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Serving Raceland, Gheens, Lockport, Valentine, Larose, Cut Off, Galliano, Golden Meadow, Leeville, & Grand Isle
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Louisiana House budget-writing committee Monday advanced a $24 billion spending plan for next year that could force steep cuts on colleges and health services, but few lawmakers expect it to resemble the final bill.
The Appropriations Committee stripped nearly $500 million in patchwork financing proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal from one-time land sales, legal settlements and fund sweeps to spend on ongoing expenses in the 2013-14 budget. The panel then voted 15-9 to move the reworked spending plan to the full House for debate.
The dollars would be removed in cuts of up to 20 percent to any agency that receives state general fund revenue. The biggest share of that funding goes to higher education and the state health department.
But the cuts were part of a larger strategy to maneuver the budget through procedural hurdles that could be used by conservative House Republicans to stall the legislation. They don't necessarily reflect lawmakers' support for slashing the budget.
House leaders wanted to remove the patchwork funding so they could get the budget through the House and to then reinstate some of the money in the Senate.
Two-thirds support of House members is needed to debate and pass a budget proposal that seeks to use "one-time" sources of money to pay for ongoing programs and services. Without the piecemeal funding, the budget won't require the two-thirds vote that could be used to cause a stalemate on the House floor.
"It's all about hearing the bill. It's not what I wanted," said Appropriations Chairman Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro.
The House will consider the budget May 9.
Fannin and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles, are hoping the House will pass the budget and the Senate will reverse at least some of the proposed cuts. The Senate doesn't have a similar vote requirement for considering the patchwork funding.
As they stripped the one-time dollars, Appropriations Committee members also removed $19 million that had been slated to pay for agencies to fill vacant jobs.
That money was used to reverse Jindal's proposed cuts to shelters for domestic violence victims, a breast and cervical cancer screening program, children's immunizations at parish health centers and a program that helps elderly citizens apply for and learn about programs that offer rebates and discounts on medications, called SenioRx.
But the implications of the larger, nearly $500 million cut remained unclear. House budget analysts were trying to determine Monday how deep the reductions would be to public colleges and health care services.
Conservative House Republicans, nicknamed the "fiscal hawks," say the patchwork budgeting causes repeated cycles of financial problems, leaving lawmakers to scramble to fill gaps when the dollars fall away.
Supporters of the one-time funding, including the Jindal administration, say without those dollars, critical services face unnecessary slashing. Jindal's chief budget architect, Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols, said she is confident the dollars will pan out as expected and wouldn't force midyear budget cuts.
"We've done the hard work of reducing the size and cost of government, but we don't think it makes sense to make deeper cuts to health care and higher education that are not necessary," Nichols told the committee.
Some of the fiscal hawks are working on an alternate set of budget cut proposals, but they haven't unveiled any recommendations publicly.
Meanwhile, some Democrats are trying to negotiate with the fiscal hawks on a compromise, to shrink existing tax breaks to drum up new cash. That could run into trouble with Jindal, who has threatened a veto of any bills that raise new tax dollars for the state.
Online: House Bill 1 can be found at www.legis.la.gov
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.


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Ever heard the term "drink like a fish?" The saying couldn't be a better fit for next weekend's premier event, Scales and Ales (Friday, Sept. 20th), an annual celebration benefiting the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. Partygoers mingle, eat, dance and drink among the Aquarium's collection of 6,800 fish. The annual event, now in its 4th year, has brought in $350,000 since 2010 to support the aquarium's conservation efforts and education programs.
At Scales and Ales, patrons enjoy Bites and Brews, including a wide selection of beers from local favorite Abita Beer, such as Purple Haze, Andygator, Jockamo IPA and their seasonal feature Satsuma Harvest Wit, in addition to wine and specialty cocktails. The drinks are a wonderful and welcoming counterpart to the delicious food served throughout the event.
More than 30 local restaurants also participate with offerings that run the gamut. These restaurants include the following, just to name a few: Acme Oyster House, Angelo Brocato Italian Desserts, Café du Monde, Chiba, Deanie's Seafood, Galatoire's, The Praline Connection, Royal House and VooDoo BBQ and Grill, plus many more local and national establishments.
And what's a New Orleans party without some great live music? On this year's lineup is headliners Simply Irresistible from Atlanta, GA, a high-energy party band that you can expect to play a wide range of genre covers, such as current and legendary dance hits, R&B , jazz and instrumental and 80s and 90s rock—a fun blend of dance songs for patrons of all ages. There will also be performances from marching and dance krewe, The Sirens of New Orleans.
There are some great statistics regarding the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas: over 1 million people visit the Aquarium every year, including 150,000 field trip visitors to the Aquarium and Entergy IMAX Theatre each year. About 226,300 visitors have been reached through the Aquarium's education programming, and there are 265 aquarium volunteers present to educate visitors, including 25 youth volunteers. All of the Aquarium's 6,800 fish have been responsibly collected or captive bred, and 200 sea turtles and four dolphins have been rescued since 2010, the first year of Scales and Ales.
Tickets to this year's Scales and Ales event start at $45 for Penguin Pal Members, $55 for Penguin Pal tickets and $100 for the Parrotfish Program, which includes VIP early access to the event at 7 p.m. and all-night access to the VIP tent, which has a bar and exclusive cuisine.

subset: commoncrawl


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Recently, I watched an Omega Institute for Holistic Studies live webcast "Strength, Courage and Wisdom" with TED icon Brene' Brown and Zen priest Joan Halifax Roshi.
They were talking about finding your strength and how important it is to know your capacity and own it. I loved that Joan Roshi said, "Remember to take an in-breath." Then she posed the question "How can you take care of the world, if you don't take care of yourself? You must love and show kindness to yourself."
"The female identity is being a care-giver or a do-gooder," added Brene' Brown. The conversation went on that it's unfortunate that if a woman does take that in-breath, in our culture she is viewed as narcissistic. What I pulled from that part is that to have power, we also need to take care of our needs and not care how others perceive us. Sometimes you have to enlist the help of others and put down that do-it-all shield.
Talk is cheap, right? To really do this, you have to overcome your fear of what others think or any other feelings of inadequacy that you harbor. For women, it takes courage to take some of those "in-breaths" in our lives. And to really have power, you have to be your true self and speak your own truth. You have to speak up for yourself. If you have a supportive family and friends, it may be a little easier to do this kind of woo woo stuff in your personal life, but what about at work?


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Aquatica D7000 Housing with Deep Spring kit installed, 4" bk-7 Glass Mini Dome, Extension Ring and Zoom Gear for Tokina 10-17mm lens, +Extras
Rig has only been used a few dozen times and everything is in pristine / like-new condition. The external hydrophone has been removed and replaced with a Nikonos Bulkhead so you can connect strobes with direct sync cord or with fiber optic through the other bulkheads. This is great for backups or if you ever find yourself borrowing strobes from a fellow diver. The rig already already picks up external noise extremely well on the D7000 internal mic.
-Aquatica Nikon AD7000 housing with dual optical fiber ports (for Sea & Sea and Inon type), and 1 nikonos style bulkhead for nikonos style sync cords with cap.
-Factory installed conversion spring kit for 425ft/130m depth rating
-Factory installed leak sensor
-Aquatica 4" glass mini-dome (including neoprene dome cover), glass is in perfect condition.
-Aquatica extension ring (18456) + zoom gear (48717) for Tokina 10-17mm fisheye
-Xit 404 body cap
-Strobe arm base ball adapters and carry handle
Prices new are:
D7000 Housing - $2939
Deep Kit - $69
4" Mini Dome - $699
Extension Ring - $220
Zoom Gear - $130
Xit 404 Body Cap for Aqautica housings - $50
Ultralight (ULCS) Base Adapter - Wide (x2) - $48
Sea & Sea handle brackets (x2)- $40
Removable handle with SS bolt snaps - $10
Total: $4205
Asking $3000 +shipping costs.


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For most of Mac users, iMovie is one of the most useful tools for us. It makes viewing and working with video as intuitive as enjoying our photos. With its revolutionary interface, iMovie not only create ourself movies, but also is powerful for sharing. Just only several simple steps, we can put ourself video on our blog, youtube, and other website, but we can't import dvd to imovie for us to edit.
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Places 98th in Field of More than 250 of the Nation's Best
TERRE HAUTE, Ind.—The Yale men's cross country team's season concluded in exciting fashion on Saturday, as sophomore Kevin Dooney ran the 10K race at the Division I NCAA National Championships, held at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Ind. Competing in muddy conditions alongside more than 250 of the most talented runners in the country, Dooney placed 98th, finishing with a time of 31:18.5. Colorado (149 points), Northern Arizona (169), Oklahoma State (230), BYU (267) and Oregon (274) were the meet's top five team finishers, while Oregon's Edward Cheserek (29:41.1) was the race's top individual runner.
For Dooney—the third Bulldog to qualify for Nationals in the last nine years and just the sixth since 1991—a strong performance at Nationals was a fitting end to an impressive sophomore season. This season alone, Dooney finished first on the team at four separate races, set 8K personal records three different times, and earned both All-Region and second team All-Ivy honors. Dooney then earned an automatic individual bid to Nationals by being one of the fastest four runners at Regionals on a non-qualifying team. On Saturday, he did his best to make the most of that opportunity.
"The race was pretty messy with all the rain that's fallen here, which made things extra tough," Dooney said after the race. "But I think I was able to handle it pretty well for my first time here."
Head Men's Cross Country Coach Paul Harkins is very impressed with the season Dooney has managed to put together.
"Dooney came into the season a little banged up," Harkins said before Saturday's race. "He was running but had some lingering hip soreness which hampered his summer training. We just took it day-by-day and tried to keep Kevin smooth without pounding him into the ground. He progressed pretty rapidly, though, and, once [the Paul Short Invitational] and then [the Pre-National Invitational] came around, his goals started to get a bit bigger."
With one Nationals race already under his belt as a sophomore, Dooney figures to be discussed alongside some of Yale's all-time cross country greats—including Lucas Meyer '05 and Jeff Perrella '10, the team's last two runners to qualify for Nationals. Meyer finished 102nd at Nationals in 2003 and 18th in 2004, while Perrella finished 120th at Nationals in 2010. On Saturday, Dooney recorded the fastest Nationals race time for a Yale runner since Meyer in 2003.
"Dooney had an outstanding freshman track season, so I knew he was capable of pretty great things," Harkins explained. "He broke four freshman records last winter and spring, so as long as he continued to progress, [I knew] he could elevate his status as one of the best in Yale's history pretty quickly."
Despite Dooney's solid showing at Nationals, both he and Harkins emphasized that this year's race was merely preparation for the years ahead.
"I'm pretty pleased with my performance and feel I've learned a lot, which will serve me well for the next two years when hopefully we can come back with a full team," Dooney said.
With the cross country season officially completed, Dooney and the rest of the Elis will have two weeks off before beginning the indoor track and field season with the Yale Season Opener at Coxe Cage on Dec. 7. Given Dooney's record-breaking freshman track and field season, it is likely that Dooney's success is far from over.
"With him having two and a half more years here, it will be fun to see where he can take it," Harkins said.
Report by Zach Schloss '15, Yale Sports Publicity


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Louis Vuitton Monogram Keepall 60 Bag Pre Owned
This item is no longer available
Authenticity code: Louis Vuitton SP0957
Authentic: Pre Owned
This authentic trendy Louis Vuitton Monogram Canvas Keepall 60 is ideal for a vacation get away. This bag is spacious, chic, and has a zip top closure for safety. The interior is large and has an abundance of space to pack for a stylish get away. Travel in style, in classic Louis Vuitton style.
- Exterior: Gently used
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- Description of Interior: Cross grain Lined
- Color: Brown
- Hardware Description: Gold Hardware
- Material: Canvas
- Width: 23.6 in.
- Length: 10.2 in.
- Height: 13 in.
- Handle Drop: 6 in.
Product Code: 2192037
Read more about Louis Vuitton Date Code here.
All photos are of actual item being sold. © 2007-2019 LuxeDH.
This Louis Vuitton® item is guaranteed to be authentic. Louis Vuitton is a registered trademark of Louis Vuitton. LuxeDH is not affiliated with or represents Louis Vuitton in any way or form.


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How HUD Approved Housing Counseling Helps!
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Attractive stealth fighter design, Excellent keyboard
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Surprisingly good performance for your money
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ReviewGist helps you find the best products to buy by making sense of online reviews.
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The Advocate
River Parishes bureau
November 27, 2012
Read full story here
State officials are investigating how Texas Brine Co. LLC handled naturally occurring radioactive material in Assumption Parish — where a large sinkhole was found Aug. 3 — and whether it was illegally disposed of inside the Napoleonville Dome in the mid-1990s.
The state Department of Environmental Quality confirmed last week that a 1979 state statute prohibited disposal of naturally occurring radioactive material in large underground salt deposits like the Napoleonville Dome until legislative changes in 1999 made such disposal legal.
"What we're going to do is investigate this thing the best we can with the information from 1995 and move forward as appropriate," DEQ spokesman Rodney Mallett said.
In August 1995, Texas Brine considered putting up to 20 cubic feet of NORM in an underground company cavern in the Napoleonville Dome and in another salt dome in Lafourche Parish, according to DEQ and state Office of Conservation records.
The Office of Conservation did not object, but it is unclear if Texas Brine followed through on the plans.
Texas Brine officials, in a statement last week, said they did not put NORM in the caverns after making initial regulatory inquiries but it remains on site under a standing DEQ license.
"Since the concentration level of NORM was so low, and the amount of accumulated scale was so small, it was determined to leave the scale in place," Texas Brine officials said in the statement, which came after the company was told that DEQ concluded NORM disposal in salt domes was illegal in 1995.
The statement contradicts detailed comments from company officials on Aug. 10 that a small amount of NORM was disposed of in the Napoleonville Dome with Office of Conservation approval but that it posed no risk to the public.
The processes involved with oil and gas drilling, along with a variety of other industrial processes such as brine production, can concentrate naturally occurring radioactive isotopes underground at widely varying levels, but sometimes can pose a risk, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Subsequent testing by DEQ and the EPA has shown that surface radiation in the Bayou Corne area, including in the sinkhole, is not above background levels and poses no risk, state officials have said.
In 1979, the state Legislature prohibited disposal of "radioactive waste or other radioactive material of any nature" in salt domes. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, 1980, arose during controversy over U.S. Department of Energy plans to put high-level radioactive waste, such as from nuclear power plants, in salt domes for long-term storage. Violation of the law includes a requirement to remove the radioactive material.
The salt dome ban for radioactive waste remains in effect, but, in 1999, the Legislature exempted oil and gas exploration and production wastes, which includes NORM, from the statutory definition of "radioactive waste," DEQ officials said.
Prior to that change, NORM fell under the definition of "radioactive waste" and, therefore, was prohibited from salt dome disposal in 1995, DEQ officials said in an email.
DEQ and the state Department of Natural Resources' Office of Conservation have dual and sometimes overlapping regulatory authority when it comes to salt domes, oil and gas operations and other matters.
DEQ officials said NORM disposal in a salt dome or a well requires concurrence from DNR and DEQ.
In Aug. 31, 1995, letter, James Welsh, then director of the Office of Conservation's Injection and Mining Division, gave Texas Brine a no objection letter for NORM disposal in a salt dome. Welsh is now commissioner of the Office of Conservation, which leads DNR's oversight of the Texas Brine cavern failure.
DNR spokesman Patrick Courreges said the no objection letter for NORM disposal did not authorize its disposal in the salt dome because the Office of Conservation does not have regulatory authority.
"The letter communicated to the company that the Office of Conservation's governing statutes and rules contained no prohibition for the activity and that the Office of Conservation did not regulate NORM activities," Courreges wrote.
Courreges wrote that the Office of Conservation regulations apply to "the mechanics of safely operating the well and cavern" but NORM falls under DEQ regulations.
In a subsequent, Sept. 20, 1995, letter, Texas Brine Environmental, Health and Safety Manager Scott Whitelaw asked DEQ for authority to dispose of NORM in the salt dome caverns.
DEQ's Mallett said that no formal denial letter is in agency records but telephone logs show that DEQ officials told the company it was not granting authority and to wait on disposal.
"In our records, they never asked again," he said.
On Aug. 10 in Ascension Parish, Bruce Martin, vice president of Texas Brine operations, said a small amount of pipe scale had fallen outside of the Oxy Geismar No. 3 well head during workovers.
Scientists have said they believe the Napoleonville Dome cavern — now known as Oxy Geismar Well No. 3 — had a major wall failure that resulted in the sinkhole and in the release of oil and methane in the Grand Bayou and Bayou Corne areas, which have been evacuated.
Testing of the pipe scale found the dirt had a radioactivity of 20 to 40 micro-rems per hour, Martin said.
The standard at the time for specialized management of the NORM was above 20 micro-rems per hour, though that standard has since been raised to 50 micro-rems per hour, Martin said.
"So the end result is, we submitted a request to DNR to place this material, this normally occurring radioactive material, that was actually about a little bit less than a cubic yard, to place it back in the well where it came from, back into the earth," Martin said.
"And DNR granted us that request. We did that work. That material was solid dirt, dirt with some NORM in it, and it was placed in the bottom of the well, and it would be my guess and firm belief that that's where it sits today."
Talking points distributed that day also said NORM was in the cavern and posed no risk.
Sonny Cranch, spokesman for Texas Brine, said last week that officials "misspoke" then in their attempt to respond to questions about NORM and that it was never put in the cavern.


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What a difference two decades can make. In 2013, the PA Breast Cancer Coalition marks a major milestone – our 20th anniversary. With your generosity, support and passion for this cause, together we have changed lives and brought Pennsylvania researchers closer to finding a cure for breast cancer. Our work has only just begun.
To kick of our 20th Anniversary, we're asking YOU to join us May 7th in the Capitol Rotunda for a special reunion honoring the lives of survivors and their families in Pennsylvania. Help us celebrate 20 years this Spring!


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Franco quits Twitter
Actor JAMES FRANCO was forced to shut down his Twitter.com page after upsetting corporate sponsors with his online messages.
The 127 Hours star joined the social-networking site earlier this year (11) and attracted plenty of attention with his Tweets, which included a swipe at Oscars writer Bruce Vilanch after he criticised Franco's Academy Awards hosting turn.
But the actor has now deleted his account after revealing not everyone enjoyed reading his blog.
He tells Politico.com, "Social media is over... My thought was 'This is my Twitter. I can do whatever I want.' But certain companies I work with contacted me about what I was saying."
And Franco admits taking a break from cyperspace may boost his creativity, adding: "If you want to write, make the time. We all have an hour or two a day that can be used for surfing Facebook or writing. No one is going to beg any new writer to write."


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Navigating Medicare/Medicaid
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Navigating Medicare and Medicaid Examine Medicare and Medicaid programs including various choices, options and changes taking place to make programs sustainable. Learn how to navigate Medicare and Medicaid websites. $47+ includes $17 fee. Note: Instructors do not provide advice on specific investments and neither the instructor nor AACC is responsible for students' personal investments. Bring a bag lunch.
This course is offered: Spring 2019 Summer 2019 Fall 2019


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Ravens Soar/Texans Sore
By: OneTexFan
Too many blackbirds!!
So, how's the weather where you are? Sunny? Cloudy? It's looking kind of gloomy where I am, Texans' fans. The sun stopped shining way before sunset on this sad day.
Instead, maybe I should ask, "How's the whether?"
Like; whether or not the Houston Texans can weather more of these all-to-successive scoring drives by their opposition.
Like; whether or not they have it within themselves to respond to a loss like this.
Or, even perhaps whether or not they have the ability to score another Touchdown.
Frankly, each and every time that they ONLY score a Field Goal while in the Red Zone I get a 'Simplie Amazing' voice in my ear that whispers, "AFFG." And that familiar abbreviation was whispered three times during the game. (Insider's know about this abbreviation my friends.)
Please don't tell anyone else that I said this, but this was the first possible loss that I foresaw happening to the Texans when the game schedule was released. You knew that it was going to happen, I knew that it was going to happen. The big question was WHEN this was going to happen. I HOPED it wouldn't, but it did. And this game was a stinker.
After the last two wins during come from behind victories I felt that in my gut the Offensive woes of last season would not be repeated again. However; I would have to say that what I saw was "Offensive."
And those penalties that were piling up on Sunday afternoon amounted to quite a bit of dirty laundry. Those sordid, yellow hankies were flying around for both teams. But, It sure didn't stop the Ravens in their quest for a victory. Those things need to stop, and now! And J-Jo, why would you taunt a guy laying on the ground by your feet? Why, oh why? J-Jo, that was very generous of you to give them a First Down. How about playing more disciplined football, guys? But it wasn't all on Mr. Joseph, was it? (I don't have the space to write about them all so I'll stop after just this one.)
But people, doesn't it feel better to be beaten by a football team that was the last Super Bowl winner? Of course it doesn't! These kinds of losses just taste bitter. And that taste just lingers on. I hope our favorite team gets this out of their system early this season.
All of these problems WILL INDEED be resolved, and I say it will be done quickly! "Nevermore," will these blackbirds plague our team. "Nevermore," will be the rally cry. And to all these problems that we were witness to on Sunday we repeat again, "Nevermore!"
Game time superlatives:
There were two more sacks for the season. One for Antonio Smith and one for J.J. s'Watt. Is J.J. slowing down?
I still like this kid DeAndre Hopkins doing his best AJ impersonation. He'll only get better.
'Hannibal' Lechler's killer leg. Outstanding field position for the most part. (Too bad about the one that got away.)
That was a terrific Defensive effort in the first half. Allowing only four first downs by the blackbirds and 65 yards. Very nice!
How about Time of Possession? (They're still on the book on the plus side, but not by much.)
Game time suffer-latives:
It's very tough to win when Special Teams gives up a score.
Another game when Matt Schaub throws the ball to a guy in the wrong uniform. I know, I know, it wasn't ALL his fault, but still, it better not be a trend.
We're seeing too much of Bullock's performances when the Texans are in the Red Zone. (At least he made three.)
Andre Johnson showing signs of injury. Stay healthy AJ.
I have my concerns about the running game, but I KNOW this shouldn't be a real concern. These ARE the Texans we're talking about here.
How about it, CD?
~ OneTexFan
Oh how I hate to say I told you so…especially when it comes to my (our) beloved Texans. I do believe however that I wrote about the problems we saw (again) today last week. And how I predicted if the Texans continued to go into the 4th quarter, or the second half even, in a hole, they one day would find themselves in a hole they could not climb out of.
Only twice in Gary Kubiak's tenure as the head coach, have the Texans failed to score a touchdown. Once at the end of last season against the Vikings, and Sunday. It's happened twice in the past 5 regular season games. That could be considered the beginning of a trend, but I hope not. It's not like the offense doesn't have the weapons. Andre, DeAndre, Foster, Tate, Daniels, Martin, Graham, they have the weapons. The offensive line has struggled in pass protection, and Matt Schaub, well, he himself admitted he has to play better if this team has any hopes of a post season.
My concern is, can he play better? Once again he's throwing behind his guys, so obviously so that even the announcers called him out for it. That has got to stop if this offense is to be effective. I said it last week and Schaub didn't listen. Denver's Peyton Manning threw more TD's against the Ravens a few weeks ago than Schaub has thrown all season. Now I'm no quarterback, but it seems to me that most of those "low and away" passes are simple, short yardage passes that any run of the mill QB should be able to make. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but we seem to be playing a dumbed down version of the highly potent offense we know the Texans can be. Maybe it's just me.
The defense, sans a few needless penalties, played pretty well, yet again. One thing they haven't done a lot of that we enjoyed last season, is create turnovers. Aside from Brian Cushing's scoring grab and a single forced fumble by Antonio Smith, the Texans have come up empty. By this time last season, the Texans had 3 INT's and 5 forced fumbles, three of which they recovered.
Besides the needless penalties, like taunting players lying on the ground, that's the only area that I can gig the defense. They've played pretty solid otherwise.
The only bright spot on special teams thus far has been Shane Lechler. What an addition he's been. Our return game has been blah, and our coverage has been decent with the exception of Sunday's punt return for a TD. I was happy to see Randy Bullock go 3/3. I know I went pretty hard on him last week, but he's a rookie, and he has a heck of a leg. He's improved his 20% FG percentage to 50%, so he's earned a pass for now.
The Texans didn't deserve to win this game. The Ravens earned it. They outplayed us in every facet of the game, so kudos to them. Now it's time for the Texans to quit acting like these games don't count and start proving why they deserve to be considered contenders.
I have my concerns, but I'm not giving up hope. This team is just too darned talented to keep playing this way. Hopefully this game will light the proverbial fire under their feet and get this ship back on course.
If they don't, we'll see the bandwagon rats bailing off the sides as we die hards go down with the ship.
~ Crimedog


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A sleek packable jacket from outdoors brand Patagonia, the trusted Torrentshell Jacket is both waterproof and breathable with a two way adjustable hood keeping the rain off.
Patagonia lead the way in environmental responsibility with this jacket coming in a 100% recycled nylon fabric.
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Patagonia introduced new bold, vivid and exciting colours into the product line such as French red, aloe and iced mocha. The new colour schemes proved to be extremely popular and the appeal of the brand started to move out further than just the climbing community and into the fashion world and Patagonia started to grow at a rapid pace.
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The American brand with roots from exploring the great outdoors makes an appearance at 80s Casual Classics with a range of must have styles including, coats, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, bags and many more.
The standard UK delivery charge for larger and multiple items is £3.95 with some smaller value accessories and t-shirt brands the charge can reduce to just £2.50. No additional charges are made for multiple purchases.
All orders above £74.95 in the UK will be upgraded to a next-working day delivery at no extra cost. This means that customers will still be required to pay the £3.95 Standard Delivery cost however this will then be sent out on a quicker, upgraded service to arrive the following day (orders must be placed before 16:00 to be dispatched the same day).
Orders received before 4pm Monday to Friday will generally be shipped the same day with a 48 hour dispatch period. Orders received at the weekends will usually be shipped on a Monday with the exception of a Bank Holiday weekend when Tuesday dispatch will apply.
If this is not possible for example an error has taken place when you have tried to pay, or an item is out of stock, you will be notified via email or a phone call.
A confirmation of shipping email is always sent once goods have been shipped with a tracking number from the postal service used.
Deliveries are sent Recorded Delivery via Royal Mail 48hr Tracked or DPD Local. A signature will be required on delivery otherwise the delivery company will leave a card through your door to enable you to re-arrange a suitable delivery time or collection from your local Post Office branch.
*To track your order via Royal Mail click HERE to be taken to their Track & Trace facility. Make sure you have your tracking reference number to hand (available on your dispatch confirmation e-mail) and follow the online instructions.
"We cannot authorise that parcels be left in bins, in sheds or over the fence. Items may be left with neighbours as long as the item is signed for".
DPD Local Next Working Day option, UK Customers only this will total £5.95(£3.95 on orders over £74.95) and be valid on purchases Monday to Thursday if ordered before 4pm. Any items bought after the Thursday 4pm deadline will be receiving your goods the following Monday unless you take a Saturday Upgrade.
Saturday Next Day Delivery service, via DPD, is £9.95 per order for orders placed before 3:30pm Friday.
We currently ship items to a variety of countries within the EU and the rest of the world. As with any other delivery each one needs a signature as they will be sent via Royal Mail International Signed For or via DPD. With countries outside of the EU parcels will usually be delivered within 5-10 working days, but on the odd occasion parcels can be held in customs and this can cause some delays. Whilst non Eu countries will be saved UK VAT charges any local Customs or import duties are charged once the parcel reaches its destination country. These charges will be paid by the recipient of the parcel.
Unfortunately we have no control over these charges.
Your delivery address must be the same as on the credit card statement for the first order. Once this address is verified an alternative delivery address may be added i.e. place of work.
Your card will be debited as soon as you place the order. Should for any reason we are unable to supply any item we will first call to see whether or not you would like an alternative or offer a full refund to your debit/credit card.
If you wish to return the goods you must return them within 10 working days from the day you receive them for UK customers or 14 days for overseas customers. Please include a copy of the invoice in with your items so we know who they have come from.
Please ensure when returning items in boxes such as trainers do not cello tape the box as this damages them, and please return them in the condition they were sent.
*If you wish to return underwear please ensure they are folded back up neatly into the packaging and do not remove the original wrapping for hygiene reasons*.
*If you wish to return your goods please send them back to 80s Casual Classics, Unit 2 Triumph Way, Woburn Road Industrial Estate, Kempston, Bedford, MK42 7QB.*
We do not refund returns postage costs unless the items received were faulty in the first place or an order was sent out incorrectly by 80s Casual Classics.


text: Canadian Catholic Campus Ministry (CCCM) is a national network of professional Catholic campus ministers, grounded in the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, inspired by the vision of Vatican II. CCCM exists to bring the Gospel of Christ to the academic world through a national network; the ministry of the National Coordinator and the Board; publications, programs and other means of sharing resources; national and regional Campus Ministers' and Students' conferences. CCCM has its roots in the early Catholic Colleges in Canada, dating back over 200 years. His Eminence Cardinal McGuigan was its first Episcopal moderator in 1946. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) named the first National Chaplain in 1948. The Canadian Catholic Student Association (CCSA) is intrinsically linked to the CCCM by history, mission and spirit. Read More »


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Hercules Engines HXLE Parts
We found around 2 Hercules Engines HXLE parts in our catalog. You may refine your search based on selections on the right. Our inventory of Hercules Engines tractor parts changes daily. Please call us toll free at 1-(800) 270-9892 if you can't find the part you are looking for - we will most likely have the part you need.
Regular Price: $27.50
Special Price $25.85
Regular Price: $40.20
Special Price $37.79


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Kerri 6:00 AM 27 Comments
Welcome to our Monthly ProjectPea Blog Hop!! Each month we challenge our fabulous team of ProjectPea Designers to create FUN & CREATIVE projects that are sure to make you look at your stamp sets with brand new eyes!
Our team has pulled out all of the stops with a variety of projects that will spark YOUR creativity. Click through to each of their blogs below to see the FUN they have dreamed up. Leave them a little blog love and one lucky commenter will WIN a $15 Gift Certificate to the SPD Boutique!
I found this adorable Flip Flop Box in the Silhouette Online Store. I assembled it and used some Echo Park dp to decorate it. The tag also comes with this file, and I simply stamped it with this fun sentiment from the SugarPea Designs set Sea Side Wishes and added this darling crab from the same set.
So fun! I hope this brings you some inspiration and for even more inspiration check out projects from the rest of the ProjectPeas!
Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Wednesday!
Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Wednesday!


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Webinars | Common Sense Media - 0 views
shared by egreene07 on 19 Nov 13 - No Cached
egreene07 on 19 Nov 13Last week, we hosted several webinars where we discussed subjects like teaching copyright laws, using Edmodo, and empowering kids with digital citizenship. Did you miss one? Don't worry, we've got everything archived for you!


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It appears as though other parents at Lenox Hill Hospital aren't the only ones disturbed by the birth of Jay-Z and Beyonce's little girl Blue Ivy Carter. A vandal made some edits to the sign of Beulah Hill Baptist Church in West End, NC, writing "Beyonce had her baby. Satan is on Earth."
The pastor took it down with the quickness after receiving complaints from residents, and was even quicker to quiet any talk that the church was responsible for the message.
Maybe some people are pissed off that this child was born more wealthy than they'll ever be, and maybe others are just zealots, but seriously-is nothing sacred? We hope everyone up in arms about baby Blue is this excited about voting.
*waits for Jay to turn this into more money*
[via TMZ]
Follow @ComplexGuide for more tales of Blue Ivy obsession and crimes against God.


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Wednesday, April 5, 2006
On The Street…Nolita, New York
CommentsClose comment
9 comments
i really like this…graceful, simple, elegent, very suitable for spring, refreshing to see a woman in a dress after so many in slim jeans and cowboy boots.
Yes, very feminin … I like it, too. Welcome spring.
she's wearing a muumuu dress, a woman after my own heart.
Oops…first time I've seen something on here that I'm not liking so much. Maybe because I'm old enough to remember when muumuus were popular amongst the grandma set? (And no, I still haven't succumbed to ponchos OR gauchos/culottes.)
If she's going to go with that type of dress, I think she needs heels – even as a skinny little thing.
This outfit looks too much "little old lady" to me…plus that bag is too large for her, unless she's going to the veggie market with it.
Hmm…I critiqued this picture yesterday, my comment must have not been aproved for some reason? Please don't make the comments on this blog too biased.
You know, this has such different proportions and yet it all works together. Not for everyone, but on her – just wonderful!
You have a good eye, Mr. S.
Have a beautiful day, Miss.
ADORE! Absolutely adorable.


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At http://bcove.me/frr7t0f3 there is a short video ending in a what-happened-next cricketing multiple choice.
I would appreciate it if someone could let me know the answer!
Many thanks
Help With Competition Please!
Talk about anything not sport related here.
Post Reply
1 post • Page 1 of 1
Post Reply
1 post • Page 1 of 1


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CD-i 180/181/182 for authoring and development
>> Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Read more...
This was Philips' all time first basic configuration model CD-i system. Developed in a joint venture in 1988 by Philips and Japanese Kyocera for Philips America. Not many were sold in the Netherlands, these cd-i players are very hard to find. Some employees of Philips took this home to work with it. The CDI 18x system was modular, only the CD drive CDI 180 with caddy-loader and the MultiMedia Controller (MMC CDI 181) were needed to operate.
The CD-I 182 module could be added for authoring purposes, featuring two floppy disk drives, SCSI and parallel ports and an additional 1 MB of RAM. The system could not be extended with a Digital Video cartridge.
This CD-I system works on 120 Volts - 60 Hz (Japan) and even it can play on Pal television using the lines-switch (525/625) at the backside. To get it to work, there must be a 120V to 220 Volts convertor for the Netherlands. And that's easily done in getting a 220/380 Volts transformer. Connect 220 Volts to the 380 Volts side of the transformer, in getting 110 Volts from the 220 Volts side of the transformer. No problems with 60Hz.
This modular system was designed as a low-cost editing platform for multimedia programs. It has an integrated graphical user interface, a navigator software package (like CD-i Paint, Sequence editor, Menu editor) for creation of title prototypes. It reads MS DOS formatted floppies!
Thanks to this Philips virtual museum


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Obviously, David Wells — as evidenced by his appearance on the waiver wire in just about every fantasy league we're in — is much more useful as a quote machine these days than as an actual baseball player. And he's never more amusing than when he's being edited to suit the taste of the delicate newspaper reader. Here was Wells' response to those who thought he had accused David Dellucci of using steroids.
"'I wasn't accusing him or anything of the sort. So the [expletive] who did it, or the [expletives] who did it, I think they need to [expletive]. And you can quote me on that. [Expletives].''
As much fun as it might be to simply insert various curse words at random, we prefer to just stay highbrow here and merely insert the word "manhug." That, or maybe, "Steinbrenner."
Wells Attempts To Clear The Air [Boston.com]


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Make-A-Wish grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy.
Wish granter volunteers go in and interview the wish kids to determine their wishes, and then act as a liaison between the families and the Make-a-Wish staff to help make the wishes happen.
We are looking for people who are bilingual in English and Spanish, who can help interviewing wish families in Spanish. Bilingual wish granters must be fluent in written and spoken Spanish.
We are looking for volunteers who can travel to various parts of the region to help with the wish granting. We are most especially looking for volunteers who can help do wish granting in places such as:
We'll work with your schedule.
city ofWalnut Creek, CA 94597


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|Newport Beach, Calif.
|High School:
|Corona Del Mar High
2010-2011: Named to All-NEISA First Crews Team… 4th in A division at the Victorian Urn… Member of the 2nd place Coed New England Team Race Championship team… 1st in A div at the ICSA Women's Semifinals… 8th in A division at the ICSA Women's National Championship
2009-2010: Sailed in 16 regattas for the Bulldogs, including the Women's Atlantic Coast Championship and Women's New England Championships.
Before Yale: Lettered in sailing all four years… Represented the US at the 2009 International 420 World Championship…Third at the 2009 ISAF Youth World Qualifier…Fourth at the 2008 Ida Lewis U.S. Junior Women's Doublehanded Championship…Part of third place team at 2009 Mallory Trophy High School Fleet Race Nationals…Member of the 2008-2009 Southern California Youth Yacht Racing Association Racing Team… AP Scholar…Involved in Best Buddies Program and Student Government…Teacher's assistant at local elementary school…Sailing coach at local yacht club.
Residential College: Jonathan Edwards
Major: American Studies
Activities at Yale: Kappa Alpha Theta, Jonathan Edwards Master's Aide, Bulldog Buddies, Yale Ducks Unlimited
Favorite Food: Mexican and Frozen yogurt
Hobbies: Surfing, running, dancing, playing tennis and going to the beach
Favorite thing about Yale: "Everything!"
Favorite thing about sailing for Yale: "The opportunity to be on a team with a history of such great success and tradition"


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Modellzentrum Hildesheim, the partner for your hobby
Modelrailroad, Modelcars, Model kits, Slot Racing, Coloors, Books&Videos, Steam EnginesVery large selection, easy to order
If you don't get an e-mail with your access data please make sure that you have already registered with us. As soon as you are registered, you can login with your e-mail address and your password.
In case you still have problems loging in please turn to us by e-mail: email@example.com
|Age hint
|Warning! Not suitable for children below 15 years.
We'll inform you if the price of this product will be changed according to your price alert.


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September 04, 2009
According to UCLA Anderson marketing Professor Dominique Hanssens marketing activity represents at least ten percent of the U.S. economy - well over a trillion dollars a year. He also believes there is evidence that this marketing activity can impact firm value -- and that this is not fully appreciated by the investment community. In their recent paper "Marketing and Firm Value," published in the Journal of Marketing Research (June 2009) Hanssens and co-author Shuba Srinivasan share their findings and methodologies.
Accompanying the article are commentaries by leading academics in accounting, finance and marketing, including UCLA Anderson finance Professor Mark Garmaise."If anybody is interested in doing research in this area, you have to be very familiar with financial models that our colleagues in finance and accounting have developed," said Hanssens.
In their paper Hanssens and Srinivasan summarize research findings to date and identify opportunities for future research. "There is a lot of evidence linking marketing and product performance," said Hanssens. "The question now is at a higher level in the financial hierarchy. What impact does marketing activity have on firm value?"
Hanssens raised this question while serving as Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) in Cambridge, Mass. from 2005 to 2007. MSI issued a call for papers on the topic and funded a number of studies, some of which were recently presented at a conference in Atlanta. Hanssens is editing a special issue of the Journal of Marketing in which the best papers on this topic will appear.
Hanssens believes that the marketing profession is being challenged to communicate its financial and firm value effects to investors and analysts. "Investors allocate resources in firms that offer future cash flow potential," he said. "It is important that they recognize how marketing assets and marketing actions are related to these future cash flows."
An example he posed is when a firm launches a new product and its cash flow dips due to the substantial expenses associated with the launch. "Does the investor community punish that brand with a lower stock price?" he asked. "Or do they reward innovation with a higher stock price? There's a perception that short-term cash flow is all investors care about -- but this is not the case, as recent research indicates."
One challenge, noted Hanssens, is that many results of marketing activity are intangible. "You try to create a strong brand," he said. "What does that mean? It might mean that you are perceived as a high-quality service provider, or perhaps as an innovator in the industy. Does that intangible perception, which we call the brand, contribute to the value of the firm?"
It turns out there is good evidence to indicate that it does, according to Hanssens. "There are firms that track brand equity using survey research," he said. "They take large samples of customers and ask them whether they've heard of a certain company. If so, what do they think about it? How innovative is it? How prestigious is it? And so forth. These dimensions of brand equity have been related to stock performance."
Hanssens says studies have shown that brand equity can be positively impacted by well-placed advertising in which the message connects to the brand. "Nike, for example, does that very well by consistently reminding customers what the company stands for."
Brand equity can also be damaged by marketing activity. Investors actually don't like it when a firm engages in aggressive sales promotion, explained Hanssens. "If you are a named brand in any industry and you engage in frequent discounting, you water down the value of the brand. Short term sales revenue may be fine -- but future profitability can suffer if you become increasingly dependent on these sales promotions. Investors pick that up, as we were able to discover in the data."
Hanssens refers to brand equity, customer satisfaction, R&D, product quality and other intangibles as "intermediate metrics" that can be measured and shown to create shareholder value. Sales revenue and earnings, on the other hand, are direct and recognized metrics resulting from marketing activity.
"If two companies have the same revenues and cash flows," he said, "but one is a stronger brand than the other, then all else equal, the stronger brand should get a higher valuation. That's the theory and we're finding support for that in the data."
The same is true for customer satisfaction explained Hanssens. "Customer satisfaction sounds intangible, but there are metrics for how satisfied customers are with their suppliers. The research shows that these measures can be leading indicators of future financial performance."
Customer satisfaction can be used as a variable in financial models to better understand what drives it and how it impacts a firm's performance and value. Hanssens addresses the use of such models at length in the paper. "The methodological part of this study is very important," he said. "There are many factors impacting firm value and stock prices that have little or nothing to do with marketing -- and you need to control for those."
Hanssens also believes that better communication among marketers, CEOs, scholars, securities analysts and investors will lead to more realistic valuations and stock prices. "CEOs do a number of things to promote their firms to investors," he said. "They advertise, issue statements and give interviews. This is not always objective information -- it's persuasive information. So when analysts publish a report on a firm, are they influenced by these actions, and how does that ultimately affect investors?"
Hanssens also thinks improved CEO communication may bring Wall Street more in sync with Main Street. "It's important for the investor community to be cognizant and intelligent about what is going on in the product market," he said. "Success in the product market will be reflected by success in the investment market."
So, if a firm puts in place certain policies that increase customer satisfaction Hanssens believes the investor community will recognize the future financial potential of such actions. "This creates a positive feedback loop to top management," he said. "And an economic system in which the interests of investors and consumers connect rather than compete with each other.
Hanssens considers this an inviting area for future research. "It's looking at the whole marketing communications issue," he said. "For example, instead of advertising directed at consumers, it's advertising directed at investors. And we know relatively little about its impact."
"Overall, investors do appreciate a firm's marketing activity and product performance to some extent -- but not fully," concludes Hanssens. "This is good for researchers and practitioners alike because it shows that there is room for improvement."


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Analytics helps the bank minimize losses and handle new growth opportunities for its loan portfolio.
Faster processing
with grid computing
Bank of America achieved this using • SAS® Enterprise Risk Management • SAS® Grid Manager • SAS® Scalable Performance Data Server®
Modeling portfolio credit risk is a fundamental function in banking today. Loan products, such as lines of credit, mortgages and credit cards, entail a high degree of risk for banks, and on a large scale, especially in turbulent economic periods – defaults produce difficult situations and huge implications for both the lender and the borrower.
Banks regularly employ credit-risk management processes to monitor and assess credit portfolios, to make certain estimates, and to understand their risk position and value of assets at any given time. In today's complex and ever-changing financial system, powerful, rigorous and accurate credit-risk management processes and technology play a critical role in mitigating a lending institution's exposure.
With approximately 59 million consumer and small business relationships, 6,000 retail banking offices and more than 18,000 ATMs, Bank of America is among the world's leading wealth management companies and is a global leader in corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes.
The Corporate Investments Group (CIG) manages Bank of America's available-for-sale portfolio and is responsible for modeling and calculating the probability of default (PD) on the 9.5 million mortgages it services. In addition, the group calculates the market value, prepayment speeds and sensitivity to changes in interest rates and hedges these risks for the $19 billion mortgage-service-rights asset. Recently, CIG began assisting with the task of forecasting loan losses for the bank's credit card portfolio.
Without SAS, processing times would be longer, hedging decisions would be delayed and, ultimately, the bank would be behind the market. Russell Condrich Senior Vice President, Corporate Investment Group Bank of America
The need for speed
CIG had been using analytics from SAS for credit-risk modeling for many years, but with the addition of the credit-card loss forecasting responsibility, it was forced to reassess its use of an internal shared-services environment to run its modeling and calculation processes. Doing so would help reduce processing time, increase access and availability of resources for ad hoc analysis, while ensuring business continuity for this mission-critical function of the bank's business.
"We needed a solution that addressed today's business problems, as well as a solution with the flexibility for any future business requirements," says Russell Condrich, Senior Vice President, Corporate Investment Group. "Processing large, multi-terabyte datasets in a quick, efficient manner was a key requirement for us and SAS performed flawlessly. Without SAS, processing times would be longer, hedging decisions would be delayed and, ultimately, the bank would be behind the market."
SAS and IBM show results
To meet its performance requirements, the group moved its processing to a dedicated platform comprised of SAS®Enterprise Risk Management on SAS® Grid Computing, SAS® Scalable Performance Data Server on a 224 core IBM BladeCenter® grid and the IBM's XIV® Storage System. The initiative has already produced considerable results, such as reducing the bank's probability of default calculation time from 96 hours to just four. Processing time for ad hoc jobs has been reduced by 90 percent and, according to the CIG, they are processing at three times the speed of the previous environment.
The platform pulls data from eight systems of record (SOR), amounting to hundreds of millions of records, or 30 terabytes of source data, and allows the SAS environment to consume 3.9 gigabytes of I/O throughput per second from IBM's XIV storage environment. Approximately 30 users now have unfettered access to the environment, as opposed to the shared services environment of the past, in which user time was competitive and response times varied dramatically due to the high number of jobs being executed.
Bank of America – Facts & Figures
Consumer and small business customers
Mortgages requiring loan default calculations
Faster calculations of loan default probability
'Unparalleled' performance
"We now have an environment that provides users with a robust platform on which to schedule and prioritize jobs, based on duration or computational requirements, so that ad hoc usage is not competing with scheduled work," says Stephen Lange, Managing Director, Corporate Investments Group. "This advanced grid platform is giving us unparalleled performance. SAS is indispensable for its unique way of handling large data sets."
As an example, Lange adds, "we have to score a particular portfolio of 400,000 loans with our suite of models, using multiple scenarios, and we need to run it over the 360 months of the mortgages' life. That process used to take three hours, now it takes 10 minutes because of the parallelization capabilities of the grid. The ability to go from three hours to 10 minutes on a job demonstrates a tremendous increase in our ability to deliver information and make decisions."
"The bank has a strong desire to enable loss forecasting as accurately and quickly as possible, right up to the senior executive layers of the organization," says Lange. "The only way we can do that is to have sufficient IT resources to score loans and appropriately assess risks. The partnership between SAS, IBM and our internal technology group has provided a platform for us to demonstrate risk management leadership."
The results illustrated in this article are specific to the particular situations, business models, data input, and computing environments described herein. Each SAS customer's experience is unique based on business and technical variables and all statements must be considered non-typical. Actual savings, results, and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. SAS does not guarantee or represent that every customer will achieve similar results. The only warranties for SAS products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements in the written agreement for such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Customers have shared their successes with SAS as part of an agreed-upon contractual exchange or project success summarization following a successful implementation of SAS software. Brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.


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Rational Test Virtualization Server Fix Pack 1 (22.214.171.124) for 8.0.1
Downloadable files
IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server 220.127.116.11 has been made generally available and contains fixes to version 8.0.1 including all predecessor fix packs.
Download Description
|This section provides an overview on what is new in this release with a description of any new functions or enhancements when applicable.
|This section provides information related to the impact of this release to allow you to assess how your environment may be affected.
|This section provides important information to review prior to the installation of this release.
|This section provides the direct link to obtain the download package for installation in your environment.
|This section provides the installation instructions necessary to apply this release into your environment.
|This section contains a link to the known problems (open defects) identified at the time of this release.
|Click to review the detailed system requirements information for a complete list of hardware requirements, supported operating systems, prerequisites and optional supported software, with component-level details and operating system restrictions.
|Click to review a complete list of the defects (APARs) resolved in this release including a list of resolved defects for the entire version family.
Installation Instructions
Install the Rational Test Virtualization Server 22.214.171.124 Fix Pack update using the Update wizard in IBM Installation Manager.
- Download the software from Fix Central.
- Open Installation Manager, click File, and select Preferences.
- Click Add Repository and browse to the location of the folder that contains the downloaded files.
- Start the IBM Installation Manager.
- Click Update and follow the instructions in the wizard.
Download package
The following sections provide detailed information related to this release.
How critical is this fix?
|This release is a maintenance release of Rational Test Virtualization Server 8.0.1. It contains fixes for client-reported and internally found defects.
Problems solved
Click the Fix List link in the table of contents above to review a list of the problems solved in this release.
Known side effects
The following defects were not resolved in this release.
Defect title
|Linux root/non-root Installation Notes
|Linux root/non-root Installation Notes:
The 126.96.36.199 components can be now installed on Linux as a non-root user. Alternatively, components can be installed as root and then run as non-root. The Network Capture (pcap) component of Rational Integration Tester requires root access and cannot be installed as a non-root user.
Most Linux administrators will be aware of file/directory ownership issues when performing these types of installation. The following known issues should be considered:
31329 - All users must be in the same group to be able to run/view reports
When a report is generated in Results Gallery Tester will create a directory called /tmp/ghtester5reports. This directory will be owned by the user that creates it (which may be root). When another user attempts to run a report then, if they're not in the same group, they will be unable to write to the same directory and the report generation will fail. The workaround is to ensure that all users can write to this directory (for example, by making them all members of the same group)
30778 - If RTCP is installed as root but run as non-root then it will fail
This is caused because directories used at runtime for logging information have been created by root and therefore cannot be written into by a non-root user. This problem does not occur if RTCP was installed as a non-root user. If RTCP was installed as root and a user wishes to run it as non-root then directory permissions must be changed. For example, from within the RTCP installation directory issue the commands:
chmod a+w logs
RTCP should now run as a non-root user. An alternative solution that may be preferred by some administrators, is to change the directory that RTCP writes information into. IBM will be providing a TechNote explaining how to modify an installed RTCP instance to do this.
31538 - Installation of RTCP as non-root requires a change to a suggested directory
When RTCP is installed as non-root user then the majority of the directory names that will be created (and shown to the user during the installation) are pre-fixed with /home/<username>/. However, the installer defaults the Workspace Path directory specified on the Standard Configuration panel to /var/rtcp. As the user will not be able to create the directory the installation will fail. The workaround is to enter a different Workspace Path directory during the installation (e.g. /home/<username>/var/rtcp).
|32139 Use of –clean argument when Tester will not start
|Problems can sometimes occur when Rational Integration Tester does not properly resolve multiple versions of the same JAR file correctly. Multiple versions may be present within an installation because third party JAR files may each include a different version. If incorrect dependency information is stored within the Eclipce workspace cache then it will not correct itself. One common symptom of this problem is that when a user runs Tester, the splashscreen appears, then disappears but Tester never starts.
Although one workaround is to uninstall and re-install Tester it is possible for a user to force cached dependency information to be removed and re-evaluated and, in the majority of cases, the problem will then correct itself.
To force the Eclipse environment to delete dependency information GHTester.exe must be started from the command line with the -clean argument specified. i.e., from within the installed directory:
GHTester.exe -clean
Rational Integration Tester will take longer than usual to start when -clean is specified.
The same problem can occur in RTVS and RPTS installations with the RIT Agent. In this case diagnosis and remediation is more difficult as there a multiple executable files and the correct one must be used. In these cases IBM's Support team should be contacted.
|30017 - Upgrade Installations and Rollbacks (When Products Have Been Installed as Windows Services) Fail
|On the Windows platform, several components can be installed as Windows Services. These are the Rational Integration Test Agent, the Rational Test Control Panel and the Rational Integration Platform Pack Proxy. For all version 8.x releases prior to 18.104.22.168, it was not possible to upgrade or rollback an installation of these products if they were installed as a service. The uninstallation process appeared to succeed but during the installation of the upgraded software (or the previous software in the case of a rollback) errors occurred, stating that files are in use or could not be removed.
This problem has been resolved in release 18.104.22.168 of the affected products. However, it has only been possible to fix this problem when upgrades are done from 8.0.1 (or later) to a subsequent release. Customers who are upgrading to 126.96.36.199 (or above) from a version earlier than 8.0.1 must continue to follow the workaround below. However, they will be able to automatically upgrade to subsequent versions.
Note: This problem only occurs on the Windows platform and only for products which have been installed as services.
Workaround for upgrades to 220.127.116.11 from versions earlier than 8.0.1
The problem is caused because Installation Manager is not able to completely remove the service during the un-installation phase. The service will remain in the Windows service list in a disabled state until reboot. While it is in this state the upgraded service cannot be installed.
The workaround to this problem is to first uninstall the existing version of the software and reboot the machine, and then install the new version. Do not use the upgrade or rollback capability.
Note: Stop the service before attempting the uninstall.
When uninstalling Rational Test Control Panel, ensure you do not select the option to delete the workspace and make a note of the workspace directory. When you install the new version, ensure that you enter this directory as the workspace location, and that all settings and published stubs will be preserved.
If you do not know where the workspace directory is, open the following file:
<RTCP install location>\webapps\RTCP\WEB-INF\classes\container.server.properties
And look for the line containing the workingDirectory key:
If this advice is not followed and the installation does fail, first reboot the machine (to clear out the service). After the reboot, confirm that the service has been deleted from the list of Windows services, and then manually clear out the installation directory. It should then be possible to start a fresh install.
If you set the Rational Test Control Panel workspace to be inside its installation directory (which is not a recommended approach), be sure not to delete this directory or you will lose all Rational Test Control Panel configuration settings.
|28408 - Tester does not support WebSphere Application Server's native JMS implementation if security has been enabled
|Rational Integration Tester cannot currently access WAS's JNDI (required for JMS) if security has been turned on. IBM is currently investigation how to configure Rational Integration Tester so that this works, and expects to issue a Technote once the problem has been resolved.
|29950 - Slow Fail Execution Is Not Supported When Running 'Now' on a Remote Agent
|Version 5.4 of Rational Integration Tester introduced the concept of 'slow fail' to Test Suites. When a suite is run with this option turned on, tests will not immediately stop when an individual test action fails. Instead they will continue so that users can see if future test steps succeed. Although this functionality is supported (in 8.0.1) when scheduling a test for future execution via Rational Test Control Panel it is not supported if you run a test suite 'now' on a remote agent using the Run… dialog.
|27840 - Using the Shutdown.bat file (or shortcut) will not stop Rational Test Control Panel running as a service
|Startup and shutdown batch file scripts are provided with Rational Test Control Panel to start and stop it from the command line. On Windows shortcuts to these scripts are provided in the Start Menu.
Note; On Windows, if Rational Test Control Panel is running as a service, the shutdown batch script cannot be used to stop it. You must either use the control panel or issue a net stop IBMRTCP statement on the command line.
|29672 - Overwrite Expected Field for Filters
|In the Message Difference Window, the Overwrite Expected Field only works for filters (within stubs) when updating leaf nodes. Message structures cannot be copied when viewing filter actions. The whole message can be replaced while viewing the filter actions, using overwrite expected message, but overwriting part of a message currently only works for the validate field action.
|29494 - WaitForExit messages in Agent log
|Changes to the way that the Rational Integration Tester Agent logs information mean that users will now see the internal Java method name from which the log is being generated. This is part of the change to ensure that agents log information to a file correctly when run as a Windows service. The console output will now show messages as coming from WaitForExit. The WaitForExit statement is not relevant to the actual information provided in the output.
|AIX Performance Testing Does Not Support the sysstats Probe
|The sysstats probe is not provided for AIX. If a user attempts to configure an AIX-based performance test to use this probe, the following error displays in the console:
[Error] Probe ERROR: http://localhost:4476 - Probes failed to start - Failed to start probe: System Statistics - java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: ghsystemstats (Not found in java.library.path).
You must remove this probe from the configuration of the test.
|Stopping an Agent Results In Windows Event Log Error
|On some Windows installations, IBM has seen errors raised in the Windows Application Event Log when the Rational Integration Tester Agent service is stopped. This error occurs during the shut-down process of the service and does not affect the functionality of the agent.
|Component Tree Does Not Show Complete Project In Test Factory
|Some users have reported instances where the Test Factory Perspective does not show the complete list of project resources in the component tree. Rational Integration Tester requires re-starting to correctly display the tree. This problem has not yet been replicated within IBM's labs and its cause is currently unknown.
|User Interface Freeze
|Some users have encountered software freezes on Windows, particularly when moving the Rational Integration Tester user interface from a laptop screen onto an external monitor. This is believed to be caused by problems between the Java Virtual Machine and the DirectX video drivers in use on the machine. If this problem affects you, try to resolve it by adding the following line to the GHTester.ini file in the installation directory:
This tells the JVM not to use DirectX. This has resolved the problems in all the cases that IBM is aware of so far, although the UI does run more slowly. This issue has been raised with the IBM Java team.
|GHDotNetUtils Must Be In the .NET Global Assembly Cache
|If you are using Rational Integration Tester's .NET integration, the GHDotNetUtils.dll file (in the root installation folder) must be added to the .NET Global Assembly Cache before .NET objects can be parsed.
Users wishing to use the .Net functionality will need to install the .Net SDK from Microsoft and register the dll manually, for example: gacutil /i GHDotNetUtils.dll
|.NET 4.5 is not supported
|Rational Integration Tester's integration with .NET has not been tested on .NET 4.5 and this is not a supported version of .NET.
|Left-to-Right and Right-To-Left Strings
|If a message element is a string that contains both left-to-right and right-to-left text in the same element then the string might not be displayed properly in the user interface. It will be published correctly.
|Date Formatting Strings
|Rational Integration Tester uses Java to format date strings for validation purposes. The IBM JRE acts differently from the Oracle/Sun JRE used by earlier versions of GHT Tester for one unusual format string.
Specifically, a date of "123" parsed using an input format of "yyy" with output format MMDDy will be formatted as "0101123" by the IBM JRE. Previous versions of GH Tester (using the Oracle JRE) would have formatted this as "010123". This is unlikely to cause problems as it is unlikely customers will be using single-character year output format strings.
|Library Manager 'Browse For File' dialog
|When you first open the browse/edit dialog from the Library Manager application (to select a file), the directory 'up' button will not work. If a different directory is selected, the 'up' button will then work. This has been confirmed as bug in the IBM JRE.
|Launching the 'Tools Application' (Source Control option on Menu) Displays License Warning
|If you are running Rational Integration Tester using an evaluation license, when you launch the "Tools Application", by choosing the Source Control option in the menu or by creating/editing a data model, a dialog displays, warning that you are using a trial license. This dialog will not appear once you have installed a full license.
|Silent Install of Rational Test Control Panel
|Depending on how the silent installation response file has been generated, the "Security Configuration" tool might still be launched at the end of the process. The imcl tool is known to work correctly and will suppress the dialog. As Rational Test Control Panel is a server-based product, silent installations are not expected to be common, but IBM will look to improve this in future releases.
To use imcl within the ${IM}/eclipse/tools directory, run ./imcl-c, specifying the response file when prompted.
|The Agent Can Only be Started From its Installed Directory (Unix)
|On Unix, if an attempt is made to start the agent from a directory other than the one it is installed in, it will fail to start. For example:
/opt/GH/RIT-Agent/Agent –consolelog
If you are in the installed directory then ./Agent -consolelog works correctly.
|It is not possible to rename a project resource by simply changing case
|Although project resources can be renamed, it is not possible to simply change the case. For example, a rename that changes "simpletest" to "SimpleTest" will not actually rename the test. This is because Rational Integration Tester uses the Eclipse framework to manage its files and Eclipse does not recognize this type of change.
|Test Cycles and Coverage Reports
|If you are using Test Cycles and want coverage reports, the applicable tests must be executed from within a test suite. Coverage reports will not be produced for tests that are executed outside of a test suite.
|Column Level Validation Cannot be Displayed in the Message Differences Window
|Validation on table rows and cells performed within the SQL Query action works as expected and is displayed in the console accurately. However, if column-level validation is used, any differences are displayed correctly in the console, but they are not displayed in the Message Differences window, where only row-by-row and cell-by-cell validation issues are displayed.
|Duplicated Physical Resources when Using Source Control
|Rational Integration Tester now uses a different method of creating filenames for physical resources. For this reason, source control users might see duplicate items, due to the way the project was updated or committed after the resource change. In this case, the newer or newly named resource should be kept.
|webMethods Broker Events
|When recording webMethods Broker events, some fields might appear to contain null rather than their actual content. This occurs because elements wired to a byte-array by an IS to publish can only be un-wired by another IS. This is an internal mechanism of IS and cannot be overcome. This has been seen with the MQ adapter notifications for the "MsgBody" and "MsgBodyByteArray" fields, but might affect other fields as well. For more information, see via Software AG support, incident number 5019024.
|Logical View
|Sometimes adding a service component to the logical view does not add it to the corresponding diagram.
|10905: User Names Containing "#" Character
|The Eclipse framework (and therefore Rational Integration Tester) does not support user names that contain the "#" symbol. This issue could result in the deletion of project files, as Rational Integration Tester cannot interpret the full path to the user's Documents and Settings directory for application preferences.
The workaround for this issue is to create a folder to use as a Rational Integration Tester workspace (for example,C:\RIT) and edit TestEngine.ini (found in C:\Program Files\IBM\RationalIntegrationTester by default) to point to it. The line below -data should be changed from @user.home/.rit8/perf-workspace to C:/RIT/..rit8/perf-workspace.
|UNC Paths as Current Directory in Run Command Action
|cmd.exe, used by the Rational Integration Tester Run Command test action, might return an error when trying to process a UNC path. For information about the resolution, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156276/EN-US.
|10158: Issue with SSL tab referencing one of a number of identity stores
|In a project with multiple identity stores, the GUI does not always correctly reflect the one that is selected.
If you select any identity store from the Identity Store drop down menu and click OK to close the transport window, Rational Integration Tester selects the correct identity store when processing the data. This can be seen when opening the physical files in the Physical folder of the GH Project on your C drive. The HTTP file references the id of the selected Identity Store correctly.
|Simultaneous Modifications
|If a message is opened in a message editor (for example, a Subscribe action), and in the message differences window at the same time, changes made in one window will be overwritten or reverted when closing the other window. More specifically, the content of the window that is closed last overwrites the content of the window that is closed first.
This also applies if the message differences window is used to correct messages used in a stub if the stub editor window is open. To avoid this issue, select the user preference, "Run from Disk" as opposed to "Run from Memory".
|User Permissions on non-Windows Platforms
|It is possible to perform actions in Rational Integration Tester that require the opening of IP ports less than number 1024. For example, you could create and run a stub configured to listen on port 80. On non-Windows platforms, this operation requires the user to be an administrator. Before you can run Rational Integration Tester as an administrator, however, you must run the Library Manager as an administrator (this is due to the way the .rit8 directory is created under the user's home directory). Similarly, if you want to run Rational Integration Tester as a non-admin user, you must first run Library Manager as that non-admin user.
|WS Security
|Only outbound actions are supported in the WS-Security node processor.
|Results Rendering
|The third party rendering engine has performance issues when processing large reports. To improve performance, increase the amount of memory allocated to the application.
|Invalid Schema Messages
|Some message fields might be displayed as invalid (red "x"), even though they are valid fields or messages.
|If a newer version of Rational Integration Tester is installed after adding team providers to SCM, the providers must be reinstalled, unless their installation is outside of the Rational Integration install folder (detailed in Rational Integration Tester Installation Guide).
|TIBCO BusinessWorks Private Processes
|The BW private process transport uses HTTP as its primary communication method, but Rational Integration Tester's "Publish" test action does not support HTTP. Therefore, the Send Request/Receive Reply action pair should be used for testing private processes.
Error schemas are not supported (for example, if a process outputs an error schema rather than an end schema, the error schema/output is not supported in Rational Integration Tester).
Rational Integration Tester does not support the following content in private process schemas:
If you get a connection error when calling a private process, check the network settings. Open the Designer Engine Custom Properties in the Physical View of the Architecture School perspective to find the host and port number. The host and port numbers in the Physical View menu must match the host and port numbers in the GHEnable.proj design time library in the BW project. The BW host and port numbers can be set when the project is deployed.
|Data Transfer Objects (DTOs)
|DTO support is currently limited to the following:
Change history
- Functionality has been added to enable client-side virtualization of calls to the CICS Transaction Gateway. This enables a Rational Integration Tester virtual service to be executed instead of the actual program on CICS. Sift and Pass Through capabilities can be used to enable the stub to pass the message on to the real transaction if it decides not to process it. This feature is supported only for certain specific scenarios and has a number of limitations. Further guidance will be made available in a technote. Customers should be aware that:
- This functionality is supported only for off-mainframe Java clients of the CICS Transaction Gateway. The client must be using only the CICS Transaction Gateway Java libraries from the CICS Transaction Gateway SupportPac CA5F. No other configurations are supported.
- The feature supports only synchronous calls from the client to the CICS Transaction Gateway that must be using commareas. Only ECI calls are supported.
- Extended Logical Units of Work are not supported by the virtual services.
- If users require client-side recording of messages in Recording Studio (which is required if recording of messages to a stub is desired) then the ctgserver.jar file must also be in the client's classpath and the application configuration updated. The ctgserver.jar file must be obtained from a version of the CICS TG that the CA5F SupportPac is compatible with.
- It is now possible to record Software AG webMethods IS messages without requiring a wmBroker instance. Although useful in environments where no wmBroker instance is present there is a greater impact on the message throughout of the wmIS server compared to the technique that does use wmBroker. For this reason the default recording options have not been changed and will continue to assume wmBroker is present. To enable recording without wmBroker, edit the GreenHat.properties file in the GreenHat package on the IS Server and change the useBroker setting to False.
- The HTTP transport has been changed to use per-remote-host connection pools rather than attempting to create unlimited number of connections. This significantly reduces the number of ephemeral ports created by Rational Integration Tester and also resolves some problems where these ports were not being correctly closed down. This change has also led to an agent being able to generate a higher tps load from a load generation test during a performance test (assuming all other factors are equal). The per-remote-host pool size is specified on the physical HTTP transport. This setting applies per unique host. For example, if two transports are defined, each with a pool of 100, then a maximum of 200 connections will be made.
- Rational Integration Tester has been updated with the SWIFT MT 2013 message formats. Because Rational Integration Tester supports only a single version of SWIFT, earlier versions of the standard are no longer explicitly supported. However, as Rational Integration Tester allows general SWIFT message construction, this means that 2012 (and earlier) messages can still be constructed, edited, published and received but all red-cross validation will be done according to the 2013 standards. Additionally, when using the right-click menu option within a message editor, the child-element choices shown to users will be based on the 2013 standard.
Approximately 63 message types have been modified (within the categories MT1nn to MT9nn) for this specification release. All of these have a number of modifications to the usage rules and field specifications and thus the semantic content of the messages. The semantic content of the messages does not affect Rational Integration Tester, but users need to be aware of this (details are found in the SWIFT standards specifications). Of these modifications, 29 message types have a message format specification that could affect 2012 messages. The impact is limited to red-cross validation and the child-nodes that are displayed to a user as options when constructing a message. These message types are as follows:
MT370 (new, added)
A technote will be published providing further information on these changes.
- License borrowing has been enabled for Rational Integration Tester on the Microsoft Windows platform. The feature enables customers who are using IBM Rational's floating license server technology to check out a license onto their device (such as laptop) so that they can continue to work when disconnected from the network. The license can be given back to the floating license server at a later date. License borrowing is not supported on other platforms. For further details on how to use license borrowing please contact the IBM Rational licensing support team.
- To enable users to diagnose the cause of load failures quickly and effectively, Rational Integration Tester now reports the actual filename of any project files that it cannot load (for example, files might be corrupted). In most cases, a dialog box will be shown to users, although in a small number of cases user must still open the JVM console (by clicking Help > About on the menu bar of Rational Integration Tester) to see the filename.
- An option has been added to Recording Studio to enable messages to be displayed in 'received' time order rather than using the timestamp within the messages themselves. This is useful in situations where multiple servers are being recorded and those servers are not time-synchronized. Prior to this change, if servers were not synchronized then Recording Studio could show the reply message before the request which then caused problems when creating tests and stubs from the recording. To enable this feature, click the new Use Received Timestamp in Table button on the Recording Studio toolbar. The table is not immediately re-sorted, so if a user wishes to re-order already-recorded events, they must click the appropriate column heading. Messages will now be displayed in received order. To revert to using the message timestamps, click on the button again. The Recording Studio Save Wizard and the Playback options will both honor the selected mode.
- Rational Test Control Panel now supports use of the Apple Safari browser.
- A number of usability enhancements and fixes have been made to the Rational Test Control Panel user interface.
- MQEnvironment properties can now be set on a physical IBM Websphere MQ transport in Rational Integration Tester. For example, to set the Coded Character Set Identifier (CCSID) property use the value CCSID.
- The certificate that is used to sign the LibConfig.exe file (the Library Manager executable) on the Windows platform has been changed to an IBM certificate. When running under User Account Control (UAC), Windows will display the certificate details as part of the request for elevated (administrator) permissions. This now shows the software author as IBM rather than Green Hat.
- It is now possible to show the JVM console output window by pressing the Ctrl+Shift+J key combination within Rational Integration Tester. When opened using this method the window can be left open while Rational Integration Tester is used.
- It is now possible to use tags in the directory path specified for a file-based Results Publisher within the Project Settings dialog of Rational Integration Tester.
- Rational Test Control Panel now includes a number of example services that can be used for training, demonstration and educational purposes. These are as follows:
- Calculator - A simple calculator web service offering add, subtract, multiply, divide and modulus
- Echo - A simple echo web service that sends the supplied string back again
- Login - A simple login web service that returns a unique token from all login attempts, does not verify the user name or password supplied
- Phone Book - A simple REST based phone book service
- The Rational Test Control Panel REST API for controlling stubs now provides additional textual information in error cases.
- The Rational Test Control Panel Agents page now makes it clear whether a proxy has been configured for HTTP or HTTPS traffic (or both).
- Rational Integration Tester Agent, Rational Test Control Panel, and Rational Integration Tester Platform Pack can now be installed as 64-bit installations on the IBM AIX platform. Prior to this release only the 32-bit version could be installed on AIX 64-bit. Rational Integration Tester itself only exists as a 32-bit installation on AIX.
- TIBCO EMS 7.0 entries have been added to Library Manager. Additionally, three extra JAR file dependencies have been added to EMS 6 and 7 in Library Manager: tibcrypt.jar, slf4j-api-1.4.2.jar and slf4j-simple-1.4.2.jar. These files will exist in the specified directory in a normal EMS installation. In most cases, Rational Integration Tester will have found these JAR files by means of one of the other TIBCO product references because it is unusual for a user to only specify EMS. Previously, if only EMS was specified, problems would occur because of the missing references.
- It is now possible to install the HP QC integration such that only specific users have it within their QC environment, rather than requiring it to be rolled out to all HP QC users. This approach means that, although administrative access is still required for the initial client-side installation, users do not need to be Windows administrators to use the plug-in. A file must still be installed on the QC server but no downloads are made from the server to client machines. The new installation package can be found in \tools\HP\ QualityCenterServerDist11-client-only.zip under the Rational Integration Tester installation directory. Contact the IBM Support team for information about using this approach to install the plug-in.
- For consistency with standard industry practices, and to make it easier to set-up security, the Namelist automatically created by Rational Integration Tester on an IBM z/OS WebSphere MQ Queue Manager (to enable recording) now has an upper-case name.
- It is now possible to install the four Rational Integration Tester components (Rational Integration Tester, Rational Test Control Panel, Rational Integration Tester Agent and Rational Integration Tester Platform Pack) without requiring root access on Linux systems or administrator access on Windows systems:
- Installing some of the components as non-root (or installing as root and then running as non-root) might require ownership and permissions to be modified on Linux before the components will operate correctly. For more information, please refer to the Known Issues section of this document.
- If you attempt to install the components as a non-administrative user on Windows, various installation options (such as the ability to install components as Windows services and the installation of pcap) will not be enabled.
- Rational Integration Tester now supports versions 3.0.x of the SAP JCo library (used to connect to the SAP server) up to and including 3.0.9.
- The Agents view in Rational Test Control Panel will now show additional information about the capabilities of the specific agent or proxy when the magnifying glass icon is clicked. This is particularly useful for CICS Transaction Gateway proxies as it is possible to tell whether the proxy is capable of recording messages, routing messages or both.
- When recording or routing rules are created (by starting a stub or starting a recording, for example) additional information is now output to the Rational Test Control Panel Activity log, the stub console, and in Recording Studio, specifying how many proxies the information was passed on to. If the rules were not sent to any proxies, a reason why is specified. This makes it easier for users to troubleshoot the environment.
- The console output from a stub has been modified to make it clearer to users that a guard expression has been used as a filter when processing a message.
- The Rational Test Control Panel user interface now shows the name of the logged in user.
|Download Options
What is Fix Central(FC)?
|Rational Test Virtualization Server 188.8.131.52
|21 Dec 2012
Technical support
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Before you contact IBM Rational Software Support, gather the background information that you need to describe the problem. When you describe a problem to an IBM software support specialist, be as specific as possible and include all relevant background information so that the specialist can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers to these questions:
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Document information
More support for:
Rational Test Virtualization Server
Software version: 220.127.116.11
Operating system(s): AIX, Linux, Solaris, Windows
Reference #: 4034131
Modified date: 21 December 2012


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