text:
For those accused in Harris County, it's time to right a legal wrong
Opinion // Lisa Falkenberg
Lisa Falkenberg Jan. 9, 2016 Updated: Jan. 9, 2016 11:32 p.m.
The door a cell block at the Harris County jail at 1200 Baker Street Friday, Sept. 25, 2015, in Houston.
Photo: James Nielsen, Houston Chronicle
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.
But not right away.
In Harris County, that's the unspoken Miranda warning for poor defendants.
Whether charged with misdemeanors or felonies, the accused typically are hauled before a split-screen video monitor where a magistrate in another room determines whether to grant bail and how high to set it. The decision is based on the charge and criminal record, with little regard to actual risk or ability to pay.
A prosecutor is there but no defense attorney.
The practice violates constitutional rights to due process during a "critical stage of trial," and it needs to be changed, Harris County Public Defender Alex Bunin wrote last month in a memo, obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request.
Often, defendants have no idea what's going on at bail hearings, Bunin explained. Some are mentally ill. Some may try to speak and end up incriminating themselves. They sometimes seek legal advice from another defendant, from a deputy or any other warm body nearby. Then the magistrate decides whether the defendant will await trial in jail, whether a student will miss school, a single mom will lose her job or a father will be home to help take care of the kids.
"An adversarial system cannot function when only one side shows up," Bunin wrote to County Attorney Vince Ryan, proposing a pilot program to provide lawyers at bail hearings.
Ryan wrote back that he supported the pilot, as everyone should. It's not a novel concept. All of Harris County's large urban peers provide lawyers at bail hearings, including jurisdictions serving New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, Bunin wrote. Even New Orleans does it.
In a news conference last week, District Attorney Devon Anderson said she supports representation at bail hearings. It also was a priority for Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee, who led the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council but died a week ago of a heart attack. His longtime colleague, Steve Radack, the committee's vice chair, told me Friday he was open to the idea and to finding money to do it.
In truth, it will save the county money to stop jailing people who don't need to be jailed. The current system, as I noted last week, is costing more than $380,000 per day. The council estimates, probably conservatively, that 1,800 inmates are unnecessarily jailed, including those charged with nonviolent felonies, misdemeanors and serious offenses who pose low and moderate risk.
Consider: among large U.S. cities, 25 percent of felony defendants are released without posting money at all, Bunin wrote in his memo. In Harris County, it's less than 2 percent.
"More common sense needs to be injected into the criminal justice system," Radack said.
Last-minute change
The only people who can stand in the way of reform are judges, who long have been leery of shaking up the status quo. After all, when a defendant in their court posts bond, they are held accountable for any adverse consequences.
But some judges appear to be coming around.
This week, the coordinating council, which includes various elected officials and stakeholders, submitted a proposal for a $2 million-per-year MacArthur Foundation grant to reduce overuse of jails. Days before the deadline, I reported the council's director saying the proposal would not include any defense lawyers at bail hearings.
Apparently, there was an 11th-hour change of heart. While state district Judge Susan Brown didn't budge on the issue for district courts, County Criminal Court at Law Judge Margaret Harris did. She met with Bunin, the public defender, and they wrote a version of his pilot program into the proposal.
It will provide lawyers only for mentally ill "frequent detainee" defendants charged with misdemeanors. So it's a small step, but a significant one.
An actual leap may come as soon as March 1, the deadline Lee set before his death for a group of council members to propose how to put defense lawyers in bail hearings for indigent defendants in all criminal courts.
Potential for lawsuits?
Not all criminal justice advocates share my optimism. Some looked at the MacArthur proposal and saw more of the same: lip service, with few bold solutions.
"There's no concern for actual justice and the defendant's rights," said Jay Jenkins, Harris County project attorney for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and one of the community members on the council's planning committee. "It's just a matter of how to process these folks as quickly as possible. That strategy has gotten us to where we are right now."
He said the proposal ignored the "elephant in the room," which is that about 75 percent of jail inmates haven't been convicted and many are there simply because they can't afford bail. Jenkins said the proposal - even with reforms such as adopting a new data-driven tool to assess risk and expanding the DA's first-chance intervention program - doesn't resolve the issues, setting Harris County up for a class-action lawsuit.
Alec Karakatsanis, co-founder of a group called Equal Justice Under Law, calls Harris County's system "grossly unconstitutional." He has sued 15 jurisdictions for what he calls "poverty jailing," including nine class-action lawsuits solely on the bail issue.
It's easy to be frustrated with the pace of change in this county, especially when the freedom of thousands is at stake.
But this time, we have a district attorney willing to support reform. We have a public defender who can doggedly negotiate it. We have elected leaders who are beginning to realize there's no comfort in the status quo, only injustice, wasted taxpayer dollars and the threat of costly litigation.
Judges, it's time to decide: are you with justice, or are you against it?
Lisa Falkenberg
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Lisa Falkenberg is the Chronicle's vice president/editor of opinion. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with more than 20 years' experience, Falkenberg leads the editorial board and the paper's opinion and outlook sections, including letters, op-eds and Gray Matters.
Falkenberg wrote a metro column at the Chronicle for more than a decade that explored a range of topics, including education, criminal justice and state, local and national politics. In 2015, Falkenberg was awarded the Pulitzer for commentary, as well as the American Society of News Editors' Mike Royko Award for Commentary/Column Writing for a series that exposed a wrongful conviction in a death case and led Texas lawmakers to reform the grand jury system. She was a Pulitzer finalist in 2014.
Raised in Seguin, Texas, Falkenberg is the daughter of a truck driver and a homemaker, and the first in her family to go to college. She earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. She started her career at The Associated Press, working in the Austin and Dallas bureaus. In 2004, Falkenberg was named Texas AP Writer of the Year.
She joined the Chronicle in 2007 as a roving state correspondent based in Austin.
Falkenberg has mentored journalism students through the Chronicle's high school journalism program and volunteered with the News Literacy Project. She is a fellow with the British-American Project and has completed a fellowship at Loyola's Journalist Law School in Los Angeles.
Falkenberg is the mother of two daughters, ages 9 and 6.
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More than a creative force, 22-time GRAMMY Award winner and NEA Jazz Master Chick Corea is one of the era's defining artists. Pervasively influential as a pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator, the 76-year-old Corea continues to work at a dizzying pace.
Always up for new adventures, the great 76-year-old pianist and composer introduces his latest trio, improvising with two gifted, far younger musicians with whom he's played in recent years: Cuban bassist Carlitos Del Puerto and drummer Marcus Gilmore.


text:
Binge drink frontline
Her face, hands and knees are smeared with blood, which has also splattered her expensive shoes.
Emily Cook
Sonja deals with drunk
The smartly-dressed businesswoman has fallen face first on an escalator at an underground station... but she insists she's just had "a couple of cocktails". It later emerges she's been drinking since lunchtime.
Just one more drunk on the Friday night ambulance shift in boozed-up Britain.
It's two years since the licensing laws were relaxed, when the government claimed the introduction of 24-hour drinking would lead to a continental cafe culture.
Instead, the health service has had to cope with soaring numbers of seriously drunk patients and the victims of alcohol-fuelled fights - often at the expense of other, life-threatening cases.
The number of people admitted to A&E for alcohol-related problems has trebled since the introduction of 24-hour drinking.
And behind the statistics are the paramedics, the unsung heroes on the front-line of Britain's binge-drinking culture. The Mirror spent a typical Friday night with an ambulance crew in Central London where new figures show that alcohol-related 999 calls have risen by 12 per cent in the past two years.
We joined paramedics Sonja Hibbell, 33, and Heide Martin, 48, who are based at Waterloo Ambulance station.
Sonja, a paramedic for 10 years, says: "To be honest, I don't really expect to be dealing with much else other than alcohol-related calls. I just hope that we don't get any abuse."
Sonja was recently punched in the face by a drunk who was later jailed for three months for the attack.
Heide, who has been in the service for five years, has little sympathy for the drunks she will inevitably have to deal with.
"Last weekend I was called to five young women, all young professionals, who were so completely drunk they had all lost control of their bowels. Things like that take us away from dealing with people who are genuinely ill. Sometimes I think if an alien came down on a weekend night they'd think, 'What kind of hell is this?'"
We take the young woman who has fallen down the escalator to St Thomas's hospital to get her cuts stitched and cleaned up.
Afterwards Heide says: "So many people deny they've been drinking. Or they say their drinks must have been spiked."
The next call is to a man in his 40s lying unconscious in a pool of vomit in the centre of Soho. His can of lager is still standing next to him. It takes several minutes to rouse him, and when he comes around, he lashes out at the paramedics and stumbles off around the corner.
Sonja says: "He'll probably go off and lie down somewhere else and another ambulance will be called. It's such a waste of time."
As the crew write up their report, another alcohol-related incident takes us to Regent Street where a policeman is waiting next to a teenage boy slumped against a bus shelter. The paramedics remove his vomit-soaked jacket and sit him inside the ambulance where he is incoherent and throwing up into a plastic bag
His young girlfriend, finding it all hilarious, says he's drunk "a bottle and a half of Jack Daniels, on its own since about half past six." Unusually, the boy's father arrives to take him home, but normally paralytic youngsters go straight to hospital to have their stomachs pumped.
By now the calls are coming thick and fast. At Victoria, a 20-stone drunk has to be wheeled away.
Then we head for The Strand where a girl is reportedly drunk and lying on the ground. But when we arrive, she's gone. "This happens a lot," says Sonja. "They have probably just stumbled off home, but we have to check and they're detracting from other important calls."
The ambulance is redirected to Tottenham Court Road where a young man has been hit by a bus.
This is certainly not a timewaster. It's not clear if he'd been drinking, but his injuries are severe and the emergency services are battling to save his life.
While Sonja carries on pumping his chest, he is carefully lifted on to a stretcher and placed into the ambulance which races to University College London Hospital. Sadly we later learn he has died. "It is difficult to go back and treat a drink-related call after something as terrible as this," says Heide.
"You can see why some paramedics get angry having to go and deal with a time-waster." Sonja agrees, adding: "We want to save people's lives - not clean up vomit."
By now it is almost dawn and the crew receive their last alcohol-related call for the night.
In Covent Garden a 50-year-old man is lying unconscious, with a bloodied face, on his own doorstep. By the time we arrive, the police have taken him up to his flat where we find him fully-clothed in his bed, a bowl of vomit and blood on the floor. He has no idea what has happened.
The paramedics try to persuade him to go to hospital, but he insists on staying in bed and his flatmate agrees to look after him.
It is a grim end to a grim night.
Russell Smith, deputy director of operations at LAS, says: "Alcohol-related calls continue to be a real issue for us, especially on Friday and Saturday nights
"Drinkers are putting life-threatened patients at risk by tying up paramedics and ambulances."
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health added: "The government has introduced a comprehensive strategy to tackle the health and social affects of harmful drinking across the board.
"Only one per cent of all premises have licences for 24-hour sales to the public, and these new licensing laws are being kept under review and we will look at any new evidence."
Heide and Sonja's log should be top of the list.
THE HARD FACTS
999 calls to London Ambulance Service have risen 12 per cent since the new law began in November 2005.
Las says it costs £167 to send out an ambulance. Ambulance crews in the capital will attend 123 booze-related incidents on an average Friday - costing £20,000. And between November 2006 and September 2007 there were 38,849 booze-related calls - which cost the taxpayer in London alone £6.5million for one year.
Alcohol Concern says drunks costs casualty departments £500m a year, with 70 per cent of admissions after midnight due to drink.
Earlier this year official NHS figures revealed that at least 14 children a day are being treated in hospital for boozing.
Emily.Cook@Mirror.Co.Uk
DailyMirror
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Prince HarryPrince Harry spotted having beers at London pub amid fallout from Meghan exitHarry is thought to have spent at least three hours eating and drinking at the Brook House pub on New Kings Road, Fulham, while his wife Meghan is currently spending time in Canada
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The styles you find in apps on your phone have changed drastically over the years, and yet somehow many of them have similar qualities. So what is the "in" look these days? We asked our UI/UX designer, Kristen Vogler, to come up with a list of what she thinks are the top ten mobile app design trends of 2017.
There has been talk of VR/AR for years and 2017 has finally delivered what we have been waiting for. With Apple's announcement of their support of VR/AR features, we will only see more apps hitting our phones. This phenomenon is definitely creating a multitude of new opportunities for product designers who are looking to upgrade what they currently have. Curiscope found a unique way to combine both VR and AR with their Virtuali-Tee, a t-shirt/app pairing that allows users to see the anatomy of their torso.
Our eyes are the biggest beneficiaries of clean and simple designs seen through most apps. This idea suggests we stop distracting users with overly stimulating graphics and pay more attention to content. It also proves the need for whitespace (the empty margins around content) in app design. While whitespace does not actually need to be white, it allows our eyes a much needed rest from the text and graphics we scroll through all day.
Animation brings a quality appearance and when used correctly, it can communicate the reasoning behind features and functionality. Use it in situations to highlight completed actions, or even to load content in a unique way. The goal should always be to immerse the user in the experience, and use animation to entertain in a logical way.
While clean and calming colors is not a new trend, the scheme is still going strong and not going anywhere anytime soon. There is also a new iteration to this palette, still employing a clean look but with a key difference. Dark contrasted with vibrant colors. You may notice many pieces of software offer a dark and light view. This is no different than the color palettes popping up in mobile app design.
The look of icons has been transforming every year. Starting with the popular 3D button design, moving towards a flat design, and then moving towards a bolder outline style. Now we see the bolder lines slowly evolving in more and more apps to a thinner, minimalistic approach. In addition to thinner lines you may start to see more icons incorporating animation when they are part of a user action.
There is a growing consensus among designers that the hamburger menu (those horizontal lines indicating navigation options) just doesn't work. It's used so often because there is a lack of better options. Enter Priority Navigation. On websites the idea is to reveal more navigation options as the screen gets bigger, meaning you need to decide the order of your navigation based on highest priority, The Guardian and SB Nation are examples of this. But how does that carry over into mobile apps? Quite simply it forces designers to be more intuitive about the experience each page is providing. What are the basic interactions for each page? Can navigation be incorporated into gestures? Built into small actions? It's the job of app designers to figure it out.
Gestures offer a great way of navigating through pages without the use of buttons. The only reason we don't see them more often is the lack of uniformity. By now we know tapping a gear icon will usually bring us to a settings menu. However a two-finger swipe can do completely different things between one app and another. Still, we are starting to see more and more apps employing basic gestures for zooming into content or deleting an item, and this will only grow as standards are created.
Using large images as a background brings a unique touch to your mobile app but it can also present a problem when overlaying it with content. That is where diffusing comes in. You may have noticed the trend in your own apps, background images appear to be washed out, or have a duller gray tone. That is the diffused effect, allowing the common white or black text to appear more vividly on top without losing the style a background image supplies.
Typography took a bit of backseat in recent years to color and navigation, however it should be coming back in full force. Apple started a movement for scalable typography with it's release of iOS 7 and the typeface Helvetica Neue and continued with it's most recent addition, San Francisco, a typeface designed with the Apple Watch in mind. The goal is to use a single typeface with clearly defined letters that can be read with ease, no matter the size. That may seem like an easy task but add in the caveat of a pleasing style and it becomes much harder. Designers need to put in the extra time to test the fonts they want to use in apps in a range of sizes and colors.
It's not new news, social media apps are part of our everyday lives and more and more companies are integrating their functionality. Apps seem incomplete without social media buttons, it has become an expectation. Whatever the app is for, business, game, eCommerce, etc. there will be social media buttons on the screen. For apps that require a login, we are also seeing more integration with social networks, the ability to generate an account quickly using a social media account is becoming more and more common place.


Norman has over 40 years of experience as a Real Estate partner, including work at top law firms in London, Liverpool and Manchester. He also draws from his experiences as in-house Legal Counsel for a leading Israeli Real Estate Public Company in his work on behalf of a varied client base, which includes UK and Israeli public and private property companies, retailers, syndicates and developers.
Within Real Estate, Norman focuses on investment acquisitions and disposals, forward purchases and funding, bank financing, site redevelopment and leasing work.
Norman has additional expertise in private client matters including wills and probate. He advises clients on associated private international law issues as well as providing expert legal opinions on English probate to international counsel.
Norman graduated from Sheffield University with an Honours Degree in Law and qualified as a solicitor at the London College of Law. He has also qualified for the Israeli Bar. He lives near Jerusalem with his wife and enjoys spending time with his family, doting on his grandchildren and following the Arsenal.


Find listings of Wigan Education Agencies & Authorities. Featured listings include Education Business Partnership, Create Promotions Ltd, Central Sports Management & Training Ltd, People & Places Education Programme, and Recording Achievement & H E Projects. To suggest a listing in this category click here.


Melina Franklin was barely 16 when she and her grandfather were kidnapped by an alien trader and sold to an Antrox mining asteroid in deep space. Mistaken for a young boy, she lives the next five years in fear of being found out and sold. She dreams of the day when she and her grandfather will return home.
Calo and Cree Aryeh are twin brothers and a rare species of dragon known for their fierceness in battle. The brothers know they will never be able to have a true mate of their own. Never in the history of their clan have twin dragons been able to find a mate capable of handling two male dragons.
The twin dragons are confused when two humans are discovered in an abandoned asteroid mine. The old man and his grandson appear normal enough, but their dragons are driving them crazy, insisting the boy is their true mate. Things become clearer when they discover Mel is really Melina, but she refuses to have anything to do with either of them, and she is determined to return home. Can they convince her to give them a chance at happiness?


If you're looking for a nutritious and delicious green smoothie designed to support your body's natural detoxification efforts, look no further.
This smoothie contains several of the usual detox suspects along with two potent green superfoods: spirulina and chlorella. This combination of ingredients results in what is perhaps the most potent detox smoothie I've posted to date.
What's so special about spirulina and chlorella and how do they help you detox?
Spirulina is best known as the "protein queen" because it's about 70% pure protein. In addition to being a complete protein, this single-celled organism is loaded with essential vitamins and minerals that support a healthy you. Through the process of chelation, spirulina has been shown to help remove heavy metals from the body. Spirulina has been used to remove lead and arsenic from contaminated water and can absorb and remove these metals from the body.
Chlorella is a nutritional powerhouse primarily because of its chlorophyll content. The chlorophyll helps the body process more oxygen, promotes tissue growth and repair, and helps cleanse the blood. Like spirulina, chlorella assists heavy metals detoxification by binding to and ushering these bad guys out of the body.
These two green superfoods provide a powerful one-two detox punch.
For more information on the ways in which lemon juice and kale help your body detox, see my Lemon-Lime-Kale Detox Green Smoothie.
If you're brand new to spirulina and chlorella I recommend starting with a 1/2 teaspoon of each. You can work your way up to 1 heaping tablespoon of each if you're as ambitious as me :) Enjoy!
Place all the ingredients into your high-speed blender and blend for around 30-60 seconds or until nice and smooth.
I would love to know if you try this mean green detox smoothie – please leave a comment below. Happy Blending!
Ironically, this is my first time reading this article and I have smoothie every morning for breakfast. It gives me so much energy. I'm glad to know I'm heading into the right direction. Thanks!
You're welcome, Ian. Keep up the smoothie for breakfast habit!
Preferably wild dandelion greens, but store bought are almost as good. There's never a better time to start than now.
I am new to any type of smoothie and have just started making them for the nutritional value. I know nothing about detoxing but I've heard it a good thing to do. Your mean green detoxing smoothie looks great and I'm going to try it but I have no idea how often to have it. Do I just have it once or on a regular basis?
Great question. I recommend having a smoothie like this once or twice every couple of weeks. However, you could have it daily for a week to intensify the detoxing – maybe twice a year. I should also mention that there's no harm in consuming this smoothie every day, it's just not that fun to have the same thing every day and there's a plethora of other healthy ingredients to incorporate into your smoothies.
Thank you for your prompt reply Ryan. I'm sitting here as we speak drinking my mean green smoothie. The taste leaves a lot to be desired….I'm drinking it through a straw as the smell is turnng me off of it. I will try and have this smoothie every second day and see how I go.
I'm not only using the smoothies for their nutritional value; I'm also trying to lose weight. If there are any particular smoothies you could recommend to excelerate that process, I'd love to see them.
An awful lot of sugar.
To reduce the sugar content simply omit the honey (or substitute stevia) and/or eliminate or use only 1/2 banana. Mind you the smoothie may not taste as good.
Here are two articles on ingredients and smoothies that may be helpful for crafting smoothies for you mom.
Additionally, bone broth can be very healing to any sort of digestive issue. I encourage incorporating that into your mother's diet and smoothies.
I have been interested in applying smoothies into my everyday "diet", but never knew where to start. I recently weighed myself for the first time in a year, and shocked to know that I've gained 10 lbs!
Can you point me in the right direction please. I want to lose these 10 lbs, over the course of a few months. Can you give me some smoothies that will help? I'm also starting an exercise routine to get more active and healthy this year.
All of my thoughts and info on losing weight with smoothies can be found here.
Let me get this straight: this has 43g carbohydrates and 25g sugar and you're saying this is "heatlhy"? Do you have any idea what that amount of sugar does to your pancreas? I really, Really, REALLY suggest you do some research on the matter.
This is borderline high in sugar. If you're watching your sugar intake you can remove the honey and/or banana. The smoothie may not taste as good though. For most people 25g of sugar from natural sources is no problem. For others like a diabetic, this may be way too much. Fruits and veggies contain natural sugar, much of which we've bred into them because that's what we crave. I advise against making smoothies too higher in sugar (sugar bombs) all over on my site. Everyone is unique and needs to take my recipes and make them their own. Too high in sugar, cut back or remove sugary ingredient(s). Not enough protein, add a protein rich ingredient or a protein powder. Need more healthy fats, add avocado, coconut oil, or ghee.
If someone wanted to detox in a matter of trying to discontinue the use of a drug, would this smoothie help get through withdraws quicker? Would you have any suggestions on a smoothie that can help get through this kind of time and maybe lessen the amount of days one would be ill from discontinuing the use of the drug? Been researching for someone and noticed this said it removes some serious unhealthy things from the body and was hoping maybe this smoothie would be of some help and use to them. Thank you!
Those are great questions, Amanda. Unfortunately, drug withdrawal is a complex thing that I can't speak to. You should consult a health professional and take steps based on your situation.


text:
Greta's Davos Warning: 'Our House Is Still on Fire'
Russia's Military Buys 5 Dolphins, but It's Unclear Why
Moscow just came into a dolphin-training facility; is it resurrecting old programs?
By Luke Roney, Newser Staff
Posted Apr 25, 2016 4:33 AM CDT
A U.S. Navy dolphin is loaded into a sling during a demonstration held at the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program facility at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
(Newser) – Dolphins can do more than just jump through hoops and balance balls. They can be trained for a variety of military—some say deadly—applications, which is why the Russian military's recent purchase of five bottlenose dolphins is getting some attention. Russia's Defense Ministry sought bids on a contract to procure the marine mammals, reports NBC News, with the Utrish Dolphinarium in Moscow being the only one to respond. The government will pay $26,000 for the three male and two female dolphins, which are stipulated to have "all teeth intact" and "no mucus from the blowhole." The dolphins are scheduled to be delivered by Aug. 1 to a military dolphin training facility in Sevastopol, Ukraine, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
Records don't indicate why the defense ministry wants the animals (and no one returned NBC's request for comment), but there is a decades-long history of dolphins being conscripted into the military to do things like detect mines and intercept underwater spies, per NBC. In the '60s, the US and the former Soviet Union had competing military dolphin programs. One former dolphin trainer who visited the Sevastopol facility told Wired in 2007 that dolphins were being outfitted with potentially lethal CO2 darts and then trained to poke swimmers. The US used dolphins during the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, the Washington Post notes, and continues to use them to protect ports, find mines, and fetch objects. As for using dolphins to attack people, the Navy says: "It would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal." However, sea lions have been trained to attach clamps to a diver's leg, allowing human personnel up top to reel the diver in, per National Geographic. (Read more Russia stories.)
Next on Newser: Ex-Senator's 2 Great Loves: His Wife, and His Husband-to-Be
Apr 25, 2016 7:56 PM CDT
Oh it's clear, alright... They want to turn them into "live smartbombs"!
Getting ready for them to say "So long and thanks for all the fish" What do you call a space dolphin? Astrofish or Cosmomammal?
aemish
Apr 25, 2016 8:27 AM CDT
Around 15 years ago a guy I was dating introduced me to one of his fraternity brothers. He was a surgeon who also worked with dolphins in the military. He even kind of bragged how he would bring girls he was dating down to the base to get in the water with them. If anything I'm surprised Russia ever stopped utilizing dolphins.


text:
<?php

/* Author: Ethan Gruber
 * Date: November 2015
 * Function: This script will iterate through CSV files to rename
 * images from Emma's photography folders to meet the accession number
 * based filenaming convention.
* Instructions:
* 1. Save Excel spreadsheets as CSV, and copy to /Volumes/data03/Workgroup/OCRE/Roman Trays CSV/
* 2. Rename CSV file to precisely match the tray number. The photography folder name should be identical to this.
* 3. Make sure the column headings are the same across all spreadsheets.
* 4. Run the script from the command line. It will iterate through all CSV files to rename the files. The process counts the number of images to start and end, for each CSV.
 */

date_default_timezone_set("America/New_York");

$csvDir = '/Volumes/data03/Workgroup/OCRE/Roman Trays CSV/';
$imageInput = '/Volumes/data03/Workgroup/PhotographyBackup/Emma Backup/Roman/';
$imageOutput = '/Volumes/data03/Workgroup/PhotographyBackup/rename-complete/';
$logFile = 'rename-images.log';

//begin log file
error_log(date(DATE_W3C) . ": Beginning process.\n", 3, $logFile);

$files = scandir($csvDir);
foreach ($files as $file){
	//ignore hidden CSV files
	if (strpos($file, '.csv') > 0 && substr($file, 0, 1) != '.'){
		$data = generate_json($csvDir . $file);

		$accnumCount = count($data);
		$uniqueAccnums = array();
		foreach ($data as $row){
			$accnum = $row['accnum'];
			if (!in_array($accnum, $uniqueAccnums)){
				$uniqueAccnums[] = $accnum;
			}
		}

		$folder = substr($data[0]['Current Location'], 0, 7);

		//make the folder in the $imageOutput
		mkdir($imageOutput . $folder);

		//add image count into the log
		$imageScan = scandir($imageInput . $folder);
		$images = array();
		foreach ($imageScan as $f){
			if (strpos($f, '.tif') > 0){
				$images[] = $f;
			}
		}
		$imageCount = count($images);

		//add log information

		echo date(DATE_W3C) .  ": Processing {$folder}\n";
		error_log(date(DATE_W3C) . ": Processing {$folder}\n", 3, $logFile);
		error_log("Count of rows in the spreadsheet: {$accnumCount}\n", 3, $logFile);
		error_log("Count of .tif images in the folder: {$imageCount}\n", 3, $logFile);

		//produce error if the number of rows in the spreadsheet is not equal to the number of unique accession numbers
		if ($accnumCount != count($uniqueAccnums)){
			echo "Error: number of spreadsheet rows not equal to number of unique accession numbers in {$folder}.\n";
			error_log("Error: number of spreadsheet rows not equal to number of unique accession numbers in {$folder}.\n", 3, $logFile);
		} else {
			//proceed if there are two images per row in the spreadsheet
			if (($accnumCount * 2) == $imageCount){
				$rowNum = 1;
				foreach ($data as $row){
					$accnum = $row['accnum'];
					$imageNum = 1;
					foreach ($images as $image){
						if ($imageNum == ($rowNum * 2) - 1 || $imageNum == $rowNum * 2){
							$oldFilename = $image;
							$pieces = explode('.', $image);
							$pieces[0] = $accnum;
							$newFilename = implode('.', $pieces);

							echo "Copying {$folder}/{$oldFilename} to {$folder}/{$newFilename}.\n";
							//echo 'copy ' . $imageInput . $folder . '/' . $oldFilename . ' to ' . $imageOutput . $folder . '/' . $newFilename . "\n";
							copy($imageInput . $folder . '/' . $oldFilename, $imageOutput . $folder . '/' . $newFilename);
						}
						$imageNum++;
					}
					$rowNum++;
				}
			} else {
				echo "Error: row/image numbering mismatch in {$folder}.\n";
				error_log("Error: row/image numbering mismatch in {$folder}.\n", 3, $logFile);
			}
		}

		/* compare $imageCount with $postCount:
		 * the number of images in Emma's folder compared with the number of images in the rename-complete.
		 * if the numbers are different, then overwriting has occurred due to image naming problem or duplicate accession number
		 */
		$postScan = scandir($imageOutput . $folder);
		$postImages = array();
		foreach ($postScan as $f){
			if (strpos($f, '.tif') > 0){
				$postImages[] = $f;
			}
		}
		$postCount = count($postImages);

		if ($imageCount != $postCount){
			echo "Error: source and target image folder count mismatch: {$folder}.\n";
			error_log(date(DATE_W3C) . "Error: source and target image folder count mismatch: {$folder}.\n", 3, $logFile);
		}
	}
}
echo date(DATE_W3C) . ": Process complete.\n";
error_log(date(DATE_W3C) . ": Process complete.\n", 3, $logFile);

//functions
function generate_json($doc){
	$keys = array();
	$array = array();

	$csv = csvToArray($doc, ',');

	// Set number of elements (minus 1 because we shift off the first row)
	$count = count($csv) - 1;

	//Use first row for names
	$labels = array_shift($csv);

	foreach ($labels as $label) {
		$keys[] = $label;
	}

	// Bring it all together
	for ($j = 0; $j < $count; $j++) {
		$d = array_combine($keys, $csv[$j]);
		$array[$j] = $d;
	}
	return $array;
}

// Function to convert CSV into associative array
function csvToArray($file, $delimiter) {
	if (($handle = fopen($file, 'r')) !== FALSE) {
		$i = 0;
		while (($lineArray = fgetcsv($handle, 4000, $delimiter, '"')) !== FALSE) {
			for ($j = 0; $j < count($lineArray); $j++) {
				$arr[$i][$j] = $lineArray[$j];
			}
			$i++;
		}
		fclose($handle);
	}
	return $arr;
}

function number_pad($number,$n) {
	return str_pad((int) $number,$n,"0",STR_PAD_LEFT);
}

?>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Don't keep a tight grip on your purse.
you'll rule over many nations but none will rule over you.
Oh yes - God, your God, will bless you just as he promised.
God is going to bless you lavishly in this land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, your very own land.
You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.
Make an offering of all the produce which grows in your fields year after year.
You are a people holy to GOD. He chose you out of all the people on Earth as his cherished personal treasure.
You are children of GOD, your God.
Yes, Obediently listen to GOD, your God. Keep all his commands that I am giving you today. Do the right thing in the eyes of GOD, your God.
listen obediently to what he says, serve him--hold on to him for dear life!
Diligently do everything I command you, the way I command you: don't add to it; don't subtract from it.
you'll be able to settle down and live in safety.
he'll give you rest from all your surrounding enemies.
Feast there in the Presence of GOD, your God. Celebrate everything that you and your families have accomplished under the blessing of GOD, your God.
Bring to that place your offerings, the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
Find the site that GOD will choose and assemble there.
Everywhere you go, GOD-sent fear and trembling will precede you, just as he promised.
No one will be able to stand in your way.
GOD on his part will drive out all that stand in your way.
Yes, he'll drive out nations much bigger and stronger than you.
Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder.
You'll have plenty to eat.
He'll make sure there's plenty of grass for your animals.
The land you are entering to take up ownership isn't like Egypt, the land you left, where you had to plant your own seed and water it yourselves as in a vegetable garden.
Yes, it was you--your eyes--that saw every great thing that GOD did.
And you're standing here today alive.
marvel at the way he took care of your enemy, its army, its horses and chariots, burying them in the waters of the Red Sea as they pursued you. GOD drowned them.
now look at you--you look more like the stars in the night skies in number. And your GOD did it.
He did all these tremendous, these staggering things that you saw with your own eyes.
He's your praise! He's your God!
You must treat foreigners with the same loving care--remember, you were once foreigners in Egypt.
God makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing.
God fell in love with you ancestors and their children--that's you!
Obey GOD -- live a good life.
I stayed there on the mountain.
God is their inheritance, as GOD, your God, promised them.
Climb the mountain and meet me.
They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued.
Your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt.
But once again GOD listened to me.
So soon you had left the road that GOD had commanded you to walk on.
I'll start over with you to make a nation far better and bigger than they could ever be.
In almost no time at all they have left the road that I laid out for them and gone off and made for themselves a cast god.
It's nothing that you've done that got you here; it's so that he can keep his promised word to your ancestors.
You will dispossess the nations and very quickly wipe them out, just as GOD promised you would.
Your God is a consuming fire. He will destroy the nations, he will put them under your power.
Today know this: GOD, your God, is crossing the river ahead of you.
you're heard all about them, you've heard the saying, "No one can stand up to them."
Attention! This very day you are crossing to enter the land and dispossess nations much bigger and stronger than you are.
If your forget, forget GOD, that will be the end of you; destruction.
God confirmed the covenant he promised as it is today.
think again. GOD, your God, gave you strength.
Make sure you don't forget GOD, your God.
It's land where you'll never go hungry--always food on the table and a roof over your head.
Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years.
GOD, your God, will move them out of your way--he'll throw them into a huge panic until there's nothing left of them.
So don't be intimidated by them. GOD, your God, is among you--GOD majestic, GOD awesome.
Remember the great contests to which you were eyewitnesses: the miracle-signs, the wonders, GOD's mighty hands as he stretched out his arm and took you out of there. GOD, your God, is going to do the same thing to these people you're now so afraid of.
GOD will get rid of all sickness.
You'll be blessed beyond all other peoples: no sterility or barrenness in you or your animals.
He'll bless the calves from your herds and lambs from your flocks in the country he promised your ancestors that he'd give you.
He isn't slow to pay, he pays right on time.
He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations.
Know this: Your God is God indeed, a God you can depend upon.
He did it our of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. GOD stepped in mightily.
GOD chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure.
They are all bigger and stronger than you are, but GOD, your God will turn them over to you and you will conquer them.
When GOD, your God, brings you into the country that you are about to enter and take over, he will clear out the superpowers that were there before you.
amen, lord! when you make good on your promise, when you fulfill what you have said in your word, when you bring us to that place in our lives where you fulfill every single word that you said, you will clear out all those who go against you that have gone before us! you have made sure that nothing the enemy has planted to kill, steal and destroy your plans will ever bear fruit - nothing will come of them, because you have cleared them out! no superpower is too powerful for you, no influence, no force - whether in the natural or spiritual, no governing body or any system in the world and beyond - none of these things and persons are ever above you, lord! when you make a promise, you always go before that promise and make sure all is set for your promise to come true. amen!
It will be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this entire commandment in the Presence of GOD, our God, just as he commanded us to do.
That's why GOD commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before GOD, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come.
The next time your child asks you, tell your child, "GOD powerfully intervened."
throwing out your enemies left and right--exactly as GOD said.
Do what is right; do what is good in GOD's sight.
Don't push GOD to the wall.
GOD is alive among you.
Serve and worship him exclusively.
Deeply respect GOD, your God.
you're going to come upon wells you didn't dig, vineyards and olive orchards you didn't plant.
Talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night.
Down on Earth, he showed you the big fire and again you heard his words, this time out of the fire.
He's made it possible for you to hear his voice out of Heaven.
He's the only God there is. He's it.
You were shown all this so that you would know that GOD is, well, God.
Or has a god ever tried to select for himself a nation from within a nation using trials, miracles, and war, putting his strong hand in, reaching his long arm out, a spectacle awesome and staggering, the way GOD, your God, did it for you in Egypt while you stood right there and watched?
Has a people ever heard, as you did, a god speaking out of the middle of the fire and lived to tell the story?
Ask questions. Find out what has been going on all these years before you were born. From the day God created man and woman on this Earth, and from the horizon in the east to the horizon in the west--as far back as you can imagine and as far away as you can imagine--has as great a thing as this ever happened? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?
When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, GOD, your God, is above all a compassionate God. He will not abandon you, he won't bring you to ruin, he won't forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.
When the time comes that you have children and grandchildren, [that you have] put on years, [don't] start taking things for granted.
GOD, your God, is not to be trifled with.
So stay alert. Don't for a minute forget the covenant which GOD, your God, made with you.
But you will cross; you'll possess the good land.
God took you right out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to become the people of his inheritance—and that's what you are this very day.
God spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but you saw nothing—no form, only a voice.
You gathered. You stood in the shadow of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with fire, blazing high into the very heart of Heaven. You stood in deep darkness and thick clouds.
Teach what you've seen and heard to your children and grandchildren.
Stay vigilant as long as you live.
Don't let your heart wander off.
Don't forget anything of what you've seen.
Yes. What other great nation has gods that are intimate with them the way GOD, our God, is with us, always ready to listen to us?
When people hear and see what's going on, they'll say, "What a great nation! We've never seen anything like it.
You'll become wise and understanding.
Pay attention, so that you may live by them in the land you are entering to take up ownership.
But you, the ones who held tight to GOD, your God, are alive and well, every one of you, today.


I knew that I had an appointment at the clinic today, but I had neglected to write the time in my diary, so I had been attempting to make telephonic contact with the clinic since Tuesday—without success! Finally, today at about 3.30 p.m., I managed to get through to the clinic, only to find that my appointment had been at 2.25 p.m., I therefore said I would be there in half an hour—and I dashed off across the city.
When I got there, I got some good news. The results of the blood tests that were taken on 7 May were good. My Viral Load has come down dramatically to 180. This shows how effective the anti-retrovirals are. My CD4 count remains at 100, but until the virus has been brought under control, it is unlikely to start to rise again.
Apparently, my kidney is working fine as well.
Bloods have been taken once more, so we will see what is going on when I am next back at the clinic.


The Mended Wood T-Shirt is a comfortable, moveable, heather green t-shirt, beautifully printed with a fresh Green Ember design by Chris Koelle. Below the image is the powerful phrase from the series: "It will not be so in the mended wood."
This shirt runs slightly small, consult the sizing chart below to help with your size choice.
This soft, breathable shirt is a poly-cotton blend that won't shrink.


With over twenty-five years of experience, Lyric is our head of education and is routinely voted one of Athens' favorite stylists. She's entirely versatile with her looks and is amazing at deciding what style works best with your hair and facial structure. Her cuts fall gracefully on their own without lots of styling time and look stunning while growing out. Lyric has been one of forty-five global educators on the ghd US Directive Team, she's styled hair at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and was featured in InStyle Magazine's "Top Haircuts Across The Country Under $100". As if that wasn't enough, she rarely runs behind.


It is troublesome to calculate the reactance ( impedance ) separately by each frequency when the capacitor and the coil are used. If an other value is understood, it is likely to be able to design easily. Next, I want to calculate these values beforehand.
The coil (inductance L) and the capacitor (capacitance C) show resistance different from direct current in the exchange. The value that corresponds to this resistance is called reactance (The unit is Ω) in the exchange. This reactance reaches a value different depending on frequency (f) of the exchange.
There is a thing that the circuit like the following comes out frequently with the capacitor and the coupling capacitor etc. of the CR filter in the electrical circuit. There is hesitating in good when the value of the capacitor is made which place at this time.
Generally, it is time when becoming a cutoff frequency is equal the impedance value of the capacitor and resistance. In this case, the output voltage decreases by 3dB.
I think that the value of the capacitor can often select this cutoff frequency to the standard, and the reactance table of the following capacitor becomes reference very much when the circuit is designed.
However, it is noted not to become it like this for the bypass capacitor of the emitter of a general amplifier.
The reactance of capacitor C(impedance) in each frequency Zc is calculated by the following expression.
It guarantees whether these values are neither calculation values to the last nor to actually become this value.
The reactance of coil L(impedance) in each frequency ZL is calculated by the following expression.


Matt Jackson, Vice Chair of the Action Group Writes to the Thurrock MP Asking her opinion on the revised red line boundary and asks if she will protect the health & well being of her constituents.
As vice chair of the Thames Crossing Action Group (www.tcag.info) representing 9500 people across the Borough of Thurrock, I am seeking your opinion on this recent boundary revision and specifically would like to draw your attention to a specific section within Highways England Scoping Report issued (oct 2017).
"Heart disease and respiratory disease are major causes of death – For mortality due to cardiovascular deaths, Thurrock is significantly worse than the England average, For mortality due to cancer, Thurrock is again significantly worse than the England average".
This illustrates the current situation with a daily average of 150,000 vehicles crossing Thurrock – and of course pollution caused by our ports & their respective logistics operations.
Does this kind of report sit comfortably with you?
With a potential increase of 40% or 60,000 vehicles across Thurrock, regardless of road designs to mitigate pollution dispersion patterns, the bottom line for Thurrock is an increase of airborne pollutants, all the while we have less green belt available to filter this harmful product of vehicles, business and growth.
With respect to your recent challenge on Thurrock Council, re air pollution targets, have you been able to seek funding from TfL from its additional tax on high polluting vehicles entering the city?
I ask this question on the basis, a recent Thurrock Council report suggested London was a high contributor to Thurrocks poor air quality, in relation to its proximity and our prevailing winds.
I believe it fair TfL pay Thurrock a pollution levy. This would enable further investment in Thurrock's ability to tackle our air pollution problem.
Currently Thurrock Council invest only £33k per year on air quality management – way below my expectations, and yours going by your summer press release!
In essence, the impact of over 200,000 vehicles crossing thurrock (combination of how we currently operate + new LTC route) should be of huge concern to us Thurrock residents.
Potentially increasing AQMA by 40% gives us 7 new poor air quality zones.
Taking the recent report by Highways England (p.240 s13.4.22) admitting how poor Thurrock's health is, do you not think the Lower Thames Crossing is literally a free issue death certificate, endorsed by local businesses and our government?
I totally appreciate sustainable growth, well being and prosperity for everyone. However, this road proposal will not address the continual issues the A282 sees on a daily basis, this is the root cause that needs to be addressed promptly.
I have you on record saying 'lets get the traffic moving'… So as a united Thurrock lets set that challenge!
* Removing localised traffic from the strategic road network is the right thing to do as a short term measure. In the mean time we should be planning a real growth strategy for the Southeast with longevity and good value for money.
We must also remember Thurrock businesses rely on high productivity to prosper, how will this part of the equation balance if poor health increases – i hope our Ports and Essex Chamber of Commerce realise this simple fact?
I look forward to your frank and honest opinion, fully appreciate you are't directly my MP. However, many residents within my group are within your constituency, therefore I'm asking on their behalf your views.
In addition to the above I would like to share what you plan to do in protecting their health and well being for the future.
Feel free to copy this letter and adapt it for you own needs.


text:
Battle Ground Public Schools provide special education and related services in all schools to eligible children and youths with disabilities, from birth through 21. In some cases, we provide services through other school districts or by approved outside agencies through inter-local service agreements.
We believe in educating students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment. Each student has access to an appropriate learning environment and an opportunity for education with non-disabled students to the maximum extent appropriate at his or her neighborhood school or at a site as close as possible.
Childfind Notice
Battle Ground Public Schools are committed to addressing the unique needs of students with disabilities, birth through age 21, who reside within the boundaries of the Battle Ground School District. This includes children with disabilities enrolled in private schools within the district boundaries as well as children who are homeless. Disabilities can be in any one of several categories that ultimately affect a child's learning, such as the ability to think, to express oneself, to see or hear clearly, to get around, or understand instructions given. If you have a child who you think might have a disability requiring special education instruction or significant accommodations at school, or if you know of such a child, please feel free to call the Battle Ground Public Schools Special Education Office at (360) 885-5318.
The Battle Ground Public Schools offer early childhood screening and assessment of children from birth through age 5 in the areas of fine and gross motor skills, communication, cognitive or thinking skills, social skills, and adaptive skills. Screenings and evaluations for infant/toddlers (birth to 3) will be conducted by a family resource coordinator. Children from birth to age 3 who qualify for services are served through inter-agency agreements with local child development centers. Children ages 3 through 5 will be screened and assessed by the BGPS special education team.
Early intervention/preschool services for eligible children may include special education services speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy, as determined by their individual needs.
Parents may call the Special Education Office at (360) 885-5318 for screening and program information.
School-Aged Students
Parents of children with a suspected disability from Kindergarten to age 21 can contact the school psychologist in their neighborhood school. If the student qualifies according to Washington State regulations, they may access special education programs appropriate to the needs. Parents of students moving into the district with a current Individualized Education Program (IEP) are encouraged to notify the school psychologist before they enroll in their neighborhood school.
Battle Ground Public Schools offer a full spectrum of services for those students eligible for special education. Most students with disabilities benefit from a special educator providing specially designed instruction within the general education classroom or in a small group in a resource room. Students who need more support may be served in a center-based classroom and will also benefit from being included in the general education setting whenever appropriate to their learning plan. Psychology, speech and language, vision, hearing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, nursing services, and assistive technology services are available to students in each building, as needed.
Post-High School Students
Some students will remain in school until June of their 21st year. Battle Ground Public Schools provide a blend of school and community based services. Some students will move to full community based programs.
FUTURES Program
The FUTURES program at the Dodge House (612 NW 9th St. (360) 885-6426) adjacent to Battle Ground High School provides young adults with developmental disabilities an opportunity to become more independent in daily living, transportation, recreation, and job skills. Special education teachers and job coaches provide instruction and support. The FUTURES program also managed the Battle Ground Barkery, a vocational program for students with disabilities, where they create, market, and sell dog treats. Watch a video and learn more at the BG Barkery website.
The school psychologist in Battle Ground Public Schools is considered the case manager at the building. The school psychologist is part of the building faculty and serves general education as well as special education populations. These services include counseling, group work, and guiding the special education multi-disciplinary team process. For more information, please click on the links below:
History of School Psychology
Our Roles In Special Education
Our Roles In General Education
NASP Website
Battle Ground Public Schools Special Education Staff has compiled some information that may be helpful to parents whose children qualify for services. Below are links to this information:
Referral Process and IEP
Parent's Rights and Procedural Safeguards
Parents Rights and Procedural Safeguards in Spanish
Parents Rights and Procedural Safeguards in Russian
Parents Rights and Procedural Safeguards in Ukrainian
Parents Rights and Procedural Safeguards in Vietnamese


BLED, Slovenia: EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Monday it was "realistic" to expect an agreement on a divorce deal with London within the next eight weeks, striking an optimistic note as the clock ticks down to Britain's departure from the bloc.
The pound rose against the dollar on Barnier's comments, which come after weeks of increasing anxiety that an agreement to avoid Britain crashing out in a "no-deal" Brexit would not be reached in time.
British police chiefs have reportedly even drawn up contingency plans to deal with civil unrest in the event of Britain leaving the EU with no deal in place, citing fears of shortages of food and goods could lead to disorder.
"I think that if we are realistic, we are able to reach an agreement on the first stage of this negotiation, which is the Brexit treaty, within six or eight weeks," Barnier told a conference in Bled, Slovenia.


In a conversation with Nikita Lalwani, author of the book 2 Peg Ke Baad. The book hasn't got anything to do with Alcohol, it is a collection of fourteen short stories that took place 2 Peg Ke Baad. To read the book review of the book, visit Book Review : 2 Peg Ke Baad - Nikita Lalwani.
Q: How did it feel when you first hold the copy of your book, "2 Peg Ke Baad"?
A: I was very happy to see my work published. It was a long awaited dream and there is yet a long way to go.
Q: Did you actually plan the book"2 Peg KeBaad", or it just happened?
A: I started 2 peg ke baad as a blog where I would put short 2 peg ke baad stories from the people I met. I met people in various cities – Mumbai, Pune, Raipur, Chandigarh etc. and it was great to listen to their confessions and theories of life. I also started writing fiction stories on the blog which were received very well by the readers, and that encouraged me to compile them in a book.
Q: What was your reaction, when you first came to know that "2 Peg KeBaad" is actually going to be a published book?
A: The idea of a book didn't come to me as a proposition, so it was no surprise. I wrote it, approached the publishers, struggled my way to finally get accepted by few of them and its only when Srishti Publishers said that they were interested in the manuscript is when the picture of 2 peg ke baad becoming a book was there in front of me.
Q: Tell us about the support you received from your family and friends while you were writing the book?
A: My family and friends have always been very supportive towards my writing and it's only that which has got me through the tough stages. Even though they were never too fond of the career choices made by me, switching to advertising from dentistry, my parents have always encouraged me to write.
Q: Can you tell us something about your experience of getting the book published? How easy or difficult it is?
A: Getting your book published is one of the toughest jobs in the world, but an even tougher one is to make sure that it reaches the people. And both make an equally important role in the book's shelf life. I wrote to more than 50 publishers and got a positive reply only from 2 of them. I wouldn't say that it was frustrating because I wasn't unaware of the industry and the way it works here. I had a plan B in my mind, for if the book didn't get accepted anywhere at all. Fortunately, I didn't need to action that.
Q: Apart from "2 Peg Ke Baad", have you written anything else that we should know?
A: 2 peg ke baad is my 2nd published book. The first one was Live Life… Stop Analysing it, which I wrote when I was in school. The book is a non-fiction philosophy and got published with Himalaya Publishers, Mumbai. After that I wrote 2 more books, which never got published. I don't regret it though, as it just taught me more about the art and the fraternity.
Q: What can we expect from you in the near future? Any other book lined up?
A: I have been working on my next book from sometime. Hopefully, you can get to read it by next year. It's a dark fiction that showcases the love life of a woman and compares it with how a woman's emotions were received in our mythological history. The book is a way of comparison between the 2 different ages where everything has changed except the way the world perceives a woman's emotions and actions.
A: I started writing for newspapers as a kid, and it surprisingly felt good. It pushed me more towards writing. After my first book I knew that I want to be a writer, no matter what else I pursue in life as a career.
Q: Being a published author is a different feeling altogether. How do you make sure that this feeling stays alive forever?
A: I feel in order to keep anything alive for a long time, consistency is what it requires. So I make sure I write even if it doesn't come out being as good as it should be. However, my job takes away most of my time and energy, but I am trying my best to cope up with it.
Q: "2 Peg Ke Baad", is not about Alcoholism but things that happen or rather people do, what made you write a book on this topic? How did the idea come, evolve and became a reality?
A: Well, my idea was to explore human emotions, and what better event could allow you to unbosom what lies under the conscious levels of mind than alcohol. However, I do not intend to encourage alcoholism, but the subject allows me to talk neat, as an inebriated mind would.
Q: Out of the 14 short stories in your book, "2 Peg KeBaad", how many of them are real, inspired, and fictional and to what extent?
A: Most of them are either an adaptation of a real story or inspired by true incidents. Few of them are however out and out fiction, but I would leave it on the audience to figure that out.
A: Well, I make a living out of Copywriting, so that makes a HUGE part of my day. As an author, I devote very less time to my writing, but I hope it gets better.
A: I was given multiple options by my Saurav Kumar, who designed the cover. The current cover was finalized keeping in mind the subject of the book and how clearly it explained it.
A: I somewhere believe that I was born to write. I am working with McCann Health as a copywriter currently and wish to grow better in advertising.
A: I love to read, but I am not an ardent reader. Hindu mythology is one of my favourite subjects to explore – especially Mahabharata. I like to read Chitra Banerjee, Khaled Hosseini, Dan Brown and Dale Carnegie.
Q: If one of the short stories, out of the 14, is made into a short movie, which short story should that be? Who would be your lead characters?
A: I would like to name two here; one is Papier Blanc and the other is Rosita in the Bar. Papier Blanc is inspired from Sylvia Plath's love life and has a lot to explore. Rosita in the Bar, is another woman centric plot that is based on the pursuit of a woman's love. I haven't thought of actors, but my definite choice of filmmaker for these would be Imtiaz Ali and Anurag Kashyap.
A: I personally prefer paper/hard back books. I don't have a definite answer to why, but I fall asleep as I sit to read on a device.
Q: Two things that you like and dislike about "2 Peg"?
A: Like – It can set you free. 2 pegs can make you talk neat, which we refrain from doing while we are conscious mind.
Dislike – People make it a tool to speak up their mind, and more often to feel good. One should not have to depend on alcohol to feel good.
Q: If you have to give one reason to our readers to get hold of your book, "2 Peg Ke Baad", what would the reason be?
A: It's everything you could possibly want, and the best part is – it's short! In the era of blogs and microblogs, people are looking for more fun in quick run. Short story/movie is a thing in this age. 2 peg ke baad apart from being short has stories of every genre, which makes sure everyone has something.
A: I would love to have your feedback. Honest ones!
A: You could write in to me on my mail id – 2pegkebaad@gmail.com. I am also available on Social Media – Twitter - 2 Peg Ke Baad, Twitter - Nikita Lalwani, Facebook, Instagram. If you have interesting 2 peg ke baad stories or confessions – do write in at www.2pegkebaad.com. Would love to hear from you guys!
Thank you Ishan, for your kind words.


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The Age of Suburbia
by Ross Elliott 01/07/2021
"Mr. Covid has been the best city and regional planner Australia has ever had. The suburbs will shine, and regions will grow. Maybe we should forget about big city infrastructure projects for a while and spend it on our future resilient communities where people look out for each other."
That is a note from late 2020 from a good friend of mine - a highly regarded town planner in Australia, who has led city planning both for large metro cities and worked across the globe, most lately in the Middle East. He is no fool. The irony is – and he is right – that it has taken a global pandemic to shake ourselves out of from the focus on centralised, high density urban cores, surrounded by dormitory suburbs from which workers would commute daily, preferably in high volume public transport, to their city-based offices. Our subservience called for endless amounts of public money to be thrown at inner city altars, rewarding the increasingly privileged professional clergy who enjoyed commensurately rising real estate prices, while suburban areas languished.
But the lure of the emerald city was always an illusion. In early 2013 in "The demography of employment part one: a suburban economy," I made the observation that none of the actual evidence supported this vision:
"We have collectively developed a fixation on our CBDs and inner-city areas as economic drivers of employment. While they are very significant in size, they are not dominant relative to the spatial distribution of jobs throughout metropolitan areas. If the evidence is clearly pointing to cities with employment overwhelmingly located in suburban locations, and points to this trend continuing, it is possible that a variety of public policy settings could need resetting given the realities of our urban environment. It is equally possible that opportunities for growth and development to meet market demand for employment lands in suburban locations haven't yet been fully captured."
By early 2015, in "Is it time for suburban renewal?" I wrote: "there seem now to be no shortage of publicly funded initiatives focused on delivering a better quality of urban existence within a five kilometre ring of the CBD, and too few focused on the hard and soft infrastructure deficits that our suburban areas are still living with."
However, no end of evidence or public debate was sufficient to wrest the planning orthodoxy from their centralised vision of the inner urban economy and its elites living, working, and playing within a mystical 5-kilometre ring of a CBD temple.
Even obvious policy failures – rising congestion, chronic infrastructure lags and falling quality of life – did not test the faith of planners and pundits in the religion of centralisation. A 2018 ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News investigation into overcrowding and infrastructure inadequacies in Sydney and Melbourne prompted the Planning Institute of Australia to respond with the suggestion that what was needed to fix the problems caused by centralisation and density by pushing more centralisation and density: "We want Tokyos, Parises, and New Yorks – and we can do that by planning well." The fact that this policy prescription was electoral poison, and against the demonstrated market preference of consumers, was clearly irrelevant to PIA at the time.
But as my friend has since wryly observed, a virus has changed all of that. Property industry leaders who once worshipped at the altar of centralisation have sniffed the winds and seen hope of new salvation in the suburbs. Fund managers are predicting a significant fall in demand for CBD offices as workers adopt more amenable work-life practices – working from home or from suburban hubs. The chief of publicly listed developer Stockland – Mark Steinert – is now publicly predicting a shift of the entire metropolitan economy away from CBDs to more suburban locations. Such comments would have been heresy only just 12 months ago and no doubt been savaged by Stockland's investors. This now amounts to conventional wisdom.
The evidence is flooding in globally: high density urban cores are finding economic demand surge towards suburban homes or suburban work hubs. There has been an exodus of workers and their employers from centralised, expensive cores. Once prized New York real estate is boarded up, tenants gone. Manhattan offices now are being touted as possible residential conversions.
Elon Musk has declared he is moving to Texas, while tech giants Oracle and Hewlett Packard have similarly set up shop in the more affordable, more amenable, more liveable cities of the Lone Star State. Fast growing US city economies are no longer poster-children cities like NYC or San Francisco or LA, but mid-scale cities like Austin Texas, Nashville Tennessee, or Phoenix, Arizona. The move is on. Remarkably, for the first time in 170 years, California has actually lost population.
Even the Emerald Isle – Ireland – has seen Covid-induced changes to work lead to public policy responses in support of remote working. "COVID-19 has brought a change in terms of the way we work and remote working - or connected working, as I call it - is now a reality," said Irish Minister Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys. "It was an aspiration only a year ago, and now it's a fact of a life - and it's a good thing".
Here at home, the evidence is also piling up. Regional economic growth even before Covid, according to the Regional Australia Institute was shifting away of the CBDs. This trend appears to be getting an adrenaline boost from Covid. Exhausted by lockdowns, the lure of a less dense environment is proving hard to resist for growing numbers of workers and employers. Regional cities that lie within a couple of hours of a major capital or ar established lifestyle regions – Geelong or Bendigo in Victoria, or Newcastle, Gosford, or Byron in NSW - have been the first to feel the wave of demand from fleeing city dwellers.
Only the most fervent centralist could not acknowledge that the age of centralisation has come to end. Indeed, as much was observed to be happening pre-Covid by the respected Brookings Institute in early 2019 - the process is accelerating and is unlikely to reverse.
Where does this leave the anti-suburban elites - the likes of Australian urbanist Elizabeth Farrelly who infamously declared: "The suburbs are about boredom, and obviously some people like being bored and plain and predictable, I'm happy for them … even if their suburbs are destroying the world"?
Hopefully, it leaves them without a worshipping congregation anymore. After all, you can save energy and reduce emissions simply by working at home, or close to it. It is a lot more effective and convenient than taking the bus or crawling through big city traffic. Suburbanization could prove a surprising solution to reducing GHG. Hopefully, this will lead to a new emphasis on suburban infrastructure, from regional town centers to better wireless networks.
We are at the dawning of an age of suburbia – where regional and suburban economic needs can respectfully and rightfully claim equal status with those of the inner city. Policy makers would be wise not to resist this change but instead to embrace and support it.
PS: Yes, "The age of suburbia" is a nod to the flower power song of hope from 1969 by The Fifth Dimension - "The Age of Aquarius." You can get all groovy and sing along to the lyrics "Harmony and understanding, Sympathy and trust abounding, no more falsehoods or derisions, Golden living dreams of visions" … and watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/
Let the sunshine in!
Ross Elliott has more than twenty years experience in property and public policy. His past roles have included stints in urban economics, national and state roles with the Property Council, and in destination marketing. He has written extensively on a range of public policy issues centering around urban issues, and continues to maintain his recreational interest in public policy through ongoing contributions such as this or via his monthly blog, The Pulse.
Photo credit: Meganesia via Wikimedia under CC 4.0 License.
Populate or Perish?
Public Transport's Biggest Problem: The Public (That's Us)
Planning's Cultural Cringe?
Banana-nomics
Malthusian Delusions Grip Australia


Dr. Julie A. Foont is board certified in Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree from Columbia University. Prior to entering medical school, Dr. Foont worked as a professional medical illustrator producing drawings for textbooks, journal articles and lectures both nationally and internationally. She earned her medical degree from New York University. Dr. Foont completed internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at New York University / Bellevue Medical Center. She then pursued additional training in Hepatology at Jackson Memorial Hospital at the University of Miami. After the completion of this program, she went on to complete her fellowship in gastroenterology at Brown University. Her clinical interests span the entire breadth of gastroenterology and endoscopy, with a particular emphasis on Women's GI health issues, hepatitis and other disorders of the liver. She has published numerous original research articles and has presented at national meetings. Dr. Foont is an attending physician with privileges at NYU Langone Medical Center and Lenox Hill Hospital. She is involved in teaching students, medicine residents and gastroenterology fellows. Dr. Foont is a member of the American Gastroenterology Association, the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease.
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After researching GI doctors, I decided to see Dr. Foont. From the beginning, the experience was exceptional! The staff members are friendly and professional. I didn't expect to be seen as quickly but that's a good thing! Dr. Foont listenedwhile I gave her the history of my condition and immediately began planning the next steps in my care. She is very personable and thorough and patiently took the time to explain a few different procedures that will be happening in the near future, in a way that was clear and concise. I felt very comfortable throughout the appointment.
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Dr. Foont was one of the best doctors I've seen. She really took her time to listen to my symptoms and even told me before the appointment started to take my time explaining. She put me at ease about what Iwas feeling, and explained what she thought was going on thoughtfully and in detail. Overall, one of the better doctor experiences I've had!
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I am a wildlife filmmaker and environmentalist based in Bristol.
With an unconventional background in drama I have a unique perspective on telling stories of the Natural World, and I am passionate about bringing the most important stories about wildlife and the environment to homes across the world.
Trained as a South African Field Guide, and with a Masters in Wildlife Filmmaking from the University of the West of England, I am currently working in Bristol and the South West.


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Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (chinês :杜赫德; 1 de fevereiro de 1674 - 18 de agosto de 1743) foi um historiador jesuíta francês especializado na China. Ele não viajou para a China, mas coletou relatórios de dezessete missionários jesuítas e forneceu um levantamento enciclopédico da história, cultura e sociedade da China e da "Tartária Chinesa", isto é, da Manchúria.

Voltaire disse sobre o trabalho de Du Halde: "Embora tenha sido desenvolvido a partir de Paris, e ele não tenha conhecido os chineses, [ele] deu, com base nas memórias de seus colegas, a mais ampla e a melhor descrição que o império da China teve no mundo todo".

Publicações

 Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, enrichie des cartes générales et particulieres de ces pays, de la carte générale et des cartes particulieres du Thibet, & de la Corée; & ornée d'un grand nombre de figures & de vignettes gravées en tailledouce, Paris:J-B Mercier, 1735, quatre volumes. Texte intégral en ligne sur chineancienne.fr
 nouvelle édition, La Haye: H. Scheurleer, 1736, 4 volumes, plus un volume de cartes. En ligne sur Internet Archive : volume 1,volume 2, volume 3, volume 4

Referências
Historiadores
!Mais Teoria da História na Wiki (Wikiconcurso de edição)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Short but [not so] effective for Time Leap. Very effective and deadly for Nightrose.
Effective from the 1st of June 2017 in Japan. Those changes may or may not be adapted to the English format, considering past precedents.


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BY Dan Emerson
From the December 2011 issue
The Roe Family Singers
One of Minnesota's busiest new bands plays "modern old-time music" with a three-part acoustic twang.
Husband-wife singing sensations Quillan and Kim Roe
Several years ago, when husband-and-wife Quillan and Kim Roe started the Roe Family Singers, there were only two Roes involved. Today, the Roes are one of the busiest bands in the Twin Cities, and there are four of them: add the founders' two daughters, 2-year-old Elspeth and Onnee, who turns 1 in February.
When the Plymouth musicians play one of their roughly 180 gigs per year, they are often joined onstage by Elspeth—whose featured songs are "Oh Susannah" and "You Are My Sunshine"—and even Onnee, who often taps out a rhythm from her perch in Kim's child-carrier. With an all-acoustic band usually ranging in size from seven to nine pieces, the Roe Family produces a distinctive sound Quillan describes as "old-timey with punk and subversive influences."
With Quillan on banjo and guitar and Kim on autoharp, the band's repertoire features traditional country, western swing and rockabilly tunes dating back to the 1920s, along with some originals written in the acoustic-roots style. The band's sonorous vocal harmonies and rootsy acoustic mix of fiddle, washboard jug and musical saw have earned it a local following and a few honors.
In 2010 the Roes won the title of "World's Best" at the 29th annual Battle of the Jug Bands in Minneapolis. They later opened for bluegrass luminaries Doc Watson and Del McCoury, at the Cedar Cultural Center; for the Grascals at the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Association (MBOTMA) Winter Weekend; and for folk icons Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur at the National Jug Band Jamboree in Louisville, Ky.
Earlier this year, the Roes received their most prestigious honor to date, becoming the first bluegrass/old-time music performers to receive the McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship.
Both in their mid-30s, Quillan and Kim were exposed to traditional acoustic music growing up in Plymouth and Brooklyn Park, respectively. Quillan absorbed the sounds of his parents' bluegrass and folk records. Kim, who cites Dolly Parton and Maybelle Carter as major vocal influences, listened to her grandmother's country singing.
In the late '90s, Quillan and a friend formed the country/rockabilly band Accident Clearinghouse and developed a local bar-following before disbanding several years ago. After kicking around the idea for several years, Kim and Quillan started their band in 2003, debuting as a duo at a Johnny Cash Tribute show. They quickly earned a regular Monday-night gig at the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis, which has continued for six years.
Since the birth of their daughters, the Roes have scaled back on the late-night bar gigs, performing more often at music festivals, coffeehouses, farmers markets, nursing homes and "wherever people will have us," Quillan says. "We just love playing music."
Quillan and Kim are putting in more rehearsal times honing their vocal harmonies, which "seem to come really naturally," Quillan says. They're also working up more three- and four-part harmonies with other band members. The Roe Family Singers recently released a new, mostly original CD, colorfully titled The Owl and the Bat and the Bumblebee (available on iTunes, amazon.com, and at roefamilysingers.com).
After receiving the McKnight grant, both Quillan and Kim quit their jobs as child-care instructors for the St. Louis Park School District so they can spend all their time developing and performing their music. Being able to support their family solely by playing music is their ultimate ambition, Quillan says. "We're going to give it a year and see how we do."
The couple and their daughters live in the house Quillan grew up in, just west of Medicine Lake. "We love our area," Kim says. "We're always seeing animals going through our back yard—deer, foxes, groundhogs." It's a semi-rural setting just right for stimulating the creative juices of two musicians drawn to the sweet, bucolic sounds of a bygone era.
Hear the magic yourself! Stop by an upcoming performance around the Metro.
December 9: Midtown Global Market, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
December 11: Oak Center General Store, 2 p.m.
December 16: Patrick's Cabaret for Songwriters Forum
December 28 & January 11: "Wee Wednesday" at the Midtown Global Market, 10:30-11:45 a.m.


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Laureus Sport for Good join Team DiData at TDF
Cape Town - Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka has announced that as part of their celebration of Mandela Day, Thursday, July 18, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation will be joining them at the Tour de France.
In a press release on Tuesday, Team Dimension Data said:
Nelson Mandela's birthday is an opportunity for people and organisations from around the world to celebrate his incredible legacy and so our team, as it has routinely done in the past, will do so again in 2019.
In our capacity as Laureus ambassadors we will continue pay tribute to "Madiba's" memory at the and this year we are delighted to welcome a high-profile delegation to our team.
The group will include:
Sean Fitzpatrick - Chairperson of the Laureus Academy and former All Blacks captain
Morne du Plessis - Chairperson of Laureus South Africa and Laureus Academy member
Ryk Neethling - Laureus Ambassador & Olympic gold medallist (swimming)
Jonathan Hill - Laureus CEO
This occasion will endeavour to reinforce our team's shared vision with that of Laureus in the inherent belief in the power that sport has in changing lives in conjunction with our charity partner Qhubeka.
Team principal Doug Ryder said: "To have Sean, Morne, Jonathan, Ryk and the rest of the delegation with us at the Tour de France is a real honour. The Laureus Sport for Foundation is synonymous with the inspirational legacy of President Mandela and we take enormous pride in being ambassadors. To be in a position to not only pay tribute to him in our special way but also give them a unique insight into the sport's greatest event, is something that we're really looking forward to do.
"We do not take our responsibility to compete at the highest level lightly and carry hopes and dreams of young cyclists from all over. At the Grand Depart in Brussels it was our privilege to host eight young riders from the Velokhaya Life Cycling Academy in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, and in the process hopefully provide the inspiration for them to one day excel at the highest level."