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Football News: Rick Parry - The Embodiment Of The Peter Principle
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Rick Parry - The Embodiment Of The Peter Principle
Tris if your around pal and not too busy?
I was wondering if u did article on rick parry and his works and on going's when at Liverpool and did he try to get the best deals etc I know he passed us to h+g but I'd like to know more of the good and bad! Big ask I know just not arsed googling when I know u can hit the nail on the head and be blunt and honest ???? Cheers if u can. Jay dub red
I know we ask you for a lot, but when you get an opportunity would you be able to write an article on Rick Parry and his shortcomings as a chief executive? As fans, we always hope for the best and always believe that things will take a turn for the better, which is probably why we love Klopp so much. But it is equally fascinating to read about where the club has made mistakes in the past in terms of its running, and particularly with regard to transfer dealings. LoweLFC
Those two requests sparked off this article, though initially I did consider writing it from my memory's of his time, I thought I would be fair to Parry and take some time to read up on his side of the story. As I grew to dislike him immensely while he was in the role at the time, I thought it only fair to try and get to see it from his side. Unfortunately, the guy's comments and constant whines in the media actually reinforced my opinion of him. He constantly contradicts himself and it seems like he would struggle to lie straight in bed. However, I am going to try and remove my personal distaste of Parry and his actions and attempt to give as dispassionate an overview as possible. To be fair, every comment he makes, when you have the full picture of what actually happened, shows him to be utterly incompetent and living off the back of something he actually did nothing to achieve other than being a mediator - the creation of the Premier League.
After attending Ellesmere Port Grammar School and then on to University of Liverpool to get a maths degree and train as a chartered accountant, Parry worked as a financial controller in the leisure industry. After that he moved on to a management consultancy role and was working as a senior management consultant in 1991 when he was recruited to help set up the nascent English Premier League. In February 1992 he was appointed chief executive of the Premier League and was there to profit from BSkyB's desire for a product to hang their hat on. In those days Sky was losing money, it was struggling to get subscribers with little to entice customers to part with their hard-earned cash for a monthly fee.
In those days football was not on live TV in England, except for the FA Cup final, which got huge viewing figures around the world. Sky had realised there was a gap in the market, more of a yawning chasm than a gap really, and went about filling it. They agreed a deal, in partnership with the BBC, who were given the rights to highlights for Match of the Day, for £304m, something which saw Parry given a huge amount of credit as the fee was enormous for the time. Whether or not that was down to Parry's negotiating skills is impossible to really judge but the TV deal did change the face of football in England, from being all about football to being all about money.
Parry showed his footballing brain by working with long ball merchant Howard Wilkinson to set up the rules for Premier League academies. In his final year with the Prem he brokered a deal of more than double the value of the previous one, a £700m+ contract with Sky and the BBC. After leaving the role Parry has said that he was approached by a Premier League club to be their CEO and was on the verge of taking the job when he decided that if he was going to be CEO it should be with the club he supported. So he phoned up the then-CEO of Liverpool, Peter Robinson, to ask if he could have his job. Robinson, who was planning on retiring soon anyway, agreed to bring him in as his long-term successor and David Moores appointed him in July 1998.
His first role, as the handover began from Robinson to Parry, was to set up the new academy in Kirkby, as he was fresh from his work on the Premier League's academy rules. His work was such a success that the whole academy set-up had to be ripped up and begun again under Rafael Benitez just 7 years later.
Liverpool were managed by Roy Evans in those days, with a lot of interference from David Moores, who thought, in the way that sad act manager's often do, that he was friends with the staff. Though he was seen as a joke and a soft touch to be used by the players. Evans had only managed a third place and Moores decided it was time for a change and to move away from the old boot room mentality. Except Moores was very much a soft touch and did not have the balls to show Evans the respect he deserved, and say to him it was time for a change, and then make that change. Instead Houllier was appointed as joint-manager, in one of the most stupid decisions of all time.
Parry tried to sell it by saying later: "I think it was a recognition that things needed to change, but not wanting too radically and recognising we were very much within the European game with the importance of the Champions League and the influx of foreign players. We needed to evolve but didn't want to lose our roots completely and cut the ties with the boot room. We compromised a little but compromises rarely work in any sphere, especially football. It was with the best of intentions to marry the old and the new but it was discovered fairly rapidly that it would be very difficult. To be fair to Roy, he had the courage and the good grace to say: 'We can all see it's not working and it's time for me to move on.' He made it painless from the club's point of view and deserves enormous credit for doing that." What he means is that Evans was the only one man enough to do the right thing.
Houllier had been recommended by a respected older head around the club Tom Saunders, who saw a man who was ahead of the game in France, knew the city of Liverpool well and would want the job. Even though Houllier had offers on the table from Celtic and Sheffield Wednesday, he was very keen on managing Liverpool, a club he had a soft spot for from his time in the city while studying. He was brought in with the promise of being manager, though he never expected it to be a shared post when he agreed to take it. With Moores and Parry failing to show Evans the respect he deserved by telling him straight, it was left to Evans to make the necessary decision and quit when it was clear that a joint-manager role was as stupid as it seemed.
It was during Houllier's time in charge that Parry made his first signing for Liverpool, and it was amongst the most successful, though it took Houllier a bit of work to convince Parry of the wisdom of the decision. As Parry tells it: "My very first signing was Gary McAllister. When Gerard came to me and said he wanted him I paused for a minute and thought: Really? Gerard's rationale was that he was the best striker of the ball in the Premier League and with the youngsters coming through would be great in the dressing room. What a contribution he made in that 2001 season."
Houllier's time was marked with odd transfer decisions after that, probably the worst being the decision in summer 2002 not to complete the deal for Nicolas Anelka and Parry's failure to close one for Damien Duff. Instead in came El Hadji Diouf, Salif Diao, Bruno Cheyrou, Alou Diarra, Patrice Luzi and agreeing to pay Leeds United £9m for Lee Bowyer, a move which thankfully fell down due to the player's obscene wage demands.
Parry says of that summer: "Two players we were looking at. One was Nicolas Anelka who had done so well here on loan. I was with Gerard when he was agonising over that one. It was a really close decision. We had the deal done with PSG for Nicolas. Gerard was aware of his history with Arsenal and was concerned that maybe he wouldn't have that passion as a full-time player rather than just being on loan and in the end decided to go with Diouf. The other player we were in for then who looked a great prospect was Damien Duff, who eventually went to Chelsea for big money a year later. With hindsight it maybe would have been more sensible to go with quality rather than quantity - buying a really good player rather than three who turned out to be distinctly average."
But does it really take hindsight to see that? Surely it was clear at the time? Surely a CEO should be capable of realising these things at the time, that quality is key, not quantity when it comes to signing players? If Parry was not sure, he would only have had to go back to the great Bill Shankly's time and see that Shanks had exactly this same issue with the board when he first arrived and wanted to bring in Ron Yeats and Ian St John, only to be told that the club could not afford to buy them. Luckily one member of the board, Eric Sawyer, had the sense to step in and say: "We can't afford not to buy them." Unfortunately Parry did not have the same vision.
Things were going downhill for the club financially, Parry did nothing to cash in on the huge deals that were flooding into the Premier League, falling further behind a financially dominant Manchester United and allowing clubs like Arsenal to overtake in revenue terms. Neither Moores nor Parry were able to secure the finance needed to rebuild Anfield, even before costs skyrocketed. Moores was unwilling to even cut his salary from the club, let alone dip into his own pockets to provide funds, when a small input (for him) would have secured the necessary finance to begin redeveloping Anfield and increasing capacity. In the end 10% of the club was sold to Granada (the local ITV station) for £20m to provide a transfer kitty.
Rather than invest his own money, Moores decided in early 2004 it was time to sell, with future Wolverhampton Wanderers owner Steve Morgan the chosen buyer. Moores and Morgan had been in dispute for years, with Morgan wanting to invest money to expand Anfield, but not while Moores was in charge. The two actively disliked each other and Moores was tired of the arguments and pressure to actually put something in, instead of taking from the club all the time.
In the meantime, while the takeover was underway, Houllier was sacked and Parry got together with Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher to choose a successor. Showing what a weak CEO he was, involving two players who should have been just introduced to their new boss, not picking him! Initially the three of them wanted a British manager and Alan Curbishley, then at Charlton Athletic, and then-Southampton manager Gordon Strachan were considered, but thankfully discarded as an option. Instead the decision was made to go for someone who was a proven league winner, Rafael Benitez who had managed a minor miracle of two La Liga titles with Valencia.
At this point Morgan was so close to taking over the club that he met with Rafa after his first game in charge, which was away to Grazer AK in Austria, to discuss plans for the future. However Morgan's due diligence changed things, he realised what a mess the club was in financially, how far behind they were commercially and tried to beat the price down, but Moores was never going to take less. The deal was called off.
Meanwhile Rick Parry was to begin a pattern that continued throughout his time as Liverpool CEO. He was to get a deal lined up for a new signing, pretty much everything agreed and then he would find a way to mess it up. I am not talking about in the difficult early stages, I am talking about when a price has been agreed, the player wants the move and the manager wants the player. Sometimes even after a medical has been completed and passed with flying colours. It was not just the most well-known of his cock ups, the decision to scrap a deal to sign Cristiano Ronaldo for just £3.6m because he thought it was too expensive, there is a whole litany of them.
In the summer of 2005 Parry managed to make a hash of a deal for Rafael Benitez's number one target, in the wake of the Istanbul Champions League win, Simao Sabrosa. The price, personal terms, the medical, all done but Parry could not reach an agreement over the schedule of payments for the £10m deal with Benfica. Worse was his failings when it came to dealing with Steven Gerrard that summer. It had been all agreed that the club captain would sign a new deal in the summer and, knowing that Jose Mourinho was desperate to take him to Chelsea, having had to fend off interest from him the previous summer, Parry messed Gerrard about, leaving Gerrard wondering if this was not just a hint that the club no longer wanted him and would prefer the money.
That was when the relationship between Rafa and Parry broke down, Rafa had only been in the job a year and was already fed up of the CEO failing to clinch deals and now driving the club's captain away. Eventually Gerrard was talked round, with a move to Chelsea all but done, and signed his new deal, but Parry and Rafa's relationship never recovered. From that moment on Rafa was convinced the club needed to change the CEO if it was to be successful in the long term.
The summer of 2006 was no better, though Parry tries to explain his ineptitude away: "We had the deal finally after enormous complications - tied up for Dani Alves and then the decision was should we buy two players or should we spend all of that on a full-back? Alves wasn't the player then that he is now, but he always looked like he would be a great player. Would he have been a better signing than Pennant and Crouch for example? Probably yes, but it's easy with hindsight. Clearly, we were trying to make that final step. We didn't have Chelsea's money so we were trying to be smarter. Looking back, if I could do anything different, it would be to focus on buying one at a time rather than having to buy five or six every season." Again showing why he was abysmal at being a CEO, he always had excuses but never actually learnt as he went. It is easy to talk from hindsight, but most people would not need hindsight to know that buying better players is the way to go!
What is worse is that his story changes constantly and never fits with the facts. Crouch was already at Liverpool by this point, he joined the previous summer. Added to that, Pennant cost £8m, Alves would have come to just £8m, so there is no way the club could have bought Pennant and Crouch with the Alves money, as they spent the same amount on Pennant alone. Added to that, there was over £16m spent on Kuyt, another £8m on Bellamy, £3.5m on Arbeloa, over £2m on Paletta, another £2m on loan fees for Mascherano, £1m on 16 year old Swede Ajdarevic, so clearly the money was there for Alves. Parry simply got it wrong and made a mess of it, again.
Robert Kraft was looking at buying Liverpool at this time, but he was unhappy at a lack of cost control and salary cap in the Premier League, like he was used to in the NFL, where he owned the New England Patriots. After a time kicking the tyres he walked away. The next American to show interest was George Gillett, but he did not have the funds to buy the club and his move came to nothing. There was another interested party that stepped in, the Dubai government-backed DIC, who were extremely interested in buying the club, but they wanted Liverpool FC sans Parry and Moores, whereas the pair of them wanted a deal that still kept them in place. However Parry was of the opinion at the time that it was the best bid for the club.
DIC's plan was set out plainly, it was the same basic blueprint that Manchester City's Abu Dhabi owners later followed, which was to invest heavily in the infrastructure, regenerating the area around the ground, new training complex etc but with the clearly laid out intention to then look to sell the club later, when all that was completed, at a profit. Their plan also included investment in the team, with the intent to sell a winning team as that would maximise the value. However there were issues in the negotiations with Moores, who wanted a position as lifetime president that included all-expenses paid first class trips to every away game, something DIC saw as an unnecessary burden on the finances. Pretty much summing Moores up in a few words there!
Parry's story of the time differs depending on which day of the week it is! Sometimes he claims Moores walked away, other times he says DIC did. "It wasn't a case of us rejecting Dubai, they were the preferred bidder but they walked away," Parry said at one time. Another time he said Moores was the one pulling the plug: "The dissenting voice was actually David's, because his view is once he's shaken hands on something he's committed to it and he wasn't going to let that go lightly and obviously he was the majority shareholder. The strong view of the non-execs, the professionals, we were pretty much united in the common sense view that the DIC deal doesn't seem right. But David's view was that 'I've shaken hands, I'm not going to be rushed. I want 48 hours to sleep on it.' I went to David's house the following morning with Keith Clayton (LFC director) and he said, 'we've got to let DIC know what's happening'. And he phoned Sameer al-Ansari (chair of DIC) and David said, 'look Sameer, we're in a bit of a mess, everything's gone pear-shaped, you've missed deadlines, there's a strong view on the board that we need to go in an alternative direction.' Had I been Sameer I'd have said 'David I'll be on the next plane we can sort this out.' Sameer's response was 'if you don't commit to DIC by 5pm today, we're walking away.' David then says 'you're not going to blackmail Liverpool Football Club. No-one's going to treat us like that, we'll call your bluff.' It was that that pushed David in the other direction."
The truth is Parry is once again stretching the truth to breaking point and well beyond. What actually caused the breakdown in negotiations with DIC was when George Gillett returned to the table with leveraged buy-out expert Tom Hicks as a partner. Their plan was very similar to the one the Glazers used to buy Manchester United, they would leverage the debt against the club and use its own money to buy it from Moores. You might think that a man claiming to love the club, as Moores so often did, would not even consider a sale under those circumstances but then Gillett and Hicks added a couple of clinchers to it. They offered an extra few million over the price previously agreed with DIC and they agreed to seal Moores' position as lifetime president in the contract. For some reason Parry also decided to change his mind and make them his preferred bidders, though I am sure that the large bonus payment and guaranteeing his place as CEO had absolutely nothing to do with his change of heart. No I am positive that the beancounter in him could see the merits in leveraging the club's own money to buy out the club, ensuring it would be strapped for cash for many years, rather than outside investment being pumped into the club to strengthen it.
It was then that DIC pulled out of negotations, when a deal was on the verge of being agreed, as Moores and Parry told them to match the bid from the Americans or they would sell to them instead. DIC were disgusted by the way Moores and Parry had done business with them and walked away, never to return, despite all the rumours of interest from them in later years. But, luckily for Liverpool it instead got Tom Hicks: "When I was in the leverage buy-out business we bought Weetabix and we leveraged it to up to make our return. You could say that anyone who was eating Weetabix was paying for our purchase of Weetabix. It was just business. It is the same for Liverpool."
Hicks and Gillett came in with a business plan to net spend £20m on players each season, but, by this point, Rafa and Parry were already at loggerheads, with Rafa publicly criticising Parry, and the club, for the speed of transfer dealings in May 2007. Hicks took Rafa's side from the off after being astounded by the commercial ineptitude of the club when he arrived. His flabber was completely gasted by what he found, with a commercial department that was literally just a room above a pub with a couple of staff members. The club shop, which was also run from that same commercial department, was a mess, with huge queues each matchday, which Hicks improved upon by the simple expedient, which Parry had never thought of, putting in a couple more tills to ring up the sales. While Parry tried to run everything on a shoestring Hicks immediately sought to invest in this department, in an attempt to bring in more money, which he did succeed in doing, simply by dragging the club into the 20th century.
The summer of 2007 did see the club invest in the transfer market as Fernando Torres, Ryan Babel, Lucas Leiva and Yossi Benayoun all arrived to bolster the squad. However it was not enough to heal the rift between Rafa and Parry and by January 2008 Liverpool fans had already turned on Gillet and Hicks as they protested against the new ownership to show their backing of Rafa. This was following reports that Hicks and Gillett had met with Jurgen Klinsmann in order to offer him the job of replacing Benitez as Liverpool manager, as Rafa refused to sign a new contract due to his frustration with Parry. Parry claimed to know nothing of any meeting with Klinsmann. Then Hicks, who had been growing more and more frustrated by Parry's ineptitude, publicly sided with Benitez and called on Parry to quit in April 2008.
Hicks said: "Look at what's happened under Rick. It has been a disaster. We have fallen so far behind the other leading clubs. We should have had the stadium built by now. We have a few major sponsors when we should have 15. We have still got the top brand in the world of football but that's no good if you don't know how to commercialise it. Rick needs to resign from Liverpool FC. He has put his heart into it but it is time for a change. You have to be able to work with the manager and Rick has proved he can't do that."
He was not finished there and Tom Hicks continued by saying: "I will formally request George's approval to terminate Rick's contract. If he chooses not to, the record will be clear. Rick Parry has been Liverpool's CEO for ten years and we haven't won a league championship under his leadership. Our commercial revenues have not kept up with other top top clubs during that times, which has made it very difficult to compete for the Premier League. After watching him operate, I came to the conclusion it was time to ask him to resign, due to his inability to manage an organisation, his seemingly arrogant attitude to our supporters and his lack of communication with Rafa. I reached my decision a few weeks ago but waited until after the games against Everton and Arsenal. It is important to try to have a new CEO in place by May so we can begin working with Rafa on player transfers."
Parry hit back: "I stand by my track record in English football and as chief executive of Liverpool Football Club. It would be inappropriate for me to comment in detail on these allegations - that should be a matter for the Liverpool board. In fact, I would welcome an opportunity to discuss these matters with our co-owners and board colleagues." Parry knew he was safe as George Gillett was on his side. Gillett chimed in: "Rick Parry retains our full support. Any decision to remove him would need the approval of the full Liverpool board which, it should be remembered, consists of six people - myself, Foster, David Moores, Rick himself, Tom Hicks and Tom Junior." Gillett and his son Foster, along with Moores, stood behind Parry, seemingly more because the Gilletts simply did not like the Hicks when they got to know them.
What was most damaging for Parry was Hicks' revelation that Parry had lied about not knowing anything about the Klinsmann meeting and that he had not just been there but helped to set up the meeting at Klinsmann's California home. Hicks told UK newspapers about the meeting with Klinsmann: "George became good friends with him a year ago. I get this call from George out of the blue in which he says 'have your people do their research on Klinsmann'. He and Rick set up the meeting in New York. I did go to the meeting along with my son Tom. Rick Parry had already met with Jurgen alone for a couple of hours when we arrived. We all then spoke to him for another four hours."
Parry, as usual, told a different story, claiming that Hicks turned against him because he and Moores had ensured that the majority of the refinancing of the loans taken out to purchase the club were secured against the holding company the Americans had set up to buy the club, rather than the club itself. That fails to explain why Hicks only turned on Parry and not Moores, with Parry describing working with Hicks as a nightmare. Probably similar to the description Benitez would have of working with Parry!
That summer, the one of 2008, was one of enormous turmoil as Parry once more caused problems with his inability to close a deal. Benitez had told Parry he wanted two players in particular that summer, Robbie Keane and Gareth Barry. While Parry managed to get Keane over the line, he was unable to clinch Barry's signature instead taking the bizarre, and frankly embarrassing, step of putting out a statement on the club's official website that Aston Villa were asking too much for Barry. Instead Albert Riera and Andrea Dossena came in to replace Riise, the role Barry was earmarked for, much to Rafa's chagrin.
Financial problems were growing behind the scenes as the economy had crashed and the club was loaded with debt placed on it by Hicks and Gillett. With a recession in full flow, if a recession can be said to flow, the club was required to repay its debts to RBS. By the end of their reign, interest repayments alone reached £100,000 per day. Yes you are reading that right, per day. Before it got to that point, work on the new Stanley Park stadium stopped in October 2008 with a £350m loan to RBS and Wachovia due in June 2009. It was clear there were huge financial troubles on the horizon.
Ahead of that the internecine warfare between Benitez and Parry came to a head when Rafa rejected a new contract in January 2009. He only had one objection to his new deal and that was Parry's involvement in transfers. Unless Parry was removed from an involvement in transfers Benitez was adamant that his new deal would go unsigned. The impasse was broken the following month when Liverpool FC announced Rick Parry was to leave the club at the end of the season, removing all of Rafa's objections in one fell swoop. What was not publicly announced is that, while his £1.5m a year salary would now be off the books, he took a payout of £4.295m to leave the club, despite its serious financial difficulties. So much for loving the club!
Incidentally, Parry's big mate and the other leech on the club's finances David Moores was one of the first casualties of FSG's arrival at the club. Moores had been travelling first class with the squad, all expenses paid on away trips at the club's expense, taking large amounts of money each year out of the club. That was one of the first things that FSG took steps to end, though it did take them time to rid the club of him and his crocodile tears. Over the years many millions of pounds had been leeched from the club to fund his lifestyle.
Still it has not worked out badly for Parry, who has since gone on to be called upon by TV and radio stations as a football 'expert'!?! Hard to believe but it is true. He has also unbelievably gone on to carve a career as a football consultant and somehow got onto the board of the New York Cosmos. It is reminiscent of 'The Peter Principle'. In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Moores and Parry were the most incompetent so quickly rose to the top and proved repeatedly that they were incompetent to a degree many of us could not attain if we tried. I just hope for the sake of all those who employed him afterwards that Parry learnt a lot, a hell of a lot in fact, about what not to do in future.
Audio version of this article:
Written by Tris Burke August 21 2019 13:37:02
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November 10, 2016
Thanks to Mark C Crowley for taking the time to write up this excellent summary of Herman Miller's thoughts around our fundamental human needs.
Herman Miller continues to explore these in more detail and we have produced 3 papers focusing on the following Fundamental Human Needs
- Achievement -We strive for excellence and to feel a sense of mastery in our accomplishments. CLICK HERE for the white paper
- Belonging – We are tribal, social beings who require meaningful connection with other people. CLICK HERE for the white paper
- Purpose – We want to make a meaningful difference and to know our work matters. CLICK HERE for the white paper
Look out for the publication of the other three papers.
If you are interested infinding out more, please contact us by CLICKING HERE

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oh the movie was so cool!!!!! hahahaah thankx for sharing
1024x768 Wallpaper
Here's my second wall I made, it was pretty tough to make. I still want to get the reflection looking better, and the whole overall picture looks sort of.. cluttered, but I don't really have any ideas how to fix that. I also wanted to come up with a better particle effect, but I couldn't find one so I had to settle for that. I wanted some cooler leaves though, but I had to settle for the brush. Oh I also wanted a more.. how do I say this.. like I wanted my ripples to look more anime-ish, with lots of tiny ripples spaced far apart. Anyway, enjoy
Oh here's an alterante version I had: http://img231.echo.cx/img231/7979/aerithnew30vo.jpg I know cloud's reflection's face is really ugly in it, but I couldn't find very high-quality pictures of him in that type of pose.
Browse Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Gallery: Recent | Popular.
oh the movie was so cool!!!!! hahahaah thankx for sharing
lol, I came to this because the thumbnail wasn't that clear as to what was actually in the picture and I'm glad I did. That fog effect is really nice. Great job.
I expect Final Fantasy Advent Children dvd!!!
the picture IS fine!
i agree with dioni, i like the fog effect!! so cool! good job!
"wow" the bg looks sooo great and the blending looks great too
Looks great. Nice work. ^__^
Thanks for doing this wallpaper.
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The Untold Story of Coffee From the Cloud Forests of Ethiopia to Your Cup
By Jeff Koehler
268 pp. Bloomsbury. $28.
Once upon a time, there was a tiny kingdom in the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia where coffee grew wild in the forests. This realm was protected by its trees and its animals, or so the people of Kafa believed. They were ruled by a king whose feet were not allowed to touch the ground, who was hand-fed by servants, morsel by morsel, and who had, among the symbols of his power, a gold ring. Koehler's re-creation of this lost realm — the Eden of the misnamed Coffea Arabica — is enchanting and tragic. His depiction of its disappearance is almost Tolkienesque. Kafa would be engulfed in the late 19th century by the Ethiopian empire, whose soldiers, armed with European guns, would not be repelled by Kafa's unusual weapons: red ants and bees hurled at the invading forces. The last king, on his way to imprisonment in Addis Ababa, takes off his ring and slips it into a river, where it is lost forever.
Koehler weaves an absorbing narrative of politics, ecology and economics: the spread of Arabica (which should have been known as Aethiopica) to farms and plantations around the world, and the continuing perils it faces from fungal invasions, deforestation and global warming. There are cameo appearances by Isak Dinesen and Arthur Rimbaud, both part of Africa's coffee trade — her farm in Kenya, his post-poetry career. There is one more poetic touch: The dangers the plant now faces may be mitigated by the surviving wild coffee of Kafa, which still holds, deep in its forests, the ring of power in the form of primal yet diverse genetic material.
My Search for the Rare & Sublime on the Spirits Trail
By Thad Vogler
291 pp. Ten Speed Press. $27.
You can learn practical things from this book — like how to smell Cognac. If you dip your nose in the glass the way you sniff wine, you'll overwhelm the olfactory cells linked to your taste buds. Bring the spirit only close enough so you can just sense the aroma, appreciating its qualities from a distance. There's nothing distant or pedantic, however, about Vogler's bracing, deeply personal narrative of his travels through the homelands of Calvados, Cognac, Armagnac, rum, scotch and mezcal, in search of the soul of those spirits.
The author is the owner of Bar Agricole — a restaurant with perhaps the most exacting standards for spirits in San Francisco — and has ambitions for the book beyond aesthetics. The adventures he and his drinking companions share in search of liquid truth are argonautic, with sleepless labors in France, labyrinthine exertions in Cuba and one near cataclysmic encounter in Mexico. He cites a friend who describes the magic of the drinks they seek: "That's why they call them spirits. They are freed to the heavens in the form of vapor, an escaped essence, only to be recaptured and brought back to earth." Vogler's stories are heartfelt, wise and moving, if occasionally overwrought. He is particularly worked up about human greed. The tragic theme he repeats is of the consolidation of small distilleries bought up by soulless corporations. It's an infernal reversal of the biblical begats as scores of artisanal enterprises with names out of poetry are swallowed — big gulp by big gulp — by giants who turn them into brands bereft of authenticity.
Hops, Barley, Water, Yeast and the Nature of Beer
By Pete Brown
279 pp. Chelsea Green. Paper, $19.95.
Brown considers only four elements in his peripatetic exposition on beer but each is examined to the molecular level. Thankfully, he leavens his magisterial tour of fearsome science and vast brewery history with cheery anecdotes, humor, vivid you-are-there prose and a clever eye for personality — or its absence — among the many experts he meets. At one point, he even has the perky spokeswoman of a maltster in Bamberg, Germany, provide her spiel in the Comic Sans typeface.
Malting is how beermakers trick barley into germinating, beginning the process of turning their starches to sugar, at which point they will be introduced to water and yeast. It's yeast that transforms those sugars into alcohol. We become familiar with the two main types: Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae for short, the more sober of the duo) and Brettanomyces (a.k.a. "Brett," a wilder character) and their roles in creating rival types of beer. Brown's descriptions of the beermaking process are acute: You feel his pain as he harvests hops with bare arms and realizes that their sharp little tendrils have created a network of red welts.
His rhapsodies about the meaning of life and the meaning of beer are stirring. It's "something of a cosmic joke," he concludes, that a beverage as complex and beautiful as beer is so cheap and "taken for granted." His expertise and insight will leave you with a glimmer of infinity every time you hold a bottle of it in your hand.
Exploring Wine One Country at a Time
By Mike Veseth
217 pp. Rowman & Littlefield. $24.95.
A wine book with Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" as its dominant metaphor may seem like a clever idea, one that should provide scaffolding for the many narratives that can emerge from a global wine tour. Veseth's breathless text does have a good share of observations worth sharing or debating at a cocktail party: the gender of wine bottles, Bordeaux (masculine) and Burgundy (feminine); the origins of the global natural wine movement in 20th-century Lebanon; a Chinese riesling that won an international wine award in 1915, when grape-based wine was still a novelty in that country; how port inspired David Ricardo's classic economic tract on free trade.
The book, however, is too much possessed by the galloping spirt of Phileas Fogg, the hero of Verne's novel, and those points of interest become mere factoids, just signposts pointing in other directions as Veseth rushes you forward to satisfy the metaphor. The wines in the title are an intriguing assemblage, but few are examined in a satisfying way. It's a collection of bottles meant to satisfy the title's conceit and results in a frustrating reading experience. Add to it the narrative voice: that of an almost giddy sommelier expressing himself with too many exclamation points and rhetorical question marks. When Verne published his novel in 1873, 80 days was an impossibly short time to circumnavigate the planet. It turns out that haste isn't the most gratifying way to explore the complex world of wine that Veseth is so clearly excited about.


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Borneo Orang Utans Could Have the Same Fate than Mauritius Dodos as some 2,500 apes are killed each year on Southeast Asia largest island.
Do you remember the mythical Dodo, a large bird endemic to Mauritius ? The flightless bird -similar in size to a small ostrich- was among the first victims of the human race and became instinct in the middle of the 17th century according to scientists. The animal became popular in litterature following its presence in the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
Unfortunately a similar fate could now target the orang utans, a symbol of Borneo rainforests' animal diversity.
An alarming study just published in Scientific Reports the decline of orang utans on Borneo territories continues unabated at a worrying rate. The study, which is the first analysis of long-term population trends for orang utans, researchers combined data from land and aerial surveys, along with interviews conducted with local communities to model how their range and population has changed over time.
Although the study indicates that some orang utans fared better in some areas than others, the general population of Borneo orang utans has dropped by 25% in just a decade.
According to the study's authors, an estimated 2,500 orang utans are killed in Borneo every year, while an estimated 10,000 are now living in areas that are earmarked for palm oil production. Survival rates of the species are lowest in areas with intermediate rainfall, where complex interrelations between soil fertility, agricultural productivity, and human settlement patterns influence persistence.
Scientific Reports indicated that the apes face a number of threats that range from being hunted for bush meat and having infants stolen to sell on markets to losing their forest homes as large areas are turned into palm oil and rubber plantations, agriculture, development, logging, mining and fires. This decline in habitat has led to starvation and has increased the risk of attacks with humans as they move closer to us in search of food.
"If these areas are converted to oil palm plantations without changes in current practices, most of these 10,000 individuals will be destroyed and the steep population decline is likely to continue," explained co-author Erik Meijaard of the University of Queensland.
Scientific Reports' study estimated that Central Kalimantan in Indonesia had the highest density of orang utans during 1997–2015, followed by Sabah, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Sarawak, and North Kalimantan.
Although millions of dollars are spent in the region to combat wildlife decline, the study's authors say it hasn't been effectively spent and plea both Indonesian and Malaysian to find new ways to protect the disappearing species.
The authors hope that the release of their study will lead to changes in conservation strategies.
Among NGOs protecting orang utans, the International Animal Rescue's (IAR) has launched a program to protect some 100 apes in its rescue centre in West Borneo. IAR is currently raising funds to buy 64 acres of forest adjacent to its rescue center, which will help increase its animals' sanctuary by 20% and protect rain forest of being turned into palm oil plantations.
They are a dozen of rehabilitation centres and sanctuaries on Borneo Island where travellers can observe orang utan.
Sabah, Malaysia
- Danum Valley Conservation Area
- Kinabatangan Wild Reserve
- Maliau Conservation Area
- Rainforest Discovery Centre
- Rasa Ria Conservation Area
- Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre is the largest in the world
Sarawak, Malaysia
- Batang Ai National Park, an example of Iban community-led conservation
- Matang Wildlife Centre in Kubah National Park
- Semenggoh Orang Utan Centre
Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
- Lamandau River Wildlife Centre, one of the highest density of orang utan (700 animals on record)
- Tanjung Puting National Park
West Kalimantan, Indonesia
- Ketapang Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre


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The Middle eastMiddle East Tourism Market can be a game changer
The Middle East Tourism Market can be challenging without the right partner.
Middle East Tourism is growing at a Rapid pace and The Middle East tourists are one of the highest spending travellers in the world – spending as much as as US$500 more than the average European traveller. This has made the Middle East countries one of the most lucrative outbound tourist markets in today's fast growing international tourism industry. According to recent research, Middle East, travel and tourism activity is growing by 4.4% per annum.
What you need to understand
The Middle East Tourism Market – An Overview.
The changing trends clearly show that the Middle East in general and GCC region, in particular, would be the driving force for Tourism growth in many regions around the world. A region which has 20% local and 80% expat population, both love to travel and both willing to explore.
The Middle East Tourism Market is the world's fastest-growing outbound travel market, with young well-off Arabian travellers going on long expensive trips, the ITB World Travel Trends Report Finds.
The Arabian outbound travel market is growing into a lucrative niche business as well-off travellers venture more beyond their home region and spend heavily on up-market accommodation, shopping and entertainment. The Middle East outbound travel market was actually the world's fastest-growing market in 2017 with a 9 percent increase in outbound trips over the first eight months of the year, according to preliminary World Travel Monitor® results from IPK International.
Besides Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the most attractive outbound market in the region and both are characterised by high spending and long trips. There is a very high proportion of high-earners going on international trips and a high (about 50 percent) share of younger international travellers under the age of 34, according to World Travel Monitor® figures.
Health-related travel is also a notable trend with well-off Arabs often going on long trips for medical purposes, accompanied by a large number of family members. In addition, Arabian tourists often book serviced apartments, for example, where a maid does the cooking and cleaning. "There is also an interesting trend for people to visit long-haul destinations offering Islamic hospitality, such as Malaysia and Indonesia," Ramzi Maaytah, Partner of IPK International Middle East.
Since this is a region where expat population usually looks for deals the local population looks for long stays and places which are Halal friendly, it can be at times overwhelming especially if you are not familiar with the Region.
Bigfoot Marketing bridges this Gap and connects you with the right audience that you seek. We also ensure that you are fully prepared to handle the clients when they arrive and there is no "faux pas" with clients on the Ground.


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Nothing seems to say Merry Christmas like having a belly full of barium. I survived my pre-admissions testing so let me break it down for you….
I had to stop eating by 6pm last night, then could only have water from 6pm-midnight. I went to bed fairly early since my alarm was set for 6:15am. So I got up this morning, brushed my teeth, washed my face, got dressed and left for the hospital around 6:30am.
I got to the appropriate area (advanced admissions) about 6:50, was registered and called back shortly there after. Now keep in mind I haven't gone to the bathroom since around 2am and I was feeling it! The nurse called me back, where we went over a ton of questions, and she also took my vitals. While we were going over more questions someone from the lab came in and took 6 vials of blood. Then someone else came in and did an EKG. Then finally I got to use the restroom (they needed a urine sample)! After that I was able to get dressed then the nurse walked me to the radiology department.
It wasn't long before I was taken back for the gallbladder ultrasound. Once that was done I had to change into a gown and was taken for a chest x-ray. It wasn't long before I was whisked away again to have an upper GI done. The nurse went through everything, showed me what exactly I'd be taking and how it would all work. Once the radiologist came in I took a medicine cup of crystals followed by water which foamed like crazy and I had to swallow (and not burp). I got up on a machine where I had to then drink the barium when the doctor said. Oh my. It was thick and chalky, it wasn't bad until I had to inhale through my nose (darned breathing lol), and the smell was less than desirable. But I got that done, then the table gets laid down (weird feeling) and I had to roll in a complete circle. The doctor took some more pictures, said I had a mild case of reflux but didn't see any other issues and he said I didn't have to drink the "thin" cup of barium. Woohoo! Then I was able to get dressed and finally eat/drink!
I went right from the hospital over to the physical therapy office. He was booked solid until my evaluation so now I'm home just killing time before heading back over there.
It's crazy that 3 weeks from today I'm having weight loss surgery. I'm not really nervous just excited. I've got an amazing support team and I'm really looking forward to this new chapter of my life.


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Breakin' Convention's two-day festival of international hip-hop dance theatre pulls in Sadler's Wells's youngest and most diverse audience who, true to the its spirit, move around constantly, record everything on smartphones and, encouraged by genial host Jonzi D, give it some noise.
"Hip-hop dance theatre" can be a tricky combination. On opening night, Gianna Gi and Gator produced convincing puppet-like portraits – hers a creepy Sleeping Beauty awakening into a disjointed doll, his a broken-limbed music-box marionette, hanging from imaginary wires. Less successful were Unity's interesting but underdeveloped experiment with composition and a number of pieces that simply pegged style to scenario: Flockey's locking alcoholic, recovering through music; Antoinette Gomis's schematic discovery of her inner black beauty; Jade and Shango, lindy-hopping in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King. Works that mobilised style for theatrical effect fared much better: The Company's tautly choreographed quartet of rolls, throws and dives; the virtuosic visual drama of Iron Skulls Co, who invaded the stage with searchlights to turn it into a no-man's-land of snipers and fugitives.
Sometimes, though, all you need is style. GOP Dancers pretty much just bounded around a handbag, but with such booty-shaking, hair-tossing and drop-kicking verve you felt you'd been living it up all night. The Ruggeds, meanwhile, threw out breathtaking stunts and tricks at breakneck speed and in tight formation; it was quite a rush.
The evening closed with three twin sets. The Legendary Twins (Keith and Kevin Smith) spoke about dancing as B-boys back in 1972 ("first generation!" said an awestruck Jonzi D). The mirror routine by Twin Peak (Jay and Jerry Howell) was scuppered by one of them losing a shoe. Still, they couldn't match the fluidity and panache of Les Twins (Larry and Laurent Bourgeois), who raised the game on some of hip-hop's inherent features – synchronicity, one-upmanship, solo spots – by topping them with twin-hood. Unbeatable.
• At Sadler's Wells, London, until 4 May. Box office: 0844 412 4300.
• Judith Mackrell on Breakin' Convention and the global fusion of hip-hop dance.


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Zipatone Classics #2
$0.99 – $4.99
Five artists and five writes through their own interpretation create adventures loosely based on Golden Age Comic character Captain 3D!
Aaron Allen, June Brigman, Roy Richardson, Jim Allen, Nate Contini, Rob Stevenson, Sean Long, Jeff Aldrich, Jason Platt, Bill Douglas, Larry Quiggins
Standard Comic
Full Color
Page Count: 28
What It's About
The 48 Hour Comic Project is a sleepless weekend in which you and your team create a comic book in just 48 hours! Each issue focuses on characters from the Golden Age of Comics! Proceeds of sales go towards the Hero Initiative. Pow! Zip! Ka-Blam!
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Drimnagh Castle
Long Mile Road
Dublin 12
Tel: 01-4502530
Admission Rates
We only accept
Euro cash payments and charges are subject to annual changes.
Adults 6.00
Children 4.00
Students 5.00
★★★ Please note we only accept Euro cash payments ★★★
Castle Walls and Moat
Drimnagh Castle is the only castle in Ireland to retain a fully flooded moat. Its rectangular shape enclosing the castle, its gardens and courtyard, created a safe haven for people and animals in times of war and disturbance. The moat is fed by a small stream, called the Bluebell. The present bridge, by which you enter the castle, was erected in 1780 and replaced a drawbridge structure.
Entrance Gate and Courtyard
Above the entrance of the tower, as the visitor comes through the large gateway is a 'murder hole'. Rocks, stones, boiling water or limestone were poured down upon the head of any enemy attempting to break in. The main castle to the right of the tower was built in the 15th century, and the tower was built in the late 16th. The porch and stairways were built in the 19th century and the other buildings are 20th century.
The undercroft was built as a storage room for food; it also doubled up as a refuge if the castle was attacked. The fireplace and bread and smoking oven are recreations of the kitchen that was here in the 19th century. The narrow stairs leading up to the next floor are unique in that they turn to the left, unlike most Norman castles which turn to the right.
The great hall was originally an all-purpose living room/sleeping quarters in the 13th century. During the day tables and benches were placed in the centre of the floor for dining. At night straw or reed matting was laid on the floor and the occupants of the castle slept on this covering.
The tower was built in the late 16th or early 17th century. The tower is approximately 57 feet high and commands a great view of the surrounding countryside. Most of the castles at Ballymount, Terenure and Rathfarnham could have been seen from the top of the battlements.


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Expertise of our group
The Language Technology group is focusing on Natural Language Processing (NLP) research. Specifically, we are interested in statistical methods that make use of large unannotated text corpora, which nowadays is known under the Big Data Paradigm.
We collaborate with a range of partners in academia and industry. Please also look at our software projects.
Structure Discovery
A focus of our group is on unsupervised and knowledge free methods (e.g., clustering of lexical graphs) or topic models. These methods, which neither presuppose training data nor assume the existence of knowledge resources, identify regularities in large text collections and mark them back into the data, following the structure discovery paradigm. This markup, which is entirely data-driven and therefore independent of domain and language, is then used as features for learning applications in supervised machine learning settings: the usefulness of structure discovery processes is assessed in an application-based manner.
Statistical Semantics
We examines statistical methods that reflect natural-language semantics. Specifically we compute semantic similarities and semantic relations between lexical items through the analysis of large texts, and make these available within texts in a contextualized fashion. These relations are used in applications such as semantic indexing, paraphrasing and identification of lexical chains.
For obtaining the markup necessary to train supervised language technology components, the group advocates the use of crowdsourcing techniques. Here, unskilled workers are paid small sums to perform small annotation tasks. The advantage of this is the virtually unlimited number of annotators, which makes the creation of training data quick and scalable. Quality is ensured by redundancy and by using qualification tests or test items. A major challenge lies in the formulation of complex annotation tasks needed as simple subtasks suitable for the crowd.


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The Koch Method - Int'l & Domestic Thievery
In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the worlds largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.
I uncovered the practices within a few days, Egorova- Farines says. They were not hidden at all.
She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.
By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the companys Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.
Those activities constitute violations of criminal law, Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media.
Egorova-Farines wasnt rewarded for bringing the illicit payments to the companys attention. Her superiors removed her from the inquiry in August 2008 and fired her in June 2009, calling her incompetent, even after Kochs investigators substantiated her findings. She sued Koch-Glitsch in France for wrongful termination.
Obsessed with Secrecy
Koch-Glitsch is part of a global empire run by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who have taken a small oil company they inherited from their father, Fred, after his death in 1967, and built it into a chemical, textile, trading and refining conglomerate spanning more than 50 countries.
Koch Industries is obsessed with secrecy, to the point that it discloses only an approximation of its annual revenue -- $100 billion a year -- and says nothing about its profits.
The most visible part of Koch Industries is its consumer brands, including Lycra fiber and Stainmaster carpet. Georgia- Pacific LLC, which Koch owns, makes Dixie cups, Brawny paper towels and Quilted Northern bath tissue.
Charles, 75, and David, 71, each worth about $20 billion, are prominent financial backers of groups that believe that excessive regulation is sapping the competitiveness of American business. They inherited their anti-government leanings from their father.
Abolishing Social Security
Fred was an early adviser to the founder of the anti- communist John Birch Society, which fought against the civil rights movement and the United Nations. Charles and David have supported the Tea Party, a loosely organized group that aims to shrink the size of government and cut federal spending.
These are long-standing tenets for the Kochs. In 1980, David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket, pledging to abolish Social Security, the Federal Reserve System, welfare, minimum wage laws and federal agencies -- including the Department of Energy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.
What many people dont know is how the Kochs anti- regulation political ideology has influenced the way they conduct business.
A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...ran-sales.htmlNo matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up. Lily Tomlin.
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Posts
- 14,005
- Blog Entries
- 142
Re: The Koch Method - Int'l & Domestic Thievery
And Charles and David Koch are why I WOULD support the death penalty....Face it. It's the apocalypse.
Re: The Koch Method - Int'l & Domestic Thievery
I'm wondering why Bloomberg is breaking this story and not the "liberal" media.
This lays out exactly why they're so against government regulation. Imagine what they'd be up to if they get their way.
Doing business with Iran should be enough to get them perp walked somewhere.No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up. Lily Tomlin.
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- Jan 2005
- Location
- South Central PA
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Re: The Koch Method - Int'l & Domestic Thievery
This country desperately needs a revolution.
And Amie, I was really surprised by the Bloomberg source as well.


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This weekend, the Union Market District is kicking off Spring and celebrating the diverse collection of businesses, both old and new, with a daylong street fest featuring food and activities from district neighbors and partners including Trader Joe's, Politics and Prose, Cotton and Reed, Masseria, Pluma by Bluebird Bakery, A. Litteri, Blue Bottle Coffee, DC United and more.
The free, family-friendly day will take place Saturday April 7, 2018 from 10:00am to 4:00pm. The festival will be spread across the entire Union Market District, including venues 4th x Neal, Angelika, Dock 5, 4th x Morse Street and the Market itself.
From all-day live music at Neal Place to a pop-up bookshop by Politics & Prose and a number of food trucks lining Neal Place NE, the entire district, long known for attracting innovative retail as well as launching and scaling businesses, will be activated for a day of creativity and community.
O-Ku Sushi chef Bryan Emperor will host a special pop-up omakase experience inside the market from 12:00-4:00pm while Michelin-starred chef Nick Stefanelli will be selling to-go breakfast on Masseria's patio. Meet under the Yoko Ono mural on 6th Street for spoken word poetry and dance off the winter blues with DC's favorite DJ's and live music. Full schedule listed on link below.
Union Market. 7003, 1309 5th St NE, Washington, DC 20002. (301) 347-3998.


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Do You Need To Get A Personal Trainer To Lose Weight? I personally have been thinking about getting a personal trainer to lose weight and get in shape.
It's so hard for me to go into the gym and not know how to use the gym equipment.
Years ago I went to the gym, didn't have a personal trainer, but I had a friend that showed me how to use some of the weight lifting equipment.
It really made me feel good when I would be done with my workout routine and leave the gym.
So with that being said, I will be looking for a personal trainer near me.
Creating an effective weight loss exercise program on your own can be complicated, so using fitness DVDs has become a popular trend.
However, having a personal trainer can help you with weight loss and keeping you on track with your workout routine. I wish we had a Fitness19 near us.
They are a family fitness club for everyone.
A Personal Trainer Can Help You Attain Your Goals.
Having a personal trainer will also keep you on track of your workout routine.
If you have a question as to a particular technique's effectiveness or if there is an alternative to an exercise you don't enjoy, a personal trainer can help you with that.
Additionally, personal trainers can provide expert advice on your form and protect you from injuries.
Because there are so many variables and potentially risky circumstances involved when taking part in an intense exercise program, having an expert available is crucial.
A personal trainer will also help keep you on track with your progress. Although you may feel as though you are making progress, your trainer will give you an honest, candid opinion.
Having your trainer check up on your progress on a regular basis will allow you to know what types of exercises and methods are effective for you and which methods are not effective.
A personal trainer can also see when a solution is needed to solve a problem with your progress.
Personal trainers are exercise experts and know how to offer effective results for you, no matter how much weight you need to lose.
While some commercial exercise programs do have benefits, the individual attention and ability to customize the plan makes having a personal trainer the better choice.
Everyone has a different way to lose weight and the same program that works for one person isn't guaranteed to work for you.
A personal trainer can make a more effective and more enjoyable exercise program for you by taking into account your schedule, exercise preferences, and personal injury history.


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<Juppi> hes the best bot<Juppi> he even ownz u on vcmp<[Silence]Jc18> >_><Juppi> even tho he is a bot<[Silence]Jc18> he talk >_><Juppi> thats why i said hes the best bot<[Silence]Jc18> how many lines it have=?<Juppi> 5000*10^500 lines<Juppi> and no lag<[Silence]Jc18> OMG!<[Silence]Jc18> !icecream* ice_cream_bot has joined #Miami-Dade.Racing* Anna sets mode: +v ice_cream_bot<[Silence]Jc18> !scriptbot<ice_cream_bot> 10-=| This brilliant script was made by Windlord - Claude - Mattz - Kenwood - JoeK - H.M.Murdock Jc18 mLis |=-300 Lines >_><[Silence]Jc18> !part* ice_cream_bot has left #Miami-Dade.Racing<[Silence]Jc18> mine is better and have 300 lines <Juppi> can your bot play vcmp?<[Silence]Jc18> no >_><Juppi> j0j0j0<Juppi> i even play chess with tilester sometimes<Juppi> he pwns me all the time<[Silence]Jc18> afweretr<[Silence]Jc18> i pwn him >_><Juppi> on what?<[Silence]Jc18> vcmp >_><[Silence]Jc18> one time <Juppi> one kill for you, 10 for tilester, was it so?<[Silence]Jc18> but i pwn him <Juppi> anyways, he was about to be selected to king of sweden, but he didnt accept the job because he thought swedish king is a gay job<[Silence]Jc18> !<Mattz> lol ;o<Juppi> one time i had a 5th level differential equation as homework, it took 7 days and nights for me to solve it, tilester did it while he brushed his teeth<[Silence]Jc18> hmm.-.<Mattz> ._O<Juppi> and you know what? all the vcmp devs are just irc bots coded by tilester, and he actually rules all the vcmp<[Silence]Jc18> wtf<[Silence]Jc18> >_><Juppi> beat that, ice_cream_bot<[Silence]Jc18> O!<[Silence]Jc18> noo!!!<Mattz> lol<[Silence]Jc18> :/
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> trick or treat
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Baby Hazel Games Halloween Night


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Amazon Studios adds comedy 'Catastrophe' to its original series line-up
MUMBAI: Amazon Studios, known for television series such as multi-Golden Globe winner Transparent, and comedy Mozart in the Jungle, has now added the hit comedy Catastrophe to its line-up of Amazon Original Series available exclusively on Prime Instant Video, for Prime members to enjoy at no additional cost to their membership.
Written by US comedian and bestselling author, Rob Delaney, and award-winning actress, Sharon Horgan, Catastrophe is a half-hour comedy set in London about an Irish woman and American man struggling to start a relationship after their clumsy lust leads to pregnancy. Already a critical hit in the UK, Catastrophe is an Avalon Television production with co-producers Birdbath Productions and Merman. The series will be available exclusively for Prime members in the US this spring and will come to Prime Instant Video in the UK later this year.
"Rob and Sharon have created an engaging, contemporary, funny and moving story. We are excited to bring Catastrophe exclusively to our Amazon Prime customers and can't wait to hear what they think of the series," said Amazon Studios vice president Roy Price.
"We are delighted to be working with Amazon Studios, whose programming is rapidly proving to be some of the most original television currently being produced," said Avalon Television joint managing director Jon Thoday.
Catastrophe is produced by Jack Bayles and directed by Ben Taylor along with executive producers Richard Allen-Turner, Kara Baker, Rob Delaney, Sharon Horgan and Jon Thoday.


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No Fear and Pala Raceway recently formed a marketing alliance designed to co-promote their respective brands and support amateur and professional motocross riders and off-road racing in Southern California.
According to Kirk Chandler of the Pala Raceway Group, the new alliance will benefit everyone involved. "Aligning with action sports brands such as No Fear that are globally recognized will support Pala Raceway and its vision of becoming a world-class racing facility,†Chandler said. "No Fear will serve as the raceway's motocross protective gear brand, receiving local and national media exposure at racing events, plus a full line-up of No Fear's moto gear will be available in the raceway's onsite pro shop.â€
In addition, the Pala Raceway staff will use No Fear products when they ride, providing an unofficial team of over 20 riders promoting the brand's latest motocross gear and styles out on the track almost every day of the week.
"We're very excited about our new relationship with the Pala Raceway Group,†said Britt Galland, No Fear's Vice President of Marketing. "This is an ideal opportunity to showcase our brand and our exceptional quality gear at a racing venue that's practically in our own backyard. The facility is going to be phenomenal when it's all built out.â€
Located at 12799, Highway 76 in Pala, CA, the 200+ acre Pala Raceway is fast becoming one of the premier motocross facilities in Southern California, with many of the world's top professional and amateur riders honing their skills here on a regular basis. The complex currently features seven unique tracks, including the Main Track, Vet Track, Mini Track, a Quad / SideXSide Track, and a Trials area. Plans are also in the works to add a state-of-the-art Super Moto track, extensive camping and parking areas, as well as a separate Karting Track. Full color drawings of the Pala Raceway site plan can be viewed at www.palaraceway.com


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Dear all. I'm not sure why I started with this. Maybe it's because I've been writing emails all day to Sirs and Madams and Names all day long, but anyway let's get going with RWBY Volume 3, Episode 6 Thoughts! It's not going to be quick - after such an explosive cliffhanger, I don't think any RWBY fan can keep their opinions in, much less short!
I will also be posting a Half Season Review a day later - we do have 3 weeks to rot in a pit of speculations after all. No need to gobble up all the candies now and cry later!
As usual, everything discussed here will contain spoilers so be warned!
Have a seat. And some coffee. You'll like it black. Milk and sugar? What are those?
The obvious topic to start this Quick Thoughts is obvious, but let's talk about this man first. If you would remember Volume 1 Episode 10, Professor Ozpin once said a very profound quote to a certain young woman,
"Ruby... I've made more mistakes than any man, woman, and child on this planet. But at this moment, I would not consider your appointment to leader to be one of them."
Ever since that Episode, assuming that Ozpin isn't lying to Ruby, I've theorized (random advertisement, but the people at RWBY Wikia are the most reliable theorists that you can find!) that Professor Ozpin is immortal, or at the very least outlived every single human being in Remnant.
Even then there are many signs that indicate that Ozpin is more than what he seems (World of Remnant: Aura, his portrait is shown along the line "More than just a man"; old Professor Port's subtle comment, "I've believed in Professor Ozpin for many years, and the man's never once let me astray!"), and now we seem to have yet one more circumstantial evidence from the man himself,
"Would you believe me if I told you that one's been around since I was a boy?"
Pyrrha obviously didn't understand the implications, because of course that fairy tale is going to be around since Ozpin's a boy; the fairy tale's older than everyone in the world! What exactly is the point in saying the obvious? To Pyrrha, she probably thinks that the Professor made a meaningless comment to sooth her nerves, and yet from our point of view we know for a fact that he has never made a meaningless comment throughout the entire show. I don't think he has even utter a blatant lie yet.
Professor Ozpin is obviously more than what he seems. So who wants to venture a bet that he's a protagonist with his own epic prequel? Who wants to see him own bosses with his cane sword?? *raises hand*
For some reason, I can't stop thinking that this is a beginner's puzzle to 'Spot the Ruby'.
The Four Maidens: Winter, Spring, Summer & Fall
Now then, to the meat of the episode. If you're wondering why fairy tales are given unusually strong emphasis by the Guardians of Remnant, that is because they're all real. The Shallow Sea? Real. The Girl In the Tower? Have you met Yang Xiao Long? And then there's The Tale of The Two Brothers; you thought you're just playing a game, didn't you, you sick little -
Well okay, poor jokes aside you get my meaning. Fairy tales play an incredibly important role in Remnant, and no matter how far-fetched or childish a story seems it should never be treated lightly. The Four Maidens of The Seasons exist in real life and wield such tremendous powers that they are seen, even in the current light of science and technology, to be as miraculous as magic. That is a lot to swallow, either for the viewers or Pyrrha herself.
But I won't talk too much about Pyrrha or the Maidens themselves; this is the hottest topic in every RWBY discussion forums and I don't need to bore you with what you already know. Instead, I'll put down here a few food for thoughts:
- The red-garbed, final Maiden 'Fall', "Begs him to look at all that he has and be thankful." If we assume that this line describes her powers, then can we assume that she is able to cause someone to relive their memories?
- Did the fairy tale of The Seasons come before the Grimm War described in V1E1, or after?
- At the beginning I thought Penny's research is an attempt to create artificial Aura soldiers, with the goal of eventually mass producing them against the Grimm. Now it may seem that I've thought too small. What if Atlas' goal is to mass produce artificial Maidens? They would be unstoppable, Grimm... or human.
- Let's take a look back and remember the lyrics of Sacrifice:
"Born an angel, heaven sent,
Falls from grace are never elegant.
Stars will drop out of the sky,
The moon will sadly watch the roses die.
Show them gods and deities,
Blind and keep the people on their knees.
Pierce the sky, escape your fate.
The more you try the more you'll just breed hate,
What if all the plans you made,
Were not worth the price they paid?
Even with the lives you stole,
Still no closer to your...
You can't have my life.
I'm not your sacrifice.
You can try, but I'm free,
And you won't conquer me.
I won't crawl,
Most of all,
I won't fall,
For you."
This is commonly understood as Cinder Fall's song. Now let's us also assume that the singer here is a Maiden and ask yourself this question:
Is Amber truly innocent, or did she deserve her down-Fall?
Oh fallen Maiden, what are you truly afraid for?
Not even I can joke about this.
The Semblance That Framed Yang Xiao Long
Again I'll try to not waste your time by tediously reiterating THE hottest topic among RWBY fans (quite literally too) and go straight to the heart of the matter.
Whose Semblance - or magic - it is that framed Yang Xiao Long?
Before we answer the question though, I want to make something clear. I'll try to make it short. Up till now, we have seen possibly 3 types of illusion:
- The glass-like illusion from V2E4. Used by Neo. Does not have a sound effect.
- Full body illusion. The person is able to mask themselves completely as someone else. Used by Neo and Emerald (take the face value facts and exclude the speculations for the moment). Again, it does not have a sound effect, although it is possible that Neo and Emerald has changed themselves out of screen and hence, RT saw no need to add it in.
- Single body hallucination or AOE illusion. Single body hallucination is the more reasonable choice here, because there are millions of people watching the tournament. There has to be a Huntsman out there who can potentially see through illusions, therefore hallucination is the most secure way for team villain to pull their stunt without being realized by anyone (except Yang, who has heard the sound of a Semblance triggering). Used by ???. Has a sound effect.
With these listed, let me start right away with an unpopular opinion: Neo is not the culprit.
- Neo: The reason for this is simple: A Semblance's sound effect. As the late creator Monty Oum has said before, whenever a Semblance triggers a unique sound effect will follow. We have heard Neo's Semblance's sound effect at 13:01 Volume 2 Episode 11, and it's something like a 'whoosh' kinda wind sound. But the sound effect here is very different like an abrupt Minor. That reason alone is enough - until proven otherwise by future episodes - to state that Neo is not the culprit who framed Yang.
- Emerald: She is a far more likely culprit. Twice in a row - once when she was ambushing Coco, and second being the fastest person to reach Mercury after the 'incident', which we can use to assume that she was stationed very close to the arena - we've seen her causing people around her vicinity to see something that wasn't there. While we didn't actually hear such a sound effect when she ambushed Coco, it could've happened off screen.
- Mercury: Even more likely than Emerald, this dude is the second most suspicious out of all the potential candidates. During the doubles fight, he had defeated Yatsuhashi before Emerald took down Coco, so it's entirely possible that he came to Emerald's aid and caused that illusion. And of course, during the singles fight the sound effect happened right after he said his heated quotes, so it's entirely possible that the hallucination Semblance is his.
That being said, for such a cocky fighter to have such a... I don't know, cowardly? Semblance is a bit unexpected. I mean, this dude's a freaking wolf and he has hallucination as his Semblance? Common sense is bane in deduction though, so you may ignore this line of thought.
Cinder: Now if you're asking me, then this woman here is who I believe to be the true culprit behind Yang's downfall. The reason is exactly the same as why I ruled Neo out of the list. Sound effect. Go rewatch Volume 2: Episode 7 (Dance Dance Infiltration) around 12.:20. It is very, very similar, if not outright identical. Coupled with the fact that she purposely left her seat even before the fight started, Cinder is my chosen Culprit Who Scre - I mean, Framed Yang Xiao Long!
Holy butts that was long I haven't even bathed wrote this for like 3 hours straight, but damn if Episode 6 isn't super awesome. The exposition's great, the pacing is good, there isn't filler like the previous episode and best of all, THERE IS ALMOST NO NOTICEABLE ALIASING HURRAHHHHHHH-MA-GAWD WHY DIDN'T THEY DO THIS EARLIER MY HEART!
As a cliffhanger, well, for me I didn't actually feel it too much because the ending of Volume 3 has been theorized since forever. We already know that it has to end badly or at best a Pyrrhic victory, so the fact that they're finally doing it makes me feel more relieved than anything else. A side effect of chasing RWBY 3 long years I guess.
But I really should wrap this up. For those who hasn't watched Episode 6, watch it. For those who did, watch again. The tension is strong in this one, and an episode that can wring your heart is the best kind of entertainment!


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Latest News
This news is posted on our website on a regular basis. Visit us often to keep informed. www.robert-forbes.com
Complementary Medicines ("Dietary supplements"):
TGA Launches New Advertising Hub and Online Complaints Form
Consumers can now report dodgy ads for medicines and medical devices through a single online form … anonymously! On 1 July 2018, the Therapeutic Goods Administration launched a web hub bringing together news and information about the regulation of therapeutic goods advertising. This online resource contains tools for both consumers and advertisers, including fact sheets, e-learning modules and forms for reporting unfair or misleading advertising and submitting enquiries. The new complaint form makes it easy for anyone to lodge complaints about advertisements for therapeutic goods. The TGA is now the sole body for handling complaints about medicine and medical device advertisements aimed at the public, with new sanctions and penalties for advertisers who do not comply with regulations. Consumers can use the hub to educate themselves on the rules that protect them against unfair or misleading ads for therapeutic goods. Fact sheets such as "The top 10 things to look out for in medicine advertisements" explain the controls in place to protect the health and safety of consumers. Advertisers can learn how to meet the requirements of a compliant advertisement through e-learning modules on the hub. The first module on the basics of therapeutic goods advertising regulation is now available, with future modules planned for the coming months. Advertisers can also check whether a particular therapeutic good can be advertised to the public by using a simple online decision tool. Source: TGA advertising hub (You can also choose to attend one of our training courses specific to advertising: http://www.rfaregulatoryaffairs.com/training-courses)
TGA Provides Medicine Labelling Guidance
This guidance is to help sponsors and manufacturers of medicines meet the Australian labelling requirements described in the new labelling Orders. There are different risks and information requirements associated with medicines prescribed by a medical practitioner (or used in a clinical setting) to those self-selected by consumers. As a result, the labels for these two types of medicines need to reflect the different contexts in which they're used. In recognition of this, medicine label requirements are specified in two separate labelling Orders: Therapeutic Goods Order No. 91 (prescription), and, Therapeutic Goods Order No. 92 (non-prescription). Transition period ends 1 September 2020. Source: Medicine labelling (RFA also offers training courses on labelling http://www.rfaregulatoryaffairs.com/training-courses )
TGA Changeover to Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code 2018
The following information is provided for advertisers to explain what will happen in the changeover from the 2015 Code to the 2018 Code. The 2018 Code takes effect from 1 January 2019. On this date, the 2015 Code will be repealed. However, the 2015 Code will still be relevant in some situations. Delaying the date for when the 2018 Code takes effect allows advertisers time to familiarise themselves with it and to bring existing advertising material into compliance. The delay will also allow advertisers to undertake the training and education offered by the TGA. Source: Advertising code . Editor's Note: See the latest updates in two most recent TGA presentations--Code update
TGA Advises on the Future Regulation of Low Risk Products
When the Australian Government required the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to examine whether the regulatory oversight applying to a range of products that represent a very low safety risk to consumers was consistent with the principles of best practice regulation, and further whether there were any opportunities for streamlining or simplifying current regulatory requirements for these products, over 1,000 submissions were received in response. The proposed options for reform spanned from retaining the status quo to exclusion or exemption from the therapeutic goods regulatory framework. Following analysis of consultation responses, a range of reform activities have been endorsed by Government. It has been decided that there will be no changes concerning the regulation of water soluble vitamins / minerals, nor sunscreens. However there are changes affecting tampons and menstrual caps, nappy rash creams, and hard-surface disinfectants. Anti-perspirants and ear-candles will become exempt from regulation under this code. Source: Low-risk future
Australia Leads the Way in Regulatory Standards for Complementary Medicines
Mr Carl Gibson, CEO of Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA) syas that Australia leads the way in regulatory standards for complementary medicines. "Whilst criticism can be healthy, increasingly our industry has become the target of irresponsible and ill-informed commentary that appears to stem from a misunderstanding of the existing stringent regulatory standards that apply to complementary medicines in Australia and the recent regulatory changes that have strengthened regulatory controls even further." "The fact remains that Australian complementary medicines industry operates within one of the most tightly regulated systems in the world, where products are manufactured to a pharmaceutical standard under Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), and strict safety and quality regulations are enforced by the Department of Health's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)." "This regulatory approach demands that manufacturers are licensed and inspected and follow the highest standard of GMP, not only for products for the Australian market but also for those exported overseas." Source: CMA media release Vitamins in Australia
TGA's Compliance Review Of Sunscreens
Consumer information - In May 2017, the Therapeutic Goods Administration published the laboratory testing results of 31 commonly used sunscreens. These included lotions, creams and aerosol sprays sourced from Australian pharmacies and supermarkets. All of the products tested contained the levels of active ingredients specified on their labels. Since May, the TGA has completed a desktop review of 94 listed sunscreen products, examining the quality, safety and efficacy of sunscreens on the Australian market. TGA found no compliance deficiencies in relation to quality, safety and efficacy in every-day use of these products. (Background: Last Summer there were many media reports of consumers suffering significant sunburn even after using authorised sunscreens in Australia. Consumers are reminded that suncreens will under-perfrom unless the following advice is followed: Apply sunscreen liberally (at least 1 teaspoon/5 ml) to each area (arm, leg, back, etc.) for full coverage and effectiveness; Re-apply sunscreen regularly (every two hours), especially after swimming or towelling (water activities or activities that may cause perspiration require more frequent application); Sunscreen products do not block 100% of UV radiation. You will become sunburnt if your skin is exposed to the sun for extended periods). Source: Sunscreen effectiveness
Submissions Received: 'Options For The Implementation Of A Claimer For Efficacy Assessed Non-Prescription Medicines'
Between 10 May and 21 June 2018, the TGA sought comments from interested parties on the review of Consultation: Options for the implementation of a claimer for efficacy assessed non-prescription medicines. All submissions that gave permission to be published on the TGA website are available online in PDF format. The outcomes of this consultation will be published on the TGA website in due course. Source: TGA submissions
New Zealand Supplement Rules: New Members' Bill Proposes Raft of New Regulations to Replace 1980s Laws
The long-running saga of proposed new regulations for New Zealand's supplement industry has taken another turn, with a new Members' Bill being laid out in parliament detailing a whole new set of proposals. Source: Gary Scattergood, Nutra Ingredients-Asia NZ rules
TGA Safety Advisories— Source: https://www.tga.gov.au/current-year-alerts
Need for Seal tablets: the tablets contain the undeclared substance sildenafil.
Gold Maka tablets: the tablets contain the undeclared substance sildenafil
One Night Lover tablets: the tablets contain the undeclared substance sildenafil
Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation Communiqué 29 June 2018
The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation (the Forum) met to consider a range of food regulation matters. The Forum comprises all Australian and New Zealand Ministers responsible for food regulation, and the Australian Local Government Association. The Forum oversees the collaborative joint Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation System. Topics covered included: Reduce foodborne illness, particularly related to Campylobacter & Salmonella; Support public health objectives to reduce chronic disease related to overweight and obesity; &, Maintaining a strong, robust and agile Food Regulation System. Source: ANZ foods
Australia's Country of Origin Labelling Rules Come Into Force with Spot Checks for 10,000 Items
Australia's new Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) rules are now fully in force, with regulators set to embark on 10,000 spot checks to ensure adherence. Source: Lester Wan, Food Navigator-Asia CoOL checks
FSANZ Calls for Comment on Draft Cost Recovery Arrangements
Foods Standards Australia & New Zealand called for comment on a revised approach to cost recovery arrangements. Less than two per cent of FSANZ's total revenue is generated through cost recovery and only a small number of applications to amend the Code incur costs. The deadline for submissions is 6pm (Canberra time) 2 August 2018. Source: Call for comment
Consultation on Labelling of Sugars on Packaged Foods and Drinks
The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation (the Forum) is investigating labelling approaches for providing information on sugars to consumers. The Food Regulation Standing Committee (FRSC) is responsible for coordinating policy advice to the Forum and will facilitate stakeholder consultation on the labelling of sugars on packaged foods and drinks. FRSC is inviting stakeholders including industry, public health and consumer organisations and other interested parties to make submissions on the Consultation Paper. The Consultation Paper has been prepared to seek information on the labelling of sugars on packaged foods and drinks. Source: Sugar consultation
New Food Warning Labels for Protein Shakes After Australian Mum's Death
Bodybuilding and sports food supplements packaging could carry enhanced warning labels under a proposal being investigated by the Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt. The safety measure is being considered after it was revealed supplements, including protein shakes, contributed to the death of 25-year-old Meegan Hefford. Unknown to the mother-of-two, she had a rare genetic disorder that stopped her body from properly breaking down protein. Following global coverage of the tragedy, Mr Hunt last year ordered the national food and medicine watchdogs to investigate the regulation of sports food supplements. He said yesterday Food Standards Australia New Zealand and Therapeutic Goods Administration had advised him "no regulatory" gaps existed. However, still concerned at the risk to consumers, Mr Hunt on Friday instructed the Food Regulation Standing Committee (FRSC) to investigate "enhancing the safety of consumers". He said concerns had been raised about whether products such as the one involved in Ms Hefford's death were subject to appropriate regulation, including labelling. Source: Regina Titelius, news.com.au Protein shake-up
FSANZ Notifications—
Application A1165 – Lysophospholipase from Trichoderma reesei as a Processing Aid (Enzyme): The purpose of the Application is to permit the use of lysophospholipase enzyme from Trichoderma reesei as a processing aid for use in starch processing. Source: Trichoderma enzyme
Application A1166 – Reduction in minimum alcohol for tequila: The purpose of this Application is to lower the minimum alcohol percentage by volume from 37% to 35%. Source: Tequila!
Application A1167 – Lactase from Bacillus subtilis as a Processing Aid (Enzyme): The purpose of this Application is to permit the use of lactase enzyme from Bacillus subtilis as a processing aid for use in dairy processing. Source: Dairy enzyme
Australian (NSW) Food Authority Recalls – Source: Current recalls
Loving Earth Coconut Chocolate Butter: Due to the presence of higher than expected levels of tree nuts. The product is labelled 'MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF NUTS".
Jimmy Brings Wine: Presence of undeclared allergens (sulphites, milk and eggs).
Mushroom Exchange Sliced White and Brown Mushrooms (various): Potential presence of foreign matter (hard plastic).
Serendipity Vanilla Bean Ice cream: Undeclared allergens (milk and egg).
Frozen Vegetables (various): Possible microbial (Listeria monocytogenes) contamination. (Further reading: Listeria information )
Fresh Fodder Peppered Taramosalata: Presence of undeclared allergens (seafood and soy).
Black & Gold Crumbed Fish Portions: foreign object contamination – (metal).
June 2018 Failing Food Report
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources targets and monitors food determined to pose a high or medium risk to public health. Risk food is targeted at the rate of 100 per cent until a history of food safety compliance is established. When an emerging human health and safety hazard is identified in food, the department may temporarily increase monitoring and testing. This report details food that was found to fail under the Imported Food Inspection Scheme during the month of June. Among the pathogenic organisms detected in these imported foods were, Salmonella and Vibrio cholera, as well as the toxins Aflatoxin, Histamine and Lead, and more. Source: June food fails
Cosmetics (& Household cleaning products):
Accord Australasia Sets Up 'WashWise' – All You Ever Wanted to Know About Washing
Accord Australasia is the peak national industry association representing manufacturers and marketers of hygiene, cosmetic and specialty products, their raw materials suppliers and service providers. Accord's latest initiative, The WashWise website, provides a wealth of information on sustainable laundry practices – whilst also assisting consumers to use laundry products correctly. WashWise provides tips and information about doing the laundry for Australians who value a great clean, the environment, and saving money. Source: WashWise
NSW Government Warning After Children's Lead Poisoning Linked to Eyeliner
The New South Wales state Government has issued a public health warning over an imported eyeliner that contains dangerously high levels of lead and other hazardous metals. Health authorities in western Sydney were alerted to the product, manufactured in Pakistan and sold in some Indian and Pakistani stores in Sydney, after three children from the same family became sick. doctors tested the children and found elevated levels of lead in their blood. An investigation indicated the health concerns were likely to have been caused by one of the Hashmi brand eyeliners. Testing of the Hashmi Surmi Special and Hashmi Khol Aswad eyeliners revealed an 84 per cent lead content. The tests also found the two eyeliners contained high levels of dangerous metals including arsenic, cadmium, chromium and mercury. Source: Nour Haydar, ABC News Toxic eyeliner
Marketing News:
When are 'Naturals' not Natural? When you're in Aldi
Products marketed by supermarket giant Aldi using the term "naturals" don't need to be made of mostly natural ingredients if the word is less prominent on the packaging and sold in a discount bin, the Federal Court has ruled. Aldi's popular Protane Moroccan Argan Oil hair treatments promise a "naturals" formula on the bottle, referring to the ingredient "argan oil" found in the product, even though many of the ingredients are not natural. But because the writing is small, below the name of the product, and because it's often found in a discount bin in a discount supermarket, the court found that ordinary consumers would understand the "Naturals" label refers only to the presence of the ingredient "argan oil" and not whether the product is composed of mostly natural elements. Source: David Estcourt, SMH Aldi naturally
Sigma Hit by Competitor's Blow
In a body blow to the pharmaceutical wholesaler, Sigma is set to lose its biggest retail customers in June next year. Sigma has been unable to reach agreement on a new supply contract for the 400 stores in the Chemist Warehouse retail chains, which command around a 23 percent share of the total retail pharmacy market. The Chemist Warehouse Group, which includes My Chemist Group, My Beauty Sport and ePharmacy, an online pharmacy, has opted instead for a five-year supply contract with Ebos Group. Ebos, which is listed on both the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges and is currently the supplier for the Terry White Chemmart pharmacy chain, estimates the new contract will generate around $1 billion in wholesale sales in its first year. Source: Inside FMCG Sigma dumped
Quote for the month:
"Competition is the keen cutting edge of business. Always shaving away at costs" Henry Ford***********************************************************************************************************


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We all love to connect with great people. Wether it is to share our thoughts, give our opinions or simply feel connected to the rest of the world, human nature leads us to search for connections. With a lot of time and patience, we can build a great professional network that will be nourishing both personally and professionally. What tools do you use to build your professional network?
The two obvious social networks are Facebook and Twitter. With a personal profile and a business page, you can get to know a lot of people all around the world. But don't you feel those two sites can be a bit impersonal? Nothing annoys me more than receiving an obviously prefabricated direct message. And what about buying followers? It sounds pretty much like a shallow shortcut to me. Still, these sites are a good way to advertise your products, receive feedback from your customers and to connect with fellow business owners.
Within the social media realm, I'm also a fan of LinkedIn. This site is where posting your résumé online can mean a breakthrough in the advancement of your career. Link with contacts, groups and other companies. Browse through job postings. Get recommendations from colleagues, service providers, business partners, fellow students or teachers. This is also a great site to promote your business and to get pertinent information on current news, tips and trends.
Enough about social media. What about meeting people face to face? Within the last decade, it seems that we forgot the importance to do so. There are plenty of ways to meet new business contacts. The chamber of commerce of your area, training workshops and breakfast meetings are traditional examples of face to face networking. But why don't you get outside the box and challenge yourself? Back business cards in your pocket and attend charities, school plays, yard sales or french classes at your community center. Next month, I'll be attending my first TED event in Maui. I see it as a great opportunity to network with people from different fields.
While you are shaking new hands, don't forget to smile, not only with your mouth but also with your eyes. The greatest business card you have is your attitude. When making a good impression on others, you open the door to good word of mouth, the most powerful of networking tools. Your personal touch is what will distinguish you from others when you build your professional network. I lead by example, try following me on any social media site. I promise never to send you a canny message and to personally answer your questions as soon as possible. Go ahead, try me. Or meet me face to face and shake my hand. I promise you a smile and great conversation.
Online Database – Be more efficient in these uncertain times
Our lives will probably never be the same once we make it through the Coronavirus pandemic. What is almost certain, though, is that it will


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Publications in Tarpon Springs, Florida
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Located in New Port Richey
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