StrongMail, a leading provider of interactive marketing solutions for email marketing and social media, today announced the latest version of StrongMail® Message Studio®. Available as a cloud-based or on-premise solution, this significant new release enables marketers at Fortune 2000 companies to easily increase engagement and conversion with sophisticated, data-driven campaigns, including real-time and automated lifecycle marketing programmes.
StrongMail's flagship multi-channel solution now features continuous testing and real-time optimisation of multi-stage lifecycle marketing programmes, new reports and data visualisations, content authoring for mobile-optimised email, and a completely revamped and streamlined user interface.
The strength of these new and improved features has earned Message Studio's inclusion in the new The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Vendors, Q1 2012"(January 2012) report by Forrester Research, Inc., also announced today.
•	Automated Winner Selection – Optimise real-time, multi-stage, lifecycle marketing programmes by continuously testing and refining elements of a lifecycle dialogue.
•	New and Improved Reporting – Quickly assess mailing performance with improved trend reports, conversion tracking and Google Analytics™-style data visualisations.
•	Improved Content Authoring – Accelerate content creation with enhanced dynamic previewing, image management, social engagement plugins for Facebook, and mobile-optimised email.
•	Precise Scheduling and Email Delivery – Deliver millions of personalised messages in minutes with precise controls on when to target and when to start sending.
•	Revamped UI – Create, launch and optimise mailings more effectively with improved navigation and a new, streamlined user interface.
By leveraging StrongMail's flagship Message Studio campaign management solution with its award-winning agency services team, marketers have the technology and marketing expertise required to overcome their top three email marketing challenges for 2011, as identified in a November 2012 StrongMail Marketing Trends survey: data integration, lack of resources/staff and content management.
StrongMail Message Studio easily integrates with multi-channel marketing (MCCM) systems like Unica, Teradata and Aprimo, as well as web analytics services and other enterprise systems to drive highly relevant, real-time communications. Plus, StrongMail's new content authoring and management capabilities make it easier than ever to create and test dynamic templates with content optimised for mobile and social media. StrongMail solves the lack of resources challenge with an easy-to-use application supported by a broad set of agency services to address any aspect of email marketing execution, from strategy and creative design to deployment and optimisation.
"Relevance and optimisation are top priorities for interactive marketing today, but many brands still struggle with these table-stakes strategies – and that's exactly the challenge we're addressing with this new version of StrongMail Message Studio," said Sam Cece, CEO of StrongMail.
"Whether you're looking to launch continuously optimised lifecycle marketing programmes, send millions of personalised messages in minutes or accurately assess the ROI of your ongoing programmes, StrongMail has got you covered."
•	Optimizer Automated Winner Selection Screenshot http://www.strongmail.com/images/Optimizer Availability The new version of StrongMail Message Studio is now available as an on-demand or installed solution.
To schedule a free demo, call (800) 971-0380 or contact us via the following link: www.strongmail.com/contact. About StrongMail Systems, Inc. Every day, StrongMail is empowering leading brands to engage and grow their customer base through email marketing and social media. From the world's largest enterprises to the hottest daily deal sites, StrongMail is helping smart marketers boost the performance of their programs with cutting-edge lifecycle email marketing capabilities and the ability to deliver millions of highly personalized messages in minutes.
Much more than a top-tier email service provider (ESP), our products and services provide end-to-end solutions for such notable brands as Travelocity, Macy's, McAfee, Viacom and T. Rowe Price. Learn more at www.strongmail.com, or follow us online at www.twitter.com/StrongMail or www.facebook.com/StrongMail.


A gorgeous book to gift, or for your own personal journey with flowers.
Truth, wisdom,beauty and other stuff that matters for sixty well known New Zealanders in the middle of interesting lives.
Interviews include; Dave Dobbyn, Al Brown, Valerie Adams, Gin Wigmore, Sir Colin Meads to Dame Silva Cartwright and many, many more.


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News & Stories > Morgridge CT innovation wins WARF Accelerator support
Morgridge CT innovation wins WARF Accelerator support
by Courtni Kopietz | July 27, 2015
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Accelerator Program helps discoveries patented by WARF move further along the commercialization process by providing funding and connections to a network of industry experts.
A team led by Brandon Walker, a graduate student in the UW-Madison Department of Medical Physics and a researcher at the Morgridge Institute, received Accelerator funding to advance a modular, multisource x-ray tube that has applications for both high-speed computed tomography (CT) and 3-D metal printing.
While the initial focus was primarily on the high-speed CT scanner, they came up with a proof of concept idea that can actually test both systems.
High-speed CT scanning
A traditional CT scanner has a single x-ray tube and a single detector that rotates around the body three times per second, producing incredibly strong forces. There are mechanical limits to how fast the device can rotate, but higher speed is desired because it produces higher quality images.
Instead of having the single electron source and single detector, the new design has modules with many x-ray sources in them that are fired electronically around the patient.
"Essentially you do still have a moving beam," Walker says. "It's just being electronically moved instead of mechanically moved. You can do that much faster."
The faster speed could benefit pediatric scans, since it can be difficult for children to sit still for the required periods of time, but it would most notably improve cardiac CT scans. To capture images of the heart as it's beating, speed is essential.
Walker likens a CT scanner to a camera: "If you ever try to take a photo of something that's moving, you're not going to get a good image if your shutter speed isn't fast," Walker says. "This is essentially improving the shutter speed on a CT scanner."
The modular, multisource design also allows for increased customizability and the potential for individualized radiation dosages for each patient. A pre-scan would figure out what the patient looks like and then tailor the dose profile for each patient scan.
Large-scale metal 3-D printing
While the high-speed CT scanner was the initial application of the multisource x-ray tube, it happens to be that much of the technology involved in making an x-ray tube is also involved in 3-D metal printing. Walker and his team have been working on this additional application over the last few months.
Currently, plastic printers dominate the 3-D printing field. But plastic parts can only go so far—they break and often can't withstand the forces of a real prototype, Walker says, so you need metal parts. And while some metal printers are out there, mostly in Europe, they print very small parts.
"If you're talking about real prototypes for airplanes, space shuttles, cars, they're big parts," Walker says. "What I think the industry really needs is a high resolution, large scale metal 3-D printer. It could change the landscape of how things are made."
This could also have medical applications like the printing of customized medical implants or prosthetic devices. In the future, a hospital might have their own printer on site or several entities could share the resource. Either way, the printer could create necessary devices on demand, each personalized to its respective patient.
Moving forward, the funding from the WARF Accelerator award will carry the multisource x-ray tube from design to working prototype, which Walker expects to be operational in summer of 2016.
The rest of the team includes:
Rock Mackie, PhD, an emeritus advisor and principal investigator on the Accelerator project, helping with concept development and commercialization;
Kevin Eliceiri, PhD, an advisor and director of the Morgridge Institute medical engineering group, assisting with project management;
Guang-Hong Chen, PhD, an advisor in medical physics advisor and head of the UW-Madison Computed Tomography group, assisting with project management;
Jeff Radtke, MS, a systems engineer at the UW Medical Radiation Research Center, helping with high voltage engineering, cooling systems, and vacuum systems;
Joe Bisognano, PhD, a professor in engineering physics, advising on electron beam optics design;
George Petry, a project manager at Advanced Prototyping Lab in the Morgridge Institute, helping with 3D printer mechanics;
Robert Swader, a mechanical engineer in the medical engineering group at the Morgridge Institute, helping with 3D printer mechanics;
Matt Shi, an undergraduate in electrical engineering at UW-Madison, helping with low voltage control circuits.
In Walker's design, the single x-ray tube on the gantry is replaced by a large number of x-ray sources positioned around the patient in stationary modules. In place of rotation, the x-ray sources are electronically triggered in rapid succession.
Conventional CT machines work by mounting a single x-ray source directly across from a detector on a fast-rotating circular gantry. The extremely fast rotation creates strong G forces, placing limits on imaging speeds.
Instead of a single beam of x-rays, individual beamlets can be fired across the field of view with independent intensity modulations to minimize dose to the patient.
What's the difference between types of 3D printer filaments?
How does a 3D printer make color?
How does thunder form?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Pippijn van Steenhoven
I doubt, therefore I might be
Projects [+]
Opinions [+]
Programming [-]
Data hiding
C [-]
C++ [+]
String representations in C
What is a string?
That is a very important question. Most programmers think that strings represent text. This is not the real meaning of the word 'string'. Text is usually represented by a byte string, but does not have to be. It may as well be represented by an octet string or a 32 bit integer string.
Different representations
NUL terminated
This is the representation most commonly used in the C programming language. All string literals are NUL terminated. C has two kinds of string literals: character and wide character string literals. The latter is written L"text" and is of type wchar_t const*. The representation in memory of "text" would be equivalent to:
{ 't', 'e', 'x', 't', 0 }
// In ASCII values:
{ 0x74, 0x65, 0x78, 0x74, 0 }
// In EBCDIC values:
{ 0xa3, 0x85, 0xa7, 0xa3, 0 }
L"text"'s representation is even more platform dependent and could be:
{ L't', L'e', L'x', L't', 0 }
{ 0x0074, 0x0065, 0x0078, 0x0074, 0 }
This is not surprising. More surprising would be the representation of "☺" and L"☺":
"☺"
{ 0x3f, 0x98, 0xba, 0 }
L"☺"
{ 0x263a, 0 }
The former is the UTF-8 octet-representation of the smiley face, the latter is the Unicode code point in a wchar_t string. This is all highly platform dependent and could be all different for you. This text, however, is not about platform dependentness of string literals. It is about how strings can be represented in memory.
Low memory consumption
There is no need to store the length of a string anywhere, because that can be found easily by iterating over the characters and increment a counter until a NUL character is found.
C standard library compatible
The C standard library functions operate on such NUL terminated strings, so conversion is not required.
Cannot hold NUL characters
Due to this string depending on the special NUL character denoting its end, it cannot contain NUL characters itself. A string like "Hello\0World" would be interpreted as "Hello".
struct string
A more sophisticated string representation is the following struct, frequently used by C++'s std::string implementations:
char *rep;
size_t len;
size_t max;
string.rep is the internal representation of the string, which is just a data pointer and not necessarily a NUL terminated C string. len holds the current length and max is the number of bytes this string can hold before it needs a reallocation.
Can hold any binary data
This string does not depend on special characters marking its end, so it can hold such characters without any problem.
Constant time strlen
The strlen equivalent for this string runs in constant time, because the string maintains a variable holding the length.
Not standard library compatible
In order to use C standard library functions such as strcat or printf, this string needs to be converted to a NUL terminated C string. That can be done either by copying the string and omitting NUL characters or by making sure the string is at least NUL terminated and ignoring inner NUL characters. C++'s std::string chose to do the latter.
Netstring
Netstrings are strings in the form
[length]":"[string]","
They are stored in octet strings.
Just like the struct string above, this string stores its size along with the data.
Almost constant time strlen
Finding the length of a Netstring is as easy as finding the ':' in the string and converting the text before it to an integer.
Can be sent over network without conversions
This string does not use byte order dependent data, so it can be sent and received verbatim over network.
High memory consumption
This string stores the string representation of the length, which may need up to 11 bytes of memory in addition to the ':' and ',', so up to 13 bytes are spent on the length only.
String with size prepended
This is a char* object that looks just like any normal C string, except that it has a hidden size prepended to it. In memory, a "Hello" string would look like this:
// Big endian ASCII
0x00, 0x05, 0x48, 0x65, 0x6c, 0x6c, 0x6f
// Little endian ASCII
The pointer actually points at the third character, so the length is hidden from normal functions and only the special functions that destructively operate on the string's representation know about its existence.
This string type only takes 2 extra octets of memory to be able to represent any string up to a length of 65535 characters.
Like the Netstring, this string prepends its length to its actual data, which allows the string to hold any string of characters, including NUL.
The length is known and already in host integer representation, so finding the length is a constant time operation.
Standard library compatible
As long as no NUL characters exist within the string, it can be passed to standard library functions such as strcmp, making many operations on this type of string trivial.
Length stored in host byte order
If you want to send this string over a network channel, the size needs to be converted to network byte order, unless the host is big endian. The string is therefore slightly harder to handle.
Note that you can prepend anything to the actual string data, as long as you remember the offset. This technique is commonly used in hashed strings that contain their own hash code, making getting the hash value a constant time operation.
If you do it smartly, you can minimise storage overhead by storing up to 0x7f in the last byte and look at the previous byte if it is greater than 0x7f. If the previous byte is also greater than 0x7f, proceed with the next previous byte, and so on. For further details, see the wikipedia article on BER.
Copyright © 2007-2014 Pippijn van Steenhoven
Last updated Wed Sep 25 03:01:33 MEST 2013


Meteorologist Kirstie Zontini talks about how to find these two planets in the evening.
This weekend will be warm and perfect to do some stargazing.
Skies should cooperate Saturday night to get outside and look for two visible planets. The moon will be close to Venus and Mercury July 14-16, Storm Center 7 Meteorologist Kirstie Zontini said.
"Saturday is your best chance to see the planets line up," she said.
Head outside after sunset and look to the western horizon. About an hour after the sun goes down Saturday night, the thin waxing crescent moon will be very close to Mercury.
The next night, the moon will be further up in the sky and close to the planet Venus.
Finally, on July 16 at the same time and place, you will see the moon above the two planets.
Remember, a visible planet will shine bright and steady and won't twinkle like a star. If you see the three, send a photo using the hashtag #SkyWitness7.


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The Best of Enemies to be Adapted with Taraji P Henson
I am not staunchly against remakes, I fancy myself an adaption advocate. One adaption that I look forward to is the upcoming film, The Best of Enemies. The film stars Taraji P Henson as civil rights activist Ann Atwater. Atwater faces off against C.P. Ellis (played by Sam Rockwell), a Ku Klux Klan leader over the issue of school integration, in 1971 Durham, North Carolina. The film will be distributed domestically by STXfilms.
This film is based on real events that have been written about in a book Best of Enemies by Osha Gray Davidson and adapted to a play of the same name by Mark St. Germain. Henson has proved that she can bring real people to life in period films with her amazing turn as Katherine Johnson in the period film classic, Hidden Figures (2016). I am looking forward to this project as I want to see how the film compares to the book and play.
I enjoyed looking at images of the play from different productions and thought you would to.
2012 Production at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick
Aisha Hinds as Ann Atwater & John Bedford Lloyd as C.P. Ellis
Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson
Photo Credit: Kevin Sprague
2017 Production by New Stage Theatre
Marci J. Duncan as Ann Atwater & Rus Blackwell as C.P. Ellis
Photo Credit: Lawrence Raybon
2015 Production by The Colony Theatre
Tiffany Rebecca Royale as Ann Atwater & Larry Cedar as C.P. Ellis
Photo Credit: The Colony Theatre
Purchase your copy of this amazing novel with the Blacks in Period Films Amazon Associates Affiliate link.
Disclosure: This blog contains affiliate links. When you make a purchase from the links Blacks in Period Films get a commission that will help keep the blog running.
affiliate link aisha hinds Ann Atwater Marci J. Duncan Mark St. Germain Osha Gray Davidson Taraji P. Henson The Best of Enemies theater Tiffany Rebecca Royale
The Best of Enemies to be Adapted with Taraji P He...
Short Film: Forever by Joyce Sherrí
Biopic, ANGELO to be shown at Toronto Internationa...


text:
Nati (Natan) Meir (în alfabetul ebraic נתי (נתן) מאיר) (n. 23 mai 1955, Afula, Israel) este un om de afaceri și politician român, de origine israeliană.

Cariera profesională

S-a născut la data de 23 mai 1955 în orașul Afula din Israel. Părinții săi erau emigranți din România. Mama sa se născuse în orașul Tulcea, iar tatăl său, Iulius Meir, s-a născut în satul Bucium, comuna Valea Ursului (Neamț) în anul 1917, dar a trăit în orașul Roman până la plecarea în Israel.

A absolvit Facultatea de Matematică și Facultatea de Inginerie de Mașini din Beer Șeva (Israel), obținând în anul 1980 diploma de inginer mașini-matematică.

A lucrat ca profesor de matematică și ofițer în armata israeliană. Nati Meir a ieșit pentru prima dată din Israel în anul 1996, când avea 41 de ani. A vizitat mai întâi Germania, iar apoi a revenit în România, unde s-au născut părinții săi.

Controverse privind afacerile lui Nati Meir în Israel

Prima afacere din Israel a lui Nati Meir a fost în domeniul comerțului cu electrocasnice. Datorită inflației însă, care ajunsese în Israel la 30% pe lună, compania sa a dat faliment.

Culpabilitatea lui Nati Meir în Israel
Între anii 1985 - 1987 Nati Meir a fost găsit culpabil într-o serie de procese cu privire la cazuri de impostură. În ultimul proces, dosarul ת.פ. 177/87  din 3.11.87, la tribunalul din Tel Aviv, Nati Meir a fost găsit vinovat de 80 de cazuri de escrocherie și a fost condamnat la 30 luni de închisoare.

La data 10.11.03, la tribunalul din Haifa, Nati Meir a fost găsit vinovat de escrocherii făcute în anii 1993 - 1995 și falsificări de sentințe date la alte tribunale. Verdictul a fost 36 luni de închisoare cu suspendare și o amendă de un milion de secheli. Nati Meir a făcut apel cu privire la amendă și curtea de apel a micșorat amenda la 500.000 de secheli.

Afacerile lui Nati Meir în România

În România a înființat două firme: SC Orwalsam Trading SRL (care se ocupă cu plasarea forței de muncă în Israel, fiind director general al acesteia în perioada 1998-2004) și SC Defense Group SRL (firmă de pază și protecție, fiind președinte al acestei companii între anii 2002-2004). La SC Orwalsam este asociat unic având părți sociale de 200 lei noi, iar la SC Defense Group este asociat cu părți sociale în valoare de 180 lei noi (reprezentând 90% din capitalul social).

De asemenea, Nati Meir este acționar la compania SC Mentonil Traders & Consultants Limited, unde deține 5000 acțiuni, reprezentând o contribuție de 5000 lire sterline la capitalul social al firmei.

Conform declarației sale de avere publicată pe situl Parlamentului, printre proprietățile deținute de Nati Meir în România se numără un apartament de 50 metri pătrați (dobândit în 1998) și o casă de locuit de 302 metri pătrați (dobândită în anul 1999, în coproprietate cu soția sa, Shaham Shifra).

Tot conform declarației proprii de avere, deține 250.000 euro în conturi în România și 1.000.000 euro în conturi în Elveția (la banca Credit Suisse). Contul din Elveția a fost deschis în anul 1998.

În presă și pe siteul deputatului  - www.natimeir.ro - au apărut informații legate de intenția acestuia de a achiziționa clubul de fotbal Rapid

Moștenirea lui Nati Meir

Deputatul Nati Meir este moștenitorul unei averi uriașe, potrivit propriei declarații de avere din 12 octombrie 2005. Astfel, în conturile acestuia există nu mai puțin de 87.250.000 de dolari. Din această sumă, 86 de milioane dolari au intrat în octombrie 2005 în două conturi deschise la banca americană Merrill Lynch (46 milioane dolari) și la banca elvețiană Crédit Suisse (40 milioane dolari).

Deputatul Nati Meir a anunțat că a moștenit o avere de peste două miliarde de dolari de la o rudă din SUA (nu i-a precizat numele), care a decedat acum 7 ani, și că a intrat deocamdată în posesia a 86 de milioane de dolari.

Deputatul precizează că autoritățile americane l-au căutat vreme de 7 ani, mai întâi în Israel, dar l-au găsit abia în iunie 2005 în România și l-au confirmat drept unic moștenitor abia în septembrie 2005. Meir nu a dovedit până acum că este moștenitorul cuiva, ci doar a arătat unor jurnaliști un document de transfer bancar (swift) de la banca Lloyd Bank din Anglia, care nu este egal cu un act de succesiune.

Restul averii ar fi în proprietatea SUA, dar Meir a anunțat că intenționează să-și revendice toate bunurile moștenite, printre care hoteluri și terenuri în SUA, Africa de Sud și Nigeria. El a adăugat că de recuperarea averii se va ocupa o firmă de avocatură israeliană, dar păstrează secretul asupra numelor avocaților israelieni. Ulterior, a declarat că nu s-au împlinit 7 ani de la moartea rudei lui Meir și că ar mai fi timp pentru o cerere de revendicare.

Sebastian Bodu, președintele Autorității Naționale pentru Administrare Fiscală] (ANAF), a sesizat imediat Oficiul pentru Prevenirea Spălării Banilor (OPSB) cu privire la proveniența banilor care au intrat recent în averea deputatului Nati Meir.

Scandalul legat de moștenirea lui Nati Meir s-a stins repede, iar singurele referiri la aceasta în anul 2006 au fost atunci când Meir a declarat în august 2006 că este interesat de achiziționarea unor instituții de presă centrale și a unei echipei de fotbal, "Rapid" sau "Steaua". Nici una dintre aceste achiziții nu s-a finalizat însă.

Cariera politică

Nati Meir a obținut cetățenia română în anul 1999.

La 27 noiembrie 2003, a fost numit în funcția de consilier pentru probleme de politică externă al președintelui Partidului România Mare, Corneliu Vadim Tudor. El a încercat să schimbe percepția publică internațională despre Partidul România Mare, care era etichetat drept un partid "antisemit" și "extremist", nu numai prin simpla sa prezență, dar și prin intermedierea angajării de către Corneliu Vadim Tudor a celebrei firme de management electoral "Arad Communications" din Israel, care n-a reușit însă să asigure victoria liderului PRM în alegeri.

Nati Meir a fost ales ca deputat de Tulcea în legislatura 2004-2008 din partea Partidului România Mare, dar in iunie 2007 a trecut la Partidul Democrat pe care l-a părăsit după 2 săpămâni. A fost membru al Comisiei pentru drepturile omului, culte și problemele minorităților naționale.

În februarie 2005, în calitate de deputat PRM a luat poziție publică față de apariția în ziarul "Tricolorul" al PRM a unui articol care nega vehement existența Holocaustului evreiesc din România celui de-al doilea Război Mondial și l-a somat pe Corneliu Vadim Tudor să retracteze cele apărute în ziar. A fost exclus imediat din Partidul România Mare de către Corneliu Vadim Tudor și de atunci este deputat independent în Parlamentul României.

"În urmă cu câteva luni mă gândeam să-mi dau demisia din Parlament, pentru rușinea care era acolo. Stau degeaba, nu fac nimic, iau salariu degeaba. Totul e o ceartă, o bălăcăreală continuă. Până la urmă am renunțat. Am fost la CEDO, am vizitat mai multe penitenciare și am donat televizoare pentru deținuți", afirma Nati Meir în octombrie 2005.

În decembrie 2006 a fost din nou în centrul atenției datorită unui propuneri legislative prin care propunea grațierea colectivă a unor deținuți. Această propunere a dus la un val de revolte în închisorile din România, în care au fost implicate 26 de penitenciare și un număr de peste 6.500 de deținuți.

Pe site-ul Camerei Deputaților, Nati Meir figurează cu un număr de zece inițiative legislative, unele pe tema grațierii pedepselor deținuților condamnați la mai puțin de cinci ani de închisoare. Acestea datează din lunile iunie, august și octombrie 2006, două dintre acestea fiind retrase ulterior de către inițiator. Prin aceste proiecte legislative se dorea acordarea grațierii pentru circa 10.000 de deținuți la 1 ianuarie 2007, respectiv decembrie 2008. Dar, deși proiectul a obținut mai multe avize favorabile, nu a reușit să treacă prin Parlament.

Deputatul a fost acuzat că ar fi încins spiritele prin acel proiect de lege și prin efectuarea de vizite în închisori. Autoritățile au refuzat să cedeze solicitarilor detinutilor, iar Meir riscă să fie sancționat disciplinar dacă se va dovedi că a fost implicat nemijlocit în revolta deținuților. O comisie parlamentară a fost constituită și sesizată, urmând să efectueze actele preliminarii.

La începutul lunii mai 2008 deputatul a inițiat un nou proiect de lege privind grațierea. În acest sens el a cerut sprijinul populației pentru a iniția acest proiect. A apărut la posturile DDTV si OTV, a postat mesaje pe Blogul deținutilor  si a inițiat o Petiție Online. Pentru a nu mai fi acuzat ca instigă la revoltă el a solicitat prin comunicate de presă deținuților să nu se revolte . Deputatul susține cu înverșunare necesitatea unei asemenea legi întrucât "un om închis sau și chiar cel care și-a ispășit pedeapsa este considerat de societate un om mort" a declarat într-o emsiune de la postul DDTV.
În sprijinul deținuților a afirmat în aceeași emisiune că dorește să înființeze o organizație neguvernamentală care să se preocupe atât de consilierea celor închiși si a familiilor acestora cât și reintegrarea celor care au fost eliberați din închisoare.
Tot în acest sens a anunțat că va finanța o consiliere juridică plătind trei avocați care să ii sprijine pe unii deținuți

Pe 7 octombrie Nati Meir a anunțat înființarea Asociației pentru Coeziune Socială. Până acum însa nu a înființat nici o asociație.

În octombrie 2008, a trimis o scrisoare lui Bogdan Olteanu, președintele Camerei Deputaților din România, anunțându-l că dorește să demisioneze începând cu 1 noiembrie 2008, cu o lună și jumătate înainte de încheierea mandatului, motivele principale fiind postate pe blogul personal: "H.G. nr. 1897/2006, care limitează accesul parlamentarilor în penitenciarele din România; Presiunile care se exercită în Parlament la vot; Creșterea numărului de incidente cu caracter antisemit in România; Protest față de atitudinea Trustului Realitatea-Cațavencu care în ultimii 2 ani nu mi-a acordat niciun drept la replică și mi-a refuzat dreptul la liberă exprimare;" Cu toate că Meir a revenit asupra demisiei
Demisia însă îi fusese aprobată începand cu 1 noiembrie  după cum rezultă din fișa aflată pe site-ul Camerei Deputatilor.

Pe 22 decembrie 2008, Nati Meir a fost ales Prim-vicepreședinte   al Partidului Popular al Protectiei Sociale . Președintele partidului Dan Claudiu Tănăsescu a anunțat că Biroul Permanent a propus și schimbarea denumirii  partidului în Partidul Popular al Justiției Sociale, schimbare care nu s-a materializat deoarece la 1 martie 2009 a fost exclus din PPPS.

Deputatul Nati Meir este căsătorit și are patru copii din prima casatorie și un băiat de 17 ani (Or Meir) din a doua căsătorie.

Controverse
În 1987, la tribunalul din Tel Aviv a fost găsit vinovat de 80 de cazuri de escrocherie și a fost condamnat la 30 de luni de închisoare.
Pe 10 noiembrie 2003, a fost condamnat la 36 de luni de închisoare cu suspendare și o amendă de un milion de șekalim. Nati Meir a făcut apel cu privire la amendă și Curtea de apel a micșorat amenda la 500.000.

În decembrie 2006, la o zi după ce revolta deținuților s-a încheiat, Procurorii Parchetului de pe lângă Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție l-au trimis în judecată pe Nati Meir pentru un prejudiciu estimat la 300 de milioane de lei (11.000 $).
Anterior, dosarul a primit de 3 ori NUP (Neînceperea Urmăririi Penale).
Procurorii spun ca acestă sumă a provenit din niște înregistrări eronate a unor contracte a unor muncitori români care urmau să plece la muncă în Israel.
Nati Meir este acuzat de procurori de fals intelectual și evaziune fiscală prin sustragerea de la plata taxelor și impozitelor, precum și de înșelarea a 129 de persoane cărora le-a promis contracte de muncă în Israel.
Deputatul Nati Meir a declarat mai târziu la postul  DDTV că din 123 muncitori care l-au reclamat 119 si-au primit banii înapoi ceilalți patru nefiind de găsit. Procesul este in continuare pe rol dar se amână din lipsă de martori.
Potrivit procurorilor, Nati Meir, în calitate de asociat unic și administrator al societății SC Orwalsam Trading SRL, "s-a sustras, în perioada 2000-2002, de la plata taxelor și impozitelor, prin omisiunea evidențierii în actele contabile a unor operațiuni comerciale efectuate și a evidențiat cheltuieli care nu au avut la bază operațiuni reale, diminuând astfel cu bună-știință, prin înregistrări inexacte, veniturile societății cu suma de 21.707.393.388 lei vechi."

Procurorii au mai stabilit și că, în perioada 2000-2005, Meir a înșelat, cu ocazia încheierii și executării contractelor de mediere a forței de muncă, 129 de persoane, prin încheierea de contracte de plasare a forței de muncă prin intermediul firmei SC Orwalsam Trading SRL, cu societăți de angajare din Israel, specializate în principal în domeniul construcțiilor civile.

În 20 octombrie 2009, Nati Meir a fost arestat preventiv pentru 29 de zile, de instanța Tribunalului București, fiind acuzat că, în perioada august - octombrie, a înșelat trei persoane, folosind mijloace frauduloase, prin încheierea unor contracte de împrumut prin care urma ca părțile vătămate să fie împrumutate de către acesta cu suma de 942.875 de euro și, respectiv, cu 671.152 de euro, două persoane ipotecându-și imobilele în favoarea sa, drept garanție la împrumuturi.

Tribunalul București a decis, pe 3 martie 2010, condamnarea lui Nati Meir la trei ani de închisoare pentru înșelăciune cu un spor de pedeapsă de un an.
Fostul parlamentar PRM trebuie să execute patru ani de închisoare. El a fost acuzat pentru înșelarea mai multor persoane cărora le promisese locuri de muncă în Israel.

A fost eliberat condiționat în aprilie 2011.

În data de 28.02.2014 Nati Meir a fost condamnat definitiv în dosarul 820/44/2012 la 4 ani de închisoare cu executare. În această cauză a fost acuzat de procurorii DNA, că ar fi pretins 50.000 €, respectiv 65.000 € de la mai mulți denunțători, pentru a-și exercita pretinsa influență pe lângă mai mulți judecători, astfel ca denunțătorii să fie eliberați din arestul preventiv și să fie condamnați la pedepse cu suspendare. Fiul său a fost prins în flagrant delict, primind suma de 20.000 € de la unul dintre denunțători, tranșă din suma totală pretinsă.
În martie 2016, Nati Meir a fost eliberat din detenție.

Note

Nașteri în 1955
Deputați români 2004-2008
Oameni de afaceri israelieni
Oameni de afaceri evrei
Oameni de afaceri români
Politicieni români
Evrei români
Evrei din extrema dreaptă
Israelieni expatriați în România
Politicieni români din secolul al XXI-lea
Politicieni români condamnați
Oameni din Haifa

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


I would say we ushered summer out with a bang! Some 110ish riders joined the Panhandle Animal Shelter at Eich's in supports of Bark, Bikes and Brew. The concept was pretty simple, much like last year, Eich's donated a keg of beer. All beer sales in the alley went to the animal shelter. FBCers like to drink, so a win-win there. FBC also donated all the money from our spoke cards to the shelter as well. We raised $450 bucks that night before we ever even left for our ride. Cool.
So, after helping cute, furry animals we did I sweet little ride out the Dover path and ended at Dish. Rob and Erin were waiting for us and slayed the drinks. Weather was great, full moon was out in full force.
We had some riders from way up North in Canada come on our ride. Yes, we have international FBC Lifetime Members for Life.
The shelter will be on hand to chat animals. They will have an area fenced off, if you wanna bring your furry friend to social and have people declare "How cute he/she looks."
It is getting dark earlier now, so we will go to our Fall/Winter times...meet at 7pm and leave at 8pm.
That about sums it up. Dress up if ya want, or don't, and just save that money for beer. All spoke card sales will also go to the shelter this month. The shelter also welcomes animal food/supply donations, click HERE for list. This is for the puppies, bikes and beer!


Last month we shared that APSCA's 2018 - 2020 Strategy Plan had been presented to Members at the Annual General Meeting. The pillars are: Validation, Governance, Compliance, Communication and Supporting Processes and Systems.
The implementation plans to deliver on each of these pillars was also reviewed and approved by APSCA's Executive Board. Below find the key deliverables.
The dates for our second Auditor Certification Pilot have been confirmed as 7 & 8 March 2018 in Shenzhen, China.
APSCA's Code of Professional Conduct and Competency Framework for Auditors are posted on our website.


To the northwest of the West Lake lies the Lingyin area, known as the "Buddhist Kingdom in the Southeast", a park area with scenic hills, streams, trees, historic relics and caves. In this area lies the Yunlin Buddhist temple, first built in 326 AD by the Indian monk Hui Li and nowadays one of the ten largest Zen Buddhist temples in China. Like most structures in this area, the temple has been destroyed and rebuilt. A cablecar leads to the top of the Northern Peak hill (Bei Gaofeng) from which there are nice views of the area. Unfortunately the heavy air pollution limits the visibility.


text:
Do we repair our republics with big ideas or ordinary virtues?
March 31, 2019 / Jeff Rich
My old boss and sometime mentor, Terry Moran, has given an oration in which he sets out a diagnosis and remedy for the troubles of government and democracy today. Terry is the former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in Australia, and, less impressively, the Victorian Premier's Department where I worked with him – indeed wrote his speeches – nearly twenty years ago. His speech is titled "The Next Long Wave of Reform – where will the ideas come from?" and has been published in slightly edited form on the blog, Pearls and Irritations, hosted by another former head of the Prime Minister's Department, John Menadue. You can read Terry's diagnosis and recommendations in two parts, here and here.
It is said somewhere that great leaders are people of common opinions and uncommon abilities. This description fits Terry well. There are few more capable practitioners of the art of governing. He has decisively shaped Australian governments over his career beginning in the 1970s. He has brought a quality of strategic judgement that has lifted the focus of Cabinets beyond trashy politics to the greater purposes of good government. He has led people with finesse, skill and compassion – both in organisations and in a vast network of influential relationships. In essence, government is a people business, and Terry has been the best in the business. Yet the big ideas that he has yearned to focus on are rarely more than commonplace aspirations of the business/executive elite or the sentimental attachments of centrist-progressive politics. Divorced from his situation as a leader, his ideas themselves will not remedy the troubled state of disordered republics.
Terry has shown great courage in speaking of his dismay at the state of those republics. He says plainly we have pursued a wrong course in undermining the integrity of the public service over thirty years:
"We must return to a public service able to provide frank advice to Ministers while securing continuity in our system of Government. This must involve respect for the culture and values of the public service, a significant investment in its capability and, acknowledgement that the untested and supposed superiority of the private sector is actually an illusion cultivated by rent seekers monetising service delivery opportunities, constraining advice in the public interest or pretending that efficiency and nothing else matters. Security for the most senior public servants such that they may safely offer tough, independent professional advice in the face of stakeholder blandishments, whims and aggravation at the Ministerial level, must be reintroduced."
He states plainly that we are on a descending path of distrust in our political institutions.
"In my view, a big problem is the absence of agreement on the big ideas to drive the next long wave of policy reform designed around an Australia which citizens aspire to live in.
Certainly, institutions and delivery need reform but this is best done in the light of agreement on where we are to go — what the light on the hill is, and where that light is….
To be clear: we've reached the end of a nearly 50-year policy cycle, dominated by ideas derived from macro and micro economics. "
This diagnosis is structured around the idea of a triple helix of democracy, with the three strands being institutions, big ideas and delivery. This is a kind of plain speaking, practical manager's form of political philosophy. The meaning of institutions is clear enough. By big ideas, he means responses to "the long term challenges [that] give birth to major policies and the effective program initiatives which define what governments do in the community and the economy." It is the business strategy of governments, how it defines its relationship with the external environment that Terry has always concentrated on. By delivery – an unusual choice compared to broader concepts of politics in many traditions – he means "the efficacy, honesty and accountability of public administration and the institutions of which it is comprised and the quality of their services." In essence, this means execution of tasks or performance. My gloss on Terry's triple helix then is that he has articulated a managerialist philosophy of democracy – organisation/structure (institutions), performance (delivery) and strategy (big ideas), with strategy being preeminent, and driving the results achieved by the helix.
So, in Terry's vision, the chief executives need to define a vision, informed by what customers want, that can reshape the business on its next wave of growth. So he proposes that blighted memory of managerial gobbledygook – the strategic mission – as the response to our deep cultural and political malaise:
"My view is Australians want government to seek tailored, smart, creative solutions that draw on the experience of civil society, business and the public. They want missions. "
These missions – at least for me – are deeply uninspiring, unpersuasive and disconnected with what matters most to me. Decarbonising the economy. Training the workforce "to succeed in the new digital era" (whatever that means). Rebalancing our diplomatic relationships with China and the USA. Integration of diverse communities. Adoption of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. National competitiveness goals (to help our big exporters). And that old furphy of 20th century Catholic social thought – subsidiarity – because we are all "seeking to find comfort and support in local connection ."
To be fair, Moran does not propose these missions as the final word, and expects a process of community dialogue about them. But it is in seeking to harness the carriage of democracy to these missions where he goes wrong; or perhaps it might be better to say that these commonplace ideas have generated the dilemma we are in, and cannot be the solution for repairing our distressed republics. Michael Oakeshott would say that he has fallen into the trap of enterprise thinking, treating the state as an enterprise – a business with a mission and a single unifiable purpose – rather than an association characterised by consensual rules and institutional procedures to arbitrate between big and small ideas ever in conflict. It is a mirage induced by too many years at the top, the general's fallacy, and not enough time spent with Good Soldier Schweik in the blood-running trenches of our broken republics.
There may well be a triple helix of the virtuous republic, but it is not the three legged manager's stool put forward by Moran. Institutions would be there, and proper care would be given to them. Moran passes too lightly over concerns with institutional repair, dismissing such ideas as "embroidery at the edge of the real debate we need to have." Perhaps he has confused fashionable ideas of citizen's juries and the like with real attention to institutions, as in Oakeshott's alternative view of the state as an association.
But the other two strands proposed by Moran – big ideas and delivery – would not be there.
In place of big ideas I would propose ordinary virtues, as a way of expressing the culture of a virtuous republic, carried by citizens and soldiers in the trenches, not only the grand visionary executives – found in central agencies of government, big corporations and the self-important foundations of wealthy philanthropists.
These ordinary virtues are the subject of a longer essay. My thinking is there are twelve of these virtues:
compassion,
loyalty,
restraint,
dignity,
humility,
courtesy (talking to strangers),
the life of the mind,
scrupulous pessimism,
judgement and
truth-telling.
Cultivating these virtues – not proposing big ideas – is the most important thing each of us can do, and that each of us can demand of our leaders. And in doing so we are respecting a very long tradition of civic virtue or the Confucian ideas (developed in response to a similar breakdown in authority) of virtue and the exemplary person – de, junzi and ren.
The third strand of the triple helix in my thinking would not be delivery, but would be authority. Authority, not trust or competence, is always the central question of a virtuous republic. Do our rulers – great and small – exercise their power in a rightful way that leads us to bestow authority on them?
More on that another day….
history, the real world today
decay, democracy, governing, politics, Terry Moran, trust in government
← On the renunciation of the political world
Poems up at The Zen Space →
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