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By James M. Dorsey
Leave aside for a moment questions of due process. Analysis of Saudi Arabia's three largest corporate failures explains why Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman's recent moves look more like a power and asset grab than a credible effort to eradicate corruption.
Dependency on government contracts was at the core of the bankruptcy of Saudi Oger, owned by the family of embattled Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and the near-demise of the Saudi Bin Laden Group.
Granted, the $22 billion downfall of 70-year-old Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company (AHAB), which took down two Bahraini banks as well as the Saad Group in one the largest financial collapses of the 2009 global credit crunch, occurred because of mismanagement, lack of corporate and financial governance, and allegations of fraud, theft and forgery.
Yet, like the Bin Ladens and the Hariris, a major chunk of the group's business was with the government, selling steel piping to Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's national oil and natural gas behemoth. The settlement of the collapse with more than 100 banks was long viewed as a litmus test for foreign investors.
For Saudi Oger and Bin Laden, the government's predicament meant cancellation of projects and failure to pay. The government's default had a ripple effect, including the companies' inability to pay their workers, who in a country in which protests are banned, took their plight to the streets.
… the social contract that is now being unilaterally rewritten by Prince Muhammad involved popular surrender of political rights, adherence to a strict social code, and acceptance of an absence of transparency and accountability in exchange for cradle-to-grave welfare.
What emerges from the failures is the vulnerability of major private corporations at a time when government, the dominant economic player, was forced to diversify, rationalise and cut costs. The failures also highlighted the lack of oversight of corporate governance.
Ironically, a raid on the Saudi mansion of the head of the Saad Group, Kuwaiti billionaire Maan al-Sanea, two weeks before Prince Muhammad's arrest of some 200 princes, officials and businessmen on charges of corruption, set the stage for the purge.
The history of the troubled companies as well as Mr Al-Sanea's detention speak to a system in which beyond private enterprise dependency, members of the ruling family were rentiers of the state since its founding and allowed to drink at the trough, and concepts of conflict of interest were non-existent.
Transparency and accountability did not enter the equation in a country that did not tax companies or individuals except for zakat, a religious obligation for all Muslims who meet the necessary criteria of wealth. Instead, the social contract that is now being unilaterally rewritten by Prince Muhammad involved popular surrender of political rights, adherence to a strict social code, and acceptance of an absence of transparency and accountability in exchange for cradle-to-grave welfare.
Despite citizens being asked to increasingly contribute by moves towards market rates for services and the planned introduction of indirect taxes like a highway toll, there is no accountability with billions of dollars that the inhabitants of Riyadh's Ritz Carlton Hotel-turned-gilded prison are being asked to surrender and transfer to a Finance Ministry account in exchange for their freedom. What happens to those funds once they have been transferred remains unclear.
In other words, transparency and accountability do not figure in Prince Muhammad's top-down moves. Aides to Prince Muhammad have asserted that the arrests were the result of almost three years of investigations. No details of those investigations have been made public nor have their results been interrogated by a credible and independent judiciary.
The assertion would explain why the government announced the establishment of a new anti-corruption commission headed by Prince Muhammad only hours before the purge and why its functions were seemingly primarily defined as an arm of law enforcement rather than a vehicle to create an anti-corruption legal structure that would also govern the commercial relationship between the government and members of the ruling family. The commission's powers include the ability to detain suspects, seize their assets and ban them from travel.
While one could argue that Prince Muhammad needed to set an example, that effort appears undermined by the fact that the alleged investigations and arrests have a selective or arbitrary taste to them.
The impression that power and assets rather than anti-corruption drove Prince Muhammad in his purge is enhanced by the fact that it appears designed to intimidate and put the kingdom's elite on notice. There has been neither a decree nor a process in the country's Shura (Advisory) Council to draft legislation as well as rules and regulation that would create a legal anti-corruption infrastructure, govern the way government agencies do business, and set a template for defining and preventing conflict of interest.
While one could argue that Prince Muhammad needed to set an example, that effort appears undermined by the fact that the alleged investigations and arrests have a selective or arbitrary taste to them. The fact of the matter is that in the permissive environment that was written into the kingdom's DNA at founding, few, if any, members of the ruling family are likely to emerge with flying colours.
All of this, explains with the kingdom's elite was caught off guard even though Mr Al-Sanea's arrest should have set off alarm bells. Instead, the ruling family and the business community saw the arrest as a one-off event in a long-standing financial sage. It also clarifies why the elite grossly underestimated Prince Muhammad's brashness and ruthlessness and ignored his warning in June that "no one who got involved in a corruption case will escape, regardless if he was a minister or a prince".
For anti-corruption to be perceived as the main driver of the purge, Prince Muhammad will have to introduce due process, transparency and accountability to the process. In theory, that would mean targeting all who potentially could be under suspicion, an approach that would be tough, if not impossible, in an environment in which the suspicion of guilt is likely to include many who were not detained, rather than only some. Instead, Prince Muhammad would be better advised to focus on structural and institutional change.


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Things to Do
J. Frank Wilson Memorial Park
Wilson Park is the perfect place to work, rest or play. The park sits on 30 acres and the smell of fresh air and the sounds of people enjoying life are two ingredients guaranteed to relieve the stress of the day. Bring all of your friends, family, golf buddies, athletes, casual exercisers, neighborhood kids, skaters/skateboarders to enjoy any and all of these park amenities.
Wilson Park offers an 18 Hole 60 Par Disc Golf Course for your enjoyment. Visit the Disc Golf site for course review and downloadable scorecard. Disc Golf equipment can be rented from the Martinsville City Parks & Recreation office if you are new to the sport or forgot to bring your equipment along.
And for the all the skateboarders out there, Wilson Park also has a skate park for your use. Finally, a place where you are free to roll!
Other Amenities Include:
Basketball Court
Horseshoes (2 Pits available)
Walking Trail (Natural Surface)
Playground (spring animal rockers, square climbers, merry- go-round & swings)
Picnic Shelters (available for rent to hold special events)
On-Site Restrooms
J. Frank Wilson Park truly has a little something for every athlete, family and outdoor-enthusiasts to enjoy.
Learn More.WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY

subset: commoncrawl


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Selected crews of the Australian Sailing Team have arrived in Rio de Janeiro to compete at the first Olympic test event in the lead up to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Officially titled "Aquece Rio – International Sailing Regatta 2014", the August regatta is the first of two test events for the Rio 2016 Olympic Sailing Competition and will see sailors compete across the ten Olympic sailing events from 3 to 9 August 2014.
Each nation has been permitted two entries per class, with the Australian Sailing Team being represented in six of the classes (Nacra17, 49er, 49erFX, Men's 470, Laser and Laser Radial). In both the 2015 Test Event and the 2016 the Olympics, the racing program will be reduced to one spot per class for nations that have qualified.
The regatta is the first of all Rio 2016 test events. With 324 athletes from 34 nations, racing in 215 boats, it is set to be the largest Olympic classes sailing competition ever held in Brazil. The regatta venue is the Marina da Glória with racing taking place inside and outside Guanabara Bay.
Whilst being a key regatta for the Rio 2016 workforce and ISAF Officials, the regatta will offer the 324 sailors an opportunity to take to the Olympic race courses to gauge conditions and circumstances that may be present in 2016.
Many of the teams and sailors have hours of Rio practice and race time under their belt but for ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Mat Belcher (QLD) with crew Will Ryan (QLD) it will be new territory.
The pair will be a part of the 25-boat Men's 470 fleet and with an Olympic quota of 26 it will resemble Games time racing, yet it's not about the end result for the Australians in 2014. "Most teams are aiming to get comfortable in the Olympic environment and have an understanding of what to expect for the games," explained Belcher. "This isn't a performance event for us as the World Championships are quite close. With this being my first time to Rio, we just are there to enjoy the experience and gather some more information on what to expect.
"It is important to spend enough time on the Olympic waters to feel comfortable. This event will provide a great opportunity to gain a better understanding of the conditions. We are not too focused on our development at this point. When we come back we will be in a better position to adapt our preparations towards the Rio environment."
Whilst being a newcomer to the venue Belcher has done his homework and explained what it will be like racing across the five courses. "Rio will be unique in the sense that the conditions will vary quite considerably depending on the race course. We certainly can expect strong currents, shifty winds and flatter waters on the inside courses, ocean waves on the outer courses."
Yachting Australia's Performance Director Peter Conde explains the aim of the test event: "This regatta for us is a good opportunity to get to know the area and venue and to test our team set up and processes on and off the water. Individual crews have already been here a couple of times, but this gives us the opportunity to experience it all as a team and to gain valuable knowledge about Guanabara Bay and Rio as a whole. We will continue coming back here ahead of 2016 and this is a stepping stone to become as familiar as possible with the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic sailing venue."
With regards to the recently addressed issues of water quality in Guanabara Bay, Conde said: "Water quality is a challenge there is no doubt. We are extremely concerned about water quality from perspectives of both health and fair racing given pollution and obstacles in the water. We have heard from Rio authorities that much is being done to clear the racing areas and more will be done over the coming years.
"The main issue that we can see is significant debris that will clearly affect racing. The Rio authorities claim that they are working hard to remove more debris in the racing areas so we will see how that progresses in coming days. They also claim that sewerage pollution in the race areas, as opposed to Guanabarra Bay in general, currently meets international standards. We have not independently verified this," Conde said.
With regards to the actual racing he added: "Our main focus this year is the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Santander, Spain in September where we will see our full Australian Sailing Team and Squad contest. Santander also is an Olympic qualifying event and an important opportunity for our teams to assess their performance with two years to go to the Olympic regatta.
All five proposed Olympic race course areas will be assessed during the course of the regatta. Three course areas – Ponte, Escola Naval and Pão de Açucar – are situated inside Guanabara Bay with the other two – Copacabana and Niterói – located outside the bay in open water.
– Cora Zilich, AST
Australian Sailing's Athletes racing at the 2014 Rio Test Event:
49er Nathan Outteridge / Iain Jensen (NSW); Steve Thomas / Rhys Mara (NSW)
49erFX Olivia Price (NSW) / Eliza Solly (VIC)
470M Mat Belcher / Will Ryan (QLD); Angus Galloway (QLD) / Rob Crawford (NSW)
Nacra17 Darren Bundock / Nina Curtis (NSW); Euan McNicol / Lucinda Whitty (NSW)
Laser Tom Burton (NSW); Matt Wearn (WA)
Laser Radial Ashley Stoddart (QLD)
The Racing Schedule with Australian Participation:
Event |
Racing dates |
Number of scheduled races |
Laser (Men's one person dinghy) |
4-9 August |
10 + Medal Race |
Laser Radial (Women's one person dinghy) |
4-9 August |
10 + Medal Race |
Men's 470 (Two person dinghy) |
4-9 August |
10 + Medal Race |
49er (Men's skiff) |
4-8 August |
12 + Medal Race |
49erFX (Women's skiff) |
4-8 August |
12 + Medal Race |
Nacra17 (Mixed multihull) |
4-8 August |
12 + Medal Race |


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Pedestal Grand Armillary Stone Garden Sundial
Pedestal Grand Armillary Stone Garden Sundial
This high quality stone garden sun dial is a beautiful and elegant work of art. Suitable for garden, commercial and residential building places.
Overview: Hand-made by skilled British craftsmen using local reconstitued stone and traditional methods. These designs are impressive garden features made from reconstitued stone to enable large statement pieces whilst keeping their weight manageable. The construction of the stone is expertly hand-crafted, durable and strong, withstanding all weather conditions.
Please Note: Due to the handcrafted nature of our designs, weights and measurements shown are approximate and are intended as a guide only.
Delivery: Free delivery to Mainland UK excluding Scotland and Ireland and any UK island locations which will be charged at an additional cost. Please contact us for a price. Due to the heavy nature of this product, our couriers wait until enough orders are placed within a certain area of the country to ensure making the trip is cost effective. This means delivery time can be up to a month sometimes, but it also means you are guaranteed a friendly service, from a driver who knows what he's carrying, and will even place the product in the garden for you. Considering some of these products weigh over 100kg, that's a huge bonus!
You will be contacted by phone once your order is ready and a delivery date has been decided. All our products are delivered by a professional delivery service to ensure your product arrives with you in perfect condition. If a signature is required for delivery, please inspect the goods before signing. No claim for damages will be entertained without a returned, signed and duly endorsed delivery note.
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When recurring task is completed, its next occurrence is created automatically.
To create next occurrence of not completed recurring task
Next occurrence is created according to Recurrence Settings pattern.
To changes the pattern for creating next occurrence
Note If the Duplicate Sub Items check box is selected, recurring task that has subtasks is rolled up to the next occurrence with its subtasks...
...and subtasks' dependencies are preserved.
Rollup Options


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The Holy Veil of Manoppello
Regular price $ 12.95The horrific 1915 earthquake that levelled tiny Manoppello, Italy, brought forth from the local church's rubble one of Christendom's long-lost, but most precious relics: the small cloth that lay on Jesus's face in the tomb.
Saint John speaks of it in his Gospel: "When Peter went into the tomb, he saw linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself." Tradition says that Our Lady herself laid this cloth on His face before He was wrapped in His shroud for burial.
This small veil — now known as the Holy Face of Manoppello — absorbed the very first new breath of the Risen Christ . . . and at that same instant had imprinted on itself, miraculously, a vivid image of the now-resurrected Jesus.
Modern scholars have confirmed that this image corresponds perfectly in all its measurements to the face of the dead Christ on the more famous Shroud of Turin.
Unlike the Shroud, however, the Holy Face of Manoppello shows not the grim visage of a dead man with eyes closed, but the lively face of the living Christ, His eyes wide open, piercing us with their gaze.
In 2006, Pope Benedict made a pilgrimage to Manoppello to pray before this image. In the decade since then, tens of thousands of other pilgrims have followed in the Pope's footsteps, making the trek to central Italy to meet Jesus face-to-face.
Now, thanks to author Paul Badde you can learn of the loss and recovery of this precious relic. Better yet, by means of the dozens of color pictures in this book, you, too, can encounter this miraculous cloth, and finally gaze reverently on the face of the living Christ Himself!


text: Lighting Products and Fixtures Design 9440 RALS Area Lighting System by Neil Walker The 9440 RALS belongs to Peli´s Remote Area Lighting System (RALS) family of portable, self-contained, rechargeable LED area lights that can go where bulky, gasoline-powered lights can't. The RALS lineup makes a technological leap over conventional incandescent area lighting. These outdated systems are powered by noisy, polluting, fuel-driven generators that emit toxic fumes and heat, posing serious safety problems on job sites. In stark contrast, RALS offer users the ability to illuminate a large work area without the fuel consumption, noise and air pollution.


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The ALLTUB Group sales team will be present at the Pharmapack show which will take place from 7th to 8th February at the Parc des Expositions in Paris, Porte de Versailles.
The Alltub Group, the world leader in aluminium tubes and a key supplier of laminate tubes for the pharmaceutical sector, is pleased to exhibit again at Pharmapack this year in order to meet existing customers and new prospects.
The ALLTUB Group sales team looks forward to seeing you on the Alltub booth located at H47 in Hall 7.


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We know that corrosion of metals affects virtually everyone every day. Wherever metal parts and components are produced, there is a risk of corrosion, and wherever corrosion occurs, it costs money and eats into profits.
Further health and environmental concerns and legislation are placing pressure to minimise workplace and disposal hazards and to minimize carbon footprint contributions.
At Castrol, we focus on product compatibility throughout metalworking processes.
CASTROL RUSTILO series offers you a comprehensive range of corrosion preventives that can help you to achieve:
To give you complete confidence that Castrol can provide the right product for your specific requirements, we can offer you the choice of:


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I've attended the Perth Writers Festival every year since I arrived in WA back in 2004, and I always seem to forget just how damn inspiring it is – that is, until I'm back in the auditoriums, listening to beautiful, radical, compelling and disturbing ideas, whereupon it all comes rushing back to me. Last year I was caught up with the fact that I had events of my own to participate in – a particularly daunting affair as they were my first public speaking engagements as a 'published novelist'. Therefore, this weekend it was lovely to sit among the audience and try to take in as much as possible by osmosis – as well as scribbling quotes and thoughts in my notebook too.
I was particularly interested in sessions concerning the natural world. I have found myself becoming increasingly drawn to and protective of untouched landscapes, and I'm fascinated and terrified by the commentary of some front-line thinkers and researchers on the state of the planet. In a session on landscape, Annie Proulx talked about how her surroundings inspire her, saying, 'there's something about striding out and looking at far distances that sets the mind on fire', while Tim Flannery gave the best description of climate change I have ever heard, and I think most others agreed, as he got a major round of applause in the packed Octagon Theatre. In essence he explained that the earth goes through a predictable 100,000-year warming/cooling cycle, but what is happening now is a warming spike caused by man rather than the normal pattern of nature. As a result, the seas are predicted to rise one metre in the next ninety years. If they rise just half of that, then we can expect to see major events such as flooding, which have so far occurred approximately every hundred years, happening every month or up to ten times a month. I repeat: ten times a month. If that isn't an impetus to look carefully at what we are doing at all levels from superstructure to personal, I don't know what is.
Later in the day I listened to Tim again, this time with Dorothy Rowe, someone I've always admired for her ability to examine and explain the more difficult and disturbing sides of human nature. Her latest book, Why We Lie, looks at why we hide from unpalatable truths, such as the scale of climate change we could be facing. She was marvellous to listen to, and I was very moved by her comment on mourning and grief being the great themes of human literature. 'If you love other people you will suffer loss. And if you want to avoid loss you will be lonely. To be a human being is to choose between these two.' It could have been demoralising, but these speakers all talked with open minds, passion, and a brilliant sense of humour, and what came across most in the sessions is that while we can be ambushed by our fears and our feelings of helplessness in the magnitude of the problems we're faced with, the irrepressible spirit of Hope keeps on finding a way through.
I'll be writing more about the diverse range of PWF events later in the week, but tomorrow I am delighted to welcome Nicole Alexander, who visits my blog to talk about her new book, A Changing Land.col-md-2


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MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines said its largest warship was engaged in a tense standoff with Chinese surveillance vessels on Wednesday at a disputed South China Sea shoal, after the ship attempted to arrest Chinese fishermen but was blocked by the surveillance craft.
Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario summoned Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing to resolve the dangerous impasse diplomatically. Del Rosario's office said in a statement that the Scarborough Shoal "is an integral part of Philippine territory" and Filipino authorities would assert sovereignty over the offshore area.
The shoal lies off the northwestern Philippine province of Zambales. China and the Philippines have been disputing ownership of the shoal, in addition to the Spratly Islands and other areas in the South China Sea.
Philippine Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said the situation at the shoal "has not changed as of this morning. There's a standoff."
The Department of Foreign Affairs said that on Sunday, a Philippine navy surveillance plane sighted eight Chinese fishing vessels anchored in a lagoon at Scarborough, prompting the military to deploy its largest warship, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, which was recently acquired from the United States.
On Tuesday, Filipino sailors from the warship boarded the Chinese vessels for an inspection, discovering large amounts of illegally collected corals, giant clams and live sharks inside the first boat, the department said in a statement.
Two Chinese maritime surveillance ships, identified as Zhonggou Haijian 75 and Zhonggou Haijian 84, later approached and positioned themselves between the Philippine warship and the Chinese fishing vessels "thus preventing the arrests of the erring Chinese fishermen," the statement said.
Del Rosario protested to Ma, the Chinese ambassador in Manila, late Tuesday and told her that the Philippine navy would enforce Philippine laws, according to his office.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately comment. Chinese officials, who refer to Scarborough Shoal as Huangyan Island, have in the past asserted Chinese sovereignty over the area.
The Philippines refers to the shoal, a rich fishing ground, as Panatag.
Last year, the Philippines accused Chinese vessels of intruding into other parts of what it considers Philippine territory near the South China Sea, including the Spratlys. China has regularly dismissed the protests, saying Beijing has indisputable sovereignty over those areas on historical grounds.
The Spratly Islands, south of Scarborough Shoal, are claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. The chain of barren islands, reefs and coral outcrops are believed to be in rich in oil and gas and the overlapping claims have long been feared as Asia's next flashpoint for armed conflict.
The United States, a defense-treaty ally of the Philippines, last year provided the Philippine navy with a refurbished Coast Guard cutter as part of efforts to shore up its naval defenses.
Washington has insisted it takes no sides in the territorial dispute but says it should be solved peacefully. China has balked at what it considered a US interference in the region.
The disputes over the resource-rich Spratlys have settled into an uneasy standoff since the last major clash involving China and Vietnam killed more than 70 Vietnamese sailors in 1988.
Faced with China's formidable military, the Philippines and Vietnam have forged closer ties. Aside from military accords, the two countries agreed to set up a hotline between their coast guards and maritime police to monitor maritime incidents, such as piracy and incursions into their territorial waters.
Philippine navy chief Vice-Adm. Alexander Pama said on Tuesday that Philippine and Vietnamese sailors agreed to play football and basketball matches in the islands they occupy in the Spratlys in a novel way to build trust in the contested region.


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The Gamble Mansion or Gamble Plantation also known as the "Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Memorial at Gamble Plantation Historic State Park", wow that's a lot to say……also home to the Florida Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, located in Ellenton Florida on the Manatee River. The historic antebellum Mansion is the last remaining on of its kind in the Florida Western Peninsula. A 40,000 gallon cistern fresh water holding tank supplied drinking, cooking and bathing water for those on living on the plantation. At its peak the plantation had between 160-200 slaves maintaining the property and the fields.
The columns and the two foot thick walls are constructed of Tabby an indigos material that substituted for brick. Tabby is made with a mixture of crushed sea shell, lime and sand creating a perfect material for insulating the Mansion from the hot tropical sun and the many sever storms Florida is know for.
At the outbreak of the war in 1861 the Mansion was occupied by Captain Archibald McNeill the famous Confederate blockade runner. Archibald sailed from Europe to ports in the South with great success supplying the Confederacy with supplies needed for the war effort.
Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State and President Jefferson Davis escaped Richmond Virginia in April 1865, fleeing the Union Army that was tightening the noose around the Southern capital. Somewhere along there escape they separated and Jefferson was captured in Georgia and imprisioned. Meanwhile Judah who was arranged for the assassination of President Lincoln and feared he wouldn't receive a fair trial headed further south making his way to the Gamble Mansion. Captian McNiell aided Benjamin in escaping to the Bahamas and then eventually sailing to England arriving with hardly any resources. He went on to establish a distinguished second legal career in London and in 1872 was selected as the Queens Counsel…..similar to America's Federal Supreme Court Seat.
Meanwhile back in America, Union Raiders destroyed the Gamble Sugar Mill leaving only brick ruins today. However they did spare the Mansion and in 1925 the Mansion and the grounds were purchased by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and donated to the state of Florida as a memorial to Judah P. Benjamin who served three Cabinet positions under Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Today the Gamble Mansion serves as home to the Florida Division United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). In 1937 the UDC installed a memorial plague to Benjamin at the Mansion. Also on the grounds is the Confederate Veterans Memorial Monument erected October 10, 1937.


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Since 1999, several outbreaks of West Nile virus, which causes fever or severe neurological symptoms and is transmitted from birds to humans by blood-sucking mosquitoes, have been seen in the U.S., usually during the summer months. But researchers aren't certain how the virus migrated here and they don't know how, or where, it will appear next.
Now professor Ella Mendelson of Tel Aviv University's School of Public Health at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, working with the Israeli Ministries of Health and Environment, has instituted a study that tracks both clinical cases of West Nile virus and populations of infected mosquitoes. By examining the outbreaks and testing samples of the mosquito populations from high-risk areas (such as those near large bodies of water), her method can identify "danger zones" and produce timely warnings of impending outbreaks. And by providing more information on the dynamics and mobility of the virus, it could also solve the mystery of how the virus migrates.
The research appears in the journal Eurosurveillance.
The virus, which was first recorded in the 1930s and is believed to have originated in Egypt, is now spreading across the globe to non-traditional climates such as Western Europe and North America, says Mendelson. She and her fellow researchers at the Central Virology Laboratory are geographically tracking the virus, recording where it originates, the genetic types of the virus that are circulated, and the dynamics of infection. They analyze both the occurrences of outbreaks among the human population, as well as the virus' appearance in the mosquito population.
First, mosquitoes are collected from different areas known to be hotbeds of the virus throughout a given country. The females are identified and tested for the presence of the virus, giving researchers information not only on the location of the virus, but the type of the virus as well. In Israel, the information is then relayed to the Ministries of Health and of the Environment so they can keep abreast of the situation and inform the public when necessary. "It's important to ensure that local authorities take preventative anti-mosquito measures where they can," says Mendelson.
More recently, says Mendelson, the researchers have been expanding their interest to include ensuring the safety of donated blood. In connection with the Central Blood Bank in Israel, Mendelson and her fellow researchers have been testing blood donated to the bank for signs of West Nile virus.
"We evaluate the blood to see if there is a frequency of donations that might carry the virus," she says, noting that it is important for public health to be involved. A broad approach to West Nile virus awareness and safety can be a model for nations which have just begun to contend with outbreaks of the virus in recent years.
When this approach is adopted by other key countries, it will be possible to track West Nile virus on a global scale. Mendelson notes that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. She urges precaution during the evening hours, the mosquitoes' most active time of day. Wear long sleeves and use plenty of bug repellant, she advises.
CDC Speaks About New Data From Antimicrobial Resistance Threats Fact Sheet
July 18th 2024In a follow-up to Infection Control Today's (ICT's) article on the CDC's Antimicrobial Resistance Threats in the US 2021-2022 release, Michael Craig, MPP, director of CDC's Antimicrobial Resistance Coordination and Strategy Unit, answers ICT's questions.


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Did you know that aborted babies are being chopped up and sold to medical researchers all over America? There is a federal law which is supposed to ban this practice, but it contains a gigantic loophole that abortion clinics are using to sell huge amounts of aborted baby parts to the scientific community. The loophole in the federal law allows "reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue." But there are no guidelines as to what those "reasonable payments" should be and the Obama administration is not about to start prosecuting abortion clinics. So aborted baby parts from American babies will continue to be very quietly sold for profit to medical researchers and most Americans will never hear anything about it. But future generations will look back in horror at what we allowed to be done right under our noses.
With the full approval of the Obama administration, one company in the United States has plans to inject aborted baby brain cells into the eyes of patients to see if that will help improve their vision. The following is from a recent article on LifeNews.com….
Scott Fischbach, the director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life uncovered the information showing a clinical trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration uses brain tissue from aborted unborn babies to treat macular degeneration. StemCells Inc. will inject fetal brain stem cells into the eyes of up to 16 patients to study the cells' effect on vision.
As Fischbach correctly notes, a fetus must be at a certain stage of development before brain tissue can be harvested for this kind of research….
"StemCells Inc. is not using embryonic stem cells. A five-day-old human being at the embryonic stage does not have a brain, but a fetus at 10 or 20 weeks of development with visible fingers, toes and ears has a functioning brain," said Fischbach. "Developing human beings in the womb are treated simply as raw material for laboratory experimentation by StemCells Inc. and other companies seeking to monetize aborted unborn children."
But the harvesting of tissue and organs from aborted babies is definitely not new. It has been going on for a long time.
For example, a recent article posted on worldmag.com describes the very big business that the Birth Defects Research Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle does in aborted baby parts….
It's known within the research community as a top government distributor of fetal tissue. Last year the Puget Sound Business Journal stated the lab "in 2009 filled more than 4,400 requests for fetal tissue and cell lines."
The lab's grant records indicate it received $579,091 from the NIH last year. To date, it has retrieved the products of 22,000 pregnancies. According to a description the lab provided in its most recent grant applications, an increase in nonsurgical abortion methods has "created new obstacles to obtaining sufficient amounts of high quality tissue. To overcome these problems and meet increasing demand, the Laboratory has developed new relationships with both local and distant clinics."
Once again, it is supposed to be against federal law to buy aborted baby parts from abortion clinics. But this "problem" is avoided by taking advantage of the loophole that allows for "reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue."
An article posted on LifeDynamics.com describes how this system works….
1) A baby parts "wholesaler" enters into a financial agreement with an abortion clinic in which the wholesaler pays a monthly "site fee" to the clinic. For this payment, the wholesaler is allowed to place a retrieval agent inside the clinic where he or she is given access to the corpses of children killed there and a workspace to harvest their parts. In most cases, this retrieval agent is an employee of the wholesaler. In other instances, the retrieval agent is a clinic employee who was trained by the wholesaler.
2) The buyer – usually a researcher working for a medical school, pharmaceutical company, bio-tech company or government agency – supplies the wholesaler with a list of the baby parts wanted.
3) When such orders are received by the wholesaler, they are faxed to the retrieval agent at the clinic who harvests the requested parts and ships them to the buyer via FedEx, Airborne or a similar common carrier.
4) These parts are "donated" by the clinic to the wholesaler who turns around and "donates" them to the buyer. The buyer then "reimburses" the wholesaler for the cost of retrieving the parts.
In the end, nobody is technically "buying or selling" anything but they all get what they want and a lot of money changes hands.
A number of years ago an abortion industry insider came forward with shocking details of how this organ harvesting operation actually functions. The following is from a very eye-opening InvestigateDaily article….
It was an interview that shocked America. An Insider, spilling the beans on massive malpractice to a reporter on ABC's 20/20. Only this time, it wasn't Big Tobacco in the gunsights, it was the US abortion industry, exposed as harvesting the organs from aborted babies. According to former abortion clinic technician Dean Alberty, clinics were harvesting eyes, brains, hearts, limbs, torsos and other body parts for sale to the scientific market: laboratories wanting to test new drugs or procedures, or researchers trying to find the causes of genetic disorders or discover new ways of treating disorders like Parkinsons.
Sometimes babies actually survive the initial abortion procedure and workers actually have to kill the babies themselves before harvesting the organs….
Alberty worked for a Maryland agency called the Anatomic Gift Foundation, which essentially acted as a brokerage between universities and researchers seeking body parts, and the abortion clinics providing the raw material. Alerted by the clinics about the races and gestations of babies due to be aborted each day, AGF technicians would match the offerings with parts orders on their client lists. Alberty and his colleagues would turn up at the abortions that offered the best donor prospects to begin dissecting and extracting what they needed before decay set in.
"We would have a contract with an abortion clinic that would allow us to go in…[to] procure fetal tissue for research. We would get a generated list each day to tell us what tissue researchers, pharmaceuticals and universities were looking for. Then we would go and look at the particular patient charts—we had to screen out anyone who had STDs or fetal anomalies. These had to be the most perfect specimens we could give these researchers for the best value that we could sell for.
"We were taking eyes, livers, brains, thymuses, and especially cardiac blood…even blood from the limbs that we would get from the veins" he said.
Alberty told of seeing babies wounded but alive after abortion procedures, and in one case a set of twins "still moving on the table" when clinicians from AGF began dissecting the children to harvest their organs. The children, he said, were "cuddling each other" and "gasping for breath" when medics moved in for the kill.
You can read the rest of that shocking article right here.
So are you sick to your stomach yet?
This is a hard article to write, but the American people need to be confronted with the truth. If we ignore the horrors going on right under our noses, then that would make us just like so many of the other nightmarish societies throughout history that we rightly condemn.
Sadly, most Americans don't even realize that large numbers of consumer products on our supermarket shelves contain ingredients which have been cultivated using aborted human fetal cell lines.
This information is not hard to find.
But people do not like to talk about it.
There are price lists for human fetal tissue all over the Internet. You can find one example right here.
So does it bother you that aborted babies are being chopped up and sold to researchers all over America?
Or are you perfectly fine with it?
Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below….


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Governance & Risk Management , Risk Assessments
8 IT Security Threats for 2011
McAfee's Dmitri Alperovitch on the New Year's Digital ThreatsAmong the growing threats facing many organizations in the new year is the advanced persistent threat, continual patterns of digital assaults aimed at government and business IT systems to steal intelligence and trade secrets, often backed by foreign governments or their supporters.
"The major difference between advanced persistent threat attacks and cyber criminal attacks is that APTs are persistent," Dmitri Alperovitch, threat research vice president at McAfee Labs, says in an interview with Information Security Media Group. Cyber criminals typically will move on to a target that is much less secure but those behind advanced persistent threats will spend months if not years trying to penetrate an IT system until they succeed, Alperovitch says.
In the interview, Alperovitch discusses the IT security threats McAfee Labs identified for 2011. Besides advanced persistent threats, they include:
- Exploiting social media. Social media is replacing e-mail as the primary distributor of malware as well as identity theft. Similarly, McAfee Labs also sees increased abuse through short URL and locative services.
- Mobile. The increased adoption of mobile devices, and instance by employees to be allowed to use them in the workplace, will see increased threats not only to individuals but to their employers as well.
- Apple. Historically, Apple's operating systems haven't been targeted for abuse, but the popularity of iPads and iPhones in business and the easy portability of malicious code could place many users and businesses at risk next year and beyond.
- Applications. Whether at home or the workplace, applications on devices such as iPhones and Androids are becoming increasingly popular and will increasingly become targets. With historically weak coding and security practices, cybercriminals will try to manipulate a variety of physical devices through compromised or controlled apps, raising the effectiveness of botnets to a new level.
- Sophistication mimics legitimacy. 2010 we saw an increase in the sophistication of some threats such as signed malware that mirrors legitimate files. As this trend intensifies in 2011, look out for an increase in stolen keys and techniques and tools to forge fake keys.
- Botnet survival. In the coming year, McAfee Labs expects a greater focus on botnets that remove data from targeted systems rather than sending spam. Botnets will engage in advanced data gathering as exploit social networks.
- Hacktivism. As the WikiLeaks episode demonstrates, hacktivists will increase its use of crowdsourcing to recruit an army of motivated hackers to pursue a political agenda. Alperovitch says these attacks are not sophisticated, and organization should be able to successfully defend against them if they take appropriate action.
"We are seeing an escalating threat landscape in 2011," Alperovitch says.
Alperovitch, interviewed by ISMG's Eric Chabrow, leads McAfee's Internet threat intelligence analysis as well as the development of real-time, in-the-cloud global threat intelligence services. He's an inventor of numerous patent-pending technologies and has conducted extensive research on reputation systems, spam detection, public-key and identity-based cryptography and network intrusion detection and prevention.
Georgia Institute of Technology awarded Alperovitch a master degree in information security and a bachelor degree in computer science.
Escalating Threat Landscape
ERIC CHABROW: How will 2011 be different from 2010?
DMITRI ALPEROVITCH: We are seeing an escalating threat landscape in 2011. There are a couple of areas where we think the cyber criminals and other threat actors are going to specifically focus in 2011. One area is certainly social media. We are seeing it rapidly replace e-mail as a primary vector for delivering malware. For example, traditional e-mail spam is down significantly in 2010, back to almost 2006 levels in terms of overall volumes, and at the same time we're seeing significant spikes in the malware and spam that is being delivered to social networking sights like Facebook, Twitter, and others.
We expect that cyber criminals will focus their attention specifically on two areas in the area of social media. One is short URL abuse. We think it will invade all other forms of communication with McAfee tracking over three thousand per URLs every single minute around the world and many are used for spam, scanning, and other malicious purposes. Another area is location services, services like Foursquare or Facebook Places, Google Latitude, with their growth in popularity, we are expecting it to be a huge area of interest for criminals.
Another area we think is going to really explode in 2011 is mobile. We've already seen some of the malware experimenting this year. For example, Zeus has released NSMS malware for the mobile platforms in order to help it conduct phishing attacks. We expect really with the tremendous growth in smart phones like iPhones and Android platforms, to really see a number of very sophisticated malware threats targeting those platforms in 2011.
One more area is Apple. We believe that the Mac platform in general, both the OS/10 and the iPhone-, iPad-base platforms have reached the tipping point in terms of user adoption and the cyber criminals will start paying attention to that platform in a much more focused way next year. We already saw late this year, Koobface worm pretty significant threat on the PC platform of being ported to the Mac platform. This fall we expect other threats to follow suite into 2011 as well.
Another area is application. We believe that applications will be targeted both on the mobile devices in terms of road apps and other apps that target user privacy and to identity data, but also on social media like Facebook and imbedded devices as well as we see Google TV, and other Android-based platforms launch out of the mobile area and the option being delivered through that channel. We expect cyber criminals to follow suite pretty rapidly.
The Mobile Threat
CHABROW: You mentioned social media and mobile technology as being more at risk in 2011. What can organizations such as governments, banks, and hospitals do to help prevent threats in those areas?
ALPEROVITCH: One of the trends that we have been seeing for a while is consumerization in the IT space, both the cloud government and the commercial sector. So in mobile area in particular, we're seeing all kinds of devices being proliferated through the enterprise, iPhones, iPad, Android devices that may or may not be controlled by the corporate IT or security department. Executives are bringing these devices in because they use them at home and they find them convenient, and the IT department has no choice but to accept those devices. Most of these devices are not secured, are not being tracked through the enterprise and really present a tremendous threat both from an insider prospective because these devices are on the network and can be used to execute data by malicious insider, sort of more of the WikiLeaks situation, although that was not a mobile device issue. But another way is really to these platforms be targeted by malware and then essentially have that malware have complete access to the network through that mobile device and being used to steal financial data as well as for some of these persistent threats, there are a huge focus of espionage activities.
CHABROW: What should CISOs in these organizations do?
ALPEROVITCH: They need to start paying attention to the mobile devices that are being used in the emerging area in the security space, so there are these out there providing some security software that you can install on these phones and essentially lock it down being able to control what data those phones can access on the network, encrypt the data while it resides in the device and also do remote wiping, locate type of services for lost phones.
CHABROW: Does this put more pressure on IT organizations to step up their defensive mobile technology, or does some of the responsibility fall on their employees?
ALPEROVITCH: There is no getting away that the security organizations have to step up and realize that computing is moving to the mobile platform. You can not just pass on the responsibility for security to the employees. You do have to have some centralized control when it comes to these devices. Yes you can allow individuals to bring their own devices into the enterprise, but you have to set certain rules as far as how they are going to be used, what software, what applications are going to be allowed to be installed on those devices, and what data needs to be encrypted when the device is connected to the network.
Hacktivism: Beyond WikiLeaks
CHABROW: I am intrigued by hacktivism. It seems to becoming more damaging even beyond website graffiti and distributed denial of service attacks. How is hacktivism evolving? What should we expect in 2011, and what can organizations do about it to protect their information?
ALPEROVITCH: Hacktivism has been around of course since almost the beginning of the internet expression of political thoughts through malicious attacks have use in wars and conflicts around the world, and what we, of course, saw just this late year is the whole WikiLeaks situation bringing into yet another life where activists on both sides, both in support and against WikiLeaks have used this crowdsourcing method of getting individuals to volunteer their computers to attack corporations that have been against WikiLeaks and to attack WikiLeaks itself.
We expect this trend to continue. Really, it's becoming much, much easier for an individual to voluntarily participate in a hackerous group that is targeting a particular political or commercial target. The attacks thus far have not been sophisticated and can be fairly easily thwarted, but certainly many, many organizations aren't prepared even to face these unsophisticated attacks. So as long as that continues to be the case, we expect there will be plenty of volunteers that will lend their services and computers in mind to these efforts.
CHABROW: Is the defense merely just to take for organizations who know how to prevent these attacks just to make sure they are doing it, or is there something more to be done?
ALPEROVITCH: You have to pay attention to the threat, particularly if you are involved in sensitive political areas or if you are an organization that is taking perhaps a controversial position that may attract some enemies. Not every organization is going to face the hacktivism threat. It just depends on the nature of your business or if you are a government, the type of activities you are involved with. In general, these are not sophisticated threats. So if you are building your security to face the cyber criminal threats, which are much more sophisticated or these nation state threat, cyber espionage threats, hacktivism will pose no problem to you.
Advanced Persistent Threat
CHABROW: Let's talk about that advanced persistent threat which you just made reference to, basically cyber attacks that are emanating from nation states who are backed directly or indirectly by nation states. What is in store for 2011 and what can be done about that?
ALPEROVITCH: 2010 really put these attacks in the forefront due to the Google incident as we as the Stuxnet incident. Both of them have believed to be nation state sponsored. APTs themselves have been around for almost a decade now, but primarily focusing on a target, attacking government systems as well as systems of various defense contractors for many years. 2010 really indicated a shift of these attacks now going after the commercial sector and focusing on economic as well as national security cyber espionage. What we expect to see is many more companies that are involved in a particular areas of the world, coming under these highly complexed and well-executed targeted attacks in the near future. Multi-nationals in particular that do business around the world are primarily targets, but also smaller firms that can assist those companies in doing business. Again, just with hacktivism, not every organization needs to worry about APTs but if you are operating in the areas of national security or have significant economic interest in various parts of the world, you certainly need to expect to fact that threat.
CHABROW: Is this something that is going to be a touch challenge for organizations that want to prevent it?
ALPEROVITCH: Definitely. Really the major difference between APT attacks and cyber criminal attacks is that APTs are persistent, so not all of them are extremely sophisticated. They are really A teams, B teams, and C teams when it comes to APT attacks and the C teams are often as unsophisticated as some of the low end cyber criminal groups, but the difference is that once they pick a target they are relentless in going after that target. Whereas the cyber criminals will typically move on to a target that is much less secure, APTs will continue to attack and will spend months if not years trying to penetrate an organization that is of interest to them until they succeed.


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Dan Sultan Magnetic
The music video Magnetic is a hybrid of new media technologies; 3D printing, projection mapping, stop motion and 3D animation. It is a performance clip with a 3D representation of the musician Dan Sultan as a sculptural bust. Through out the video the bust transforms and becomes a "living work of art". Two months in the making, over 60 individual 3D printed pieces and over 2700 photos.
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Point of attractions are Vidhana Soudha, Attara Kacheri, Bangalore Palace, Fort and Tipu Sultan palace, Venkatappa Art Gallery, ISKCON Temple, Bull Temple, Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Aquarium (second largest in the country) and Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. Cubbon Park and Lalbagh gardens are renowned places of recreation. The flower shows held twice a year at the magnificent Victorian style glass house is a major event.
The places of interest nearby are Bannerghatta National Park, Nrityagram Dance Village, Brindavan Whitefield Ashram (Sai Baba's Ashram), The Big Banyan Tree, and Nandi Hills.
The bazaars and shopping malls of Bangalore are a happy hunting ground for tourists. The oldest and most important festival in Bangalore is �Karaga festival�.
Bangalore International Airport is well connected by air to major cities in India. Bangalore has two railway stations - the Bangalore Cantonment and the City Station. The Central Bus Station is located in front of the city railway station.
Copyright 2014 by Online Highways LLC. Enjoy some India trivia. Send Us Your Comments


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Technique G176:Keeping the flashing area small enough
About this Technique
This technique relates to 2.3.1: Three Flashes or Below Threshold (Sufficient).
This technique applies to all general Web content including special cases like material that is specifically designed for a display in a foyer.
The purpose of this technique is to provide an easy way to pass the success criterion for things that flash, but are small.
If you have something that flashes more than 3 times in a one second period (so G19 can't be used), but the area that is flashing is less than 25% of 10 degrees of visual field (which represents the central area of vision in the eye), then it would automatically pass.
The 10 degree of visual field represents the central area of vision in the eye. This area is highly packed with visual sensors. Flashes in this area are transmitted to the visual cortex. For those with photosensitivity, this flashing of activity on the visual cortex can cause seizures. Flashing on other areas of the eye (which have far fewer sensors) has much less effect on the cortex. Hence, the focus on just the 10 degrees of central vision.
- If the content is for general Web use, you can use Formula 1: Small Safe Area for Web Content.
- If the content is for a known display (e.g., in a company foyer) then Formula 2: Small Safe Area for Known Displays should be used.
Formula 1: Small Safe Area for Web Content
Most Web authors do not know how to translate visual field to pixels, which is what they generally can deal with. This technique provides that translation.
At this point in time, the most prevalent display is 1024 x 768 and about 15-17 inches diagonally. When viewed at a typical viewing distance (22-26 inches) a 10 degree visual field will capture an area approximately 341 x 256 pixels. This is not circular, but neither is the central vision of most users, and the difference is so small (and at the edge of the central vision where sensors are fewer) that it is not important.
Since the criterion is 25% of any 10 degree visual field, any single flashing event on a screen (there is no other flashing on screen) that is smaller than a contiguous area of 21,824 sq pixels (any shape), would pass the General and Red Flash Thresholds.
1024 x 768 was chosen because it represents the most common screen size. It also works with higher resolution screens since the tighter pixel density would result in a smaller and safer image size.
Users with lower resolution displays or that enlarge or view their screens closely would have a higher risk depending on the viewing distance. To address the needs of this group, G19 should be used since it is independent of screen resolution or viewing distance.
Formula 2: Small Safe Area for Known Displays
To calculate the small safe area (in pixels) on the screen when the screen size, resolution, and viewing distance is known, use the following procedure.
For a number of reasons (distribution of central vision sensors often non-circular, simplicity, computational convenience, historical), a 4:3 rectangular approximation of the central 10 degree of visual field is used that is 10 degrees wide and 7.5 degrees high. This has an area of 75 square degrees, vs the 78.5 square degree area of a true circle of 10 degrees.
- To convert viewing distance to rectangle size, multiply the viewing distance by 0.1745 (10 * Pi / 180) to get the width of the rectangle, and multiply the viewing distance by 0.1309 (7.5 * Pi / 180) to get the height of the rectangle. (This calculation can be done in inches, or millimeters, or any other unit of length.)
Determine size of 10 degree angle of view in pixels.
To do this, multiply the width and height of the rectangle from step 1 by the resolution of the screen, in pixels per unit length, to get the horizontal and vertical size of the rectangle in pixels.
- For a 1080p widescreen display (which is 1920 by 1080 pixels), the resolution of the screen in pixels per inch is 2203 divided by the diagonal screen size, in inches.
- For a 720p widescreen display (which is usually 1365 by 768 pixels), the resolution of the screen in pixels per inch is 1566 divided by the diagonal screen size, in inches.
- For an LCD computer monitor which specifies the pixel pitch in millimeters / pixel, the resolution of the screen in pixels per inch is 25.4 divided by the pixel pitch in millimeters.
For any display, if you know the actual diagonal screen size in inches, and the horizontal and vertical resolution of the display in pixels, then the resolution of the screen in pixels per inch is the square-root of ( (horizontal resolution in pixels) * (horizontal resolution in pixels) + (vertical resolution in pixels) * (vertical resolution in pixels) ).
- Multiply the width of the rectangle by the height and divide by 4.
- An author creates an animation that will be displayed on a screen in the entrance lounge at a company. Using the size and resolution of the display and the closest distance that a person can stand when viewing the display, they calculate the size of 25% of the 10 degree of central vision in pixels (using the formula above). This would be the small safe area. They then are careful to never flash any area larger than the small safe area.
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- The small safe area is calculated.
- Check that only one area of the screen is flashing at any time.
- Check that the flashing content would fit into a contiguous container whose area is less than the small safe area.
Expected Results
- Checks #2 and #3 are true.


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