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Peters Construction employee Aruturo Ugalde installs siding on the Milano Apartments project in Northeast Portland September 10. General contractor LCG Pence expects the project to be completed by mid-November.
Eliseo Villasenor, an installer with Columbia Drywall Systems, takes a ceiling measurement while working at the site of The Milano, a six-story, 60-unit project in the Rose Quarter designed by Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects.
John Hall, an HVAC installer with Jet Industries, drills a hole for dryer ventilation at the site of the Milano Apartments in the Rose Quarter September 10.
Carpenters remove formwork at the OUS/OHSU Collaborative Life Sciences Building project in Portland's South Waterfront September 6. The $295 million project is being built by general contractor J.E. Dunn and co-designed by SERA Architects and California-based CO Architects.
Carpenters install railing on the OUS/OHSU Collaborative Life Sciences Center in Southwest Portland September 6. The tower will house the OHSU Dental school, as well as laboratory, clinical, and education space. Full completion of the 500,000-square-foot building is expected by Spring 2014.
The $295 million OUS/OHSU Collaborative Life Sciences Center is slated for full completion in Spring 2014.
Bryan Casey, a carpenter with Sierra Construction Co. Inc., drills through slab to reveal an anchor bolt at the site of the Prescott Apartments in North Portland September 10. The Myhre Group Architects-designed project will feature 155 units, 9,500 square feet of ground-floor retail, and parking for 111 vehicles.
Ironworker John Gentry, a journeyman with Mowry Rebar and member of Local 29, ties rebar for a boundary column at the Prescott Apartments project in North Portland September 10.
Journeyman ironworker Jesus Nolasco, an employee of Mowry Rebar and member of Local 29, wires a boundary column at the Prescott Apartments project in North Portland September 10.
Sierra Construction Co. Inc. carpenter Robert Carrasco III uses a scanner to find anchor bolts in concrete September 10 at the Prescott Apartments, a $26 million project being built by general contractor Sierra Construction in North Portland.
Sean Spriggs, an apprentice electrician with E C Company and member of IBEW Local 48, installs an emergency exit sign at the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center's Cornelius Wellness Center September 12. General contractor Bremik Construction is slated to complete the 12-month project in mid-October.
Virginia Garcia's new Cornelius Wellness Center, designed by Scott Edwards Architecture, will open next month after a year of construction.
A three-story house at 2228 N.E. Glisan St.is for salefor $425,000, or lease at $16 per square foot, triple net. The house was built in 1924 and features hardwood floors, ornate moldings, and new electrical, mechanical, and networking systems.
Doug Zimmerman, a partner in Bi-Zi Farms in Vancouver and son of farm owner Bill Zimmerman, sprays a crop for corn earworm Thursday morning. Farmers in Clark County are being squeezed into smaller spaces as planning efforts continue to support urban sprawl.
Bill Zimmerman is the owner of Bi-Zi Farms, located on land in Vancouver that his family has been farming for 140 years.
Mike Mahar ties rebar while building a fish tank at the future site of the Oregon Aquarium in Milwaukie. A former steakhouse on Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard is being converted to a 12,500-square-foot kids' aquarium.
Brandon Gouner sprays foam to be used in the decoration of the exterior of a petting tank at the site of the future Oregon Aquarium Friday in Milwaukie. The aquarium will feature interactive exhibits which will allow guests to touch species including jellyfish and hammerhead sharks.
A 12,500-square-foot former Black Angus steakhouse in Milwaukie is being converted to an aquarium. Co-owner Ammon Covino estimates that the project will cost over $1 million, and will include state-of-the-art life support systems for the animals.
A site just north of the Oregon Convention Center is one of two locations identified in a proposal by Mortenson Development as potential sites of a new Hyatt hotel. An Metro evaluation committee is recommending Mortenson's proposal, which includes two development schemes at alternate sites at the corner of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and Holladay Street.
The Portland Development Commission-owned Inn at the Convention Center is one of two properties proposed for redevelopment into Hyatt Hotels by Mortenson Development.
The Kelly Butte reservoir in Southeast Portland is one of three slated for replacement by the city in the wake of federal regulation of open-air reservoirs. The $70 million project and a $138 million replacement of Powell Butte reservoir are intended to fill the void that will be left when the city's open-air reservoir at Mount Tabor is shut down.
A compactor is used to build an extension of Southwest Porter Street between Southwest Moody Avenue and the Willamette River in Portland Thursday. The transit-only street will be the site of the South Waterfront/SW Moody Ave stop along the Portland-Milwaukie light rail line.
The City of Portland is finalizing an agreement with FFA Architecture and Interiors to assess the extent of renovations necessary to the Portland Building, which is suffering from water and mold problems.
Site work is underway for an eight-story, $11 million student housing project designed near Portland State University in downtown Portland. The building will use a Hambro joist system instead of post-tensioned concrete, resulting in as much as a 20 percent savings in building costs.
Josh Jaeckel, a journeyman ironworker with Western Rebar and member of Local 29, ties reinforcement for a four-inch concrete slab at the site of the City of Portland's new Emergency Coordination Center on Southeast 99th Avenue Friday. General contractor Emerick Construction is building the $10.35 million project, which will house the Portland Office of Emergency Management and the Portland Water Bureau's emergency and security teams.
Todd Construction is wrapping up a six-month remodel and expansion of the Chiles Center at the University of Portland. Locker rooms for four of the school's men's athletic teams, as well as a strength and conditioning center, are being expanded and updated. The remodel also includes a student athlete study area and administrative space.
An four-story industrial building at 80 S.E. Madison St. is on the market for $2.2 million.
Peter Parisot, economic development director for the Office of Mayor Sam Adams, says that a request for proposals for development in Gateway is an attempt to achieve equity in the area. The city is promising to move around 100 city employees to buildings developed on one of three sites along Northeast Pacific Street if the "right" proposal is presented.
Cynara Lilly is the spokeswoman for the Still a Bad Idea Committee, a group that opposes the Grange, a proposed casino development in Wood Village.
Dave Venasche operates a combine while harvesting red clover on his farm in Cornelius. "God didn't make any more land and we're already farming all of it that there is to be farmed," Vanasche said.
Red clover is harvested at Vanasche Farm in Cornelius. Owner Dave Vanasche is teaming up with two other Washington County farmers and 1000 Friends of Oregon to challenge the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development's recent approval of Metro's urban and rural reserves in Washington County.
T.J. Nisbet Construction is converting a previously vacant ground-floor space at Southwest 12th Avenue and Washington Street into Cheryl's on 12th, a European-style marketplace and café, for owners Cheryl and Ed Casey. In addition to the 2,900-square-foot retail space, the project includes a recently-completed 3,000-square-foot kitchen for the Casey's catering business, As Good As It Gets Catering, which is located in a basement space below Cheryl's on 12th. Project partners include California-based G S Beckham Design Associates and Portland-based Lynnette Sandgren Interior Planning & Design. Work is slated to be completed by the first week of October.
Carpenter Victor Giron frames a roof at the Cully Grove, a Northeast Portland development that is one of 20 green remodels and new homes included in this Saturday's Build It Green! home tour.
Michelle Jeresek, an architect with Departure Design, says that green building doesn't have to be costly. "It comes down to being smart and planning properly, and if you can do that then it doesn't have to shift the budget," Jeresek said.
George Puccenn, left, and Eduardo Ordanz, employees of general contractor Modern Visions Construction Inc., work on the exterior renovation of a two-story building at Southeast 26th Avenue and Gladstone Street Wednesday. Former apartments on the second floor are being converted to office spaces, and the building's "old west" themed facade is being updated with a modern look designed by Division K3 Design. Work is expected to be completed by mid-October.
Modern Visions Construction Inc. is renovating a two-story building at Southeast 26th Avenue and Gladstone Street Wednesday. Former apartments on the second floor are being converted to office spaces, and the building's "old west" themed facade is being updated with a modern look designed by Division K3 Design. Work is expected to be completed by mid-October.
Roger Ulrich, Ph.D.


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Brownies learn all about the Girl Scout traditions and how to share the Girl Scout way.
When girls have earned this badge, they'll know how to practice and share the Girl Scout way.
1. Sing everywhere
2. Celebrate Juliette Low's birthday
3. Share sisterhood
4. Leave a place better than you found it
5. Enjoy Girl Scout traditions
- Video demonstration: Watch a volunteer lead Step 3 of this badge.
- Leading an engaging Brownie meeting: Recommendations for facilitating group conversations, handling supplies, and organizing your meeting
- Digital ice breakers and games
- Virtual meeting agenda (PDF): Use this resource to help you adapt the meeting plans found in the Volunteer Toolkit
- Step-by-step planner: Sign in to the Volunteer Toolkit to find instructions for meeting 1 and meeting 2 of this badge, including materials lists, scripts, meeting aids, and more.

subset: commoncrawl


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I love taxi medallions.
As an example for my microeconomics students, not as policy.
Just last week, I used New York City's medallion system to show how an entry barrier — the requirement that each yellow taxi have one of a limited number of medallions — could create profits in an otherwise viciously competitive industry.
How much profit? Well, according to the most recent data from the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission medallions for independent cab drivers traded at between $610,000 and $620,000 in October. If you figure 8% as a reasonable rate of return of this asset, that translates into almost $50,000 in pure profit each year from driving a cab, thanks to the entry barrier.
Good exam question: Who gets that profit? Hint: It isn't the cab driver, who either has to lay out $600,000+ for a medallion or lease one at perhaps $50,000 per year.
Of course that profit comes at the expense of taxi riders, who face a double whammy: they pay more for the cab rides they can get, and they end up taking fewer cab rides (the latter effect is known as a deadweight loss – society loses the benefit of the cab rides that would have happened without the medallion system).
Given that background, I was horrified to learn from Matt Yglesias that taxi drivers in Washington DC are lobbying Vincent Gray, the city's new mayor, to introduce a medallion system. Yglesias quotes Alan Suderman of the Washington City Paper thusly:
Derje Mamo, a taxi driver who helped run transportation for the mayor-elect's campaign, said cabdrivers already are pushing Gray to reshape the Taxicab Commission and allow for the creation of a medallion system. A medallion or certification system would limit the number of cabs operating in the city. Proponents of such a system argue that too many taxis are flooding D.C. streets. 'He's got one year, that's it,' Mamo said."
As Yglesias notes, this is a really bad idea. There's no reason to believe that there are too many cabs on DC streets (except, of course, from the view of cab drivers who hate the competition), and in some neighborhoods there may well be too few. A more plausible concern, as some commenters on his blog note (but I can't link to because of some glitch), is that current taxi fares might be a bit too low. Taxi fares are still a new thing in DC–until 2008 the city had a zone system that many passengers, myself included, found bewildering–and it may be that the initial levels weren't set exactly right. If Mayor Gray wants to do something for the cabdrivers, he should ask the Taxicab Commission to ponder whether some upward tweaks to fares might induce some extra supply that passengers would value.
Update: For further discussion, please see this later post.


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Welcome to the Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive (PIRSA).
PIRSA is a permanent, free, searchable, and citable archive of recorded seminars from relevant bodies in physics. This resource has been partially modelled after Cornell University's arXiv.org. Every seminar, seminar series, and collection of seminars is given a unique number, the PIRSA#, which allows each specific seminar to be referenced.
We offer seminar content in the following media formats: Windows Media, Flash, MP3, and PDF of slide or presentation materials.
Please use the form interface below to catch up on recent seminars from the PIRSA archive, or view seminars in a series or collection.
expressvnp中文官网 | expressvnp中文官网


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Singapore – Representatives from the global palm oil industry find themselves at a critical crossroads as they gather in Singapore for the 10th anniversary meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO RT10), founder member WWF said today.
"There is much to celebrate 10 years along the journey of sustainable palm oil, but it is no time for RSPO membership to rest on its laurels, " said WWF delegation leader Adam Harrison.
"On our agenda are the first round of planned major upgrades to the standard that defines sustainable palm oil and the challenge of increasing the uptake of certified palm oil."
At the meeting, starting tomorrow, WWF is seeking agreement to ambitious measures to reduce the climate change impacts of palm oil production and tighter rules on hazardous chemicals. It will also be seeking more support for the standard from trade and retail members of RSPO.
Some of these issues will be discussed rather than decided at the 10th anniversary meeting as consultations continue on the first scheduled major review of the Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Palm Oil. WWF is urging RSPO members and non-members alike to feed their comments into the multi-stakeholder consultation on upgraded Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil which remains open until November 30.
"WWF would like to see the RSPO standards include best practices on reducing greenhouse gas emissions" Harrison said. "WWF is seeking an effective end to planting on peat which releases massive quantities of carbon dioxide.
"We are also looking for the RSPO membership to commit to the effective elimination of the most hazardous chemicals used in the industry."
Since the RSPO started in 2004 and the standards were set in 2007 it has been remarkably successful and has gone on to certify more than 9 million tonnes of palm oil production – more than 14% of the world's total.
This market share makes the RSPO the world's most successful sustainability standard for a single commodity, with nearly 1000 members from producers through to manufacturers and retailers and environmental, social and development NGOs.
"However, more of a push is needed from buyers of palm oil to match the hard work growers have put in since 2007 on getting so much of their production to a certified level," said Harrison. "Only 40% of the palm oil used by manufacturers in the RSPO is certified and less than 8% handled by traders is."
In 2012 the RSPO strengthened its annual membership reporting process and now asks members to reveal how much palm oil they use and when they plan for it to be 100% certified. This year's reports show an increased level of commitment from buyers and a welcome move to greater transparency. But, commitments are empty unless backed by concrete action – and that is still below par.
"Traders are particularly significant as RSPO members account for almost half of global palm oil trade – if they took concerted action they really could transform the industry," Harrison said. "We look forward to some outstanding 10th anniversary commitments for uptake of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil in the next Annual Communications of Progress Reports."


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Home Page Chess Life Online 2009 December Khachiyan Wins American Open on Tiebreak; Troff Breaks 2200
|Khachiyan Wins American Open on Tiebreak; Troff Breaks 2200
|By Randy Hough
|December 3, 2009
American Open championship at the 45th annual
tournament, held at the LAX Renaissance Montura hotel over Thanksgiving. He
beat out IM Andranik Matikozyan and NM Julian Landaw on tiebreaks, taking his
third major title in three months (the Southern California Open and the Western States
Open were the others).
GM Melikset Khachiyan
won his fifth
The three scored 6-2, all drawing their games with each other and with former champion, IM Vladimir Mezentsev (who tied FM Takashi Iwamoto and Tatev Abrahamyan for Under 2450 honors). Khachiyan downed the second seed, IM Enrico Sevillano. Matikozyan also beat Sevillano and yielded another draw to the lower-rated Master Vadim Kudryavtsev. Landaw, who took a last round bye to return to his studies at UC Berkeley, beat FMs Iwamoto and Gregg Small before drawing with his co-winners.
Khachiyan,Melikset (2607) - Sevillano,Enrico (2558) [C42]
45th Annual American Open (4), 27.11.2009
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.0-0 0-0 8.c4 c6 9.Nc3 Nxc3 10.bxc3 dxc4 11.Bxc4 Bg4 12.Rb1 Qc7 13.h3 Bh5 14.Bd3 Kh8 15.g4 Bg6 16.Nh4 Nd7 17.Nf5 b6
In hindsight, 17...b5 was a better choice.
18.Qf3 Rfe8 19.Bd2 Nf8 20.h4
Black has equalized, and now 20...Bxf5 21.Qxf5 Re6 22.Bc4 Rf6 keeps it that way, as White has loosened his kingside.
20...Ne6? 21.Rfe1 Bxf5 22.Qxf5 g6
A major weakening, but after 22...Nf8 23.h5 White has a clear edge.
23.Qf6+ Kg8 24.Bc4?!
24. h5 appears better, though Black gets into an endgame (somewhat inferior) after 24...Bf4 25.Bxf4 Qxf4.
24...Be7 25.Qf3 Bxh4 26.Re5 b5?
26...c5, threatening to discover an attack on the bishop, looks good, as the tactical attempt 27.Rxe6 fxe6 28.Bxe6+ Kg7 29.Bf4 Qe7 fails because Black will be able to play...Bf6.
27.Bb3 Re7
27...Be7 appears more natural; now White could have cut the bishop off with 28.g5, threatening to win it after exchanging on e6.
28.Rbe1? Rae8 29.Bh6 a5??
The normally alert Sevillano drops the ball. 29...Nd8 to trade off some material is equal.
30.Rxe6! fxe6 31.Rxe6 Rxe6 32.Bxe6+
Ooh, that back rank!
32... Kh8 33.Bf4 1-0
Khachiyan turned in a nice combination of positional and tactical chess against Iwamoto in an earlier round:
Khachiyan,Melikset - Iwamoto,Takashi [C54]
45th Annual American Open (2), 26.11.2009
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.c3 a6 7.Bb3 Ba7 8.Nbd2 Ne7 9.Re1 Ng6 10.Nf1 0-0 11.h3 Re8 12.Ng3 Be6 13.d4 h6 14.Be3 Qc8 15.Kh2 c5 16.Bc2 Qc7 17.Qd2 Kh7 18.d5 Bd7 19.c4 b5 20.Bd3 Bb6 21.Qc2 Kg8 22.Qc1 Kh7 23.b3 Reb8 24.Re2 Ba5 25.Rc2 Qd8 26.a3 Qf8 27.Rb1 b4 28.a4 Bd8 29.Re2 Kg8 30.Bc2 Nh7 31.Nf5
White has secured the minimal edge a strong player can expect with the "Pianissimo." Now Black should grit his teeth and "pass" with a move such as 31...Bc8 or 31...Bf6. Instead, he removes the annoying knight, but the price of giving White e4 as a pivot square for attack is too high.
31...Bxf5? 32.exf5 Nh8 33.g4 Be7 34.h4 f6 35.Nd2 Nf7 36.Ne4 Qd8 37.Qd2 Kf8 38.Ng3 Ke8 39.Nh5 Bf8 40.f4 Kd7
Gimme shelter!
41.Rg1 Qe8 42.Bd1 Rb7 43.Ree1 Qd8
Now White is ready to open lines for his better-coordinated pieces.
44.g5! fxg5 45.fxg5 Nh8 46.f6 g6 47.Ng7 Kc8 48.Ne6 Qe8 49.gxh6 Nxf6 50.Ref1 Nh7 51.Bc2 Rf7 52.Rxf7 Qxf7 53.Qg2 Kb7 54.Bxg6 1-0
White wins a piece after 54...Nxg6 55.Qxg6 Qxg6 56. Rxg6 followed by 57.Nxf8, Rg7+, and h7.
Melik also had chances to win his sixth-round game against Landaw, enough that when the game ended at least one spectator thought White had won!
Khachiyan,Melikset (2607) - Landaw,Julian (2273) [C54]
45th Annual American Open (6), 28.11.2009
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.c3 0-0 7.Nbd2 a6 8.Bb3 Ba7 9.h3 Ne7 10.Re1 Ng6 11.Nf1 Re8 12.Ng3 h6 13.d4 Bd7 14.Be3 exd4 15.Nxd4 Nh4 16.Bf4 Ng6 17.Qd2 Nxf4 18.Qxf4 Qe7 19.Nf3 Be6 20.e5 dxe5 21.Rxe5 Qd6 22.Nf5
White has built up some attacking chances; 22.Ne4 to trade off the defending knight is another possibility.
22... Qb6
A tough call; 22...Bxf5 removes a defender of f7.
The tempting capture on h6 doesn't work as long as Black refrains from capturing on f2: 23.Nxh6+ Kf8 24.Bxe6 Rxe6 25.Rxe6 Qxe6 26.Ng4 Nxg4 and White's extra pawn is worth little. Alternatively, after 26.Qxc7 gxh6 27.Qxb7 Qd5 Black's extra piece is better than the pawns. Khachiyan's move in the game sets a trap which Landaw avoids.
23...Qxf2+ 24.Kh2 fxe6 (24...Rxe6 25.Nxh6+ gxh6 26.Rxe6 fxe6 27.Qxf6) 25.Nxh6+ Kh8 26.Ng4 with a clear advantage.
Now the game peters out into equality.
24...Ne8 25.Rae1 Rxe5 26.Rxe5 Qf6 27.Nh2 h5 28.Nf3 Rd8 29.Qf4 c6 30.Ne7+ ½-½
In his other games, Khachiyan had some difficulties, coming back to win a probably lost position against young Master Howard Chen of Washington State in the first round. Matikozyan and Landaw displayed their mastery of the Game/60 genre by going 3 ½ - ½ in the three-day schedule.
Eleven-year-old Kayden Troff of Utah (who has pursued the same circuit of Western tournaments as Khachiyan) achieved the 2200 rating milestone to become one of our youngest Masters.
Another young player dropped out after six rounds when his coach calculated that he had reached 2200. It turned out that he had actually reached, yes, you guessed it, 2199.
The other sections all had clear winners: Jared Tan in Under 2200, Fei Yue Yang in Under 2000, Zheng Zhu in Under 1800, Asatour Dovlatyan in Under 1600, and Alexander Magganas in Under 1400 (unrated player Suresh Jhunjhnuwala earned the best score in that section, but was eligible only for the smaller Unrated prize). Like Landaw, Tan and Magganas, both young students, took last round byes, though Tan actually clinched his prize and was paid before leaving.
The turnout was a rather disappointing 200. However, the Scholastic side event drew a fine total of 144 players, with Sean Manross (K-12), George Situ (on tiebreaks over Ezekiel Liu in K-8), Kumann Liu (K-6), and Eli Minoofar (K-3) winning their sections. The Quick tournament (33 players) saw a tie among Robby Adamson, Harutyun Akopyan, and Mick Bighamian, and Roger Norman took the Action (21 players). So the total turnout was, well, almost 400.
More details, including a complete list of the winners, including those of the special prizes donated by the family of the late Joyce Jillson and by Dr. Harold Valery, can be seen at www.americanopen.org.
The Renaissance Hotel is a popular venue in the LAX area, but the loss of 40% of the anticipated space just two weeks before the tournament (a dispute with the city of Los Angeles) left directors Randy Hough and Anthony Ong scrambling, especially on Saturday when the Scholastic was held. We got some volunteer help on that occasion and again on Sunday, when Murphy's Law caused hardware problems at an inopportune moment. The players and parents were generally understanding and yes, we got some compensation from the hotel.
Chess Palace again offered a nice selection of books and equipment, this time including a special used book display. Alas, many of those books were inaccessible to younger players who've never had a reason to take five minutes to learn descriptive notation!
And for approximately the 20th straight year, we were graced by the presence of Jovan "the Great" Prokopljevic of Serbia (his daughter lives in L.A.), whose chess art always lends class to the tournament. Jovan is always ready to draw portraits of players and spectators. Demo boards for the top four, lectures by Khachiyan, Sevillano, and the ever-popular IM Jeremy Silman (whose combination of humor and instruction is irresistible), and videos added to the allure of the tournament.
At the risk of damaging some friendships, here's one more game. These two 15-year-olds met in the second round, having lost the first, and White (a recent and future Master) was out for blood, at some cost. The result was a king trek (with queens on the board) to d8, followed by a return to e1. Kind of reminded me of Napoleon's march to Moscow and back, though in this case (after Black missed several mates) White triumphed.
Huang,Vincent - Polsky,Ryan [E32]
American Open U2200 (2), 26.11.2009
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 d5 7.a3 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 b6 9.Nf3 Bb7 10.e3 Nbd7 11.Rd1 c5 12.Be2 Qc7 13.Bg3 Qc6 14.Ne5 Nxe5 15.dxe5 Ne4 16.cxd5 exd5 17.Bf3 Qe6 18.Bxe4 dxe4 19.0-0 Rfd8
At this point the silicon beast declares the position equal and recommends 20.Rd6 to forestall any Black effort to utilize the potential outpost square d3. White has other ideas and finds a way to imbalance things -- objectively, to his detriment.
20.f4?! Ba6 21.f5 Qc4 22.Bh4
Now if White can't mate, he'll be lost on the queenside.
22...Rd3 23.Rxd3 exd3 24.Qf2 Qxc3 25.Qg3 Kh7 26.e6 d2 27.exf7 Qc1 28.Qg6+ Kh8 29.Rxc1 dxc1Q+
And Black is just winning. But there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip...
30.Kf2 Qd2+ 31.Kf3 Qd1+ 32.Kf4 Qf1+ 33.Ke5 Qa1+
First slip: 33...Qe2 or 33...Qd3 maintain a huge advantage.
34.Kf4 Qf1+ 35.Ke5 Qd3
On the right track now, defending by pinning the f5 pawn as well as attacking.
36.e4 is, shall we say, more circumspect.
36...Qxe3+ 37.Kd6 Qf4+??
37...Qd3+ or 37...Qd2+ is mate in five if White interposes the bishop; four if he doesn't.
38.Be5 Rd8+ 39.Ke7?
39.Ke6 Bc4+ 40.Ke7 Qxe5+ 41.Kxd8 is more resilient. Now it's forced mate again.
39...Qxe5+ 40.Kxd8 Qb8+ 41.Kd7 Bc8+ 42.Kc6 Qb7+ 43.Kb5 Bd7+?
43...Qa6+ 44.Kc6 Qa4+ 45.Kd6 Qd7+ 46.Ke5 Qd4# ends matters.
44.Kc4 Qe4+ 45.Kc3 Qd4+ 46.Kb3 c4+?
46...Ba4+ is mate in seven...
47.Ka2 Qd2+ 48.Kb1 Qd3+ 49.Kc1 Qxa3+ 50.Kd1 Ba4+ 51.Ke1 Bb5
Black is still winning, but 51...c3 or 51...Qf8 improve.
52.Qe6 Qf8 53.h4 c3 54.f6 c2 55.Kd2
The last mistake, as Black will lose control of f8. 55...Qd8+ 56.Kxc2 gxf6 was necessary, and still winning, though the days of forced mates are gone.
56.Qe7 c1Q+ 57.Kxc1 Qc8+ 58.Kd2 Qc2+ 59.Ke3 Qc3+ 60.Kf2 Qd4+ 61.Kg3 1-0
Perhaps the biggest story of this American Open, though, is the player who wasn't there.
Jerry Hanken had participated in all 44 American Opens and saved the tournament through his organizing skills when it lost corporate sponsorship in 1990. Jerry passed away on October 1. On checking in to the hotel, I was reminded of what a great ambassador for chess he was. The desk clerk asked about Jerry, and I had to give him the sad news. A look of shock and dismay crossed his face, and he proceeded to tell me how Jerry had often talked to him about our royal game and given him things to send to his friends overseas. This one was for you, Jerry.


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Pantry Makeover: What to Stock, What to Skip
We've given you tips for the refrigerator -- now it's time to clean out that pantry! Besides tossing those expired products and wiping down those shelves, here are 5 items to stock up on and 5 things to toss.
- White rice
- Salty, fried snack foods like potato chips and corn chips
- Vegetable oil
- Sugary cereals
- Canned soups
- Whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, spelt, barley, amaranth
- Nuts
- Healthy oils like canola, olive, peanut
- Whole grain cereals
- Canned beans
Add fiber-rich whole grains packed with the antioxidant vitamin E to your daily routine. Experiment with various types of whole grains like quinoa, spelt, barley, bulgur, kamut, brown rice, amaranth and wheat berries.
Instead of salty fried snacks with empty calories and tons of fat, opt for raw or dry roasted nuts like almonds, peanuts, cashews and walnuts. Grab a handful for a fiber-rich snack high in healthy fats or combine with dried fruit and whole grain cereals to make your own trail mix.
Say goodbye to your vegetable oil and say hello to a variety of healthy oils like peanut, olive, sunflower, canola and sesame. Oils like canola, olive and peanut are high heart healthy monounsatured fats and those like sunflower, soybean and sesame are high in healthy polyunsaturated fats.
If those sugary cereals are out of sight, they'll likely be out of mind too. Stock up on a variety of whole grain cereal goodness—check our taste test to see how popular brands rated.
Toss the salty cans of soup and opt for healthier canned beans instead. Use beans to make a variety of easy dishes like soup, stew, rice and beans or toss on a green salad for some extra protein. Quick tip: rinsing canned beans can reduce the sodium by as much as 40 percent.
Toby Amidor, MS, RD, CDN, is a registered dietitian and consultant who specializes in food safety and culinary nutrition. See Toby's full bio »


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April 26, 2005
Pope Benedict XVI: "A Man With Great Humility & Gentlemanliness"
The true quality of a man or woman living a visibly public life is often best judged by personal stories about private behaviors occurring outside the glare of the public spotlight. Suzanne Fields tells such a story about her Jewish son-in-law's interactions with Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI:
When my Jewish son-in-law was a teenager, he was tutored for 15 days by Joseph Ratzinger, the new Pope. He was at a religious retreat in Munster, Germany, sent there by his teachers who were Jesuit priests. The young boy's father was dead and he was being raised by his mother, who descended from a family of Sephardic Jews who had converted to Catholicism like so many other Jews who left Spain during the Inquisition and eventually set down roots in the New World. The Jesuits wanted the young boy to be Catholic with a complete understanding of the meaning of the religion. That required that he learn how to think.
At the retreat, the boy was sworn to a fortnight of silence except for talking with his tutor. He remembers Joseph Ratzinger vividly, the most brilliant mind he had ever encountered before and since that time. Joseph Ratzinger had been through World War II, had been in the Hitler Youth and knew firsthand the irrational evils of fascism. Marxism was alive and well in the Soviet Union and behind the Iron Curtain and Joseph Ratzinger understood the dangers that emanated from the ruthless materialism of Communism in the Cold War.
But he didn't talk to the boy about such things. Instead he had him read Aristotle and Plato, the novels of Thomas Mann, the philosophy of Heidegger, and the most critical think piece of all, "The Grand Inquisitor," that powerful legend embedded in a single chapter of "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevski. For those who have never read the Russian novel or have forgotten most of what they once read, "The Grand Inquisitor" is about earthly power and spiritual power, about religious purity embodied in Christ and earthly corruption wherever it can be found, even when it's found in the church.
Dostoevski does not tell you what to think about his legend, but he requires that you think about it. The novelist was a deeply religious man and he always thought many readers missed that point about him. To this day, my son-in-law does not know Joseph Ratzinger's full interpretation of the legend, but he does know that the questions and answers he had with his tutor made him respond with great intellectual power, making him aware of how shallow his own reasoning could sometimes be about such things.
Belief was based on reason as well as faith. Fascism and Communism were "un-reasonable" and deprived men and women of freedom. Catholicism, by contrast, offered freedom from within the Judeo-Christian tradition that has been tested for thousands of years. It offers tolerance for supporting the use of reason as it is bequeathed through historical faith. It offers tolerance for the march of human progress to make the world a better place for those enslaved by dictators and who are less fortunate in their daily lives.
My son-in-law believes that the same man who tutored him is inside Benedict XVI. Having followed his ascendancy in the papal hierarchy, he sees a consistency that often passes for public misinterpretation and personal attacks such as the notorious pun calling him "God's rottweiler." He recalls the qualities in the new pope that his supporters celebrate today, a man willing to argue with different points of view, a man with great humility and gentlemanliness: A good egg, Benedict.
It seems that it takes more than a little chutzpah on the part of this Jewish columnist to interpret the ideas of the pope, but he is not without significance for all of us, because of the influence he will have on cultural attitudes. The pope's consistency grows out of his anathema to relativism when it is enshrined as truth as it is in much of our secular society today.
You don't have to be Catholic to stand with this pope against cultural theories of deconstruction rampant in our postmodern universities where language has become Orwellian, where the only absolute is that there are no absolutes, where right and wrong are considered anachronisms held by piously naďve religious men and women and where open-mindedness is so open that "educated" brains have fallen out.
My son-in-law, who is a scientist, did not convert to Catholicism. But he cherishes the Jesuitical training he had at his Catholic school that encouraged him to go to that retreat with Joseph Ratzinger, where he learned how to argue over issues concerning religion, power and personal aspiration; where he learned to examine with reason the evidence in front of him and to honor the intellectual force of an argument grounded in universal truths; and to ask questions within a disciplined framework of reason guided by a firm faith in mankind. Great teachers transcend ideology.


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Provided by: libtiff-tools_4.0.3-7_amd64
tiffmedian - apply the median cut algorithm to data in a TIFF file
tiffmedian [ options ] input.tif output.tif
tiffmedian applies the median cut algorithm to an RGB image in input.tif to generate a palette image that is written to output.tif. The generated colormap has, by default, 256 entries. The image data is quantized by mapping each pixel to the closest color values in the colormap.
-c Specify the compression to use for data written to the output file: none for no compression, packbits for PackBits compression, lzw for Lempel-Ziv & Welch compression, and zip for Deflate compression. By default tiffmedian will compress data according to the value of the Compression tag found in the source file. LZW compression can be specified together with a predictor value. A predictor value of 2 causes each scanline of the output image to undergo horizontal differencing before it is encoded; a value of 1 forces each scanline to be encoded without differencing. LZW-specific options are specified by appending a ``:''-separated list to the ``lzw'' option; e.g. -c lzw:2 for LZW compression with horizontal differencing. -C Specify the number of entries to use in the generated colormap. By default all 256 entries/colors are used. -f Apply Floyd-Steinberg dithering before selecting a colormap entry. -r Specify the number of rows (scanlines) in each strip of data written to the output file. By default, tiffmedian attempts to set the rows/strip that no more than 8 kilobytes of data appear in a strip.
This program is derived from Paul Heckbert's median program.
pal2rgb(1), tiffinfo(1), tiffcp(1), tiffcmp(1), libtiff(3TIFF) Color Image Quantization for Frame Buffer Display, Paul Heckbert, SIGGRAPH proceedings, 1982, pp. 297-307. Libtiff library home page: http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/


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What is Clipart?
ClipArt are graphic elements used to create a design. In other words, this is raster or vector picture that may have any graphic format. For instance, a raster clipart comprises of photographs, drawings, which are composed of pixels, the scanned images can be also used here.
A vector image is painted with the help of special editors, which are composed of curves and which may be edited at any time. Usually they have EPS format.
Clipart is used to create a web-design, you can also draw up bills, posters, make cards, collages and wallpapers. Thanks to ClipArt and its individual elements, the new image is created including all the elements; it looks like it's a photomontage, a creation of new design. At the same time, it will be a big plus if ClipArt goes without a background, since you do not have to waste time removing it. What's the format of this kind of image? These are wide known PNG and GIF formats; the images can be saved both with a background and without it. There are aslo scrapbook kits for creativity, which consist of png images; those are a set of elements and backgrounds.
It's really important for a designer to search for a quality clipart. Filling the base with images, backgrounds and textures. Every designer should follow the up-to-date fashion and make something new and original.


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Congratulations, Jeff!
And thanks for letting us know,Will.
This Friday morning, Wise Bread's own Jeff Yeager will be on The Today Show! In most cities the show is aired from 7:00 am to 11:00 am. [Update: here's the clip!]
Jeff is a hilarious guy so make sure you check out his segment. Here's a taste of his frugal credentials:
I only buy my clothes at stores where I can also buy pork chops, in bulk. I also "recant" (as opposed to "decant") the liquor I serve my guests, pouring cheap brands into empty premium brand bottles that I keep on hand, a practice that has never, ever been questioned by my fawning guests. I use my salad spinner to quick dry paper towels and plastic bags for reuse, and I even inject leftover jelly into day-old donuts, if the plain ones are the only kind the bakery has on sale. (link)
He'll talk about his new book The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches, and his bike tour across America to raise awareness about frugality:
Jeff Yeager, The Ultimate Cheapskate, will pedal his bicycle to peddle his new book in the Tour de Cheapskate, a series of book-tours-by-bicycle around the nation.
In addition to traveling by bicycle, Yeager hopes to economize even more by staying with fellow cheapskates along the way (only if he's invited, that is). Being a big-hearted cheapskate, Yeager will donate what he saves in expenses to local libraries along his route. Other possible tours are being researched in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and other regions. [Will's note: Jeff is still looking for hosts. Please email him at UltCheapskate (at) aol.com if you can put him up for the night]
If he's in your neighborhood, drop by his book signings and say hi to a fellow Wise Breadian! You can also listen to him on the radio.
Tour de Cheapskate Southwest
(All itineraries are subject to change.)
1/15/08 - Arrive SAN DIEGO, CA
1/16/08 - Book Signing 7:00PM: Borders Books & Music. Mission Valley Shopping Center, 1072 Camino Del Rio N., SAN DIEGO, CA 92108 Ph. 619-295-2201
1/17/08 - Cycle to POTRERO, CA Book Discussion: 7:00PM Potrero Public Library
1/18/08 - Cycle to EL CENTRO, CA - Book Signing 4:00PM: Fifth Avenue Book Center, 549 West Main Street, EL CENTRO, CA 92243 Ph. 760-337-8067
1/19/08 - Cycle to YUMA, AZ
1/20/08 - Cycle to Kofta Wildlife Refuge, AZ
1/21/08 - Cycle to SAOLME, AZ
1/22/08 - Cycle to PHOENIX, AZ
1/23/08 - Book Signing 7:00PM: Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S. McClintock Drive, TEMPE, AZ 85283 Ph. 480-730-0205
1/24/08 - Cycle to TUCSON, AZ
1/25/08 - Book Signing 7:00PM: Barnes and Noble, 5130 E. Broadway, TUCSON, AZ Ph. 520-512-1166
Tour de Cheapskate South Florida
(All itineraries are subject to change.)
2/11/08 - Arrive TAMPA, FL
2/12/08 - Book Signing 6:00PM: Inkwood Books, 216 South Armenia Avenue, TAMPA, FL
2/13/08 - Cycle to SARASOTA, FL
2/14/08 - Book Signing 7:00PM: Sarasota News & Books, 1341 Main Street, SARASOTA, FL 34326 Ph. 941-365-6332
2/15/08 - Cycle to FORT MEYERS, FL
2/16/08 - Book Signing 2:00PM: Borders Books & Music, 10037 Gulf Center Drive, FORT MEYERS, FL 33913
2/17/08 - Cycle to Lake Okeechobee, FL
2/18/08 - Cycle to MIAMI, FL
2/19/08 - Cycle to BOCA RATON, FL - Book signing 7:00PM: Barnes & Noble, 1400 Glades Road, University Commons Shopping Center, BOCA RATON, FL 33431
2/20/08 - Cycle to WEST PALM BEACH, FL
2/21/08 - Book Signing 7:00PM: Barnes & Noble, 10500 West Forest Hill Blvd., WELLINGTON, FL 33414 Ph. 561-792-1292
2/22/08 - Cycle to SEBRING, FL
2/23/08 - Cycle to TAMPA, FL
Jeff is also doing several radio shows. If there's one in your city, please call in and do a Wise Bread shout out!
1/14/2008 (Monday)
1/15/2008 (Tuesday)
1/29/2008 (Tuesday)
1/30/2008 (Wednesday)
2/11/2008 (Monday)
Frugal living is rarely portrayed in a positive light in the media. No doubt some of these radio hosts will make fun of Jeff's lifestyle--which is cool, that is a DJ's job. But please call in and support Jeff's passion for frugality. It is about time we get a good will ambassador for the Wise Bread way of life.
Disclaimer: The links and mentions on this site may be affiliate links. But they do not affect the actual opinions and recommendations of the authors.
Wise Bread is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
I read out Jeff's frugal credentials to my husband and we both had a good chuckle. I wish I had cable so I could watch the program.
I started a new blog today. Please come by and check it out: http://frugal-parents.blogspot.com/
I caught this announcement when I was working on my Endurance Frugality post; otherwise I would not have tuned into the Today Show but would have been working sans TV. I got to see most of the segment and love the bicycle idea!
Hey -
Thanks so much for the kind words about my interview. I was soooo nervous before (and during) it! Honest to God it seemed less than 10 seconds long and I truthfully didn't remember a single thing I said after is was over. When I got home, I told my poooor wife, "I can only describe it as like when you faint in a pitched fever when you have the flu."
I'm really looking forward to being a more active part of the WiseBread community as things settle down for me. In fact, I start my "Tour de Cheapskate" book-tours-by-bicycle next week and I'll be blogging ever day or so here on WiseBread about my experiences on the road (sharing some frugal tips along the way too, I'm sure).
BTW, I'll be staying with local cheapskate's and donating my expense savings to libraries along the route --- so please email me at email@example.com if you can put me up for the night. I'm going to planning tours throughout '08, so email me regardless of where you live (I'm willing to help out with household chores and I don't snore as loud as I did before the operations.)
Stay Cheap!
-Jeff Yeager
Author, The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches
PS - Here's the video link to the Today Show spot if you're interested (just paste it to your browser, even if it hurts http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22578458/
Maybe next time they should interview your wife as well. You sound like a really funny guy to live with. Great job promoting frugal living Wise Bread!


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NEW YORK – Not everyone was amused by the John Oliver send-up of a picture book by the wife and daughter of Vice President Mike Pence.
"Last Week Tonight With John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo," in which the Pence's family bunny turns out to be gay, was among the books most objected to in 2018 at the country's public libraries. The best-selling parody ranked No. 2 on the list of "challenged" books compiled by the American Library Association, with some complaining about its gay-themed content and political viewpoint.
Oliver's book, credited to staff writer Jill Twiss, was a response to the Pences' "A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo" and to the family's conservative social viewpoint. The Pences themselves did not publicly object, and daughter Charlotte Pence has even said she purchased a copy of the "Last Week Tonight" book, noting that proceeds were going to charities for AIDS and suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth.
The library association announced Monday that Alex Gino's "George," a middle-grade novel about a transgender child, was No. 1 on its list. Others included Angie Thomas' best-seller about a teen girl whose friend is shot by police, "The Hate U Give" (drug use, profanity, "anti-cop" bias); and Dav Pilkey's "Captain Underpants" series (same-sex couple, "encouraging disruptive behavior").
The report also includes Raina Telgemeier's "Drama," Jay Asher's "Thirteen Reasons Why," Sherman Alexie's prize-winning ""The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's "This One Summer" and Judy Schachner's "Skippyjon Jones" series. Books included on the list in previous years range from "To Kill a Mockingbird" to the "Harry Potter" series.
The ALA usually lists 10 books, but included 11 this year because two tied for 10th place: Gayle E. Pitman's and Kristyna Litten's "This Day in June," and David Leviathan's "Two Boys Kissing," both cited for LGBTQIA+ content and both among those burned last October in Orange City, Iowa, by the director of a "pro-family" group called Rescue the Perishing.
Deborah Caldwell Stone, interim director of the library association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said the protests from parents and other local residents about gay content reflected a "pushback" as "writers work to be more inclusive of underrepresented or marginalized communities."
The list is part of the association's "State of America's Libraries Report" and comes at the start of National Library Week, which begins Wednesday. The ALA defines a "challenge" as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." The list is based on news reports and on accounts submitted from libraries, although the ALA believes many challenges go unreported. The association tracked 347 challenges last year, compared to 356 in 2017.
"The number has been fairly steady over the past few years," Stone said.
The ALA did not have a number for books actually pulled from library shelves or moved to an adult section.
On the Internet: ala.org/bbooks/top


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Solid-state drives are so plentiful that the fact a new drive is joining the fray is almost a nonstarter. That is, almost a nonstarter. This drive, the SiliconEdge Blue, is from Western Digital and is one of the first (if not the first) solid-state hard drives to be marketed to consumers. As one of the leading consumer hard drive manufacturers today, it is significant that WD is adding SSD to complement its strong lineup of internal and external consumer drives.
Over the past two years, as SSDs trickled into the marketplace, the initial reaction of hard drive makers was to talk about SSDs' weaknesses, and how the technology wouldn't be a replacement for magnetic media. Slowly, that perspective gave way to acknowledging that hard drives and SSDs can and will co-exist. And now, we have a hard drive manufacturer that's never had a consumer play in flash taking the jump into flash. (I make this distinction because companies like Samsung and Toshiba have manufactured hard drives, and have also been traditional flash powerhouses. WD, on the other hand, is a hard drive manufacturer that pursued acquisition of a flash business, and now runs it as a separate division.)
WD is an interesting choice to do an SSD, given that it's also the company that has brought us the 10,000rpm VelociRaptor drives. Many (but not all) of the applications that benefit from a superfast 10,000rpm drive overlap between SSD and 10,000rpm drive; right now, yes, there's a huge divide in price (as in a magnitude of hundreds of dollars)…but once that distinction erodes, it begs the question of, which technology will be the one promoted? That's not a question ready for answer now, but it will be a question going forward.
The WD SiliconEdge Blue is a 2.5-inch SSD, with sequential read speeds of up to 250MB per second, and write speeds of up to 170MB per second. In conversation, WD emphasizes that its drive has been through a rigorous integrity testing procedure (over 130,000 hours of qualification), using the same swath of systems that it uses to test hard drive compatibility. WD says its lab has found incompatibilities with its competitors on the market, and that this testing ensures the drive and its firmware are optimized for the widest possible spread of system.
One of the features WD adds to the equation is what it calls advanced wear-leveling and error correction, which together extend ATA-8 TRIM-like commands to systems not running Windows 7; this means the SSD can, in the background, do the data maintenance and clean up necessary for sustaining long-term performance benefits, without user invention.
The drives carry MSRPs of $279 for a 64GB drive, $529 for a 128GB, and $999 for a 256GB. The company didn't reveal where it expects the street prices to land.


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"Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations" has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.
Purchase of Alaska, 1867
The purchase of Alaska in 1867 marked the end of Russian efforts to expand trade and settlements to the Pacific coast of North America, and became an important step in the United States rise as a great power in the Asia-Pacific region. Beginning in 1725, when Russian Czar Peter the Great dispatched Vitus Bering to explore the Alaskan coast, Russia had a keen interest in this region, which was rich in natural resources and lightly inhabited. As the United States expanded westward in the early 1800s, Americans soon found themselves in competition with Russian explorers and traders. St. Petersburg, however, lacked the financial resources to support major settlements or a military presence along the Pacific coast of North America and permanent Russian settlers in Alaska never numbered more than four hundred. Defeat in the Crimean War further reduced Russian interest in this region.
Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, believing the United States would off-set the designs of Russia's greatest rival in the Pacific, Great Britain. The looming U.S. Civil War delayed the sale, but after the war, Secretary of State William Seward quickly took up a renewed Russian offer and on March 30, 1867, agreed to a proposal from Russian Minister in Washington, Edouard de Stoeckl, to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million. The Senate approved the treaty of purchase on April 9; President Andrew Johnson signed the treaty on May 28, and Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867. This purchase ended Russia's presence in North America and ensured U.S. access to the Pacific northern rim.
For three decades after its purchase the United States paid little attention to Alaska, which was governed under military, naval, or Treasury rule or, at times, no visible rule at all. Seeking a way to impose U.S. mining laws, the United States constituted a civil government in 1884. Skeptics had dubbed the purchase of Alaska "Seward's Folly," but the former Secretary of State was vindicated when a major gold deposit was discovered in the Yukon in 1896, and Alaska became the gateway to the Klondike gold fields. The strategic importance of Alaska was finally recognized in World War II. Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959.


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Run or walk 60km over the month. That's 60km for the 60 men we lose to suicide each hour, every hour across the world.
Sign up in just minutes and join the Movember community in having fun doing good!
Grow a moustache
Patchy, lopsided, itchy or epic – whatever you Grow will save a bro.
Host a Mo-ment
Rally a crew and do something fun and easy. Have fun, doin' good.
Mo Your Own Way
Whether it's a gruelling test of physical endurance or some other wildcard idea.
Mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer – we're taking them all on.
Since 2003, Movember has funded more than 1,250 men's health projects around the world, challenging the status quo, shaking up research and motivating men to take action for their health.


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Folklore is full of loveable rogues, the sort of characters that are famous in some circles and infamous in others, and a few of them have inspired remarkable music.
The most famous example may be the legendary trickster Till Eulenspiegel, a prominent figure in German folk stories. He was portrayed in music by Richard Strauss, in the popular tone poem "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" -- a vivid portrait that seems to end with Till's execution, but then reminds us that legends are difficult to kill.
There are similar figures in other cultures. English folklore describes the heroic outlaw Robin Hood. His story appears in any number of traditional ballads, and in a set of incidental music by Arthur Sullivan. Robin even inspired an Oscar-winner, in Erich Wolfgang Korngold's flamboyant score for the 1938 Hollywood movie The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn.
But have you heard of another, similar figure among the world's folk tales -- the one called Babinsky? If not, you might try your favorite search engine. Plug in Babinsky's name -- using the first name Vaclav -- and you'll come up with plenty of hits. But most of them will be in Czech -- because his story comes from Bohemia.
In real life, Babinsky might have been little more than a common crook -- maybe even a murderer. But the Babinsky of legend is famous as a valiant "noble highwayman." And Babinsky can also be found in music, as he's a pivotal character in one of the 20th century's most popular operas -- Jaromir Weinberger's brilliant, Czech folk opera, Švanda the Bagpiper.
Weinberger was born in Prague in 1896. He got positive notices for a few of his early works, but it wasn't until Švanda appeared, in 1927, that his career took off. The opera was performed some 2000 times during the next few years, making its American debut at the Metropolitan in 1931.
Weinberger never had another success quite like it. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution, and eventually became an American citizen. But his musical career went steadily downhill, and he took his own life in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1967.
Biographer David Kushner calls him "an enigmatic and tragic figure," writing that Weinberger "longed for the return of a culture that, after the height of his career, had ceased to exist."
On World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone presents Švanda the Bagpiper from the Saxon State Opera, in a production featuring the Dresden Staatskapelle -- and while the opera is often performed in an early, German translation, the Dresden production presents it in the original Czech. The stars are baritone Christoph Pohl as Švanda, soprano Marjorie Owens as his wife Dorotka, and tenor Ladislav Elgr as the legendary Babinsky.


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MADRID — Barcelona's appeal to annul the suspension that will keep Neymar from playing in the clasico against Real Madrid was rejected by the Spanish football federation on Thursday (Friday, Manila time).
The federation appeals committee said it was not overturning the two-game suspension handed to Neymar for sarcastically applauding an assistant referee in Barcelona's 2-0 loss at Malaga on April 8.
The two-match ban was in addition to a one-game suspension he was automatically required to serve after being sent off in Malaga.
Neymar served that suspension last weekend as Barcelona beat Real Sociedad 3-2.
In addition to the clasico on Sunday, the Brazilian forward will also miss the Spanish league game against last-place Osasuna on April 26.
Barcelona is likely to appeal the committee's decision to a local sports tribunal.
Barcelona trails Real Madrid by three points with six rounds to go in the league. The two-time defending champion is coming off elimination to Juventus in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph


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Today the FCC defied the courts, the Congress, and a clear national consensus in favor of an open Internet, when it claimed the authority to regulate the Internet and passed so-called Net Neutrality regulations.
On a 3-2 vote, FCC Democrats Mignon Clyburn, Michael Copps, and Chairman Julius Genachowski voted to pass not just new Net Neutrality regulations, but an entire "framework" for future government meddling online. Republicans Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker voted against the plan.
Reports are already circulating that at least one major industry firm will sue to overturn the illegal regulations, and of course Congressional Republicans will rightly rake the FCC over the coals next year. However that said, today's result is a crippling defeat to the radicals. There weren't three votes for a much larger power grab that the FCC could have attempted today.
Mike Wendy is right and this is not a good result from the FCC. The only good result would be freedom through a hands-off approach. But there truly were possibilities far worse than a Net Neutrality framework that leaves the wireless market relatively open, does not claim the authority to set price or content controls, and leaves open so-called paid prioritization.
The deck was stacked against us throughout this process. With no Congressional majority to work with this year, and an Obama-appointed FCC controlling the process, we might not have had any leverage at all were it not for winning the House in November. That Free Press and other extremists could not get the Title II Nuclear Option in this climate, shows just how much of a fringe group they actually are.
It should be fun to watch next year's oversight hearings by incoming chairmen like Fred Upton and Darrell Issa, as well as the legislative steps taken by other outspoken Republicans like Marsha Blackburn.


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Travel Guide Europe Germany Bavaria Memmingen
Memmingen is a small city in Bavaria and has around 42,000 inhabitants. It is about one hour west of Munich. The town itself is a fine example of the typical architecture found in this part of Germany and Central Europe and has a great market square and town hall.
Getting There
By Plane
Memmingen Airport (FMM) is a small airport, mainly serving low-cost flights, for example with Ryanair, which flies to/from Alicante, Bremen, Dublin, Edinburgh, Faro, Girona, London Stansted Airport, Malaga, Oslo, Porto, Rome, Stockholm and Valencia and seasonal to/from Alghero, Palma de Mallorca, Pisa, Reus and Trapani. Several other airlines serve destinations like Kiev, Belgrade, Antalya, Heraklion, Belfast and Naples, some of them chartered and/or seasonal (summer) only. Because of its proximity to Munich, the airport is also sometimes called Munich West Airport.
You can use the form below to search for availability (Travellerspoint receives a commission for bookings made through the form)
Keep Connected
Internet cafes (rates €1.50 to €5 per hour) are starting to become less common due to widespread offers of free wifi by shops, restaurants or cafes. Sometimes it requires minimum consumption but usually it's free within the premises. Phone shops will often offer internet access, too. In general hotels offer internet access. In several cities, projects exist to provide free "community" hotspots for wireless networking. Passenger lounges at some airports and central railway stations also provide internet access to their customers.
Several pre-paid SIMs allow Internet access for a monthly flat fee, for example those available at Tchibo coffee stores (o2 network, €10/month limited to 500 MB, €20/month for 5 GB) or Aldi (E-Plus network). A regular O2 sim card, which can be used for calls and text messages, is €15 and another €15 buys 1GB of data valid for 1 month. Vodafone offers a prepaid sim card for €25 which includes €22.5 of credit, out of which you can get 300 MB of data for 2 days for €15 and be left with €7.5 of credit.
See also: International Telephone Calls
The international call prefix in Germany is 00. To dial out of Germany, dial 00, followed by country code, area code, and the telephone number (for example 00 44 1234 567890). If you're using a mobile phone, simply add the plus sign "+" before the country code to call out of Germany (for example +44 1234 567890). The general emergency number is 112 and the additional number for less emergent issues for police is 110.
Mobile phone coverage on the four networks (T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus and o2) is excellent across the whole country. UMTS (3G data and HSDPA) and EDGE is also available. UMTS is still somewhat limited to urban areas. All mobile providers use GSM technology on the 900 and 1800 MHz frequency ranges. If you stay for a longer period of time, consider buying a prepaid phone card from one of the mobile phone companies; you won't have trouble finding a T-Mobile (in a "T-Punkt"), Vodafone, E-Plus or O2 store in any major shopping area. In most supermarket chains (for example ALDI), there are prepaid SIM cards from their own virtual providers available. These are normally quite cheap to buy, but expensive for international calls (around €1–2/min), but incoming calls are always free and SMS cost around €0.09–0.19. They are available at: Aldi, Lidl, Penny, Netto, Tchibo, Rewe, toom. A registration via Internet or (expensive) phone call is necessary after buying to activate the SIM card.
The cheapest way to call abroad from Germany is to use the internet cafés run by immigrants. They sell special calling cards that give the best rate to certain countries as well as offer cheap international calls from phone booths. It is also the cheapest way to call landlines in Germany.
Germany's postal system is very efficient, their logistics branch DHL is one of the best companies in this field world-wide, with domestic post or within a radius of 400 kilometres, send within a day. The website of Deutsche Post has an online calculator for postage fees as well as a post office finder. Stamps are available at post offices and sometimes at newsagents or shops selling postcards. Also stamp vending machines can be found at a lot of places around the cities. You can purchase every stamp you need from this machines. They are unique as they accept every coin from 1 cent to 2 euro but change is only given in stamps. It costs about €40 to send a small package to Australia and €1.70 to send an old-fashioned letter to any place in the world outside of Europe. Within Germany, sending postcards costs €0.45 and standard letters €0.55, within Europe it is €0.65 for a postcard, standard letters to places in Europe cost €0.75. Outside Europe, the prices for sending a postcard or standard letter are €1 and €1.70 respectively. Although you will find the old post offices (mainly in the city centre), most of the smaller neighbourhood post offices are part of a small tobacco shop or grocery store. For larger package, you might consider competitive private companies like UPS, DHL or TNT.
External Links
Accommodation in Memmingen
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from http://utrecht.travellerspoint.com
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University of Texas Dental Branch records
- Collection
- 1906-1997
The University of Texas Dental Branch records includes historical information from 1906-1997 about the University of Texas Dental Branch formerly known as the Texas Dental College. The collection includes items such as photographs and elevation drawings for the building that was built in the 1950s. The collection also includes information about the accreditation of the school as well as it's curriculum. Curriculum resources include teacher guides, study materials, and course catalogs and schedules.
The collection also directories from UT Dental Branch as well as Texas Dental Journal and Houston District Dental Society. There is information on student graduation dating back to 1906. There is ephemera from various school events such as ground breaking, centennial celebration, and various guest speakers. There are publications in this collection including handbooks, student guides, brochures, video tape catalogs and research manuals. There are articles, library history, memorandums and information about the law that govern dentistry.
This collection is in good condition, consisting of 9.75 cubic feet (20 Boxes).
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dental Branch


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backupninja - Man Page
BACKUPNINJA — A lightweight, extensible meta-backup system
"a silent flower blossom death strike to lost data."
backupninja [ -h ] [ -v ] [ -d ] [ -n ] [ -t ] [ -f filename ] [ --run filename ]
Backupninja allows you to coordinate system backups by dropping a few simple configuration files into /etc/backup.d/. Most programs you might use for making backups don't have their own configuration file format. Backupninja provides a centralized way to configure and coordinate many different backup utilities.
- easy to read ini style configuration files.
- you can drop in scripts to handle new types of backups.
- backup actions can be scheduled.
- you can choose when status report emails are mailed to you (always, on warning, on error, never).
- console-based wizard (ninjahelper) makes it easy to create backup action configuration files.
- passwords are never sent via the command line to helper programs.
in order to backup a db or sql database, you cannot simply copy database files. backupninja helps you safely export the data to a format which you can backup.
Backup types include:
- secure, remote, incremental filesystem backup (via rdiff-backup). incremental data is compressed. permissions are retained even with an unpriviledged backup user.
- basic system and hardware information.
- encrypted remote backups (via duplicity).
- safe backup of MySQL, PostgreSQL, OpenLDAP, and subversion databases.
- burn CD/DVDs or create ISOs.
- -h, --help
Show summary of options
- -V, --version
Show backupninja version number
- -d, --debug
Run in debug mode, where all log messages are output to the current shell.
- -f, --conffile CONF_FILE
Use CONF_FILE for the main configuration instead of /etc/backupninja.conf
- -t, --test
Run in test mode, no actions are actually taken.
- -n, --now
Perform actions now, instead of when they might be scheduled.
- --run ACTION_FILE
Runs the action configuration ACTION_FILE and exits.
General settings are configured in /etc/backupninja.conf. In this file you can set the log level and change the default directory locations. See backupninja.conf(5).
To preform the actual backup actions, backupninja processes each action configuration file in /etc/backup.d according to the file's suffix. See backup.d(5).
Example Usage
- Backupninja can be used to implement whatever backup strategy you choose. It is intended, however, to be used like so:
- First, databases are safely copied or exported to /var/backups. Often, you cannot make a file backup of a database while it is in use, hence the need to use special tools to make a safe copy or export into /var/backups.
- Then, vital parts of the file system, including /var/backups, are nightly pushed to a remote, off-site, hard disk (using rdiff-backup). The local user is root, but the remote user is not privileged. Hopefully, the remote filesystem is encrypted.
- In order for this to work (ie for diff-backup to run unattended), you must create ssh keys on the source server and copy the public key to the remote user's authorized keys file. For example:
root@srchost# ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
root@srchost# ssh-copy-id -i /root/.ssh/id_dsa.pub backup@desthost
Now, you should be able to ssh from user 'root' on srchost to user 'backup' on desthost without specifying a password. When prompted for a password by ssh-keygen, just leave it blank by hitting return. The "wizard" ninjahelper(1) will walk you through these steps.
Exit Values
0 success
1 errors or warnings emitted during backup
2 one or more backup actions failed
3 syntax or usage error
/usr/sbin/backupninja main script
/etc/backupninja.conf main configuration file; general options
/etc/cron.d/backupninja runs main script hourly
/etc/logrotate.d/backupninja rotates backupninja.log
/etc/backup.d directory for configuration files
/usr/share/backupninja directory for handler scripts
/usr/share/doc/backupninja/examples example action configuration files.
See Also
ninjahelper(1), backupninja.conf(5), backup.d(5),
BACKUPNINJA was written by the riseup.net collective.
Referenced By
backup.d(5), backupninja.conf(5), ninjahelper(1).


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Small business owners in British Columbia say a new health-care payroll tax will result in higher prices for consumers as companies struggle to absorb the cost.
The NDP government announced in this week's budget that it would be phasing out medical services premiums by 2020 and instead will have an employer health tax of 1.95 per cent for companies with a payroll tax over $1.5 million.
Eric Pateman, president of the Vancouver restaurant Edible Canada, says the tax will add about $30,000 to his annual payroll costs of roughly $1.5 million.
He says with profit margins in the restaurant industry range between three to four per cent and there is little room to absorb significant labour cost increases, meaning prices will have to go up for consumers.
Al Hasham, owner of Maximum Express Courier in Victoria, says even small tax increases of one to two per cent stifles the growth of businesses, leading to staffing cuts or higher prices.
Finance Minister Carole James says only five per cent of businesses will be paying the full tax rate and those covering the existing health premiums for their employees will see savings as the fees are cut in half and then eliminated.
The Canadian Press
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Dependable Comfort
Take advantage of free WiFi and our seasonal outdoor pool
Hotel rooms include convenient amenities like free WiFi, microwave and refrigerator, free parking, vending machines, and housekeeping service. Our front reception desk staff is always ready to assist you. Start your day with a free SuperStart breakfast, take a leisurely swim in the outdoor pool, and then head out on your busy day feeling recharged.
Things to Do
Experience gaming, entertainment, and wine tasting
If you are here for an event or convention, our hotel in Fresno is ideally located, just one block away from Fresno Convention Center and less than five miles from Fresno Yosemite International Airport. The Club One Casino is just a five-minute walk from our hotel, featuring gaming, entertainment and UFC matchups. For a different pace, visit nearby wineries for a tour and tasting.
Featured Rooms & Rates
Hotel Amenities
Accessible Amenities
Plan Your Group Travel With Us
Book your wedding party, sports team, or other group travel at our hotel. Submit your request for information about special rates on blocks of rooms.


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With two scary hits on a single Sunday -- and with the fines, attention and acrimony that followed -- Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison became the symbol of a season in which the NFL tried to make clear what is and isn't the right way to tackle.
Heading into next weekend's Super Bowl against the Green Bay Packers, the Steelers view themselves simply as a hard-nosed bunch, the rightful scions of the Steel Curtain of yesteryear.
Others might use another word: dirty.
"This ain't flag football. So, of course, some collisions are going to occur, some more serious than others," Taylor explained. "Hopefully when guys do get hit, you would like for guys at least to get up. Whether they get up slow or fast, people would like for a guy to get up on his own. A lot of times that don't happen. But that's all a part of the game."
It was Taylor who head-butted Baltimore Ravens wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh early in the Steelers' 31-24 playoff victory. Perhaps it was purely a coincidence that Houshmandzadeh dropped a key pass late in that game.
"Coach always says, 'Be the first one to throw the punch.' Meaning: 'Be the first one to hit,'" Taylor said this week. "Let them know what they're going to get for 60 minutes."
When the Steelers beat the New York Jets 24-19 in the AFC Championship Game, Harrison landed hard on Mark Sanchez, even though the quarterback did one of those "Don't hit me!" feet-first slides on a scramble. On the next play, Pittsburgh linebacker James Farrior hit New York running back Shonn Greene facemask-to-facemask.
Back on Oct. 17, the day helmet-to-helmet and other improper tackling really came to the fore, Harrison sidelined two Cleveland Browns with jarring hits that resulted in head injuries.
His weren't the only frightening shots that day, and he wasn't the only player fined by the league. But Harrison's personal total of fines this season was more than what the entire Packers team was docked, based on a review of Associated Press reports on fines levied against players for on-field actions. And Harrison complained about it.
Harrison spoke about retiring, met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and eventually had his fines reduced because the league determined the linebacker adjusted his techniques to play within the rules.
"It's starting to look like: 'It's OK to cheat, it's OK to fight, but if you hit somebody too hard, we're going to fine you a whole bunch,'" Harrison said last month. "Maybe it's because I play for the Steelers. Who knows?"
Such attention isn't limited to Pittsburgh's defense.
Wide receiver Hines Ward, for example, has his own reputation, based in part on a hit that broke an opponent's jaw during the 2008 season and led to a change in rules governing blocking.
"Our guys, I think, called him 'the toughest guy in the league -- when nobody's looking.' That's the mentality," Jets defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said of Ward before the conference title game. "And again, that works for them. He's kind of the spark that gets them going."
Against Baltimore two weeks ago, Pittsburgh offensive lineman Chris Kemoeatu was penalized for jumping into the pile and spearing an opponent with his helmet after the go-ahead touchdown play was long over, resulting in a penalty assessed on the ensuing kickoff.
"We're not dirty, we're physical," reserve defensive lineman Nick Eason said. "I don't think any of our guys play dirty. Football is a violent game played by violent men. I believe our team, we play violent, we play very physical, but I don't think we play dirty."
In what is expected by many to be a close, defense-dominated Super Bowl -- linebacker Clay Matthews and the rest of the Packers allowed the second-fewest points in the NFL this season -- a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness might make the difference.
So might a hit that knocks out a quarterback: Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers sustained two concussions this season (and denied he had another on the helmet-rattling hit that earned Chicago Bears defensive lineman Julius Peppers a $10,000 fine in the NFC Championship Game); Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger missed time last season with a head injury.
"That's the way we played, and that's the way they play now," said Rocky Bleier, a running back on those title teams decades ago.
"It is necessary to understand the impact of concussions and head injuries and how it affects players. And what the league is doing is important. But you get labeled. ... You start to look at those guys differently, I guess," Bleier said. "But it is their job to hit harder than others. If you can do it and survive, that is what the fans want and what the team wants. They are not looking to take you out of the game or hurt you. They want to beat you."
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press


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|Winning the Irish National Champs Road Race (photo by Barry from IrishCylingPhotos.com)
After my silver medal at the National TT Champs, I had already achieved my aim and could go into the road race relaxed. I still consider road racing a bit more of a lottery, you not only have to be fit and strong, but you also have to be able to take the right decision at the right time, making use of opportunities as they arise. I guess with experience you become better at recognizing and using these opportunities, but I am not kidding myself, I know I still have a lot to learn on that side when surrounded by seasoned professionals.
|Women's Championships starting off (photo by Nadia Gativa)
The course was seven laps of a 12.5km loop (total 88km), about 6km of a bumpy/hilly road on the way out along the Suir, over a bridge, then a pretty flat and fast way back to the town along the river with the finish on the middle of the bridge. The weather was blustery with a headwind on the way out and there were some strong showers.
|Olivia pushing the pace up the hills (photo by Nadia Gativa)
|Suffering in the rain (Photo by Nadia Gativa)
|Up and over along the river Suir (photo by Nadia Gativa)
|Crossing the finish line first! (photo by tipperaryphotos.com)
The four of us worked fairly well together into the last lap, with Olivia trying to get away a few times, but we didn't let her go. Olivia attacked with about 3km to go, but we were on her wheel, then she tried again at 1km to go, which is about 600m before the last corner onto the bridge, but again we didn't let her get away. We rode around the left-hand corner onto the wide bridge and the three girls went onto the right side of the road, but I stayed on the left. I had thought that one of the girls would attack out of the corner, with 400m to go and wanted to be on the shorter route, but nobody went and I found myself alone on the left. I kept travelling the same speed, on my side of the road, waiting for one of them to start sprinting to the line, so that I would start too, but when the 200m sign came up and they still hadn't started their sprint, I decided I might as well go myself and sprinted like a possessed mad cow, head bopping, eyes crossing, hoping I can keep it up before someone comes around me. I knew I had won when I crossed the line.
|I won! (Photo by Nadia Gativa)
|Elite women's podium: Siobhan Horgan (2nd), Mel Spath (1st), Olivia Dillon (3rd) (photo by Nadia Gativa)
Secondly, I want to thank my friend, bike mechanic, masseur, soigneur, organizer and mental supporter Stewart Carr (yes, all in one person!), who tirelessly helps out at races, making sure that I have a world class set up, so that the only thing I need to do is to pedal. He's one of the most valuable people to have around in a race - doesn't matter what happens or breaks, Stew can sort it out.
On top of a world class coach and set up, I am also lucky to have the support of my sponsors who make it possible for me to ride on world class equipment. First and foremost I want to thank Cycleways/Specialized for their ongoing, growing and loyal support. Thank you for providing me with a world class road frame to ride this year - I bet you didn't think it'll be a champions frame by the end of it! Now I just have to make sure that the mountain bike gets the same honour.
I would also like to thank my nutrition sponsor ZipVit for their ongoing support. You play a big part in my success.
|ROARRRR!!!! (Photo by Nadia Gativa)
Thanks also to all the people in Cycling Ireland who have supported me in the process of declaring to ride for Ireland. I have lived in Ireland for the past twelve years - it is such an honor for me to be able to wear the Irish Champions jersey and I'll wear it with pride both in Ireland and internationally. I may have been born in Germany, but my cycling is 100% Irish born!
I am so overwhelmed by the support of the Irish Cycling community, I have never before felt so many people being happy for me at winning this race - this completely reassures me that my decision to declare for Ireland was right.
Finally, I'd like to thank the race organization and Clonmel CC for putting on such a well organized, great and very safe event. I thoroughly enjoyed the race and I am already looking forward to the Suir Valley 3 day on the August Bank Holiday Weekend, another great event in beautiful countryside.
See, I really only played a small part in it!
My Strava file from the road race champs: http://app.strava.com/activities/11687571
Live updates:


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Home > News > New panel aims to settle Israeli-Palestinian business disputes
19 November, 2013
SFI says: Visitors to the EcoStream demonstrations against the BDS are familiar with their 'Don't Talk To Zionists' policy and close-minded refusal to engage in dialogue. What does that make real Palestinians who engage with Israelis? Honestly, BDS: Wake up and smell the humous!
BY Maayan Lubell – Reuters – Jerusalem Novermber 18, 2013
Arbitration center seeks to enhance bilateral trade between Israel and the West Bank, provide safety net for business people forced to meet at roadblocks, cash and goods in hand.
Israeli and Palestinian businessmen, who sometimes have to exchange suitcases of cash for goods at military checkpoints, will soon be able to settle any commercial disputes on neutral ground.
An Israeli former peace negotiator, Oren Shachor, and Palestinian tycoon Munib al-Masri have founded the Jerusalem Arbitration Center, in a rare example of cooperation aimed at bypassing the political pitfalls of decades of conflict.
The center, inaugurated on Monday, aims to enhance bilateral trade between Israel and the West Bank now at an annual $4 billion.
The private initiative has received a grant from the Israeli government and is supported by the Palestinian Authority, organizers said.
Israeli and Palestinian companies have been relying on a mechanism provided by the Oslo Accords, which launched limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, to resolve commercial disputes.
But officials of the new center, which will be under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce, said thousands of cases are stalled in Israeli courts or by political and security-related obstacles.
Many of the transactions between Israeli and Palestinian businesses are in cash because of Israeli concerns that funds transferred to banks in the West Bank could wind up in the hands of militant groups.
The arbitration center could provide a safety net for business owners who meet at Israeli military roadblocks at the entrance to the West Bank, with bags of money and goods in hand.
"Our objective is for Israeli and Palestinian business people to come to us, the JAC, because they know they will get an efficient, effective and impartial, fair process," said the center's secretary general, Nadia Darwazeh.
Center officials said they hope the availability of arbitration will lead to an increase in Israeli-Palestinian business ties and attract foreign investment. Two-thirds of the annual trade between Israel and the West Bank consists of Israeli exports to the territory.
Last month, the World Bank reported the Palestinian economy in the West Bank shrank for the first time in a decade in the first half of 2013. It blamed the 0.1 percent contraction on a decline in foreign budget support to the aid-reliant Palestinian government and a myriad of restrictions imposed by Israel.
Israel, which captured the West Bank in 1967 Six Day War, has said restrictions on Palestinians have eased in recent years. Palestinians, who are engaged in peace talks with Israel, seek to establish a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The center's arbitration panel will have nine members, including its president, a Turkish national who heads his country's international chamber of commerce. The Israeli and Palestinian international chambers of commerce will each fill two seats, and the other four members will be nominated by the panel's president.
Center officials said it hopes to handle 10 to 15 cases in its first year. Its purview does not include the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.


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Usama bin Laden movie to air weekend before election
(CNN) -- Two days before Election Day on November 6, a movie detailing the raid that killed Usama bin Laden will air on the National Geographic Channel, the cable network announced Thursday, October 4th.
The film is being distributed by the Weinstein Company, owned by a Harvey Weinstein, a major backer of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.
Titled, "SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Usama bin Laden," the feature-length film will chronicle the raid in Pakistan, an event that Obama's campaign touts as one of his crowning achievements.
The timing of the film will likely draw some critics, as some may speculate the TV movie could portray the president in a positive light and have an impact on voters just days before they head to the polls.
It's expected to take a similar tone as another movie about bin Laden's death, "Zero Dark Thirty," which is set to hit theaters December 19. The project stirred controversy last year when it was reported that the film was slated for an October release, right ahead of the election. However, actors and producers with the film maintain it always had a December release date.
The director of "Zero Dark Thirty," Kathryn Bigelow, and the producer of the National Geographic Channel film to air in November have previously worked together on a separate film, "The Hurt Locker."
CNN's Rachel Wells contributed to this report.


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I say this because City Council doesn't have any right-wing members, despite what Mike Nikel's opponents say about him every year.
Anyways, twin stories of note in the Edmonton SUN:
Idling law too hard to enforce.(and you wonder why I celebrated how that useless sodomite Michael Phair has left politics)
Mayor Stephen Mandel says he isn't convinced bringing in rules restricting how long vehicles can idle would be a good fit for Edmonton.
He questioned how such a crackdown could be enforced.
"It's about enforcement and the feasibility of it," Mandel said. "We may be better off doing something different."
Councillors Michael Phair and Dave Thiele are calling for a crackdown on idling vehicles.
But then, wait. Contrast this with Edmonton's insane cab policy (which is partly responsible for Whyte Avenue violence, along with the Whyte Ave bar cap...also opposed by Phair the man-boy-love champion ass pirate).
Taxi tensions rise: Cabbie predicts feud will erupt this summerEr, so wait a minute. The city is looking at cutting back greenhouse gas emissions by banning idling across Edmonton. But then when it comes to cab drivers violating city bylaws by taking passengers both to and from the airport now suddenly there will be a crackdown. Does anybody with half a brain not realize that the net impact of this action will be twice the number of cab trips to and from the airport?
An escalating war between cabbies from competing companies has the city imploring drivers to take a chill pill and cut out "vigilante-style actions."
The feud began when Leduc-based Airport Taxi Service was awarded exclusive rights last year to the international airport.
Only their drivers can pick up passengers at the gateway, though any company can still do drop-offs.
Since then, Edmonton cabbies have complained Airport Taxi Service drivers have been illegally waiting outside Edmonton hotels, without having a pre-arranged pick-up.
A subsequent investigation found no evidence of Airport Taxi Service drivers trolling hotels for customers, according to a city report. But it's still caused tensions to flare.
Airport driver Abbi Farh said he's constantly being harassed verbally by cabbies when he's in the city.
"I don't want to get into a fight with anybody," Farh told Sun Media. "You just try to be professional with these guys, but they push you, they want to make you mad so you lose it."
Hassan Idris, also an airport driver, said two weeks ago he dropped off a customer at a downtown hotel and was confronted by another cabbie, who warned he better not be picking anyone up.
"There's something strange going on, especially downtown," said Idris, who wasn't picking anyone up.
A city report released Thursday said there have been many confrontations reported.
"In most cases, the incident was some form of verbal abuse, shaking or spitting on the vehicle, sometimes while a passenger was inside," states the document.
The incidents have all been initiated by the Edmonton cabbies, according to the city.
Due to "reports of escalating disorder," city drivers last month were told by Edmonton Taxi Cab Commission chairman Clint Mellors to "do everything in their power to bring to a close the vigilante-style actions happening on our city streets between competing taxi companies," the report states.
While pre-arranged pick-ups by out-of-town cab companies have been allowed in Edmonton, they're technically illegal under city bylaws, according to the report. Mellors told Sun Media taxi inspectors are going to begin cracking down.
"It's our bylaw and we will be enforcing it," he said.
For those out of town, let me show you what the trip from downtown Edmonton to the airport is like, courtesy of Google maps: 29.9 kilometres, 30 minutes on a smooth no traffic day (good luck!). Now look at what we get if you are going from a semi-random address in the north end to the airport. Any thought how much idling it would take for you to equal the emissions involved in taking that trip for no apparent reason? Yet according to Edmonton City Council, idling is evil and two cab trips where one would do is perfectly acceptible.


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BEIJING—The plight of stray cats in Beijing has long drawn the sympathy of Juan "Crystal" Wang. The demure, soft-spoken young woman has spent the past few years placing forlorn felines in good homes.
View a slide show of the animal market
But more recently, she boosted the fortunes of larger cats as well by helping expose the fact that the Xiongsen Bear & Tiger Zoo near the city of Guilin was killing the endangered cats in its "zoo" and serving the meat at its snack bar or dropping the carcasses into vats of wine. (The tiger additive was intended to replicate a now banned traditional Chinese medicine treatment for rheumatism of tiger bone powder in wine; that concoction also is hawked online and in newspaper ads as a cure for all ailments.)
But today Wang is taking me to a pet market, as part of her work for a U.S.-based animal protection group, the International Fund for Animal Welfare—or, as it's translated into Chinese, the "International Animal Love and Care Fund". In general, the Chinese have so far found it difficult to embrace the concept of providing welfare for animals when so many people don't have it, Grace Ge Gabriel, IFAW's regional director for Asia explained to me later.
That doesn't mean they don't love pets. Throughout the city, I saw residents strolling the streets with petite Pekingese dogs. And this animal market—a sprawling rundown building honeycombed with cubicle-size stores and pierced by grungy skylights that filter the strong Beijing light—boasted scores of twittering songbirds, mewling kittens and chirping crickets. A young girl laughed with glee as she walked with her father carrying two songbirds in a large metal cage.
The critters—a profusion of different varieties and sizes from tiny turtle to giant carp—must make do with close quarters. So close, that one good-size turtle—wider than a dinner plate—couldn't turn around in its tank and the rabbits confined in wire pens could not move at all.
But four-legged and finned friends have value beyond mere companionship in China: they are food and fodder for healing balms. The pet market boasted many of the same animals (if slightly smaller in size) as the markets for live food that I have seen. In another example, a fish dealer in a farm produce market in Zhejiang Province tried to sell a 25-pound (11.5-kilogram) turtle that he mistook for a rock before it moved, according to the Shanghai Morning Post. And Beijing has a locally famous restaurant that serves all manner of different animal penises, which are supposedly good for vigor. "The Chinese believe that eating the same part of the animal is good for that part of you," Gabriel explained.
That belief extends to traditional Chinese medicine. When Wang and I visited a Beijing shop, I did not find any tiger bone powder for sale (not even the "tiger" powder containing leopard bones that began to be sold after the Chinese government banned the sale of the striped predator's skeletal remains). I did, however, find deer and seal penis—imported from Canada!—as well as tablets made from essence of kangaroo, sheep placenta extract, and fur seal oil, all of which are thought to be good for the mind and general health.
Although animal ingredients are used, the majority of such traditional treatments rely on bitter herbs and flowers to cure everything from insomnia to high cholesterol, as I found out after submitting to an examination by a trained doctor at the store. Using an electrical penlike device to prod various regions of my right hand, the physician asked me if I felt anything. She ran the device along the heel of my hand, producing a tingling feeling—which apparently meant that I had back trouble.
Poking the middle part of my hand yielded a diagnosis that confirmed what I already knew: I had not been sleeping well and I had sinus problems—perhaps from the bad Beijing air? The doctor selected specific herbs to cure these woes, at which point Wang fortunately helped me beat a hasty retreat.
During the car ride to meet Gabriel, Wang showed me a snapshot of a wee kitten on her cell phone. When she found him, she explained, he was no bigger than the palm of her hand; now he is a big, fat cat living contentedly with his adoptive family. And that former kitten—and others like him that still roam Beijing's streets at night—may have helped to save its larger and more endangered cousin by inspiring Wang's helpful actions. The tigers in their tiny metal and concrete cages may not be free, but at least they are no longer on the menu or in the wine.