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Letters from our readers
Letters from our readers -- Check out the readers who agreed with us, and those who didn't
Updated December 13, 2004 at 05:00 AM EST
True Colin
Do you really want to break a young girl's heart? What is this that I'm hearing about Colin Firth not wanting to play any more Mark Darcy-type roles ("Love at Firth Sight")? That's like saying that six months after the Friends finale, Ross and Rachel decided that they weren't meant for each other after all. Or that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan won't kiss at the end of the movie. Or that Bridget Jones will forever remain (gasp!) a singleton! It's cruel! Colin, baby, keep doing what you're doing. Believe me, your fans love you for it!
midgetwig8@msn.com
Wall, N.J.
I think it's great how the guys in Velvet Revolver ("Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll") have managed to overcome adversity to put out the greatest hard-rock album I have heard in a long time. I felt as if I was on the bus and at the bar with Slash and the gang. Thanks to Karen Valby for a great article about a band that nobody thought stood a chance.
DAVID A. PAYNE
Kissfan4lyfe366@aol.com
Lawrenceburg, Ky.
Saving Private Rights
The people who complained to the FCC about the Saving Private Ryan broadcast need to learn how to use their remote controls ("America Is From Mars, Hollywood Is From Venus," News & Notes). If you don't like what is being broadcast, change the channel. If you have a problem with the content of a movie such as Kinsey, don't buy a ticket. Last time I checked, this was still America, where we are free to choose what kind of entertainment we want to watch. The point of all the ratings systems is to help viewers decide whether a program is suitable for them — not for them to dictate to me and the rest of the country what we should be allowed to view.
TINA STARR
tina_starr@yahoo.com
Brea, Calif.
I Want My DVD!
"The 50 Best TV Shows on DVD" (Cover, Nov. 26) garnered an overwhelming response — 128 letters and counting. "Thanks for a great list!" wrote Michelle Smith of San Diego. "I will be renting some of the shows I missed during their runs on TV, based on your favorites!" Alyssa Galganov of Dallas called herself our "devoted fan"; Jason Campbell of Centerville, Utah, was "ecstatic" to find Strangers With Candy under Best of Cult; and Darby Thomas of St. Petersburg, Fla., admitted, "You folks have turned me into a total list whore!" All of you dyin' along with us for Parker Lewis Can't Lose can visit an online petition created by D. Moss of Atlanta: ipetitions.com/campaigns/parkerlewis. And Bosom Buddies and NewsRadio are indeed two other shows that need to be on DVD — we'll investigate…. But of course, as tends to happen when we stick our neck out with a list, many of you wondered why certain of your faves hadn't made our cut — often to the point of outrage. (Can you say "glaring omission"? Yes, many of you can.) "Shame on your editors," scolded Cliff Parks Jr. of Buffalo, "for foisting their pop culture schizophrenia on us with that dreadful list." About M*A*S*H, Mike DiCerto of New York City demanded, "How the hell do you not include this great show? You include utter s— like The Apprentice and Survivor and you don't include a show that won multiple Emmys?" (Point taken, but Mike, was calling us "morons" really necessary?) Nonetheless, we sincerely appreciate your feedback, and wholeheartedly agree that shows like Alias (Reed McColm of Post Falls, Idaho, compared skipping it to "listing the best foods for takeout and not mentioning pizza"), All in the Family, The West Wing, The Wire, and Mary Tyler Moore deserve honorable mentions, at least. (But Punky Brewster and Key West? Hmm, maybe for Guilty Pleasures…) Triage is a ruthless business, people! Let's all be thankful that television boasts such an illustrious variety of daring, innovative, wittily scripted, deeply acted programming that a mere 15 pages can't possibly contain it. Now back to the tube with you!


Members of Parliament (MPs) sitting in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom are technically not permitted to resign their seats. To circumvent this prohibition, MPs who wish to resign can ask to be appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown", disqualifying them from sitting as MPs. While offices of profit are no longer disqualifying in general, various offices that no longer have duties associated with them still cause disqualification from and vacation of the seat.
The offices are only nominally paid. They are generally vacant until they are again used to effect an MP's resignation. They are used alternately, making it possible for two members to resign at the same time. When more than two MPs resign at a time—for example, when 15 Ulster Unionist MPs resigned in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement on 17 December 1985—the resignations are, in theory, not simultaneous but spread throughout the day, enabling each member to hold one of the offices for a short time. The former office-holder may subsequently be reelected to Parliament.
In 1624 a resolution was passed that Members of Parliament were given a trust to represent their constituencies and therefore were not at liberty to resign. In those days, Parliament was a far weaker institution. Members had to travel to Westminster over a primitive road system, a real problem for those who represented more distant constituencies. While at Westminster, and while in transit to and from it, an MP could not effectively tend to personal business at home; yet MPs received only nominal pay. Thus service in Parliament was sometimes considered a resented duty rather than a position of power and honour.
However, by a provision in the Act of Settlement 1701, repealed in 1705 and reenacted in modified form by the Succession to the Crown Act 1707 (also called the Place Act), an MP who accepted an office of profit under the Crown was obliged to leave his post, it being feared that his independence would be compromised if he were in the King's pay. The prohibition was on a sitting MP accepting an office of profit under the Crown, but it did not disqualify someone already holding such an office from being elected to the House of Commons. This meant a ministerial by-election when any MP became a government minister, including the Prime Minister. The law was partly changed in 1919, and finally in 1926, so that MPs were no longer disqualified by being appointed to government office.
In consequence of the provision of 1624, the legal fiction was invented that an MP who wished to give up their seat applied to the King for a sinecure post of the Stewardship of an estate which had come into the ownership of the Crown. Such offices were obsolescent and involved negligible duties and scant profit, but were in the King's gift nonetheless. After the "office of profit" disqualification was removed, the two stewardships were instead specified by statute as offices whose appointment disqualified the holder (among many others).
The procedure was invented by John Pitt, who wanted to vacate his seat for Wareham in order to stand for Dorchester but could not be a candidate while he was still an MP. Pitt wrote to Prime Minister Henry Pelham in May 1750, reporting he had been invited to stand in Dorchester, and asking for "a new mark of his Majesty's favour [to] enable me to do him these further services". Pelham wrote to William Pitt (the elder) indicating that he would intervene with King George II to help. On 17 January 1751, Pitt was appointed to the office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, and was then elected unopposed for Dorchester.
The Manor of Northstead was first used as a pretext for resignation on 6 April 1842 by Patrick Chalmers, Member for the Montrose District of Burghs.
The Chancellor may in theory deny an application, although the last time this happened was to Viscount Chelsea in 1842. When Charles Bradlaugh took the Chiltern Hundreds in 1884 to seek a vote of confidence from his constituents, Lord Randolph Churchill and the Conservative-supporting press were highly critical of the Gladstone government for allowing Bradlaugh a new opportunity to demonstrate his popularity with the electors of Northampton.
On 20 January 2011, Sinn Féin MP Gerry Adams submitted a letter of resignation to the Speaker, but did not apply for a Crown office, which would be politically unacceptable for a Sinn Féin politician. On 26 January, a Treasury spokesperson said "Consistent with long-standing precedent, the Chancellor has taken [the letter] as a request to be appointed the Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead and granted the office." Although David Cameron said during Prime Minister's Questions that Adams had "accepted an office for profit under the Crown", Adams denied this, and continued to simply reject the title, albeit not its effect of removal from office.
Another Sinn Féin MP, Martin McGuinness, resigned and was formally appointed as Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead on 2 January 2013, leading to the 2013 Mid-Ulster by-election. McGuinness also said that he rejected the title.
The mentioned schedule lists offices that are disqualified from the Commons. Section 6 of that Act describes the consequences of disqualification (for sitting MPs, that their seat shall be vacated).
An MP applies for the office to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who usually then signs a warrant appointing the MP to the Crown office. The appointee holds the office until such time as another MP is appointed, or they apply to be released. Sometimes this can be a matter of minutes, as on an occasion when three or more MPs apply on the same day. Once released, they are again free to seek election to the House of Commons.
When an MP is appointed to the post, the Treasury releases a public notice: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed [named individual] to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern."
Notification, laid upon the Table by the Speaker, That Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer had today appointed [named individual], Member for [named constituency], to the office of Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern.
Ordered, That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant for the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present parliament for the [County Constituency] of [named area] in the room of the [Right Honourable] [named individual], who since election for the said [County Constituency] has accepted the Office of Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty's Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham in the County of Buckingham.
The precise wording of these announcements may vary.
Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of East Hendred, Berkshire. This stewardship was first used for parliamentary purposes in November 1763 by Edward Southwell, and was in more or less constant use until 1840, after which it disappeared. This manor comprised copyholds, the usual courts were held, and the stewardship was an actual and active office. The manor was sold by public auction in 1823, but in some manner the Crown retained the right of appointing a steward for seventeen years afterwards.
Steward of the Manor of Hempholme, Yorkshire. This manor appears to have been of the same nature as that of Northstead. It was in lease until 1835. It was first used for parliamentary purposes in 1845 and was in constant use until 1865. It was sold in 1866.
Escheator of Munster. Escheators were officers commissioned to secure the rights of the Crown over property which had legally escheated (forfeited) to it from those who had held land from the crown and had recently died (or been legally attainted). In Ireland mention is made of escheators as early as 1256. In 1605 the escheatorship of Ireland was split into four, one for each province, but the duties soon became practically nominal. The escheatorship of Munster was first used for parliamentary purposes in the Irish Parliament from 1793 to 1800, and in the united Parliament (24 times for Irish seats and once for a Scottish seat) from 1801 to 1820. After 1820 it was discontinued and finally abolished in 1838.
Steward of the Manor of Old Shoreham, Sussex. This manor belonged to the Duchy of Cornwall. It was first used for parliamentary purposes in 1756, and then, occasionally, until 1799, in which year it was sold by the Duchy to the Duke of Norfolk.
Steward of the Manor of Poynings, Sussex. This manor reverted to the Crown on the death of Lord Montague about 1804, but was leased until about 1835. It was only twice used for parliamentary purposes, in 1841 and 1843.
Escheator of Ulster. This appointment was used in the united Parliament three times, for Irish seats only; the last time in 1819.
Steward of the Honour of Otford, Kent. Used once in 1742 for Lord Middlesex (East Grinstead).
Chief Steward and Keeper of the Courts of the Honour of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northampton (part of the Duchy of Cornwall). Used once in 1752 for Henry Lascelles (Northallerton).
Steward of the Manor of Kennington, Surrey. Used once in 1757 for Thomas Duckett (Calne).
Steward of the Manor of Shippon, Berkshire. Used once in 1765 for Thomas Watson (Berwick-upon-Tweed).
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Chiltern Hundreds" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 163–164.
^ a b Text of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.
^ a b "The Chiltern Hundreds" (pdf). Factsheet P11 Procedure Series. House of Commons Information Office. August 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
^ Department of Information Services (6 March 2012). "Appointments to the Chiltern Hundreds and Manor of Northstead Stewardships since 1850" (pdf). House of Commons Library Parliamentary Information Lists. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
^ "Pitt, John" in History of Parliament 1715–1754, vol II p. 350-1, citing Newcastle (Clumber) mss.
^ "Pitt, John" in History of Parliament 1715–1754, vol II p. 350-1, citing Chatham Corresp. i. 53–54.
^ Walter L. Arnstein, "The Bradlaugh Case", Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 279.
^ a b "Adams 'becomes baron'". The Irish Times. 26 January 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
^ "Morning Press Briefing from 27 January 2011". 10 Downing Street. 27 January 2011. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
^ Hennessy, Mark; Keegan, Dan (27 January 2011). "Adams not resigned to being appointed officer of the crown". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
^ UK Government (2 January 2013). "Press release Manor of Northstead: James McGuinness". HM Treasury.
^ Kelly, Fiach (3 January 2013). "Martin McGuinness becomes Crown aristocrat with 'Steward' title". Belfast Telegraph.
^ "Press notice: Three Hundreds of Chiltern". 8 June 2009. Archived from the original on 7 April 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2011.
^ "House of Commons Vote and Proceedings for 13 January 2010". Retrieved 8 February 2011.
^ "House of Commons Debates 19 Jun 2008, c. 1061". Hansard. Retrieved 8 February 2011.
^ House of Commons Votes and Proceedings Monday 22 October 2012.


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Feb 14th Annual Womens Memorial March
Their Spirits Live Within Us
"Their Spirits Live Within Us": Annual Women's Memorial March for Murdered and Missing Women
In January 1992 a woman was murdered on Powell Street. Her name is not spoken today out of respect for the wishes of her family. This woman's murder in particular was the catalyst that moved women into action. Out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine's Day to express compassion, community, and caring for all women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Coast Salish Territories.
Decades later, the march continues to honour the lives of missing and murdered women. This event is organized and led by women in the DTES because women, especially Indigenous women, face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis. The heinous and unimaginable violence that have taken the lives of so many has left a deep void in our hearts. We gather each year to mourn and remember our sisters by listening to their family members, by taking over the streets, and through spiritual ceremonies.
Increasing deaths of many vulnerable women from the DTES still leaves family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. Every year the list of women going missing also increases. Over 3000 women are known to have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1970s. Last year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women issued this statement: "Hundreds of cases involving aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in the past two decades have neither been fully investigated nor attracted priority attention."
The February 14th Women's Memorial March is an opportunity to come together to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters, remember the women who are still missing, and to dedicate ourselves to justice. Please join us.
March Annoucements

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This past weekend, I attended two musical events within twelve hours. Late Saturday night, Posie and I were at the BSP Lounge in Kingston for Jonathan Toubin's Soul-Clap party. The event, including opening set by the band Mighty Fine, was a total blast, and I was thrilled to be invited as a judge for the Dance-Off because it was the only way of securing my attendance at one in the morning. (Also, I was able to help ensure that the best dancer won.) After way too little sleep, Posie, myself and our nine-year old Noel then headed down to the Towne Crier in Beacon for a 'No More Silence' lunch-time concert hosted by the NY Upstate Chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America. It featured a number of modestly known musicians from the world of folk music along with a fair share of speakers on the subject of gun violence and how to combat it, the whole thing headlined by the venerable Peter Yarrow though very much a tribute to the late, great Pete Seeger, a Beacon native who had passed away, at the grand old age of 94, a few days earlier.
Kingston and Beacon are both small cities along the Hudson River: each has suffered its share of urban decay over the last few decades, as manufacturing and industry moved away and retailers closed down as a result. Focusing on Kingston, my local urban hub, there's no doubt that while it has always been home to a vibrant community from across all walks of life, the last few decades brought a major crime problem, with documented evidence that the Bloods from New York City had moved up the Hudson River to capitalize on the urban blight and deal hard drugs. With drug gangs comes violence and intimidation, and Kingston endured its share of gun murders, notably the 2009 mid-town assassination of a witness in an upcoming attempted murder trial.
Fortunately, there is now a sense that this particular high-profile gun murder was a parting shot in the tale of a storied city's rise and fall. Aggressive policing (and there have accusations of over-aggression) appears to have reduced the drugs gangs' influence, and as with other major cities across America, a commitment to getting guns off the street has reduced violent crime considerably. And now Kingston is enjoying a resurgence. Words can't successfully communicate what a thrill it was to attend a proper soul party last Saturday night, propelled exclusively by 7" vinyl, with a crowd integrated in colors and ages, all happy to mingle peacefully inside and out. Still, the shadow of the area's past was evident in a conversation I had with a woman round my own middle-age; living now in NYC, she'd been raised in Kingston and recalled being attacked in the past on this very street. That genuine fear of being held up at gunpoint, or being caught in gang-war crossfire – as happened to too many people I knew when we first lived in Brooklyn, in 1996 – has greatly dissipated up and down New York State. There are many factors at work, but it doesn't harm to have some of the strictest gun laws in the country – and a willingness, from the Governor down to the various Mayors, to enforce them. Former New York City Mayor Bloomberg may be the enemy of the gun huggers for his financing of the movement Mayors Against Illegal Guns (although aren't those 2nd Amendment absolutists all about upholding the laws of the land?) but New York City can now claim to be the fourth safest city in the USA. One would like to think there's a correlation there.
Thomas Jefferson described our inalienable rights as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the rights with which we are endowed for the protection of which we have instituted Governments. I do not think the composition of that foundational phrase was an accident. I do not think the important words was haphazard and casual. The liberty of any person to own a military style assault weapon and a high-capacity magazine and to keep them in their home is second to the right of my son to his life. His life. To the right to live of all of those children and those teachers. To the right to the lives of your children, of you, of all of us, of all of our lives. It is second.
After speaking, David Wheeler came and sat with friends at a table right in front of us. Late into the three-hour event, my son Noel got into a particularly cuddly session with me, and of course it was impossible not to think of David and Francine's tragic loss of a child only one school grade young, not to contemplate all their lost cuddles, those priceless moments of joy that hopefully every parent of a young child experiences, daily. And so, after Peter Yarrow, Tom Chapin and friends closed out the concert with two of Pete Seeger's most well-known songs, "If I Had a Hammer" and "We Shall Overcome," the latter for which he had the audience link arms as if this was the Washington Mall in 1963 all over again, I approached David and struck up a conversation. I wanted to thank him for his commitment; his refusal to give up and hide from the abuse that has been heaped on any of the Sandy Hook families who have dared to call for action on gun violence. I have found him to be an inspiration and, noticing that others had left him well alone perhaps for fear of what the hell you say to someone whose 6-year old was gunned down in a public school classroom, I just wanted him to know as much. He in turn, hearing my accent, wanted me to know that in the days after his son was murdered, when he was in his darkest hour, it was the outreach of families from the Dunblane Massacre of 1996 that truly helped him. We left unsaid the fact that the British Government acted immediately to avoid a repeat atrocity.
The audience at the Towne Crier for the No More Silence! concert.
Understand the world we're living in, love can change anything.
A Pete Seeger 'Beacon of Hope' tribute in almost every shop window in Beacon.
I wish I could leave it there, drawing a connection between the peaceful but powerful atmosphere within the Towne Crier on Sunday lunchtime, and the equally powerful atmosphere within the BSP Lounge on Saturday night, in a neighborhood that has come alive now that crime has gone down.
Unfortunately, while at the Y in Kingston on Monday morning, I heard of a shooting that had taken place in the City around dawn. It's interesting; despite all my proclaimed lack of prejudices, I confess that I instinctively assumed it was some residue of the gang wars. It turned out to be nothing of the sort. An employee at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, a governmental agency, had shot dead another employee first thing that morning. He used a handgun. Here, in New York State, which now has supposedly the strongest gun laws in the country, he had legal permits for weapons. (It is uncertain as yet whether the gun he used was licensed or not.) He used it to kill 32-year old Aron Thomas, a resident of our School District, the father of a two-year old and a six-week old. Those two children will never know their father in person. That is so horrifically tragic.
Sadly, for all that the mass shootings get the headlines, and for all that it was Sandy Hook that inspired Moms Demand Action and brought us together last Sunday, it is the everyday killings – the work-place homicides, the gang killings, the domestic murders, the errant vigilantism, and the endless suicides by people for whom it's all too easy to make a split-second decision – that claim most of the 30,000 lives we lose each year to guns. The American rate of gun murders runs 33 times that of England and Australia. To those who might wish to assume that's merely because Americans have more guns: the overall murder rate is a solid 4.7 times that of England and Australia. We in America are murdering around five times more of our fellow citizens than any other country that considers itself a world leader, and every peer-reviewed study demonstrates that the availability of guns is the leading cause of this discrepancy. From afar, from England or Australia say, I appreciate the USA must look like a madhouse. It feels that way at times, too.
So while the party in Kingston on Saturday night reinforced the goodness in people, especially in a city where guns have been largely removed from the streets, the murder on Monday morning reinforced the potential badness in people when they have access to deadly weaponry. And the coming together on Sunday afternoon reinforced that everyday people are sick and tired of the bloodshed and are want to do something about it. David Wheeler was optimistic when he said, at the Towne Crier, "I have a tremendous amount of hope that my son's death and the death of those other children and administrators and teachers will not be wasted; they will not have died in vain." But he also stressed: "We have to think about this as a marathon. It's going to take incredible energy for a long, long time…" Which makes it fortunate that so many of us these days choose to run marathons. To end on the words that got this country through a previous battle for civil rights: We shall overcome.


A nice vintage English souvenir mug made by Burwood Potteries Telford. The cream colored ceramic mug has a street scene of Pontesbury Thropshire on one side.
In very good condition, the mug measures 3 1/4" in diameter at the base x 3 3/4" tall.
A nice souvenir of a lovely village in England.


On March 1, 2010 Mr. McIlvaine delivered a petition to each of the 50 members of the New York City Council on behalf of 1,000 architects and engineers. The petition called upon the City Council to open an investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper that was not hit by a plane, which nevertheless fell into its own footprint at 5:20 in the afternoon of September 11th. The federal government says that fire brought down Building 7, however, 1,250 architects and engineers provide us with overwhelming evidence that Building 7 was brought down with explosives, and that the government deliberately lied to us.
The government's report on Building 7 included collapse models that in no way resemble the actual collapse. Even today, the government refuses to provide the public with detailed information on these models, saying releasing the information "may jeopardize public safety." The government's models show deformations, walls folding inwards and an asymmetrical collapse, instead of the smooth, symmetrical free fall drop that Building 7 actually underwent. Google "Building 7" to see footage.
As we mark the 9th anniversary of 9/11, it is time to get the truth about what happened, starting with Building 7. To quote Bob McIlvaine: "Please join our coordinated effort to bring justice to my son and the thousands that were murdered on September 11th." Go to BuildingWhat.org to learn more.
This letter is written in honor of those who died on September 11, 2001, and in support of their families who are still seeking the truth, including Bob McIlvaine, who lost his 26-year old son, Bobby.
Excellent guys! Thanks for making this happen!
We will do it in our neck of the woods.
TomT on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 11:04am.
Thank you for sharing your opinion with us and our readers. You are an important part of the liveliest forum for informed debate in Texas. We receive far more letters than we can print, so we cannot predict if or when we will publish yours. That said, we often share your feedback with newsroom editors.
Please note: If you did not submit your letter with your first and last name, mailing address and daytime phone number, please resubmit your letter with all necessary information.
We do not publish letters anonymously or with pseudonyms or partial names (we need more than just initials). The only information we publish is your name and city. The other information is used for verification purposes and to reach you in case we have a question while editing your letter. Letters may be condensed and edited for clarity and style.
You should know that writing letters is not the only way to make your voice heard.
Joe on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 6:42pm.


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Make Bank of America great again
IN THE skyscraper that is Bank of America's New York headquarters, the chief executive, Brian Moynihan, looks relaxed. The bank has just announced record first-quarter earnings. Its return on equity is
comfortably in double digits. Its share price has been on a roll. The revival of America's second-largest bank, he avers, was inevitable. Any dark moments? None, except perhaps when America's sovereign debt was downgraded in 2011 and all the country's banks suffered. Early hints at the current prosperity? On his first day in the job, in 2010, he says. Vast losses from bad debt and litigation merely obscured billions of dollars in operating profits. "We just had to get rid of what was dragging us down."
In fact, this renaissance was anything but predictable. Over little more than half a century Mr Moynihan's two predecessors, Hugh McColl and Ken Lewis, had transformed the tiny North Carolina National Bank into an institution that could claim a business relationship with half of all American households. Any disruption along the way was dwarfed by the consequences of the final two acquisitions, Countrywide Financial, a subprime lender, and Merrill Lynch, an investment bank with underwriting, brokerage and trading arms. Both imploded during the financial crisis. Asked what made Mr Moynihan the right person to take over in the midst of the chaos, the acerbic Mr Lewis was reputed to have quipped: "He wanted the job."
Over the next five years Bank of America lost $134bn on loans that were repaid late or not at all and related expenses, and spent a further $64bn on litigation. Headcount had peaked at 302,000 in 2009 after the Merrill purchase; it fell by 100,000 in a brutal series of redundancies. The number of branches was slashed from 6,100 in late 2008 to 4,500. For years, the pain seemed fruitless. As recently as February 2016, its shares traded at half their accounting value. Regulations that in effect outlawed acquisitions constrained its opportunities for growth. Investors had little faith in the worth of its assets, or indeed in its strategy.
The stockmarket has since become a believer. The bank's shares now trade at 130% of accounting value. The threat of regulatory sanctions continues to hang over all financial institutions, but Bank of America has been replaced by Wells Fargo as a favoured target. And it has benefited from government policies in other ways. The recent cut in corporate taxes lowered its effective tax rate from 27% to 18%, accounting for a third of its increased profits. The wide variety of capital standards to which big banks must adhere gives a relative advantage to those that have lots of businesses, and can thus arrange their affairs most efficiently. The crisis-era bail-outs sent the message that the government regarded the largest banks as too big to fail. Deposits have since flooded in (see chart), even though interest rates have been nugatory, keeping funding costs down. And the rules intended to avert future bank failures have helped big banks see off competition from smaller ones, since they can spread compliance costs over a larger base.
Mr Moynihan is now hacking away at anything not directly related to servicing Bank of America clients. He has got rid of stakes in Santander, BlackRock, China Construction Bank and Banco Itaú; credit-card businesses in Britain, Canada, Ireland and Spain; and a slew of private-equity investments. He has kept hubs in London and Hong Kong for trading and investment banking, which act as a conduit between foreign clients and America, and American clients and the world. But wealth management, once offered in 35 countries, is now offered in just one—America.
Internal restructuring has been unrelenting. The bank claims to have moved away from lucrative but risky activities such as subprime lending for cars, cards and homes. When Mr Moynihan took over the top job, 23 kinds of current accounts were offered. That has been cut to three. The number of people visiting Bank of America branches has declined from a peak of 1m weekly a couple of years ago to 850,000, even as the volume of transactions has increased. A quarter of all deposits are now done using a cheque-photographing feature on smartphones.
Finally, however, Mr Moynihan can return to thoughts of expansion. The bank has announced that it will start to open new branches once more. There will be fewer teller windows and more side-offices where staff can sell investments and loans. It is also trying to create a bridge between its retail branches and its wealth-management and investment-banking activities. It wants to drum up business from midsized companies that would prefer to issue securities through the investment bank, rather than take a loan, and from individuals who would like investment options alongside their bank accounts. It has built a new electronic platform, Merrill Edge. That should help it compete with Fidelity and Charles Schwab, and provide new clients for Merrill's brokers, now rebranded financial advisers.
None of this is all that dramatic. But that is intentional. After the trauma of the financial crisis, any abrupt or daring change of direction by a big American bank would probably be blocked by regulators. For now and some time to come, the twin aims will be to keep improving operational efficiency and avoid disaster. Mr Moynihan has done well enough at both that, when the time comes to replace him, there should be plenty of willing candidates.
This article appeared in theFinance and economicssection of the print edition under the headline"Dollars and sense"


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Owli Beyk (, also Romanized as Owlī Beyk; also known as Olībeyg and Owlī Beyg) is a village in Shivanat Rural District, Afshar District, Khodabandeh County, Zanjan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 762, in 156 families.

References

Populated places in Khodabandeh County

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Planetary Geology
Author: , Date: 29 Nov 2017, Views:
English | PDF,EPUB | 2017 (2018 Edition) | 478 Pages | ISBN : 3319651773 | 37.94 MB
This book provides an up-to-date interdisciplinary geoscience-focused overview of solid solar system bodies and their evolution, based on the comparative description of processes acting on them.
Planetary research today is a strongly multidisciplinary endeavor with efforts coming from engineering and natural sciences. Key focal areas of study are the solid surfaces found in our Solar System. Some have a direct interaction with the interplanetary medium and others have dynamic atmospheres. In any of those cases, the geological records of those surfaces (and sub-surfaces) are key to understanding the Solar System as a whole: its evolution and the planetary perspective of our own planet.
This book has a modular structure and is divided into 4 sections comprising 15 chapters in total. Each section builds upon the previous one but is also self-standing. The sections are:
Processes and Sources
Integration and Geological Syntheses
The latter covers the far-reaching broad topics of exobiology, early life, extreme environments and planetary resources, all areas where major advancements are expected in the forthcoming decades and both key to human exploration of the Solar System.
The target readership includes advanced undergraduate students in geoscience-related topics with no specific planetary science knowledge; undergraduates in other natural science domains (e.g. physics, astronomy, biology or chemistry); graduates in engineering and space systems design who want to complement their knowledge in planetary science.
The authors' backgrounds span a broad range of topics and disciplines: rooted in Earth geoscience, their expertise covers remote sensing and cartography, field mapping, impact cratering, volcanology and tectonics, sedimentology and stratigraphy exobiology and life in extreme environments, planetary resources and mining. Several generations of planetary scientists are cooperating to provide a modern view on a discipline developed from Earth during and through Space exploration.
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Joint Testimonial To Be Discussed Morrison
Date: 9th February 2017 at 10:31pm
With news of Chris Brunt's contract extension meaning he and James Morrison will both celebrate ten years at The Hawthorns, it's worth remembering Morrison himself had already spoken about the potential for a joint testimonial game previously.
With both players lining up alongside each other in Middlesbrough's youth setup, and now almost having spent a decade a piece alongside each other at West Brom it's fair to say they know each other well and the topic of a joint testimonial for charity was discussed by Morrison last summer.
We covered this previously when he signed his own contract last July – Click Here and back then he explained there was a gentleman's agreement in place should they both hit the decade mark.
'At the moment, we have had a gentlemen's handshake on the idea and we will look at it in more detail further on. But not many players do that in this day and age and it would be nice to celebrate the moment for charity. I will have a chat with Brunty and see if he is up for it.'
With both now signed on to complete the testimonial requirement of ten years at a club, those discussions I suspect won't be held until this season winds up but over the summer we might start to get some news on it and maybe it'll even be worked into pre season plans for a further charity boost?


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funk rock band, has captivated the audience with their
This song is even older than some of the people who are watching the show," the bassist Ou says in the sho 上海419论坛w. "Witnessing the evolution of Chinese rock music is a fascinating experience. We are proud that we are part of it as The Face." Western rock music first gained popularity in China in…
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gness to actively take part in the construction of the pilot zone, and work together to eradicate the barriers in terms of policy, technology and trade, said the document. All sides are full of expectations for facilitating policies, which will allow new technologie s and new products that conform with international standards to enter the…
More than 300,000 papers on AI have been publish
ed globally from 2013 to 2018, among which around 74,000 were published by Chinese researche rs and 52,000 by their US counterparts, and the US dominated in fields such as citation impact, number of p atents, and the scale of companies and funds, the report said, adding that China lacks basic theoretical research. The report…
School students and adult visitors learn about making pri
nts and carving stamp seals and learn about the appreciation of and technological metho ds being used in the conservation of the age-old buildings at the Palace Museum, MayIn celebration of this year's International Museum Day, the Palace Museum in Beijing turned itself into a dynamic stage on Saturday an d offered a variety of…
Chinese coffee startup Luckin Coffee will price its initial p
public offering at $17 per share on Nasdaq Stock Exchanges, CNBC reported on Friday. This price is at the top of its expected range from $15 to $17 in a regulatory filing, indicating the value of the company at about $4.2 billion. Luckin Coffee raised $150 million in the most recent Series B+ round of…
China is at a stage of rapid industrialization and urbani
ization, and the issue of occupational diseases, which has been accumu lating over the decades of extensive growth, is gradually starting to show," Li said. A key task of the campaign is to complete a survey of the threat of dust pois oning, covering industries including mining, metallurgy and building materials by the end of…


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The Top Game Consoles – Microsoft Xbox 360
It appears to be that individuals today are not messed with the financial stoppage with regards to purchasing game control center. As a matter of fact, Microsoft Xbox 360 arrived at practically 30.2 million units sold only a couple of years after it was delivered on the lookout.
It's undeniably true that a many individuals ไฮโลไทย today are extremely occupied with their own plans for getting work done, however nothing can prevent them from playing their #1 games. This assists them with battling pressure brought about by their furious timetables and games likewise assist them with having a vital holding experience with their families.
The coming of the cutting edge innovation permitted us to mess around in a very different level contrasted with games that are played quite a while back. Marvelous illustrations, ear-parting sound and gigantic handling power are the principal elements of the top control center today like Xbox 360.
Beside these things, the regulators which are a long way from tantamount with the regulators before assists us with partaking in the games better. Hustling wheels, instruments, weapons, and even movement detecting regulators made games much more intuitive and agreeable.
Xbox 360 is supposed to be the control center with the biggest number of games that can be played. Microsoft had the option to gather many game engineers to assist them with giving games to both bad-to-the-bone and relaxed gamers. They are additionally famous in light of the absolute top of the line games like Vital mission at hand and Corona.
With regards to control, Xbox 360 can be thought of as the first in class. It utilizes three PC-based balanced centers with a gigantic Measure of 10MB. In the event that these things don't dazzle you, then perhaps on web-based network that will permit you to play with other Xbox players will.
Microsoft Xbox 360 additionally permits you to download and try and transfer your #1 music, motion pictures, photographs, and, surprisingly, game demos to the Web utilizing its remote Web association or Wi-Fi. These highlights depict what genuine present day diversion is.


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@kongyang on Twitter. I do what I love and I love what I do.
Fail fast, learn, and move on. A simple motto to live by for any IT professional. Unfortunately, many of us aren't given the luxury of failing aka being wrong. We get paid to be right and sometimes, we get paid a lot to fix things that others foo'd up. And that's why I've seen so many IT pros not know how to handle failure. Call it ego or stubbornness, not being able to gracefully handle failure can end any IT career.
So how does one navigate failure when failing is not an option? Start with a process.
Test that hypothesis at a small scale and gradually increase scale.
Measure and analyze key data.
Move forward based on data and your experience in your data center environment.
Repeat this cycle for your solution as your environment variables change over time.
Seems simple enough; but what do you do when failure is not an option? You take a stand because failure needs to be an option. Failure is that limit, that boundary where you rise or you fall. And at that moment, lots of great things can happen like learning where you want to go, learning what you want to become, and learning to become better than you were prior to failing.
So my POV is this – plan for failure by having a process to gracefully handle failure such that you become a better professional, more sought after professional. Anyways, being right all the time is tiring and frankly, boring.
IT is changing at an accelerating rate with plenty of IT jobs at stake. And yet, doing a job may not be enough in this IT-as-a-Service paradigm that hybrid IT is ushering in. With IT jobs evolving and forking into multiple paths, deciding which path to take and when become integral to continuing one's prosperous IT career.
The IT career path is one of the hottest topics that I regularly discuss with my industry friends and peers, even when we are talking about current IT trends. This brings up an important task that many IT professionals often overlook, which is building a competent, trusted network of industry friends, peers, colleagues, and resources. This is one of my golden rules that has served me incredibly well. I make a concerted effort to continually do what I can to earn — and return — mutual trust.
I have formed and leveraged a network of trusted advisors, who have helped me progress throughout my career. From my start in the Office of the CTO to joining the virtualization revolution during its grassroots stage to engineering solutions for the Global 2000 to working on the first iteration of converged infrastructure, every opportunity that presented itself and was undertaken after counsel from my trusted network of advisors.
This even extends to my time at a cloud start-up now a part of Big Blue, and even my decision to accept the role of SolarWinds Head Geek. My circle of trusted advisors continue to play a major role in my life and my career, especially with so many opportunities presenting themselves in this hybrid IT world. So I ask you – do you have a network of trusted advisors that you lean on for career advice?
I've decided to take the vDM30in30 challenge proffered by my friend, Eric Wright. This first post is about the one thing that every IT professional needs to protect at all times and that is their reputation. Circumstances change but your reputation in the community will define you and your opportunities.
Technologies, people and process will change and that change will affect your role and responsibilities as an IT professional. The tidal wave of change is coming at an alarmingly faster rate with a larger, more data center shattering scale. This often leaves IT professionals facing multiple forks in their IT career path. Do you stay true to your present expertise whether it be VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V or any other tech construct? Or do you take the plunge and catch the next big wave, which could lead you to better fishing grounds? As an IT professional takes time to come to a decision on taking a certain path, your reputation will either aid or hurt you.
Here are a few simple tips to protect and enhance your reputation.
Search for and engage with the IT communities that you're interested in.
Approach every social engagement, industry event, user group gathering and community get together like an interview. Your next gig will find you and the accompanying interview process becomes MUCH easier.
It's okay to say "I don't know." Don't make it up.
Seek to understand and then, to be understood.
Remember that the global IT community is small yet has a long memory. Below is a picture of me with my friends – Todd Muirhead and Scott Hanson, who got me started in tech communities and social media.
At SolarWinds thwackCamp 2015, I was joined by my friend, Dave McCrory, CTO of Basho. We discussed the Application Stack Wars 2015 – Rise of the Versatilist. It was a total blast!
And I wrote my first eBook: 4 Skills to Master Your Virtualization Universe. My virtualization basics introductory blog post gives some insights into the purpose of the eBook. Just in time for SolarWinds at VMworld.
Then, it's off to my friend, John Troyer's, inaugural conference — The Reckoning.
Finally, it's back to Austin to present at SpiceWorld Austin 2015. P.S. there's something about AWS re:Invent as well.
Twitter hashtag trends are fun little exercise in creativity in 140 characters. Today was no different as one was asked to #DescribeYourselfIn3Words. I choose Family, Friends, and Forked. The first two are obvious but the last word seemed to confuse folks so here is my clarification for describing myself as forked.
Forked pays homage to my engineering background and the choices made in life. In its simplified form, a fork is a place where one can travel in one of two distinct and different paths. A decision is made on which path to take. In fact, it's a binary decision – "1" on the path taken and "0" on the path not taken. Simple and fundamental, yet able to build sophisticated and complex instantiations such as one's life experience.
Yes, I could have said bifurcated but forking is more elegant and to-the-point than bifurcating. Forking has made me to who I am and who I continue to become. I've forked so many times that I've lost count; but each decision continues to mold the present and future me. And that's why I'm forked — it describes me perfectly.
What three words would describe you?
I was auto scaling before auto scaling was agile, webscale, and simple.
But it was almost for naught.
According to AWS, "Auto Scaling helps you maintain application availability and allows you to scale your Amazon EC2 capacity up or down automatically according to conditions you define." A similar process is discussed by Enterprises with private cloud resources who want to leverage additional compute capacity of public clouds during heavy load periods. Policies usually dictate how these additional resources are orchestrated and provisioned.
Sounds similar to claims from my US Patent 8,176,497, which specifically focused on database workloads, but would apply to other workloads as well. The funny thing is that the Dell Patent Committee almost voted not to authorize the disclosure. The deciding vote was cast by a retiring Dell VP and Distinguished Engineer. Had it not been for his vote and the other two Distinguished Engineers (one BIOS and one Solutions Engineer), this patent never would have gotten its chance before the US Patent Office. By the way, the dissenting votes were by a Dell Storage engineer- now a Dell Storage Director and a Dell Distinguished Mechanical Engineer. Hilarious that my "auto scaling" patent was almost killed by a Mech E. and a SCSI engineer.
This humblebrag is brought to you by a trip down memory after lunch with a longtime friend and former Dell OCTO engineer.
I'd love to hear of similar stories where your idea or your project was almost shuttered only to find its own greatness later down the road.
Posted on February 7, 2015 Author Kong L. YangCategories Get IT Done Effectively and Efficiently!Tags auto scaling, AWS, Cloud, Dell, patent, US Patent, VirtualizationLeave a comment on I was auto scaling before auto scaling was agile, webscale, and simple.