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Beyond Biodynamics Smith Madrone Wines in the Spotlight
Smith-Madrone winery has been making estate grown and bottled wine for 40 years! Founded in 1971 by brothers Stu and Charles Smith, Smith-Madrone makes about 4000 cases per year farmed from their 200 acre ranch in St Helena California. A visit to the winery will always be accompanied by a tour from one of the Smith brothers.
In 2010, Stu Smith became somewhat of a wine world personality with the launching of his www.biodynamicsisahoax.com web site. From the opening paragraph of the web site:
"I challenge any Biodynamic farmer or supporter to defend the writings of Rudolf Steiner. I submit that if you believe in science you cannot believe in Biodynamics, and the corollary is just as true, if you believe in Biodynamics you cannot believe in science. As you can tell by the title I believe that Biodynamics is a hoax and deserves the same level of respect the scientific community has for witchcraft, voodoo and astrology."
I'm a fan of sustainable and responsible growing and distribution of wine and do not claim to be an expert on the subject but the practices of bull horns and cow manure don't seem to have any bearing on quality grapes. So, this post isn't about biodynamics…It's about two Smith-Madrone wines. If you want to know more about biodynamics (and Stu's view) click the video from Cork'd.
The Nectarview
- The Stuff: 100% estate grown Riesling. The 2009 growing season resulted in the lowest Riesling yield in Smith-Madrone history. With only 302 cases produced the bone dry Riesling comes in at 12.9%ABV
- The Swirl: Very light in the glass, almost colorless with just hints of golden straw
- The Sniff: Amazingly vibrant nose that explodes with aromas of apple, pear and a nice minerality. This wine makes my mouth water with ever sniff.
- The Sip: Quality Riesling through and through. A wonderful kiss of sweet Asian pear graces the front of the tongue accompanied by a balanced tart citrus on the mid palate. Wonderful flavor profile with outstanding acidity and a balanced finish.
- The Score: At $27, this is more than I would spend without having had some experience or strong recommendation for this wine. So, here it is…if you're a Riesling lover, you will like this wine. 4/5
- The Stuff: 100% big bold and bombastic Napa Valley Chardonnay. Aged for 11 months in 70% new French oak. 14.4% ABV, 790 cases produced
- The Swirl: Very light in the glass, lacks the traditional yellow gold color one comes to expect from Chardonnay.
- The Sniff: Immediately get a blast of cedar, smoke and earth. The nose has to really dig deep to catch a whiff of the granny smith apple. A nice minerality starts to present itself upon a second visit.
- The Sip: I'm a fan of slightly oaked Chardonnay and this one delivers on that front. The fruit seems to be a little more hidden than I would have initially liked. After the video review I enjoyed this wine with an Indian Curry based dish and it really came alive. The mouth feel was thick without being overly exaggerated. The presentation of the mineral acidity on the finish was a nice touch.
- The Score: At $30, I enjoyed the wine, but I preferred the 2007 vintage. Give this one a try in the tasting room if you think you'll be on the fence at that price. 3/5
More from Smith-Madrone Winery
- http://biodynamicshoax.wordpress.com/
- http://www.1winedude.com/index.php/2011/01/25/1winedude-radio-episode-5-stu-smith-talks-about-debunking-biodynamics/
Tags: Chardonnay, Napa, Riesling


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Extra, extra
By BY
A la Slate's "Today's Papers," I glean the best stuff from the country's top three newspapers so you don't have to:
"Forging Ahead in Moscow," from the LA Times
Persey Tours was barely keeping the bill collectors at bay before it started offering fake vacations last year. Now it's selling 15 a month — providing ersatz ticket stubs, hotel receipts, photos with clients' images superimposed on famous landmarks, a few souvenirs for living room shelves. ... Of course, it's not the real thing. But in Russia, this is a distinction that easily can drift into irrelevance. If there is a world capital of audacious fabrication, it must be Moscow, where fake is never a four-letter word.
"Tom Wolfe's Washington Post," from, duh
"At a Washington party," Thomas Wolfe once observed, "it is not enough that the guests feel drunk; they must feel drunk and important." Classic Wolfe! Piercingly funny and perceptive... instantly quotable... exposing the vanities of the elite. So why is it so... unfamiliar? Because you won't find the line in the familiar Wolfe canon -- "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," "The Right Stuff," "Bonfire of the Vanities." No, it was discovered in a vast unexplored trove: the daily journalism Wolfe produced as a police and features reporter for a full decade before he morphed, in the mid-1960s, into... Tom Wolfe.
"Flesh Trade," from the NYT Mag's Freakonomics column
How's this for a repugnant situation? Take someone you love, perhaps your spouse or your sibling, and find a stranger who will accept a really big bet that your loved one will die prematurely — and if indeed that happens, you pocket a few million dollars. This, of course, is how life insurance works. And most Americans don't find this idea repugnant at all. They used to, however. Until the mid-19th century, life insurance was considered "a profanation," as the sociologist Viviana Zelizer has written, "which transformed the sacred event of death into a vulgar commodity."


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To use bundler with a Sinatra application, you only need to do two things. First, create a Gemfile.
gem 'sinatra'
Then, set up your config.ru file to load the bundle before it loads your Sinatra app.
require 'bundler'
require './my_sinatra_app'
run MySinatraApp
Start your development server with rackup, and Sinatra will be loaded via Bundler.
$ bundle exec rackup


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This photo as a card: See my gallery at Zazzle
If you like my work, stories and recipes, please take a moment to vote for me in the category you see fit. Vote here. Thanks for your support!
All photographs and written content on What's For Lunch, Honey? © 2006-2007 Meeta Albrecht unless otherwise indicated. | All rights reserved | Please Ask First


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Tomorrow, Sunday, (it's Saturday afternoon in Chiang Mai as I write) is election day for the Thai Senate. I know an election is going on because of all the signs up and the election trucks. Plus where I work they are supporting one of the candidates and so there was election work going on and the truck have been at our compound. But I wasn't sure of the date.
Apparently, according to this Bangkok Post story not that many Thais really know that much about the election either.
There's a senate election?
By Mongkol Bangprapa
Despite campaigns by the Election Commission (EC), fewer than 30 per cent of Thais were able to tell a pollster that they know there is to be an election for 76 senators countrywide on March 2.
According to the latest Suan Dusit poll by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, of the 3,266 people surveyed, only 29 per cent could tell the interviewers how important the election is for the parliament, while 57 per cent said they had "scant knowledge" of it.
A surprising 12 per cent of respondents admitted they knew nothing of the coming election.
Most people surveyed admitted they were less aware of the senate election than they were of the Dec 23 election for House of Representatives.
There are 18 people running for the seat from Chiang Mai I was told - one seat per province - and the candidate my Thai colleagues are supporting is one of the candidates who has a chance to win. They think he needs at least 100,000 votes. This is for the Senate.
74 people have already been appointed to the Senate, according to MCOT English News. The rest get elected tomorrow.
Election Commission names 74 appointed senators
BANGKOK, Feb 19 (TNA) - Thailand's Election Commission on Tuesday announced the appointment of 74 members of the Senate who will represent half of the Upper House while the other half will be elected nationwide on March 2.
The 74 senators represent a ratio of 6 men to one woman. The oldest is 72 years old and the youngest 42.
EC secretary general Sutthiphon Thaweechaikarn said the appointed senators came from diverse backgrounds including academics (15), government officials (14), private sector (15), various professions (15) and other sectors (15).
They represent almost every field of career from university lecturer to former national legislator, lawyer, journalist, medical officer, nurse, engineer, architect, former provincial governor, farmer, university student, telecommunication specialist and financial expert.
Bangkokians dominate the list with 43 representatives while five are from the South, three from the North, two from the Northeast and 21 from the central region.
Asked if there has been behind-the-scenes lobbying for the seats, Mr. Sutthiphon affirmed that the screening committee has thoroughly and carefully studied the background of each appointee and the votings among committee members were carried out in an open manner.
The EC allows 30 days for anyone objecting to the appointment to file his/her complaint while those disagreeing with the screening committee's decision can file their complaints with the Supreme Court within one year.
The appointed senators will be in office for three years. The other 76 senators, one from each province, will be elected nationwide on March 2. They will serve for six years. (TNA)


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Hurrah! A Bolt of Light! headlined a set at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2 last night. It was their final residency show. They've played every Friday in May 2012 at 10pm on Stage 2. I've heard about them for quite a while now but this was my first time seeing them play.
I'd describe them as non-stop, hard-charging, loud (but balanced) rock. A number of people broke out dancing during many numbers and those that didn't were certainly bobbing, swaying, tapping, stomping and generally unable to simply stand still.
Wil Farr is the front-man, singing on every number and playing electric guitar. He has a very good voice, but in classic hard rock fashion, it often feels like he's screaming at the audience. He played mostly rhythm guitar last night (Hurrah also has a lead guitarist) but he did take one sweet lead.
I've seen Wil perform with Abby Payne as well. He's also producing her upcoming CD. This is the first time I've seen him front and center.
Rebecca Haviland on vocals. If anyone is responsible for us going out to see Hurrah (yes, I've shortened it), it's Rebecca. Basically, we'll go see anything she's in. Her voice is always great. She and Wil really get into each song and display a passion that is also classically rock.
Jacob Pleakis on grand piano, electronic keyboards and vocals. Jacob is one of two people in Hurrah that I've never seen before. He was quite good on the keys and quite passionate on the vocals as well.
Kenny Shaw on drums. If you've read this space before, you don't have any questions as to my opinion of Kenny. Hurrah's music is particularly hard-charging and Kenny was working equally hard (but making it look and sound easy!). Absolutely fantastic drumming. The fact that he was in constant motion the entire set before made it all the more impressive.
Doug Drewes on electric bass. Doug is the other member who I've never seen before. He too was quite good on the bass (no surprise given the rest of the talent in the band).
Dave Freedman on electric guitar. I just heaped a lot of praise on Dave a few weeks back when we saw him perform with The Thang Band at Lagond Music School. He was even better last night in this set, where he takes more frequent leads. He even spoke a bit into the mic and I think he sang a bit as well. I wasn't sure before that he ever opened his mouth. It seemed he was satisfied to let his guitar do the talking.
Hurrah themed each of the weekly residency shows, mixing their originals with those of a specific band. Last night was The Pixies.
Jay Stolar headlined the set before them and toward the end of their set they called him up to sing with them. After the song was over, they invited anyone who appeared in Jay's to join. Kenny was already on stage, but four more members stepped up to the plate.
Jay Stolar stayed on stage to sing. Jason Wexler joined Jacob at the keyboards. Rob Pawlings played the cowbell. I still can't believe that I could actually hear every strike of the cowbell with 11 people on stage all making some kind of noise, but I could, and I liked it!
Seth Faulk and Jim Perry each grabbed tambourines and help keep the lively beat. It was controlled mayhem.
Here's the set list:
Summary: the crowd loved it, and I appreciated the driving rhythm and individual talents. It just isn't the type of music that I want to listen to for long stretches, so I'm not sure I'll be catching future shows. They won't miss me, they have quite a following!


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I wish to serve my country and the national interest in the best way possible. Now women are to be allowed to serve on the front line becoming an infantry officer is a real possibility. But there are hurdles for the Australian military to overcome in these challenging, yet hopeful times.
Politics and policy
First, we cannot separate the politics from the policy. The Minister for Defence has declared that the policy of opening all ADF roles to women will be rolled out within five years.
I believe in gender equality in the armed services, but we should be clear about the timing of the announcement and its impact on this deadline.
Although political intentions can lead to progressive and positive outcomes, there will be pressure to produce the ADF's first female Infantry platoon commander within the alloted timeframe.
There is every chance that the right women will pass through the ranks of Duntroon, the Army's officer academy, or the Australian Defence Force Academy, a tri-service educational institution.
But the political reality is that without such a woman produced by that time, there is a risk that a focus on numbers as a measure of success may drive a particular outcome.
Physical standards
There is also confusion about physical standards.
The policy has been announced without a detailed plan of implementation; in particular, without any indication as to whether physical standards will be raised or lowered. As it stands, there are currently different physical fitness requirements for men and women wishing to enter the ADF.
We don't know whether the final requirements for each ADF role will be the higher set of standards (that is, those for males) or will fall in between the standards.
If the physical standards are high, particularly for infantry and special forces units, and only a few women pass, then that is the reality of the situation.
The ADF will have a small proportion of willing and able women in these units. This only becomes problematic if it runs counter to political expectations of what sort of outcome would be achieved with the gender policy reform.
If standards are lowered, then there is some credence to protests of critics who predict a diminution of combat effectiveness.
Ultimately, it will be up to the Defence Science and Technology Organisation/University of Wollongong program to provide comprehensive research supported by robust data to determine the correct physical requirements commensurate with expected combat effectiveness.
Unit cohesion
There are legitimate concerns that unit cohesion will be affected. This is particularly important for the infantry, and essential for mission accomplishment. More women will be encouraged to apply in light of institutional and legal barriers being lifted, but the proportion of women in combat units is unlikely to be significant in number.
That said, a robust understanding of the realistic challenges these demographic changes will mean, especially for the infantry, is paramount.
An army is a complex system of individuals who, in arduous physical and psychological circumstances, must work cooperatively and efficiently in defence of the national interest.
The introduction of women in combat units will not rupture their espirt de corps but it will bring a range of psychological challenges to bear between soldiers and within units.
It will fall to unit commanders and army psychologists to manage these challenges but not without greater support from the Defence organisation.
Let me take the extreme case of an Infantry platoon deployed at length to Afghanistan chronicled in Sebastian Junger's book, "War".
It is a visceral account of modern warfare that focuses on close quarters combat and intra-soldier relations. What Junger depicts is an extraordinary level of "brotherhood" forged between the men of Battle Company through a shared experience of killing, death, bullying, hazing, sexual deprivation, and immense psychological and emotional pressure.
Initiation into the unit is conducted by way of physical beating by the entire platoon, a practice tacitly condoned by officers who themselves undergo this process.
Whether these practices are right or wrong, an important question to ask is, how seminal are these experiences and these bonds to the role of fighting and killing in war?
Whether a woman would want to undergo such rites of passage in this case is immaterial. The question is, what sort of informal initiation processes actually exist and can be expected? Would male colleagues subject their female counterparts to this?
It is not to say that these sorts of practices necessarily exist in the Australia, or cannot change over time, but we must be open minded about the reality of what certain soldiers experience.
Female exceptionalism
Isolated cases of female snipers and Nancy Wakes are not enough in themselves to justify a cultural shift without adequate understanding of human complexities. Nancy Wake is often cited as proof that women can fight and kill alongside male operatives, but hers was a very different time and exceptional circumstance.
The very fact we celebrate her life and death with such fascination (noting that she was one of many other Special Operations Executive agents) suggests a sense of female exceptionalism that must be, over time, dismantled. Thus, the integration of women into all kinds of combat roles requires careful study.
It has been a momentous week for women in the ADF but we should pause to consider just what we're asking men and women in uniform to do.


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Med Science Research brings you evidence-based information, straight science, and data from medical journals.
Med Science Research is not designed to review studies, but instead to highlight and categorize them in an organized fashion for the user to review.
A special thank you is in order to our Scientific Advisory Board for all of their assistance.
Call to action: "Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act."
Please share this website with the world!
Note: It is not uncommon for authors of studies to place an obligatory mention of vaccine safety in order to have their research accepted for publication in pharmaceutical funded journals.
This website is not designed to give medical advice.
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This Keychain Comes With:
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1050 CFM Dominator Carburetor (0-8896-1)
- Description
Estimated Ship Date: 11/13/2023
The original Dominator® took carburetion to another level in 1969 when it was developed for NASCAR® racing. Holley Dominator carburetors are designed specifically for making top end horsepower and torque in high end racing engines and are the perfect carburetor for the budget minded racer.
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The Classic Dominator carburetors are available in 2 or 3 circuit configurations and your choice of 1x4 or 2x4 set-ups. The Classic Dominator is also offered in a methanol or marine calibration.


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The wildest week in Wall Street history ended with a second day of gains.
The Dow Jones industrial average finished Friday with a gain of 125 points. Most other times it would have been a fairly big day. By this week's standards, it was a sleeper. Friday capped a week when the blue-chip index had four 400-point swings in a row for the first time in its 115-year history.
Trading was frantic across financial markets all week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit a record low. Gold briefly topped $1,800 per ounce. Nearly every one of the 500 stocks that make up the Standard & Poor's 500 index ended down midweek.
"It was a sharp and violent week in the stock market, but it's my sense that the worst is over," said Michael Kaufler, a portfolio manager at Federated Investors.
Investors reacted to every scrap of news and each whispered rumor. A credit downgrade for the U.S.. Concerns about European bank solvency. Fears of a possible new recession in the U.S. Word that the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates low for two more years because of slowing growth. A positive retail sales report. Strong earnings from a technology bellwether. Better unemployment news.
The Dow dropped 634 points Monday, its sixth-worst point drop ever, as investors responded to Standard & Poor's withdrawal of the country's AAA credit rating. It was the first downgrade of U.S. government debt in history. The Dow rose 429 points Tuesday, only to plunge 519 points Wednesday. It surged 423 points on Thursday following a better than expected drop in new applications for unemployment benefits.
A rebound in retail sales in July pushed the stock market higher Friday as traders looked past a Reuters/University of Michgan survey that found that consumer's were pessimistic about their own finances and the economy. The measure of consumer sentiment fell to a 30-year low.
It was the first time since early July that the Dow and S&P index rose for two consecutive days.
Normally, such a bad consumer survey would have pushed shares sharply lower for the day, said Quincy Krosby, an investment strategist with Prudential Financial.
"But these are not normal times," she said. Market volatility cuts both ways, sending shares way up or way down, Krosby noted. That can cause stock prices to defy economic data.
The strong retail sales added to other bits of more positive data about the economy. The government said last week that hiring picked up slightly in July after two dismal months, though employers still are adding jobs too slowly to significantly reduce unemployment. A Thursday report showed applications for unemployment benefits fell to a four-month low. Some analysts believe recently announced layoffs will cause that number to rise in the coming weeks.
Companies that rely on an expanding economy for profits led the Dow higher. Boeing Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., and United Technologies Corp. each rose by 4 percent or more.
A separate government report on Friday showed that businesses increased their stockpiles of everything from raw materials to retail products for the 18th month in a row.
Growing inventories are usually a sign of business confidence. But in June Americans cut their spending for the first time in nearly two years. If the market's gyrations spook consumers further, people might spend even less just as retailers stock up for the crucial holiday season.
"We are at a turning point," said Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association. "If the stock market continues to be volatile next week, I would expect a pretty serious effect on consumer confidence."
The Dow finished Friday with a gain of 125.71 points, or 1.1 percent, to 11,269.02. It finished the week down 1.5 percent after being down as much as 6.3 percent for the week.
The broader S&P 500 index rose 6.17 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,178.81. It finished with a the week down 1.7 percent. The technology-focused Nasdaq composite rose 15.30, or 0.6 percent, to 2,507.98. It lost 1 percent for the week.
All three major stock indexes are now down more than 10 percent from their April highs. That is a big enough drop to signify what traders call a market correction. A drop of more than 20 percent signifies a bear market, a period of sustained losses.
Financial stocks continued to slide Friday. Investment bank Morgan Stanely fell 7 percent amid concerns about U.S. banks' exposure to the financial crisis in Europe and lawsuits related to poor-quality mortgage securities sold before the financial crisis of 2008. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also lost ground.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. jumped 7 percent after the company told investors that it expects revenue this quarter to offset its higher raw material costs. The company had said last month that raw material costs might hurt its profits in the second half of the year.
DeVry Inc. plunged nearly 17 percent, the most in the S&P 500, after the company said that new student enrollment tumbled this summer. For-profit education companies are under pressure to raise their admissions standards so that students will be more likely to find jobs and pay off their government-backed loans. That has caused their share prices to fall sharply this year.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.26 percent from 2.34 percent late Thursday. It had fallen to a record low of 2.03 percent earlier in the week.
Two stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was above average at 5 billion shares, but lighter than earlier in the week when it reached 9.7 billion shares, the fourth-highest on record.
DANIEL WAGNER,AP Business Writers
DAVID K. RANDALL,AP Business Writers
Wagner reported from Washington.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.


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1. Visit Downtown Disney.
It cost nothing to visit Downtown Disney. There are lots of fun shops to stroll through and plenty of people watching opportunities. (If you visit during the day PLEASE take a hat. I think Downtown Disney has its own microclimate – it often seems degrees hotter than the rest of Orlando.) Don't miss the snoozing man made from lego or the fantastic magnets at Magnetron Magnetz. Stop in the Art of Disney store – They run a trivia quiz every day and give out prizes if you get them all right!
2. Watch the Magic Kingdom Fireworks
from the beach of the Grand Floridian or Polynesian. You can park at the resorts for a short time for free. Tell the guard you are visiting the hotel coffee shop.
3. Take a free tour of Wilderness Lodge
Check with guest services for times and details. There is also a hidden Mickey hunt (list available from guest services)
4. Watch the Electrical Water Pageant
It takes place each night on Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake – times vary. A long line of barges are transformed into a magical light show. It is short – just a few minutes long but is one of the overlooked treasures of Walt Disney World. It can be seen from the beaches of the Grand Floridian and Polynesian and the Fort Wilderness Marina and Beach.
5. Nature Trails at Fort Wilderness
There are many miles of trails at Fort Wilderness, through pine and cypress woods. All free. You can hire bikes but to walk costs nothing.
6. Visit The Boardwalk
Best in the evening. Just stroll and take in the atmosphere. There's usually lots of "street entertainment".
7. Visit the petting farm at Fort Wilderness.
The petting farm is open 7 am to dusk a. There is free day parking at Ft. Wilderness.
8. Take the free garden tour at the Yacht & Beach Club Resort.
Call guest services for times.
9. Take the free lobby tour at Animal Kingdom Lodge.
10 Campfire sing-song and a movie.
Each evening a campfire is held at Fort Wilderness (it is free to WDW Resort Guests) near the Meadow Trading Post. Take your own marshmallows to toast. The campfire is followed by a Disney cartoon feature shown on a large outdoor screen.
— I know I said 10 Free things but I have included one more because #10 is only free to guests staying at a Disney World Hotel!
11 Take a boat ride.
from Dixie Landings to Downtown Disney – it's especially nice at night. Take a stroll around Downtown Disney and catch the boat back to your car at Dixie Landings.


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Award-winning San Francisco-based Stanley Saitowitz/Natoma Architects are known for a practice that combines the principles of early modern architecture with the materials, techniques and sensibilities of the 21st century. Raised in a traditional Jewish family in South Africa, Saitowitz has designed private residences, institutions, public and commercial spaces, and religious architecture across the globe. Among the many commissions he has completed during his 30-year career are a number of significant Jewish spaces, including the Holocaust Memorial in Boston and the critically acclaimed Temple Beth Shalom in San Francisco's Richmond District.
Now, Saitowitz brings ancient tradition and contemporary design together in Stanley Saitowitz: Judaica, an extraordinary display of modern Jewish ritual objects on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum November 3, 2011 through October 16, 2012. More information on the exhibition after the break.
"This exhibition presents an opportunity to examine traditional Jewish objects from the point of view of an accomplished architect who thinks deeply about Jewish space and community," says Museum director Connie Wolf. "We are thrilled to share Stanley's perspectives on Jewish tradition with the public and welcome him back to the Contemporary Jewish Museum." In 1984 when the Museum was founded, Saitowitz won a competition to design and build a sukkah as part of the Museum's Invitational exhibition series. (A sukkah is a temporary shelter built to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, the autumn harvest festival.)
Rendered in metal and inspired by Saitowitz's commitment to a modernist aesthetic, the collection is characterized by the clean lines, rational proportions, and smooth, unembellished surfaces that also define Saitowitz's architecture. Most of the 13 objects on view, were prototyped for this exhibition and have never been seen before. They range from those objects associated with daily ritual, such as the mezuzah affixed to the doorpost outside one's home, to more festival-specific objects, such as the etrog box used during the harvest festival of Sukkot. The one-of-a-kind collection also includes a kiddush cup (a cup to hold the wine for sanctifying Shabbat), challah cover (a cover for Shabbat bread), havdalah set (implements to mark the conclusion of Shabbat), Shabbat candlesticks (these hold the two candles that are lit eighteen minutes before sundown to welcome Shabbat), a menorah (the eight-pronged candlestick used for Chanukah), seder plate (a plate holding the six items used for retelling the story of the Exodus at the Passover seder), matzah plate (holds the seventh symbolic item, the stack of three matzahs, used during the seder), tzedakah box (a charity box), rimonim (the ends of the staves around which the Torah scroll is wound), netilat yadayim cup (a cup used for ceremonial hand-washing), and a yad (the pointer used to read the Torah).
For Saitowitz, the ritual objects carry the immense power of a collective Jewish heritage and a personal family past. He remembers the candlesticks his grandmother carried in her suitcase when she escaped the pogroms in Riga; the kiddush cup his grandfather brought from Latvia, which his family used every Friday night in Johannesburg. But when he entered architecture school, he began to think differently about these familiar objects. "As I became more aware of the Judaic traditions, and understood better how material carries meanings, I began to see conflicts in the designs of the objects of my upbringing," he says. "Many were ornamental and decorative, and conflicted both with my growing modernist preferences and with my understanding of the laws of Judaic objecthood, which forbade iconography and equated ornament and imagery with idolatry. So I began to wonder about other ways to look at these objects and to think about them as ceremonial instruments that expressed their function, rather than as decorative objects."
Stanley Saitowitz: Judaica is the result of that life-long thought process. For this project, Saitowitz has been especially interested in how the Jewish traditions of non-figuration mirror the modern movement's insistence on abstraction. "The objects on view here are a synthesis of these influences," he says. "The disinterest in ornament and the direct expression of function that modernism sought has always been inherent in Judaic traditions. The structuring of thought as theological and Talmudic, minimalist and dialectical, where ideas and concepts govern laws and actions, is fundamental to modernism. Rigors similar to those of kashrut, which regulate what can and cannot be eaten, and shatnez, prohibiting the unnatural mixtures of materials, are traditional counterparts to contemporary modernist thinking."
"The objects," says Saitowitz, "Pursue direct and honest expression of their function as divine instruments."
For more information, please visit here.


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From Academic Kids
War is a state of widespread conflict between states, organisations, or relatively large groups of people, which is characterised by the use of violent, physical force between combatants or upon civilians. Other terms for war, which often serve as euphemisms, include armed conflict, hostilities, and police action (see limitations on war below). War is contrasted with peace, which is usually defined as the absence of war.
History of war
War is as old as human societies. Certain hunter-gatherer societies engaged in skirmishes over territory and resources. The earliest city states and empire in Mesopotamia became the first to employ standing armies. Organization and structure has since been central to warfare, as illustrated by the success of highly disciplined troops of the Roman Empire.
As well as organizational change technology has played a central role in the evolution of warfare. Inventions created for warfare have also played an important role in others fields. The continued advance of technology has led to an increase in the destructiveness and cost of warfare throughout human history.
The study of warfare is known as military history.
Morality of war
Throughout history war has been the source of serious moral questions. Although many ancient nations and some more modern ones viewed war as noble, over the sweep of history concerns about the morality of war have gradually increased. Today war is almost unanimously seen as undesireable and morally problematic. Many now believe that wars should only be fought as a last resort. Some, known as pacifists, believe that war is inherently immoral and no war should ever be fought. This position was forcefully defended by the Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi (called "Mahatma" or "Great One").
The negative view of war has not always been held as widely as it is today. Many thinkers, such as Heinrich von Treitschke saw war as humanity's highest activity where courage, honour, and ability were more necessary than in any other endeavour. At the outbreak of World War I the writer Thomas Mann wrote, "Is not peace an element of civil corruption and war a purification, a liberation, an enormous hope?" This attitude was embraced by many societies from Sparta in Ancient Greece and the Ancient Romans to the fascist states of the 1930s. The defeat and repudiation of the fascist states and their militarism in the Second World War, combined with the unquestioned horror of nuclear war have contributed to the current negative view of war.
Today, some see only just wars (which also cause suffering, but are started to counter what is deemed even worse suffering) as legitimate, and it is the goal of organizations such as the United Nations to unite the world against wars of unjust aggression.
Limitations on war
At times throughout history, societies have attempted to limit the cost of war by formalizing it in some way. Limitations on the targeting of civilians, what type of weapons can be used, and when combat is allowed have all fallen under these rules in different conflicts. Total war is the modern term for the targeting of civilians and the mobilization of an entire society.
While culture, law, and religion have all been factors in causing wars, they have also acted as restraints at times. In some cultures, for example, conflicts have been highly ritualized to limit actual loss of life. In modern times, increasing international attention has been paid to peacefully resolving conflicts which lead to war. The United Nations is the latest and most comprehensive attempt to, as stated in the preamble of the U.N. Charter (http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter), "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."
Sometimes the term "war" is restricted by legal definition to those conflicts where one or both belligerents have made a formal declaration of war. This has resulted in wars (in the informal sense, as defined in the introduction to this article) without formal declaration and combatants who officially choose terms other than "war," such as:
- "armed conflict";
- "state aggression by armed force";
- "police action";
- "crime against international peace".
For example, the British Government was very careful to use the term "armed conflict" instead of "war" during the Falklands War in 1982 to comply with international law.
A number of treaties regulate warfare, collectively referred to as the laws of war. The most pervasive of those are the Geneva conventions, the earliest of which began to take effect in the mid 1800s.
Treaty signing has since been a part of international diplomacy, and too many treaties to mention in this scant article have been signed. A couple of examples are: Resolutions of the Geneva International Conference, Geneva, 26 October-29 October 1863 and Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 75 U.N.T.S. 135, entered into force 21 October 1950.
Types of war and warfare
Smaller armed conflicts are often called riots, rebellions, coups, etc.
When one country sends armed forces to another, allegedly to restore order or prevent genocide or other crimes against humanity, or to support a legally recognized government against insurgency, that country sometimes refers to it as a police action. This usage is not always recognized as valid, however, particularly by those who do not accept the connotations of the term.
A war where the forces in conflict belong to the same country or empire or other political entity is known as a civil war. Asymmetrical warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military mechanization. This type of war often results in guerilla tactics. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a common example of asymmmetrical warfare.
A conventional war is a war where nuclear or biological weapons are not used, whereas, unconventional warfare (nuclear warfare) is a war where such weapons are used.
Geographic warfare
The terrain over which a war is fought has a big impact on the type of combat which takes place. This in turn means that soldiers have to be trained to fight in a specific type of terrain.
See also
- Civil war
- List of wars
- List of battles
- List of orders of battle
- List of invasions
- List of military commanders
- List of current wars
- Military science
- Military technology and equipment
- Military strategy
- Military tactics
- Military-industrial complex
- Private military contractors


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Copy of e-mail from Tom Cardot:
I had this happen to me at the WalMart in Yelm, WA. The cashier handed me $80.00 and I said that I had not asked for the cash and she said she couldn't delete it. It was on my debit card and I could use the cash anyway so I accepted the money, but I have watched it very closely since then.** forwarded section follows (no from:) **
Check this out.......
It happened at Wal-Mart (Supercenter Store #1279,10411 N Freeway 45, Houston , TX 77037 a month ago. I bought a bunch of stuff, over $150, & I glanced at my receipt as the cashier was handing me the bags. I saw a cash-back of $40. I told her I didn't request a cash back & to delete it. She said I'd have to take the $40 because she couldn't delete it. I told her to call a supervisor. Supervisor came & said I'd have to take it. I said NO! Taking the $40 would be a cash advance against my Discover & I wasn't paying interest on a cash advance!!!!! If they couldn't delete it then they would have to delete the whole order. So the supervisor had the cashier delete the whole order & re-scan everything! The second time I looked at the electronic pad before I signed & a cash-back of $20 popped up. At that point I told the cashier & she deleted it. The total came out right. The cashier agreed that the electronic pad must be defective. Obviously the cashier knew the electronic pad was defective because she NEVER offered me the $40 at the beginning. Can you imagine how many people went through before me & at the end of her shift how much money she pocketed?
Just to alert everyone. My co worker went to Milford , DE Wal-Mart last week. She had her items rung up by the cashier. The cashier hurried her along and didn't give her a receipt. She asked the cashier for a receipt and the cashier was annoyed and gave it to her. My co worker didn't look at her receipt until later that night. The receipt showed that she asked for $20 cash back. SHE DID NOT ASK FOR CASH BACK! My co-worker called Wal-Mart who investigated but could not see the cashier pocket the money. She then called her niece who works for the bank and her niece told her this. This is a new scam going on. The cashier will key in that you asked for cash back and then hand it to her friend who is the next person in line.
Please, please, please check your receipts right away when using credit or debit cards!
This is NOT limited to Wal-Mart, although they are the largest retailer so they have the most incidents
I am adding to this. My husband and I were in Wal-Mart North Salisbury and paying with credit card when my husband went to sign the credit card signer he just happen to notice there was a $20 cash back added. He told the cashier that he did not ask nor want cash back and she said this machine has been messing up and she cancelled it. We really didn't think anything of it until we read this email.
I wonder how many "seniors" have been, or will be, "stung" by this one????
To make matters worse ...THIS SCAM CAN BE DONE ANYWHERE, AT ANY RETAIL OR WHOLESALE LOCATION!!!


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Flow Chart Exposes Common Core's Myriad Corporate Connections
U.S. education reform isn't so much a "Race to the Top," because no matter which schools climb to the top of the ladder first, corporations always win.
Morna McDermott mapped the Common Core State Standard Initiative's corporate connections in a new flow chart, which reveals how corporations and organizations that are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have funded and perpetuated Common Core standards throughout the states.
ALEC has been funded for decades in large part by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, about 98 percent of ALEC's funds come from corporations such as Exxon Mobil and corporate foundations like the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
The Common Core State Standard Initiative is part of the larger Race to the Top educational policy announced by President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan in 2009. It seeks to implement new Common Core educational benchmarks to replace varying educational standards from state to state by awarding grants to states that comply with the initiative. The standards have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.
The chart illuminates a larger corporate agenda that seeks market-based education reforms and increased influence over public education in the United States. With defense and security expenditures slowing, corporations are looking to profit from new cloud-based software used to collect and mine information from student records to create individualized education programs designed by third-party companies.
McDermott is a teacher-educator with more than 20 years of experience working in and with public schools. McDermott also serves as a section editor for the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy and recently published a book titled "The Left Handed Curriculum: Creative Experiences for Empowering Teachers" with Information Age Publishing. She is an administrator with United Opt Out National, a nonprofit created by parents, educators and students who are dedicated to the elimination of high-stakes testing in public education.
She researched and produced the information on her own, but the work is endorsed and supported by the United Opt Out National network. McDermott told Truthout she used a systems-based approach in her research to show the concepts in relationship to one another, and that it's just another example of a different method of teaching and learning.
McDermott says she works to fight standards and testing because they divert funds and attention away from the real issue in education, which is poverty. "The whole thing about better tests and if we had better standards is like a bait-and-switch … so nobody pays attention to the real issues," she said.
McDermott mentions a number of corporations and organizations prying for influence over the Common Core standards. Among them is Achieve Inc., a company widely funded by ALEC members, including Boeing and State Farm, among others.
McDermott also points to peer-reviewed academic research originally published in the International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation by Fenwick English titled "The Ten Most Wanted Enemies of American Public Education's School Leadership." In his research English looks at many of the players involved in the same network that McDermott maps with clarity, writing of the Eli Broad Foundation that:
Broad money is sloshed behind the scenes to elect or select candidates who "buy" the Broad corporate agenda in education. ... Broad's enemies are teacher unions, school boards, and schools of education. What all three have in common is that they eschew corporate, top-down control required in the Broad business model.
According to McDermott, America's Choice, another part of Common Core's corporate web, originally was founded as a program of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. But in 2004, the group was reorganized as a for-profit subsidiary of NCEE.
McDermott cites a professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, Jay Greene, who writes:
NCEE's scheme was originally financed by a $1,500,000 pilot grant from the Gates Foundation. It will now benefit from a sweetheart deal of $30,000,000 - all taxpayers' money. Having Gates pay for both NCEE's start-up and the development of Common Core standards certainly helped America's Choice to put its key people on Common Core's [English Language Arts] and mathematics standards development and draft-writing committees to ensure that they came up with the readiness standards Gates had paid for and wanted NCEE to use.
It's all part-and-parcel to the larger neoliberal plan to "reform" public education.
"What Race to the Top is doing to exacerbate the issues of poverty, for one thing, in terms of school funding is it's even elevating the amount of money that is funneled right through schools, like a sieve, and channeling it more directly into the hands of testing companies, computer companies, online companies and other corporate interests," McDermott said. "So for a state or a district to say, 'Oh, we need the money,' my reaction would be, 'You're not going to see a dime of it. They're going to hand you a check that's basically a coupon to buy Pearson products.'
A transcript of the video follows:
Hi. I'm Morna McDermott. It's July 23, 2013, and this is my overview of corporate involvementin the Common Core. Let's start with U.S. Department of Education, which funded, through grants and other funding, the Common Core via Race to the Top and handed it over to three major organizations: the National Governors Association, the CCSSO, otherwise known as the Chief Counsel State School Officers, and Achieve … who have partnered to disseminate, organize, manage or otherwise outsource the Common Core and the assessments that go with it.
So let's start over here. The director of Race to the Top is Joanne Weiss, who worked with the Broad Foundation, which also has as one of its acting members Chester Finn with the Fordham Institute. Broad Foundation is also a member of ALEC, which sponsored the bill called the Parent Trigger Act. I'll come back to that.
The National Governors Association partners with Achieve for the Common Core. The National Governors Association also partners with the College Board. The CCSSO partners with Pearson for the Common Core (to create) the materials. The CCSSO also partners with ACT, which is funded by State Farm, which is a member of ALEC. Pearson, among other things, there is not enough time to cover everything in Pearson, so this is a broad sketch … acquired Connections Academy, which is a member of ALEC. Connections Academy (via Mickey Revenaugh, senior vice president of state relations for Connections Academy as of 2011) was actually the co-chair of the subcommittee for education in ALEC. Pearson also acquired America's Choice, which sponsored a program called the NCEE, which also partners with the CCSSO.
The NCEE is funded by Walton. … The Walton Foundation, which is a member of ALEC and is basically associated with Walmart, directly funds the Common Core State Standards. And again, too many too many connections to mention - This is just broad sketch. I'm going to come back up over here to the CCSSO (whose director is Tom Luna) to look at their connections with McKinsey and Co., which is a global consulting firm. Their big thing is called "Big Data."… They believe that the data is the answer to all things right now, (and) as you can see they've got their fingerprints all over everything in the Common Core. For one thing, David Coleman was one of the architects of the Common Core. … He created the Student Achievement Partners, which helped develop standards, (and he) was a former consultant for McKinsey. Lou Gerstner, who is the co-founder of Achieve, was the former director at McKinsey & Co., and Sir Michael Barber was a former consultant McKinsey (and) is now one of the CEOs at Pearson. Pearson partners with the PARCC Consortium for the assessments. And I said they already partner with Achieve and ACT. The PARCC, following the screen line (in red) all the way over here, has their data collection (in) a partnership with inBloom. Now inBloom is a part Wireless Generation and is contracting with several states to collect the data for all their testing. The two key players in inBloom are Joel Klein (and) Rupert Murdoch. And in addition, members of the Board of inBloom include Margaret Spellings, Gene Wilhoit (former executive director) of the CCSSO, and also on the board is Bob Wise. Bob was the chair for the Alliance for Excellent Education, which is the brainchild Jeb Bush. It's funded by State Farm. It's also a member of ALEC. The Alliance for Excellent Education partners with, or supports, the Common Core. I'm gonna - follow me down here - to the Council for Foreign Relations, which supports a national curriculum and has been a big promoter at the Common Core Standards and has had direct influence on it. They created a paper in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense and with America's Promise Alliance to craft a paper call the "Education Reform and National Security Report" and its authors supported the Common Core State Standards initiative. So, on the Council for Foreign Relations you have Lou Gertsner, who you know is the co-founder of Achieve, as I already mentioned, and who is a former director at McKinsey & Co. Also on the Board of Directors (of America's Promise Alliance) is Gen. Colin Powell - one of the things that this paper mentioned was the importance of the U.S. Department of Defense in overseeing and managing the Common Core. Other signers of this paper include Condoleeza Rice, and one of the cosponsors of this paper was America's Promise Alliance, which supports the Common Core.
The chair of America's Promise Alliance is Alma Powell. The co-chair is Greg Petersmeyer, who is a McKinsey and Co. consultant, and (he) helped develop something called Fuse Corporation, which, among other things, supported Teach for America. So Fuse Corp is one of the partners of America Promise Alliance, which is funded by Pearson Foundation; the Walmart Foundation, which is in ALEC; the Gates Foundation; Lumina, which is in ALEC; Boeing, which is in ALEC; and Lockheed Martin, which is the world's largest weapons manufacturer and is a member of ALEC; (and) The Ford Foundation. Bill Gates … um this is a broad sketch because there are way too many things to mention about Bill Gates, but among other things … one of the board of directors for Wireless Generation is an employee at the Gates Foundation.
The Gates Foundation directly funded the inBloom network. Gates also funds the College Board, which is now run by David Coleman - remember from Student Achievement Partners that made the standards for Common Core and (who) was a former consultant at McKinsey & Co - um where'd they go … Gates Foundation also directly funds the Common Core State Standards. The National Governors Association partners with the College Board and also partners with Achieve. The CCSSO also partners with McKinsey & Co. to manage the PARCC after 2014. This initiative is also partnered by Lumina, which is a member ALEC… So after 2014, McKinsey and Co. may be managing our children's data. Specifically, the state of Florida has potentially considered a contract with McKinsey and Co. to manage the PARCC as of 2015. Again, this is a broad sketch, and there's always more than meets the eye. But if every line was on here that needed to be on here, it would be even more unreadable than it already is. I forgot to mention U.S. Department of Education. … The key advisers for the 2009 U.S. Department of Education "Blueprint " included largely members at McKinsey and Co. and the Broad Foundation. So it's curious how much ALEC contends that it opposes the Common Core yet so many organizations that are members of ALEC have funded its inception and continue to promote its perpetuation from state to state.
Makes you wonder...
Corrections: The Council of Chief State School Officers director is no longer Tom Luna; it is now Chris Minnich, who used to work for Pearson. The former Gates employee, Sharren Bates, works for inBloom, not Wireless, as the chief product officer.


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Creating with constraints: Madeleine Cocolas
Creating with constraints: Madeleine Cocolas
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Read the whole article here.
Sarah Ritherdon, HC publishing director, bought world English rights to three titles from Tim Bates at Pollinger Limited. Publication is scheduled for spring 2012. Ritherdon said: "I am so excited to have the opportunity to work with Kimberley and bring her wonderful books to as many readers as possible. Kimberley is a star in the making, and inspires amazing loyalty from her fans."Chambers worked as a minicab driver, market trader and pub DJ before becoming a full-time writer.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Publishing Deal - Kimberley Chambers
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Upcoming Crime Fiction Events in London
1. The Nordic Noir book club has their first event, on Thursday, 3 February 2011 from 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM, at which Håkan Nesser will be speaking:
Join us in exploring Sweden's crime fiction, with speakers including best-selling author Håkan Nesser.Details of the venue and how to buy tickets by credit card can be found at their website.
What does the landscape of Swedish crime fiction look like? What do we learn from Nesser, from other writers, from their book covers? What real and mental landscapes do readers (and viewers) of Swedish crime in the UK see?
Find out all of this and more, in the first of our UCL's Nordic Noir book club events, at the Horse Hospital, an atmospheric, Grade II listed venue in the heart of literary London.
The ticket price includes a glass of wine. Other light refreshments will be available to purchase at the event, provided by Scandinavian Kitchen.
Please note: The Eventbrite booking agent requires that you use a credit card to buy tickets. If you do not have a credit card, please contact Nichola Smalley (n.smalley(at)ucl.ac.uk) to reserve a ticket.
2. Events involving Italian author, Alessandro Perissinotto whose Blood Sisters will be published on 11 February:
From Hersilia Press's website:
Barry Forshaw and Michael Gregorio with Alessandro Perissinotto
Italian Institute of Culture, SW1X 8NX, London, UK
7 February 2011, 7:00 pm
Alessandro Perissinotto academic and novelist
Royal Holloway Central London site, Bedford Square, 2 Gower Street, WC1E 6DP, London, UK
8 February 2011, 5:00 pm
Italian writers in the UK and Ireland: Alessandro Perissinotto
Humanities Research Institute, 29-31 Clarendon Place, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK
9 February 2011, 5:00 pm
3. As part of a Scandinavian month, Gunnar Staalesen will be visiting Willesden Green Library on Thursday 3 March 2011 from 7 - 9 pm:
Willesden Green Library
95 High Road
London NW10 2SF
020 8937 3400
Free Event
Book sale Refreshments
As well as reading from his new book, he will be presenting the winner of a short story competition - the opening sentence having been written by Camilla Ceder:
Have you got what it takes to be the next Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell?Full details and terms and conditions can be found on the Brent Libraries website.
If so there's a place on a Birkbeck College creative writing course up for grabs when you take part in the Brent Libraries short story competition.
Swedish crime fiction author Camilla Ceder has written the opening lines.
"In theory, Margaret had functioned well as his partner. She was a faded beauty who had once been a celebrated singer. It would not have hurt for her to drink less."
All you have to do is complete the story is no more than 2,000 words.
Entries must be received by 12 noon on 23 February 2011.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Tudor Secret - Cover Opinions
Summer 1553: A time of danger and deceit. Brendan Prescott, an orphan, is reared in the household of the powerful Dudley family. Brought to court, he finds himself sent on an illicit mission to the King's brilliant but enigmatic sister, Princess Elizabeth. But Brendan is soon compelled to work as a double agent by Elizabeth's protector, William Cecil—who promises in exchange to help him unravel the secret of his own mysterious past.
A dark plot swirls around Elizabeth's quest to unravel the truth about the ominous disappearance of her seriously ill brother, King Edward VI. With Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting at his side, Brendan plunges into a ruthless gambit of half-truths, lies, and murder. Filled with the intrigue and pageantry of Tudor England, THE TUDOR SECRET is the first book in the Elizabeth's Spymaster series.
So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up? And what about initials vs full name?
If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?
Monday, January 24, 2011
Publishing Deal - Barbara Nadel
Jane Wood of Quercus has signed up Barbara Nadel to write a new crime series in which the author returns to her
East Endroots. The series will feature a white ex-policeman (and ex-soldier), now a PI, and an Asian Muslim woman who assists him. he Borough of Newham is one of the most ethnically complex urban districts in the world, with a high rate of violent crime, gang culture and racism. To signal this change of direction, Barbara will write the books under the name B J Nadel. Quercus will publish the first book in the series in summer 2012. London
Jane Wood said:'I'm delighted that Barbara is joining Quercus. As a daughter of Newham she is uniquely qualified to write about this richly diverse borough of our sprawling capital city, an area undergoing immense change with the coming Olympics.'Barbara Nadel said: 'I am very happy to take this opportunity to explore a new and exciting crime series'.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
New Reviews: Bates, Bauer, Magson, Marrinan, Nesbo, Newman
1.Win Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger UK only
2.Win A Noble Killing by Barbara Nadel (International)
Here are this week's reviews:
Maxine Clarke reviews what sounds like a cracking debut: Frozen Out by Quentin Bates (US: Frozen Assets) which introduces Icelandic detective: Gunna the Cop;Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.
Paul Blackburn reviews CWA prize-winner Belinda Bauer's second book, Darkside set five years on from Blacklands;
Terry Halligan reviews the first in a new series from Adrian Magson: Death on the Marais introducing a Parisian cop who has been sent to a Picardie village;
Laura Root reviews Patrick Marrinan's impressive debut, Scapegoat, which draws on the author's legal experience;
I review Jo Nesbo's The Leopard, tr. Don Bartlett an exciting police-procedural/thriller with my favourite detective, Harry Hole
and Lizzie Hayes reviews Ruth Newman's second book, The Company of Shadows which has a Coben-esque sounding premise.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Leopard - Trailers
Update! Here is the filmic one, released this morning:
Here is the Norwegian cover for The Leopard (which is relevant to the plot):
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Close-Up - Cover Opinions
So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Esther Verhoef?
If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?
Read the Euro Crime review by Maxine of Close-Up (which is quoted inside the UK paperback.)
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Move over Wallander, here's The Killing (BBC4)
The first two episodes are on at 9pm and 9.55 on Saturday on BBC4:
From the BBC's Press Office:
The Killing is the latest foreign language series to première in the UK on BBC Four, following the huge success of the Swedish Wallander. Nominated for an International Emmy for Best Drama, Denmark's hit TV series is a tense and absorbing whodunit, deftly uncovering some of the evils gnawing at contemporary society.
The 20 episodes play out over 20 days during a bleak Copenhagen November. Inspector Sarah Lund reports for her last day at work and learns that a teenage girl is missing. When her body is found in a car with links to a mayoral candidate's office, the case that gripped Danish TV viewers begins.
About to leave her post as the head of investigations at the Copenhagen homicide department as she is moving to Sweden, Sarah is in the midst of saying her goodbyes when she gets a disturbing dispatch which forces her to rethink her plans: a 19-year-old girl, Nanna Birk Larsen, is missing and her belongings have been discovered in a field.
A top Copenhagen politician, Troels, is in the middle of a promising election campaign when he is suddenly forced to make a change of plans. Meanwhile, in Vesterbro, Theis and Pernille learn that their daughter is missing.
In the first instalment of this 20-part thriller, these unsuspecting characters are drawn together by a series of simultaneous events that will change their lives for ever.
Monday, January 17, 2011
What I'm Reading: The Leopard
The Leopard by Jo Nesbo, tr. Don Bartlett is published in a few days time. I've been lucky enough to have an advance review copy and also, thanks to Harvill Secker, I've now got an e-copy to take with me on the train tomorrow.
The Leopard is 600+ pages and rather heavy, so I'm really pleased to able to switch between print and e-copy. I do think that offering a free ebook with a print copy would be a great idea.
Anyway, The Leopard is, like The Snowman, a search for a killer who murders in rather unpleasant ways, but it is also about Harry Hole, the man. Here's a paragraph from about third the way in:
"Harry heard the solemnity in his voice. The voice of a man with no capacity to forgive, no consideration, no thoughts for anything except his own objectives. And plied the inverted persuasion technique that had worked for him far too often."I want to finish this so I can review it on time but equally I don't want to get to the end of it.
Anthony Horowitz to pen Sherlock Holmes Novel
Orion is to publish a new full-length Sherlock Holmes novel, written by Alex Rider author Anthony Horowitz, after he was selected by the Conan Doyle Estate.
Further details about the title, to be published in September, are still to be revealed, though it will be "a brilliant mystery novel, stripped back to the original style of Conan Doyle", according to the publisher.
Horowitz said: "I fell in love with the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was 16 and I've read them many times since. I simply couldn't resist this opportunity to write a brand new adventure for this iconic figure and my aim is to produce a first rate mystery for a modern audience while remaining absolutely true to the spirit of the original."
Review: Doctor Who: The Jade Pyramid (audio book)
This is the second of Matt Smith's audio book readings, the first being The Runaway Train which was set in America. In The Jade Pyramid we're off to medieval Japan.
The TARDIS is drawn to a distress beacon emitting from a small village in Japan. It appears to be coming from an ancient shrine. The Doctor and Amy meet the elder of the village, the kind and wise Shijô Sada who takes them inside the shrine past the "guard" of animal-skin covered mannequins called Otoroshi. Shijô Sada won't allow them to see the chamber containing the pyramid as it is sacred. However they are interrupted by the news that the Shogun has sent Samurai soldiers to retrieve the Jade Pyramid for himself. The Doctor must prevent the pyramid, which he believes to be alien technology, from falling into anyone's hands. A discussion amongst the villagers reveals both friend and foe of Shijô Sada and Amy escapes the meeting to take a look at the pyramid and it is then things begin to go badly wrong. The Otoroshi come to life and Samurai are almost upon the village. How can the Doctor save the village, Amy and protect the pyramid?
The Jade Pyramid is an exciting story along a slightly familiar theme of humans killing first, asking questions later. For a single cd length story it packs a lot in; there's fighting from Samurai and a ninja assassin as well as betrayal and a loss of a significant character, and the Japanese setting is refreshingly different.
Matt Smith reads at the breathless pace we've become used to in the tv series and differentiates the characters well and his Doctor is as mesmerising as ever.
I have a slight quibble in that the occasional background music at times slightly overwhelmed the narrator, and maybe needs to be toned down a little.
The Jade Pyramid offers a pleasant fix whilst we await the arrival of the new series and is one that I will listen to again.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
New Reviews: Beaton, Carrisi, Chessex, McKenzie, Siger, Taylor, Walsh
1.Win Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger UK only
2.Win A Noble Killing by Barbara Nadel (International)
I'd like to welcome Lizzie Hayes to the Euro Crime fold. She has donated a sizeable collection of reviews of recent books, which I'll be running over the next few weeks.
Here are this week's reviews:
Lizzie Hayes reviews the most recent Agatha Raisin from M C Beaton: Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body;Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.
I review Donato Carrisi's The Whisperer, tr. Shaun Whiteside which has won several prizes in Italy;
Maxine Clarke reviews Jacques Chessex's A Jew Must Die, tr. W Donald Wilson published by Bitter Lemon Press ;
Michelle Peckham reviews Grant McKenzie's debut novel: Switch, a thriller set in the US;
Terry Halligan reviews one of this month's competition prizes: Assassin of Athens by Jeffrey Siger;
Amanda Gillies loved Andrew Taylor's latest: The Anatomy of Ghosts
and Lizzie also reviews The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh, Lord Peter Wimsey's first case.
New from Allison & Busby
Martin Edwards: The Serpent Pool (paperback)
Alanna Knight: The Seal King Murders (hardback)
Priscilla Masters: Grave Stones (paperback)
M J Trow: Maxwell's Island (hardback)
Robert Barnard: A Mansion and its Murder (hardback - formerly published under the author name of Bernard Bastable in 1998)
Cassandra Clark: The Law of Angels (hardback)
Rebecca Tope: The Sting of Death, A Market for Murder, Grave Concerns (paperback, reprints of the Drew Slocombe series)
M J Trow: Maxwell's Revenge (paperback)
Stuart Pawson: A Very Private Murder (paperback)
Zoe Sharp: Fourth Day (paperback) and Fifth Victim (hardback)
Friday, January 14, 2011
Take a Chair II - cover theme
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Trailer - Knifer
Drug addiction. Criminal behaviour. Murder...and all before his sixteenth birthday. From foster home to children's home to living rough on the streets, Cain never had a normal childhood. By the age of 8 he was carrying a knife. Seven years later he was serving time for killing someone. Based on real events, ex-prison officer Ronnie Thompson tells Cain's shocking story and reveals what really happens to teenage offenders both on the streets and once they're behind bars. Prison riots, assaults on officers, roof-top protests and brutal acts of violence -- this is an inside account of life in a young offender's institute and of an angry young man spiralling dangerously out of control.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The Troubled Man - Cover Opinions
So what are you thoughts on the top: US (LHS) and UK (RHS), middle: Swedish (LHS) and French (RHS), bottom Dutch (LHS) and Polish (RHS) covers? Which would entice you most to pick the book up in the unlikely event that you were not familiar with Henning Mankell?
The Troubled Man will be published 29 March (US) and 31 March (UK). Here's the synopsis:
The much-anticipated return of Henning Mankell's brilliant, brooding detective Kurt Wallander. Every morning Håkan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. However, one winter's day he fails to come home. It seems that the retired naval officer has vanished without trace.
Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved in the investigation but he has personal reasons for his interest in the case as Håkan's son is engaged to his daughter Linda. A few months earlier, at Håkan's 75th birthday party, Kurt noticed that the old man appeared uneasy and seemed eager to talk about a controversial incident from his past career that remained shrouded in mystery. Could this be connected to his disappearance? When Håkan's wife Louise also goes missing, Wallander is determined to uncover the truth.
His search leads him down dark and unexpected avenues involving espionage, betrayal and new information about events during the Cold War that threatens to cause a political scandal on a scale unprecedented in Swedish history. The investigation also forces Kurt to look back over his own past and consider his hopes and regrets, as he comes to the unsettling realisation that even those we love the most can remain strangers to us.
And then an even darker cloud appears on the horizon...
The return of Kurt Wallander, for his final case, has already caused a sensation around the globe. The Troubled Man confirms Henning Mankell's position as the king of crime writing.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
New Reviews: Arnold, Blake, Indridason, McCrery, Siger
1.Win Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger UK only
2.Win A Noble Killing by Barbara Nadel (International)
The Euro Crime Reviewers have spoken. Here are their favourite reads for 2010 in detail and summarised by most mentioned title, author and translator.
Here are this week's reviews:
Terry Halligan reviews Traitor's Blood by Michael Arnold the first in an English Civil War set series (and listed in Terry's top reads of 2010);Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.
Amanda Gillies reviews the third in Richard Blake's Roman series featuring Aelric: The Blood of Alexandria;
Maxine Clarke reviews Arnaldur Indridason's Operation Napoleon, tr. Victoria Cribb an entertaining standalone adventure-thriller;
Laura Root reviews the third in the Chief Inspector Lapslie series from Nigel McCrery: Scream
and Terry also reviews Murder in Mykonos by Jeffrey Siger.
Euro Crime reviewers favourite reads of 2010
The most mentioned titles are:
3 votes:The most mentioned authors (irrespective of title) are:
Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest tr. Reg Keeland
2 votes:
Arnaldur Indridason - Hypothermia tr. Victoria Cribb
Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer tr. Don Bartlett
4 votes:The most mentioned translators are:
Stieg Larsson
Jo Nesbo
2 votes:
Karen Campbell
Elly Griffiths
Arnaldur Indridason
Sjowall & Wahloo
5 votes:The breakdown by reviewer plus any additional comments they have made, can be found on the website.
Reg Keeland/Steven T Murray
4 votes:
Don Bartlett
2 votes:
Victoria Cribb
Marlaine Delargy
Friday, January 07, 2011
Win: A Noble Killing by Barbara Nadel (International)
*The answer can be found in the Bibliographies section.
This competition is open to everyone and will close on 31 January 2011.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winner has been notified.)
The brilliant new Istanbul crime novel from Barbara Nadel delves into the shocking world of honour killing Turkey: the police are called to the scene of what seems to be the honour killing of a young girl. Burnt alive, she is not the first girl to suffer such an horrific death in Istanbul. Further investigations by Inspectors Cetin Ikmen and Mehmet Suleyman reveal that the girl had a secret boyfriend who has now disappeared. He and the girl's family are prime suspects, even though forensic evidence is scant. Why does the family, in common with other families of girls immolated in the city, now appear to be broke? There are also links to an infamous local gangster. Religion, organised crime and the lengths some people will go to in order to conform, come together in a tragic story of violence in a divided and changing society. And Mehmet Suleyman is on the verge of making a mistake that could ruin his career...
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Publishing Deal - Elanor Dymott
Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott is narrated by Alex, a young London lawyer trying to piece together the mystery surrounding his wife's brutal murder in the grounds of Worcester College, Oxford.
[Jonathan Cape] said: "We're incredibly excited and honoured to be publishing this elegant, intense, beautifully written debut. With shades of Donna Tartt, Ruth Rendell and even Hitchcock, it's a classy, complex thriller that had us all captivated from the very first page."
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Blind Eye - Cover Opinions
So what are you thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK HB & pb (RHS & Below) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with Stuart MacBride?
If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?
Read the Euro Crime review by Craig of Blind Eye.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
New Reviews: Dawson, Griffiths, Lackberg, MacBride, Pastor, Sigurdardottir & a New Competition
Win Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger
Here are this week's reviews:
Terry Halligan reviews Adrian Dawson's Codex which took him a bit of getting into it, but worth it;Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.
Maxine Clarke reviews the third in this increasingly popular series by Elly Griffiths, set in North Norfolk: The House at Sea's End;
I recently reviewed the audio book of Camilla Lackberg's The Stonecutter, tr. Steven T Murray;
Pat Austin reviews the new Stuart MacBride DS Logan McRae outing - Shatter the Bones writing that it's "definitely not for the faint-hearted, this one";
Norman Price reviews Lumen by Ben Pastor and writes that is is an example of "how the crime fiction novel can be used to address historical, religious, and moral questions" (and it's published by Bitter Lemon Press - say no more...)
and also over the Christmas break I reviewed Yrsa Sigurdardottir's My Soul to Take, tr. Bernard Scudder and Anna Yates also on the blog.
New Competition - Win Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger
This competition is open to the UK only and will close on 31 January 2011.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winner has been notified.)
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Favourite Reads of 2010
Tonino Benacquista - Badfellas
Arnaldur Indridason - Hypothermia
Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest
Yrsa Sigurdardottir - My Soul to Take
Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room
Non-European favourites
Deon Meyer - Thirteen Hours
Claudia Pineiro - Thursday Night Widows
Runners-up include the audio books of Camilla Lackberg's The Preacher and The Stonecutter and Marek Krajewski's Phantoms of Breslau.


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Our History
In 1954, when the current day Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber was launched under the name of The Twin Cities Area Chamber of Commerce, the organization engaged heavily in community planning, tourism and destination attractions, multi-modal transportation concerns, and industrial and retail development.
During the 1960's, those were the same core targets throughout the northern end of Berrien County. Teaming with state and county planning agencies, developing ways to get people and products in and out of the region, capturing a larger share of travelers to our shores, and building factories and storefronts were high priorities for Chamber and business leaders.
The 1970's proved to be a decade of expansion and diversification for the Chamber, its elected leaders and the entire community. Retail districts pushed out of core cities and into the townships. Manufacturing plants continued to grow or were launched anew. Chamber Ambassadors were busy with a myriad of ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings.
The Decade of the '80's saw Chamber personnel re-creating the agency and developing methods to counteract the economically driven consolidations. It became increasingly evident a transformation would be needed to re-tool the organization and the community itself.
Thus, in 1989, the community's largest corporate citizen led the charge to formulate a new approach to economic development and the Community Economic Development Corporation was placed side-by-side with the Twin Cities Area Chamber of Commerce. A short time later, the two entities "merged" to create today's Cornerstone Alliance. While streamlining the organization, their very charters and state licensing forced each to maintain separate financial resources.
Concerned in the early to mid-'90's that Chamber of Commerce terminology and service was underemphasized, the agency was renamed Cornerstone Alliance and Chamber Services. The organization had been vital and active, but with no direct reference to "Chamber" activities questioned the continued ability to succeed in typical Chamber roles.
In December of 1996, recognizing the value of a stronger Chamber of Commerce presence in the community, the Cornerstone Alliance board of directors voted to create an independent board of directors charged with operations of a more autonomous Chamber.
That action empowered the Chamber to further expand efforts on member networking, regulatory and legislative relief on business issues, and on a strong "Shop Local" campaign to capture more of our effective buying income.
Our corporate name has changed from time to time. Our leadership has stepped up and retired. Our day-to-day duties and efforts have evolved. However, the mission has remained a constant drive to promote business and enhance the quality of life for the community.
In June of 2017 the Chamber became owners of it's own space located downtown St. Joseph in the heart of the business district. Our members and community partners now have a convenient place to work and hold meeting making the chamber the true hub of the business community.
November of 2018 saw the signed affiliation agreement between the Cornerstone Chamber and the Greater Bridgman Area Chamber and Growth Alliance (CGA), adding an additional 100 members, a second office in Bridgman, and laid the beginning stages for a more regional based chamber in Michigan's Great Southwest.
As we continue to create partnerships and enjoy unprecedented levels of membership participation in networking events, it is increasingly clear that these are, in fact, the good old days!


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A member of the public or a member of the Association can make a complaint about a member of Speech Pathology Australia (the Association) if they believe there has been a breach of the Association's Code of Ethics.
Complaints are received by the Manager, Ethics and Professional Issues in the Association's National Office.
If you have a query regarding the Association's Code of Ethics, want to speak with someone regarding an issue related to the Code of Ethics, or you want to lodge a complaint, contact the Association's Manager, Ethics and Professional Issues.
The Manager, Ethics and Professional Issues will contact you by telephone to explain the complaints process in detail. Complaints about non-members will be directed to contact the relevant state government service (e.g. Health Services Commissioner).
In 2000, Association's the Ethics Board was established to promote ethical practice, manage and, when necessary, to enforce the Code.
Members of the public or members of the profession are encouraged to make a complaint if they believe there has been a breach of the Association's Code of Ethics.
View the Ethics Board Background and Procedures .
View the Ethics Complaint Process Flowchart .
The National Code of Conduct (the Code) is a minimum set of standards of conduct for all health service providers who are not regulated by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Speech pathologists are included in this group of health professionals. View more information about the Code.
Feedback may be provided directly to Speech Pathology Australia. All feedback will be acknowledged and acted upon where this is required.


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OSHA Training in Melbourne FL
OSHA-PROS USA is ready and available to provide OSHA training in Melbourne FL or the surrounding area. Our experienced, OSHA-Authorized trainers offer employers the essential training they need to help them meet OSHA training requirements. We provide substantial corporate discounts for multiple students and can help schedule training for all your personnel.
In addition to our on-site training services we also provide online OSHA training. All of our courses are Nationally-Accepted in all 50 states. You may complete your OSHA 10 Hour Construction Online Outreach Training Course or your OSHA 10 Hour General Industry Online Outreach Training Course in only two days. The OSHA 30 Hour Construction Online Outreach Training Course is available also for executives, supervisors and other managerial positions. Each course includes access to a downloadable, FREE Study Guide. Upon your successful completion of the course, you will be able to print out your Certificate of Completion as proof of your accomplishment. Your Official Department of Labor OSHA Wallet Card will be sent to you in a few weeks.
For an immediate quote for any of our services, including our discounts, please call 1-866-265-5813, or click the button below.
Since the state of Florida does not have an approved state OSHA program, worker safety regulations are regulated under the guidance of the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Under the General Duty Clause of the OSH Act, all employers, no matter what size, are required, by law, to provide a safe and healthy environment for their workers. Further regulations are enumerated in CFR Part 29 which document extensive requirements for prevention, documentation and management of safety and health risks. These include the following sections:
29 CFR 1903 – OSHA workplace poster requirements
29 CFR 1904 – OSHA Injury and Illness record keeping requirements
29 CFR 1910 – General Industry Safety Standards
29 CFR 1926 – Construction Industry Safety Standards
Federal OSHA has jurisdiction over most private employers in the state of Florida. Federal employers in FL also operate under the jurisdiction of Federal OSHA. The OSHA area office located in the Melbourne area:
Tampa Area Office
5807 Breckenridge Parkway, Suite A
Tampa, Florida 33610-4249
The Federal OSHA national emergency hotline telephone number is 1-800-321-OSHA.
State of Florida Labor Law Poster


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Warhol's "Silver Car Crash" sold for $104.5 million last night at Sotheby's in New York, which was either too little, or too much. Too little, because the night before, a much less important picture by Francis Bacon sold for $142.4 million at Christie's, breaking every record for an artwork at auction. It might have been nice if, for once, there were some correlation between such a record and the historical importance of the work that set it – as would have been the case with the "Car Crash". Last night's $104.5 million was too much, by exactly $4.5 million, because at an even $100 million, Warhol's picture would have matched the fake $100 million price tag that Damien Hirst, a Warhol devotee, attached to his diamond-studded skull in 2007. Hirst created a work, and a social "performance", of sorts, that was all about how art and artists enter the marketplace, but Warhol had staked out that territory 45 years before, in even more subtle and complex ways. It started in 1962, with the Campbell's soup can as iconic commodity, then within a year Warhol had expanded the idea to cover the commodity status of celebrities – Marilyn and Jackie and Liz (so famous that their first names are still enough to call them to mind) and soon Andy himself and the Superstars he created from scratch. And then Warhol's notion spread further, to cover even the calamities served up to us over and over again in tabloids and on the news – poisoned cans of tuna, suicide leaps and fatal car crashes. (The celebrities Warhol chose and created were also all calamities, of a sort, since even Liz had just survived a calamitous illness when Warhol pictured her and had starred on screen as a car-crash victim, and of course Warhol and his Superstars were models of broken lives.)
Warhol silkscreened his "Crash" in several "colorways" (he borrowed the concept from fabric and housewares marketing) but this silver version is best of all, because the shiny paint itself stands for the bullion that's at the symbolic heart of every transaction in a commodity culture. It's presented .999 "pure" in the work's right panel, and then on the left with a black image of disaster that reads as a tarnish on its surface. (This is just about the moment when Ralph Nader was starting to rouse the nation's consumers against the hazards built into the cars they were buying – although I note that this wasn't a movement against consumption itself, but in favor of a safer, purer form of it.)
So Warhol's Pop art – a misnomer if ever there was one – isn't a cheery celebration of Pop-ing commodity culture, though that's how it was often billed (sometimes by Warhol himself). And it's not a preachy, political attack on that culture, which was another common reading. It's a full-bodied portrait of commodification, with its lights and darks left intact and in play against each other, and in which we see ourselves. (The blank right-hand panel could be mirror as well as bullion.)
That portrait saw a kind of apotheosis last night, in an auction that declared and celebrated the greatness of this work of art but that also laid bare a culture of consumption that, more than ever, has escaped the bounds of reason. Warhol saw consumption as a force for democratization in an America where, he wrote, "the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.... A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke." . But last night at Sotheby's, we saw consumption's new, darker side, as our insane economic divide (read this terrifying report) made itself clearer than ever and infected even a great work of art. After all, one way or another, every dollar of the record millions that got spent at Sotheby's was a dollar not paid out to the poor suckers making our cars and feeding on Campbell's soup – when they can afford even that.
Warhol's "Crash" may have started out depicting hoarded bullion, but last night that's what it became.
For a full visual survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.


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Syria: WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures
Today, Thursday 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012.
This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture.
Over the next two months, ground-breaking stories derived from the files will appear in WikiLeaks (global), Al Akhbar (Lebanon), Al Masry Al Youm (Egypt), ARD (Germany), Associated Press (US), L'Espresso (Italy), Owni (France) and Publico.es (Spain). Other publications will announce themselves closer to their publishing date.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said: « The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria's opponents. It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it. »
At this time Syria is undergoing a violent internal conflict that has killed between 6,000 and 15,000 people in the last 18 months. The Syria Files shine a light on the inner workings of the Syrian government and economy, but they also reveal how the West and Western companies say one thing and do another.
The range of information extends from the intimate correspondence of the most senior Baath party figures to records of financial transfers sent from Syrian ministries to other nations.
The database comprises 2,434,899 emails from the 680 domains. There are 678,752 different email addresses that have sent emails and 1,082,447 different recipients. There are a number of different languages in the set, including around 400,000 emails in Arabic and 68,000 emails in Russian. The data is more than eight times the size of 'Cablegate' in terms of number of documents, and more than 100 times the size in terms of data. Around 42,000 emails were infected with viruses or trojans. To solve these complexities, WikiLeaks built a general-purpose, multi-language political data-mining system which can handle massive data sets like those represented by the Syria Files.
In such a large collection of information, it is not possible to verify every single email at once; however, WikiLeaks and its co-publishers have done so for all initial stories to be published. We are statistically confident that the vast majority of the data are what they purport to be.