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The city of Toronto is stumbling toward the end of 2011 mired in a deep civic funk. Mayor Rob Ford, a renegade small-c conservative from the suburban ward of Etobicoke North, bulldozed his way to victory a year ago on a simplistic pledge to slash municipal waste. His mantra: "Stop the gravy train." While he has yet to identify instances of reckless spending, he has ordered city officials to extract almost $800 million from Toronto's $9-billion operating budget, the sixth-largest public purse in Canada. This punishing and potentially ruinous process may entail shuttering libraries, firing police officers, and scaling back everything from snow removal to grass cutting to transit. Municipal services—such as public housing, environmental advocacy, and even zoos—that don't conform to the mayor's narrow vision of local government may be eliminated, privatized, or significantly reduced.
Toronto's woes, however, go well beyond the mayor's fiscal populism. The Greater Toronto Area—a 7,100-square-kilometre expanse of 5.5 million residents who live in a band of municipalities extending from Burlington to Oshawa to Newmarket—finds itself increasingly crippled by some of North America's nastiest gridlock, congestion so bad it costs the region at least $6 billion a year in lost productivity. Sprawl, gridlock's malign twin, continues virtually unchecked, consuming farmland, stressing commuters, and ratcheting up the cost of municipal services. Without reliable funding, transit agencies can barely afford to modernize, much less expand, straining the GTA's roads and highways to the bursting point.
The GTA's problems have a social dimension as well. With some of the country's highest real estate prices—now more than $450,000 for an average single-family dwelling—affordable rentals remain scarce, while tens of thousands of families who earn as little as $20,000 a year languish on waiting lists for often-substandard subsidized housing. In Toronto's so-called "inner suburbs" (the city proper consists of an older core dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, surrounded by a ring of "outer suburbs" built between 1945 and the early 1970s), poverty has become more prevalent and concentrated. And ethnic: while Toronto has more foreign-born residents than any metropolitan region in the world, many newcomers struggle to find decent work, even if they arrive bearing university degrees.
Not that there is nothing to recommend Canada's largest city; on the contrary. Between the 1950s and the 1970s, Toronto was transformed from a joyless provincial backwater into an energetic, cosmopolitan capital and is now one of the world's "alpha" cities. Its mixed economy emerged from the 2008 credit crisis and recession in good shape, sustaining hundreds of comfortable residential neighbourhoods, as well as dozens of thriving retail strips on older main streets such as Danforth Avenue, College Street, and Queen Street East. Crime rates remain relatively low (Statistics Canada ranks Toronto third lowest of Canada's thirty-two census metropolitan areas on its 2010 crime severity index, well below Regina and Montreal, for example), while tolerance for immigrants, the poor, and a wide range of ethno-cultural groups runs high. Toronto is also an excellent place to be gay, get sick, eat out, go to school, work as an artist, see live theatre, attend film festivals, walk in a ravine, borrow library books, publish newspapers, launch indie bands, develop smart phone apps, conduct biomedical research, and raise capital for mining ventures. For these and other reasons, the GTA attracts 100,000 new residents every year.
But even as many of the world's other megacities, including regional rivals like Boston and Chicago, prepare for an era of breakneck global urban expansion, Toronto persists in thinking small and acting cheap. Should the rest of Canada care? Yes, because the GTA is the country's economic hub, accounting for one-fifth of its gross domestic product; New York, by contrast, produces just 3.3 percent of the United States' national income. Canadian politicians typically refuse to acknowledge the importance to the country of its largest metropolis, opting instead to pander to provincial anti-Toronto sentiments. But tens of billions more in tax revenues flow out of the GTA than come back in the form of services and public sector investment, which means GTA wealth subsidizes government services across Canada, including health care and social security. So whether they love or loathe Toronto, all Canadians have a stake in its well-being. If Toronto fails, all Canadians will feel the pain.
Question: who's in charge? Answer: no one
After World War II, thousands of Canadians streamed home from the battlefields of Europe, got married, and launched the baby boom. Like many cities, Toronto was short of places for these new families to live. To manage the growth pushing outward from its pre-war boundaries, the Ontario government embarked on an innovative experiment in urban governance. In 1953, it created the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, a two-tier federation that ultimately consisted of six local municipalities—Etobicoke, York, North York, Scarborough, East York, and the City of Toronto—overseen by a council of mayors and aldermen. The idea was simple: use the commercial core's economic heft to underwrite the cost of urban infrastructure on the periphery. And it worked. Over the next thirty years, Metro, as the federation was called, built a modern, relatively compact city that was admired throughout the world for its approach to municipal government.
But that was then. Today municipal government across the GTA is a cumbersome, expensive, balkanized embarrassment, the legacy of ill-considered decisions by successive Ontario governments. The problems began in the early 1970s, when Bill Davis's Progressive Conservatives decided to impose the two-tier approach on the rural townships, a ring of suburbs now known as the 905, outside Metro's borders. Andrew Sancton, an expert on municipal government at the University of Western Ontario, describes that decision as "the original mistake." The result, unique in North America, is that Toronto is surrounded by a ring of large, powerful municipalities—Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Markham, Vaughan, and Ajax-Pickering—that compete with the city for private and public investment.
After 1976, when the provincial Parti Québécois came to power, Canada's economic centre of gravity shifted west from Montreal, along Highway 401 toward Toronto, spurring waves of growth. By the end of the 1980s, the government of Ontario recognized that the region had morphed into a huge metropolitan area criss-crossed by increasingly irrelevant local boundaries. In 1994, NDP premier Bob Rae asked Anne Golden, then head of the United Way and now president and CEO of the Conference Board of Canada, to chair a task force to determine how best to manage growth across the GTA. Her team's sage solution: eliminate Metro and the other 905 regional municipalities in favour of a single Greater Toronto Council, with a mandate to plan and oversee such services as transportation, waste management, and economic development. The task force also recommended preserving the larger, lower-tier municipalities (for example, Toronto, Mississauga, and Oshawa), so they could continue offering residents access to local services like parks and planning. In effect, Golden was telling the province to reinvent Metro, but on a much broader canvas.
Conservative premier Mike Harris, elected in 1995 to reduce government via his Common Sense Revolution, ignored the Golden task force, choosing instead to amalgamate Metro and its local municipalities while leaving intact the 905 two-tier governments established in 1973. Although Harris claimed his reforms would facilitate more streamlined decision-making, the result has been anything but. Thirteen years after amalgamation, many Torontonians feel increasingly alienated from a giant municipal bureaucracy that favours one-size-fits-all solutions.
The city's forty-five-member council is riven by chronic factionalism that pits the older central city against the postwar suburbs. Council meetings go on for days and often become mired in tortured arguments about issues as inconsequential as councillors' office expenses. And so strong is the incumbency advantage that many councillors remain in office long after their best-before dates.
Despite Harris's ambition to reduce government, the GTA remains staggeringly over-governed, with 244 municipal office holders, including twenty-five mayors. By comparison, New York, with 8.3 million residents, is governed by fifty-one councillors, five borough presidents, and just one term-limited mayor. Yet the GTA has no democratically elected regional council with a mandate to focus on wider issues, such as economic development and transportation planning. The Ontario government has been reluctant to establish such a body, for fear of creating a powerful political rival or being accused of giving the GTA preferential treatment. So while regional governments oversee vast metropolitan areas in Berlin, São Paulo, and Greater Vancouver, the government of Ontario has yet to learn a crucial lesson in urban expansion: when cities spill over their existing borders, managing growth becomes more vital than ever.
Flat broke (sort of)
Since taking office a year ago, Mayor Ford has characterized Toronto's finances as "a mess" and has derided the civic bureaucracy as "garbage." As he said repeatedly during the election, the city doesn't have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. But the truth is far more complicated. Like many cities that grew quickly in the postwar era, Toronto's municipal infrastructure—roads, sewer mains, transit lines, and public housing units—requires billions of dollars in upgrades and repairs. Enlightened politicians in cities like New York and London have recognized the need to invest in growth, even if it means raising taxes or imposing user fees. But Rob Ford is taking Toronto in the opposite direction: deliberately—and perversely—impairing its ability to prepare for the future.
Ken Greenberg, a Toronto urban designer who has worked in New York and Boston, argues that parsimony has hampered the city's political culture for over a century. "The expression I use is 'too rich for our blood,'" he says. Some of the city's enduring achievements—a dramatic water treatment plant and a crusading public health department—stand out because they were built by visionary civil servants who defied the enduring stinginess of Toronto voters. A more typical story: Toronto's 1912 decision to reject a $7-million proposal to build a subway up Yonge Street. The city would be radically different today, in all likelihood served by a much more extensive subway network, had those now forgotten politicians taken the long view.
During the decades of postwar growth, Metro spent heavily on infrastructure, justifying its borrowing costs as the price of progress. But in the 1980s and 1990s, as development took off north and west of Toronto, the municipalities of Vaughan and Markham enthusiastically pursued beggar-thy-neighbour tax policies that enticed businesses to avoid or flee Metro and its higher commercial and industrial taxes. The result: a slow but painful decline in Metro's non-residential tax revenues; growing tracts of fallow land; and fewer jobs in the inner suburbs, such as Scarborough and East York.
But the most punishing blow—the big bang, from a municipal revenue perspective—came in 1997, when the Harris government, having rammed amalgamation through, decided to relieve municipalities of the burden of funding education in exchange for "downloading" the costs of transit, public housing, and parts of welfare. Harris said the exercise would be "revenue neutral," and for suburban municipalities with less transit and fewer social services, it was. But in Toronto, with its aging subway system and tens of thousands of crumbling public housing units, downloading proved disastrous. The Toronto Transit Commission took a particularly hard hit. The province had subsidized transit operations and capital needs since the 1960s. Now, when much of the system's infrastructure was beginning to show its age, the provincial government was absolving itself of any financial responsibility. With almost half a billion riders per year, the TTC was North America's most cost-effective transit system. But without adequate provincial funding, the city had no choice but to cut service and stop planning for expansion.
Other factors have conspired to impair Toronto's financial well-being. Amalgamation increased the city's labour costs, as public sector unions merged and then negotiated higher wages. The amalgamated city's first mayor, Mel Lastman, compounded the fiscal crunch by freezing property taxes, so from 1998 to 2000 revenues rose more slowly than expenses like fuel, electricity, labour settlements, borrowing costs, and construction materials. Meanwhile, the Harris government made matters worse by ignoring the recommendations of a panel, led by former Scotiabank chair Cedric Ritchie, which recognized that businesses were fleeing the city and urged the government to equalize the property tax rates for education between Toronto and the surrounding 905 municipalities.
The city's spending and borrowing grew under Lastman's successor, David Miller, who persuaded Harris's successor, Dalton McGuinty, to reduce the impact on ratepayers by increasing provincial grants and gradually shifting financial responsibility for welfare and disability benefits back to the province. The federal government kicked in a portion of the gas tax and the GST as well. But the new revenues haven't addressed the growing structural deficit. Debt service is now the second-largest line item in Toronto's budget (after payroll and pension obligations), and the city still faces years of multibillion-dollar outlays on repairs to aging infrastructure, including transit. According to a 2010 study by the Toronto Board of Trade, the annual operating shortfall could exceed $1.1 billion by the end of this decade.
To solve the problem, the board proposed privatization, new procurement procedures, and pension cuts. But experts in municipal finance such as Enid Slack, an economist at U of T, point out that many global cities rely on an array of alternative revenue sources: for example, sales taxes, hotel occupancy levies, and parking fees. In 2008, Mayor Miller introduced two such taxes, on vehicle registrations and land transfers, which generated roughly $300 million annually. But the newly elected Mayor Ford threw out the vehicle tax as soon as he took office, and he still threatens to eliminate the land transfer tax, which brings in $250 million a year. He also froze property taxes, even though residential property taxes are already lower than in the neighbouring 905 municipalities. Ford's proposed spending cuts will only harm Toronto's quality of life, and absent a more enduring solution the city could face a fiscal catastrophe of the same magnitude that nearly bankrupted New York in the late 1970s.
From A to B the hard way—even though there's a better way
Toronto responded to postwar growth by creating an impressive rapid transit system comprising three subway lines, plus the provincially operated GO Transit commuter rail service, which connects the suburban hinterland to the downtown office district. From 1954 to 1980, the TTC built fifty-five kilometres of subways and six dozen stations, which were integrated into an extensive network of buses, trolley buses, and streetcars. The transit system was a great success: in North America, only New York's and Mexico City's carried more riders. And then it nearly ground to a halt: over the next thirty years, as the population of Toronto's metropolitan census area jumped by 40 percent, the city added just thirteen kilometres of subway, fewer than twenty subway stations, and a handful of light rail lines. The sprawling 905 municipalities spent nothing on local rapid transit, until a 2006 agreement to extend an existing TTC subway line into York Region. So while the Ontario government has spent billions to expand capacity on its commuter rail and bus service, the GTA continues to suffer from worsening congestion, grinding commute times, and deteriorating air quality—the consequences of decades of car-oriented planning and lack of investment.
The problems began in 1972, when the Ontario government cancelled the controversial Spadina Expressway, in the face of opposition led by urban activist Jane Jacobs and residents of the neighbourhoods in the proposed highway's path. It was the right thing to do, but Metro had no viable alternative to the discredited highway strategy. Bill Davis used the occasion to signal the province's interest in building space-age magnetic levitation transit routes around Toronto, a half-baked idea that went nowhere. Metro soon embarked on a broad planning study, the Metro Toronto Transportation Plan Review, which published its findings in 1975. Eric Miller, director of U of T's Cities Centre, describes the MTTPR, which recommended a range of subway and light rail projects, as the city's last serious transportation planning exercise. "It was a very extensive transit plan," he says, "none of which was built."
During the 1980s, the Ontario government, still enthralled with the idea of spurring made-in-Ontario transit technology, insisted the TTC buy an untested Bombardier light rail system for one of the few expansion projects completed during the 1980s, the Scarborough RT. Incompatible with the TTC's subway rail gauge, it turned into a costly white elephant, plagued by technical and service flaws, and is scheduled to be replaced with a conventional LRT system by the end of this decade.
In 1985, ten years after MTTPR, Metro officials released Network 2011, a long-term plan to build three new subways. But in the mid-1990s, after the TTC finally began construction, the Harris government cancelled funding for all but a portion of one of them, the five-station Sheppard "stubway," as it phased out provincial transit funding altogether. A hard-core fiscal conservative, Harris believed transit costs should be borne by municipalities, although late in his term he reversed himself and launched a multibillion-dollar program to expand the GTA's commuter rail network.
Following Vancouver's lead, Dalton McGuinty set up a regional transit agency in 2007 called Metrolinx, which was charged with developing a long-term, integrated transportation strategy for the GTA and neighbouring Hamilton. The agency's mandate was to take the politics out of transit planning, and transit planners found much to praise in its Big Move strategy, a twenty-five-year, $50-billion initiative that called for more LRT routes, commuter rail, bus rapid transit, and high-occupancy vehicle lanes. But unlike Greater Vancouver's TransLink, which is funded through fares and a portion of municipal property taxes, as well as provincial fuel and parking taxes, Metrolinx lacked a predictable revenue stream, relying on one-time pledges approved by the provincial cabinet. A decision about a "financial strategy" for the Big Move is expected in 2013, although it is by no means certain that Ontario MPPs will have the courage to implement such unpopular measures as road tolls. Meanwhile, the federal government continues to duck calls for a national program to fund large-scale public transit—a given in virtually every other developed country.
All this toing and froing has injected a high degree of chaos into the city's transit planning processes, which generate lots of talk but little or no action, leaving transit officials up in the air. In 2007, Mayor Miller launched an ambitious plan to build a city-wide light rail network, with streetcars running in dedicated rights-of-way on seven corridors, to link suburban areas that lacked rapid transit. Some transportation and land use planners questioned the proposed routes. Still, Miller pressed on, arguing that the 120 kilometres of light rail, called Transit City, would bring LRT routes to underserved suburban areas that could never support subways, which cost ten times more than streetcars. He argued that light rail represented a cost-effective alternative to subways, and the provincial and federal governments, evidently persuaded, anted up $17.5 billion in funding. TTC officials promptly embarked on the complex task of obtaining regulatory approvals and placing orders for vehicles.
But, once again, it was not to be. First, the McGuinty government, facing deficit pressures, scaled back the provincial funding. Then, after taking office in December 2010, Mayor Ford cancelled all but one of the proposed lines and demanded that the remaining one—which stretched nineteen kilometres along Eglinton Avenue, a midtown thoroughfare—be buried from end to end, a purely aesthetic decision that will cost billions (Ford doesn't like streetcars). He has pledged to build a suburban subway with private funds, a plan most experts regard as wildly unrealistic; he is now asking the Ontario government for help. Strangely, the same provincial officials who approved Transit City also approved Ford's decision to gut it, evidence that Ontario's efforts to take the politics out of transit planning have evidently failed.
The cumulative effect of three decades of cancelled plans, policy reversals, and funding cuts has been corrosive. Congestion makes driving in the GTA frustrating, while overcrowding makes public transit increasingly unappealing. And the situation will only get worse: the GTA's population is projected to grow by 50 percent over the next two decades, adding as many as a million more vehicles to already overloaded roads. Experts in urban planning and infrastructure understand that the longer a city and its suburbs delay in addressing these issues, the higher the cost of resolving them. In many forward-looking cities in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, spending on public transit is properly regarded as an investment in urban economic development. But neither the Ontario government nor the municipal councils of the GTA have been prepared to impose congestion charges or other measures that would deliver sustained funding for transit expansion. "If you want better transit, you have to pay for it," says U of T's Eric Miller. "Without it, Toronto will go into decline."
Us and them
For much of the twentieth century, Canadian immigration was driven by economic and political forces, newcomers arriving in waves from the British Isles, southern and eastern Europe, and Asia. But in the late 1980s, during Brian Mulroney's second term as prime minister, Ottawa sharply increased its targets, aiming for about 250,000 immigrants per year. This, along with Trudeau-era reforms designed to eliminate racial barriers, had a profound impact on Toronto's social profile. Within a generation, the GTA became the world's most ethnically diverse urban region, as measured by the proportion of foreign-born residents. Four in ten Canadian immigrants now settle in the GTA, although only half locate within Toronto proper; unlike the suburbs of many large American cities, those of the GTA are as diverse as its core.
"Toronto completely remade itself in population, values, and ways of urban living," says Ryerson University political scientist Myer Siemiatycki. But recent immigrants have faced greater economic challenges than those who arrived right after World War II. A growing body of evidence shows that the immigrant neighbourhoods in Toronto's older suburbs are experiencing troubling increases in concentrated poverty. In a 2010 study on income polarization entitled The Three Cities within Toronto, U of T geographer J. David Hulchanski reported that since the early 1970s Toronto has seen a precipitous decline in middle-income areas, while between 1981 and 2006 the number of low-income neighbourhoods quadrupled, from thirty to 136. This growing polarization "doesn't augur well for the city," says Siemiatycki. "If you want to look for symptoms that Toronto has gone off the rails, that's about as good as you'll find."
The forces driving these socio-economic shifts are complicated and not always subject to policy-makers' control. In the 1950s and 1960s, newcomers to the GTA benefited directly from the postwar manufacturing boom, which brought with it well-paying union jobs, home ownership, and the accumulation of equity. But such jobs became harder to find as the region's economy shifted away from manufacturing. So while immigrants today are generally better educated than most native-born Canadians, many juggle multiple part-time jobs in low-paying sectors, such as health care, hospitality, and retail, to make ends meet. For increasing numbers of new Canadians, home ownership, a portal into the middle class, has become almost unattainable.
A series of policy miscues has exacerbated the situation. The provincial government hasn't pushed professional associations to accelerate credential recognition for foreign-trained engineers, health practitioners, and others who hold specialized degrees. The federal government has shortchanged Ontario in resettlement funding, direct-ing proportionally more dollars to Quebec. When in 2006 the two senior levels of government struck a deal to manage immigration more equitably, they agreed to consult Toronto about its needs. But the arrangement was more symbolic than substantive, and the problem persists: while the GTA continues to absorb the lion's share of Canadian immigrants, it still lacks the resources to accommodate them.
Which brings us to housing. In the 1940s, the federal government used its fiscal clout to finance public housing in Toronto. And during the mid-1970s, an urban-friendly Liberal minority government created a national social housing program, funding 600,000 co-ops and not-for-profit apartment units, about one-quarter of them in Toronto. But in the late 1980s, the Mulroney government, under pressure from private developers, began winding down support for public housing, and Jean Chrétien's government continued the process as part of its 1995 attack on the federal deficit. The decline in public funding killed development of new not-for-profit housing in Toronto, forcing low-income families to rely on a private housing market that offered just two products: small condo apartments and single-family tract homes. The Harris government made the shortage of affordable housing worse by gutting tenant protection laws and downloading Ontario's rapidly deteriorating public housing onto municipalities that were in no position to pay for the deferred maintenance. Not surprisingly, Mayor Ford is now pushing to sell off hundreds of Toronto Community Housing Corporation properties. Ironically, he has also cancelled plans to redevelop crumbling TCHc complexes, using the market-oriented, self-financing formula promoted by his predecessor.
Toronto's robust development industry, which has built thousands of condos in the past two decades, has shown little interest in constructing affordable rental housing, and the city's planners have had little success in persuading them to do so. Consequently, increasing numbers of immigrant families have taken refuge in the city's 1960s-era slab apartment towers; Toronto contains more suburban high-rises than any other North American city. A 2006 United Way study, Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty, found that 40 percent of the tenants living in these spartan buildings were poor (based on StatsCan income categories), up from 25 percent in 1986, and the number is no doubt higher today. Many of these complexes are languishing in a state of chronic disrepair, often with malfunctioning elevators, security problems, and unreliable heating.
The Three Cities within Toronto contained this dark warning: if current trends continue, by 2025 Toronto's shrinking middle class will have almost completely decamped to the 905 suburbs and beyond. In this bleak scenario, Canada's largest city will have morphed into a polarized urban landscape where poor suburbs surround a prosperous downtown and wealthy midtown enclaves. A growing number of global cities have experienced similar patterns. Some, like London and Paris, have experienced rioting in disenfranchised outer neighbourhoods. The same may lie ahead for Toronto.
Stupid growth
In 2005, the Ontario government passed two landmark laws, the Greenbelt Act and the Places to Grow Act, designed to contain sprawl across the GTA. The former established a 720,000-hectare buffer around the region, making it North America's largest urban greenbelt; the latter created a planning framework meant to encourage GTA municipalities to direct 40 percent of new development into urban areas instead of to farmers' fields. While large developers threatened legal action, smart-growth advocates praised the laws as visionary, although it will take decades to determine whether they will create a denser metropolitan region—assuming they even survive.
The GTA has experienced four decades of substantial growth during which the 905 municipalities, whose borders extend deep into the farmland around Toronto, have gamely approved low-density, car-centric development that stretches as far as the eye can see. Much of this expansion resembled a Ponzi scheme, as rubber-stamping cookie-cutter subdivisions provided the easiest way for suburban municipalities to increase their revenues without antagonizing developers. Hazel McCallion, the long-serving mayor of Mississauga, just west of Toronto, brags that her municipality never incurred any debt, but that's partly because, like the rest of the 905 suburbs, it didn't build rapid transit as a means of encouraging compact development.
Nor did the 905 municipalities demonstrate any interest in getting together with Metro to coordinate the region's growth. In the absence of a governing body such as the Greater Vancouver Regional District, virtually no connection exists between land use and transportation planning. Case in point: a 2011 study by the Canadian Urban Institute found that while the GTA contains 200 million square feet of office space, making it one of just four such regions in North America, 54 percent of that prime real estate lies far beyond the reach of rapid transit. That's a huge shift: thirty years ago, almost two-thirds of commercial space was located in the financial district or along subway lines. What's more, many people who work in these suburban offices own homes in low-density subdivisions, where the absence of public transit forces them to drive wherever they need to go. The net result: Toronto, like many large North American cities, is now ringed by a huge band of intensely car-dependent suburbs.
Pamela Blais, a Toronto-based planning consultant, argues that GTA sprawl is in part an unintended by-product of the Ontario-made regulations governing the fees municipalities collect from developers to help finance growth-related infrastructure. In 1997, the Ontario government passed the first Development Charges Act, whose objective was to make growth pay for itself. But according to Blais, who recently published a book titled Perverse Cities, the regulations fail to adequately distinguish between different types of development. The levy for an infill townhouse in an established neighbourhood is typically the same as one for a new home in a greenfield subdivision, even though the latter will require more costly municipal servicing. Water and sewage mains will have to extend over greater distances, for example, and more pavement will be required for roads. In effect, compact development often subsidizes sprawl.
Many major cities, such as Copenhagen, Paris, and Portland, Oregon, are planning for a low-emission future characterized by higher densities; better and more extensive public transit; additional cycling infrastructure; and financial restrictions on car use, such as parking levies and congestion charges. In comparison, the Ontario government's initiatives—smart growth laws and the creation of a regional transit agency—seem tentative and unlikely to slow the car-dependent development that threatens the GTA's economic viability. As Blais says, "It's time for a big rethink."
Aging gracelessly
In the past two years, construction cranes have appeared on a long-derelict section of Toronto's waterfront, ending a twenty-five-year development hiatus that began when the city quietly approved the construction of drab, barricade-like high-rises adjacent to Harbourfront Centre, a culture and tourism complex established by the Trudeau government in the 1970s. The new developments—an office complex, a community college, and a 140,000-square-metre mixed-use project—are surrounded by innovative parks and boardwalks. Nearby, a cluster of 10,000 apartments will be built over the next four years, in preparation for the 2015 Pan Am Games.
Much of this growth is attributable to the efforts of Waterfront Toronto, a development corporation created by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments as part of Toronto's bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Armed with $1.5 billion, the agency has a mandate to urbanize the city's neglected post-industrial lakefront, which hasn't functioned as an active port or a transportation hub in decades. Waterfront Toronto officials are now overseeing an 800-hectare redevelopment plan, among the largest of its kind in the world. But Mayor Ford and his city councillor brother, Doug, have threatened to elbow aside the agency, slash its budget, and sell off publicly owned Port Lands real estate to shopping mall developers—moves that would wipe out a decade of urban planning of the kind that created magnificent, wealth-generating waterfronts in cities like Barcelona, Chicago, and Sydney. Instead, the Fords' plan includes such ill-conceived ideas as a monorail and a giant Ferris wheel.
Unfortunately, Toronto's history is filled with examples of high-minded plans for open spaces that were crushed by its deep-seated disinclination to invest in the public realm. Olmsted Brothers, the legendary landscape firm that built New York's Central Park, had a waterfront commission in Toronto a century ago, but industrial interests prevailed and it was abandoned. (Co-founder Frederick Law Olmsted designed the park atop Mount Royal in Montreal and many of the public spaces around Niagara Falls. He also did the grounds for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which laid the foundations for that city's waterfront revival in the 1990s.)
There are exceptions, of course: Toronto's iconic new City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square, designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell; Mies van der Rohe's TD Centre; Eb Zeidler's Eaton Centre; and some of the more recent cultural buildings by Frank Gehry, Will Alsop, Daniel Libeskind, Jack Diamond, and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects. But for the most part, attempts to introduce innovative urban design have met with resistance from residents and municipal officials alike. The city's most distinctive public spaces—its unique system of river ravines—were preserved almost entirely by accident, spared by flood plain protection rules that prohibited development after Hurricane Hazel swept through the city in 1954, killing eighty-one people and causing $100 million in damage.
"We live in a culture that undervalues the public realm," says former city councillor Kyle Rae. "It's a serious emotional gap." Early in his career, he pushed the city to expropriate and demolish several derelict buildings on Yonge Street to make way for a large public square. Politicians and landowners fought the plan for years, although Rae's vision prevailed. Today Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto's answer to Times Square, attracts masses of visitors and has given the city's main street renewed verve and energy. What it hasn't done, sadly, is change bureaucratic and political cultures that allow shabbiness and mediocrity. "Our major problem," says Rae, "is that we have a culture of 'no.'"
The Ontario Municipal Board, a century-old quasi-judicial body with the power to overrule municipal planning decisions, often makes matters worse. In Toronto, with its robust real estate market, the OMB has a track record of approving high-density projects with little regard for how they function at street level. Nor does it help that since amalgamation the city has nickel-and-dimed departments with mandates to protect the public realm (parks, urban design, and forestry), sometimes with ironic results. While the city spent years figuring out how to redesign trash cans, thousands of trees planted along sidewalks died from neglect. (The trees are still dying, and the trash cans are already falling apart.) Before amalgamation, tourists invariably complimented Toronto on its cleanliness. Today it's hard to believe that the city once prided itself on its appearance, because it now seems incapable of keeping its sidewalks free of litter and its parks free of weeds. Rob Ford's proposed budget cuts will leave Toronto looking even shabbier, while his voluble campaign to eradicate graffiti has only encouraged its youthful practitioners.
Urban planners warn that the abandonment of public spaces can have enormous unintended consequences. Left untended, assets can become liabilities. Think Central Park in the late 1970s, a deteriorating and crime-ridden place New Yorkers tended to avoid. Such not-so-benign neglect, borne of a culture of stinginess, has been a long-standing element of Toronto's DNA. It recalls that old saying about knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Last May, Rob Ford persuaded city council to scrap plans to build a pedestrian bridge over the train corridor that separates the downtown King West neighbourhood from Fort York and the condo communities popping up near the city's lakeshore. Designed as a double helix, the bridge was to be completed for next year's bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812, Toronto's founding moment. But during the planning process, its estimated cost rose from $18.4 million to $22.8 million. Municipal projects often exceed their budgets without even causing a political ripple. Yet in this case, Ford and his supporters cried poor and insisted that the bridge shouldn't be built and that the land at either end should be sold to help defray the city's indebtedness. The decision came complete with an ironic footnote: the city had already spent $1.3 million planning the doomed structure, money now lost as officials restart the process.
In the grand scheme of things, the cancellation of a pedestrian bridge seems like a minor event, but it reveals much about the Toronto mindset. While the city can always find money to pave roads, it balks at investing in public spaces. In the world's great cities, residents understand that as well as improving quality of life, a vibrant public realm creates wealth and attracts investment. Yet in Toronto… well, Torontonians complain endlessly about congestion but refuse to give their political leaders the tools to do anything about it. They boast about the city's ethnic diversity but don't much mind if immigrants are warehoused in vertical ghettos. They aspire to live in a creative-class city with serious cultural ambitions, but only if they can pay Walmart prices.
Six decades after the beginning of its epochal postwar transformation, it's fair to say that Toronto has become a very big city, and a somewhat accommodating city, but not a great city—at least not yet. Which is more than a little strange, because the GTA contains an abundance of talent and energy, tremendous wealth, and intimations of a distinctly Canadian cosmopolitanism. What's lacking is the will to abandon the story Torontonians have always told themselves, which is that they can't afford the things big cities need and crave, that they mustn't exercise the political clout that naturally accrues to large urban regions, and that they shouldn't manage growth in the intelligent way that the twenty-first century requires.
Toronto, in short, remains the sort of place that plans to build bridges, but then can't bring itself to pay for them.
This appeared in the November 2011 issue.


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Compare Cheap Flights from Cairns to Suva, Fiji
Looking to visit Fiji? Find and compare cheap flights to Suva with Webjet.
Suva Guide
Need to know
Suva is located on the southeastern corner of Fiji's largest island, Viti Levu. The Fijian capital sits on a hilly peninsula, its lush palm trees overlooking the blue waters of the South Pacific. Suva is considered the political and commercial heart of Fiji—perhaps one of the perks of being the largest city in South Pacific.
Suva is bordered by mountains to the north and west, while the coast is lined by mangroves, rather than sand or cliffs. Suva's reputation as the wettest city in Fiji is well deserved, receiving an average monthly rainfall of 250 millimetres—almost five times that of Melbourne. The resulting landscape is one of stunning green hills and vibrant tropical plants. Colo-i-Suva Forest Park, which begins just 9 km north of the city, is a quiet haven of creeks, waterfalls, swimming holes and walking tracks.
With a significant number of expats, Indigenous peoples, and students from across the Pacific region, there's no doubt that Suva is a vibrant and multicultural city. Suva contains everything from modern shopping malls and fine restaurants to backstreet sari shops, curry houses, and vendors peddling handmade goods. Learn about the nation's history and culture at the Fiji Museum, pick up fresh fruit, vegetables and fish at Suva Municipal Market, and admire the colonial architecture of landmarks such as Government House (Presidential Palace) and the Suva City Carnegie Library.
Getting around
In a city the size and pace of Suva, parking can be difficult to come by during peak hours (Saturdays and weekday afternoons). However, getting around the city is still very manageable. Taxis are the most convenient option and will get you to your destination for a very fair price. Alternatively, the local buses are an even more affordable option—however, it's worth having a good idea of where you're going, as there's no guarantee that the driver (or other passengers) will be able to assist you. You can also find buses travelling to all parts of the island from the main bus station, which is located next to Suva Municipal Market.
Best Time to Visit
Suva enjoys a tropical climate with only minor changes in temperature throughout the year. Visiting Suva between May and October will allow you to enjoy the coolest and driest conditions that Suva can offer. That said, it's still best to be prepared for a fair amount of rain, and for temperatures to largely stay above 20 degrees.
Those looking to avoid peak season prices should aim to visit Suva in October and November, either side of which you'll find higher prices and busier resorts due to the Australian and New Zealand school holidays.
Airports in Suva
Nausori International Airport
Nausori International Airport is located in the town of Nausori, about 23 km from Suva. Flights travel to Nausori International Airport from a number of destinations, including Auckland, Nadi, Port Vila, Vanuabalavu and Taveuni. A taxi or bus ride from Nausori Airport to the centre of Suva will take approximately 30 to 40 minutes.

subset: commoncrawl


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Privacy Policy
This privacy statement discloses the privacy practices for IceRings Inc. We are committed to protecting your privacy and encourage you to periodically review this page to be informed of how we protect the information you disclose to us.
If you believe that IceRings Inc. is not abiding by our posted privacy policy, please contact us at Toll-Free 1-833-423-7464 or e-mail us at email@example.com.
IceRings Inc. is the sole owner of the information collected on our site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. IceRings Inc. collects information from our users at several different points on our website.
When you make your first purchase on our site, you will be asked to create an account. By creating an account, the system will remember your personal and purchase information and the checkout process on future purchases will be fast, easy and always completely secure.
Creating an account is also fast and easy: simply enter your personal information once and select your very own username and password. Then during checkout on your next purchase, just login and the system will take care of the rest. At all times, your personal information is accessible to you to review, edit, or update as necessary by clicking on the "My Account" link.
We request information from the user on our order form when making a purchase. Here is where a user must provide their contact information, like name and shipping address, and financial information, like credit card number and expiration date. This information is used for billing purposes and to fill the customer's order. If we have difficulty processing an order, this contact information is used to communicate with the customer.
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information about the user. We use both session and persistent cookies. Usage of a cookie from our site is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information. Cookies enable us to track and target the interests of our users in the aggregate by analyzing popular areas and products to enhance future experiences on our site. Cookies do not cause damage to your computer systems or files, and only the web site that transferred a particular cookie to you can read, modify or delete such cookie. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there are simple procedures in most browsers that allow you to delete existing cookies, to automatically decline cookies, or to be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer of particular cookies to your computer.
IceRings Inc. database tracks the traffic throughout our site. This information is used to compile overall statistics and is not recorded at an individual level. This includes IP (internet protocol) addresses, browser type, ISP (internet service provider), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and #of clicks to analyse trends, administer the site, track user's movement in the aggregate. The statistics help us decide which products and services best serve our members and guests.
IceRings Inc. uses aggregate information from demographic surveys, traffic patterns and IP addresses to customize our site. Aggregate information is occasionally shared with partners third parties for purposes such as planning or executing advertising or promotions. We do not share any personally identifiable information.
IceRings Inc. may disclose and transfer aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.
IceRings Inc. gives you access to third party partners to provide you with certain services. IceRings Inc. will provide those third parties with your transaction information and then those third parties will collect additional information if needed to provide you with the requested service, such as outside shipping companies to ship orders, and credit card processing companies to bill users for goods and services.
We reserve the right to disclose and transfer any and all information that we collect from users of the site, including personal information:
- to our subsidiaries and affiliates;
- to contractors, services providers, licensees and other third parties we use to support our business;
- to licensors, buyers, successors or other third parties in the event of any license, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of the assets or stock (including without limitation in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings) relating to IceRings Inc.;
- to fulfill the purposes for which you provide it;
- for any other purposes disclosed by us when you provide the information;
- with your consent.
Finally, notwithstanding any other provision of this privacy policy to the contrary, we reserve the right to disclose your personal information if we believe that we are required to do so:
- by law;
- to comply with legal process or governmental requests;
- to enforce our Terms of Use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes;
- to protect our operations or those of any affiliated entities;
- to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of Icetrends.com, any affiliated entities, you or others (This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.);
- to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.
This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected by IceRings Inc.
If a user wishes to subscribe to our catalogue, newsletter, etc., we ask for contact information such as name, street address and e-mail address to provide these communications. Because we respect our users' privacy, we provide a way to opt-out of these communications. Please see the choice and opt-out section below.
On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send you an e-mail. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though you can deactivate your account. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.
From time to time, our site requests information from users via surveys or sweepstakes. Participation in these surveys or sweepstakes is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may include contact information (such as name, shipping address and e-mail address), and demographic information (such as post code, age level). Contact information will be used to notify the winners and award prizes. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site.
IceRings Inc. takes every precaution to protect our users' information. When users submit sensitive information via our website, your information is protected both online and off-line.
When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the Secure Socket Layers (SSLs) best encryption software in the industry - Secure Socket Layers (SSLs). While on a secure page, such as our order form, a lock icon appears on the bottom of your Web browser. When you are not on a secure page, no lock icon will appear. In addition, the servers that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure environment under restricted access.
If you have any questions about the security at our website, send us an e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.com for more info.
In order for Icetrends.com to properly fulfill its obligation to our customers, it is necessary for us to supplement the information we receive with information from third party sources such as our affiliated websites. For example, in order for Icetrends.com to enhance our ability to tailor the site to an individual's preference, we combine information about the purchasing habits of users with similar information from our affiliated sites, and Icetrends.com. When a user makes a purchase from any of these companies, the companies collect and share that purchase information with us so we can tailor the site to our users' preferences.
Established members will occasionally receive information on products, services, special offers and a newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users, we present the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see our choice and opt-out below.
If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your post code, phone, e-mail or postal address), or if a user no longer desires our service, we provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate that user's personally identifiable information provided to us. This can be done by using the unsubscribe feature in our communication.
Users who no longer wish to receive promotional materials may opt-out of receiving these communications by using the unsubscribe feature in our e-mail.
We reserve the right to change this privacy policy, and any of our policies or procedures concerning the treatment of information collected through the site, without prior notice. You can determine when this privacy policy was last revised by referring to date at the top of this page. Any changes to our privacy policy will become effective upon posting of the revised policy on the Internet, accessible through the site. Use of the site following such changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy then in effect. We encourage you to periodically review our privacy policy to ensure familiarity with our most current version.


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Ontotext GraphDB is a highly-efficient and robust graph database with RDF and SPARQL support. This documentation is a comprehensive guide, which explains every feature of GraphDB as well as topics such as setting up a repository, loading and working with data, tuning its performance, scaling, etc.
Credits and licensing
The development of GraphDB is partly supported by SEKT, TAO, TripCom, LarKC, and other FP6 and FP7 European research projects.
Full licensing information is available in the license files located in the /doc
folder of the distribution package.
Helpful hints
Throughout the documentation there are a number of helpful pieces of information that can give you additional information, warn you or save you time and unnecessary effort. Here is what to pay attention to:
Hint badges give additional information you may find useful.
Tips badges are handy pieces of information.
Notes are comments or references that may save you time and unnecessary effort.
Warnings are pieces of advice that turn your attention to things you should be cautious about.


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Information Possibly Outdated
The information presented on this page was originally released on June 24, 2013. It may not be outdated, but please search our site for more current information. If you plan to quote or reference this information in a publication, please check with the Extension specialist or author before proceeding.
Proactive steps reduce risk of termite damage
JACKSON -- Seasonal termite swarms cause Blake Layton's phone to ring off the hook this time of year.
Layton, a Mississippi State University Extension Service entomologist, said all three major termite species in Mississippi mate from January through June in hopes of forming a new colony. Mating season is one of the rare times people see the secretive insects. Sightings often spark suspicion of an infestation.
"Termites swarm every year during this time. It's normal. It's what termites are supposed to do," said Layton, who is also an Extension professor in MSU's Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology. "Just because termites are swarming near a structure does not mean there are termites in the structure."
That said, all Mississippians should take the threat of termites seriously. Eastern subterranean termites live all over the state and are the most common species. Southeastern drywood termites are the least common type and are found in the extreme southern counties of the state, mostly along US Highway 90. Formosan termites are an invasive species found in the southern half of the state.
"Every wooden structure in Mississippi is at risk of attack by termites," Layton said. "For most homeowners, it is not a matter of if termites will enter their home, but when."
Layton suggested homeowners throughout Mississippi keep a termite contract with a pest control company.
"By their nature, termites are very difficult to detect, and by the time homeowners see outward signs of an infestation, there could be thousands of dollars of damage," he said.
Initial termite treatment costs and annual renewal fees depend on the size of the home and type of foundation. Treatment costs can range from approximately $800 to several thousand dollars. Annual renewal fees can range from about $80 to several hundred dollars, Layton said.
"Initially it can be expensive, but treating a home before there is an infestation is much less expensive than having to correct the damage a colony of termites could cause over a year or two," he said.
Layton said contract terms vary depending on the company, and homeowners should read the contract carefully before signing it to make sure they understand the terms. Some companies cover termite damage done when the home is under contract, and others do not.
Formosan termites, which prefer warm, moist climates, pose additional risk to homeowners in the southern half of the state. Established colonies exist in 25 counties and continue to spread as far north as the Jackson area, Layton said.
Compared to Eastern subterranean termites, Formosan termites form larger colonies and are more aggressive feeders. Individual Formosan termites are also larger. All three factors allow them to consume more wood in less time than a colony of Eastern subterranean termites could.
Christian Stephenson, MSU Extension Service county coordinator in Hancock County, said his office receives several calls about termites each spring.
"A lot of our calls are from people who find dead termites inside their house," he said. "Formosan termites swarm at night, and they are attracted to light. Sometimes they find their way inside. If people find 15 or 20 in their living room one morning, they think they must have an infestation. But that usually isn't the case."
Stephenson said although Formosan termites can do more damage in a shorter amount of time than the state's native species, homeowners shouldn't panic if they suspect an infestation.
"If the home is under contract with a pest control company, call them and have them do an inspection," Stephenson said. "If the home is not under contract, it is okay to take a few weeks to get bids from several pest control companies and make the best decision for the individual situation.
"Professional monitoring and periodic treatments are extremely important," Stephenson said. "But homeowners also need to take additional steps to reduce their risk of termites entering the home."
These factors can increase the probability that termites will enter a structure:
• allowing soil, mulch, and leaves to get too high around the foundation;
• placing untreated wood products in close contact with the ground;
• disturbing the treated soil band around the home;
• allowing water to pool against the foundation; and
• piling wood or lumber against the structure.
Formosan termites arrived in New Orleans on cargo ships returning from East Asia after World War II. Mississippians first found them in 1984, and now Formosan termites inhabit more than 10 states.
For more information on termites, refer to Extension publication 2568, Protect Your House from Termites, or contact the county Extension office.


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The smaller, more elongated tea pot is a fairly new addition, an original from Eva Zeisel. I love it for making my own jasmine tea. I found it at a local shop nearby and had to have it. I gave it to myself for my very own birthday. I used money from my Mom who always tells me -"Now do not use that for the children, you buy yourself something special."
Special spout, not so short and stout but still a lovely spout for pouring myself a cup of tea. I have a pretty flowery tea pot too, but that is for another post and for when I am feeling the need for a High tea with all the accoutrements.


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Name of technology developed | Description | |
1 | Zero Energy Chamber | Dimension for a chamber to keep 200 kg of fresh ginger: Double brick structure- outside wall: Length- 180 cm: width- 130;Height- 82 cm Inside wall: Length – 120cm; width- 90 cm; Height- 75 cm Gap between walls – 20 cm During storage the sand can be moistened with water every alternate day which will keep the temperature inside the chamber about 5-7 degree lower than ambient. It can store healthy ginger up to 4-5 months with out damage. |
2 | Arecanut + Chaba Intercropping | Java long pepper (piper chaba) is one of the main sources of long pepper. This can be introduced as an intercrop in arecanut plantations. P. Chaba is grown with a spacing of 1.5-2.0 * 1.5 -2.0m. Long pepper is a vine, and therefore, it requires a support to grow. A trial conducted in IISR revealed that around 4000 plants of long pepper could be grown successfuliy in arecanut plantation of one hectare. On an average 135 g dry mature fruit per vine was harvested. At the rate of Rs 60/ kg, produce worth Rs 32,400/- was obtained with minimum effort. |
3 | Mechanical Thresher for black pepper | Model: Raspbar-drum type. Speed rpm (m/s) : 450(7.07); capacity : 398 kg/h; Efficiency: Two feeding 98% Breakage : 4.5% Feeding Pattern : Each lot two times. The performances of the thresher was evaluated for the capacity, breakage and threshing efficiency at various speeds of operation. The capacity of the thresher increased from 320 to 400 kg/h as the speed of the drum increased from 300 to 450 rpm. An increase in the speed also increased the efficiency of threshing. The percentage of broken berries was negligible and the threshing efficiency was above 95% at 300 rpm of drum speed. The thresher is operated by a single phase 2 hp motor. The salient features of the thresher are: |
4 | Blanching and drying of mace (Myristica fragrans) | Mace, after separation from the kernel was spread in a single layer over the wire-mesh –bottom drying chamber. Hot air drying of mace required 4 h to complete drying. The weight reduction was higher during the initial phases of drying, which then decreased subsequently. The moisture content in unblanched and blanched mace lowered from 1.75 to 0.05 g/g (dm) after 4 h and 3.5 h of drying, respectively.Blanching reduces drying time. After drying,blanched mace acquired a deep red colour and a glossy appearance. Lycopene, the main quality constituent in blanched mace was 22.06% higher as compared to unblanched mace. |
5 | Low input nutrient technology for black pepper | For the predominantly small and marginal black pepper growers in Kerala, Application of ½ pop(recommended package of fertilizers) + zinc (6kg/ha as basal) is a risk free rational technology for better returns. However, large and medium farmers with enough resource to spare, application of FYM+ ½ recommended P (25 kg/ha) +Azospirillum (20g vine -1) or FYM + ½ recommended N (70 kg/ha) + Phosphobacteria (20g vine -1) is recommended for better returns. |
6 | Integrated nutrient input technology for black pepper |
For higher yield and fertility buildup in black pepper gardens, Coir pith compost can be recommended @ 1.25 t ha-1 integrating with ½ the recommended fertilizer dose and azospirillum sp. @ 20g vine-1 |
7 | Drip irrigation schedule for brush pepper | Brush pepper is suited as intercrop in coconut garden. Drip irrigation @ 81/plant/day during October-may is ideal for 5 year old bush pepper for getting maximum incomeand cost benefit ratio worked out for the treatment was2.00 |
8 | Granite powder as substitute for sand in rooting media |
Black pepper is commonly propagated through rooting of cuttings using potting mixture consisting of soil, sand and farm yard manure in 2:1:1 proportion. Rate of leaf production (4.6), leaf area (136.8) and biomass (3.9g) of black pepper rooted cuttingswere higher for combination of soil(s), granite powder (G) and farm yard manure(F)SGF 2:1:1 followed by SGF 1:1:1. Production cost of rooted cuttings was less (Rs 3.3/pl) compared to control (3.60). |


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McGRATH DEEP DIVER LURE
- The McGrath Deep Diver has been in production since the early 1980's. This lure really set the precedent for minnow lures in Australia. It has been tried extensively throughout Australia and has proven extremely successful on almost every species of native and introduced species (e.g. trout, bass, golden & silver perch, barramundi, etc).It has also had very good success in salt water e.g. tributaries - varieties are bream, flat head, trevally etc). Depth to 3.5 metres.


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"Can you find the dog?...How about the banana?"
"The apple is red, can you find something else that is red?"
Seek-a-Boo is an engaging way to build your child's vocabulary and improve memory skills with matching and repetition. Your active child will love moving from card to card, peeking under each "SEEK ME" circle, looking for a match to your "FIND ME" square. Seek-a-Boo has six color-coded card categories that highlight: foods, toys, clothing, colors & shapes, things found outdoors and animals. The interactive parent guide provides instruction for more ways to play; giving flexibility to increase or decrease difficulty for younger, older, or for playing with multiple children. Switch roles, create your own combinations, practice taking turns—the learning and play is endless!
• Helps develop memory, vocabulary, pronunciation, turn-taking and large motor skills
• Includes 36 "SEEK ME" cards and 36 matching "FIND ME" cards for an adult to call out
• Large laminated cards are high-quality, bright and are color-coded by 6 categories
• A great game for more than one child at different age levels and offers multiple ways to play!
Age Recommendation: Ages 1 to 3


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The second blog in the series about the features of Configuration Manager 2012 is about the new application model and the new software center which enables the user centricity promise of Configuration Manager 2012.
The new Application Model
The new Application Model which is built around the User Centricity concept and fully supports application uninstall, application supersedence and on demand application installation. An application can consist of several deployment types, for instance the application Acrobat Reader 8.12 can have deployment types for MSI, App-V, Windows Mobile or a script like shown below. In this case each deployment type represents a different way of deploying the application.
- The MSI deployment type can be used on all you desktops and laptops
- The App-v deployment type can be used in for instance a SBC environment
- The Windows Mobile deployment type can be used for your Windows Mobiles clients
- The Scripts deployment type can be used for customized deployments via Powershell scrip, VB Script or Java Script.
For Nokia phones you can also deploy and manage SIS/JAR files. Together with the Deployment Types, Global Conditions, Requirements, Detection Methods and Dependencies you are able to deploy an application to a user of device.
Global Conditions are used to specify how applications are available for en deployed to client devices, they represent technical or business conditions. A global condition can be the following;
- "Total physical memory" for a Windows Device.
- Is registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCorpDevice" available, yes or no.
With requirements you are able to specify the minimum requirements for devices to install the deployment type. A global condition can be added to requirements. Configuration Manager 2012 checks all requirements before deploying the application.
Detection Methods are used to determine whether the deployment type is already present on the device. This detection method can be a MSI guid, file (version), folder or script.
Dependencies are used to allow you to install a depended application or check if the application is in place. Packages and programs cannot be a dependency of an application.
With application supersedence allows you to replace or upgrade an application by another one. This is done by creating relations on application level.
Besides uninstall support of applications, you are also able to manage revisions and for instance roll back to an earlier version of the application.
The Software Library workspace in the Configuration Manager console is the place where you can find all the legacy Packages and Applications which you can deploy with Configuration Manager 2012. The Legacy Packages and programs are still supported in Configuration Manager 2012.
Software Center and Software catalog
This feature is the frontend for the user. The Software Center is a client side application from where the user can install or request new software. To be able to request and install software you will be redirected to the Software Catalog, a Silverlight webpage. Depending of the deployment rules and requirements the user receives the right application for the Operating System where the user is working from. With the Software Center the user is able to search for, request, install, repair or remove applications available in Configuration Manager 2012.
The user is able to configure for instance their working hours in the Software Center, so that the Software Updates are not installed during these business hours. Users can also view their software request history or configure when Configuration Manager can install software on their devices.
If remote control is enabled by the administrator, the user can configure access settings for the remote control.
The next subjects in the serie of blogs about the feuatures of Confuiguration Manager 2012 will be a suprise 😉


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12.5ft X 15.5ft Part Interchangeable Castle
Product Specifications!
Specification | Details |
Product Size |
12.5ft x 15.5ft |
Suitable For |
Children |
Our Reviews!
Our Prices!
Our Price: | £1150.00 |
Product Description
12.5ft x 15.5ft Part Interchangeable Castle
Our inflatables are ideal for just about every event. Each of our bouncy castles could be used indoors or outside. For every stress area, our company provide internal and external webbing to reinforce all these areas for added durability. All our units are built to pass, or even exceed, the recent standard BSEN14960:2013. Our posts are actually sewed into the walls making them tremendously resilient and much more robust. Here at Outstone Inflatables, our company only use external independent testers. If you might prefer a RPii or PIPA certificate to accompany your latest purchase, get in touch with us for an estimate.
All of our artwork is printed using some of the best sophisticated technology in the business sector. Outstone use solvent ink along with an unrivaled lamination method for consistency, resilience and UV protection. Our team of graphic designers here at Outstone have created some totally magnificent artwork for your businesses.
Outstone's product lines are manufactured within the UK by accomplished staff. We only work with 18oz 610 nylon flame retardant PVC which adhere to latest standards. All of the thread used is rot proof and everything is twin sewn. Our step and beds are entirely webbed using 2'inch webbing. Our castles come with detachable artwork fittings, so that you can change your name/number anytime you like.
In the event that you want to get a specific theme, why not speak to us today to see if we have it in the pipeline. Do not forget, everything is undertaken in-house so we can be very adaptable in terms of artwork, dimensions and our manufacturing process.
We can produce this bouncy castle in any dimension you need.
So whats included in the sale?
. Bouncy Castle
. One set of artwork ( each other set costs £140 )
. Netted back wall
. Name and Number printed panel
. Repair Kit
. 6 Pegs
. Webbed Bed and Step
. Raincover
. Test Certificate
. After sales support
. Operating Instructions.
If you need a blower with the castle just add £130 on to the Price.


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Son Goku Gold Celebration Winner Card FP-006 BGS 10 DB Fusion World
Son Goku Gold Celebration Winner Card FP-006 BGS 10 DB Fusion World
Returns Policy
Returns Policy
Orders Damaged/Unsatisfied
If the item is undamaged, completely unopened and unused in the original wrapping exactly as received, then you may return the item as unwanted for up to 14 Days from the date you receive it!
You will be responsible for postage costs and ensuring the item reaches us in the same condition received.
Please note that if the item returned does not satisfy these requirements we will not accept it.
Refunds will be processed as soon as possible and not later than 30 days after confirming receipt of the items.
This policy does not affect your statutory rights.
Damaged or Faulty Goods
If you have received a faulty or damaged item you must inform us within 7 days of receiving the order. We will then offer a suitable resolution at no cost to yourself. We do reserve the right to refuse complaints, or levy suitable charges for issues raised after this period.
Special note: Damaged cards inside blind packed products like Booster packs.
In the event that a particular card is damaged inside a pack, we will only be able to replace the booster pack as being faulty (the product purchased) and not the individual cards inside. In the rare event this happens to you, you could benefit by contacting the manufacturer first for a replacement card, but note they have no duty to do so.
Pre-order cancellations
You may cancel a pre-order for a full refund up until before shipment of the order, which is usually one day before the official release date (on the day itself for Magic the Gathering)
Other Returns
In the unlikely event that your item arrives damaged or we made a mistake on your order or your item has suffered a manufacturing fault, then please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com. Most manufacturing faults can be quickly resolved via an email to the manufacturer. If you wish to return an item in these circumstances we will cover the postage costs for your return up to standard shipping.
Quality Guarantee & Guarantee
TridentCards provides quality products. All products we sell are guaranteed to be genuine and authentic. All products will be in mint condition unless otherwise stated.
Return address
19 Oakfield road
Free Shipping
Hassle-Free Exchanges
Bought the wrong item? Why not pop into store, a member of staff will be more than happy to assist with your query.


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Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday Morning Confessional
It's been awhile since I've done one of these—you know, because I've been so good. But I've got a few things to get off my chest:
* On Sunday, Max's diet consisted of: one jelly donut, one mini chocolate donut, chocolate ice-cream, one half of a pickle, apple juice, a baked potato with sour cream and one half of a jelly donut. This sounds like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, doesn't it?
* My diet wasn't that much better.
* This week I told the kids I couldn't find the Madagascar DVD because I couldn't bear to watch that damn movie one more time.
* Max has been saying "Daddy" for a while now. I've been happy about that...and jealous. When he finally came out with a really clear "Mommy" the other week, I was ecstatic.
* My sister's having a baby in September (a girl!); my good friend Lyla's baby (another girl!) is due soon after. Whenever I see either one of them, I desperately miss being pregnant. Is that strange? I loved pregnancy.
* I often eavesdrop when Sabrina has conversations with other kids because I am so continuously fascinated by her ability to talk.
* I still haven't gotten around to getting prints of our Disney cruise photos made for the kids. Ah, photo guilt.
* I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.
Got anything you'd like to confess?
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Photo by Gregory Pleau
13 comments:
Um, can you say summer camp?! Can I tell you how excited I am that both boys will be there? Jonathan from 8-4, Jacob from 8-12? Did I tell you how excited I am? For the next 3 weeks...Monday thru Friday. I wish it was until August...
My brothers kids make me crazy...and not in a good way. They are here visiting for 3 weeks, and I am ready to have them go home now. But we still have 2 more weeks...thank goodness they are staying at my mothers house. They do nothing but whine (my youngest neice seriously whines for EVERYTHING...not sure she has a normal voice) fight and can be quite rude. I knew my brother and I parented differently, but I didn't think it was THAT different.
I love the fact that my whiney niece looks exactly like me. I wish she was mine...then she wouldn't be so whiney.
I could go on and on Ellen...Daniel's diet was horrible yesterday, too! A chocolate donut with his breakfast, chocolate milk with a candy - covered sundae for lunch (and NOTHING else!), and ice cream cake after dinner. In my defense, the sugary lunch was due to the fact that it was my nephew's birthday and my niece's is in a few days, so we took them out to spoil them. Oh, did I forget the mountain of cupcakes he ate on Saturday night Hubby's cousin's wedding? Oops.
I was a bit curt at said wedding with a woman whom I've never met because she apparently heard about Daniel's stroke from one of his aunts. She brought it upon herself to come out on the dance floor where Daniel was dancing his little heart out and ask me if I thought it was a good idea for him to be "in that kind of environment," whatever that means. Scratch that - I was a little more than curt. Oh, and there is just no excuse for the dancing our family did at the wedding. I'd like to be able to blame it on alcohol, but alas, I don't drink. Luckily for us, it was all caught on camera.
Finally, I have to second Sarah - my three - year - old nephew has been driving me insane. I love him to death, but he is a brat with a capital B. He throws fits and gets away with it all the time. Earlier this week, Daniel came home from Grammy's house with multiple (about 20) deep red pinch marks all over his arms. He apparently looked at his cousin the wrong way, causing a huge fiasco. Daniel also told me that when he was lying on the floor, his cousin came up and stomped on his chest. When I asked why he didn't fight back, he said because he's older, bigger, and knows that hitting is wrong. That made me both proud and furious that my kid is expected to follow the rules when a child who is old enough to know better has no boundaries. Seriously, I've never heard a child scream and lash out over every blessed thing - he even threw a violent fit over, of all things, not wanting to eat any birthday cake. He can be sweet, but he's mostly a nonstop screaming, hitting, kicking, dare I say it, miniature bully. At the same time, I feel guilty for feeling that way because I do love him and I probably won't get to see him again until next year.love those diet days....I am like you and loved being pregnant! That is awesome that Max is saying Mommy(and Daddy)!
I have to confess I get jealous over how well some of my friends kids talk...Having 2 children with special needs that impacts their communication...sometimes I wish they could hold a great, funny, interesting conversation with me or other kids!I love listening to Noah talk.
I haven't printed pictures since AUGUST. Yeah. Mother of the Year. It's on The List now.
And I so loved being pregnant. It was a time when I actually didn't feel fat or really worry too much about my weight. And the movements. I do not miss the hemorrhoids or the pain of stretch marks upon top of stretch marks or the insomnia.- Aunt JudyJune 29, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Don't have any guilt about anything - you are doing the best you can and you are doing a great job!!! I don't think I like being pregnant as much as you did, but I keep thinking of what the end result will be, and I can only hope that my little girl is as great as Sabrina. I am also happy to be giving Max and Sabrina a cousin. My husband also reminded me yesterday (when I was complaining about being nauseous) that I should be thankful that I was able to get pregnant - there are a lot of women out there who would love to be in my shoes. So, I will carry on and continue to feel like a slow-moving blob and dealing with the nausea, heartburn etc. and keep the bigger picture in mind.
ReplyDelete I was very saddened & super jealous of my best friend this weekend. She just had a beautiful baby girl with the perfect pregnancy last August. The Baby is not even a year old & yet she was bragging how she quit taking BC just to see what happens. She got pg first month last time. My heart hurt so bad cause I want to be able to throw caution to the wind & have a baby too. Then I felt guilty for "hatin" on my BFF.
ReplyDeleteI love Max's diet on Sunday and am amazed that he didn't get a tummy ache :-) We all need a day off and it appears his gut agreed!
Here is my confession for the day - Emma is still on pureed food, but is so interested in what we eat. However, when we go to give her anything, her oral defensiveness kicks in. Today I was having a bit of a *off* day for me and hit the vending machine for some chocolate after Emma's therapy. She kept eying up my Milky Way, so after a few attempts of almost opening her mouth and tasting, she finally did. She LOVED it! Just sucked on it enough to get some tastes of it and not choke. I can't wait to have a partner in crime to eat some candy with - I don't need the calories and Emma does, so it would be a sharing match made in heaven.
KristinaI just found your blog and love it!
I have two children with special needs, Savanah has severe autism, and Dallin has moderate autism, they are both non verbal, not potty trained, 6 & 8!
Savanah will eat anything that isn't tied down and Dallin would live on cookies, toast, & crackers.
I love your perspective and will continue to tune in!
As far as other kids UGH that is hard, I have a nephew who is so far advanced for his age 7, and my bff has a 5 yr old that talks like she is 21!
It has been very difficult at times to not compare and to get my kids involved with other kids.
Other kids usually ask alot of questions, like "why is he slobbering?"
"why is she spinning and humming"
"why does she eat like that?"
"why do they still wear diapers?"
Makes it very hard for them to fit in in the "real world" but I am trying to raise them to be as confident in themselves as possible and I secretly cry in the bathroom when no one can hear me, lol
Glad to find you,
ChristieThis is Joyce. Ok I'm not reading this until Monday NIGHT, but is there something wrong with Max's diet? Sounds pretty typical of my Matt everyday:) I love the idea of hiding the movie. I wonder how I could do that with Sarah's entire collection of 7th Heaven. I am desparately sick of that entire family.
Well it seems everyone is complaining about their siblings kids. No complaints here, I'm an only child and my husband has three sisters, all over the age of reproduction, who have decided to focus on dogs. So my kids have no cousins - none -not a one. Makes for pretty boring family events. They do have two second cousins who have been wonderful but they live in Miami so we only see them once a year.
Well here is my confession of the day. I have been glued to the TV since Friday taking in everything about Michael Jackson. I did not even get dressed on Sunday I was so hooked. I even blew off two of Sarah's treatments. No wonder she can barely breathe. I'm sure I'll pay for it tonight because she is sounding really horrid right now, but the BET awards were amazing:)I have to confess that I almost cried when I read that "My Name is Earl" is not coming back next season. It was one of my guilty pleasures.
Your confession about the Madagascar DVD made me laugh. My daughter has a Jimmy Neutron DVD that she loves so much I will play it for her over and over and over, just to keep her happy. My husband is so sick of it he keeps threatening to hide it.- FeliciaJune 30, 2009 at 6:12 AM
OK, I am always late to the ball but damn, Ellen, I am so GLAD to see someone online ADMIT that some days their kids eat absolute crap and that's just how it goes! I have such an inferiority complex sometimes when I click around the internet and see how many perfect people there are who all cook like Martha Stewart with all the hoity toity organic food I've never even heard of and housekeep like her too! Some days, my little darlings want waffles and bacon for dinner and I give it to 'em! And no, they aren't the fancy waffles you make in one of those machines, there the kind that come in a box, frozen, from the market!!
I have done the same damn thing with the movie, too, except with me, it's an off-the-air tape of Mister Rogers. Now, I just love Mister Rogers, bless his heart, but this tape is eight hours of shows and they'll sit and watch him all day if I let them (and his voice, rest his soul, gets annoying if you are trapped inside on a rainy day).
This weekend I did lie and tell a friend of mine (a real Martha Stewart who kind of gives me the the put-down) that I HAD to work and couldn't go to her cook out. Then I called up a friend of mine and volunteered to swap shifts with her (she likes being home with her husband on the weekend). I just wasn't up to listening to my friend's BS about how much her new BBQ cost and how much her new car cost and how much their next vacation will cost--and they're about the only people I know who give my kids the stink-eye sometimes, too. Hell, I don't know why I even call them friends! I always feel bad when I'm around them!


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Is there a word in English that describes the feeling or thinking that a joke is funny, but really bad (i.e. groan-worthy) at the same time? For example, most puns cause many people to groan, but they might also make the same people laugh momentarily ("It's not that the man did not know how to juggle; he just didn't have the balls to do it.").
If not that, is there a word that describes such a joke?


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Ever noticed that when you try to "do it all," the one thing you can count on is getting sick?
Now, a new study suggests why: if you don't get enough sleep, your immune system seems to suffer.
The finding comes from a study of 11 pairs of twin adults. Each pair of twins had significantly different sleeping routines.
The researchers found that the twin who regularly slept less also turned out to be the one with the less potent immune system.
"This is the first study to show suppressed immune gene expression in chronic sleep deprivation," said study lead author Dr. Nathaniel Watson. He's a professor of neurology at the University of Washington Medicine Sleep Center in Seattle.
That, added Watson, could explain why prior research has shown that "if you expose a sleep-deprived person to a rhinovirus they are more likely to get the common cold than a person who has adequate sleep."
Americans have seen their daily sleep drop an estimated 1.5 to 2 hours over the last century, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And even though seven or more hours of sleep is considered by many — including Watson — to be essential for optimal health, one-third of today's working population gets less than six hours of sleep each night.
The researchers also noted that perhaps half of sleep-pattern routines can be traced to genetic predispositions, with lifestyle and environment accounting for the rest.
With that in mind, the researchers were able to focus on the non-genetic underpinnings of sleep behavior, as well as its potential relationship to immune function, by looking at the sleep habits of identical twins.
All the participating twins were drawn from the Washington State Twin Registry, and more than 80 percent were female. Their average age was 43.
All were deemed healthy before the study, though all reported differing sleep patterns.
The pairs' sleep routines were tracked under "natural real-world circumstances" over two weeks. The pairs averaged a little over seven hours of sleep a night. And, in general, one twin in each pair slept roughly 64 minutes less per day than their sibling.
Blood sample analyses revealed that the twin who slept fewer hours also appeared to have a weaker immune response, as measured by white blood cell activity.
But why?
"Sleep is regenerative and supports immune pathway protein production," said Watson. "Thus, it makes our immune system function properly."
The bottom line: "Sleep is as important as diet and exercise to optimal health," he said. "Prioritize it in your life and reap the benefits. If you have trouble sleeping, talk to your doctor. You may have a sleep disorder."
There is "no substitute for sleep," he added.
Watson and his colleagues recently discussed their findings in the journal Sleep.
Josiane Broussard is an assistant research professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder's department of integrative physiology. She described the findings as "really exciting" and "important."
"We don't know why sleep is so critical for maintaining health and immune function," said Broussard, who was not involved with the study. "Sleep remains somewhat of a mystery, even though we all sleep and chronic insufficient sleep impairs health. We know very little about something that occurs involuntarily.
"The main take-home message from this study is that chronic insufficient sleep results in dysregulated immune function and therefore, it is extremely important that people try to protect their sleep as much as possible," she said.
More information
There's more on sleep deficiency at the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Source: HealthDay
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