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An outsider peering into the Canadian energy scene today would see a closely knit community dominated by 10 or so powerful companies, highly profitable in good times, in which compensation is generous and there is work to be done for generations.
And yet in the span of only a year, the much-touted chief executives of three of those corporate titans resigned abruptly, leaving boards to scramble over what to do.
In a late Friday afternoon announcement on Jan. 11, Encana Corp. said Randy Eresman would retire effective immediately. Talisman Energy Inc. ousted CEO John Manzoni on Sept. 10. Nexen Inc. took out CEO Marvin Romanow on Jan. 9, 2012.
Nexen appointed an interim CEO and quickly became the target of a takeover by China's CNOOC Ltd. Talisman and Encana put directors in the CEO seat and are now seen as takeover candidates.
To be sure, each company struggled with unique circumstances and the market lost confidence in their leaders' ability to fix them.
The corporate coups also suggest a broader theme: Canada's biggest-spending industry is struggling with a leadership crisis related to an inability to see and adjust to new market conditions and formulate and sell a vision for the future.
"We are in a market box and it takes a visionary leader to get the capital, the social permission and the economic drivers to break out of that box," said a former industry executive who asked not to be named. "It's at the root of why these problems aren't going away and the obstacles are enormous. A good leadership should be able to shift the strategy so that the company continues to flourish. And that is what is missing. It's the inability to see the changing environment."
What happened to all the visionary leaders? The oil patch of the past was a fertile ground for larger-than-life, self-made mavericks such as Eric Newell (Syncrude), Rick George (Suncor), Jim Gray (Canadian Hunter), Dick Haskayne (Nova and TransCanada), Jim Buckee (Talisman), Gwyn Morgan (Encana), Charlie Fischer (Nexen), and J.C. Anderson (Anderson Exploration) who could sell a play on the moon, loved to talk and never gave up. Among them is Hal Kvisle, the Talisman director who came out of retirement to replace Mr. Manzoni, but the jury is out on whether he's in it for the long term or just at the controls until the company is sold. They were builders who believed in strong Canadian companies that could compete anywhere and set the foundation of the industry we know now.
Today, only Murray Edwards, the chairman and co-founder of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., remains of that ilk.
Meanwhile, there is no easy path out of that box, especially for Canadian companies that are the farthest away from markets.
If you are a gas producer, you are looking at super-depressed natural gas prices for many years, perhaps until liquefied natural gas export terminals are built and burst the North American gas bubble. If you are an oil producer, you are faced with many more years of tight pipeline space that is depressing the price of your oil.
To top it off, your industry is under attack like never before by the environmental movement and First Nations, investors are impatient, politicians are fickle, competitors are aggressive and hanging onto every crumb of profitable business while contributing to the collective misery by putting too much product in the market.
Encana's interim CEO, Clayton Woitas, may have been more truthful than most will appreciate when he said this week that Mr. Eresman left the company because he was just plain tired.
The consequences are playing out daily: Asset sales/joint ventures to shore up cash flows in the hope conditions improve, corporate sales, poor commodity prices, cuts in spending and in growth strategies, and costly battles to win approval of infrastructure projects.
Some are pointing fingers at boards for the leadership vacuum. It's their job to come up with succession strategies and to hire the right CEOs.
Too many No. 2s are being pushed into leadership roles for which they are ill-suited, complains one industry insider.
When Gwyn Morgan was running Encana, and Mr. Eresman was his No. 2 operations guy, "they were like Batman and Robin," the insider said. "When Batman left, Robin couldn't make it."
Talisman and Nexen also picked successors who were unable to fill the big shoes left by their visionary predecessors. "People loved Charlie Fischer," the former Nexen CEO, said Mark Hopkins, Calgary-based managing partner of executive search at Knightsbridge.
"His team loved him and they'd go to the wall for him. Some of these guys don't have an appreciation for what it takes to achieve that.
"Boards are not assessing people in terms of their broad-based capabilities before they put them into the job. I think they are also succumbing to the most aggressive individuals who campaign the hardest to get the job, but are not necessarily the most qualified."
The problem with boards in the oil industry is that they are generally dominated by people who don't sign up for trouble, are dismissive of softer areas such as human resources and don't insist on succession strategies because it's a difficult subject to raise with CEOs, said one corporate director.
"You have someone at the top where 'it's all about me.' Unless you have the entire board behind you, the board can think of a million excuses [not to do succession planning]," the director said.
"Often, the types of people who sit on boards are like the CEOs they are overseeing and often they are not good at the HR side of things."
That mix means that directors aren't likely to recognize there is a need for leadership with skills to handle different industry conditions. "They too don't get how the world has changed, because they suffer form the same biases and blanks as the CEO they appointed," the director said.
The seeds of those new conditions were planted many years ago and were in some cases were self-made. Big companies pulled out of international operations, largely to get away from political instability, to focus on North America. The environmental movement became more aggressive against the fossil fuels industry. Technology improved beyond anyone's expectations and unlocked giant tight oil and gas reservoirs that flooded the market with supplies.
Historically focused on exploring for and producing oil, the energy sector evolved to one that is running large manufacturing-type and marketing operations.
While the manufacturing aspects of plays like oil sands and of shale gas are being mastered, the marketing and communications aspects that are integral to win community support — the so-called licence to operate — have been lacking.
The industry tends to recruit its leaders almost exclusively from within the sector, which is dominated by engineers, geoscientists and finance professionals who are uncomfortable with selling, being in the public domain, managing conflict.
"The boards are appointing people based on technical and financial capabilities, and not looking at the multidimensional aspects of the individual as a leader — in terms of understanding of organizational dynamics, stakeholder relations, internal and external," Mr. Hopkins said. " Some of those guys that were terminated were probably the smartest guys in the room technically, but lacked those added dimensions of understanding and the ability to deal with those other softer areas that are becoming increasingly critical."
Perhaps it's time to recruit outside the sector, some suggest.
Among the industry's top CEOs, only one, Husky Energy Inc.'s Asim Ghosh, doesn't have an oil and gas background. After only three years at the helm, Mr. Ghosh, a former telecommunications executive from India, is credited with boosting staff enthusiasm and market appreciation. Husky's stock beat competitors by a wide margin in the past year.
Wilf Gobert, the former oil and gas analyst who now sits on boards of companies including Canadian Natural Resources, notes there is some good leadership, too, and some good succession planning: At Suncor, Steve Williams moved seamlessly last year into the CEO position vacated by Mr. George; at Canadian Natural, Mr. Edwards is extremely engaged with politicians at all levels, which helps him understand and appreciate the new dimensions of the business, Mr. Gobert said.
"The new business mantra, the unconventional business, requires more in the way of strategic thinking and strategic planning, and being able to strategize about the big picture for LNG, infrastructure access and other markets," Mr. Gobert said.
But Mr. Gobert said part of the leadership vacuum is explained by the bigger role played by international oil companies, which leaves less room for entrepreneurs.
"It's a reversion to the days pre-National Energy Program, when the industry was dominated by ownership of multinational, non-resident control."
Mr. Gray, who co-founded and later sold natural gas explorer Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd. and remains active on corporate boards, said it was easier to be a visionary when the market had longer-term expectations and allowed that vision to mature.
Today's CEOs are too influenced by transaction-oriented investment bankers and institutional investors with little patience, he said.
"The romance, the vision, the creativity, [make it] a wonderful industry," he said. "It's full of risk, of success, of failure, of ideas, and I think it's sad that it's being trampled in many ways by the lack of patience in the market."


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The Dark Ages (Pre-2004)
First, let's imagine a fairly simple switching application, such as a prepaid calling card service that's designed to handle up to 500 concurrent callers. People tend to stay on the phone for a long time when making long distance calls, so this isn't a very big system (systems that handled thousands of callers were commonplace). We won't use any extra-fancy stuff like conferencing or speech recognition, just basic IVR and call routing.
To build this system, we would have needed specialized computer telephony hardware or a programmable switch, such as Excel. Using standard PCs and computer telephony hardware, we would have spent about $100 to $200 per phone line, or about $50,000 to $100,000, not including the servers. These boards provided very crude APIs for controlling the hardware, so most developers would use middleware, such as Pronexus or Visual Voice, to program the boards in higher-level languages. This typically added another $100 per port. Next, we'd need to provision 20 T1s for the service. These typically cost $1000 to install, and about $500 per month, not including toll charges. So, before you've written a single line of code, you've had to allocate close to $200,000 just to cover hardware, installation, and the first few months of operations. Because you had to use specialized hardware, it was also not possible to use rent-a-server operations like Server Beach.
Now let's say you want to add enhanced services such as conferencing or especially, speech recognition. Then you would have increased this figured by two to ten times, making this a million-dollar investment just to build a medium-sized system. Of course, you could start small and grow, but I am assuming that you were trying to build a system for scale, not an experimental hobby project. If you had been building a web service to handle 500 concurrent users, you could have done that with one or two off-the-shelf servers for 1/100th the cost.
Standards-Based Telephony and VoIP
The widespread adoption of SIP, and especially the release of a stable version of Asterisk, changed everything. It is now possible to develop telecom services in much the same way as web services, with a few important differences.
Using Asterisk, Freeswitch, and HMP (host media processing) services from leading telecom hardware vendors (including Intel and NMS), you can run a telecom app as a service on standard Intel servers. This radically simplifies things for developers, because you no longer need to build and install your own boxes. You can just provision servers on the fly at Server Beach, Rackspace, or a similar provider, and install these services and your apps remotely. This reduces data center costs by roughly tenfold.
With Asterisk and Freeswitch, you eliminate all of the per-port costs associated with specialized telecom hardware. With commercial HMP packages, per-port costs are reduced, by roughly 80 percent, to somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 per port unless you are using enhanced services like speech recognition.
With VoIP origination services, such as Voxbone, you eliminate all of your local loop costs. Companies like Voxbone offer inbound call transport for a flat per-port fee, usually $10-20 per port, with reasonable installation fees. It's not free, but it's way cheaper than local loop T1, and you can trunk calls into your system from over 50 countries worldwide, with no toll charges (something that was simply not possible a few years ago).
Let's revisit that 500-port switching application that would have required a six-figure investment a couple of years ago. Using open standards telephony and VoIP services, you could now prototype the same system for much less. Using a conservative assumption of 100 concurrent VoIP calls per Asterisk server, you would need to buy or rent five standard Intel servers, at a cost of about $2000 per month at a rented data center, or about $10,000 if bought outright. Since VoIP service can be provisioned almost instantly, you would be able to prototype your system with a small amount of ports, and then turn on the full 500 ports shortly before your system goes live. This eliminates another steep up-front cost when building larger-scale telecom services. The bottom line: what would have cost $200,000 to $1,000,000 to prototype now requires a much more modest investment, probably about $10,000 to $20,000, in hardware or data center costs.
Ongoing operations costs are slightly lower with VoIP than local loop circuits, depending on the country and region where your service will operate. Voxbone charges about $20/month per port, which is about the same as the per-port cost for a local loop T1 or ISDN line, but with one big difference: you can be trunking calls in from all over the world to one data center, something you could not do with conventional local loop service. Moreover, virtualizing the service eliminates the need for the T1 to be hardwired into an equipment cage, which reduces a lot of other operations costs (e.g., colo rental, on-site technicians to troubleshoot hardware, etc.). Rapid provisioning also enables you to scale on demand, so you don't make the mistake of ordering 1000 ports when you only need 200. All of these things combined reduce the cost of prototyping a medium-sized telecom app from six to seven figures to the low- to mid-five figures, a big reduction. It's still not so cheap that a couple of college students can build an app on their own dime, but the barrier to entry is a lot lower now than it ever has been before.
This, of course, does not factor in the cost of development. That, unfortunately, has not changed very much. Closed telecom systems provided a low-level C API that, while difficult to master, was well designed and logically mapped functions (e.g. play a WAV file to a caller) to tasks that typical systems needed to perform. Open source telecom environments, especially Asterisk, have actually made a leap backwards in terms of APIs. It pains me to say this, because I think Asterisk is otherwise a great platform, but its AGI interface (a CGI-like interface for building custom applications) is one of the least well designed and generally broken interfaces I've seen in telecom. This makes otherwise simple tasks (like playing a speech file while doing something in the background) a lot more complicated than they have to be. I hope Digium uses some of their newly gained VC funding to create a top-drawer API for custom application development.
Asterisk should go look at the Intel/Dialogic API and copy it function for function; then they'd have an interface that is more appropriate for developers. In any case, my point is that programming phone systems is more difficult than it needs to be. There are few rapid development tools out there, and those that exist today are either poorly supported or require licensing fees. You'll need to factor in a lot of developer time. I can't say how much because I don't know how simple or complicated your app is, but that is the one cost that has not decreased by a similar magnitude. Fortunately, if you're the founding team of a new company, you can work for ramen noodles for a few months to keep costs under control. Not that that is fun, but if you're not funded, you have to do what you have to.
Radio Handi
My current project (Radio Handi, a group communication and broadcasting platform) is a case in point. We developed a system that enables people to do flat-rate or free conference calls from over 30 countries, and worldwide via VoIP. The system integrates group voice (voice mail and conferencing), email listserv, and SMS communication, and interoperates with many different services, such as Gizmo and PhoneGnome. It cost under a million dollars to build, including developer time, and is a local call in most of the developed world.
If we had built a system with the today's features in Radio Handi several years ago, the resulting platform would have cost several million dollars to build. We would have needed a programmable switch with dedicated VoIP interface hardware. We would have needed leased T1s to provide local origination in remote markets. We would have needed a hardware-based conference bridge. I figure it would have ended up costing somewhere between $2 to $5 million, just for the hardware and facilities. Some aspects of the system, such as local access from 30+ countries or interoperability with SIP-based VoIP services (they didn't exist a few years ago), simply would not have been possible. Even if we had built it, the operations costs, specifically leased T1 lines, would have sunk the business or required us to charge steep per-minute fees that would have dramatically undermined its utility. So I don't think it would have been possible to build today's service just two or three years ago; things have changed that quickly.
Now is a great time for developers to experiment with telecom services. One I just spotted recently is Frucall. It enables you to call in and spot-check prices on goods using scan codes. It's not a new idea; several companies have tried some version of this before. But today the convergence of web services and cheap VoIP infrastructure will make services like this cheaper to build, more economically viable, and more likely to succeed. I remember that back in the mid-1990s, people had great expectations for telephone interfaces to things like product pricing databases. All of the ideas that were tried then made sense, but the expense of building and running them killed all but a handful (like MovieFone). Now the economics are getting closer to those of web services, which will enable smaller entrepreneurs to go after niche opportunities without having to raise millions just to build a prototype.
This is an important shift because the low cost of prototyping enables entrepreneurs to use the prototype as a form of real-world market research. If you have to commit several million dollars to build a prototype, you have to be sure there is a market big enough to support that investment. The problem is, you often don't know the real size of the market until you have a product to sell, and by then it's too late. With cheap prototyping, you can risk a five-digit investment, get some quick real-world feedback to confirm or refute your assumptions, and change course if you don't like what the market is saying.
That's a big deal because many successful web products (Flickr is one prominent example) started their lives as one thing before morphing into something altogether different.

subset: commoncrawl


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(BPT) - When it comes to game-day entertaining, pizza served with a full-flavored craft beer is sure to score big with your guests. Delicious and easy, guests can quickly grab a slice and a brew during the break in the action and get back to the game with a well-balanced pairing in hand. To kick it up a notch for your next game-day party, here are a few tips from pizza pro Mark Bello, of Pizza a Casa Pizza School in New York, along with a craft beer-infused pizza crust recipe that will have your guests feeling happy regardless of the score:
* Craft beer: the secret crust ingredient. When making pizza for your favorite sports fans, a full-flavored beer like Samuel Adams Boston Lager is the perfect ingredient to bring the crust to the next level. Both pizza crust and beer are made with grain, water and yeast, so they really complement each other. And the hops in beer can provide an inherent spice package that enhances the dimension of the recipe and brings the flavors of the crust to life.
* Finesse wins. Rather than attacking the dough, smashing it down and trying to push or pull it into shape, gently pat it down on a smooth, floured work surface, working it into a larger circle. Drive it around in a circle like you would the steering wheel of a car, and let gravity help you do the stretching.
* Plan your lineup. Trying to make a number of pizzas ready all at once for the hungry masses is unrealistic for the average home kitchen. Have your toppings ready to go before the game, so that you can quickly make and serve fresh pies throughout the party. Trot out a few at a time, mixing up the varieties as the game progresses. A 12- to 14-inch pizza can be sliced into 12 amply sized portions.
* Pick your players. Your pizza's the star, but having the right craft beer to pair with the pies can upgrade the experience. "With so many varying tastes in pizza, from the dough to the sauce, cheese and toppings, you need a well-balanced craft beer to work with the flavor combinations," says Bello. Samuel Adams Boston Lager has the rich, malt base to pair well with any style crust and has a great hop finish to match the acidity in the tomato sauce and richness of the cheese and toppings.
* The intangibles. A few simple rules can bring your pizza to championship-level. Get creative by using quality toppings that reflect your hometown team, but resist the urge to go overboard on ingredients; too much stuff and your pizza will be soggy and unsatisfying. Keep your oven door shut as much as possible for an evenly baked pie. Consider getting a pizza stone which is the best way to get a crispy crust like from a brick oven.
By following these tips and using a recipe that's a proven winner, you'll ensure your place in the game-day entertaining hall of fame. Try Bello's all-star recipe for the perfect crust.
Samuel Adams Boston Lager Infused Pizza Crust
Makes two crusts to be dressed and baked on a cookie sheet or pizza pan.
Approximately 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
1 packet instant yeast (highly active or bread machine yeast)
1 tablespoon fine granulation salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil plus more for greasing your rising container and oiling your cookie sheet, pizza pan or screen
12-ounce bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager
[Toppings of your choice]
*Warm Boston Lager to 120-130 F (temperature at which yeast will activate properly). Bring the bottle to temperature in a bowl of very warm (not boiling) water or by running it under hot water from the tap. Check with a thermometer if possible.
* In a 5 quart or larger bowl, combine flour, yeast, salt and oil.
* Add Boston Lager to flour mixture, and stir with a fork until the dough is lumpy. Then, go in with your hands. Gradually add flour as you knead to the point that the finished dough should be just slightly tacky and elastic. To tell when the dough is done, periodically poke it and when the dough gently springs back after you poke it, it is done. Don't worry if it is not perfectly smooth – don't over-knead it.
* Your finished dough, if you have a scale, will weigh right around 2 pounds. Break into two equal pieces.
* Ball each piece up and place each in a separate airtight container lightly greased with olive oil. Each container needs to be at least a quart in size to allow for each dough ball to double in size (deli quart containers work great).
* Set dough aside to rise in a warm location; 70-80 F is good. After dough has expanded up to double the original size (1-2 hours), gently remove from container and stretch to fit on a lightly greased 12- or 14-inch cookie sheet, pizza pan or pizza screen.
* Add toppings of your choice, and bake in a 500 F preheated oven until your crust and toppings are to your desired doneness (10 to 15 minutes).
* Take pizza out of the oven, allow a few minutes to cool. Then cut, serve and enjoy.


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Joined: 15 Jun 2015
Posts: 42
Location: Vinnland
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2016 9:50 pm
Post subject: Hellboy & Friends
Hellboy is still in action, but at a total weight of 18.4#, I needed something a little kinder to my joints for everyday use
. "Silver Sagan" fits the bill nicely, at a total weight of 9.4#. Not one to be left out of the fun, my 8-year-old son is getting started with a little shovelglove of his own, "Mjolnirsson," coming in at 3.4#.
Sorry for the lack of updates, here and on the blog. I'll post some soon.
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Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Cambridge, MA
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 5:59 pm
Post subject:
Wow, these are some beauts. Thanks for posting!
My 9 year old daughter will get jealous if she hears your son is starting -- not sure whether to keep that a secret or use it as a motivational tool.
Best of luck to you both and definitely keep us posted!
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Joined: 15 Jun 2015
Posts: 42
Location: Vinnland
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 2:17 pm
Post subject:
Haha, thanks Reinhard! I'm actually not a big advocate of "external resistance" training for kids (body weight exercise is fine), but I've got a regular little Tarzan on my hands here! He is very physically active, and his idea of fun is turning up some classic metal and cracking off sets of push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and squats
. I figured a light shovelglove would be safe and enjoyable for him, and the short handle further reduces any leveraged strain on his still-developing bones and joints.
Now his little brother (4) is asking for one... I think I'll buy a small, rubber mallet that he can use to play along.
In Shovelglove--among other things--you've definitely started something that's taken on a life of its own. It's quite a worthwhile legacy
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Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 5789
Location: Cambridge, MA
Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 12:40 pm
Post subject:
I got a flexbar thera-band for my "uppy elbow" aka "golfers elbow" that my three year old boy likes using as a sort of shovelglove (well, more like a straight up weapon really), he calls it "the rubber truncheon."
Not a bad gateway shovelglove... though now I sometimes have trouble finding where he's stashed it around the house.
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Joined: 15 Jun 2015
Posts: 42
Location: Vinnland
Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:11 am
Post subject:
Ah, parenting... "You're doing it right!"
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Joined: 21 Mar 2009
Posts: 10
Location: Oregon, United States
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 1:55 am
Post subject:
Reinhard: How's the flexbar working for you? I think I may have shugged my way into a case of "uppy elbow" as well.
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 12:43 pm
Post subject:
It's definitely helped significantly -- though I can't say it's 100% fixed (doesn't help that my 3-year-old son keeps hiding it!).
I feel fine shugging (with relatively low rep counts -- 14-16 usually -- per movement) and can even bang out modest numbers of chin-ups without pain (7 or so vs the 12 pull-ups I can currently do). These are big improvements -- for a while, even a single chin-up was torture. But it's not gone -- I should be able to do more chin-ups than pull-ups, and the acrobatics I used to be able to indulge in with my son with impunity are significantly more constrained.
Another caveat is that I'm not quite as perfect in my compliance about doing these exercises as I perhaps ought to be. I aim to do them twice every N day, three sets of 15 per session, massaging the affected area between sets. I'd guess my actual compliance is closer to 1.5 times a day on average, possibly even lower. The one time I do reliably get them in is when I do them as a pre-cursor to my morning shovelglove routine.
Anyway, best of luck figuring out what works for you and keep us posted. I hadn't though shovelglove was causally related here, but hey if you've got it too our antennae should be way up. My explanation had been "40+ year old dad can't quite keep up with a toddler anymore," and though I still lean to that, it can't hurt to be extra vigilant. It certainly makes logical sense that any frequently repeated movement could cause some form of repetitive stress injury. I've heared that simple doing too many pullups/chinups (as people are encouraged to do in the popular p90x workout) can also cause it.
So one thing I'd definitely advise is sticking with lower rep counts. Shovelglove shouldn't hurt. If it does, you're doing too many reps, or movements that you should skip entirely. You can always ramp up (slowly) when your body seems ready for it again.
All in all, I'm still convinced shovelglove is quite safe compared with other routines. In the 14 years I've been shovelgloving, this "uppy arm" is the most annoying thing I've run into, and as I mentioned, I'm far from sure that shovelglove caused it. Contrast this with running, about the most "normal" exercise anyone can do, yet leaves me injured several times a year (usually IT band), and I don't even pursue it all that rigorously.
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Joined: 21 Mar 2009
Posts: 10
Location: Oregon, United States
Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2016 4:57 am
Post subject:
Thanks for the info, Reinhard.
I should have qualified my previous post by saying that (a) I appear to have a rather mild case that gets sore but does not seriously restrict my activity and (b) I have no idea if it was brought on (in whole or in part) by shovelglove.
I'll do some research/experimentation and let you know how it goes!
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Joined: 06 Oct 2008
Posts: 9454
Location: San Diego, CA USA
Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 1:36 pm
Post subject:
Found this in a really old email. Just here to admire the artwork in the first post!
Count plates, not calories. Three a day. 9 years & counting
Age 65
SBMI Jan/10-30.8
Mar/13-24.9 Stayed at +/- 8-lb. for three years Sept/17 22.8 (but more fluctuation)
Mar/18 22.2
There is no S better than Vanilla No S.
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Ira Kenneth White, 71, passed on Oct. 5, 2012, at Freeman West ICU in Joplin, following a short illness.
Ira Kenneth White, 71, passed on Oct. 5, 2012, at Freeman West ICU in Joplin, following a short illness.
He was born on April 16, 1941 in Joplin, to Ira Kennard and Edith (Dixon) White.
Being a lifelong resident, Mr. White was a self-employed general contractor and an avid fisherman.
Ira married Catherine Sarah Baker on April 10, 1991 and she preceded him in death on Dec. 25, 2002.
He was also preceded in death by his parents.
He is survived by four children, Audra and husband, Donnie Lowery, Joplin, Marvin and wife, Michelle White, Neosho, Dorothy and husband, Randy Shoemaker, Webb City; Ira and wife, Vicki White, Carl Junction; a brother, Jim and wife, Lila White of the state of Florida; two sisters, Evelyn and husband, Clyde Ward, Webb City, Pauline Fawver, Springfield, Mo.; numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Graveside services will be held 10 a.m., Tuesday at Osborne Cemetery Joplin. Friends may call from 9 –7 p.m. Monday with family receiving friends from 6-7 p.m. at Clark Funeral Home Neosho.
Arrangements are under the direction of Clark Funeral Home, Neosho.
Online condolences may be posted at www.clarkfuneralhomes.com.


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The rapid growth in data volumes requires new computer systems that scale out across hundreds of machines. While early frameworks, such as MapReduce, handled large-scale batch processing, the demands on these systems have also grown. Users quickly needed to run (1) more interactive ad-hoc queries, (2) more complex multi-pass algorithms (e.g. machine learning and graph processing), and (3) real-time processing on large data streams. In this talk, we present a single abstraction, resilient distributed datasets (RDDs), that supports all of these emerging workloads by providing efficient and fault-tolerant in-memory data sharing. We have used RDDs to build a stack of computing systems including the Spark parallel engine, Shark SQL processor, and Spark Streaming engine. Spark and Shark can run machine learning algorithms and interactive queries up to 100x faster than Hadoop MapReduce, while Spark Streaming enables fault-tolerant stream processing at significantly higher scales than were possible before. These systems, along with several resource allocation and scheduling algorithms we have developed along the way, have been used in multiple industry and research applications, and have a growing open source community with 14 companies contributing in the past year.
Matei Zaharia is a PhD student at UC Berkeley, working with Scott Shenker and Ion Stoica on topics in systems, cloud computing and networking. He is also a committer on Apache Mesos and Apache Hadoop. His work is supported by Google PhD fellowship. Matei got his undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo in Canada.


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Dunk Of The Week: Amateur Hooper Got Bunnies! (Sh*ts On NBA Player "Pooh Jeter")
"6'5 Tim Trew taking flight on Eugene "Pooh" Jeter at the one and only Drew League." . Posted by @Mahad_worldstar
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The population rate of change of San Leandro, CA was 0.80% in 2016. The population rate of change of Vacaville, CA was 0.86% in 2016.
Population Change
Above charts are based on data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey | ODN Dataset | API -
Demographics and Population Datasets Involving San Leandro, CA or Vacaville, CA
San Mateo County And California Crime Rates 2000-2014performance.smcgov.org | Last Updated 2016-08-31T20:40:07.000Z
Violent and property crime rates per 100,000 population for San Mateo County and the State of California. The total crimes used to calculate the rates for San Mateo County include data from: Sheriff's Department Unincorporated, Atherton, Belmont, Brisbane, Broadmoor, Burlingame, Colma, Daly City, East Palo Alto, Foster City, Half Moon Bay, Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Pacifica, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Carlos, San Mateo, South San Francisco, Bay Area DPR, BART, Union Pacific Railroad, and CA Highway Patrol.
Student Demographics by Schooldata.smcgov.org | Last Updated 2016-05-11T22:50:51.000Z
School-level enrollment by racial/ethnic designation, gender, and grade for 2007 - 2013. This dataset includes ethnicity, race, and gender data for schools in San Mateo County. Grades range from kindergarten through high school and include adult education students
Demographic Profile of Family PACT Clients Served by Fiscal Yearchhs.data.ca.gov | Last Updated 2017-06-15T22:43:29.000Z
This dataset includes demographics of clients served by the Family Planning, Access, Care, and Treatment (Family PACT) Program between 1997 and 2015. Family PACT is administered by the California Department of Health Care Services, Office of Family Planning (OFP) and has been operating since 1997 to provide family planning and reproductive health services at no cost to California's low-income residents of reproductive age. The program offers comprehensive family planning services, including contraception, pregnancy testing, and sterilization, as well as sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing and limited cancer screening services. Demographic variables listed in the table include sex, age, race/ethnicity, language, and parity. Parity is defined as the number of live births reported at the time of enrollment or recertification for the Family PACT program. Clients are recertified annually and are considered served only if they had a paid claim. Age, race/ethnicity, language, and parity variables were self-reported by clients at time of enrollment and recertification.
CHA - Demographics -- Total Populationdata.communityvitalsigns.org | Last Updated 2019-01-23T21:04:02.000Z
Economy and Education Indicators, San Bernardino County and California, 2005-2014data.communityvitalsigns.org | Last Updated 2016-03-01T19:43:41.000Z
This dataset contains high school graduation rates from 2010-2014 for San Bernardino County and California (from California Department of Education, California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, Cohort Outcome Data by Gender Report), and percentage of the adult population age 25 years and older with a bachelor's degree or higher, median household income in the past 12 months (adjusted annually for inflation), and unemployment rate for the population age 16 years and older, for San Bernardino County and California from 2005-2014 (U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Tables B19013, S1501 and S2301).
Population Percentage Within a Quarter Mile of Alcohol Outlets 2014chhs.data.ca.gov | Last Updated 2017-02-17T22:34:56.000Z
This table contains data on the percentage of the total population living within 1/4 mile of alcohol outlets (off-sale, on-sale, total) for California, its regions, counties, county divisions, cities, towns, and Census tracts. Population data is from the 2010 Decennial Census, while the alcohol outlet location data is from 2014 (April). Race/ethnicity stratification is included in the table. The table is part of a series of indicators in the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project of the Office of Health Equity (http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Pages/HealthyCommunityIndicators.aspx). Some studies have found that proximity to alcohol outlets (living within walking distance) is positively associated with outcomes like excessive alcohol consumption and other alcohol related harms like injuries and violence. More information on the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the About/Attachments section.
Hospitalizations, San Bernardino County and California, 2005-2014data.communityvitalsigns.org | Last Updated 2016-03-03T19:15:58.000Z
High School Cohort Outcome Data by Gender and Race/Ethnicity, San Bernardino County, 2010-2015data.communityvitalsigns.org | Last Updated 2017-03-01T19:54:30.000Z
This dataset contains a number of outcome variables for high school cohorts for school years ending in 2010-2015 in San Bernardino County, by race/ethnicity and gender.
San Francisco Municipal Greenhouse Gas Inventorydata.sfgov.org | Last Updated 2019-01-15T17:49:05.000Z
The purpose of the San Francisco Municipal Greenhouse Gas Inventory is to measure and track departmental greenhouse gas emissions as part of the City's climate action strategy. Per Environment Code Chapter 9, this data is collected and calculated by the Department of the Environment. Note: Data as of 10/20/18. San Francisco municipal greenhouse gas inventory for Fiscal Years 2012 per the California Air Resources Board's Local Government Operations Protocol Version 1.1 (May 2010). Third-party verification of Fiscal Year 2012 which was completed in March 2015 is available at http://sfenvironment.org/download/fiscal-year-2012-municipal-ghg-inventory-memo Since the third-party verification was conducted, the following minor edits were made to the dataset: - The CH4/N2O scaling factor applied to SFMTA gasoline changed from 1.025 to 1.022 and SFMTA CNG changed from 1.032 to 1.022 - More up to date wastewater emission data was obtained
Housing Crowding 2006-2010chhs.data.ca.gov | Last Updated 2017-06-14T20:10:39.000Z
This table contains data on the percent of household overcrowding (> 1.0 persons per room) and severe overcrowding (> 1.5 persons per room)for California, its regions, counties, and cities/towns. Data is from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Consolidated Planning Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS). The table is part of a series of indicators in the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project of the Office of Health Equity (https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/Healthy-Communities-Data-and-Indicators-Project-(HCI).aspx). Residential crowding has been linked to an increased risk of infection from communicable diseases, a higher prevalence of respiratory ailments, and greater vulnerability to homelessness among the poor. Residential crowding reflects demographic and socioeconomic conditions. Older-adult immigrant and recent immigrant communities, families with low income and renter-occupied households are more likely to experience household crowding. A form of residential overcrowding known as "doubling up"—co-residence with family members or friends for economic reasons—is the most commonly reported prior living situation for families and individuals before the onset of homelessness. More information about the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the Attachments.


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Apart from the merits of lendl (my favourite player) and mcenroe, (very much not my favourite) i'm also wondering on whether anyone out there used (or still uses) the Yonex R22.
I had an R22 back in the 80s and it's still my favourite racquet. I bought an R27 a little later and found it to be difficult to use and control and not a patch on its less expensive sibling.
Does anyone have a view on the R22?
Secondly, as I'm looking to buy a new racquet (I've still got the R27 as I haven't been playing much in the past 10 years or so) could anyone recommend something with the same general characteristics as the R22 (i.e light, versatile, easy to use)??? All comments/suggestions welcomed. Thanks


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Several medicines may be used to treat
muscle stiffness (spasticity) caused by
multiple sclerosis (MS).
Often a combination of these medicines given in small
doses is better tolerated and more effective than a larger dose of a single
Some people try alternative therapy. One study found
that 97% of people who used marijuana reported improvement in spasticity and
Carbamazepine (Tegretol), which is a seizure
medicine, benzodiazepines such as diazepam (Valium) and clonazepam
(Klonopin), and beta-blockers, especially propranolol (Inderal), may have some
benefit in treating
tremors caused by MS.
Severe tremors are
very hard to treat. If they do not respond to medicine, surgery may be
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a
warning on seizure medicines and the risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts. The
FDA does not recommend that people stop using these medicines. Instead, people
who take seizure medicine should be watched closely for
warning signs of suicide. People who take seizure
medicine and who are worried about this side effect should talk to a
CitationsSimpson DM, et al. (2008). Assessment: Botulinum neurotoxin for the treatment of spasticity (and evidence-based review): Report of the Therapeutics and Technology Assessment Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Neurology, 70(19): 1691–1698.Krupp LB, Rizvi SA (2002). Symptomatic therapy for
underrecognized manifestations of multiple sclerosis. Neurology: Practical Issues in the Management of Multiple Sclerosis, 58(Suppl 4): S32–S39.
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An online survey has indicated that about a quarter of Christians are 'not very Christian' in how they live their daily lives. The Christianity Quiz, which was created by the nonprofit Changing the Face of Christianity, includes 10 multiple-choice questions that assess how anonymous participants live their faith. In data taken from January 2011 to October 2012, which included 8,475 responses, the Quiz found that 71.6 per cent of respondents were either "Good Christians" or "Spiritually Mature Christians". By contrast, 24.8 per cent of respondents were identified as "Worldly Christians" and 3.6 per cent were identified as "Far from Christ". Changing the Face of Christianity defined a "Worldly Christian" as someone who lives much like their non-Christian peers and deals with challenges with little regard to what Christianity teaches. R Brad White, founder of Changing the Face of Christianity, told The Christian Post that he was unsurprised by the results. "We've run this study for close to two years now and we've checked in on the results several times. This latest update is our first cumulative look at the 22 months of data," said White. "These 'worldly Christians' or people we categorise as 'far from Christ' are doing incredible damage to our faith. They are a stumbling block to people who are considering Christianity." Questions asked on the quiz include asking the respondent how often they read the Bible and what they would do in certain real-life circumstances like someone cutting them off on the highway. "For those that don't score very well, we hope it convicts them with a desire to study the Bible and pursue a more loving relationship with God and others," said White. White told CP that he felt these findings should prompt churches and congregations to "wake up and take this seriously". "Churches should be about helping followers to become spiritually mature disciples of Jesus Christ. But, I would also say that the responsibility isn't just with churches, pastors and church leaders," said White. "The responsibility lies with individual Christians within the fellowship of a supportive church community. How many people accept Jesus Christ as their saviour but have absolutely no initiative and no plan on how to truly become a living disciple of Jesus Christ in their daily life?" Authors: Christianity Today
Jesus-News weiterlesen http://www.christiantoday.com/article/worldly.christians.are.damaging.the.faith/31883.htm


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Packers/Seahawks Week 3 Having an extra day this week to heal up was advantageous for both teams. Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks should have wide receiver Charly Martin (Chest) and starting left tackle Russell Okung (Knee) back this week. Last week Frank Omiyale filled in brilliantly for Okung, yet it's always good to have your starting left tackle […]
The weekly Seahawks Infirmary for Week 3
September 22, 2012 By Brett Bivens
Filed Under: Seattle Seahawks Blog Tagged With: Byron Maxwell, Charly Martin, CJ Wilson, Davon House, Doug Baldwin, Eric Walden, Evan Dietrich-Smith, Greg Jennings, Jamari Lattimore, John Schneider, Josh Sitton, Marshawn Lynch, Mike McCarthy, Monday Night Football, Monday Night Football injury report, Nick Perry, Packers injury report, Pete Carroll, Russell Okung, Seahawks injury report, Seahawks vs Packers, Seattle Seahawks, Sidney Rice, Zach Miller


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Sarah Paulson's Cinematic Moment (Thanks to Steven Spielberg)
There is a scene in Steven Spielberg's hypnotic new film, "The Post," where Washington Post editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), tells his wife Tony (Sarah Paulson) about owner Katherine "Kay" Graham's (Meryl Streep) decision to allow publication of excerpts of the Pentagon Papers. Tony expresses admiration for Kay's bravery. Ben, slighted, points out his own courage. Tony, while allowing him his pat on the back, goes into detail about exactly how much Kay has to lose by making this life-changing decision. It's a powerful scene, one of the most moving in the film, made much more potent today with the daily revelations about just how much women have been undercut, mistreated and power-bullied in the recent past.
And Sarah Paulson plays it beautifully. It is her moment.
The film, written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, could easily act as a prequel to Alan J. Pakula's seminal "All the President's Men." The Redford/Hoffman vehicle focused mostly on the journalists, Woodward and Bernstein. "The Post" tilts more towards Graham (who is strangely absent from the Pakula film) and her journey.
And while the two leads, especially Streep, carry the weight of the story, the supporting cast does tremendous work.
Sarah Paulson in "The Post"
Golden Globe, SAG and Emmy winner (for the role of Marcia Clark in "American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson") Paulson is part of the gifted ensemble playing Antoinette "Tony" Bradlee, DC's preeminent '50s/'60s social hostess who was said to have been "admired" by JFK. "She was a ceramicist, and she wasn't all that interested in the political scene," Paulson explains. "She did it well-she put on the dress and she'd have the people over to parties-but she wasn't going slave away in the kitchen. She had her own life."
"The Post" continues Paulson's involvement in critically acclaimed ensemble movies ("Carol," "12 Years a Slave") as well as Emmy-nominated TV projects ("American Horror Story," "Game Change") and acclaimed stage work ("The Glass Menagerie" opposite Jessica Lange on Broadway, "The Cherry Orchard" opposite Annette Bening).
Two years ago, Paulson bravely announced to the world that she was in a same-sex relationship with actress Holland Taylor.
EDGE spoke with the sincere and dedicated Paulson while promoting the Oscar-bound Spielberg film.
Sarah Paulson at the 2017 Tony Awards. (photo: AP)
EDGE: Talk about making an impression. You have a potent moment that really resonates with today. How did you feel when you read the scene, played it and then saw it onscreen?
Sarah Paulson: Well I have yet to see it onscreen because I'm a big, big fan of not watching my work! But I can speak about what it felt to read it and to play it. It was the reason I said yes to doing the movie. There was obviously a lot to recommend my doing that movie, 'cause I don't know if you've heard of Steven Spielberg or Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep. (Laughs) That was reason enough. Then I got to that moment in the script and I thought, well this is the moment-I just loved that it was the wife [of] the powerful editor-a man-and that character was able to distill the basic driving force behind Kay's choice, which is her bravery and how much she has to lose. How much is at stake. How much is at risk.
I think a lot of times men don't always realize their particular vantage point is one of great luxury in terms of having the confidence and ability to speak up and know that they'll be heard. Women don't always feel that and sometimes it's nice to have a woman shed some light, [give] their perspective.
Sarah Paulson at the 2017 SAG Awards.
EDGE: How did the part come to you?
Sarah Paulson: What happened was when we were promoting the O.J. Simpson series, John Travolta told me that he had been getting text messages from Steven Spielberg saying how much he loved the show and that he mentioned, "Oh, Sarah's great." And I made him show me the text because I didn't believe him... it was obviously a big thrill.
Then I got a phone call from my agent saying that Steven Spielberg would like to sit down with you. There's a part or two if you're interested. You could meet him and see if we could make it work because I was about to start shooting "American Horror Story" at the same time... but it all worked out. It was one of the more exciting moments in my career where you realize, wow, I got offered a role in a Steven Spielberg movie, opposite Tom Hanks, and I didn't audition. I went into a room and sat across from Steven Spielberg, and he told me about the character and about the movie. And he told me how much he loved watching me on "People vs. O.J." It was all kind of a mirage-y, pinch yourself, bucket list moment.
EDGE: Can you speak about your process and did it meld well with Spielberg's?
Sarah Paulson: The thing about Steven that I find so refreshing-you don't always find this-is he does know exactly what he wants... I knew I was in such good, safe, capable hands that I should just trust him and take that running leap and do that vault and just have confidence that someone was going to put a big net under me to protect me if I fell. So there was something exciting, live wire about it because we didn't rehearse a lot. It was a new experience for me in that way, but if I was going to have that experience of not having a lot of ramp up, the person you want to do that with is Steven Spielberg because you just know it's going to be okay.
Sarah Paulson. (photo: AP)
EDGE: Would you share your thoughts on these hopeful changing times for the industry in terms of blowing the lid off the sexual misconduct and power abuse that has been going on forever. Did you ever felt discriminated against for being a woman?
Sarah Paulson: I can't speak about it in terms of a specific incident that was particularly alarming to me or a time when I felt particularly unsafe, but I think there is something that is ingrained in me from my childhood simply by virtue of being a woman living in the world that I always felt unsure about how safe it would be to communicate any experience I was having to any powers-that-be, particularly if they were men. Not because of anything they were doing per se but because of a societal culture that keeps women more reserved in their communications.
Certainly, when I played Marsha Clark I thought about this a lot in terms of being discriminated against because of your gender. And all the positive words used to describe men become real negative when you use them to describe women. And that's a scary world to inhabit. It feels like something is shifting on its axis. And it feels like it's being done with a lot of muscle with a lot of women all supporting each other and I have high hopes that this is going to be the real move towards a real new world.
EDGE: Speaking of bravery earlier, it was rather brave of you to publicly announce you were in a same-sex relationship close to two years ago. Was that an easy call for you? And do you feel things have gotten more accepting in the industry?
Sarah Paulson: Because I've always marched to the beat of my own drum, I wasn't really thinking about it in terms of how it would or could affect my career negatively. And I have spent so much time in the Ryan Murphy world where you couldn't feel more supportive for being an individual... There's a certain amount of acceptance that is very liberating so I had a very safe launching pad, personally, into the galaxy of recognizability. So I felt very safe and very protected.
But I did have people in my life, not necessarily in my work life, some friends who were a little concerned that it could be troubling. Not just that I was with a woman but that she was so much older than I am. Sometimes I think people really don't know what to do with things they don't understand or things they can't fathom. So they decide something about it is untoward. I was just so happy and so excited to be with this person that I wasn't really thinking about what other people thought.
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor. (photo: AP)
EDGE: "The Post" very eerily evokes today's political mess. Do you think that art can change people's minds?
Sarah Paulson: I think anytime you put a particularly potent story in front of people and you give it to them with Spielberg behind the lens and Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in front of the camera, you are automatically inviting more people to think about what the movie is positing. And I think anytime anyone is doing something true and real and honest you're liable to open some minds and eyes that perhaps were closed. I think any artistic expression that has truth in it-and I don't just mean in the factual sense; I mean anything that resonates emotionally or spiritually-when you deliver it in a package like this one I think people will pay attention. And I think your job as an artist is to try and bring as many stories and as many different types of lives and experiences forward so that people can see things they never saw before.
EDGE: You're enjoying a much-deserved Sarah Paulson moment right now on both the big and small screens. Have you been able to stop and just enjoy it?
Sarah Paulson: (Laughs) It's funny that you ask that. I am moving at a pace these days that makes it kind of hard to stop and smell the roses. But there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think: I cannot believe that you wanted to do this as a child and you're getting to do it. I've made this joke before. I have a very good friend who's also an actress and sometimes we'll just go to lunch and eat a sandwich and think, I bought this sandwich with acting. And that's a kind of incredible thing to be able to make your living doing something that you are incredibly passionate about. It's so rare. I have plenty of people in my life who are doing things that don't stir their soul. So I am grateful every day. But I haven't had time to let any of it really sink in, which is a good thing. It means I'm showing up every day and doing my work, which can only be good.
Sarah Paulson in "American Horror Story: Cult".
EDGE: Are we going to see you on the New York stage anytime soon?
Sarah Paulson: I'm desperate to make that happen but I have some television and film commitments that might see me busy for the next year or so. I have my eye on it. There have been a couple of things I've been talking to people about, but it's about trying to find the right time.
EDGE: Todd Haynes' "Carol" is an EDGE favorite and you were an important part of that ensemble. What was it like working with Haynes and do you have a takeaway from that film?
Sarah Paulson: Working with him was another bucket list, dreamy, pinch-me kind of moment. I had admired him for so many years. I remember where I was when I saw his movie "Safe" for the first time. It was seminal in my movie-going experience that defined my own artistic taste so I couldn't believe I got to work with him. It was just extraordinary on every level. We had an extraordinary DP, we had an incredible script by Phyliss (Nagy). Cate and Rooney were at the top of their game. And Todd. So it was just a real embarrassment of riches for me, again, to be part of an ensemble of people trying to move a story along and perhaps open some people's eyes about the power of love.
"The Post" opens in limited release on December 22 and goes wide in January.
Watch the trailer to "The Post":


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2:30 pm
Hometime "Creekside Home Kitchen and Baths" Discover new ways to combine style and function in a home's most important areas. D
3:00 pm
Woodsmith Shop "Hall Storage Bench" The Woodsmith editors build a hall storage bench with loose-tenon joinery made with a simple shop-made jig and a router. D
3:30 pm
This Old House "Arlington Italianate Project 2014/Concrete Jungle" Working around the antique fieldstone foundation, Kevin and Norm find Tom and mason Mark McCullough replacing the inadequate foundation under the addition and pouring a new slab in the basement with a concrete curb to bolster the walls. Breaking through the living room ceiling, they discover a lot more headroom, along with the original plaster molding and medallion, almost completely intact. D
4:00 pm
Ask This Old House "Installing Crown Molding in Seattle/Replacing a Rotted Fence Post" Tom heads to Seattle to install crown molding. Roger replaces a rotted fence post. Kevin explains the difference between cement, concrete and mortar. D
4:30 pm
Growing a Greener World "Victory Garden Movement - The Peterson Project (Chicago)" As victory gardens are springing up across the country, we visit one historical Chicago victory garden where growing food is also growing communities. D
5:00 pm
Dialogue "Preserving Public Memory" Brent Glass, director emeritus of the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, talks about the ways in which museums, historical sites and memorials are increasingly involving the public in their exhibits, and the importance of preserving public memory.G
5:30 pm
In The Americas with David Yetman "In The Shadow of the Volcanoes: Chile's Melting Pot" In southern Chile, Yetman finds a land of forests, lakes and volcanoes, which is home to the Mapuche Indians and German and Italian immigrant communities.G
6:00 pm
PBS NewsHour Weekend In November, India launched a mission to Mars in an attempt to become the fourth nation and first Asian country to reach the red planet. The Indian Mars Orbiter Mission is a point of immense national pride and will be completed for just over $70 million dollars, a tiny fraction of the cost spent by NASA on similar programs. But is spending any resources on a mission to Mars wise when hundreds of millions of Indians struggle to meet basic needs? Hari Sreenivasan reports from Bangalore, India. D
6:30 pm
British Antiques Roadshow "Hatfield 1" Fiona Bruce and the team are in Hertfordshire where they find a collection of almost 500 ornamental pigs, doll house furniture made out of shell cases on the Somme in World War I, and three small tiles salvaged by a builder that turn out to be worth a fortune.G
7:00 pm
Outdoor Idaho "Trip to the Moon" One early traveler called it the strangest 75 square miles in North America. Characterized by one of the only continental hot spots in the world, Craters of the Moon encompasses three quarters of a million acres of lava flows, sagebrush, rolling hills... and a few surprises. Part of it is managed by the National Park Service, as a national monument. And it may be as close as any of us will ever come to a trip to the moon.G
7:29 pm
Oregon Field Guide "Disappearing Frogs Update, Imperial Stock Ranch, Thundereggs" Researchers find global amphibian decline has complex causes, including UV radiation, water mold, chytrid fungus, aggressive bullfrogs and habitat destruction.G
8:00 pm
Masterpiece Classic "Downton Abbey (S4 E2)" The fates of several characters converge at a glittering house party for more than a dozen guests, who bring with them their various maids and valets. Guest star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa portrays famous early 20th-century opera diva Nellie Melba. Edith's Mr. Gregson impresses Robert, and Anna faces trouble. Part 2 of 8G
9:00 pm
Masterpiece Classic "Downton Abbey (S4 E3)" Love is in the air at Downton Abbey, and darker emotions too, as Mary, Edith, Tom and Anna each struggle with a dilemma. Dr. Clarkson and cousin Isobel get Lady Violet to hire a young boy, Pegg, as a new gardener. Part 3 of 8G
9:58 pm
Masterpiece Mystery! "Sherlock, Series III: The Empty Hearse" Sherlock returns at his own funeral. But for John Watson, it might be a case of "be careful what you wish for."G


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Star League
Sarna News
- MechCommander Gold - Darkest Hours Gets 4.0 Release
- Update On Beginner Box Set And BattleTech: Game Of Armored Combat
- Sarna Wishes You All A Happy Holidays!
- Mech_Con Roundup Day 2 - Harebrained Show, Catalyst Announcements, And A New MWOWC Champion!
- Mech_Con 2018 Roundup Day 1 - MW5 Release Date, Trailers, And A New 'Mech!
- Read more →
- This article is about the interstellar nation. For the McKenna-class WarShip, see Star League (Vessel).
|Star League
|Faction Profile
|Time period:
|2570 – 2780
|Controlled systems:
|~ 2000
|Capital world:
|Ruler title:
|First Lord
|Star League Defense Force (SLDF)
|Secret Service:
The brainchild of Ian Cameron, the Star League was a self-policing interstellar council formed from the Terran Hegemony, the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere, and the Territorial States of the Periphery. Each of the States of the Star League was required to provide soldiers and war materiel for the mutual protection of the Star League Defense Force, but otherwise was allowed to maintain its own standing army, and even conduct (rare) small-scale wars. Though not completely stable, the relative peace, prosperity, and advanced technology of the Star League have led many to consider the Star League as the zenith of human civilization.
- 1 History
- 2 Rulers
- 3 The Cameron Star - The Insignia of the Star League
- 4 Politics
- 5 Second Star League
- 6 See Also
- 7 References
- 8 Bibliography
The first treaties of the Star League were penned by the Terran Hegemony, the Capellan Confederation, and the Free Worlds League in 2556. Following these initial treaties, the Lyran Commonwealth (2558), the Federated Suns (2567), and finally the Draconis Combine (2569) also signed. The Star League was officially born with the July 9, 2571 signing of the Star League Accords by Ian Cameron and the five house lords.
In one of his first acts, First Lord Ian Cameron appointed his wife, Shandra Noruff-Cameron as Chief of Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the yet unformed Star League Defense Forces. Dividing the SLDF up into six Military Regions, the capitals being Asta, Altair, Fomalhaut, Procyon, Sirius and Rigil Kentarus, each region stood between a Member State and Terra itself. Shandra assured each region would have few troops from a bordering Member State to prevent insurrection, and assigned loyal Hegemony divisions as the core of each region's command structure. The SLDF also maintained another 4 military command structures, one based on Terra, two reserve divisions, and an elite, rapid-response division known as the Star Guards.
Reunification War
During Ian's reign, efforts were made to bring the Periphery into the League. Through the various bloody battles in the Reunification War, a cease-fire was reached with the Outworlds Alliance in 2585, the Magistracy of Canopus was defeated in 2588, the insurrection in the Rim Worlds Republic was extinguished in 2596, and the Taurian Concordat was finally defeated in 2596. Each Periphery realm in turn was forced through a reconstruction (at the cost of the conquered realm), and some worlds (particularly Taurian worlds) were annexed by neighboring Member States. Upon completion of reconstruction, each Periphery realm was made a non-voting Territorial State. Though these territorial states held little external sway, each was allowed to enact Star League laws as it saw fit; usually all Star League laws passed through little more than a legislative rubber stamp.
In 2600, Lady Shandra Noruff-Cameron died, followed two years later by Lord Ian. Ian's son Nicholas was then declared leader of the Star League. During Nicholas' reign, the League narrowly averted a war with an unbalanced Leonard Kurita and the Draconis Combine, avoided when the shamed Kurita family assassinated the Coordinator. Another feature of Nicholas' reign was a string of important technological breakthroughs, the most significant of which include the HyperPulse generator, new water purification procedures, medical advances, and neural-dimensional computer technology, all leading to rapid expansion of the Star League. Marrying Lydia Petersen, Duchess of Bryant earlier, in 2598, their son Joseph was born two years later. In 2646, Nicholas Cameron designated Michael Cameron, Joseph's son, as his successor, who assumed power in 2649 upon Nicholas' death.
Michael's reign was characterized by incidents with the Rim Worlds Republic and House Kurita, with the Draconis Combine encouraging independent Mechwarriors to engage SLDF forces in self-proclaimed 'duels' in the First Hidden War. On October 13, 2690, Michael retired after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and Jonathan Cameron, his oldest son, was designated his replacement.
During his reign, Jonathan engaged in a build-up of SLDF forces. First Lord Jonathan declared that Royal units would receive new technology first, with house units receiving it as hand-me-downs many years later, and saw to the construction of Space Defense Systems in major Hegemony systems, composed of drone WarShips, computer-run spaceports, and huge ground-based laser and missile emplacements designed to mop up any remaining invaders. Jonathan faced renewed cries of discontent in the Periphery and a second political crisis from the Draconis Combine, when House Kurita launched the Second Hidden War against House Davion over the question of Kurita succession to the Davion throne. Unstable and unable to rule, Jonathan consulted his sister, Jocasta Cameron, more and more often, with Jocasta in effect becoming the defacto leader of the Star League. The appearance of five crack Star League divisions shocked both sides of the Second Hidden War into agreeing to a cease-fire, and the issue was resolved in Davion's favor. In 2738, Jonathan Cameron died of a stroke, and Mother Jocasta handed over the Star League to Jonathan's son, Simon.
With the growing discontent in the Periphery and worried that Periphery forces could soon rival that of the Regular Army, First Lord Simon instructed that more fortresses be built in and along the Periphery border. The only Periphery kingdom apparently supporting the Star League was the Rim Worlds Republic, the high praise and show of admiration from the Amaris family, rulers of the Republic, only making some observers skeptical, aggravated by the hidden Rim World forces bringing its power two to three times above the allowed numbers.
Waning Years
Angered by the lag in the Star League forcing a cease fire between the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine, Richard Davion slowly withdrew its cooperation from Simon's reign, as Houses Davion and Kurita drifted further and further from participation in the Star League. Finally, in 2751, Simon Cameron died, his peace initiatives a failure, leaving his eight year old son, Richard Cameron II the only successor. The five Lords convened on Terra and appointed General Aleksandr Kerensky, commanding officer of the Star League Defense Forces as Richard's Regent and Protector.
The Amaris Coup
Stefan Amaris, ruler of the Rim Worlds Republic, slowly began working his way in as a "friend" of the young Richard, poisoning the young First Lord Richard's thoughts. When the Council Lords imposed a series of heavy taxes on the Periphery worlds, heavy fighting broke out, drawing in more of the SLDF forces, the new tax money being redirected to help the house Lords build up their own forces. Richard now saw Amaris as his closest friend and confidant, and Amaris took advantage of this, convincing Richard to remove all SLDF forces from the Rim Worlds Republic and ordered all SLDF bases and fortresses be turned over to the Rim Worlds Republic. After attempts to strip bases of technology, some managed to fall into Republic hands.
Stefan Amaris continued to expand his influence on Richard, as the Houses started skirmishing on the verge of Richard's majority. In an act of revenge for slights cooked up by Amaris, Richard ordered all House armed forces to be disbanded. Angered by this, the Lords protested, and when convinced by Kerensky on the illegality of the action, Richard rescinded his previous order.
Convinced by Amaris that Kerensky and the House Lords were against him, Richard became even more embittered. When the Periphery again exploded in violence, with Amaris as its chief architect. As more and more of the SLDF forces were required to fight the war in the Periphery, Amaris offered the service of Rim Worlds forces to help defend the Terran Hegemony. Under objections, Amaris' offer was accepted.
As discrepancies showed up, with many more Rim Worlds forces seeming to arrive than planned, House Kurita unsuccessfully requested that joint action be taken against the Republic. As more and more bases were placed under Republic control, Stefan Amaris proceeded to Terra and assassinated Richard and all remaining members of the Cameron family, taking power of the Star League, removing any trace of the Star League he could.
Involved with fighting in the Periphery, Kerensky regrouped and quickly took the Rim Worlds Republic. After some rest, Kerensky divided his forces up into three groups, one to travel through each of the accommodating houses toward the Hegemony. As time wore on, Kerensky's forces had only captured eleven worlds and were contesting another ten, while losing 30 divisions and 40 major warships. As Amaris forces withdrew to regroup, Kerensky advanced further, finally capturing the worlds nearest Terra.
On January 23, 2777, soldiers on eight worlds moved towards Terra and finally captured the planet after a bloody battle and over 100 million total dead, on September of 2779. Amaris and his family were executed soon after Kerensky heard of the fate of Richard Cameron and his family.
A year later, on October 10, 2780, the Council Lords gathered and stripped Kerensky of his title of Protector, refusing an offer by General DeChavilier to help overthrow the House Lords. Ten months later, the Lords had still not reached a decision on a successor for the position of First Lord, each claiming the position for him or herself, the Council being dissolved by the Lords on August 12, 2781. As the spirit of the Star League began eroding, Kerensky gathered 80 percent of the SLDF forces, and they jumped out of the Inner Sphere, not to be seen again for nearly 270 years, completing the collapse of the Star League. The Collapse caused the Succession Wars.
|First Lord of the Star League, 2571 - 2765
|Ian Cameron
|2571 - 2602
|Nicholas Cameron
|2602 - 2649
|Son of Ian
|Michael Cameron II
|2649 - 2690
|Grandson of Nicholas
|Jonathan Cameron
|2690 - 2738
|Son of Michael
|Simon Cameron
|2738 - 2751
|Son of Jonathan
|Richard Cameron
|2751 - 2765
|Son of Simon
The Cameron Star - The Insignia of the Star League
The insignia of the Star League and its defense force, a star with two of its rays longer than the others, would emerge from humble beginnings in the months prior to the formal declaration of the new realm. Dismissing a number of options either for similarity to the star-burst of the Federated Suns or their lack of acknowledgement of the Periphery realms, Ian Cameron's visit to his young niece Tomasina Cameron-Havley and her flawed attempt at drawing a symmetrical star would provide the First Lord with a strong concept that appealed to both him and other other Council lords, with Star League Directive 1 formally recognizing it as the official emblem of the Star League on 10 July 2571.[1] [2]
The Cameron Star would adorn a number of military and civil awards. Despite including no Cameron lineage, the revived Second Star League would retain the Cameron Star as its insignia and the daggerstar emblem of the SLDF's descendants, the Clans, also shares a large commonality with the Cameron Star.
High Council
The leader of the Star League was the First Lord, a hereditary position held by members of House Cameron from the League's inception to its downfall. The First Lord had formidable political, economic and military powers, even over the other Great Houses, though the Camerons rarely used these powers unilaterally. Their efforts to govern through compromise and consensus endeared them to the general public, which helped the First Lord in implementing policies, even those privately opposed by the other Lords.[3]
The High Council was the primary governing body of the Star League, composed of the First Lord and the leaders of the five other Great Houses, known as the Council Lords. The Council met biannually to discuss and ratify the government's budget, summon witnesses to testify on an issue, hear petitions, and address other League concerns, but was restricted from discussing the governance of each others' realms. During a crisis an emergency meeting could be called, and for a matter of great importance a Council Directive, or Council Order, would be drafted and put to a vote, with a majority required for passage. The First Lord had the casting vote in the event of a tie. If a matter being discussed involved the Periphery, its Administrators could attend meetings and participate, but were not given the right to vote.[4]
Each Council Lord was also allowed to bring advisers, known unofficially as High Council Members, to Council meetings, to assist or even tell the Lords how they should vote. These advisers were often dispatched on fact-finding missions, and used their prestige to gain wealth and become nobles. Advisers to the First Lord, officially known as the First Lord's Advisors, were members of the Terran Hegemony's High Council, and headed major departments within the Hegemony's government.[5][6]
Council meetings were held in the capitol city of the Star League, the Court of the Star League. Known unofficially as Unity City, the Court of the Star League was built near Puget Sound, located on the North American continent of Terra. It was also the location of the Royal Court, which met for two months during the spring and winter Council meetings. Though not an official part of the High Council, the Royal Court was ostensibly a social gathering of nobles, intellectuals and celebrities, with the festivities led by the First Lord's spouse or Master of Protocol. It was often during these events that many backroom agreements were forged, such that the Royal Court gained a reputation for rampant political and economic dealing.[5]
Though titles of nobility were reinstated by Michael Cameron, they served more as job titles within the Star League and Terran Hegemony, a distinction purposefully made by the Camerons to prevent the kind of class stratification found in other realms. Towards this end, nobles were never given permanent positions within a planet's government; instead they served at the whim of the public, which could vote them out of office.[5]
Dukes and Duchesses were at the top of the hierarchy of nobles, and either owned the most land or controlled the most industry of a given planet. A variant of this were "Vagabond Dukes", owners of major interstellar conglomerates spread over many Hegemony worlds. The title of Marquess or Marquessa was granted to scientists for making a significant contribution to science. A Count or Countess was the owner of major companies or large tracts of land on a world, with their allegiance often (but not always) tied to the planet's Duke. The Baron and Baroness was the lowest rank of nobility, granted to owners of modest companies or farmlands, or as a reward for excellent service in the SLDF or BSLA. Some of the greatest political dramas were played out between a planet's Duke and their Counts and Barons jockeying for control of its government.[5]
Bureau of Star League Affairs
The vast bureaucracy charged with carrying out the laws and edicts of the League was the Bureau of Star League Affairs, with its headquarters located in the Court of the Star League. The Bureau was headed by the Commander of the BSLA, whose position was so critical that they were personally selected by the First Lord for loyalty to the Camerons and the Hegemony.[7]It was further divided into six departments: Department of Administration, Department of Social Relations, Department of Economic Relations, Department of Revenue, Department of Education and Information, and the Department of the Attorney General.
Department of Administration
The Department of Administration was charged with publicizing and enforcing the laws of the High Council. As the first line of defense in a political crisis, Administrators were trained in the arts of diplomacy and to show initiative during even the most stressful situations.[7]
State Administrators were essentially the Star League's ambassadors to its members states, stationed on each realm's capital planet and kept in constant contact with their own personal HPG station. In an emergency, each State Administrator could call upon the local SLDF commander to undertake military operations to uphold the Star League's laws and legal rights, although their mere presence was normally more than enough to ensure enforcement. In time, five families came to dominate the role of State Administrator to each realm, based upon the family's familiarity with that state's political landscape: House Isu for the Draconis Combine, House Hughes for the Free Worlds League, House Brewer for the Lyran Commonwealth, House Ling for the Capellan Confederation, and House Green for the Federated Suns.[7]
Periphery Administrators fulfilled a similar role in the Territorial States of the Periphery. Due to the destruction of the Reunification War, the Department of Administration had to step in and the Periphery Administrators came to represent the highest governmental authority within each of the four Periphery states. Eventually the Periphery Administrators would cede control to the local governments while retaining the right to strike down any law which would endanger Star League control of the region, and would serve as the Periphery states' representatives on the High Council, though without the right to vote. Their role would eventually be terminated with the passage of Council Directive 41.[7]
District Administrators were assigned to each of the three districts within a member state, were supervised by the State Administrator, and traveled extensively throughout their assigned area. They also oversaw the Planetary Administrators, officials assigned to planets with a minimum population of one million, who were trained extensively in the history and protocols of their assigned worlds. These "troopers of the BSLA" were the eyes and ears of the Department, and were often the first to feel the wrath of anti-Star League hatred, leading to a number of deaths.[7]
Department of Social Relations
The first function of the Department of Social Relations was to maintain an open, updated database of political information about the Member and Territorial states of the Star League. It was hoped this collection of treaties, agreements, political writings and other information about the different realms would promote open and honest relations. The second function, saved for when relations did break down, was to activate their Political Emergency Response Teams, trained extensively in the art of diplomacy and the background and political system of each realm and their leaders. Each of the three administrative districts in each state had several PERT teams, complete with JumpShips and DropShips, to allow a speedy response to any political crisis.[8]
Department of Economic Relations
The Department of Economic Relations had the right to judge whether a member state was taking unfair advantage of another state or individual world, with guilty offenders facing stiff fines and embargoes. The Department also closely supervised commerce between the states, forcing companies to adhere to strict guidelines when shipping products between worlds. Those who didn't comply were barred from major ports accredited by the Star League, although many who couldn't afford to license their ships still operated illegally on the black market. An estimated nine hundred so-called "Free-Jumpers" operated within the shadows, and although their activities were not tolerated, efforts to curtail their activities were minimal, as the Department's efforts were mostly focused on the large trading companies.[8]
The Department also worked with the SLDF's Quartermaster Command to monitor all major and minor weapons manufactures, especially since many dealt in advanced technology restricted from sale to member states. If a company was found to be in violation of the law, either organization had the right to seize control of it and all its assets.[9]
Department of Revenue
Charged with the thankless (and sometimes dangerous) task of collecting taxes, the Department of Revenue were one of the least-loved departments of the BSLA. Member states often paid their share, a percentage of their gross national product along with any other fees incurred (such as renting advanced Hegemony technology), with little to no problem. However, collecting taxes from individual planets could prove more difficult, and often the SLDF was called upon to perform vigorous and public "maneuvers" to convince recalcitrant planetary governments.[8]
Collecting from individuals was the most difficult and dangerous duty. Revenue Agents, derisively known as Cameron's Thieves and Money Grubbers, were charged with running down the most flagrant violators, typically rich businessmen. These special tax collectors were given considerable combat training to perform their duties.[8]
Department of Education and Information
The Department of Education and Information was created with the goal of maintaining a first-rate education system and providing free information to anyone with access to a computer or library. Executive Order 4 had been created to promote peace and understanding between the member states, and the Department was charged to fulfill that order by training and accrediting teachers from all over the Inner Sphere. The title of Teacher of the Star League became a highly-coveted privilege, especially in places where they were in short supply.[10]
The Department also ran Prometheus Inc., a government-owned subsidy responsible for publishing books and managing almost a thousand libraries across the Star League. Putting out material designed to promote peace and understanding, Prometheus Inc. also ran a massive information database, accessible by anyone within their libraries or through a personal computer, which was located on Terra.[10]
Department of the Attorney General
Charged with capturing and trying anyone accused of breaking Star League law, the Department of the Attorney General was divided into the Attorney General Command and the Judicial Command. The Attorney General Command was responsible for prosecuting suspects, though it relied heavily on the SLDF to capture them, specifically detachments of Military Police authorized to search and seize anyone suspected of breaking the law and pursuing them if they fled between member states.[10]
Judicial Command was in charge of training judges and maintaining the system of courts used to try suspects. Regional Courts handled most criminal cases, while Appellate Courts reviewed their decisions and handled political cases between planets and member states. These Appellate Courts were often located on border worlds owned or administrated by the Terran Hegemony. The highest court was the Supreme Court, located in the District of Columbia on Terra, which handled cases too important or complex for the lower courts. It consisted of seven judges, two from the Hegemony and one from each member state, and was headed by a Chief Justice. The first Chief Justice, Iona Devorla of New Earth, was largely responsible for making the Supreme Court an independent institution, often siding with the rights of a planet's people over the wishes of the leaders of member states and Star League.[10]
Second Star League
After the Jade Falcon invasion of Coventry in 3058, the leaders of the Inner Sphere decided to re-form the Star League with the express purpose of fighting the Clans. This second Star League used a revolving schedule to elect the First Lord, and made efforts to form a new SLDF to fight the Clans.
On 28 November, 3067, however, this Second Star League was disbanded following a no confidence vote.[11][12]
See Also
- ↑ The Star League, p. 100 "Sociopolitical Structure - The Cameron Star"
- ↑ Era Report: 2750, p. 30 "History and Review - Star League Directives"
- ↑ The Star League, p. 99
- ↑ The Star League, p. 100
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 The Star League, p. 101
- ↑ The Star League, p. 40
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 The Star League, p. 102
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 The Star League, p. 203
- ↑ The Star League, p. 130
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 The Star League, p. 104
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: 3070, p. 10, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ Blake Ascending, p. 170, "Timeline of the Jihad"


text:
Earth : Europe : Italy : Central Italy : Lazio : Fiumicino
Fiumicino is a city in Lazio. This city is on the coast near to Rome, and close to the airport that bears its name.
Fiumicino was originally a fishing village and is till an important fishing center. It is situated on the west coast of Italy, in the province of Rome. Rome's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport is close by and is more normally referred to as Fiumicino Airport these days, with the international code FCO. The town is home to approximately 60,000 inhabitants.
This region enjoys a Mediterranean climate similar to that of Rome, with occasional sea breezes to keep it cooler in summer. Spring and autumn are the best time to visit as the weather is most pleasant at this time. In the peak of summers, the temperature tends to regularly go over 35°C. Winters are mild.
Lately, it has also become a popular retreat for people from Rome. It is also a popular place for visitors to stay while visiting Rome. If you are flying out from Fiumicino airport it could be a pleasant place to stay your last night, avoiding the hassle of Rome's traffic on the way to catch your flight.
Get in
By plane
Downtown Fiumicino is located only a short drive away from the airport. Rome taxis will probably refuse to take you there. They will probably have been queueing for two hours expecting the set €45 fare to the center of Rome and will not want a lower fare to Fiumicino. However, there are special taxis that go only between the airport and the town of Fiumicino. They are stationed across the street from the airport exit under the entrance to the train station. The cost is set at €20 with perhaps an extra charge for bags or more than one rider. The drivers are generally very friendly and will tell you the price ahead of time. Also, if you wish to go to Rome from Fiumicino or the reverse, you can take a taxi to the airport and then the train for €11 per person or a taxi for the fixed rate to Rome about €45, which is printed on the side of the Rome taxis. If you go directly from Rome to the town of Fiumicino or Fiumicino to Rome by taxi, you will travel on the meter. Traffic can drive the price up quickly, and the fare may be over €100 if the traffic is heavy.
By Boat
Battelli di Roma: A great way to go from Rome to Ostia and at a very reasonable rate. The boat picks up/drops off in Ostia Antica, Fiumicino's neighboring town.
By Train
The Roma-Lido station is also located in Ostia Antica and provides easy access in to Fiumicino from Rome.
Get around
Fiumicino is on the opposisite bank of the river to Ostia (so NOT accessable via there) and seems not to have any train services despite appearing on the rail network map.
Rome: The city of Rome is only a short train ride away from the Ostia Antica stop. Ostia Antica is only about a fifteen minute car ride from Fiumicino.
Ostia Antica: The ancient Roman city of Ostia was in antiquity situated at the mouth of the river Tiber, some 30 kilometres to the west of Rome. The shoreline moved seawards, due to silting, from the Middle Ages until the 19th century. Therefore Ostia is today still lying next to the Tiber, but at a distance of some three kilometers from the beach. Ostia is Latin for "mouth", the mouth of the Tiber. The river was used as harbour, but in the Imperial period two harbour basins were added to the north, near Leonardo da Vinci airport. The harbour district was called Portus, Latin for "harbour". Ostia is home to a collection of ruins waiting to be visited.
Fiumicino is on the Western coast of Italy, so it has beaches on the Mediterranean Sea. Ostia, Fiumicino's neighboring town, also has quite good beaches. For those who wish to experience the historical wonder of Rome, Fiumicino is conveniently located about 30 minutes outside of Rome via train.
Leonarda da Vinci Parc shopping area- Any shop you want you can find in this new huge shopping area, about 230 shops.
Malo Moda- A new shopping outlet located in Fiumicno. Here you can find many different clothing stores ranging from ONYX to Fruit of the Loom. Located at: 211 via Trincea Delle Frasche
Vittoria on the Beach- A traditional Italian restaurant situated, as you might expect from its name, on the beach of Fiumicino. With its outdoor dining and view of the ocean, Vittoria on the Beach is the perfect setting to experience the beauty of Fiumicino. Located at: 38 Via Lungomare della Salute
Scotland Yard Pub- A pub with a wide selection of beers, and a rather vast menu. Plates range from panini to steak dinners; at the Scotland Yard Pub you are sure to find something you like. Located at: 32 Via Attilio Corrubia
Get out