text:
From France 24
Toxic cloud spreads after chemical blast near Barcelona
http://f24.my/1zydKA0
'Drastic decline' in press freedom across the globe
http://f24.my/1vohBz7
From BBC : Decoding North Korea's fish and mushroom slogans
Decoding North Korea's fish and mushroom slogans http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31446387
From BBC : The ski school that defied the Taliban
The ski school that defied the Taliban http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31435925
From BBC : UN targets Islamic State financing
UN targets Islamic State financing http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31446798
From BBC : EU warns Russia over Ukraine deal
EU warns Russia over Ukraine deal http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31447930
Noam Chomsky on the rise of Islamic State & the Ukraine crisis
PublicEnquiry
Noam Chomsky: U.S. Politics Are Now 'Pure Savagery'
Posted: 01/08/2014 5:04 pm EST | Updated: 01/08/2014 6:13 pm EST
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01…
Author and activist Noam Chomsky said that the congressional controversy over extending unemployment benefits is evidence that American politics has descended into madness.
"The refusal to provide very minimal living standards to people who are caught in this monstrosity — that's just pure savagery," Chomsky said during an interview with HuffPost Live. "There's no other word for it."
Chomsky is a leading American intellectual known at first for his academic work in the field of linguistics. He has since become an influential activist and progressive political thinker. HuffPost will be publishing excerpts from its interview with Chomsky over the next week.
Republicans pursued food-stamp cuts last year, and blocked a deal to extend unemployment benefits during budget negotiations in December. On Tuesday, a handful of Republicans joined Senate Democrats to advance a bill reinstating the benefits for three months, but the agreement faces an uphill battle in the GOP-controlled House. There are currently about three people seeking a job for every job opening in the United States.
Chomsky said that recent economic doldrums, however, are not isolated phenomena, but rather the product of decades of economic policies pursued by American elites. Some of the major changes included the signing of World Trade Organization treaties, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the deregulation of major industries, he said.
"The general and very severe problem of the economy that's staring us in the face … that has nothing to do with bad apples in Congress," Chomsky said. "These are deep structural problems having to do with, in effect, the neoliberal assault on the population, not just of the United States but of the world, that's taken place in the past generation. There are areas that have escaped, but it's pretty broad."
Chomsky told HuffPost that corporate interests dominate the policy agenda of the Democratic Party, and cited conservative scholar Norm Ornstein's observation that the Republican Party has "drifted off the spectrum" and no longer functions as a serious parliamentary entity.
"It used to be said years ago that the United States is a one-party state — the business party — with two factions, Democrats and Republicans," Chomsky said. "That's no longer true. It's still a one-party state — the business party — but now it has only one faction. And it's not Democrats, it's moderate Republicans. The so-called New Democrats, who are the dominant force in the Democratic Party, are pretty much what used to be moderate Republicans a couple of decades ago. And the rest of the Republican Party has just drifted off the spectrum."
Posted in BOOKS, Educational, FILM, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
The political scientist and philosopher Noam Chomsky tells Channel 4 News that the ceasefire agreement in Ukraine is "a glimmer of hope… but we'll have to wait and see."
Sign up for Snowmail, your daily preview of what is on Channel 4 News, sent straight to your inbox, here: http://mailing.channel4.com/public/sn…
Missed Channel 4 News? Catch up on the last seven days here: http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/
Channel 4 News weather forecast, with Liam Dutton: http://www.channel4.com/weather/
All the latest blog posts from the Channel 4 News on-screen talent: http://blogs.channel4.com/news/
Tagged Channel 4 News, Noam Chomsky, Ukraine
Noam Chomsky in conversation with Jonathan Freedland
Philosopher, cognitive scientist and political activist Noam Chomsky discusses the roles of the state and the mass media, 25 years on from his essential work Manufacturing Consent.
A prelude to Propaganda: Power and Persuasion – a major British Library exhibition lifting the lid on the ways governments across the planet have attempted to influence your thoughts for over 100 years.
Posted in Educational, FILM, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
Tagged Associated Press, Barack Obama, British Library, Charlie Hebdo, cognitive scientist, France, freedom of speech, John Pilger, Jonathan Freedland, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Noam Chomsky, United States
Historic musical bits, Mozart Violin Concerto N°4 in D major, K218. David Oistrakh, violin, great compositons/performances
Mozart Violin Concerto N°4 in D major, K 218. David Oistrakh, violin )
Alex cello
Mozart Violin Concerto N°4 in D major.
David Oistrakh, violin, RAI Symphony Orchestra
Posted in ARTISTS AND ARTS - Music, Arts, Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, MY TAKE ON THINGS, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
Tagged David Oistrakh, felix mendelssohn, Great compositons/performances, Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, Historic Musical bits, Jean Sibelius, Krzysztof Urbanski, maurice ravel, Modest Mussorgsky, mozart violin concerto, Mozart Violin Concerto N°4 in D major. David Oistrakh, Orchestra, Pittsburgh, pittsburgh symphony orchestra, Violin
Strauss: The Beautiful Blue Danube André Rieu/ the Johann Strauss Orchestra, great compositions/performances
André Rieu – The Beautiful Blue Danube
Uploaded on Sep 16, 2011
André Rieu & his Johann Strauss Orchestra playing "The Beautiful Blue Danube" (An der schönen blauen Donau) by composer Johann Strauss II. Recorded live at Empress Sisi's castle; Schönbrunn Palace Vienna, Austria with dancers from the famous Austrian Elmayer Dancing School.
Clip from the DVD "André Rieu At Schönbrunn, Vienna".
One of André's biggest and most beautiful special ever.
01. Einzugsmarsch
02. Trumpet Voluntary
03. Auf der Jagd
04. Fächerpolonaise
05. Rosen aus dem Süden
06. Heia in den Bergen
07. G'schichten aus dem Wienerwald
08. Der dritte Mann
09. Freunde, das Leben ist lebenswert
10. Die Mädis vom Chantant
11. Die Czárdásfürstin Potpourri
12. Ohne Sorgen
13. Feuerfest
14. My Heart Will Go On
15. Wenn ich mit meinem Dackel
16. Heut' kommen d'Engerln auf Urlaub nach Wien
17. Spiel mir das Lied von Glück und Treu
18. Kaiserwalzer
19. Ich gehör nur mir
20. An der schönen blauen Donau
21. Radetzky Marsch
22. Als flotter Geist
23. Wien du Stadt meiner Träume
24. Musik, Musik!
25. Anton aus Tirol
26. Donauwalzer
27. Strauss Party
28. Adieu, mein kleiner Gardeoffizier
For tour dates visit: http://www.andrerieu.com
http://www.facebook.com/andrerieu
http://www.twitter.com/andrerieu
https://plus.google.com/+andrerieu
Posted in ARTISTS AND ARTS - Music, Arts, Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MY TAKE ON THINGS, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
Tagged André, Andre rieu, Austria, beautiful blue danube, Classical period (music), eduard strauss, Europe, Great Compositions/Performances, Hotel Sacher, Johann Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Johann Strauss Orchestra, Josef Strauss, Schönbrunn Palace, Strauss, Strauss: The Beautiful Blue Danube André Rieu/ the Johann Strauss Orchestra, the Blue Danube, Vienna
"Hymn to the Fallen" by John Williams
jdremy
Uploaded on Aug 5, 2011
In honor of the soldiers who give us the freedoms we have today. American Cemeteries around the world and the number of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Support the troops.
"Hymn to the Fallen from Saving Private Ryan" by John Williams (Google Play • AmazonMP3 • iTunes)
Posted in ARTISTS AND ARTS - Music, Arts, Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, MY TAKE ON THINGS, News, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
Tagged Academy Award, American Cemeteries, Box office, Bradley Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Darth Vader, Hymn to the Fallen, John Williams, Saving Private Ryan, steven spielberg, The Passion of the Christ, ultimate sacrifice, United States, War film
Historic Musical bits, 12 Variations in G Major on "See, the Conquering Hero Comes" from Handel's Judas Maccabeus for Cello and Piano, WoO 45, Serkin/Casals, great compositions/performances
12 Variations in G Major on "See, the Conquering Hero Comes" from Handel's Judas Maccabeus for Cello and Piano, WoO 45
Various Artists – Topic
12 Variations in G Major on "See, the Conquering Hero Comes" from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus for Cello and Piano, WoO 45
Rudolf Serkin / 魯道夫塞爾金
Pablo Casals / 卡薩爾斯
℗ Originally released 1953 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT
Associated Performer, Piano: Rudolf Serkin / 魯道夫塞爾金
Associated Performer, Cello: Pablo Casals / 卡薩爾斯
Producer: Producer not documented on available sources
Composer: Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) / Ludwig Van Beethoven
"12 Variations in G Major on "See, the Conquering Hero Comes" from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus for Cello and Piano, WoO 45″ by Rudolf Serkin;Pablo Casals (AmazonMP3)
Posted in ARTISTS AND ARTS - Music, Arts, Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, MY TAKE ON THINGS, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
Tagged 12 Variations in G Major, 12 Variations in G Major on "See, Antonio Vivaldi, Classical music, composer, 魯道夫塞爾金 Pablo Casals, George Frideric Handel, Great Compositions/Performances, Historic Musical bits, Johann Sebastian Bach, john adams, judas maccabaeus, Judas Maccabeus, Ludwig van Beethoven, pablo casals, Piano concerto, rudolf serkin, Serkin/Casals, the Conquering Hero Comes" from Handel's Judas Maccabeus for Cello and Piano, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, WoO 45
From BBC : Colombia's Farc: No soldiers under 17
Colombia's Farc: No soldiers under 17 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-31449443
From BBC : Plastic heading for oceans quantified
Plastic heading for oceans quantified http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31432515
From BBC : Red Cross Ebola workers face attacks
Red Cross Ebola workers face attacks http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-31444059
From BBC : Al-Qaeda fighters seize Yemen base
Al-Qaeda fighters seize Yemen base http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31445321
From BBC : Greek 'compromise' possible – Merkel
Greek 'compromise' possible – Merkel http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31445327
From BBC : US welcomes Ukraine peace agreement
US welcomes Ukraine peace agreement http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31447930
Beethoven's 5th Piano E-flat major, Op. 73 (Emperor) – Daniel Barenboim, great compositions/performances
© Beethoven's 5th Piano E-flat major, Op. 73 (Emperor) – Daniel Barenboim (whole concert)
mugge62
Beethoven's 5th Piano concert (Emperor) – Daniel Barenboim
Det kongelige kapel – Michael Schønvandt i Danmarks Radio Koncerthuset 2009 ved prisoverrækkelsen af Sonningprisen 2009 på 600,000 DKK ~ 125.000 US$ ~ The Sonning Prize Award! The copyright © owner to all content in this video with The Royal Orchestra & Daniel Barenboim conducted by Michael Schønwandt, is entirely Danmarks Radio!
Also listen to Barenboims version of Noctune op. 27 no 2 by Chopin: http://www.youtube.com//watch?v=7EcER..
Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil. The first performance took place on 28 November 1811 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig under conductor Johann Philipp Christian Schulz, the soloist being Friedrich Schneider.[1][2] On 12 February 1812, Carl Czerny, another student of Beethoven's, gave the Vienna debut of this work.
The epithet of Emperor for this concerto was not Beethoven's own but was coined by Johann Baptist Cramer, the English publisher of the concerto.[3] Its duration is approximately forty minutes.
The concerto is scored for a solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in B-flat (clarinet I playing clarinet in A in movement 2; flute II, oboe II, clarinet II, both trumpets, and timpani are tacet during this movement), two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani in E-flat and B-flat, and strings.
The concerto is divided into three movements:
Allegro in E-flat major
Adagio un poco mosso in B major
Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo in E-flat major
As with Beethoven's other concertos from this time period, this work has a relatively long first movement. (At twenty-five minutes, the Violin Concerto has the longest; Piano Concerto Nos. 4 and 5 each have opening movements of about twenty minutes.)
In March 1927 Ignaz Friedman recorded the Emperor Concerto with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood but this recording no longer exists.
Also in the 1920s, Wilhelm Backhaus recorded the 4th and 5th concertos very successfully. He would later record all five concertos with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and Vienna Philharmonic in stereo.
In the early 1930s Artur Schnabel recorded all five Beethoven concertos under Sir Malcolm Sargent and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Edwin Fischer recorded it with Karl Böhm in 1939 and Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1951.
Josef Hoffmann recorded it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Lange on May 12, 1940.
Arthur Rubinstein recorded it three times, with Josef Krips, Erich Leinsdorf, and Daniel Barenboim.
Walter Gieseking and Artur Rother made a stereophonic tape recording in 1944, apparently the earliest surviving such recording, for German radio.
Vladimir Horowitz recorded it in a 1952 live performance at Carnegie Hall with Fritz Reiner and the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra.
Wilhelm Kempff recorded it with Paul van Kempen in 1953 and with Ferdinand Leitner in 1961.
Rudolf Serkin recorded it four times: in 1941 with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic; in 1953 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra; in 1962 with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, and in 1981 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa.
Bernstein recorded a live performance of the concerto in September 1989, shortly before his death, with Krystian Zimerman and the Vienna Philharmonic. The performance was filmed and released on DVD.
Leon Fleisher recorded all the Beethoven piano concertos with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra from 1959 until 1961.
Claudio Arrau recorded it four times: with Alceo Galliera in 1958, Bernard Haitink in 1964 and twice with Sir Colin Davis, first with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and later with the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Glenn Gould recorded this concerto with Leopold Stokowski (the only recording the two ever made together) using somewhat non-traditional phrasings and tempi, as was typical of Gould's interpretations.
Maurizio Pollini recorded the five piano concertos twice for Deutsche Grammophon. First with Karl Böhm and the Vienna Philharmonic and later with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Alfred Brendel recorded all Beethoven's piano concertos at least three times over his career.
Paul Lewis recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra with conductor Jiří Bělohlávek.
Murray Perahia recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with conductor Bernard Haitink, 1988.
Posted in ARTISTS AND ARTS - Music, Arts, Educational, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
Tagged aaron copland, albert einstein, Alpine Club, aristotle, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Athens Concert Hall, Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Brain, Brescia, carnegie hall, dna, emperor concerto, Frédéric Chopin, Genius, Grande valse brillante in E-flat major (Chopin), Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano concerto, piano concertos, Royal Orchestra & Daniel Barenboim, vienna philharmonic
Debussy: Danse (Tarantelle Styrienne) L. 69 , Claudio Arrau
Danse (Tarantelle Styrienne) L. 69
Claudio Arrau – Topic
Claudio Arrau
℗ 2011 Unchained Melodie
Composer: Claude Debussy
Tagged Agence France-Presse, Alexander Scriabin, Alliance française, Amethystium, andrei gavrilov, Arabesques (Debussy), Children's Corner, Claude Debussy, claudio arrau, Debussy: Danse (Tarantelle Styrienne) L. 69, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Tarantelle Styrienne
Historic musical moments: Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24) : Richard Strauss , great compositions/performances
Historic Musical Moments: Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24) : Richard Strauss
K. Stewart Bentley
Conductor : Sergiu Celibidache
Posted in ARTISTS AND ARTS - Music, Arts, FILM, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MEMORIES, MY TAKE ON THINGS, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, SPIRITUALITY, Uncategorized, YouTube/SoundCloud: Music, Special Interest
Tagged AIDS, Alexander Ritter, American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, BBC, Bergamo, Death, Death and Transfiguration, Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung, Great Compositions/Performances, Health care, Historic Musical Moments, Musical Moments, Op. 24) : Richard Strauss, Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino, Richard Strauss, Tod und Verklärung
The Ebola Diaries: Trying to heal patients you can't touch: Goats and Soda |NPR
http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=385528882&m=385646993&t=audio/a
The Ebola Diaries: Trying to heal patients you can't touch: Goats and Soda |NPR (click on picture to access the story and inteview at NPR)
Posted in ebola, Educational, Health and Environment, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, infections disease, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, Uncategorized
Must read: Ebola in Liberia: According to Dr. Kwan Kew Lai's Blog
Today is the Feast of St. Kew, a little known Welsh saint, probably of the fifth century. She was the sister of a hermit called Docco who founded a monastery at or near the village of St. Kew which is now in Cornwall, England. Nothing much is known about her except that she was able to cause some wild boars to obey her, this ability caught the attention of her said brother who condescended to finally speak to her. Why they were not on speaking terms to begin with was a mystery.What is in a name? Kew is my given name. It would be unheard of to have a saint with my name especially someone from Asia. My daughter, Cara, was told by her Confraternity Christian Development (CCD) teacher that everyone has a saint who bears his or her name. She searched in vain for a saint with her name.
via Ebola in Liberia.
***featured on by NPR: The Ebola Diaries: Trying To Heal Patients You Can't Touch http://n.pr/1EaPxUw
Posted in ebola, Educational, Hazardous Materials Exposure, IN THE SPOTLIGHT, infections disease, MY TAKE ON THINGS, News, PEOPLE AND PLACES HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, Special Interest, SPIRITUALITY, Uncategorized
Tagged Airstrike, Alfred Hitchcock, Arecaceae, Arrone, Associated Press, BBC, Beach hut, berkeley, California, Christmas, Cornwall, Facebook, Florida, Invoice, No Show, Party, Pensacola News Journal, Traffic stop, Wild boar, Wildlife
From NPR News
The Ebola Diaries: Trying To Heal Patients You Can't Touch http://n.pr/1EaPxUw
Even 'Proper' Technique Exposes Nurses' Spines To Dangerous Forces http://n.pr/1BZko6C
Greece revives Nazi-era reparation claims amid EU debt row
http://f24.my/1zO7skt
From BBC : Ocean carbon leak 'ended Ice Age'
Ocean carbon leak 'ended Ice Age' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31424597
From BBC : Leaders agree Ukraine peace roadmap
Leaders agree Ukraine peace roadmap http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31435812
Soleil de L'amour All About My Ordinary Life in Memories 0
one heck of a guy (Leonard Cohen 0


I recently attended a presentation of the US 36 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a required component to improve infrastructure along the Boulder-Denver Turnpike.
As someone new here, I've always wondered: why doesn't the NW Parkway (toll road) connect directly up to US 36 with ramps/interchange etc.? Instead you have a couple of lights and a bit of a rounabout way to get from US 36 onto the NW Parkway.
Is it related to the future plans for US 36?


Welcome to the Lattimore Physical Therapy and Sports Rehabilitation Network. Lattimore Physical Therapy is an outpatient orthopedic physical therapy clinic dedicated to providing outstanding personal care and the highest quality orthopedic treatment. We treat patients of all age groups and specialize in manual therapy along with our our orthopedic knowledge.
From our dedication to the community we have grown into the largest privately owned physical therapy practice with 14 locations in Monroe & Livingston County areas. Each clinic offers extended hours of service to be convenient to your schedule. We can usually accommodate same day/next day scheduling.
Come discover the difference for yourself at Lattimore Physical Therapy.
CALL FOR HAND THERAPY or Physical Therapy appointments.


To all our Camp Fortune mountain bike campers!
(from your specific bus stops).
and returned to you on Friday! This way you will not have to go back and forth..
The bus will be followed by this handsome guy... and a trailer...there are still a few spots left.
This is a fun-filled and exciting way of exploring the great outdoors. Riding a winding mountain trail through forests, up and over hills, across streams and old farmlands, will focus your attention on each maneuver you make!
Each day the group will ride trails, use maps, and explore the area's trail system.
Along the way stops may be made for hiking, snacks, looking for frogs, and more.
Instructors will teach participants safe riding technique, balance, ascending/descending, braking and bunny hopping.
Participants will also learn the fundamentals of environmentally sound and responsible trail building and maintenance. Campers will participate in safe, fun, and positive games and activities given by their experienced coaches.


Beautiful stuff. I grew up in an area similar to this. Now that I live in a big city, it is so surprising how much you can miss a simple walk among the trees.
Nice shots! Always wanted to go to Oregon to hike and forage wild mushrooms.
Thanks! Haha you totally should! There are some incredible hikes in this area. Foraging mushrooms is new to me though. I wanna try!


At Cheap-Essays.org you can buy properly structured and plagiarism-free papers written from scratch by our expert writers. Our company boasts of being one of the most reputable and trustworthy services in the custom writing field. Our clientele base is our top priority, and thus we heavily invest into the quality of services we offer. As such, we motivate our staff and encourage all our workers for continuous self-development. Writers who want to work at our company go through a rigorous hiring process. One of the basic requirements is that writers have to hold a Master's or a PhD degree. Proper qualifications and fluency in academic writing enable to deliver premium-quality papers to our customers. When working on your papers, writers adhere to all paper requirements and specifications and do everything possible to satisfy customers' needs and provide top-notch quality papers. We guarantee that each paper that you buy from our service is free from plagiarism. You can buy not only essays or research papers from us but also courseworks, research proposals, term papers, dissertations, annotated bibliographies, reports, reviews, and many other assignments. Besides, to ensure even a more pleasant and fruitful cooperation, we offer appealing discounts to our new and regular customers.
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A new problem this week: storage rotation. This is a common problem, faced by everyone from Walmart to the various branches of government to the menacingly reticent apocalypse survival folks. Basically it boils down to this: if you are storing anything perishable from food to gasoline to ammunition, you want to use the oldest stuff first, while constantly replenishing the back of the stack with new stock. The acronym that gets tossed around is FIFO: First In, First Out.
Where this came across my bench was the need for rotating canned goods easily. If you have a shelf that is accessible from both sides, you could in theory take from one side and replenish from the other. But if your shelves are backed up against the wall, you have to pull the stacks all the way out in order to put new stock in the back. It's time-consuming and irritating and tends to be ignored, which is how you get spherical cans of beef stew on the back of the shelf that expired in the Bush administration…the first one. Ewww.
So in the interest of science, I did some research and built a prototype dispenser for a "normal" can. This consisted of buying a bunch of cans of beans (took me forever to get through all of them!), and playing around with angles and whatnot.
As it turns out, while I finally made it work, it was cheaper and more efficient to use the powers of injection moulding and mass production. If you're looking for a cost-effective solution that will fit on a regular shelf and is adjustable for can size, the Cansolidator is probably your best bet.
But there was a hitch. Some cans are very small. Mushrooms, tomato paste, and so on are packaged in tiny little cans that, while you can get them to fit into the carousel, waste a lot of space, since the bays are sized to accommodate much larger diameter cans. In addition, while you could just make big stacks of these little cans and bull your way through, they also don't stack: the top is the same diameter as the bottom, making it precarious at best.


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Carolina Power Wash LLC Serves the Raleigh, Garner, & Cary area with high quality power washing.
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text:
December 31, 2010 by dandelionsalad
Amtrack, Hitler and Lunch in Paris by Daniel N. White
by Daniel N. White
Reading too much lately, too much time, not enough work, not enough money in the bank to travel or start a project. That's Christmas for you. Picked up and read Waiting on a Train, by James McCommons. Short, well-written first hand account of the author travelling the entire length, near as I can figure it, of the Amtrak passenger rail system. Did so over a two year spell, and during so went off and interviewed most of the important players, both political and rail industry, on the passenger rail issue here in the US.
The author is a fan of rail travel and a proponent of the United States making more efforts to shift more passenger traffic, and freight traffic, to rail from cars and airplanes. The environmental benefits of this are obvious and well known, but the author also makes an argument about the positive societal changes this would entail–more human scale cities and more leisurely and sociable travel for us. Speaking from firsthand experience I must agree with the latter–railroad bar and dining cars are one of humanity's finer creations. Through his interviews and his reporting, he tells the history of post WWII passenger rail decline, near extinction, and rescue by the US government by what we aren't supposed to call nationalization when Amtrack was formed. McCommons does a good job of getting past the political sloganeering that has surrounded Amtrak ever since its creation and explains why Amtrak is what and the way it is. McCommons does a most important favor to us all by telling the stories of several states' DOT's initiative in promoting passenger rail initiatives. California, as usual, leads the way but there are surprises where you wouldn't expect, such as Maine. Unfortunately, my native Texas is at the very ass end of these efforts, partly from the innate cheapskate shortsightedness of its Republican political operators and partly from the evil hand of Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines, whose bread and butter short hop intrastate operations would be killed by a Texas passenger rail system. As realistically speaking they should be. From my reading of the numbers, rail makes more sense for short (US scale short–up to 300 to 400 miles) trips than any other means of transportation, and we should face up to that fact and start moving in that direction nationwide.
But those numbers aren't to be found in this book. This book has three serious weaknesses in it, ones that are perhaps unavoidable in nowadays US publishing. The first is its purely literary approach to a social issue that to be fairly discussed requires a good deal of numbers and statistics and charts. All that is considered readership death for general readers, and most books, and all newspapers, leave them out. The second weakness is the lack of overall big picture view of the passenger transportation issue, with comparisons of the competing modes' costs, benefits, and drawbacks. That might well have led to a much different and much too large book than this one; this flaw is perfectly excusable. Third weakness is the lack of a real overview of rail passenger travel, and more, the history of the railroad industry, past and present. I have for years searched for a good book explaining the railroad industry and how it works and haven't yet found it. Nor is there a good history of railroads, either. The overwhelming majority of what is written about railroads is written for what the working rail industry personnel call foamers (from foaming at the mouth), the persons (male, almost exclusively) who are train and train gear infatuated. We all know them, the adults with train sets in their basements. Books written for them are completely deficient in critical perspective and they all ignore completely the business side of railroading, which side is of course the key critical essential side of railroading. None of the foamer books warrant any more attention than a quick look at the pictures, and seeing as most railroad books are foamer books, that's the sad state of things now, and for one hell of a long time running, too, of writings on the railroad industry. All the rest of us are left in the dark about learning anything useful about the railroad industry, too, from our vantage on the outside. Someone in the rail industry ought to correct this problem, for no other reason than that I'd like to see an account explaining the results of my tax dollars going to them.
This book isn't the book we need but that doesn't make it bad. It is an entertaining and informative read on an important industry and issue, and that's no small accomplishment. A good solid effort.
Second book of note I just read is Hitler's First War, by Thomas Weber. Weber is this youngish academic in the UK who has quite pulled a rabbit out of the hat with this book in giving us a first-rate new significant discovery about Adolf Hitler and World War II. Seeing as Hitler is the lead character in WW II, the most written-about event in world history ever, this is no small feat.
Weber went off to primary sources to investigate and cross-check the generally accepted accounts of Hitler's World War I experiences as a private in the Bavarian List Regiment. Hitler wrote extensively in Mein Kampf about his experiences in the war, how they shaped him personally, how they created his political consciousness on all the issues Germany faced, how the war made him the great person he was. Until now, historians have largely accepted Hitler's narrative of events about the war, without doing any crosschecking into primary source materials, such as Hitler's military records, his letters sent to friends during the war, or recollections of his fellow soldiers and his NCO and officer commanders. Weber did, and discovered that Hitler had largely spun a series of tall tales about his heroism, his exposure to danger, his decorations, his injuries sustained in the war, his political coming to awareness during the war, and his immediate post-war military service in a Freikorps fighting the Bolsheviks.
Seeing as most people's revulsion towards Hitler will keep them from ever reading a book about him, I'll cut to the chase and dish out the dirt. Weber's research reveals that Hitler saw only a few days of combat early in 1914, and spent the rest of the war as a regimental dispatch runner. It is entirely possible that Hitler never fired a shot in anger ever during his military career; certainly he never did, or could have, once he became a dispatch runner. This posting kept him a mostly safe distance removed from the front lines, put him sleeping under a roof every night, got him better food than the front line troopers, and also gave him access to officers to asskiss into issuing him medals. Hitler showed no great political understanding of any issue during his years as a soldier, although he was a capable gasbag on many topics and generally tired his fellow soldiers greatly when he went on his soapbox. Hitler, a private (I believe the US Army equivalent is PFC), never got a promotion in four years of war in part because his commanding officers never saw any leadership potential whatsoever in him. It really was an accomplishment to never get a single promotion in four years in an infantry unit in wartime, and there is a fair or better possibility from documentary evidence that Hitler understood that a promotion would put him at risk of returning to the front lines and Hitler wasn't ever keen on that happening and therefore played his cards to not get promoted. Hitler was a loner and most of his fellow soldiers didn't think much of him, and in fact the front-line soldiers thought him just another rear-echelon swine living high on the hog out of the firing line. So much for the comradeship of the trenches. Hitler's two Iron Crosses, both Second and First Class, were mostly unwarranted if not entirely unearned. Hitler's story of being blinded by a British gas attack in 1918 is false; while Hitler did sniff a bit of mustard gas his (real enough) blindness was in fact a psychosomatic condition caused by combat stress, and quite likely had the war gone on much longer Hitler would have been discharged from the army for that condition. Instead of fighting the Bolsheviks in Munich in the immediate post war turmoil, when the Bavarian red left seized power in Munich in late 1918, Hitler in fact joined their forces and assumed a NCO leadership position in them.
Besides all of the above dirt, Weber also has written a good small account of Wilhelmine Germany and its final war. There's been a severe shortage of books on that topic, as most all of WW I's historical coverage available in English focuses on the UK's war efforts and effects, with a secondary focus on the French and American. There's almost nothing on the Russian WWI, and nothing I'm aware of of the Austro-Hungarian war, and until last year, not a single worthwhile book on the Italian war.* There isn't that much out there on the German side of the war and that is something that historians should address, like Weber has.
Hitler rewrote his life history in Mein Kampf for his own reasons of self-advancement and almost entirely got away with it in Germany prior to his seizing power, and for six and a half decades after WW II's end, too. Weber's book shows us that with history, like in the kitchen, there are always discoveries to be made. Weber also shows us the next book that needs writing about Hitler, his early postwar years explaining when and how he came to hold the political beliefs he did. That book should be interesting as well, and I'm looking forward to it–perhaps that is going to be Weber's next book? Explaining Hitler's rise to power is also going to go far in explaining the failure of Weimar democracy. That failure of a liberal society in an economically and educationally advanced Western country to withstand a militarized totalitarian movement in a time of economic crisis is one we'd be wise to pay some attention to these days.
Final book of merit I just read is Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes, by Elizabeth Bard. This is a most charming book about Ms. Bard's falling in love with a Frenchman and marrying him and moving to Paris. Ms. Bard, native New Yorker with an art history background, had been living in London after graduating from college in the States. At an academic conference there, she met her husband, a Breton** science/arts polymath, and shortly afterwards moved over to Paris to merge her life with his. She recounts her first several years in Paris and her discoveries about France, the French, living in a foreign country, the differences between France and the United States, and how good ordinary food is in France. She gracefully tells an autobiographical story of prime years of young adulthood and adult life, during the big experience years of marriage and death of parents, all the while lived in a foreign country, with all the struggles to adjust that entailed. The book is greatly enlivened by her recipes of the dishes she ate, liked, and learned to make. I'd call these plain downhome modern French, almost modern day peasant cooking, and they all look pretty damned good and are good and straightforward to make, too.
One signal virtue of this book is its escaping from the usual chick lit/chick flick dead area of consciousness in its talking about work and the daily problems and struggles of working and making a living. Almost without exception modern womens' stories, be they Hollywood or Elizabeth Gilbert's, don't talk any about working life. Bridget Jones has a job, and goes to it every day, but nothing that happens there seems to be of any real import to her life–all the significant events occur in the post-work evenings and weekends, and that's all that makes it to page or screen. I've never thought life was at all like this, and I've wondered for a long time now why chick stories all are like this. I am not sociologist enough to answer that, but I am pleased to say that Ms. Bard not only writes well about her working life, but also about her husband's, and in doing so also gives us valuable insights into the differences between French and American societies, ones that would be lost otherwise.***
But the book's best, most important, and most useful virtue is its great honesty in telling of the struggles of adjusting to life in a foreign country. Ms. Bard had no support network in Paris when she moved there, an imperfect grasp of French, and no steady job or income. She had no expat community nor circle of friends–friends of any sort period–when she moved there and she tells well how hard it was to do, and all the strangeness and newness and differentness and frustrations of her new life. Reading her book, I suspect it was harder and more painful than she makes it out to be, but perhaps the love of her husband, who seems a most thoroughly decent fellow, and her love for him, made it if not easier then less painful from all the small hurts and annoyances you face in daily life in an alien land. Or perhaps that love just made them easier to forget. A quotation from her about the differentness, strangeness, of life in a foreign country, here when her father in law starts to die from cancer:
"It dawned on me for the first time. In coming to Paris, in marrying Gwendal, I had signed up for more than flaky croissants and shiny mackerel. I had accepted a way of dealing with life and death. If I got sick tomorrow, there would be no fourth opinion from a specialist in Minneapolis with a promising new drug. I felt trapped in someone else's system, like I'd bought a one-way ticket to a place I didn't understand."
Love brought Ms. Bard to live in a foreign country; happens to lots of people. This book is essential reading for anyone who like Ms. Bard gets whacked hard over the head by Cupid with a sockful in points abroad. But there is also moving to a foreign country for good from choice or more generally necessity. Americans have never done that in any significant numbers ever, except for right now, assuming that Joe Bageant had his facts right two years ago when he told me this, that young Americans are starting to do that, for the first time ever in this country's history. Nobody is looking into this demographic/sociological seachange but if any young person who is thinking about jumping the American ship–and I certainly don't blame them if they do–they'd be well advised to read this book as well, to have an understanding of how big their undertaking is.
Lunch in Paris is a wonderful book and a delightful read. Highly recommended.
*The White War, by Mark Thompson, was published last year and is the first decent history of Italy in the First World War. It is better than decent–it is very good and I highly recommend it. Anyone with an interest in modern Italy needs to read it. You simply can't understand the 20th century history of any European country that participated in WWI until you understand their WWI history and experience. Which leads me to remember that Serbia was a major allied power in WWI, despite its small size, and it suffered more casualties and war damage proportionately than any other WWI participant, and somehow I suspect that that fact has a lot to do with recent events in the former Yugoslavia that we've embroiled ourselves into militarily a couple of times now, and hell if there is a single book on Serbia and the war in English.
**Breton–from Brittany–it matters. Bretons are universally acknowledged as the French most likely to get along with the Anglo-Saxons.
***One exception is Nora Ephron, but I bring her up only to give her a good public kicking that she badly deserves. You've Got Mail deals much with work, but Ms. Ephron's story of a local bookstore getting stomped to death by a giant corporate chain as a happy ending love story shows her to be as dishonest, vile and loathsome an apologist for corporate evil as ever walked this earth.
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One thought on "Amtrack, Hitler and Lunch in Paris by Daniel N. White"
Lunch in Paris | January 3, 2011 at 7:41 AM
H Dan – Thanks so much for your lovely and thoughtful review of LinP. We are living in Provence these days, so more culinary (and village) adventures ahead. Happy New Year!

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text:
A contemporary Map of the Defences of Oxford in 1644 By R. T. Lattey, E. J. S. Parsons and I. G. Philip
A Contemporary Map of the Defences of Oxford in 1644
By R. T. LATTEY, E. J. S. PARSONS AND I. G. PHILIP
THE student of the history of Oxford during the Civil War has always been handicapped in dealing with the fortifications of the City, by the lack of any good contemporary map or plan. Only two plans purporting to show the lines constructed during the years 1642-6 were known. The first of these (Figure 24), a copper-engraving in the Wood collection,1 is sketchy and ill-drawn, and half the map is upside-down. The second (Figure 25) is in the Latin edition of Wood's History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, published in 1674,2 and bears the title 'Ichnographia Oxoniæ una cum Propugnaculis et Munimentis quibus cingebatur Anno 1648.' The authorship of this plan has been attributed both to Richard Rallingson3 and to Henry Sherburne.4 We know that Richard Rallingson drew a 'scheme or plot' of the fortifications early in 1643,5 and Wood in his Athenae Oxonienses6 states that Henry Sherburne drew 'an exact ichnography of the city of Oxon, while it was a garrison for his Majesty, with all the fortifications, trenches, bastions, etc., performed for the use of Sir Thomas Glemham7 the governor thereof, who shewing it to the King, he approved much of it, and wrot in it the names of the bastions with his own hand. This ichnography, or another drawn by Richard Rallingson, was by the care of Dr. John Fell engraven on a copper plate and printed, purposely to be remitted into Hist. and Antiq. Univ. Oxon. lib. i. between p. 364 and 365.' It becomes fairly clear, however, from a close study of Wood's account of the fortifications, and of the map which is the subject of this paper, that the plan which Wood reproduced is the precise mathematical scheme drawn by Rallingson in 1643, and not the record of the actual fortifications drawn by Sherburne in 1645 or 1646.8
It follows, therefore, that an original plan of the fortifications by Sir Bernard de Gomme, dated 1644, is of considerable importance.9 This map (PLATE XXII) was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1935 from Messrs Zaehnsdorf of London, and is now (Bodl.) MS. Top. Oxon. b. 167. Bernard de Gomme was a Dutch military engineer, born at Lille in 1620. He accompanied Prince Rupert to England, was knighted by Charles I, and served with the Royalist army as engineer and quartermaster-general from June 1642 to May 1646. At the Restoration de Gomme received a life pension of £300 from Charles II, was made engineer-in-chief of all the King's castles and fortifications in England and Wales in 1661, and in 1682 was appointed Surveyor-general of Ordnance. He died in 1685 and was buried in the chapel of the Tower of London.10 Many of his maps and plans of fortifications survive in the British Museum, but all differ in some ways from this map of Oxford.
THE DEFENCES OF OXFORD, 1644
from a copper-plate engraving in the Wood collection.
Reproduced from F. f. Varley, ' The Siege of Oxford,' Pl. iv, by courtesy of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.
RICHARD RALLINGSON'S PLAN OF THE DEFENCES OF OXFORD, 1648
Reproduced (after Skelton) from Wood 'Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis'
The map is on one sheet of paper measuring 19 1/8 × 28 ¾ inches, and the lines of fortifications, roads and rivers were first indicated by pricking and then completed by means of a stylus or possibly a sharp wheel. The rivers, streams and wet ditches are coloured blue; the streets and roads are light brown with the outlines emphasised by light dotting. An error in the plan to the south of the Castle was corrected by pasting a rectangular piece of paper over it. The date was originally written as 1645 but was later corrected to 1644 in a hand which could be de Gomme's. There are signs that de Gomme did not know the city well at that time, for in the key at the bottom left-hand corner St. Clements is written in another ink over some name in pencil, as if he was not sure at first of the correct name; St. Ebbe's is spelt Ste. Abbin; and Northgate is written where the road passed through the fortifications on the north side, not at the Northgate proper. The signature and other writing have been compared with de Gomme's 1644 plan of the fortifications of Liverpool, which is now in the British Museum (MS. Sloane 5027 A. f. 69). This Oxford plan is certainly his, but there are interesting points of difference. All his maps are on paper and all have pricked outlines, but no other map is so untidily pricked as this, and no other has stylus lines. De Gomme's usual practice was to join the pricked marks with careful pencil or ink lines; in this Oxford plan he scratched his lines and apparently did so hurriedly and even carelessly. Another sign of speed in the work is the fact that Christ Church is represented by a rough pencil outline. The length of wall on the south side which is represented by a dotted line is doubtless a projected scheme of building, of which there is a parallel instance in de Gomme's later map of Portsmouth (B.M. Add. MS. 16371 B). All his later maps are far more elaborate in colour and design than this Oxford map, and even the contemporary Liverpool map surpasses this in care and colouring, though not by any means in interest or wealth of detail.
Owing to the inadequacy of the plans of Wood and Rallingson (p. 1), the actual emplacement of the line of fortifications erected round the City during the years 1642 to 1646 was in many places open to doubt. Although sections of it are marked on David Loggan's map of 1675 and on other later maps, and a few traces of the works are still visible to-day (p. 8), there were many gaps in the chain. De Gomme's map, however, is so careful in its outlines and accurate in its details that it has proved possible (Figure 26), with the aid of Loggan's map and our other knowledge, to trace the fortifications on a modern map of the City with a considerable degree of certitude. From this tracing it is now possible to see where the defence works were erected, where the main guards were situated, and where the river was blockaded.
Figure 26 DE GOMME'S PLAN OF THE DEFENCES OF OXFORD, 1644, traced on a modern map of the city.
Reprodued by courtesy of the Alden Press (Oxford) Ltd.
The earliest defence works were started as soon as the King had issued his proclamation of August 9th, 1642 declaring war; these were situated on the north side. Here there are two lines on de Gomme's plan; one, thin and irregular, the other showing a regular tenaille trace. The former was presumably constructed during the years 1642 and 1643. It was first suggested on August 11th, 1642 by Sir Richard Cave,11 at a meeting of representatives of the City and University convened to discuss defence plans, that a 'line with redoubts and a foot-pace' should be constructed on the north side from the Cherwell to the Thames. The two members of Parliament for the City, John Whistler and John Smith, spoke against the proposal lest Oxford should become 'the seat of a war,' but despite their protestation work was commenced at the beginning of September.12 John Whistler noted, probably with pleasure, that 'the scholars do night and day gall their hands with mattocks and shovels.'
These first efforts were destroyed, together with other defence works, by the order of Lord Saye during the time the City was in the hands of the Parliamentarians, which lasted from September 12th until the middle of October.
The King entered Oxford on October 29th and although he left for London on November 3rd, work was recommenced, and on the 22nd an earthen wall was constructed from Magdalen Bridge to the Botanical Gardens. The King returned on November 29th and immediately steps were taken to make the City secure from attack.
Fortifications were begun to the north of St. Giles' Church, in the New Parks, and near St. John's College walks on December 5th, and by the 21st, there was great activity on the north, north-east, and north-west.13 The works about Merton College and the Cherwell were started on March 14th, 1642/3 and, towards the end of April, the massive structure in St. Clement's guarding Magdalen Bridge. This was designed by Richard Rallingson,14 the author of the plan of the whole garrison reproduced in the Latin edition of Wood's History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford.
The next works to be taken in hand were those in Christ Church meadow, running parallel to Grandpont Street, which were started early in June.15
In September and October it was considered that the fortifications constructed during the past year were insufficient, and thoughts were entertained for newly fortifying the City.16 This project was carried forward, and on March 11th,1643/4 an order was given for timber to be taken from near Gloucester Hall for the new fortifications.17 All these new fortifications are those which are shown by heavy black lines in the tracing of de Gomme's plan.
During the following months great efforts were made to finish the fortifications,18 and Sir William Waller writing to the Committee of both Kingdoms on July l0th said, 'I find Oxford much stronger fortified than it was when I was here last, the new works being finished, and the whole north side pallisadoed.'19
References to the work done on the fortifications are few from this time until the surrender of the City, but it may be assumed that a great deal was accomplished, though perhaps spasmodically, both in construction and repair.20
The strength of the new fortifications is shown in Col. Fairfax's report of May 3rd, 1646, which described the line as being 'very high, having many strong bulwarks so regularly flanking one another, that nothing could be more exactly done; round about the line, both upon the bulwarks and upon the curtain, was strongly set with stormpoles; upon the outside of the ditch, round the line, it was strongly pallisadoed.'
This report is confirmed by a contemporary pamphlet entitled P. Ruperts Marching out of Oxford21 which asserts that there was 'a complete line of strong works on the north outside the wall, from Isis to Cherwell, and also beyond Magdalen Bridge, and regular works on the West and South.'
At strategic points outside the fortifications, guards were established and on de Gomme's plan are mentioned Dovers Speare, which is situated in Addison's Walk, opposite to St. Clement's Church; Eastgate, where the elaborate fortification already mentioned (p. 4) was erected; Eastwyke Farm, an outpost along Abingdon road; Harts Sconce, a small fortified island in the Thames, opposite to the Gas Works; Osney mill where powder was made; Rewley, just beyond the fortifications on the west, and Northgate, guarding the road from the north. These guards were maintained by a tax levied upon the parishes of the City, and, with others, cost £14 10s. 6d. a week.22 The rivers were of the utmost importance in the schemes of defence. On the north a trench was dug for some way along the outside of the fortifications situated in New College cricket ground, and was joined to the Cherwell, thus forming an excellent ditch. By means of dams and cuts the Cherwell was made to overflow the meadows of Christ Church and Cowley, and 'boomes' were placed across the Thames below Folly Bridge, Harts Sconce and High Bridge to guard the river. Those below Folly Bridge and High Bridge and another beyond Rewley are shown on the plan, and they remained there until after the City had surrendered.23
The labour required for all these defence works was required mostly from the inhabitants both of the City and of the University, but a great number of them refused to perform their allotted tasks. This neglect caused orders to be continually issued commanding every person to do his share at the fortifications, and penalties and fines were exacted for disobedience. External help was enlisted; men were brought in from the neighbouring counties, and prisoners of war were forced to wield pick and shovel. The expense of the fortifications was a constant drain upon the financial resources both of the University and of the City. Each College and each parish was taxed,24 but the taxes, like the compulsory work at the fortifications were resented, and the King was obliged to issue orders threatening punishment if payment was not made.25
The results of these great efforts were not allowed to stand long after the City had surrendered. On March 2nd, 1646/7 the House of Commons ordered the new works to be 'slighted and dismantled' and this action brought an eventful period of Oxford history to a close.
A COMPARISON OF DE GOMME'S PLAN WITH OTHER EVIDENCE26
Until the discovery of de Gomme's map it was extremely hard to link up the vestiges of the seventeenth century fortifications of Oxford with either of the known plans. It was clear that 'Oxforde as it now lyethe Fortified by his Majies force an. 1644' was, as Wood said, 'made very false,' for the whole of the interior of the city is inverted from North to South (Figure 24). But we might go so far as to infer from it a simple form of palisaded bank running in fairly straight sections from point to point and interrupted by forts at the cardinal points of the compass. A man with a barrow is shown SE. of Magdalen bridge, indicating that this part of the works was unfinished, and we know that this section was of late construction.
The Rallingson plan on the other hand (Figure 25) showed an elaborate system of bastions, and the vestiges traceable to-day and indicated in maps of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seemed compatible with this in parts, but incompatible in other places. Banks such as that in St. John's garden or that which formerly ran along the frontage of Rhodes House might have been forms of landscape gardening; if, on the other hand, they were part of a system of fortification it was hard to link them up with a clearly marked bastion in the SW. corner of the Parks. De Gomme suggests that there were two schemes, presumably the inner line being simpler and earlier while the later, more complex scheme partly masked it.
Historically27 we know (p. 4) that the crooked trench in the form of a horn or bow dug by scholars near the end of St. John's gardens in August 1642 and the gates of timber near Magdalen bridge and at Smithgate were ordered to be demolished when Lord Saye and Sele entered the town on 14th September. But, so soon as he withdrew, fresh plans for works were set on foot, the timber gates were renewed, an earthen wall was thrown up from Magdalen bridge to the Physic Garden and a 'new' trench made near the old ones across Parks Road. We have therefore, presumably, to deal with an early period in which immediate steps were taken to deal with the more obvious openings for hostile attack. Later (1644) a systematic scheme for the whole city was put in hand with de Gomme as expert adviser.
SKETCH-MAP OF OXFORD
showing the site of those portions of the Civil-War fortifications traceable to-day, or recorded by Loggan (1674), Davis (1797), and Ordnance Survey Maps.
Based on the 6-in. Ordnance Survey Map with the sanction of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office.
In April 1643, Wood records 'De primis loquor munimentis; quae enim postea extruebantur Beckmannum28 architectum habuere.' This suggests a replanning of the whole lay-out and the beginning of a scheme such as is indicated by Rallingson's map. De Gomme's map was made towards the end of 1644 when all was finished except the SW. portion.
In the accompanying sketch-map (Figure 27) the evidence has been based primarily on observation in the field, secondly on the O.S. 6 and 25 inch maps of 1876, thirdly on Davis' map of 1797, and fourthly on Loggan's map of 1675.
THE MAIN FORTIFICATION
Beginning at Magdalen bridge, the mound in the angle between Iflley Road and Milham Ford Road was more pronounced thirty years ago, when it was used as allotment, gardens; the owners frequently found old bullets there. This was evidently the site of the star-work shown by de Gomme and also by Loggan. There is now no trace of the cut made in the island south of the bridge, nor of the bank facing the end of the Broad Walk. It seems likely that this was the device which caused so much trouble to Fairfax in 1645 that he was obliged to capture the sluices at the end of May.
Going counter-clockwise from Magdalen the next trace we come to is at the bottom of the present Manor Road; here Loggan, Davis, O. S. and living memory agree in siting various mounds which can easily be made to form parts of either the earlier scheme or the later. Taking the earlier first, we may trace part of this as a bank running along the dividing line of Merton and Balliol grounds to the house known as King's Mound. According to Loggan this ran to the corner of Wadham garden where it turned northward and is probably the bank which is there to-day; it then presumably turned west and was there until Rhodes House was built.
Of the later and more elaborate works there are no traces until we come to the University Museum and its surrounding laboratories.
In digging foundations for the Electrical Laboratory in 1909 a section was made of a trench, V-shaped and about 10 feet wide by 8 feet deep, and clearly forming part of the work indicated by O.S. which can still be detected to-day inside the Parks. A crack in the wall of the Clarendon Laboratory suggests that the same trench ran under that building.
When the University Museum was built in 1858 the Delegates' Minutes contain two suggestive passages:
'To this must be added £200 for Extra Works in laying the Foundations of the Building, caused by the necessity for excavating the Ground in some parts considerably below the average depth, provided for in the original estimate.' (21st. Ap. 1858).
'It was agreed that the Master of University shall give such directions as he may think fit, as to the levelling of the ground in front of the Museum by using the soil now raised up in a Mound on the ground, the hole on the South side to be filled up by Messrs. Lucas.' (7th. Aug. 1858).
A crack in the wall of Keble near the west end of the chapel is compatible with the idea that the trench ran northward about this point; after this we reach a built-up area where all traces have been obliterated and information from old maps is all that is left to us. The banks shown by Loggan north of Gloucester Green are not easy to identify with either of de Gomme's lines; and 'Remains of the Trenches' shown on Davis' map on the site of the present Gas Works seem quite unconnected with anything de Gomme marks. The work described as 'Harts Sconce' or 'Munitio Cordiformis' on an island site now used as a recreation ground has entirely disappeared. On both de Gomme's and Rallingson's maps this is a curiously isolated affair and the remains shown by Davis may be those of canals used to approach the island.
Eastwyke Farm is on a raised mound, but the present building of the Farm probably dates from before the Civil War, so that the mound is almost certainly earlier too. Its present form does not suggest any military significance and it was probably designed as a protection against flooding.
THE FAIRFAX LINES
In May 1646 it is recorded,29 'Whereupon at a Council of War at Hedington, it was resolved to fix their Quarters. Their first to be upon Hedington Hill, where was ordered to be made a very strong and great Work or Intrenchment of capacity to receive and lodge 3000 men. Also that a bridge should be made over the river Cherwell, close by Merston. That another quarter should be established between Cherwell and Isis, that is on the North side of the City, wherein it was intended that most of the Foot should be lodged, that being all the Ground they had to make an approach near the Walls. Which matters, I say, being resolved, were quickly dispatched even to admiration, and a line also began to be drawn from the great Fort at Hedington Hill straight to St. Bartholomew's Common road and from thence to Campus pits, or thereabouts, all within Canon shot.'
Whitlock30 tells us that 'the approaches were so near, that officers and soldiers of either parties parleyed one with another.'
All this is consistent with de Gomme's map which indicates a line beginning near the University Football Ground and running to a Leaguer round about the junction of Divinity Road and Morrell Avenue. From here a line is shown ending about Magdalen and Trinity Grounds. It is only in South Park that one can hope to find any traces of this to-day. A bank which may be part of the Leaguer is noticeable behind the eighth block of houses in Morrell Avenue. Until about 1870 the South Park was divided by hedges and ditches and though the banks, shown by the trees in them on O.S. maps, may have a purely agricultural significance, they are not inconsistent with a possible military work.
1 Wood, 276b, f. 30
2 Lib. i, between pp. 364 and 365.
3 Magrath, Queen's College, i, 267.
4 D.N.B. s.v. Sir Edward Sherburne.
5 Wood, Annals, ii, 462.
6 1691-2 ed., ii, 704.
7 Governor of the garrison Oct. 1645-June 1646.
8 For a further discussion of these plans, see F. J. Varley, The Siege of Oxford (1932). Varley concludes that the plan published by Wood is certainly not Sherburne's.
9 For a technical description of the fortifications see Lieut-Col. W. G. Ross, 'Military engineering during the Great Civil War, 1642-9,' Professional papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, xiii (1887), pp. 150-1.
10 For details of de Gomme's life, see D.N.B., s.v.
11 He held a command in the West of England, and was killed at Naseby.
12 H.M.C. Portland MSS., i, 59.
13 Wood, Life and Times, ed. Clark, i, 74.
14 Wood, Hist. and Antiq., ed. Gutch, ii, 462.
15 Wood, Life and Times, i, 100.
16 Wood, Hist. and Antiq., ii, 468.
17 Salter (H. E.) and Hobson (M. G.), Oxford Council Acts, 1626-1665, p. 382.
18 Ibid., p. 384; Harleian MSS., 6802, f., 112, 120; Walker, Historical Discourses, p. 13.
19 Cal. S.P.D. 1644, p. 363.
20 Wood 276A (341).
21 Madan 1882 (Oxford books, ii, 427).
22 A full list is given in Salter, op. cit., p. 390.
23 Ibid., p. 430.
24 Ibid., pp. 379, 382.
25 Harleian MSS., 6802, f. 112.
26 This section has been written by Mr. R. T. Lattey.
27 Our present knowledge of the historical evidence is summarized in F. J. Varley, The Siege of Oxford (O.U.P., 1932).
28 Beckman was a Swede; in February 1644 he put a garrison into Hilsden House and in December, 1644 he was captured in Mr. Speaker Lenthall's house at Bessel's Leigh.
29 Wood's History, Ed. Gutch, under date 3 May, 1646.
30 Memorialls civil and military of English affaires, under date 12 May, 1646.
Kataloq: vol%201
vol%201 -> Voluntary Salary Reduction Agreement
vol%201 -> Volkstelling Zichem 1709
vol%201 -> President Eisenhower's News Conference, February 10, 1954, Public Papers of the Presidents, 1954
vol%201 -> Military Resistance
vol%201 -> Endtabellen 2011/2012 Landesliga Damen
vol%201 -> Informações Gerais 1 informaçÕes gerais
vol%201 -> Indice analitico della nomenclatura botanica della
vol%201 -> Oral presentations


Gliding smoothly along in a sleek kayak is a quintessential Tongan experience, especially when you're just centimetres above transparent waters, and your self-paddled craft is a ticket to more remote islands and untouched beaches. See kayaking guided tours range from one to 13 days. There is always plenty of time to take in pods of Spinner Dolphins, or the even bigger prize of migrating Humpback Whales. Sea Turtles poke their heads out of the shimmering shallows of Tonga's reefs, while marine birds circle and dive bomb shape-shifting schools of fish. The Kingdom is fast becoming recognised as one of the world's iconic destinations for marine life.
With 176 islands scattered across over 700,000 square kilometres of Pacific Ocean, Tonga's protected coral reefs and atolls, safe anchorages and reliable marine breezes makes it one of the planet's finest locations for sailing. With a maritime heritage stretching back to the ocean-spanning double-hulled kalia canoes of the Kingdom's ancient mariners, this is a land that truly understands the simple and unadorned appeal of harnessing ocean breezes for adventure and exploration.
The water surrounding the coastline of the mainland Papua New Guinea and the close to 600 different islands of Papua New Guinea provide a more unique and scenic kayaking experience than any other. The beauty you witness when kayaking in Papua New Guinea will take your breath away. There is no better way to explore the different islands of Papua New Guinea than through the various kayaking journeys that can take you to the more remote and uninhabited islands.


Beautifully engraved certificate from the American Commonwealths Power Corporation dated 1930. The certificate has a ornate red border with a nicely engraved vignette of an allegorical woman in the center next to a power generator and an oil refinery.
AMERICAN COMMONWEALTHS POWER CORP. (DE) Assets and securities sold to Commonwealths Distribution, Inc. in 1934 No stockholders' equity.


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AI: Decoded
How global thinking on AI is shaping the world, from Berlin, Brussels, London and beyond. POLITICO's AI correspondent cuts through the noise, introduces you to the key decision-makers you've never heard of and tells you what those in power don't want you to know.
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POLITICO AI: Decoded: Trump's White House throws its weight behind OECD AI efforts — Lobbying battle over Europe's AI rules — Fighting hate speech with AI
By Janosch Delcker
February 26, 2020	11:00 am
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WHITE HOUSE THROWS ITS WEIGHT BEHIND OECD AI EFFORTS: Ahead of a meeting at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) later this week, Donald Trump's White House told AI: Decoded that no other venue was better-suited for developing international standards.
Welcome back! It's Janosch Delcker, Politico's artificial intelligence correspondent in Berlin, and today, we'll hear from Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Lynne Parker on why her administration is throwing its weight behind the work at the OECD — and why she believes it would be premature to come up with binding international rules for AI. But before we get to that, here's what else people in the AI world are talking about:
DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON'T: On this side of the Atlantic, the EU published its "White Paper" roadmap on how to regulate AI. Depending on whom you talk to, people will either tell you the proposed regulation is going way too far and will stifle innovation — or that it's doing too little to mitigate AI risks. While a columnist at the Financial Times, for instance, slammed the plan as over-regulation out of a "fear of a high-tech digital future," an op-ed in Spiegel magazine took the opposite road and accused the Commission of shying away from serious measures.
My take: Brussels seems to stay true to its plan to come up with tough rules for 'high-risk' AI, dealing a blow to Big Tech, at least for now. Yes, the option of a temporary ban on facial recognition is off the table (AI:Decoded readers were in the know weeks ago), which led some to say that the EU had watered down its approach. But the full truth is that such a moratorium, mentioned in a very early draft as one of several potential measures, had never seriously been considered.
Tough testing of high-risk AI: Ban or no ban, what Brussels makes clear in its White Paper is that AI systems using biometrics to identify individuals, including face recognition, will need tough rules. And the White Paper also says that all high-risk AI technology needs to undergo rigorous testing before it can be deployed or sold within the EU's vast internal market.
Retraining AI for Europe: To do that, the EU's plan is to introduce so-called "conformity assessments" for high-risk AI technology in fields like recruitment, healthcare or transport. What's more, systems that fail the tests might have to be reprogrammed or retrained before they can hit the European market. That pitch comes despite weeks of intense lobbying to scrap those passages from the document, with industry officials warning that the measures would lead to an "AI fortress Europe" and "heavy bureaucracy," according to conversations with people on both sides of the table.
Send in the lobbyists: Now the lobbying battle in Brussels can begin in earnest. The White Paper isn't binding; in coming months, the Commission will collect feedback from industry, governments and civil society on what should actually become law (you can submit your two cents here). Only then will officials start drafting legislation; first laws are expected before the end of the year. What will end up in the fine print is far from decided — including key questions such as what would qualify an application as "high-risk."
MOSCOW USES FACE RECOGNITION TO MONITOR CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE: As the EU moves to regulate invasive AI, governments elsewhere are speeding up deployment. In the Russian capital, authorities are now using automated facial recognition technology to scan surveillance camera footage in an attempt to identify some 2,500 people who have recently arrived from China and been placed under quarantine for fear over the coronavirus.
OPENAI UNDER FIRE: At the other end of the world, an investigation by the MIT Technology Review into San Francisco-based OpenAI stirred waves, accusing the research lab of being "obsessed with maintaining secrecy." That criticism hit hard because OpenAI was founded on the promise of being transparent about its inner workings and research. Shortly after, Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who co-founded OpenAI but has since parted ways with the company — also weighed in by tweeting that "OpenAI should be more open."
**A message from Qualcomm: The European Commission's new AI strategy aims to foster innovation and growth for SMEs while building on Europe's traditional industrial strengths, and without sacrificing the privacy of consumers and businesses. It aligns perfectly with Qualcomm's approach for on-device AI that safeguards users' data and security. Read below to learn more.**
WHITE HOUSE THROWS ITS WEIGHT BEHIND OECD EFFORTS: Who should write rules for AI? The White House has cast its vote.
"They [the OECD] are a group of likeminded democratic nations, who share our values — which is certainly very important, given that we can't say the same about some other international organisations," Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Lynne Parker told AI: Decoded, stressing that the group, which represents the world's richest countries, provided the best international venue to define global guidelines for the development and use of AI: "And they definitely recognize the importance of innovation for advancing the public good when it comes to AI."
The broader picture: The White House's appraisal of the OECD's efforts on AI comes ahead of a meeting in Paris on Thursday, where the OECD will launch its "AI Policy Observatory" — an online platform and database where governments can share best-practices in AI policy (the event will be live-streamed).
The idea is to promote global implementation of the OECD's guidelines for AI, which were released last year (here's our story with more details on the non-binding guidelines). In line with the group's approach of exerting influence through peer pressure, they're supposed to influence practice by serving as a framework for governments drafting legislation and corporations writing up their guidelines for the development of AI. Echoing in many ways the White House's national soft-touch approach to regulating AI, they define fundamental values for technology but shy away from providing a blueprint for hard global rules, urging governments instead to "to encourage innovation and competition for trustworthy AI" in their regulatory efforts.
Too early for international binding rules: Parker said that those non-binding principles are, for the time being, sufficient safeguards to mitigate the risks posed by AI technology, arguing that it would be premature to come up with hard rules on a global scale: "We are in the early stages of governance of AI and because it's new, we need to learn what will work or what won't work."
She stressed that within the OECD guidelines, governments had agreed on principles like making the inner workings of AI technology transparent, or ensuring technology does not discriminate, and that more research and development was needed "to establish some of those goals."
"It's not appropriate to have binding principles at this point in time that would require things like 'all AI must be explainable' if we don't have technical solutions for it," she said.
Countering China: Unlike other international forums such as the G20, the OECD does not count China, the world's second frontrunner in developing AI applications, among its members. When asked if that was part of the reason her government backed the OECD efforts, Parker said:
"We'll never going to apologize for wanting to have the use of technology in a way that is consistent with our values," she said. "We always want it to be used in a way that respects people's privacy and civil liberties and civil rights — that's not something that we want to compromise on."
"By joining together and figuring out how we can both innovate and do that in a way that is consistent with our values, we will have a strong innovation pipeline for AI companies and technology that will be a good counter to what China is doing," she added.
POLICY BRIEFING
PENTAGONIAN ETHICS: In Washington D.C., the U.S. Pentagon also adopted five "ethical principles" governing the department's usage of AI, including calling for "deliberate steps to minimize unintended bias" in machine learning tools and "the ability to disengage or deactivate deployed systems that demonstrate unintended behavior."
STRATEGIES, STRATEGIES: In addition to the AI White Paper. Brussels published a "data strategy" on how the bloc can better exploit data to support innovation and entrepreneurship. To link the two documents into a broader narrative, the Commission also released a 5-year policy roadmap. Want to dig deeper? Here's our explainer.
FIGHTING HATE SPEECH WITH AI: Amid a rise in right-wing extremism, Germany's government is moving ahead with two new laws that will further toughen Berlin's rules governing speech online. One of the bills, which still needs approval by the government and the parliament, includes an obligation for large social media platforms to disclose in their bi-annual transparency reports how they use AI to automatically detect hate speech. The idea is to better hold tech companies accountable for how they monitor potentially unlawful content.
Not everybody is a fan: "We're concerned that this passage will, to a certain degree, be understood as a suggestion to social media platforms to increase the use of automated systems" to detect hate speech, Elisabeth Niekrenz of Berlin-based civil liberties organization Digitale Gesellschaft (Digital Society) told me. But "it's already difficult to automate content recognition when it comes to copyright infringements or terrorism, and it's even much more difficult in the case of hate speech," she added. Watch this space.
AI 101: San Francisco-based nonprofit "AI for Peace" published a "non-technical guide for policymakers."
Biometric database: The EU is drafting plans for a network of national police facial recognition databases, reports the Intercept, quoting an internal report by national police in 10 EU member countries.
Did AI beat humans in detecting the coronavirus outbreak? "In a narrow sense, yes," write the Associated Press. "But what the humans lacked in sheer speed, they more than made up in finesse."
**A message from Qualcomm: The EC's new AI White Paper affirms that privacy guarantees and construction of a technological and data-driven economy are not a zero-sum equation. This strategy recognizes that "building an ecosystem of trust is a policy objective in itself, and should give citizens the confidence to take up AI applications and give companies and public organizations the legal certainty to innovate using AI." That's how we feel at Qualcomm, which is one of the reasons Qualcomm AI Research teamed up with the University of Amsterdam. Work at the QUVA lab there advances two of the key requirements set for AI by the Commission: technical robustness, and protection of privacy and data. Our work and investment into neural network inferences performed on mobile devices — and breakthroughs in machine learning — keep sensitive data on the device and in the hands of the user instead of being sent to third parties.**
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MLM companies have been trying to find ways around China's prohibitions, or have been developing other methods, such as direct sales, to take their products to China through retail operations. The Direct Sales Regulations limit direct selling to cosmetics, health food, sanitary products, bodybuilding equipment and kitchen utensils. And the Regulations require Chinese or foreign companies ("FIEs") who intend to engage into direct sale business in mainland China to apply for and obtain direct selling license from the Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM").[63] In 2016, there are 73 companies, including domestic and foreign companies, that have obtained the direct selling license.[64] Some multi-level marketing sellers have circumvented this ban by establishing addresses and bank accounts in Hong Kong, where the practice is legal, while selling and recruiting on the mainland.[10][65]
Our Telephone Interviewed Leads are not just contact lists. Our Verification Department has contacted each individual lead before you receive it to ensure their seriousness in wanting to start a home based business. You will receive all of their contact information and best time to call so that you are able to contact them at a convenient time and speak with an individual that is sincere about making money from home. We also offer our Telephone Interviewed Leads in female only for any business that prefers contacting only women.
Only people who have signed up through an actual lead capture page are going to appear on our Lists as a prospect. These prospective customers are people who already have an interest in finding out more about home businesses so they are ready for you to contact them. They have provided all of their essential contact information, which we have taken and compiled into a number of valuable Biz Opp Leads. Call us today if you have any questions.
A long time friend that you lost touch with for the last 10 years gives you a call and asks to meet up. After meeting up and breaking the ice, he/she then introduces a new revolutionary product and how you stand to get rich by selling it. Throw in jargons like passive income and downlines, you suddenly realise you're beginning to be sucked into the dream they are selling.
Many MLM companies do generate billions of dollars in annual revenue and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual profit. However, the profits of the MLM company are accrued at the detriment to the majority of the company's constituent workforce (the MLM participants). Only some of said profit is then significantly shared with individual participants at the top of the MLM distributorship pyramid. The earnings of those top few participants is emphasized and championed at company seminars and conferences, thus creating an illusion of how one can potentially become financially successful if they become a participants in the MLM. This is then advertised by the MLM company to recruit more distributors to participate in the MLM with a false anticipation of earning margins which are in reality merely theoretical and statistically improbable.[14]
We are always making sure that all of our Biz Opp Leads are as current as they can possibly be so that your List always contains the up-to-date information you expect to receive. This means that we have to pay attention to any and all of the changes that occur in the business world, such as new technological developments, in order to provide you with the latest and greatest Lead information.
While some of these 10 items are flags of a scam, some, such as unsettled feeling, aren't necessarily a scam, but are definitely an indication that the home business opportunity isn't for you. You can avoid a lot of mistakes and build a successful MLM business by investigating the company, choosing a product or service you can get behind, and having a belief, not only in the product, but in the company and system as well.
Hello Network Marketer, Tired of old, worn out, over-priced network marketing leads that cost you hard-earned money… but leave you without new distributors? Tired of friends and family avoiding your calls? If you're like most distributors I know, time and money are valuable to you. You can't waste it on cheap, worn out recycled leads. Nor do you want to chase your friends and family. Otherwise, you'll become a charter member of the NFL Club… No Friends Left!
The Direct Selling Association (DSA), a lobbying group for the MLM industry, reported that in 1990 only 25% of DSA members used the MLM business model. By 1999, this had grown to 77.3%.[26] By 2009, 94.2% of DSA members were using MLM, accounting for 99.6% of sellers, and 97.1% of sales.[27] Companies such as Avon, Electrolux, Tupperware,[28] and Kirby were all originally single-level marketing companies, using that traditional and uncontroversial direct selling business model (distinct from MLM) to sell their goods. However, they later introduced multi-level compensation plans, becoming MLMs.[23] The DSA has approximately 200 members[29] while it is estimated there are over 1,000 firms using multi-level marketing in the United States alone.[30]
There is nothing new about people failing; yes, they fail – at lots of things. We could spend months trying to discover why people fail in their marriages, school, jobs, etc. Do I have compassion and feel for them when they can't make it work. Yes, of course! But I can't jump into their bodies and make choices and live their life for them. It's their choice – quit or find a way to keep going. MLM is a business and not everyone will succeed. Will I make money from my HARD EARNED customer base? Yes! Do I feel bad because I make a commission. No! EVERY business owner makes money off their employees – other wise they would not be in business. Do Brick and Morter Business Owners feel bad that they are making millions and they are paying their employees minimum wage??? Of Course Not. That is just the nature of business. So why are you feeling "bad" that you made money? Did you tell your recruits that they could do what you did to make money ? You see, there is a difference in selling a product to a customer and telling a person they can "get rich quick" and do nothing to get there. Those people will fail every time when they listen to such lies. hoilictictouch.com Get Oiled!
A salesperson can build his commission rate by advancing in rank/steps and by recruiting new distributors. Consider the commission rate of 10 percent if you were on the third step. If you recruit three distributors who meet their goals and earn the commission of 6 percent, then you earn something called differential commission, which is the difference between your commission and the commission of your recruits (an extra 4 percent). This way, your commission is tied to the group's commission as well, ensuring a group effort when recruiting and selling.


(MTNL) has added on two more content delivery partners for its soon-to-be launched IPTV services. It has signed content delivery network affiliation contracts with Aksh Optifibre and IOL Broadband. It already has Time Broadband Services as a partner, who was the first to have won the contract for both Delhi and Mumbai. It also has a seven-year non exclusive deal with MTNL.
Aksh Optifibre has expressed intent to operate in Delhi and Mumbai while IOL's interest is restricted to Mumbai at this stage.
IOL Broadband plans to use US-based SeaChange for the IP video servers, storage and middleware. The digital set-top boxes (STBs) will be provided by UK-based Amino while the digital rights management solution will be from US-based Widevine. They will invest $25 million in the initial phase. Aksh Optifibre plans to use UTStarcom technology for its content delivery network.
Here is what MTNL has to say .... their August newsletter.
IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) delivers television programming to households via a broadband connection using Internet protocols. It requires a IPTV set-top box, and offers key advantages over existing TV cable and satellite technologies. IPTV is typically bundled with other services like Video on Demand (VOD), voice over IP (VOIP) or digital phone, and Web access, collectively referred to as Triple Play.
One of the advantages of IPTV is the ability for digital video recorders (DVRs) to record multiple broadcasts at once. It will also be easier to find favorite programs by using "custom view guides." IPTV even allows for picture-in-picture viewing without the need for multiple tuners. You can watch one show, while using picture-in-picture to channel surf!
IPTV viewers will have full control over functionality such as rewind, fast-forward, pause, and so on. Using a cell phone or PDA, a subscriber might even utilize remote programming for IPTV. However, the real advantage of IPTV is that it uses Internet protocols to provide two-way communication for interactive television. One application might be in game shows in which the studio audience is asked to participate by helping a contestant choose between answers. IPTV opens the door to real-time participation from people watching at home. Another application would be the ability to turn on multiple angles of an event, such as a touchdown, and watch it from dual angles simultaneously using picture-in-picture viewing.
One can also receive Web service notifications while watching IPTV for things such as incoming email and instant messages. If you IPTV is packaged with digital phone, Caller ID might pop up on screen as your telephone rings.
MTNL, your leading Broadband and fixed line provider in Delhi and Mumbai, has been conducting field trials for IPTV for sometime now with encouraging results and will launch it commercially very soon.
I wonder who is enjoying the trials. I would certainly like to evauate and give inputs.


The Jewish New Year is celebrated today, and this brings back memories of traditional foods, even to an agnostic such as me. One of the culinary traditions for this event, is to dip a slice of apple in honey, and eat it as a symbol for a sweet New Year. Plenty other sweet dishes are added to the table as well, in order to emphasize this hope for a sweet New Year.


Ex-Sunderland midfielder Jan Kirchhoff believes it was 'huge mistake' not to sign Yann M'Vila in 2016.
Former Sunderland midfielder Jan Kirchhoff has opened up on the club's 'huge mistake' not to sign Yann M'Vila in the summer of 2016.
The French midfielder made a positive impact during a loan spell at the Stadium of Light under Sam Allardyce but wasn't signed permanently following the appointment of David Moyes.
According to Kirchhoff, Sunderland turned down the chance to sign M'Vila from Rubin Kazan, instead deciding to spend the money on Didier Ndong.
"Definitely a huge mistake," Kirchhoff told the Roker Rapport podcast.
"I'm not scared to say what I think openly and it was a massive mismanagement that summer of transfers.
"We spent a lot of money, I read a lot about how we didn't and how we didn't have the support of the owner but we ended up spending something like £38 million on players.
"We bought players to replace other players. We signed a defender to replace Kaboul, a midfielder to replace Yann, we didn't sign Yedlin on a permanent. You underestimate what losing senior players like Ola Toivonen and Wes Brown from the squad caused, too.
After escaping from relegation in the 2015/16 season, Sunderland looked well equipped to kick-on under Sam Allardyce.
But after their manager left to take charge of England at the end of season, Kirchhoff believes the quality at Sunderland dropped significantly.
"The squad's quality dropped from one day to another so drastically and we filled it up with youth players that were talented, but far from ready.
"In the end it didn't work out and we spent loads of money on replacements that were not as good as the players we had let go."
According to Kirchhoff, M'Vila stayed in contact with several players at Sunderland and was desperate to return to Wearside.
Yet the Black Cats failed sign the popular midfielder, leaving the squad light in the middle of the park.
"What I know is he what literally at the airport on the day," added Kirchhoff. "He spoke to the club a lot and remained in contact with Younes, Wahbi and Lamine throughout the entire time. He was desperate to come back because, like me, he had such a great time.
"You sometimes underestimate players like DeAndre Yedlin, too. From an outside perspective £4.5million might seem too much for players like him, but he was important. The same with Younes (Kaboul) and we let him go so cheap. You can't explain this.
"It got to a point where John [O'Shea] was number one choice again and, nothing bad against John, but he was happy to be back up and we had a central defenders that had done so well just broken up.
"The dressing room losing these players changed the atmosphere too and... it just wasn't good.