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Fujitsu's timing sux
what a way to start the bank holiday weekend...
And with a 90 consultation period, that rolls us right up to Xmas.
Fujitsu Services is shedding roughly 10 per cent of its UK workforce with the announcement that 1,200 jobs will go, following less than pretty revenues. In June the Japanese tech firm reported an 11 per cent drop in first quarter revenue, down to ¥1.04tn (£6.7bn). It pulled in a net loss of ¥29bn (£186m) during Q1. However, …
And after record profits in 2008/2009, no bonus 2008, no pay review 2009, closure of final salary pension, increased processes -making engineers fill more paper work in rather than producing efficient systems and services. Hmmmm makes sense doesn't it!!!
Perhaps the company will just be running on managers in the future.
"Fujitsu UK currently has "excess capability in a number of areas of the business""
They are right though, amongst the people they employ there are many who have a great excess of capability, a pity their management's only capability is in meaningless corporate jargon.
As always though, management incompetence negatively impacts those who actually do something useful for a living.
If one tech specialist or field service engineer costs about £40,000 a year (£25k salary plus costs to the company*) and one area manager costs about £250,000 (£150k salary plus costs*) then why do they keep cutting the people who provide the most service to the paying customers?
Much greater savings can be made by sacking one worthless bureaucrat while still keeping customer satisfaction at a reasonable level, rather than getting rid of the people who do the real work and keeping the bloated Executive structure - that £250k doesn't include the cost of his PA and the extra work he generated for the local support staff.
And don't get me started on how much the "top-level" EMEA management cost... but one of the higher-level managers was on a £400k+ salary package... and he wasn't even the gentleman they sent over from States-side to oversee things!
*based on how a certain AmeriCan outSourCer paid before they "downsized" me as part of a cost-cutting drive... Bitter and twisted, me? Never!
No doubt a bullshit "consultation" sham, to be followed immediately by all the pre-planned redundancies to those "specific" areas they can outsource directly to India - for "competitiveness'" sake, of course.
My heartfelt sympathies to those facing the axe for no other reason than corporate greed - I was in the same boat around this time last year.
Following on from Roger Gilbert's announcement, it is clear we have a cost base challenge within the company. Unfortunately this challenge is present within Data Centres & Networks and so it is with regret that I confirm that we will be placing people in four specific teams 'at risk' of redundancy:
q DSL Team
q Capacity Team
q Man23 Ops
q Solihull NOC
Those impacted will receive more details over the next 48 hours.
Clearly this will have been distressing news to those in the teams and also the wider organisation so may I ask you to be supportive to all your colleagues during this difficult time for all concerned and it is the sole direct result of the business climate in which we find ourselves
And how exactly would you expect any government to do that.
And with the Tories coming in in the next 12 months you can look forward to even more jobs shifting off shore as the government desperately tries to cut its IT costs, by buying on price alone.
Still Fuji are still so unpopular in government that even if the off shore everything and charge 1p they still won't win much.
I feel very sorry for the excellant technical staff from them I've worked with, compared to their management.
"Then why the fuck are they allowing every company in the UK to shed its UK workers and getting Indians to do it?"
Well, firstly Fujitsu is a global company with the head office in Japan so probably don't really care about non-Japanese workers that much and if the government said to any global company that they had to do all of their work in the UK if they have a UK base we'd probably find that global companies would just stay away from the UK altogether. How would that help the economy?
Secondly, there's no suggestion in the article that the jobs are moving to India, this is more likely as a result of having insufficient business to go with staffing levels.
When Woolies shed all of their staff at the beginning of the year it wasn't because they moved the work to India.
Do grow up.
"the government desperately tries to cut its IT costs"
Yes, but the Tories still have the New Labour sleaze campaign after effect (which made the whole expenses row doubly funny) so they'll put an effort in to be as clean as possible while New Labour will wallow in the problem they created for some more years. Payback is a b*tch..
If you strip a contract from its shenanigans you may *almost* end up with IT that is actually designed to WORK rather than to keep the supplier in support and "change control" profit for as long as they get away with. Add to that that it will be much harder to join the respective supplier later as a "government consultant" (translated: reward for rigging procurement) and this may prove cost saving enough of its own to keep things local.
In addition, quite a bit will be saved as soon as they ditch ID Cards. That should be OK now, the consulting partner who made his money there (by having somewhat of a creative view on the corporate ethics policy) has retired so there's no need to prolong the wastage.
So there, all may be well..
I'm grown up, and here's a question I would like you to answer after thinking carefully; if a (global or not) company wishes to sell products or services to people in the UK - and makes a profit out of doing so - why should all that profit then go overseas? If the workers are all based in, for example, India then all the workers spend their money in India, all the taxes go to the Indian governement and the British economy ends up losing the whole value of the goods or services provided.
Sure, a single PC or printer doesn't cost very much by itself, but if every PC, every printer, all the consumables and any upgrades or replacements are added together, you soon end up with a hell of a lot of money going overseas, and none of it coming back any time soon.
As for insufficient business for the number of staff, how come one of the first things a company does after taking over another is shed staff? Unless both companies were overstaffed to begin with, you now have two companies' workloads and fewer staff to do it. And isn't it strange how Management types always seem to be able to find a new niche in the restructuring but the 'customer-facing' workers - the ones who keep customers "happy" and the business in, well, business, are the first to get the chop?
Part of the reason Woolies "failed" is that they had to pay people like EMI and Sony for the DVDs and CDs bought by their Entertainment UK (EUK) business, but the companies they supplied (like Zavvi) were late paying EUK, so Woolies had to fund EUK and went under - paying for someone else's non-payment. If you had watched the news or actually gone into your nearest branches of Woolies, you would have seen that the bricks-and-mortar stores were doing quite good business - remarkably good in fact, considering the general state of the UK economy.
It's amazing that the Labour government can "find" billions of £'s of taxpayers money to bail out the greedy bastards who caused most of this mess, but couldn't help a major GB employer.
Oh, and one more thing - those banks that "we" so willingly helped? Shedding more UK staff and "offshoring" jobs again. Wanna guess where those jobs will end up? Hwere's a clue - it won't be the UK...
"Still Fuji are still so unpopular in government that even if the off shore everything and charge 1p they still won't win much."
Not to be argumentative but trying to keep bureaucratic redtape-mongers happy is nigh on impossible, even perfect service and meeting SLA easily brings the odd whinge and moan :P
The only surprise is that anyone believed management when they told us that the pay freeze was the only hit that we would have to take to ensure the safety of the company. It matters not that EMEA is turning a profit - it's a drop in the bucket of the overall losses and above all we are the outpost so we're the first to be abandoned to preserve the home company.
Good luck everyone. We're going to need it.
Seriously guys, are there any large IT services companies which are good employers. IT companies own nothing, make nothing and only exist to serve their "customers" and make money for the "executives" and shareholders. No customers - no profits - no reason to exist. There is no room for loyalty to good employees, the good, the bad and the ugly alike get the chop. We are in a "Economic Downturn" and these companies are showing their true colours. If you are getting the boot I hope that you can find alternative employment quickly.
I notice that the bbc reports showed footage of the wrong company They filmed Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Limited, rather than the Fujitsu Services Ltd who this announcement is about. I feel for you guys though, I've been through multiple versions of the same thing for another tech company.
Just after 2001, when ICL died, we were offered voluntary redundancies before forced...three times as many people asked to be made redundant, knowing that Fuji would be a bad employer...also 3 pay reviews were skipped and the next award held off for 6 months...I went to SERCO, not a brilliant employer (no benefits in the package) but at least more honest. Looks like history on the repeat at Fujitsu tho
This is not the first batch of redundancies for this year by any means. Not that you would have known it from this article, posted on the 27th March 2009 and titled "Fujitsu staff clash with bosses over pay freeze" :
"We asked the Fujitsu spokesman if jobs could be under threat at the company."
Spokesman's response: 'We have no intention of doing that, but equally we can't say there won't be job cuts in the future,"
Except the spokesman in question must have or at least should have known this was completely untrue because Fujitsu were already in the process of closing down their site at Foots Cray and had called all the employees there to a briefing on the 4th March to be told the bad news. Plus there had been a jobs fair held on the 19th and 20th March with Jobcentre Plus amongst others in attendance.
Atlhough some people did manage to get alternative jobs within Fujitsu a fair number still ended up getting made redundant.


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Sustainability leaders from around the world gathered on board Prince Turki Bin Nasser Bin Abdulaziz's yacht "Sarah" in Barcelona, where they shared their inspiring ideas and thoughts about the environment and the pressing need to face the global environmental challenge.
The gathering was organized by IUCN West Asia/Middle East Regional Office and hosted by HRH Prince Turki Bin Naser Bin Abdelaziz, Head of the Meteorology and Environment Presidency of Saudi Arabia on October 7.
These conservation leaders shared their success stories and best practices on sustainability within their countries and organizations. The event was held during the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place between 5-14 October, 2008 in Barcelona.
The event started with speeches from Prince Turki and IUCN President Mr Valli Moosa, followed by a short video on the environmental achievements of Saudi Arabia.
"The environment concerns everybody in the world, today it's the most important issue," said Prince Turki bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz.
"The well being of nature is linked to the well being of humanity," said Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN Director General.
"The world is asking for an aware leadership," said Valli Moosa, IUCN President.
"Let's get humanity to act as educated, decent human beings," said Ted Turner, Chairman of the United Nations Foundation.
"Renewable energy is the future," said Achim Steiner, UNEP Under-Secretary-General & Executive Director.
"We have to be engaged, it is our life and the life of our children," Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
"Together with birds, animals, nature and people life is coming back to Iraq," said Narmin Othman, Minister of Environment, Iraq.
"With good landscapes and good practices, Yemen is making great efforts to preserve biodiversity," said Abdul Rahman Al Eryani, Minister of Water and Environment.
"This is a key collective momentum to make a difference for sustainability in the Arab region," said Odeh Al Jayyousi, Regional Director, IUCN West Asia/Middle East Regional Office.

subset: commoncrawl


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text:
Final Stand of the Advance Guard
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Short Story by: Carl Halling
The Petrified Fool
In early 1990, I lost my position as a teacher of English as a foreign language in an Oxford Street language school where I'd spent almost two years, the concluding two of a decade somewhat redolent of the '20s and '60s in terms of its glamour and profligacy. It was a job I loved, for the social life it handed me on a plate, as well as sufficient money to finance the innumerous hours I spent each evening in the Champion public house in Wells Street where teacher and student alike would congregate some time after 7.30pm, and to spend on alcohol, tobacco, clothes, books, music and so on, as well as the occasional ill-fated attempt at reviving my career as actor and entertainer.
I pleaded for my job with some of the senior teachers, in person, through a friend, even by letter, but they refused to be swayed by my entreaties and given that I'd taken repeated advantage of their extraordinarily long-suffering attitude to my cavalier attitude to punctuality, they were more than justified in doing so.
Freed from the shackles of a teaching job which I adored despite the fact that it had interfered with the progress of my acting career, I briefly revived the latter by playing Feste the Jester in a production of Shakespeare's dark comedy masterpiece "Twelth Night" directed by Lesley Wake at the famous Jacksons Lane theatre in Highgate, north London. I also wrote most of the music for Feste's songs, and received praise for this, as well as for my acting. In concordance with the spirit of the play its run was succeeded and to a lesser extent accompanied by most enthusiastic bouts of merrymaking on behalf of myself and the members of the cast, which had been an exceptionally close one, and for a time the festivities persisted, before petering out in time as these things are inclined to do.
As the final decade of the 20th Century dawned, I was finding my public image as much a source of terror as exhileration, possibly to a greater extent than had hitherto been the case, and this may have been due to an impending health crisis. However, such was my abiding need to be noticed, I stubbornly refused to moderate my image although to be fair it was tame in comparison to what it had once been, and the recently departed 1980s had been a decade notorious for peacockish attire on the part of Western males, in London of course, but also in other major occidental cities. Instead, I began to artificially inure myself as never before against what I perceived to be London's foreboding aura, which may or may not have been more intense than a decade previously. For after all, I had been attracting a degree of hostile attention for my flamboyant presentation of self since the early 1970s.
Surely it would not be misleading to suggest that years of dissolute living, and the diverse intoxicants I had been ingesting since my early twenties or earlier including perilously large quantities of caffeine in both liquid and solid form, were starting to take their toll on my nervous system. In order to accurately divine my psychological condition in about 1990, a person would have to take into account, in addition to everything else, an entrenched passion on my part for the cutting edge in art and especially literature. The following piece gives some indication as to its nature. It was compiled in the spring of 2006, using, as raw material, a few hastily scrawled notes commemorating a birthday recently celebrated in the early '90s and possibly dating from the 8th of October 1992 or '91 or even earlier, I cannot be certain. What is certain is that it has been reproduced word for word, although slightly edited, and of course subject to free versification. It is no tale of a carefree Corinthian, far from it, for there is a distinctly twilight mood to the piece, with the birthday boy blithely performing his fatuous solo dance in the teeth of the disaster he is so clearly courting.
Lone Dance of the Birthday Boy
Yesterday for my birthday,
I started off
with a bottle of wine...
I took the train
into town...
I had half a bitter
at the Cafe de Piaf
in Waterloo...
I went to work
for a couple of hours or so;
I had a pint after work;
I went for an audition;
after the audition,
I had another pint
and a half;
I had another half,
before meeting my mates,
for my b'day celebrations;
we had a pint together;
we went into
the night club,
where we had champagne
(I had three glasses);
I had a further
glass of vino,
by which time,
I was so gone
that I drew an audience
of about thirty
by performing a solo
dancing spot
in the middle
of the disco floor...
We all piled off to the pub
after that,
where I had another drink
(I can't remember
what it was)...
I then made my way home,
took the bus from Surbiton,
but ended up
in the wilds of Surrey;
I took another bus home,
and watched some telly
and had something to eat
before crashing out...
I really, really enjoyed
the eve, but today,
I've been walking around
like a zomb;
I've had only one drink today,
an early morning
restorative effort;
I spent the day working,
then I went to a bookshop,
where, like a monk,
I go for a day's
drying out session...
Drying out is really awful;
you jump at every shadow;
you feel dizzy,
you notice everything;
very often,
I don't follow through...
A Pair of PGCEs
In early autumn 1990, I began a course known as the PGCE or Post Graduate Certificate in Education at a school of higher education in the pleasant outer suburb of Twickenham, becoming resident in nearby Isleworth. I began quite promisingly as I saw it even though my heart was not really in the course but I genuinely saw the benefits of succesfully completing it, and as might be expected, excelled in drama and physical education.
However, towards the end of the first term, I was less prepared by far than my fellow students for the forthcoming Teaching Practice period, and so removed myself from the course on a temporary basis in order to set about deciding whether I wanted to carry on or not. In the event I decided not to, but remained in Isleworth in order to rekindle my on-off career as a deliverer of novelty telegrams, the latter begun as early as 1985. I also continued to work as a walk-on artist for the TV series "The Bill", based in the London suburb of Merton, Surrey. Still in Isleworth, I became half of a musical partnership formed with a young Mancunian actor-musician by the name of Mark C., whom I'd met through the Stage newspaper. He remains a close friend to this day.
By the middle of January 1993, I was attending yet another PGCE course, my third in fact, this one bearing the suffix fe, signifying further education, and based at the University of Greenwich in Eltham, south east London. Additionally, I was still working as a sporadic deliverer of novelty telegrams, as well as rehearsing for the play "Simples of the Moon" by Rosalind Scanlon, based on the life of James Joyce's daughter Lucia, in which I had two small parts thanks to the director Astrid Hilne, a close friend of mine since university days. As all this weren't enough, I continuing working with Mark on our musical act which thus far had yielded the occasional gig in a pub or restaurant, some home recording, some busking, and countless hours of socialising and partying that typically extended far into the small hours, both Mark and I being nocturnal and garrulous by nature.
Finally, on the 16th of that month*, my health subsided with terrifying consequences after years of resilience born in the face of defiance on the part of a self-styled artistic maverick, apparently as much at war with the dictates of bodily health as so much else besides...
Outro: The Reveller's Reckoning
In 2006, "The Reveller's Reckoning", based on events that took place on Sunday the 16th of January 1993* was adapted from an autobiographical work or rather works with various titles dating from the mid 1990s, edited, reassembled, versified. The original work, which has now vanished, was written and destroyed, re-written and re-destroyed innumerous times before being finally salvaged for the Blogster.com website, where it was published on the as "The Reveller's End". In July 2007, it was subject to further alterations, punctuation and so on, before being retitled and tacked on to the end of "Tales from a College that Disappeared".
It was late in the afternoon
Of The 16th of January 1993
That my whole
Intoxicated universe
Finally exploded.
With etiolated face...
Tremulous hands, Broken at last
After so many years
Of semi-Icaran hubris.
And yet it had all been
So unexpected;
Because although
I'd felt dreamy and disconnected
Earlier in the day,
As if I was no longer
Quite of this earth,
I was in good spirits, even euphoric,
So there was no reason at all
For me to start fearing
that I wasn't entirely indestructible,
let alone suspect
That I was destined
For an out and out "crack up"...
And the most fearful ordeal so far
Of my stormy, chaotic,
Almost inchoate existence...
© Copyright 2019 Carl Halling. All rights reserved.
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Rubu Islam argues that we need to bring players into the national team only when they can constantly show their worth, but once they are in, we need to have faith in them.
An overview of the debutants
by Rubu Islam
Published: 11th August, 2005
Bangladesh has been playing test cricket since November 10, 2000. We have already played
38 tests, and this number will be at least 40 before the fifth anniversary.
Obviously, everyone who played in the first match was a debutant. Since then 31 more
players have debuted for the national team, taking the total number of debutants to 42 in less
than five years. Keep in mind that this list does not include players
who qualified for the squad but never played a match. After five years, it is
time for us to look back and find out how we used our new players. Did we use
too many, too few or just about the right number of these players?
Before we go into a discussion about it, let us have a quick look at the following
chart. This chart does not include the inaugural test against India and the reason
is explained above. Also, the players grouped by the same color debuted in the
same match (white is not a group color).
I have divided these 31 players into differently labeled groups. These labels are not
conclusive, and they reflect my personal opinions. I created them based on past and
current forms, statistics, domestic league performance and factors that
might play a role in determining who should get a recall to the national camp.
I labeled nine of of these 31 players ?Return Highly Unlikely?. This
is the group most important in our study of debutants. If a player is highly
unlikely to return after only one to four years of debut, why were they selected?
Alarmingly, many of these players are not even familiar
names in our domestic leagues anymore. It makes me wonder about the basis behind their
selection. We do know that the current selection panel did not select them, but as far
as I can remember they were selected because of a few good performances here and
there. Even today, this practice is not abolished. Regardless of how talented
Mushfiqur Rahim is, he was picked for the first test at Lords because of his
two innings in the practice matches.
I labeled a second group of players ?Return Unlikely?. This group is not much different
from the one discussed above. These players were dropped from the national team more
recently. As a result,
their comeback is more likely, at least in theory. Fortunately for us, only four
players fall into this group. However, if we add up the two groups already
discussed, the sum is thirteen. This is almost half of the total debutants. Let us
discuss the rest of the groups before jumping into a conclusion.
Most of the time we think that new players come in because of injuries in the current team
or because of senior players leaving the game. The above chart
shows some interesting statistics. No national player so far has retired
while playing for the national team ("some" players got the opportunity and did
not take it, but that is a different issue and we are not talking about
that right now). Only three players from the inaugural test - Mohammad Rafique,
Habibul Bashar and Khaled Masud - are still playing for the national team. In
less than five years the team has changed almost entirely. Even more
importantly, the rest of the eight players of that inaugural test can be labeled ?Return
Impossible?. What do we have here? The team has been entirely replaced by junior
players and none of the senior players got a chance to retire while staying in
the team. There is a possibility that all these senior players were less
talented than the new players and that was the reason for replacing them. It
is theoretically possible, so let us not reach to any conclusion yet. What about
injuries? There are only three players in our national team who suffered
severe injuries. They are the three pacers Mashrafee, Talha and Sharif. Interestingly,
none of their careers came to an end. It is true that when they were injured
other less talented players were introduced. Still, two out of these three have
already come back, and Sharif is improving fast. As a result, injury cannot be
blamed as the primary reason for the excessive number of debutants. Moreover,
all these injured players were pacers, but pacers are not the majority in
the chart above.
The rest of the groups are ?Still playing? or ?Return Possible?. There is not
much to talk about these groups. They are the most important players of Bangladesh
cricket. This is why we need to learn what is going to be their fate within the next
year. Bangladesh never had any problem producing raw talent. There are always
some players who raise fan expectations before they enter the national team.
Most of them are actually coming to the national team faster than they think.
As of right now, Golam Rahman, Shamsur Rahman, Waskuruni Polash, Shahriar Nafees,
Kamrul Hassan and many other age group players fall into this category. Are
they going to replace the current national players soon? What will happen then?
Well, we do know the answer already. What happened before will happen in the
future. If the cause is the same, the result will be the same as well. As we
have already seen, many of the debutants just disappeared after a dismal
performance in the national team. The same will be the destiny of most of
those players knocking at the national team?s door right now. Some of them,
however, will shine. What will happen to them? Once again, we already know the
answer. What happened to the players who shone in their debut matches?
Take Mohammad Ashraful for instance. He had the best debut possible, and fans
thought they will have a Tendulkar within couple of years. Four years have been
passed since then, but even his place was in question until he reestablished it
in NatWest Series. Think about Rajin Saleh. He showed more promise in his debut
series than anyone else before. Now he finds that he is not even part of the
playing eleven. How about Alok Kapali? He created more fans in his first few matches
than any Bangladeshi player ever had. Now he has to fight in the A-team to prove
his worth. Same goes for Hannan Sarkar, who gained respect from Australia for the
entire country. The list goes on and on.
It is now time to draw some conclusions. We did not select players prudently
before. We paid for it heavily. But where does this end? As we have seen from
above discussion, if we keep selecting new players the way we are doing it right
now, there is going to be the same result. They will either fail in their first
few matches and will never come back, or they will do well at the beginning and
after a while will be replaced by newcomers once again. How many games will pass
before we will want Mushfiqur Rahim?s head? This needs to be stopped now. No one
can play continuously in a good form. Moreover, if we do not give them enough
time to settle down they will never play well. We tried musical chairs for the last
five years, but it did not produce any good outcome. How about we try out a steady
squad starting the Sri Lanka tour and see how that goes? It cannot get any worse,
and it is worth trying because obviously the current method is not working. For
this tour, we cannot afford to have any debutant. Most importantly, experience is
valuable in test cricket. We should go with the same squad as in England besides
the pace department. Our pace department obviously lacks depth, and it will
not be wise to play a test with more than three pacers including Aftab in Sri Lanka.
We need to bring players into the national team only when they can constantly
show their worth, but once they are in, we need to have faith in them. There is
no alternative.
About the author(s): Rubu Islam, a BanglaCricket staff, goes by the nick "Rubu" in BanglaCricket forums.
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The Super Yod Finger of God and History Repeating…
Meant to write about this sooner but the events that have transpired since then have been too shocking in frequency that it caused me to be a bit overwhelmed. Anyhow, these events only serve to more strongly support my analysis earlier.
So Dec 21, 2012 passed and we are still here. The world didn't end. But something big happened and will continue to escalate during what looks like a very turbulent next few years.
Extremely significant cosmic happenings which trace these energies playing out in the world today have to do with some real heavyweight planets forming very stressful aspects that will repeat themes from the past. The main attraction will be the ongoing Pluto square Uranus transits which form exact squares a whopping 7 times from June 2012 well into March 2015. The last series of squares was between 1932 and 1934. This was a stressful time worldwide that fueled the desperation that led to WW2 and was the time of the Great Depression in the United States after the Stock market crash of 1929. We see this theme replayed as it is finally completely evident to everyone that the financial system is collapsing right beneath our feet.
Another important happening is Pluto in Capricorn. This is most significant for America which was born towards the end of the last Pluto transit through Capricorn. At the time of the Revolution the planet Uranus was in Gemini on the Royal Star Aldebaran, the Watcher of the East representing Archangel Michael. Aldebaran is the fiery eye of the bull and is a warrior star. The significance of Pluto returning to the place it was during Americas difficult birth is extremely important as it is a completion of a long cycle. Pluto is the planet of death and rebirth as well as power and control. Pluto resonates with the occult symbol of the mythical Phoenix. A brilliant fiery bird that lives a long time and then consumes itself in flames only to be reborn anew from the ashes. Just like America was born out of the ashes of the British Empire so it will do so again in a new way. As we see America burning down its house so to speak we see the rebirth of the Patriot movement, people are talking about freedom again and defending our nation against the increasingly tyrannical government.
The two heavyweights and their characteristics in the signs:
Pluto in Capricorn: Power and the misuse of power, secrecy, control and transformation in the establishment, corporations, banking, gov't, etc
Uranus in Aries: The Awakener and erratic change embodied by the urge for freedom by the pioneers, the Patriots, rebels, innovators, etc
Now looking at the current state of affairs it appears we are going to be reenacting two very turbulent times in histroy at once! The American Revolution and the Great Depression. Ouch!
If all this is not enough, we also have a Super Yod that was fully actualized on Dec 21, 2012. A Yod is known as the "Finger of God" and points to the crux of a very tricky situation, a fork in the road, a time to make very important decisions fast. You couldn't ignore it if you tried as it's a karmic duty that's sorta forced upon you. The Yod is formed when two planets in sextile(a mutual aspect) are quincunx(inconjunct) a third that stands opposite the middle serving as a sharpened point of interest to be decided, tackled, debated, whatever it is it must be done at once!
This Super Yod is formed between Pluto and Saturn pointing that cosmic finger straight at Jupiter. So what does this mean for us?
Having already covered Pluto in Capricorn, we have its mutual ally here as Saturn in Scorpio. The two planets have swapped and are in each others houses. Saturn in Scorpio is a bit dark.. Repressingly so. Saturn is in charge of all the hard and difficult lessons in life. A wet blanket of sorts. It limits, impoverishes but also creates structure through discipline and organization. In Scorpio it deals with the heaviest of issues. Fear, possessiveness, secrecy and digging straight into the deepest darkest insecurities.
Well, with that duo established we now have the jovial Jupiter enter the scene and become the center of attraction. Biggie Jupiter is the Zeus of the planets and rules expansion, big ideas and pretty much makes a big deal out of everything by showing up. What makes this a SUPER Yod is a few factors. First the planets involved are all giants and the red giant Jupiter in the middle of it is sitting on the Royal star Aldebaran with Lilith at his side. Yowza! Lilith is a dark lady, she's an outsider, a bad gal and the one blamed for all kinds of crimes and misdemeanors. Jupiter expands everything he touches so in Gemini that means mass media. We're hearing a lot of news about what? Lilith with Jupiter on the warrior star Alderaban sure looks the current gun issue that's all over the news lately. We are hearing a whole lot of talk about banning guns in the media due to the increasing frequency of a string of highly suspicious tragedies.
Now the Sabian symbol for the Dec 21, 2012 Super Yod is most interesting. Jupiter is at 9º Gemini: A quiver filled with arrows. BULLSEYE!!!
Also, Venus is exactly conjunct the minor asteroid named America and is opposite Jupiter in this fiasco. The Sabian symbol for Venus here is 7º Sagittarius: Cupid knocking at the door of a human heart. So the American people will have their heart all tied up in this as Venus(ruling values) in Sagittarius(the archer, expressing ideas) is shooting straight up to Jupiter. Mercury is in on the talk close by at 15 degrees Sagittarius directly opposite Vesta(focus, commitment) so once again this gun issue is the big focus of debate.
Whew! All this drama in the sky and there's still more oh so much more to come.. I didn't go into depth on the double yod that followed up this one and culminated on the full moon this March yet so check back as I will be writing more on the upcoming alignments.


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Today I am so lucky to have a guest post from the very wonderful, Sachiko Aldous of Tea Rose Home. I am so grateful that she was willing to share a guest post today as I get ready to head out the door to Quilt Market in Kansas City. (If you are going to be there, shoot me an email! I'd love to meet-up!)
I first met Sachiko last year at a humanitarian event tie-ing quilts for the victims of the earthquake in Japan. The earthquake hit Sachiko's hometown and directly affected her family. I've always admired Sachiko's amazing talent. Since that time I've been able to get to know her personally as well, and she is such a genuine, kind, beautiful person. Sachiko has an amazing collection of ideas and tutorials – including a tutorial for the sweater refashion in the picture below. Oh. My. It is amazing.
I think you will love her tutorial today. Thank you Sachiko!
Hello everyone, I am Sachiko from Tea rose Home! I am visiting Amy's lovely place here today while she is away. I am a busy mom of three kids, but when I am not doing mommy things, I do…


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Hi again everyone!!
I'm back after my holiday trip to Bali 3 days ago. So happy! I haven't been in any vacation for the past 3,5 years (i know, sounds crazy!!) so wen to Bali is like a real escape from me! ;) I'll post my photo travel diary soon, but few from them can be saw at my Instagram account @thelmakisela :)
I wore this two tone vest by Minimal and an upcoming dusty pink cullote from AmyGo - www.amygostore.com. I love this outfit combination! Synchronized color pallette, with touch of nudes and pink. Major LOVE!!
GUESS watch
If you follow my Instagram, you'll see this black and white photo with a caption "Business Thought with Thelma Kisela". I'm giving the content not because i'm already a great and well-known entrepreneur, but i chose to spread the thought i have to my followers and readers. The first post is about starting a business. You can read more on my Instagram! :)
As an entrepreneur, i sturggled a lot. REALLY!!!! I sleep only 4 hours per day recently due to my businesses. I believe this will not last forever, because i'm doing startr-ups :) I love the process! As Merry Riana says, "you have to fall in love with the process"! I faced so many difficult situation these times in my business, and i'm on the way to overcome it. But overall, i have so much joy to be in these businesses i run! I am thankful to my Lord for always be with me for all of these times. He is the best, my Bestfriend!
On my next post, i'll share my journey in my start up businesses. Thank you for dear readers, family and friends who always support me! And to those who don't support, thank you too! ;)
See you on my next post! I hope you all have an amazing weekend ahead, due to Idul Fitri Holiday. Happy Holiday and happy Idul Fitri to all of my Moslem friends!


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does changing or replacing .iff files make the nba2k9 game lag? or it's just a bug or a virus?
i played the game in the past days and it was ok and running smooth. after a week of browsing a lot of websites and replacing patches for cyberfaces and updates(maybe the reason), it tends to slow at most of the game. it runs smooth a but most of the time it suddenly goes slow or lag.
what do ya' think?
if it's a virus, how can I detect if it had affected the game? and what virus, spyware, malware is that?


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Jan. 27, 2007
AMHERST, Mass. - MIT concluded its dual meet schedule for the 2006-07 season with a 129-107 loss to host Amherst College on Saturday afternoon, despite an impressive performance from freshman Jeff Zhou. The native of Buffalo, N.Y., was a part of two relay wins and also secured an individual first-place finish in the 50-yard freestyle (21.81).
Zhou's relay victories came in the 400-yard medley and the 400-yard freestyle. In the medley, he teamed up with freshman Rastislav Racz and sophomores Deke Hu and Peter Wellings to clock in at 3:36.58. He combined with freshmen Luke Cummings and Mike Smith-Bronstein and senior Craig Edwards for a final time of 3:12.88 in the freestyle.
The loss was the Engineers' (6-2) second straight after starting the season 6-0, while Amherst (5-2) extended its winning streak to three with the triumph.
MIT's biggest highlight came in the 200-yard breaststroke, which the Engineers swept with a 1-2 finish. Racz (2:09.50) and senior Kalvin Kao (2:12.95) provided the top times, respectively.
Edwards notched Tech's other victory by touching the wall at 1:59.90, ahead of all of his competition in the 200-yard backstroke.
Sophomore Christian Witzke, junior Andrew Maslan and senior Ethan Treat powered the Lord Jeffs, as each nabbed two individual victories on the afternoon.
MIT will return to the pool on Friday, Feb. 2, when it hosts Northeastern University, Middlebury College, Tufts University, Wheaton College and Williams College in the MIT Invitational. The two-day competition will serve as a tune up for the Engineers as they head into the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference Championships later in February. Amherst will conclude its dual meet schedule on Saturday, Feb. 3, when it travels to Springfield College at 1:00 p.m.


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Conrad Potter Aiken was born in Savannah, Georgia, on August 5, 1889. When he was a small boy, his father killed his mother and committed suicide himself, a tragedy that had a profound impact on Aiken's development. He was raised by a great-great-aunt in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard in 1912, the same period as T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings. During this time, he was also a contributing editor to Dial magazine, where he befriended Ezra Pound. His first collection of poetry, Earth Triumphant, was published in 1914, establishing his reputation as a poet. He avoided military service during World War I by claiming that, as a poet, he was part of an "essential industry". During the 1920s and 1930s Aiken travelled extensively between England and North America and married three times, once to Jessie McDonald, then to Clarissa M. Lorenz and later the artist Mary Hoover. (Joan Aiken, the children's book writer, is Aiken and McDonald's daughter.)
Most of Aiken's poetry reflects an intense interest in psychoanalysis and the development of identity. Of the many influences Aiken acknowledged, the writings of Freud, William James, Edgar Allan Poe, and the French Symbolists are most evident in his work. The forms and sounds of music pervade all of Aiken's highly introspective poetry, collected in The Jig of Forslin (1916); The Charnel Rose (1918); Selected Poems (1929), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930; Brownstone Eclogues (1942); The Kid (1947); Collected Poems (1953), which won the National Book Award; and Collected Poems 1916-1970 (1970). His work in Collected Novels (1964), including Blue Voyage (1927), shows Aiken to be a master of interior monologue. His novels had a profound influence on the works of many young writers of the day, including his protégé, Malcolm Lowry.
Aiken was Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress (now the U.S. Poet Laureate) from 1950-52. His other honors included the Bollingen Prize, the Gold Medal in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a National Medal for Literature. Aiken's critical essays are compiled in A Reviewer's ABC (1958); his Collected Short Stories appeared in 1960. As editor of Emily Dickinson's Selected Poems (1924), Aiken was largely responsible for establishing her posthumous literary reputation. The Selected Letters of Conrad Aiken (1978) contains correspondence with such literary colleagues as Wallace Stevens, Harriet Monroe, and Edmund Wilson, and his autobiographical book Ushant (1952) affords much insight into other literary figures he knew, mingling personal references with mention of his associates. Conrad Aiken died in Savannah in 1973.
Selected Bibliography
A Letter from Lí Po and Other Poems (1955)
A Seizure of Limericks (1964)
And in the Hanging Garden (1933)
And in the Human Heart (1940)
Brownstone Eclogues (1942)
Collected Poems (1953)
Collected Poems (1970)
Earth Triumphant and Other Tales in Verse (1914)
Gehenna (1930)
John Deth, A Metaphysical Legacy, and Other Poems (1930)
Landscape West of Eden (1934)
Nocturne of Remembered Spring and Other Poems (1917)
Prelude (1929)
Preludes for Memnon (1931)
Priapus and the Pool (1922)
Punch: The Immortal Liar (1921)
Selected Poems (1929)
Selected Poems (1961)
Sheepfold Hill: Fifteen Poems (1958)
Skylight One: Fifteen Poems (1950)
The Charnal Rose, Senlin, and Other Poems (1918)
The Coming Forth by Day of Osiris Jones (1931)
The Divine Pilgrim (1949)
The Fluteplayer (1956)
The House of Dust: A Symphony (1920)
The Jig of Forslin: A Symphony (1916)
The Kid (1947)
The Morning Song of Lord Zero (1963)
The Pilgrimage of Festus (1923)
The Soldier: A Poem (1944)
Time in the Rock: Preludes to Definition (1936)
Turns and Moves and Other Tales in Verse (1916)
Wake II (1952)
A Reviewer's ABC (1958)
Collected Criticism (1968)
Melody of Chaos (1931)
Scepticism, Notes on Contemporary Poetry (1919)
Ushant: An Essay (1952)
A Heart for the Gods of Mexico (1939)
Among the Lost People (1934)
Blue Voyage (1927)
Bring! Bring! and Other Stories (1925)
Conversation: or a Pilgrim's Progress (1940)
Great Circle (1933)
King Coffin (1934)
The Collected Novels of Conrad Aiken (1964)
The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken (1960)
The Short Stories of Conrad Aiken (1950)
For Children
A Little Who's Zoo of Mild Animals (1977)
Cats and Bats and Things with Wings (1965)
The Selected Letters of Conrad Aiken (1978)
Mr. Arcularis (1953)


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Senior Chris Larson Accepted to Yale See Page Two Krystal Betz Interviewed See Page Six ■<S£=3r!9 Even More Letters.. See Page Four Clothing Box Can Stay by Jonna Fantz The clothing box located on the first level of the AC building was almost removed, but it was agreed that the box should stay where it is for the rest of this year until a new location can be agreed upon. The box was overflowing, and Bruce Kun kel, Director of Institutional Services, received several complaints about it. A notice went out that the box was to be removed. After a meeting between Bruce Kunkel, Peace and Justice leaders Bill Breen and Kathey Skeie and their advisors Sandy McNeil, assistant professor of the writing center, and Don Postema, associate professor of philosophy, the clothing box is now being managed by Jim Bjork and the Campus Ministries office. The clothing box was originally organized by Mike Roe, a previous professor of psychology. When Roe left, the responsibility for the box bounced between Student Senate and Peace and Justice. According to Breen, Peace and justice wanted the clothing box as "one stable project" for the organization. The problem arose when the box began to be more than Peace and Justice could handle. Breen says, "The clothes pour in— which is great, but is hard to keep up with." The clothes need to be bagged and hauled to a downtown Catholic charity, Sophomore James Orvis makes his weekly contribution to the clothing box. Photo by Paul M. Gunnarson. where they are distributed to those who need them. Breen says that it was too big a project for the two Peace and Justice organizers. Breen says when the memo went out, Peace and Justice assumed that the box was going to be removed completely. The students were upset and began a "Save the Clothing Box" campaign. They sent petitions to students protesting the boxes' removal. Student Body President Chris Shaw told Breen that he (Shaw) had talked to Kunkel. Kunkel had stated that he did not want to eliminate the box, he only wanted to move it. At this point the students realized that a meeting needed to be set up with Kunkel to discuss the box. Con't. on Page 3 CHO REMEMBERS HOMELAND, KOREA by Chris Tachtck "I have to tell my family how we will do in America...! tell them 'Even we live in America, don't lose our smell.'" Dae-Sik Cho leaned forward, describing what it was like to board an airplane with his family of five for the move to America. "What is smell?" asked Cho's younger son, then thirteen. Smell, Cho explained, is the language, the traditions and the culture of their home country, Korea. Cho believes its 5,000 year history is the history of every Korean. Cho is a custodian at Bethel College. The short, blue-aproned Korean is easy to locate: he whistles oriental-sounding melodies as he sweeps around tables and gathers plates. His English identifies him as a foreigner, although he is, in fact, an American citizen. Senior Show Opens by Russ Boldt The first of two installments of the Art Department's annual Senior Show opened Mon, 9 April, with 10 of thisyear's 20 senior art majors each displaying a body of work. The purpose of the Senior Show is to mark the "culmination of four years of study with a show that is non-imitative, creative, and autobiographical," says Gallery Director and Assistant Professor of Art, Karen Berg-Johnson. The ten seniors in the first show are Dove Class Fromm, Cynthia Guy, Lisa Johnson, Scott Johnson, Tara Klienhuizen, Chris Knott, Chris Larson, Craig Piepho, Laura Reindal, and Lori Shelly. As part of the Art major, students are required to take a senior seminar class which is oriented Con't. on Page 9 Dae-Sik Cho was born in Korea in 1944, six years before the Korean War. It was more to him than the background to a M*A*S*H episode; he moved 500 miles with his family, on foot. It took the family of ten a couple months to reach the southern, safer end of the Korean peninsula. Dae-Sik Cho came from humble beginnings. His father sold rice and other grains, but didn't make quite enough to keep the eight children satisfied. "In my boy time, always hungry," Cho remembers. Cho graduated from high school in I960, a time when Korean students were leading nationwide demonstrations following fixed elections. History has been more than a general education requirement to Cho; it's something he's watched throughout his life. Twenty-two happy years of teaching followed his graduation from college. He married, had three children of his own and taught in elementary schools around South Korea, sometimes in a mountain village, other times in a small town. Korean students have a great respect for their teachers; Cho smiles as he told of his first visit back to Korea, only last year: over two hundred of his past students came to see him. Cho's eyes widened with seriousness as he tells of the national honor medal he received for his teaching. With the award came three weeks of expense-paid travel around several Asian countries. "It was my first airprane ride," he says. Cho was content and successful. But in 1986 his wife's parents wrote inviting the Chos to join them in their new country, America. Con't. on Page 7 " ">*&
Object Description
|Page 1
|Alternative Title
|The Bethel Clarion
|Edition (Vol. No.)
|Vol. 65 No. 12
|Date Published
|April 20 1990
|Academic Year
|1989 - 1990
|This project has been financed in part with funds provided by the State of Minnesota through the Minnesota Historical Society from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
|Digital Collection
|The Clarion: Bethel University's Student Newspaper
|Digital Publisher
|Bethel University
|Bruce, Mark P.
|Martin, Barb (Administrative Advisor); Dagget, Joanie (News Editor); Hoyt, Sean (Features Editor); Menard, Lisa (Op-Ed Editor); Lundh, Laurie (Od-Ed Editor); Maveus, Kris (Sports Editor); Nelson, Kathy (Sports Editor); Boldt, Russ (Arts Editor); Reynolds, Bill (Art Editor); Jackson, Julianne (Arts Editor); Busse, Nancy (Copy Editor); Mowry, Deb (Copy Editor); Gunnarson, Paul (Photo Editor); Fowler, R. Dean (Advertising Manager); Long, Creighton (Avertising Manager, Business Manager); Osmundson, Lisa (Layout Editor); Froehlig, Janis (Layout Assistant)
United States
Saint Paul
|Time Span of Publication
|Newspaper published from 1921 through present day
|Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 Rights Statement: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they dont have to license their derivative works on the same terms. Rights Statement URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
|Physical Dimensions
|11.5 x 17
|Original Collection
|Printed paper copies of original newspaper in the collections of the Bethel University Library and the History Center: Archives of the Baptist General Conference and Bethel University.
|Original Publisher
|Bethel College
Senior Chris Larson
Accepted to Yale
See Page Two
Krystal Betz Interviewed
See Page Six
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Harbor and Fog
Hurk (Steve) Hurkett 12/28/2006 9:44:04 AMSuper capture, Brinn ... good lighting, nice composition ..
Steve Hurkett #578687
RD . 12/28/2006 9:49:26 AMSmooth and calming I like the effect Brinn. Good Comp! #3747828
Cary Rogers 12/28/2006 9:59:24 AMWonderful capture and image, Brinn! Excellent design elements and "mood" effects in your composition! #3747879
Raymond Pauly 12/28/2006 10:00:04 AMLovely image, Brinn! Great composition and effects! #3747884
Melissa G. Meiselman 12/28/2006 10:01:20 AMBeautiful scene with terrific watercolor type effects, Brinn!! #3747890
Brenda Guiles 12/28/2006 10:02:51 AMI have always loved sailboats and I particularly like this scene with the fog, it adds such mood to an already beautiful scene! :) #3747900
Marianne Andersson 12/28/2006 11:21:25 AMBeautiful capture Brinn! #3748174
Kristi A. Howson 12/28/2006 8:25:40 PMLove the effect from the fog here Brinn. Very beautiful capture and work! #3749319
Donna La Mattino Pagakis 12/28/2006 8:32:00 PMBeautiful image and effects Brinn! #3749334
Brinn MacDougall 12/29/2006 8:47:53 AMThank you so much, for all the great comments!! #3750808
Brinn MacDougall 12/29/2006 8:48:33 AMThank you so much, for all the great comments!! #3750817
Cassie L. Woodlee 1/1/2007 4:57:32 PMWOW really love the effect, beautiful capture Brinn!! #3768967
Brinn MacDougall 1/2/2007 9:27:39 AMThanks Cassie! #3771891
Shawn Jennings 1/15/2007 10:41:57 AMGreat image and effects Brinn! #3822692
Brinn MacDougall 1/16/2007 9:01:38 AMThanks Shawn for looking! #3826610
Jim Norton 1/23/2007 12:50:46 PMNice composition and processing Brinn. Beautiful image! #3855660
Brinn MacDougall 1/24/2007 8:34:13 AMThank you so much, Jim! #3858965
Jeana Clark 1/24/2007 2:16:12 PMA big congratulations on this finalist!! Job well done!!
Melissa G. Meiselman 1/24/2007 2:46:49 PMThis is a stunning finalist, Brinn!! Congratulations!!! #3860886
Steve M. Harrington 1/24/2007 3:21:38 PMWay to go, Brinn!
Karen Slagle 1/24/2007 4:17:41 PMGorgeous finalist, Brinn. Big congrats. #3862176
Charlene Taylor 1/24/2007 4:26:33 PMCongratulations on making finalist with this terrific shot Brinn! This is an excellent scene! #3862300
Raymond Pauly 1/24/2007 4:27:18 PMCongratulations on this beautiful finalist, Brinn! #3862309
Cyn Valentine 1/24/2007 4:27:34 PMBig congrats Brinn..WTG!! #3862313
Kaye Burazin 1/24/2007 4:34:20 PMExcellence Brinn. A hearty congrats! #3862423
Kenneth Mucke 1/24/2007 6:57:05 PMGeorgous finalist...Congrats #3864033
Cesar J. La Rosa 1/24/2007 8:33:05 PMA WONDERFUL and very well-deserved Finalist, Brinn!!!
Joy L. Barber 1/24/2007 9:03:03 PMCongrats. -- I love the subdued color and the lines from the ship masts. #3864807
Joy L. Barber 1/24/2007 9:03:03 PMCongrats. -- I love the subdued color and the lines from the ship masts. #3864808
Donna La Mattino Pagakis 1/25/2007 4:00:58 AMCongratulations on your beautiful finalist image win!! Moody feel! #3865971
Laurie Daily 1/25/2007 4:03:15 AMCongratualtions to you Brinn on this beautiful iamge!!! #3865986
Paula Dwyer 1/25/2007 4:51:22 AMCongratulations Brinn!!! Fantastic finalist!!! :) #3866283
Emile Abbott 1/25/2007 6:34:50 AMFantastic finalist Brinn, Congratulations. #3867152
Ronald Balthazor 1/25/2007 6:54:06 AMCongratulations on your finalist, Brinn. Excellent work. #3867362
Brinn MacDougall 1/25/2007 9:26:34 AMI'm very surprised, I thought it was to early to announce finalist, any way thank you for all your support! #3868588
Kathleen K. Parker 1/25/2007 12:01:34 PMThis is fabulous, Brinn.
Kristi A. Howson 1/25/2007 1:58:45 PMCongratulations Brinn on this wonderful finalist and best of luck in the next round! Fantastic capture of the mood with the fog! #3870335
Colleen Farrell 1/25/2007 4:05:51 PMThis is totally gorgeous, Brinn! I'd love to have this photo hanging on my wall. I can almost hear the foghorns! Congratulations on your finalist! #3871305
Vicki Hunt 1/25/2007 4:28:22 PMThis is WONDERFUL!!!! Congrats! #3871391
Brinn MacDougall 1/25/2007 6:36:55 PMThank you for all the great support! #3872122
Stephen Zacker 1/26/2007 3:20:34 AMGreat mood this has. Congratulations #3873740
Brinn MacDougall 1/26/2007 8:46:58 AMThanks Stephen! #3875019
Cathy M. Gromball 1/27/2007 10:24:21 PMCongratulations on this wonderful finalist, Brinn!
Cathy :) #3881425
Brinn MacDougall 1/28/2007 9:19:12 AMThanks Cathy! #3882814
Ronald F. Fischer 2/13/2007 11:36:29 AMBrinn, you have an awesome gallery with a wide variety! I really love this image!! #3944465
Brinn MacDougall 2/14/2007 8:31:56 AMThank you for crusing my gallery, Ronald! #3947301
John Caruso 2/19/2007 5:22:26 PMBrinn--
I don't know how I let this one slip past me, but congratulations on the well deserved finalist for this one! I love the color, light, comp, and feel of this one. Great job. #3966029
Brinn MacDougall 2/20/2007 6:31:02 AMThank you so much, John! #3967607
Cheryl Meisel 3/14/2007 3:59:47 PMOhhhhhhhhhhh my gosh is this beautiful or WHAT? WOW WOW and WOW! AWESOME!
Brinn MacDougall 3/15/2007 9:29:05 AMThank you, Cheryl for crusing my gallery and your kind comments! #4057256
Conrad L. Conero 9/12/2007 11:21:26 AMNice Finalist, Brinn! #4782004
Brinn MacDougall 9/13/2007 7:19:20 AMThank you, Conrad! #4785845
Hank Halsey 12/9/2007 3:47:54 AMI am new to BetterPhoto. You commented on one of my first photos that I posted and that was very nice that you took the time to do that, so I finally have the time to look thru your gallery and this one really caught my eye. I haven't been thru the rest of your gallery, but I'm sure that there will be more photos that will catch my eye. #5186156
Brinn MacDougall 12/9/2007 8:45:18 AMWell, thank you Hank and welcome to BP! #5187071
edited in psp9, digital entry, 12/28/06.finalist.
Uploaded on 12/28/2006 9:34:08 AM
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text:
The Pyongyang Watchers: How to Decode North Korea
North Korea is notoriously difficult to comprehend, but specialists have been able to paint a picture of the totalitarian regime — and its capital, Pyongyang — using a variety of sources and methods. WSJ's Mark Scheffler reports. Photo: Getty
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
I ... the story has been described as everything from or her reaching and the last Stalinist regime ... many of its impoverished citizens have little contact with the outside world ... and the country's highly effective police state has no tolerance for dissent ... to feel outside visitors to the capital Pyongyang ... are followed by miners and can't stray from a precarious ... add to this the belligerent statements by leaders in strange propaganda videos ... and all makes North Korea in notoriously hard place for Western observers and intelligence agencies to accurately assess ... risk when there is a former chief of the CIS Korea branch ... will North Korea is the hardest of our markets is a very difficult intelligence all ... among those able to glean information about the country is a loose knit collection scholars analysts and former C I a officers ... he's young and watchers attempt to decode everything that goes on in the capital and beyond ... for personnel changes to our checks ... the interview the factors ... monitor CTV and study ... again ... collectively their insight to help paint a picture of the regime ... even as its intentions remain mysterious ... experts say it be key to understanding North Korea is understanding its leadership ... the current rulers Kim Jong UN ... the son of the late Kim Jong Il ... they're cruising dictator who succeeded his own father Kim Il sung ... well Kim Jong Hoon is more charismatic and was camera shy than his father ... he's also an enigma to analysts because he has no track workers ... many see his current shows of bravado in keeping with what his predecessors did to deter countries that want to undermine North Korea's military ambitions ... Chris Cummings is in North Korea scholar and author of several books on the country ... that North Korea does have a ... through its entire history going back to nineteen forty is ... a very standard practice ... ratcheting up tension ... there's something that wants ... County and watchers have also noted that Mr. cues from several military leaders ... to move some state to assert his leadership and consolidate power ... others think it's an attempt to put politics in the center of government and said the military ... even so Comings and others warn that it's wrong to assume hinge on news completed the control of the North Korean government ... the most important person in the regime for making decisions that led to his own soul that ... the Wiz ... his uncle in law married to John Mills says there ... he's been at the center of North Korean political ad for decades but a recent book by research analysts came cows shows that even with several decision makers the country's security apparatus is very well quart needed to quell this ... you have informants to our country in a new book I talk about ... the in form and structure ... and how that works in the fact that ... this informs her she knows what everybody is doing and he gave the airline ... one of the obvious ways that the last knows what it does about North Korea is through intelligence gathered from aerial surveillance and other spy craft ... its ... own satellites U two ... planes that fly across the peninsula where the assignment cameras ... infrared heat detectors ... analysts also Saudi propaganda photos and video ... but those only goes so far in helping read the tea leaves of the regime ... it will reveal the mood in the country that the signals that the regime is China's na Li was on his ... way to his domestic audience as well ... County N watchers were pies several years ago when a memoir by Kim Jong Il's their personal chef to pay the dictator with a taste for caviar and cognac it's the kind of firsthand glimpse of the upper echelons its exceptionally rare if not unprecedented ... experts agree that the secretive inner circle of North Korea's government is exceedingly hard if not impossible for intelligence agents to penetrate ... the many Pyongyang watchers agree that the West has a good handle on North Korea's military capabilities ... part of this is due to numerous UN weapons inspections over the years North Korea's ... nuclear weapon to reach the United States unless included in the U haul truck ... and ran over Canadian border than that that that ... that that that ... much of what we know about everyday life in North Korea ... is calm in the aftermath of the crippling famine into place than the nineteen nineties ... the Senate should many North Koreans that the state couldn't provide for them and so they started moving back and forth across borders for their survival Fnac correction is the coauthor State Department commissioned report about North Koreans access to outside media ... then again the next year the late ... nineties was the turning point ... the census of wrote down I have stateside release is intended for a long time no longer function in people had to ... find coping mechanisms find other ways to ... make money get through to ... find information ... purchases defectors have been a big source of information about what goes on inside North Korea ... according to his research there more cell phones now inside the country ... and in limited areas people have access to DVD Zen news radio from other countries ... foreign visitors to North Korea are also helping shed light on the cryptic regime ... though the parts of Pyongyang the tourists can go are often staged a region images from the city can be seen on travel logs ... perhaps the biggest recent head scratcher for Pyongyang watchers was the trip to former NBA star Dennis Rodman took to the country in February ... he got an audience with King John in the baskets off ... the two even sat together courtside to watch again ... Kim reportedly told Robin that he hoped the visit would break the ice between the U S and North Korea ... some North Korea experts think these kinds of visits are what's needed to increase our understanding of the regime ... more traditional route still War ... brought the entire senior leadership together ... if we would have people are in a delegation actually knew what they were looking at ... you tells a lot about how people are interacting with this young son ... but others think this is an approach that speechwriter for ... just one or a Parisians I can't possibly game is ... more bizarre ... it to us ... the law Street Journal this is Mark Scheffler in New York ...


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Before you buy an office chair, check to see if the backrests, seat, and armrests are adjustable. You should be able to adjust the seat height and tilt of your office chair to your own preferences, and ideally the seat should be comfortable enough to support you comfortably, while letting your body breathe. The most important feature to look for is good lumbar support, as an office chair with a good lumbar support lets your back stay in a position that is good for its spine health.
A sofa is one of the most important furniture purchases for your home, so before you buy a sofa make sure you are getting one that fits your needs. A sofa that is perfect for your living room could be a terrible idea for your family room. First figure out how you want to use your sofa and who will be using it. Determine whether your sofa is a good fit for your space, and since there are sofas to fit any style of room, look for one that satisfies your own personal sense of style.
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Anfatec Instruments AG
Measurement Science and Technology &
Scanning Probe Microscopy
Anfatec's digital lock-in amplifiers base on an extraordinary fast FPGA design. The stand-alone eLockIn series offers outstanding performance, dual input, dual reference and dual harmonic operation in frequency ranges up to 20 MHz. Our affordable PCI-card lock-in amplifier is the right choice for OEM users.
Scanning Probe Microscopes & Controllers
Anfatec is known for its fair prices - but also for an extraordinary high quality. Check out our microscopes and SPM controllers, compare them carefully and make a smart decision - save AND win - buy Anfatec.
Large Scale Scanning Kelvin Probe Systems
Kelvin Probe method for Surface Potential Determination - a technique so simple and unique, that most of us have forgotten it exists. Call us - we'll explain.
Anfatec Instruments AG
Melanchthonstr. 28
08606 Oelsnitz (V)
phone: +49 (0)37421 24212
fax: +49 (0)37421 24221
eMail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Dr. Anne-Dorothea Müller


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Every week, Tuesday-Friday, 11am-4pm, during the UC Berkeley Fall and Spring Semesters.
Inaugural exhibition of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
With the establishment of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley in July 2010, unique materials documenting the Jewish experience in Northern California were gifted to The Bancroft Library by the former Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley.
The Magnes archives of Western Jewish Americana have served as an important source for several foundational studies of Jewish life in California. Researchers often relied on the combination of Magnes and Bancroft collections in their work. Now, the physically integrated collections of both institutions bring unique resources under one roof, making them even more accessible for teaching and research.
The inaugural exhibition, Gained in Translation: Jews, Germany, California circa 1849, draws on art, artifacts, books, and archival materials from The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, The Bancroft Library, and the Levi Strauss & Co. Archives. The resulting synergy stretches the boundaries of California history, connecting German Jewish history before 1849 to the establishment of the Jewish community in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The focal point of the exhibition is the renowned painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn (1856), one of the most reproduced works in the Magnes Collection, often used to illustrate the cultural dialogue framing the social and cultural emancipation of the Jews in Germany. The decade in which this work appeared was pivotal for German Jews: their hopes for emancipation were challenged by the failed revolution of 1848-49, which also spurred emigration to the United States, including to San Francisco, where the Gold Rush provided new opportunities of social success and civic engagement.
Alla Efimova, Jacques and Esther Reutlinger Director
Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of Collections
The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life is supported by Koret Foundation, Taube Foundation, Hellman Family Foundation, Magnes Museum Foundation, Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties, Jim Joseph Foundation, Lisa and Doug Goldman Fund, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, and Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and Lumina Foundation.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the generous support of the founding Friends of the Magnes: Barry and Debbie Cohn, Frances Dinkelspiel, Rosalie Eisen, Robert D. Haas, Adele Hayutin, Dana Shapiro, Janet Traub, Marjorie and Barry Traub, and Chen C. Wang.
Production Team
Alla Efimova and Francesco Spagnolo, Curators
Lara Michels, Archivist
Julie Franklin, Exhibitions Coordinator
Eva Gurevich, Collections Intern
Gordon Chun, Installation Designer
Installation Images


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I've been looking into getting an Intuos4 (still working off of an [ab]used Wacom Graphire) and something I've seen in the reviews that concerns me is the increased nib wear.
The Intuos4 comes with 4 different kinds of nibs:
5 "standard"
3 "felt"
1 "flex"
1 "stroke"
My question is do all of these nibs wear out faster than the Intuos3's? or is it just the Felt ones?
And which of the Intuos4's nibs is more like the Intuos3's default nib?
I've had my Graphire for years and years and never replaced the nib once, and I've heard similar testimonies for the Intuos3.
I'd rather get a tablet that's a step behind the times instead of something designed to make me buy new nibs every five minutes, you know?
I've also heard conflicting reviews about the surface, is it rougher or the same as the Intuos3?
thanks for any help!


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Qinbei power station
|This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.
This article is part of the Coal Issues portal on SourceWatch, a project of CoalSwarm and the Center for Media and Democracy. See here for help on adding material to CoalSwarm.
The Qinbei power station is a 1,200 megawatt (MW) power station in China. It comprises two 600-MW coal-fired thermal power units.[1]
Articles and resources
- ↑ "Coal-Fired Plants Financed by International Public Investment Institutions Since 1994", Appendix to Foreclosing the Future: Coal, Climate and International Public Finance: Investment in coal-fired power plants hinders the fight against global warming, Environmental Defense, April 2009.


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NEMO5 Tutorial 3: Models
Additional materials available (5)
Licensed according to this deed.
Published on
This tutorial presents the models implemented in NEMO5. A description on how the solvers interact with each other is reported along with the options of the various solvers. An example on how to make a simulation that involves strain calculations, Schroedinger wave functions calculations and an applied external potential is presented.
Jean Michel D. Sellier is a Research Assistant Professor at Purdue University. He is one of the core developer of NEMO5.
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Burton Morgan 121, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN


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NIAMEY (Reuters) - Five African aid workers kidnapped last month in central Niger have been released after being held captive in the deserts of Islamist-controlled northern Mali, officials said on Saturday.
A sixth aid worker - who was also kidnapped - was shot during the abduction and later died of his wounds, the officials said.
"The violent death of our colleague Aime Soulembaye is an unjustifiable tragedy," said Sani Sayadi, director of Nigerien aid group BEFEN, which helps women and children in the impoverished West African state.
"BEFEN and its partners are, however, relieved to learn about the release of its other colleagues."
Gunmen linked to al Qaeda factions operating in the Sahel and Sahara zone have kidnapped people in Niger and taken them to neighboring Mali in the past, though they usually target Westerners for ransom payments.
The threat of kidnapping has slowed investment in the country, the top supplier of uranium to France's nuclear power industry. French firm Areva delayed the planned start up of its Imouraren mine in Niger after seven of its workers were kidnapped in 2010.
Unidentified gunmen kidnapped the six aid workers last month, who included four citizens of Niger and one from Chad, from the town of Dakoro in central Niger overnight on October 14.
A government official said the five freed aid workers had arrived in the western Nigerien village of Yassan, near the Mali border, during the night on Friday.
"According to them, they were being held in northern Mali and one of their colleagues died after sustaining a gunshot wound," the official said, asking not to be named.
The Islamist takeover of the north of Mali has created a security vacuum, opening up a safe haven for extremists and organized crime groups in the Sahara desert.
Representatives from Niger's uranium exploration companies met President Mamadou Issoufou late on Friday to ask for tighter security in the north.
"We explained all the difficulties we are facing in our work as a result of the security conditions," said Ibrahim Alasso, speaking on behalf of the companies.
(Additional reporting and writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Osborn)


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Thom Maul
Thom first joined IFAW as the Reporting and Compliance Officer responsible for management of worldwide technical accounting, financial statement preparation, investment performance, and tax and regulatory compliance. Operating with the understanding that transparent financial reporting galvanizes donor trust, Thom made significant contributions to improving the quality and efficiency of IFAW's financial and compliance reporting processes.
Thom has since assumed the role of IFAW headquarters Chief Financial Officer. In this position, Thom leads IFAW's finance team of approximately 20 professionals who are responsible for delivering financial support services to offices in 14 countries around the world.
Before joining IFAW, Thom pursued careers within the financial services industry and public accounting. During his eight year career at KPMG, one of the world's largest accounting firms, Thom earned accreditation as a CPA and rose to the level of Senior Manager. Two of those eight years were on international assignment in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where Thom was an advisor to multinational corporations on US-based accounting rules and regulations.
Reporting and Compliance Officer, IFAW, USA
Senior Manager-Assurance, KPMG, LLC, USA
Collateral Examiner, Key Bank, USA
Bachelor of Science (BS), State University of New York-Oswego, USA
Certified Public Accountant, New York State License, USA
Press contact
To schedule an interview with Thom Maul, contact:
Kate Farinella
Director of Global Communications
Tel: +1 646.838.3951
Email: email@example.com


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carrieg needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 42 designs submitted by 13 freelance designers.
Logo to be used on business cards, website, packaging, promotional brochures. Single baked granola energy bar product now, but expansion aspirations.
I need a logo to use on all materials so that my customers will think of my company / product when they see the logo. Currently, I have used Vista print template for cards and Go Daddy template for website. I have had positive reactions from both but there is no cohesiveness between the ideas expressed in each. Lack of a logo / brand id is keeping me from getting product into the market.
The current product is a healthy, whole food granola bar that I have been selling to my fellow boot camp exercise group. It measures about 2" by 2 2/3 " so logo will need to be legible on a label for that product that will also need to show ingredients list and nutrition information. I am open to putting ingredients and nutrition on a separate label on the back of the product and using the front just for the logo.
- FitBody Foods - "F" and "B" in fitbody, as well as "F" in foods must be capatilized.
- Possible tagline "Feed your Body".
- Possible product name "FitBody Bars"
- I like color, especially purple and green but prefer ability to print legibly in black and white.
- Want to convey: alive, growing, health(y), fit(ness),
- Like clean, stylish, Copperplate Gothic style font, but not tied to font, it's just an example of what I have tended to like.
- Target markets includes busy moms and baby boomers so I need a fast easy, unambiguous read
- Vector format
- Room for idea to apply to extended product line
- Try looking at my current business card on Vista: http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/welcom…page=myact
- Don't want to be viewed as a "hippie" granola bar
- Flash tomato graphic from website has been well received but too "fresh from the vine" for my product
- Don't really care for the brown tones from current website, purple-good, red-good, brown-bad.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Here's something I'm trying to do at home. And even in the very brief period that I have been practicing it, it has made an incredible difference in how we all get along. I learned it this weekend at a workshop, along with lots of other great tips for creating more love and joy in my life and especially in my home. It's such a simple shift, and honestly, it has had a ridiculously profound effect on my interaction with my children and my partner.
Instead of saying "but" I say "and".
Instead of saying "you want to do it this way BUT I want to do it that way." Instead of thinking, "You want to go here BUT I want to go there." Instead of feeling, "You like this BUT I like that." I replace the "but" with an "and".
So it sounds like love and acceptance instead of arbitration and rejection. It feels like agreement instead of contradiction. It allows for two realities co-existing instead of argument of one way being right and the other being wrong. AND it feels like a whole lot of understanding that in a family with 6 people in it, there can of course be 6 different ways of feeling/thinking/wanting/seeing.
We all like different things. We all have different ideas. We all need/want/have/love different ways of approaching life. AND it's all perfectly true and beautiful and okay.
Honestly it is that simple. AND it is that good. You want this AND I want that. You feel this AND I feel that. You see this AND I see that. You are perfect AND I am too.
It could be just the tool you need this holiday.


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State Pension Overhaul 'Reins In Costs,' Says Governor
By City News Service
Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled a proposed overhaul of the state pension system Tuesday during a Los Angeles news conference, saying it would save billions of dollars and require state workers to pay at least half of their pension costs.
But the plan was met with a tepid response from Republican leaders, who said the proposal was a step in the right direction, but the details remained "foggy."
Brown said the pension proposals "make fundamental changes that rein in costs and help to ensure that our public retirement system is sustainable for the long term."
"These reforms require sacrifice from public employees and represent a significant step forward," he said. "If the Legislature approves these reforms, public retirement benefits will be lower than when I took office in 1975. Additional changes would require a vote of the people."
The governor's proposal caps at $110,100 the salary amount that can be used to calculate pension payouts for retirees who collect Social Security. For those who don't collect Social Security, the amount is roughly $130,000. The proposal also requires all new employees to contribute 50 percent of their pension costs. The requirement will also apply to current employees, subject to union negotiations.
The retirement age would be pushed back by two years for new employees. According to the governor's office, workers who retire at age 62 would receive 2 percent of their highest annual salary for every year worked, but the rate would increase to 2.5 percent for people who retire at age 67. Police and fire department employees would receive 2.7 percent at age 57.
Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, said the proposal represents a scaling back of the Democratic governor's 12-point pension plan introduced earlier this year.
"Absent specific language, the details of this new arrangement between him and legislative Democrats remain foggy," Huff said. "One thing that is clear is that the governor has settled for far less than the comprehensive overhaul he sought out to achieve."
Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Irvine, said that while Brown claims the proposal will save the state between $18 billion and $30 billion over the next few decades, "the state's unfunded pension and retiree health care liability is in the hundreds of billions of dollars."
"While this is a small step in the right direction, we are disappointed that this plan does not address those liabilities in any meaningful way," she said.
Bob Schoonover, president of Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents city and county workers from Riverside to Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo, said he was still analyzing the proposal to determine its impact on workers.
"However, we do know that elements of this package address issues that should be negotiated at the bargaining table, not in the back rooms of the state Legislature," he said. "Our members have sacrificed so much over the past few years in order to help balance city and county budgets."
Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, hailed the proposal.
"We will outlaw the most objectionable pension practices, impose a cap on the maximum value of pensions and generate the long-term savings that will ensure the fiscal health of state and local pensions," he said.Print This Post
August 30, 2012 Copyright © 2012 Eastern Group Publications, Inc.
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Who am I?
- A librarian
- A free thinker
- An academic
- passionate about education
- concerned about the state of the world
- concerned about the state of librarianship
- Invested in the ethical ramifications of librarianly protection of patrons' intellectual freedom
- Interested in using technology to further education
- but I don't think technology replaces an educational mission
- A watcher of too much television
- this season? Chuck, Life, Journeyman, Dirty Sexy Money
- Overall? Buffy, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, The Closer, Mad Men to show my range
- sometimes very grounded in 1.0 and proud of it.
More succinctly, I am Rudy Leon, Outreach & Instruction Librarian at the University of Nevada, Reno. I am either rudyleon or rudibrarian on most social networking sites.


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About the Book
Features & Details
- Category Arts & Photography Books
Standard Landscape, 10×8 in, 25×20 cm
20 Pages
- Publish Date Sep 18, 2012
See More
About the Creator
Perry Hoffman
Wonder Valley and Santa Barbara,CA, USA
Perry Hoffman, artist. When I am not taking photographs of wonder I can be creating mosaics or painting or hands in clay. Currently working on a mosaic tile house in Wonder Valley. Firing clay buddhas in the kiln and making handmade tiles at the ocean. Here in a place time almost forgot still radiates a magic that propels us to see and think and work and live in another way. When you have to stop what you're doing in order to look at what the sky is doing then you know you're in an unusual place. Don't blink in the desert or you might miss something. I found a seahorse in the desert and a dolphin at the sea. Here in the middle of nowhere and the center of the universe, I also found love.