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Category Archives: Foreclosures
Federal Reserve Hiding Big Banks' Foreclosure Records Of Americans!
Posted by John Loeffler in Americans, Banks, Corruption, cover-ups, Foreclosures, Fraud, Homes, Illegal, Secrets, U.S., U.S. Government, U.S. Senate, United States
Americans, Bank of America, banks, Ben Bernanke, Citigroup, corruption, cover-ups, Elizabeth Warren, Federal Reserve, foreclosures, fraud, homes, Illegal, JPMorgan Chase, Konrad Alt, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Promontory Financial Group, Representative Elijah Cummings, Senator Elizabeth Warren, trade secrets, U.S, U.S. Government, U.S. Senate, United States, Wells Fargo
Inflation Is The Legacy Of The Federal Reserve
Two Democratic lawmakers lambasted federal regulators whom they accuse of using an obligation to protect bank "trade secrets" as an excuse not to hand over details of a botched review of home foreclosures.
"Breaking the law is not a corporate trade secret," Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland told the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in a letter on Wednesday.
The regulators reached settlements worth about $9.3 billion with 13 banks earlier this year to end case-by-case reviews of whether they had wrongly seized homes or begun the foreclosure process.
Some $3.6 billion of that money will go toward cash payments to borrowers. Some payments, most averaging between $300 and $600, are set to go out on Friday.
Regulators had already turned over some information about the reviews, but the lawmakers wanted to look at documents concerning the types of abuses committed by each mortgage servicer
But regulators resisted turning over such information and said documents involved are trade secrets, or subject to confidentiality agreements, according to the lawmakers.
"We strongly believe that documents should not be withheld from any Member of Congress based on the flawed argument that illegal activity by banks is somehow their proprietary business information," the pair wrote to the two regulators.
A Fed spokesman acknowledged receipt of the letter, but would not comment further. A spokesman for the OCC said the agency does not comment on congressional correspondence.
The letter set the stage for a Thursday hearing before a Senate banking subcommittee at which lawmakers are expected to grill OCC and Fed officials for what they believe was an opaque and mismanaged review process.
The regulators ended the reviews that began in 2011, which were supposed to find and compensate harmed borrowers, through settlements in January with servicers including units of Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Wells Fargo & Co.
By then some $2 billion had already been paid out to consultants who conducted the reviews, even though no money had been paid out to eligible borrowers.
Regulators said on Tuesday that borrowers whose homes were in foreclosure in 2009 and 2010 could expect to begin receiving checks later this week, the vast majority of which will be less than $1,000.
In testimony to be delivered on Thursday, OCC Deputy Chief Counsel Daniel Stipano apologized for the agency's mistakes in handling the reviews.
"In retrospect, it is clear that our approach…did not serve the agency's objectives which were, first and foremost, to compensate borrowers in a timely manner for the financial harm they suffered from faulty foreclosure practices," Stipano said.
Representatives of three of the consulting firms that handled the reviews are also expected to testify.
Konrad Alt, a managing director of Promontory Financial Group, which has come under fire for handling a major chunk of the reviews, did not directly address the foreclosure settlement in his written testimony.
He did say that the firm had established hotlines to allow reviewers to anonymously raise concerns about the independence of the reviews.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/10/us-bank-foreclosures-settlement-idUSBRE9380KW20130410
**Important Note: The Federal Reserve is a private entity, and it is not run by the U.S. Government!
Foreclosed U.S. Homeowners Got $300, Bank's Consultants Got $2 Billion
Posted by John Loeffler in Americans, Banks, Corruption, Deception, Foreclosures, Fraud, Homes, Lies, Mega-Banks, Mortgages, Robbery, Theft, U.S., U.S. Citizens, Uncategorized, United States
Bank of America, banks, corruption, deception, Federal Reserve System, foreclosures, fraud, homes, JPMorgan Chase, lies, mega-banks, mortgages, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Promontory Financial Group, robbery, Senator Elizabeth Warren, theft, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal, Wells Fargo
obscene greed-and-arrogance stories emanating from Wall Street are piling up so fast, it's getting hard to keep up. This one is from last week, but I missed it – it's about the foreclosure/robo-signing settlement that was concluded earlier this year.
The upshot of this story is that in advance of that notorious settlement, the government ordered banks to hire "independent" consultants to examine their loan files to see just exactly how corrupt they were.
Now it comes out that not only were these consultants not so independent, not only did they very likely skew the numbers seriously in favor of the banks, and not only were these few consultants paid over $2 billion (over 20 percent of the entire settlement amount) while the average homeowner only received $300 in the deal – in addition to all of that, it appears that federal regulators will not turn over the evidence of impropriety they discovered during these reviews to homeowners who may want to sue the banks.
In other words, the government not only ordered the banks to hire consultants who may have gamed the foreclosure settlement in favor of the banks, but the regulators themselves are hiding the information from the public in order to shield the banks from further lawsuits.
To recap: in the foreclosure deal, 13 banks agreed to pay a total of $9.3 billion to settle their liability in a number of areas, including robo-signing, which is just a euphemism for mass-perjury – robo-signing is the practice of having low-level bank employees sign documents attesting to full knowledge of case files in court foreclosure actions, when in fact they were signing hundreds of files per day, often having no idea whether the paperwork was correct or not.
It was done across the industry and turned housing cases across America into nightmares of jumbled and/or forged paperwork, in which even people who did not deserve to be thrown out of their homes were uprooted thanks to systematic errors by faceless bureaucrats who cut legal corners purely to save money.
All the major banks were guilty on a mass scale, but they worked with federal regulators like the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to secure this wide-ranging, industry-saving settlement, which not only covered the robosigning epidemic but a host of other bad or illegal practices, like the wrongful denial of modifications and the improper levying of (often hidden) fees.
Minus this crucial settlement, banks would have faced enormous uncertainty about their legal liability going forward, and getting a deal that not only gave these companies some legal closure but allowed them to pay pennies on the dollar for their illegal activity was a massive coup for the whole finance sector.
Only $3.6 billion was earmarked for cash payments to the nearly 4 million homeowners covered in the settlement. Most of the remainder of the deal was in other forms of non-cash relief, i.e. modifications or principal reductions.
Now, at the time of the deal, press releases by the Fed and the OCC stated that part of the reason they'd fixed on that particular settlement amount was that regulators had uncovered that banks had made errors or committed illegal acts in about 6.5 percent of the mortgage files reviewed. In other words, the error rate was an important component of this calculation.
But it turned out that this error rate had been calculated with the help of several consultant firms regulators had ordered the banks to hire. Regulators had mandated the hiring of these "independent" consultants back in 2011, and the list of companies included Promontory Financial Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte & Touche. These private firms were hired to review the banks' loan files in search of errors, and collectively were paid by the banks over $2 billion, a staggering sum which ultimately worked out to over $20,000 per file.
With such highly-paid help, it would seem impossible that these consultants could screw up so simple a task as figuring out how many of these mortgage files were corrupt. Regulators came up with the 6.5 percent number this past January, then shortly afterward revised the number downward, saying that only 4.2 percent of some 100,000 mortgage files reviewed were compromised.
But that low number stank so badly that even the Wall Street Journal was moved to check it out, and in late February, in a story called "Foreclosure Files Detail Error Gap," the paper discovered that the error numbers were almost certainly very much higher. From that piece:
A breakdown of the information provided to the regulator shows that more than 11% of files examined for Wells Fargo WFC+0.39% & Co. and 9% of those for Bank of America Corp. had errors that would have required compensation for homeowners, said people who have reviewed the figures. A narrower sample of files – representing cases selected by outside consultants – showed error ratios of 21% for Wells Fargo and 16% for Bank of America, the people said.
The OCC findings appear skewed by the outsize contribution of one bank, J.P. Morgan Chase JPM-0.39% & Co., which reported an error rate far below rivals that oversaw a much larger universe of loans.
J.P Morgan was responsible for more than half of the completed files counted in the OCC review and reported compensation-worthy errors in just 0.6% of cases, according to people familiar with the figures.
So you have numbers from all of these other banks coming in at 9 percent, 11 percent, even 21 percent, and yet somehow J.P. Morgan Chase came in at 0.6 percent. The OCC just took the Chase numbers and averaged them together with the rest and ultimately came up with the 4.2 percent number.
So how did Chase come out so squeaky clean? Well, it seems they developed quite a rapport with the government-mandated consultants who were hired to review their loan files. This is from that WSJ report:
Two Deloitte employees who performed the review for J.P. Morgan in a Brooklyn office building said workers were encouraged by supervisors to examine pools of loans they knew would be less time-consuming or error-prone as they tried to hit loan quotas.
One of these employees said that at an event last year known in the Brooklyn office as "March Madness," Deloitte officials encouraged reviewers to avoid problematic loans originated by EMC Mortgage, a troubled mortgage lender J.P. Morgan acquired in 2008.
So basically Chase allegedly warned the consultants off their problem loans and incentivized the consultants to examine the less-fucked-up loans. Employees of another of Chase's auditors, Promontory, were reportedly given gift cards of up to $500 for "completing a certain number of files quickly."
The whole thing was a joke. Government orders banks to hire auditors to investigate robosigning, then banks induce said auditors to robosign the investigation! Because that's exactly what that would mean, if there were financial incentives to finish masses of files quickly. It's horrible, obviously, but on another level, it's so ingeniously corrupt, one almost has to tip a cap to whoever thought of it.
Incidentally, what were Chase's real numbers? I mean, if it hadn't been a consulting firm hired by Chase for buttloads of cash to do the study, what might an auditor have concluded? Well, as reported by (among others) David Dayen at Naked Capitalism, we got a glimpse into one possible truth when the HUD Inspector General released a report that included an ad-hoc survey of Chase loans:
For Chase, we also reviewed 36 affidavits for foreclosures in judicial States to determine whether the amounts of borrowers' indebtedness were supported. Chase was unable to provide documentation to support the amounts of borrowers' indebtedness listed on the affidavits for all except four. When we reviewed the four affidavits, three were inaccurate. Specifically, the amounts of the borrowers' late charges and accumulated interest did not reconcile with the information in Chase's mortgage servicing system.
As Dayen jokingly pointed out, that means the gap in the stats was relatively small – Chase's loans were either 97.2 percent fucked (as HUD found), or 0.6 percent (as Chase/OCC found). Somewhere in between there.
Anyway: In March, a Washington law firm called Williams and Connolly sued the OCC for failing to properly ensure that the auditors would be truly "independent." The firm declined to say on whose behalf it was suing. Around the same time, members of congress like the House's Elijah Cummings and new Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren started to become interested in these consulting arrangements, expressing concern that perhaps the settlement number had been reached in error.
Fast forward a few weeks. It's April 11th, and Warren, along with Sherrod Brown and Jack Reed, held hearings on this whole issue, bringing in officials from the OCC along with some of these consultants to get to the bottom of a number of issues, including, most importantly, how the settlement was calculated, and who decided who would receive how much compensation.
There were two major revelations from these hearings, in addition to the ongoing revelation that the suits who people the country's financial regulators are sniveling, obfuscatory weasels who clearly view the banks they're supposed to be regulating as a bunch of stand-up dudes while the taxpayers who are always demanding this or that (and the politicians who represent them) are humorless pains in the ass.
In terms of new revelations, the first was this one, a real shocker: that apparently, it was not even the obscenely overpaid, lapdog consultants who made the final decisions about which homeowners fell into which boxes in terms of settlement compensation. Incredibly, it appears that the banks themselves were allowed to do that sorting process!
This came out when Warren was interviewing private consultants from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Promontory, and Deloitte and Touche:
Senator Warren: I just want to take a look at the Independent Foreclosure Review Payment Agreement details. I think you've probably all seen this one page agreement that lists all of the things that the banks did wrong and then boxes for how many people fall into each category and how much money they're going to be paid. Is that right? You've all seen this? [Panel indicates they have seen it.] And this was put out – who put this out? I think this is put out by the OCC and Federal Reserve. Is that right? As part of the settlement details.
In the settlement there is a one-page document that lists all the various misdeeds the banks engaged in during the foreclosure process, then goes on to list how many homeowners were victimized by each activity. Warren is showing this document to these consultants and she's asking them, did you prepare these statistics? She goes on – listen to the answers from the auditors:
Senator Warren: So I just want to ask you about this. It has some pretty amazing categories here. The first category is about service members who were protected by Federal law whose homes were unlawfully foreclosed. It's got people who were current on their payments whose homes were foreclosed. It's got people who were performing all of the requirements under a modification who lost their homes to foreclosure. And it tells how many people fall into each category and how much money the people in that category will receive. And, it ultimately resolves what will happen to 3,949,896 families. So the question I have is having resolved this for nearly 4 million families, who put the people, the families, into each of these boxes. Is that what your firms did, Mr. Ryan?
Owen Ryan, Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP: No, Senator, we did not.
Senator Warren: So who put them in?
Ryan: I'm not sure how that schedule is prepared. I saw it for the first time yesterday.
Senator Warren: Mr. Flanagan?
James Flanagan, Leader, U.S. Financial Services Practice, Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP: Same response. We were not involved in the accumulation of that information.
Senator Warren: Mr. Alt?
Konrad Alt, Managing Director, Promontory Financial Group: Senator, I've seen the schedule but I'm not familiar with the basis for its preparation.
Having established that the consulting firms did not do this sorting, Warren presses toward the obvious conclusion:
Senator Warren: So that leaves us with the banks that broke the law, were then the banks that decided how many people lost their homes because of their lawbreaking. And, as a result, how many people would collect money in each of these categories. Is that right,Mr. Alt?
Alt: Senator, I'm not familiar with the basis for the scheduling.
Senator Warren: So far as you know, there's no independent review of the banks' analysis . . . You looked at 100,000 cases, and the banks have now put 4 million people into categories and resolved finally how much they will get from this review by the OCC and the Federal Reserve.
So that's bombshell Number One – it wasn't the auditors who decided which homeowners fell into which categories, it appears to have been the banks themselves. Bombshell Number Two? The representatives of the OCC and the Fed – remember, federal regulators whose job it is supposedly to protect ordinary people – flatly refused to give any information about the real results of their surveys, i.e. their inquiries into what the real error rates were.
Even worse, when pressed on the question of whether they would deliver any evidence of wrongdoing they uncovered to private parties who might want to sue, they hedged.
In these exchanges, Warren questions Daniel Stipano, deputy chief counsel from the OCC, and Richard Ashton, Associate General Counsel for the Board of Governors at the Fed. There are two key sequences.
In the first, Warren asks both men if they will make public what they know about the extent of the illegality and errors – whether the real error rate was, as she put it, 1 percent or 90 percent. But the two officials respond in gibberish legalese (if you watch the video, Ashton in particular seems to take pleasure in dicking the Senate around with his verbose non-answers), repeatedly forcing Warren to pin him down to their actual concrete position, which turns out to be, "Fuck you." For example:
Senator Warren. So let me just make sure I understand this completely. I want to know on a bank-by-bank basis the number of families that were illegally foreclosed on. Will you give me that information?
Mr. Stipano. Eventually, we are going to issue a statement to the public where we provide additional information, but if we go through the processes that I described previously, we can share it to Congress in its oversight capacity.
Huh? I have no idea what that means, but it sounds positive – it did to Warren, too:
Senator Warren. So you are saying you will make that information publicly available?
Mr. Stipano. I did not say that. I said that we are planning on issuing a public statement that wraps up the IFR that provides additional information . . .
Ultimately, both the Fed and the OCC turned out to be united on the issue. They'll release something, but it won't be the real numbers. Frustrated, Warren asked them where the public is supposed to get the numbers, if not from them. Their answer is, well, they can maybe pull it out of their butts, if they get lucky – not our problem:
Mr. Stipano. Well, sometimes you get information through third parties, through outside sources. But in this case, that is not the case.
Senator Warren. So unless someone throws a rock through the window with this information tied to it, you will not release it, is that what you are saying?
Stipano here replies with more gibberish:
Mr. Stipano. To the extent that the information is confidential supervisory information derived from the exam process, it is subject to privilege.
From there, Warren asks a more specific question. What if someone wants to sue a bank for illegally tossing them out of their home? And what if you have evidence in such a case? Wouldn't such evidence be, you know, helpful to those people? Stipano helpfully agrees, yes, it would be helpful:
Senator Warren. All right. So let me ask it from the other point of view. You now have evidence in your files of illegal activity, I take it, for some of these banks. I get that from the evidence you have released about the charts, who is going to get paid what. So if someone believes that they have been illegally foreclosed against, will they still have a right under this settlement to bring a lawsuit against the bank?
Mr. Stipano. Yes.
Senator Warren. All right. Now, if a family wants to bring a lawsuit–you are both lawyers–would it be helpful, if you are going against one of these big banks, would it be helpful for these families to have the information about their case that is in your files? Mr. Ashton?
Mr. Ashton. It would be helpful, obviously, to have information related to the injury. Yes, it would.
Which leads to the next question – having acknowledged that it would be helpful, will you help?
This seems like it should be an easy answer, but it isn't:
Senator Warren. Okay. So do you plan to give the families this information? That is, those families that have been victims of illegal foreclosures, will you be giving them the information that is in your possession about how the banks illegally foreclosed against them? Mr. Ashton?
Mr. Ashton. I think that is a decision that we are still considering. We have not made a final decision yet.
Senator Warren. So you have made a decision to protect the banks but not a decision to tell the families who were illegally foreclosed against?
Mr. Ashton. We have not made a decision about what information we would provide to individuals, that is true. Yes.
Senator Warren. Mr. Stipano?
Mr. Stipano. We are in the same position.
Obviously these guys can't come out and say, "We're not giving anybody anything. Blow us." That would cause too much of an uproar. So they just say they haven't decided, and we all know what that means. Warren tries to frame the issue in the most embarrassing way possible, but the witnesses prove immune to such embarrassment:
Senator Warren. So I want to just make sure I get this straight. Families get pennies on the dollar in this settlement for having been the victims of illegal activities or mistakes in the banks' activities. You let the banks, and you now know individual cases where the banks violated the law and you are not going to tell the homeowners, or at least it is not clear yet whether or not you are going to do that?
Mr. Stipano. We have not made a decision on what we are going to tell the homeowners.
All of this just confirms what we already suspected about the foreclosure settlement. This whole enterprise was conceived by the government solely as a means of dealing with the explosive problem of containing the private liability of these "systemically important" companies. Not only are we not prosecuting these firms anymore, we're also actively in the business of protecting them from litigation.
No other conclusion is possible from this testimony, which shows that our two primary regulators not only withheld information about bank illegality and errors prior to the settlement, but plan on continuing to do so going forward. There can be only one reason for concealing that information from the people affected by those "errors."
Source: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/17181-foreclosed-homeowners-got-300-banks-consultants-got-2-billion


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B.T. Sweet launches Cambya, a plant-based 1:1 sugar replacement
The formula is uses soluble fibers, monk fruit, and select botanicals; it delivers optimal sweetening capacity without the need for masking agents and does not leave any lingering aftertastes.
FoodTech start-up B.T. Sweet Ltd. (Tel Aviv, Israel) has introduced Cambya, a plant-based, one-to-one sugar replacer for food applications. The formula is uses soluble fibers, monk fruit, and select botanicals; it delivers optimal sweetening capacity without the need for masking agents and does not leave any lingering aftertastes.
"While natural sweeteners are gaining popularity, the tendency for some of them to give off a bitter lingering aftertaste limits their use," said Gil de-Picciotto, co-inventor of B.T. Sweet, in a press release. "Cambya applies a unique process to overcome these organoleptic challenges by targeting the hydrophobic sites on natural sweeteners, rendering them less accessible to flavor receptors. This, in turn, delivers sugar-like sweetening and bulking effect."
Yoav Gaon, CEO and business development manager of B.T. Sweet, said in a press release that its sweetening system features all the properties of table sugar in taste and texture but minus the sucrose or artificial additives. "Our goal is to bridge the gap between consumers' desire for indulgence and the drive to curb sugar intake," Goan said. "This solution also helps food and beverage makers reformulate their products, clean up labels, and remove undesirable 'high sugar' warnings currently mandated in numerous countries."
Trends & BusinessFood & Beverage

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This week's tip is about Creating a Morning Ritual.
This week's tip is about Don't Take Your Mobile to Bed.
This week's tip is about Getting Enough Sleep – Blackout Your Bedroom!
This week's tip is about Turning Off Technology.
This week's tip is about Creating a Positive Habit.
It's a simple but effective technique, just reward yourself!
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This week's tip is about Taking Your Dog (or Cat) to Work!
This week's tip is about Journaling.
This week's tip is about Eating the Frog!
This week's tip is about Breakfast.
Last week saw the release of the much-anticipated Stephenson Farmer Review 'Thriving at Work', a review of mental health for employers.
This week's tip is about Mind Dump.
This week's tip is about setting your BHAG!
This week's tip is about focusing on what's important.
This week's tip is about meditation. Why not try being more mindful by using meditation!
Our LEAD WELL programme has been running for a while now and it has been in high demand!
This week's tip is about having an active commute.
This week's tip is about saying no.
This week's tip is about turning off distractions. These can be a massive killer to our productivity!
This week's tip is about replacing unhealthy food with healthy food. Simple nutrition tips to aid your wellbeing!


Dressing windows can add sunshade, privacy, and a splash of color to your room. To hang window treatments, we often resort to using the curtain rod. Store-bought designs for the latter can be boring and it's not easy to drill holes in the wall. For those living in a home rental, dorm, or apartment, drilling holes may not even be an option.
Fortunately, there are clever hacks to hanging the curtain in your room without using the curtain rod. Best of all, you don't need to worry about drilling any holes or spending unnecessarily. Check out these inspiring ideas below.
This is not going to be the prettiest curtain rod alternative that you can make use of. Even so, it is something that you can choose to do when you need to hang a curtain quickly. It will be possible to simply nail your curtains to the wall so that they can cover your window. All this will require is some nails and a traditional claw hammer.
If you use nails, then it is going to limit the functionality of the curtains somewhat. Curtains are designed for you to be able to open them and move them out of the way. If you hang them with nails, then they will be stationary. You won't be able to move the curtains when you wish and this can be a bit of a nuisance.
Regardless, this method will work just fine. If you don't have a curtain rod, then this method will allow you to hang the curtains very quickly. They won't go anywhere and you'll be able to keep your window covered. If you don't plan on opening that window or using those curtains, then this method can be just fine.
It won't take long at all for you to hang curtains this way. Simply drive a few nails into the wall and hang your curtains on them. It is always going to be an option in a pinch. Most people will have a hammer and some nails that they can use to do this.
You won't even be able to move the curtains to see outside. This will prevent you from opening the curtains to let in sunlight. It isn't the most practical solution that you could choose. You will likely only want to do this if you are desperate to get a curtain up for the night without having to go to the store. This can also ruin your curtains.
This is either going to seem like a really neat idea to you or it is going to sound absurd. It is possible to use a tree branch in place of a normal curtain rod. You will need to pick out a branch that is sturdy enough to hold the curtains while also being thin enough to be practical. It can be tricky to find the right type of branch, but once you do, it should work out well enough.
The most common reason that people choose to use this method is that they think tree branches look nice in their homes. It has the capability of giving a room a very natural vibe. If you want to go with a sort of earth-centric vibe in your interior design philosophy, then this makes a lot of sense. You will just want to make sure that it meshes well with the other items that you have in your room.
You won't really be going out to a store to buy a tree branch for this purpose. You'll need to look for one on your property or elsewhere that will work nicely. It may wind up being simple to find the right branch to use, but it could also be an annoyance. It largely depends on your luck and what you have available to you.
People who like to use natural elements in their homes will really like this. A tree branch can make for a very interesting curtain rod alternative. It is likely going to catch people's eyes when they are visiting your home. The uniqueness of this option is part of what makes it so appealing.
One of the biggest cons of this method is that finding a tree branch that will look nice and work well may not be easy. If you don't have any good tree branches on your property that you can repurpose in this fashion, then it is going to become annoying really fast. To add to this, the tree branch may not stay strong enough to be used this way for very long. You can treat it to try to keep it strong, but it will largely depend on outside factors.
One of the most common things that people use as a curtain rod alternative is a copper pipe. Copper pipes are interesting because they can provide you with a very unique look. Many people are drawn to the look of copper, so using a copper pipe as a curtain rod is going to be appealing. There are plenty of people who wouldn't even know that it wasn't designed as a unique type of curtain rod in the first place.
All that you really need to do is get yourself a copper pipe. It should be thin enough to be able to fit through the loop of your curtains. This will allow you to hang the curtains effectively. You will simply be using this copper pipe instead of a traditional curtain rod.
The part of this method that makes it less practical is that you will likely have to go out and buy a copper pipe. It isn't as if people have copper pipes sitting around their home for no reason at all. You would have to specifically choose that you want to use copper pipes instead of curtain rods to hang your curtains. This is a choice that people make for purely aesthetic reasons, so it's a design decision rather than one based on practical need.
The overall look of copper pipes is something that will appeal to many people. These pipes can be used in exactly the same fashion as a curtain rod. As long as they will fit your curtains, they will make for a perfect substitute. Many people like the look of copper pipes much more than the look of normal curtain rods.
You could simply buy a curtain rod that is made out of copper. This would ensure that it is the right size for you to use for these purposes. You'll also need curtain hooks or another hook solution to be able to make use of this method. If you already have the hooks, then you won't have to worry.
If you want to avoid using a curtain rod, then you could consider using a rope to hang your curtains. The rope is very sturdy and thick, making it something that could potentially hang even heavy curtains. You will need some type of hook for this method to work properly. If you already have hooks for your curtains and just need a substitute for a rod, then a rope is going to work out nicely.
Depending on the weight and size of your curtains, you will either want a thick rope or a thin rope. Some of the thicker ropes will be ideal for heavier curtains. You may encounter problems properly inserting the rope through the curtains if it is too thick, though. Try to find a rope that is strong enough to handle the weight of the curtains without being so thick that it will be impractical to use for this task.
Once you have found the rope, the general idea is going to be simple. You just need to tie the rope to the hooks and you will be good to go. As long as your rope is able to hold the weight of the curtains, it should wind up working just as well as a normal curtain rod. This is a pretty simple solution that can actually look kind of neat, depending on your sensibilities.
A rope can actually look pretty good if you like this style. It will work well enough to replicate what a curtain rod can do. This won't be a hard method to pull off either. As long as you have the right materials, you will be able to make use of this method to hang your curtains.
Most people are not going to have rope just sitting around their home. It may not be practical to go to the store just to purchase some rope when you could have simply bought a curtain rod. The practicality of this method largely depends on you having rope already. Also, whether or not the rope will look good as a curtain rod alternative is a subjective matter.
This is another interesting DIY option that you can consider doing. If you don't want to have to go out to buy a curtain rod, then you could try to repurpose some of your old coat hangers that are taking up space in your closet. If you position these coat hangers properly, then they can act as hooks that you can hang your curtain on. You will also need some string for this idea to be effective.
Running the string through the curtain like you would if you had a curtain rod is how you need to start. Once this is completed, you can tie the strings to the hooks of the coat hangers from earlier. The coat hangers will need to be secured to the wall somehow to make this work. You should be able to attach them to the wall or the window frame without too much trouble.
Once you have finished attaching everything, you should be able to hang your curtain up. This may not work as easily if the curtains you are trying to hang are somewhat heavy. For lightweight curtains, this should be enough to effectively hang them. This is an option for hanging curtains that won't cost you any money so long as you have the proper materials sitting around.
You won't really have to spend any money on a curtain rod if you make use of this method. Also, it gives you a reason to use those old coat hangers that you have had forever. This is a pretty simple concept and it should be pretty easy to pull off when trying to hang lightweight curtains. It is simply reliant on you having the materials to do the job.
This idea isn't really going to look all that professional. If you care about how things look in your home, then you likely are not going to want to pursue this idea. It can be a good idea in a pinch when you need to hang a curtain for the sake of privacy. It isn't a solution that is going to look good long term, though.


Delve into the growing collection of artifacts, photos, documents at artwork of the D-Day Memorial, and you don't have to look very far to find an unexpected treasure. Every piece tells a story, though some stories are easier to reconstruct than others and many are lost in the shadows of history. But every so often you'll run across one of those pieces that at first glance gets little attention…a second glance makes you think "what is that, anyway?"…and a little digging reveals a fascinating glimpse into our WWII past.
Such was the case with this compelling print by a little known artist named Arthur Szyk. Although not as well-known as other contemporaries like Bill Maldlin or Norman Rockwell, Szyk's work still evokes powerful responses and stand as plaintive cries against the tyranny of the Axis.
Szyk (pronounced "Shick") was born in Russian-occupied Poland in 1894 to a well-off Jewish family in Lodz. That cosmopolitan city was an artistic center for Poland; and young Arthur began early to exhibit signs of impressive talents. His training, however, was interrupted by WWI, when he was drafted into the Russian army, and then by service to the newly independent Poland in the short-lived Polish-Soviet border war afterwards.
Between the wars Szyk's art began to win acclaim and was featured in major exhibitions in Paris and London. When Hitler came to power in Germany, threatening both his native Poland and his fellow European Jews, Szyk was one of the earliest artistic critics of Hitler—perhaps prophetically. For instance, in an illustrated Haggadah(1932-38, arguably his magnum opus), he portrayed blond Egyptians wearing swastikas as they chased the Israelites through the Red Sea. Perhaps he intended a subtle, portentous warning—things didn't end well for the Egyptians.
In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and Arthur Szyk intensified his one-man artistic crusade against the Axis. Soon after, the artist moved to New York, perhaps intending to use his talents to convince the isolationist America to enter the war.
His works, especially his caricatures, were vivid, meticulously detailed, and anything but subtle. He made no bones about his disdain for the Axis enemy, and the American public came to embrace his work. Whether published in books, on posters, on magazine covers, or shown on exhibition, his art featured unmistakable themes: freedom is better than tyranny; justice is better than oppression; the Allies were the good guys in an epic crusade against the contemptible monsters on the Axis side.
The print in our collection, dated 1942, is an unusual example, in that it portrays the Allied leaders—most of his work featured only lurid caricatures of the Axis dictators. Titled "Some Necks," it shows the Big Three Allied leaders as intrepid heroes, destined for and deserving of victory. Note that any contradiction between Stalin's bloodthirsty tyranny and Shyk's political idealism is a subject studiously avoided.
In "Some Necks," Stalin is portrayed flinging away Hitler.
Szyk portrays Churchill as the stately, dignified British aristocrat; Stalin is a resolute Georgian man of the soil; while Roosevelt confidently assumes the role of the grandfatherly cowboy sheriff. Churchill, with an unmissable V for Victory on his ascot, holds aloft a dwarfish Mussolini clearly labeled "Flop." Stalin disdainfully prepares to fling away a grotesque, screaming Hitler. Meanwhile an unconcerned FDR, flashing his own V sign with two fingers, holds a sign reading "Wait" against a charging Tojo, while he stares self-assuredly into a better future. Perhaps it was intended as Szyk's endorsement of Roosevelt's "Europe First" strategy.
Szyk lived to see the defeat of his dreaded enemy, and continued to work until his death in 1951, always taking the opportunity to speak out for political causes, the Jewish people, and the rights of other ethnic minorities (including African Americans). After his death he largely faded into obscurity, but Szyk has enjoyed a bit of a revival in recent years, with major exhibitions of his work and several publications. Across the decades, Szyk still speaks to us that freedom and justice are superior to tyranny and oppression; that such lofty ideals are still worth defending.
We have a lot of stories to tell through our collection at the NDDMF. We look forward to sharing them all.


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text:
Brands Taking Stands
Black Families Haven't Benefited from Intergenerational Wealth, But Banks Can Help Narrow the Gap
No matter who the victors will be in next month's U.S. elections, society's most stubborn problems won't dissipate on their own, ever. That's particularly true of the societal wounds that keep festering due to racial injustice — and one way it is still manifested across society is in the huge intergenerational wealth gap when we compare white and Black families in America.
The foundation of an economic divide
Estimates on how this affects the wealth divide between white and Black families are all over the map. The Urban Institute, for example, has estimated that large monetary gifts and inheritances account for 12 percent of the difference in wealth when comparing Black and white households.
Last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, in a study that found years of comparing annual incomes of white and Black Americans were not getting to the core of understanding this challenge, reached a far more dire conclusion: "We find that the income gap is the primary driver behind the wealth gap and that it is large enough to explain the persistent difference in wealth accumulation."
Going further, that study's authors added: "The fact that Blacks, on average, have considerably less wealth than whites is troubling, not just because it is an inequality of outcomes, but also because it strongly suggests inequality of opportunity."
Statistics like those outlined above help explain why, on average, data suggest the average net worth of white families exceeds that of Black families tenfold.
Editor's note: Be sure to sign up for the weekly Brands Taking Stands newsletter, which arrives in your inbox every Wednesday.
That's a huge deficit to overcome, and discussions on how to tackle this problem via public policy offer a wide range of suggestions. Ideas range from revamping the tax code to eliminating student debt to even turning the retirement savings model on its head and having the federal government start a fund, i.e. "baby bonds," for each newborn in the U.S. based on their families' income.
This gap in intergenerational wealth has its foundation in the cruelty of U.S. history: the collapse of the Freedman's Bank in the 1870s, which wiped out the savings of former slaves; illegal confiscation of Black-owned land by their white neighbors, a tragedy that befell one of George Floyd's ancestors; Jim Crow laws; and most recently, the mass incarceration we've witnessed in the past generation.
A harmful past prevents families from building long-term wealth
The impacts of this ongoing intergenerational wealth gap are devastating. Family wealth provides economic cushions at times of need. Having that access to cash (or even a home equity line) can help a family through a rough economic patch. Wealth allows for investments in real estate, and the availability of such funds can pay for a child's education without turning to burdensome loans.
The recent track record of cooperation between Congress and the White House doesn't bode well for landmark legislation that could help claw away at this gap in intergenerational wealth. But that doesn't mean the same institutions that have contributed to this massive divide — namely banks — can't have a role in solving this problem. Yes, financial institutions have had a role in piling on this problem, whether it's from decades of redlining, the sub-prime and foreclosure crises of a decade ago, or retail banks' outright avoidance of Black communities.
Nevertheless, despite what the political landscape will look like three weeks from now, there are still steps the financial industry can take.
Can banks chip away at the intergenerational wealth gap?
In a study published this summer, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) suggested some reforms that the U.S. financial sector could harness that are simple and yet are also forehead slapping. They include integrating financial education and literacy within the typical bank-customer relationship process; judging performance not on the level of debt, but rather on a customer's financial wellness; working with companies to launch and expand employee matching programs for 401(k) retirement plans; and finding new ways to expand savings products that can help families build wealth.
Granted, the emerging fintech sector has had a leg up with apps that help boost savings by rounding up purchases or diverting a few bucks here and there to help their customers build a nest egg.
To that end, banks could launch such campaigns focused on long-term wealth accumulation if and when another round of stimulus checks ever becomes the reality. Aside from the Americans who desperately need that money now, there are families who could be persuaded to invest or save that cash if they understand the benefits, rather than rushing to the nearest big box store. And opportunities will arise next year, too, once tax refund season is on.
On Thursday, October 15 from noon to 2:15 p.m. ET, Episode 2 of 3BL Forum: Brands Taking Stands - Business Elects to Lead will focus on one of the most important issues that we as a society have got to honestly reckon with – racial and economic inequities – and the importance of business leadership at a time when it's needed most. One topic of discussion will include the importance of how to bridge this intergenerational wealth divide.
During Episode 2, we'll feature conversations with senior leaders from BET Networks, Pizza Hut, Zeno Group, Newman's Own, Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), Fresh Energy, Porter Novelli, Northern Trust Asset Management, UnidosUS, The Cavu Group, Tides Foundation, Okta and Ben & Jerry's. Registration is free.
Image credit: Larry Crayton/Unsplash
More stories from Brands Taking Stands
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Ford Wades into Face Mask Battle with Powerful Messages on Sanity and Community
Are CEOs Finally Standing Up to Defend the Constitution?
LGBTQ Refugees Will Soon Have a Shot at Rebuilding Lives in North America
During This Holiday Season, Essential Workers Still Confront Grinch After Grinch
As a Failed President Clings to Power, Top Law Firms (Finally) Take a Stand
Black Voters Decided the U.S. Election — And They're Poised to Reshape Business
On Veteran's Day, More CEOs Must Stand Up for the Peaceful Transfer of Power
Shouldn't Election Day Be a Holiday?
Businesses Need Political Stability, but CEOs Are Too Timid in Demanding It
10 Things to Know About Businesses' Role in Addressing Social Justice
Today, Oct. 15: 3BL Virtual Forum Explores Business Leadership in the Movement for Racial and Economic Justice
Words by 3p Editors


Updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the Japanese government in 2010 as "general-use" kanji, the sixth edition of this popular text aims to provide students with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of forgetting how to write the kanji, or for a way to systematize what he or she already knows.
The author begins with writing the kanji because - contrary to first impressions - it is in fact simpler than learning how to the pronounce them. By ordering the kanji according to their component parts or "primitive elements," and then assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that make up the kanji. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements.
Does anybody have the latest edition of Remembering the Kanji II and III? The ones I found here on the site are the older editions and the links are dead.
I couldn't extract the file. Can anybody help me? Thank you.
Actually, there was no problem extracting the file but I believe it is in e-book format but I already converted it into pdf. Thank you!


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Midlands Homeowners Asked To Contribute To Housing Defects Report
Tuesday, February 1st, 2022 7:49am
Find out how you can participate here.
The government is trying to capture the nature and scale of housing defects in the midlands.
People who've experienced fire safety, structural safety and water ingress issues in apartments and duplex buildings constructed between 1991 and 2013 are being asked to share their experiences in a new survey.
The Independent Working Group to Examine Defects in Housing, which was established by Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien in February 2021, is compiling a report that will then be presented to the Minister O'Brien for considereation.
Junior Housing Minister and Longford-Westmeath TD, Peter Burke says the Department wants to do all it can to understand and address any legacy problems:
The working group will use the survey information to inform its report to the Minister with particular regard to the following:
• the nature and scale of the issue of fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects.
• the difficulties that arise following the discovery of these defects.
• the costs and levies associated with the remediation of the defects.
Separate surveys for each stakeholder group are available at https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/7e319-online-survey-in-relation-to-defects-in-apartment-and-duplex-buildings/
The deadline for completing the survey is Monday 14 March 2022.


Now that I'm in Sarria, I've spent a day dining and traveling to our Camino starting point with the All Saints Pasadena Transformational Journeys group. It's my first time leading a pilgrimage group rather than walking the Camino independently. I've had an inkling that it would feel different than my other Caminos and it's true, it does.
I'm preoccupied with the itineraries and luggage needs of others. I'm making sure their concerns are allayed and that we minimize situations where a member of the flock wanders away. And instead of my own personal prayer sessions, I'm inviting us all into my ritual of morning and afternoon prayer, going from an informal conversation with God to one based on the Morning Office of the Book of Common Prayer.
We didn't start those prayers Thursday or Friday. I figured we would do so on days we walked, the other days focused on jet lag, eating, and worldly needs. Three of us had dinner in Madrid Thursday night and our first group meal was here in Sarria for lunch. We attended the evening mass and blessing at Santa Mariña, the large church at the top of the stairs in Sarria, and then proceeded to beer, wine, tortillas (egg omelet), and cheese for a light dinner.
Uhhh, in truth that's it.
I'm excited about what will happen in the next few hours as we breakfast, do morning prayers, and commence our walk. I can't make someone's Camino the spiritual journey of their lifetime. That's up to them and the Holy Spirit. But I can be there to assist.
Somehow that's the most similar to my most recent Camino, the one focused on healing. Recognition that I can help and guide in the spiritual journey, but cannot control it. Being both helper and helped. Finding in our humanness, the divine. And trusting that the Holy Spirit will provide, guide, and feed each of us.
I'm feeling really blessed right now because of this opportunity, yes, but mostly that others are there to help me and praying for me.
For Thursday started with a predawn visit to Urgencias. I had a jaw pain that turned out to be a cheek abscess likely brought on by an accidental bite. And it got infected and made it painful to talk and eat. Yet everyone here and at home via Facebook has poured out prayers for me.
That's a continuation of my Camino of healing. That's Love embodied in the family and friends in our lives, in the strangers who help us at the hospital and train stations.
I close this blog post with a photo from my hotel room in Madrid. Four skyscrapers that are instantly recognizable as financial centers in Madrid outside my window. And just below are the tents of the homeless. And I think to myself, what journey are they on and how do our journeys interact? What have we done to accidentally guide them there and what can we do to lead them to a better place? Is there Hope in their lives? I know there's Hope all around us. I'm just asked to help remind others when fear and new situations frighten. To be there for others as they are for me. To love and be loved.
I leave on Tuesday for Madrid. Yes, I'm returning to the Camino de Santiago. Unlike the 2014 and 2016 walks, I'm doing this differently.
In 2014, I walked 270 miles from after Burgos to Santiago de Compostela. In 2015, I walked short segments as I drove my parents along the entire route from Lourdes to the end. And earlier this year, I walked the 600 miles from Lourdes to Santiago de Compostela. For the most part, these were by myself or with people I met along the way. This spring, my husband Stephen joined me for the final 200 miles. So I had a little practice walking and guiding someone, but it was just one individual, someone I knew quite well.
Now, I'm leading a few people from my church. All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena has a Transformational Journeys ministry, and though I've taken a trip with them to China before, this is the first time I'm leading a group. We range in age from 31 to 67 and will be walking 117km from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela.
And yes, once again, I'll be blogging every day on this journey.
I've spent some time preparing us and the itinerary for group, but this week I had an opportunity to synthesize and reflect on this coming walk. First, it was brought to my attention that like many things in life, pilgrimages and retreats come in three phases: awareness, destabilization, and reconstruction.
First, we become aware of our surroundings, our bodies, our challenges. We identify and feel everything. We absorb and let our senses take it all in. Then we move to a period of destabilization, where we recognize that the information our senses are collecting is not what we expected, or wanted, or aspire, or accept. It's destabilizing to realize this knowledge, for we spent so much of our normal days avoiding the awareness.
As soon as we are alone...inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediately shut out all our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distractions manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important.
The last phase of a journey is reconstruction. You've felt, you've seen things torn apart by true awareness, and now it's time to rebuild yourself and find a new understanding. It's what we think pilgrimage is about, and yet to get there, we must first go through the other two phases. I feel that some who don't get to this part of their journeys, who feel that the Camino did not yield to them new insights, may not have allowed themselves to go through the first two phases fully and deeply.
I had a deepening of this last phase of my last Camino this week. Daniel from the UK was visiting California. If you followed my Camino, you would have seen my post "The Healing Water of Lourdes" where we walked together for the day. We spent breakfast together the next day ("Empty Nests"). And he figured prominently in my synthesis of my journey, as one of my angels who guided me ("Walking in the Kingdom of Heaven").
We met for dinner and while he stopped by Los Angeles. Two other friends of his were with us there at that restaurant in Silverlake. One of them, Sandy, seemed to walk around the same time as me. In fact, after hours of chatting, we realized that we knew many of the same people and had interactions with the Texas A&M students on the same day in Carrion de las Condes. And yet we never met until Wednesday night. And we didn't know how our lives were connected, even though they were. Even though they are.
So much of the Camino and life can be like that, I realized. We are interacting with people we never meet, their influence on us slight and indirect, our influence on them similarly subtle.
You may walk alone, but you're walking with the person in front of you, walking with the person behind you, with the person passing you on the left, with the person, you're passing on the right.
I may not know what I'm seeking on this pilgrimage. But I approach it with an open heart, and an open mind. I appreciate your prayers for our safety, for the health and well-being of those who I walk with, and for all of us reading this. We are all bound together in ways we cannot recognize, destabilizing and reconstructing each other whether we know it or not.
But first we have to feel it.
To become aware of what we have in front of us.
And though it can be frightening, we can move on in prayer with each other and for each other and for ourselves.
And for those who are Christian and spiritually inclined, I want to bring up that not only are we connected to each other, we are connected to the divine. Whether we know it or not, we are affected and informed by this relationship, seen or unseen. I'll close with a portion of a prayer attributed to Saint Patrick.
Buen camino fellow pilgrims. Buen camino.


I work on computers. Everytime I get a laptop with an Atheros wifi card I cannot connect to my Netgear Wifi. I can connect to all my 4 neighbors with poor connections but not with mine. Is there something going on with Netgear's electronics and Atheros? I don't get it. Happens every time. I have to go plug into the router to get Internet. What's with Atheros?
Is some hardware just compatible with others?
A wireless network adapter allows a computing device to join a wireless LAN. Wireless network adapters contain a built-in radio transmitter and receiver. Each adapter supports one or more of the 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g Wi-Fi standards.
B, G & N. It is about 6 months old. Probably A too.
Can you connect to the router with a different system? Has the router been configured? Are you using the correct encryption method and key? Is the router wireless working? Check it with inSSIDer.
I am using the router and modem every day and so is my wife's computer. She is plugged right to the router. It works great. All other computers in the house are on WiFi. We use the WPA-PSK.
It's just that with some wifi cards in some laptops like the Atheros it does not want to connect with our Netgear router. I just reinstalled Windows on this laptop too so there isn't any bugs on the computer.
My neighbor's connections come in good even with one bar showing if I wanted to use it. I get 5 bars with my router but it still will not give me a webpage with this one laptop with Atheros adapter. I am wondering about some wifi hardware not being compatible. Is that possible?
Do I need to be wired to the router to use the inSSIDer? I did it on my desktop working wirelessly and it did not bring up the inSSIDer interface but a different interface and it said "wireless card not found"
Evidently there is an issue with wireless on the desktop. Perhaps it doesn't have wireless. The software uses the wireless receiver on the system where it is running and reports on all of the signals it detects. Here is what it will look like.
I got it now. I had two wifi softwares on the computer. My old card and my new card and it kept bring up my old card's software. I unstalled my old card and the inSSIDer came up just fine, thanks.
Mine looks different that this one though at the bottom. It shows networks above the channels that their on.
How it looks depends on which tab you have selected. His is showing "Time Graph".


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text:
Short CutsGlen Newey
Glen Newey
Has the old cane-toad lost his touch? The BSkyB takeover bid nixed. Murdoch père and fils summonsed to Parliament with the ousted Rebekah Brooks. News Corp shares in free-fall. One would need a heart of stone not to gloat. Murdoch's initial response to the crisis in closing the News of the World was acclaimed by several commentators as 'brilliant' but 'ruthless'. That verdict seems at most half-correct. In fact, by folding NotW so early in the game, when (as some News Corp high-ups must have known) the anti-hackers had further high-value cards to play, NewsCorp blew its trump card and kept nothing in reserve. It would probably have done better to launch a wide-ranging internal inquiry, extract Brooks's resignation there and then, and pledge full co-operation with any police investigation – closure could have been held back as a final pseudo-nuclear option.
Not that the garotting of the NotW should jerk many tears. Some have said that its torrent of celebrity drivel, xenophobia, materialism, kitsch jingoism, shag-'n'-brag and bullying of the vulnerable should be written down as a cost of free speech. Maybe this stuff is to the red meat of political debate what cowpats are to filet mignon. Not a few op-ed commentators still argue this, holding out against the dread prospect of statutory regulation. However, several bits of self-serving chaff get thrown into the picture here. One is the idea that journalists, as self-styled talkers of truth to power, should be above the law – the law against bribing the police, for example, or breaching privacy. Another, barely less absurd, has it that journalists' doings can be laundered internally via the Press Complaints Commission. This watchdog is stuffed. It was barely noticed earlier this year when Northern & Shell, owned by the porn king Richard Desmond, pulled its funding from the PCC. As a result, the commission can't deal with complaints against N&S titles, including the Express, Star and OK! magazine.
Not that external regulation has worked either. Recent disclosures, including John Yates's frank admission that his failure to reopen the hacking investigation in 2009 was 'pretty crap', suggest that police action against reporters' malfeasance is as hopeless as the PCC's. As Stewart Tendler, a Times crime reporter, put it, apparently without irony, the relation 'between police officers and crime reporters is very similar to that between police and an informant'. Indeed; except the cops were now playing informant and the hacks acting like the law. Powerful interests – hard cash for police officers, and the byline-or-perish ethos of the NotW newsroom – drove each to turn a blind eye to the other's criminality.
This exposes for what it is the final, major bit of chaff – the notion that stopping the press from running wild by putting it under outside regulation menaces free speech. Two contradictory claims surface at this point. First, that a gentleman's agreement 'works' better than the brute force of the law; and second, that the press is already subject to laws against breaches of privacy and corruption. As we've seen, enforcing the law in this area is not something to be entrusted to the police. Press barons themselves have not scrupled to use the law to gag speech, as with the indefatigably litigious Robert Maxwell and James Goldsmith.
The real argument about free speech lies elsewhere. It's not just whether you get a platform, but how big yours is compared with other people's. Free speech means little, though not nothing, if the opportunities for influencing opinion open to some – such as billionaire non-citizens domiciled in business class – makes those of others nanometrically small. The issue is not only that moguls like Murdoch and Berlusconi make clear to editors what it's politic to print, that the titles are used as commercial platforms to hawk other products, and that these media safeguard their power by a code of omertà that buries news of their own felonies. It's also that, as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman pointed out long ago, the attempt to reach the 'demographic' sought by the advertisers who form the media's staple revenue base means that content – including 'news' – is skewed towards the bland, upscale, aspirational. They engineer the public they purport to reflect.
So it's a reversal to relish that Murdoch now finds himself guzzled by the demotic crocodile he rode for so long. The forces of news production have changed for good. Lone operators with a phone and web access can make the news, in all senses. Anyone with access to a computer can give their opinions online. DIY actualité coverage casts its net far wider than any newspaper's stringers. At home, Facebookers and the Twitterati have proven mightier founts of public outrage than one of the Sun's got-up polls about benefit scroungers or asylum seekers. Consumers are voting with their browsers: newspaper circulations are falling off the chart while interactive online news platforms proliferate. Liberal-democratic commentaries on the Arab uprisings depict noble primitives feeling their way to political maturity. Glib-dems acclaim the rebels' use of social media, while puzzling that they seem to have managed it without much First World guidance. The lesson of the anti-NewsCorp uprising is that the learning vector goes the other way.
Glen Newey was professor of practical philosophy at Leiden University. He died in 2017.
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A cross-Greece romp meshing Donnie Darko and Almodovar-like surrealism with sadness, warmth, humour and Eurovision-inspired musicality.
After the death of their Albanian mother, two brothers – the flamboyantly gay, 16 year-old Danny (Kostas Nikouli) and golden-voiced 18 year-old Odysseas (Nikos Gelia) – leave Athens on a journey to Thessaloniki. Their mission: to locate their biological father in an attempt to avoid deportation to Albania.
Marginalised in everyday Greek society, Danny also sees the upcoming Thessaloniki heats of the cult television talent show Greek Star as their ticket to acceptance and a way out of the uncompromising realities of modern Grecian life.
Premiering to considerable acclaim in this year's Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Xenia delves deeply into patriarchy, homosexuality and immigrant rights, meaning this film speaks as clearly to Australian audiences as it does to Greeks.
Born in Athens, Panos H Koutras studied at London's International Film School and later at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1995, he founded the company 100% Synthetic Films in Athens, releasing his debut feature Attack of the Giant Moussaka in 2000. Xenia is his fourth feature, joining Real Life (2004) and Strella (2009) in his body of work.
Κωμωδία με δύο αδέλφια από την Αλβανία που ψάχνουν στην Ελλάδα, εκμεταλλευόμενοι και αυτό το διαγωνισμό της Greek Star, να βρουν τον βιολογικό τους πατέρα για να καταφέρουν να μην διωχτούν πίσω στην Αλβανία.


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Crematogaster pilosa är en myrart som beskrevs av Carlo Emery 1895. Crematogaster pilosa ingår i släktet Crematogaster och familjen myror. IUCN kategoriserar arten globalt som sårbar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

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pilosa

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This photograph of Hut 216 in (I assume 1962) was found by a volunteer in a 'Help the Aged' charity shop. Whilst sorting through some donated items, she came across an album of 1960's photographs. The album seems to cover the National Service years of a unknown conscript who was trained at Bridgnorth. She has kindly sent this web site this copy of the Bridgnorth photograph. The rest of the album suggests that the owner had been in Thailand through 1963, 1964 and 1965. Pictures include Penang, Sunan, Haadyai and his mates Bill, Taff and Tony. There are some interesting photos of 3" mortar, day and night firing on the Assertan range and a photo of a group outside the fire station at Scampton.
If anyone has any suggestions as to what could be done with the album, I'll gladly pass them on. I haven't seen and don't have the album. Dated 19 October 2006.


Valo Modern is now available for all! As the digital workplace continues to quickly grow and expand, with Modern SharePoint as one of the newest additions, we are growing and expanding alongside it with the release of our newest solution, Valo Modern!
We truly fell in love with Modern SharePoint when it launched. Since Valo is already built on top of SharePoint, making the most out of Microsoft's existing features and offerings, creating a version on Modern SharePoint was a natural continuum. So, in response to the launch of Modern SharePoint, we did just that!
Now, we are bringing it to you almost a month before the original plan, making us the first to deliver an Intranet solution on Modern SharePoint – Valo Modern!
As we all know, aside from being its namesake, Modern SharePoint revolutionizes the SharePoint we know and love. Everyday users will particularly enjoy the update, as it makes it a lot easier for them to use, providing them with a faster and more responsive product, straight out of the box.
With Communication Sites, Modern Team Sites and other improvements, such as column formatting and business apps integration, users will love to work with the new SharePoint.
It has been a joy for our developers to take advantage of these new offerings and, yet again, make the user experience something special.
At Valo, we don't want to replace what SharePoint is, but rather deliver extra value on top of the great features SharePoint already provides.
Valo Intranet built on Classic SharePoint, loved by over a million users around the globe, is an amazing solution that works on top of SharePoint 2013/2016, as well as Office 365. So why should you get Valo Modern?
While Classic Valo is still very much alive and kicking, Valo Modern is the next step in our journey! This version of Valo is built 100 % on top of Communication Sites, Hub Sites, Team Sites and provides enterprises with the features they need to increase collaboration and engagement utilizing their intranet.
And the thing we especially love when it comes to modern is that it is so much easier for content producers, people in communications and HR to focus on the content alone instead of understanding the technology behind it.
With Valo Modern, you are able to reach your people no matter where they are or what device they are using.
Modern SharePoint alone is epic, but we wanted to take it to next level. We have worked closely with our partners and early-stage customers to fine-tune the features. This has enabled us to provide a product that will give extra-value on top of SharePoint.
KNAPP AG, a global organization bringing new technology to warehouse logistics, is one of those of our early-adopters among the first Valo Modern customer. Even though they new Valo Modern is in its very early stage, they were impressed and decided to go for Valo to fill the missing gaps in the functionalities Modern SharePoint still has.
KNAPP AG is currently building a corporate intranet with Office 365, SharePoint modern and Valo modern on top. Although it's an early stage to use Valo modern we decided to build the intranet in Office 365 and Valo modern, because Valo modern is closing the gap of the last ~10-15 % of functionalities that one is missing in Office 365 and SharePoint modern out of the box. Editors will get a modern UI and we expect that they will be publishing new content easily and fast. By using Valo modern on top our goal is to keep technical barriers as low as possible for both content editors and consumers of the intranet, so our intranet becomes what it should be – a useful tool that our colleagues love to use.
Our partners also love the modern version of Valo!
Valo Modern brings Modern SharePoint to a complete intranet. With SharePoint Modern, you get a base framework for a responsive new age intranet. With Valo Modern, you get ready to go intranet that you just need to fill in the content!
It's not like you are either going to choose Valo or you are going to choose SharePoint Modern. Valo Modern is not a replacement for SharePoint functionality but it is embracing that functionality and building upon it!
If it's all about Modern, what happens to Classic SharePoint?
We can ensure you, Classic SharePoint is not going anywhere anytime soon. Modern makes a huge difference to the user experience but if you are happy with Classic, there is no rush to move to Modern. Valo will also continue supporting Classic as long as it exists. However, Modern is awesome and we encourage you to prepare yourself for the switch.
Are you already an existing customer of Valo with Office 365 and a Fresh subscription? Great news – you can update to Modern as a part of your Fresh subscription! Just contact your certified Valo Partner to learn more.
Would you love to hear more about our modern solutions? To witness these features yourself and learn more, visit us at one of the next events we'll be attending or book a demo and discussion with us! You can also take a deeper dive into the world of Modern Valo Intranet.


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"Southern Africa must be innovative to tackle access to HIV and TB treatment" says ARASA
The right to life is being denied due to high prices for medicines. Addressing pharmaceuticals' abuse of intellectual property law is essential to make treatment affordable.
For most member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the cost of medicines remains a major obstacle in achieving universal access to treatment.
Swallowing between 22 and 66% of national budgets, medicines constitute the largest public expenditure on health after personnel costs. They are also the largest household expenditure. Essential medicines have become a 'luxury' that low-income households can't afford.
Members of Parliament and leaders from the 15 SADC states have a responsibility to protect public health, and provide essential medicines to all patients. Earlier this year, our partners ARASA and SAPAM, collaborated with the SADC Parliamentary Forum to host a second dialogue with MPs. They also brought in relevant NGOs and technical experts to the discussion, with the aim of defining a strategy to increase access to medicines across the region.
"There is wide consensus that access to medicines is a human rights issue," says Lynette Mabote, Programme Lead at ARASA. "However, while the abuse of intellectual property laws continues to hike medicines prices and in doing so prevents access, people continue to be denied their fundamental right to life if they cannot afford a certain medicine for a curable ailment."
Price hikes deny people their fundamental right to life if they cannot afford a certain medicine for a curable ailment – Lynette Mabote
When large pharmaceuticals successfully manipulate intellectual property laws, and are granted unmerited patents – licenses which grant them extended 20 year monopolies because of a slight change on an already patented product – it enables them, as a sole supplier, to dictate high prices. The most common tactic being employed by pharmaceutical companies to extent patents on existing drugs, is known as evergreening.
No reason to grant some patents
All SADC countries are signatories to the TRIPS Agreement. This international trade agreement aims to protect and reward genuine innovation and promote domestic development through trade. Certain provisions, or flexibilities, within this agreement, can be used to safeguard public health outcomes. In practice, this can mean overruling patent protection on pharmaceutical products and using a 'government-issued' or 'compulsory' license, in order to procure essential medicines at affordable prices. Furthermore, countries classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which make up 8 of the 15 SADC countries, do not have to grant patents on pharmaceutical products until 2033, even if the county has an intellectual property law in place.
Some countries seem to be granting unnecessary patents – Celestine Kumire
Back in 2012, SAPAM carried out an analysis of the level of use of the TRIPS flexibilities in SADC countries, which showed that the flexibilities are not being routinely implemented and revealed a persistent trend of patents being granted on medicines which should no longer enjoy patent protection. "Some countries seem to be granting unnecessary patents because of weak systems which do not allow for the examination of patent applications," says Celestine Kumire, SAPAM's Programme Director. "However, there are also examples of best practice within SADC, that as a region we can learn from."
Best practice example include how most SADC countries have now either already revised or embarked on reviewing their intellectual property legislation to incorporate TRIPS flexibilities. These include Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is the only SADC country to date, to issue a compulsory license, which enabled the procurement of more affordable ARVs.
ARASA and SAPAM continue to work towards a coordinated response across the region, with the aim of all states using the flexibilities laid out in the TRIPS Agreement.
"Lives literally depend on these essential medicines – there is hope, but structural barriers are holding us back," said Mabote. "The pharmaceutical companies have been using an interpretation of the TRIPS Agreement to their advantage in order to profit. Our governments now need to legitimately use this same agreement to their advantage, in order to protect public health."
Due to the cost of patented drugs, along with a reduction in funding from traditional donors towards the HIV and TB response in the region, the longer term goal would be to see SADC countries move towards complete self-sufficiency by strengthening the manufacturing capacity of member states to produce these essential medicines – including 2nd and 3rd line ARVs and TB drugs.
Like the rest of Africa, the SADC region depends heavily on imported patented and generic medicines. About 85% of the generic ARV medicines used in the region are imported and only 15% are manufactured within the SADC region. There is hope that the balance can be changed, and manufacturing capacity exists in countries such as South Africa and Tanzania.
To work as a region, the collection and sharing of data is essential so all countries can procure the best drugs at the best price. SAPAM has laid the foundations by developing the SADC Medicines Database, an online platform for sharing information (currently being updated). It stores procurement data of SADC members, including methods, prices, sources and quality. By building the capacity of SADC members, the aim is to provide those with a patent granting, or influencing role, the knowledge required to refuse unmerited patents, as well as providing those with a procuring role, the information to access drugs at the best price.
Related news: Challenging Trips-plus, Compulsory Licenses, Law and policy reform, Southern Africa
ITPC's Global Survey on Access to and Quality of HIV Treatment and Care
World CAB: Direct dialogue between pharma companies and HIV, Hep C and TB treatment advocates
To achieve universal health coverage, people living with HIV and marginalized communities must be at the centre – says APN+
Universal Health Coverage Day 2019: Who's being left behind and why?
ICASA 2019: "Civil society will not leave the MENA region behind"
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