt residue can slowly corrode soft coping stones or stone decks, although sealers can be used
Have any more questions about saltwater pools? Contact us here!


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Black Box
Lawrence, PA 15055-1018
United States
May 18, 2022 - Exhibiting at InfoComm 2022 at Booth W1338 Black Box will showcase products that enable flexible AV Everywhere with delivery and display of high-quality media including its new MCX Gen 2 Series Multimedia Distribution and Management System, iCompel digital signage platform with Reserva room scheduling platform, and ControlBridge multisystem and room control. Experience Radian Flex, a software-based video wall processing solution that features a highly flexible canvas for nearly instant source changes and reconfiguration for fast paced visually collaborative environments.
MCX G2 Series Multimedia Distribution and Management System
Visitors to the Black Box booth at InfoComm will be able to see first-hand the MCX G2 series - the next generation of the company's MCX multimedia distribution and management system. The MCX G2 series features the performance of the original S9 and S7 series but adds several market-leading features including best-in-class source-to-screen latency (less than 18 microseconds), a video loop-through connection, USB-C and three-port USB 2.0 connectivity, and PoE capability. These features provide a more flexible solution, faster design/implementation and lower overall cost. The Black Box MCX takes advantage of SDVoE and modern 10 GbE infrastructure to allow AV and data payloads.
Rather than deploy an entirely new network, users can take advantage of the software-defined solution to leverage existing infrastructure for delivery of better-quality audio and video, which can translate to greater customer satisfaction and faster time to revenue.
The Black Box MCX multimedia distribution and management system enables true convergence of AV and data on a single IT network.
Black Box iCompel® Digital Signage Platform
At InfoComm 2022 Black Box will demonstrate how its iCompel® interactive digital signage platform with system-on-chip technology empowers users to build eye-catching signage; stream content from websites; and visualize timetables, events, wayfinding or emergency messages. Users can easily play, upload and share images, presentations, videos and audio media files on any HDMI screen. The platform supports 4K UHD/HD and simplifies creation and playout of HTML5-based content. To facilitate updates and system management, iCompel allows for remote device management and configuration and provides on-screen diagnostics and error alerts. The platform is a great solution for a sports bar but also can be used in cinemas, universities, hospitals, transport, retail, supermarkets and more.
Reserva — Room Scheduling Made Simple
With Reserva, users need never mismanage their meeting rooms again. Any user can manage meetings and conference rooms from Reserva's touchscreen with ease. This room sign allows users to book, extend, shorten and end meetings in seconds from an intuitive UI.
With advanced digital signage features, Reserva is much more than a room booking touchscreen. Inside each Reserva is an iCompel® player that allows users to integrate the room sign into their digital signage system. After integration, Reserva room signs can display important communications that benefit the user's business, such as internal messages and advertising. Reserva features multizone layout design and extensive playlist and schedule controls and users can also add their logo and a custom background to the display to boost branding. Important additional features include convenient remote device management and monitoring, superior performance, responsiveness and functionality. Reserva is also compatible with market-leading scheduling and timetable solutions for ease of integration.
Radian Flex Software-Based Video Wall Processing Platform
Radian Flex is a fully software-based video wall processing platform that delivers future-proof flexibility and scalability for digital signage, corporate, education and mission-critical visualization applications. The intuitive software from Black Box makes it easy to display high-quality content from multiple sources across multiscreen display walls in any imaginable configuration. Users simply add, move, resize and change content on the Radian Flex interface, and those changes are reflected in real time on the target video wall, distributed visualization system, or other display devices. Radian Flex supports an unlimited number of inputs, screens and endpoints. Integrated SmartFrame technology ensures perfect picture quality and automates optimal placement of content on screen with minimal setup. The platform's robust video engine supports 4K 60fps video up to an industry-leading resolution of more than 1 billion pixels, paving the way for 8K resolution and beyond.
Black Box Radian Flex is a fully software-based video wall processing platform that delivers future-proof flexibility and scalability.
Black Box ControlBridge® Multisystem and Room Control
ControlBridge® is a complete multisystem control panel for control rooms and any user desk. A single touch panel enables control of KVM, AV and other devices to let users conveniently switch between sources, change video settings, access video wall controllers and set room conditions. Individual presets activate complex configuration with the touch of a button to prepare for a new production.
"At InfoComm 2022 Black Box will highlight products and solutions enabling AV Everywhere with a focus on delivering and displaying high-quality media. We will feature AV over IP matrix switching and distribution as well as high performance video wall technology, digital signage, room scheduling and control systems." — Eric Farkas, AV Product Manager at Black Box
Company Overview
Black Box® is a trusted IT solutions provider delivering cutting-edge technology solutions and world-class consulting services to businesses across the globe. The breadth of our global reach, continuous innovation, and depth of our expertise accelerates customer success by bringing people, ideas and technology together to solve real-world business problems. Our IT infrastructure solutions, services and products enable secure, flawless connectivity and meaningful collaboration for businesses in every major market across six continents.
ESA Communications Ltd.
#27 – 2861 Sherwood Heights Dr.
Oakville, ON L6J 7K1
(905) 216-0500


text:
Choose Another Location
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Got It
Not every infrastructure problem needs a big solution. Sometimes, it's better to start small and expand as you grow. Like all FlashStack solutions, FlashStack Mini is an enterprise class solution which can be managed as a standalone entity or as part of your centralized resources with Cisco UCS® Central Software and Cisco UCS Director, yet it is optimized for smaller deployments anywhere.
"Virtualization, service orientation, and the Internet have converged to sponsor a phenomenon that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they'll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models."
Pure Storage, the P Logo and FlashStack are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pure Storage, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Cisco and the Cisco logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are marks of their respective owners.


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By Sarah Brenner, JD
IRA Analyst
I have a 60 day rollover, and basically the client has what I believe is an uneducated tax preparer. The roll over occurred within the proper 60 days, the custodian sent out the 1099R as a distribution checking box 7, 1, because even they sent the check directly to the new custodian they did not receive a letter of acceptance, so they considered it a distribution.
I explained to the tax preparer he needs to complete a 1040 now, and by the end of May the client will receive a 5498 form from the new custodian reflecting a 60 day rollover occurred. The tax preparer says I am mistaken it is taxable now because he has a 1099 form saying it is.
Did I not explain this correctly? Thank you
Hi Stewart,
This is an area where we see a lot of confusion during tax season. You are correct. A 60-day rollover must be handled on the tax return by the taxpayer. There will be nothing on the Form 1099-R to indicate that a rollover has happened. The form will show a taxable traditional IRA distribution. You are also correct that Form 5498 will later be sent to the IRS showing a rollover.
Dear Sir
I found your website and wondered if you would be willing to answer what I think is a simple question about a 1099 R Form
I received a 1099 R Form from the company that manages my IRA, since I am of the age that I have to take the Required Mandatory Distributions.
For purposes of illustration …
In Box 1 it shows the Gross Distribution to be $80,000
In Box 2a it shows the Taxable Amount to be $80,000
In Box 2b it has a check mark
What is confusing is that the actual taxable amount is $79,000 when I complete the 8086 Form … as I have a basis in this fund. So when I get my distribution part of it is return of capital/the amount I paid in.
So I am wondering, should my 1099 R have a $0 amount in Box 2a, since they cannot know the actual amount that is taxable? Or are they correct in simply putting the same amount $80,000 in both Box 1 and 2a?
Your thoughts on this would be very much appreciated.
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE for the kindness of your response.
Hi Juan,
You are not alone in your confusion about how distributions are reported on Form 1099-R. The custodian has reported your IRA RMD correctly. The amounts in Box 1 and Box 2a should be the same. That is how the reporting instructions work. You are right that the custodian cannot know the taxable amount. This is where the taxpayer comes in. You will file Form 8606 to claim the basis in your IRA distribution. This is how the IRS will know that a part of your RMD is not taxable despite what is reported on Form 1099-R.


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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 24, 2003Senior Administration Official Briefing
MR. McCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody. Our briefer today will be talking on background, as a senior administration official. She's going to review the President's meetings this morning, and then be open to your questions.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hello, how are you? Let me just make a couple comments about one meeting that we didn't really have a chance to brief fully from yesterday, which was the meeting with Hamid Karzai, which was obviously a very important meeting.
The President was delighted to hear about the progress that's being made in Afghanistan. They talked about the progress in the war on terrorism; talked about the progress in fighting the Taliban; the need to continue to redouble those efforts, particularly in certain parts of Afghanistan.
But President Karzai also had some particularly good news about Afghanistan, talking about the fact that, thanks to both good farm management and the rains this year, there's a surplus of food. They're actually exporting, trying to sell their wheat this year -- which, for a country that has had a number of years of famine, is good news. He talked about some of the efforts that they're making at outreach on the constitution that's now completed; talked about what is appearing as important to the Afghan people -- they've gone out with some extraordinary number of surveys to the Afghan people to ask their opinions on the constitution.
In general, I think it's one of those meetings that, whether or not one tends to see glasses half full or half empty, you couldn't help but see this one half full, because Afghanistan has come a very, very long way in two years. And I think the President was very heartened by what is going on in Afghanistan. But the President reiterated his support to Afghanistan, the additional money that will be coming, and to redouble our efforts in advance of the elections in Afghanistan.
This morning, the President had a series of meetings. He met with several leaders of the Caribbean. They talked about affairs in the hemisphere, talked about the importance of free trade. He also had meetings with President Kufour of Ghana. That meeting talked a good deal about Liberia, what has been, thus far, a very successful intervention in Liberia. The President thanked President Kufour, who, as you know, was the head of ECOWAS, the President of ECOWAS, for his tremendous work in helping to get Charles Taylor out of Liberia, getting an ECOWAS force in, and they talked about the future there. The President also had a chance to talk with the Ghanian about the Millennium Challenge Account, about the AIDS initiative, and so forth.
Similarly, with Mozambique, the President had a chance with President Chissano to talk about the fact that Mozambique has made great progress in its political and economic reform, and congratulated him on that. They also talked about the Millennium Challenge Account and about the AIDS initiative.
The President had a meeting with President Musharraf. It was an excellent meeting in which they talked about the challenges in the war on terrorism, talked about the need to stop cross-border terrorism in Kashmir. And the President reiterated our friendship for Pakistan, going to be there for Pakistan, and they talked a bit about how the relationship would develop going forward.
The President had also a meeting with Prime Minister Vajpayee, a lunch with Prime Minister Vajpayee. They talked about the progress we're making in U.S.-Indian relations, again about cross-border terrorism, about Indian support for Afghanistan. And they did have a discussion of Iraq. The Indians talked about wanting very much to be supportive of the reconstruction effort there. And those conversations will continue.
And then, finally, the President had a meeting with the German Chancellor, Chancellor Schroeder. Really the tone of this meeting could not have been better. The relationship -- the meeting started out with the President saying, we've been through some difficult times; I consider that to be behind us; and Chancellor Schroeder saying, I consider it to be behind us, as well, and Chancellor Schroeder then going on to say to the President in a somewhat more extended fashion what he said publicly, which is that Germany sees a stable and peaceful and democratic Iraq as essential; that it sees it in Germany's interest to do everything possible to contribute to that stable and secure Iraq; that however we got there -- and there were differences about how we got there -- it is now everybody's responsibility to make certain that Iraq succeeds.
They also, obviously, talked about Afghanistan and the tremendous efforts that the Afghans -- that the Germans are making on behalf of Afghanistan, the willingness to take over one of the provisional -- provincial reconstruction teams, the willingness to help NATO to take over the ICEF and to move it out of the country. And so, all in all, a very, very good discussion, and very good dynamics with the Chancellor.
Q Can I ask, was there any commitment from India or Pakistan to contribute troops in Iraq?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Pardon me?
Q Was there any commitment from either India or Pakistan to offer --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The President did not ask. Those are discussions that are going on at this point. And let me be very clear about something. The President didn't come here to ask people for troops. The President came here to lay out a call to the international community to join together in whatever way people can in supporting the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, and in building a stable Iraq. Conversations are going to go on at various levels about what kinds of contributions countries can make. The donors conference is not for almost a month. And, as you know, we're also seeking a United Nations resolution that we think will make it somewhat easier for some countries to begin their own discussions of what they can do.
So to the degree that there was any thought that the President might come and ask people specifically for specific contributions, that simply wasn't intended.
Q The anonymous -- one of the three anonymous briefers yesterday, telling us about the Karzai meeting, said that Karzai complained about Taliban crossing over from training camps in Pakistan, and that the President would take it up with Musharraf today.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And he did.
Q He did? And what was Musharraf's response? Because it's not the first time we've heard how the Pakistanis, who you consider close friends, do permit, or at least look the other way, with training of Taliban.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: President Musharraf has been a very strong fighter in the war on terrorism. The areas of the Pakistani-Afghan border about which we're talking are extremely difficult terrain. We're talking about a part of Pakistan that hasn't been controlled by anybody, ever. So I think that this is not necessarily a lack of will. This is hard. And the President did ask President Musharraf to go back and to redouble his efforts to try and deal with this particular problem. But this is a very hard problem and I don't think we believe it's from a lack of will.
Q It's the schools, too. The border, I know, is impossible. But it's the training.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And I'll remind you, Barry, that it is President Musharraf who laid out a plan for reform of madrassas. We're supporting some of the educational reforms that Pakistan is trying to go through.
But let's just be very clear. If you look at where Pakistan was prior to 9/11 and where Pakistan is now, you've had a complete shift in the orientation of Pakistan's foreign policy, of Pakistan's policy toward Afghanistan and the Taliban, and Pakistan's policies toward terrorism. And that has to be acknowledged. It doesn't mean that there isn't still more to do, but that has to be acknowledged.
Q There have been a couple of reports that Dr. Kaye's preliminary report found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, evidence that there were ongoing efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, but no evidence of weapons themselves. What do you know about that?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Dr. Kaye's progress report I have not seen. And I believe that Dr. Kaye is still in the process with people in the intelligence community of developing that report. And I think that it is premature for anybody to start saying what is or is not in that report. My understanding is that it is a report that is very much a progress report, and that doesn't rule anything out or anything in because it's a progress report. But I would not jump to any definitive conclusions about what's in that report. And I think anybody who's doing that probably doesn't really know what's in the report.
Q The source is a White House official -- obviously not you.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, it's clearly not me. (Laughter.) And I'd be, actually, pretty surprised if it's a White House official who knows anything about it.
Q Dr. Rice, speaking of progress, have you made any in the last two days on a U.N. resolution?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the consultations that continue on the U.N. resolution continue. That was the whole purpose of being here, which was to discuss with people where we might go. I think the President's speech yesterday did a very good job of laying out some of the parameters that have to be maintained in a U.N. resolution.
For instance, the critical issue is to transfer sovereignty. Everybody wants to transfer sovereignty; that's very clear. Everybody wants the Iraqis to govern themselves, but to do it in a way that is responsible, that takes enough time for the development of a constitution, and therefore, institutions, the basis on which you could hold elections that would be free and fair. And any premature effort to "transfer sovereignty" is simply going to be harmful, and the United States is not prepared to do that.
Now, I think we had a lot of good discussions with people here about that rationale. And I didn't hear anyone say they want to have a premature transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis. All right? So that's a start, because there were some who were talking before we got here about immediate, quick transfer. I think we would rather talk about responsible, orderly transfer of sovereignty. And I do believe that just in conversations with lots of people, including my own counterparts, people are beginning to understand what the parameters are. And I think it's helped tremendously on the resolution process here. But nobody is a particular hurry to get this done --
Q Why not?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Because we're going to do it right. The key here is to do the resolution in a way that is right, that allows full and complete consultation, and that then gets the resolution right. And we'll see what the timing on it is.
Q Is there any compromise on this? Are you willing to compromise?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't think anybody wants to compromise on a transfer of sovereignty that might fall apart. And the process that's been set out -- which is to write a constitution and follow that with elections -- is an orderly process that makes a great deal of sense.
We can talk about how that happens. I don't think anybody wants to set artificial timetables, but we can certainly talk about how that happens, what role the U.N. can play in assisting in that process. But I'll have to tell you, in talking with Karzai -- with President Karzai yesterday, one thing that was very clear is the degree to which the very process of writing the constitution, talking about it among the population, and getting rid of -- getting ready for elections has deepened democracy in Afghanistan. And that, after all, is the goal, is to deepen democracy in Iraq. And nobody wants to short-circuit a process for a people that, of course, have had no national conversation about where they're going for more than 30 years.
Q On that point, we've always said that we wanted the Iraqis to lay out the timetable. There are some Iraqis who are now expressing some opinions about that timetable --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There are some. (Laughter.)
Q What should we make of what is being said about that? What is your response to suggestions that there should be some small things that should be done sooner, rather than later?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, if you look at what has happened over the last several months, Iraqis are taking more and more responsibility for the building of Iraq on a practically daily basis -- the creation of the ministries, which now really run the affairs of the country; the Governing Council is consulted on everything. It was the Governing Council that endorsed the rather dramatic economic reform plan that the Coalition Provisional Authority, working with Iraqis and working with advisors, worked out.
And so this is a process that is well underway of the gradual assumption of responsibilities by Iraqis, themselves. And that makes sense, because you don't want them to try to assume responsibilities when there's no infrastructure to do it. But that infrastructure is now in -- coming into place; more and more decisions are being made in that fashion, in a collaborative, consultative fashion. And that's going to continue, and it's probably going to accelerate.
What you don't want to do is to try to short-circuit what is an extremely important political process in which the Iraqis have to have the establishment of a constitution that will create institutions that worry about things like the protection of minority rights, that worry about the role of women. I mean, all of those things need to be done.
So I think there is actually more convergence here in view than might be thought. But what the United States can't do is to step away from our responsibilities, having liberated the country, of doing this in an orderly way where we have 137,000 forces on the ground, we're about to put $20 billion of American taxpayers' dollars into Iraq, and we're determined to make sure that this is all done responsibly.
Q Has the IGC made a specific proposal to the administration for some of the things that Mr. Chalabi has been talking about in public?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There are 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council, and what we do not have is a unified view among them.
Q Where are the Germans on this? I know it came up in discussions with the Chancellor this morning. How far apart are they from you on transferring power to the Iraqis?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The Germans talked about a political horizon, the importance of a political horizon. But they also understand that institutions matter. They understand that you want to do this in a responsible way, that you don't want to try to do it so quickly that you now completely destroy the possibility of this working out well. And I found the German Chancellor quite confident that he thought that there were lots of ways here to achieve what we're trying to achieve and to bridge any remaining gaps.
Q Did President Musharraf explain what the obstacles are to Pakistan participating militarily in Iraq? And in particular, did he express any concern about the nascent Israeli-Indian strategic relationship?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, did not come up in this meeting. In fact, they did not talk about troop contribution in this meeting. The President said, we'd be glad to have your contributions of any kind that we can. And those are discussions I think he'll continue to have. But Pakistan has said that it needs probably a U.N. resolution; it may need some other Arab -- or some other Muslim countries to be involved. They've said those sorts of things and I'm sure we'll pursue it.
Q On contributions, you said those discussions are going on. At what level are they going on? And what sort of feedback are you hearing in terms of troops and money?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, they're going on at several different levels. They're going on at my level, they're going on at Colin Powell's level, they're going on at levels below that. But in terms of financial contributions, those discussions have really not taken any concrete form yet. We're still more than a month away from the donors conference. It's only recently that the needs assessments are actually being completed for the reconstruction effort in Iraq.
But already people are clearly thinking about what kinds of contributions they can make. The Germans came today, as Chancellor Schroeder said, talking about perhaps they could take over some training of police; they could perhaps even participate in training of the army. I know that the Russians have said that they're thinking about what kinds of contributions they can make.
People are coming forward to say, we want to help. And now there will be a process of matching what people can do to the needs that are there. But that's a somewhat longer process and certainly not one that's going to take place at the head of state level.
Q Secretary Rumsfeld said this morning, we're not going to get a lot of international troops, with or without a U.N. resolution. And about the same time, General Pace was saying we may need to alert more reservists over four to six weeks if we don't have commitments on a third multinational division. Do you agree with those two assessments?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I'm not sure that -- I believe what Secretary Rumsfeld was saying is that we're not going to get several divisions of troops. I mean, there's still a possibility that we could get a multinational division, or so. I don't think anybody rules that possibility out.
Q He said zero to 10,000 or 15,000.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes, that would be a multinational division, 15,000 would be a multinational division. And I think the issues of troop rotation and what the needs will be for American forces are still being worked out.
Q Can you say, apart from the President laying out the parameters in his speech, if, in these private meetings, can you point to one or two sort of building blocks for the resolution that -- do you feel like the President laid a foundation here? Is he just casting forward, or do you expect to see a resolution tabled next week? And the President meets with Putin this weekend, and then goes to Asia next month. Are we to view this as a sort of months-long process at this point?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It could be. And I don't think that there is any concern that that would be a problem. I -- when he talked to Chancellor Schroeder, for instance, they did talk about getting it right, giving time for consultation, not rushing the resolution forward. I think people feel that there has been good consultation here, that there are ways to bridge in terms of language and concerns that people have had.
What really comes through is that the basic principles on which people want to proceed are really quite coincident. Everybody wants to proceed on the basis that there ought -- the Iraqis ought to be self-governing as soon as possible. Everybody wants to proceed on the premise that, nonetheless, has to be done in a way that actually achieves the foundations for democratic development in Iraq. Everybody wants to see the U.N. play a role in helping the Iraqis come to -- through the process and out to self-governance. And I suspect you're going to see a lot of discussion about what language achieves that. But I think that the -- with one possible exception, which, quite frankly, is the French, which -- where they've had very clear ideas about precisely what they would like to see -- people have been willing to talk about and think about how the language might bridge that gap. And I think we'll get there, we'll get there.
Q Do you envision that a resolution would contain this financial assistance piece? Is that something that would be part of the resolution in some way?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You mean a call for financial assistance, or --
Q Right, that those who are -- with the resolution there's some kind of mechanism set up for donations or assistance.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There are already mechanisms out there, David, to which people can contribute. There's an Iraqi development fund to which people can contribute that has a kind of international oversight board that the Central Bank can draw on. I think it's much more likely to just address the fact that member nations should contribute, and probably address the role of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank -- the international financial institutions. But there are already vehicles or vessels to which people could contribute; those don't need to be set up.
Q Why do you think you're running into some resistance already to getting the kind of financial contributions that the President is appealing for?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: David, I don't think we are running into resistance. I keep reading this -- because we haven't actually asked anybody for anything specific. People are out there saying that they are going to want to contribute. The needs assessment is barely dry -- the ink on the needs assessment is barely dry. And now we'll go out and we'll try to match what people are able to do with the actual needs. But nobody has said to the United States, we don't intend to contribute. Nobody has said that.
Q On your own schedule, have you seen the Israeli Foreign Minister, are you seeing him, about the fence?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I had discussions about the fence with my counterpart on Thursday -- no, last week -- was it last week or this week? Monday -- Monday. It's just been a really long week -- Monday.
Q I thought you were seeing him today --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I am seeing the Israeli Foreign Minister, as well. But the detailed discussions with the Israelis about the fence have already taken place.
Q What does the President think about the reception that he received yesterday in his speech? Much has been written about that. Did he feel that some in the Assembly were hostile to him?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. He felt that the reception was very good. Everybody with whom he talked thanked him for a speech that they thought was straightforward and important. The speech actually produced an important set of discussions about proliferation with the French President. They spend a great deal of time on the proliferation challenge.
Today the German Chancellor asked whether or not Germany might be able to talk to us soon about whether that U.N. resolution that the President talked about on proliferation could be put forward very soon. They had good discussions about Iran, in the context of the proliferation challenge.
And so I think the President feels that he came here and did what he needed to do. He needed to make clear to people that the United States values the partnership of our best friends and of the international community in meeting global challenges, but that that means we actually have to meet them. We cannot be in a position of sweeping under the rug the fact that there are some really tough issues out there and that they have to be addressed. And just talking about them is not addressing them.
And I found that one of the most interesting things is that that was actually echoed in a number of the speeches, including in Kofi Annan's speech, who, while he talked about the dangers of unilateralism, went on to say, nonetheless, you can't just criticize "unilateralism," you're going to have to address the problems that make people feel vulnerable. And I thought that was an extraordinary thing for a U.N. General Secretary to say -- Secretary General to say, and I think that it was a challenge to the United Nations to do whatever it needs to do, in terms of reform, in terms of dealing with these issues, because, as the President said last year, the U.N. needs to be effective in meeting these challenges.
Q The Joint Chiefs said today that they would, within the next month or so, have to start calling up thousands, if not tens of thousands, of American reservists because there are no foreign troops now ready to come in and -- don't you feel any sense of pressure to move?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We are looking at the issues in terms of troop strength. It's not yet been determined what precisely will need to be done. I don't think that anyone is feeling any pressure to get foreign troops -- although, foreign troops would clearly be welcome. And we expect that the conversations below the level of Heads of State will be going on now about what kinds of troop contributions could be made if and when there is a U.N. resolution.
Okay? Great. Thank you very much.


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Zucchini Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The title does sound a bit odd, no? This is slightly based off of zucchini bread, but this is a bit sweeter, and with a slightly different taste profile. The idea came after reading up on The Great Big Veg Challenge, a blog that, if you haven't read yet, you really should take some time and check it out. Especially you parents out there raising veggie-phobic ragamuffins. The woman's a genius I tells ya'!
The real key to this cupcake is turbinado sugar, extra cinnamon, and the addition of raisins to create a deliciously moist, dense, and courageously flavorful cupcake. The turbinado gives it a nice caramel flavor and appearence, while the cinnamon gives it that great spicy kick.
None of the flavors berate you, but instead talk to you softly, ask how your mom is, and then give you a backrub. It's really a nice summer cupcake, as it's a perfect chance to make use of all that fresh zucchini that'll be coming in soon. Currants or golden raisins would be great in this cupcake too, as would a variety of nuts, coconut, or maybe even some other spices like nutmeg or allspice. The cream cheese frosting just finishes everything off, and plus, it's cream cheese.
I like cream cheese. Don't you like cream cheese?
They have a reminiscence of maybe cinnamon raisin bread, or maybe carrot cake, but still very unique. If you take a bite, you'll know it's zucchini cake based on the fresh taste.
Zucchini Cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes / 350 F oven
What You'll Need...
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups of turbinado sugar (muscovado, raw, and brown could work in a pinch too. white sugar will work I guess, but you will get a different end product than I did)
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
4 eggs at room temperature
1 1/4 cup of vegetable oil
3 cups of grated zucchini
3/4 cup of raisins, currants or sultans
What You'll Do...
1) Combine in a large bowl the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Make a well in the center.
2) Whisk together the oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. Pour into the dry ingredients and combine together. Batter will be very thick.
3) Add the zucchini and raisins, currants or what have you. The batter will gain more moisture and will become more workable. Scoop into cupcake papers a little over 1/2 full.
4) Bake for 18-24 minutes, being sure to rotate the pan after the first 15 minutes of baking. If a toothpick comes out clean when testing the cupcakes, they're done. Place on a wire rack to cool.
Cream Cheese Frosting
What You'll Need...
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
2 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
What You'll Do...
1) Cream the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes. Scraped down the sides and bottom.
2) Slowly add the powdered sugar. Add the vanilla to taste. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.
22 comments:
- AnonymousApril 29, 2007 at 1:10 PM
Thank you so much. We are honoured!
Freddie is in bed at the moment as it is 9 o'clock in the evening and school in the morning.(And his mother wants a gin and tonic and to put her feet up.)
But in the morning I will show Freddie his dedicated recipe. He will immediately demand that I make it because it involves CAKE. And he is the original cake beast. (Think Eat Beast without the fur and scruples)
Thank you
x - AnonymousSeptember 20, 2007 at 10:14 PM
Try adding a little lemon zest and lemon juice to the cream cheese frosting--it's the perfect finishing touch. Yum!
ReplyDelete This was the first recipe I looked at for these cupcakes and had to try them because the picture looked so good.
I have a lot to say about these zuchinni cupcakes. Check out my review for some good information before you get started with yours.- AnonymousJuly 10, 2008 at 12:40 AM
wow. this is intriguing. i've been meaning to try cupcakes with courgettes but i'm a little afraid of the taste. thanks for the recipe. i can't wait to try it.x
ReplyDelete - AnonymousJuly 14, 2008 at 1:25 PM
Oh dear god these look delicious. Thanks for sharing the recipe; I'll definitely be adding this to my list of must-makes.
ReplyDelete - AnonymousJuly 31, 2008 at 7:54 AM
thanks for posting the link to this recipe at 101 Cookbooks! What a great way to use up some of the zucchini overflow. I made these yesterday and my 9-year-old son promptly gobbled down two of them, without icing. They are delicious, and I am QUITE sure that if I had told him they were zucchini cupcakes, he wouldn't've gone near them with a ten-foot pole, so I am feeling very pleased with myself
:-). I plan to deliver the rest to his camp sleepover tonight, and think I will just not let them know til afterwards about how healthy they are.
Thanks again, glad to be introduced to your blog.
Pam S. in Arlington, VA - AnonymousFebruary 10, 2009 at 7:59 PM
Just made these cupcakes for my toddlers Valentine's Day party at daycare--they are wonderful! Moist and delicious. I am keeping this recipe with my sacred scraps of paper. Thanks a lot! (oh, and I learned what the heck turbinado sugar is...).
Hey, you're leaving a comment! That's pretty darn cool, so thanks. If you have any questions or have found an error on the site or with a recipe, please e-mail me and I will reply as soon as possible.
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Kurt Elling stopped by our performance studio on April 15th. Check out the audio and video from the performance below.
In the studio with Kurt Elling – The complete jazz singer
Some jazz singers excel at singing standards. Others excel at scat-singing or vocalese (writing lyrics for instrumental improvisations and singing them). However, Grammy award-winning vocalist Kurt Elling can do it all.
He easily proved it in front of a small studio audience of Leadership Circle members on April 15th with along with two long-time musical colleagues; pianist, Laurence Hobgood, and guitarist, John McLean.
The first song of the day, Samurai Cowboy, is Kurt's vocalese reworking of a composition by Marc Johnson called Samurai Hee-Haw (See video below).
He followed that with Estate, featuring lyrics by one of Elling's major inspirations (and one of the originators of vocalese), Jon Hendricks.
To wrap things up, Kurt, John and Laurence launched into a good, old-fashioned jam with Kurt showing his mastery of scat singing.
Between songs, Kurt talked about his youth as a singer in his father's church choirs and, more recently, the benefits of working with producer extraordinaire, Don Was, on Elling's latest CD, The Gate.


text: This Enamel Mug Camping design takes an otherwise basic enamel mug to the next level. The design, which is available in 25 different colors, is made from a glossy high-quality permanent vinyl rated for outdoor use, and the mug holds 12 oz. While we're not sure if the vinyl would hold up to open-flame cooking, it's definitely perfect for your coffee, tea, beer or any other drink your happy-camping' heart desires.


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Shopping online has had the planet by storm. As more folks are finding the simplicity of shopping on the web, the ecommerce world is booming with sales. Ought to be fact, the field of shopping wouldn't be as effective because it is been with them not been for the development of shopping online.
For individuals dealing with shopping online in Canada, they're discovering that the best deals are located on the Internet. Between online codes and special online deals that you can't get in stores, lots of money will be saved while you usually need to pay handling and shipping in your purchases.
Listed here are the advantages of shopping online in Canada:
– The benefit – Because you don't have to leave your house is an amazing plus with regards to shopping on the web. You are able to relax having a laptop inside your lap or at the computer desk and do all your Christmas, birthday, anniversary, and special day shopping.
– No enterprise hrs – Because you are shopping on the web, there aren't any business hrs. If it becomes clear that you didn't remember someone's birthday at 3:00 a.m., you will get on your pc and request overnight shipping around the gift that you select. It's not necessary to be worried about getting some time for you to shop. This is particularly convenient for individuals who're not able to look throughout the day due to their jobs.
– Shop around – Something canrrrt do while shopping inside a traditional store is compare the costs of various stores. The only method that can be done this really is for those who have a sales flyer for every store that sells exactly the same merchandise. When shopping online in Canada, you'll be able to have a lot of shopping websites up at the same time to be able to compare the costs. This involves evaluating shipping costs to be able to figure out what will truly function as the least expensive within the finish.
– No geographic limitation – While you shop online, you aren't restricted to your personal geographic location. Ought to be fact, you've Canada, the U.S., along with other countries to select from. If you cannot think it is in Canada, you simply will dsicover what you're searching for elsewhere on the planet.
– Discounts – There are lots of stores which will have "online only" deals. They'll provide online coupons or special sales that they don't do within their stores. For example, a clothing store could have a purchase within their location, however the purchase is better still online. The shop might not be getting a purchase in their location whatsoever, and can also have some kind of incentive purchase online. Despite handling and shipping, the offer is great.
Time saved – Because shopping on the web in Canada can occur anytime, it will save you considerable time. You don't have they are driving towards the stores, continue the quest for what you would like, and also have to fight traffic returning. For individuals with busy lifestyles, that may turn the enjoyable task of shopping into something absolutely miserable.
Which means this could make you think hard before you purchase that next gift in the shopping center. Yes, you will find occasions that a visit to the mall is warranted because you might need something very fast or else you seem like heading out and shopping. However for individuals other occasions when you do not have time and you do not need something in under 24 hrs, the web presents lots of shopping online possibilities.


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Happy Valentine's day! Were you up late last night making prepartions? Audrey, Scarlett and I were our own little production shop getting boxes of candy hearts labeled (I reused this idea for lack of other inspiration).
- Scraps of fabric ("rags")
- T-shirt
- Coordinating thread (I used white)
- Interfacing or HeatN'Bond plus a scrap of knit matching your t-shirt for stablizing the knit
This is a great project for using up some of the fabric scraps you've been hanging onto. I wanted to use several different patterns for this particular applique but you could of course make one with just a single fabric or two, or three.
Pick your selection of fabric strips and sew them together along the short ends. Trim the seam allowances close to the seam 1/8" inch or so. You should have one long pieced strip. I started with one about 4 yards long, but you'll need more or less depending on what shape you are creating.
Now adjust your tension on your machine (I used a "9") and lengthen your stitch for gathering. Stitch down the center of your entire length of pieced strip to gather it.
I decided to make this applique on a separate piece of white knit fabric. I cut out a piece a bit bigger than the applique I had planned and ironed on some HeatN'Bond on the reverse, then removed the paper backing.
If you would rather, you can sew the applique directly onto the t-shirt. I would recommend using some lightweight fusible interfacing on the reverse of the t-shirt to stabilize it.
Using a pencil or fabric pen draw a small heart in the center of your applique area. Start small enough so that you can add subsequent "lines" of fabric around this initial shape but not so small that you aren't able to wrap the fabric around it. Plus I like some white space in the center.
Pick a place to start--such as the center dipped point of the heart--and pin your ruffled rag strip around the shape. Pin generously. When you reach the point where you began, overlap the beginning of the strip and then start a second outline around the shape...
Continue pinning...
I pinned three rounds, or hearts and then clipped the fabric strip where I finished.
Carefully move your pinned shape to your sewing maching and stitch down the center of the ruffled fabric strips to secure the shape to your knit fabric. Don't forget to adjust your tension back to normal and use a regular stitch length, and be careful of all the pins. Remove them as you come to them and sew slowly.
If you are working directly on a t-shirt, when you are finished stitching you can stand back and admire your work!
If you are creating this applique on a separate knit piece, trim the knit close to the outer stitching line, then pin the applique onto the t-shirt and stitch along the stitching line on the outer ruffled shape. Iron to activate the HeatnN'Bond. Ok, now you can admire your work!


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This was published 6 years ago
'Whitesplaining': MasterChef UK's take on rendang curry riles Southeast Asians
Judges on a popular British cooking show are being ridiculed for ignorance of Asian food after insisting a Malaysian contestant's chicken rendang curry should have been crispy.
Foodies in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia have taken to social media to vent at the critique of the Malaysian-born cook's traditional and standard method for preparing chicken rendang.
"The skin isn't crispy. It can't be eaten but all the sauce is on the skin I can't eat," one of the MasterChef UK judges complained in a recent episode of the show.
Online, Southeast Asians pointed out that the chicken is cooked in curry sauce, not fried, and is never crispy. Some accused the judges of neo-colonial attitudes and racism.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak also chipped in, posting a photo of chicken rendang on Twitter and light-heartedly asking whether anyone has ever eaten a crispy chicken curry. Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said the judges were guilty of "whitesplaining."
The contestant, Zaleha Kadir Olpin, was eliminated from the competition but took to Instagram to vow she'd never stop cooking the traditional way.
Her offending rendang was presented as part of Malaysia's national dish, nasi lemak, or rice cooked in coconut milk that comes with sides such as peanuts, spicy prawns and rendang.
The judges lavished praise on most of the ingredients but dismissed the non-crispy chicken rendang as a "mistake."
One of the judges, John Torode, later stirred more controversy online by trying to fuel the ages-old war of words between Malaysians and Indonesians over which country invented rendang.
However the absurdity of the crispy curry saga has provided the neighbouring countries with a rare point of agreement.
The curry, which some suggest originates from West Sumatra in Indonesia, is popular in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and southern Thailand.


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Social Networking replacing Business Email – Hold that thought…
Monday, February 8th, 2010This weekend I read the article Report: Facebook and Twitter Slowly Replacing Email' posted on Social Times. The article refers to a Garner article Gartner Reveals Five Social Software Predictions for 2010 and Beyond that claims:
By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.
This prediction would be easier to accept if it wasn't quantified as business email. While I have seen a percentage of personal interaction start to channel through Facebook Messages and Twitter Direct Messages. So far, I have received three business related messages through Facebook and not a single one of this emails were followed up through Facebook. Once contact was established, we pursued the discussions through normal email communication. For me, the most business related messages come through Linked In but even then, anything that is beyond a couple back and forths, is moved to traditional email communication. I don't see this trend changing over the next four years and would be hard pressed to see it change that much.
Reasons for my belief above are simple:
- Data retention – With my email account I control data retention with regards to how long I want to keep both received and sent emails.
- Attachments – Attachments are very much a big part of business communication.
- Threaded Conversations involving some or all participants – I can respond to all and keep a thread of communication but I also have the ability to create mini-threads with a select group of participants for related but not meant for full audience subjects.
- Frequency of Synchronization – I can get email alerts using Email Clients/Checkers and Mobile Device Applications.
- Privacy – I don't have to share my personal information with everyone that I send emails to.
- Offline Access – Need I say more?
- Intangibles – Labels in GMail, Advanced Search options, Storing hundreds of emails, and Calendar to mention a few.
While the above are not insurmountable they are certainly challenges to the Social Networking platforms. I believe #1, #2 and #5 will be the top contenders to keep Social Networking platforms away from stealing that 20% that Gartner predicts they will.