text:
Making news
Sea-cleaning campaign launched
A central-level campaign to clean up the sea for this year was jointly launched on July 28 at a ceremony on Phu Quoc island, the southern province of Kien Giang, by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Youth Union, the National Volunteers Centre, the Vietnam Television, the Ministry of Public Security, and the US Embassy.
Speaking at the launch, Vice Chairperson of the committee Nguyen Kim Quy stressed that the campaign has been taken as one of the key events of the bigger and ongoing 2018 Summer volunteer campaign. By now, the youth unions of 28 littoral provinces and cities have worked out plans to organise activities to effectively protect the sea environment.
Besides efforts by the youngsters, the organising board also hopes the campaign to create a fall-out effect so as to inspire a sense of keeping the sea clean in every citizen. Measures to this end include launching awareness campaigns on the importance of the sea to the human life, the abstention of discharging rubbish in undesignated places and the reduction of use of plastic bags and other products, among others.
The campaign also calls on the community to join hands to protect the sea environment with practical acts suitable to each locality and to hold social security activities so as to encourage poor fishermen to continue their work. It aims to draw at least 28,000 participants, establish and maintain key volunteers' groups to keep the sea clean, ease the pollution caused by rubbished at at least 50 percent of the placed rated as polluted, and have at least 50 initiatives in this work.
Also at the launch, the organising board also presented rubbish bins and two cars for awareness purposes to volunteers of Phu Quoc.
The campgain will wrap up at a ceremony to be held in September.-VNA/VNP


text:
Audit and Assurance
We handle your
Audit and Assurance
Companies with a turnover of less than €6.5m do not normally require an audit. There are certain exceptions, for example, when a small company is part of a large group of companies.
If an audit is required, we take a systematic approach, working under International Auditing Standards and using electronic systems. Our audit partners, managers and staff work together as one specialist team, ensuring that audits are cost effective and that technical issues are dealt with swiftly and practically.
If your company is part of an overseas group, you may require an overall group audit. In such situations, our experience in dealing with international organisations in a group audit situation will ensure the audit is dealt with smoothly and cost effectively.
Audit and Assurance Services
- Statutory Audit
- Business Risk Services
- Company Secretarial
- Grant Audits
- System & Control Audits
Payroll Services
Your staff must be paid on time, every time; in the Ireland this is typically every weekly. Regular changes to payroll legislation can impose a drain on your resources...
Advisory Services
We all have financial needs, and finding an affordable solution to meeting those needs is an area that many people seek advice upon. our needs today could be...
Annual Returns
An annual return (Form B1) is a document setting out certain prescribed company information which is required to be delivered by an Irish company...
Tax Planning
We believe in year-round Tax planning to help minimise your current and future Taxation liabilities. Our Taxation Professionals have experience providing...
Audit and Assurance
Companies with a turnover of less than €6.5m do not normally require an audit. There are certain exceptions, for example, when a small company is part of...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Philips Steam Iron (GC3929)
Refund Policy
We have a 7-days return policy, which means you have 7 days after receiving your item to request a return.
To be eligible for a return, your item must be in the same condition that you received it, unworn or unused, with tags, and in its original packaging. You'll also need the receipt or proof of purchase. 10% re-stocking fee is applied for every item returned.
To start a return, you can contact us at email@example.com. If your return is accepted, we'll send you a return shipping label, as well as instructions on how and where to send your package. Items sent back to us without first requesting a return will not be accepted.
You can always contact us for any return question at email@example.com.
Damages and issues
Please inspect your order upon reception and contact us immediately if the item is defective, damaged or if you receive the wrong item, so that we can evaluate the issue and make it right.
Exceptions / non-returnable items
Certain types of items cannot be returned, like perishable goods (such as food, flowers, or plants), custom products (such as special orders or personalized items), and personal care goods (such as beauty products). We also do not accept returns for hazardous materials, flammable liquids, or gases. Please get in touch if you have questions or concerns about your specific item.
Unfortunately, we cannot accept returns on sale items or gift cards.
The fastest way to ensure you get what you want is to return the item you have, and once the return is accepted, make a separate purchase for the new item.
We will notify you once we've received and inspected your return, and let you know if the refund was approved or not. If approved, you'll be automatically refunded on your original payment method. Please remember it can take some time for your bank or credit card company to process and post the refund too.
Have a question?
Availability: In stock
Easier and faster without temperature settings
Now you can iron everything from jeans to silk in one go with OptimalTEMP technology giving you the perfect combination of heat and steam - for faster crease removal with no risk of burn or shine marks.
OptimalTEMP technology, no temperature settings required
Iron everything from silk to jeans without adjusting the temperature. Thanks to OptimalTEMP, no dial or settings are needed. So there's no more pre-sorting the laundry, or waiting for the iron to heat up and cool down. You're ready for any fabric, anytime.
Safe on all ironable garments, no-burns guaranteed
Thanks to OptimalTEMP technology, we guarantee this iron will never cause burns to any ironable fabric. You can even leave it resting face down on your clothes or ironing board. No burns, no shine. Guaranteed.
Steam output up to 45 g/min for strong, steady performance
Strong and consistent steam output to remove creases faster
Up to 200 g steam boost blasts stubborn creases
Penetrates deeper into fabrics to easily remove stubborn creases.
SteamGlide Plus soleplate for ultimate gliding performance
Our exclusive SteamGlide Plus soleplate – with its advanced titanium layer and 6-layer coating – delivers ultimate gliding performance over any fabric. Non-stick, scratch-resistant and easy to keep clean.
Automatic shut-off when iron is left unattended
The iron shuts itself off if you leave it standing still. On its heel rest, soleplate or side, it will automatically switch off after 2 minutes.


text:
Today we are excited to offer a huge variety package of nuts, berries and baking products from morethanalive.com!
more than alive Nuts, Berries and Baking Package Giveaway
Included in this giveaway: (1 lb of each!)
Sesame seeds
Poppy seeds
Sunflower seeds
Pumpkin seeds
Cashews large pieces
Walnuts halves and pieces
Pecan halves
Organic Raisins
Cinnamon sticks
Cloves whole
Organic Coconut unsweetened shredded
Organic Coconut raw flour
Organic regular Rolled Oats
Organic raw Cacao powder
From more than alive:
We strive to be that resource for you – to provide you with a variety of resources including:
- Articles on topics and products that affect our health including information on water filtration system products that can help you clean and purify the water that you and your family use everyday.
- Food Recipes for a variety of cuisines that will make use of natural, healthful products that maximize nutrition and support healthy living.
- Home Remedies that provide natural solutions for a variety of conditions and How-To Directions on how to prepare them.
- eBooks on a variety of health-related topics.
- The ability to browse and order from among a host of natural items including beauty products, bulk ingredients, Royal Berkey water filters, essential oils, supplements, books/CDs/DVDs to help you live your best life, and much more.
This giveaway is sponsored by More Than Alive.
To see the other products they have available take a look at their online catalog!
How to enter the more than alive Nuts, Berries and Baking Package Giveaway
Fill in the entry form below:
Would love it if you could give some Facebook love to More Than Alive – they are a very small company in Linden Tennessee who cares deeply about the environment. Give them a little hello!


text:
The Fleischer Brothers (1930)
I'm Afraid to Go Home in the Dark is a 1930 animated short film which is presented by Max Fleischer and was directed by Dave Fleischer. The film, which was originally released by the film company Paramount Pictures, features a sing-along version of the song "I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark", which was written by Egbert Van Alstyne and Harry Williams and was originally published in 1907.
The film also features an early prototype of Bimbo, the same that was used in the Fleischer cartoon Hot Dog, which was released in the same year.
Copyright on January 30, 1930, and released the same day, the film is part of the "Follow the bouncing ball" series entitled Screen Songs. These films would invite the audience to sing the song featured in them.


text:
No fault divorce will bring the law governing divorce into the 21st Century. Although there is still a long wait for the reform to be implemented, Landmark Legal are thrilled to welcome a more dignified divorce process.
"At this early stage, we are working towards an indicative timetable of implementation in autumn 2021"


text:
Welcome to MYCBC › Forums › Boat Maintenance and Mods › Silicone sealant/Wax › Reply To: Silicone sealant/Wax
August 17, 2021 at 8:00 pm #9619
Ron Gillies
My recommendation would be to re-bed the stanchions with butyl tape.
This video discusses the different 3M products referenced by Rick.
This Sailrite video discusses the use of butyl tape. You can also search "re-bedding with butyl tape" in Youtube for other videos.


text:
"Wichita Lineman" is a song written by the American songwriter Jimmy Webb in 1968. It was first recorded by the American country music artist Glen Campbell with backing from members of The Wrecking Crew and was widely covered by other artists.
Campbell's version, which appeared on his 1968 album of the same name, reached number 3 on the US pop chart, remaining in the Top 100 for 15 weeks. In addition, the song topped the American country music chart for two weeks and the adult contemporary chart for six weeks. It was certified gold by the RIAA in January 1969. The song reached number 7 in the United Kingdom. In Canada, the single topped both the RPM national and country singles charts. As of August 2017 the song has also sold 357,000 downloads in the digital era in the United States.
In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" ranked "Wichita Lineman" at number 195. It has been referred to as "the first existential country song". British music journalist Stuart Maconie called it "the greatest pop song ever composed"; and the BBC referred to it as "one of those rare songs that seems somehow to exist in a world of its own – not just timeless but ultimately outside of modern music". "Wichita Lineman" was featured in series 12 of BBC Radio 4's Soul Music, a documentary series featuring stories behind pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.
In 2020, the song was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
B-side "Fate of Man"
Released October 1968
Recorded May 27, 1968
August 14, 1968
Studio Capitol Records Hollywood, California
Genre Countrypopcountry rock
Length 3:05
Label Capitol 2302
Songwriter(s) Jimmy Webb
Producer(s) Al De Lory


text:
The board of directors of Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) has appointed Siddharth Jain, Rajat Sharma, Sudhanshu Vats and K Madhavan as the Vice-Presidents to broadbase and liaise with the government and other stakeholders for the sectoral growth.
Siddharth Jain, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director, South Asia of Turner International India will be the Vice-President, IBF for Distribution. Rajat Sharma, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of India TV, shall oversee Government Affairs in his role as the Vice-President of the Foundation. Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom 18, would be Vice President- Audience Measurement and K Madhavan, Managing Director, Asianet Communications, will be spearheading the Regional Affairs portfolio.
The Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of The India Today Group Aroon Purie will continue as the Treasurer of the Foundation till the next AGM.
In the 19th Annual General Meeting of IBF held on August 31, 2018, the members unanimously elected Shashi S. Vempati, CEO of Prasar Bharati, to the Board of Directors of IBF.
With the inclusion of Avinash Pandey, COO, ABP News Network, Mahesh Samat, Executive Vice President & Managing Director, The Walt Disney Co - South Asia and John Brittas, Managing Director & Editor-in-Chief, Malayalam Communications as co-opted Directors on the board of the foundation, IBF is geared up to meet the sectoral challenges.


text:
Stop the war!
Остановите войну!
for scientists:
default search action
"Interpreting deep learning models for entity resolution: an experience ..."
Vincenzo Di Cicco et al. (2019)
- Vincenzo Di Cicco, Donatella Firmani, Nick Koudas, Paolo Merialdo, Divesh Srivastava:
Interpreting deep learning models for entity resolution: an experience report using LIME. aiDM@SIGMOD 2019: 8:1-8:4
manage site settings
To protect your privacy, all features that rely on external API calls from your browser are turned off by default. You need to opt-in for them to become active. All settings here will be stored as cookies with your web browser. For more information see our F.A.Q.


text:
The readerboards and associated interface boards used to make connections between a computer and the BPU. These generate the input voltages and read the output voltages from the BPU.
An introduction to Cardea's platform
The core of Cardea's technology are the graphene transistors that make up our BPUs. The platform is the BPU chip itself. Just like a CPU, you need something to plug that chip into. A CPU has a chipset, a motherboard, and a BIOS (Basic Input Output System). A BPU has wetware, a readerboard, and a BIOS.
Our BPU platform is only as useful as the hardware, wetware, and
software used to interact with it.
The biochemistry and biology compatible with the BPU. These are the interfaces between the BPU and the biological world.
The code that directs the hardware as to which voltages to apply and when, as well as converting the raw data coming from the BPU into human understandable information.
What will you build with us?
Our growing network of partners operate in markets across diagnostics, research, agriculture, defense, and more - all leveraging Cardea infrastructure to build unrivaled products that create and disrupt their markets.


text:
Counter-revolution: A Few Years Later
The battle between liberal and illiberal forces has dominated the political scene in Poland, Europe and beyond for the past few years. It will remain so for at least a decade, I sense. This is because the real stake in this battle is not elections, but ideology. While much of public attention is devoted to winning and losing elections in individual countries, the real battle is not about parliamentary seats and ministerial posts, but about the hearts and minds of citizens. Will they endorse liberal or illiberal values?
The contrast between liberal and illiberal values is not black and white, of course. There are various schools of liberalism and different notions of illiberalism. These are sometimes informed by local circumstances and in other cases by doctrinal arguments. Liberal (and illiberal) norms can be in conflict – consider the notions of freedom and equality, for instance. Some normative packages are difficult to classify. Is neoliberal economics a liberal or illiberal concept?
All complications aside, liberal and illiberal visions of the world differ significantly. The question is, which of these visions will citizens embrace in the coming years? Will they support further European integration or a return to the nation state? Will they opt for a theocratic state or for a clear division between the church and state in such crucial fields as education? Will they embrace a foreign policy based chiefly on (selfish) national interests or on ethical norms, and above all on human rights? Will they open or close themselves to the 'other': Jews, Muslims, migrants, disabled persons? Will they opt for a traditional or modern family, embracing rather than refuting LGBT rights and pluralistic forms of living together? Will they seek confrontation or compromise in pursuing their political visions? What will be their notion of the public good, embracing or rejecting redistribution and solidarity?
I hope and pray that the majority of Europeans will give the liberal reply to these questions. This can only happen if a new generation of intellectuals and politicians emerges offering a liberal notion of a good society fit for the 21st century. The winners of the post-1989 liberal revolution compromised – if not betrayed – liberal values, and consequently lost public trust. They may win elections here and there, but they are no longer in a position to define what is sensible and appropriate, let alone just.
The liberal revolution
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, liberalism was the only game in town from New York to Tallinn and Athens. Parties that questioned free trade and democratic checks and balances could hardly gain many votes. Politics was about seeking compromise and not about bipolar conflict. Cultural tolerance and religious neutrality were the norm. The European Union (EU) was seen not only as an engine of wealth, but also as an ethical power spreading liberal standards throughout the world. The interpretation of history, the ideal model of society and cultural trends including not only films but also dietary habits reflected the liberal paradigm.
With time, liberalism has created its own peculiar universe, with its own rules and rationality. Like all powerful ideologies, it has defined the notion of normality. It has been a comprehensive 'bible' on what is good or wrong in a society, not just a manual for winning elections and making money.
This trend was also present in post-1989 Poland, where liberal ideals conquered the hearts and minds of most citizens despite some residual nationalism on the one hand and communist nostalgia on the other. Compromise prevailed at the Round Table negotiations, because there was little appetite among Poles for confrontation with the local communist nomenklatura and their patrons in Moscow. No political show trials took place, and lustration (a process of eliminating those compromised under the previous regime from holding positions of public influence) was mild because Poles clearly preferred to look to the future rather than to the past. The separation of church and state has been retained, at least on paper, because many Catholics in Poland were sceptical about the power of the clergy. There were highly publicized gestures of reconciliation between the Poles and the Jews, while Chechen refugees and Ukrainian economic migrants were welcomed with open arms. A party campaigning for LGBT rights and sexual freedom received sufficient public support to jump over the high electoral threshold in the parliamentary elections of 2011. This meant that for the first time in its history, members of the Polish parliament included an openly gay MP (Robert Biedroń) and a transsexual MP (Anna Grodzka). European integration received overwhelming support in a referendum in 2004. There was also widespread public support for diplomatic multilateralism and humanitarian intervention. In short, liberalism emerged as the key game in town with notable public support and only occasional resistance, usually on the fringes.
With the passage of years, however, it became clear that liberal norms had been compromised or betrayed by self-proclaimed liberal politicians from the centre-right and centre-left parties that were in power across the Western world. Increasingly, the liberal model showed itself to be defective. Inequality escalated dramatically, tax evasion became widespread, and cuts to social spending notorious.
Democracy has also been weakened, if not perverted, under liberal governments. Its pillars – parliaments, parties and the media – have experienced damaging scandals and lost the trust of ordinary people. Unelected bodies such as central banks, constitutional courts and the European Commission have gradually been authorized to make key decisions. Elections have been organized, but have failed to generate genuine policy change and give voters the sense that their vote matters.
Liberals have not performed much better in international politics. Countries have been invaded without a UN mandate and then left to rot in the hands of local warlords. Prisoners have been tortured. Digital communications espionage has become the norm. Whistle-blowers uncovering all these inconvenient truths have been persecuted. Autocrats in neighbouring countries have been bribed to maintain 'stability' and to keep migrants at bay, while democracy and human rights campaigners have gradually been abandoned. Just think about the liberal response to the Arab Spring.
European integration used to be the flagship of the liberal project, generating prosperity and cooperation. Yet in recent years it has become a symbol of austerity, stagnation and conflict.
Liberal governments proved rather ineffective, especially in Southern European countries squeezed by the financial crisis of 2008. Greece's economy contracted 20 per cent as a result, but Spain, Italy, Portugal (and Northern Ireland) suffered too. Yet even in seemingly successful countries, problems gradually surfaced. Poland's GDP grew over 20 per cent under liberal governments and its unemployment rate of about 8 per cent compares well with Spain's unemployment of about 19 per cent. However, Poland became the capital of precariat, with zero-hour contracts giving employees neither job security nor social benefits. Poland also took the lead in terms of income disparity – the 10 per cent best-paid employees earned at least twice as much as the 10 per cent lowest-paid in Sweden, and nearly five times as much in Poland. A report published in 2019 by Thomas Blanchet, Lucas Chancel and Amory Gethin presented data showing that under its liberal governments Poland had become the most unequal country in the EU.
The counter-revolution
In 2015 Poland's electorate handed power back to the Law and Justice Party (PiS), whose campaign was full of ostensibly anti-liberal slogans. PiS had briefly been in power a few years earlier, and that was not a great political or economic success. For liberals, who had brought Poland handsome economic growth, the results of the 2015 parliamentary (and presidential) elections came as a shock. The voters clearly made their choice based on their daily economic experience, ignoring the rosy growth statistics presented by the liberal media. After coming to power, the PiS government introduced social policy measures that – according to liberal commentators and politicians – the country could not afford. Yet Poland's economy has continued to grow uninterruptedly, putting members of the previous government in a very uncomfortable position.
Since Poland's 2015 elections, liberals have been defeated in several other countries. Most notably, in the United Kingdom they lost the Brexit referendum in 2016. In Italy, two illiberal parties won the 2018 elections and formed a joint government. No fewer than seven new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe are now run by governments that can be labelled illiberal: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia and Bulgaria. Populists have made headway also in such prosperous countries as Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Holland and Slovenia. Emmanuel Macron defeated Marie Le Pen in France's 2017 presidential elections, but since 2018 he is being confronted by the yellow vest protests. Even in Germany, the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) entered the Bundestag with nearly one hundred seats in the 2017 elections. Angela Merkel remained in power, but her party and social-democratic allies suffered a historic defeat.
Another uncomfortable development for liberals is that since about 2015 or 2016, it is difficult to list many electoral successes of the established centre-left and centre-right parties. Zuzana Čaputová won the 2019 presidential elections in Slovakia with a liberal programme, but she is an environmentalist and anti-corruption activist with no professional experience in politics. Besides, in Slovakia the president has very limited powers. Austria's new liberal president, Alexander Van der Bellen, comes from the small Green Party, and not from parties that ruled Austria over the past decades. (His formal powers are also very limited.) Jeremy Corbyn was able to appeal to many young British voters and achieved a decent result in the 2017 elections. However, he would never call himself a liberal, and the liberal wing of the Labour Party openly loathes him.
Illiberal politicians represent a mixed bag and they have a mixed record of achievements. Some are neo-fascist, while others are neo-communist; some have a libertarian background, others a conservative one; some talk chiefly about austerity, others about Muslims; some are nationalists, others are secessionist; some are moderate, others are hardliners. Their new star, Thierry Baudet, who appeared practically from nowhere to win the 2019 Dutch local elections, is a former Dutch academic from the prestigious Leiden University. Baudet speaks a sophisticated language with frequent references to philosophy and literature, dresses smartly and even plays the piano. His party is called the Forum for Democracy, rather than the Patriotic Front for the True Dutch. Yet he knocks the elites, migrants, environmentalists and Eurocrats, speaking in apocalyptic tones, promising easy solutions to Europe's complex problems. PiS also has very different characters among its rank and file. Its ideological gurus include Professor Krystyna Pawłowicz on the one hand, and Professor Zdzisław Krasnodębski on the other.
Illiberal politicians have always been part of the Western world. Jean-Marie Le Pen won a seat in the French National Assembly in 1956, for instance. However, they never managed to form governments in states dominated by liberal ideals. Their recent breakthrough is therefore unprecedented and says more about the liberal crisis than about the charisma or strategy of individual leaders. There is ample evidence that in recent years people have voted against the centre-left and centre-right establishment, in search of various alternatives. The winners include not only nationalist, anti-austerity and anti-immigrant parties, but also the Greens and various new unidentified political entities such as La République En Marche! or Poland's Wiosna. All this suggests that illiberal politics is in vogue because the liberal class that ruled Europe over the past two or three decades is out of favour. People who loyally supported liberal parties from the centre-right or the centre-left decided to look for alternatives. Illiberal politicians have exploited this window of opportunity. They offer voters the exact opposite of liberal dogmas. They are anything but moderate and timid; indeed, they are proud to carry the banners of illiberal democracy, economics, foreign policy and culture. The rest is history.
Liberal economics in its neo-liberal or ordoliberal variants came under fire for leaving local communities at the mercy of transnational firms and capital. Migrants have also been at the centre of anti-liberal campaigns, because they represent a quintessential product of the liberal policy of opening borders, protecting minorities and forging economic interdependence. European integration is another symbol of the liberal project, and no wonder it often comes under fire for diluting national bonds, interfering too much in domestic regulations and promoting cosmopolitan culture. The liberal approach to the family and to education are also questioned. Poland's former minister of foreign affairs, Witold Waszczykowski, went as far as to publicly mock 'a world made up of cyclists and vegetarians, who use only renewable energy and fight all forms of religion'.
Liberals have been quick to point out illiberal governments' faults, which are many. This is partly because the new elites that took office were inexperienced, and often proved inefficient. They also lacked clear, let alone plausible remedies for the emerging economic, migratory and democratic problems. The judiciary system under liberal governments perhaps had too much power and was inefficient. Yet destroying judicial independence is unlikely to make the courts work better. It is one thing is to criticize the defects of the Schengen system, but quite another to find workable solutions for migration and migrants. Democratic malaise can hardly be tackled by governing by decree. Family life cannot just be boosted by more public money and church-inspired restrictions. Leaving the overly bureaucratic EU is not likely to make states more affluent and sovereign.
Illiberal politicians are unlikely to be remembered for innovative solutions to the problems of capitalism and democracy. Most of them will probably achieve little in practical economic and administrative terms. Yet their historical contribution has been to break the liberals' monopoly on how people think. All across Europe, illiberal intellectuals and politicians have managed to cast doubt on a number of previously unquestioned liberal 'truths'; they have introduced a powerful alternative to the liberal narrative, and they have mobilized a massive social group to vote for them and even actively engage in their illiberal counter-revolution. The market of ideas has been opened and a new class of illiberal evangelists (or propagandists) has emerged. Individual politicians and their parties may soon fail, but this does not necessarily imply a resurgence of liberalism.
Responses to the counter-revolutions
Today commentators usually concentrate on practical questions: will Italy's so-called yellow–green illiberal coalition stick together? Will PiS be able to win the next parliamentary elections? Will those elections be free and fair? Should Fidesz be expelled from the European People's Party group in the European Parliament? My analysis suggests that we should also ask whether the illiberal notion of the good society will prevail over the liberal one in the medium and long term. If not, we can expect a new generation of illiberal politicians to replace the current one. Thus the electoral successes of liberal parties may prove to be short-lived.
The key task for liberals is to regain voters' trust. How do they convince voters that liberalism is still a force for good, despite the rather mixed legacy of liberal governments? So far, liberals have tried to defend their legacy in office chiefly by citing statistics, but this has proved neither credible nor successful. Liberals have also tried to discredit their illiberal opponents. This has been more convincing, but unsuccessful in the sense that it has not led to any spectacular electoral, let alone ideological victory. Liberals have also tried to forge a united front against the populist threat. In Greece, the socialist party PASOK went to bed with its long-standing foe, New Democracy, to prevent Syriza from coming to power. In Italy, Matteo Renzi from the left-wing (former communist) party worked hand in hand with people from Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing party. In Poland, the liberal Civic Platform (PO) party formed an alliance that included the neoliberal Nowoczesna party on the one hand, and post-communist SLD on the other. This tactic was a mixed blessing for liberals. So far, such grand coalitions have seriously weakened mainstream parties not only in Southern Europe, but also in economically prosperous countries such as Germany and Holland. It is too early to conclude whether Poland's grand coalition will be any more successful.
Some liberals, especially on the right, have tried a different tactic. They have embraced a soft version of populism to defeat their truly populist opponents. Mark Rutte in Holland castigated migrants, Emmanuel Macron bashed traditional parties and Theresa May embraced Brexit. Sebastian Kurz in Austria went even further: in his last electoral campaign, he adopted populist anti-immigrant rhetoric and later formed a government coalition with the party of the late Jörg Haider. (Finland witnessed a similar coalition with populists.) In Poland it is hard to imagine a government coalition between PiS and PO, but leading liberal intellectuals have argued that populist PiS can only be defeated if liberals adopt a populist rhetoric and programme. Can liberalism survive with illiberal rhetoric and practices? How many compromises can liberalism take before becoming illiberal? There are no easy replies to these questions. Nor is it clear whether tactical liberal alliances with illiberal politicians would ultimately domesticate and temper the latter. Numerous Austrian commentators point out that the opposite is happening in their country, as Prime Minister Kurtz increasingly looks, walks and talks like a populist, exhibiting merely a semblance of liberalism.
The way forward
In my view, the route to a liberal revival involves three stages: reckoning with the past, engaging in experiment and creating a new liberal system fit for the digital world. Instead of cultivating nostalgia for liberalism's glory days, liberals should revisit the catalogue of norms guiding their policies. Over the past three decades, those who call themselves liberals have given priority to freedom over equality; economic ends have received more attention (and protection) than political ones; and private values have been cherished more than public values. These priorities need to be revisited. People associated with neoliberal excesses, clientelism and international adventurism should be pensioned off. New people should take their place, especially women and other groups neglected by the previous generation of liberals.
The next step is to endorse a series of courageous experiments reflecting basic liberal values. The Tobin tax, timebanks, and various forms of shared economy ought to be tried out together with various forms of e-democracy and Barcelona-style municipalismo. Regions, cities and NGOs (including professional associations) should get meaningful access to the EU's decisions and resources. We can try to forge European integration along functional rather than territrial lines by giving more autonomy and prerogatives to various regulatory agencies all over Europe. This will reduce the powers of central institutions in Brussels, introduce genuine decentralization and bring European institutions closer to citizens and their specific (functional) concerns. These experiments by themselves will not heal capitalism, democracy or integration processes, but they will help move Europe forwards from the current deadlock, empower citizens and reinstate a sense of justice. They will show that liberalism is a force for progress rather than a device for maintaining the status quo and preserving the interests of those in power. Perhaps these experiments will even make liberalism sexy enough for young people to follow. At present, most of them are either alienated or outraged.
The final and most demanding step is to move from experimentation to a new version of open society. Today, openness is chiefly about removing boundaries: digital communication, economic transactions as well as migration can hardly be managed within physical borders. A lot of people fear that this openness will leave them in 'authority holes', with no public jurisdiction or protection. Liberals should conceive a model of democracy and markets that will protect citizens from excessive heterogeneity, destabilizing technological innovation and uncontrolled migration. Yet they should also make it plain that the nostalgic and inward-looking solutions proposed by the opponents of liberalism are likely to make things worse rather than better.
Coming up with a liberal vision of Europe fit for the 21st century is primarily an intellectual challenge, but in recent years I have seen very few liberal politicians involving intellectuals in their work. For example, there are more academics and writers in PiS's electoral lists to the European Parliament than in PO's. (Although I suspect that the vast majority of intellectuals vote for liberal parties.)
However, there is a difference between the intellectual and political vision of a good society. The latter ought to be negotiated with the people who, in a democracy, are sovereign, that is, the ultimate decision-makers. I strongly believe that the new version of an open society should welcome the plurality, heterogeneity and hybridity of a Europe shaped by globalization, but I know that many voters fear that this would lead to chaos, free-riding and conflict. I am in favor of embracing technological innovation and employing it in the service of open society, but it is hard to deny that the internet is also being used as a tool of propaganda and repression. Machines will perform numerous jobs more cheaply and better than humans, but they may also leave many people with no prospect of employment. I look at migrants as a cultural and economic asset, but this does not mean that those who demand stricter conditions for accepting migrants are wrong. We need to debate all these complex if not controversial issues and search for practical solutions that would reflect such core liberal values as openness and tolerance; individual rights and welfare; restraint, inclusiveness and fairness. I understand why my liberal friends are eager to return to power, but this can hardly be achieved if the electorate is not convinced that the liberal vision of a good society works for the majority of them, and not just for a select group.
Jan Zielonka
Jan Zielonka is a Professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford and a Ralf Dahrendorf Fellow at St Antony's College. His previous appointments included posts at the University of Warsaw, the University of Leiden and the European University in Florence. Zielonka teaches European Politics and Society and directs a large international project funded by the European Research Council on the Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. He has produced 17 books, including 5 single-author monographs, and more than 100 articles and chapters. His work has been published in English, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Slovak, German, Italian, Spanish and French. His main areas of expertise are in Comparative Politics, International Relations and Political Theory.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 3.0 Unported License (users are free to share and adapt the material providing attribution is made to the author and source)


text:
Wacaco Nanopresso Portable Espresso Maker, Upgrade Version of Minipresso, 18 Bar Pressure Hand Coffee Maker, Travel Gadgets, Manually Operated, Compatible with Ground Coffee, Perfect for Camping (Renewed)
Product Infomation:
- Brand: WACACO
- Color: Black
- Height: 6.1417322772 Inches
- Length: 2.362204722 Inches
- Weight: 0.74075320032 Pounds
- Width: 2.755905509 Inches
Product Description:
- No battery/electricity need/Manual operation only! Nanopresso is one of the best and most versatile espresso machines. Built around a newly patented pumping system, the Nanopresso is capable of reaching, with the help of your hands, a maximum of 18 bars (261 PSI) of pressure for unparalleled coffee extractions qualities.
- Achieving the perfect espresso shot is far from easy. The Nanopresso works best with finely ground coffee that is tamped hard. Thanks to its innovative construction and easy operation, Nanopresso will help you brew perfect cups with a nice and dense crema layer every time.
- It is delightfully easy to operate and simple to use. The Nanopresso requires 15% less force to pump compared to previous models (1st generation Minipresso). When necessary, every components of the portafilter are easily separated for deep cleaning.
- Note: Accessories are sold separately! You can buy Nanopresso NS Adapter or Nanopresso Barista Kit accessories separately in order to use Nespresso** Original capsules and most of compatibles or make double espresso shots. Nanopresso Protective Case also can be purchased from Wacaco.
- If you have any problem with our products or need help, please feel free to contact us through Amazon. We will respond you in time and give you a satisfactory solution.
There are no reviews yet.


text: Past Event Growth and Poverty Share Add to Calendar: Calendar / Outlook Google Yahoo December 3, 2013 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM Event time is displayed in your time zone. Rotunda, Low Memorial Library Watch the event video This World Leaders Forum program features a moderated panel discussion followed by a question and answer session with the audience. In the book, An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions (Princeton University Press), Amartya Sen and coauthor Jean Drèze provide a comprehensive analysis of India's developmental history, arguing against relying only on liberalization and citing the success of large scale social programs aimed at improving healthcare, education, and utilities among the poor. On this occasion, Professors Phelps and Sachs will engage with Professor Sen on his analysis of the parallel phenomena of India's booming economy and widespread poverty, as well as the global implications concerning environmental sustainability. Welcome, Introduction, and Moderated by:Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University in the City of New York Program Participants:Edmund S. Phelps, Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University; 2006 Nobel Laureate in EconomicsJeffrey D. Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute, Columbia UniversityAmartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, Columbia University; Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University; 1998 Nobel Laureate in Economics Cosponsored by:Committee on Global Thought and South Asia Institute


text:
Start Your Journey
2 vacation rentals
Sort By
Miami Beach Magic 2br on CollinsLocation: Miami, USA
A simple yet quintessential Miami Beach accommodation. Well located on reputed Collins Ave, this apartment looks onto the canal and is situated right on ...
2 Bedroom / 2 Bathroom
Sleeps 5
Miami Condo (Beachfront) - 3br - Deco Bay IIILocation: Miami, USA
Make yourself at home at this stylish 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment in the heart of Miami Beach. The modern white décor provides a relaxed yet styli...
3 Bedroom / 2 Bathroom
Sleeps 8


text:
Back to the 80s
E-mail us for a free quote for the performers on your Favorites list. Thanks!
- Tribute Type: Alternative Rock and Decade
- Show/Info: Back to the 80's is a costumed tribute band covering Pop & Rock & New Wave hits. Jump in the DeLorean for a non-stop musical ride through the 80s. The music spotlights the days of tight pants and huge hair! The Act is perfect for all types of events.
- Achievements: Perfect for weddings, parties, festivals, or any major event! "Back to the 80s" is sure to please.
- Performs: 80s music including Soft Cell, Duran Duran, The Clash, The Ramones, Greg Kihn Band, Robert Palmer, Flock of Seagulls, David Bowie, Loverboy, Honeymoon Suite, Billy Idol, John Cougar, Cheap Trick, Poison, Joan Jett, The Cars, Beastie Boy, Pat Benatar, Simple Minds, Modern English, Devo, The Romantics, The Cult, The Bangle, Doug and the Slugs, Depeche Mode, Inxs, George Michaels, Tommy Tutone, Rick Springfield, Brian Adam, The Romantics, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Gary Newman.
About The Group
With a roster of fun-loving, accomplished, Niagara region musicians who dress the part–Back to the 80's is sure to take you back to your high school days when the pants were tight, the colours were bright, and the hair was huge! Wherever they play, they transform the venue into the love shack with a whole lot of shimmying going on.
Song List
1. You spin me -Dead or Alive2. Tainted love-Soft Cell3. Hungry like the wolf-Duran Duran4. Should I stay or should I go-The Clash5. Sedated-The Ramones6. Break up song-Greg Kihn Band7. Doctor Doctor-Robert Palmer8. I Ran-Flock of Seagulls9. China Girl-David Bowie10. Working for the weekend-Loverboy11. New girl now-Honeymoon Suite12. Rebel Yell-Billy Idol13. Dancing with myself-Billy Idol14. Hurts so good-John Cougar15. Authority song-John Cougar16.
Song List Continued
I want you to want me-Cheap Trick17. Talk dirty to me-Poison18. I love rock n roll-Joan Jett19. Best friends grilfriend-The cars20. Fight for your right to Party-Beastie Boys21. Hit me with your best shot-Pat Benatar22. Don't you forget about me-Simple Minds23. Melt with you-Modern English24. Whip It-Devo25.Talking in your sleep-The Romantics26. Wild flower-The Cult27. Walk like an egyptian-The Bangles28. Making it work-Doug and the Slugs29. Personal jesus-Depeche Mode30. Need you tonight-Inxs31. Faith-George Michaels32. Jenny jenny-Tommy Tutone33. Jessies girl-Rick Springfield34. Summer of 69-Brian Adams35. What I like about you-The Romantics36. Pump it up-Elvis Costello37. Dancing in the dark-Bruce Springsteen38. Cars-Gary Newman39. Let's Dance-David Bowie


text:
- b*****y5Color: BLACK Size: 1X
Love this top the skulls and roses absolutely gorgeous detail is wonderful bery pretty but punk top Love it so muchGreat value...would definitely recommend!Perfect fit and shipped fast!Beautiful, exactly as picturedAmazing quality! fits exactly by size!Qualité de Taille: True to Size06/18/2021 15:07:51
- g*****s4Color: BLACK Size: 2X
Great value...would definitely recommend!The fabric is so soft and comfortable...Beautiful, exactly as picturedPerfect fit and shipped fast!Amazing quality! fits exactly by size!Qualité de Taille: True to Size09/15/2021 09:37:45


text:
High Country
best seasons:
Hit this hike at the right time during the summer (usually mid-July), and you'll be rewarded with a spectacular wildflower show!
Start on the Colorado Trail near Little Molas Lake, making an arc westward and south to the Pass Creek Trail, then finish on Coal Bank Pass.
While this 16 mile through-hike features long miles, the trail walking is easy and quick.
Click here for a detailed write-up on this route!


text: Indian Air Force Sukhoi Su-30 and a Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter jets crashed while engaged in a high-speed simulated combat mission out of Gwalior Air Force Station. Both pilots of the Su-30 ejected safely. The pilot of the Mirage 2000 has reportedly suffered fatal injuries. Wg Cdr Hanumanth Rao Sarathi, …Read More »


text:
CZ-75 SP-01/Shadow II 9mm 19RD Magazine - NICKEL
This product can not be shipped to all locations. Use the form below to detmermine if we can ship this product to your location.
|CZ USA 19 Round 9mm magazine for CZ-75 SP-01/Shadow II in a nickel finish.
Average customer rating:
1 Most recent customer reviews...


text:
Heads and Scrolls
Karpp lion head on Tielke bass viol with plain fingerboard, 2007.
Goffriller 4/5 string convertible 'cello scroll.
Gilded head on Anglo-French seven string bass viol.
Gilded head on Barbey pattern seven string bass viol.
North German style bass viol head.
Pierced scroll on English style treble viol.
Head on pardessus de viole after Fleury.
Original typical Bertrand head.
Original Barbey gilded head.


text:
With the Allergic to Land Charters snorkeling tours you will be able to snorkel on the beautiful coral reefs located just offshore of Islamorada. The Allergic to Land snorkeling tours are great for beginners and advanced snorkelers. Snorkel the reefs just offshore Islamorada, Florida. Islamorada has a great selection of Coral Reefs that are easily accessible from our dock located at Pelican Cove Resort and Marina. The three reefs that we take our guests to are Hens and Chickens, Cheeca Rocks, and Alligator Reef lighthouse. These reefs are excellent for beginners or experienced snorkelers of all ages. They range in depth from 5 feet to 25 feet. When arriving at the reef you might be greeted by schools of sergeant majors, yellowtail snapper and Bermuda chub. Swimming around the Brain coral, Star coral and purple sea fans you will see colorful Parrot fish, Blue tang, angelfish and spadefish. You can view many different species of fish, too numerous to name them. Other marine life that you may encounter at the reef includes spotted eagle rays, moray eels, sea turtles, spiny lobster and an occasional nurse shark. You will be amazed at the marine life just waiting for you to view at the Coral Reefs.
The weather in the Florida Keys plays a major role in the reefs that we choose to visit. You can discuss the choices of reefs to visit with the Captain, but it is ultimately up to the Captains discretion to decide which reef to explore given the conditions of the day and experience level of our customers. The Captain is very knowledgeable and will consider all factors to ensure that you have a pleasant and safe experience. Minimum recommended time for an awesome snorkel experience is 2-4 hrs.
Our Snorkel gear for adults and children will include:
- Masks
- Snorkels
- Fins
- Snorkel vest (for floatation)
- Pool noodles (for floatation)
- De-fogging solution for masks
- All equipment is sanitized after each use
- Feel free to bring your own equipment if you choose
What to Bring on The Boat
- Snorkel gear if you have it (if not we provide masks, snorkel, fins and snorkel vests for floatation)
- Sunblock (please apply before boarding the boat (spray sunblock not allowed on boat)
- Towels
- Rain jacket
- Windbreaker or sweatshirt
- Polarized sunglasses
- Binoculars (for wildlife viewing)
- Cameras
- Drinks
- Snacks


text:
Experienced creative professional focusing on financial and political analysis, editing daily newspapers and news sites, economical and political journalism, consulting, PR and Marketing. Teuta's passion is to create new opportunities and bring people together.
About 63,000 Tesla vehicles were delivered to customers in the first three months of 2019 – a 31% drop compared to the prior quarter. Tesla (TSLA) stock sinks sharply.
Tesla (TSLA) stock was down sharply this morning on horrific Q1 delivery numbers. Those numbers came out as the CEO readies to learn his faith resulting from being held in contempt of court for violating an agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange. That court hearing is scheduled for today.
At their lowest level Thursday, Tesla stocks were off nearly 11%, the worst percentage decline since Jan. 18. They closed down 8.2% at $267.78. The shares are a distant 30% from their record high close of $385 in September 2017.
The carmaker pinned the miss on "massive" backlogs in China and in Europe. Tesla delivered about 63,000 vehicles in the first quarter, including 50,900 Model 3s; that compared with expectations of around 76,000 vehicles, including 54,600 Model 3s, according to FactSet.
Sorry, we've gone from production hell to delivery logistics hell, but this problem is far more tractable. We're making rapid progress. Should be solved shortly.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2018
Tesla reaffirmed its 2019 sales guidance of 360,000 and 400,000 vehicles.
Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2019
Garrett Nelson, an analyst with CFRA said that with the weak start to the year, "they're going to be hard-pressed" to hit that guidance, especially with federal electric-vehicle tax credits being reduced mid-year and going away at year-end.
In February, Musk said Tesla would close most of its stores around the country and rely on online sales as part of an effort to slash costs so it could sell the $35,000 car profitably. But 11 days later, Tesla reversed course and said it would keep many of the stores, and reopen some that had already closed. It also said it would increase prices on all its cars except the $35,000 version of the Model 3.
In the coming weeks, Tesla is expected to report a loss for the first quarter. The company was profitable in the final two quarters of 2018 as Model 3 sales rose.
Ryan Brinkman, an analyst at JPMorgan cut his price target to $200 a share from $215, implying a drop of about 24% from where shares were trading Thursday morning. He wrote:
"The now clear incongruence of CEO outlook statements with official company guidance may hurt the perception of management commentary, eroding investor confidence and potentially placing additional pressures on the shares."
In March, Tesla paid off a $920 million bond that took a big chunk out of the $3.7 billion in cash it had on hand at the start of the quarter. That followed a $230 million payment the company made in November. Its next big payment is a $566 million debt issue that is due in November, followed by another $1.4 billion in notes that is due in two years.
The company said in its statement on Wednesday that it "ended the quarter with sufficient cash on hand."
Wall Street is Embracing for an Apocalyptic Quarter
Wall Street analysts expected Tesla to deliver about 50,000 Model 3s. And Tesla had already said it expected fewer Model S and Model X sales compared to a year earlier.
Daniel Ives, managing director at Equity Research, said in an email that Wall Street was already bracing for "an apocalyptic quarter."
Ives said overall sales were "clearly soft," but the low number "represents an 'air pocket' quarter in our opinion." He added that he was encouraged because Model 3 deliveries "were better than feared."
Musk 'Very Happy' After Judge Orders Settlement Negotiations With SEC
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk emerged from a Manhattan federal district courtroom Thursday afternoon with a renewed opportunity to resolve a dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission outside of court.
"I'm very happy with the results and very impressed with Judge Nathan's analysis," Musk told reporters after a nearly two-hour hearing during which Musk's and SEC lawyers argued whether Musk should be held in contempt.
The SEC argued Musk should be held in contempt based on its position that his tweet violated the court's prior order requiring him to obtain pre-approval from a designated Tesla representative before posting tweets that contain or reasonably could contain information material to Tesla or Tesla shareholders.
The order was based on an agreement between Musk and the SEC after the SEC filed an action alleging fraud against Musk for an August 7 Tweet in which Musk falsely claimed to have secured financing to take Tesla private.


text:
Technical Articles
Split Transfer order without Customizing in WM
There are various sap references available where the Transfer order split is achieved through customizing. In this blog, I will discuss about achieving transfer order split only through the coding.
MWMTO012 . Function Exit EXIT_SAPLL03A_012 of the given enhancement has to be used in order to implement this.
When this exit is called during the transfer order creation, Split because of customizing has already taken place.
Component POOLN of the position structure has to be used in order to perform the Splitting. Positions which are having same POOLN value will be part of the same transfer order.
Business Scenario
Split has to be performed on the basis of vltyp. Positions belonging to the vltyp 'abc' 'def' should not be in the same transfer order which contains positions with other vltyp's.
Splitting Logic
DATA: lt_ltap_onelevel TYPE TABLE OF ltap_vb,
lt_ltap_3level TYPE TABLE OF ltap_vb,
lt_ltap_working TYPE TABLE OF ltap_vb.
lv_pooln_next TYPE i,
lv_pooln_last TYPE i .
DATA : lv_split_done TYPE xfeld .
* Sorting in order to find the last pooln used.
SORT t_ltap_vb ASCENDING BY pooln.
* Separating the Transfer order items on the basis of vltyp .
LOOP AT t_ltap_vb INTO DATA(ls_ltap) .
IF ls_ltap-vltyp EQ 'abc' OR ls_ltap-vltyp EQ 'def' .
APPEND ls_ltap TO lt_ltap_onelevel.
APPEND ls_ltap TO lt_ltap_3level.
lv_pooln_last = ls_ltap-pooln.
IF lt_ltap_onelevel[] IS NOT INITIAL AND lt_ltap_3level[] IS INITIAL. " Only level 1 transfer order Items, No Split required. Split might already be there , should not be changed.
ELSEIF lt_ltap_onelevel[] IS INITIAL AND lt_ltap_3level[] IS NOT INITIAL. " Only Level 3 transfer order Items. No Split Required. Split might already be there , should not be changed.
ELSEIF lt_ltap_onelevel[] IS NOT INITIAL AND lt_ltap_3level[] IS NOT INITIAL. " Split could be required.
* Copy the TO table to local for splitting .
lt_ltap_working[] = t_ltap_vb[].
* Generate next pooln value that can be used .
lv_pooln_next = lv_pooln_last + 1 .
CLEAR: ls_ltap.
LOOP AT lt_ltap_working INTO ls_ltap WHERE vltyp EQ 'abc' OR vltyp EQ 'def'.
CLEAR: lv_split_done .
LOOP AT t_ltap_vb ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<ls_ltap>) WHERE pooln EQ ls_ltap-pooln and vltyp NE 'abc' and vltyp NE 'def'.
<ls_ltap>-pooln = lv_pooln_next.
lv_split_done = 'X' .
IF lv_split_done = 'X'.
ADD 1 TO lv_pooln_next .
Since we dont want to change the already performed splitting because of customizing, it is important to check for splitting of items which contains same pooln value.
If there are any Questions, please comment below.
Best regards


text:
Vibrant Mica Color Powders that can be dispersed into our Epoxy Resin and Professional Resin.
Cosmetic grade powders that will give your resin a pop!
6 Grams (6 grams is approx 1/4 ounce) of Mica Powder will color approximately 100 mL of Resin (100 ml of resin is approx 3.3 oz)
Adding product to your cart


text:
When the elves want something… they are pushy little buggers!
It's time for good little boys and girls (and naughty ones as well) to jump into their expansion!
And stop waiting to truly LIVE and ENJOY!
So this year I am offering some CRAZY AF HOLIDAY GIFTS
I truly desire to see my clients and followers FLY this next year and so check out my holiday offerings.
However, they will only be around until December 26th and then they disappear… JUST LIKE THE CREEPY ELVES!
4 Expansive Coaching Sessions for $600
3 Tantric Energywork Sessions for $525
$50 Consults
These both are great ways to get a reduced session cost and really start your 2020 out right. Coaching can be via phone, video, or in-person.
If you don't choose to step into your life NOW… WHEN???
I can relate to all the excuses… money, time, busy, etc.
But nothing ever changes if you don't choose to make the change.
Don't disappoint the elves!!!
I mean they can create quite the chaos. They want YOU to step up your inner game for 2022!!
If you are interested in any of the above programs reach out to me and lets get you started! If you have not done a consult in the last year then this is still required for all new clients.
Fill out an Application HERE and mention ELFMADNESS


text:
Woodvale Orchard wallpaper in a choice of 4 colourways
This is a reimagined design featuring plumose parrots sitting amongst a flourishing canopy of leaves and sun-ripened grapes
UK Delivery
For all wallpapers ordered (1 or multiple rolls), total UK mainland delivery cost: £12.00
Share this product
Product Information
Beautifully exotic and lush, Woodvale is a reimagined design featuring plumose parrots sitting amongst a flourishing canopy of leaves and sun-ripened grapes, surface printed to ensure the traditional print mark-making textures are retained in this modern day reproduction. Hues of Hyacinth, Lilac & China Blue on Ochre are full of summer sunshine, whilst the deep grounds of Violet, Purple & Forest on Ink; and Ruby, Rose & Olive Green on Charcoal, create an opulent interior, as does the classically elegant Rose, Hyacinth & Forest on Parchment.
Cole and Son
Width & Height:
10.5m x 52cm
Half Drop
We ship worldwide!
We can ship many of our products to any country*. You can request a shipping quote from your basket where we can arrange a shipping cost for you to checkout with.
*excludes fragile and breakable itemsGet shipping quote.
20% Discount for non-UK orders
Shipping outside the UK? Shop tax free and enjoy 20% off. Simply select your location.


text: Elise DeVries is the Head of Innovation & Strategy at TISSIUM. Prior to TISSIUM, she attended the Stanford Biodesign Fellowship and worked for three years as an independent consultant in strategic marketing for a variety of medical device companies both large and small. She started her career as a Senior R&D Engineer and Project Manager for CareFusion (now Becton Dickinson). Ms DeVries also teaches classes on the biodesign process to aid companies in idea generation for new product development.


text:
Join us for the next Learn to Earn on Tuesday, January 21 – LIVE in the Facebook Consultant Forum at 8 p.m. CST.
We'll regroup after our amazing LIVE event – New Year, New You! The Truth About Skin Care and keep those conversations going with our new customers, hosts and consultants! Join us for the most fun you can have while learning!


text:
Warner Bros. has released a new image still from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug featuring Evangeline Lilly and Orlando Bloom.
Lilly plays Tauriel, a new character for the films, with Bloom reprising as Legolas.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens December 13, 2013 directed by Peter Jackson also starring Ian McKellan, Martin Freeman, Elijah Wood, Richard Armitage, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, and Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug as well as the Necromancer.


text:
Pascal Siakam has taken his role on the Toronto Raptors to another level.
Siakam has been playing some of his best basketball we've ever seen from him this season. Last night, he displayed a stellar performance against the No. 1 defensive team in the NBA -Milwaukee Bucks- and led the Raptors in points with 28, along with three rebounds, three assists, and one block.
Pascal Siakam is putting in WORK tonight! 💪
He's got 26 PTS and we've got a six-point game on TNT 📺#WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/MWcWXIXvX1
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) February 1, 2019
In last night's loss to the Bucks, Siakam played like he was the leader of the team. Siakam displayed a nice defensive steal which led to an offensive rebound and put-back for the score. When Siakam is playing with momentum, he is very mobile and a tough opponent to go against.
Siakam is averaging a career-high 15.2 points, seven rebounds, and three assists per game. During the month of January, Siakam averaged 17 points per game and shot a team's second best 52%. On the year, he is shooting a career-high 33 percent from behind the three and 56 percent from the field.
Siakam has taken many steps throughout his career to get to where he is now on the Raptors. His rookie season consisted only of 55 games and played half the minutes he does now. This year, Siakam has started all but one of the 52 games and has not given us any reason why he should not be starting when he is being very effective with his minutes.
Some players that made the East reserves include Bradley Beal, Ben Simmons, Nikola Vucevic, Victor Oladipo, and Siakam's teammate Kyle Lowry. With Oladipo absent from his potential season-ending leg injury, a spot is open in the All-Star Game. Siakam can fill that spot because he has proven so far this season why he should be a candidate.


text:
Just like the time I went completely offline for ten days, doing something a little extreme has given me unexpected insight.
I took the month of April off and decided not to schedule any meetings, interviews, presentations, or workshops. I needed to focus on finishing my book: Collaboration Superpowers – Stories Of Remote Teams Doing Great Things.
I said no to everything that didn't directly relate to writing the book or earning money. For things that were in the gray area, I outsourced the decision to my business coach and my boyfriend.
And it was hard!! I usually have at least three to four hours worth of video meetings per day: everything from interviews, to webinars, to product demos, all kinds of virtual teas, coffees, and adult beverages – all great networking and knowledge gathering. But also very distracting from my supposed number one goal which is: to finish the book.
It's been exactly two weeks now since I've gone meeting free and I've learned two things:
- I won't be able to finish the book in April as originally delusionally planned.
- Taking everything out of my schedule gave me room to breathe. And oh man, I didn't expect it to be so good!
The first week was completely open. No meetings at all. Just clear days, stretched out in front me – waiting for me to dive in. The feeling was good, of course. But I also panicked a few times. I worried that if I throttled back on all of my marketing and networking that I would lose valuable opportunities. I also felt like I wasn't doing REAL work unless I had a bunch of stuff packed in… that was interesting insight!
In the second week, the panic subsides a bit and I remind myself that there's a constant stream of ideas and opportunities in the world. I can dip back into that stream and grab one at any time. It's ok to slow down and focus for a while.
I must admit, I am more and more attracted to minimalism and living simply. In fact, I live smaller than almost anyone I know. When I moved from the US to The Netherlands six years ago, I took only one suitcase and I haven't collected all that much more since then. But that was all physical stuff. What was actually cluttered… was my time.
I am experiencing the importance of having room to breathe. There seems to be more time somehow. And I'm learning that the "real" work is the thinking and not the doing.
Don't get me wrong. It's good to go 'balls to the wall' sometimes. It's totally exhilarating in the right circumstances. The trouble is, it's hard to remember to throttle back again. At least for me.
And I suspect it's the same for many of you too.
In this world where we're always on, I'm learning that sometimes, we need to take out all the non essentials and start over again – and give ourselves some room to breathe and focus on the things that are most important to us.
If you like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast. Even better, leave a review!


text:
Code: 11368
Circa 1780s French quilt with the main centerpiece an amazing Indian blockprinted cotton of a border of flowering urns surrounding green flowers and arabesque saffron yellow leaves on a pinky red ground.The border a French quilted silk 'jaune bouton d'or' an 18th century Provencal type of quiliting similar to the ones used at Chateau Grignan.The reverse various beautiful French textiles blockprinted on a grainy slubby cotton.
Extensive damage in places on the saffron yellow silk border with splits etc,small amount of dark stains in places.
Please fill in the information below


text:
The USA Bugs Out
By Phil Hall and Tony Hall
The decisive battle that the USA has lost is the battle to rebuild Afghanistan and win hearts and minds. Let's start by injecting a little historical memory into these farcically simplistic and convenient narratives of invasion, counter invasion and withdrawal. 'We tried. We came in to rescue women and girls.' Really?
We crossed the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan in 1976. The names of British soldiers were set into the rock of the pass in brass plaques. Churchill, the aristocrat who hid under a commoner's name, when he was a young subaltern, a lieutenant in India, said of the Afghans – before running away from them:
"The danger and difficulty of attacking these active fierce hill men is extreme. They can get up in the hills twice as fast as we can, and shoot wonderfully well with Martini Henry rifles. It is a war without quarter. They kill and mutilate everyone they catch and we do not hesitate to finish their wounded off. I have seen several things which have not been very pretty since I have been up here."
From the letters of Winston Churchill
We were the fighters, a former Afghan Mujahadin told me, who centuries before slaughtered our wives and children before going off to fight the Golden Horde; there was nothing left for us to lose. We are the men who defeated the USSR's elite fighting force, the SpetsNats, the best in the world.
When we passed through Afghanistan in 1976, it was still part of the hippy trail. I remember its fast, clear, pebbly rivers. I remember beautiful, unveiled women. As a joke, a young soldier at a petrol station pretended to run me through with his bayonet.
After the Second World War, Afghanistan was gradually pulled into the orbit of the Soviet Union. After all, Afghanistan was on its border. The idea was to 'bring it along', as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were brought along.
From the late 50s onwards, the former Soviet Union positively indulged regional identities, and, at the same time in its clunky and unsubtle way, unenhanced by the exquisite weaponry of PR, the USSR encouraged equality of opportunity for women, secularism, public works, and the rest of what was commonly and clumsily associated with progressive society.
The world in 1970 was going into the last phase of a long period of standoff, if not balance, between post-colonial, state mediated capitalism, and giant state socialism. The Soviets had a stake in Afghanistan's stability. The USA, on the other hand, developed an interest in its instability.
Afghanistan was trying to play regional Soviet involvement off the long distance strategic opportunism of US foreign policy. Half the highway we drove over, the one that crossed the country, was paved by the Soviets and the other half was paved by the United States government. You could actually see the join. The different types of road surface met in the middle of the country.
The bellicose US agent in the region was Pakistan and, with its help, the US plan was to first destabilise Afghanistan and India and then use any opportunity that arose to try to bring both countries into the western sphere of influence, out of the semi-neutrality they had enjoyed until then.
In 1976, there was no war in Afghanistan and all the women did not wear hijabs. Kabul was a nice peaceful city. The western flower children, in search of enlightenment in India, passed through Afghanistan on their way. They read in Lonely Planet that the Afghans were so hospitable that they would look after foreign guests for weeks expecting nothing in return. Some hippies stayed for months. Still, in their hospitable fashion, the poor Afghan farmers hosted them.
The Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, was a reformer, He liked western ideas and liberalised Afghan society. He is quoted as saying:
I am "not a capitalist. But I also don't want socialism. I don't want socialism that would bring about the kind of situation [that exists] in Czechoslovakia. I don't want us to become the servants of Russia or China or the servant of any other place.
But land reform was important to farmers and there was no sign of it. The king was removed in 1973 in a coup by his cousin Mohammad Daoud Khan. Still no land reform came.
In April 1978, according to John Ryan, the army intervened after demonstrations. The Afghan government stood down and the army took power. Noor Mohammed Taraki, a Marxist university professor, became president. This, even the CIA has admitted, was without the involvement of the USSR. The vital point, however, is to remember that the Marxist government in April 78 came about through a totally indigenous change, that good things happened under Taraki's leadership, and that, for most Afghan people, bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.
Although the takeover was not part of a democratic process, John Ryan, a retired professor of geography and senior scholar at the University of Winnipeg who was in Kabul in 1978, wrote:
it is important to understand that if the U.S. had left the Marxist Taraki government alone there would have been no army of Mujahideen.
In an article written in 2006, Ryan, describes how he perceived the popularity of the new Marxist government:
Labour unions were legalized, a minimum wage was established, a progressive income tax was introduced, men and women were given equal rights, and girls were encouraged to go to school. On September 1, 1978, there was an abolition of all debts owed by farmers. A program was being developed for major land reform, and it was expected that all farm families (including landlords) would be given the equivalent of equal amounts of land.
The immediate response of the USA was to oppose the new Afghan government, and it started training conservative Muslim opponents to the regime, bringing into the fight the USA's Muslim Arab allies from the Gulf region to participate in the process of the destabilisation and Islamisation. This was a terrible mistake. The USA should have pushed for a democratic election and not immediately tried to organise a coup d'etat.
Story after story in the western media, on the TV channels, on the covers of Time and Newsweek, throughout the whole of the establishment press, commended the brave mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet-backed regime.
Afghanistan had been turned by the USA from a relatively secular country where women had some freedom and the right to an education, into a misogynistic, warring hellhole.
In the second half of the 70s, capitalist exploitation and speculation, and religious extremism, were operating globally, feeding off each other – with socialism so left out, and secular nationalism so constantly slapped down that almost the entire geo-political stage was taken up by two mad, ungovernable forces pitted against each other. Criminal Lunacy Sans Frontieres.
The key to the US strategy of destabilisation was to plant an agent provocateur in the Afghan government. That agent provocateur, according to Afghan Marxists, was Hafizullah Amin who had been, allegedly, recruited by the CIA when he visited the USA. He was given the job of working inside the Afghan government to alienate Afghan society and, especially, the traditional minded Muslims in Afghanistan. He became the defense minister. He had Taraki killed in September 1979 and Amin rooted out Taraki's supporters.
The Soviets were invited in by Babrak Karmal in 1979 to get rid of Hafizullah Amin. The involvement of the USSR was a desperate and ill advised measure. They engaged in an unwinnable war of attrition. The Soviets were unlikely to succeed in the face of the 40 billion funding organised by the Pentagon and with the participation of 30,000 non-Afghan fighters joining a global jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Perhaps Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, Brzezinski, was inspired by John Buchan's novel Greenmantle, to harness Islam as a political force. In doing so, he released a terrible Djinn that still haunts the world.
The Soviet withdrawal, when it came, was greeted with great cheers by the Western media. But there were no cheers when the USA's chickens came home to roost and extremists took over the capital three years after the Soviet withdrawal. The mujahadeen won out and conquered Kabul in 1992, killing the Afghanistan president, Mohammad Najibullah, horribly. torturing him to death and castrating him and hanging his body from a lamp post. The Taliban gained ascendency in 1996.
However, the fact that it took the Taliban so long to overturn the government, in the end, is testimony to the fact that there was still strong opposition to them.
We know what happened next. The most misogynistic government in modern times took over. There are so many horror stories about Taliban rule, but I remember one story in particular. A young Afghan refugee told me that she and her whole family were in their house in Kabul and that the bullets were whizzing through the mud walls. Her aunt was nine months pregnant. They couldn't take her to hospital because the Taliban were outside. The aunt died in agony in childbirth. The young woman swore at that moment that she would become a doctor and she told me that she now hated all men, and in particular, bearded men. She was as good as her word.
Afghanistan had been turned by the USA from a relatively secular country where women had some freedom and the right to an education, into a misogynistic, warring hellhole.
The strategists in Chief in President Carter's government were Holbrooke and Brzezinski
In this light it is interesting to read an extract of Brzezinski's responses in an interview given in Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Question: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
In terms of responsibility for the outcome of the situation in Afghanistan, Zbigniew Brzezinski was the secretary of state but Richard Holdbrooke was the Assistant secretary of state. Zbigniew was the self proclaimed 'Architect' of the policy designed to support the Mujahidin and put the Soviet Union under pressure but Holbrooke was the constructor. The builder, the doer. He probably built the key alliances. Later Holbrooke was hired by Obama to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq.
The effect of 9/11
In the second week of September, 2001, large numbers of innocent occupants were killed in the bombing of big city buildings in New York at the instigation of Islamist terror groups run and financed by Arab Muslims.
Responding to a wave of anger and revulsion, staring at the prospect of a centre that could not hold, of a state no longer able to protect its citizens, the President of the USA ordered his armed forces to move in and to bomb and blast the perceived source of the terror located in Afghanistan.
NATO, a cold war organisation well past its sell by date after the fall of the Soviet Union, intervened in Afghanistan in the wake of the US decision to attack. The Tony Blair and George W. Bush governments bypassed the UN and ignored the wishes of Germany and France. Was this the opportunity for a reset? Would the USA be able to make up for the past and, finally, establish a legitimate democracy and help an Afghan government defend the rights of women?
I taught a woman in the government of Muhammad Karzai in who was in charge of the social programme and had a huge budget in 2005. Her remit was to focus particularly on helping boost income generation for Afghan women. Most of the money came from the US but it was guaranteed by the world bank. She was hopeful. She was working as hard as she could to bring about change and making some headway despite resistance from the extremists. This was in 2005.
Growing nationalism in Afghanistan
But what also seems to be ignored and revised now that it is no longer part of Holbrooke-think, is the extent to which the rejection of the Soviets created a legitimate sense of nationalism. Is nationalism under-estimated as a force in Afghanistan and Islam overestimated. Who were the nationalists?
There can be no such thing as Afghan nationalism, it doesn't exist, sputter the left-liberal historians, look, there are many tribes in Afghanistan and they occupy different areas of a so-called country and they have been at each others throats since time immemorial with the Pashtuns as the dominant tribe. The Americans are trying to create a nation that never existed. So called Afghan nationalism is Pashtun nationalism.
Warning bells ring. The influential historian Ernst Gellner oversimplifies when he defines the formation of national identity and emphasises different kinds of homogeneity. The consequences of this analysis have been disastrous in places like Yugoslavia, justifying the splintering of countries into component parts by meddling outside forces.
Nationalism, not just religion, drives the forces currently arrayed against the US and the Afghan government.
On close examination, Gellner's approach is laughable. Look at countries like India and China. They are not homogeneous, they shouldn't exist. Was the Soviet Union a country? If it wasn't a country, then why is China considered to be a country? Why can't different groups of Afghans see themselves not only as members of a tribe, but as members of a nation, too.
One of my students, an Afghan in his 20s, said that he was a follower of Sha Massood. Ahmed Sha Masood had been instrumental winning the cruel war of attrition against Soviet Forces. He had been an ally of the United States in the late seventies and 80s. He was assassinated by Al Qaeda on September the 9th 2001. This former supporter of Sha Masood, remarked that, with the presence of US forces and the failure of the government they supported, the issue was rapidly transforming into a nationalist war against a foreign invader. The Taliban were not the main problem now. He said, the USA should leave. Nationalism, not just religion, drives the forces currently arrayed against the US and the Afghan government.
The question is not whether Americans or British historians think that Afghan nationalism exists, or whether the concept, prior to their year zero strategy, was real enough. The question is do Afghans think there is such a thing as Afghanistan? Apparently they do!
The Taliban Cartel invokes nationalism and Islam
In addition to the nationalistic clarion call to get rid of the foreign invader, it became clear that another force was in play; the drug trade. The Afghan Chief of Intelligence, Amrullah Salah, was forced to resign by Hamid Karzai. The reason was he exposed a $500 million drugs deal that Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai carried out of Bagram airbase – with the approval and involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America.
At that time Amrullah Salah, the chief of Afghan intelligence, was arguing for a greater US military aid and more constructive cooperation and engagement from the USA; more support in getting rid of the Taliban. His appeals were ignored.
Taliban drug lords travel to Dubai to live high on the hog.
A UN report that came out during that period explaining how the Taliban were now deeply embroiled in the drug trade. The stories go that Taliban drug lords travel to Dubai to live high on the hog; to gamble and sleep with women and men and luxuriate in all that sinful western consumer society has to offer, while their foot soldiers, peasant fighters, are duped into fighting a patriotic religious war.
Taliban foot soldiers are paid around $500 a month. This is a lot in a country with so much subsistence level poverty. A substantial part of what these foot soldiers do is protect the drugs and arms trade. Attempts by US strategists to find substitute crops like saffron for Afghan farmers, and replace poppies, have failed.
On the one hand, there is the legitimate nationalist yearning for Afghanistan to be free of foreign interference. On the other hand, the USA is facing an unwinnable war against an international drug cartel that hides behind the increasingly flimsy disguise of fundamentalist Islamic ideology.
This doesn't harmonise with the simplistic clash of civilizations story that the BBC and other influential outlets rely on to explain the current situation and the reasons for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
There are other complicating factors. There is the problem of the ineffectiveness of US and Afghan government troops; a territorial army man, tall and fit, a family member, went to train the Afghan police. He pointed out when he went he witnessed drug taking in the British army. He said drug taking is a big problem in the US army and in the Afghan army, too. Drugs bring corruption.
Drugged up and disillusioned soldiers offer little resistance to a determined enemy, especially a determined enemy with both nationalism and Islam on its side and an enemy who pays ordinary Afghan farmers a good wage to fight.
Moreover, there are also bad, trigger-happy elements that discredit foreign involvement in Afghanistan, elements within the private military contractors – the companies which constantly change their names,
I met young European men about to go to Afghanistan in 2011 to fight. I asked them why. They told me.
'To be a soldier and go to battle and kill people is part of what it means to experience the fullness of manhood.'
In its desire to undermine the Soviet Union and get strategic control of Afghanistan, the USA shattered the country. Now, despite desperate pleas from the Afghan government – corrupt as it may be – after all the damage US foreign policy has caused that country, the USA is withdrawing its ineffectual troops and abdicating from its responsibility to clean up the mess it has created over decades. It has decided to leave Afghan women and Afghan secular society to the mercy of the Taliban.
Phil Hall is a college lecturer. He is a committed socialist and humanitarian. Phil was born in South Africa where his parents were in the ANC. There, his mother was imprisoned and his father was the first journalist from a national paper to be banned. Phil grew up in East Africa and settled in Kingston-upon-Thames. He has also lived and worked in the Ukraine, Spain, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Phil has blogged for the Guardian, the Morning Star and several other publications and he has written stories for The London Magazine. He started Ars Notoria in May 2020.
Tony Hall initially worked as a reporter at the Johannesburg Star. He joined the Congress of Democrats after Sharpeville along with his wife Eve Hall. He interviewed Nelson Mandela in hiding. Tony Hall was the first journalist to be banned from a major newspaper in South Africa when, after interviewing Potlako Reballo on a forthcoming insurrection, he was questioned and refused to give information to police.
Tony went into exile in Kenya and worked on the Daily Nation. He wrote the column 'On the Carpet. However, when Tony helped to drafted the platform of KANU his involvement with KANU was discovered, he was fired from his job as the communications officer for the East African Community, and he and his family were forced to leave the country.
In the United Kingdom Tony worked for Oxfam and then moved with his family to Tanzania to work as Training Editor for The Standard with Frene Ginwallah. From there Tony was appointed Oxfam information officer for East Africa and was the first to reveal to the world, the 1973 famine in Ethiopia. After Ethiopia Tony and Eve shared the job of Oxfam Information officers in India.
After India Tony Hall worked as an editor of international Newsmagazines focused on the Middle East for eight years. Then he left to join his wife in Somalia where he worked for UNDP starting IMR, a trade magazine. He trained a team of Somali journalists to run the magazine.
In the late 80s Tony and Eve were in Harare. Tony was Editing the Magazine Africa South and East under the aegis of editor-in-chief Govan Mbeki. It was at this time that Mandela was released and Tony and Eve were unbanned. Africa South and East moved its headquarters to Yeoville. When Allister Sparks resigned as head of Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, which he founded, Tony Hall was offered a senior management job at the institute, however, once again, he left to join Eve who was working in Addis Ababa. There Tony become the Communications Director of the Economic Commission for Africa, a branch of the UN.


text:
The following is a news release from the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Wednesday announced the launch by the Governor's Commission to Rebuild Texas of www.RebuildTexas.Today, a real-time information resource for local officials in the communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey.
The website will provide the most current and reliable information on state and federal resources available for the rebuilding of infrastructure, including roads, bridges, schools and government buildings.
"We are working diligently to ensure local officials get everything they need for their communities as quickly as possible," said Abbott. "We will act swiftly and cut through red tape to rebuild the Gulf Coast region even stronger than before. And we will improve the lives of all Texans by ensuring the continuing economic pre-eminence of the Lone Star State."
Through RebuildTexas.Today and along with the Commission's response teams located in each affected county, local officials will be provided with real-time recovery information, assistance in navigating state and federal resources, and access to the expertise of state agencies.
The Governor's Commission to Rebuild Texas is led by Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp. The Commission is overseeing the response and relief effort between the state and local governments. The Commission will also be involved in the rebuilding process, focusing on restoring roads, bridges, schools and government buildings in impacted communities.
"We will work closely with local officials, including mayors, county judges, school superintendents and others, to make sure their concerns are heard and their needs are met," said Sharp. "We've been through hurricanes before in the state of Texas, but this one is personal to me having grown up in the Gulf Coast region. Whatever it takes, we will get it done."


text:
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Bitcoin is currently the world's first and most largely used cryptocurrency. But a few questions still remain, who invented it? And where are they now?
These questions are not easily answered as the maker, or makers, of Bitcoin have since disappeared. The pseudonym used by these creator or creators was Satoshi Nakamoto and they have not been heard from since the year 2011.
How Bitcoin Started
Bitcoin originated as a communal code project designed to eliminate the need for government and bank interference in person-to-person monetary transactions. The head coder was known only as Satoshi Nakamoto and he released the first ever Bitcoin in January 2009. Shortly after, he gave his project over to Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto continued to work on the Bitcoin project for another year, before fading into oblivion in 2011. Before leaving, Nakamoto insinuated he was of Japanese birth and born in the year 1975. However, there is no telling how accurate this information may be, and no one knows for sure whether Nakamoto was one person, or a group of persons acting together.
Possible Incorrect Information
While we do have the information stated above about Satoshi Nakamoto's origin, there are many people who believe it's not all true. First of all, Nakamoto used perfect English in all of his online posts. And this has led to many people discounting the idea that he was of Japanese origin. Coders have also analyzed the timing of his posts, and have noted he did not post between 5am and 11am Greenwich Mean Time, leading further speculation to his Japanese location, as these would be odd hours to be sleeping in Japan. Also, the first block of Bitcoin ever mined included the word "Chancellor" in the text. Chancellor is a word of British origin and is not commonly used in the Japanese culture.
As Bitcoin continues to grow, so do the theories on the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto who invented it. The theories vary based on the source and person, but we have included some of the most popular ones currently found in the Bitcoin online lore.
There is some solid evidence that David Kleiman and Craig Wright could possibly be Satoshi Nakamoto, as both men worked very hard on the Bitcoin project to get it off the ground and own large amounts of Bitcoins. It is impossible to rule these two men out, but also impossible to verify with them as Kleiman passed away in 2013 before Bitcoin really hit it big. Craig Wright did claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto in an online post in 2016, but he later retracted his statement. He is also currently in a legal battle with the Kleiman estate, and it's difficult to know what he may say to try and help his case.
In the year 2017, a blog post suggested that the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, could possibly be Satoshi Nakamoto. Musk was quick to reply to this blog post on his twitter, clearly stating he was not Satoshi Nakamoto, nor did he even invest in Bitcoin at the time. In fact, he stated that he had lost the small amount of Bitcoin that he did own.
Many online forums have suggested that Nick Szabo could possibly be the mysterious Bitcoin Creator. Nick Szabo is a cryptocurrency enthusiast, famous for his paper Bit Gold. A professional text analyst who compared the Satoshi Nakamoto posts to Szabo's paper found a lot of unique similarities between the two writing styles, which backs up this theory. Not only that, but Satoshi Nakamoto often referred to the Bit Gold paper in his posts. While this makes it seem like a good case for Szabo to be Nakamoto, Szabo denies that he is. Now he could be denying it because its true, and he is not Satoshi Nakamoto, but he could also be denying it out of fear of being attacked, kidnapped, ransomed or worse. Either way, Szabo isn't off the table as a possible Satoshi Nakamoto just yet.
Another possible candidate is Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto; a California physics professor whose birth name is Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi was addressed by the press in 2014, and gave a "suspicious" answer to a question regarding Bitcoin. Unfortunately, this led to the press going wild and an eventual car chase. Satoshi later retracted his statement, leaving the public to continue to wonder if he was truly involved in the creation of the cryptocurrency or not.
One of the more likely candidates is Hal Finney. Finney was the first recipient of Bitcoin ever, receiving ten coins from Satoshi Nakamoto as a test. Finney was a cryptocurrency pioneer, known for finding bugs and suggesting improvements in the Bitcoin code itself. He was also known to speak heavily with Nick Szabo and lived in close proximity to Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto. Unfortunately, these claims are unable to be confirmed as Finney passed away in 2014.
Many journalists have claimed to have found evidence of connections between Satoshi Nakamoto and many other people, such as Gavin Andresen and Jeb McCaleb, but everyone who has been approached has denied being involved. As stated above, this could be because truly no one has discovered Satoshi Nakamoto yet, but this could also be because if he or they are discovered, they could place their lives at risk.
Will Satoshi Nakamoto Ever Come Forward?
There is a large possibility that we will never know who was the original Satoshi Nakamoto. Besides the idea that denial of his or their identity for safety reasons, there's also a possibility that Satoshi Nakamoto has already died without revealing his or their identity.
When interviewed, the creators of MintDice.com, an online website which allows gambling with Bitcoin, strongly suspect that the creator of Bitcoin will never come forward and that the individual or individuals who did create Bitcoin knew exactly what they were doing when they chose to remain anonymous.
If you believe differently, or wish to learn more about the possible identities of Satoshi Nakamoto, there are many forums out there that maintain an active debate. Also check out the Wikipedia page on Satoshi Nakamoto—there is a compiled list at the bottom that outlines many possible candidates that I didn't discuss in this article.