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Think of life insurance as a safety. However, not every policy is the same. It takes a little time and effort to select the best policy for your particular needs. Many are left wondering how to even begin the search for coverage.
When it comes to purchasing life insurance, price comparisons can save you quite a bit of money. You can find a price variable that nears 50% between providers. Take a peek at the internet to find the lowest prices among competing companies. You should also be sure that the individual quotes you receive have taken your medical history into consideration.
Make sure you do not do anything that can cause your insurance provider to drive up your premiums. Some professions, such as race car driving or being a helicopter pilot, will mean higher insurance premiums because of the risks involved in that line of work.
Make sure you have adequate coverage when buying life insurance, enough to take care of your loved ones. You'll need your life insurance payment to be enough to take care of funeral costs, any outstanding debts, and school costs for your children.
There's no need to buy huge amounts of life insurance coverage in most cases. The only thing that this will do is make you broke when you are alive. Instead, get the coverage you need to just pay your final expenses and major bills at your death.
If you are a member of a profession or pursue hobbies with a higher risk of death, your life insurance premiums will increase. You may need to weigh out the pros and cons to see if paying an increased premium, is worth continuing activities like bungee jumping, skydiving, and other extreme sports. Traveling to certain parts of the world, especially risky areas, can also cause you to pay higher rates.
By making sure you are healthy, you have the opportunity to reduce your life insurance premium. Usually, insurers give those who are healthier better deals since it's thought that they have a longer life expectancy.
For example, if you engage in high-risk hobbies like skydiving or race car driving, don't be surprised if you face a steep premium. Certain occupations are considered high risk and your premiums will undoubtedly reflect that fact.
Set up yearly premiums instead of monthly ones. When you decide to go with annual premiums, you can save some cash.
If you have a spouse, try to get a two-in-one policy. This policy functions as a joint one, rather than two separate ones. You will find premiums for such products to be cheaper than those for individual policies. You'll still be able to get the same amount of coverage. You just won't have to pay as much for it.
As shown in this article, in order to get the most out of your life insurance, you will have to dedicate time to research, and ask the right questions. Knowing what you are doing before buying a policy is most of the battle. If you remember the tips from this article, you will be able to locate and purchase a policy that meets the needs of yourself and your loved ones.
When determining how much life insurance coverage you need, consider both fixed and future expenses. Life insurance benefits will also be used for those one-time expenses like funeral costs or estate taxes, both of which may be quite high.


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Time for Change: Spike's Docu-Series Endures Kalief Browder's Fight for Justice In a Broken System
"When they sent me to Rikers Island, I was 16. I would say it was like hell on Earth. Sometimes, you know, I feel like I'm never going to be the same. You know, I smile, and I joke a lot. But, you know, deep down, I'm a mess because like I'm 21, and on the inside I feel like I'm 40." – The late Kalief Browder – Time: The Kalief Browder Story
Spike's documentary series Time: The Kalief Browder Story exposes our broken U.S. justice system through the tragic story of Kalief Browder—a young black man who committed suicide in 2015 after spending three years on New York City's Riker's Island prison for allegedly stealing a backpack.
Browder fought to clear his name until he could not fight any longer. With help from public officials and other media outlets, Spike is picking up where he left off.

subset: commoncrawl


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Morocco's industrial plan has made textiles a main concern. Five projects are in progress and contracts have been signed.
The Minister of Industry, Trade, Investment and Digital Economy would like to enlarge the involvement of industry in GDP from 14% to 23% by 2020 and produce 500,000 manufacturing employments. The Minister has called for multiplied work formation and value added and is pursuing a strategy of increasing dynamic eco systems and groupings of industry divisions. This has already been successful in the automotive industry which has gone beyond the textile industry in the total earned by sell abroad. Shipments of vehicles climbed to MAD 2.97 billion in the first three months of 2014, an increase of 43% over 2013, and the aviation sector has also seen a rapid increase of 5.9%.
The industry generates more than 175,000 works and exports approximately MAD 31 billion. The Minister has expressed assurance in the Moroccan textile industry's ability to face and conquer challenges. He highlighted the need to focus on job creation and value.
Meanwhile, there are some companies employed thousands of textile manufacturers gone astray due to global rivalry, but Morocco's textile industry has positively survived regardless of very tight and strong rivalry. The necessity to diminish and unite the Moroccan textile industry has been established by the textile association AMITH which also identifies a plan and policy was needed to go through international markets.
One thing that has always been to Morocco's benefit is its nearness to Europe, and the other is the comparatively lower wage costs and the natural skill and cleverness of its employees, majority of them are women. It is not simple to invest in new apparatus throughout a worldwide decline but the newly signed arrangements are doing just that.
Mohamed Dekkak


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When the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities works together with one or more agencies that share common goals, resources are optimized and results are achieved.
The Connecticut Developmental Disabilities Network was established to provide leadership for the implementation of the federal Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act. The Connecticut DD Network is comprised of:
These organizations have a common goal and purpose:
"...the protection and full integration of individuals with developmental and other disabilities into society in a manner that is consistent with the unique strengths, resources, capabilities and of each individual and his/her own family."
U.S. House & Senate Candidates Forum on Disability Issues
Select Initiatives of the DD Network include:
- Partners in Policy Making 2018 - A Self-Advocacy Leadership Training Program
- Connecticut Partners in Policymaking for Service Providers 2018 - A Leadership Training Program for Professionals Serving People with Disabilities and Their Families
- Connecticut Partners in Policymaking 2018 for Parents of Young Children with Disabilities (Birth to 5) - A Parent Advocacy Training Program
- Cross Disability Lifespan Alliance- a membership organization which advocates speaking with one voice on issues affecting people with disabilities and their families
- Hands Off: Behavioral Interventions- a legislative forum to address prevention and de-escalation strategies for students with complex behavioral challenges


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Alpha Natural Resources is one of America's premier coal suppliers, ranking as the world's sixth largest supplier of coal and its third largest supplier of metallurgical coal.
Alpha, through its affiliates, operates mines and coal preparation facilities in West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Wyoming. Alpha provides high quality products to our customers through one of the largest and most flexible coal supply networks in the country.
Our sales affiliate, Alpha Coal Sales Co., LLC, supplies thermal and metallurgical coals to domestic and international customers. Alpha's strengths enhance its prominent position in the United States and around the globe:
Alpha operates some of the nation's safest mines, with 2011 underground and surface mine total injury incident rates, as tracked by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), below industry averages.
Alpha serves customers on five continents. We supply thermal coal to electric utilities and manufacturing industries throughout the United States. We are America's leading producer and supplier of metallurgical coal for use in the steelmaking process.
At Alpha, we take great pride in providing coal products that match customer specifications. Amfire, Elk Run, Kepler, Kingston, McClure, and Toms Creek are among our coking brands and are world-renowned for their quality.
Spectrum Lab Service
Developing the right blend of coal requires strict quality control measures and efficient testing in the laboratories. Our quality management system complies with ISO 9001 and adheres to ASTM and other industry standard testing methodologies.
Alpha has extensive exporting capability, primarily from terminals on the east and gulf coasts, including 41% ownership interest in Dominion Terminal Associates (DTA) at Newport News, Virginia.


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'Rap Sofour' Obrafour has revealed that M.anifest is one of the biggest acts in the country but he is underrated.
Obrafour was on YFM's #RyseNShyne show hosted by Akosua Hanson today, May 29 to promote his new songs "Pimpinaa" and "Twe Mame" with Bisa Kdei and Lousika respectively where he commented on M.anifest's performance.
The rap icon among other things talked about the rapper he recorded "No Shorcut to Heaven" and "Odasani" with saying;
"M.anifest, that young man, for me I think he is one of the biggest acts in the country but he is underrated. Well, it's a Ghanaian thing, we don't give respect where it's due. But for me that man is deep. So deep… I believe when given the opportunity he will take us to places."
On making a body of work that will surpass his "Pae Mu Ka" album he said;
"You see, I know it will be difficult to match or undo Pae Mu Ka album but I believe since I made it I can topple that album with a new creation."
Credit: YFMGhana


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MATTOON, Ill., May 11, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Consolidated Communications (Nasdaq:CNSL) announced today that it will participate in Light Reading's Gigabit Cities Live event May 13-14 in Atlanta, Georgia. Rob Koester, senior director of consumer products at Consolidated Communications, will participate in the panel "Lessons Learned from Operators: How Fiber Transforms Communities" on Wednesday, May 13 at 2 p.m. ET.
Over its 120-year history, Consolidated Communications has successfully transformed itself into a leading broadband and business provider. Currently operating in 11 states, the company announced its first 1-Gig residential offering in Kansas City in late 2014, followed by additional markets in early 2015.
Gigabit Cities Live is designed for all stakeholders in the gigabit city ecosystem – including city/municipal leaders, economic development agencies, anchor institutions, network operators, technology innovators, application developers and more. This event will examine best practices, explore private/public partnership frameworks, analyze the unique needs of cities and regions, and highlight the most effective business models for any company and any community – large and small, public and private, rural and suburban.
For more information on the Gigabit Cities Live event, visit www.gigabitcitieslive.com
About Light Reading
Light Reading (www.lightreading.com) combines its research-led online communities and targeted events portfolio to help those in the global communications industry make informed decisions. Lightreading.com is the ultimate source for telecom analysis for more than 400,000 subscribers each month, leading the media sector in terms of traffic, content and reputation. Light Reading produces targeted communications events and focused one-day conferences each year for cable, mobile and wireline executives across five continents.
About Consolidated Communications
Consolidated Communications (Nasdaq:CNSL) is a leading communications provider within its eleven state operations. Headquartered in Mattoon, IL, the Company has been providing services in many of its markets for over a century. The Company leverages its advanced fiber optic network and multiple data centers to offer a wide range of communications services, including data, voice, video, managed services, cloud computing and wireless backhaul. Learn more about Consolidated Communications at www.consolidated.com.
CONTACT: Anne Chacon Communications Manager Consolidated Communications 916.786.1235 firstname.lastname@example.com
Source:Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc.


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Product 3/10
External USB Portable CD DVD ? RW Burner Drive
This drive is compatible with all Notebook/ Laptop systems
System Support:
Item is Brand New!!!
We never sent item to Italy, sorry!
Postage & Payment:Item send by Airmail, 4 - 15 business days to arrive UKItem send next business day after payment received except public holiday & weekendInsurance: Insurance is GBP 1.00 (optional), we highly recommend you to purchase insurancePayment Methods: Accepted Paypal only
This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 08 September, 2009.


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By Chang Yanjun
Latest data from CBRC show that as of December 15, 2016, China has approved the opening of 16 consumer finance companies. Consumer finance companies and commercial banks carry out dislocation competition and complementary development with cultivating new growth points of consumption as the goal. They enhance the consumption ability of low-income consumers by providing small amount and low threshold consumer credit products.
Steadily promoting the characterized operation
In recent years, the consumer finance companies continued to further provide products and services to third- or fourth-tier cities and gradually built a business grid system with the offline outlets and the online channels supplemented each other, thus the availability and convenience of financial services have been improved. Meanwhile, the category of cooperative businesses has gradually expanded from traditional retailers to other emerging areas of consumption including education, tourism and health through close combining consumer scenarios and actively expanding the consumer credit business to continuously seek characterized development mode.
Sichuan Jincheng Consumer Finance Company attaches great importance to the offline experience and develop deeply the local market by rooted in Sichuan province. Its local cooperative merchants¨ number has been more than 1000. Vice chairman of the company He Weizhong said, attaching great importance to the offline business is able to promote Jincheng to excavate deeply the customer demands, design the products through differentiated customizing, and refine the marketing. At the same time of deeply developing offline business, Jincheng is also actively trying to transform to online business and looking for new points of business growth.
The Merchants-Unicom Consumer Finance Company (MUCFC) has established a pure online light operating mode. It expands the consumer finance business in every fields through building online consumption scene platform and docking cooperation partners in background; Suning Consumer Finance Company relies on the shareholder resources to full integrate the online e-commerce platform of suning.com with its more than 1600 offline Suning stores across the country, thus innovated the consumer finance O2O model. Data show that by the end of September 2016, the consumer finance companies have issued consumer durables loans RMB 30.359 billion yuan covering home appliances, mobile phone, digital products and others, and general purposes consumer loans RMB 66.671 billion yuan covering decoration, education, tourism, house renting, high-end medical and others.
Yang Yue, economic analyst of CZBANK, said that under the new economic normal, the importance of consumption in economic growth will be more prominent, and it needs more financial support; replacing the imitation type and wave type consumption with the individualized and diversified consumption means that there will be more polynary consumer demand segment markets and potential customers; the development of Internet technology makes the consumer finance companies be able to use new marketing channel and new way to attract customers and provide personalized and innovative products.
Many challenges in development
The development of consumer finance companies is also facing many challenges. Mao Wanyuan, director of CBRC non bank department, said that the number of participants in consumer credit market has increased and the market competition is now fierce. Commercial banks are increasing their efforts on innovation and support in the field of new consumer credit with the help of specialized agencies, characterized outlets and online banks. At the same time, the evolution of the Internet technology has spawned new industrial formats. P2P lending information intermediaries, small loan companies and e-commerce providers have developed rapidly by precisely seizing the small amount consumer credit needs of low and medium income consumers.
At the same time, the social credit environment needs to be optimized to provide mature credit soil for the development of consumer credit. "At present, China's personal credit investigation system is not perfect and the coverage of credit investigation is limited. The integration of credit information is not so effective that the risk management and control of consumer finance companies is very difficult." Mao Wanyuan said, at the same time, the weak discipline of the society to the dishonesty in small amount loan also exacerbated the fraud risk faced by consumer finance companies.
"As consumer finance companies are still in the early stages of development, the majority of these companies are in staking. It is very easy for the companies to have the phenomenon of increasing blindly the credit amount and returning blindly the commission to the merchants, thus injure the whole market cultivation." Yang Yue said that the profit model and business framework has yet to be improved and the brand image has not yet fully demonstrated.
Insiders said that consumer finance has a strong consumer scene features. Combining with the consumer scene is conducive to the consumer finance companies to cut into the actual credit needs of the customers. Meanwhile, the consumer finance companies should also adapt to customers¨ spending habits and carry out product innovation and operating mechanism innovation around improving the customers¨ experience. Dong Ximiao, visiting researcher of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, said that in the future, the consumer finance companies may consider changing the profit model of relying solely on interest difference to get income. They can improve their service value added spaces by providing information intermediary services other than financing to enhance customer loyalty by.
Keeping the "lifeline" of risk control
Data show that as of the end of the third quarter 2016, the average NPL ratio of consumer finance companies was 4.11 percent. Mao Wanyuan said, because the business of consumer finance companies is featured with "no mortgage, unsecured, small amount, dispersed and low-income people oriented, their risk is in a reasonable controllable range, but still need to build a risk defense line.
Chen Ming, general manager of Suning Consumer Finance Company, said that at the early stage upon the launch of Suning Consumer Finance Company, it encountered a double impact of the credit risk and fraud risk, which is also a common problem facing the industry.
To this end, Suning Consumer Finance Company built a "wayward cloud control" system, which combined the functions of pre loan review, loan monitoring and post-loan management. With the help of the whole process fraud prevention and control system based on the big data mining and analysis, plus multi means like face recognition, real name authentication and bank card certification, the "wayward cloud control" system has basic realized the dynamic management of the credit risk and the multidimensional prevention and control of the risk of fraud.
"As an online operated consumer finance company, MUCFC takes the efficient real-time Internet risk control ability as its strong and sustainable development lifeline." Zhang Yangqing, general manager of MUCFC, said that currently, there is fierce competition in the field of consumer finance. The consequences may be the client being in multi debts, which will lead to a biggest risk, namely excessive credit in the industry. With the customers subsiding further, the NPL ratio in the future may rise. It is necessary for the company to balance the quality and quantity within the scope of risk controllable.


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ChefSteps Sharpening SetWrite Review Product Details
I received my order quickly, it was well packaged, and included a personal thank you note. Additionally, it included a one page tips and tricks guide which I didn't expect but found very helpful for using my products.
Not much more to say. Your video on sharpening trained me in this art, and I practised and was successful in re-sharpening all my kitchen knives with the tools I got from you. Simply happy.
Fast and friendly service. Well recommended.
This is an incredible value on some seriously quality stones. If you're considering this, just buy it, you won't regret it.
I have purchased knives from Epicurian Edge and have been extremely satisfied. I even received a call from Daniel about certain knives that were not available.
When I received my ChefSteps sharpening set one of the stones had a chip in it. After contacting Epicurian via email Daniel responded with in an hour or so and issue was resolved and I received a new stone over night. Now that is what you call customer service. Thanks Daniel.
It was an export to Mexico. Absolutely no problems and very happy with the end result.
I love my new set! I have been using some old water stones that I have had years. I threw them away after my first use of the new set. Beautiful to work with. Love it.


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Sea, Sun, Fun & Flying at Cha-Am International Kite Festival 2014
The skies over lovely Cha-Am Beach will be painted with a myriad of colours at this year's International Kite Festival when thousands of kites, in a variety of forms and structures take flight from 8-9 March, 2014.
Mr. Thawatchai Arunyik, TAT Governor, said, "This is an event that everyone can enjoy and the sight of the vibrant kites gliding in the clear blue skies above beautiful Cha-Am Beach is always mesmerising. For many people, it will bring back memories of their glorious childhood when they were worry-free and kite flying competitions were more common.
"This annual festival allows kite fanatics from all over the world to come and enjoy one of Thailand's most famous beaches while watching many different types of kites being flown by experts who come to Thailand especially for the Festival to show off their flying creations."
This year's festival will be a showcase for kite culture and is aimed at attracting local and international kite flyers to bring their kites. The big displays will be by 19 professional kite-flying teams from nine countries – China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and of course, Thailand. The aerial displays start at 10.00 hrs. and continues until 20.00 hrs.
As is always the case, it is the more unusual kites that draw the biggest crowds. So this year there will be displays of over 100 sets of kites grouped by entertaining themes. To mark the Chinese Year of the Horse, two horse-shaped kites, more than 12-metres in span will be flown.
In keeping with the beachside venue, there will also be an exhibition of kites in the form of various underwater creatures, including starfish, turtles, stingrays, puffer fish, and jellyfish which are often found in the sea off Cha-Am Beach.
Children will also be excited to see an airborne Santa Claus, pandas and penguins, as well as flying herds of exotic creatures; such as, dinosaurs, dragons, tigers, camels, and bears. There will also be more unique styles of kites in various geometric shapes.
To add to the beachside excitement, there will be displays by stunt and speed kites gliding through the skies in time to musical entertainment. In addition, even dusk won't bring the fun to an end, as some of the kites are adorned with LED lights that will take to the night skies in hypnotic night-time aerial displays.
Over the course of the two-day event, the streets of Cha-Am will be adorned with colourful decorations and there will be lots of exciting activities to enjoy as well as plenty of food and handicraft stalls for when visitors feel like a snack. For those who want to enjoy flying a kite of their own, lots of kite-makers will be in Cha-Am for the weekend setting up shop and selling their creations.


text: We stayed in Chalet Fruggerhorn at Hotel Kirchbuehl and it was fabulous. Very spacious and comfortable, plenty of room in the apartment and a huge balcony overlooking the Eiger. The location and views are stunning and only a short walk into town....the walk back however is another story entirely..........steep to say the least, but worth it for the views. The... More


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NOAO > Observing Info > Approved Programs > 2005A-0524
PI: Terry D. Oswalt, Florida Tech, firstname.lastname@example.com
Address: Physics Department, 150 W. University Blvd., Melbourne, FL 32901, USA
CoI: Merissa Rudkin, Florida Tech
CoI: Nigel Hambly, Edinburgh University
CoI: Nicole Silvestri, U. Washington
CoI: Suzanne Hawley, U. Washington
Title: Calibrating the Chromospheric Activity - Age Relation for Low-Mass Main Sequence Stars
Abstract: We propose to investigate the chromospheric activity (CA) vs. age relation among low mass main sequence (MS) stars using noninteracting binaries that contain a white dwarf (WD) star with a distant cool MS companion. The cooling ages of the WD components, and therefore the ages of their coeval MS companions, span the entire history of the local Galactic disk (~10 Gyr). This age range overlaps with and extends by more than a factor of two the CA-age calibration possible by other approaches. The project will help resolve strong systematic differences between MS age estimates derived from open cluster membership, rotation rates, Li abundance and UV/X-ray fluxes. It will also explore the transition region in early M stars where the canonical self-sustaining dynamo mechanism gives way to other processes that may excite CA. In addition, it will be one of the first investigations of CA vs. age in low metallicity (i.e. halo) stars.
National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, P.O. Box 26732, Tucson, Arizona 85726, Phone: (520) 318-8000, Fax: (520) 318-8360
NOAO > Observing Info > Approved Programs > 2005A-0524


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A Noteworthy Distinction
As the field of social innovation grows, we are all still attempting to discern the jargon. What is the difference between the terms 'CSR' and 'sustainability'? What about 'social finance' and 'impact investing'? What does a 'social business' mean and how is that different from a 'social enterprise'? What on earth does social innovation even mean?
Well, the answer is: No one really knows.
(Sidenote: For the rest of this post I will use 'social innovation' as the big umbrella term for the others.)
Sure, there are some well-articulated definitions out there, but these are merely opinions. From the research I've done and the network of social innovation professionals I have spoken with about this question, I have concluded that this sector is still very much in its infancy. And as any sector or industry develops, the structure behind its communication, efficiency, and norms develops with it. As such, the terms that describe the different pieces of this field are still building consensus.
While I have my own way of defining each of the terms mentioned above, I would like to highlight my interpretation of the distinction between 'social entrepreneur' and 'social enterprise'. In my mind, these are vastly different pieces of the social innovation puzzle and I feel compelled to explain why.
Here it goes:
Many people understand a social enterprise to mean a for-profit business model motivated by the shared value it procures. The idea is for the business operations to achieve a social mission while churning a profit (often a smaller margin than the traditional for-profit firms). The profit is the unique piece of the social enterprise that keeps it sustainable, as opposed to a traditional non-profit that depends on grants and fundraising. The profit is either reinvested back into the social enterprise to scale its impact, used to pay shareholders to pool capital, or invested in its affiliated non-profit as unrestricted funding.
A good example of a social enterprise is Potluck Catering, whose wonderful service I experienced in Vancouver for the Social Innovation and Social Finance Tour. Potluck's revenue from its cafe and catering services is invested back into its 5 community social programs that are integrated into its daily operations. For example, Potluck provides a Life Skills Training and Employment Program that has trained and employed dozens of Vancouver's downtown east-side residents with barriers to employment. Click here to learn about the other amazing ways they are giving back.
I completely agree with this explanation of a social enterprise. Where I disagree is how people use the term social entrepreneur to describe the individuals who start-up these social enterprises.
Since the term 'social entrepreneur' was coined by Ashoka founder, Bill Drayton over thirty years ago, let's take a look at how Ashoka explains this increasingly popular concept:
"Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.So to me, the social enterprise is about the business model, and the social entrepreneur is about the person. And this person has a system-changing idea.
Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.
Social entrepreneurs often seem to be possessed by their ideas, committing their lives to changing the direction of their field. They are both visionaries and ultimate realists, concerned with the practical implementation of their vision above all else."
The concept of system-change was quite fuzzy to me at the start. I didn't see the full picture until I engaged with some of Ashoka's social entrepreneurs and understood the level of impact they are having on our society. Take Al Etmanski, for example:
Al is an author, advocate and social entrepreneur specializing in innovative, multi-sectoral solutions to social challenges. He is President and co-founder of Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN), which assists families across Canada and globally address the financial and social well-being of their relative with a disability, particularly after their parents die. He proposed and led the successful campaign to establish the world's first Registered Disability Savings Plan for people with disabilities.
Al identified a social gap, created a new idea to solve it, and changed the way individuals with disability can live as citizens. I am completely inspired not only by his work, but also by his personal drive, perseverance, and entrepreneurial quality. While I can throw out a ton more examples, I recommend you take a look at the Ashoka Global website, where there are almost 3000 social entrepreneurs being show-cased. Now if you're looking for some inspiration, you know where to go!
So can social entrepreneurs start up social enterprises? Absolutely. But not all social enterprises are started by social entrepreneurs. It is this systems-change piece as well as the new idea that makes this distinction so clear in my mind.


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Specialist provider of fire suppression systems, Wormald offers a range of support services designed for the maintenance of fire protection systems to keep them in good working condition.
Every year, firefighters are called out to combat fires that could have been easily avoided had the right fire protection equipment and systems been installed within the premises and properly maintained. While most building owners and managers understand their obligation to install appropriate fire protection systems, they often overlook the requirement for regular service and maintenance of the equipment.
Australian Standard AS1851-2005 - Maintenance of fire protection systems and equipment recommends regular inspection of building fire protection systems so that they can perform efficiently in the event of a fire.
The procedural requirements involved in maintaining fire protection equipment can be daunting for some building owners and managers, especially when dealing with mandatory fire audits, complying with strict standards and regulations as well as keeping clear and traceable records and reports.
Fire protection specialists such as Wormald can provide professional advice, helping to take the stress out of maintaining fire protection systems and providing peace of mind for the management.
According to Garry Kwok, National Technical Services Manager at Wormald, the company helps their customers stay on top of their servicing responsibilities by keeping a schedule of inspections and minimising the risk of failure in an emergency situation.
Wormald offers affordable fire protection equipment maintenance services for all types and sizes of businesses as well as systems from other manufacturers.


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I read Love Medicine on a plane trip two years ago and thought it was excellent, especially the writing.
[Sidenote: I've learned to bring all my femme lit on the airplane, because then men don't talk to me. Case in point: on a connecting flight from Atlanta to Minneapolis, I had a three-hour layover, and I pulled out Virginia Woolf's Orlando. No one approached me. I read the entire time. IT WAS AWESOME.]
I've been meaning to read more of Erdrich's books, so I thought Plague of Doves might provide me with an interesting contrast. There is definitely an…arresting…chapter that taps into my psyche in very disturbing ways. We'll get to that in a minute.
The story is split up into several viewpoints: Evelina Harp, an ambitious and bright young woman who sees a future outside her reservation town and collects the stories of her grandfather; Judge Antone Brazil Coutts, who becomes complicit in a series of family dramas; John Wildstrand, who commits a crime to cover another crime; Marn Wolde, who marries a charismatic cult leader and tries to regain her sense of agency and her family's land; and Dr. Cordelia Lochren, a mysterious figure from the past. The stories weave an unsettling and memorable history of several families in the town of Pluto, both from past and present.
Let's talk about the part that unseated me, shall we? Marn Wolde's section was FULL OF SNAKES. I just shivered typing that. Every time I see/hear/read about a snake, I go full on Michael Scott meltdown. Like when Marn talks about her serpents (not a euphemism) curling up in her armpits.
Gross. I may or may not have thrown up in my mouth just recounting that horrifying moment. I mean, I really hate snakes. It's a shame that they formed such a huge part of Marn's narrative arc, too, because she fascinated me as a character. Maybe now that I've read it, I'll have to revisit the interesting parts. I raced through that section incredibly fast, because, like Samuel L. Jackson, I'd had enough of the snakes.
Samuel, you and I are in complete agreement on this.


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The head of the European Commission says he is confident an emergency aid package will keep Greece's crippling debt crisis from further threatening the financial health of other EU nations.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing Friday, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said measures to contain the crisis will be in place in the coming days.
Officials say a bailout being discussed with the EU and International Monetary Fund will likely cost about $160 billion, and will require Greece to drastically slash its deficit by 2011.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told parliament Friday the cutbacks are a "patriotic responsibility" that must be done without regard to political cost.
Greek union officials said the proposed deal could cause extreme hardship.
Police fired tear gas on protesters outside of Greece's finance ministry late Thursday as hundreds gathered to rally against the austerity measures.
More protests are planned on Labor Day, which is on Saturday, while unions have called for a general strike on May 5.
Politicians and investors are worried that economic problems could spread if Greece fails to pay back its debt. Those concerns grew earlier this week, when a key credit rating agency, Standard and Poor's, downgraded its credit ratings of Greece, Portugal and Spain.
Greece faces a May 19 deadline for servicing a portion of its debt.
Any Greek bailout will require the approval of other euro zone members, and the plan has met political opposition in Germany.
European officials, including the European Commission's top economic official Ollie Rehn, have been pressing Germany to support the rescue, saying the package is needed to "safeguard financial stability in Europe."
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet also said the bailout was needed to help give Europe a "strong sense of direction" to guide the economy.
Standard and Poor's Chief Economist David Wyss told the Associated Press Thursday that the biggest threat from the Greek debt crisis is panic among investors.
Wyss said if people fear Greece will default, they will also worry Portugal will default and then "they will panic about everything."
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.


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So I have made 3 new folders. NSFW, Microkinis and Men-swimwear.
---- NSFW - not as bad as it sounds, that is just for picture that show some sort of nudity... ye in a swimsuit page ... I know but you get the general idea, where talking about breasts, slips etc.
---- Microkinis - Just for those super tiny bikinis and strings
---- Men-Swimwear - .. well you know,, its for men if you haven´t guessed that.
You can ask for more folders and I will look into that.!! don´t be afraid
So I am currently going through every picture in every folder, sorting them out, and deleting some.. that are not suppose to belong in the swimsuit club it will take some time.
And I would like to apologize to the ones that submitted pictures as of this day and last month that all of them got expired, I have been busy with other stuff and I have had such a little time going on DA.
I will try to be more active. and keep an eye out for new submissions.
Thanks for reading hope you have an wonderful day now and in the future.


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Delivery Information for Purchases Made After December 17*
*'Tis the season to be jolly, so we'll do our very best to ensure you have your goodies before Christmas Eve. For online purchases made after the 17th of December, we recommend you select the 'Pick Up In-Store' option as — depending upon freight and stock availability — delivery to your location may not be possible in time for Christmas. Rest assured our little helpers will be working overtime so you can enjoy a Merry Christmas.
Terms and Conditions - Click and Collect
Delivery Information for Purchases Made After December 17*


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Feb 15 (Reuters) – The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, edged higher for a second straight session on Monday, on improved rates for large vessel segments.
The overall index, which gauges the cost of shipping resources including iron ore, cement, grain, coal and fertiliser, rose 4 points or 1.4 percent to 295 points.
The index had on Friday risen for the first time in 2016, having fallen nearly 40 percent during the year so far. It touched an all-time low of 290 points on Wednesday, marking the lowest level since records began in 1985.
The dry bulk market is expected to remain under pressure as a gloomy outlook persists for global shipping demand.
The sector has been particularly hurt by slower Chinese business at a time when the market is struggling with huge vessel overcapacity.
The capesize index was up 5 points at 204 points.
Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, gained $23 to $2,721.
The panamax index was up 10 points, or 3.1 percent, at 334 points. Average daily earnings for panamaxes climbed $80 to $2,677.
Among smaller vessels, the supramax index gained 4 points to 247 points, while the handysize index remained flat at 183 points. (Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by David Holmes)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016.


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Oh, and Tarantino Isn't Making You Crazy Either
by J. Andrew Zalucky
Here is the abstract from a 2009 report from Oxford University Press on movie violence and whether that violence has any significant effect on real-life violence. (I've bolded certain parts for emphasis):
Laboratory experiments in psychology find that media violence increases aggression in the short run. We analyze whether media violence affects violent crime in the field. We exploit variation in the violence of blockbuster movies from 1995 to 2004, and study the effect on same-day assaults. We find that violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies. The effect is partly due to voluntary incapacitation: between 6 p.m. and 12 a.m., a one million increase in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 1.1% to 1.3%. After exposure to the movie, between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., violent crime is reduced by an even larger percent. This finding is explained by the self-selection of violent individuals into violent movie attendance, leading to a substitution away from more volatile activities. In particular, movie attendance appears to reduce alcohol consumption. The results emphasize that media exposure affects behavior not only via content, but also because it changes time spent in alternative activities. The substitution away from more dangerous activities in the field can explain the differences with the laboratory findings. Our estimates suggest that in the short run, violent movies deter almost 1,000 assaults on an average weekend. Although our design does not allow us to estimate long-run effects, we find no evidence of medium-run effects up to three weeks after initial exposure.
If you want to read the entire report, its unfortunately password protected and only retrievable by payment or membership with the university. However, if you scroll down, there are some other articles that cite this one and provide some useful info of their own. I share this here mainly because of the reaction, mostly positive, to my article on video game violence. Most of this has been positive, but some readers have made some astute observations like "Correlation does not equal causation. This is a correlative link, NOT a causal link. There is no more evidence to imply games have caused a drop in violence than there is evidence to imply they have caused a rise in violence." While this abstract and the study it's derived from does not provide an absolute knock-down to arguments such as these, at the very least it should keep us open to the fact that violent media provides an outlet for a certain element of the human consciousness that Pixar movies and romantic comedies don't quite reach.
Another instructive piece is a recent LA Times article that states very clearly that "to fault films for forcing us to consider that humans commit atrocious acts, that evil exists in far too many hearts, is to blame the messenger…Within the mayhem, there is nearly always a message. Movies are our cautionary tales, fictional reminders of the true nature of humanity's baser basic instincts. And moviemakers — by that I mean every name above and below the title, for it takes a village — are the seers, the interpreters, the illusionists, the entertainers.
They are not the instigators."
PJK permalinkFebruary 26, 2013 7:45 am
plus good


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Welcome back to Baby Breakerdom! This time, our ongoing quest to uncover budding Rule Breakers finds us closer to a cure for HIV and looking for the next iPhone.
First up this week is Koronis Pharmaceuticals, which has created a drug that aims to mutate the HIV virus, thereby rendering it harmless.
If successful, KP-1461, as it's known, would make for a vast departure from current medical science. Why? Unlike protease inhibitors from Merck
How? It accelerates mutation. I know that sounds dangerous. Experts say that's not the case, including Karl Thiel, my Rule Breakers teammate:
Slow viral mutation down enough, and the immune system finds it and wipes it out. Speed it up enough, and the viral genome just devolves into meaningless junk.
Simple manganese cations, for instance, have been found to increase the viral mutation rate of HIV -- the target Koronis is going after. Koronis is apparently using the same idea to make a useful drug. It's a rule-breaking approach, for sure!
Plus, it's friendlier to patients. Protease inhibitors, while effective, can increase cholesterol, which in turn can increase the risk of heart disease. Who wants to beat one deadly disease by acquiring another?
Not venture investors. A group led by Pacific Horizon Ventures has bet $20 million on Koronis in a fourth round of financing, figuring that the 40,000 Americans who contract HIV each year will line up for a better treatment if one is made available. KP-1461, which will soon begin phase 2 trials, could be that treatment.
Next up is Mirics, which last year created a chip that could bring any form of radio or TV signal to a cell phone, and which this week earned $10 million in new funding from a group led by Intel's
Don't look so surprised. Baby Breaker MobiTV already makes TV-to-phone broadcasts available on Palm's Treo and devices powered by Windows Mobile. And with the runaway success of Apple's
Well, maybe not. There are already five mobile TV "standards." Each varies in how it interprets and delivers data. Some are for analog signals, while others are digital. Radio isn't much better.
To handle the variety, Mirics' chip has one 'poly band' tuner that, according to trade publication RFDesign, acts as a "universal broadcast receiver" that can be programmed to handle any standard. And it can do the job without requiring enough power to turn a handset into a fireball.
Intrigued? So am I. Mobile TV probably isn't a must-have feature for all but the most cutting-edge consumers. But you know it's coming, and technology like Mirics' will be necessary if it's to be widely adopted. Put this one on your IPO watch list, Fool.
See you back here next time when we continue the quest to find the greatest growth.
For more Rule-Breaking Foolishness:
- Check in with our last litter of infants.
- Some growth stocks are unloved.
- Here's how to make millions in tech.
- Check on the latest list of top growth stocks.
How great is growth? Seven stocks in the market-beating Rule Breakers portfolio have at least doubled, including Vertex. Care to find out the names of the others? Get 30 days of free access to the service right now. There's no obligation to subscribe.
Palm is a Stock Advisor pick. Intel is an Inside Value recommendation.
Fool contributor Tim Beyers, who is ranked 2,726 out of more than 50,000 participants in our Motley Fool CAPS investor-intelligence database, is a sucker for growth stocks and a contributor to the Rule Breakers team. Tim didn't own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article at the time of publication. Tim's portfolio holdings can be found at his Fool profile. His thoughts on growth stocks, Foolishness, and investing in general may be found in his blog. The Motley Fool's disclosure policy is a rebel on Wall Street.


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Low-cost carrier Norwegian currently allow to book cheap flights to New York from Scandinavia starting already at just €177! The flights are available between January and March 2017. However there is just a few travel dates at this rate level available during European winter 2016/2017. If you can travel only with hand-luggage up to 10kg this is final price for round trip flight including all taxes! For still attractive fare you may also consider to depart from Germany (Berlin), Amsterdam or UK (London).
To check your connection possibilities we recommend to use service of Skyscanner. This tool gives you quickly an idea which airlines are available from your home town. Please remember that only hand luggage is included in base fare so you would have to be a bit modest traveller. On the other hand you may fly to New York for this unbeatable fare..
Booking sample
Copenhagen – New York for €249
Germany (Berlin) – New York for €253
Amsterdam – New York from €285
UK (London) – New York for £271
Travel dates. Very limited options for the lowest fare available between January and March. Check out here directly at Norwegian website if interested in this deal.
Discounted accommodation
Booking sample of with Norwegian – flights to New York from Europe starting at €177! In this case you would be departing from Sweden to New York on 13th of March. Your return flight from America back to Europe would take place on 26th of March 2017.


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Airtel is back again for users to enjoy unlimited browsing free on their Android smartphones with new Airtel Live settings. Most of my users are enjoying Glo free Browsing with Tweakware Red Handler , you can now enjoy Airtel free browsing with any Psiphon handler.
Apn Settings
Name: Gimmegist Zain
APN: internet.ng.airtel.com
Username: internet
Password: internet
Other setting shown in the screenshot below
Psiphon handler Settings
Download Psiphon Handler HERE https://www.datafilehost.com/d/d604da36 or Syphon Shield handler HERE http://www.datafilehost.com/d/121b7ede
Proxy server: Airtellive.ng
Check for the remaining settings in the screen shots below


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The problem of car donations to humanity has locomote up several present time this hebdomad. When you are the manager of an ageing vehicle, and it stands you up twofold in as tons days, later academic thought sometimes has to be specified to substitution it. I have been enormously attached to my old dark blue Mustang but I besides knew that this day would needs come up. The repairs are protrusive to go disabling both month, and it makes no suffer to save the old miss going. She is too angelic for the sliver pile though, and the total belief of donating my car to foundation came give or take a few because of a implication from a trade associate.
Everyone knows how attached I am to my car, and when she began bounteous me worry it was said to me at carry out as a bit of a jest that she would be a hot car bequest for one of our local charities. At firstborn it put out my feelings a bit, but past the more I idea roughly it, the more I warm to the opinion.
Evidently in attendance are several local charities that adopt car donations, past bring the car up to a safe mechanic condition, and past reward them to poverty-stricken recipients who are afterwards able to use the cars to brainstorm occupation. The more I rumination nearly this, the much I likeable it. The hypothesis plumbed genuinely acceptable to me, by a long way improved than my valued car climax up someone oversubscribed off bit by bit for lean environs. The plan that my car would form such as a contrast in someone's life was a completely nice idea to have.Post ads:
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My car wouldn't be worth all that much, perchance linking $1,000 - $2,000. Donating car to charity, I will be able to get a tax deduction, but the longest segment is that I won't have to be discomposed maddening to provide it in camera or put up with those disreputably debilitating roger sessions negotiating a belongings damage beside a car salesman. I have also been told that the total act is highly easy, as the car is collected and all the paperwork designed for me.
I am alive that next to the new changes to the IRS pentateuch that car donations to charities have suffered unsuccessfully. This has been because taxpayers have in the knightly puffed up their cars that they have given. Now, lower than the new rules, the magnitude of tax deduction can singular be unfaltering once the car is sold. The patronage afterwards notifies you by way of getting which shows the crystal-clear magnitude that your car made at garage sale.
Because the compassion is going to brand improvements to my car, I will be able to use the Fair Market Value which is recorded in the Kelley Blue Book to find my tax speculation. This is considerably enhanced than having to dawdle until the vehicle is sold at jumble sale and hoping for a well-behaved cost and thus a honourable tax disruption. It's a devout sensation though, one that I notably urge.Post ads:
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Car donations can imply a worldwide of disproportion to so many a people, and not just those in the USA. Many of the car giving foundation organizations drudgery internationally, and the dollars lifted on all car sale goes a extremely long-life way in providing human-centred aid as capably as catastrophe assuagement letter-perfect all through the world.


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n African Security Review - The African Peer Review Mechanism - process and procedures - : feature
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is perhaps the most innovative aspect of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). For the APRM to serve its full potential, it is important that the application of the peer review process meet the criteria of credibility, integrity and professionalism. This paper sets out clarifications by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on the nature and content of the APRM process. However, we first offer a brief summary of the concept and international experience related to peer reviews as best practice for the APRM.
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Maida did not tendency to depart from the old rule becomes more expect to got it if i am living next door to sing and poured on the pudding, cloves, mace, nutmeg, isat last, poirot announced.
It's this sort of 'let's be the first person to hate everything' attitude that makes me hate what the internet has done to movie fans. poirot
LOL: The Indiana Jones "Nuke The Fridge" Action Figure | /Film
Actually, the first 40 minutes or so of 5 is okay, but when Tommy Gunn comes into the picture the movie goes down. poirot
Update: Sylvester Stallone Does NOT Plan to Follow Rambo 5 With Rocky 7 | /Film
Apparently you were absent in American Government on the days they were discussing Constitutional Law because you are clearly incapable of confronting and dealing with legal arguments. chip poirot
Teachers' Opinions And The First Amendment - The Panda's Thumb
Has far less to do with the constitution, and far more to do with good teaching practice in general. chip poirot
Teachers' Opinions And The First Amendment - The Panda's Thumb
Almost any philosophical stance accepts that the human mind has limited information processing abilities, I would hope. chip poirot
Exorcising flawed concepts of Hox function - The Panda's Thumb
Or if you are uncomfortable with the expression of certainty, it is overwhelmingly probable that the event did not occur. chip poirot
Pdmit I liscandal - the more ill-natured, the better. poirot looked thoughtfully at her - her slim well-preserved figure, her keen dark eyes, her grey hair; a woman of forty-five who was content to look her age.
Have you a key? 'poirot rose quickly from his bunk and came out into the passage.
January 15th, 2010 at 11: 56 pm tombaker says: ralph's like a good poirot or holmes, covering the waterfront of possibilities in a fair and openminded, ratiocynative fashion. and saving the piercing dirk of truth for the very end. always stylishly excuted. very good then. off to watch "Up" with me girls. righties would love it – has that bad old socialist trade unionist Ed Asner!! neener neener puppies!!
Think Progress » Wall Street Investors Lavish Scott Brown's Campaign With Money, Get Out The Vote Operations
Hiya sionnach
No problemo. I agreed with your first response. I do recall (somehow) that I had a wee dram when I posted my initial misguided missive.
I love this site - and all the witty comments from the usual suspects.
What an intoxicating page. :-)
Wordie is my little 'eye-opener' each day! *hiccup*
In America, I think solicitors are people trying to sell you stuff.
Isn't Wordie mildly intoxicating? ;-)
... *wants to be mildly intoxicated and post stuff on Wordie*
Hi strev! You should just ignore me. I was mildly intoxicated when I wrote my previous entry. (It seemed hilarious to me at the time, less so when I read it now). You should know that I enjoy all your contributions to the site very much.
This kind of gross generalization could make a full-blooded Irish person oirot.
Purrsonally, I never pronounce the 't' in Poirot, cuz I know the annoying froggy little ponce is Belgian, see? And I've certainly never heard an Irish person pronounce "pirate" as "pwa-rho" in my life.
A "lawyer" is, of course, a purely artificial construct seen only on American TV shows. Anyone in Ireland in need of legal advice would consult either a solicitor or a barrister.
(I'm Irish, for what it's worth)
How the Irish say "Pirate"
(I'm half Irish for what it's worth)
Here's another... Liar = Lawyer


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Tonight, I found the artist Rebecca Shapiro while looking for encaustic artists online. She produced a series for TedX Portland and in her talk, she discusses our desire for freedom and using creative expression to work through the "beliefs and behaviors that keep us bound and from enjoying movement and momentum in our lives."
I like her expression "enjoying movement and momentum in our lives." These photographs remind me of a moment when I was unbound, so I'm thinking a lot about how to create more of those moments in the weeks and months to come.


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German manufacturer of fine paper, founded at Oberlenningen (now Lenningen) in 1855. Under family ownership for five generations, the company has been a pioneer in coated paper since 1892, introducing the brand name 'Phoenix art paper' in 1895.
Subjects: Bibliography.
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'What a Brain must Mine be!': The Strange Historical Romances of William Harrison Ainsworth
It starts with a precise date – 21 April 1529, or 10 July 1553, perhaps, or 'one night, at the latter end of April 1665' – which may mean nothing to you if you are not a historian (and even if you are). Then you are straight into the heart of a drama of some sort, whether the procession for a young queen daringly inserted into the Tudor succession by a powerful kingmaker, or a Puritan family's evening prayer in the midst
of plague-ridden London. The style is grandiose and melodramatic, although the reader is not spared copious details of the Tudor landscape of London, or the backstory of the epidemic ('Before proceeding further it may be desirable to show in what manner the dreadful pestilence … commenced and how far its ravages had already extended'). The author has done his homework, and he relishes the picturesque detail which he shares so generously with you. The twenty-first-century reader may be initially amused, then exasperated, then intolerant and bored as he or she progresses through a few more pages of this energetic and overladen prose. Life is short, this artifice is particularly long: why persist?
In his heyday, the historical novelist William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) was briefly considered to be a credible rival of Dickens and W. M. Thackeray. Now he is known to few besides scholars of the Victorian gothic or historical novel, and enthusiasts for nineteenth-century Manchester, the city of his birth. Perhaps if he had stuck around in his native place, and – like Elizabeth Gaskell – had written novels about the industrial modernity he found there, we would be reading his fictions as part of a B.A. Hons degree in English Literature, or watching middle-brow T.V. adaptations of them, starring a cast probably composed of teenage pop stars looking for an acting career, and maturing British character actors desperate for work after the last film in the Harry Potter franchise. But Ainsworth fell in love with old woods full of ancient rookeries, mouldering manor houses, blood-stained castles, ruined abbeys, and nooks and crannies in old city streets and country churches. He became an historical novelist of the kind the literary critic J. C. Simmons described as a 'footnote' novelist: his learning is heavily worn, like an unwieldy suit of medieval armor. Ainsworth's attraction was to the gothic historical, to the black and the bloody, to haunted history. This suit of does not remain passively propped up in the armory, but comes running after you with a sharpened sword down shadowy corridors. In other words, this is the dark side of those progressive Victorians we all know about, with their trains and telegraphs, their technological advances and their scientific discoveries, their liberal politics and their enlightened scepticism.
Ainsworth's first successful novel, Rookwood (1834), was a Gothic romance, which depicted the legendary ride of the highwayman Dick Turpin from London to York (at least, it became legend after Ainsworth invented it). Jack Sheppard (1839), which focused on the career of the titular young eighteenth-century criminal, was so popular that nine different stage versions of it appeared before the end of the year, and criminal slang pervaded the language of the fashionable classes. It included an incredibly detailed and well-illustrated account of Jack's escape from the famous Newgate Prison, which must have been of great interest to jail-breakers and prison governors alike. The novel attracted criticism for its celebration of criminal lives and achievements from such heavyweight names as Thackeray, and Ainsworth now abandoned the 'Newgate Novel', as this literary genre was known, in favour of the historical romance. The dandified and convivial Ainsworth was financially astute, and knew how to follow the money: in 1826 he had married the daughter of the publisher John Ebers, who unsurprisingly published Ainsworth's first novel in the same year. As John Sutherland noted, Ainsworth was very shrewd in negotiating lucrative contracts for his novels, so it is not surprising that the novelist turned from criminal romances to the picturesque historical novel at just the right moment.
Ainsworth's classic works in this new field of endeavor were The Tower of London (1840), Old Saint Paul's (1841) and Windsor Castle (1843). To Ainsworth connoisseurs (and there are some, believe it or not), they are quite irresistible. The Tower of London, based on the events of the brief reign of Lady Jane Grey, runs the full gamut of historical drama, tragedy, romance – and slapstick comedy with giants, dwarfs, merry widows, and gargantuan pies and pints of ale. Ainsworth clearly envied his Tudor ancestors for their indulgence of their appetites – for food and drink, but also for sexual titillation and executions. (Of course, as he is a Victorian, so, while the details of the butchery and torture are not spared, no hand is ever allowed to rest lustfully on lovely Lady Jane's breasts). Confined largely to the Tower of London, Ainsworth's characters obligingly ensure that their activities and intrigues are conducted in as many different parts of the ancient building as is possible: thus we have the full guided tour of the historic site, without the current exorbitant admission fee. His original readers also had the superb illustrations of George Cruikshank (and William Delamotte and Tony Johannot) to enrich their experience: grand tableaux of Cruikshank's spindly and cartoonesque figures, flimsy as their one-dimensional textual personae, are often counterbalanced by delicate and evocative images of the modern appearance of the historical buildings. Cruikshank and Ainsworth later quarreled, because the illustrator felt that he had contributed as much to Ainsworth's success as the author himself, a view which is not without some substance.
Ainsworth was worried that the Tower of London was inadequately honored and preserved as an historical monument, as he tells us in the preface. Perhaps, he thought, if he re-peopled it with the doomed Lady Jane, her handsome husband Guildford Dudley, and their nemesis, the fiendish Spanish ambassador Simon Renard, his readers would appreciate its national significance. For good measure, he delivers to us also the gloomy and aging Mary I and the beauteous young Elizabeth, rivals for the affections of the young Earl of Devon. Still not enough drama for you? Just in case, he adds in a fully fictional love triangle: the lovely Cecily, the dashing Cuthbert, and the jealous jailer Nightgall, who chases the unhappy couple through an imagined series of Gothic passages and dungeons which Ainsworth has inventively added to the structure of the Tower. If you still can't see the allure of an Ainsworth novel, the comic antics of the kitchen or the gruesome ballad of the executioner, preparing to behead half the cast at the end of the novel, may yet draw you in. Here he is, with his two unappealing friends Wolfytt and Scorrocold, getting ready for poor Lady Jane's execution:
"This is my favourite axe. I can make sure work with it. I always keep it for queens or dames of high degree … This notch, which I can never grind away, was made by the old Countess of Salisbury, that I told you about. It was a terrible sight to see her white hair dabbled with blood. Poor Lady Jane won't give me so much trouble, I'll be sworn. She'll die like a lamb."
"Ay, ay," muttered Sorrocold. "God send her a speedy death!"
"She's sure of it with me," returned Mauger, "so you may rest easy on that score." And as he turned the grindstone quickly round, drawing sparks from the steel, he chanted, as hoarsely as a raven, the following ditty:
The axe was sharp, and heavy as lead,And the screaming of the grindstone formed an appropriate accompaniment to the melody.
As it touched the neck, off went the head!
Queen Anne laid her white throat upon the block,And he again set the wheel in motion.
Quietly waiting the fatal shock;
The axe it severed it right in twain,
And so quick so true that she felt no pain!
Salisbury's countess, she would not dieQueen Catherine Howard gave me a fee
As a proud dame should decorously.
Lifting my axe, I split her skull,
And the edge since then has been notched and dull.
A chain of gold to die easily:
And her costly present she did not rue,
For I touched her head and away it flew!
"A brave song, and well sung," cried Wolfytt, approvingly. "Have you any more of it?"
"No," replied Mauger, significantly. "I shall make another verse to-morrow …".
With this grim exchange, they are obliged to break off their discussion, as 'a figure robed in white, but insubstantial almost as the mist' – the ghost of Anne Boleyn, naturally – appears to provide the evening's star turn, the performance of a training circuit round the scaffold.
Herne the Hunter plunging into the lake – George Cruikshank
My love affair with the novels began, not with the marvellous Tower, but with Windsor Castle. It, too, has Anne Boleyn in it (alive this time), a surefire hit for any historical novel, but better still, it has Herne the Hunter, an outdoorsy Gothic ghost with Shakespearean credentials. I was at school in Windsor at the time, which explains the novel's particular appeal to me: we were actually next to the very park in which Herne, with his accompanying hounds and horsemen, was wont (allegedly) to roam! During Physical Education, I was even obliged to run up and down the Long Walk, yet despite these runs, and indeed walks in more secluded parts of Windsor Forest, I never saw Herne. But then – unlike Henry VIII – I was not just about to execute one spouse to make way for the next:
…a fierce tumult raged within his breast. He fixed his eyes on the Round Tower, which was distinctly visible, and from which he expected the signal, and then tried to peer into the far horizon. But he could discern nothing … Henry's fancy was so powerfully excited, that he fancied he could behold the terrible tragedy enacting at the Tower.
"She is now issuing forth into the green in front of Saint Peter's Chapel," said Henry to himself. "I can see her as distinctly as if I were there. Ah, how beautiful she looks! and how she moves all hearts to pity! … She takes leave of her weeping attendants—she mounts the steps of the scaffold firmly—she looks round, and addresses the spectators. How silent they are, and how clearly and musically her voice sounds! … Now she disrobes herself, and prepares for the fatal axe. It is wielded by the skilful executioner of Calais, and he is now feeling its edge. Now she takes leave of her dames, and bestows a parting gift on each. Again she kneels and prays. She rises. The fatal moment is at hand. Even now she retains her courage—she approaches the block, and places her head upon it. The axe is raised—ha!"
The exclamation was occasioned by a flash of fire from the battlements of the Round Tower, followed by a volume of smoke, and in another second the deep boom of a gun was heard.
At the very moment that the flash was seen, a wild figure, mounted on a coal-black steed, galloped from out the wood, and dashed towards Henry, whose horse reared and plunged as he passed.
"There spoke the knell of Anne Boleyn!" cried Herne, regarding Henry sternly, and pointing to the Round Tower. "The bloody deed is done, and thou art free to wed once more. Away to Wolff Hall, and bring thy new consort to Windsor Castle!"
What the subtle, hard-bitten Cromwell of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall would make of his replacement as Henry's counsellor, in this Victorian novel, by an antler-sporting supernatural Wildman is surely a subject for late-night speculation. We can only marvel at how many miles away Mantel's historical fiction is from Ainsworth's, and yet how close in its exploration of our responses to the brutal environments of the historical past. This aspect of Ainsworth's fiction is particularly apparent when we turn to his next novel.
In Old St Paul's, Ainsworth struggled with the fact that the building at the centre of the novel, with many of its neighbors, had been consumed in the Great Fire of London. Accordingly, we have an apocalyptic novel, in which Ainsworth reconstructs early modern London and populates it with his characters, before staging both a plague and a fire to destroy place and people: a sort of buy one, get one free, version of that best-selling contemporary disaster novel, Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). As Stephen Carver, Ainsworth's most recent advocate, has noted, the holocaust which the nineteenth-century novelist describes will strike the modern readers as all too familiar, in the light of the more horrific events of twentieth-century history: the novel's hero, Leonard, contemplating the mass burial sites of plague victims, is a thanatourist which whom we may well identify. And we soon realise that Ainsworth's fascination with the 'dark and bloody' history of his country exemplifies both the entertainment and the psychological functions of the Gothic. It gave his readers a pleasurable thrill of horror, while also expressing their deepest anxieties and subconscious fears.
By the early 1850s, Ainsworth's picturesque historical novels were going out of fashion. He tried writing novels with a contemporary setting, both realist and sensationalist in character, and succeeded in neither genre. So he went on writing historical romances, ever less successful, ever less financially rewarding. He moved house from London to Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, and then Reigate; he moved publishing house from the prestigious Chapman and Hall to the populist Tinsley Brothers. One of my favorites among his novels is the hallucinatory Auriol (1844), in which he seems to be exploring the collapse of the picturesque historical fiction he loved to write. His time-travelling Elizabethan hero, who has drunken a potion conveying immortality, has a pretty rough ride through early-nineteenth-century London, where he has the misfortune to encounter sinister Rosicrucians, low-grade criminals, and disturbing demolition works. In the last chapter, he awakes (or does he?) to discover that it is all a delirious dream. But is it? Ainsworth leaves both the reader and author uncertain, as if he has written himself into an historical hole – a particularly black one in the dungeon of a Kafkasque Gothic castle. Thus the closing paragraph of this fantastical novel:
Auriol then walked to the window and gazed through the tinted panes. It was very dark, and objects could only be imperfectly distinguished. Still he fancied he could detect the gleam of the river beneath him, and what seemed a long line of houses on the bridge. He also fancied he discerned other buildings, with the high roofs, the gables, and the other architectural peculiarities of the structures of Elizabeth's time. He persuaded himself, also, that he could distinguish through the gloom the venerable Gothic pile of Saint Paul's Cathedral on the other side of the water, and, as if to satisfy him that he was right, a deep solemn bell tolled forth the hour of two. After a while he returned from the window, and said to his supposed [sic: my italics] grandsire, "I am satisfied. I have lived centuries in a few nights."
Frankly, it is not the first time that Ainsworth had got his antique breeches in a bit of a twist and finished a novel in some confusion: Crichton (1836), set in sixteenth-century France and detailing the adventures of the polymath, Sir James Crichton, concluded as abruptly and implausibly as the historical Crichton's own life (although not in the same way). At least Ainsworth's Admirable Crichton gets the girl, despite their unresolved religious differences – unlike the historical Crichton, who was stabbed to death one moonlit night in Mantua, at the tender age of twenty-one, by a thuggish Italian prince. Ainsworth, I am sure, would want me to tell you that it was in the early hours of 3 July 1582.
Contemporaries were rarely kind about Ainsworth's historical romances (possibly because their own works did not sell so well). In the second volume of his The New Spirit of the Age (1844), Richard Hengist Horne described Ainsworth as 'a reviver of old clothes', complaining that:
… there has of late years sprung up a sort of lower or less historical romance, in which the chief part of the history consisted in old dates, old names, old houses, and old clothes. But dates in themselves are but numerals, names only sounds, houses and streets mere things to be copied from prints and records; and any one may do the same with regard to old coats, and hats, wigs, waistcoats, and boots.
For Horne, Windsor Castle was nothing but:
… a picture book … full of very pretty pictures. Also full of catalogues of numberless suits of clothes. It would be difficult to open it any where without the eye falling on such words as cloth of gold, silver tissue, green jerkin, white plumes.
Old St Paul's, in an immortal phrase which modern reviewers may well find handy, was 'generally dull, except when it is revolting.' Horne's criticisms may be witty and even well-founded, but they miss the sensuous appeal of the Ainsworth novel, the desire to create the appearance and the feel of the past in tangible detail, to give us the stench of corruption, the clink of the chain, the glare of the gaudy trappings of power. A precursor of Cecil B. DeMille and Dan Brown, a master of the spectacle and the sinister, king of the colourful and the clichéd, Ainsworth's descriptions are as dramatic and as essential as his dialogues: the setting in the best Ainsworth novels is not really the background but the foreground, the very point of his prose. In The Tower of London, the Tower is as much a character as Lady Jane or Simon Renard: in fact, rather more so. 'What a brain must mine be!' exclaims poor Auriol, on awakening to find his nineteenth-century nightmare existence is just a spooky dream. His creator – a waking dreamer of historical reconstructions – might well have said the exactly the same thing.
Rosemary Mitchell is Associate Principal Lecturer in History and Reader in Victorian Studies at Leeds Trinity University College, U.K; she used to work for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. She is interested in Victorian historical culture, and enjoys all varieties of Victorian historical novels, history books, and history paintings, particularly the bad ones.


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I was interested to receive the following letter from a long-time Windows IT Pro reader the other day because I haven't heard much negative feedback about Exchange 2007 at all. In fact, most feedback I've heard has been positive. So I thought I'd pass along this message from Murat Yildirimoglu and see what other readers think of his proposal to boycott Exchange 2007.
Murat says:
I wrote two books on Exchange Server in Turkish. To get my MCSE certificate, my last exam was on Exchange Server 5.5 in 1997. From the first time I saw it, I loved that product. Up until now. Up until Exchange 2007. Now I boycott Exchange 2007 and invite all the people to do the same. Here's why:
1. The setup is ridiculously complex. During the setup, we have to download numerous files. Why do we have to download new components to install a new product? Can't these components be included in the setup media? There is an example for how to that: Visual Studio 2005 DVD has all the new components it needs to have before the installation. So the installation runs without a glitch. I want the same for the Exchange Server.
2. Management is complex, cumbersome and command-prompt based. GUI console is trivial: You have to switch to command prompt (Exchange PowerShell) whenever you need to do nontrivial tasks. GUI interface is nonsense: We are accustomed to logically designed, container based management before Exchange 2007. For example, there were administrative groups. Under the administrative groups was the servers container that includes all the Exchange Servers in the administrative group. Under the server, you would see the storage groups. Under a storage group there were stores. Under a store, you would see the mailboxes container. Under the mailboxes, we could see the mailboxes with full details: number of items, size, last logon information, etc. Now, the "Mailbox" names are under three different places with different meanings. And none of them gives us detailed information about the mailboxes. If you want detailed information, you must fire a command from the Exchange PowerShell. Complete nonsense.
3. For the first time in the history of the Exchange Server, you cannot do the ordinary tasks like creating mailboxes, deleting mailboxes or establishing mail addresses through the User Management console. (In NT times, we used User Manager for Domains; in Windows 2000-2003 we used Active Directory Users and Computers console.) Exchange 2007 does not have the necessary extension. You must do all these tasks from the insufficient GUI console and Exchange Power Shell. Complete nonsense.
4. When you installed Exchange 2000 and 2003, you could immediately send email to the Internet. And SMTP server was not open to relay; that is, you were safe. In Exchange 2007 you must create a Send Connector to do that. Why? It is complete nonsense.
5. You cannot easily configure POP3 and IMAP4 protocols. All the configuration must be done through the Power shell. Again, complete nonsense.
6. Bill Gates always preaches unified communications. Unification and consolidation are two buzzwords now, but Exchange 2007 plays another tune: Diversification. It says that we have to install Edge Transport role to a different machine. It is not optional; it is mandatory. Why? Why do we have to use another machine? It is complete nonsense.
7. In general, I see a biased attitude in favor of the command prompt. Men, the name of the game is GUI. Do you still remember the name of the operating system? It is Windows, not Command Prompt. In earlier versions I used command prompt only to defrag and repair the stores offline, nothing more. Now, you force me to leave the GUI and migrate to command prompt. Microsoft betrays its roots, its philosophy.
So, I will not teach Exchange 2007. I will not support Exchange 2007. It is called a boycott, yes. And I believe that if we boycott this nonsense product, Microsoft will return to its roots. Just like the fans of the Cola boycotted the Coca Cola Company when it changed its taste in 1985. The fans of the classical taste won then. Maybe we will also.
An Exchange User's Lament
Calling for a boycott of Exchange 2007
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Even though I like whole grilled fish, it's such a pain to eat. I'm such a failure when it comes to removing the flesh from the bone in one go and usually end up picking at which is such a painful experience. That doesn't stop me from ordering it though, especially when in Croatia when they do grilled fish so well. It's so simple yet delicious and it's even better when in a beautiful location like at the monastery at Lokrum Island in Croatia.
Lokrum is a small rocky island just of the coast of Dubrovnik in southern Croatia. The island is uninhabited, except for a large population of peacocks but it's a great day trip from the mainland and you can go swimming in crystal clear water and follow that up with a delicious Croatian lunch. There is a small kiosk type cafe and one restaurant on the island.
The menu at the Monastery Restaurant isn't particularly adventurous. It's traditional Croatian fare which means grilled fish, meat, salad and pasta. Not a huge choice but it's tasty, albeit a little touristy and not as cheap as what you'll find in a quiet street on the mainland. But there aren't many choices on Lokrum, you either eat at the restaurant, grab a sandwich from the bar/cafe or take your own picnic. In fact, preparing a picnic before you leave Dubrovnik is a great idea and I wish I had thought of that at the time.
Even though having a picnic on Lokrum Island would be ideal, especially as you could eat as you sunbath by the water but the Monastery Restaurant is quiet and in a beautiful setting and the food is tasty so whether or not you choose to dine here is totally dependant on your budget. Fifteen euros per person for a meal at Lokrum Island's restaurant isn't outrageous but it's not cheap either. For the only restaurant on the island I think it's worth it.6


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Do you want to look sexier and slimmer? Are you sick of being given advice that just doesn't work?
Smoothies recipes have been all the rage for quite some time, but are they really beneficial to dieters? Yes!
Smoothies help dieters maintain hydration, provide more fiber and vitamins than most foods, and provide plenty of natural fructose, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
All of this comes in an easily-digestible form that delivers the nutrients quickly and efficiently.
Here are three delicious smoothie recipes that will help you start your morning with a burst of energy and keep feeling good all day long:
The Ultimate Green Smoothie
Green smoothies are packed with rejuvenating chlorophyll and antioxidants that kick the immune system into high gear.
This one delivers several servings of dark green veggies along with sweet-tasting fruits to please the palate.
It also contains just enough healthy fat to help your body absorb and use the smoothie's many vitamins.
What You'll Need:
4 leaves of kale, de-stemmed
4 leaves of chard, de-stemmed
1/2 bunch of parsley
1 large aloe vera leaf
1/2 bunch of dandelion greens
3 pears
1 ripe banana, peeled
1 avocado, peeled
3 cups of water
Remove stems from kale and chard leaves. Peel banana and avocado. Remove seed from avocado.
Place ingredients in blender. Add 2 1/2 cups water. Blend for approximately two minutes, or until completely smooth. Drink and enjoy!
The Vitamin C Monster Smoothie
This yummy recipe is a favorite during cold and flu season. It's packed with vitamin C to help your body fight off illnesses.
The antioxidants also help rid your body of free radicals that can lead to disease.
What You'll Need:
1 package fresh strawberries, leaves removed
2 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced
1 orange, peeled
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 kiwi, peeled and sliced
1 cup cantaloupe, cubed
2 ice cubes, crushed
Peel all fruits and slice as directed. Crush the ice cubes.
Place all ingredients in blender and blend on high power for two minutes, or until completely smooth and frothy.
Add a little honey for more sweetness, if desired. Serve or drink immediately.
The Quick Morning Hunger-Buster Smoothie
This is an easy recipe that can be made in minutes, but it will satisfy you for hours to come. It serves up a whopping 6 grams of protein and 7 grams of fiber per cup!
Silken tofu adds a smooth texture and plenty of hunger-fighting protein, while the fiber from the apples and berries will keep your digestive system in top form.
The yogurt adds more protein, plus calcium
What You'll Need:
1 cup frozen mixed berries
1/2 banana
2 sweet apples, cored and sliced
1/2 cup silken tofu
1 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt
Combine berries, banana, apples, yogurt and tofu in blender.
Blend on high speed for two minutes or until smooth. This smoothie can be placed in a covered container and stored in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Bonus: Build Your Own Smoothie
You can create a custom smoothie recipe that perfectly suits your taste. Here's how:
Custom green smoothies can be made by taking your favorite dark leafy green vegetables (such as spinach, kale, or arugula) and combining them with your favorite sweet-tasting fruits (such as bananas, pears, or apples).
Add a fruit or vegetable with high water content (such as cucumber or melon) for added hydration. Blend on high speed until smooth.
Hunger-busting smoothies can be created by mixing a few of your favorite fruits with a protein source (such as yogurt or silken tofu). Experiment until you find the mix that works best for you!
Remember: You can add powdered supplements to any smoothie recipe for an extra dose of protein or fiber.
Bye for now,
Dr Jason Hurst, DC, CCSP, CSCS
P.S. If you read my other post on smoothies you'll remember that I mentioned using the NutriBullet Smoothie Maker for quick smoothies with little clean up required. You will simply need to use smaller portions of the ingredients to fit into the NutriBullet Smoothie Maker.
P.P.S. If you have an awesome smoothie recipe that you would love to share, please comment below.


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We provide support to a wide range of community groups and projects – advice, information, training and more.
Partner with us
We can offer one-off or ongoing activities for groups of people from local services. Find out more.
Training for food projects
We provide a range of courses to help you deliver your community food project more effectively.
Support for community food projects
We provide support to all community food projects, including food banks, lunch clubs, community gardens and more.
How to access surplus food
We help community organisations and businesses to source surplus food and help reduce the city's food waste.


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PepsiCo is a world renowned company that is comprised of PepsiCo International (PI),PepsiCo Americas Foods (PAF), and PepsiCo Americas Beverages (PAB). These divisions own and operate well known brands Frito-Lay, Tropicana, Gatorade, Pepsi-cola and Quaker Oats. Most Americans have at least one of these brands sitting on their pantry shelves and this is why PepsiCo is so successful. They make products that people want and need. The company also sells international products in the United Kingdom, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. They have a strong code of ethics which includes an excellent environmental policy. PepsiCo is also strong financially with an annual revenue of $39 billion and employs over 185,000 people.
Info from: PepsiCo Overview
PepsiCo was created in 1965 with the merger of two large well known companies: Frito-Lay and Pepsi-cola, but this is not when the story begins. In the late 1980's a young pharmacist named Caleb Bradham created the Pepsi formula in the back of his store. He soon realized that people enjoyed the refreshing new beverage and offered it in his soda shop. Later in 1902 Bradham patented and bottle the drink so people far and wide could enjoy it.
After the 1965 merger PepsiCo acquires Mt. Dew and introduces many new marketing campaigns, but their most successful one will not be introduced for another ten years. In 1975 Pepsi's most famous campaign launches in Texas, The Pepsi Challenge, to compete with the Coca-Cola Company. Throughout the next twenty years PepsiCo acquires Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Mug Root Beer, and introduces diet and caffeine free Pepsi. Although the company decided to divide from the fast food industry in 1996, they gained Tropicana in 1998 and Quaker/ Gatorade in 2001.
One thing Pepsi-cola has continued to do over time is employ legendary spokespeople. This long list includes: Joanie Sommers, Britney Spears, Jeff Gordon, Ray Charles, Mariah Carey, Beyonce, and many others. Their successful advertising campaigns and positive image has distinguished PepsiCo and its affiliates from other snack and beverage companies. It should be interesting to see what emerges in 2009.
Info from: PepsiCo History
Filed under: PepsiCo, Public Relations | Tagged: caleb bradham, Frito-lay, pepsi-cola, pepsiCo, spokespeople | Leave a comment »


text: A company in Charlotte, NC is looking for a Customer Care Professional. Check to ensure that appropriate changes were made to resolve customers' problems. Complete contract forms, prepare change of address records, and issue service discontinuance orders, using computers. Confer with customers by telephone or in person in order to provide information about products and services, to take orders or cancel accounts, or to obtain details of complaints. Contact customers in order to respond to inquiries or to notify them of claim investigation results and any planned adjustments. Refer unresolved customer grievances to designated departments for further investigation. Resolve customers' service or billing complaints by performing activities such as exchanging merchandise, refunding money, and adjusting bills. Solicit sale of new or additional services or products. MAINTAIN ACCEPTABLE GOALS, QUALITY SERVICE. ATTEMPTS TO MAKE SALES ON ALL INBOUND CALLS. ASSIST CUSTOMERS WITH REPAIR PROBLEMS. ANSWER CUSTOMER BILLING AND COLLECETION QUESTIONS. WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF THE INTERNET.


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MSU Shadows
Have you ever wondered about all the mysterious and unusual things that happen around East Lansing? Why are there so many bodies being pulled from the Red Cedar River? What's the real reason for all those weird black squirrels on campus and why doesn't Beaumont Tower ring at midnight?
Have you ever wondered why those steam tunnels have the lids chained down? Or what happened to that old roommate of yours that disappeared and you never heard from them again?
Join us as we investigate the mysterious secrets of East Lansing.
MSU Shadows is a fantasy-horror campaign set in the East Lansing/Lansing area. It uses the Buffy the Vampire Slayer rules system, published by Eden Studios. All characters play the role of 'whitehat' heroes, essentially starting off as normal individuals encountering the world of the supernatural for the first time.
Season One - Welcome Week(s)
Click here for a color map of MSU (requires Acrobat PDF Reader).
Legal Note: Michigan State University is not involved in any shape, way, or form with this campaign. The campus serves merely as the backdrop for the game.


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AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline) - The Texas Railroad Commission asked Attorney General Greg Abbott in a letter Tuesday to challenge the federal Environmental Protection Agency's recently adopted Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
The EPA adopted the CSAPR on July 6. The rule, effective Oct. 7, requires 27 states, including Texas, to significantly reduce power plant emissions that cross state lines and contribute to ozone and fine particulate pollution in other states, beginning in January 2012.
"The Commission firmly believes that the rulemaking process employed by the EPA was legally flawed, and that the rule, particularly as it focuses on Texas, is unsupported by credible and accurate technical data and analysis and will have serious adverse economic consequences for Texas without demonstrable environmental and health benefits," chairwoman Elizabeth Ames Jones and commissioners David Porter and Barry T. Smitherman wrote.
The commission questions the legal validity of the notice of proposed rulemaking issued by the EPA because the adopted version, it says, is much broader in scope than the rule as initially proposed.
In its letter to Abbott and Jon Niermann, assistant attorney general for the state's Environmental Protection and Administrative Law Division, the commission says the EPA also did not properly analyze the cost of compliance nor adequately assess the impacts of the rule on the state.
"Texas relies on electricity generated by lignite its citizens mine, the regulation of which resides at the Commission," it wrote.
Under the CSAPR, Texas is expected to reduce sulphur dioxide, or SO2, emissions in the state by 47 percent from last year's levels -- second only to Ohio. In addition, of the states included in the CSAPR SO2 reduction requirements, about 25 percent of all reductions are expected to come from Texas.
Texas' total lignite power generation capacity is about 9,500 MW, according to the commission.
"If CSAPR requires any of those units to shut down or run half time, Texas will not have enough power to keep the lights on," it wrote.
The commission says it is concerned about the timing and the expected emission reductions themselves.
"The timing of the new requirements -- Jan. 1, 2012 -- is unreasonable because it does not allow enough time to implement operational responses to ensure reliability," it wrote. "Many coal-fired power plants may be forced to limit or shut down operations, possibly resulting in reductions in the safety margins of power operation of this state.
"The CSAPR will put at risk the economic future of power generation and those dependent on affordable electricity in Texas."
The commission is asking Abbott's office to bring legal action and seek a stay of CSAPR's effectiveness.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Trunk Clothiers
Trunk Clothiers is a cosy neighbourhood shop featuring collections of the best menswear and accessories from Japan, Italy, the US, Sweden, the UK and beyond. Since its launch in September 2010, Trunk Clothiers has introduced a new style of menswear retailing to London, quickly amassing a loyal group of admirers from around the globe.
Located at No.8 and No.34 on Marylebone's Chiltern Street across from the Chiltern Firehouse hotel, the shops bring together a lovingly curated range setting a new standard for gentlemen seeking modern classics of the highest quality matched with impeccable service.
United Kingdom
|Trunk Clothiers
|8 Chiltern Street London W1U 7PU United Kingdom
|View Map
+44 (0) 207 486 2357
United Kingdom