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As some of you know, my doctor diagnosed me with croup almost two weeks ago. What sort of adult gets croup? Hey, I think we all know if any grown person can get croup, it's going to be me.
I took some steroids. I didn't get better. I went back to the doctor, who said…pneumonia. Oh, and you're wheezing too, so here, take this antibiotic, this steroid, and use this albuterol nebulizer solution. Bah, I thought. Stupid pneumonia.
I took antibiotics, steroids, and used the nebulizer (and somehow didn't crawl up the walls). I drank plenty of fluids. I rested.
I got worse. Now I couldn't breathe and I had chest pain. Still, my oxygen levels were good, so it couldn't possibly be that bad, right?
Back to the doctor. Wheezing gone, but now he heard something in the lower lobes of my lungs that wasn't there before. Crap. Off to the hospital for a chest x-ray, which came back…negative for pneumonia.
At this point we were all confused and rather concerned. Because of my clotting disorder—complete with history of blood clots—chest pain and shortness of breath (SOB! Hee!) that can't be accounted for by another diagnosis is a bit worrisome. My doctor decided to treat with steroids through the weekend (this was Friday), and if I wasn't better by Monday, it was time for a CT pulmonary angiogram to rule out a pulmonary embolism.
And that's when I started to worry I might die.
It sounds stupid, right? I'm 35 years old. Sudden death from a blood clot in my lungs seems rather unlikely, especially since I take blood thinners to make sure it doesn't happen.
And that's when I started to worry I was a hypochondriac.
I've spent the last five days swinging between the poles of "Holy crap, I'm going to die" and "Why do I blow these things out of proportion? Everything is fine."
It's been a little stressful, especially since I felt like talking about it too much might make it more real. Obviously the last thing I wanted to do is make anything in this situation more real.Plus if I talked to the people close to me, they might worry. (News flash: they worried anyway!)
I had my CT scan today. It was a good news/weird news/not great news kind of thing.
Good news: Immediately post-scan they told me I was all clear and could go home. Yay! No blood clots!
Weird news: My doctor called me and told me the radiologist saw a tiny spot that could be a small embolism, but he felt "deep down in his soul" that it's not because something that small wouldn't cause these symptoms.
Not great news: The radiologist saw signs of developing pneumonia. Once I finish this round of antibiotics (the apparently not-so-magical Levaquin), I'll start a new course of antibiotics (the hopefully more magical Omnicef).
Overall, I'm starting to feel a little bit better, but I'm exhausted. Physically, emotionally, mentally—I'm just done. I'm ready to be healthy again, but it looks like it'll be a while before I'm back to 100%.
I admit, I wish the radiologist had said to my doctor, "Yeah, I see some pneumonia, but that's it." I'm glad he feels comfortable deep down in his soul, but I also know malpractice insurance exists for times when his soul perhaps should've been doing a few leg lifts instead of lounging in the beanbag chair. (I'm not saying I'd sue—I'm just saying doctors aren't God. You got that, right? I'm not at all litigious.)
My paranoia is calmed, but still lurking under the surface. I'm finally at a point in my life where I'm comfortable saying I'm not a hypochondriac. I have real symptoms and real cause for concern. I have no desire to be ill, and no need to be the center of attention (beyond the confines of this blog, of course).
I'm not sure I'll ever be free of that faint hum of disquietude. Frankly, I'm not sure I should be free of it. My body has failed me spectacularly in the past. If it were a person, I would've shunned it long ago. But it's my body, not a person, and I have to be okay with an uneasy truce.
For now, it works.
*Ideal truce: "If you promise not to drop dead on me, I will keep you supplied with brownies."
**Sorry this isn't very funny. I haven't been feeling well. I know. If you didn't pick up on that, you might want to reread the above post.
***If you do need a laugh after reading this, I highly recommend reading this woman's tale of her first visit to a French gynecologist. You're welcome.


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Tips – Successful in Law School
It is not everyone's cup of tea to pursue the course in a law school. You should have the flair for the analytical and logical approach to pursue the legal profession. Many students cannot make the cut even though they possess the requisite qualities. This is because they are unable to hone up the skills when they enter the law school. Therefore, the guidelines for survival on entering the law school are essential for a successful completion.
- Focus Your Aim
You should focus on the objective you have in mind. You can have an orientation on the options and how to reach the goal and the better option is to approach the Office of Career Services. Of course, their job is not to find a suitable job for you. But they are better placed in explaining to you what to do to achieve the aim.
- Build up Steam for Regular Study
Remember that you should have a sustained schedule of study regularly. If you feel that you can sprint when the examination schedule is announced you are wrong. It is like a marathon exercise with continued and sustained efforts right from the beginning. Nevertheless, keep the study schedule which is optimum and achievable.
- Be Smart and Work Hard
No doubt, many students would like to work tough for achieving the goal. However, working hard is no good for a successful career. You should be smart and for this, you need to be as serious as you prepare for the final examination right from the first semester itself.
*Also, pick up the nuances of referencing appropriately. The similar answer with all proper references would fetch impressive grading than others. The resources available at the Library would greatly help you in picking up many smart ways for your research.*
- Birds of a Feather
You are sure to find some similar students sailing in the same boat. You should identify such a homogenous group and try to discuss the doubts or the problems with your peers for a proper understanding.
- Legal Terminology
The skill of legal writing is an art, which no one is born with. In the first year itself, you should pick up the writing style using the appropriate legal terminology. The holistic sentences with the optimum density of words would ensure you are above the level of others.
- It is Not Memorization
The basic distinction you should realize is that you can't simply memorize from the open books. The objective of the examination is to test your analytical ability to support your way of thinking. It is not a test "what you know" but "how you support your argument."

subset: commoncrawl


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Big Boo's Riches:
In Big Boo's room, turn to the right as soon as you enter. Use the vacuum on the two torch fountains there to get a gold bar from one and some cash from the other.
We Love Options:
Rescue Mario and beat the game once. You will get a rank based to how you did and receive a letter grade. Save your game. You will now have the option to restart Luigi's two different ways (in addition to going to the completed Gallery). The first option lets you go back to the regular Luigi's Mansion Mode. The second option, called Ura-Yashiki (Another Mansion) in Japanese, lets you restart the game -- and presumably some of the things in the mansion have been changed around.
Mice Mean Riches:
If you want to recieve an 'A' grade you need to locate all the golden mice. To locate the mice, go into 1st person mode with the gameboy horror and click onto hidden cheeses with the A button. These cheeses can be found in:
The 2nd floor study behind a desk.
The 1st floor dining room underneath a chair.
The 2nd floor dining room at the back.
The 1st floor room with the crystal ball behind the fortune teller.
The 3rd floor trophy room behind a chair.
The 2nd floor corridor near the stairs to the attic, you hear a chime and a mouse runs up the corridor. (You don't need to find cheese for this one).
As soon as you click on cheese a mouse appears, go back to 3rd person view and suck up the mouse quick for much cash and the occasional gem.
Secret Treasure Rooms:
The mice can only be caught before the lights turn on in any room. Grab the mouse and then get the ghosts. If you miss the cheeses the first time around; go mouse hunting after the third boss when the lightning trips the power and the mansion is in darkness again. Although in some rooms, now there are loads of ghosts, so it's not as easy as it was the first time round.
The first one is located on the 1st floor, in the south-west corner of the Mansion. After you have sucked in the candle-carrying butler, check out the room with your Game Boy Horror to locate a mousehole. Press A to activate it and go inside to enter the trasure room. The 2nd treasure room is accessible from the roof top. Use the elevator in the toy chamber to get on the roof, then go all the way to the right and climb up on the chimney. Fall down and you will land in another treasure room.
Water the Plant:
Go to the right side of the graveyard. It's Just underneath the balcony with toad. There is a seed. Once you can use water, (BEFORE the 2nd boss) water the seed. Enter the doghouse, and defeat the 2nd boss. Return to seeding and water again. continue with the game, but come back and water the seed after you fight the 3rd boss. It will bloom and produce a diamond!
Hidden Hearts:
If you're running low on lifeforce, get out your vaccuum and start cleaning lamps and vases. Almost every second vase has a heart hidden inside -- and nearly every lamp or chandelier either yields money or health. Happy hunting.
Reward for 50 Boos:
One of the sidequests in Luigi's Mansion is the capture of the 50 Boos that you released accidentally in the beginning of the game. Finding Boos can be a time-consuming task as you have to make your way through the whole mansion and track them with your Game Boy Horror "Boo Sensor." Boos like to hide in rooms with the lights on, so be sure to check in every nook and cranny. A blue light on your GBH means there's no Boo to be found, a yellow light means you're close, and red means you're right in front of the hiding ghost. If the light is red, switch on your vaccuum or examine the object in question with A. Watch out, though, not every red light equals a boo. Sometimes a Boo Ball will fall out (you can simply blast it at a wall or leave it where it is), or a bomb that has the potential to cause some damage -- so run! If you're having problems finding all 50 Boos, be sure to look in the "door-less" treasure rooms.
The reward for catching all 50 Boos is a large diamond.
Secret Warp Zones:
Running around from one end of the mansion to the other can be a very time consuming task. Thankfully, Nintendo has implemented hidden warps that let you zoom back to the entrance hall. Basically, any mirror in the mansion (except for the large one that reflects the invisible ghosts) can act as a warp. To warp using a mirror, switch to your Game Boy Horror's first person mode and examine the mirror with A. After a really trippy warp sequence, you will find yourself in the entrance hall of Luigi's Mansion.
Golden Mouse Location:
First floor corridor (by the fortune tellers room) listen for the chime and the mouse will appear and run down the hall.
Making the Grade:
To recive the A grade you need to collect at least $100,000,000. Tip, just before you beat the final boss strip search the mannor to find any more money, and DON'T FORGET to water the plants.
Beat the Second Boss:
With your Powergust 3000, suck up the black ghosts and then it will turn into a ball. Then shoot the ball at the pink ghost that shows up once in a while and the pink ghost is now covered in the ball. Then shine your flashlight at the pink ghost and then start sucking him up. You will have to do this several times because is is a very hard boss to beat!
Getting a Bigger Mansion:
Once you've beaten the game you will get a grade. Once you have gotten your grade it will show you a picture of your mansion if you get a "c" you will just have a regular house, if you get a "b" you will have a mansion, but if you get an "a" you'll have a gigantic mansion.
Quick Health Fill:
To fill you health fast if you are low. Look at any mirror with the GBH and click on the A button (I think). This will warp you back to the entry of the mansion. Then go upstairs and to the left to the Nursery. In the dresser in the upper right of the room there is a large heart (worth 50) and you can get it over and over again. I think you can even leave the room and come right back in and get it again. You can do something similar in the basement in the room across from the room with the circuit breaker. In the room with the dust piles on the floor, vacuum the middle of the shelving unit in the middle of the room. This will give you a large heart. You can leave the room and come back in over and over to fill your health.
Thanks to Revolution readers Jaames, Code Cing, Michael "Mario" Fowlkes, Sam, Tyson Smith, Mike, Carlos Chavez, Matthew J. Remick and Diddy Kong!


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Any business can find themselves the subject of a lawsuit for numerous reasons. One recent example can be found in the University of Georgia system. The University of Georgia has become engaged in business litigation over the proposed name of one of the system's schools. A lawsuit has been filed against the University system by Regent University, located in another state.
The lawsuit claims that the University of Georgia's attempt to rename one of their schools Georgia Regents University is trademark infringement. Regent University's President stated in August that they would take the issue to court, though reports of the lawsuit did not surface until more recently. The lawsuit comes after Augusta State University students expressed their upset over the name change on Facebook. At least one student is hopeful that the lawsuit will encourage the Board of Regents to reconsider the name.
Located in Virginia, Regent University is seeking damages totaling three times more than what the school has suffered. Reports note that such a lawsuit could be expensive beyond the damages, and may be funded by taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers in Georgia are upset about the spending, stating that there are better ways to spend taxpayer dollars. One Georgia resident stated that the money would be better served if used to provide education and technology. Another believes that the litigation could have been avoided.
Business litigation affects more than just the individual entities involved in the dispute. In this case, two well-established universities are battling over trademark law, which has affected at least one community in our state. As the lawsuit moves forward, both sides will have the opportunity to plead their case and seek a reasonable resolution.
Source: wjbf.com, "Regent University Files Lawsuit Against University System of Georgia," Michael Miller, Sept. 28, 2012


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A sincere thank you to everyone who helped fund The Sock.
The Sock has made concession speech for Election 2012.
The Sock urges everyone to do their civic duty and vote....for him.
The Sock may not have been invited to the presidential debates but he does have a word or two in response to what the Democratic and Republican candidates had to say last night.
The Sock's campaign tour has come to a rather abrupt ending.
The Sock's IndieGoGo campaign has begun! Between today and September 18th, you can receive special rewards by contributing to The Sock's advertising campaign. Visit indiegogo.com/thesock for details.
Welcome. You have discovered my
interactive digital networking site,
host to my soon-to-be award-winning
series, "Revenge of The Sock."
Who am I? I am The Sock. The fear-
inducing felon of footwear. As I will
eventually be your unquestionable lord
and master (pending my conquest of the
world and all its governments) I have
commissioned this site to help you become
more familiar with me, thereby allowing
for an easier adjustment period for you
following my rise to power. You're


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|Members List
|Mark Forums Read
|What is Reputation?
|Much like "karma points" and "mod points" used in other online communities, Reputation is one way to gauge at a glance how much credibility to give the author of a post. The Reputation system is an informal way for members of the forum to reward (or penalize) fellow members for informative, helpful, articulate, or even simply entertaining (or not) posts.
A user with a high Reputation is someone you're more likely to learn something from. A user with a low Reputation is someone you might simply want to ignore.
User reputations are shown on each post as green (or red) squares in the upper right corner. The more squares, the higher the reputation. The same squares can be found in each user's Public Profile. The squares are only general guides, however only the user knows his or her actual Reputation point level.
|What do the colors represent?
|By default, all users have a green dot displayed right beside the post count. This is because everyone is given 10 reputation point upon joining. When your reputation level falls to zero (people disagree with your posts), the green dot changes to a gray dot. However, when you fall below zero, the dot changes to red which increases in brightness if you fall further below the scale. If your peers agree with your posts, they might give you positive reputation points. If you have acquired a sufficient amount of positive reputation points, the number of green dots will also increase.
|How do I give Reputation points?
|Every post has a "scale" Reputation icon in the upper right hand corner. If a member has posted something you found particularly insightful, you can click the Reputation icon and indicate that you approve of the post. (If the post was unhelpful, you can click the Reputation icon and indicate that you disapprove.) You can also include a comment if you like.
|On what basis should I give Reputation points?
|Reputation scores should be given on a post by post basis, and should be based on your reading of the message, not your opinion of the messenger. Perhaps more importantly, Reputation scores should be based on the quality of the post, not on whether you agree with the point of view.
If you like chocolate and a member posts a defense of vanilla, you should not automatically give a negative Reputation score simply because you disagree with the opinion. And you should not automatically give positive reputation scores to members or messages that you like, agree with, or simply support your position.
Ask yourself, "Would this post be helpful to a newcomer trying to understand the topic?" Is the post well written, informative, and reasonable? Is it especially clever, funny, or representative of the kind of attitude the community values? If yes, give a positive score. If not, give a negative score.
|How do I find out my Reputation score?
|Simply open the User Control Panel (UserCP). Your overall Reputation score will appear in the upper right hand corner. You will also be able to see the last five Reputation scores you've received, listed along with the posts that were scored and any comments that were included (if any).
A green dot indicates a positive Reputation score. And a red dot indicates a negative Reputation score. A grey dot indicates that a user tried to give you a Reputation score, but it did not count (i.e. because the user was new or had a negative Reputation).
You can also check the Reputation score of specific posts you've made by clicking the post's Reputation icon. The system will tell you how the post has been rated by other members (along with your overall Reputation score).
|How many Reputation points can I give?
|When you first become a member, and after you've made ten posts, your Reputation actions are worth one point. However, your Reputation power increases over time.
Bonuses: For every 90 days you're a member, you get an additional point of power (so each click is then worth two points, for example). For every 100 posts you make, you get an additional point of power. And for ever 50 Reputation points you receive from other members, you get an additional point of power. So if you're an active and longtime member, you'll find the Reputation ranks you give to posts can carry quite a bit of weight.
Limits: As mentioned above, you need to have made at least ten posts on the forum before your Reputation actions have any effect. Also, you can assign Reputation points to only ten posts per day (so save them for truly the best or worst posts). And you have to assign Reputation points to at least ten different members before you can assign them to a member a second time (so spread the wealth!).
Finally, if your Reputation score falls below 10 points the number you get when you first join you lose the ability to participate in the Reputation system.
|I don't agree with a Reputation score I received. What do I do?
|The Reputation system is a broad, informal measure of how a community's members collectively value each other's input. It's hoped it can be used more in fun than in conflict. Re-read the post in question: perhaps there was a reasonable, objective reason why a fellow user felt the way he or she did about what you wrote.
However, we don't want the Reputation system to inhibit participation, and we know it can be abused by people with too much time on their hands. If you feel that you received a Reputation score unfairly, please send a link to the post in question to a forum administrator.


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Savour Food & Wine Show
The food and wine event of the year! Let the connoisseur in you shine at the Savour Food & Wine Show, Atlantic Canada's premier food and wine event! In its 16th year, the event showcases over 80 of Nova Scotia's finest restaurants, wines and beverages. Take in the evening and let your taste buds run wild as you explore samples of delectable foods, legendary cocktails and fine wine presented by Nova Scotia's finest.
Halifax Convention Centre
7:00pm - 9:30pm
$109.25 (HST included) General Admission
Must be 19 to attend event.
Company Name:
RANS: Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia


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Go To: Accident Chiropractor Las Vegas!
Understanding The Strategies of Accident Chiropractor Las Vegas
Conquering Arthritis - Mentally and Physically
It has been my personal observation that a majority of people do not have a clear idea concerning how to manage our stress. My tools from early senior high school were positive thinking and being tough. I felt do whatever I set out to do and might get through any difficult circumstance. I would not allow myself to obtain angry. I did not even know what the emotion of tension was. No one could hurt me.
Finding a chiropractic clinic is often a good step for those who may require this fresh method of healing. In Missouri, a chiropractic in St Louis will probably be your partner towards overall wellness and health. A lot of people sometimes find it difficult to actually choose a genuine chiropractor and, unless you are a professional himself, it may be nearly impossible to inform by observation alone. A wise move will be to check with a neighborhood community of and discover in case a practitioner is in fact qualified or authentic and duly registered.
For women, another enduring area of the whole amount of pregnancy will be the contributing indicators which include the frequent occasional migraine headaches. Because as you know, in the periods of pregnancy alterations and changes with the flow of hormones will most predominantly to happen. In addition to that, eating tyramine containing foods such as nuts, fresh milk products and beef may contribute to the occurrence of the migraine headache.
Migraine headaches are mostly vascular as well as the caliber of veins may be managed by spinal modulation. In people who have a history of migraines, ordinary pain-killer therapy is neither recommended nor effective. That's why chiropractic treatments are becoming very popular in treating headaches. Research studies and medical trial results have proved that chiropractic therapy decreases how often and power of episodes.
Processed foods are an excellent source of salt, sugar, spices, and seasonings which work to fool the flavour buds. We have be a generation that craves salt and sugar, and therefore are happy to eat most everything to have that "fix." Even a dead "Twinkie" will do. The taste addiction is appeased, nevertheless the body has received little if any nutritive value. This is known as "dead calories."
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A political ideology is a prescription for force—by whom, against whom, when, and of what kind.
Property is ours: by the first appropriator, against the thief, while he has a debt unpaid, and whatever is necessary.
Mainly, we'll be writing on geopolitics and political theory—but we also might stray into culture, history, economics and philosophy—all from a measured libertarian perspective. The counterreaction has arrived.


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Live shows and a busy summer mean there's nothing special about our 250th episode, except insofar as each and every one of our episodes is a special wonderful delight!
Alias Hook is a 2014 book that asks what Peter Pan and Neverland would seem like from the perspective of one Captain James Hook. The answer is: not great! But as with so many works of fiction that put us in the shoes of sometime antagonists, it adds interesting layers to Hook and to the Peter Pan-theon even if the straight action and romance sequences aren't anything to write home about.


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The case for bi-polar lead-acid technology and the fortunes of US firm Advanced Battery Concepts received a considerable boost when it agreed a non-exclusive licence deal with Johnson Controls.
The pioneering bi-polar lead-acid developer based in Clare, Michigan, announced the deal with JCI, arguably the largest battery manufacturer in the world.
The full story is only available in our FREE weekly industry newsletter, so sign-up to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday.


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Australia plans to introduce plain packaging such as this for cigarettes in December.
Cigarette companies are emphasising their claim that tighter controls are leading to an expanding black market in tobacco after the Government's moves on plain packaging.
But tobacco control researchers and campaigners have dismissed the claims as a diversionary "nonsense" tactic by the companies to discredit an important policy which studies have shown is likely to cut smoking.
Imperial Tobacco said yesterday "an alarming number of Kiwis are aware of illicit or illegal tobacco products, according to new research".
British American Tobacco said last week that the illicit trade in tobacco would probably increase with plain packaging.
Action on Smoking and Health director Ben Youdan said the group commissioned an analysis of illicit tobacco after the industry raised the issue at the Maori affairs select committee tobacco inquiry in 2010.
It found holes in the industry's claims that the tobacco black market was much bigger than previously thought.
Mr Youdan said New Zealand's tobacco black market was small and was at the lowest level of all countries with a similar regulatory environment.
It was likely to remain small because of New Zealand's geographical isolation and strong border controls.
"I think it is a nonsense argument."
Australia is the first country to introduce plain packaging, with a law that will come into effect in December. Britain has begun consultation on following suit. In New Zealand, the Cabinet has agreed to impose plain packaging, subject to a consultation process.
New Zealand first considered plain packaging in 1989, as part of the policy that led to the ban on tobacco advertising the next year.
The Health Department's Toxic Substances Board recommended cigarettes be sold in white packets with simple black text and no colours or logos.
The former departmental official who serviced the board, public health specialist Dr Murray Laugesen, doubted plain packaging would have much effect on adult smokers who knew what brand they wanted - other tobacco control researchers disagree - but he predicted it would help reduce the rate of teenagers and young adults taking up smoking.
He said plain packaging, which would probably coincide with an expansion of the pictorial health warnings on packets, would build on the effects of the retail display ban that comes into force on July 23.
"The whole retail environment is changed. When a young person goes in to buy their first packet of cigarettes they are confronted by seeing nothing - a pull-down cover on all the cigarettes," Dr Laugesen said.
"There will presumably be a price list. They will then get the cigarettes. The brand name will be printed on the pack, like Marlboro Red 20s, but then the retailer will put them face up on the table and they are looking at a very nasty picture of someone's gangrenous toes.
"It will not be visible to their friends what kind of cigarettes they are smoking. It will no longer be Marlboro Red identified by its distinctive red colour, or a blue-tinted mild brand, it will just be small-print letters. So as a fashion item, it will not be a trendsetter."
Sydney University public health professor Simon Chapman said tobacco companies' documents released after litigation showed clearly they used cigarette packaging as an important part of marketing.
He and colleagues, writing in the journal Addiction, cited a Philip Morris document which said packs aimed at younger women should be "slick, sleek, flashy, glittery, shiny, silky, bold".
"If you smoke, a cigarette pack is one of the few things you use regularly that makes a statement about you," an employee of another company said. "A cigarette pack is the only thing you take out of your pocket 20 times a day and lay out for everyone to see."
Countering the industry argument that no evidence showed plain packaging would cut smoking prevalence, the journal article cites research showing mock-up plain packaging is found to be unappealing, people remember health warnings on plain packs better and the warnings are considered more serious.
In Britain, an industry-funded smoking rights group has started a Hands Off Our Packs campaign.
It offers the smuggling and no-evidence arguments, but also adds the slippery-slope argument that once plain packaging is used, the "health lobby" will soon push for plain packaging of alcohol and processed foods.
The campaign also decries the "denormalisation" of tobacco, of which plain packaging is a part, saying it stigmatises smokers, who have "have done nothing wrong."
But tobacco control campaigners say tobacco is not a normal product - it is the only consumer product which kills up to half its long-term users when used as intended.
* Australia will be the first country to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes.
* The law will come into effect in December, and Britain has begun consultation on following suit.
* In New Zealand, the Cabinet has agreed to impose plain packaging, subject to a consultation process.
* It is recommended cigarettes be sold in white packets with simple black text and no colours or logos.


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You are here
Oil rises as Opec producers signal optimism over market recovery
[LONDON] Oil traded at the highest price in almost two months in London as Opec ministers signaled confidence that the market can sustain its rebound.
Futures gained as much as 0.9 per cent. There's a sense of optimism in rising prices and the trend has changed over the past two weeks, Qatar's Energy Minister Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada said on Monday. The global supply glut is smaller than a previously estimated 1.8 million barrels a day, according to Kuwait's Ali Al-Omair, the third-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Oil is recovering from the lowest prices in almost six years as drillers in the US, which is pumping crude at a record pace amid a shale boom, reduced the number of active rigs to the fewest since August 2011. The market is shifting its focus to tightening supply, according to Standard Chartered Plc.
"We've seen the rig numbers, that will impact estimates going forward," David Lennox, a resource analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney, said by phone. "There are forecasts for lower production by the end of 2015, especially out of the US, and that's put a halt on the downtrend." Brent for April settlement climbed as much as 57 cents to US$61.97 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange and was at US$61.80 at 2.08 pm Sydney time. The contract fell 12 cents to US$61.40 on Monday. The volume of all futures traded was about 47 per cent below the 100-day average.
West Texas Intermediate for March delivery was 21 cents higher than Friday's close at US$52.99 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Floor trading on Monday was closed for the US Presidents' Day holiday and transactions will be booked Tuesday for settlement purposes.
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Opec, which supplies about 40 per cent of the world's oil, on Feb 9 made the deepest cut in at least six years to its monthly projection for output growth from other producers, predicting the market's drop means US drillers will pump less than previously anticipated.
"Brent is near US$62 and there's a sense of optimism surrounding this issue," Qatar's Al Sada said at the annual general meeting of Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding Co.
US drillers reduced the number of rigs in service by 84 to 1,056, according to Baker Hughes Inc, an oilfield services company. Companies have idled 519 machines the past 10 weeks, a 33 per cent reduction, the data showed.
The decline in rig counts isn't enough to stop production growth, said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Lower prices may be needed to balance the market because US output could still expand by 600,000 barrels a day in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, the bank said in a note on Monday.
The US oil boom has been driven by a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which has unlocked supplies from shale formations including the Permian and Eagle Ford in Texas and the Bakken in North Dakota. Production averaged 9.23 million barrels a day through Feb 6, the most in weekly Energy Information Administration records dating back to January 1983.
Brent has technical resistance at US$61.83 a barrel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's the 23.6 per cent Fibonacci retracement of the decrease from a nine-month intraday high of US$115.71 in June to January's low of US$45.19. Sell orders tend to be clustered around chart-resistance levels.
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Those of you who've followed this blog for a while may be starting to notice a pattern- when there is a gap in posting it generally means that shit had happened…
So yeah, erm, shit seriously happened… two weeks ago today my Auntie felt ill, went into A&E (oh god, this is already starting to sound like a clichéd teen novel *sigh*) where she collapsed and was put on life support. I spent most of my evenings sat in ITU with her until Saturday when I went out to one of my oldest friend's eighteenth- came back home, walked into the house to find Ma standing listlessly in the hallway holding my Auntie's handbag and staring into space.
I knew as soon as I saw Ma that she'd died… those of you who've been following this blog for a REALLY long time will remember me talking about my Auntie who was in a coma a couple of years ago- well this is a DIFFERENT Auntie… seems that my family is cursed.
It's been really weird, I thought I'd react exactly the same as when Bea took her life before xmas- but I haven't, when she first got taken into hospital I didn't sleep, I cried all the time and was generally hysterical but since she's died I've felt nothing. I've barely even cried. I have periods where I think about her and I can't breathe- I just literally can't breathe, but I don't feel sad. I think I just kind of feel overwhelmed and exhausted by it all.
More than anything I wish I could grieve, I wish I could sit and sob like I did for Bea- but for some reason I just can't, it's like I feel nothing for her- which is bullshit. I've been incredibly close to her my whole life and the thought of never seeing her again is horrible- but I just can't feel anything.
There's lots of other stuff whirling about in my head at the moment- but I'm going to stick to this for now- I'm a little bit too jumbled up to think of anything else.
'til next time,
Wren x


text:
Dr James Cheshire
|Room 105
North-West Wing
Department of Geography
University College London
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Tel: +44 (0) 207 6790513
James completed a BSc (1st Class Hons.) in Physical Geography at the University of Southampton before undertaking a PhD in GIScience at the UCL Department of Geography. His topic was the spatial analysis and visualisation of large surname databases. After completing his PhD he was appointed Lecturer in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation at CASA before moving to the UCL Department of Geography where he a Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Human Geography. James is also Deputy Director of both the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre and the UCL Q-Step Centre.
His research focuses on the use of "big" and open datasets for the study of social science. He has published in a range of journals on a variety of topics including the use of cycle hire schemes, the spatial analysis of surnames and new ways to visualise population data. James is the recipient of a number of major awards from the Royal Geographical Society, The North American Cartographic Information Society and British Cartographic Society. He is President of the Society of Cartographers.
Aside from his academic outputs, a wide range of his maps and visualisations have been featured in the popular press. Read more at spatial.ly or follow @spatialanalysis on Twitter.
Prizes and Awards
1. North American Cartographic Information Society's Corlis Benefidio Award (2018) that recognises "a body of work and the perspective it brings to the field of cartography, and the contributions it makes to the world as a whole."
2. Awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Cuthbert Peek Award (2017) "for advancing geographical knowledge through the use of mappable Big Data".
3. The British Cartographic Society Award (2017): One of the most prestigious awards for recognising cartographic excellence. Entrants are drawn from leading publishers, world mapping agencies and academics. The award recognised the pioneering mapping and visualisation contained in the book entitled Where the Animals Go.
4. The J C Bartholomew Award for Thematic Mapping. (2017)
5. Winner London Book Fair Innovation in Travel Publishing Prize. (2017): A major prize recognising "the world's best travel writing".
6. The British Cartographic Society Award. (2015): One of the most prestigious awards for recognising cartographic excellence. Entrants are drawn from leading publishers, world mapping agencies and academics. The award recognised the pioneering mapping and visualisation contained in the book entitled London: The Information Capital. It is the first publication to secure multiple honours from the British Cartographic Society.
7. The Stanford's Award for Printed Mapping. (2015)
Major Centre Grants
Awarded as part of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the ESRC "Big Data Network" (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/research/our-research/big-data-network/), these mark significant strategic investments around which many other initiatives are based.
1. ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre. £6,117,620 (February 2014 to Feburary 2019). Co-I, 30% FTE, 5 years (with PI P Longley and Co-Is A Singleton, J Cheshire, J Reynolds, T Cheng, S Mikhaylov). As Deputy Director of the centre, I have significant line management responsibilities for 3 postdoctoral researchers, in addition to oversight of key aspects of the secure data infrastructure on which the project depends.
2. ESRC Administrative Data Research Centre. £11,550,200. (October 2013 – September 2018) Co-I, 5% FTE, 5 years (project leads are P Smith, D Martin and R Gilbert). This is a major investment led by the University of Southampton with collaborators at UCL, Office for National Statistics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Other Grants – Principal Investigator
1. Development frontiers in crime, livelihoods and urban poverty in Nigeria (FCLP). £261,819 (January 2018-December 2019). 20% FTE 1 year. ESRC/ DfID Development Frontiers Award. Response to a call to "fund innovative, strategic and catalytic research with the potential to radically impact on sustainable development concepts or practices, or lead to new thinking and action on poverty reduction".
2. Big, Open Data: Mining and Synthesis. £243,145 (October 2013 – March 2016). 50% FTE 2.5 years. ESRC Future Research Leaders Award. A hugely competitive call to "enable outstanding early-career social scientists…to acquire the skills set to become the future world leaders in their field."
3. Adaptive Networks for Complex Transport Systems. £15,000 (January 2012 - March 2012). EPSRC Additional Sponsorship. (Co-I F Medda).
Other Grants – Co-Investigator
1. The analysis of names from the 2011 Census of Population. £136,504 (March 2015 - February 2016). 5% FTE 11 months. ESRC Secondary Data Initiative. (PI P Longley and Co-Is J Cheshire, A Singleton).
2. Cities for Human Locomotion. £6000 (July 2013 - September 2013). UCL Grand Challenges. (PI S Marshall with Co-Is N Tyler, J Cheshire, C Holloway).
Books and Book Chapters
1. Longley, P., Cheshire J. & Singleton, A. (Eds.) (2018). Consumer Data Research. UCL Press.
2. Lloyd, A., Cheshire, J. & Squires, M. (2018). The Provenance of Customer Loyalty Card Data. In Longley, P., Cheshire J. & Singleton, A. (2018). Consumer Data Research. UCL Press.
3. O'Brien, O. & Cheshire (2018). Geovisualisation of Consumer Data. In Longley, P., Cheshire J. & Singleton, A. (2018). Consumer Data Research. UCL Press.
4. Longley, P. & Cheshire, J. (2018). Geographical Information Systems. In Kent, A. & Vujakovic, P. The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography. Routledge.
5. O'Brien, O. & Cheshire J. (2017). Mapping Travel to Work Flows. In Stillwell, J. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Census Resources, Methods and Applications. Routledge.
6. Umar, F. Johnson, S. & Cheshire, J. (2018). Testing theories of Social Disorganization in Nigeria. In Weisburd, D. & Johnson, S. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Criminology. Oxford University Press.
7. Cheshire, J. & Uberti, O. 2016. Where the Animals Go. Particular Books (UK) & WW Norton (USA).
Translations: Die Wege der Tiere (Carl Hanser, Germany), Atlas De La Vie Sauvage (Les Arénes, France).
8. Cheshire, J. A., & Lovelace, R. (2015). Spatial Data Visualisation with R. In C. Brunsdon, & S. Singleton (Eds.), Geocomputation: A Practical Primer. SAGE.
9. Cheshire, J. & Uberti, O. (2014). London: The Information Capital. Particular Books.
10. Ivan, I., Longley, P., Horãk, J., Fritsch, D., Cheshire, J. & Inspektor, T. (Eds.). (2013). Geoinformatics for City Transformations. Institute of Geomatics, Ostrava.
11. Cheshire, J., Batty, M., Reades, J., Longley, P., Manley, E., Milton, R. (2013). CyberGIS for Analysing Urban Data. In S. Wang., M. Goodchild. CyberGIS: Fostering a New Wave of Geospatial Discovery and Innovation. SAGE.
Journal Articles
1. Lloyd, A. & Cheshire J. (2018). Detecting Address Uncertainty in Loyalty Card Data. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy. doi: 10.1007/s12061-018-9250-1
2. Lloyd, A. & Cheshire, J. (2017). Deriving retail centre locations and catchments from geo-tagged Twitter data. Computers Environment and Urban Systems, 61, A: 108-118. doi: j.compenvurbsys.2016.09.006
3. Kandt, J., Cheshire, J. & Longley, P. (2016). Regional Surnames and genetic structure in Great Britain. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41, 4: 554-569, doi: 10.1111/tran.12131
4. O'Brien, O., & Cheshire, J. (2015). Interactive mapping for large, open demographic data sets using familiar geographical features. Journal of Maps, 1-8. doi:10.1080/17445647.2015.1060183
5. Goodman, A., & Cheshire, J. (2014). Inequalities in the London bicycle sharing system revisited: impacts of extending the scheme to poorer areas but then doubling prices. Journal of Transport Geography, 41, 272-279. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.04.004
6. Woodcock, J., Tainio, M., Cheshire, J., O'Brien, O., & Goodman, A. (2014). Health effects of the London bicycle sharing system: health impact modelling study. BMJ, 348(feb13 1), g425. doi:10.1136/bmj.g425
7. Cheshire, J. A. (2014). Analysing Surnames as Geographic Data. Journal of Anthropological Science, 92, 99-117.
8. O'Brien, O., Cheshire, J., & Batty, M. (2014). Mining bicycle sharing data for generating insights into sustainable transport systems. Journal of Transport Geography, 34, 262-273. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2013.06.007
9. Cheshire, J. A., Longley, P. A., Yano, K., & Nakaya, T. (2013). Japanese surname regions. Papers in Regional Science, 93(3), 539-555. doi:10.1111/pirs.12002
10. Novotny, J., & Cheshire, J. A. (2012). The Surname Space of the Czech Republic: Examining Population Structure by Network Analysis of Spatial Co-Occurrence of Surnames. PLoS ONE, 7(10). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048568
11. Darlu, P., Bloothooft, G., Boattini, A., Brouwer, L., Brouwer, M., Brunet, G., Manni, F. (2012). The Family Name as Socio-Cultural Feature and Genetic Metaphor: From Concepts to Methods. Human Biology, 84(2), 169-214. doi: 10.3378/027.084.0205
12. Cheshire, J. (2012). Lives on the Line: Mapping Life Expectancy Along the London Tube Network. Environment and Planning A, 44(7), 1525-1528. doi:10.1068/a45341
13. Cheshire, J. A., & Longley, P. A. (2012). Identifying Spatial Concentrations of Surnames. International Journal of Geographic Information Science, 26, 309-325. doi:10.1080/13658816.2011.591291
14. Cheshire, J., & Batty, M. (2012). Visualisation Tools for Understanding Big Data. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 39(3), 413-415.
15. Cheshire, J., Mateos, P., & Longley, P. A. (2011). Delineating Europe's Cultural Regions: Population Structure and Surname Clustering. Human Biology, 83(5), 573-598. doi:10.3378/027.083.0501
16. Winney, B., Boumertit, A., Day, T., Davison, D., Echeta, C., Evseeva, I., . . . Bodmer, W. (2011). People of the British Isles: preliminary analysis of genotypes and surnames in a UK-control population. European Journal of Human Genetics (20), 203-210. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2011.127
17. Batty, M., & Cheshire, J. (2011). Cities as flows, cities of flows. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 38(2), 195-196.
18. Longley, P. A., Cheshire, J. A., & Mateos, P. (2011). Creating a regional geography of Britain through the spatial analysis of surnames. Geoforum 42(4), 506-516. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.02.001
19. Cheshire, J., & Longley, P. (2011). Spatial concentrations of surnames in Great Britain. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 21(0), 279-286. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.07.047
20. Cheshire, J. A. (2010). The Surname Regions of Great Britain. Journal of maps, 401. doi: 10.4113/jom.2010.1103
James' personal blog attracts 100,000 visits a year with many utilising his tutorials on the use of the R statistics package for mapping and visualisation. In addition, a key deliverable from his ESRC Future Research Leaders grant was the creation of the datashine.org.uk website with the project's RA Oliver O'Brien. This is regarded as an innovator in the visualisation and provision of 2011 Census data and was cited as exemplar in the Royal Statistical Society's Data Manifesto. It is used throughout the public, private and charity sectors for data insights as well as by schools and universities as an educational resource.
James' visual outputs have been widely featured in the mainstream print and online media and he is regularly asked to deliver talks, training and analysis in the commercial sector.
Current Teaching
1. GEOG2025: Geocomputation. Convenor (Undergraduate).
2. Q-Step Data visualisation short course. Convenor (Undergraduate).
3. GEOG1003: Data Acquisition and Interpretation. Convenor (Undergraduate).
4. POLS6024: Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods. Co- Convenor (Undergraduate).
5. POLS6025: Introduction to Data Analysis. Co- Convenor (Undergraduate).
PhD Students
Current PhD Students
1. Terje Trasberg. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Primary Supervisor (2017-)
2. Markus Löning. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Secondary Supervisor. (2017-)
3. Balamurugan Soundararaj. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. Primary Supervisor. (2016 -)
4. Alyson Lloyd. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. Primary Supervisor. (2015- )
5. Nilufer Sari Aslam. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. Secondary Supervisor. (2015- )
6. Karlo Lugomer. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. Secondary Supervisor. (2016 -)
7. Timothy Rains. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council. Secondary Supervisor. (2015- )
8. Guy Lansley. Part time staff funding. Secondary Supervisor. (2014- , part time)
9. Stephan Hugel. Funded via UCL CASE Award with the Greater London Authority. Secondary Supervisor. (2012- )
Completed PhD Students
1. Alistair Leak. Funded by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Secondary Supervisor (2013- 2017). Now Postdoctoral Researcher at UCL.
2. Faisal Umar. Funded by Nigerian Government. Primary Supervisor (2012- 2016). Now lecturer at Abu Zaria University, Nigeria.
3. Christopher Gale. Funded by Economic and Social Research Council and Office for National Statistics. Secondary Supervisor (2010-2014). Now a postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton.
4. Hrishi Ballal. Funded by the European Research Council Mechanicity Project. Secondary Supervisor (2013-2015). Now running a successful company specialising in geodesign software (the topic of his PhD).


text:
I was just humming that Can You Feel the Love Tonight song. Have you heard it?
Timon: I can see what's happening
Pumba: What?
Timon: And they don't have a clue!
Pumba: Who?
Timon: They'll fall in love and here's the bottom line
Our trio's down to two
Pumba: Oh
Timon: The sweet caress of twilight
There's magic everywhere
And with all this romantic atmosphere
Disaster's in the air
Chorus: Can you feel the love tonight?
The peace the evening brings
The world, for once, in perfect harmony
With all its living things
Simba: So many things to tell her
But how to make her see
The truth about my past? Impossible!
She'd turn away from me
Nala: He's holding back, he's hiding
But what, I can't decide
Why won't he be the king I know he is
The king I see inside?
Chorus: Can you feel the love tonight?
The peace the evening brings
The world, for once, in perfect harmony
With all its living things
Can you feel the love tonight?
You needn't look too far
Stealing through the night's uncertainties
Love is where they are
Timon: And if he falls in love tonight
It can be assumed
Pumba: His carefree days with us are history
Both: In short, our pal is doomed! (cry)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Romance in the air at Sakhi's and as she turned the fan on, I too felt the fresh breeze of that air.
Disclaimer: I am not sure what kind of love we're talking about here and also, I don't know the actual definition of love so please note that while you read the answers.
Here I go:
- If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be? Then it was never meant to be; and if that was the case, better now than later.
- If you can have a dream to come true, what would it be? Detachment from life at all times. Hmm.. now there' something to dream about.
- What do you love the most in your lover? Kindness
- What would you do with a billion dollars? Can't tell right now but would rather share it with others than just spend it all myself. :D
- Will you fall in love with your best friend? Ummm.. it's difficult to gamble so much.
- Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone? How about both? If I had to pick one I'd pick the first one. It is an emotion to be experienced at least once in a lifetime.
- How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love? So long the patience doesn't run out. :)
- If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do? Pray to God for good and better things in their life.
- If you like to act with someone, who will it be? Your gf/bf or an actress/actor? Acting? Are you kidding me? But if I were forced to, I'd rather pick an actor/actress.
- What takes you down the fastest? Nosy people who ask personal questions. Just one will do, but it better not be you! ;)
- How would you see yourself in ten years' time? No idea. Hopefully closer to achieving that dream I talked about above.
- What's your fear? To not being able to let go.
- What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is? A mysterious gal who is a fabulous writer. :)
- Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor? How about happily married but poor? :P
- What's the first thing you do when you wake up? Open the window blinds to let the daylight come in.
- Would you give all in a relationship? Meaning? If it means give it my best, then yes I would. :)
- If you fall in love with two people simultaneously, who would you pick? Pick for what? I already love more than two people right now. LOL!
- Would you forgive and forget, no matter how horrible a thing that special someone has done? Forgive? Yes. Forget? I don't know. I could become indifferent towards them.
- If you get to go back in time and fall in love all over again, would it still be with the same person? This question makes me feel like Basanti.
- List 6 people to tag:
Haan to kahan thi main? Haan... Ramgadh ka ek rupaiya aur Belapur ka dedh...
Phir maine socha, chalo back in time jaana hi hai to hum chale jaate hai lekin agar love all over again karna pade to hum kar bhi sakte hai aur nahin bhi. Aur agar kar liya to phir to wohi baat ho gayi jo pehle thi aur agar nahin kiya to kisi aur se kar lete hai. Lekin us ke liye mujhe Shiv mandir mein jaa kar thode aur somvaar ke vrat karne padenge. :P
Now here are the rules:
RULE #1: People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.
RULE #2: Tag 6 people to do this quiz and they cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by, cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by, and must continue this game by sending it to other people.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
While we're still talking about love, here is a cutsie love song I adore from the I love Lucy show. It is picturized on Lucy and Ricky.
The Loveliest Night of the Year
when you are in love, it's the loveliest night of the year,
stars twinkle above, and you almost can touch them from here.
words fall into rhyme, everytime you are holding me near.
when you are in love, it's the loveliest night of the year.
waltzing along in the blue, like a breeze drifting over the sand,
thrilled by the wonder of you, and the wonderful touch of your hand and
my heart starts to beat, like a child when a birthday is near.
so kiss me, my sweet. it's the loveliest night of the year.
(Lyrics by Mario Lanza)
"loveliest night of the year" starts at 2:40 mins.


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Butet Manurung and her friends have dedicated their life to teach the indegenous children in Jambi, Sumatra and the inspiring story was published and later on a feature film based on Butet's story was released in 2013, directed by Riri Riza. (Sponsored by Bekraf & Miles Films)
Ruang Minihall
Menara Iqra Lt 5
- Read more about International Seminar: The Taste of Democracy-Writer's Perspective from Three Countries
2019, after the legislative election and presidential election in Indonesia which is considered by many to bring the Indonesian nation to the potential for division; a year after the collapse of the regime in Malaysia, after the Australian Federal Election, the results of which shocked many parties; 3 Writers from Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia shared views on democracy in their respective countries. How far are they involved or following political dynamics? Or lest you become apathetic?
- Read more about 20 Years Reform: Challenges After 20 Years of Indonesian's Political Reform from In/Outside Persepctives


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HCM CITY – A team each from Malaysia, Laos and Thailand will take part in the 2016 VTV International Cycling Tournament for the Tôn Hoa Sen Cup later this month.
Their participation promises to make the event more competitive.
They will be up against 13 teams from Việt Nam.
The tour will start in the central city of Đà Nẵng on August 24 and end in Hà Nội on September 2, Independence Day.
The cyclists will ride the distance of 1,300km in 10 stages, going through Thừa Thiên – Huế, Quảng Bình, Nghệ An, Thanh Hoá, Nam Định, and Hải Phòng before finishing in the capital.
The event is organised by Việt Nam Television, the Việt Nam Cycling and Sport Motors Federation and Hoa Sen Group. — VNS


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THE TENDER FOR LAW – Pseudo-article-to-tide-you-over-while-we-continue-work on-the-next-article:
…OK, not really. Roll the copyright and licence!
(c) 2014 ROGUESUPPORT INC. under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
( Shut up! It's coming! )
In the super-secret group, THE TENDER FOR LAW (https://www.facebook.com/groups/tenderforlaw/), I was asked a very interesting question regarding how soon one of my "predictions" will come to pass.
Those that have come to know me recently, and/or those who have known me for a longer period (20 years or more), can all agree on one thing; I see shit coming, and I understand substantially more than everyone else.
Having been shafted by my own government, who promised to compensate me (In WRITING) for all the shit I did/built for them, I have not been very quiet about announcing that from 2011 onward I will dedicate all my efforts to collapsing the banking system and starting a war. Suddenly crypto-currencies appear and people mistakenly make the connection and presume that I have somehow conjured this stuff into existence. I did no such thing.
I see things coming, and I base my life plans on them. I see the end of our civilization coming, but I don't know when. Anybody that tells you they can predict when something will happen, is lying to you, or at best making an educated guess. You should probably presume they're lying to you.
I cannot predict when things will happen. I can only predict that things will happen. If I predict that something must come to pass, and that something isn't happening at a speed which pleases me, I am certainly adept enough at the larger machinations to speed any of these "predictions" along. I directly and/or indirectly had a hand in HOW these machinations are automated, so KEY FUNCTIONS can be executed by complete morons.
The thing you have to understand is that these things MUST come to pass, so events and circumstances are predisposed to accommodate the coming of these events. One simply must "grease the path".
Those who have known me all my life, know that computers were an obsession for me, when there were no computers around. The internet is nothing like I conceptualized it to be; nonetheless I knew it HAD TO HAPPEN. Does anybody remember the Internetworking Packet Exchange (IPX)? I wouldn't blame you if you had no idea what I was talking about, but it was once the de facto standard for networking computers. I also knew that TCP/IP was the future.
By the time I met my beloved Tara I had mastered the skill of getting rid of IPX and replacing it with TCP/IP on every operating system in existence. A small effort, at the right time, gave me a skill that had NO competition. In the early romantic courting days of Scott & Tara, networks were hybrids of TCP/IP and IPX, running at the SAME TIME. Since Microsoft was effectively treating different network protocols as "roads" in the "Network Neighbourhood" (Seriously, am I the ONLY one who just finds that shit TOTALLY retarded?), they decided to take this bullshit concept and build it right into the NT kernel. Every request tried every protocol until it was satisfied. IPX will flip out if you look at it cross-eyed.
Clearly the writing was on the wall, and Tara didn't take it well. She was the goddess of NetWare, and she used her elite NetWare skills to destroy a network I had painstakingly put together over the previous three days; which led to the now legendary Disaster Recovery documents with the secondary title of, "…or, What to do when Tara touches your server". That's another skill I mastered in this all-too short life of mine – I can cause disasters, and I can recover from disasters, and it really was an awesome Disaster Recovery document. In fact its professionalism simply added to the humour of its surprisingly accurate title. 😛
I digress…
I can't tell you WHEN these things are going to come to pass. That would require me to lie. Again, I can only tell you that they ARE going to come to pass.
Please stop asking me for "tips" on what to do, unless you intend to volunteer as crew; in which case you will be in my jurisdiction where I can, in fact, legally and lawfully kill you – and make up the reason why afterwards.
This one simple fact means most of you wouldn't survive the first week. I have a very short fuse when it comes to my captains being annoyed. An annoyed captain is an unhappy captain. An unhappy captain is a distracted captain; and if you wish to distract my captains in this way, feeding you to carp is a quick and efficient solution to that problem.
So please, stop asking me for tips on what to do. I honestly don't know what motivates you on a day-to-day basis. I only know how you're PROGRAMMED. Most of what you BELIEVE is important, is in fact pre-programmed. You think wrong, and you VALUE the wrong things. This simple fact alone should reveal why asking for tips from me is not a good idea; because the tips will serve my agenda, not yours.
These questions also reveal that everyone's hope and current gratitude has clouded some very key points I made earlier, so I'm going to make them again.
Pay attention this time:
1: I will tell you the truth. I will not lie because I took an oath not to lie to you. I will tell you what's coming, and the more astute among you will also see that I'm telling you how to benefit from this foreknowledge you didn't earn.
2: We are not friends. In fact, we're NOTHING alike. I despise your very existence. I loathe you for your celebration of ignorance; and I hold you all in the utmost contempt for flushing away your grandparents' legacy.
Those of you who are listening to what I'm saying, arrogantly presume that you have some amazing insight, suddenly. Let me take this opportunity to remind you that you don't have ANY insight. YOU CAN'T. If you could, you'd never need to read anything I had to say. I remind all of you that, until you read my works, none of you knew what "This note is LEGAL TENDER" means or how it affects you. The fact that you suddenly have this knowledge, and are a little more enlightened as a result, seems to have deluded all of you into thinking that I might hate all of you a little bit less than everybody else. Let me assure you, that's not true. None of you have an ethical structure that passes even the barest scrutiny.
I was demonstrating to Tara many years ago the art and methodology of "weaponizing" a woman. This particular woman was not really "broken"; she was just evil – and not in a hot anime super-hero way. She was quite innocently, completely lacking in empathy. Skills and disciplines that would require some people half a lifetime to acquire, she could learn in weeks. She was by far my most "pain-free" student. She ALWAYS asked the right questions, and I never, ever, had to repeat myself. As Tara was noticing this transformation, she was also listening to what I was teaching her. While what was being taught was "weapons-specific", Tara had no trouble extrapolating the extremely powerful and dangerous things I was teaching her. Tara had a serious ethical issue with the instructions; because the student did not have to "earn" the knowledge she was acquiring from me. This meant that whatever I taught her, she would not value, and would immediately put the knowledge into practice against her inferiors. To a post-weaponized woman, that pretty much covers the population of the planet. A weaponized woman has many of the same skills that I do, can predict and therefore outmaneuver virtually all incoming threats; and I always give full disclosure that a woman I weaponize will self-destruct once MY mandate is completed. A woman is weaponized of her own free will. I do not lie or attempt to whitewash any of the consequences of that decision. In short, she wanted it.
3: You think wrong and value the wrong things, and you don't even see the consequences of that one simple REALITY. If you think wrong and value the wrong things, how can you possibly know who you are?
I've tried my best to show you just how what is presumed "good" is actually quite evil. Many of you still have difficulty with the concept that "ALL belief is evil". The key word here is ALL. There are no exceptions to this rule – even if your belief just happens to be the right answer. THIS ALWAYS SERVES SOMEONE ELSE YOU WILL NEVER MEET! …let that sink in.
If your belief just happens to be the right answer, I guarantee that belief was put there to serve somebody else's agenda. Isaac Asimov covered this phenomenon in the first of the Foundation series. The TL;DR is that the "holy priests" of the galactic sky god (or some such thing) were trained to perform "sacred rituals", which just happened to maintain fusion reactors. The beliefs of the priests happened to be the right answer, but the priests had no actual knowledge of what they were doing.
You are a living, breathing, thinking version of an automated and self-maintaining process that replicates itself like a virus. You have no identity, and you don't know who you are, because you don't know anything. You just "believe" shit and call it "knowledge".
4: I have no stake in the outcome, and I don't care what happens to any of you. All my life I have been plagued with the right answer, and I have been shit on for my trouble. As you start to put the pieces together you'll see why I hold theists in such contempt; because of all of your kind, the theists pose the greatest real-world threat. All of them in some way feel I should be harmed, because I dared point out the REALITY, that they are adults, with imaginary friends that we, the nobility, made up for them. (…seriously. Your kind LOVES to "shoot the messenger"! What's up with that?)
The machinations of Christianity are complex and far-reaching, but have fundamentally managed to convince the world that "insurance" is a good idea. As a result, a trillion dollar industry was conjured into existence, that creates power and wealth from the misfortune of others.
It seems obvious when I point it out, but the fact that it didn't occur to you in the first place means that I will NEVER be able to communicate with you on anything CLOSE to an equal level.
As she learned more over the years, Tara no longer has an ethical issue with me "weaponizing" your kind, because you all love to be programmed, you all love to "have a purpose" and to be "part of something larger". You are LITERALLY "begging for it".
On the bright side: I deliver on that.
I give you everything you have ever wanted, at what all of you universally think is the most interesting time of your lives!
Wait…isn't that the Chinese curse? What was it again?
Ah, yes! "May you live in interesting times, and may you get what you want". OF COURSE!
None of you grasp WHY that's a curse. If you accept that you think wrong and you value the wrong things, and you accept that you think this way, and you value the things that you do, because of programming a long-dead stranger set in motion three hundred years ago, then you must also accept that what you want is simply a by-product of thinking wrong, and valuing the wrong things.
THEREFORE, the thing you must accept, and are doing everything in your power to reject, is that I'm doing exactly what the rest of the nobility has done. While I appear to be doing it out of altruism, the REALITY is that you're programmed to serve an agenda. I am simply putting "corrective lenses" on your pre-existing program, thus making you DEFAULT to my agenda.
My agenda has NO pretence. It can't, because it has too many fixed points in REALITY. You WILL serve my agenda, by being WHO and WHAT you are (or aren't), with "corrective lenses". I understand the program far better than your government does. Your government works with these machinations in the same way the commoners took care of bookkeeping with Roman numerals, robbing them of higher math, yet still allowing them to be as precise as any mathematician in their calculations.
This seems as good a time as any to reveal a little symbolism, because you dip-shits love symbolism. The big X on the AQUILAE TRUST logo/seal is in fact, the Roman numeral "10", but it is more than a stylized X. It means a whole lot of other things as well. Whenever you see this seal with the stylized "10", it means it is intended for your kind to be read. The Roman numeral 10 symbolizes what you are – precise, based on belief, not precise based on knowledge. This is the insight computer science has taught me. The machinations I'm describing happen everywhere, but they all touch computer science; and very soon knowledge of computer science will be regarded as "suspicious", and then eventually such knowledge will be criminalized.
If you think that's not possible, simply look at North Korea. In a time not too far from now, knowledge of computer science will be as dangerous to you as literacy was to a black man in the 1600's. For one of the things I have learned in this all-too-short life of mine, is that knowledge IS power; and I have knowledge of every single thing computer science touches. From medicine, to biology, to astronomy, to aeronautics, to weapon systems, to artificial life itself. Thanks to computer science I have an all-too-vague, but surprisingly accurate understanding of life itself. You're better than gods, and you prefer to be slaves; because it's easier.
So my contempt for you isn't gratuitous. You have worked hard for it, and you have earned it. Every single one of you contributes a little tiny bit. No one single raindrop is ever held responsible for the flood, but you all are responsible. It doesn't matter what you "believe".
You serve my agenda simply by doing what you're pre-programmed to do. I simply have to throw a few extra switches in that laughable piece of programmed meatware you call a brain, and before you know it, you're no longer "dancing" for the government – you're "dancing" for the Admiral to entertain his Captains.
What you're feeling isn't real. There is no bond or closeness with me. Those that have a bond and/or closeness with me need to be restrained from taking actions; whereas all of you, who laughingly think there's a "bond" with me, while completely acknowledging that you're all fraud victims, needed a crisis to alert you of this fact.
NONE of you are like me.
I pay my mortgages.
I pay my taxes; I actually understand the difference between LEGAL and LAWFUL. I also understand accounting, and finance (and THE TENDER FOR LAW it offers). YOU DON'T!
In the end, I didn't get what I paid for; and I paid EXTRA.
At the moment the government will tell everyone who asks, that I am a "violent criminal" and a "terrorist", when in REALITY they inflicted ALL the violence in any interaction with me. Just like Dean Clifford, but without the whole "ignoring Legal Jurisdiction, whilst contracted by the same" that he seems SO fond of.
Government workers will follow orders blindly, and will repeatedly do the MOST horrendous and unethical things. All in the name of protecting their jobs. They think it's their "right", even though they can't exactly articulate WHY they even HAVE this "right" that you, and I, don't.
In old Europe, civilization had already been corrupted by the nobility. Law was a fluid thing, and was disproportionately enforced.
However, Colonial law could not be like that, because the survival of everybody in the colony in question, depended on it. Holding office was considered an honour, and you certainly weren't paid for it. You were actually sacrificing for the good of the community. This is why the nobility avoids the privateers, generally speaking. Some of the nobility is almost respectable, so this isn't necessarily a universal rule. But privateers and "Colonial nobles" were (and are) always disparagingly referred to as, "Provincial".
Look at that word. "Provincial"
The second I mention it, you realize you've heard it in this context – as it's almost, but not quite a "lower class". This is one of those hidden-in-plain-sight things that no one ever examines.
The United States specifically excludes nobility in its constitution, which is ironic considering the number of nobles that actually live in the United States. This is one of the problems I face being "kicked out of the club". As far as the United States is concerned I'm a "pirate". They specifically mention that they don't acknowledge nobility, and therefore cannot acknowledge the title of privateer.
If you hunt around you'll find several tales of "pirates" who became officers in NATO forces around the world, but I was born and bred to be Admiral or King, and I don't think the United States will be offering me any of those positions any time soon. …unless you know something, I don't (HA!).
I warned you all that this is a one-way trip, and you can't unlearn what I'm teaching you – but none of you actually earned it. This will have consequences that only I can see. You are incapable of seeing things from the outside. In fact, you will only think in REALITY, what you are programmed to think. This is why valuing "belief" is encouraged these days.
I'm noticing a trend of everybody collecting my writings and arranging them almost as if they are scripture. This is not a criticism of the behaviour. In fact, it's encouraged, and you're already pre-programmed to be good at it. 😀
…However, it's hubris to believe that I didn't anticipate this very behaviour. If you're passing it around, it means it has VALUE (Examine WHY). Unlike crypto-currencies the VALUE of what I write is immediately apparent. It focuses you on REALITY. The more astute amongst you will see that I'm attempting to give you the same advantages that I have without you actually having earned it. Ask yourself why I would do such a thing, because I'm very much aware that I'm doing the functional equivalent of tossing an eight-year-old the keys to a Lamborghini. You are responding very much like the eight-year-old in this scenario. You think it's cool, it's unconditionally yours to do with it whatever you want, and it's better than anything comparable.
Here in REALITY that's a recipe for disaster, because the "Lamborghini" I'm tossing you the keys to, is actually your birth right – and it was stolen from you – by the automobile dealer. All that's happening now is the direct results of things that I directly and/or indirectly set in motion a decade ago. And I DO understand the exponential function!
My current state of knowledge allows me to produce trillions of dollars worth of original thoughts, and I'm in a position to exploit so few of them. I don't want them to go to waste, so I give them away and let someone else take the credit. It turns out the government doesn't mind people who do shit like that, because they pose no immediate threat, and once and a while can benefit the government as well. As people have pointed out, there are many others taking credit for my work; and in this age of Internet, and plagiarism, that which is unique and original tends to go "viral". I'm the goose that keeps laying the golden eggs. I don't have time to exploit these things. I've been robbed by the government that's supposed to serve me. Legal frameworks are supposed to bond commerce and civilization are now just a means to exploit, and rob "Legally". I committed the "crime" of fulfilling all my contracts ahead of when everyone anticipated. I have never gotten what I paid for; and I got robbed because I dared mention it.
Some of you watched it happen.
When REALITY played itself out, you saw the very real things you were walking into with your "FREE-DUMB" and "Sovereign" movements. My only crime is that I followed the rules of a contract I understand (better than most lawyers I dare say), and I appear to be the only party doing so. This of course is unacceptable. Unfortunately utilizing the deadly combination of ignorance, apathy and belief, the majority would stand by and do nothing, regardless of what proof I provided.
All of you have the mistaken "belief" that if you "expose" what's going on, something will be done, and "justice" will be metered out. A quick review of history will show that this "belief" has nothing to do with REALITY, and you were simply programmed to think that way. Know that NONE of you have ANY original thought. The women I "weaponize" are intimate enough with me, that I can overwhelm ANY programming, thus making it possible for them to have original thought. But if you're over 14 at this particular time, it's a near-certainty that you will never have an original thought.
I say "near-certainty" because some of you are capable of changing the conditions of the test. Pete Daoust is a good example, and he sacrificed time and effort to understand what it was that I was saying. Very soon it stopped being hard and started being fun. He asked too many of the right questions to be stumbling into the right answers through "belief".
Those that know I run a global navy, claim I run a "cult", except cults don't encourage critical thinking. Cults are for programming people, and you're all pre-programmed. I don't need to do ANY work. You have a nicely refined, reliable 300 year old program that works nicely! (Sort of like Windows XP! HAR!) so why would I go through the time, effort and expense to create a "cult"?
I'm just giving you "corrective lenses" to see things as they TRULY are, and to go all "Roddy Piper" on people's asses. You'll do it. I just need to "infect" 10% of the population, and that is already happening.
I have never lied about all of this, either through omission or deliberate deception; and nothing has changed.
It would alarm you to know how many of you have voluntarily stepped up to serve in my navy. I don't reveal this fact to the world because you're like a fourteen-year-old girl asking me to take her virginity. From your perspective you genuinely want it. You're starting to understand things and you have an irresistible urge to act on this new knowledge – just like the horny fourteen-year-old.
Those that exploit that sort of opportunity learn decades later that shit ALWAYS comes back to bite you in the ass. The only correct answer for the fourteen-year-old is "real" hope. The right answer is to ACCEPT: Conditionally. You tell your horny 14 year-old that you SHARE her feelings, but you want it to be "legal", and you "refuse to sneak around". (Throw in a "proud of my love for you", or some shit; 14 year-olds eat that shit right up!)
*cue heart-wrenching "forced to break up" music of your choice*
"So go away and live your life until you're nineteen. If you still feel that way at nineteen, then I'll marry you"! Throw in the "If you love something set it free" cliche, and you're home free; because a fourteen-year-old will eat that shit right up! Tell me I'm wrong! Hell the whole "unrequited love" thing will fuel her to at least seventeen. By nineteen the only "consequence" of your actions is one very grateful young adult.
As an aside: NO 14 year-old "Just wants to fuck". Any 14 year old girl who claims otherwise, is either lying, or just a dirty little slut. … I just want that clear.
When you completely understand what I intend to do, and why I'm giving you the knowledge that I am…only then would I consider allowing you to join my navy, and therefore the AQUILAE TRUST. I don't mean to be fair. I mean to right some wrongs, including those done to ME, and those I love, and I mean to WIN.
Just be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it…
The much anticipated "FREE-DUMB – THE TRUTH & ROBERT MENARD" article, is starting to resemble a BOOK. It's ALL necessary, because I want to leave NO chance to "spin" it.


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A little about myself. I'm a Northern California based Staff Functional Architect with VMware's Cloud Management Business Unit, focusing on Cloud Automation Engineering (and vRealize Automation in particular). I also act as the Platform Architect for the vRealize Suite, helping to ensure that vRA continues to be the lynchpin for the industry's leading Cloud Management Platform. Before that, I was a Staff Systems Engineer with VMware's Software-Defined Enterprise specialist team, focusing on Public Sector customers.
Prior to joining VMware, I spent 8 years as an Information Security Officer and virtualization/storage architect for a U.S. Army data center.
I hold a B.S. In Applied Networking and Systems Administration and an M.S. in Information Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY as well as MCP, MCSA, MCSE, GSEC, VCP3, VCP5-DCV, VCA-NV, VCAP6-CMA Design, VCAP6-CMA Deploy, VCIX6-CMA and CISSP certifications.
My free time (what little there is!) is spent traveling with my wife, exploring all the gastronomic and oenophilic pleasures that California has to offer, restoring my 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 (see https://www.8bitdmc.com for more info on that!) and working with Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue to foster and adopt companion parrots in need.
The opinions expressed on this site are solely mine and not those of my employer.
For more info, check out my LinkedIn profile. Thanks for visiting!


text: I've always struggled with waiting. I'm not a patient person by nature. It took me ages to learn how to constructively pass time waiting for something major I wanted to happen, like moving to a new apartment or going on a vacation. Initially I would "kill time", distracting myself from my longing. With practice, I got better at making use of my time – doing preparatory tasks, or getting things done that I'd been putting off. Continue reading


text:
Events for April 24, 2020
Day Navigation
11:00 am
Virtual French Conversation Group
Connect with other French speakers to practice your skills. The group meets weekly via Zoom. Email email@example.com for more information and to receive links to our meetings. This is a partnership program between MPL & La Cle.Find out more »


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Over 100,000 sign petition against cash-for-cuts GP referral schemes
A petition to stop cash-for-cuts referrals has gained over 100,000 signatures, after being launched this morning.
The petition, pitched by campaign group 38 Degrees, comes in light of Pulse's investigation into CCGs offering GP incentives to cut referrals to secondary care.
The investigation was also mentioned in Parliament yesterday, raised by the Labour Party's shadow health secretary, who called for health secretary Jeremy Hunt to step in.
The petition reads: 'Don't use financial incentives or arbitrary targets to reduce GP referrals.'
38 Degrees said: 'When you walk into your doctors office, you want to know your GP is only thinking about giving you the care you need, not the money they can save or the targets they have to hit.
'But right now some GPs are being offered cash incentives to cut the number of patients they refer to hospital - including people who might have cancer.
'This plan is dangerous - GP groups and medical experts have already raised the alarm. But if we want to stop this scheme before it spreads across England, it will need thousands of us to tell health secretary Jeremy Hunt to put an end to it.'
The campaign group said that 'if 100,000 people sign the petition in the next 48 hours, we'll send it straight to Jeremy Hunt'.
Sign the petition here
More on the 'Cash for cuts' investigation
cash for cutslogo 580px387px
Cash for cuts: GPs incentivised to reduce referrals
GPs offered up to 50% cut of savings generated by slashing their own referrals
GP practices offered funding to cut cancer referrals in new scheme
GPs given target of 10% cut in referrals
GP partners asked to sign off locum referrals as part of incentive schemes
Readers' comments (1)
Vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt
Do we need to start a petition for this ....
Come on...
Does it take petitions
and the shadow Health secretary
before the said health secretary takes heed
Just time pass and hope it all works it self out ... whilst spouting ridiculous attempts to be seen to be working on safety
(minor safety issues in the grand scheme of things)


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I was down in Cork for the weekend and took a short walk around to see if there was anything new on the Graffiti scene.
The old Camden Palace has had a refresh of some of the art work since I was last here. ADW's Wonka Tan and a few others have been replaced with some new stuff, and Nol's corner piece has grown substantially since I hast saw this. Foundry's unmasking/balaclava piece is pretty special.
Around the front there are some stand alone pieces from Psychonautes.
Around the corner Foundry has updated The face of Tomorrow with another similar piece, unfortunately the door that The Face of Tomorrow on was in the wrong place and I couldn't get it to move so there's a lot of this new piece missing in this shot unfortunately.
The empty lot where the GPH/Sir Henry's used to be now has a hoarding with this Hendrix quote about Rory Gallagher as the only indication that there might be some musical heritage about this spot.
I also finally got to see Fin DAC's piece on the wall of the Kino on Washington Street. Very impressive, huge and bloody hard to photograph because of all the cars that park along that section. That's why the perspective is a bit mad in these. Cool T-Shirt there, wonder whatever came of that support act.
Guerilla Street Signs FTW just around the corner on Little Hanover Street.
High Voltage Bubbles near South Main St.
And a couple of pieces by Eoin around the back of the Crane Lane.


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Gaga On The Menu.
Lada Gaga was last night's host and musical performer on Saturday Night Live. During the evening, she brought out R. Kelly for their first live performance of their duet, "Do What U Want". As you can see, Kells certainly did just that. ARTPOP in stores now. His Black Panties drops December 10.
Also On 97.9 The Beat:


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Relating consumer preferences to sensory and physicochemical properties of dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)
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Theses and Dissertations (University of Pretoria)
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Relating consumer preferences to sensory and physicochemical properties of dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)
Mkanda, Alice Veronica
The dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important grain legume that is used for human consumption worldwide. In Africa and other parts of the World, legume diets contribute tremendously to protein and energy requirements of consumers. Dry beans provide about 16- 33% protein, dietary fibre (between 14 and 19%), starch, minerals and vitamins. Dry beans have a long storage life and can be cooked as whole grains, fried or dehulled and splitted for production of dhal and salads. There is a tremendous variability in the dry bean varieties. It is believed that consumer preferences for dry beans are influenced by factors such as seed size, seed colour, cooking time and flavour. Although, substantial research has been done on physicochemical properties, description of sensory properties that differentiate bean varieties specifically in terms of liked or disliked flavours was lacking. Sensory evaluation is one of the methods used for evaluating product quality and it can be used to describe the sensory properties of a product (i.e. descriptive sensory evaluation) and determines its acceptability by consumers (i.e. consumer acceptability or preferences). Physicochemical properties and descriptive sensory evaluation of six dry bean varieties (Jenny, Kranskop, PAN 148, AC Calmont, PAN 150 and Mkuzi) from Mpumalanga (MP) and Free State (FS) locations of South Africa were determined. Significant (p<0.05) variety, location as well as location x variety interaction effects were found for both physicochemical and sensory properties of beans. Of the six bean varieties, Jenny (FS), Mkuzi and PAN 148 (MP) beans had relatively long cooking times (>60 min) using a Mattson Bean Cooker. PAN 150 beans from both locations were described as bitter, soapy and metallic with a raw bean flavour. Mkuzi beans were mostly described as having a soapy mouthfeel. Jenny (MP), Kranskop (MP&FS) were sweet, soft and with a cooked bean flavour. Consumer sensory evaluation revealed that beans with sweet, soft and cooked bean flavours were the most preferred. Beans that took long to cook and those that were described as bitter, soapy and metallic in the mouth, received low consumer ratings on a 9-point hedonic scale. The total polyphenol content of PAN 150 (MP), along with Jenny and AC Calmont from MP was determined to find out whether the bitterness was associated with its polyphenol concentration. PAN 150 beans had the lowest concentration of total polyphenols compared to the two other varieties, suggesting that factors other than total polyphenol content caused the bitterness of these beans. A follow up investigation of mineral profiles in whole bean flour of all six bean varieties from the two locations was done to find out whether differences in mineral content e.g. iron (Fe) contributed to bitterness and metallic mouthfeel of certain beans. Results showed significant (p< 0.05) variety differences for phosphorous (P) and significant (p< 0.05) location differences for magnesium (Mn) only. Fe and copper (Cu) contents did not contribute to bitterness or metallic mouthfeel of PAN 150 beans. For maximum consumer acceptability, farmers should concentrate on the production of beans that have characteristics similar to Kranskop (MP&FS), PAN 148 (FS) and Jenny (MP) beans. As bean hardening was suspected in Jenny (FS), PAN 148 (MP) and Mkuzi (MP), the importance of storing beans at proper temperatures (e.g. less than 35ºC) and relative humidity (e.g. < 75 %) should be emphasized to minimize the development of the hard-to-cook defect over long storage periods.
Dissertation (MSc(Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2008.
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August 13, 2020 - Latest: What has happened to markets this year? by Darius McDermott
26th April 2016
Whitbread has released full year results for the 53 weeks to 3 March 2016 which reveals 12.0% growth in total revenue to £2.9 billion. This includes like-for-like growth of 3.0%, 11.9% growth in underlying profit before tax to £546.3 million, and an increase in the full year dividend of 10.0%.
On a 52-week basis, revenue rose by 10.1% and underlying PBT by 9.1%, news which saw the shares rise by over 3% in early morning trading.
Steve Clayton, Head of Equity Research, Hargreaves Lansdown says: "Costa is busily slaking the nation's never ending thirst for caffeine; think of it as an investment play on the UK's long hours work culture.
"Premier Inn is a great product; a clean comfortable room, in a good location at a sensible price. With over 60,000 rooms in the estate, it is the clear market leader in the UK branded budget hotel sector.
"Costa is omnipresent on UK High Streets and highways, with a rapidly growing overseas presence too. Both businesses have ambitious growth plans over the next four years. The restaurants business plays a supporting role to the hotels, but struggles to inspire in its own right."
"The planned growth of the hotel and coffee estates gives excellent visibility of growth, much of which is independent of the economic cycle. Premier Inn has delivered consistently positive like for like (LFL) sales growth in a variety of economic conditions, underscoring the strength of its proposition. The stock has retreated by around 25% in the last year, and now trades on circa 15.4x consensus earnings to Jan 2017, which is a little cheaper than its longer run average of 16x.
"There are not that many stocks out there offering double-digit organic sales growth. Premier Inn has been slow to gain traction overseas, but the UK estate's growth has more than compensated. The balance sheet is strong, with plenty of freehold hotel assets, so Whitbread looks capable of funding its growth, without recourse to shareholders."
Divisional performance
Hotels & Restaurants underlying operating profit was up 11.3% to £446.9m. Premier Inn grew total sales by 12.9%, like for like (LFL) sales by 4.2%, total revpar (revenue per available room) by 3.1% and the number of rooms available by 9.8%, with a record 5,461 new UK rooms opened in the year. Total occupancy remained high at 80.9%. Restaurants grew total sales by 3.5%, LFL sales by 0.8%, ahead of its competitors.
Costa's underlying operating profit was up 15.8% to £153.5m, with total sales growth of 15.9%. This was driven by UK LFL sales growth of 2.9%, 197 net new stores worldwide and 924 net new Costa Express machines.
HL says Costa UK has enjoyed a good start to the year and Premier Inn is growing share in a flat market, six weeks into the new financial year. However, trading comparators have been impacted by the early timing of Easter and the group will have a much better view on 21 June when they present first quarter results.
It adds that the 2020 milestones of circa 85,000 Premier Inn UK rooms (2015/16: 64,599 rooms) and c.£2.5 billion of systems sales for Costa (2015/16: £1.6bn) remain unchanged. To support these growth ambitions there will be an additional £15m net investment in digital and IT infrastructure in 2016/17.


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Delhi School of Business
Delhi School of Business, was started in 2012 and within a short period of seven years, it is reckoned among best PGDM colleges in Delhi, India. For the fourth consecutive year, it has been ranked as India's No.1 Emerging Business School in Delhi, India, as per Times of India B School Rankings. The school strives to be the best PGDM institute in Delhi, India by giving the best to the country.
The PGDM Program at Delhi School of Business is Accredited by NBA and has been granted Equivalence to MBA by Association of Indian Universities (AIU). The PGDM Program at Delhi School of Business exhaustively focuses on the development of students' competence, aptitude and attitude to apply best management practices and concepts to face the challenges of the corporate world. Students learn human values along with the scientific processes and are equipped with updated technical skills and a learning attitude to be able to learn and perform on the job. The pedagogy adopted at the School ensures that students are forced to think critically and out of the box. They get trained to logically and rationally analyze the concepts instead of memorizing them so that they are able to apply them in the practical scenarios.
The teaching methodology at Delhi School of Business is based on Outcome Based Learning and it is an evolving process which is modified to cater to the ever changing business needs. Hence it is an amalgamation of self and participative learning along with interactive sessions with best faculty in India, corporate leaders and philosophers. The teaching tools used in the program include case based teaching, conferences, seminars, live projects, management games, empirical research projects, role plays and simulation exercises. Special emphasis is also laid on managing the communication, presentation and negotiation skills of every student along with life skills to equip them to work under immense pressure and deadlines.
The enriched curriculum and reputed faculty has helped the School to create its own niche among the top B Schools. The ultimate objective of the Business School is to liberate individual potential of every student and produce industry ready graduates with human values as they pass out and work in the industry or manage their own enterprises.
Scholarships are available for meritorious applicants.
Accreditations & Recognitions
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Dr. S.C Vats
We are living in extraordinary times, driven by change at an incredible pace. It demands from us personal mastery, systems thinking capability to understand complexity and the ability to have dialogue instead of learned reactions. For this purpose, at the outset, we must first and foremost be aware of the environment we live in and our interaction with it. We must be reflective of our pre-dispositions, aptitude and attitudes that will make the difference in our holistic development to be contributing members of the society and nation, particularly in the 21st century. We must acknowledge the power of communication across cultures for better outcomes. We must be on a platform of continual learning, consciously fostering an open mindset. Read More
Prof. I.M Pandey
Director General
Does management education matter? Yes, indeed, it does; we need management education for a better world. Our generation is facing innumerable, intricate challenges. The world is rife with inequalities— economic, education, environment, freedom, and opportunity. Social and business organizations are the institutions that have tremendous potential for renovating today's world into a better place for all to live in. A large number of institutions, social organizations, and business firms across the world have demonstrated their capability of transforming their societies and improving the quality of life of their people. The quality of these organizations is attributable to the quality of people managing and leading them. Read More