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IRS exempts their own vendors, abuses tea partier conservatives
The Internal Revenue Service remains the jack ass political arm of the Democratic Party under President Obama.
Remember Timothy Geithner and John Edwards? The first was made Secretary of the Treasury despite owing back taxes. The IRS is under the authority of the Treasury Department. Geithner was also one of the architects of the bailout of banks and other financial institutions after the 2008 Housing Bust as well as the Stimulus that didn't and other Obama Administration policies that have taxed and regulated the American people so much that they have been prohibited from bailing themselves out while paying to bail out Fat Cats.
John Edwards was the Democrat's 2004 nominee for vice-president whose campaign was based upon a "two Americas" message that has been made increasingly true under fellow liberal Democrat, President Barack Obama.
Barack Obama used IRS audits, threats of audits and denial and delays of 501(c)(4) status to thwart tea partier and social conservative groups from full participation in preventing his re-election in the 2012 campaign. They were denied their free speech rights.
It appears that one of the pay-offs for IRS vendors was that they need not pay their taxes:
The Internal Revenue Service has been doing business with nearly 1,200 vendors that owe back taxes, including one unnamed contractor that owed a whopping $525 million, a new inspector general's report says.
Altogether, 1,168 IRS vendors owed back taxes totaling $589 million as of July 2012, according to the report released Tuesday. Only 50 were in a payment plan to pay off their debt.
"When the IRS conducts business with vendors that do not comply with federal tax laws, it conveys a contradictory message in relation to its mission to ensure compliance with the tax laws," said J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
The IRS checks whether vendors owe back taxes when the agency awards contracts, the IRS said. But the IRS doesn't continuously monitor whether vendors are current in their tax bills after contracts are awarded, the report said.
Selective enforcement is not limited to Geithner and vendors:
The Jacksonian in me boils. How about you?
One set of rules for Washington, whether its tax law or Obamacare exemptions. One for the We the People that is applied arbitrarily based upon speech, that increasingly is not free.
Mike DeVine
"One man with courage makes a majority." – Andrew Jackson


text:
Dated: 15/06/2016
Holiday Periods
Our Institute offers subscription based courses and access to our online educational portal.
While the courses can be accessed self-paced at any time throughout your subscription period with a 99% up time. Other areas of the Institute must take the time to recharge to ensure they can offer the services to you.
Just like all TAFE'S and Unis we take semester holidays and these Semester Closures are July and December each and every year.
For clarifications of what services will be affected, please see the list below:
- Online access to your course products – Not affected.
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This year closure dates:
- 6th July 2016 – 6th August 2016
- December 10th – 3rd January 2016
For a full list of notices, transitions or times feel free to check the notice board.
We apologise for any inconveniences and trust your understanding.
Kind Regards,
The External Learning Team.

subset: commoncrawl


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Last Saturday I spent over 12 hours slogging through the new Learning Trusts ill conceived plan to change students statements into Education health care plans!!
All this bollocks so it's now called a EHCP rather then a SEN statement. Just bollocks so someone sitting in an office somewhere can justify their job!!
And somehow I become the expert on a student with Cerebral Palsy up until the age of 25!!!!!! I just want to play with little soldiers!!!!
Then I had to spend most of Sunday looking after the kids so the misses could catch up with her mountain of paperwork. . . . . .all so I could play WHF against Phil and his bloody Skaven.
So was it worth it???????????????
Only joking but spoiler alert I got stuffed on this one!
We both set out our 2000 points.
I surge forward while Phil takes a more measured approach keeping just close enough to temp me into a charge but far enough away to make me doubt my ability to roll high enough with all the units I want to make the charge count!
I have set up a flank attack with my Mournfangs and Sabre tusks to take care of the Skaven Warpfire cannon.
Phil snuffs this plan out with contemptuous ease when he crashes in with his abomination and Nurgle monks!
In an act of absolute spite and becasue I can see myself being completely outmaneuvered I charge in on some Clan rats.
Like an idiot I decide to overrun rather then rein them in to reform and face Phil's Battlebus!
This leaves him free to get off the flank attack!
Then Phil gets off 'Cracks Call'!!
Not surprisingly everyone it hits fails their initiative roll (of under 2) and half of my remaining forces disappear!
To add insult to injury my Ogre Bulls bounce off another unit of Clan Rats and flee from the worthless scuttling rats!!
Completely outplayed on this one and Phil kept feeding me little units to pull me out of position or distract me with easy kills. As well as this, Phil done a great job of keeping units close by so I had to worry about the flank charge if I did not run the Skaven battle bus off in one turn!
I made a lot of errors which I do not want to discuss here as I do want the rematch and want to see if my musings will pay off.


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The name of the next Deputy President will be announced prior to 2nd October 2017. The recommendation for this appointment will come from a commission convened by the Lord Chancellor for this purpose.
The Supreme Court will gain three new Justices - Downing Street announcement. They are Lord Justice Lloyd Jones; Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Briggs.
On 14th July, the appointment of the next Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales was announced - Judiciary. Lord Justice Burnett will replace Lord Thomas in September.
Promotions to the Court of Appeal have also been announced - Judiciary. They are Mrs Justice Asplin; Mr Justice Coulson, Mr Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Peter Jackson, Mr Justice Leggatt, Mr Justice Newey and Mr Justice Singh. These appointments will fill forthcoming vacancies in the Court of Appeal arising from autumn 2017.
The appointees to the Supreme Court:
The Rt Hon Lord Justice Lloyd JonesLord Justice Lloyd Jones was called to the Bar in 1975 (Middle Temple). From 1975 to 1991 he was a Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. He was appointed as Queen's Counsel in 1999. Lord Justice Lloyd Jones was appointed to the High Court in 2005, and was assigned to the Queen's Bench Division. He served as a Presiding Judge on the Wales Circuit and Chair of the Lord Chancellor's Standing Committee on the Welsh Language from 2008 to 2011. From August 2012 to August 2015 he was Chair of the Law Commission. He was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2012.
The Rt Hon Lady Justice Black DBELady Justice Black was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1976. In 1994 she was appointed as Queen's Counsel and became a Deputy High Court Judge in 1996. She was appointed to the High Court in 1999, assigned to the Family Division; she also sat in the Administrative Court. Lady Justice Black served as Family Division Liaison Judge on the Northern Circuit from 2000-2004. In 2004 she became the Chairman of the Judicial Studies Board's Family Committee, until her appointment to the Judicial Appointments Commission in 2008. She was appointed a Lady Justice of Appeal in 2010. In 2013, she was appointed as Head of International Family Justice.
The Rt Hon Lord Justice BriggsLord Justice Briggs was called to the Bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1978. He was appointed as Queen's Counsel in 1994. In 2001 he was appointed as the Attorney General to the Duchy of Lancaster, a position he held until 2006. He was appointed to the High Court in 2006, assigned to the Chancery Division. Lord Justice Briggs was the Judge in charge of the Chancery Modernisation Review in 2013, and has been the Personal Support Unit liaison judge since 2013. He was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2013. On 1 January 2016 he was appointed Deputy Head of Civil Justice.'
Retirement ages:
A general judicial retirement age of 70 was introduced by the Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993. The rationale behind the change was to introduce consistency to the judicial retirement system. The age of 70 was settled on by the government of the day following consultations between the Lord Chancellor and senior members of the judiciary. However, this new retirement age only applied to judges first appointed to office after the commencement of the relevant provisions (31 March 1995). As such, any judge first appointed prior to 31 March 1995 is not required to retire until reaching 75. See Constitution Committee 25th Report dated 7 March 2012.


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Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake with Lemon-Lavender Glaze
for the pound cake:
1 lb. unsalted butter
18 oz. superfine sugar
18 oz. eggs (weighed with shell, about 8)
1 lb. cake flour (all-purpose can also be used)
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
zest from 2 lemons
2 tablespoons triple sec / orange liqueur (I used Grand Marnier)
1/2 cup poppy seeds
for the glaze:
1 tablespoon culinary lavender (if you can't find it locally, you can purchase from the Seven Oaks Lavender Farm)
juice of 2 lemons
1 cup confectioners sugar
Create the pound cake:


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It's nearing the midway point of the Orange Coast League softball season and on Tuesday, the Laguna Beach High Breakers went into the win column for the first time.
Laguna was impressive in winning its initial league contest in four attempts in shutting down visiting Costa Mesa, 10-0, at Thurston Middle School.
Halle Redfearn pitched the shutout and Jennifer Sorensen, Jessica Roediger and Sophie Trabizi had key hits for the Breakers who improved to 1-3 in league and 3-16 overall.
Laguna Coach Nicole LeMottee said Trabizi recorded her first hit of the season.
Tuesday's win ended a three-game winless streak for Laguna, which scored its second-most runs in a game this season. The Breakers put up 11 runs in an 11-2 nonleague win against Santa Ana Valley March 15.
The loss put Costa Mesa at 1-4 in league.
"We seem to be working better together as a team, and are looking forward to the remaining games of the season," LeMottee said.


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TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Further demonstrating market leadership in the utilities industry, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Florida Power & Light Company (NYSE: FPL), one of the largest power utilities in the United States, has selected the SAP(R) for Utilities solution portfolio. FPL will consolidate numerous disparate systems to better manage corporate planning, asset management and compliance reporting, and provide a standard platform to support the company's growth strategy. Expanding on its existing SAP footprint in financials, supply chain and human resources, FPL will standardize on the SAP NetWeaver(R) technology platform to more quickly and easily integrate new systems as its business continues to expand. The announcement was made at the DistribuTECH 2008 Conference and Exhibition, being held in Tampa, Florida, January 22-24.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050310/SFTH009LOGO-a)
"SAP's solution set for utilities, combined with the company's overall industry expertise, provides the tools we need in order to best position our companies for success," said Dennis Klinger, CIO, Florida Power & Light. "Managing assets, reaching customers and enabling corporate executives to make sound decisions for growth are all mission-critical priorities for today's utilities. Our focus is to provide better visibility and access to data and the ability to analyze it so that we can optimize our assets, identify opportunities that make sense and create products and services that our customers demand."
FPL will implement the SAP for Utilities set of solutions to address industry challenges of compliance, performance management and planning. The portfolio will provide better visibility into asset operations, including the operation of the nation's largest wind farm. To facilitate a smooth and rapid transition to SAP solutions for end users, FPL will leverage Duet(TM) software from SAP and Microsoft to provide users with access to applications from a familiar Microsoft Office interface.
"Today's utilities are faced with many challenges and opportunities, from creating energy through wind farms to identifying ways to reduce consumption and environmental impact," said Maureen Coveney, industry principal, Utilities, SAP Americas. "Efficient and robust IT solutions are required to help utilities in efforts to please investors, customers and regulators alike. We are proud of SAP's distinguished reputation and leadership in providing the tools best designed for the needs of our more than 1,150 utility customers worldwide."
About SAP for Utilities
The SAP(R) for Utilities solution portfolio employs more than 35 years of industry experience to deliver end-to-end processes through all vital utilities-specific business domains, market roles and supply services. The solution portfolio drives efficiencies and provides more flexibility to transforming utilities markets by using enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) and the SAP NetWeaver(R) technology platform. More than 1,150 utilities in over 70 countries run solutions from SAP in areas including customer relationship and billing, extending business processes into advanced metering infrastructures, market communication, technical asset management for generation and T&D, sourcing and procurement, enterprise management, as well as midsize municipal utility and water services. (Additional information at http://www.sap.com/industries/utilities/)
About SAP
SAP is the world's leading provider of business software*. Today, more than 43,400 customers in more than 120 countries run SAP(R) applications — from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small businesses and midsize companies to suite offerings for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver(R) technology platform to drive innovation and enable business change, SAP software helps enterprises of all sizes around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP solution portfolios support the unique business processes of more than 25 industries, including high tech, retail, financial services, healthcare and the public sector. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at <http://www.sap.com>)
(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
Copyright (C) 2008 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.
For customers interested in learning more about SAP products: Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24 United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727) For more information, press only: Evan Welsh, +49 (6227) 7-67514, firstname.lastname@example.com, CET SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EST; email@example.com Jim Sarlo, Burson-Marsteller, +1 (312) 596-3525, firstname.lastname@example.com, CST
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Case study: Incident in LaGuardia Airport
The video above was on the News and Facebook with more than 500,000 views.
I decided to write a post about it because this case exposed the problem that self – booker's experience.
This is not the only an incident that occurred. This is one of a few that received publicity.
Please read and share!
So, what is the problem?
Problem is in expectations that may exist in the ideal world that everything is as planned.
In many cases, this works but not always. Most people do not realize that the perfect world does not exist and you are paying for the promise when you book your vacation.
Your confirmation is the only piece of paper that promises that your vacation will be as written on XXXX.com website.
This website sells you 'the best deal' promise but do not disclose that you are on your own if any issues arise.
How I decided that this woman does not have back up support?
My thoughts are based on the following:
- Woman shout because she did not receive any support and information from her travel agent or concierge at travel insurance.
- Woman was on late flight, so she had hotel reservation for that night prior her cruise. Therefore, she lost her reservation and $150-250 that it cost.
- Woman did not have a travel agent she can call to obtain more information about flight delay and how to handle this situation.
- Woman did not have travel insurance to cover cost for the hotel in Miami, hotel in LaGuardia, meals and water during delay.
That is why she was extremely upset – she lost money, she had a night on the airport chair with her children.
This is not the right way to start a cruise vacation, but travelers cannot overwrite Mother Nature.
What is the cost to avoid this situation?
To have your own travel agent is $0. Yes, you cannot receive $XX onboard credit as on XXX.com.
XXX.coms receive commissions from the cruise line to provide service for your reservation from booking up to the end of your vacation.
Instead, they do not provide any service and to make a sale rebate part of their commissions by buying additional onboard credit from cruise lines.
In reverse, the respected travel professionals provide service for commissions they received and do not buy onboard credit to gain the business.
They give more: their time and backup support in situations like this.
Second, this is the best investment into your vacation is to purchase the travel protection from companies that provide concierge service.
They work 24/7 and give a great support.
In situations like this, my clients call me – only one call! I call to concierge service and obtain information from airline about delay and time for departure.
I work with concierge service on hotel stay in the airport and food allowance.
After I obtain information, I contact my client and inform her what to do.
Insurance to cover the whole cruise vacation for one adult and two children will be around $100+. Some insurance companies offer children free program.
So, to avoid this terrible situation the woman had to invest $100+.
I believe this investment worst it! For family of three on the Disney cruise plus airfare from New York to Miami will be around $7K.
That is why the woman yelled that she saved for a few years!
She saved on professional help and insurance and finished in a horrible situation that ruined her vacation.
In conclusion
XXXXX.coms offer you the best of the best pictures and 'deals.'
Allow them to book your vacation, you find yourself on your own without any professional help you paid for already.
Three tips from Nadia
- Evaluate risk of self-planning and eliminating back office support for your vacation.
- Have a clear plan what you will do in situation(s) as on video. Who will care about you and your family?
- Find a trusted and reliable travel professional. Build relationships with her. Let her be your back officer for your cruise vacation.


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Chesney to Receive BMI President's Award
posted September 28th, 2016 at 3:22 pm
|No Comments »
|by Josh
Kenny Chesney will receive a prestige music industry award at the annual BMI Music Awards:
BMI will celebrate the extraordinary career of Kenny Chesney by presenting him with the BMI President's Award at the Company's 64th annual BMI Country Awards, to be held at BMI's Nashville office on November 1, 2016. BMI President and CEO Mike O'Neill will host the ceremony with Jody Williams, BMI Vice President, Writer/Publisher Relations, Nashville.
The BMI President's Award is presented to songwriters who have distinctly and profoundly influenced the entertainment industry. In receiving the award, Chesney will join an impressive list of past honorees that includes P!nk, Willie Nelson, Brooks & Dunn, Pitbull, Adam Levine, Gloria & Emilio Estefan, and Toni Braxton.
"Kenny Chesney is first and foremost a songwriter," says Williams. "Not only has he earned the respect of the songwriting community, but he has also developed into a top-notch recording artist who re-wrote the concert touring experience by selling out stadiums year after year. He is a friend to up-and-coming artists and songwriters and is as inspiring as he is talented. It is time to salute him for a career that has brought so much to so many, and is far from over."
Read more about the event here.
|Tagged in Awards


text:
Wednesday, 1 April 2015
Asda PASTEL FLEXI BASKETS
I absolutely love these Flexi baskets from Asda that my friend surprised me with today.
These are really to put cleaning products in and to organise the inside of a messy cupboard, but the colours are too pretty I think so I wanted them on show!
I just had all my herbs and oils loose on the shelves before and it looked so messy so I thought I would put the baskets out in the open and I love how it looks.
Now it can look organised and retro at the same time!
My next step is getting a pastel kettle and toaster. I just need to decide which colour I want.
Katie x
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text:
Posted March 02, 2010 by publisher in Cuban American Culture
Email this article | Print this article | Search Havana Journal Tweet
By JUAN O. TAMAYO | Miami Herald
original title: Suit by spy's ex-wife could stop flights to Cuba
All direct U.S. flights to Cuba may be halted if the ex-wife of a Cuban spy wins a lawsuit to garnish money that South Florida charter companies pay in fees to Cuba, lawyers in the case said Monday.
Ira Kurzban, attorney for the charterers, said he filed a motion Monday to dissolve the writs of garnish by Ana Margarita Martinez, and asked U.S. Judge Frederico Moreno for an emergency hearing.
The eight charter companies, all based in South Florida, have stopped making payments to Cuba, he added. "My clients are now in breach of contract, and Cuba can stop them landing any time."
Martinez's suit could deal a blow to the Obama administration's efforts to increase people-to-people contacts with Cuba, and force Cuban-Americans to go through third countries to visit the island.
An estimated 200 charter flights to Cuba leave monthly from Miami, New York, and Los Angeles carrying 20,000 passengers, industry experts said. The companies must pay Cuban agencies for landing rights, fuel, ground support, and other services.
Charter-company and Cuban officials met in Havana last week to study the legal situation, and Havana decided to withhold a reaction until it determines how the legal case is moving, said a travel-industry member who declined to comment further because of the sensitivity of the case.
Not a Long Shot
Martinez, the ex-wife of Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque, filed the writs on Feb. 19 to seize those funds. Her attorney, Thomas Withrow of Indianapolis, said the move was ``not a sure shot at all, but also not a long shot.''
Her writs were the latest twist in the ongoing efforts to collect on the multi-million-dollar judgements that several people have won against Cuba in U.S. courts. Most of the Cuban funds frozen in U.S. accounts since the 1960s already have been paid out.
Martinez said she's not trying to halt the flights but wants to collect on the $27 million judgement she won against the Cuban government in 2001, for Roque's marriage to her under false pretenses.
"These writs are not . . . an effort to hurt U.S. businesses or interfere with air travel to Cuba," she said in a statement. "To the contrary, (they) seem to be the only way to collect a legal debt from the Cuban government. ... America is a country of laws. Those who do wrong here must compensate their victims."
Roque, a member of the notorious Avispa spy network, returned to Cuba just before Cuba's 2006 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes that killed four South Florida residents. Martinez later won an annulment of their marriage.
Kurzban said he moved to dismiss the writs because they seek to garnish funds that are due to Havanatour and other companies in Cuba, while Martinez won her judgment only against the Cuban government.
All the suits against Cuba were made possible by U.S. laws approved in 1996 and 2002, which cleared the way for private citizens to sue foreign governments for terrorist acts and helped victims collect judgments against terrorist-designated states such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. Cuba has never defended itself in the U.S. courts.
Terrorist Act
Martinez's request for the writs alleges she was "a victim of a terrorist act. A Cuban spy married her and used her as cover for his espionage activities."
Her court filings say she has collected $194,000 through release of frozen Cuban assets, but "nothing more is available through this program." In 2002, she successfully seized a Cuban crop-duster, valued at about $45,000, flown to Key West by a group of refugees.
Kurzban said eventually the case could affect dozens of other flights, since many U.S. airlines are licensed by the U.S. government to pay Cuba fees for overflying its airspace.
The eight charter companies garnished are Marazul, ABC, C&T, Xael, Wilson International Service, Cuba Travel Services, Airline Brokers, and Gulfstream Air Charter.
Yet another selfish old Cuban exile grabbing money thanks to the US Cuba policy.
In the article below this woman won a $27million dollar lawsuit because she was apparently defrauded by a Cuban spy. She wants to interfere with US business for her own selfish reasons grabbing at money awarded to her thanks to her friends in Miami. She won $27 million for a fraudulent marriage and claimed that this was a "terrorist act".
Those old Cuban exiles wake up every morning praying Fidel never dies because they never want the Embargo lifted.
I agree. How selfish.
This woman is nuts. If she feels she's had $27 million worth of psychological damage because her husband wasn't honest, she belongs in an insane asylum. She's obviously just a gold digger. I saw her once on a T.V. show called "Truth or Dare" (or something like that), where she told her story of how she'd been married to a Cuban spy and the audience had to, of course, guess whether she was telling the truth or not. I wonder how much $$$ she got for that. This woman isn't serious about anything except money…..I don't think she cares at all about the politics over what she's doing. She is, however, being used by the extremist exiles who want to keep the psychological war against Cuba going.
I agree but I wish you had the same sense of passion to speak against the left side of the spectrum.
The bottom line is the people suffer- right or left.
While I do not aprove the method used the fact and the matter is that lot of people uses whichever method they have to make money. A gold digger, well most people are gold diggers. Anybody that can put their hands on 27 millions surely would try to do it.
The fact and the matter is that amount was awarded to her on court.
More about Ana Margarita Martinez here in Progreso Weekly.
Yeyo: Which only goes to show that either, a) courts make stupid decisions, or b) somebody is being paid off
"Progreso Weekly"
Most of those columnists are cringe worthy.
Again I do not feel that is right what she is doing but your comments that ".... a) courts make stupid decisions, or b) somebody is being paid off.."
In every single country you can find cases where courts had made mistakes, I do not feel that this is one of them; the 5 Cuban spies are spies and belong in jail. Regarding that "somebody is being paid off" I cannot understand what do you mean by that, do you mean that the judges are being paid off?
This forum is about Cuba and talking about the US justice system is directly comparing it to the Cuban justice system. Do you know that in Cuba judges know what decisions they should take even before going to court?, not because they studied the case but because they are told by the government what should be the outcome of the trial.
Mistake????? If you do not feel that there is something extremely wrong, unjust, ridiculous, strange….or just plain questionable about a court awarding $27 MILLION to someone because she was married under false pretenses, then I have nothing else to add on this topic.
As for the Cuban "spies"——they were doing the same thing our own operatives do around the world to protect the U.S. from terrorist attacks——gather information.
Courts are free to award what they feel convenient in accordance with the law of the land. That judge awarded 27 million to that lady.
That is a lot of money , true, but also true that the one that was used and abused sociologically and everything else was not your sister, if she were them we would be having a completely different conversation. People give very open opinions when the issues are far and not affecting them than when they are close and affecting them directly.
When you consider that the main issue here is that Cuba was spying into the US, illegally, unauthorized, then the 27 million figure seems kind of low.
There is a difference between operatives and spies. Operatives are mostly authorized by the foreign government and spies, well they are spies.
When US or other countries spies are caught spying they are normally tried by the foreign countries courts and if found guilty thrown to jail and sometimes even executed (for your information in Cuba spies are executed ). I'm sure that the US would move in the shadows to secure their freedom but I had never seen before a childish excuse as the one used by the Cuban government …."they were trying to protect Cuba of the Cuban Mafia of Miami…".
They were Cuban MININT spies, well trained and paid by Cuba part of a larger spying network "red avispa", they were caught and they are now where they belong: in jail.
Actually some sensible comments from the US government regarding this woman's selfish money grab.
From the story…
The U.S. filing concludes that Martinez has no legal right to the fees and that the charter services are key to U.S. goals of easing family travel between the two countries, improving the flow of information across the Florida Straits and promoting such things as religious, artistic and sporting events and exchanges.
"The direct flights they provide are vital for maintaining contacts that are in the national interest," Ricardo Zuniga, the State Department's acting coordinator for Cuban affairs, said in an affidavit. "A disruption in licensed air charter service would cause serious harm to U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba."
Ms. Martinez had a right to sue the Cuban government.
Yes it did affect the lives of both, Cuban-exiles and, those trying to leave Cuba.
Was she supposed to remain a woman essentially trampled on by the Cuban government.
I certainly agree with her.
I agree that it should have a more reasonable resolution…...it was mental abuse though especially to some women that have to find a spouse that is perfect to complete lifes journey…..it does not exsist not any single human is a flawless person get serious they should have cofidence to be alone then it will not or it will happen. a reporter that wrote about this said "man hunted then married me then everything we had shared 4yrs was fake to further his spy mission yea, that would make me feel violated" to that point it does seem serious. This woman is completely crazy tho it is to much money…many complainers here should not be jealous. Same thing happens everytime a person wins any multi million dollar award people have to cut down that person due to jealousy. She will not recieve it….atleast not that much.


text:
Athletic Award Certificates are a great way to reward those who have shown a lot of work and dedication to athletics. They can be given at end of the season parties and award ceremonies. They can be handwritten or printed with our downloadable Microsoft Word template.
Athletic Award Certificate is a beautiful, authentically designed Hayes certificates printed in full color on high quality paper, will become a keepsake from that special day for years to come. This athletic award is a great way to reward students and/or team members for their hard work and dedication in athletics. They are great to give at award ceremonies and end of the year parties.
Certificate reads: Athletic Award This Honor Is Bestowed Upon _____ in recognition of outstanding achievement in _____ At _____ this _____ day of _____ year of _____. These blank certificates can be personalized with the recipients name and information regarding the award. They can be handwritten or printed with our downloadable template.
• Compatible with most laser printers
• Certificates measure 8.5" x 11"
• 30 per pack
• High quality glossy certificates


text:
Jump to navigation Jump to search
NcFTP is an FTP client program which debuted in 1990 as the first alternative FTP client. It was created as an alternative to the standard UNIX
|Original author(s)
|Mike Gleason
|NcFTP Software Inc.
|Initial release
|Stable release
3.2.6 / November 27, 2016
|Written in
|C (nCurses)[1]
|Operating system
|FTP client
|Clarified Artistic License
NcFTP is an FTP client program which debuted in 1990 as the first alternative FTP client. It was created as an alternative to the standard UNIX
ftp program, and offers a number of additional features and greater ease of use.
NcFTP is a command-line user interface program, and runs on a large number of platforms.
The program often provided a user's first exposure to features such as bookmarks, automatic use of binary transfers, dynamic progress meters, automatic anonymous logons, recursive downloading, resumption of failed downloads, "redialing" unresponsive hosts, use of passive transfers, and tips at start up.
See also[edit]
- Peter Leung (March 14, 2006) Upload directories recursively with NcFTP, Linux.com
- Richard Petersen, Fedora 7 & Red Hat Enterprise Linux: the complete reference, Edition 4, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2007, ISBN 0-07-148642-9, p. 342
- Karl Kopper, The Linux Enterprise Cluster: build a highly available cluster with commodity hardware and free software, No Starch Press, 2005, ISBN 1-59327-036-4, pp. 369–371


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Narendra Modi, who was sworn-in India's 15th prime minister on May 26, brought an unprecedented victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), matched in its intensity and sweep only by the crushing defeat of the Congress in the 16th general elections. The BJP returns to power at the Centre after 10 years. Allies will also be part of the government, though the BJP is not dependent on any for numbers. BJP notched up a comfortable majority of 282 seats on its own and grossed 336 seats with allies in the 543-member house.
The BJP won a simple majority for the first time, only the second time a non-Congress party has done so. The BJP also became the first party since 1984 to get a majority on its own.
India has not had a single party rule since 1989. An Opposition party comes to power in such a manner for the second time, the earlier being the 1977 elections in the wake of Emergency.
BJP Ends Historic 30-Year Journey
It has been a roller coaster ride for BJP in the past 30 years with the saffron party in pole position on May 16 after having a measly two seats in 1984. In stark contrast, the fortunes reversed for the ruling Congress in an unprecedented way as it saw the party's kitty dwindle from a record 415 during this period with results and trends indicating it may not get more than 50 seats.
The victory for the BJP in the saffron surge is also significant because India has not had a single party rule for 25 long years since 1989 during which coalition or minority governments have been in power.
A Modi wave has catapulted the BJP to power after 10 long years in the opposition with its tally set to more than double from 117 in an election which saw the BJP prime ministerial candidate secure a huge mandate. This is for the second time in Independent India that an Opposition party has come to power in such a manner, the earlier being the 1977 election that was held after the infamous Emergency era that brought the Janata Party to power.
The BJP came to power for the fourth time since it was founded in 1980 after the split in the Janata Party. Its first government in 1996 lasted for a merely 13 days and was dubbed 13-day wonder by the Congress.
In 1998, the next government of the BJP via the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) route lasted 13 months while in 1999 it again came to power leading the NDA in the backdrop of the Kargil conflict with the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee projecting it as a victory over Pakistan. The largest number of 182 seats was won by BJP in this election.
In fact, the BJP suffered its worst defeat in 1984 after the formation of the party. It could win only two seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha in the wake of the sympathy wave for the Congress following assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Even Vajpayee was among several top opposition leaders who had lost in the election in which the BJP had secured one seat each from Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat respectively. For the Congress, it is the lowest tally, which is less than the lowest ever of 114 in 1999.
Incidentally, both the record lows have come under the stewardship of Sonia Gandhi who has the distinction of being the longest serving president of the Grand Old Party.
Sonia has been at the helm of the Congress since 1998 after the party ousted Sitaram Kesari from the top post in the wake of the party losing the Lok Sabha election that year.
The results have come as a rude jolt for the Congress given the fact that it had been in power for 10 long years via the coalition route. Sonia started the first experiment of Congress sharing power at the Centre in May 2004 after remaining in political wilderness for eight long years.
While Narasimha Rao came to power in 1991 in the wake of assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, he ran a minority government for some time. Manmohan Singh, who was brought by Rao as his Finance Minister, ushered in the economic reforms that changed the face of India.
Incidentally, Modi, chief minister of Gujarat since 2001, used the development plank to the hilt by projecting the Gujarat Model that appeared to have struck a chord with people hit hard by rising prices and corruption and growing joblessness in the backdrop of a global slowdown.
Modi's detractors raked up the 2002 Gujarat riots repeatedly accusing him of "zehar ki kheti" and polarisation of voters.
The election was also significant as the Left parties, fighting with their back to the wall, are set to register their lowest tally.
Modi Factor
Carefully scripted by his crack team, the 'Modi vs Rest' is a story that could have easily backfired. After the appointment of Modi as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in 2013, the question that arose was whether this poll would reverse the trend of several general polls since 1989. The election for the ninth Lok Sabha that saw Vishwanath Pratap Singh becoming Prime Minister was the last time when a single issue held sway over a considerable part of India. Though the polls in 1984 had a greater national footprint, being held as they were after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the issue of corruption in high place played out significantly in 1989. But thereafter, all polls became an aggregate of several local polls, at times aggregated either constituency by constituency in some extreme instances, or at state and sub-regional levels on most occasions.
Every single election since 1991 has not been influenced significantly by a single issue. If at all they were, barring in 2009 when the Congress was given an improved mandate following a string of pro-poor policies of the government, parliamentary polls were affected by a negative vote, like in 2004 when the BJP-led government was voted out. By the middle of 2013, however, it appeared that the emergence of Modi as the electoral mascot of BJP had led to a situation where endorsing or rejecting him would become the single-largest issue in this election. In the early stages, the election had not appeared to be becoming a virtual referendum on Modi, but by the end of the campaign this is what appears to be the case. It is therefore not wrong to say that this election can be described in one word — Modi.
Every single election since 1991 has not been influenced significantly by a single issue. If at all they were, barring in 2009 when the Congress was given an improved mandate following a string of pro-poor policies of the government, parliamentary polls were affected by a negative vote, like in 2004 when the BJP-led government was voted out. By the middle of 2013, however, it appeared that the emergence of Modi as the electoral mascot of BJP had led to a situation where endorsing or rejecting him would become the single-largest issue in this election. In the early stages, the election had not appeared to be becoming a virtual referendum on Modi, but by the end of the campaign this is what appears to be the case. It is therefore not wrong to say that this election can be described in one word — Modi.
The entire campaign of the BJP has been based on a singular principle and been pitted against the syncretic nature of India's political culture. The issue of growth has been framed in the context of limitations of a coalition government. For a considerable period of time Modi has suggested that a growth oriented political system where rights are available in limited doses is a better bet than a messy democracy. When he began his march to Delhi in serious intent after the Assembly polls of December 2012, Modi's first target was diluting the collective leadership of the BJP. Just as he reduced the party to one with only one individual being in charge, he has asked for a similar mandate from the electorate.
Tsunami in Uttar Pradesh
Of the crucial 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has won 71 on its own and its alliance partner Apna Dal has brought in another two. This reduces the Opposition parties in UP to seven seats altogether — shared by the Yadavs and Gandhis.
Not even Modi's close associate Amit Shah had perdicted such large-scale victory. He had given 50 to 55 seats to the BJP and predicted that the BSP will come second.
Both his prophecies were way off the mark as the BSP shockingly drew a blank. However, it is hard to claim that Uttar Pradesh took Modi to unmatched victory. Even without UP, Modi was well on his way to rule the country.
The UP verdict is, however, a clear paradigm shift. The tools which had been in use to assess and analyse political and sociological situations in the state have suddenly become ineffectual. At the moment, all analysis based on intricate caste and sub-caste calculations, community and regional variations have been unable to adequately explain the results.
Even at the height of the Ram Mandir movement, the BJP had managed to win 54 seats and account for 33 percent of the vote share.
In 2014, without any ostensible external factor, the BJP has won 71+2 seats and its vote share is 42.3 percent. This decisive vote for Modi is clearly a positive vote for change. It is the yearning of the common people for respite from their daily drudgery of power failures, potholed roads, corruption seeping the system, scams and the general feeling of despondency that has been plaguing the governments both at the national and the state level.
Still, it is not for a party like Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that promised a new kind of transparent polity. Even its convener Arvind Kejriwal failed to win. More surprisingly, months of hard work of Kumar Vishwas in Amethi did not get him even the second slot.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) managed to win five family seats, of which Mulayam Singh Yadav would have to forgo one, leaving the party with only four. This puts a big question mark on the Akhilesh Yadav-led government in the state. Six ministers, 13 MLAs and even the Vidhan Sabha Speaker have bitten the dust. But, the chief minister would have to tread carefully to contain the damage as BJP Jhansi MP Uma Bharti has already hinted at 40 SP MLAs being in touch with the BJP.
Similarly, all seven UPA-II ministers from UP have not just lost but (except one) failed to save their deposits. The other significant aspect is that the BJP has won all 17 reserved seats, indicating an important shift in the Dalit vote. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which saw itself emerging as a 'balance of power' after the elections is completely routed.
Of course, credit for the BJP's stellar performance in the State which sends the largest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha also goes in large measure to the party's in-charge of the State and Modi's confidant, Amit Shah, who created magic there with his organizational skills and deft exploitation of the people's anger with the SP, the BSP and the Congress-led UPA. The win, incidentally, means that both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati are under siege, and the next Assembly election to the State could see a change as dramatic as the one we are witness to now.
Opponents Crushed in Bihar
The BJP-led NDA crushed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party Janata Dal (United) and the RJD-Congress combine by winning 31 of the state's 40 seats. The Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine in the state won seven seats and the ruling JD (U) won only two. Nitish Kumar has resigned a day after his party suffered a drubbing in the general elections.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad's wife and former Chief Minister Rabri Devi was defeated by BJP candidate and former union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy in Saran by 44,000 votes, while their daughter Misa Bharti was defeated in Pataliputra by BJP's Ram Kirpal Yadav by 42,000 votes. RJD candidate Pappu Yadav defeated JD (U) President Sharad Yadav in Madhepura. Congress leader Mohammad Asrarul Haque won from Muslim-majority Kishanganj. Pappu Yadav's wife Ranjeet Ranjan of the Congress won from Supaul.
Spectacular Wins in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra
Riding on the "Gujarat pride" wave, Modi led his party to a spectacular victory in his home state of Gujarat, making a clean sweep of all 26 seats throwing on the wayside a former chief minister and three members of the outgoing Manmohan Singh cabinet.
Former Chief Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela, once a colleague of Modi in the state BJP, who before the election claimed he saw "coming of the third UPA ministry" and expected the Congress to win at least 16 seats in the state, was himself biting the dust at his Sabarkantha constituency in north Gujarat.
While Modi himself defeated All-India Congress Committee general secretary Madhusudan Mistry, a close confidant of the party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, by a near-record margin of over 5.20 lakh votes in Vadodara, three ministers of state in the outgoing central cabinet, Dinsha Patel (Kheda), Bharatsinh Solanki (Anand) and Tushar Chaudhary (Bardoli) also failed to open the account for the Congress in the state.
In Rajasthan, the made a clean sweep in Rajasthan by winning all the 25 Lok Sabha seats from the desert state. The Congress, on the other hand, recorded its worst defeat in the state's history. The Congress won 20 seats in 2009 and the party's lowest tally was one in the post-Emergency 1977 elections.
Prominent Congress leaders who lost included union ministers Sachin Pilot (Ajmer), Girja Vyas (Chittorgarh), Bhanwar Jitendra Singh (Alwar) and Chandresh Kumari (Jodhpur), and party leaders Namonarain Meena (Dausa) and former India cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin (Tonk-Sawai Madhopur).
In Maharashtra, Modi wave has swept away the ruling Congress-NCP coalition. Of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the five-party alliance led by the BJP has won 41 seats.
Among the stalwarts of the ruling front who bit the dust today include union ministers Sushilkumar Shinde, Praful Patel and Milind Deora. Other prominent losers include Chhagan Bhujbal and Padamsinh Patil of the NCP and Priya Dutt and Sanjay Nirupam from the Congress.
Controversial leader Ashok Chavan of the Congress contesting from Nanded and NCP boss Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule contesting from Baramati are just two prominent faces to win from the ruling front. Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has turned out to be a total flop in the current Lok Sabha elections.
AIADMK Gets Third Place
Tamil Nadu's ruling AIADMK rode on a Jayalalithaa wave to gobble up 37 of the state's 39 Lok Sabha seats to become one of the largest parties in the 2014 elections. The wave was such that there will be no Congress or DMK representative from the state in the Lok Sabha for the next five years as things stand now.
Many of the prominent candidates of these two parties as well as from others crashed to defeat. They included DMK's A Raja, Dayanidhi Maran, TKS Elangovan, T.R. Baalu and Congress' Karti P.Chidambaram, son of Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, EVKS Elangovan and others.
MDMK's candidates including its leader Vaiko, candidates from the two communist parties and AAP also lost. However, PMK's Anbumani Ramadoss contesting from Dharmapuri and BJP's Pon Radhakrishan from Kanyakumari were the two victorious survivors. Both parties are in alliance.
Mamata Magic Worked in West Bengal
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee swept West Bengal by winning 34 of the 42 seats in the elections. The BJP, which had no political base in the state, won two seats.
The Congress retained four of the six seats, but the CPM and other Left Front parties put up the worst show by winning only two seats against the 15 it had won in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Reasons Behind Congress Debacle
The Congress got a crushing defeat in all the seven Lok Sabha seats primarily because of anti-incumbency at the Center coupled with the shifting of its vote bank toward the newbie AAP. Also, there is a feeling among a large section of people that the Congress MPs in the city were not easily accessible to the common people.
Many in the party feel that the Congress was defeated as its candidates did not go for aggressive campaigning. What is bothering the Congress leadership the most is the fact that it has suffered defeat in all the 70 Assembly segments, which fall under the purview of the seven Lok Sabha seats.
The downslide of the Congress in Delhi began in the December 2013 Assembly elections when the party could log its victory in only eight of the 70-member Assembly. The party, which had won all the seven seats in the previous Lok Sabha elections, were pushed to the third position in these Lok Sabha elections. Even the one-year-old AAP, which got an electrifying victory in the Assembly elections, stood second in the parliamentary poll.
It is said if the votes polled by the AAP were added to the tally of the Congress candidates, all of them would have easily made it to the Lok Sabha."Delhiites were fed up with the scams which hogged the newspaper headlines every day. More to it, middle and lower middle class had to face high inflation in all essential commodities. That is why people voted for a change. Because of polarization, Muslims voted in a large numbers for the AAP. That is another factor which led to Congress defeat.
The 2014 elections have seen the incumbent United Progressive Alliance crash to an ignominious defeat with the Congress party, already on a downward spiral in several elections, now humiliatingly reduced to a double-digit figure in Parliament, its worst electoral tally since Independence. An indefensibly uninspiring campaign led by Rahul Gandhi failed to rally a young and impatient electorate. The BJP's landslide victory, almost entirely attributable to the sweeping effect of the Modi wave across India, reflects the intensity of the desire for more effective governance. The rising public anger as a result of the UPA's policy paralysis, stalled economic growth and worst of all, the series of corruption scandals, created a hunger for change especially among young Indians who see Modi as a leader symbolizing their expectations of fast economic growth unshackled from red tape and corruption.
In the era of coalition politics, no one saw the possibility of the BJP getting a clear mandate. The UPA always blamed coalition compulsions whenever it was accused of making any compromise with national interests. Now that the people have given a free hand to Modi, they ought to have huge expectations of him. It is time for Modi to deliver.
Record High for BJP
* Modi becomes new prime minister of India
* Modi becomes new prime minister of India
* BJP comes to power for the fourth time since its foundation in 1980 after the split in the Janata Party. Its first government in 1996 lasted 13 days
* In 1998, the next BJP govt via NDA route lasted 13 months. In 1999, it again came to power leading NDA in the backdrop of Kargil war
* BJP won the largest number of 182 seats in 1999
* Party had its worst defeat in 1984 after its formation. It won only two seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination
* Atal Bihari Vajpayee was among several top opposition leaders who lost in 1984.
Congress Disaster
* It is the lowest tally for Cong, less than 114 in 1999
* Both the record lows came under Sonia's stewardship. She is the longest serving president of the grand old party
* Sonia Gandhi is at the helm of the Congress since 1998 after the party ousted Sitaram Kesari from the top post
* She started the first experiment of sharing power at the Centre in May 2004 after remaining in political wilderness for eight years


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Nice work! Enjoy the show!
Link Copied!
A farmer's perspective
Opening Sequence
Trump declares national emergency over border wall
An autopsy of Amazon's dead New York HQ2 plan
Census citizenship case goes to U.S. top court
Monster mudslides ravage California
A hard choice in the Arctic: mining or reindeer?
44 killed in worst Kashmir attack in decades
Lyft's strategy to compete with Uber on IPO
Sustainable is the new sexy at New York Fashion week
Closing Sequence


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Malikarjun (VDC)
From PlanetNepal
(Redirected from Malikarjun)
This article is about administrative Village Development Committee Malikarjun. For other uses, see Malikarjun.
This article is a stub. You can help PlanetNepal Enclyclpedia by expanding it.
- District: Darchula (District)
- Zone: Mahakali (Zone)
- Region: Far-Western Development Region
- P-code: 524 5 14 75 5 016
Categories: PNSystem Stubs <catseparator> Village Development Committees <catseparator> Darchula (District)


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Guru created this moving little storybook tale for Eric Mower and Associates in New York and their client Community Bank. The story revolves around a mistreated little piggy bank who decides to switch from the big, bad bank to the much kinder folks over at Community Bank. Guru's team developed the character and the aesthetic treatment for 2 30-second spots.
- Agency: Eric Mower and Associates New York
- Agency CD: Tom Merrick
- Agency Producer: Laurie Wolfe
- Client: Community Bank
- Guru CD: Frank Falcone
- Producer: Amy Robson
- Director: Matt Hamill
- Animators: Matt Hamill, Angela Kim, Ryan Fairly
- Music: Asker Lenz + Steve Skratt


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Megan Hamilton is blasting out of the great frozen north with the funkiest sound this side of the equator. For the past few years, the rumblings of a four-headed funk monster have been reaching us all the way out on the edges of the country, and the movement's time is nearing blast-off.
Out Tuesday, February 7th Photosynthetic features 10 original tracks written and performed by Megan Hamilton and her band, The Bermudas.
Megan Hamilton & The Bermudas have been making waves in the burgeoning Minnesota bass scene with a stunningly original stew of killer beats and live instrumentation. Part funk band, part cybernetic drum machine, the sound of Hamilton and her posse is best served up hot and fresh on stage. However, the time has come for the band to press a lasting product into being, and the debut album is coming next month. - THE UNTZ
Megan shares, "I moved into a new studio at the end of last summer and the previous tenants had been growing vines on the ceiling for years," Hamilton mentions. "The room is mostly windows and the sunlight just pours in all day. I really feel it's the reason for the chillness of this new project, hopefully people can feel the organic vibes of the room when they listen to it."


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Fischle, Wolfgang, Dr.
Group Leader at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry
- Dr. rer. nat. (PhD), University of Tübingen, Germany, 2001
- Graduate Research Fellow, The J. David Gladstone Institute (UCSF), San Francisco, CA, USA, 1997-2001
- Postdoctoral Fellow, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA, 2001-2005
- Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow, 2002-2005
- Head of the Chromatin Biochemistry Group, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany, since 2006
- Professor of Cellular and Molecular Biology, KAUST, Thuwal, KSA since 2015
Major Research Interests
To sustain life in different environments cells and organisms must adjust to different conditions and external cues. In contrast to immediate and mostly transient responses to short-term stimuli, processes of long-term adaptation require lasting changes in gene expression patterns. Such epigenetic changes are controlled on the level of chromatin, the packaging form of eukaryotic genomes. Here, different DNA and histone modifications are associated with distinct functional states of chromatin.
Overall, our research aims to gain detailed, fundamental understanding of the processes that read and translate patterns of chromatin marks for mediating biological outcomes. Currently, we are tackling two main questions. A) How do histone modifications in conjunction with DNA methylation establish seemingly stable chromatin structures in response to internal and external cues? B) How do small cellular metabolites and signaling molecules tune the readout of chromatin marks? To address these problems we are constantly expanding our highly interdisciplinary approaches. These include advancing technologies for establishing and analyzing complex chromatin systems in vitro (biochemistry and biophysics), molecular and cellular biology for studying essential chromatin components and global analysis of modules of epigenetic regulation.
We strongly believe that by understanding the essential molecular control mechanisms of chromatin regulation we will ultimately be able to develop strategies for intervention of major diseases.
Homepage Department/Research Group
Selected Recent Publications


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The map of a mate was like this:
For her the world had 4 countries. Sorry… I mean 3 countries and the sea.
One of the squares was her country. Now I don't remember which one was. The other square was France where she had been living with her husband before traveling to England. The third one was England, of course. The fourth was the sea. As she explained to me, she could see the sea from her country, from France and she knew that it was close to England as well. Maybe she could see the sea from the airplanes.
My draw was something like this:
She asked me where Mexico was. I put my finger over the draw and explained where Mexico, United States, Central America and South America were and said that the two last ones were full of countries.
She didn't say anything. She asked me the draw and looked at it carefully.
Then the teacher gave us a world map without names and asked us to write the names that she was going to say. In English, of course.
We were working in couples. When I attended the class I used to wear a coat because it was autumn and it was cold. After arriving to the classroom, I and the other ladies removed our coats because the room was warm due to the heater. The Muslim ladies stayed almost totally covered, even their heads. They never showed their hairs, always covered with scarfs.
She worked with me and asked me to write the names in the map.
When the exercise ended, the teacher gave us a world map with all the country names. The Muslim lady asked me both maps to look at them carefully. Her scarf had dropped a little bit, leaving the hair of her front a little discovered. She opened her eyes looking at the countries in both maps one by one.
"Can I keep them?" She told me suddenly. Her scarf had dropped a little bit more. She put her hand pulling the scarf to cover again her head but not carefully.
"No problem" I told her. And she asked me to show her England and Mexico in the map. I put my finger over the two countries and over the country that I though was hers.
"Which one is this?" She moved the finger."Argentina.
"And this one?
"And this one?
She asked no more and thanked me with a brief smile. I said good bye looking at her face that was in other world. I think that maybe that day the world had grown suddenly for her.


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Wednesday, June 13, 2012
ECI Visit
The boys are so active and keeping this Momma busy! We are all four off for the Summer so there's been a lot of Q.T. happening around here. The boys got baptized this last weekend with their little cousin Avery. It was a wonderful day and we got to celebrate with a lot of family. Here's a little update on the boys. Luke: He is finally walking as of 2-3 weeks ago and doing a little talking (dat, ball, uh oh and whoa are a few of his favorite words). He loves to know where brother is at all times and tends to copy Carter in most things. Luke loves when someone gets hiccups because it makes him laugh hysterically, only to end up with hiccups himself! He is still the super sweet snuggle bunny that we always said he was. We had ECI come out to evaluate Luke on physical developments and check on his speech and it turns out, he does not qualify for any services. He is doing great and developing just fine. Carter: He is basically running! He is very active and constantly loves to find Mommy. He amazes us everyday with new sounds or new words. Some of his favorite words are Uh oh, ball, whoaaaa, no no, more, and everything is labeled d-buh. He loves to woof,woof when he sees a bird, a bunny, a cat or a dog. Carter enjoys playing hide and seek and making lots of noise. We are staying pretty busy between the pool, toddler story time and playdates! The boys love a cool morning walk and a long afternoon nap.
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This morning I woke up thinking:
"Crap. I've got a handful of sick (slimy, but pink eye and puke are gone!) girls.
What are we going to do today?"
We ate breakfast, kinda.
Then busted out paper, glue sticks, crayons, approximately 1 billion stickers, scissors, and made cards for grandparents for Easter.
And while doing so I thought: "Tonight, we need a fancy dinner."
We need something fun, unnecessary, and exciting to prepare for to distract us from being sick and it snowing outside.
Our menu will be:
garlic chicken
balsamic glazed asparagus
coconut mashed sweet potatoes
and to make it actually fancy, martinelli's with our goblets +candles and table cloth.
AND THEN to top it off: Chocolate, coconut cream pie.
OH it will be glorious.
Now, off to make decorations!


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"If you think you can find out what you need to know by going to see the management of a company, then I have nothing to say to you."
says Herbert Blank, a notable Quant, as quoted in an interesting article on quantitative investing last week (via Barry Ritholz). Well, Mr Blank, that is fighting talk. Tremble, for you have roused the sleeping Baruch, who manages a Fundamentalist tech fund and who may indeed want to see the management of a company. I have something to say to you: you and your kind are dinosaurs, Mr. Blank, and the meteorite just hit. We are the small mammals who will gnaw your stinking bones and grow to fill your ecological niche. Read on to find out why.
I have been thinking about Quants now (and trying unsuccessfully to blog my thoughts) for some weeks, and much has been written about them in that time. I think the August stockmarket conniptions we foolishly choose to call the "subprime crisis", and which I and my fund negotiated so brilliantly, were not about subprime at all. Or rather, they were, but in an unimportant and dull way. The memorable thing about August was that it was a crisis in long short quant, when the majority of funds in that strategy blew up, wiping out billions and making liars of their marketers. Morgan Stanley dropped $390m in a day in August, smashing through its VAR limits. Goldman's CEO whined about seeing "25 standard deviation days 6 days in a row" as his Global Alpha Fund dropped 23% and had to cut fees to get bailed out. For the Quants it was a "hundred year storm".
Quant investing will never be the same again, and I think it is beginning to affect the whole hedge fund industry. US inflows fell sequentially for the 2nd quarter in a row this Q3, a 22% decline on Q2 inflows, in an industry that grew assets globally over 30% in 2006. I would bet (but do not know) that the shortfall is concentrated in the quants.
But people need to save, and what is lost by the Quants will turn up somewhere else. I submit that the coming years will see fundamental strategies gain, strategies that posit not mean reversion, but thrive on greater volatility; strategies which rely the ability of single managers and incorporate a human element of "quality" and judgement. Art rather than science. Strategies like mine.
What exactly has made quant investing such a powerful proposition? The promise of riskless, reliable returns, with sleep-filled nights. Quant strategies, be they simple or complex, often come down to the same thing. They are mean reversion strategies. Computers pore over teraflops (I think that's the right word) of historical data to discover apparently stable relationships between securities that, over time, tend to hold true. A typical trade could be: veeblefitzer-maker stock ticker DUMB has hardly ever outperformed veeblefitzer peer DICK by 10% in any given period and vice-versa, over a 15 year sample. Running that trade over the past 15 years yields a positive return 75% of the time with an average gain of 7%. Next time DICK moves -10% relative DUMB, simply long DICK short DUMB. Screening the entire US market to find such correlations throws up tens of thousands of potential trades, 10s or hundreds of which could be triggered every day depending on the sensitivity of the parameters. Other, "factor-based", strategies screen vast lists of stocks for parameters like PEs, indebtedness, volume, momentum; you go long the top quartile of the list, short the bottom quartile. These rules can be stress-tested in every enviroment that decades of intraday stock market data can throw at you. Trading is automatic, computer-run, and executed extremely quickly, cheaply and efficiently.
Consider the simple strategy positied by Khandani and Lo; if a stock outperforms a certain amount in a given period, short it, if it underperforms under the same conditions go long; they admit its over-simplicity, and call it a "contrarian" strategy. They backtested, and found that in 1995 the strategy would have returned 345%! This stuff really works. OK, it ignores important things like trading costs and liquidity which could knock 100-150% off that gain. But that remaining 100%-200% performance came with almost zero market risk — in the teeth of the 1998 LTCM débacle, Khadani and Lo's strategy produced positive returns, even improving slightly, as the S&P 500 fell from 1,200 to 1000. The returns of quant funds were thus not only very big; they were steady, uncorrelated with the direction of bond, stock, and other investment markets; they constituted a wonderful "anchor" to a generalised investment portfolio.
In the world of the early 2000s, exhausted and deceived by the huge swings in the major indices and the eradication of value in individual stocks as the bubble deflated, the promise of the Quants to make you money in any market, almost all the time, must have been irresistible to clients; a slam dunk, as George Tenet said of something else at the time.
So it was great for the clients. But the business model was even better for the practitioners. The strategy is extremely scaleable. Computers do the work, and once you have done the original programming, and made sure everything is running, all that is left is counting the 2 and 20 you charge the punters. No armies of expensive and unbearable analysts from Harvard and Wharton MBA programs costing $200k/year with a $30k Bloomberg each, and minimal real estate to share your fees and eat up your overhead.
Thus it is that the Quants have come to dominate hedge fund investing. Some funds are huge, 10s of billions of dollars under management. The MIT article points to the classic case of:
James Simons's Renaissance Technologies, which has earned an average of more than 30 percent a year since its founding in 1988. Like other quant funds, it is ferociously secretive. Still, so many investors have trusted Simons that the two funds under his management now total more than $30 billion. In 2006 alone, he earned $1.7 billion running the fund.
Renaissance, DE Shaw, Goldman's Alpha Funds, a squillion others, and every multi-strategy house worth its salt — even my own beloved Swiss employers, all employ in all or in part these quant-based mean reversion strategies. They provide a phenomenally large proportion of the daily trading volumes on the major exchanges. I think it is hard to overestimate their importance. It is worth investigating whether their rise can be correlated with the otherwise mysterious lowering of volatility, the Great Moderation, which has marked the US markets since 2002-2003. Widespread statistical arbitrage may have had a huge dampening effect on individual stocks, taking the example of DICK and DUMB above, working to mitigate relative moves up or down beyond 10%.
Is the fact that volatility is going back up in 2007, here measured by the VIX index, correlated with the growing lack of firepower of the Quants? Can I partly explain the Great Moderation and its apparent demise by the Rise and Fall of the Quants?
Well, maybe not. My theory is speculative lumping of the first order, although it makes sense. What is true, however, is that these strategies became terribly crowded over the years, as more and more graduates from MIT entered the industry, learned the trade on some prop desk, and left to start their own quant funds. This hurt returns. While there are after all a great many possible quant strategies, probably an infinite amount, they all do pretty much the same thing, and probably on a lot of the same stocks. As more and more people short outperformers and long the unders, and the later adopters are happy to make 5% off the same trade where before you would make 10%, slowly, the opportunity disappears. Let's return to Khadami and Lo's fascinating experiment: their Contrarian strategy, which made 1.4% a day in 1995 (for 345% a year)and 0.57% in 1998, showed through continuing forwards backtesting (sic) a marked diminution of returns over time. By 2006 it was barely making 0.15% a day before costs and trading friction. The 50%-100% years were gone, replaced by 5% and 10% years; this is not what the punters bought into. So you lever up 5x, 10x, and we get our 50% years back, but now at greater risk.
It's clear that what happened in August was that one or more large funds cut leverage. In light holiday trading it must have had a disproportionate effect on prices, leading funds with the same positions to suffer losses, and given the rather hysterical atmosphere of those weeks (would capitalism survive?), to pull their exposure too, creating an awful cascade effect, what one could call a "quant squeeze". Mean reversion didn't just stop, the reversion reversed, ie it zoomed off in precisely the direction it was not supposed to go in. Strategies that would normally make 0.2% a day lost 5% and 10% a day. And the leverage! A 5% loss with 5x leverage is of course 25% of your capital, and for some it was clearly even worse; entire funds wiped out in a single session . With the 8x leverage typical of Quants at the end of 2006, Khandani & Lo's Contrarian strategy would have dropped 25% in 3 days. The dry language of their article belies the carnage and the terrible velocity of what Quant managers must have gone through that week. The horror, the horror. As it was, once everyone was out of the market, mean reversion snapped back again. Those few who had the nerve to stay invested saw their losses made up and sometimes more, but most everyone else ended August with a huge drawdown.
I think no endowment manager, Fund-of-Fund manager or other fund selector can look at Quant in the same way after this. The greatest single thing about markets is that they adapt, and the overcrowded quant market, with its replicable strategies, is on the wrong side of this basic truth. Quant investing today must be like fighting the Borg, who are able to upgrade their defences to any weapon after the first 2 or 3 shots are fired.
The MIT article again:
Gregg Berman created commodity-trading systems at the Mint Investment Management Group. In the mid-1990s, he says, a good algorithm might trade successfully for three or four years. But the half-life of an algorithm's viability, he says, has been coming down, as more quants join the markets, as computers get faster and able to crunch more data, and as more data becomes available. Berman thinks two or three months might be the limit now, and he expects it to drop.
"How long will your strategy last?" is the question the investor should be asking the Quant guy who comes to pitch, but at the same time they have to understand that the Quant guy is going to have absolutely no clue what the answer is. Both of them will likely find out when returns diminish, or, if they use leverage, in a more abrupt, nastier way. Successful Quant investing no longer comes down to the excellence of a particular strategy, but the ability of the programmer to stay ahead of the curve. The backtesting becomes meaningless. Investors still want the riskless returns that the Quant guys promised, but these returns only really existed for a short time. It must be like that, for otherwise we would have created a money machine, which cannot exist. The market is the Borg; you will be assimilated, and lose your edge.
Which is why I disagree with Rick Bookstaber, who thinks the existence of the Quants threatens the functioning of the system itself: he thinks the Quants' tools are "interactively complex" — we don't understand them — and "tightly coupled" to other parts of the market — spillover in subprime creates havoc in stocks through the demise of the Quants. Similarly, and unsurprisingly, Buttonwood (in a column this week which covers much the same ground as this post) fundamentally misunderstands the situation, when s/he writes of the Quants in August:
If it were just a few hedge funds. . . losing money, it might not matter. But the funds had become too important. Rather than adding stability, as marketmakers are supposed to do, they added volatility. . . regulators should also reflect that markets are less stable than they assumed. The presence of leveraged traders such as quants at their heart means conditions can now turn , at the flick of a switch, from stability to panic.
Both are wrong. If we recognise that Quants' strategies almost always depend on mean reversion, we can go a long way in understanding their effect. Linkage extended from subprime to quant investing, but then the chain of disaster stopped (helped by large dollops of money from Helicopter Ben). August was the market functioning normally, clearing out a set of stale, unstable strategies which depended on a huge amount of leverage to stay relevant. I was there; sitting on 80 or so equity positions, staring at my Bloomberg, employing my old-fashioned directional strategy, I did not see anything in August that I would not have expected anyway, given the climate of risk aversion the subprime issue had created. If you think the financial system is coming to an end, you would expect Cisco and some dodgy tech stocks to sell off, which they did. I was made aware of the quants' cataclysm by rumours and press reports. I did not notice it in the trading of my stocks, though admittedly, these reports probably also contributed more risk aversion. Yes, there were some strange moves in individual names. At one point small caps looked like they were outperforming large caps, which is not normal at times of risk aversion, but that was it, and it only lasted a few days. It was market neutral positions that were being liquidated, ie, for every long that was sold there was an offsetting short that was bought. Directionally, which is what I believe Bookstaber and Buttonwood refer to when they discuss systemic risks, there was no impact from the Quant meltdown. If I am right, by the way, when I say that one impact the quants did have in stocks was in dampening overall levels of volatility (selling stocks that rise and buying those which fall) from 2003 to 2007, then nervous nellies like Bookstaber and Buttonwood will in fact miss them when they have faded back into the obscurity that beckons; Quants' absence will increase volatility and the magnitude of directional movements in markets and stocks.
So where does the punter get his uncorrelated kicks from while at the same time as reducing his exposure to quants? Well, it gets a lot harder, but he knows he's got to find strategies that can provide 15%-20% a year and avoid leverage. Only equity will really do. I see no alternative but going back to basics, finding good, individual managers who do the work, and who are able to exploit their fundamental knowledge of a sector or a market to produce solid, consistent numbers. It also involves paying up for them, as these guys are scarce. Increased volatility will make the choice harder, and to make it worse, whole sectors in the market seem to have become more toxic recently, including financials, construction, cyclicals and consumer non-discretionary; markets are going up, but have become narrower, confined to commodities, infrastructure, healthcare and yes, technology. So the fund pickers will have to become more selective, and will have to finally do some work.
They will need a combination of long only and long-short strategies to succeed, but if we live in a world of increasing volatility, one thing they will likely have to look for is the ability of managers to benefit not from mean reversion, but from the breaking of bounds, of standard deviations. This is what I do, for I am the anti-Quant. I screen the markets not for stocks which are "stepping out of line", but for stocks which can do something special, defy the conventional wisdom, and beat the consensus. I am an elitist, while the quants are socialists; I am a splitter, looking for differences, while the quants are lumpers, trying to see the similarities. On this site we are public in our admiration for the theories of Nasseem Taleb, of the idea that we live increasingly in Extremistan, where Black Swan events — of which the blow up of the Quants was certainly one — become more and more common, and more and more meaningful. The more we move in that direction the less effective mean reversion strategies become.
This, more than anything, is why I think the Quants and Herbert Blank are toast for now. Their sin is epistemological. Of course, when the strategies become less popular and mean reversion trades a lower proportion of daily volumes, then of course in that ironic way the market has the strategies will become more effective. However, I think we have a long time before that happens. It is interesting that Andrew Lo, co-author of the paper linked to above and professor to hundreds of financial engineering graduates of MIT now staffing dozens of quant funds, has sold his own quant fund Alpha Simplex and exited the market. Until then, Fundamentalist strategies which depend on qualitative assessments of individual stocks and investment themes, and which have never really gone away because they are not easily replicable but are created by the actions of particular personalities and individual processes, will predominate. That implies, Mr. Blank, that you had better start dusting down your DCF models and boning up on PEs and EPS forecasts; if you want tips on how to get the best out of meetings with CEOs and CFOs, put your email address in a comment and I will get in touch.


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Defenders of Wildlife
Stop the Aerial Hunting of Wolves in Alaska
More than 30 years ago, Congress put an end to aerial hunting. But Alaska exploits a loophole in federal law that allows hunters to shoot wolves from the air. Produced for Defenders of Wildlife as part of a campaign to stop the slaughter.
- CINE Masters Award
- CINE Golden Eagle
- Worldfest Houston Grand Remi
- Communicator Excellence Award
- Bronze Telly
- Honorable Mention Chris Award


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The article, published online by the Journal of Applied Research in Economic Development, points out that such rankings typically are subjective and provide little meaningful information, despite their pervasiveness.
For example, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council's Small Business Survival Index – one of more than a dozen state rankings touted across the country – is based on factors such as taxes, health care costs, minimum wage level and the presence of right-to-work laws. However, this measures government costs without factoring in benefits generated by government, such as infrastructure and small business development centers.
The authors point out that Kauffman Foundation research has been used as the basis for ranking states, most notably on the rate of entrepreneurial activity, formalized in the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. This is an index based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, and it has never intended to be used to claim that one state or another is "better" for entrepreneurs.
Forthcoming Kauffman research, the article says, shows that many rankings fail even to correlate with company owners' business climate perceptions. Further, the proliferation of state rankings can lead policymakers and economic development consultants to misuse them, either celebrating a conveniently positive ranking or initiating efforts to address a poor ranking, when neither action is based on valid economic indicators.
The authors conducted a series of exercises to demonstrate how such rankings can be manipulated. The exercises were based on eight state-level indicators related to innovation and entrepreneurship:
The indicators were chosen because they typically are used to measure entrepreneurship and innovation, two vital indicators for every state's economic health. But after employing several analyses, the researchers found that most of the eight indicators were only modestly correlated, if at all.
To prove the point, the authors invite readers to create their own state rankings. Demonstrating that rankings can be developed in ways that favor any given state, the Kauffman researchers created a simulation analysis with randomly generated weights, which revealed that, among 1,000 different scenarios, five states were eligible to be No. 1, 16 were eligible for the Top Five and 22 could be ranked in the Top 10.
The subjectivity and limitations of state economic rankings led to four observations, according to the article:
Access the full article
How Can I Create My Favorite State Ranking?
Entrepreneurial Confidence Survey Brief: Kauffman/LegalZoom Q2 2013 Survey


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Expanding on Chicago's already existing 200 green roofs, (more than any other American city), this sloping, garden-topped building won't be like any you've ever seen before. Designed by Yi Huang, Tian Tan & Xu Zhang, Green Roof City is a ramped structure that links together two of the windy city's existing buildings. The building (very appropriately) would house an architecture school, but the roof is an exciting park that would be accessible to everyone in the city.
Currently, Depaul University and its student housing are in two separate buildings split by Van Buren Street and the elevated rail system. Green Roof City would tie the two plots together, offering a secondary and tertiary route for students to get from one building to the other – either through the new architecture school or across the sloping roof.
In order to maximize views of Grant Park and Michigan Lake, student housing will be located at the southern end of the site. Rotating timber screens on the façade will provide both privacy and shade. The screens also add to the aesthetic quality of the structure within the rectilinear confines of the tower.


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Robot Doll 4 Toys Rc Electrical - Chinaprice: contact company for price
it can sing, dance, talk, fight, etc.
You can make it do any action you want with the remote
control. You can freely change music and action program
inside and appearances to show your personality. And you can
communicate with others who have the same robot doll,
especially for lovers.
Additional Description:
1. Standard version of moving robot kit
2. Degrees of freedom: 17
3. Size: 343 x 180 x 71mm ( 13.5 x 7.1 x 2.8" )
4. Weight: around 1.3kg ( 2.9 oz) ( including battery)
5. OS: Windows 2000, XP, Vista
6. Interface: USB
7. Servomotor Output: 30ch
8. Power: 6V nickel metal hydride battery
9. Instructions: English
10. Includes aluminum frame, Servomotor ×17, battery,
charger, CPU Board, USB cable, screws etc.
Company Contact:
- Phone: 8657985037238
- Address: 1603 16F, 2 Unit, 2 Building, Jinqiao Renjia, Yiwu, China
- Email:
- Website: http://www.toys-electronics.com
Published date: April 5, 2014 -
- Business Description: Future International Toys Electronics Co., Ltd., established in 2001, is
an international and professional manufacturer of high tech Toys and
Electronics. Our company has constructed a complete system of brand
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production, sales and service.
Since established, our company has always been committed to the development, manufacture and sales of the most reliable, safest high tech and intelligent toys and electronics. Our company regards quality as life. With company s years of rich manufacturing experience and the latest design manufacture technology, all of our products have been certified by CE and in line with international quality and safety standards. We assure to offer high quality product with most competitive price.
Our products are known as the "Creative and Hi tech Products" at home and abroad and exported to all over the world. High tech products are our main products, such as voice control, light control, remote control, solar, wireless, intelligent Robot series Toys and Electronics, etc. The high tech intelligent Robot and Robot Dolls are our featured products. With a R&D team of hundreds of people across the country, our company has won various awards.
Looking to the future, our company will further develop hi tech toys and electronics with continuous innovation; let the whole world enjoy the infinite passions and pleasures brought by Future International Toys Electronics.
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Brass for any Event
Brass for your Party, Celebration or Business
Brass for Your Business
Let us know what ambiance and mood you wish to create, and we'll provide high quality, live music that all guests will find delightful and worthy of comment.
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Nags Head North Carolina is truly the place that has it all! Located to the south of Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head has long been the favorite spot of local fishermen. The largest village in the outer banks by land area, Nags Head has 11 miles of coastline. Nags Head is nationally known for having the largest natural sand dunes on the eastern shore. The famous Jockey's Ridge State Park offers breathtaking views of Nags Head from the tops of its giant dunes. Climb to the top and see the sound and the ocean at the same time while recapturing your youth and flying a kite higher than ever before. Want to try your hand at hand gliding or just want to watch; it is all here in Jockey's ridge.
Since 1830, Nags Head has been well known as a resort community and is often used interchangeably by the national media when referring to the Outer Banks. Nags Head is often referred to as the Hang Gliding capital of the US with the dunes and constant wind gust creating ideal conditions for skill levels from novice to expert.
From outlet malls to miniature golf to snorkeling to hangliding to just relaxing on the beach, a great time awaits you in Nags Head. Have the fresh local seafood delivered straight to your door or be waited on in some of the best restaurants on the Outer Banks. Feel like dancing? Nags Head has a night club open 7 nights a week with a little something for everyone. Prefer more low keyed activities? Nags Head has town bike paths and wooded trails you can bike or walk along.
Ladies let's not forget the Outlet Mall just in case it rains. This is the only area with local restaurants right on the ocean. Whether you want casual dining on the pier, or fine dining right off the beach you can only do that here in Nags Head.
Jockey's Ridge State Park: Nationally known for its towering sand dunes, Jockey's Ridge ever changing coastline make it a very popular tourist destination. The park's dunes are constantly moving and changing shape due to erosion and wind gusts and have even completely engulfed a local miniature golf course. A must destination for fans of hang gliding and kite flying, Jockey's Ridge has also attracted a number of visitors looking to scale the enormous sand dunes some reaching 110 ft. A visitor center, museum and picnic area also allow for Jockey's Ridge to be the ideal location for a day trip.


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Book Review: Growing Up with Tanzania
Book Review
Growing Up with Tanzania: Memories, Musings and Maths, a Memoir
Author: Karim F. Hirji (2014)
Publisher: Mkuki na Nyota
Reviewer: Diana Kamara
It is a trip across time in Tanzania. It starts from the late years of doing what Mamdani (2013) refers to as 'define and rule', with its colonial politics of race and class; moves to the early independence years of trials and errors of establishing a socialist nation; and ends with the present politically justified capitalism. It is a story of a Tanzanian of Asian origin and his fixed and chosen identities, belonging and loyalties which evolve from and along with family, religion, education, friends, the nation, Pan-Africanism and, ultimately, solidarity with the human race.
From facts, personal experiences to well researched examples from Tanzania and around the world, the author invites us to look deeply at the head cracking contentious questions of education, language, policies and politics; and creativity in their magnitude of importance and roles in development. He offers, not solutions but alternative starting points of enquiry.
Being in love with Maths, Hirji encourages us to appreciate the beauty of his love. One will agree from reading that Maths can be both a fascinating and recreational personal experience as well as a functional and problem-solving discipline. Hirji will also make you crave for fruits and healthy homemade foods you know and put those you haven't had in your to taste buds' list.
I once heard that there is an age for storytelling that makes a man in his sixties qualify. He indeed takes his responsibility of a grandfather to tell us stories of how we came into being, the golden times and pitfall moments. He reflects on his despairs yet does not drown in them for there is hope. A few warnings too are included but, of course, with some useful advice.
For those with multiple identities, math-phobia or/and an interest in the history of Tanzania, you may want to read "Growing up with Tanzania: Memories, Musingsand Maths" as recounted by Karim F. Hirji.