text:
A year after a flooding disaster in Thailand took out a large portion of hard disk drive production, the industry has fully recovered with shipments to the computer market expected to hit a record level this year.
According to market research firm IHS iSuppli, hard drive sales have rebounded, driven by demand in the enterprise market as well as the upcoming arrival of the Windows 8 operating system next month.
HDD shipments in 2012 for the overall computer market, including PCs, are forecast to reach 524 million drives, up 4.3% percent from 502.5 million units last year, according to an IHS report.
Hard drive prices, however, will remain high, and prices are not expected to fall to pre-flood levels until 2014, IHS stated in a report earlier this year.
In the wake of the flooding in Thailand last year, hard drive prices rose to an average of $66 in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 28% leap from the $51 average price in the previous quarter, according to IHS.
The average price held steady at $66 in the first quarter of 2012 and is expected to decline only marginally, to about $65, in the second quarter.
While the number of hard drives shipping this year will top an all-time record, shipments are expected continue to rise briskly over the next four years. In 2016, hard drive shipments will hit 575.1 million units, IHS said.
"The forecast includes drive shipments only to the PC computer segment, which includes client hard disks for desktops and notebooks, and enterprise drives for servers and storage systems. The forecast does not include drive shipments for other markets, such as in the automotive industry, or for external hard drives or DVR devices.
In contrast to the glowing performance of drives for the PC space, annual drives shipments for consumer-related products will decline this year from 2011 levels.
"HDD shipments for computers will overcome a sluggish third quarter to reach record levels in 2012," said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS. "The yearly rise in HDD shipments is the result of greater demand from the consumer and enterprise PC segments, both of which continue to clamor for disk space in order to hold storage-intensive media like music, videos and other forms of social media content."
Another major contributor to drive shipment growth is the Windows 8 operating system, which is expected to be launched in October, and the subsequent purchase of PCs with the new OS.
Hard drives sales will also get a boost from ultrabooks, including machines that use hybrid drives, which combine spinning disk with solid state storage. Those drive shipments are flat now but will take off in the fourth quarter of this years, according to IHS.
This past year, Seagate, which had been the only maker of hybrid drives for laptops, was joined by Western Digital and Toshiba. Both companies announced they expect to ship products next year.
The Windows 8 launch and ultrabooks are "believed to be the best hope by the beleaguered PC sector to take on smartphones and tablets such as the iPad from Apple Inc.," IHS stated.
Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed . His e-mail address is firstname.lastname@example.com.
See more by Lucas Mearian on Computerworld.com.


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How to get it right: government balances, growth and income inequality
Austerity programmes to restore order to public finances can add to the woes of already struggling economies, leading to more job losses and social hardship. But there are ways for governments to put their fiscal houses in order, while supporting growth and reducing income inequality at the same time.
Fortunately, despite all the tightening to date, there is still scope for countries to adjust their fiscal consolidation efforts and redesign them in such a way so as to achieve more fiscal sustainability, more growth and more equity. To do this, governments must act on both sides of the fiscal equation, while also introducing structural reforms.
References and recommended sources
OECD (2013), Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth, OECD Publishing
OECD (2012), OECD Economic Outlook, Vol. 2012/2, OECD Publishing
Rawdanowicz, L., E. Wurzel and A. Christensen (2013), "The Equity Implications of Fiscal Consolidation", OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No. 1013, OECD Publishing
More OECD Observer articles on governance
By Pier Carlo Padoan, Chief Economist and Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD
©OECD Yearbook 2013
Related Documents

subset: commoncrawl


text:
An article by Sara Weinstein
What do you do after the untimely death of a fellow student?
Katie Walters was a friend to many. She was 20 years old, and a woman of convictions. She was both serious and spontaneous. She liked to have fun. No one could forget her beautiful smile. As one friend commented, "When you were with her, she had an incredible ability to make you feel like you were the most important person in the world."
What do you do when a friend passes away?
"To everything there is a season
A time to live, a time to die…"
To everything there is a purpose under Heaven."
We may never know the purpose of her death. But we can learn from the purpose of her life. Katie noticed others. Everyone agrees that Katie was very kind. As Esther L. Barazzone, the President of Chatham University, said at the recent Memorial Service for Katie, "In Katie's memory, stop and do an act of kindness for someone. It may be the hardest thing to do. It may also be the most important thing to do!"
Chabad on Chatham has chosen to do two special programs in Katie's memory for Chatham students.
"Slips of Kindness" was a simple, but far-reaching idea to empower more people to do acts of kindness on campus. On Tuesday, April 16, members of Chabad on Chatham gave out bags including a chocolate chip cookie and a slip of kindness. These slips of paper each suggested a single act of kindness to do that day. Examples included:
- Call a friend to say hi today.
- Smile at someone walking past you to brighten his/her day.
- Thank a cashier who you encounter today.
- Take time to listen to someone and be empathetic to their feelings.
- Go out of your way to do something nice for someone.
- Take time to notice a friend.
- Give charity to your favorite cause.
Students were really happy with the opportunity to be a part of this simple but meaningful activity.
The second program planned in Katie's memory will take place on May 1st in the Mellon Living Room. Called, "An Evening with Leah Herman: A Jewish Feminist Perspective," this program will bring together friends of Katie's and hopefully, students from all backgrounds for an uplifting and inspiring perspective of womanhood. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. Refreshments will be served.
"As painful as Katie's loss is," Chabad Student President, Leiba Estrin, asserts, "Chabad on Chatham will strive to do more acts of kindness for Katie." Pass it along. It may be the hardest thing to do, but it may be the most important thing you CAN do!


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VBoxHeadless - Running Virtual Machines With VirtualBox 3.1.x On A Headless OpenSUSE 11.2 Server - Page 2
4 Connecting To A VM From A Remote Desktop
4.1 Windows XP
You can use the built-in Remote Desktop Connection utility to connect to the VM:
Type in the hostname or IP address of the host (not the guest!):
And voilà, you should be connected to the VM:
4.2 Linux
On Linux desktops, you can use the rdesktop command to connect to the VM. Open a terminal (on Ubuntu, for example, it's under Applications > Accessories > Terminal)...
... and type in the following command:
rdesktop -a 16 192.168.0.100
(192.168.0.100 is the host IP address, not the one of the guest - replace it with your own IP address or hostname; -a 16 means 16 bit colour depth.)
And voilà, you should be connected to the VM:
5 Links
- VirtualBox: http://www.virtualbox.org/
- OpenSUSE: http://www.opensuse.org/


text:
Find vacancies
Browse current and past international vacancies, selected for CEU students and alumni. Login to your account to see full details and to set up e-mail job alerts.
Do you have a vacancy to share? Write us at email@example.com.
1 item matched all
Director of Peacebuilding – Global
International AlertUnited KingdomPosted 5 years 1 weekType: job


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Top Items:
David Benjamin / EE Times:
Users' love affair with iPhone stumps Mobile World panel — BARCELONA, Spain — A blue-ribbon panel of human behavior and technology experts at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain agreed that the best recent advance in the mobile telecommunications user space came …
Russell Shaw / IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband: Since mobile search still sux, is it time for cellphone content "decks" to die?
Greg Sterling / localmobilesearch.net: Panelists Express Mystification about the iPhone
David Morgenstern / The Apple Core: Smartphone makers, mobile operators still baffled by iPhone
Don Reisingher / All News Feeds: Creating the perfect mobile phone ain't easy
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple iPhone's Ease of Use Encouraging Mobile Internet Usage — At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, members of the mobile phone industry met for a three day conference. The iPhone's appears to have already had a large effect on the mobile phone industry, with many showing off iPhone clones.
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Using the Mobile Web is a Sticky Proposition — Another Mobile World Congress, and another week full of promises coming out of the wireless industry that we will find eventually use our mobile phones to access the web much like we use our PCs. While I do believe we're closer …
Darren Waters / BBC NEWS | dot.life: Learning mobile lessons
Slash Lane / AppleInsider:
Google iPhone usage shocks search giant
Google iPhone usage shocks search giant
Discussion: The Apple Core, VentureBeat, Mashable!, Apple 2.0, Computerworld Blogs, Epicenter, PHONE Magazine and Digg
Jason D. O'Grady / The Apple Core: Google; AT&T shocked by iPhone usage
MG Siegler / VentureBeat: Who bricked my iPhone? Who hacked my Android?
Stan Schroeder / Mashable!: iPhone Rules Mobile Search - No Surprise Here
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0: iPhones initiate 50 times more searches than other handsets, says Google
Seth Weintraub / Computerworld Blogs: iPhone users search Google 5,000% more than the nearest competitor
Bryan Gardiner / Epicenter: IPhone Users Are Prodigious Googlers
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Google Tests Video Ads on Search Results Pages — Google has always had a love-hate relationship with advertising. Its power and wealth come from the $16 billion a year of advertising that it sells. Yet on its most important pages, the results from its Web search engine …
Brad Linder / Download Squad: Google to roll out video ads in search pages
Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System: Video Ads in Google's Search Results Pages
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee: Do We Really Want Video Ads in Search?
Adam Ostrow / Mashable!: Wow: Google to Introduce Visual Ads in Search Results
Shelly Palmer / MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer Video: QuadrantOne - CBS - Nielsen - Google - Reveille
Amanda Natividad / paidContent.org: Google Begins Testing Video Ads
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land: AdWords + Video: Video Ads Come To Google Search Results
Kevin Newcomb / Search Engine Watch Blog: Google to Test Video Ads on SERPs
Verne Kopytoff / The Technology Chronicles: Some video ads to go with your Google search
David A. Utter / WebProNews: Google Prepares Video Ads For Search Results
Frederic / The Last Podcast: Google to Test Video Ads
Sam Harrelson / Cost Per News: Google Testing Video Ads on SERPS
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Google to test video ads in search; Will there be a revolt? — Google is reportedly going to test visual ads in its search results instead of the usual small text ads. The big question is what the reaction will be? — According to Saul Hansell at the New York Times' Bits blog …
Business Week:
Building the Perfect Laptop — The superslim ThinkPad X300 is Lenovo's bid for leadership in the high-stakes world of laptops — "Phyllis! Get me one of those interoffice mail envelopes!" — It was just after lunchtime on Jan. 15, and Peter Hortensius was storming through the cubicles …
Discussion: Guardian Unlimited, Technology Questions, Engadget and GottaBeMobile
Jack Schofield / Guardian Unlimited: BusinessWeek puts the ThinkPad X300 on its cover
Thomas Ricker / Engadget: Lenovo's X300: a quest to build the perfect laptop, revealed
Warner Crocker / GottaBeMobile: The Unbearable Lightness of Being the Lightest
Hollywood Reporter:
Toshiba to drop HD DVD, sources say — Company says no decision has been made — The format war has turned into a format death watch. — Toshiba is widely expected to pull the plug on its HD DVD format sometime in the coming weeks, reliable industry sources say, after a rash …
Nicholas Deleon / CrunchGear: Report: Toshiba to officially drop HD DVD in the next few weeks
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org: Is This It? HD DVD Backer Toshiba To Give Up On HD DVD: Report
MG Siegler / ParisLemon: RIP HD-DVD — The Hollywood Reporter is reporting …
Darren Murph / Engadget HD: Toshiba gearing up to drop HD DVD?
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo: Toshiba Finally Taking HD DVD Off Life Support
Michael Santo / Alice Hill's Real Tech News: Toshiba to Drop HD-DVD: Sources
Audley Jarvis / All News Feeds: Toshiba about to throw the towel in on HD DVD
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider: HD DVD Backer Ready To Give Up
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft reorg: Who's in; who's out — On February 14, Microsoft announced a corporate reorganization affecting many of its divisions. — As with any Microsoft early-year reorg — which typically occur after the company's fiscal mid-year reviews — there are winners and losers.
Discussion: Bits, WebProNews, Microsoft Watch, eWeek, GigaOM, CNET News.com, Voices, Search Engine Watch Blog, LiveSide and Bink.nu
Saul Hansell / Bits: Will Microsoft's Executive Shuffle Scare Yahoo?
David A. Utter / WebProNews: Microsoft Juggles The Org Chart Again
Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch: Microsoft Puts on Midlife Executive Bulge
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / eWeek: Did Microsoft Do the Right Kind of Reorganization?
Kevin Johnson Memo / GigaOM: Kevin Johnson Memo
Ina Fried / CNET News.com: Microsoft shuffle leads to many promotions
Carl Bialik / Voices: How Good Was 2007 for Newspaper Web Sites?
Kevin Newcomb / Search Engine Watch Blog: Microsoft Shuffles Execs, Berkowitz to Exit
Sumeeth Evans / Bink.nu: Microsoft's latest reorg to set the stage for Yahoo merger
Microsoft Announces New, Expanded Roles for Key Executives
Microsoft Announces New, Expanded Roles for Key Executives
Discussion: Search Engine Land, eWeek, Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog, GigaOM, Microsoft News Tracker and All about Microsoft
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land: Official: Microsoft Management Reorg Announced; Dueling Ad Groups?
Darryl K. Taft / eWeek: Lucky 14 Executives Win Promotions in Microsoft Shuffle
Om Malik / GigaOM: Microsoft Reorg Memos; What is SPAG
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft: Former Microsoft mobile chief joins Vodafone
Louise Story / New York Times:
4 News Companies Ally to Sell Ads on the Internet — Four large newspaper companies are joining forces to sell advertisements on the Internet, hoping that the combined heft of their Web sites will encourage large advertisers to spend more money. — Each of the four companies …
Discussion: WebProNews and TechCrunch
David A. Utter / WebProNews: Big Newsies Join Forces, Sell Online Ads
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
NYT-Gannett-Trib-Hearst Combine Form Local Online Ad Sales Company quadrantONE
NYT-Gannett-Trib-Hearst Combine Form Local Online Ad Sales Company quadrantONE
Discussion: San Francisco Chronicle, InfoWorld, Wall Street Journal, Silicon Alley Insider and Los Angeles Times
Robert Macmillan / Wall Street Journal: Media Firms Create Ad Network
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider: New York Times Shafts Digital Staffers
Michael A. Hiltzik / Los Angeles Times: Media chains form Web ad alliance called QuadrantONE
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
What's Microsoft Offering Open Source On February 27? — First Scoble writes about something so amazing from Microsoft it makes him cry and will be world changing. Then Long Zheng spots the above page via an email pitch linking to opensourcehero that redirects here.
Discussion: Scobleizer, WinBeta and Valleywag
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer: Misreading Scoble on Microsoft cry
Paul Boutin / Valleywag: Scoble has yet another world-changing secret
Long Zheng / istartedsomething:
Scoble's big secret coincides with "Open Source Hero". …
Scoble's big secret coincides with "Open Source Hero". …
Discussion: Between the Lines, ParisLemon, Brier Dudley's blog and TechCrunch
Hiawatha Bray / Boston Globe:
EMC deal could bring SAP software to smaller firms — Companies said to ponder collaboration — A possible deal between EMC Corp. of Hopkinton and German software giant SAP AG could make it easier for small- and medium-size companies to obtain advanced business-management services over the Internet.
Discussion: IT Project Failures
Michael Krigsman / IT Project Failures: Amazon S3 services down. Bad, bad news for customers.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
8aweek To Help You Kick That Internet Time Wasting Addiction — New Y Combinator startup 8aweek aims to help you stop wasting all that time on random Internet sites. They offer a Firefox plugin that monitors the web sites you visit and how long you spend on each site.
Discussion: Lifehacker
Kevin Purdy / Lifehacker: Track Browsing Habits Across Systems with 8aweek
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Are you breathing while emailing or Twittering? — Linda Stone is a former executive who worked at Apple and Microsoft. Has been doing all sorts of research over the years and is probably most famous for coming up with the term "continuous partial attention." Which, basically, explains our behavior while using Twitter.
Bradley Horowitz / Elatable:
On Leaving Yahoo... Leaving Yahoo. — Yes, it's true. I've left Yahoo. — It was somewhat overwhelming sifting through the barrage of reactions over the last 48 hours: "Thanks for all you've done", "How could you?!", "Congrats!", etc. It's fascinating to watch people react.
Discussion: Bits
Miguel Helft / Bits: A Farewell Note From a Departing Yahoo


text:
AppleCheeks Bamboo 2 Layer Booster 🇨🇦
Does our 2-layer rayon from bamboo insert not quite meet the needs of your VERY heavy wetter? Need a little something extra?
Our 2-layer rayon from bamboo/organic cotton booster is a great way to bump up your system's absorbency. Wrap it in a 2-layer insert and you get a total of 8 layers right where your baby needs it! Fold it in half and place in the front of the diaper if you have a boy for extra absorbency right where he needs it!


text: I've worn out the first CD I bought from these guys…and gal. Every song has a story to tell and I never get tired of hearing it. Plus they're from Seattle (oh how I miss Seattle). If you've had the chance to see them play and let it pass you by I'd be willing to bet your life probably feels like it's incomplete…and for good reason. Check out their website (link below) to purchase their newest album Love Me Blue and see when you can catch these tour addicts live.


text:
Experts create intelligent 'plaster' to monitor patients
Medical engineers said Sunday they had created a device the size of a plaster which can monitor patients by tracking their muscle activity before administering their medication.
Methods for monitoring so-called "movement disorders" such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease have traditionally included video recordings or wearable devices, but these tend to be bulky and inflexible.
The new gadget, which is worn on the skin, looks like a Band-Aid but uses nanotechnology—in which building blocks as small as atoms and molecules are harnessed to bypass problems of bulkiness and stiffness— to monitor the patient.
Scientists have long hoped to create an unobtrusive device able to capture and store medical information as well as administer drugs in response to the data.
This has proved difficult due to the large amount of onboard electronics and storage space required, high power consumption, and the lack of a mechanism for delivering medicine via the skin.
But although monitoring helps to track disease progression and allows better treatment, until now the electronics used in the devices have been hard and brittle, and not ideal for an on-the-skin device.
But the team from South Korea and the United States said they had found the solution in nanomaterials, creating a flexible and stretchable device that resembles an adhesive plaster, about one millimetre (0.04 inches) thick.
Still a prototype, the gadget comprises multiple layers of ultrathin nanomembranes and nanoparticles, the creators wrote in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
"The team use silicon nanomembranes in the motion sensors, gold nanoparticles in the non-volatile memory and silica nanoparticles, loaded with drugs, in a thermal actuator," they wrote in a summary.
The study showed that when worn on the wrist of a patient, the patch could measure and record muscle activity.
The recorded data then triggered the release, with the aid of a wafer-thin internal heater, of drugs stored inside the nanoparticles.
A temperature sensor made of silicon nanomembranes monitored the skin temperature to prevent burns during drug delivery.
"This platform overcomes the limitations of conventional wearable devices and has the potential to improve compliance, data quality and the efficacy of current clinical procedures," the authors wrote.
Dae-Hyeong Kim from the Center for Nanoparticle Research in Seoul said that the device currently needs a microprocessor from an external computer, which could be in a wristwatch, to which it is attached with thin wires.
"But in the future wireless components will be incorporated," to make the device independent and fully mobile, he told AFP.
More information: Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.38
Journal information: Nature Nanotechnology


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Lindsay Lohan loses lawsuit versus 'Grand Theft Auto' makers
NEW YORK: A New York state appeals court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by actress Lindsay Lohan that says the producers of "Grand Theft Auto" used a likeness of her in one of their video games.
A panel of judges in the Manhattan Appellate Division ruled that Take-Two Interactive Software Incorporatives didn't use her actual "name, portrait or picture" and therefore didn't violate her right to privacy.
In the lawsuit, Lohan accused the producers of modeling her physical features, including clothing, shoulder-length blonde hair and voice in "Grand Theft Auto V," a video game that takes place in the fictional city "Los Santos" where players act as car-stealing criminals.
The court said the depictions deserved First Amendment protection.
"This video game's unique story, characters, dialogue, and environment, combined with the player's ability to choose how to proceed in the game, render it a work of fiction and satire," the judges wrote.
Similar claims against Take-Two by "Mob Wives" television star Karen Gravano also were dismissed in the combined ruling.
A message left with Lohan's lawyer wasn't returned. Gravano's lawyer said they're exploring their options.


text:
From the "Non-Majority Rule" Desk: Pre-Election Roundup for Races with Potential Spoilers, Democrats' Dirty Tricks, and Howard Dean's Support for Majority Winner Elections
In our final pre-election blog from the non-majority rule desk, evidence of the spoiler effect in this election cycle is still strong: many races remain too close to call, of course, but a dozen or more U.S. Senate and governor's races may be won with less than a majority of the votes. A brief survey of the country's races reveals just how significant third party and independent candidates will be in determining the holders of 24 governor's seats and 19 U.S. Senate seats.
Before going in-depth about the races where independents and third parties are playing the biggest role, let's review the races that – like the 2000 presidential election – may be tipped by a third candidate who gets a relatively small share of the vote. The Florida governor's race, for example, has taken a back seat to the high profile, three-candidate race for the U.S. Senate, but the tight race between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Alex Sink right now is far closer, with FiveThirtyEight projecting 48.8% of the vote going to Sink and 48.6% going to Scott. According to a CNN/Time/Opinion Research poll, 4% of likely voters support another candidate or prefer neither of the two major candidates.
A local poll from Colorado illustrates a similar situation in the U.S. Senate race: Both Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Ken Buck carry 47% of the vote; 5% support another candidate. Maintaining this pattern, the governor's race in Georgia shows Republican Nathan Deal and Democrat Roy Barnes separated by 5 points (45% to 40% with a 4-point margin of error) while Libertarian candidate John Monds claims 5% of the vote. In Ohio, the gubernatorial contest between Democrat Ted Strickland and Republican John Kasich is well within the margin or error as Kasich claims 49% of the vote to Strickland's 47%. 5% of voters support another candidate or remain undecided.
Third party and independent candidates retain a significant presence in Illinois. In the governor's race, Republican Bill Brady leads Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn 44% to 40%, followed by three other candidates: Independent Scott Cohen with 4%, Green Party candidate Rich Whitney with 3%, and Libertarian Lex Green with 1%. The Illinois Senate race is playing out with similar numbers: Republican Mark Kirk polls at 44%; Democrat Alexi Giannoulias polls at 40%. 4% support Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones while 8% support some other candidate.
In the U.S. Senate race in California, Democrat Barbara Boxer leads Republican Carly Fiorina 48% to 46%. This small gap leaves more than enough room for the 3% supporting some other candidate to spoil the election one way or the other.
Polls suggest that Nevada's U.S. Senate race between Republican Sharron Angle and Democratic incumbent Harry Reid is as close as 2 points (48% and 46% respectively). Rasumussen has Angle leading by 4 points, but even this is enough for the 4% favoring another candidate to tip the scales.
Now let's turn to races where third parties and independents have played a bigger role -- with three candidates polling in double digits, and in two cases, major parties becoming the potential victim of the "spoiler" dynamic.
Colorado: There is perhaps no more fascinating race than the one for governor in Colorado. There, the Republican nominee Dan Maes has imploded, with some polls showing him earning as little as 5% of the vote. What's fascinating is that the results indicate a kind of "slow-motion" instant runoff. As Maes' vote has dropped, the vote share for Constitution Party (and former Republican Congressman) Tom Tancredo has risen. Throughout these fluctuations, Democratic nominee John Hickenlooper has maintained a consistent share. See below:
Maine: The Non-Majority Rule desk has watched Maine's gubernatorial race with close attention because of the fluctuating popularity of Independent Eliot Cutler. Although he had been hovering around 10% to 12% in the polls for some time, he has earned the endorsement of the state's largest paper (the Portland Press Herald) and in one poll already has rocketed up to 19%, essentially tying with Democrat Libby Mitchell. Republican Paul LePage leads with 32% of the vote—hardly a majority consensus.
Massachusetts: Governor Deval Patrick takes a modest lead in the four-way Massachusetts gubernatorial race according to a local poll: Patrick carries 43%; Republican Charlie Baker carries 39%. Additionally, independent Tim Cahill polls at 8% and the Green Party's Jill Stein polls at 2%. Cahill's share of the vote has dropped significantly without seeming to have much effect on the margin between the major party nominees, reflecting his centrist politics.
Rhode Island: The independent candidate Lincoln Chafee is leading in Rhode Island's gubernatorial race. One poll shows Chafee with 35%, Democrat Frank Caprio with 28%, and GOP candidate John Robitaille with 25%. Moderate Party candidate Ken Block also picks up 6%. This four-way race, as in Massachusetts and Maine, is almost guaranteed to produce a plurality victory instead of a majority considering the number of candidates in the running.
Alaska: On Monday, the New York Times took a look at Lisa Mukowski's independent bid to retain her U.S. Senate seat as a write-in candidate in Alaska. Republican Joe Miller, who beat Murkowski in the GOP primary earlier this year, has a steadily decreasing lead. Murkowski may be grabbing the spotlight in the final days of the race, but whether her status as a write-in candidate will hurt her chances remains to be seen. Miller, Murkowski, and Democratic nominee Scott McAdams all have the potential to pull out a win – but with far less than 50%.
Finally, echoing stories from earlier this election season, the New York Times featured a front page story on October 22nd paralleling an earlier one on dirty Republican tactics to recruit faux Green Party candidates. Now the Times reports the Democrats numerous attempts to field and fund tea party candidates to siphon votes from Republicans. Among the cases, reports like the one concerning Mayor Steve Pougnet of Palm Springs, California are particularly indicting of the Democratic Party and our current plurality voting system because of how openly the perpetrators are scamming voters:
"Republicans have received recorded phone calls from a professed but unidentified 'registered Republican' who says she is voting for the American Independent Party's candidate for a House seat, Bill Lussenheide, not for the incumbent Republican, Mary Bono Mack. The caller says she is voting that way because 'it's time we show Washington what a true conservative looks like.' The recording was openly paid for by the Democratic candidate for the seat, Mayor Steve Pougnet of Palm Springs."
To get rid of such shenanigans and undemocratic outcomes, it's time to adopt instant runoff voting. Former Vermont governor, Democratic National Committee chair, and presidential candidate Howard Dean certainly thinks so. See his new commentary featured in this blog post by John Nichols.


text:
These guys appear to be doing quality work in their niche. Thanks!
These guys appear to be doing quality work in their niche. Thanks!
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After a year of trying, Suzanne, 36, found out she was pregnant with her first child. Her excitement quickly turned to worry when her doctor told her she was Rh negative (Rh-). When a blood test revealed her husband was Rh positive (Rh+), her concern escalated.
Rh factor is a protein that can be found on the surface red blood cells. If the Rh factor is present in your blood, your blood type is positive; if it is not present, your blood type is negative. There are 4 major blood types—O, A, B, and AB. Each of these blood types can be (+) or (-) with respect to Rh.
Genes determine if the Rh factor is positive or negative. You inherit one Rh gene from each of your parents. The combination determines your Rh status, as shown in the table below.
|If you inherit…
|You will be…
|+ +
|Rh positive
|+ –
|Rh positive
|– –
|Rh negative
In the United States, more than 85% of people are Rh+. Being Rh- does not affect your health, but it can complicate a pregnancy.
When an Rh- woman conceives a child with an Rh+ man, their child can be Rh- or Rh+. If the baby's blood type matches the mother's (both are Rh-), Rh causes no complications. This may not be the case however, if the baby's blood type is Rh+.
Problems arise when the baby's Rh+ blood gets into the mother's Rh- bloodstream by traveling through the placenta. Red blood cells with the Rh factor are foreign to the mother. In an attempt to fight off this foreign invader, her immune system produces antibodies against the Rh+ blood cells. The process is called sensitization—the mother is now sensitized to the Rh factor.
During the first pregnancy, this usually does not present any danger to the fetus. Most often, the baby is born before the mother develops enough Rh antibodies to do harm. Although some red blood cells leak across the placenta during pregnancy, the greatest amount is transferred at delivery. In addition, Rh antibodies can develop after a miscarriage, abortion, ectopic pregnancy, or amniocentesis.
Rh sensitization can cause problems for a baby in later pregnancies. If a woman who is sensitized is carrying an Rh+ baby, her antibodies to the Rh factor can cross the placenta and attack the baby's red blood cells. This causes hemolytic disease due to Rh incompatibility. It is an anemia that can cause serious complications in the infant, including brain damage and even death. Although Rh disease is rarely seen in the first pregnancy, later pregnancies are at an increasingly greater risk.
Women who are Rh- but unsensitized are given a shot of Rh immune globulin at around 28 weeks of pregnancy. She is given another shot within 72 hours of giving birth if her baby is Rh+. Rh- women should also be given the immune globulin shot after any event that could cause the blood of an Rh+ fetus to mix with the mother's blood, including:
Rh- immune globulin contains antibodies to the Rh factor. These antibodies seek out the baby's Rh+ blood in the mother's bloodstream, attach to it, and destroy it before the mother can make antibodies of her own. Rh-immune globulin's protective effect lasts for about 12 weeks, so the shot will be given again during future pregnancies.
An Rh-sensitized pregnancy is a high risk pregnancy. During an Rh-sensitized pregnancy, the mother's blood is tested for Rh antibodies throughout the pregnancy. If the amount of antibodies is rising to an unsafe level, tests are done to assess the health of the fetus. In some situations, the doctor may advise inducing early labor and giving blood transfusions to the newborn child.
In the last two decades, many advances have been made in treating a fetus with severe Rh disease. For example, blood transfusions can be done in utero, using a tiny blood vessel in the fetus's umbilical cord. This highly-specialized procedure is only available in some centers.
After Suzanne's obstetrician explained Rh to her, she felt more at ease. Although she is still a bit concerned, she knows that with careful monitoring backed by the advances of modern medicine, she and her doctor can help keep her baby safe and healthy.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
March of Dimes
About Kids Health—The Hospital for Sick Children
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
Rh disease. March of Dimes website. Available at:
...(Click grey area to select URL)
Updated December 2009. Accessed May 20, 2014.
The Rh factor: How it can affect your pregnancy. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists website. Available at:
...(Click grey area to select URL)
Updated September 2013. Accessed March 23, 2016.
Last reviewed March 2016 by Michael Woods, MD
Last Updated: 3/23/2016


text: In two special Israel performances to celebrate the holiday season, Riccardo Chailly led Zurich's Orchestra La Scintilla, the Dresden Chamber Choir, and a handful of soloists in Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Both concerts were held in historic churches, the Xmas eve concert in Bethlehem while today's Xmas day concert was in Jerusalem. Let's hope Chailly & friends could fit in some sightseeing. Merry Xmas, Y'all!


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Tales of escorts, fancy dinners at corruption inqury
MONTREAL--Bribes, golf trips, bottles of wine...and escorts.
The latest testimony at the Charbonneau Commission is that construction firms routinely took a senior manager within Montreal city hall's engineering department out to dinner, and that on occasion entrepreneurs would offer him escorts.
Gilles Vezina, a supervisor in the department, said that he never took the entrepreneurs up on their offers of illicit sexual services.
"I had been married three or four years and that wasn't something I was interested in," said Vezina.
However the supervisor did not find it unusual for contractors to offer everyone in the engineering department gifts, saying that it had been a part of his department's cultural business model since he first began working for the city in the 1960s.
"They were trying to see what the client would accept. I took it that way," said Vezina.
What did interest Vezina was wine, about 30 bottles a year which were delivered to his home or office.
Vezina was also a frequent dinner guest of entrepreneurs, and said that was because entrepreneurs always had "business" to discuss and wanted to be up-to-date with the latest ongoing projects taking place, or about to take place, in Montreal.
Vezina has already said that at least three times a year he received tickets to hockey games, from firms such as Tecsult, Genivar, and DGL.
The supervisor also said that gifts he accepted did not influence any decision he made. He also said that he never accepted any cash, but was aware that others in his office were accepting gifts of many kinds.
Vezina's job was to approve contracts and monitor and approve cost overruns on projects.
One case that came up during Tuesday's testimony showed that Vezina may not have been keeping a very close eye on what was happening in his office.
He was asked about a 2006 project on Queen Mary Rd. that suddenly required an extraoardinary amount of excavation.
Vezina said he found it strange, unusual, almost inexplicable, yet approved the extra cost anyway.
Two of Vezina's employees, engineers Luc Leclerc and Gilles Surprenant, have already testified that between them they accepted more than one million dollars in bribes in exchange for inflating contracts.
When asked how he had approved cost-overruns that even he called "ridiculous," Vezina said that the two engineers had "tricked him."
Last week the city of Montreal suspended Vezina, with pay, following allegations made at the inquiry.
Several other supervisors and engineers, including Michel Paquette, Yves Themens and Francois Theriault are also on leave.


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One-Time Krokus Drummer Dani Crivelli Dies
Krokus are mourning the death of their former drummer, Dani Crivelli, who recently passed away. Crivelli, pictured at the far left above, was a member of the group from 1987 to 1989 and appeared on the band's 1988 album 'Heart Attack.' An official cause of death was not revealed.
The Swiss rocker came on board in 1987, replacing Jeff Klaven behind the kit. He performed on such Krokus staples as 'Rock 'n' Roll Tonight' and 'Wild Love.' Unfortunately, the band split after the support of the 'Heart Attack' album.
Commenting on Crivelli's passing, the band stated:
We are saddened to report to you that our ex-Krokus drummer Dani Crivelli passed away. Our sincere condolences to his family and loved ones … He always kept in contact with the band over the years. We liked his straight forward, but true words about music and life. He will be missed but will keep on drumming in Rock'n'Roll heaven!
Crivelli's other credits included the Swiss band Killer as well as the group Ain't Dead Yet that featured Krokus' Many Maurer and Tony Castell.
Krokus eventually re-formed but without Crivelli, most recently releasing the 'Dirty Dynamite' album earlier this year. The disc went straight to No. 1 in their native Switzerland and was a Top 20 release in Germany.


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The work involved in shutting down the nearly 200,000 gallons of crude oil spewing up into the Gulf of Mexico daily for the past two weeks has demanded a tremendous amount of coordination involving, among others, BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and local fishermen. But given the depth of the damaged Macondo well—1,524 meters below the Gulf's surface—the use of undersea robots is the only way to cut off the flow of escaping oil.
Specifically, the robots are remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and they are playing a major role in efforts to stop each of the three leaks created following an April 20 explosion on board the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 workers, sunk the rig and damaged the pipeline. (The cause of the explosion remains unknown.)
ROVs are a general-purpose work tool used by drilling companies, "the pickup trucks that deliver tools down to drilling site and specialize in the physical manipulation of objects," says Glenn Sasagawa, development engineer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. Most of these rigs begin drilling too deep for human divers, so the companies use million-dollar ROVs, ranging from 10 to 300 horsepower, for inspection, maintenance and intervention.
Crews capped one of the leaks Tuesday night with the help of robotic subs controlled remotely from a ship on the surface. The ROVs installed a specially designed valve over the end of a leaking drill pipe lying on the sea floor, The New York Times reported Wednesday. The end of the pipe was cut, after which the valve, weighing more than half a ton, was positioned on the seabed, Offshore-mag.com reported Wednesday. The ROVs secured the valve to the broken drill pipe and then closed it, shutting off flow from the pipe.
ROVs have been less successful in capping the leak at the well itself—specifically, by activating the blowout preventer. The Macondo well's blowout preventer is a 12-meter-tall steel structure containing several valves, and it is designed to plug the well in an emergency. The rig's crew was unable to activate the blowout preventer from the rig before it sank. The robots have been unable to reach all of the valves to shut them off, and the ones that the subs have been able to close are leaking.
A third effort underway involves placing a four-story, 100-ton concrete-and-steel containment box on the ocean floor over the largest leak, where 85 percent of the oil is escaping. Workers began lowering the device to the seabed Thursday, but it will likely be Sunday or Monday before it is fully operational.
Crews are positioning the box with the help of ROVs, which are placing buoys around the main oil leak to act as markers to help line up the box as it descends, the Associated Press reported Friday. The underwater robots are also clearing pieces of pipe and other debris from the site where the box will sit. Once in place, a steel pipe will then be attached to a tanker at the surface and connected to the top of the box to move the oil. If the box can contain the bigger leak, a second box being built may be used to stop the smaller leak at the blowout preventer.
As water depths for drilling have increased, engineers have designed the blowout preventers, subsea valve arrangements and other equipment to be handled by ROVs, says Craig Dawe, technical support and operations manager for Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's Monterey Accelerated Research System in Moss Landing, Calif. "The design is such that the ROV can operate and install valves and other equipment by use of specially built tools or with the ROV manipulators," he explains.
As oil rigs move into ever deeper waters, however, engineers will increasingly depend on subs that can operate autonomously, says Andy Bowen, a research specialist in applied ocean physics and engineering at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass. Humans will act more as supervisors of the work these autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) do, rather than directly controlling thrusters, arms and other equipment on the sub.
Operators can communicate with AUVs in several different ways, including low-frequency acoustics for long distances and high-frequency coded acoustics for medium distances, Bowen says. "The robot has to be smart enough to shift elegantly between these different communications modes, each one requiring a different degree of autonomy," he adds.
Bowen envisions a time when operators place one or more autonomous vehicles on the ocean bottom for extended periods of time. This would lead to faster response times when problems arise because the AUVs would act on the basis of their preprogramming before people on board a ship can get to the site, he says. "If [there had been] a vehicle on the sea floor that was providing an intervention capability, it's quite possible that it could have played some meaningful role in how things unfolded with the Deepwater Horizon," he adds.
Gulf Oil Spill Highlights the Increasing Dependence on Deep-Sea Robots
Remotely operated subs have met with both success and failure in stanching the flow of crude, and the oil industry may need to rely on completely autonomous vehicles
The work involved in shutting down the nearly 200,000 gallons of crude oil spewing up into the Gulf of Mexico daily for the past two weeks has demanded a tremendous amount of coordination involving, among others, BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and local fishermen. But given the depth of the damaged Macondo well—1,524 meters below the Gulf's surface—the use of undersea robots is the only way to cut off the flow of escaping oil.


text:
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and observing its transformations since 1989.There is a joke in Bulgaria. What are the two ways out of the current crisis?
Terminal One and Terminal Two.
Those would be, of course, the terminals at the Sofia airport. An enormous number of people have left Bulgaria since 1989. Over the last quarter century or so, the population dropped from approximately 9 million to approximately 7.3 million people. Some of the population reduction is the result of a low birthrate. But the rest just left.
In 2011, Bulgaria earned the dubious distinction of topping the list of the world's most rapidly shrinking countries.
This outmigration is often referred to as a "brain drain," though many people who have remained in Bulgaria naturally bristle at this phrase.
Vihar Krastev is one of the many people who left Bulgaria in the 1990s. He's also part of the more recent and more modest wave of returnees. Not long ago, he retired from his job in Canada and now lives in a lovely house in the hills above the port of Varna, on the Black Sea. The house is filled with the beautiful weavings of his partner, Yassena Yurekchieva.
I met Vihar in 1990 when he was working at an opposition newspaper called Vek 21 (21st Century) which was affiliated with the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), the coalition of opposition groups. At the time he was quite enthusiastic about the changes and was optimistic about how quickly Bulgaria could be turned into a westernized country. He was also about to take his first trip to the United States, to attend a journalism seminar at Tufts.
A couple decades later, he looks back at that period with no small amount of bemusement and honest self-criticism. "If I have to be more honest: some of us including myself — and I don't know if I said this in my first interview — were in favor of shock therapy. I knew nothing about economy, about shock therapy! I must have been influenced by the Polish experience: what Walesa was talking about, the Polish leading experts. I must have been a parrot who heard something and said, 'Oh, wow, why not?' That's an example of my own stupidity, ignorance, and incompetence. And that's how the UDF lost their position with society, and that's how people started disliking the opposition."
Vihar Krastev has been through a lot. When I met him in 1990, I didn't know about all the twists and turns his life had taken before he landed at Vek 21. And, of course, I could know nothing about all the subsequent snakes and ladders he would traverse after 1990. It is a powerful story, and I am grateful that he sat down for two hours in Varna to relate it to me. Below this, I've also reproduced our discussion from 1990.
Interview (2012)
Do you remember where you were when the Berlin Wall fell and what you were thinking?
I remember when I heard the news about the Berlin Wall being stormed and when it fell and when Berlin was no longer divided. I was driving a city transit bus along the streets of Sofia. During its last 2-3 years, the socialist-communist regime banned me from being a teacher or a journalist, jobs which I used to have. I couldn't do anything except be a menial worker, which I did not mind, because I could talk to people.
It wasn't a shock because I'd read about the Prague Spring, and in Bulgaria we had the Ecoglasnost movement in my native city of Russe where people were disgruntled with local policy and the thoughtless, irresponsible industrialization of both Bulgaria and Romania. So I knew that things were in the air. And we knew that in Moscow the regime was crumbling. With Reaganomics, it was clear that communism wouldn't survive. It was clear in my mind back in 1989 that it would not be long before our wall – we didn't have a real wall, just an imaginary wall — would fall too. It happened a little sooner than I expected. I thought it would be within one year, and it happened within a few weeks.
Did you think about what the impact would be for Bulgaria?
I did. I have to admit that there were a couple of things that I could not envision — because I was not at that time, being 22 years younger, as familiar with human nature as I am now. I knew that liberalism and liberal values were somehow vague and ill-defined, and different people view liberalism differently. And liberalism comes with different adjectives: like "welfare" and "social." In Canada, they even had a liberal-conservative party, which is an oxymoron, but it existed. So, I was expecting that there would be some confusion in Bulgaria about the values of liberalism, and free society, and less state involvement in our lives. But I had no idea that people would feel so excessively unrestricted as to disregard the law and to disregard decency, and that there would be so much loose behavior. Yes, we have natural rights and liberties and that's great and the sooner we have it, the better. But we still have our responsibilities at the same time.
My first awakening was the night of August 11, 1990 when the former party headquarters was set on fire. I was there….
I think I saw you there. I was there as well that night. We met again in the crowd.
As a journalist, I was running all over the place that night. Then I realized that the police were not there and that nobody feared the police any more. What I didn't realize when the Berlin Wall fell — during that beautiful autumn when the Berlin Wall fell and made the fall even more beautiful — was that once the fear disappears, society cuts loose. Crime becomes rampant, and there's chaos. The inherent qualities of human nature — greed, selfishness — had been more or less subdued during the authoritarian regime. Not even half a year later, there was no fear of God, because religion was exterminated in this country and this part of the world. There was no fear of government, because it was a government-less country. There was no fear of the police and no fear of the law, because there was no concept of the rule of law. There was no mechanism to control the rampant horrible qualities of human nature.
I was much more optimistic about the change. I was part of the effort to educate people about the free market economy and competition and the John Stuart Mills idea that the government should not interfere apart from preventing people from harming other people (with the one possible exception of economic competition where I can hurt you because I am better in fair competition). I thought this would happen quicker with the shock economy. I thought it would be a couple of years. But I had not anticipated, in the very first couple of weeks and months in this exhilarating expectation of faster change, I had not envisaged the tax evasion, the incompetent bureaucracy, the incompetent leadership. The failures of the transition in my view are due to incompetent managerial skills on behalf of every government that has been in power since 1989. I expected things to happen faster and in a better way. I was very quickly disappointed. That's one of the reasons why I didn't want to stay here.
Was there a moment when you were in university or before when you thought, "I am out of touch with the dominant politics of this society. I consider myself either a liberal or a dissident."
There was a long period of such moments, starting in 1968 when I was 14. I was accepted at my mother's request or insistence — she kind of begged me – into an English-language school in Russe. I knew that she wanted a better future for me. I was her only son. She knew from coworkers about this English-language school. At 14, I loved playing in the streets. I was not an excellent student by any standard. I read a lot, and I had an inquisitive mind. But I didn't like the way things were taught at school. I wasn't liked by my teachers, particularly in the "propaganda" subjects in the socialist curriculum like literature, where they teach you about socialist realism and the proletariat and the proletariat poets, which is bullshit, pardon my French. It wasn't poetry. It was just about praising the workers and the working class. It was a misinterpretation of Marx, because Marx's philosophy is not communist propaganda if you read it properly and you don't misinterpret the economics of Marx.
Even then I had my misgivings about the world I was living in. I did not want to go to this English language school. The foreign language schools, English or French or German, were set up in mid to late 1960s throughout Bulgaria. They were elitist schools for the offspring of the communist nomenklatura, the idea being that they should learn languages and then go on to become diplomats and/or KGB spies.
The instruction there was way better, and you had more open horizons. I learned a lot from my British and American teachers. It changed my whole perspective on society. When I went to that school, I felt that the world outside was no longer my world any more. But inside the school, most of my classmates were the offspring of very special people, while my mother was an ordinary office worker in the employ of the national railroads, a working person. I didn't belong in their society. Ever since I was 14, I felt like a tree without roots. I didn't belong anywhere. I knew differently — not more — about the world outside of school. But at the same time, that clique of people who were my mates at school was not really and entirely my sort of people.
Come to think of it, that was basically the beginning of the end. What happened in 1989 was basically sowed in the 1960s, because the nomenklatura educated the people who were to subvert their own system. Their own children, by learning from English or foreign teachers and reading in foreign languages and listening to The Beatles and to the British invasion, were the ones who said, "We don't want to live in this world anymore. We don't want to represent our nomenklatura parents abroad. We want to change this world." Most of the active people in the velvet revolutions, or whatever you want to call them in our countries, were the graduates of foreign language schools.
Then, after I graduated from university, I went to teach. I didn't like teaching. I taught between 1980 and 1982, that's how much I liked it! You were not required to be a good teacher. You were required to be strict and to be a good brainwasher. The other teachers were accustomed to this or didn't want to resist, while I did. I introduced certain novelties in the schools where I taught. For instance, I refused to allow the students to call me Comrade Krastev. "If I call you by your first names," I told them, "you should call me Vihar or Vic. And if you insist on calling me comrade, then I'll have to call you Miss or Mister." They couldn't believe it!
I did two lessons in class and then the third time, I would take them out of the classroom – to a movie in English with subtitles. Or I would take them to a café. I talked to the waiters beforehand and said, "I'll bring a group of people who don't know much English if any, but I want you to talk to them only in English." That really motivated the kids. They were trying to learn. It was a practical application of their limited knowledge of the English language. None of them was going to become an English teacher. They were going to be accountants or chemists. The other teachers didn't like that. It was revolutionary. "Why are you taking kids out of the school?" they asked. "Who allowed you to do that?"
I was more liberal with grades. I gave them all As one semester. Then, at the beginning of the next semester, there was a teacher's conference, and other teachers said in a bitter tone, "How could you have given all the girls As?" They were implying that maybe I had more than a teacher-student relationship with them. I said, "Come on, they will never know English as much as a teacher will. I'm not teaching English linguistics. They will never teach English themselves. It's about the willingness to learn, with or without mistakes. I'm not judging their errors. I'm judging their efforts. I believe all teachers should be like that."
We had these ideological subjects, like the history of the communist party of Bulgaria. And the way that history was taught in school, it was very nationalistic: Bulgaria versus everyone else. "There was the Russo-Turkish war, and Bulgarians were liberated, then the Turks were animals and we won, and then we won over the Serbs, and then we own Macedonia and the Macedonians, and then we beat the Romanians…." Balkan people still live in the past. They still hate each other. Like most of southern Europe, we still live with what happened in the past. We should forget about that. We should even forget about 1989 and the sooner the better. We should pay attention to what's in front of us. Going back is not only painful, it's counterproductive in my view. Here, when people look back, they look back in anger, with more anger than normal.
I couldn't survive in teaching, so I became a journalist wannabe. I was working for the national TV's local affiliate in Russe. Whatever you did in those days, even writing the local weather forecast, you had to give it to the censor – the communist party secretary — to read it. And s/he'd say, "You can't say it's too bright for tomorrow. It can't be too gloomy either. It has to be just right." It was horrible.
In the early 1980s, Solidarity emerged and grew in Poland. I began writing about it. Solidarity was, I felt, the promise of the future.
You were writing about Solidarity for the TV station in Russe in the 1980s?!
Yes, I was trying to. And for certain newspapers as well. I was about 30 years old. That wasn't accepted very well. You couldn't talk or write favorably about Solidarity. So I left Russe and went to Sofia. I wouldn't have lived much longer if I kept praising Solidarity — not just Solidarity, but the winds of change, the need for "socialism with a human face," as we called it back then. No, I was not allowed to do that. That's why I wasted two years being the manager of pop singers.
Why do you say that you wasted that time?
It was stifling the way pop culture was used and abused, the way some of the singers and entertainers were forced to sing about socialism. They were given lyrics to make a song. It wasn't conducive to their personal development as creators and songwriters and lyricists. They were kept on a short leash. That's why some of the better and smarter entertainers left the country and went to work abroad. But the "creative intelligentsia" as they were called could make lots of money if they stayed and glorified the communist regime or painted pictures that were approved as socialist realism — with a factory worker next to a person from the fields, the sickle and the hammer. If they did that, the regime paid a lot of money and gave them all the goodies they wanted.
That's why it was a waste of time for me. It wasn't developing the culture or the aesthetics or the good taste of the young generation through the music we created or performed at concerts. I felt guilty at times. Those teenagers who crowded the concert halls were hungry for music, for entertainment, like all young kids. But we didn't give them really good music. Most of the "hits" from back then have faded and are forgotten now. We did not produce a smart generation through the Bulgarian music of that time. That's why Tangra and many other bands left — they couldn't take it either. On top of that, which was the worst part, the Bulgarian version of Stasi was spying on this sector. That German movie, The Lives of Others, you've seen that? That tells you everything. Everyone who was in this field of writing or journalism or music or creativity would think, "I don't know which person in this room will be telling things tomorrow."
Who were you working for at that time?
I worked from 1984 to 1986 with twin male singers who were very popular at the time: Bratya Argiroivi (the Argirov Brothers duet). They were from Plovdiv. If you ask anyone from Plovdiv, anyone in their 40s, they'll know this duo.
After that, I had different jobs here and there, like writing scripts for concerts to glorify the achievements of communism. I was good at it, and they paid me good money. I also worked for those large communist enterprises. They had a house of culture where workers would be entertained in the way that increased their feeling of belonging to the working class. That was an easy job to make money from.
I also worked with a folk dance ensemble that had an exchange with a volunteer folk dance club in Scandinavia. Every summer, the Scandinavians would pay to go to a particular country and specialize in the local folk dance tradition there. They came here in the summer of 1986 for a month to learn from Bulgarian folk dancers and choreographers. I was attached to the Scandinavians as their interpreter and to organize their accommodations. We toured the country.
Right after that, I was accused of being too close to the foreigners. They wanted you to work with the foreigners, but they didn't want you to commit to them; they wanted you to be their host, but at the same time "keep your distance because they come from Scandinavia, they're capitalists, some of them must be spies."
In the autumn of the same year, after the Scandinavians were here, the Bulgarian folk dancers were invited to Scandinavia and I was supposed to go with them. But guess what: I was not given a passport. Freedom of movement didn't exist back then. Even worse: I was born in Russe and I was supposed to live in Russe. Instead, I was unlawfully residing in Sofia. Nobody could live anywhere without the permission of the Communist regime. Also, travel abroad required a special passport, which I did not get — because I was told that I was suspicious and too fond of being with foreigners. They said, "We can't risk sending you out because you probably won't return." That was probably September 1986 when I realized that I was not particularly liked by the regime. It might also have been the previous sin of writing about Solidarity.
Or it may have been an even earlier incident that took place in our graduating year at the English language school in Russe. Back then we were studying shorthand. At the end of the school year, we were sent to the capital city for two weeks to practice shorthand at the National Assembly and the National Radio. We watched shorthand stenographers to see how shorthand is done. On the last day, we were to travel back by train at night, and the day was given to us to enjoy in Sofia, to visit friends, relatives.
Four of us got together and wandered around downtown. The American embassy in those days was in downtown Sofia, next to the Central Bank, in a very old building. You walked along the street and in the window of the embassy you saw lots of pictures. This was June 1973. We stopped outside to look at those pictures of American reality, Apollo rockets and so on. And there was a sign that said in English and Bulgarian that the library of the embassy was open to all citizens. Curious as we were, we walked through the door. The library was in the very first hall behind the entrance doors. You didn't even have to penetrate the embassy any further than the hallway to enter this small library. We looked at some poetry, some magazines. We spent less than an hour in there. We were kids, 18-year-olds. We talked to the Bulgarian librarian. We approached her because we were wondering whether she spoke English or Bulgarian. We were very proud of our English after four years of study. But it was rudimentary, really. We didn't know any English at all. But when you're young, you think you know everything.
We walked out. We were joking about maybe being taped and how do we look on camera, and so on. We walked less than a block. There was a traffic light that was red. As we waited for the light, a gentleman came up behind us and grabbed us from behind. When the light became green, we crossed the street together. It was so unbelievable. He sort of hid us in the corner of the building across the street. So, we were in the street, people passed by, but nobody realized that something was happening to us.
This person started to ask questions: "Why did you go to the embassy? You can't go to the embassy."
"Why not?"
"It's the American embassy, you can't do that."
"But it says the library is open, it says you can do that."
"Where did you go? Who did you talk to? Who did you meet? Who told you to go in there?"
"No one," I told him. "I looked at this magazine, this book, I read about Apollo."
"Let me see your IDs."
The other three kids were either too smart or much smarter than I. They didn't produce IDs. Back then we didn't have ID cards. We had this funny booklet called an internal passport. I had it on me and showed it to him. The other three said they didn't have it. I loved those guys dearly, we grew up together from 14 to 18. But all of them had fathers in the nomenklatura, I was the only one who was different. They did not antagonize me. They did not treat me as though I was different. They respected me. At that age, you mix. You're not really aware of those caste differences, so inherently typical of socialism, that one probably enjoys later. But I felt different. I knew their parents would come in limousines for parents' meetings. And that proved to be a critical point.
When we went back to our city a week later, we started to be called to the state security, like the Stasi. And we had to repeat the story over and over again. Eventually, the question was asked, "Who gave the idea to walk into the embassy?" And guess what: I was pointed to as the instigator.
Now, I've thought about it a lot, and it must have been this 1973 juvenile sin of walking into the American embassy. And then the 1983-4 sympathy for the Solidarity movement, and then this Scandinavian affair…
Was there any punishment associated with that visit to the embassy?
No. There was just a stern warning that we should never do such a thing again. There was no immediate punishment in terms of the legal system. But if you think of the methods of the communist regime, the punishment is that you don't have any future any more. It's a long-term punishment. Technically, you are not given a verdict. But you are deprived of a normal future. If I had attempted to study anything other than linguistics, I wouldn't have been allowed. If I tried to travel abroad, I wouldn't be allowed. In 1986, the Scandinavians were very pleased with the time they spent here. They insisted that I accompany the Bulgarian group on the trip to Scandinavia. They were so insistent that they wanted to cancel the trip if I couldn't accompany them. Which made it even worse for the police: "Oh really, so that's how important you are for them? They insisted that you have to go?" Maybe they drew the conclusion that the Scandinavians wanted me there to keep me there.
There's an old saying: the snake bites worst when it feels that it's dying. That was the communist regime in its last years. From the late 1970s to the collapse, those were the worst years of the state security. The events inThe Lives of Others movie took place during the same period – 1980s. They were feeling the end coming.
That happened in September 1986. I knew that I was doomed. I didn't want to even go back and work for this cultural house. At that time, friends of mine who worked for an interpretation bureau called me and said they needed someone for 45 days. There was an American exhibit coming to Bulgaria under an agreement between the State Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with a Bulgarian exhibit also going to Washington. They needed someone available for 45 days to help the American manager of the exhibit as a personal assistant. For me that was wonderful. We came here to Varna in mid-October and stayed until the end of November.
I became very close with Richard Browne, the American exhibit director, who became a very good friend of mine. But I was accused again of being too close to foreigners. It was an American this time, so even worse. There was a break for the New Year, and then the exhibit was supposed to move from Varna to Sofia to reopen in February. But I was called in and told that I was not going to work with the exhibit. Actually, I was told that I couldn't work on anything else. I was to be put on a bus and sent to Austria. I refused to do that. The other option was to have my family interned in a very small village on the Turkish-Bulgarian border. I checked: there were fewer than a 100 elderly people living in that place, with no school and no jobs. I was in my early 30s. My daughter was about nine years old. My wife was 30.
I said, "What are we going to do there? There's no school there, there's nothing. You're sending me there basically to die."
They said, "If you don't like communism, you do whatever you want there."
I said, "I can't live there. If you want to kill me, do that, but don't kill my family. Really, isn't there something else I can do here?"
That was my first actual punishment — to answer your earlier question. They told me that I couldn't work as an interpreter, a teacher, an editor, an intellectual, anything. They told me I could do any menial labor that allows people who are not officially residents of Sofia to work in Sofia due to the deficiency of menial laborers. "If you find a job like that," they said, "we'll allow you to be in Sofia."
Militiamen were coming to the house each morning, early, waking up the family. My daughter would be horrified and would be crying. Everyone would be scared. They brought me to the 6th precinct where there was a bad cop and a good cop.
The bad copy would yell at me and say, "You're in trouble now, really in trouble, you're a traitor, you betrayed us. You have to sign this document that you'll never talk to a foreigner again."
I said, "Come on, you'll send someone tomorrow to ask me the time in English, and someone else will see this person talking to me and then you'll accuse me of talking to foreigners. I'm not signing anything."
As things got desperate, the "good cop" came in and said, "Hey, he's a good guy. Let me try. Hey son, what have you done, why are they torturing you?"
Eventually, this good cop says, "Go find a job, and let me know when you get one."
I went out and saw this advertisement for a training course to operate electric trolleybuses in Sofia. It was probably in the middle of the week, and the ad said that there would be a training course starting the following Monday. I went to the HR hiring office. They said, "We never had a university graduate come for training. Wonderful! Come on Monday morning for the training."
Stupid as I was, when I found this new job driving a trolleybus, I called back the "good cop" and told him that I had found this job starting Monday morning. "Excellent," he said, "Good luck, go ahead."
On Monday morning, there were about 15 of us. They led us to a training room. As we are entering the room, a lady pulls me to the side and says, "Unfortunately you can't start your training today."
"Why not?"
"I didn't realize that you're not a resident of Sofia."
"But I told you this. I gave you my documents."
"Yes, but I overlooked this. Unless you go back to your native city and get permission from the local committee of the Communist Party, you cannot start the course."
"How about if I go to Russe today and get the permission and come back tomorrow morning?"
"Well, no, then you'll have missed the day of training."
Obviously they received a call. The security police were trying to force me into a corner. Even worse, they sent over to my house a classmate of mine, probably my closest friend. His father was a traffic police officer — police is police, right? – and this person was probably helped by his father to get a job with state security. They sent him to conduct surveillance on me and to talk with me. If I confessed that I had done a crime against the state, that I had been an American spy or collaborator, he told me, then they would be merciful. "We've been good friends," I told him, "but if you come to my door to talk like this, I don't want to see you any more."
Did you ever find out what happened to him?
I've heard from other classmates that he left the Stasi police after 1990. He was married to a Russian woman. It was an advantage to marry a Russian if you worked for state security: they'd give you large apartment, a better job. He left the secret police and I heard from someone else that he started an import-export business with Scandinavian partners.
So, they didn't let me drive the trolley bus. That same day, when they turned me away from the course, I was walking home and I was desperate. I didn't call this "good cop". I was passing by a streetcar depot. I saw at the entrance of the garage that they were hiring people to work night shifts fixing the brakes on the streetcars. I went in and asked if I could start. They said, "Sure, tonight!" So I started. Several days later, I called the guy at the police station and said that I'd been working for three days. And he said, "Why didn't you call me?" Because I didn't want to call you! I worked there about two months every night fixing the brakes of streetcars.
Something you learned on the job!
It's not difficult. You just replace the disks. It's a tough job, but it's not difficult to learn. It's not brain surgery. Two months later there was a training course for bus drivers. Being in the system of the transit corporation, I just moved to that. And I learned to drive a bus. From the spring of 1987 to late December of 1989, I drove busses.
You mentioned that you were part of a blockade.
In December 1989, I was the leading force organizing a strike. We bus drivers went on strike. We were joined by other city transit workers. The transit in Sofia stopped for about four or five business days.
The specific demand was….?
The specific demand was better salaries, better working conditions, and better social benefits. But it was clearly a political strike, because it happened in December when events were brewing and the Union of Democratic Forces was being formed. I assume that this enhanced the development of all those events. That was in late December, early January 1989. And then days after that I went back to journalism, toDemokratsia and Vek 21.
End Part 1.


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LONDON -- Lance Armstrong is being sued for more than $1.5 million by a British newspaper over the settlement of a libel action, which followed doping allegations against the cyclist that it published.
The Sunday Times paid Armstrong 300,000 pounds (now about $485,000) in 2006 to settle a case after it reprinted claims from a book in 2004 that he took performance-enhancing drugs.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency concluded this year that Armstrong led a massive doping program on his teams. Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from cycling for life.
The Sunday Times announced in an article in its latest edition that it has issued legal papers against Armstrong.
"It is clear that the proceedings were baseless and fraudulent," the paper said in a letter to Armstrong's lawyers. "Your representations that you had never taken performance enhancing drugs were deliberately false."
The paper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said its total claim against Armstrong is "likely to exceed" 1 million pounds ($1.6 million).
"The Sunday Times is now demanding a return of the settlement payment plus interest, as well as its costs in defending the case," the paper said.


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Just weeks after releasing his debut album, "Finally Rich," South Side rapper Chief Keef was taken in handcuffs from juvenile court Tuesday after a Cook County judge ordered him held in custody.
Judge Carl Anthony Walker ruled that Chief Keef had violated his probation for a 2011 gun conviction by holding a rifle at a gun range in New York while a video was being shot last summer.
Prosecutors have been seeking to detain the 17-year-old rap sensation for weeks, most recently alleging that he had violated his probation by moving to a north suburb without telling authorities. Police interest in Chief Keef, whose real name is Keith Cozart, grew after he sent a taunting tweet following the slaying of aspiring rapper Lil Jojo in September.
After the judge ordered him taken into custody, Chief Keef emptied his pockets and handed his cellphone to his uncle before a court deputy escorted him from the courtroom in handcuffs, according to his lawyer.
During the approximately two-hour hearing, a gun range employee testified that Chief Keef was holding the rifle during an on-camera interview by Pitchfork Media, an Internet-based music publication.
The judge ruled that by holding the firearm, Chief Keef violated the terms of his 18-month probation sentence for pointing a gun at a Chicago police officer in 2011, according to Andy Conklin, a spokesman for the state's attorney's office.
The rapper is scheduled to be sentenced before Walker on Thursday. Until then, he will be locked up in the juvenile holding facility.
Chief Keef's grandmother, Margaret Carter, was disappointed with the judge's ruling and was unsure what to expect at the sentencing.
"I don't play Jesus Christ like y'all do," she told a Tribune reporter in a phone call. "We don't know what Thursday will bring us."
When news of the rapper's incarceration went viral Tuesday afternoon, supporters on Twitter urged that he be freed while others insisted he stay locked up.
Chief Keef's lawyer, Dennis Berkson, didn't contest that his client was holding the rifle, but he argued Tuesday that the rapper did not break the law because he was merely holding the weapon to promote his album, which was released Dec. 18.
Berkson added that his client never took the weapon away from the gun range.
"It was a promotion. Just like a movie," Berkson said. "There was no intent on his part to possess a gun."
Chicago police have been looking into whether Chief Keef and his allies played a role in the Sept. 4 slaying of Lil Jojo, whose real name was Joseph Coleman. The slaying garnered national attention after Chief Keef sent the taunting tweet about the slain 18-year-old hours after the killing. Chief Keef received mostly negative feedback from his more than 200,000 Twitter followers before he claimed his account had been hacked.
Chicago police also believe Coleman's death was part of an ongoing gang dispute between the Brick Squad faction of the Gangster Disciples and the rival Lamron faction of the Black Disciples. Law enforcement sources have said that Coleman was a reputed Brick Squad member, while Chief Keef was purported to be affiliated with Lamron. The sources have also said that a number of later shootings were thought to be linked to Coleman's slaying.
Neither Chief Keef nor his rap allies have been charged with any wrongdoing in Coleman's slaying or any other shootings.
Earlier this month, prosecutors alleged that Chief Keef violated his probation by moving to Northbrook without notifying officials, but Judge Walker disagreed, saying prosecutors had not presented "any credible evidence" that the teen had moved from his Dolton home.
At the time, Berkson said the rapper was spending a lot of time recording songs in the Northbrook home of his manager, where they had set up a studio.


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text:
There were butterflies in my stomach.
I forgot everything the instructor told me the day before. And there was quite a lot of it.
The vast sight of the endless ocean is enough to get even an expert swimmer nervous, I've heard. So I took consolation in the fact that I'm not even an expert.
Yes, I know how to swim. In a pool, I could probably save a life too. But here, many miles from the shore, in the middle of a shimmering blue green ocean, and a boat which was swaying with the waves, the slight panic was unavoidable. It was fear, mixed with a heightened sense of anticipation.
I've never actually jumped into the ocean before. I've frolicked with the waves, like everyone does when they go to a beach. But jump and swim? Never. And jump and dive? Ditto!
Even with a life jacket tied firmly and an instructor who kept telling me to breathe normally, I had my doubts.
But… there I was! Out in the ocean somewhere off the Andaman islands. In a boat in the middle of nowhere. And I'd paid quite a bit to get there.
And that's how my ocean bath happened. Watching the ocean bath in Cintol's "Alive is Awesome" series, I can now say that I did it too.
It was definitely an experience to remember. The instructors checked if the life jackets are tied properly. Whether the oxygen tanks were full and working. And then, the boat was tethered to the depth of the ocean. It was time.
I must admit (much as I'd like to say I was very brave and didn't feel an iota of fear) that it wasn't my most confident moment. But it was definitely my "alive is awesome" moment. You know the feeling? When there's fear, but the anticipation of the larger experience takes over. I let go of the safety of the rocking boat, I looked around one time at the mighty ocean, at my smiling instructor and took the plunge.
Next, was the big splash as I entered the water and then went under, letting out my breath the entire time. The water wasn't as cold as it looked, in fact it was quite warm in those tropical climes. A few seconds later, I was back with my head out of the water and suddenly everything looked well again in the world. I was afloat and I could see the others heading towards the rope.
The very rope which we were going to use to lower ourselves into the ocean. But that is a different story, already told in this tale about my Andamans experience.
Jumping into the waters, this first dive into the ocean, getting engulfed by the waves gave me the feeling of how "tiny" I was in the middle of this endless ocean. But there is only one word that can describe what I felt when I jumped and emerged out of the water… alive!
– Come with me as I experience the village bath experience, the anticipation of first rain, the elephant bath, the "ice-ice" baby feeling and the cold mountain water crossing experience!
This is a part of the Alive is Awesome campaign from Godrej Cinthol. For fun contests and the latest visuals swing by this page).