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Citypeek.com » Baltimore » Baltimore Blog » Baltimore Blog Entry
John Waters Exhibit Opens in his hometown Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art
John Waters Indecent Exposure Exibit Opens in Baltimore
By Jessi Kim/Patti Neumann
Baltimore's very own transgressive filmmaker and huge personality, John Waters, best known for movies, Polyester (1981) and Hairspray (1988), has a new art show in his hometown. And, it is DIVINE! Waters showcases his library of work in a new art installation at his local museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). Cleverly named, 'Indecent Exposure,' the exhibit showcases over 160 photographs, sculptures, video clips and other upclose and personal collections of the living icon. "Johns Waters: Indecent Exposure" is an assortment of artifacts from his childhood and career artworks he has acquired or created since early 1990s. Just like Waters' films, the exhibit is a glimpse of John Water's identity, focusing on LGBTQ, race, and poking fun at Hollywood Pop culture.
Walking through the BMA in a flower embroidered black suit, red suede shoes and iconic pencil line mustache, John Waters describes his exhibit to be "making fun" of all the things he did in his life. Each piece is a study of "irony" or "something ironic". Perusing through, one would think "Why is this there?" and Waters' answer would be "Why not?"
John Waters is funny, well, he is hilarious. And, he wants people to enjoy their time walking through the gallery space. One piece, titled 4377, has the entire frame swivel spin and another one if one leans a bit too close for a better look, water squirts out of it!
Be sure to expect a tribute to Divine, the late drag Queen performer, and close friend of Waters'. Waters, who gave the performer the name "Divine" and the tagline of "the most beautiful woman in the world, almost." is both a sculpture and DIY movie still photograph.
The Baltimore Museum of Art is located in the heart of Charles Village, close to Waters' home and next to the Johns Hopkins University Campus. Though the Museum is free for all, the "John Waters: Indecent Exposure" exhibition is ticketed event:
BMA Members — Free
Adults — $15
Seniors (
65+) — $13
Groups (7 or More) — $12 (Call 443-573-1701)
Students (with ID) — $10
Youth 18 and under — $5
(Seen Left, Citypeek's Jessica Kim and John Waters)
CITYPEEK.com is an award-winning 21 C website & blog, peeking at the best in town of food, wine & fun. Founded by Patti Neumann, one of the region's top Social Media Publicists and Influencers on food, sips, hospitality & the good life, CITYPEEK.com has its finger on the pulse of what's hot in the world of food, cocktails & travel trends.
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The revenge of the gif
Those of you that are old enough to remember the Internet back in the mid to late 90's will recall when websites (or "homepages"!) were crammed with low quality, animated images.
The file format .gif was originally developed in 1987 by the first major commercial US online service, CompuServe, and despite its limitation in terms of colour and quality, it served its purpose in the dial up connection era.
As Flash grew in popularity and faster connections speeds became more accessible, the .gif had seemingly had its day. However with Flash's decline (largely due to a lack of iOS device support), the Gif has had a resurgence in the past few years due it being a hassle free way of displaying short, often humorous animations.
It's not just individuals who are embracing .gif's either, companies such as the .gif search engine Giphy are emerging and brands are incorporating short animations using this file format in their Online Marketing campaigns.
Here's what you need to know about using .gifs in your Online Marketing Efforts
For over a decade Facebook has refused to allow its users news feeds to be filled with flashy animations as Zuckerberg thought they interrupted the user experience, which in turn could stunt the growth of the social network.
However back in May it was announced that Facebook was rolling out the ability for users to upload and share animated gifs on their timeline, much to the joy of users who remember being able to do so back in Myspace's heyday.
Facebook has now taken this the step further by allowing (some) advertisers to now use animated gifs as boosted page posts, meaning that you can expect to see an increasing amount of animations in your timeline in near future.
How To Post An Animated Gif On Facebook
Currently uploading an animated gif directly to Facebook via the "add photos/video" function does not work at this time. Instead you need to upload your image elsewhere (i.e to your website or to an image sharing service) and then paste the URL of an animated GIF into Facebook's "update status" field.
Currently if you do this to your page, Facebook may show the url of where the image is located, making it look a little unusual, however it won't if you do so on your personal profile. At the moment Facebook treats sharing an animated gif in the same way that it does as a link, meaning that the amount of users your post reaches organically is unlikely to be the same as if you uploaded a non-animated image (such as a .jpg or .png ) or video directly to Facebook.
If you can't bear the thought of your news feed being cluttered with animations and videos, go to settings, then select videos and set "auto play videos" to off!
Having previously banned animated avatars in 2012 and having limited support for animated images, full support for animated gifs was launched in June 2014. Interestingly Twitter actually converts the image to an mp4 movie, meaning that a user will have to press the play button in order for the animation to begin.
There are a number of issues when posting animated gifs to Twitter via social media posting tools such as TweetDeck, for the best results post your animation directly to Twitter.
Instagram does not support animated .gifs but you can work around this if you wish to publish short animations to your profile. For this to work, you will need to save your animation as a .mp4 video and then upload that to your profile. Luckily there are plenty of tools available to quickly convert your .gif to an mp4 such as giphy.com.
Using giphy – upload your .gif image and then press the Instagram icon. You will then receive an e-mail with the .mp4 file which you can then upload as you would any other video to your YouTube profile.
Tumblr is one of the fastest growing social media platforms and the leading platform among the highly coveted Millennials. What's more it's considered to be the "home" of the .gif and its users are open to (brilliant) brand related content.
You can simply upload an animated gif directly to your Tumblr profile or enter a URL of an image that has been uploaded elsewhere.
Tumblr users love to see and share visual content such as .gifs and a powerful advertising platform will allow your brand to be seen by your target audience. Advertising on Tumblr is currently done via customer representatives and require a minimum advertising spend of $25k.
Like Facebook, Pinterest supports animated gifs to a certain degree. For the best results upload your animated gif to your board instead of pinning a URL of an image so that the image is stored on a Pinterest server.
The image won't automatically animate, instead the "play" button will need to be clicked in order to trigger it.
Animated GIFs display in email the same way a regular image does: you don't need to do anything different to add an animated image to your email. This means that there is nothing stopping you from incorporating and experimenting with replacing your still pictures in an email with an animated one and see if your click through rate and ultimately conversion rate improves from utilising them.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: C# Override with different child parameters (Same Parent)? Here is an example of what I am looking to do.
public class ParentA {}
public class ChildA : ParentA
{
  public string x;
}

public class A
{
    public virtual void DoSomething(Parent a)
    {
      // perform something
    }
}
public class B : A
{
    public Override void DoSomething(Child a)
    {
      // perform something slightly different using both strings
       a.x = "something";
    }
}

but turn out I got an error with "No Suitable Method found to Override".
So I want to override DoSomething from class A and pass a different set of child class parameter. Is this possible?

A: When you override something, the signature of the method has to be the same.
So in your case, you can do something like this
public class Parent { }
public class Child : Parent
{
    public string x;
}

public class A
{
    public virtual void DoSomething(Parent a)
    {
        // perform something
    }
}
public class B : A
{
    public override void DoSomething(Parent a)
    {
        if (a is Child child)
        {
        // perform something slightly different using both strings
            child.x = "something";
        }
    }
}

A: I'm not 100% sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish, however generics may help you:
public class Parent { }
public class Child : Parent
{
    public string x;
}

public class A<T> : Parent where T : Parent
{
    public virtual void DoSomething(T a)
    {
    }
}

public class B : A<Child> // Child could also be Parent here
{
    public override void DoSomething(Child a)
    {
        a.x = "test";
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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About Karl
Reduction of Great Oak Involvement
Text of Email
This email is being sent to many persons with whom I interacted over the past several years because of your financial and/or volunteer support of Great Oak Youth Development Center. I would prefer to address each of you by name; however, given the sizeable listing of individuals, time does not allow me to do so.
By my choice, I am nearing the end of a process of dramatically reducing my involvement with Great Oak. I want to tell you about this decision before making a more public announcement of this change. Effective 28 June 2014, at the conclusion of the 2014 Leadership and Entrepreneurs camp, my only involvement with the organization will be to coordinate the gardening activity and work with a very committed volunteer who is establishing a chess club at Great Oak. Completion of this involvement reduction process means I will no longer:
Do bookkeeping for the organization. This task was relinquished in August 2013.
Coordinate the Annual Recognition Banquet or the Village Walk.
Coordinate or attend Men and Boys Unity sessions. My last session as Coordinator will be 31 May 2014.
Coordinate or otherwise participate in the Leadership and Entrepreneurs Camp. The 2014 camp being held 16-27 June will be my last.
Be involved with fundraising except for the 2014 Leadership and Entrepreneurs Camp.
Serve on the Great Oak Board of Directors. I left that position on 31 December 2013.
As of 15 April 2014, volunteer as Director of Operations.
As of 30 April 2014, serve as a Great Oak staff member, have any role in leading the organization or in day-to-day operations.
It has been a pleasure and a tremendous experience to be a part of Great Oak's journey from inception to this point. I look forward to building a gardening effort that, joined with the chess club endeavor, contributes to continued movement toward Great Oak's mission of building foundations on which boys may achieve and succeed in life.
No words are sufficient for me to thank those of you receiving this email. Your support has been and remains essential to the work and impact of Great Oak. Thank you very much.
Karl W. Merritt
© 2021 KARL W MERRITT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
website hosted by Biz Tools One


Marvel's Black Panther series just gets doper and doper. The comic book company's new promotional video for its "A Nation Under Our Feet" storyline features a song by DJ Jazzy Jeff and Rhymefest called "No Fear."
You can view the clip above via YouTube. The video serves as part six in Marvel's Black Panther series, which follows the protagonist/super hero, T'Challa.
There's been a ton of crossover between Marvel Comics and the hip-hop world recently. Marvel has been dropping dope variant covers, blending classic hip-hop albums with classic superheroes. Additionally, the new Marvel show Luke Cage features a bunch of rap, including music from Wu-Tang. Back in July, Prodigy even got on an EDM beat and spit bars for part two of the Black Panther series.
The YouTube description states, "Within Marvel Comics' Black Panther, written by The Atlantic national correspondent and National Book Award winner, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Black Panther confronts a dramatic upheaval in Wakanda that will make leading the African nation tougher than ever before! With no one left to trust, T'Challa leans the only people he can trust: Luke Cage, Misty Knight, and Storm. But Wakanda may be too far gone for this all-new, all different CREW."


We welcome you to southeast Louisiana where the pace of life is like the flow of the bayou – slow and steady.
The tranquil and serene landscape here is not like most imagine, …and yet maybe it is. Thousands of acres of bald cypress-water tupelo swamp, fresh and salt-water marshes, and barrier island beaches extend as far as the eye can see. It is the productive nature of these habitats, our geography, and the influence of the mighty Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers that make this part of Louisiana – the sportsman paradise.
Check out our brochure highlighting our Prothonotary Warbler Conservation & Monitoring project and get to know Galadriel, a female Prothonotary Warbler.
Our untold story. . .or one of America's best kept secrets. . .are the accounts that can be told about the vast natural resources of Barataria-Terrebonne, particularly those that involve our feathered friends.
These natural resources, supported by the many different habitats found throughout southeast Louisiana are demonstrated in part by the millions of birds that spend their life here.
Do you know that approximately 400 different species of birds are known to have occurred in the Barataria-Terrebonne system? Of this number, it is thought that nearly 200 species are considered common to abundant at least during part of the year. Sixty-four of these species are considered residents – year round inhabitants of southeast Louisiana.
Discover what our Migratory and Residential Bird Program has been up to!


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Q: Find all possible unique path in mXn matrix Help me in finding all possible path to reach bottom right most cell from top left most cell in mXn matrix.
Below are the restrictions,

*

*Can not visit the cell which is already visited.

*Should visit all cell before reaching exit i.e. bottom right most cell.

Tried few logic's but not able to get all paths. Thanks

A: The simplest idea is to recursively try every possible non-self-crossing path, and every time such a path hits the bottom-right corner check whether it's length equals the number of all cells.
Here comes a very naive [and thus slow and memory-consuming] implementation in js (judging by your profile you know js), just to point the algorithm in a formal, unequivocal way. You're interested in the "OK, let's do this!" part, before are only some helpers to make this example actually executable:
function paths(M,N) {
    // is given pos present in list of poss?
    var pos_member = function(pos,poss) {
        for(var i=0;i<poss.length;i++)
            if(pos[0]==poss[i][0] && pos[1]==poss[i][1])
                return true;
        return false;
    };
    // all positions present in poss1 and not in poss2:
    var positions_diff = function(poss1,poss2) {
        var poss_d = [];
        for(var i=0;i<poss1.length;i++)
            if(pos_member(poss1[i],poss2)==false)
                poss_d.unshift(poss1[i]);
        return poss_d;
    };
    // where can you go from [x,y] ?
    var all_next_positions = function([x,y]) {
        var poss = [];
        // assuming no diagonal moves are allowed;
        // otherwise add 4 more next possible positions.
        if(x > 0) poss.unshift([x-1,y]);
        if(x < M-1) poss.unshift([x+1,y]);
        if(y > 0) poss.unshift([x,y-1]);
        if(y < N-1) poss.unshift([x,y+1]);
        return poss;
    };

    //////// OK, let's do this! //////////////////////////////////
    var pending = [ [[0,0]] ]; // pending partial paths (looks like an owl statring at you, doesn't it?)
    var results = []; // corect paths found so far

    while(pending.length>0) {
        var current = pending.shift();
        var last_pos = current[0];
        if(last_pos[0]==M-1 && last_pos[1]==N-1) {
            /// it reaached the goal, but did it visit all the cells?
            if(current.length == M*N) /// yes it did, so keep it.
                results.unshift(current);
        } else {
            /// keep going...
            var next_poss = positions_diff(all_next_positions(last_pos), current);
            for(var i=0;i<next_poss.length;i++) {
                var candidate = current.slice(0); /// clone, because call by reference is evil.
                candidate.unshift(next_poss[i]);
                pending.unshift(candidate);
            }
        }
    }
    return results;
}

For sure you want to represent positions differently, and for larger "matrices" you'd have to get rid of "wrong paths" asap., but hope this gets you started somewhere.


text:
OCCU
OCCUP
OCCUPA
OCCUPAT
Occupational Safety and Health Administration explained
Agency Name: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Formed: (as Bureau of Labor Standards)
Jurisdiction: Federal government of the United States
Headquarters: Frances Perkins Building
Employees: 2,265 (2015)[1]
Budget: $591,787,000 (2021)
Chief1 Name: Douglas L. Parker, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health
Parent Department: United States Department of Labor
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is a large regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces.[2] Congress established the agency under the Occupational Safety and Health Act OSH Act, which President Richard M. Nixon signed into law on December 29, 1970. OSHA's mission is to "assure safe and healthy working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance".[3] The agency is also charged with enforcing a variety of whistleblower statutes and regulations. OSHA's workplace safety inspections have been shown to reduce injury rates and injury costs without adverse effects to employment, sales, credit ratings or firm survival.[4]
The Bureau of Labor Standards of the Department of Labor worked on some work safety issues since its creation in 1922. Economic boom and associated labor turnover during World War II worsened work safety in nearly all areas of the United States economy, but after 1945 accidents again declined as long-term forces reasserted themselves. Additionally, new and powerful labor unions played an increasingly important role in worker safety post-World War II. In the 1960s, increasing economic expansion again led to rising injury rates, and the resulting political pressures led Congress to establish[5] the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on April 28, 1971, the date that the Occupational Health and Safety Act became effective.[6] The new agency incorporated much of what had been the Bureau of Labor Standards. George Guenther was appointed as the agency's first director.
OSHA has run a number of training, compliance assistance, and health and safety recognition programs throughout its history. The OSHA Training Institute, which trains government and private sector health and safety personnel, began in 1972. In 1978, the agency began a grantmaking program, now called the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, to train workers and employers in reducing workplace hazards. OSHA started the Voluntary Protection Programs in 1982, which allow employers to apply as "model workplaces" to achieve special designation if they meet certain requirements.
OSHA Act coverage
The OSHA Act covers most private sector employers and their workers, in addition to some public sector employers and workers in the 50 states and certain territories and jurisdictions under federal authority. Those jurisdictions include the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Wake Island, Johnston Island, and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands as defined in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
Private sector employers
The OSHA Act covers most private sector employers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and other U.S. jurisdictions—either directly through federal OSHA or through an OSHA-approved state plan.
State plans are OSHA-approved job safety and health programs operated by individual states instead of federal OSHA. Federal OSHA approves and monitors all state plans and provides as much as fifty percent of the funding for each program. State-run safety and health programs are required to be at least as effective as the federal OSHA program.
The following 22 states or territories have OSHA-approved state programs: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.[7]
Federal OSHA provides coverage to certain workplaces specifically excluded from a state's plan — for example, work in maritime industries or on military bases.
State and local governments
Workers at state and local government agencies are not covered by federal OSHA but have OSH Act protections if they work in those states that have an OSHA-approved state program. OSH Act rules also permit states and territories to develop plans that cover only public sector (state and local government) workers. In these cases, private sector workers and employers remain under federal OSHA jurisdiction. Five additional states and one U.S. territory have OSHA approved state plans that cover public sector workers only: Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, New York, and the Virgin Islands.
Federal government agencies
OSHA's protection applies to all federal agencies. Section 19 of the OSH Act makes federal agency heads responsible for providing safe and healthful working conditions for their workers. OSHA conducts inspections of federal facilities in response to workers' reports of hazards and under programs that target high-hazard federal workplaces.[8]
Federal agencies must have a safety and health program that meets the same standards as private employers. OSHA issues "virtual fines" to federal agencies – following an inspection where violations are found, OSHA issues a press release stating the size the fine would be if the federal agency were a private sector employer. Under a 1998 amendment, the OSHA Act covers the U.S. Postal Service the same as any private sector employer.
Not covered under the OSH Act
The OSH Act does not cover the self-employed, immediate family members of farm employers, or workplace hazards regulated by another federal agency (for example, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the Department of Energy, or Coast Guard).[9]
Rights and responsibilities under OSH Act law
Employers have the responsibility to provide a safe workplace.[10]
By law, employers must provide their workers with a workplace that does not have serious hazards and must follow all OSH Act safety and health standards. Employers must find and correct safety and health problems. The OSH Act further requires that employers must first try to eliminate or reduce hazards by making feasible changes in working conditions rather than relying on personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, or earplugs. Switching to safer chemicals, enclosing processes to trap harmful fumes, or using ventilation systems to clean the air are examples of effective ways to eliminate or reduce risks.
Employers must also:
Inform workers about chemical hazards through training, labels, alarms, color-coded systems, chemical information sheets and other methods.
Provide safety training to workers in a language and vocabulary they can understand.[11]
Keep accurate records of work-related injuries and illnesses.
Perform tests in the workplace, such as air sampling, required by some OSH Act standards.
Provide required personal protective equipment at no cost to workers. (Employers must pay for most types of required personal protective equipment.)[12] [13]
Provide hearing exams or other medical tests when required by OSH Act standards.
Post OSHA citations and annually post injury and illness summary data where workers can see them.[14] [15] [16]
Notify OSHA within eight hours of a workplace fatality. Notify OSHA within 24 hours of all work-related inpatient hospitalizations.
Prominently display the official OSHA Job Safety and Health – It's the Law poster[17] that describes rights and responsibilities under the OSH Act.
Not retaliate or discriminate against workers[18] for using their rights under the law, including their right to report a work-related injury or illness.
Workers have the right to:[19]
Working conditions that do not pose a risk of serious harm.
File a confidential complaint with OSHA to have their workplace inspected.[20]
Receive information and training about hazards, methods to prevent harm, and the OSH Act standards that apply to their workplace. The training must be done in a language and vocabulary workers can understand.
Receive copies of records of work-related injuries and illnesses that occur in their workplace.
Receive copies of the results from tests and monitoring done to find and measure hazards in their workplace.
Receive copies of their workplace medical records.
Participate in an OSHA inspection and speak in private with the inspector.
File a complaint with OSHA if they have been retaliated or discriminated against by their employer as the result of requesting an inspection or using any of their other rights under the OSH Act.
File a complaint if punished or retaliated against for acting as a "whistleblower" under the 21 additional federal laws for which OSHA has jurisdiction.
Temporary workers must be treated like permanent employees. Staffing agencies and host employers share a joint accountability over temporary workers. Both entities are therefore bound to comply with workplace health and safety requirements and to ensure worker safety and health. OSHA could hold both the host and temporary employers responsible for the violation of any condition.[21]
Health and safety standards
The Occupational Safety and Health Act grant OSHA the authority to issue workplace health and safety regulations. These regulations include limits on hazardous chemical exposure, employee access to hazard information, requirements for the use of personal protective equipment, and requirements to prevent falls and hazards from operating dangerous equipment.
The OSH Act's current Construction, General Industry, Maritime, and Agriculture standards[22] are designed to protect workers from a wide range of serious hazards. Examples of OSHA standards include requirements for employers to provide fall protection such as a safety harness/line or guardrails; prevent trenching cave-ins; prevent exposure to some infectious diseases; ensure the safety of workers who enter confined spaces; prevent exposure to harmful chemicals; put guards on dangerous machines; provide respirators or other safety equipment; and provide training for certain dangerous jobs in a language and vocabulary workers can understand.
OSHA sets enforceable permissible exposure limits (PELs) to protect workers against the health effects of exposure to hazardous substances, including limits on the airborne concentrations of hazardous chemicals in the air.[23] Most of OSHA's PELs were issued shortly after adoption of the OSH Act in 1970. Attempts to issue more stringent PELs have been blocked by litigation from industry; thus, the vast majority of PELs have not been updated since 1971.[24] The agency has issued non-binding, alternate occupational exposure limits that may better protect workers.[25] [26]
Employers must also comply with the General Duty Clause of the OSH Act. This clause requires employers to keep their workplaces free of serious recognized hazards and is generally cited when no specific OSHA standard applies to the hazard.
In its first year of operation, OSHA was permitted to adopt regulations based on guidelines set by certain standards organizations, such as the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, without going through all of the requirements of a typical rulemaking.OSHA is granted the authority to promulgate standards that prescribe the methods employers are legally required to follow to protect their workers from hazards. Before OSHA can issue a standard, it must go through a very extensive and lengthy process that includes substantial public engagement, notice, and comment. The agency must show that a significant risk to workers exists and that there are feasible measures employers can take to protect their workers.
In 2000, OSHA issued an ergonomics standard. In March 2001, Congress voted to repeal the standard through the Congressional Review Act. The repeal, one of the first major pieces of legislation signed by President George W. Bush, is the first instance that Congress has successfully used the Congressional Review Act to block regulation.
Since 2001, OSHA has issued the following standards:
2002: Exit Routes, Emergency Action Plans, and Fire Prevention Plans
2004: Commercial Diving Operations
2004: Fire Protection in Shipyards
2006: Occupational Exposure to Hexavalent Chromium
2006: Assigned Protection Factors for Respiratory Protection Equipment
2007: Electrical Installation Standard
2007: Personal Protective Equipment Payment (Clarification)
2008: Vertical Tandem Lifts
2010: Cranes and Derricks in Construction
2010: General Working Conditions in Shipyards
2012: GHS Update to the Hazard Communication Standard
2014: New Recordkeeping and Reporting Requirements for Employers
2014: Revision to Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution; Electrical Protective Equipment
2016: Occupational Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica
2016: Update General Industry Walking-Working Surfaces and Fall Protection Standards [27]
OSHA is responsible for enforcing its standards on regulated entities. Compliance Safety and Health Officers carry out inspections and assess fines for regulatory violations. Inspections are planned for worksites in particularly hazardous industries. Inspections can also be triggered by a workplace fatality, multiple hospitalizations, worker complaints, or referrals.
OSHA is a small agency, given the size of its mission: with its state partners, OSHA has approximately 2,400 inspectors covering more than 8 million workplaces where 130 million workers are employed. In Fiscal Year 2012 (ending Sept. 30), OSHA and its state partners conducted more than 83,000 inspections of workplaces across the United States — just a fraction of the nation's worksites.[28] According to a report by AFL–CIO, it would take OSHA 129 years to inspect all workplaces under its jurisdiction.[29]
Enforcement plays an important part in OSHA's efforts to reduce workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. Inspections are initiated without advance notice, conducted using on-site or telephone and facsimile investigations, performed by trained compliance officers and scheduled based on the following priorities [highest to lowest]: imminent danger; catastrophes – fatalities or hospitalizations; worker complaints and referrals; targeted inspections – particular hazards, high injury rates; and follow-up inspections.
Current workers or their representatives may file a complaint and ask OSHA to inspect their workplace if they believe that there is a serious hazard or that their employer is not following OSHA standards. Workers and their representatives have the right to ask for an inspection without OSHA telling their employer who filed the complaint. It is a violation of the OSH Act for an employer to fire, demote, transfer or in any way discriminate against a worker for filing a complaint or using other OSHA rights.
When an inspector finds violations of OSHA standards or serious hazards, OSHA may issue citations and fines. A citation includes methods an employer may use to fix a problem and the date by which the corrective actions must be completed.
OSHA's fines are very low compared with other government agencies. They were raised for the first time since 1990 on Aug. 2, 2016 to comply with the 2015 Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act passed by Congress to advance the effectiveness of civil monetary penalties and to maintain their deterrent effect. The new law directs agencies to adjust their penalties for inflation each year. The maximum OSHA fine for a serious violation is $13,653 (which can be assessed daily after a failure to "abate" the violation) and the maximum fine for a repeat or willful violation is $136,532. In determining the amount of the proposed penalty, OSHA must take into account the gravity of the alleged violation and the employer's size of business, good faith, and history of previous violations. Employers have the right to contest any part of the citation, including whether a violation actually exists.[30] Workers only have the right to challenge the deadline by which a problem must be resolved. Appeals of citations are heard by the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused about 1,300 workers and their families to contract the virus, with four deaths, at the Smithfield Foods packing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The governor, Kristi Noem, resisted initiating and enforcing measures to protect workers and the community. [31] [32] [33] The plant was fined $13,494 - the maximum allowed at the time - by OSHA for what was considered a single violation.[31]
OSHA carries out its enforcement activities through its 10 regional offices and 90 area offices. OSHA's regional offices are located in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Record keeping requirements
Tracking and investigating workplace injuries and illnesses play an important role in preventing future injuries and illnesses. Under OSHA's Recordkeeping regulation, certain covered employers in high hazard industries are required to prepare and maintain records of serious occupational injuries and illnesses. This information is important for employers, workers and OSHA in evaluating the safety of a workplace, understanding industry hazards, and implementing worker protections to reduce and eliminate hazards.
Employers with more than ten employees and whose establishments are not classified as a partially exempt industry must record serious work-related injuries and illnesses using OSHA Forms 300, 300A and 301. Recordkeeping forms, requirements and exemption information are at OSHA's website.[34]
Whistleblower Protection Program
OSHA's Whistleblower Protection Program (WPP) enforces the whistleblower provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and 24 other statutes protecting workers who report violations of various airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health care reform, nuclear, pipeline, public transportation agency, maritime and securities laws. WPP's Investigators (1810) conduct complex investigations pertaining to complaints of retaliation by an employer (Respondent) against an employee (Complainant) who reported a violation(s) covered under one of the 25 statutes. Investigators act as neutral fact-finders; they do not work for either the Complainant or Respondent. Over the years, OSHA's WPP has been responsible for enforcing these laws that protect the rights of workers to speak up without fear of retaliation, regardless of the relationship of these laws to occupational safety and health matters.
OSHA has developed several training, compliance assistance, and health and safety recognition programs throughout its history.
The OSHA Training Institute, which trains government and private sector health and safety personnel, began in 1972.[35] In 1978, the agency began a grant making program, now called the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, to train workers and employers in identifying and reducing workplace hazards.[35]
The Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) recognizes employers and workers in private industry and federal agencies who have implemented effective safety and health management programs and maintain injury and illness rates below the national average for their respective industries. In VPP, management, labor, and OSHA work cooperatively and proactively to prevent fatalities, injuries, and illnesses through a system focused on: hazard prevention and control, worksite analysis, training, and management commitment and worker involvement.[35]
OSHA's On-site Consultation Program offers free and confidential advice to small and medium-sized businesses in all states across the country, with priority given to high-hazard worksites. Each year, responding to requests from small employers looking to create or improve their safety and health management programs, OSHA's On-site Consultation Program conducts over 29,000 visits to small business worksites covering over 1.5 million workers across the nation. On-site consultation services are separate from enforcement and do not result in penalties or citations. Consultants from state agencies or universities work with employers to identify workplace hazards, provide advice on compliance with OSHA standards, and assist in establishing safety and health management programs.[36]
Under the consultation program, certain exemplary employers may request participation in OSHA's Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP). Eligibility for participation includes, but is not limited to, receiving a full-service, comprehensive consultation visit, correcting all identified hazards, and developing an effective safety and health management program. Worksites that receive SHARP recognition are exempt from programmed inspections during the period that the SHARP certification is valid.[37]
OSHA also provides compliance assistance through its national and area offices. Through hundreds of publications in a variety of languages, website safety and health topics pages, and through compliance assistance staff OSHA provides information to employers and workers on specific hazards and OSHA rights and responsibilities.[38]
A 2012 study in Science found that OSHA's random workplace safety inspections caused a "9.4% decline in injury rates" and a "26% reduction in injury cost" for the inspected firms. The study found "no evidence that these improvements came at the expense of employment, sales, credit ratings, or firm survival." A 2020 study in the American Economic Review found that the decision by the Obama administration to issue press releases that named and shamed facilities that violated OSHA safety and health regulations led other facilities to increase their compliance and to experience fewer workplace injuries. The study estimated that each press release had the same effect on compliance as 210 inspections.[39] [40]
Much of the debate about OSHA regulations and enforcement policies revolve around the cost of regulations and enforcement, versus the actual benefit in reduced worker injury, illness and death. A 1995 study of several OSHA standards by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) found that OSHA relies "generally on methods that provide a credible basis for the determinations essential to rulemakings". Though it found that OSHA's findings and estimates are "subject to vigorous review and challenge", it stated that this is natural because "interested parties and experts involved in rulemakings have differing visions".[41]
OSHA has come under considerable criticism for the ineffectiveness of its penalties, particularly its criminal penalties. The maximum penalty is a misdemeanor with a maximum of 6 months in jail.[42] In response to the criticism, OSHA, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, has pursued several high-profile criminal prosecutions for violations under the Act, and has announced a joint enforcement initiative between OSHA and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which has the ability to issue much higher fines than OSHA. Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats, labor unions and community safety and health advocates are attempting to revise the OSH Act to make it a felony with much higher penalties to commit a willful violation that results in the death of a worker. Some local prosecutors are charging company executives with manslaughter and other felonies when criminal negligence leads to the death of a worker.[43]
A New York Times investigation in 2003 showed that over the 20-year period from 1982 to 2002, 2,197 workers died in 1,242 incidents in which OSHA investigators concluded that employers had willfully violated workplace safety laws. In 93% of these fatality cases arising from wilful violation, OSHA made no referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.[44] The Times investigation found that OSHA had failed to pursue prosecution "even when employers had been cited before for the very same safety violation" and even in cases where multiple workers died. In interviews, current and former OSHA officials said that the low rates of criminal enforcement were the result of "a bureaucracy that works at every level to thwart criminal referrals. ... that fails to reward, and sometimes penalizes, those who push too hard for prosecution" and that " aggressive enforcement [was] suffocated by endless layers of review.[44]
OSHA has also been criticized for taking too long to develop new regulations. For instance, speaking about OSHA under the George W. Bush presidency on the specific issue of combustible dust explosions, Chemical Safety Board appointee Carolyn Merritt said: "The basic disappointment has been this attitude of no new regulation. They don't want the industry to be pestered. In some instances, the industry has to be pestered in order to comply."[45]
The director of OSHA is the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.[46]
George Guenther (April 1971 - January 1973)
M. Chain Robbins (Acting, January 1973 - April 1973)
John Stender (April 1973 - July 1975)
Bert Concklin & Marshall Miller (Acting, July 1975 - December 1975)
Morton Corn, December 1975 - January 1977)
Bert Concklin (Acting, January 1977 - April 1977)
Eula Bingham, April 1977 - January 1981)
David Zeigler (Acting, January 1981 - March 1981)
Thorne G. Auchter, March 1981 - April 1984)
Patrick Tyson (Acting, April 1984 - July 1984)
Robert A. Rowland (Recess appointment; never confirmed, July 1984 - July 1985)
Patrick Tyson (Acting, July 1985 - May 1986)
John A. Pendergrass (May 1986 - March 1989)
Alan C. McMillan (Acting, April 1989 - October 1989)
Gerard F. Scannell (October 1989 - January 1992)
Dorothy L. Strunk (Acting, January 1992 - January 1993)
David Zeigler (Acting, January 1993 - November 1993)
Joseph A. Dear (November 1993 - January 1997)
Gregory R. Watchman (Acting, January 1997 - November 1997)
Charles N. Jeffress (November 1997 - January 2001)
R. Davis Layne (Acting, January 2001 - August 2001)
John L. Henshaw (August 2001 - December 2004)
Jonathan L. Snare (Acting, January 2005 - April 2006)
Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. (April 2006 - November 2008)
Thomas M. Stohler (Acting, November 2008 – January 2009)
Donald Shalhoub (Acting, January 2009 - April 2009)
Jordan Barab (Acting, April 2009 - December 2009)
David Michaels (December 2009 - January 2017)
Loren Sweatt (Acting, September 2017 - November 2017; February 2018 - May 2019)
James Frederick (Acting, April 2021 - November 2021)
Douglas L. Parker (November 2021 - present)
Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations
American Society of Safety Engineers
Voluntary Protection Programs Participants' Association
Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)
MIOSHA
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
Occupational fatality
Oregon OSHA
Regulatory Flexibility Act
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Department of Labor Budget in Brief, FY2013
OSHA - Current 29 CFR Books in Digital Format
OSHA - List of Highly Hazardous Chemicals
OSHA in the Federal Register
OSHA account on USAspending.gov
Occupational Safety and Health Act (PDF/details) as amended in the GPO Statute Compilations collection
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Web site: FY 2015 Department of Labor Budget in Brief.
Van Loo. Rory. 2018-08-01. Regulatory Monitors: Policing Firms in the Compliance Era. Faculty Scholarship.
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Levine. David I.. Toffel. Michael W.. Johnson. Matthew S.. 2012-05-18. Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss. Science. en. 336. 6083. 907–911. 10.1126/science.1215191. 0036-8075. 22605775. 2012Sci...336..907L. 17363586.
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Web site: Reflections on OSHA's History. January 2009. Department of Labor. 2015-03-22. 2018-06-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20180622060157/https://www.osha.gov/history/OSHA_HISTORY_3360s.pdf. dead.
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Web site: Job Safety and Health: It's the Law Poster.
Web site: The Whistleblower Protection Program.
Web site: Worker's Rights.
Web site: How to File a Confidential Complaint with OSHA.
Web site: Temporary Workers.
Web site: OSHA Law and Regulations.
Book: Maxwell, Nancy Irwin. Understanding Environmental Health. Jones & Bartlett . 2014. Burlington. 226. 9781449647704.
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Book: Hill. Robert H. Jr.. Finster. David C.. Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students. John Wiley & Sons. 2016. 103. 9781119243380.
Web site: Permissible Exposure Limits – Annotated Tables.
Web site: Final Rule to Update General Industry Walking-Working Surfaces and Fall Protection Standards - Occupational Safety and Health Administration. www.osha.gov.
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https://www.kansascity.com/news/coronavirus/article245633785.html After COVID-19 outbreak kills 4, Smithfield meat plant in South Dakota fined $13,494
News: Trevor J. . Mitchell . Noem 'disappointed' Smithfield isn't sharing reopening plans . May 4, 2020 . . en . September 13, 2020.
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Johnson. Matthew S.. 2020. Regulation by Shaming: Deterrence Effects of Publicizing Violations of Workplace Safety and Health Laws. American Economic Review. en. 110. 6. 1866–1904. 10.1257/aer.20180501. 0002-8282. free.
News: When It Comes to Workplace Safety, Shaming Works. Bloomberg.com. 9 March 2020. 2020-05-28.
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David Barstow, U.S. Rarely Seeks Charges For Deaths in Workplace, New York Times (December 22, 2003).
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Occupational Safety and Health Administration".


The market is estimated to be worth USD 75 billion in 2013, and expected to be the second largest in the world by 2017 at USD 160 billion, with average annual growth over the decade five times higher than that of the global pharmaceutical sector.
The industry is composed of very different players, whose average operating margins are still very low (between 3% and 4%) in relation to their Western rivals.
The distribution is almost exclusively via wholesalers (~15% of the market) or retail pharmacies systematically associated with a hospital (obliged by law), usually a public hospital.


text:
Baden-péceli kultúrának vagy  baden-kultúrának nevezik a késő rézkor uralkodó kárpát-medencei kultúráját az ausztriai Baden lelőhelyről, az ausztriai lelőhely mellett a magyarországi Pécel lelőhely fontosságát is hangsúlyozva. A Magyarország története. I. Előzmények és magyar történet 1242-ig 1. kötetében viszont megkérdőjeleződik a badeni és a péceli kultúra közötti egység és a Magyarország területén élt késő rézkori kultúrát következetesen péceli kultúrának nevezi a szerző. A továbbiak e kötet "Késő rézkor" fejezetének részbeni átvétele.

A péceli kultúra emberei a Duna, illetve a Tisza mentén halászattal, a síkságokon és az áradmányos területeken földműveléssel és járulékos állattartással foglalkoztak. A hegy és dombvidékeken, nem ritkán pedig a hegyek csúcsain az állattartók erődített falvakban éltek. Az állattartásban meghatározó volt a szarvasmarhatartás.

Budakalászon a kultúrához tartozó temetőben 439 sírt találtak, a temető alapján feltételezhetjük, hogy a környéken letelepült parasztok éltek, az Alföldön kisebb temetőt találtak (Alsónémedi, 40 sír), ahová valószínűleg csak egy kisebb vándorló csoport temetkezett.
A fejlődésben legmesszebbre egy délebbi (a mai Magyarország területén kívül eső) csoport jutott. A Kárpát-medence történetében először tűnik fel a közösség telepétől mesterségesen elhatárolt, erődített főnöki vár.
A társadalmi tagozódás jeleit mutatják a síksági pásztorcsoportok sírjai is. A pásztorcsoportok vezetői mellé 2-2 tehenet és szakrális jelentőségű úgynevezett kétosztású tálat temettek. E temetkezési szokás északi eredetre utal.
Korántsem figyelhető meg hasonló rétegződés a földműves-állattartó falvakban.

A kultúrát sajátos bőrutánzó edényformák, balták, pattintott kőnyílhegyek, csont- és rézárak jellemzik. Megjelennek a méltóságjelvények is. A Vörsön eltemetett főnök vagy varázsló-pap ókori keleti típusú vagy eredetű rézdiadémot viselt. Az ausztriai késő badeni előkelők is ókori keleti méltóságjelvényeket, réz nyakpereceket viseltek.
Az európai művelődéstörténet felbecsülhetetlen jelentőségű lelete a budakalászi négykerekű szekérmodell (2007-ben Balatonöszödön már a 11. badeni-péceli szekérmodellt tárták fel). Ezek a négykerekű szekerek használatának első bizonyítékai a kontinens belsejében.

Jegyzetek

További információk
 Hétköznapok és vallásos élet a rézkor végén. A Baden-kultúra 5000 éves emlékei Budapesten. A Budapesti Történeti Múzeum időszaki kiállítása. 2004. december–2005. március; szerk. Endrődi Anna; BTM, Budapest, 2004
 György László: A Baden-kultúra telepe Mezőkövesd-Nagy-Fertőn; HOM, Miskolc, 2008 (Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén megye régészeti emlékei)
 Horváth Tünde: Ózd csodálatos földje. A Baden-kultúra Ózd-Piliny variánsa Északkelet-Magyarországon; közrem. Bernert Zsolt, Buzár Ágota; Martin Opitz, Budapest, 2018 (Opitz archaeologica)

Magyarországi régészeti kultúrák
Európai régészeti kultúrák
Rézkori kultúrák

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Author 19/09/2018	politicalscience
His dissertation, situated on the intersection of normative political concept, religious studies, and comparative politics, examines the non secular or religious claims of prominent twentieth-century civil disobedients. His analysis and teaching interests embrace fashionable and up to date political concept, post-colonial political theory, theories of secularization, and civic training. By completing an undergraduate main in political science, you will acquire a sophisticated understanding of political processes. Perhaps more importantly, our main is designed to develop crucial and independent considering, to hone your writing and communication abilities, and to give you analytical instruments. Upon graduation, our majors are extremely successful and pursue careers in diverse fields, including non-governmental and public curiosity organizations, think tanks, consulting, journalism, communications, local, state, and federal government, polling corporations, finance, and business management.
The Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt is characterised by a mix of academic pluralism and excellence in research which is unique in Germany. The Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt is the largest of its kind in Germany. It provides varied and differentiated research programmes with a robust research focus in all sub-areas of the discipline. She accomplished an MA in worldwide affairs in 2005 and a PhD in political science in 2015, both from Loyola University Chicago. Lebamoff is active in several skilled associations, together with the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, for which she served as secretariat director for six years; the European Research Group on Military and Society; and the International Studies Association.
Academic Area
ISBNÂ 978-0-7618-1171-8. Government and politics is utilized by the University of Maryland, College Park. See, e.g., the department of Political Science at Marist College, part of a Division of Humanities before that division grew to become the School of Liberal Arts (c. 2000).
…although one would possibly allege the identical for social science as an entire, political scientists receive funding from and play an lively role in both the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities [in the United States]. Furthermore, political science is related to, and attracts upon, the fields of economics, legislation, sociology, historical past, philosophy, geography, psychology/psychiatry, anthropology and neurosciences.
We show that there is more non secular range amongst Latinos than is often acknowledged in studies of Latino politics and that the political significance of religion amongst Latinos has not been adequately assessed as a result of variation past a Catholic/non-Catholic dichotomy has been ignored. We show that variation in Latino spiritual affiliation has important political implications. The Specialisation Section deepens and enhances the already acquired knowledge within the area of political science. This part also consists of 36 credit score points, nine of which shall be obtained via a colloquium.
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Eleanor Goodman's first collection of poetry, Nine Dragon Island (Enclave/Zephyr, 2016), was a finalist for the Drunken Boat First Book Prize.' Her translation of Something Crosses My Mind: Selected Poems of Wang Xiaoni (Zephyr, 2014) was the winner of the 2015 Lucien Stryk Prize and the recipient of a 2013 PEN/Heim Translation Grant. She is the translator of the anthology Iron Moon: Chinese Worker Poetry (White Pine, 2017), The Roots of Wisdom: Poems by Zang Di (Zephyr, 2017), and Days When I Hide My Corpse in a Cardboard Box: Poems of Natalia Chan (Zephyr, 2018). She is a Research Associate at the Harvard University Fairbank Center.


text:
The world press on the war
Inside a fetid Iraqi torture chamber, the BBC discovers the discarded identity cards of dozens of men.
By Compiled by Laura McClure
Published April 3, 2003 7:46PM (EST)
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United Kingdom, Tom Newton Dunn for the BBC
Their faces stared up at me in black and white, snap shots of individual lives frozen in time.
Dozens and dozens of Iraqi national identity cards were spread across the chief of police's abandoned large oak desk.
All of them were men, aged between around 20 and 50 -- people's sons, husbands, brothers, or fathers.
In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it is a crime not to carry these identity cards wherever you go, a crime punishable by imprisonment.
We stopped to think why these dozens of men did not need their ID cards anymore.
A young Royal Marine found them in a large bundle tied roughly with string during a search of Abu al Khasib's police station on Tuesday afternoon, in one of the police chief's bottom drawers gathering dust.
It almost looked like his own sick personal collection ...
The commandos and I knew there was something strange about the police station as we approached it.
Fortified by sand bags, the grim-looking two-story concrete block was one of only two buildings in the town locals did not want to go into to loot, along with the Baath Party's abandoned local headquarters.
Neither did any of the small quiet crowd who had gathered in the street to watch the men from Alpha Company force entry into it want to tell us anything about it ...
Only after darkness fell did a man in his 30s approach the gates of 40 Commando's new headquarters in an old Iraqi army barracks on the town's outskirts.
Giving his name as Dofia Abdullah, and saying he had important information, he said: "The Baath Party were bad people, they used to hurt people inside the police station.
"You say bad words about Saddam, they take you in there and you never come out ...
At almost the end of the long building's left corridor, we found the first cell.
A damp, eight foot by four foot hole with no natural or artificial light in it at all, and just a soiled pillow and filthy blanket on the floor for furniture.
It was the first of six just like it, some bigger, some even smaller, sealed by bolts from the outside attached to heavy metal or steel cage doors, and all of them disgustingly filthy ...
In another cell, a meat hook hung from the ceiling, and in another a discarded thick line of hose pipe sat idle on the floor, with no water taps for it to attach to anywhere in sight.
Only one, the biggest, had the very roughest approximation of a toilet in it, a squat hole in the ground that judging by the dark, putrid grunge over-flowing from it had not been flushed in months.
But the last room we saw upstairs, again at the end of a corridor, initially left us totally bewildered.
Unlike every other room on the second floor, it was empty, apart from two old rubber car tyres and a long electric cable lead attached to the mains supply, and still live.
The room's likely purpose was explained later, after we had asked around the Commando for a bit, by a Royal Marine officer who had spent some time in the Balkans on UN service.
He said: "Two tyres and an electric cable is something we came across a lot in Bosnia.
"The interrogator would stand on them while prodding the captive with the live cable so his own feet were insulated from the high voltage by the rubber ...
"Electrocution is not only incredibly painful, but also very frightening, and the interrogators usually get more out of the shock effect of it rather than the actual pain the burns cause."
The normally jovial and chatty troop of commandos filed out and blocked the police station's doors in total silence.
Jordan, Rami G. Khouri in the Jordan Times
The Iraqi man who detonated a car bomb that killed himself and four American soldiers last week seems to have ushered in a dramatic new phase of the war in Iraq, with consequent bad news for Iraqis and the Anglo-American invasion force. We should deal carefully with hyperbole that speaks of thousands of Arab suicide bombers who have gone to Iraq to attack the Anglo-Americans. Some will do so, for sure, but most probably reflect the heightened emotions of the moment, defined by a profound wave of what looks, sounds and feels like a form of anti-colonial resistance sweeping much of the Arab world.
The suicide bomber who killed himself and the four American soldiers certainly defined his act as one of resistance to occupation, while the Anglo-Americans saw it as an act of terror ...
The suicide bomber has led American and British troops to be much more careful about coming into contact with Iraqis. The troops are more nervous and more trigger happy, as we witnessed when American soldiers shot and killed a number of women and children in a van at a checkpoint Monday. Television pictures show columns of young American and British troops walking through Iraqi villages with their guns drawn and loaded. Men who approach the soldiers have to take their shirts off, to show that they are not carrying bombs. Troops break down doors and rush into Iraqi houses, guns drawn and sometimes blazing. Anglo-American guns shell entire Iraqi neighbourhoods. Tommy Franks, welcome to Nablus.
The Anglo-American army in Iraq is dangerously close to joining an ignominious list of modern occupation armies that generated fierce resistance among the local population, sought unsuccessfully to stay in place by the force of their superior firepower, and ultimately were driven out, dropped their imperial adventure, and returned home. The three most glaring examples of this cycle in recent memory are probably the Americans in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan, and the Israelis in South Lebanon. The Anglo-Americans in Iraq may join this grim roster of defeated occupiers.
Given the compelling historical lessons of the three other east, west and central Asian lands of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Lebanon, one would be a fool to be dazzled by the power and determination of a mighty nation that sends its army into distant Asian adventures. We should remember that these three other failed Asian episodes started with a superior military power occupying another land while repeating pleasant sounding rationales about security, democracy, liberation, prosperity and defending freedom. They all ended in humiliating failure at the hands of invaded men and women whose will to resist was greater than the invader's will to persist. The actions of both sides in the coming weeks may well reveal if we are moving in this direction.
France, Henri Tincq in Le Monde
"Crusade" against "jihad"? Faced with the war in Iraq's risks of getting bogged down, the feared scenario of a religious confrontation seems already in place. From one side, calls to prayer and fasting, constant references to the Bible ... In a parallel way, Saddam Hussein is happy to drape himself in the garments of a modern Saladin and to demand God as a witness to the aggression of the "the impious" on his territory ...
One cannot do other than shiver before such a vulgar instrumentalization of the name of God and of religious themes in the Eastern cradle of the three great monotheisms.
For the reader of the Koran or the Gospel, nothing is more indefensible than this manner of invoking God in every instance, giving God's endorsement for human decisions, sometimes among those the most criminal, to confuse faith, weapons, and right.
The faithful, like the agnostic, knows that God offers no protection against the temptation of Totalitarianism ... Gott mit uns: in the name of God, people have tortured, murdered, subjugated their consciences, destroyed countries, attempted to exterminate the Jewish people.
His father an Episcopalian, George Bush Junior belongs to the United Methodist Church of the United States, as do Dick Cheney, his Vice-President, and Andrew Card, the White House Chief-of-Staff. Condoleezza Rice is herself the daughter of a minister. Even though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld does not make a show of religious conviction, one is tempted to write that the fate of America is in the hands of a little group of Protestant bigots.
But how should the America of the depths, shaken by the cataclysm of September 11, attached to symbols as powerful as the "In God we trust" on the greenback, attached to all the affirmations about the role of the United States as a "moral and universal" nation, not identify itself with "this God who legitimizes and supports the American nation, along a Providentialist register that reaches beyond any confessional cleavages", as Sebastian Fath, a French researcher specialized in Protestantism in the United States, asks?
Even the secular Saddam Hussein has always sought to provide religious legitimacy and cover for his conflicts....
But between American Evangelical Christian fundamentalism, which is gaining in the Christian sphere, and Islamic fundamentalism, two visions clash that are both founded on cartoon discourse, savage exegesis, and perversions of sacred writings. And if the religious dimension of this war is certainly now neither the most immediate nor decisive, it could still serve tomorrow as a burning ember of unforeseeable consequences.
India, Indrajit Hazra in the Hindustan Times
For five minutes or 20 -- depending on whether you've been unconvinced or not by the arguments cited by the Bush administration for invading Iraq -- try and forget why you oppose or support the war. Much will continue to be written along that frontline, despite the fact that no matter what you read or hear, you are very unlikely to change your position on the matter now.
Instead, let's move on to the subject of the unprecedented images of war that television viewers are now spectators to. A slew of disturbing visuals has led some to coin the term 'war porno' -- more of a moral tag than a real description. But it can't be denied that as the war is piped live into households, TV viewers have been left shocked and awestruck (dictionary meaning: filled by an emotion compounded of dread and wonder) at being transported up-close and personal to the theatre of war...
Is it so surprising (and despicable, as some suggest) that TV viewers end up comparing a real war with pretend-wars? For most people -- and this is not applicable to the many who live in the real war zones of West Asia or Africa -- movies provide the only yardstick to measure a real war.
Just before the ongoing war in Iraq, young American soldiers in camps in Kuwait reportedly watched war movies (ironically, they're supposed to be 'anti-war' movies) like "We Were Soldiers," "Full Metal Jacket" and "Apocalypse Now" for inspiration. This was a strange piece of news: first-time soldiers preparing to imitate art that imitates life -- and death ...
The updated-since-the-last-update visuals of the ongoing war lacks the running thread that tells 'the story'. Part of this vacuum is filled up by commentary -- hardly of the same narrative class that a rich-in-details and as-close-to-the-real-thing that, say, "Saving Private Ryan" is ...
All this is, of course, besides the point for most people watching the war on Arab TV channels. For them, the yardstick isn't "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Band of Brothers." Al Jazeera viewers are used to seeing images that are far more disturbing than those shown in the most 'realistic' Hollywood war movies -- never mind 'real war visuals' aired on western TV channels. Unlike Americans -- who, incidentally, last witnessed a real war in their backyard during their Civil War -- their counterparts sitting in Baghdad don't need make-believe models to compare with their war coverage.
United Kingdom, Elaine Monaghan in the Times
A new chapter opened yesterday in the battle for control of U.S. policy in postwar Iraq.
A U.S. official told The Times that Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, was resisting State Department appointments to the administration-in-waiting, at least one of whom is already in Kuwait.
He said that the Pentagon had ruled that Mr. Rumsfeld should personally approve appointments to the temporary U.S.-British administration, "and there are many people who question his authority to take that decision, including, I assume, the Secretary of State".
Of Colin Powell's nominees, he added: "We haven t gotten a no, we just haven't gotten an answer (from the Pentagon)."
He said that it was unclear how the row would end as the decision-making process was in flux. "The White House has to step in. One of the variables is Mr. Tony Blair. Once again, he will be a critical voice in all of this," he said.
Barbara Bodine, an experienced U.S. diplomat expected to take the job of administering Baghdad, is in Kuwait waiting to enter Iraq. U.S. officials have said that an inter-agency tussle is going on over whether she should get that job or a national position as coordinator of the civil administration, for which Michael Mobbs, a Pentagon lawyer, was the favourite ...
The row boils down to control over policy-making on Iraq in the postwar phase, with the State Department anxious to create an environment that is more acceptable to foreign countries while the Pentagon is anxious to stay in control.
Critics of the Bush Administration's neo-conservative wing, which dominates the Pentagon, say that its ranks are anxious to build a new Iraq in the image of the United States, using Westernised Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi, a favourite of the Pentagon who is disliked by the State Department. The differences over how to involve Mr. Chalabi, the Iraqi opposition leader, have raged for months.
Meanwhile, General Powell and Mr. Blair are trying to secure a prominent role for the United Nations in an attempt to avoid further alienating U.S. allies in Europe. State Department moderates are hoping that Mr. Blair can repeat his apparent diplomatic success in keeping the Middle East peace process high up on President Bush s priority list by getting him to intervene in the State Department-Pentagon spat.
Australia, Peter Wilson in the Australian
Ali is one of the many young men of military age who have special reason to flee Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his most hardline troops.
The 27-year-old university graduate arrived at the southern border town of Umm Qasr yesterday with six young friends hoping to find asylum in Kuwait or "any other safe country" that would accept them.
Well groomed, nicely spoken, middle class and obviously afraid, they stood out in this rough port town. We were standing on a street corner where a few locals were milling about, and Ali stopped talking whenever prying ears came within hearing range.
When he realised he had approached a journalist rather than the sort of foreigner who might have the power to get him out of the country, he hesitated nervously but continued talking for a while to explain himself. "Our families are all still in Basra but they told us to go so we would not be taken by the army," he said. "They make you fight and if you won't, they kill you.
"There is already shooting and looting and shortages of water and food but things are getting much worse for young men because they have started to round us up."
When a good friend was seized in his home, the seven young men decided to take their chances. They left Basra at dawn, sneaking out through friends' homes to avoid roadblocks.
"If the soldiers see young men leaving they accuse you of being traitors and abandoning your city. It is very dangerous."
They then paid for a lift to the southern border, about 60km away.
A trained physical education teacher who has been able to find work only as a labourer, Ali has the same aspirations as many young men in the developed world.
"I have had enough of Iraq. I have no future here. I want to work and study more and be able to live freely, and travel to many countries. Here there is nothing for us so we have to go out of the country."
Asked whether he would stay and help rebuild Iraq if the U.S.-led coalition succeeded in overthrowing Hussein, Ali said yes -- but was strongly sceptical.
"Of course we would rather stay -- why would we want to go away from our families? But I just don't believe that things are going to change.
"Things might improve but they might not and it could take a very long time. And I only have one life to live."
Saudi Arabia, Naseer Al-Nahr in the Arab News
Thirty-three people, including women and children, died and 310 were wounded in a coalition bombing on the outskirts of the farming town of Hilla, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital yesterday, local hospital director Murtada Abbas said.
He was speaking at the Hilla Hospital where a large number of children lay wounded under blankets on the floor due to a shortage of beds.
Fifteen members of one family were killed nearby late Monday when their pickup truck was blown up by a rocket from a U.S. Apache helicopter in the region of Haidariya near Hilla, the sole survivor of the attack said.
Razek Al-Kazem Al-Khafaji, sitting among 15 coffins in the local hospital, said he lost his wife, six children, his father, his mother, his three brothers and their wives.
The British and U.S. airstrikes on this city accounted for a further 19 people dead and more than 100 wounded since Monday evening, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf said on the 13th day of the U.S.-led attempt to unseat Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq. U.S. troops admitted killing seven women and children when they opened fire Monday on a civilian vehicle at a military checkpoint manned by the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division at Najaf, 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of Baghdad...
U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, speaking at operational headquarters in Qatar, said U.S. troops opened fire "as a last resort" after the civilian vehicle failed to stop at a military post despite repeated warning shots fired by U.S. troops. Four people in the vehicle escaped unharmed. The Washington Post quoted U.S. Army 3rd Division Capt. Ronny Johnson as shouting over the radio to his men after the shooting: "You just (expletive) killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough." A U.S. military investigation has been opened.
In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said U.S. President George W. Bush regretted the deaths of Iraqi civilians but "recognizes that most innocents have been lost in this war at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen".
Hong Kong, Marwaan Macan-Markar in Asia Times
While the U.S.-led war on Iraq may not yet have succeeded in its stated aim of "liberating" Iraq and destroying its weapons of mass destruction, it may have succeeded in breathing new life into the writings of an ancient Asian mind -- the Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu.
This week served up the latest about the Chinese thinker and general from the 5th century BC, who wrote the oldest military treatise on war, "The Art of War"; using knowledge he learned from fighting during China's Age of the Warring States.
Sun's work on war has punctuated the debate under way since it emerged that Washington's initial battle plans -- given the name "shock and awe" -- had not produced the desired results ...
Yet Sun enthusiasts disagree. They argue that the obstacles U.S.-led troops have run into -- from the failure of forcing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime to collapse after a steady barrage of missiles and bombs, to the stiff resistance mounted by Iraqi troops -- do not mean that Sun's strategy has failed.
"Much has yet to be seen before making any conclusions," writes an analyst for Sonshi.com, a website dedicated to Sun's "Art of War" ...
An account of the "shock and awe" strategy on the U.S. Department of Defense website amplifies how much it has been influenced by Sun's thinking. "Sun was well aware of the crucial importance of achieving 'shock and awe' prior to, during, and in ending battle," it states.
In fact, words used by U.S. military officials to describe the nature of the massive aerial attack on Iraq in the first days -- such as "decapitation" -- can be traced to their attempt to use Sun's strategy. He called for "instant decapitation of military or societal target to achieve shock and awe", the Defense Department document states.
It draws upon one story to describe how Sun applied such force to achieve his end. In this case, the victims were two concubines in the court of Ho Lu, the king of Wu. They were beheaded to stamp out any resistance and to achieve conformity from the remaining concubines.
"The objectives of this example are to achieve shock and awe and hence compliance through very selective, utterly brutal and ruthless, and rapid application of force to intimidate," the document adds. "Decapitation is merely one instrument."
Nigeria, Sowaribi Tolofari in Vanguard
Democracy has become the slogan for the free market's globalisation. To democratise means to expand and intensify the free market. Make no mistakes about it, I am not against the free market. But I am a stickler for exactitude. Let us call capitalism just that, call political and diplomatic intimidation just that, call military aggression against weaker countries just that, and let democracy continue to mean leadership of the people by the people for the people. Today, democracy is controlled, wherever it exists, or introduced, by global merchants and the diplomatic and military forces at their control....
Democracy today has a relatively insignificant little to do with rights but everything to do with the acquisition and control of the world's limited natural resources for and by the elite, irrespective of where the resources are and in which far-flung countries these elites are ... Whatever the media propaganda leads the home crowd to believe, it is easy to discern that the real reason is control of resources and the maintenance of elite groups in power, be it the destruction of Iraq or the village of Odi in Nigeria...
The United States is out now for its own turn at colonising Africa. The first step has effectively been completed, that of sending in the World Bank and IMF to damage the economies of the countries and make them subservient debtor-nations. The next step, the military occupation, has commenced and is being intensified this century, under the pretext of giving support to democracy...
The USA's Pentagon has drawn up a militarization programme for Africa called the African Crisis Response Initiative (formally Force) ... According to the Pentagon "it will be a tremendous asset to have Nigeria in this special initiative".
The reason is obvious. One-sixth of all Africans live in Nigeria, half of all West Africans are Nigerians. Above all, Nigeria is one of the six highest producers of crude oil within the OPEC, and 40 percent of this oil is, for now, sold to the USA. Africa has over 30 percent of all the world's mineral resources. Why else would the Americans be eager to design a military Organisation and export it to Africa? ... The presence of foreign military focus is threatening, especially when the hidden agenda for this military presence is to take control of the natural resources of the continent.
Russia, Peter Lavelle in Prime-TASS
The great Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard once said that the most dangerous mental faults are laziness and impatience. To him, laziness of mind meant reluctance to confront unfamiliar, multifaceted and refractory realities, while impatience leads to fascination with supposedly all-encompassing theories in lieu of engaging in thought and sound judgment. In short, those who succumb to laziness and impatience are drawn to relate themselves to an imagined universal instead of a real particular.
Does this sound familiar? It should: Laziness and impatience are the two leading elements of America's new developing foreign policy, and the delusion lurking behind them is the messianic idea that the United States can remake the world ... and that the world, in its heart of hearts, wants to be so remade ...
America's new laziness and impatience come from a very dangerous belief that it is the answer to the world's problems. However noble the ideal of saving the world may be, beliefs such as this wreaked havoc in the last century. Fascism and communism strove to profoundly change the world, and both left catastrophe in their wake. Both these forms of totalitarianism resorted to preventive war because both were also impatient to reorder the world ...
Forcing other people to be free is not a strategy that will reinforce domestic institutions. Democracy at home accepts diversity, and not tolerating it abroad has an eventual corrosive internal effect. The U.S. preemptive war doctrine is a time bomb ticking away on the home front.
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Now you must think someone is joking, right? Surely, there is no such thing in business as excess earnings. As the saying goes, the more the better. Don't get confused though – in business valuation, as in many financial analysis areas, technical definitions make all the difference.
No, the business you are valuing does not have extra earnings it could spare. The excess earnings though, may well be within its many positive attributes. This technical term arises in the context of valuing business by the so-called Treasury Method, otherwise known as the capitalized excess earnings.
This method has been used for decades in valuing private companies and was first described in the US Treasury memorandum No 34. The original idea was to value going concern companies that were more valuable than merely the assemblage of assets they had at their disposal.
Business owners felt their companies were worth keeping alive when they produced superior returns. On the other hand, a smart business investor would likely consider unloading business assets if the company starts to look like a drain on resources. Makes common sense, to be sure.
So what's in the name? To find out, you would need to study the details of the Treasury valuation method. At the outset, you make a reasonable assumption that a business that commits a certain amount of capital must generate the returns sufficient to cover the costs of the assets in play. So if you examine the returns from operations, you could deduct the amount equal to the so-called capital charge. At a minimum, the business owners must justify sinking the capital into the company by making sure they get sufficient returns. Otherwise, they should consider investing their money elsewhere.
So far, so good. But the top performing company should do one better. To reward the owners for an investment well made, such businesses generate returns in excess of merely covering the costs of invested capital. In the economic parlance, there are earnings over and above the required return on committed capital. Enter the excess earnings. That is the difference between the actual business earnings and the costs of the capital investment in its assets.
What is more, the excess earnings can be used to calculate the value of business goodwill. That sometimes elusive intangible business asset that points to a well run company putting a nice income into the pockets of beaming business owners. A wish come true.
Indeed, estimation of business goodwill is one of the biggest advantages of the capitalized excess earnings valuation method. The idea is that business goodwill captures the synergies available in a well run company. You can't ascribe the superior returns to any particular business asset, it is the coordination of all of the them in a successful company that makes it possible to enjoy all that extra income.
Capitalization of the excess earnings is the standard technique to quantify this happy outcome. The typical way is to use the constant growth capitalization calculation to estimate business goodwill. The sum of the values of business assets and goodwill gives you the total business value.
See, it was worth getting to the bottom of the excess earnings name. There are many situations when you need to justify the value of business goodwill, and the Treasury method is an excellent way to do it.