text:
Meeting Notes 2010 05 25
- 1 Crew
- 2 Agenda
- 3 Consensus items
- 4 Discussion Items
- 5 End of Meeting
Get someone to grab the membership binder now. Get someone to take notes.
- Moderator: Al Sweigart
- Note-Taker: R. Miloh Alexander
Attending: 15+
Officers: 5
Introduction and Names[edit]
- Anyone new to the meeting/space should stand up and say something cool.
- What Noisebridge is about: We make stuff and so can you!
- A brief primer on consensus process: We agree and so should you!
Treasurer's Report[edit]
Funds in bank: $9709
- This is the amount left after paying June rent, a 650 water bill and other small payments.
- Above 50 members
Expecting ~$2250 in donations shortly.
Membership Binder[edit]
- Read off any names from the binder for the past month.
- Anyone up for join this week should introduce them selves then leave the area in search of gifts for the rest of the group.
New Names are read in the binder:
Elizabeth Quirk G. Corey M Aka Corefro Daniel F aka fdr Ben R
What's Going On at Noisebridge[edit]
The following items were introduced:
- Circuit Hacking Mondays (7PM, 2169)
- Python Mondays (6:30 PM, 2169)
- SCoW craft group - Wednesdays at 7PM
- GameDevelopment - Wednesdays at 8PM, 2010 class is in session
- Shop Friday still plans to come back when the shop is done.
- Sensebridge and the EEG group - Sundays at afternoonish (1-2ish) - come to try brain scanning
- Spacebridge - Sundays at 5PM
- Knots, Go, and Locks! - Sundays 3PM
- Five Minutes of Fame
- Lucid Lynx Installfest on Sunday, May 30th
Project Updates[edit]
The Lucid Lynx Installfest is incorporating a Flakers' Faire (a.k.a. Procrastinator Faire), to show projects which weren't finished in time for Maker Faire. All are welcome to exhibit. So far three entries have been proposed.
Consensus items[edit]
There are no consensus items for the meeting this week, however discussion items will require consensus at the 6/1/10 meeting next week.
Discussion Items[edit]
Treasury discussion[edit]
- Members and Donars can pay monthly membership dues and donate to the Treasurer and Board members with Noisebridge bank account cards: Jeffrey Andy, Racheal, Mitch.
- Paypal is a recommended payment method by members present
- Communication about Noisebridge being entirely membership & donation funded.
- Discussion about these points includes many ideas: contributions of support, financial suggestions,
- Meredith will work on a sign stating clearly that Noisebridge is entirely community and member funded
- Jesse suggested fund raising drives
- Miloh made a suggestion to encourage people to pay a year in advance, discussed as a consensus item for next week and rejected
- Non funds related comment: ToM Selleck is requesting a Shannon Lookalike contest
Sticker purchase and Tshirt Purchases[edit]
Mitch mentions Sticker and TShirt bulk purchases are coming up -- ~$600 for stickers and $??? for Tshirt 3k stickers for $600 Tshirts for $8 at cost,
- Miloh proposes obtaining more shelving as an incentive to new
- FlakerFair: Jesse MacDonald announces the Flaker's fair in conjunction with the Lucid Lynx installfest,
- Sunday May 30th 2010
- unknown expected turnout, not publicized yet
- Meredith asks what to do with crap donations that keep showing up:
- Discussion covers what is and isn't a donation and where to donate goods.
- Discussion about what to do with donated that folks receive receipt for versus items that are just left on the tables in the main hall.
- solutions to deal with excess donations
- Auctions
- Organizing location for Donations
- Labelling of Donations
- Erin volunteers to spearhead the effort to organize donation processing
Nana brings up the elevator[edit]
- Elevator outside call buttons are not reliable. Miloh suggests we need to campaign with the landlord or the CA inspector
- Some method of communication between the door downstairs and the space is a good stopgap for the elevator problems:
- Direct Inward dial numbers to call the space (contact NotKev at Telephreaks.org for a free 415xEXTN number)
- Intercom solutions for the entryway (piggyback existing, wifi, wireless doorbell)
- Al volunteers to look into the elevator issue
- Some method of communication between the door downstairs and the space is a good stopgap for the elevator problems:
SF Techshop Special Promotions for Noisebridge Members[edit]
- Mitch discusses the new Techshop SF location offering a membership deal for Noisebridge members.
- Mitch asks for consensus to email the members in good standing (direct email from the addresses given in the binder) about this deal. Mailing the list does not suffice, as members don't all follow Noisebridge-discuss or -announce, and not all list followers are members who can take advantage of the offer from SFtechship.
- The consensus will be delivered next week.
Grey brings up a reminder that there is a mailing list or side-discussion about getting a Laser cutter for Noisebridge.
Shannon reminds everyone that AceMonsterToys is a new East Bay hacker space starting up, check mailing lists and the site acemonstertoys.org for more information and to organize
Hackerspaces call in June 6 2010
Meeting Discussion closes
End of Meeting[edit]
- PGP Key Signing could happen now, check the list to see who wants in on the action.
- Put back the membership binder. Note: this week, notices were sent to sponsors of potential members languishing in the back of the binder due to not attending membership meeting for induction.
- Save the meeting notes to the wiki.
- Send a copy of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
- Copy the Meeting Notes Template for next week's agenda and update the main wiki page's link to it.
- Enjoy a cocktail with your fellow hacker or robot.


text:
Residents of Manhattan's East side have to constantly deal with the construction that is slowly but surely (fingers crossed) creating the Second Avenue subway line. But a local construction worker from Queens is, as he put it, "trying to give back a little bit." His name is Gary Russo, and he spends his entire lunch break singing Frank Sinatra tunes for the enjoyment of everyone who passes by. Love.
[Videogum via Daily Intel]

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Pneumatic Tools
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Backed by a 3 year limited warranty and nationwide network of service centers, you can count on Grip-Rite Tools to be valued members of your work team.


text:
Tajikistan Population: 8,330,9461 VISITOR FROM HERE!
« Previous Country | Next Country » Back to Flag Counter Overview
|The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s and 1870s, but Russia's hold on Central Asia weakened following the Revolution of 1917. Bands of indigenous guerrillas (called "basmachi") fiercely contested Bolshevik control of the area, which was not fully reestablished until 1925. Tajikistan was first created as an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan in 1924, but the USSR designated Tajikistan a separate republic in 1929 and transferred to it much of present-day Sughd province. Ethnic Uzbeks form a substantial minority in Tajikistan, and ethnic Tajiks an even larger minority in Uzbekistan. Tajikistan became independent in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and experienced a civil war between regional factions from 1992 to 1997. Tajikistan has endured several domestic security incidents since 2010, including armed conflict between government forces and local strongmen in the Rasht Valley and between government forces and criminal groups in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. In September 2015, government security forces rebuffed attacks led by a former high-ranking official in the Ministry of Defense. President Emomali RAHMON, who came to power during the civil war, used the attacks to ban the main opposition political party in Tajikistan. RAHMON further strengthened his position by having himself designated "Leader ofthe Nation" and removing term limits on himself through constitutional amendments in a referendum on May 2016. The country remains the poorest in the former Soviet sphere. Tajikistan became a member of the World Trade Organization in March 2013. However, its economy continues to face major challenges, including dependence on remittances from Tajikistanis working in Russia, pervasive corruption, and the opiate trade in neighboring Afghanistan.
Landlocked; highest point, Qullai Ismoili Somoni (formerly Communism Peak), was the tallest mountain in the former USSR
|Central Asia, west of China, south of Kyrgyzstan
|Geographic coordinates:
| total: 144,100 sq km
land: 141,510 sq km
water: 2,590 sq km
Size comparison: slightly smaller than Wisconsin
|Land Boundaries:
|total: 4,130 km border countries (4): Afghanistan 1,357 km, China 477 km, Kyrgyzstan 984 km, Uzbekistan 1,312 km
|0 km (landlocked)
|Maritime claims:
|none (landlocked)
|mid-latitude continental, hot summers, mild winters; semiarid to polar in Pamir Mountains
|mountainous region dominated by the Trans-Alay Range in the north and the Pamirs in the southeast; western Fergana Valley in north, Kofarnihon and Vakhsh Valleys in southwest
|Elevation extremes:
|Natural resources:
|hydropower, some petroleum, uranium, mercury, brown coal, lead, zinc, antimony, tungsten, silver, gold
|Land use:
| agricultural land: 34.7% arable land 6.1%; permanent crops 0.9%; permanent pasture 27.7% forest: 2.9%
other: 62.4% (2011 est.)
|Irrigated land:
|7,420 sq km (2012)
|Natural hazards:
|earthquakes; floods
|Current Environment Issues:
|inadequate sanitation facilities; increasing levels of soil salinity; industrial pollution; excessive pesticides
|International Environment Agreements:
| party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Environmental Modification, Ozone Layer Protection, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
|^Back to Top
| noun: Tajikistani(s)
adjective: Tajikistani
|Ethnic groups:
|Tajik 84.3%, Uzbek 13.8% (includes Lakai, Kongrat, Katagan, Barlos, Yuz), other 2% (includes Kyrgyz, Russian, Turkmen, Tatar, Arab) (2010 est.)
|Tajik (official), Russian widely used in government and business note: different ethnic groups speak Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Pashto
|Sunni Muslim 85%, Shia Muslim 5%, other 10% (2003 est.)
|8,330,946 (July 2016 est.)
|Age structure:
| 0-14 years: 32.56% (male 1,380,959/female 1,331,790)
15-24 years: 19.04% (male 804,625/female 781,469)
25-54 years: 39.79% (male 1,640,657/female 1,674,198)
55-64 years: 5.37% (male 205,541/female 241,770)
65 years and over: 3.24% (male 112,279/female 157,658) (2016 est.)
|Dependency ratios:
| total dependency ratio: 60.9%
youth dependency ratio: 56%
elderly dependency ratio: 4.8%
potential support ratio: 20.7% (2015 est.)
|Median age:
| total: 24.2 years
male: 23.6 years
female: 24.8 years (2016 est.)
|Population growth rate:
|1.66% (2016 est.)
|Birth rate:
|23.8 births/1,000 population (2016 est.)
|Death rate:
|6.1 deaths/1,000 population (2016 est.)
|Net migration rate:
|-1.1 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2016 est.)
| urban population: 26.8% of total population (2015)
rate of urbanization: 2.62% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)
|Major urban areas - population:
|DUSHANBE (capital) 822,000 (2015)
|Sex ratio:
| at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
0-14 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-24 years: 1.03 male(s)/female
25-54 years: 0.98 male(s)/female
55-64 years: 0.85 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female
total population: 0.99 male(s)/female (2016 est.)
|Mother's mean age at first birth:
|22.8 note: median age at first birth among women 25-29 (2012 est.)
|Maternal mortality rate:
|32 deaths/100,000 live births (2015 est.)
|Infant mortality rate:
| total: 32.8 deaths/1,000 live births male: 37.1 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 28.4 deaths/1,000 live births (2016 est.)
|Life expectancy at birth:
| total population: 67.7 years male: 64.6 years
female: 71 years (2016 est.)
|Total fertility rate:
|2.67 children born/woman (2016 est.)
|Contraceptive prevalence rate:
|27.9% (2012)
|Health expenditures:
|6.9% of GDP (2014)
|Physicians density:
|1.92 physicians/1,000 population (2013)
|Hospital bed density:
|5.5 beds/1,000 population (2011)
|Drinking water source:
| improved:
urban: 93.1% of population
rural: 66.7% of population
total: 73.8% of population
urban: 6.9% of population
rural: 33.3% of population
total: 26.2% of population (2015 est.)
|Sanitation facility access:
| improved:
urban: 93.8% of population
rural: 95.5% of population
total: 95% of population
urban: 6.2% of population
rural: 4.5% of population
total: 5% of population (2015 est.)
|HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
|0.31% (2015 est.)
|HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
|16,200 (2015 est.)
|HIV/AIDS - deaths:
|800 (2015 est.)
|Obesity - adult prevalence rate:
|12% (2014)
|Children under the age of 5 years underweight:
|13.3% (2012)
|Education expenditures:
|5.2% of GDP (2015)
| definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99.8%
male: 99.8%
female: 99.7% (2015 est.)
|School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):
| total: 11 years male: 12 years
female: 11 years (2013)
|Unemployment, youth ages 15-24:
| total: 16.7% male: 19.2%
female: 13.7% (2009 est.)
|^Back to Top
|Country name:
| conventional long form: Republic of Tajikistan
conventional short form: Tajikistan
local long form: Jumhurii Tojikiston
local short form: Tojikiston
former: Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic
etymology: the Persian suffix "-stan" means "place of" or "country," so the word Tajikistan literally means "Land of the Tajik [people]"
|Government type:
|presidential republic
| name: Dushanbe
geographic coordinates: 38 33 N, 68 46 E
time difference: UTC+5 (10 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time)
|Administrative divisions:
| 2 provinces (viloyatho, singular - viloyat), 1 autonomous province* (viloyati mukhtor), 1 capital region** (viloyati poytakht), and 1 area referred to as Districts Under Republic Administration***; Dushanbe**, Khatlon (Qurghonteppa), Kuhistoni Badakhshon [Gorno-Badakhshan]* (Khorugh), Nohiyahoi Tobei Jumhuri***, Sughd (Khujand)
note: the administrative center name follows in parentheses
|9 September 1991 (from the Soviet Union)
|National holiday:
|Independence Day (or National Day), 9 September (1991)
|several previous; latest adopted 6 November 1994; amended 1999, 2003, 2014 (2016)
|Legal system:
|civil law system
|18 years of age; universal
|Executive branch:
| chief of state: President Emomali RAHMON (since 6 November 1994; head of state and Supreme Assembly chairman since 19 November 1992)
head of government: Prime Minister Qohir RASULZODA (since 23 November 2013)
cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president, approved by the Supreme Assembly elections/appointments: president directly elected by simple majority popular vote for a 7-year term (eligible for 2 terms); election last held on 6 November 2013 (next to be held in November 2020); prime minister appointed by the president
election results: Emomali RAHMON reelected president; percent of vote - Emomali RAHMON (PDPT) 83.9%, Ismoil TALBAKOV (CPT) 5%, other 11.1%
|Legislative branch:
| description: bicameral Supreme Assembly or Majlisi Oli consists of the National Assembly or Majlisi Milli (34 seats; 25 members indirectly elected by local representative assemblies or majlisi, 8 appointed by the president, and 1 reserved for the former president; members serve 5-year terms) and the Assembly of Representatives or Majlisi Namoyandagon (63 seats; 41 members directly elected in single-seat constituencies by two-round absolute majority vote and 22 directly elected in a single nationwide constituency by proportional representation vote; members serve 5-year terms)
elections: National Assembly - last held on 1 March 2015 (next to be held in 2020); Assembly of Representatives - last held on 1 March 2015 (next to be held in 2020)
election results: National Assembly - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - NA; Assembly of Representatives - percent of vote by party - PDPT 65.4%, APT 11.7%, PERT 7.5%, SPT 5.5%, CPT 2.2%, DPT 1.7%, other 6%; seats by party - PDPT 51, APT 5, PERT 3, SPT 1, CPT 2, DPT 1
|Judicial branch:
| highest court(s): Supreme Court (consists of the chairman, deputy chairmen, and 34 judges organized into civil, criminal, and military chambers); Constitutional Court (consists of the court chairman, vice-president, and 5 judges); High Economic Court (consists 16 judicial positions) judge selection and term of office: Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, and High Economic Court judges nominated by the president of the republic and approved by the National Assembly; judges of all 3 courts appointed for 10-year renewable terms with no limit on terms, but last appointment must occur before the age of 65
subordinate courts: regional and district courts; Dushanbe City Court; viloyat (province level) courts; Court of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region
|Political parties and leaders:
|Agrarian Party of Tajikistan or APT [Rustam LATIFZODA] Communist Party of Tajikistan or CPT [Shodi SHABDOLOV] Democratic Party of Tajikistan or DPT [Saidjafar ISMONOV] Party of Economic Reform of Tajikistan or PERT [Olimjon BOBOEV] People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan or PDPT [Emomali RAHMON] Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan or SDPT [Rahmatullo ZOIROV] Socialist Party of Tajikistan or SPT [Abduhalim GHAFOROV]
|Political pressure groups and leaders:
|Group 24 [Sharofiddin GADOEV] (banned) New Tajikistan Party [Zayd SAIDOV] (unregistered, SAIDOV jailed since 2013) Vatandor (Patriot) Movement [Dodojon ATOVULLOEV] Youth for the Revival of Tajikistan [Maqsud IBROHIMOV] (banned, IBROHIMOV jailed in 2015) Youth Party of Tajikistan [Izzat AMON] (unregistered) Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan or IRPT [Muhiddin KABIRI] (banned)
|International organization participation:
|ADB, CICA, CIS, CSTO, EAEC, EAPC, EBRD, ECO, EITI (candidate country), FAO, G-77, GCTU, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC (NGOs), ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO (correspondent), ITSO, ITU, MIGA, NAM (observer), OIC, OPCW, OSCE, PFP, SCO, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNWTO, UPU, WCO, WFTU (NGOs), WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO
|National symbol(s):
|crown surmounted by seven, five-pointed stars; national colors: red, white, green
|National anthem:
| name: "Surudi milli" (National Anthem)
lyrics/music: Gulnazar KELDI/Sulaimon YUDAKOV
note: adopted 1991; after the fall of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan kept the music of the anthem from its time as a Soviet republic but adopted new lyrics
|Diplomatic representation in the US:
| chief of mission: Ambassador Farhod SALIM (since 21 May 2014)
chancery: 1005 New Hampshire Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037
telephone: [1] (202) 223-6090
|Diplomatic representation from the US:
| chief of mission: Ambassador Elisabeth MILLARD (since 11 March 2016)
embassy: 109-A Ismoili Somoni Avenue, Dushanbe 734019
mailing address: 7090 Dushanbe Place, Dulles, VA 20189
telephone: [992] (37) 229-20-00
|^Back to Top
Tajikistan is a poor, mountainous country with an economy dominated by minerals extraction, metals processing, agriculture, and reliance on remittances from citizens working abroad. The 1992-97 civil war severely damaged an already weak economic infrastructure and caused a sharp decline in industrial and agricultural production, and today, Tajikistan has one of the lowest per capita GDPs among the 15 former Soviet republics. Less than 7% of the land area is arable and cotton is the most important crop. Tajikistan imports approximately 60% of its food. Mineral resources include silver, gold, uranium, antimony, and tungsten. Industry consists mainly of small obsolete factories in food processing and light industry, substantial hydropower facilities, and a large aluminum plant - currently operating well below its capacity. Because of a lack of employment opportunities in Tajikistan, more than one million Tajik citizens work abroad - roughly 90% in Russia - supporting families back home through remittances that have been equivalent to nearly 50% of GDP. Some experts estimate the value of narcotics transiting Tajikistan is equivalent to 30-50% of GDP. Since the end of the devastating, five-year civil war, the country has pursued half-hearted reforms and privatizations, but the poor business climate remains a hurdle to attracting investment. Tajikistan has sought to develop its substantial hydroelectricity potential through partnership with Russian and Iranian investors, and is pursuing completion of the Roghun dam - which, if built according to plan, would be the tallest dam in the world. However, the project will take at least 8 to 11 years to construct and faces financing shortfalls and opposition from downstream Uzbekistan. Recent slowdowns in the Russian and Chinese economies, low commodity prices, and currency fluctuations are hampering economic growth in Tajikistan. By some estimates, the dollar value of remittances from Russia to Tajikistan dropped by more than 65% in 2015. The government faces challenges financing the public debt, which is equivalent to 35% of GDP, and the National Bank of Tajikistan has aggressively spent down reserves to bolster the weakening somoni, leaving little space for fiscal or monetary measures to counter any additional economic shocks.
|GDP (purchasing power parity):
| GDP (purchasing power parity): $25.81 billion (2016 est.) $24.35 billion (2015 est.) $22.97 billion (2014 est.)
note: data are in 2016 dollars
|GDP (official exchange rate):
|GDP (official exchange rate): $6.612 billion (2015 est.)
|GDP - real growth rate:
|6% (2016 est.) 6% (2015 est.) 6.7% (2014 est.)
|GDP - per capita (PPP):
| GDP - per capita (PPP): $3,000 (2016 est.) $2,900 (2015 est.) $2,800 (2014 est.)
note: data are in 2016 dollars
|Gross national saving:
|12.9% of GDP (2016 est.) 12.7% of GDP (2015 est.) 13% of GDP (2014 est.)
|GDP - composition, by end use:
| household consumption: 116.1%
government consumption: 14.5%
investment in fixed capital: 13.8%
investment in inventories: 4%
exports of goods and services: 22.8%
imports of goods and services: -71.2% (2016 est.)
|GDP - composition, by sector of origin:
| household consumption: 116.1%
government consumption: 14.5%
investment in fixed capital: 13.8%
investment in inventories: 4%
exports of goods and services: 22.8%
imports of goods and services: -71.2% (2016 est.)
|Agriculture - products:
|cotton, grain, fruits, grapes, vegetables; cattle, sheep, goats
|aluminum, cement, vegetable oil
|Industrial production growth rate:
|0.8% (2016 est.)
|Labor force:
|2.209 million (2013 est.)
|Labor force - by occupation:
| agriculture: 46.5%
industry: 10.7%
services: 42.8% (2013 est.)
|Unemployment rate:
|2.5% (2013 est.) 2.5% (2012 est.) note: official rates; actual unemployment is much higher
|Population below poverty line:
|35.6% (2013 est.)
|Household income or consumption by percentage share:
| lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA% (2009 est.)
|Distribution of family income - Gini index:
|32.6 (2006) 34.7 (1998)
| revenues: $1.841 billion
expenditures: $1.985 billion (2016 est.)
|Taxes and other revenues:
|27.8% of GDP (2016 est.)
|Public debt:
|6.5% of GDP (2013 est.) NA%
|Fiscal year:
|calendar year
|Inflation rate (consumer prices):
|Inflation rate (consumer prices): 8% (2016 est.) 10.8% (2015 est.)
|Current account balance:
|-$331 million (2016 est.) -$470 million (2015 est.)
|$530.8 million (2016 est.) $572 million (2015 est.)
|Exports - commodities:
|aluminum, electricity, cotton, fruits, vegetable oil, textiles
|Exports - partners:
|Turkey 19.7%, Kazakhstan 17.6%, Switzerland 13.7%, Iran 8.7%, Afghanistan 7.5%, Russia 5.1%, China 4.9%, Italy 4.8% (2015)
|$2.34 billion (2016 est.) $2.825 billion (2015 est.)
|Imports - commodities:
|petroleum products, aluminum oxide, machinery and equipment, foodstuffs
|Imports - partners:
|China 42.3%, Russia 17.9%, Kazakhstan 13.1%, Iran 4.7% (2015)
|Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:
|$416.9 million (31 December 2016 est.) $494.3 million (31 December 2015 est.)
|Debt - external:
|$3.976 billion (31 December 2016 est.) $3.938 billion (31 December 2015 est.)
|Stock of direct foreign investment - at home:
|$2.272 billion (31 December 2013 est.)
|Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad:
|$NA $16.3 billion (31 December 2009 est.)
|Exchange rates:
|Tajikistani somoni (TJS) per US dollar - 8.364 (2016 est.) 6.1631 (2015 est.) 6.1631 (2014 est.) 4.9348 (2013 est.) 4.76 (2012 est.)
|^Back to Top
|Electricity - production:
|16 billion kWh (2014 est.)
|Electricity - consumption:
|12 billion kWh (2014 est.)
|Electricity - exports:
|1.3 billion kWh (2014 est.)
|Electricity - imports:
|33 million kWh (2014 est.)
|Electricity - installed generating capacity:
|5.3 million kW (2014 est.)
|Electricity - from fossil fuels:
|9% of total installed capacity (2013 est.)
|Electricity - from nuclear fuels:
|0% of total installed capacity (2013 est.)
|Electricity - from hydroelectric plants:
|91% of total installed capacity (2013 est.)
|Electricity - from other renewable sources:
|0% of total installed capacity (2013 est.)
|Crude oil - production:
|181.6 bbl/day (2015 est.)
|Crude oil - exports:
|78.6 bbl/day (2013 est.)
|Crude oil - imports:
|0 bbl/day (2013 est.)
|Crude oil - proved reserves:
|12 million bbl (1 January 2016 es)
|Refined petroleum products - production:
|445 bbl/day (2013 est.)
|Refined petroleum products - consumption:
|14,000 bbl/day (2014 est.)
|Refined petroleum products - exports:
|427.9 bbl/day (2013 est.)
|Refined petroleum products - imports:
|12,870 bbl/day (2013 est.)
|Natural gas - production:
|12 million cu m (2014 est.)
|Natural gas - consumption:
|224 million cu m (2014 est.)
|Natural gas - exports:
|0 cu m (2013 est.)
|Natural gas - imports:
|212 million cu m (2014 est.)
|Natural gas - proved reserves:
|5.663 billion cu m (1 January 2016 es)
|Carbon dioxide emissions from consumption of energy:
|3.7 million Mt (2013 est.)
|^Back to Top
|Cellular Phones in use:
|total: 8.489 million subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 104 (July 2015 est.)
|Telephone system:
| general assessment: foreign investment in the telephone system has resulted in major improvements; conversion of the existing fixed network from analogue to digital was completed in 2012
domestic: fixed line availability has not changed significantly since 1998, while mobile cellular subscribership, aided by competition among multiple operators, has expanded rapidly; coverage now extends to all major cities and towns
international: country code - 992; linked by cable and microwave radio relay to other CIS republics and by leased connections to the Moscow international gateway switch; Dushanbe linked by Intelsat to international gateway switch in Ankara (Turkey); satellite earth stat (2016)
|Broadcast media:
|state-run TV broadcasters transmit nationally on 9 TV and 10 radio stations, and regionally on 4 stations; 31 independent TV and 20 radio stations broadcast locally and regionally; many households are able to receive Russian and other foreign stations via (2016)
|Internet country code:
|Internet users:
|total: 1.555 million percent of population: 19% (July 2015 est.)
|^Back to Top
|24 (2013)
|Airports (paved runways):
| total 17
over 3,047 m: 2
2,438 to 3,047 m: 4
1,524 to 2,437 m: 5
914 to 1,523 m: 3
under 914 m: 3 (2013)
|Airports (unpaved runways):
| total 7
1,524 to 2,437 m: 1
914 to 1,523 m: 1
under 914 m: 5 (2013)
|gas 549 km; oil 38 km (2013)
| total 680 km
broad gauge: 680 km 1.520-m gauge (2014)
| total 27,767 km
|200 km (along Vakhsh River) (2011)
|^Back to Top
|Military branches:
|Ground Forces, Air and Air Defense Forces, Mobile Forces (2013)
|Military service age and obligation:
|18-27 years of age for compulsory or voluntary military service; 2-year conscript service obligation; males required to undergo compulsory military training between ages 16 and 55; males can enroll in military schools from at least age 15 (2012)
|Military expenditures:
|1.1% of GDP (2014)
|^Back to Top
|Transnational Issues
|Disputes - International:
|in 2006, China and Tajikistan pledged to commence demarcation of the revised boundary agreed to in the delimitation of 2002; talks continue with Uzbekistan to delimit border and remove minefields; disputes in Isfara Valley delay delimitation with Kyrgyzstan
|Refugees and internally displaced persons:
stateless persons: 19,469 (2015)
|Illicit drugs:
|major transit country for Afghan narcotics bound for Russian and, to a lesser extent, Western European markets; limited illicit cultivation of opium poppy for domestic consumption; Tajikistan seizes roughly 80% of all drugs captured in Central Asia and stands third worldwide in seizures of opiates (heroin and raw opium); significant consumer of opiates
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« Previous Country | Next Country » Back to Flag Counter Overview
Source: CIA - The World Factbook


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Peter Sunde, The Pirate Bay Spokesperson, Details Why His Conviction Was A Farce
from the convicted-for-doing-what-now? deptLast week, I noticed that former Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde had posted the letter that he sent to the Swedish Administration as part of his plea to be pardoned. It was written in Swedish, and I wasn't comfortable that the Google translation was accurate enough. Thankfully, however, Rick Falkvinge has posted a full translation in English. Many of the points Sunde raises came out during the trial, but the key points -- on why he didn't actually do the things he was convicted of -- were new to me, and should concern anyone who actually believes in the rule of law and an impartial judicial system.
The serious conflicts of interests of many involved in the case have been covered before. The fact that the lead prosecutor was hired by the entertainment industry while he was still prosecuting the case, remains an astounding point that should have resulted in a clear mistrial. That multiple judges had strong connections to copyright maximalist groups or even competitors to The Pirate Bay should also be of great concern. However, even if we ignore all of that, Sunde's detailed explanation for his conviction is really quite incredible. He notes that he was specifically convicted of three things... which he did not do. Remember, Peter's role was as that of a spokesperson. He did not actually work on the technology of the site at all, but the prosecution needed to show that he did -- so Peter accuses them of concocting a story about how he set up a "load balancer" for the site, because he admitted that he knew what a load balancer was. However, as Peter notes (1) he did not set up a load balancer, (2) the server in question was put there by someone unrelated to The Pirate Bay and (3) it was never connected to the internet anyway. And yet he was still convicted because of it.
I know that some who dislike The Pirate Bay won't care about the specifics here. They'll argue that the site itself is pure evil, and he was deservedly convicted. I think that, if you agree with the court's basic reasoning for the convictions, you might be able to make a credible case against the two actual founders of the site who ran it. But Peter wasn't one of those guys. He was just "the spokesperson," and it appears that he got railroaded here, based on a very questionable use of the law.
Among other things, I'm supposed to have installed a computer that operated as a so-called load balancer – a computer that makes it possible to distribute the workload of big web services among different computers. It reads clear as day in the Appeals Court verdict that I'm responsible for configuring this computer. Such a computer did indeed exist in one of the racks that The Pirate Bay was located in. On the other hand, it wasn't connected with a single wire or cable in any way. Some computers have been investigated at the National Forensic Laboratory (Statens Kriminaltekniska Laboratorium). Some computers have been combed for details. In some cases, the prosecutor has called owners of computers to ask them if they want to press charges of electronic trespassing against Gottfrid Svartholm, as they found that he has had access to computers. Computers he has been maintaining for clients. The computer I'm supposed to have been responsible for isn't mentioned with a single line of text, except in the seizing protocol from the raid. I cannot find the configuration I've been convicted of creating. The configuration I have created, beyond reasonable doubt, according to the Swedish Appeals Court. The configuration I can say with 100% certainty would have proven that this computer had never been used for The Pirate Bay. The owner had placed it in the rack by themselves just a few weeks prior to the raid.
During the Appeals Court proceedings, prosecutor Hakan Roswall confirmed my story of this, that this machine had never been used in the operations of The Pirate Bay. Therefore, my lawyer put no energy into bringing it up in his final statement. And yet, Roswall said after this, that I had been responsible for it. And in the end, I was convicted because of it. There is not a shred of evidence anywhere that this computer has been in use, not for anything at all
Of course, he admits that it's unlikely his plea will work, and he fully expects to spend some time in jail. However, as for the fine that's been levied against him, he notes that the 11 million euros he will owe is "fantasy numbers" that he knows is unpayable, meaning that he's likely to be effectively banished from Sweden, noting that "this debt is equivalent to exile, to deportation."
Separately, Peter posted a much shorter blog post, which I'm trusting the Google translation feature on -- so I warn you that accuracy may be slightly sketchy. In it, Peter notes that the prosecution has effectively admitted that he didn't actually do the stuff he was convicted of, but claims that doesn't change his responsibility. Seriously. Here's the rough automated translation:
That the work of the Court of Appeal found Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi begun in late 2005 may not have resulted in actual service until the time of the raid against TPB, does not affect the responsibility of the act for which Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi convicted.In other words, he didn't provide the actual services he was convicted of, but that doesn't make him any less responsible for the things he didn't actually do. Swedish justice in action.
Filed Under: conflict of interest, peter sunde, plea, sweden
Companies: the pirate bay


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| Ask Madelyn
Dear Madelyn,
I prefer to make up my own designs rather than working from directions; but I'm a fairly new weaver and can't always remember how to wash my new piece to finish it properly. Is there a handy guide somewhere that will tell me how to handle fabrics made of which fibers? (Some guidance on fulling wool pieces would be helpful, too!)
––Sandra Pollard
Hi Sandra!
The most important advice I can give is to use your common sense and watch what is happening during the finishing process. (It may be more important to sample the finishing than to sample the weaving itself!) There are several factors that affect finishing choices: the fiber involved, the dyes, and the final desired hand of the fabric. In general, you want to use the coldest water and the least agitation for the smallest change in the finished piece. Hot water acts to shrink yarns (some fibers more than others). Use hot water (and machine washing) for cottons and linens that will be washed frequently when they are used (towels and table linens). Silk shrinks with hot water, so use lukewarm water and wash by hand.
If you are worried about dyes running, use cool to cold water, remove the piece from the water immediately after rinsing, roll in a towel (or towels), and press out water until almost dry. Then press until dry with an iron. Never let the cloth sit around wet.
For wool and fulling wool, washing by hand is safest. Use lukewarm water. Fulling is primarily caused by agitation, the more fulling, the more agitation is required. If you wash wools that you want to full by machine, check every minute during the wash cycle. I usually prefer to do the fulling by hand even if it takes awhile. There is nothing more disappointing than discovering that your throw has become a floor pad.


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As if the threat from Boko Haram, the Islamist group that has been killing Christians in Nigeria, wasn't enough, there's a new, more radical, threat from a splinter group, analysts are reporting.
The new group is called Ansaru, the Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, which means Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa.
Heritage Foundation Africa analyst Morgan Roach confirms the threat is major.
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"Ansaru released a video last spring announcing its creation and is listed on the U.K. Terror List," Roach said. "One of Ansaru's suspected leaders is Khalid al-Barnawy. He is a designated terrorist in the US."
World Threats founder and terrorism analyst Ryan Mauro says both groups are trouble.
"The two Nigerian jihadist groups are vicious. They aren't the Muslim Brotherhood-type Islamists that put a ton of effort into showing they are friendly towards Christians," Mauro said.
To see what Christians in northern Nigeria are facing with two major jihadist groups, Mauro says look at other jihadist regimes.
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"If you want to predict how Boko Haram and Ansaru will treat Christians, look at how al-Qaida treats them in Iraq and Egypt," Mauro said.
Roach said that the new group's operational status definitely means danger for Christians and others.
"While this offshoot has been around less than a year, it's fair to say that they pose a threat to not only the Christian community but to northern Nigeria as a whole. While Ansaru has attempted to differentiate itself from Boko Haram by denouncing the killing of non-Muslims, evidence suggests otherwise," Roach said.
"Furthermore, Ansaru maintains that it will attack any group that attacks Islam or Muslims. This includes the Nigerian government and its security forces and [it] has already backed this up with action," Roach said.
Analysts suggest Ansaru's only interest is in attacking foreigners and "non-Muslim Nigerians." However, Strategy World military think tank, publishers of Strategy Page, warns Ansaru may be picking targets outside Nigeria, too.
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"Ansaru appears to be … more interested (than Boko Haram) in working closely with Islamic terror groups operating in the new terrorist sanctuary of northern Mali," the Strategy Page report said.
Boko Haram, meanwhile, seems to have its focus on Nigeria.
The group's aim, Roach said, is to turn Nigeria into a Muslim nation.
Boko Haram, she said, wants to overthrow the Christian state and replace it with an Islamic government that rules by Shariah law."
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"Attacks against Christians undermine the authority of President Goodluck Jonathan (a Christian) and exploit the government's lack of will or ability to protect Nigerian citizens," Roach said.
But Boko Haram's reach has been described as "limited," and other groups, such as Ansaru, are stepping in.
In November, Ansaru killed a British hostage and an Italian hostage. In December, the group kidnapped a French engineer.
Military and terrorism analyst Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal , a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , says Boko Haram could use Ansaru's active operations to its strategic advantage.
"Ansaru says Boko Haram is too moderate, but Boko Haram can actually use Ansaru as a cover," Roggio said. "Any operation carried out by Ansaru gives Boko Haram cover, and it deflects attention away from Boko Haram."
Roggio says even though there are philosophical differences, the two groups will likely work together and be able to avoid outside attention at the same time.
"They'll cooperate in attacks, but even if they do, most Western intelligence agencies won't notice. To them, Ansaru will just be another group," Roggio said.
Roggio's assessment of cooperation is verified by Strategy Page, which says the two groups are jointly fighting Nigerian security
"The battle against Islamic terrorists grinds on, with the Boko Haram and Ansaru terrorists attacking troops and police even while they are being sought and attacked," the Strategy Page report says.


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Exhibition dates: 14th September 2010 – 23rd January 2011
Many thankx to The J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on some of the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Armand-Pierre Séguier (French, 1803 – 1876)
'Still Life with Plaster Casts'
1839 – 1842
Daguerreotype 8 x 6 in.
Accession No. 2002.41
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Baron Adolf De Meyer (American, 1868 – 1949)
'Glass and Shadows'
Image: 8 3/4 x 6 9/16 in.
Accession No. 84.XP.463.22
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Charles Aubry (French, 1811 – 1877)
[An Arrangement of Tobacco Leaves and Grass]
about 1864
Albumen silver print
Image: 47 x 37.3 cm (18 1/2 x 14 11/16 in.)
Accession No. 84.XP.394
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
"The J. Paul Getty Museum presents In Focus: Still Life, a survey of some of the innovative ways photographers have explored and refreshed this traditional genre, on view at the Getty Center in the Center for Photographs from September 14, 2010 – January 23, 2011.
"Still life photography has served as both a conventional and an experimental form during periods of significant aesthetic and technological change," said Paul Martineau, assistant curator, Department of Photographs, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and curator of the exhibition. "One of our goals for the exhibition was to show how still life photographs can be both traditional and surprising."
With its roots in antiquity, the term "still life" is derived from the Dutch word stilleven, coined during the 17th century, when painted examples enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The impetus for a new term came as artists created compositions of increasing complexity, bringing together a greater variety of objects to communicate allegorical meanings. Still life featured prominently in the early experiments of the pioneers of the photographic medium and, more than 170 years later, it continues to be a significant motif for contemporary photographers.
Drawn exclusively from the Museum's collection, the exhibition includes photographs by Charles Aubry, Henry Bailey, Hans Bellmer, Jo Ann Callis, Sharon Core, Baron Adolf De Meyer, Walker Evans, Roger Fenton, Frederick H. Hollyer, Heinrich Kühn, Sigmar Polke, Man Ray, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Paul Outerbridge, Louis-Rémy Robert, Baron Armand-Pierre Séguier, Paul Strand, Josef Sudek, and Thomas R. Williams.
The exhibition is arranged chronologically and includes a broad range of photographic processes, from daguerreotypes and albumen silver prints made in the 19th century to gelatin silver prints, and cibachrome prints made in the 20th century, to digital prints from the 21st century.
Newly acquired works will be on display for the first time: Still Life with Triangle and Red Eraser (1985) by American Irving Penn, Lorikeet with Green Cloth (2006) by Australian Marian Drew, and Blow Up: Untitled 15 (2007) by Israeli Ori Gersht (Gersht loosely based his Blow Up series on traditional floral still life paintings. His arrangements of flowers are frozen and then detonated. The explosion is captured using synchronized digital cameras, with the fragmentary detritus caught in remarkable detail. This diptych (pair) belies the notion of still life as something motionless as it explores the relationships among painting and photography, art and science, and creation and destruction.)
For Bowl with Sugar Cubes, photographer André Kertész created a still life out of a simple bowl, spoon, and sugar cubes, demonstrating the photographer's interest in the compositional possibilities of layering basic geometric forms on top of one another – three rectangles in a circle (sugar cubes and bowl) and a circle in a square (bowl and the cropped printing paper). A visual sophistication is achieved through his adroit use of simple objects and dramatic lighting.
Other selections from In Focus: Still Life include Edward Weston's Bananas and Orange, which depicts a symmetrical fan of bananas punctuated by one oddly shaped orange, and Frederick Sommer's The Anatomy of a Chicken, which uses the discarded parts of a chicken to create a visual commentary. Influenced by Surrealism, Sommer embraced unexpected juxtapositions and literary allusions to express his intellectual and philosophical ideas. In Anatomy of a Chicken, a severed head, three sunken eyes, and eviscerated organs glisten on a white board. Evoking biblical imagery, medieval grotesques, and heraldic emblems, Sommer calls on the viewer to consider the endless cycle of birth and death, the cruel reality of the food chain, and man's role in this violence.
In Focus: Still Life will be the seventh installation of the ongoing In Focus series of exhibitions, thematic presentations of photographs from the Getty's permanent collection. Previous exhibitions focused on The Nude, The Landscape, The Portrait, Making a Scene (staged photographs), The Worker, and most recently, Tasteful Pictures."
Press release from The J. Paul Getty Museum website
Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky) (American, 1890 – 1976)
'Dead Leaf'
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 1/2 x 7 13/16 in.
Accession No. 84.XM.1000.55
© Man Ray Trust ARS-ADAGP
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Paul Strand (American, 1890 – 1976)
[Black Bottle]
negative about 1919; print 1923 – 1939
Gelatin silver, on Cykora paper print
Image (trimmed to mount): 32.7 x 24.8 cm (12 7/8 x 9 3/4 in.)
Sheet: 34.4 x 27.1 cm (13 9/16 x 10 11/16 in.)
Mount (irregular): 35.1 x 27.8 cm (13 13/16 x 10 15/16 in.)
Accession No. 86.XM.686.5.1
Copyright: © Aperture Foundation
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Irving Penn
'Still Life with Triangle and Red Eraser, New York, 1985'
dye-bleach print
Image: 22¾ x 18 1/8in. (57.8 x 46cm.)
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Frederick Sommer (American, born Italy, 1905 – 1999)
'The Anatomy of a Chicken'
Gelatin silver print
Image: 24.1 x 19.1 cm (9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.)
Accession No. 94.XM.37.96
© Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
"Still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven, coined in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The impetus for this term came as artists created compositions of greater complexity, bringing together a wider variety of objects to communicate allegorical meanings.
Still life has come to serve, like landscape or portraiture, as a category within art. Although it typically refers to depictions of inanimate things, because it incorporates a vast array of influences from different cultures and periods in history, it has always resisted precise definition.
This exhibition presents some of the innovative ways photographers have explored and refreshed this traditional genre. During the 19th century, still life photographs tended to resemble still life paintings, with similar subjects and arrangements. Beginning in the 20th century, still life photographs have mirrored the subjects and styles that have more broadly concerned photographers in their time.
A New Medium
Still life featured prominently in the experiments of photography inventors Jacques-Louis-Mandé Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot. They did this in part, for practical reasons: the exceptionally long exposure times of their processes precluded the use of living models.
In the late 1830s, Baron Armand-Pierre Séguier, a close associate of Daguerre, created this elegant daguerreotype that features small-scale copies of famous sculptures in the Louvre and Uffizi museum collections.
In the mid-1800s, Charles Aubry was an accomplished practitioner of still-life photography who came to the medium by way of his professional interest in applied arts and industrial design. After working as a pattern designer for carpets, fabrics, and wallpapers, he formed a company to manufacture plaster casts and make photographs of plants and flowers.
Aubrey's detailed prints of natural forms – like this close-up of plants on a lace-covered background – were intended to replace lithographs traditionally used by students of industrial design.
Photography as Art
By the first decade of the 20th century, art photographers like Baron Adolf de Meyer employed soft-focus lenses and painterly darkroom techniques to make photographs that resembled drawings and prints. The vogue at the time was to produce images that reflected a handcrafted approach, while asserting photography as an art medium in its own right.
Here, De Meyer photographed an arrangement of objects through a scrim. The pattern of thin, woven fabric softens the backlit objects and helps replicate the subtle tonal effects prized in etchings and aquatints.
Several decades into the twentieth-century, the American artist Man Ray emerged as a pioneer of two European art movements, Dada and Surrealism, in which the element of surprise figured prominently. This image seems both unusual for Man Ray in its apparent straight-forward approach, but also typical in its somewhat dark emotional tone.
By selecting a dead leaf with a claw-like appearance and photographing it against a wood-grain board, Man Ray updated the concept of memento mori ("remember that you must die"), a motif popular in centuries-old still-life paintings.
New Directions
In that same vein, the best contemporary still-life photographs recall past styles of art while containing a paradox relevant to today. Contemporary photographer Sharon Core became known for re-creations of painter Wayne Thiebaud's pop-art dessert tableaux. Her series of still-life compositions, inspired by the 18th-century American painter Raphaelle Peale, followed.
For this series, entitled "Early American," Core studied the compositional structure of his paintings, replicated the mood of the lighting, and when she couldn't find the right vegetables and flowers, grew her own from heirloom seeds.
The stilled lives of objects have served so well as both experimental and conventional forms in the past, that still life may well be the anchor that allows photographers to explore new and yet unimagined depths."
Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum website
Ori Gersht (Israeli, 1967 – )
'Blow Up: Untitled 15'
Digital chromogenic prints
Accession No. 2009.46
© Ori Gersht
Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council of the J. Paul Getty Museum
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Edward Weston (American, 1886 – 1958)
'Bananas and Orange'
April 1927
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.9 x 23.7 cm (7 7/16 x 9 5/16 in.)
Accession No. 84.XM.860.4
© 1981 Arizona Board of Regents, Center for Creative Photography
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
André Kertész (American, born Hungary, 1894 – 1985)
[Bowl with Sugar Cubes]
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16.7 x 16.4 cm (6 9/16 x 6 1/2 in.)
Accession No. 84.XM.193.46
© Estate of André Kertész
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Sharon Core (American)
'Early American – Still Life with Steak'
Chromogenic print
Image: 17 3/16 x 23 7/16 in.
Accession No. 2009.78
© Sharon Core
Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council of the J. Paul Getty Museum
Object Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Marian Drew (Australian, born 1960)
'Lorikeet with Green Cloth'
Digital pigment print
Image: 71.8 x 89.5 cm (28 1/4 x 35 1/4 in.)
Sheet: 73 x 90.2 cm (28 3/4 x 35 1/2 in.)
Accession No. 2009.44
Copyright: © Marian Drew
Object Credit: Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049
Opening hours:
Tues – Friday 10 – 5.30pm
Saturday 10 – 9pm
Sunday 10 – 9pm
Monday closed


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To help our users take action and protect themselves in the wake of Heartbleed, we've added a feature to our Security Check tool. LastPass users can now run the LastPass Security Check to automatically see if any of their stored sites and services were 1) Affected by Heartbleed, and 2) Should update their passwords for those accounts at this time.
The LastPass Security Check can be run from the LastPass Icon menu. Click the LastPass icon in the browser toolbar, click the Tools menu, and select the Security Check.
In the Security Check results, we alert you to sites affected by Heartbleed:
If you're not using LastPass yet, now is the time to get started with organizing and managing your passwords, and use our tools to generate new passwords for your online accounts.
Update: April 10th, 2:29PM ET
Many users are still concerned about what the Heartbleed situation means for their LastPass master passwords. To further clarify, we do not see a need at this time for existing LastPass users to update their master passwords. That said, if you would prefer to, there is no harm in doing so. We continue to update our LastPass Security Check tool to provide you the latest information regarding potentially-impacted sites. Thanks to our community for the feedback and input.


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Page 12
Kezro Chronicles by Rodney White and Jason Johnson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at none.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://phantomops.smackjeeves.com.
Advertisement, August 23rd, 2019, 4:54 am
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Dietary recommendations for patients receiving chemotherapy
Last Reviewed: November 1, 2001
Could you please send me some information on Chemotherapy & Diet? I believe that you have to have a special diet.
Thank you
Maggie Hampshire RN, BSN, OCN OncoLink's Managing editor replies:
Chemotherapy does have an effect on a patients dietary intake. Someof the drugs given during the course of treatment can have the sideeffects of nausea, constipation, vomiting and diarrhea. For an overview of the side effects of chemotherapy and some guidelines on how tocombat these using dietary measures, please see the following document entitled Chemotherapy for Patients: Introductory Information.
Thank you for your interest in OncoLink


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Apples Top 'Dirty Dozen' Produce List: Should You Be Concerned?
Snow White's wicked stepmother may have been on to something with that poison apple. For the second year in a row, the tempting fruit is at the very top of the "Dirty Dozen," a list of fruits and veggies with the highest levels of pesticide residue, released today by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
The group also released its "Clean Fifteen," a list of the cleanest conventional produce. Which of your favorite fruits and vegetables made which list? And what should you do about it?
According to the EWG, 98 percent of conventional apples have detectable levels of pesticides, making them the worst offenders. The rest of the dirty dozen is as follows, in order of the amount of pesticide residue:
-Sweet bell peppers
-Nectarines (imported)
-Blueberries (domestic)
This year, EWG added a special "Plus" category for green beans and leafy greens (like kale and collard greens) that did not meet Dirty Dozen criteria but were commonly contaminated with highly toxic organophosphate insecticides (OPs).
"Organophosphates have been banned for residential use due to human health and environment concerns, and they have been phased out of use for some agricultural applications," Johanna Congleton, Ph.D, a senior scientist with EWG, tells HealthySELF. "However, they are still approved for use on some crops."
Ready for some good news? Here's the "Clean Fifteen" list of the least contaminated produce:
-Sweet corn
-Sweet peas
-Cantaloupe (domestic)
-Sweet potatoes
To come up with their lists, EWG researchers analyzed annual pesticide residue tests conducted by the USDA and Food and Drug Administration between 2000 and 2010. According to a statement released by the EWG, the lists are not meant to be a "complex assessment of pesticide risks." The lists reflect the "overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables" -- but they don't tell you how harmful -- or harmless -- that pesticide load might be.
"This approach best captures the uncertainties of the risks of pesticide exposure," they state. "Since researchers are constantly developing new insights into how pesticides act on living organisms, no one can say that concentrations of pesticides assumed today to be safe are, in fact, harmless."
If pesticides are something you want to try to steer clear of, keep in mind that washing helps -- but only to a point. "The fruits and vegetables were tested after preparing them similar to how a consumer would: by washing and or peeling first, and then analyzing them for remaining pesticide residues," says Congleton. "This means that the residues detected could be present in the flesh of the fruit or vegetable -- not just on the outside -- and that washing does not remove all pesticide residues."
However, washing your produce is still a must. "Washing does help to remove some pesticides from the outside, but it clearly does not eliminate them all," says Congleton.
Most importantly, do NOT stop eating any of the produce on the Dirty Dozen list! "This report can be alarming at first glance, but the health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure," says Angela Ginn, registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, who also recommends washing all your produce.
Ginn echos the EWG's stance on eating produce: "It is important to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, and a lot of them," says Congleton. "Eating organic will reduce people's body burden of pesticides, but it is also very important to make sure you are eating enough and a variety of fruits and vegetables."
To get your fruits and veggies as clean as possible, Ginn says you can use a vegetable brush for sturdier produce. Also try soaking leafy greens and delicate produce in a basin of cool water for several minutes, then rinsing in a salad spinner or colander. Adding a capful of vinegar to the water is another method Ginn recommends; you can also use vegetable washes or even baking soda (for produce you plan to cook).
Both Congleton and Ginn recommend using the lists when deciding between conventional and organic produce. "Choose organic when you can for produce items on the dirty dozen list," says Ginn, "while buying conventional is your choice for the Clean Fifteen." But if you can't find or afford organic spinach, remember -- it's better to eat conventional spinach than to not eat spinach at all!
Related Links:
Your Guide to Cooking a Safe Meal
The Dangerous Superbugs Hiding in Your Dinner
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text:
Products, Public Service, Regulatory, Training
By Staff Writer | September 1, 2005
Send Feedback
FLYIT Gains FNPT2 Certification
FLYIT Simulators and its European partner, Aerosimulators BVBA, plan to unveil their newly certificated Flight Navigation and Procedures Training at this month's Helitech 2005. They say the device is the first certificated to FNPT2 standards. The partners worked for more than two years with Staverton, England-based Police Aviation Services, which will operate the device, and the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority to win Joint Aviation Authorities certification of the AS-PHS-B206 device. The FNPT2 certification means pilots can log up to 40 of 55 hr. required credit for their instrument rating in the unit and can use it to maintain their IFR proficiency.
HUET Postscript
Underwater egress training works apparently, if the following tale is any indication.
In mid-February, Capt. Gordon Jones was ferrying marine pilots to and from large container ships moored miles offshore from the port of Shanghai China when his MDHI 902 Explorer crashed into the sea. Jones was on loan to train pilots for the Honk Kong-based employer that sold the 902 to the Chinese concern Guangdong General Aviation Company (GGAC).
An experienced pilot, Jones had flown 2,000 successful transfers the year before and this one flight seemed just as routine.
But, as he maneuvered over the container ship, and applied left pedal, he heard a "loud bang" and the aircraft started spinning rapidly out of control. The helicopter clipped a container, and, before he knew it, Jones and his three passengers plunged into the icy sea.
"I thought that I was going to buy it," Jones recalled quietly in his Scottish brogue. "My first recollection was hitting the water. I could see the surface clearly and that is when my training kicked in."
Specifically, Jones remembered his Navy training long ago as well as his recent helicopter underwater egress (HUET), aircraft ditching and sea survival training he'd received from Pro Aviation Training in Langley, B.C. ("An Offshore Lifeline," May 2005, page 38). Despite severe injuries to his ribs, legs and eye, he steadied himself, pulled the buckle release, used the airframe to help his exit and floated to the surface.
His training didn't stop there. In the shock of the moment, Jones forgot how to inflate his life jacket. In the Navy, the inflate toggle was located on the right side of the chest.
For this vest, the release was at the bottom. Once again his training prevented him from panicking. He managed to inflate the life jacket as he bobbed like a top in the sea.
But Jones was far from safe. He'd suffered multiple fractures in his ribs and leg and ripped a whole in his immersion suit on impact. The freezing water was sapping his strength quickly. In his condition, he couldn't reach a nearby life raft.
His most immediate concern was hypothermia. The sea survival course taught him to protect as much of his body as possible or he would die long before help arrived.
Luckily, wreckage was everywhere. He pulled his torso onto the hulking remains and waited for over an hour before being rescued.
"I was very pleased when I saw a helicopter on the horizon," Jones chuckled in classic understatement, crediting the training for saving his life. His three passengers weren't as lucky. They died in the crash.
Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Jones convalesces from his injuries and awaits an operation on the orbital floor in his right eye. As to the cause of the crash, Chinese authorities say the matter is still under investigation.
Consortium Launches Emergency Response Aviation Safety School in California
To meet what it calls a critical need for improved emergency response aviation, a consortium of university, governmental and private industry experts has set up up a program to train for emergency managers and operators. Experts backing the new school based at Sacramento, Calif.'s McClellan Park (part of the former McClellan AFB) come from American Helicopter Services, the Aerial Firefighting Assn., NASA's Ames Research Center, the University of California at Davis's School of Engineering and Office of Research and the U.S. Forest Service. It was created specifically to train aviation safety officers, emergency services pilots, forest firefighter aviators, border patrol aviators, medical-air transport personnel, law enforcement, homeland security officers and anyone involved in the field of aviation emergency response.
The school's objective is to "deliver world-class aviation training that focuses on aircraft health monitoring for condition-based maintenance and other critical factors involved in aircraft health management, as well as the decision-making processes and communication skills and technology required for coordination and cooperation during emergency response incidents."
The location at McClellan Park was selected in part to allow the school to leverage facilities there--the U.S. Forest Service's Aerial Simulation Center and state-of-the-art classrooms--to provide students with an experience that will allow them to "gain the skills to create an emergency aviation response environment that encourages crew member and management collaboration."
A seven-course certificate program has been set up that school officials said can be completed in just five weeks, during two consecutive quarter sessions begins late next month. They are to run from Oct. 31-Nov. 18, 2005 and from Feb. 27-Mar. 10, 2006. The school is accepting only enrollments for the entire, five-course October-November session until Sept. 23. The next day it plans to begin accepting for individual courses this year. Most classes are limited to 30 students and early enrollment is encouraged. The courses include:
Aviation Health Management, Oct. 21-Nov. 4, 2005
Human Factors in Emergency Response Aviation Operations, Nov. 7 & 8, 2005
Operational Risk Management, Nov. 9 & 10, 2005
Communications: Program Management, Nov. 14 & 15, 2005
Communications: Operations Management, Nov. 16-18, 2005
Aviation Leadership, March 6-10, 2006
Safety Program Management, Feb. 27-March 3, 2006.
Information is available at: www.extension.ucdavis.edu/certificateprograms.


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Sometimes things go exactly to plan in football and Central United followed their Chatham Cup final script to a tee this afternoon in Wellington.
The talent-laden Auckland outfit hammered Lower Hutt City 6-1 to claim their fifth Chatham Cup crown, which capped the club's 50th anniversary celebrations in fine style.
A crowd of 2258 piled in to Newtown Park to watch a contest that truly was a clash of men versus boys in every sense of the term.
Central United boasted a side laced with four current or former All Whites, including 2010 World Cup participant Ivan Vicelich, while nine of their squad were regulars in the ASB Premiership last summer.
On the other hand, Lower Hutt had numerous schoolboys in their match-day squad and a host of other teenagers.
Buoyed by home-town support, Lower Hutt began the better of the two sides as Central struggled to come to terms with the windy and overcast conditions.
With the fearlessness of youth galvanising their challenge, Lower Hutt pressed forward and directed their attack through skipper Hamish Watson.
But, like any dominant side, Central United absorbed the early advances of their opponent before they counter-punched in tough fashion.
Striker Emiliano Tade got on the board first as he bundled the ball in from close range before former All White David Mulligan doubled the advantage in the 23rd minute with a brilliant free kick.
Auckland City regular Daniel Koprivcic added the third in added time late in the first spell as his shot from the edge of the box took a wicked deflection and left Lower Hutt goalkeeper Steve Bayard with no chance to make a save.
Bayard's elevation to the starting XI highlighted the tough ask Lower Hutt faced as he had spent most of the winter playing for the club's third team but took part in the quarter and semifinal victories in the absence of first-choice custodian Scott Basalaj.
Vicelich, who claimed his fourth Chatham Cup crown with the victory, also found his way on to the score sheet with a clinical header from a Jason Hicks corner on the hour mark.
Koprivcic added another 11 minutes later before Hicks capped the rout with a brilliant left-foot strike when he blasted a shot in the top corner of Bayard's goal in the 86th minute.
Lower Hutt coach Brendan McIntyre emptied his bench in the second spell and tried to give Watson more support in the front third of the pitch but the young guns couldn't find their way through.
Veteran Central striker Paul Urlovic recovered from a nasty ankle injury he suffered last weekend to take the field but only managed about 45 minutes before he was subbed.
Central's win marked the fifth time Urlovic has won a Chatham Cup and he joined Ron Armstrong and Lawrence Fitzpatrick as the only five-time winners in the competition's history, one behind Steve Sumner who is the only player who owns six winner's medals.
Hamish Price grabbed a consolation goal for Lower Hutt with the final act of the game, much to the delight of the crowd.
Central United 6 (Emiliano Tade 18, David Mulligan 23, Daniel Koprivcic 45+3, 71, Ivan Vicelich 60, Jason Hicks 86) Lower Hutt City 1 (Hamish Price 90+2) HT: 3-0
APNZ dr


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By Dr. Kirpal Singh Khalsa, Ph.D.
We all know how to eat, right? It's simple: insert food, chew, swallow and repeat. Often we do it on the run, the less time taken the better. We eat fast food, frozen food, microwavable food, processed food and instant food. Time is of the essence. Any short cut you can take to save time is money in the bank. Wolf a sandwich between meetings, gulp a coffee and doughnut on the way to work, nuke a packaged meal when you get home, use the drive up window—in and out in record time. According to the Yogi we are killing ourselves. It is time to slow down.
Yogi Bhajan explains in a lecture called Bhoj Kriya (August 12, 1992), "If you do not mix saliva in every morsel of your food, you are eating poison." Yikes! Nobody wants to eat poison. Yet most of us do. We gulp our food. It is totally unconscious. We break up the food with the teeth and swallow. As long as it doesn't get stuck in the throat, we are ready for the next bite. The problem is that digestion begins in the mouth. Your saliva breaks down starch into simple sugar. Poison becomes nectar by simply eating small bites, chewing consciously, mixing your saliva and tasting the sweetness.
In the same lecture, Yogi Bhajan says, "When you swallow food that is not chewed properly, it swallows your strength, your life. Then nothing is left of you. Slow eating is one of the best meditations on this Earth." Finally he says, "Your life will be long and your power will be great if you taste every morsel of the food you eat."
Have you ever watched a dog eat? Chomp, chomp, gulp. The mouth and teeth serve only to break up the food to be swallowed. The Yogi says that most people eat like animals, chomp, chomp, gulp. The alternative is to eat like angels, small bites, chewed thoroughly, mixed with the saliva in the mouth, tasting the sweetness and only then swallowed.
Many people are coming around to the idea that WHAT you eat can have a major impact on health. But the idea of HOW you eat it is still very foreign. We can change this. Yogis have known it for thousands of years. Quite simply, one of the easiest keys to health is slow conscious eating. It takes practice. You will have to completely retrain yourself. Remember, eating is something you have done for your entire life without so much as a single thought about how it is done. Changing this habit will take some serious reprogramming. It starts by counting your chews.
Give yourself thirty or forty chews or, if you really want to make it a meditation, try one hundred and eight. Chew long enough for the food in your mouth to turn to jelly. If there are still little bits of solid stuff floating around, keep chewing. It will taste sweet on the tip of your tongue. After you swallow take a few seconds to clean your mouth with your tongue. Get all of the little bits hiding behind your teeth or in your gums. Only when the mouth is clean, take the next bite.
Eating is not a race to the finish. Grabbing food on the run is not just unhealthy. You lose the joy, the unique tastes and pure sensual pleasure of the food. By slowing down and experiencing the joy of eating you will find the key to good digestion, a healthy body and your ideal weight. Isn't it amazing? We are not talking about what you eat or about changing your diet. We are simply talking about how you eat. Slow down, "Your life will be long and your power will be great."
Kirpal Singh Khalsa served as director of Guru Ram Das Ashram, Boulder, from 1972 –1992. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado and taught in the Sociology Department from 1980 to 1992. From 1992 – 2003 he served as Academic Director for Sikh Dharma Education International and helped found Miri Piri Academy in Amritsar, India. He currently lives in the Sikh community in Espanola, New Mexico.


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In the new economy, we may all need a "sugar daddy."
And, no, I don't mean the candy.
"People will find a way," has been Republicans' constant refrain for the past year or so, in their ceaseless targeting vital programs and services for deep cuts, in order toprotect the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Cut unemployment benefits, refuse to extend them, and "people will find a way" to support themselves. Cut food assistance and "people will find a way" to feed themselves.
Thus, it's conceivable that the same refrain was heard from Republicans who objected to John Boehner's debt ceiling bill because it increased Pell Grants instead of cutting them. Cut assistance for low-income to go to college, and they will "find a way" to pay for their tuition.
Well, maybe that's true — if turning tricks to pay tuition counts as "finding a way."
I call it "the Sugar Daddy" solution.
With every recession, the stories of students turning to stripping, sex work and "sugar daddy" relationships in order to pay their school bills and loans begin to proliferate in the media and in popular culture.
Times are tougher now for students than almost any time before in recent memory. Even Pell Grants have been under threat during the debt ceiling negotiations, while student loans are increasingly mounting, and a once-crucial bachelor's degree is hardly a fast-ticket to economic security in this economy. Higher education, as Sarah Jaffe reported recently, is a bubble about to burst, leaving students indebted and jobless and in dire straits.
Journalist Mac McLelland memorably wrote about her experience venturing into the sugar daddy realm online in 2008. At the time, she noted that she was not alone:
Clearly I'm not the only one intrigued by such a setup. Every time I log on to SugarDaddy.com (a.k.a. SugarDaddyForMe.com), around 2,000 other members are also online. SeekingArrangement.com, "The meeting place for mutually beneficial relationships," has 100,000 users. Sugardaddie.com, "Where the classy, attractive and affluent can meet," has 200,000. "These websites make it very efficient," says historian Ruth Rosen, the author of a book on prostitution. "Because it's very clear; you don't have to use coded language."
McLelland's three-year-old story prefigures Amanda M. Fairbanks' recent piece in HuffPo, which focuses mostly on one site, SeekingArrangement.com, now up to 800,000 users from the 100,000 McLelland reported. Fairbanks' story focuses not just on the monetary benefits young women might reap from such an arrangement, but how necessary those infusions of assistance are in this downturn. Fairbanks profiles a young woman named "Taylor" who took desperate measures in desperate times.
… faced with about $15,000 in unpaid tuition and overdue bills, Taylor and her roommate typed "tuition," "debt," and "money for school" into Google. A website called SeekingArrangement.com popped up. Intrigued by the promise of what the site billed as a "college tuition sugar daddy," Taylor created a "sugar baby" profile and eventually connected with the man from Greenwich….
Saddled with piles of student debt and a job-scarce, lackluster economy, current college students and recent graduates are selling themselves to pursue a diploma or pay down their loans. An increasing number, according to the the owners of websites that broker such hook-ups, have taken to the web in search of online suitors or wealthy benefactors who, in exchange for sex, companionship, or both, might help with the bills.
Fairbanks reports on these sites capitalizing on the "exploding" number of students registering for membership: giving them "college" badges on their profiles, upgrading their memberships for free, and so on. This fits into the new economic reality: student who took out huge loans hoping for high-paying jobs and watching the jobs disappear. (For the older male members on the site, the chance to hook up with young, educated women is worth the cash they pay.)
For the sake of protecting tax cuts for the wealthy and tax loopholes for their corporate sponsors, Republicans actually considered driving the economy over a cliff, to cut a program intended to help low-income students go to college. Not that it hasn't already been cut.
Yesterday, a number of groups, including Campus Progress and The Education Trust, came together for "Save Pell Day." The reason? Pell's in trouble. The budget passed by the House earlier this year reduced the maximum grant by 45 percent, kicking about 1.5 million students out of the program. Representative Paul Ryan's proposal for next year reduces the grant a comparable amount. And in the debt-reduction talks, Pell has repeatedly come up as an area prime for cuts.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Pell grant program, it is money paid directly to low-income, qualifying students who can then put it toward tuition and college expenses. Unlike student loans, it does not have to be paid back. Pell's size has increased roughly 150 percent from 2005-2006 to 2010-2011—from $14.4 to $34.4 billion. The program is about 30 years old and is one of the signature pieces of federal loan legislation—you could call it the "social security" or "medicare" of college access.
So, no surprise, Republicans are trying to cut it. In hearings earlier this year, House Republicans complained that the size of the grant is driving the cost of college up. No matter that only one reputable study has investigated the question, and the results found virtually no correlation between the grant and tuition costs. In fact, the Pell grant covers roughly one-third the annual cost of a four-year public college—a few decades ago, it covered three-fourths the cost. Pell is lagging behind the trend of increased college tuition, not leading it.
Maybe the Republicans who wanted to cut Pell Grant funding figured the 1.5 million students who would be kicked out of the program could "find a way" to pay for tuition without government aid. Maybe they think sites like SugarDaddyForMe.Com and Seeking Arrangements.Com were "market-based solutions" for students needing help with tuition or student loans. Sure, it may not exactly square with "family values" conservatives, but the Rand-loving libertarian wing may not object.
I'm guessing this isn't quite the "trickle down" conservatives had in mind. But maybe this is how what failed to "trickle down" before finally starts flowing. Maybe this is what the wealthy are doing with the wealth recouped from their economic recovery. (We're still waiting for ours.) It has to be, because we know they have't invested in the economy. Maybe this is how economic recovery finally "trickles down" to the rest of us. Maybe this is how tax cuts stimulate economic growth, since they've failed so far. And it all gets done without collective bargaining!
Somehow, I don't think these are the new "service jobs" people had in mind, and almost certainly not what they "family values" wing of the GOP had in mind. But it's what their policies ultimately lead too — at least until young people give up trying to educate themselves for jobs that don't exist for them in this recession.
The unemployment picture looks bad for everyone, but it's especially bleak for young workers.
The unemployment rate for young workers between ages 16 to 24 has skyrocketed as millions of young people have lost jobs and school enrollment has steadily increased over the past decade.
The jobless rate nearly doubled among young workers to a peak of 19 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 and has remained high, averaging 17.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with 6.7 percent for older workers and 9.1 percent for all workers.
At the same time, the proportion of workers 55 and older in the workforce has increased as the Baby Boom generation ages and older workers are delaying retirement, especially following huge drops in home values and investments during the recession.
The problem isn't that older people are taking jobs from youth, said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). He tells the Daily Labor Report:
What's keeping young people from getting jobs is not competition from other people but a lousy economy that nobody seems to be doing anything about.
Younger workers are trying to get a foothold, and when there are no jobs being created it's hard for them to get a foothold.
Well, it's not exactly that there are "no jobs being created." The problem is that nowhere near enough jobs are being created to pull the economy out of recession; certainly not enough for everyone who needs one to find one. The ratio of job seekers to job openings has been around 4.3:1 for 29 months, meaning that "for nearly two-and-a-half years, there has been no available job for at least three out of four unemployed workers." As of May 2011, that ratio was 4.7:1.
And nearly all the new jobs created are low-wage.
There's more unhappy news for the millions of Americans hoping for a surge in the number of good, high-paying jobs — a new report concludes that the great bulk of new jobs created since the economic recovery began are in lower-wage occupations, paying $13.52 or less an hour.
The report by the National Employment Law Project, a liberal research and advocacy group, found that while 60 percent of the jobs lost during the downturn were in midwage occupations, 73 percent of the jobs added since the recession ended had been in lower-wage occupations, like cashier, stocking clerk or food preparation worker.
According to the report, "The Good Jobs Deficit," the number of jobs in midwage and high-wage occupations remains significantly below the prerecession peak, while the number of jobs in lower-wage occupations has climbed back close to its former peak.
For those fortunate enough to hold on to jobs, the recession still isn't a cakewalk. Thanks to the Great American Speed-Up and the wageless recovery, we're working harder, faster, and longer for less.
This is after decades of stagnant wages and a skyrocketing cost of living, parallelled by skyrocketing CEO compentation. Corporate executives saw their pay increase 27% last year, compared to just 2.1% for … well … everybody else. And while the highest paid CEOs did boost their companies' profits, they did it not by creating new business (and thus new jobs), but via cost-cutting and layoffs. Workers spared the axe, thus, work harder, faster, and longer, for less. And in today's no-quit economy, what else are ya gonna do? Where else are ya gonna go?
Meanwhile, the GOP's plan to get the economy moving again is lower wages even further. In other words, not even minumum wage but minimal wages.
If current trends continue, we look back nostalgically on these days — when the words "vacation" and "paid sick leave" were still part of our vocabulary. We're working harder, faster, and longer for less now, but in the future that may be the the standard employer demand: "Harder! Faster! Longer! Less!" (less pay, that is).
And if you're lucky enough to have a job, you'll put up with it, because you can't quit. After all, there are many who would gladly do your job for even less than you get paid to do it, and you're already earning as little as you can an still manage to survive.
If you're young, you'll be lucky to have any job. You may even still have hope for a better future. You may be so grateful that you don't have to sell your body to make a living that you'll put up with anything to keep from having to go back to that.
If you're older than 50, you'll know that you're one step away from joining the permanent underclass. And at your age there will be no hope of every working again. Facing old age is one thing. Even if you have to work until you die, it's better than facing a desperate old age, with no income and no hope of any. Your optionswill be limited, then, if you're too old to sell your body.
The competition for Sugar Daddies (or Sugar Mamas, as the case may be) is likely to be fierce, given that about 6.5 million young people graduate into an economy that has nothing for them, at least nothing that can begin to pay off the loans they took out back when college was an investment in a better job, etc. There aren't going to be enough sugar daddies to go around. And that's particularly troubling, considering that finding one is probably going to be more important than finding a job.
Oddly enough, the "Sugar Daddy Solution" probably won't make any lists of how Americans are coping in this recession. But, then, neither do a lot of the things people are doing to survive the Great Recession.
What are people doing or willing to do to survive in this recession? Desperate times, as the saying goes, call for desperate measures.


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'Junk' not what it seems
In response to the May 18, "Junkyard ruining Cana," by definition, entrepreneur means, "a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk."
The junkyard in Cana has been in business since 1986. As the sign near the state line indicates, "Entering Virginia's Entrepreneurial Region," that is just what owners of the junkyard are, entrepreneurs.
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Latest News
Miami Herald columnist Fred Sherman, a champion of environmental preservation, dies at 93
Equally at home with blueprint or musical score, Frederic Sherman edits the the [Miami] Herald's real estate section and also reviews modern jazz recordings in Sunday's Fun in Florida Magazine. Both hats fit him with aplomb, because he possesses an innate sense of the dramatic. He captures in words the excitement of jazz, but leans heavily on the use of pictures to dramatize the news in the home building field.
That's how an Oct. 21, 1956, Herald in-house ad page introduced Fred Sherman, its former picture editor turned prize-winning editor of the paper's Home section.
The focus on photography was apt, said his son Charles Sherman, an executive editor for the Miami Herald's International Edition. Before joining the Herald in 1953, Sherman, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, was a picture editor with the Daily Oklahoman and the San Diego Tribune. "My dad had a good eye. He did some innovative things with sports photography…and his large pictures got notice."
And he wanted his photographers to look good, too, his son said.
"Ray Fisher used to be a photographer for the Herald and one of dad's favorite stories is how he got Ray to get a tuxedo to cover the Miami Beach entertainment scene."
Fisher, now 90, shot more than 1,000 celeb and personality shots for the paper. "I don't recall the tux," he said, chuckling. His wife, Sue, chimes in. She remembers. "I did have a tux," he allows. "Fred's legacy is that he was a true Miamian. He loved the city and loved everything about it."
Sherman, a long time resident of Key Biscayne who championed landmarks like Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, died of pneumonia at 93 in California on June 27.
During his 26-year tenure with the Herald, Sherman, son of a Baltimore newsman turned lawyer, served as a photo editor, wrote about architecture, urban planning, environmental preservation and jazz. Awards arrived at a fast clip, including a National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) first prize in 1962 for his series of stories dealing with a proposal to allow billboards to go up along Miami-Dade County's expressways. NAREE named Sherman its president in 1961.
"A home section of a newspaper must be more than the totals on acreage and houses bought and sold," Sherman said after being named Home editor in 1956. "It must tell not only where people live and where they will live, but how they live."
He told countless stories about how people lived. And sometimes, about how he lived.
He had thyroid cancer. Though a persistent beast, "feeding on me, filling my throat and slowly choking me to death," he still served as a merchant marine during World War II, worked in Iraq and Iran during the war, married, fathered a son, and worked at several suburban newspapers, all the while battling what seemed a mystery ailment, he wrote in a 1955 Miami Herald feature, They Had Cancer and Lived.
The clinical feature, which read like a sci-fi epic — "he drank the atomic cocktail" — detailed his six-year battle to rid himself of the cancer with the aid of radioactive iodine in 1949. The piece won him a national award — and a hundred bucks — from a cancer association.
"Dad's stories were a bit apocryphal," his son said.
"Fred had amazing stories. He was funny as hell," said Shelley Acoca, a former Miami Herald features editor who befriended Sherman late in life and sat rapt as he shared stories of a bygone era: slipping into Overtown in the wee hours to hear sets by Sammy Davis Jr. and other black musicians after they could no longer be in segregated Miami Beach. Pioneering women in the newsroom, such as the time he "spirited" Kay Murphy from the women's department at the Herald and put her to work alongside him on the Home section for nearly a decade.
"He was very proud all these years later of having broken down that wall," Acoca said.
Sherman's prose wielded considerable influence in the fields of real estate and development in those days. He earned praise and pans, alike.
Sherman's a Bum, Says Realtor screamed one 1962 headline, only to be countered with, He's Not, Says a Professor. The issue: zoning changes along North Kendall Drive encroaching into the Everglades.
He left the Herald in 1979, but he wrote an article for the paper in September 1992 to take local county government, developers and the construction industry to task for "the greed, incompetence and corruption that reduced tens of thousands of houses and entire subdivisions to splinters" during Hurricane Andrew. "Dade County needs … Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and 10 other unforgiving avengers," he wrote.
"He definitely had a reputation and knew a lot of people in real estate. He was a big deal all through that time. It was important to have someone who knew what he was doing," said Kenn Finkel, a former Herald sports editor who worked alongside Sherman.
But Sherman had a bon vivant side, too. He brought son Stuart, then 9, to a November 1960 press conference at the Key Biscayne Hotel with president-elect John F. Kennedy and the defeated challenger, Richard M. Nixon. Stuart wrote the column. One can imagine Dad hovering by the typewriter with a grin and advice on beating deadlines.
"Kennedy just entered. He was very handsome and, well, I voted for Nixon [?], really," Stuart wrote. An editor must have added the question mark. "He talked like a normal man, I think. He was nice.…Kennedy shook my hand and I said, 'I'll never wash that hand again.' He said, 'Good. Keep it that way.'
Jazz icons Sherman adored like Dave Brubeck, Bobby Short and Marian McPartland were also known to pop over to his home. He and late wife Eleanor, a Herald editorial staffer who died in 1993, were known for the parties they threw.
"When I was a young reporter at the Herald in the late '50s and early '60s, our social life revolved around the Herald newsroom. Fred and Eleanor often hosted BYO liquor Herald parties, and their home was like a revolving door for all of the newsroom. So many Saturday nights of fun, with Fred and Eleanor always at the center of it. He was not only a solid professional newsman, but a thoroughly delightful newsman who enjoyed a good time off the job as well as on it," Erwin Potts wrote in an email.
In addition to his sons Charles and Stuart, Sherman is survived his brother Russell, and three grandchildren, Asia, Nicholas and Breese Sherman.