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How To Launch and Market Your Self Published Book Efficiently? – Interview with John Kremer
Tags: book john kremer
John Kremer
The Book Marketing Expert, the Owner of Open Horizons Publishing and the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books
How to prepare the right book launch and marketing plan, what to do step by step?
How to plan a giveaway campaign on amazon efficiently? How to pitch publishers efficiently? How Self Published authors should create their book codes and ISBN correctly?
With English and Arabic Subtitle
John Kremer is a Book marketing expert, the owner of Open Horizons Publishing and the author of1001 Ways to Market Your Books
Book marketing expert John Kremer is the owner of Open Horizons Publishing. He is the author of1001 Ways to Market Your Books; Book Marketing Magic: How to Sell Your Novel, Children's Book, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book Like a Pro; The Complete Direct Marketing Sourcebook; Do-It-Yourself Book Publicity Kit; and Celebrate Today.
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He is also the developer of the Ten Million Eyeballs Internet marketing self-study course and theBlog Tour Palooza program.
As a book marketing consultant, his clients include a self-published author who has sold over two million books, a new age publisher with 60 titles, and a $100 million publisher with a rapidly growing list of 1,000 titles.
John is the founder of the Institute on Book Publishing Innovations as well as The Book Marketing Network social network for book authors and publishers (http://www.thebookmarketingnetwork.com).
John Kremer is 63 years old. His wife Gail, a storyteller, is author of Little Fox and the Golden Hawk. They live in Taos, New Mexico, where they take care of two dogs named Becky and Elsie.
For more about John Kremer's book marketing consulting services, click here.
For more about John Kremer's speaking events and book promotion seminars, click here.
"John Kremer deserves the thanks of so many of us. John has set a standard and example, showing us how to keep focused while looking ahead, be creative while playing by the rules, how to achieve the impossible while approaching our tasks one item at a time, and how to maintain our integrity while never, ever giving up." — Mary Westheimer
John Kremer is an acknowledged publishing expert who can answer all your questions on book publishing and marketing. Besides being the owner of his own publishing company (Open Horizons in Taos, New Mexico), he was the editor of the Book Marketing Update newsletter for more than twenty years.
As a book promotion expert, John is also the author of a number of books on publishing and marketing, including 1001 Ways to Market Your Books: For Authors and Publishers (6th Edition),Book Marketing Magic, Real Fast Book Marketing, 15,000 Eyeballs Internet Marketing Program, The Complete Direct Marketing Sourcebook, High Impact Marketing on a Low Impact Budget, andCelebrate Today.
He has also designed the Do-It-Yourself Book Publicity Kit and databases of the Top 700 Booksellers and Public Libraries.
John Kremer has spoken at book publishing, marketing, and publicity seminars in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Orlando, Miami, Denver, Boulder, Tucson, Portland, Seattle, Bellevue, San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Toronto, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Phoenix, Saint Louis, Kennebunkport, Atlanta, Fresno, Indianapolis, Nashville, West Palm Beach, Saint Petersburg, Melbourne, Alexandria, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Sacramento, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Des Moines, Cleveland, Omaha, Calgary, London, Las Vegas, Washington DC, and many other cities.
His speeches have ranged from half-hour talks on book marketing to two-hour sessions on getting national publicity to three-day seminars on how to open new markets for your books.
Here are just a few of the hot topics John can talk on . . .
The A to Z Guide to Building Brands and Selling Rights
Creating a Brand: The 10 Principles of Success
Book Promotion 101: The secrets to book marketing success
Selling Rights: The Basis of a Successful Publishing Company
Seven Secrets of Success in Marketing
How to Open New Markets
12 Alternatives to a Press Release — That Get Results
25 Ways to Make the National News
How to Create a National Bestseller — Without Breaking the Bank
How to Build Your Customer List for Little or No Money
How to Sell to Special Markets: Catalogs, Premium Sales, Etc.
50 Creative Book Marketing Ideas
What I Have Learned in 20 Years of Book Marketing
How to Create an Amazon.com Bestseller and 20 Other Ways to Sell More Books on Amazon
Website & Social media links
http://www.bookmarket.com
http://blogtourpalooza.com
http://thebookmarketingnetwork.com
http://bookmarketingbestsellers.com
http://askjohnkremer.com
http://askthebooksellers.com
https://www.facebook.com/thejohnkremer
https://www.pinterest.com/johnkremer/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkremer
https://twitter.com/johnkremer
http://www.selfpublishinghalloffame.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/JohnKremer
http://www.amazon.com/John-Kremer/e/B001H6L2T4
Why and how you decided to become an author and book marketing consultant?
What's your background?
How did you start in the internet marketing would?
How to plan a giveaway campaign on amazon efficiently?
How authors can be featured in the media efficiently?
What's The book marketing network?
What's the blog tour palooza? Why you created different blogs for your services and didn't focus on putting all these content on only one blog?
How to create a supper start blog tour for authors?
How authors can create a loyal tribe efficiently?
Which book designing service do you recommend?
Where to find the best book editors and agent?
Top 2 editors that you recommend?
Do you recommend authors to use different editor for each one of their books and why?
Top 2 agents that you recommend for non-fiction and fiction?
How to pitch publishers efficiently?
How the open book horizons publishing works in terms of deals with authors?
Is it possible to agree with traditional publishers without giving their online selling rights?
Publishing Vs. Self – Publishing, if the author has both options to choose from, which one to choose?
Best e-books and audio books distributors that you can recommend?
How Self Published authors should create their book codes and ISBN correctly?
How self published authors can pitch book stores efficiently?
How to hit the amazon best selling list? How many books are required to be sold and within how long?
How to hit the wall street journal list?
How to hit the new york times best selling list? How many books are required to be soled?
Is it possible for self published authors to hit eh NY Times list?
What are the types of coaching packages that you have and how much do you charge for 1 on 1 coaching sessions?
Do you handle the entire marketing campaign for launching and marketing a certain book, if you do, how much it costs?
Best blogs for book marketing that you recommend?
How many online and offline team members are working with you?
Best service that you recommend for book trailers?
Tell us more about your other projects that you are currently working on or planning for the future?
Share with us some of the tools or software that make you more efficient?
What's your daily life and work routine looks like?
What are your other hobbies?
Who are your top 3 mentors?
If you have the chance, what would you say to advice your younger self?
What are your top 3 favorite books?
What are the top 3 people that you are inspired by?
What makes you really happy?
How people can contact you?
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Hi everyone this is Ahmed Al Kiremli and welcome to Be Efficient Tv. The mission of this WebTV show is to boost the efficiency of your business and life their tips and tricks from leading experts. Today I have with me John Kremer, he is a book marketing expert and he is the owner of open horizons publishing and he is also the author of 1001 ways to market your books, welcome to the show John.
John Kremer: Thanks, I'm glad to be here, had a little trouble getting here but I'm here.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Thank you for your time. So why and how did you decide to become an author and book marketing consultant?
John Kremer: Well I've always wanted to be a writer ever since high school, so one point I decided okay I'm going to start and I started my self publishing a book and very quickly found out that most of the people that were self-publishing at that time, this was back in 1984, really didn't know what they were doing and I knew at least some stuff about marketing so I started to write a book about marketing books.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So from the beginning what's your background, what did you study or from the beginning did you just focus on becoming a writer?
John Kremer: My college major was an interdisciplinary major in the study of anarchy, which is basically the study of can society survive without a government? And I came to the conclusion that government is convenient.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: And how many books did you write before you decided to become a consultant and book publishing later?
John Kremer: Well I published two books and that I wrote the book on marketing books and that got me into consulting because people have additional questions, so I ended up having to become a consultant and coach in marketing because the demand was there. I wrote the book about marketing because I was helping a friend market his toy and gift company. And so I was doing everything from catalog marketing to premium marketing, gift and retail shops and things like that. So I got a wide experience in helping him to set up his company so that it when it came to marketing books it wasn't perfect, they don't translate perfectly, but it was good enough. I knew more about marketing than most people that were publishing books at the time.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: When you started getting more into the Internet marketing is it like when Amazon started and you are very very advanced, like very up-to-date and what's going on in the Internet world.
John Kremer: Well I started marketing on the Internet in 1984, that's when I created my website. And at that time there were all these – America Online was the way a lot of people got on to the Internet, but I created my first website in 1994 and I've just grown from there, I now have I think around 40 websites, about 20 of them that are active right now.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Why did you blog and create different sites and link them together, don't you think focusing on one is more I don't know…?
John Kremer: It's smarter but I have all these different interests and I wanted to keep them basically separated, but I do have a catchall website now called my incredible website. And that sort of my catchall for all of the things that I'm interested in now, and I'm slowly phasing out some of my websites and putting them into that website.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: My incredible website.
John Kremer: My incredible website.com.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Can you take a step by step through the process of how to plan the right launch or marketing for a book? Whether it's self published or published?
John Kremer: Either way, if you're going to launch a book what you need our partners because you can do it by yourself. You don't have enough people following you, there's very few authors who have more than 10,000 followers if they have that. And that's not enough to sell very many books. Even if you have 30,000 people following you on twitter, that's small in today's world. There was a time where if you had 30,000 followers on twitter there would be big publishers wanting to give you a contract but that was like five years ago. Nowadays you need partners, you need people that already are reaching the audience you want to reach and they are willing to help you launch your book. Either because they are JV partners with you or they simply like you and your book. But you do need partners, people that will mail to their customers, people that will interview you, either in Skype like this, Google hangouts or an audio teleconference interview, anything like that. You need to have partners that are going to blog about your book, write about it and so on. I have a friend Joel Calm, you might know him, he wrote twitter power 3.0 that's coming out at the beginning of March and he's already starting to marshal his forces to get all his friends and family to market the book and I'm part of that launch. You do need a lot of people involved to make it happen well, you have two or three people involved, even if they have a great list it's probably not good enough to make your bestseller, and certainly not good enough to sell 10,000 copies of something like that. So for that you need a lot of partners.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: But how about like does that mean for the people just starting, means they have to publish or self published three books until they build some following and some partners and they get well known in the market, so they can hit certain lists or are there some companies that you recommend that you can work with them to do all of that for them?
John Kremer: I haven't found a company that I feel is good enough to do that, I do think that you don't have to have published a lot of books, you could start and launch one book, but you have to create some kind of visibility on the Internet so you can create – you might know Tim Ferris with the four hour work week, for the year prior to the launch of his book, he attended live a lot of Internet marketing conferences and made friends with people. He took them out for drinks, he took them out for dinner, he got to know them and his question for them was how can I help you? And then once he established some friendship with them and started helping them, then when he was ready to launch he asked them would you help me as well? And they were happy to help him because he had already been helping them and he had a perfect topic for Internet marketers – work for four hours a week. That's the dream of most Internet marketers.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: But how about like if someone will go with the publisher, is that only if he is very famous author he can close a big publishing company so they can take care of most of these things and market for him? As well he has to market as well and make relationships.
John Kremer: In today's world every author has to be a marketer, whether they are published by a large publisher or they are using a print on demand publisher or simply publishing e-books. They still have to be the marketer because in today's world the big publishers are lost, they don't know how to market a book unless the author is famous. And if the authors and famous your book is going to get lost if you sell it to a big publisher. They are going to know what to do with it, so they all, almost every publisher even smaller publishers nowadays keep asking the author one major question, what is your platform? Do you have an author platform? And the platform is simply a ready-made audience, do you have people that love you, know you and trust you so that they will be eager to buy your book? Then it makes it easy for the publisher to help you market that book. But if you don't have a ready-made audience the publisher is going to take it to their normal audience and it's probably not going to be good enough for your book.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: But if I have a big following, why should I go publish with a publisher, like I sell it and make more money, or just because of the credibility, what's your point on that?
John Kremer: The main reason you go with a big publisher is for credibility and publicity. They are going to always get more possibility of getting on the national TV show or something like that. It's very tough for a self published author to get on the today show, it's been done but it's tough. Whereas with the publisher if they are supporting you, they've got the connections, they've got the trust of the producers of the today show so that people will – the producers will book the author. So credibility and publicity and distribution, if your book needs to sell in bookstores, you're always going to have stronger distribution with a big publisher. The disadvantage of big publishers are they take a year to get your book out, which for many of us in today's world is just too long to wait. The second thing is unless they are giving you a lot of money up front in terms of in advance and royalties, they don't care about you. You're going to care more about you, the other disadvantage of course is that you're going to get like 10% royalty if you're lucky and that's going to get paid six months or a year afterwards over and above anything you might of gotten for the advance. And then you give up complete control of your book, you really are. I sold the book to a major New York publisher and then my editor decided to become a forest ranger in Montana.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: You cannot sign with a publisher for like one year or five years control and then you take it back?
John Kremer: Yes, they finally gave me the rights back to that book but I had originally self published that book and I sold about 10,000 copies in six months. They sold 10,000 copies in about six years. So I should have kept it, I would've made more money.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So how about the people who get publishers but not the big five or Big Ten publishers, should they sell published you advise them if they have a choice, like they have a publisher but he's not big and because they are new authors, they can self publish, what would you choose?
John Kremer: It depends on the publisher and how excited they are, for example there are some good midsize publishers in the US, people like sourcebooks, hay House, New World Library that if they came to me and wanted to publish one of my books, I probably say yes because I know they are good publishers and I know they'll do a good job if they really want to. But I'd probably still look for ways to build an additional product onto that book so I have something to sell going beyond the book so that no matter what they do and no matter how much they screw up I'm still going to have a product to sell.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So use them for the book and use say another course that you sell on your site from the people that they will come to your site.
John Kremer: Yes. And that's fairly easy to do in today's world if you've got a good book, you've got good content, it's easy to take that content and put it into a video course or into some sort of membership site or into a live workshop. The way that I took 1001 ways to market your books and took it to something bigger is that I used to do live seminars that I would charge anywhere from $1000-$10,000 for.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you recommend any service or person that turns books into products? Or do you do it yourself usually?
John Kremer: I do it myself, it's so easy in today's world to make the videos that you would need to do and whatever else you needed. The best kind of product I think to make in today's world is a good video product and I don't know what you plan to do with this interview but it's a core, it becomes a basis for a product. You've been interviewing a number of different people, you will have a product to sell at the end. And you'll probably have created the relationship with a lot of potential JV partners to sell that product at a good price to a lot of people.
John Kremer: So what's open publishing, open horizons publishing, how does it work when you work with authors to publish their books? How much royalty…?
John Kremer: I don't.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: You don't.
John Kremer: Open horizons is my company to publish me and to publish me as a publisher, I don't think of myself as a self publisher. I look for the best books to publish and they just happen to be written by me.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: You recommended some midsize publishers, how about publishers for e-books or audiobooks, do you recommend anyone or distributors?
John Kremer: Well I mean if you're going to publish any book you might as well do it yourself. You can publish directed Kindle, that's really easy to set up and do, you can do it in about 20 minutes. Then if you want to you can use services like smash words or book baby or Ingram spark to distribute that e-book into other kinds of platforms. And then if you wanted to do a print book at the same time you could do that through again Ingram spark or I think book baby now has print on demand and there's create space, it's owned by Amazon. Most of them are very low-cost, the thing is you go with any of those services, don't buy their marketing programs. That's where they make their money, they charge 1000 to $3000-$5000 for marketing programs that don't do anything. I'm embarrassed when I see what they promise people in their marketing programs and how poorly those marketing programs perform for the authors that pay that money. To me it's money thrown down the drain, it's much better for you to find people that actually know what they are doing to market if you are going to hire someone to do it because you don't have the time.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How to plan the right giveaway campaign on Amazon and he recommended before selling it for a certain price on Amazon? Do you recommend to distribute it for free?
John Kremer: I think giving it away for free is a good thing to do, it's a great strategy, it helps to get the book out there, gets the word-of-mouth going which is – word-of-mouth sells 80% of all books sold in the US anyway. Somebody tell somebody else you need to buy this book, word-of-mouth really does matter in the online is just as important as a person-to-person. People buy books because they are recommended by their friends. So get your book into some people's hands so that you can start to get that word-of-mouth going. So doing the Kindle select program and giving away your book for two or three days, I think it's a good strategy. If you're unknown. If you have a really strong platform but don't give it away, start selling it right away because you already got people hungry to buy the book.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How to get the Amazon number one? I see like most self published or even published they go by their own books to get like number one to say that we are a best-selling author. They get the best selling author's title.
John Kremer: Yes, most of the people that are doing that nowadays are not buying it themselves, asking friends and partners to do that. But unless a book is actually in the top 10 of all of Amazon, I don't think of it as an Amazon bestseller. So I don't like it when somebody says well I'm a bestseller because I had number two in some sub sub category, which means that you sold 50 books. This not a bestseller, I don't care what you say, it's okay, I know people who are doing it and it certainly has some credibility among certain people, it has no credibility to me because I know the people that actually are best sellers on Amazon and they – Amazon tells me who they are.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So it has to be a bestseller in the business category which is a main category, then you consider it a bestseller?
John Kremer: I might in that case. I like the top 10 or top 100 and all of Amazon, no matter what the category. I think that's the best criteria for a bestseller, but if you want to take a really strong category like business or cookbooks and say your number one on Amazon or number two, that's fine with me but when you get into those sub subcategories where basically you just pick a category that you know has no competition and if you sell two books you'll be a bestseller. Literally I've seen people claim they are bestseller on Amazon having sold fewer than 20 books.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Well the use it for marketing purposes, like put it on Facebook.
John Kremer: I know, but the thing is the credibility isn't there. The people that really know how Amazon works and how Amazon bestseller campaigns work know that it's false, it's fake. Back about 10 years ago, there were people doing Amazon bestseller campaigns where they were aiming to be number one or number two in all of Amazon.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How many books required to be sold?
John Kremer: They would sell four through 10,000, I know somebody who sold 20,000 copies to a campaign like that. Now that's a bestseller, they sold those copies in one or two days, that to me is a bestseller. And if the person that sold 4000, Mark Joyner, you might know him, he's an Internet marketer, he sold 4000 copies again in less than a day and hit number one and number two on all of Amazon. So it depends on when you're measuring it, how many copies you have to sell but it somewhere probably between four and 10,000 copies to hit number one on Amazon for at least some period of time.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Even if you give it away for free on that day will it calculate that you are bestseller or only if it sold for money? How do you plan that, should you give it for free for a while and then set a launch date or how does it work?
John Kremer: I don't think that Amazon – I might be wrong on this but I don't think Amazon counts giveaway copies in their bestseller ranking, at least not the top 100 or 1000 books in all of Amazon. But what that does do for you in terms of giving away the book is it increases your visibility in the category, so if somebody is looking for books on business subcategory salesmanship and you've given away 1000 copies, that's going to help increase your visibility in that category. So that when you do sell it, more people will find it. So that's the main reason why you give the book away is to increase the visibility of your book on Amazon with the algorithms that Amazon uses to place books in different categories. And I think most of us know that if you are searching for salesmanship books or something like that, you're going to buy one of the first 10 books you see, you're going to go to number 99. So that's why you have to have that visibility.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How to hit the New York Times bestseller list and how many books is required to sell it and can self publishers, self published books hit the New York Times or only published books?
John Kremer: No, I actually have chronicled a number of different books that have made it to the New York Times bestseller list with self published books, including a children's book that outsold Harry Potter at the time and Harry Potter was still selling. It hit number one in children's books, it was actually a book published by a friend of mine, I'm going blank on the title right now. There are a lot of self published books that have had the New York Times list over time sometimes it was because they did a good lunch strategy, other times because of some other factor, but the thing is with New York Times bestsellers, you've got to have bookstore distribution and sell books through the bookstores or you'll never had the New York Times list. Because New York Times does count Amazon sales but they discount those sales, if all your sales after Amazon, they are not going to count all those Amazon sales when there's another book that selling as many copies or even less through the bookstores that New York Times surveys to find out what books are selling well.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How does the survey work, how many copies to the need within a day or within a week and how should it be distributed over the bookstores?
John Kremer: It's measured – New York Times measures sales by the week. I believe it's from – I can't remember now, I think it's from Friday to Friday but it might be Saturday to Saturday. And they are looking for sales in the outlets that they actually survey. And they don't survey every bookstore in the country, they survey about 100 or 200 bookstores in the country plus the top Internet retailers and the top wholesalers. And then they use their own algorithm to decide what the value is for each bookstore sale. For example they value the books that are sold in East Coast bookstores more valuable than books sold in Oklahoma or Colorado or Texas. They also value the books that are sold on the West Coast more than the books that are sold in Alabama, Tennessee, Michigan or something like that. So they actually sort of manipulate the numbers in a real way to pick out the books that they really want to be bestsellers, the New York Times bestseller list in some ways is a work of fiction.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So they change all the time, you don't know exactly how they do it. I know some services that some authors pay them $50,000, $30,000 and they make them hit the New York Times, they buy for them the books in different places and they make them hit the list.
John Kremer: Right, but the minute New York Times finds out that anyone is doing that kind of activity, that book is gone.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you don't recommend that?
John Kremer: And that author is gone. They will never see the New York Times list again. I did something like that when with Deepak Chopra's first book, they came to me and I told them here, you need to have people buy a lot of books in these particular bookstores and so we channeled something like 10,000 copies spot in these particular bookstores but identified and his book at the New York Times bestseller list.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Okay.
John Kremer: But we actually had individuals buying the books, there were 10,000 individuals buying the books, we just channeled those sales through bookstores that I knew were reporting to the New York Times list.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Which top five stores do you think are the most important stores?
John Kremer: Well…
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Or is it still changing?
John Kremer: It changes some but if you hit the top three or four good bookstores in New York City, politics and prose in Washington DC, tattered cover in Denver, some of the good bookstores on the West Coast, you'll be pretty well off with that. So it's not that hard to identify what some of the key bookstores are that would make a difference and we actually went to five different bookstores, we actually channeled those 10,000 orders into five different bookstores. I don't remember which ones they were now at this time because that was again 15 or 20 years ago.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How does the Wall Street must work and which one is more important, the New York Times or the Wall Street? Best-selling was?
John Kremer: Wall Street is really important for books, business books but it's not of any value for fiction or something like that. The New York Times list is the more important list because when bookstores feature best-selling books in the front of their store, it's always the New York Times best-selling books. It's not somebody else's list.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Even business? So in business even New York Times is more important?
John Kremer: Yes, for that particular reason. Because of how the store is using the New York Times list they feel like that is the best list out there, and it probably is, but boy it really is a work of fiction.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So Wall Street also they have certain algorithms that they change all the time based on the bookstores or a survey or how it works?
John Kremer: I think the Wall Street Journal basically just uses sales in certain outlets, I don't know which ones they actually measure, but they are going to go to, there's a bookseller that sells by phone, 800 CEO read which is very influential when it comes to business books, and I know that the business week, Bloomberg BusinessWeek bestseller list and I'm pretty sure the Wall Street bestseller list relies on that as much as sales and bookstores.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: What is the book marketing network?
John Kremer: The book marketing network is a network that I created that now has almost 10000 members or 9000, somewhere in there. And it's just designed for authors to work together to sell books, each other's books. The reality is…
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So it's like a forum?
John Kremer: It's a social network, it has forms there, it has a blogging capability, video sharing capability, it has lots of different capabilities but quite honestly some authors are using it pretty well, but most authors come in, create a profile and I never see them again.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So how can they register or sign up, it's free, it's a membership?
John Kremer: It's free to sign up, I have to approve you because if you leave an open membership then you get so many spammers coming in, it destroys the network. So I have to approve every fight and make sure there are actually authors and not fancy ladies looking for a nice guy to marry, things like that. And I get that all the time, I get spammers trying to get in the network but I can recognize and decline membership. If I didn't do that the membership would be much larger but it wouldn't be useful at all. I'm sort of disappointed that more authors don't work with each other to sell books, like if I were a fantasy author, the first thing I would do is make good friends with like 10 other or 20 other fantasy authors and make a pact that every time I promote my book, I also promote their books and do something like that because one author working by themselves can only reach so many people and only do so much stuff, but if there are 10 authors promoting each other, you could really expand your audience and expand the people that would find out about your book. And the thing is, if you like – if I write fantasy novels and I find five other authors that write books just like mine and I love their books, I'm going to promote the heck out of those books as well, because I know that they will love my book and do the same for me.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: The problem is that marketing or promoting a book is getting more complicated and more easier with the technology because there's so many things to do, like to think about people to interview, to think about partners, to think about social media, think about Amazon and e-books and audiobooks and is just overwhelming, like regardless how advanced you are, it keeps changing.
John Kremer: Yeah, the thing is you have to focus, you really do. If you're going to do social networking, pick one or two and work them hard. So if you like doing Facebook, do Facebook, if you like twitter do twitter. I like Pinterest, I have the best results from Pinterest. So that's the one that I get the most traffic from it really does drive traffic very well. And so I like that one, but I'm hoping to do more with you to because I'm planning to do more with video coming up. It's something that I've been sort of backward on in the sense that I haven't produced that many videos so far but video marketing is still probably one of the best tools you have out there to market anything, and a need to know – understand that market better and use it more.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So lots of women like you on Pinterest.
John Kremer: What?
Ahmed Al Kiremli: It means lots of women liking you on Pinterest because it's more – women like to use it a lot and even there are some people saying that now InstaGram is taking over Pinterest and it's going down or is it still doing well for you?
John Kremer: Pinterest is still doing very well and it's actually better designed than InstaGram for viral re-pinning and so on. I've pinned some pins of mine, I have one pin that's had over 1.5 million re-pins and I pinned it two years ago and it still driving, I just checked on my website, that one image is still driving 125 people to my website now two years after it was originally pinned. And Pinterest – I have about 20 pins that I've done that have really driven traffic, so I get to this one website where… I'm getting right now around 700 to 800 people every day to my website, 80% of that coming from Pinterest.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How to create a superstar blog tour for authors and why authors should make a blog?
John Kremer: The main reason you should blog is that all the search engines love fresh content and if you're not blogging, you're not going to be creating new content for your website. So if you blog once or twice a week you're going to be creating new content on a regular basis for your website, that means that your search engine visibility and organic people finding you will be enhanced.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: What is your views on SEO now with all these changes and like back linking and it's not working as before, only they need fresh content all the time?
John Kremer: I believe you need fresh content and it's got to be good content, it's very hard to create good content when you are automating the creation of that content. I've seen so many key rations and programs and some of them are very good but they are never as good as somebody handpicking something and recommending it. You just don't get the same kind of interaction with the search engines or with the people that actually come to your website and I think you need that. I've bought a number of those auto cure ration programs but I haven't used them because I don't think they do a good enough job.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How should authors design their cover in terms of title, subtitle and do you recommend any designing services for specializing in books?
John Kremer: I do, I actually have a whole listing of them on my website, but cover designers and I recommend a number of them as being really good. The one thing in publishing a book that I generally speaking tell authors not to do is design their own cover. Because you can tell. And even unsophisticated readers can tell the difference between a well designed cover and one that was good enough. And I think that book titles are really important, I think the book titles have to be memorable and I like them to be also brandable so that you on the title, so your website URL can be the title of your book and things like that. And some variation of that. That's one thing that I do, I help authors come up with a good memorable brandable title. And I actually charge too little for that service, right now I charge $125 which is way too cheap, I'm going to have to increase that price.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Just title and subtitle, you recommend title and subtitle for them?
John Kremer: I help them come up with a title and a subtitle that I believe will help them sell the book. I've sat on a lot of panels in different conferences and so on with top book buyers from wholesalers and bookstores in top media people producing top New York shows and I watch them, I see them pick up a book and instantly decide without opening the book whether or not to do anything more with that book. So they are sorting like this, a top TV show is going to get 200 books a day and if you're lucky they're going to pick three authors in a week, that means they are going to be picking three books out of 1000 books that week to feature those authors on their show. And those odds are that great but – the first thing those producers are doing is sorting the books out and if they don't look professional, that book is put into a different pile right away. The second thing is if the book doesn't have good bookstore distribution, it's probably going to get pushed to the side. There are exceptions to that, every once in a while a major TV show will take an author who may be just has e-books on Amazon but that's very rare, they want to promote books that are in bookstores.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So how to be featured in the media as an author efficiently?
John Kremer: The key thing with media is they want a good story. If you aren't famous, they aren't interested in interviewing you because you're an author. They are interested in interviewing you because you've got a good story to tell, you've got good advice to share, you've got something that will service their audience and they want to share that. So major TV shows like today show and good morning America like cookbook authors because cookbook authors can come on the show and demonstrate some cooking thing and feed them, they like that. So cookbooks are easy to do. Business books are little bit tougher, so you have to have something unusual, something interesting, you have to have – one of the best ways I think to get on national TV at least in the United States is to tie into a new store that's already happening. So I don't know what…
Ahmed Al Kiremli: And usually you pitch them through press releases or how to pitch the media?
John Kremer: Press releases or faxes or emails, a lot of media people are email savvy and will do it that way and if you're following them on twitter you can possibly tweet them a little pitch, but ultimately they are going to decide until they talk to you on the phone. If they like the news release that you send them or the query letter that you send them they will pick up the phone and call you within minutes of seeing what you have to offer. You don't have to wait, you don't have to guess if they are interested or not, because if they are they're going to pick up the phone.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Let me ask you about the editing process, do you recommend authors to use different editors for each of their books or use one editor?
John Kremer: I think it's fine if you like the editor that you had for the first book used for the next one. I see nothing for that as long as the editor is good. But you need a professional editor, you can't use your high school a good teacher or even your college English teacher. You certainly can't use a journalist because their style of writing is different than that of writing a book.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: You have a list on your site as well for editors that you recommend, right?
John Kremer: I do. I have a list of editors as well. Over time I've created different lists to help people publish more readily, so I have a list of cover designers, a list of editors and ghostwriters and then of course a list of book printers and a list of e-book services. So those are some of the lists that I have there because somebody has got to have the list.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How much usually do they charge those services for a book design or even for the editing like per word, depends on like just a project, they quote you one price, on average those services that you recommend…
John Kremer: Editing is usually going to cost you about $1000 for 200 page book. Again it could be a little bit less or more depending on who you hire but if you're hiring a professional it's probably going to be at least $1000. A cover designer, a really good one is going to cost you two to $3000 but the neat thing is there are some good services out there now, things even like fiver where you could possibly end up with a good cover as long as you have enough judgment to tell if it's a good cover or not. And if you are in doubt about whether or not the cover design that you have is good, take it to the local bookstore, a good independent bookstore and ask them to tell you if it's a good cover. They will be brutally honest with you.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: $1000 for 200 pages, is it like one cent per word approximate, because it's a very low price or is it just editing without any development work for the editor on the book?
John Kremer: I'm talking if they are doing 1000 for 200 page book, they are doing copyediting, not developmental editing. If you want developmental editing which is really working with you to make the book the best it can be, it's probably going to cost you closer to three to $5000. And I do know ghostwriters that charge $50,000.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Based on their style of writing.
John Kremer: The ghostwriters – almost any best-selling book by a politician has been ghostwritten, almost every best-selling book by a businessman has been ghostwritten. There is some ghostwriter behind it, it doesn't mean it's not the politician or businessman's words, but there's a ghostwriter that's shaped it and made it into something actually readable.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: What's your views about the codes and ISBN, how to use them correctly, should you buy your own or use the Amazon one when you are self-publishing and when you're publishing, what's your advice on that?
John Kremer: I think that if you are publishing printed books you should have your own ISBN numbers. That you can assign to the book that's printed. Obviously e-books you don't assign ISBN's to, Amazon automatically signs its own code to it if you upload it to Kindle and I think that's fine. All you want is an identifying code that's unique to that format of that book. If you're going to sell that book into a lot of other e-book markets, if they don't provide you with the clear code, then you'd want to assign and ISBN number to that. But the ISBN number identifies a specific book and a specific format for that book.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How can authors pitch themselves if they are self published to bookstores?
John Kremer: Well the way that I recommend is that if you form a publishing company and act as the publisher and you book your author into bookstores and so on as the publisher. So in many cases what I do is I invented a new name for myself as the publisher or something like that or I had a friend that I could use his name as my vice president of marketing and he said it's fine to use his name, so he was my vice president of marketing for many years. He never showed up for work.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How about book signing? The same thing as a publisher you pitch the bookstore, do you tell them there is an author and we want to do – and book a book signing?
John Kremer: Yeah, I actually never book a book signing, I book a talk where I then sign afterwards.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: You gather people.
John Kremer: You have to get people involved, if you aren't well known, if you are well known, you can just sit there at the table and people will want to come up there and get your autograph, but if you are not well known you've got to create a relationship with the people first, so if you can give a 20 minute talk that's going to make a lot of difference. But I have a friend who self published a number of novels and he goes in to Costco and I believe he does it at Sam's Club too, will go into those stores and sit down at the table and just engage people as they walk by. And he's sold up to 200 bucks that way in a day and he has fun, he loves doing it. He's got a good relationship with the wholesaler, to Cosco. He lives in Alaska during the summer and in Palm Springs California in the winter, so he does…
Ahmed Al Kiremli: He does it talk? How does he engage them?
John Kremer: No, he sits there at the table and as people walk by, he says hey I'm an author of this new book, I hope you'll take a look at it and I'd be happy to autograph it if you buy it. And he's a friendly guy, and he loves talking to people so he just engages in that way and a lot of people will buy a book if it's direct from the author. People like – I met this author and I got his autograph, you know? He actually wrote a novel about Nebraska which is in the middle of the United States and he did a Nebraska tour for 10 days and he sold 700 books in that 10 days. Which is a lot more books than a typical author sells in the year.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Wow. I want to ask you about your one on one as a consultant, how it works, how your courses work, do you take over a certain book and you will be responsible for launching it or marketing it or do you just work as a consultant?
John Kremer: I primarily work as a consultant, I have right now one client that I'm helping with the launch and I'm not ready to take on the second client because I'm not charging him enough. And so it's hard for me to find the time to do as much as I should for him. So I don't think I want to take on a second client at this time. Now what I probably should do at some point is hire some young 20-year-olds and teach them what I know and supervise them and charge five or $10,000 a month to launch a book for somebody.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: You don't have like a team online working with you?
John Kremer: I don't. And I would want – I could probably do it with virtual assistants but I would want to sit down live with them for at least 2 to 3 weeks to train them in the thought process of what to do, what to look for, how to engage your partnership and things like that to launch a book.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Like usually how long does it take when you help an author, how long does it take to launch it or prepare marketing?
John Kremer: What I'm doing with this one author, it six months before the launch.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: 6 months before the launch…
John Kremer: Because I had to start by making his website a lot better so that it was findable, and create social networking profiles for him and then the next step is to start create relationships with potential joint venture partners.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you prepare a forum for him and pitch it by email to those joint venture partners or how do you do it?
John Kremer: I do, but it's a strategy, you're really creating a relationship, so part of that is I am as him starting to comments on potential partners, comment on their blog post or something like that so that when I actually pitch them for something, they already will recognize my name because they've been interacting with me in the social networks or they've been interacting with me on their own blogs or videos or something like that. So that when I come to them they are already ready to do something because they will recognize in this case his name because I'm working under his name.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you comment using his account?
John Kremer: I think it takes about six months to nourish relationships to the point that on that one day or that one week you'll be able to start actually launching the book using one of the different techniques, superstar blog tours, product launches that Jeff Walker teaches or some other variation of that where you get a lot of people involved in helping you to market your book.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: How much would you charge your next client for the six months?
John Kremer: How much this one?
Ahmed Al Kiremli: This one or the next one, how much?
John Kremer: This when I'm charging 3000 a month but it's too low, I really should be charging more. Because it really does take time to nourish and if you're going to justify spending the time, the 3000 a month is essentially one hour a day for 20 days of my time. And even then it's cheap because that's like 150 an hour, but I charge 600 an hour for consulting.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you recommend any book trailer services?
John Kremer: I don't, I haven't seen that they really work. I think they can work, I think that if someone really does something interesting it could work, I have seen one or two things, videos that I thought were well done. I think one of the novelists, John Greene I think his name is, he did a nice semi book trailer. Tim Ferris has done a nice book trailer at one point, but most of the book trailers I see are…
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Have you worked with Tim Ferris before and who are the most famous authors that you've worked with before?
John Kremer: Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: Mainly as a consultant?
John Kremer: Yeah, Robert Allen. Consultant or something like that, yes. With Deepak I did the bookstore strategy to get his book on the New York Times bestseller list. With Jack and Mark I didn't do that much direct work with them, with Robert Allen I did. There's been other people that I've worked with like that, but what I really enjoy most doing is actually consulting with people, helping to give them in one hour the basic strategy of what they should be doing, the top five things they should be doing to market their book. And then let them focus on that. In most cases people shouldn't be doing more than five things to market their books. One of them might be that they are really trying to get on national TV, that would be one thing, and then you would be pitching a number of different national TV shows and you have to do it in the right way, things like that. You can really ruin credibility with the national TV show very quickly if you don't do it in the right way.
Ahmed Al Kiremli: What are the other four things that you prefer personally, you would do it for your book?
John Kremer: I think you need to do some sort of Internet launch, I think that that's important, exactly what format that takes depends on what you're good at doing. I think that for most authors they need to get out there
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On Thursday 12th July, 19 teams of golfers from across Berks, Bucks and Hampshire played in a competition at Sonning organised by our Rotary Club. The event raised over £7000 towards a portable ultrasound prostate scanner for the Royal Berks Hospital in addition to other causes supported by the club. The winning team, named "Hit & Hope", was led by Patsie O'Gallaghan. Donations to the golf day appeal can still be made at uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Golf-2018.


text:
> The Bootstrap `<b-collapse>` component and `v-b-toggle` directive allows you to
  toggle content visibility on your pages.

**Example 1:** Basic collapse
```html
<div>
  <p>
  <b-btn v-b-toggle.collapse1 variant="primary">Toggle Collapse</b-btn>
  </p>

  <b-collapse id="collapse1">
  <b-card>
      Collapse contents Here
      <b-btn v-b-toggle.collapse2 size="sm">Toggle Inner Collapse</b-btn>
      <b-collapse id=collapse2 class="mt-2">
      <b-card>Hello!</b-card>
      </b-collapse>
  </b-card>
  </b-collapse>
</div>

<!-- collapse-1.vue -->
```

**Example 2:** Accordion
```html
<div>
  <b-btn block v-b-toggle.accordion1 variant="primary">Accordion 1</b-btn>
  <b-collapse id="accordion1" visible accordion="my-accordion">
    <b-card>
        Accordion 1 contents Here
    </b-card>
  </b-collapse>
  <b-btn block class="mt-1" v-b-toggle.accordion2 variant="primary">Accordion 2</b-btn>
  <b-collapse id="accordion2" accordion="my-accordion">
    <b-card>
        Accordion 2 contents Here
    </b-card>
  </b-collapse>
  <b-btn block class="mt-1" v-b-toggle.accordion3 variant="primary">Accordion 3</b-btn>
  <b-collapse id="accordion3" accordion="my-accordion">
    <b-card>
        Accordion 3 contents Here
    </b-card>
  </b-collapse>
</div>

<!-- collapse-2.vue -->
```

Other elements can easily toggle `<b-collapse>` components using the `v-b-toggle` directive.

```html
<!-- Using modifiers -->
<b-btn v-b-toggle.collapse1>Toggle Collapse</b-btn>

<!-- Using value -->
<b-btn v-b-toggle="'collapse1'">Toggle Collapse</b-btn>

<!-- element to collapse -->
<b-collapse id="collapse1">
    <b-card>
      I am collapsable content!
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>
```

To make the `<b-collapse>` show initially, set the `visible` prop:

```html
<b-btn v-b-toggle.collapse1>Toggle Collapse</b-btn>

<b-collapse visible id="collapse1">
    <b-card>
      I should start open!
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>
```

The component's collapsed (visible) state can also be set with `v-model` which binds to the visible prop:

```html
<b-btn @click="showCollapse = !showCollapse">Toggle Collapse</b-btn>

<b-collapse v-model="showCollapse" id="collapse1">
    <b-card>
      I should start open!
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>

<script>
{
    // inside the vue
    data() {
        return {
            showCollapse: true
        }
    }
}
</script>
```

You can even collapse multiple `<b-collapse>` components via a single `v-b-toggle` by
providing multiple target ids using modifers:

```html
<b-btn v-b-toggle.collapse1.collapse2>Toggle Collapse 1 and 2</b-btn>

<!-- elements to collapse -->
<b-collapse id="collapse1">
    <b-card>
      I am collapsable content 1!
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>
<b-collapse id="collapse2">
    <b-card>
      I am collapsable content 2!
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>
```

### Accordion Support

Turn a group of `<b-collapse>` components into an accordion by supplying
an accordion group identifier via the `accordion` prop:

```html
<b-btn block v-b-toggle.collapse1>Collapsible Group 1</b-btn>
<b-collapse id="collapse1" accordion="my-accordion" visible>
    <b-card>
      Accordion Panel 1<br>
      I start opened because <code>visible</code> is <code>true</code>
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>
<b-btn block class="mt-2" v-b-toggle.collapse2>Collapsible Group 2</b-btn>
<b-collapse id="collapse2" accordion="my-accordion">
    <b-card>
      Accordion Panel 2
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>
<b-btn block class="mt-2" v-b-toggle.collapse3>Collapsible Group 3</b-btn>
<b-collapse id="collapse3" accordion="my-accordion">
    <b-card>
      Accordion Panel 3
    </b-card>
</b-collapse>
```

**Notes:**
- If using the `v-model` feature of `<b-collaspe>` in accordion mode, do not
bind the `v-model` or `visible` of all the collapses in the accordion group to the same variable.
- Ensure, at most, only one `<b-collapse>` in the accordion group has the `visible`
prop and/or `v-model` set to `true`.

### Accessibility
The `v-b-toggle` directive will automatically add the ARIA attributes `aria-controls` and `aria-expanded`
to the component that the directive appears on.  `aria-expanded` will reflect the state of
the tartget `<b-collapse>` component, while `aria-controls` will be set to the ID(s)
of the target `<b-collapse>` component(s).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
War in the Balkans, Was Srebrenica A Hoax? The Memoirs of a Portuguese Peacekeeper
By Stephen Karganovic
Strategic Culture Foundation and Global Research 7 July 2017
Region: Europe, Latin America & Caribbean
Theme: Crimes against Humanity, History, Law and Justice, Media Disinformation, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: THE BALKANS
Relevant article from our archives. War pretext incidents. First published by SCF and Global Research in July 2017
Featured image: Gravestones at the Potočari genocide memorial near Srebrenica (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
General Carlos Martins Branco is one of the most fascinating (and until quite recently also inaccessible) actors in the Srebrenica controversy. From his Zagreb vantage point as deputy head of the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) between 1994 and 1996, during the latter phase of the 1990s Yugoslav conflict as it unfolded in Croatia and Bosnian and Herzegovina, this Portuguese officer had privileged access to significant information. Confidential reports about the goings on in the field were crossing his desk. With first-hand information and further enlightened by discrete conversations with colleagues from various intelligence structures, Martins Branco was positioned ideally to learn facts which many officials would have preferred to cover up, and the media frequently ignored.
General Carlos Martins Branco (Source: Novosti.rs)
With a typically Latin emotional flair, refusing to remain silent as the "Srebrenica genocide narrative" was taking shape in the second half of the 1990s, Martins Branco published in 1998 an article provocatively entitled "Was Srebrenica a Hoax? Eyewitness Account of a Former UN Military Observer in Bosnia" In that early plunge into the toxic Srebrenica debate, Martins Branco ventured a number of critical questions concerning the notorious events in July 1995:
"One may agree or disagree with my political analysis, but one really ought to read the account of how Srebrenica fell, who are the victims whose bodies have been found so far, and why the author believes that the Serbs wanted to conquer Srebrenica and make the Bosnian Muslims flee, rather than having any intentions of butchering them. The comparison Srebrenica vs. Krajina, as well as the related media reaction by the 'free press' in the West, is also rather instructive".
Shortly after that expression of skepticism about the nature of the disputed events in Srebrenica, Martins Branco practically disappeared from view. Not physically, of course. He spent several years in Florence teaching at the European University Institute and preparing his doctoral dissertation. After that, in 2007 and 2008 he was attached by his government to NATO forces in Afghanistan in the capacity of media spokesperson for the Commander. From 2008 until recently, when he retired, General Martins Branco served as deputy director of the National Defense Institute of the Portuguese armed forces.
This impressive background, to which we may add the duty of head of the Intelligence Affairs Section of EUROFOR for Bosnia, Albania, and Kosovo from 1996 to 1999, bespeaks an elite and highly trained staff officer, with first-class intelligence capabilities and powers of observation.
Intrigued by Martins Branco's out-of-the-box analysis of Srebrenica events, shortly after the founding of our NGO "Srebrenica Historical Project" we attempted to establish communication with him to see if he would share with us some of his exceptional information and insights. Our efforts were fruitless and correspondence with the general over the years came down mostly to an exchange of non-committal courtesies.
Defense teams at the ICTY in the Hague, which endeavored to obtain him as a witness on their clients' behalf, had no better luck. However, not very long ago General Martins Branco wrote to us seeking answers to some questions concerning Srebrenica. He mentioned that in November 2016 his memoirs were published in Portugal. That volume, which he kindly made available to us, encompassed the period of his service in the Balkans. It was entitled "A Guerra nos Balcãs, jihadismo, geopolítica e desinformação" [War in the Balkans, Jihadism, Geopolitics, and Disinformation], published by Edições Colibri in Lisbon.
As already seen numerous times with high-level officials, in this case as well open expression of intimate views and public disclosure of facts regarded of a delicate nature had to wait for retirement. In General Martins Branco's case, the wait was worthwhile. These fascinating recollections from the Balkan war theater consist of the insights of a Portuguese officer attached to UN forces into such episodes as the merciless expulsion, accompanied by mass killing, of the Serbian population of Krajina by Croatian forces. These outrages were orchestrated with the discrete backing of the NATO alliance, for which the author indirectly happened to be working at the time. Events surrounding Srebrenica in July 0f 1995 encompass another portion of his recollections. For the moment, we will focus on the latter and Martins Branco's perception of the background and impact of the Srebrenica situation.
Already in his introduction to the chapters of his memoirs that deal with Srebrenica, Martins Branco questions the coherence of the prevalent view that it constituted genocide:
"General Ratko Mladic had made it known that he was leaving open a corridor for withdrawal toward Tuzla. With Mladic's approval, about 6.000 persons took advantage of that opportunity. In a report by the Dutch Foreign Ministry it is noted that, according to UN sources, by August 4 a total of 35.632 displaced persons had made it to Tuzla, of whom between 800 and 1.000 were members of Bosnia and Herzegovina armed forces. Out of that total, 17.500 had been evacuated by bus". (Page 195)
The Portuguese general then continues:
"Srebrenica was portrayed – and continues to be – as a premeditated massacre of innocent Muslim civilians. As a genocide! But was it really so? A more careful and informed assessment of those events leads me to doubt it". (Page 196)
Martins Branco goes on to raise some pointed questions, and he does so purely in the capacity of a professional soldier:
"There are various estimates of the relative strength of forces involved in the Srebrenica battle. On the Serbian side, at most 3.000 fighters could have taken part. The number of armored vehicles is more difficult to determine, as stated at the beginning of this chapter. According to field reports, however, not more than six such vehicles were in motion at any given time. Though we lack reliable information about troop strength on the Muslim side, it is entirely probable that they numbered a minimum of 4.000 armed men, counting together Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina soldiers and members of the paramilitaries. According to some sources, they numbered up to 6.000. But for the purposes of this analysis, we will consider the 4.000 figure as credible". (Page 196)
The general then goes on:
"The topographical features of the terrain around Srebrenica, and Eastern Bosnia as a whole, are extremely rugged and hilly. Crags, thickly forested areas, and deep ravines impede the movement of military vehicles while facilitating infantry operations. In relation to ground features, which beyond any doubt favor defenders, the numerical relationship of forces on the opposing sides suggests that Bosnian army troops had at their disposal more than sufficient manpower to put up a defense. They, however, failed to do that. Taking into account the numerical ratio of attackers to defenders, as we were taught at the military academy, for the attack to have any chance of success the number of attackers would have to exceed that of the defenders by a factor of at least three. In the case at hand, that ratio was more than advantageous to the defenders (4.000 defenders versus 3.000 attackers). In addition, the defenders had the additional benefit of knowing the landscape". (Page 196)
Martins Branco then asks one of the key Srebrenica questions:
"Given that military advantage favored the defense, why did the Bosnian army fail to put up any resistance to Serbian forces? Why did the command of the 28th Division of the Bosnian army – acting apparently contrary to its interest – fail to establish a defense line, as at other times it knew well how to do, as for instance during the April 1993 crisis? Why did Muslim forces in the enclave fail to act to regain control over their heavy weapons, which had been deposited in a local warehouse under UN's lock and key? Was it no more than an oversight?" (Page 197)
A Dutch YPR-765 as used at Srebrenica (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
As a supplement to these well-formulated questions, we may note that already on July 6, as the Serbian attack was commencing, the Dutch battalion command in Srebrenica let it be known to the 28th Division that it was free to retrieve its warehoused heavy armaments, if it so wished. That fact was revealed in the Dutch battalion "Debriefing", which came out in October of 1995. However, Muslim forces in Srebrenica inexplicably ignored this invitation, thus reinforcing the impression that – for political or other reasons – they lacked the purpose of militarily resisting the Serbian attack.
Which leads the author to the following reflections:
"Twenty years later, we still lack satisfactory answers to questions that seem crucial, assuming that we are seeking to find out what exactly happened. The passivity and absence of a military reaction on the part of Muslim forces in the enclave is in stark contrast to their offensive behavior during the preceding two years, which was manifested in the form of systematic slaughter of Serbian civilians in the villages surrounding Srebrenica". (Page 197)
The author then discloses an intriguing detail that was previously unknown even to this reviewer:
"Ramiz Becirevic [in command of the 28th Division in Naser Oric's absence] initially issued an order for the heavy weapons to be collected. However, he cancelled it shortly thereafter, explaining that he had received a countermanding order. Who was the source of that order, and for what reason was it given? For the record, let it be noted that in the morning of July 6, as the Serbian attack was starting, acting on his own responsibility, the Dutchbat commander informed the leadership of the Bosnian army that the Serbs had 'trespassed' the enclave's boundaries and that the UN would not be object should they come to retrieve their heavy weaponry that had been deposited in a local warehouse". (Page 197)
Pressing further his point about the enigmatic dissipation within the Srebrenica enclave of the will to resist, Martins Branco points out that Naser Oric, "the charismatic leader who very likely would have acted differently", was withdrawn from the enclave in April of 1995, never to return. He therefore goes on to ask some common sense questions:
"Was [Oric's] return prevented by the Second Corps of the Bosnian army, of which 28th Division was part? What could have been the reasons for that? We still lack convincing answers to these questions". (Page 198)
"On the other hand", the Portuguese author continues with his detailed analysis of the suspicious train of events,
"officials of the local SDA, the Party of Democratic Action that was in charge in Sarajevo, not only refused, citing strange reasons, to assist UN forces in evacuating Srebrenica, which is to say their own population and refugees from the surrounding villages who had taken shelter in the town, but they went even further by preventing them from fleeing in the direction of Potocari. Instead, they submitted to the commander of B Company [of the Dutchbat] a long list of demands, the fulfillment of which was insisted upon as the condition for their cooperation. The nature of these demands suggested the existence of a carefully elaborated advance plan which, however, did not mesh with the conditions that actually prevailed on the ground at that particular moment. At that point, there were only two issues which were of significance to the municipal president: one, the demand to the Military Observers on July 10 to disseminate to the outside world a report alleging the use of chemical weapons by Serbian forces, although that was not true; secondly, to publicly accuse the international media of spreading misinformation that Muslim forces were offering armed resistance, with an additional demand to the UN to also issue an official denial to that effect. According to him, Bosnian soldiers neither used heavy weapons, nor were they prepared to ever do so. At the same time, he complained about the lack of foodstuffs and the dismal humanitarian situation. The outline of an official narrative was becoming perceptible and it consisted of two messages: the absence of any military resistance and lack of food". (Page 198)
To put it in plain English, this elite NATO officer with excellent powers of observation and acumen for critical analysis "smelled a rat," and he did so right from the beginning of the game. He does not say it outright in his memoirs, but it is strongly suggested that these doubts about the authenticity of the official Srebrenica narrative were proliferating in his mind in real time, as field reports accumulated on his desk in Zagreb.
Headquarters in Potočari for soldiers under United Nations command; "Dutchbat" had 370[11] soldiers in Srebrenica during the massacre. The building was a disused battery factory (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Martins Branco then pops the logical question or, rather, he points his finger at one of the key incoherencies of the official account of Srebrenica events:
"A question mark could also be put over the complete absence of a military response of any kind by the Second Corps of the Bosnian army, whose zone of responsibility encompassed northeastern Bosnia, including Tuzla (where its headquarters was located), as well as Doboj, Bijeljina, Srebrenica, Zepa, and Zvornik. Bosnian army intelligence agencies, whose ear was constantly fixed on Serbian signal communications, were perfectly aware of the impending offensive operation. In spite of not at all being in the dark concerning the Serbs' intention to attack, the Second Corps of the Bosnian army did not make the slightest move to weaken the Serbs' pressure upon the enclave. It was a known fact that the Drina Corps, the Serbian army unit in whose zone of responsibility Srebrenica was located, was exhausted and that the attack on Srebrenica was made feasible only by scraping together forces withdrawn from other segments of the front, which naturally left in its wake many vulnerable points. Why didn't the Second Corps undertake an attack along the entire front line with the Drina Corps, not merely in order to relieve the pressure on Srebrenica but also to exploit the Serbian forces' temporary vulnerabilities in order to seize territory in areas that were left unprotected? Following the passage of twenty years, we still do not have the answer to this more than coherent and reasonable question". (Pages 198-199)
These are just some of the more important reasons leading a professional soldier to be skeptical of the general framework of the accepted Srebrenica narrative. As we will see in the next installment of this review, his more detailed analysis raises even more troubling questions.
The original source of this article is Strategic Culture Foundation and Global Research
Copyright © Stephen Karganovic, Strategic Culture Foundation and Global Research, 2018
Articles by: Stephen Karganovic

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This tutorial demonstrates how to implementUser Interactions to handleIntercepted Data	in Decisions. To follow the example the Intercepted Data should already have been created. Intercepted data is stored in the Rule Set Results Folder	. The next step is to create a handler to be able to fix intercepted data and continue theFlow.
This example demonstrates how to create an Action	on Intercepted Data	allowing users to fix invalid data and continue the execution of the Flow. Begin in the Rule Set Folder	by selecting Setup Rule Set	from the Folder Actions Panel.
Setup Rule Set properties	and scroll down to the Outcome Options	section and add a new Defined Outcome Path	called, (Manually Approve) . AnyDefined Outcome Path	from a Rule Set	becomes an outcome from Run Rule Set	step in our Process Flow and an Action	on Intercepted Data inRule Set Results Folder	. We click Ok	to saveRule Set Setup and continue.
After an Outcome Path is defined the Outcome path will appear as an action in the Rule Set Results Folder.
Select an Intercepted Result and select Manually Approve	to complete the Flow. This will open up the Form that allows you to Approve	orDeny	the Intercepted Data.
When the Form shows either Approve or Deny the application. This will complete the Main Flow process.
After an action is taken to either approve or deny or edit, the flow will continue to process and the Intercepted data will clear out of theRule Set Results Data Folder.


This page is dedicated to old newspaper clippings. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to establish the year of many of the newspaper articles. If you have any old newspaper articles lying in a folder in the attic, please scan them and e-mail them to Harry Turnbull so that they can be added to this page. If you don't have access to a scanner you could hand the original to Harry at his office at 10 Oliver Place, Hawick, TD9 9BG.


text:
module BlackAndWhite
  module Mongoid
    class Test
      include ::Mongoid::Document
      include Helpers::Methods

      has_and_belongs_to_many BlackAndWhite.config.bw_class_table

      field :name, type: String
      field :description, type: String
      field :active, type: Boolean, default: false

      validates :name, uniqueness: true
    end
  end
end


text:
InputText::InputText()
{
    m_box.setPosition(0,0);
    m_box.setSize(sf::Vector2f(192,32));
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = "";
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;
}

InputText::~InputText()
{
    //dtor
}

InputText::InputText(sf::Vector2f position)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(sf::Vector2f(192,32));
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = "";
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;
}

InputText::InputText(sf::Vector2f position, std::string displayText)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(sf::Vector2f(192,32));
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = displayText;
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;

    if (!m_font.loadFromFile("Exo-Light.otf"))
    {
        // error...
    }
    m_displayBoxText.setFont(m_font);
    m_displayBoxText.setCharacterSize(15);
    m_displayBoxText.setColor(sf::Color(50,50,50,100));
    m_displayBoxText.setPosition(m_box.getPosition().x+10,m_box.getPosition().y+6);
    m_displayBoxText.setString(m_displayText);

    m_boxText.setFont(m_font);
    m_boxText.setCharacterSize(15);
    m_boxText.setColor(sf::Color(50,50,50,255));
    m_boxText.setPosition(m_box.getPosition().x+10,m_box.getPosition().y+6);

    m_cursor.setSize(sf::Vector2f(1,m_boxText.getCharacterSize()*1.3));
    m_cursor.setFillColor(sf::Color(50,50,50));
}

InputText::InputText(sf::Vector2f position, sf::Vector2f size)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(size);
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = "";
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;
}

InputText::InputText(sf::Vector2f position, sf::Vector2f size, std::string displayText)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(size);
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = displayText;
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;
}

void InputText::create(sf::Vector2f position)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(sf::Vector2f(192,32));
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = "";
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;
}

void InputText::create(sf::Vector2f position, std::string displayText)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(sf::Vector2f(192,32));
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = displayText;
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;

    if (!m_font.loadFromFile("Exo-Light.otf"))
    {
        // error...
    }
    m_displayBoxText.setFont(m_font);
    m_displayBoxText.setCharacterSize(15);
    m_displayBoxText.setColor(sf::Color(50,50,50,100));
    m_displayBoxText.setPosition(m_box.getPosition().x+10,m_box.getPosition().y+6);
    m_displayBoxText.setString(m_displayText);

    m_boxText.setFont(m_font);
    m_boxText.setCharacterSize(15);
    m_boxText.setColor(sf::Color(50,50,50,255));
    m_boxText.setPosition(m_box.getPosition().x+10,m_box.getPosition().y+6);

    m_cursor.setSize(sf::Vector2f(1,m_boxText.getCharacterSize()*1.3));
    m_cursor.setFillColor(sf::Color(50,50,50));
}

void InputText::create(sf::Vector2f position, sf::Vector2f size)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(size);
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = "";
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;
}

void InputText::create(sf::Vector2f position, sf::Vector2f size, std::string displayText)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
    m_box.setSize(size);
    m_box.setOutlineColor(sf::Color(0,0,0));
    m_box.setFillColor(sf::Color(255,255,255));
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(1);
    m_text = "";
    m_displayText = displayText;
    m_selected = false;
    m_maxLength = -1;
}

void InputText::setPosition(sf::Vector2f position)
{
    m_box.setPosition(position);
}

void InputText::setSize(sf::Vector2f size)
{
    m_box.setSize(size);
}

void InputText::setText(std::string text)
{
    m_text = text;
}

void InputText::setDisplayText(std::string displayText)
{
    m_displayText = displayText;
}

void InputText::setOutlineColor(sf::Color color)
{
    m_box.setOutlineColor(color);
}

void InputText::setBackgroundColor(sf::Color color)
{
     m_box.setFillColor(color);
}

void InputText::setTrickness(int trickness)
{
    m_box.setOutlineThickness(trickness);
}

void InputText::setMaxLength(int maxLength)
{
    m_maxLength = maxLength;
}

sf::Vector2f InputText::getPosition()
{
    return m_box.getPosition();
}

sf::Vector2f InputText::getSize()
{
    return m_box.getSize();
}

std::string InputText::getText()
{
    return m_text;
}

std::string InputText::getDisplayText()
{
    return m_displayText;
}

sf::Color InputText::getOutlineColor()
{
    return m_box.getOutlineColor();
}

sf::Color InputText::getBackgroundColor()
{
    return m_box.getFillColor();
}

int InputText::getTrickness()
{
    return m_box.getOutlineThickness();
}

bool InputText::getSelected()
{
    return m_selected;
}

void InputText::event(sf::Event &event)
{
    if (m_selected == true && event.type == sf::Event::TextEntered)
    {
        if(event.text.unicode == '\b' && m_text.size()==0)
            m_text == "";
        else if (event.text.unicode == '\b' && m_text.size()>0)
            m_text.erase(m_text.size()-1, 1);
        else if(m_maxLength == -1)
            m_text+=event.text.unicode;
        else if(m_maxLength > 0)
            if(m_text.size() < m_maxLength)
                m_text+=event.text.unicode;

    }
}

void InputText::step()
{
    if(localPosition.x >= m_box.getPosition().x && localPosition.x <= m_box.getPosition().x+m_box.getSize().x
            && localPosition.y >=  m_box.getPosition().y && localPosition.y <= m_box.getPosition().y+m_box.getSize().y)
    {
        SetCursor(LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_IBEAM));
    }

    if(sf::Mouse::isButtonPressed(sf::Mouse::Left))
    {
        if(localPosition.x >= m_box.getPosition().x && localPosition.x <= m_box.getPosition().x+m_box.getSize().x
            && localPosition.y >=  m_box.getPosition().y && localPosition.y <= m_box.getPosition().y+m_box.getSize().y)
            m_selected = true;
        else
            m_selected = false;
    }

    if(m_selected == true)
    {
        m_displayBoxText.setString("");
        m_cursor.setPosition(sf::Vector2f(m_boxText.getPosition().x+m_boxText.getLocalBounds().width, m_boxText.getPosition().y));
        m_boxText.setString(m_text);
    }
    else
    {
         m_displayBoxText.setString(m_displayText);
    }

    elapsed1 = clock.getElapsedTime();

    if(elapsed1.asMilliseconds() > 1000)
        clock.restart();
}

void InputText::draw(sf::RenderWindow& window)
{
    localPosition = sf::Mouse::getPosition(window);

    window.draw(m_box);
    if(m_text.size() == 0)
        window.draw(m_displayBoxText);
    window.draw(m_boxText);
    if(m_selected == true && elapsed1.asMilliseconds() > 500)
        window.draw(m_cursor);

}


The ultimate guide to SVG. Imagine you could embed an image in a web page, scale that page to any size, and never lose image quality.
Well, you can. It's totally possible, we just haven't been doing it as much as we should. Images with fixed sizes such as JPG files, GIFs, and PNGs have their place on the Web, but their inherently static nature conflicts with the way the Web is going. As we move to responsive, flowing designs, the more irritating it gets to have to deal with images that are fundamentally not responsive. Flexbox Cheatsheet Cheatsheet. While I am no stranger to the magic of Flexbox, I find that I am not using it very often just yet.
As a result I end up pausing and referring back to this post at CSS-Tricks whenever an opportunity to utilize its powers presents itself. I set out to create a quick visual to summarize Flexbox when I run into these moments of pause in the future. I like to think of it as a little diagram (flow chart? Decision tree-ish thing?) Adaptive Placeholders. Adaptive Placeholders A while ago I designed an interactive placeholder thing for our forms and wrote it entirely in CSS.
Improve the payment experience with animations. Animations add context This transition shows how an animation can be useful for the user.
It becomes clear that we ask for their phone number as part of the Remember me step, that the phone input shows up because of the action you took (checking Remember me). Shake shake shake When building a form, it's easy to overlook how errors are experienced by the user. Web Design 2014: What to Watch Out For. This year has been a brilliant year in web design.
More than any other year perhaps, huge strides have been made towards the maturing of the field. Let's have a look at some of what we can expect for the future of web design as an industry. Solutions to the Slicing Problem Anyone who has been doing web design for longer than a few years has undoubtedly faced the problem of the gap between design and front-end development. Designers live in tools similar to Photoshop or Sketch, and developers live in their text editors.
Bring Your Website to Life With Animate.css. Retina graphics for your website. How it works There are now 4 ways to use retina.js: Automatically swapping out "src" paths on "img" tags.
Automatically swapping out background image URLs in inline styles. Manually specifying the location of a high-res image variant. Automatically creating media queries for CSS background images. In the most common case, you might have an image on your page that looks like this: <img src="/images/my_image.png" data-rjs="3" /> By using the "data-rjs" attribute, you're telling retina.js that this image would like to opt in. By giving the "data-rjs" attribute a value of "3", you're telling retina.js that you have created high-res image variants for all environments up through 3 times traditional pixel density (meaning both 2x images and 3x images). When a page loads, the script will check the user's environment to see what its display capabilities are.
CSS3 Responsive Slider / Carousel Using Radio Buttons. Select catcher Created by Ian Hansson (@teapoted) Art from Brendan Zabarauskas (@bjzaba_).


text:
Q: How to receive HTML response from an API and bind it to view template in Angular 7. my API call's response is HTML document and I need to bind the html response to my angular's template. I tried it using below observable code and no luck. Any help please.
Service method:
getResults(): Observable<string> {
     return this.http.get<any>('https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/angular');
  }

Subscribe in the component:
ngOnInit() {
    this._apiService.getResults()
    .subscribe(data => {
      this.results = data;
    },
    error => console.log('Error from backend API', +error));
  }

A: If I understend the problem correctly in response you get html code for example:

Some text

And you want to add that inside of your template.? So first of all you have to modify your get call. Get, by default, expect the json in response.
What you have to do is this:
getResults(): Observable<string> {
     return this.http.get<string>('https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/angular',{responseType: 'text'});
  }

and second in the template:

and then in the subscriber
ngOnInit() {
    this._apiService.getResults()
    .subscribe(data => {
      this.innerHtml = data;
    },
    error => console.log('Error from backend API', +error));
  }

if this is a CORS problem you have to set the proxy if you work in local environment. Go and create proxy.conf.json.
{
  "/questions/tagged/angular": {
    "target": "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/angular",
    "secure": false
  }
}

change the url:
getResults(): Observable<string> {
     return this.http.get<any>('/questions/tagged/angular');
  }

and the run your app with ng serve --proxy-config proxy.conf.json

A: What Cors means that, if you try to access say https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/angular, you are only allowed to make that request only when window URL is https://stackoverflow.com. The URL you see in your browser while making a request is called origin. When you request from localhost, it will get blocked, since localhost and https://stackoverflow.com are different. And this is controlled by a response header called access-control-allow-origin. This will be set by that particular site which you are visiting. We cannot change this. You can read more about this at MDN - CORS.
So for development purpose you can setup a simple local server to return a html file. Or try accessing a site, which doesnt set access-control-allow-origin flag.
For example, Mozilla site, allows access from all, hence if you try changing from stackoverflow.com to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS it will work.
You can check whether an site allows cross access in network tab. See the below pic. If its * all is allowed, or only the mentioned urls will be allowed.

Also note, angular by default considers all request to be json. If you are reading other types such as html, you need to specify that using {responseType: 'text'} as second argument.
this.http.get('https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS', {responseType: 'text'})
  .subscribe(data => {
    console.log(data);
  }, error => {
    console.log(error);
  });;

See Stackblitz live example

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Political left vs. right 'all hooey': Alberta Independence Party
Emma Graney
Apr 03, 2019 • Last Updated April 3, 2019 • 2 minute read
The Alberta Independence has 63 candidates — 12 more than the Alberta Liberals — and official party status in the April 16, 2019 provincial election. Photo by Postmedia Archives
Alberta Independence Party Leader Dave Bjorkman believes his party is the "true centre" of Alberta politics.
The notion of left and right?
"That's all hooey," Bjorkman told Postmedia Tuesday.
As far as he's concerned, Alberta's financial woes can only be fixed through separation.
"If there was another way, I would do it. I didn't come up with this to be some radical — it's because Canada pushed us out. The system's broken," he said.
Secession from Canada tends towards a fringe political belief in Alberta, but rears its head every few decades or so.
A February poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that 50 per cent of Albertans would support secession from Canada, and Bjorkman is banking on that growing sentiment when voters head to the polls April 16.
'They're getting us wrong'
The Alberta Independence Party has enjoyed something of a meteoric rise .
A year ago, it was a jumbled group with assorted ideas. Now it has 63 candidates — 12 more than the Alberta Liberals — and official party status.
Scrolling through candidate photographs on the party website takes you past an impressive array of moustaches and creative facial hair, but a handful of women, Aboriginals, immigrants and a transgender candidate all feature on the party slate.
Still, Bjorkman said cities in particular "have been rough" on his party.
"They're getting us wrong. They think we're some kind of alt-right group," he said.
It doesn't help that he was embroiled in the Soldiers of Odin controversy , in which UCP candidate hopefuls in Edmonton-West Henday were pictured with members of the white nationalist group.
At the time, the local UCP constituency president Terry Howlett accused Bjorkman, the Alberta Independence Party candidate for Edmonton West Henday, of bringing Soldiers of Odin to the event.
"I will talk to any Albertan. I refuse nobody — it doesn't matter your beliefs. But it doesn't mean I believe that," Bjorkman said Tuesday.
Bjorkman, whose cataracts left him legally blind until a recent set of cornea transplants, acknowledged it can be tough to get across his party's non-separation policies; its platform also features education, health care, First Nations self-governance, an Alberta police force and a flat corporate tax rate of 8.5 per cent.
"We're not like any other party you've ever seen, and obviously we have to be different because we're going for separation," he said.
"I'll defeat Jason Kenney, I'll defeat Rachel Notley, and I'll defeat Stephen Mandel. We need something for all Albertans, and that's what I'm trying to do."
egraney@postmedia.com
twitter.com/EmmaLGraney


text:
Mississippi Manufacturers Association Endorse Hosemann for Lieutenant Governor
Jackson, Miss. – The Mississippi Manufacturers Association (MMA) Board of Directors voted unanimously to endorse Delbert Hosemann in his campaign for election to the office of lieutenant governor. MMA made the announcement Wednesday, May 29, at their board meeting at The Grand Hotel Marriott Resort in Point Clear, AL.
MMA President and CEO Jay C. Moon said, "The MMA Board of Directors have chosen to support Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann in his campaign for election. Secretary of State Hosemann's views on growing a skilled, educated workforce and his support of business issues match those of the MMA. We believe he will represent Mississippi well."
As Secretary of State, Hosemann has dedicated his time to ensure that Mississippi is business-friendly and attractive for economic development.
Hosemann faces opposition in the August 6, primary election. The MMA encourages its members to support his campaign for election.
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Manufacturers Endorse Hosemann for Lieutenant Governor
SOS Website Serves as Resource to Vet Disaster Relief Charities


Savia is a character in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.
The watch commander looks up at you after her listless greeting, and you notice that she has a dark bruise around one eye. She grimaces, but does not turn away. Savia might be the watch commander, but the shortage of capable hands forced her to do the dirty work herself. This bruise is the result of her showing too much courtesy to Rum-Dumb Riggere, who used the opportunity to punch her in the face while being dragged off to jail.
However, her biggest concern is keeping the peace in the wake of the flooding across Port Maje. Ilari, a particularly notorious little ganger, is busy looting the flooded parts of the city with impunity while the guards are stretched thin.
Restoring Order: She requests your aid in pacifying Ilari and his crew.


PHILADELPHIA, PA -- Rohm and Haas Adhesives and Sealants business has announced a price increase for all acrylic, styrene acrylic, vinyl acrylic and vinyl acetate emulsions sold to the pressure sensitive, construction adhesive, caulk and sealant industries in North America. The increase, which ranges from 7-9 percent, will take effect October 24, 2005 or as contracts allow.
This action is necessitated by the continued escalation in petrochemical feedstock and energy costs as well as volatile supply dynamics.
Rohm and Haas is a Philadelphia-based specialty materials company which makes products for the personal care, grocery, home and construction markets, and the electronics industry. The company expects annual sales in excess of $8 billion in 2005, and has significant operations in 27 countries.
The Rohm and Haas Adhesives and Sealants business is a world-class supplier of formulated adhesives, coatings and polymers for adhesives and sealants. It serves the Packaging, Converting, Transportation, Construction, and Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives industries.


On Thursday, federal lawmakers and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries gathered on Capitol Hill to warn the debt panel of the consequences of cutting entitlement programs as part of deficit-reduction strategies, Modern Healthcare reports (Zigmond, Modern Healthcare, 11/17).
Republicans seek significant entitlement cuts to curb increasing deficits, and some Democrats on the panel have indicated that they are willing to increase Medicare premiums (Hughes, Wall Street Journal, 11/17).
Sanders said, "[T]he deficit was caused by two wars — unpaid for; it was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country; it was caused by a recession that was the result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street." He added, "And if those are the causes of the deficit and the national debt, I will be damned if we're going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor" (Modern Healthcare, 11/17).


The Heavy Duty Wagon Wheel Grate series is built from 5/8 inch thick square-bar steel for added durability. Their innovative wheel-and-spoke shape lifts firewood off the ground to improve airflow to the fire while the flared tips help contain logs safely on top of the grate.
To ensure a great fit in your fire pit, please measure the diameter of the inside of your fire pit and select a grate that is at least 1-5 inches smaller.