1. Which courses should I choose?
You know you can do well in.
You find interesting - these are likely to lead you on to university courses and careers that you enjoy!
Reflect your interests and personal qualities.
Courses that suit your learning style.
Will help keep your options open in the future.
2. What about courses in subjects that are new to me?
Sign up for A Level Master Classes to get a taster for this course.
Speak to the subject teacher and look at text books/research on line to find out which topics you will be studying (check the Home page of the Gateway for Course Content Flyers).
Talk to students currently on the course to find out more about it.
3. How do I choose a good subject combination?
It is important that you choose a combination of subjects that go well together and that they will get you onto the courses you want to do. For example, if you are hoping to do Medicine you will need to take Biology and Chemistry A Levels, other courses to choose with this subject combination could be Physics, Maths or Further Maths.
Do your research, if you know the career you are interested in, or the course you want to do at university, then which subjects will you need in KS5? Which courses complement each other to help you reach your goal?
There are a lot of different qualifications you can get. The main ones that you will come across are A Levels, BTECs and Diplomas. Woolwich Polytechnic Sixth Form offers a range of A Level courses and some Level 3 BTECs.
All A level courses are level 3 courses. The educational landscape has changed with new A Levels introduced from September 2015. The difference between these new A Levels and the former A Levels is that the new AS Level will no longer form part of the final grade in their final year. Woolwich Polytechnic Sixth Form will still continue to sit students for AS exams as a stepping stone to A Levels, for the majority of their courses. University admission tutors will most likely use these grades to form their offers on UCAS. A full A Level generally takes two years to complete.
A level examinations test memory and organisation. They also test your understanding, your ability to pose and solve problems, listening, and other practical skills, sometimes this is done through course work.
Russell Group universities (the country's top universities) will expect students to have a full A level in at least three subjects. Two out of three of these A Levels should be in traditional subjects. They also like students to have AS levels in one or two other subjects. For example, in their first year a potential Russell Group student might take AS levels in English Literature, English Language, History and Geography. During their second year, they might go on to take English Literature, English Language and History at as they hope to go to Durham University to study English Literature.
Applied General A Levels and Tech Levels are not offered at the Poly. Applied General qualifications primarily support progression onto a higher level of learning or possibly to employment. Tech Levels support progression in specific vocational areas either directly or via Higher Education.
The Poly currently offers the Extended Certificate BTEC in Business, as well as the BTEC Diploma in Business. We also offer the Cambridge Technical in Sports and ICT. These courses test how you would apply your learning in the context of work. These qualifications are just as valuable as A Levels but can be taken at a range of levels. You will now need to take into account that vocational courses are generally no longer 100% coursework. 60% will be externally assessed including exams and 40% will be internally assessed.
Again, the advice might be that you should do no more than one as these are considered to be 'non traditional' by many top universities.
If you are considering a variety of university institution and courses, it may be appropriate for you to do a spread of non-traditional courses.
Visit this website for more information about diplomas.
Diplomas/NVQs are not offered at the Poly. These courses can be taken at a range of levels (level 1,2 or 3). They offer students a mixture of classroom based learning along with practical work and work experience.
If this is the option you choose at KS5, you will need to discuss this with your form tutor and consult the Connexions advisor to assist you with your choice of provider and course.
It is important that you bare this in mind when you are making your choices.
Universities like a breadth of subjects and often appreciate students that do AS levels or enrichment activities that offer students broader knowledge of the world.
* = subjects not offered at Woolwich Polytechnic due to low demand.
have a general idea of the broad area of work you'd like to go into, find out what courses it is recommended that you take.
are considering applying to Oxford, Cambridge or other Russell Group universities, look into what standards you need to meet and consider not only which courses to take but what enrichment and extra-curricular activities you are doing.
don't have any clear ideas about which career or course you are aiming for, don't worry – choose a range of courses that you enjoy and will do well in, and that will keep your options open.


text:
Chris K Franzen appointed as the General Manager for Grand Hyatt Mumbai
Swiss national, hospitality industry veteran and a professionally trained chef and sommelier, Chris K. Franzen has been appointed as the General Manager for Grand Hyatt Mumbai and Area Vice President for Western India. Prior to this, he worked for six and half years as GM at the luxurious Grand Hyatt Doha Hotel & Villas in Qatar. He is a hard-core loyalist of the Hyatt group, having worked with the group for over two decades. Besides his role as GM for the Grand Hyatt Mumbai Hotel & Residences, he will also be responsible for Operations for all Hyatt hotels in Western India in his role as Area Vice President for West India.
Background:Chris was raised and went to school in the Swiss Alpine Village of Zermatt, at the foot of the famed mount Matterhorn. He completed his Bachelor of Business in Hospitality degree from the Australian International Hotel School and Cornell University in 1999.
Chris has come a long way to reach his current position and achieved all this through showing passion for a superior guest experience, determination and hard work. He began his hospitality career as Chef apprentice at the gourmet restaurant, Wart in Zug, Switzerland; before graduating as a Sommelier a few years later. He still likes cooking very, very much. Cooking frequently at home, he is also a big BBQ fan – something a little bit of a challenge living in an apartment in the middle of this magnificent city, Mumbai.
After spending several years in the culinary and food & beverage departments, he opted to try out other areas of the hospitality trade. He was keen on expanding his horizon and worked for many smaller luxury hotels and restaurants along the way such as the Hotel La Porte D'Octodure in Martigny and the Hotel Duc Berthold in Fribourg, both in the French speaking part of Switzerland. He brings with him over thirty years of experience having worked in Europe, the US, Australia, Russia and the Middle East before joining in India. He has also worked for other global hotel operators and luxury boutique hotels over the years, that include the Gourmet Restaurant Glashof in Zug, the Hilton Hotel in Zurich, Kofler & Kompanie in Germany, the luxury boutique hotel The Inn on Fifth in Naples, Florida, and the Hotel Kurrajong in Canberra, Australia. He started his Hyatt career as Revenue Manager at the Hyatt Regency Dubai, followed by other appointments at the Grand Hyatt Muscat in Oman, the Park Hyatt Moscow in Russia, the Grand Hyatt Dubai in the UAE, and the Grand Hyatt Doha Hotel & Villas in Qatar.
He originates from the Alpine Village of Zermatt, in the heart of the European Alps, where almost every family depends on the hospitality business. With only 5,500 permanent inhabitants in the car-free village, the same operates over 125 hotels! He is also a third generation hotelier, with his grandfather and father also having been in the trade. The experiences that Chris garnered earlier in his career have uniquely positioned him to take the next step in his career. He brings the same passion that he has for his love of cooking to the role of general manager and area vice president.
Chris has won several awards and honours over the years that include the Business Excellence Award 2017 and was also one of the candidates for the Jay A. Pritzker Award for Leadership and the same year his hotel team in Qatar was also a contender for the Donald N. Pritzker Award for Hotel Team of the Year. He is also well versed in three languages English, French and German.
In his leisure time he loves spending quality time with his family and children and likes everything with an engine – Motorbikes, boats, cars and jetskis. When asked about his favorite band and movie he says that he enjoys a variety of music, especially from the 70's, and his favorite movie would be 'The Magnificent Seven' with an all-Star cast.
Chef Irfan Pabaney has been appointed as the Country Head at SodaBottleOpenerWala.
Dr Binod Chaudhary, Chairman of CG Corp Global, wins Outstanding Leader — SAARC
Eastbound Group, a consortium of travel and tourism businesses headquartered in Gurgaon, has announced the rejoining of Manish Rajora as Head of…
Shridhar Nair promoted as new Vice President- Operations of The Leela
The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts has announced the promotion of Shridhar Nair as Vice President- Operations of The Leela Palaces, Hotels and…
Lemon Tree Premier launches its new property in Vijayawada
Lemon Tree Hotels Ltd, through its management subsidiary Carnation Hotels Pvt. Ltd., announced the opening of Lemon Tree Premier, Vijayawada. This is…
Radisson adds eight new hotels across brands in challenging 2020
Radisson Hotel Group added eight new hotels across four brands in 2020, thus strengthening its domestic portfolio to overcome a tumultuous year. Located…
Fern Hotels to open 8 new properties in the first half of 2021
The Fern Hotels & Resorts, India's leading environmentally sensitive hotel chain will be opening 8 new hotels in the first half of 2021
Kenya Welcomes Indians To Experience A Magical Holiday
Kenya is welcoming Indian tourists into the destination to sample the unique Kenyan tourism products in 2021. As a key source market,…
Wyndham enters Nepal with chic new 90-room Ramada Encore by Wyndham Kathmandu-Thamel
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts enters Nepal via the new 90-room Ramada Encore by Wyndham Kathmandu-Thamel.
Golden Hour at beautiful Gateway of India
It was a dream come true visiting The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel Mumbai while dropping in on a friend who had a…
10 Best places to visit in Chennai - make sure to not miss them!
We take you on a wonderful tour of the best places to visit in Chennai. Chennai presents a colourful tapestry of everyday…
Sindhudurg Fort is a great location to photoshoot
It was a wonderful experience to visit the Sindhudurg Fort and I will tell you why Sindhudurg Fort is a great location…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


PIN IT!Red Light therapy is a NASA discovery made by astronauts in space who wanted to grow plants there. It entails having red light wavelengths passed through a patient's skin. The process is pain-free and does not produce any heat. The red light gets absorbed into the skin up to a depth of 10 millimeters where it has positive effects on the nervous system, metabolic processes, and rejuvenates cellular energy.
By passing wavelengths of low red light through the skin, the skin naturally jump-starts tissue recovery. This increasing blood flow, stimulates collagen, as well as numerous other positive factors. This therapy can be done as a home treatment or through a professional done under doctors' supervision.
Modern spas and salons have tanning beds that have with red lights to conduct this therapy. Most salon and home treatments offer light therapy for the general body where the treatment of specific areas is reserved for doctors and dermatologists.
Another form that red light therapy works is by flashing the red light at a very high frequency. In this type of treatment, two types of chemicals are applied to the patient's face then the red light is flashed to enhance the effect of the chemicals. This form of therapy requires four treatments so that change can be visible.
Red light therapy successfully reduces the painful side effects caused by chemotherapy or radiation experienced by cancer patient according to a NASA research. By using an infrared light emitting diode devices, photons are released. Photons are long wavelengths of energy that assist the skin in stimulating the cells which bring about healing.
NASA test was whether this treatment could heal oral mucositis which is commonly painful side effect in cancer patients. Their research concluded that 95% of the patients improved after a nurse held a WARP 75 device close to their face and neck for 1 minute and 28 seconds daily for two weeks and they healed with no adverse effects to bone marrow.
Red light therapy in the range of 600 to 1,300 nanometers is useful in promoting tissue repair, skin rejuvenation, and wound healing. Most of the laser treatments used by dermatologist use intense light to trigger skin repair by bringing about secondary tissue repair. In other words, they cause damage to the epidermis or dermis to induce inflammation which is followed by healing.
Contrary to this treatment, red light therapy bypasses this destructive step and directly increases cellular proliferation, adhesion, and migration.
Red light therapy reverses aging signs on the skin. Subjects who have undergone red light therapy showed signs of improved skin tone, skin complexion, and skin texture as measured through ultrasonographic tests.
Another anti-aging effect of this therapy is stimulating follicle growth and reversing hair loss, which works in a similar way to healing a wound.
This therapy is now being used to treat arthritis due to its capability of rebuilding cartilage and stimulating collagen production. Even those who do not suffer from arthritis but have other forms of tissue damage can still benefit. Red light therapy reduces neck pain immediately after treatment that goes for 22 weeks.
Increased blood flow and cellular rejuvenation are two major aspects of enhancing tissue and joint health. Decreased oxidative damage that stiffens joints and modulates inflammation, is another way that red light therapy benefits the connective tissues.
Eastern medicine and red light therapy are similar according to Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners who improve people's immunity, recovery, and general health by using the acupuncture mechanism treatment.
Red Light therapy is a form of energy; our bodies also are sources of energy too. This treatment has the power to increase chakra zones and specific meridian points in the human body. Red light therapy is said to arouse the first chakra because it correlates our survival instinct and makes us act faster so as to motivate us to pursue things like food, money, power, etc.
While acupuncture incorporates the use of tiny needles to bring about bodily harmony via stimulating specific points in the body's energy system; red light therapy brings in modern technology that focuses visible red wavelengths in much the similar way to boost energy.
Red light therapy has been shown to correlate naturally and energize us with improved moods by increasing positivity, self-confidence, joyfulness, passion, conversation skills, sensory stimulation, and social awareness. While results vary from patient to patient, there's reason to believe that red light therapy has mental and emotional perks in addition to physical benefits.
I have never heard of red light therapy, but it sounds wonderful, I am going to have to look into this in my area and see if I can find it locally.
My mom tried this for her arthritis and it really helps manage the pain. I had no idea it can also help improve moods.
Wow, so many amazing health benefits from Red Light Therapy. I seriously had no idea about this until just now.


A practical vehicle that doesn't sacrifice style! All of the premium features expected of a Mitsubishi are offered, including: variably intermittent wipers, front bucket seats, and power windows. It features a continuously variable transmission, front-wheel drive, and an efficient 3 cylinder engine.


text:
package ru.job4j;

/**
* Class Point.
* @author dgagarsky
* @since 04.12.2016
*/
public class Point {
	/**
	* Horizontal coordinate.
	*/
	private double x;
	/**
	* Vertical coordinate.
	*/
	private double y;
	/**
	* Constructor. Set coordinate of Point.
	* @param x horizontal coordinate.
	* @param y vertical coordinate.
	*/
	public Point(double x, double y) {
		this.x = x;
		this.y = y;
	}
	/**
	* Calculate distance between two points.
	* @param point point.
	* @return distance.
	*/
	public double distanceTo(Point point) {
		return Math.sqrt(Math.pow((this.x - point.x), 2) + Math.pow((this.y - point.y), 2));
		}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Section Header-Events River
What's Next for the Blue Bin?
Kate O'Neill Professor
Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Saturday, October 19, 2019 | 1:30pm - 2:30pm
100 Genetics & Plant Biology Building
Last year, China stopped taking most foreign recyclables. Previously, 40 percent of the United States's paper, plastics, and other recyclable materials were sent there. Beijing's decision threw U.S. recycling into a crisis that reaches from global political decision-making all the way down to what we decide to put into our blue bins. This lecture draws on O'Neill's new book, Waste, to talk about why we got into this predicament, why Beijing made its decision to stop being the "world's waste dump," and what it means for how – and whether – we recycle in the future. Is banning straws and bags the right thing to do? Or do we need to find better ways to recycle plastics and other household trash? These answers are not so simple but they matter to us all.
Speaker: Kate O'Neill Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Kate O'Neill specializes in global environmental politics and governance and the global politics of waste. She is the author of several books and her work on waste and the global recycling crisis has been featured on local, national, and international radio and TV and other media including NPR, China Global Television Network, and The Economist. She is also a resident faculty member living in the residence halls and working with first-year students to bridge their residential and campus lives. She holds a B.A. (with honors) from Oxford and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia.
Introducing CNR's inaugural Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion
Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity launches conservation journal
Researchers link weight gain, inactivity to vehicle ownership in Beijing


text:
Ромеи может означать:
 Ромеи — население Византии.
 итальянская фамилия.

Носители фамилии
 Ромеи, Аннибале (XVI век) — итальянский гуманист, автор одного из первых шахматных руководств – «Тяжкий труд шахматной игры».
 Ромеи, Анджела (род. 1997) — итальянская кёрлингистка.

См. также
 Ромеит — минерал.
  — французская фамилия.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Mitchell Jones
Shipping Associate (Full-Time)
Joining our Shipping department in early 2023, Mitch helps to ensure that all pipes, accessories, tobacco, and cigars are safely packaged and quickly sent to their final destinations. He describes himself as goofy, respectful, adaptable, a warm — all traits that have made him a pleasure to work alongside and a natural fit here at Laudisi. With an adventurous upbringing that saw him travel the world at an early age, including time spent living in Saudi Arabia, Mitch is well rounded and full of stories. When not at work, he enjoys playing video games, watching movies, and learning about history, and he's also a fan of early Hip-Hop and Classic Rock, as well as The Lord of the Rings, comic books, and the Seattle Seahawks and Mariners. Moreover, rumor has it that he's no slouch in the kitchen.


If you're hosting Christmas this year and are determined to stick with your healthy eating habits, don't worry – we have you covered! I have compiled a few of my favourite recipes to give you some inspiration on what you could serve for dinner, dessert, snacks and drinks on Christmas day. These recipes will help keep you motivated to stay on track and not be tempted with foods that you know will not leave you feeling your best. I have also included dairy, wheat, gluten, grain, egg, nut and soy free options, which should make catering to everyone's varying dietary requirements a breeze. To ease the pressure further on the big day, why not ask everyone to bring a plate? That way you get to enjoy more time with family and friends instead of being tied to the kitchen all day.
A colourful antipasto platter of a delicious variety of foods is a guaranteed party pleaser. You can choose no-cook ingredients (or make a few dips the day before), and it's ridiculously quick and easy to pull together once you have everything ready. For a winning platter, include a variety of flavours, textures, and colours. Try a combination of some of the following recipes and ingredients and have fun playing around with making it look beautiful. I recommend using fresh herbs such as thyme or rosemary sprigs, lemon or lime wedges, whole chillis or lavender sprigs to use as decoration.
If you're after something light and fresh, why not create a beautiful seafood platter full of fresh oysters, prawns, calamari, octopus, fish and/or crab? Garnish it with fresh herbs, lemon or lime wedges and dipping sauces like homemade aioli. Or get your BBQ ready and cook a traditional roasted chicken or turkey (you'll love this recipe – Turmeric & BBQ Spiced Chicken). Or opt for a delicious and mouth-watering slow cooked lamb shoulder.
Salads are a great accompaniment to any main meal (as well as being very nutritious on their own). These are some of my favourite recipes and they pair really well with the main dishes above.
There are many nutritious, refreshing non-alcoholic drinks that are perfect to serve on Christmas Day. Try this gorgeously refreshing probiotic rich Coconut Water Kefir. Water Kefir is a great replacement for store-bought soft drink because kefir creates naturally occurring carbonation. You can get creative and add in chopped fruit, mint leaves or even a dash of vodka, rum or gin for a healthier alcoholic option. For something a little different you could try this Pumpkin Spice Smoothie or our Watermelon & Mint Slushy for a delicious refreshing drink. Or, keep it simple and add soda water, lemon, lime, ice, sliced cucumber and fresh mint leaves to a pitcher and allow everyone to help themselves!
You can't have Christmas without a little sweet treat, right? Here are just a few ideas to get you started on your dessert platter – see the recipe section on our website for many more.
Or keep it simple and create our Chocolate Almond Fruit Cake or Sticky Date Pudding and serve with homemade custard and/or ice-cream.
So there you have it… a few simple, yet healthy and nourishing recipe suggestions to keep you feeling fabulous over Christmas. We hope you enjoy!
Merry Christmas and Happy Changing Habits!


1) Computes the irregular modified cylindrical Bessel function (also known as modified Bessel function of the second kind) of ν and x.
ν(x) is std::cyl_bessel_i(ν,x)) for x≥0 and non-integer ν; for integer ν a limit is used.
Weisstein, Eric W. "Modified Bessel Function of the Second Kind." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource.


Each shawl is unique and patterns and colors may vary. Some shawl colors are iridescent, bright, or muted. Please choose a color range and give the gift of love and blessing.
Your Blessing Shawl is embroidered with the word "Ayubowan" a blessing which says, "May You Be Blessed With A Long Life" in their Sinhalese writing. Click here to learn more.
This is a superb gift filled with their love, gratitude and blessing that your friends and loved ones will cherish.
The Blessing Shawls can be used fully open, folded in half length wise, as a beach wrap, or as a table dressing.
Each shawl is accompanied by a beautiful four color postcard with the photos of the women and remember your donation is also tax deductible!
Buy the world finest Morawaka low country Orange Pekoe Broken Leaf Tea from Sri Lanka, 100 handmade tea bags by the women of the tea estates.


text:
The New Raiders
Corporate Research E-Letter No. 57, January-February 2006
THE NEW RAIDERS:
HEDGE FUNDS TAKE ON CORPORATE AMERICA
by Philip Mattera
Some scenes from the front lines of corporate control in the United States today: A hedge fund called Pershing Square Capital Management tried to force McDonald's to spin off its 8,000 corporate-owned fast-food outlets into a separate company. Pressure from hedge-fund investors led to the ouster of two top executives at debt-laden power producer Calpine Corp. and prompted the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Dissident hedge-fund shareholders won three seats on the board of Bally Total Fitness and came close to ousting chief executive Paul Toback, who continues to be publicly castigated by the funds. Hedge funds won concessions from Time Warner after pushing for radical restructuring at the company.
In addition, a hedge fund called Cerberus Capital Management was the leader of a consortium that acquired the Albertson's supermarket chain for nearly $10 billion. Cerberus is also part of a group that is reported to be the leading bidder for a majority stake in finance giant GMAC being shopped around by its parent General Motors Corp.
Hedge funds, investment vehicles for rich people that once were little known to the public, now seem to be on a crusade to shake up corporate America in order to achieve the inflated returns that their clients have come to expect. As happened with the corporate raiders of the 1980s, this upheaval could end up having serious consequences not only in the executive suites but for workers and communities as well.
THE HEDGE-FUND GOLD RUSH
The aggressive moves by hedge funds are a marked departure from the way that these investment pools traditionally operated. Hedge funds have been around for decades, but they customarily were passive investors that rapidly moved into and out of a variety of stocks and other financial instruments in order to achieve maximum profit. Their low profile was not just a matter of the personal preferences of their often idiosyncratic managers. One way that hedge funds escaped the kinds of regulation imposed on mutual funds was that they did not openly solicit investors. You had to travel within certain circles—moneyed circles, that is—to know even where to find them. And once you found one, the fund would usually not even consider taking your business unless you had a minimum of $1 million to invest and were willing to lock up your money for an extended period.
Hedge funds are set up as limited partnerships with no more than 99 investors. They got their name from the fact that they traditionally took short positions on stocks to benefit from downturns in the market. But over the past two decades, a hedge fund has come to mean any kind of unregulated private investment partnership in which the manager takes a hefty share of the profits. Freed from Securities and Exchange Commission oversight—as well as the need to provide detailed reporting to their own clients—hedge fund managers employ not only short selling but also exotic financial instruments such as derivatives that can be highly risky but can pay off big.
During the 1990s there was a hedge-fund gold rush. Hordes of young investment professionals left the stodgy confines of Wall Street and opened their own hedge funds. No longer satisfied with the prospect of becoming a mere millionaire at a brokerage firm, these hotshots saw the chance to become multimillionaires (hedge fund managers typically keep 20 percent of their investors' profits as well as a management fee of 1 percent of assets). Their heroes were hedge-fund operators such as George Soros, Michael Steinhardt and Julian Robertson, who earned fantastic sums managing billions of dollars in investments.
Hedge fund mania was also seen among investors. Many individuals who were merely affluent rather than truly wealthy clamored to be admitted to the hedge fund club. Institutional investors also jumped on the bandwagon, beginning with university endowments. The nest eggs of Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Yale, large to begin with, grew to unprecedented levels after investing in hedge funds. Soon some pension funds, which were supposed to be cautious investors, started doing the same.
The dream of unlimited wealth was shattered in 1998, when a hedge fund called Long-Term Capital Management—which had used $2.2 billion in assets to acquire financial positions with a value of more than $1 trillion—was on the verge of collapse. Concerned that a failure of this magnitude would weaken the entire financial market, the Federal Reserve intervened by putting together a group of investment banks that bailed out the hedge fund and its rich investors. Two years later, leading hedge funds managed by Soros and Robertson closed up shop after facing huge losses.
Events such as these tarnished the reputation of hedge funds but did not result in a stampede among their clients. In fact, the sluggish performance of the stock market in the wake of the dot.com collapse made affluent investors even more interested in the extraordinary returns that hedge funds seemed to offer. By 2005 there were an estimated 8,000 hedge funds in operation with total assets thought to be in excess of $1 trillion.
Despite the hype in the business press about funds pulling in annual returns of 40 percent or more, many hedge funds have struggled to outperform the stock market. Looking for the big score, some have turned back the clock to the financial maneuvers of the 1980s. Rather than simply engaging in financial plays, they are using their holdings in companies to press for corporate restructuring to pump up the stock price or in some cases are buying out the firm entirely in order to reshape it. Corporate managers find themselves being targeted by a new generation of raiders and buyout artists.
ICAHN REINVENTS HIMSELF
In one instance, it is a member of the old generation who is on the attack again. Legendary corporate raider Carl Icahn—who once used junk bonds to take on the likes of Texaco, TWA, Uniroyal and USX—is now operating as a hedge fund manager. He recently used his client's money (along with those of other funds that are supporting him) to mount that challenge to the management of Time Warner. Given his reputation, Icahn commands a higher share of the profits (25 percent) and a higher fee (2.5 percent of assets) than the hedge-fund norm.
In the past, Icahn and other raiders sometimes went beyond challenges to management and ended up owning and running companies. One of the first hedge fund managers to pursue this approach aggressively was Edward Lampert, who took over the bankrupt retail chain Kmart in 2003 and a year later combined it with Sears, which he also acquired. Another empire builder is above-mentioned Cerberus Capital Management, a hedge fund with more than $16 billion in assets that has acquired more than two dozen companies. An October cover story in Business Week estimated that Cerberus controls firms "that ring up at least a combined $30 billion in annual sales, more than McDonald's, 3M, Coca-Cola, or Cisco Systems. With more than 106,000 employees, Cerberus companies have a bigger payroll than Exxon Mobil Corp." Former Vice President Dan Quayle is a top executive of the fund.
As hedge funds gain control of entire companies, they may begin to exhibit behavior like the previous generation's corporate raiders and leveraged buyout operators such as Drexel Burnham Lambert and Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. These wheeler dealers sold off assets, restructured the remaining operations and did anything else necessary to extract the maximum financial benefit from their holdings. That frequently meant plant closings, mass layoffs, demands for wage and benefit concessions from workers, and seizure of pension plan assets. During the 1980s, such moves resulted in major struggles against the takeover artists by affected communities and union members.
So far today, the response to the hedge-fund maneuvers from outside the corporate suites has been muted. One situation in Canada, however, may be a sign of turmoil to come. The United Steelworkers union has been taking steps to block Algoma Steel from complying with a demand from New York-based hedge fund Paulson & Co. that it pay out C$400 million to shareholders (the largest of which is Paulson). The union argues that the payout would "threaten Algoma's economic viability." The issue will soon be heard in Ontario Superior Court.
NOTHING MORE THAN SKULLDUGGERY
Unions (and others) have every reason to be wary of hedge funds. Recent months have seen a wave of scandals involving these investment pools. Last March, the SEC charged Palm Beach-based KL Group with "massive fraud" that included making false statements about its investment record and sending bogus account statements to investors. In September, the founders of the Bayou Group pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges after their $450 million fund stopped communicating with investors over the summer. A few weeks later, the SEC filed suit against Wood River Capital Management, claiming that its manager deceived his investors by failing to disclose that the fund's holdings were highly concentrated in a single rapidly sinking stock. In December, hedge funds run by Millennium Management LLC and four of the firm's top executives agreed to pay $180 million to settle charges that they violated trading rules.
Examples such as these suggest that many of the extravagant performance claims of hedge fund managers are nothing more than skullduggery. The ability of federal regulators to address such abuses seems to be limited to the most egregious cases of fraud. The SEC has taken a limited step toward broader regulation by requiring hedge funds for the first time to simply register with the Commission and provide basic information about their managers, but much more is needed. Both vulnerable workers and gullible investors need stronger protection from this latest form of cowboy capitalism.


text:
Web Essay: Ensure scientific accountability
BRIANNA J. SLEEZER, Guest Essayist
There is a pervasive notion in the United States and United Kingdom that the task of promoting responsible scientific reporting lies solely in the hands of journalists and the agencies that govern them. A prime example of this is the BBC Trust's recently published progress report on the BBC's impartiality in scientific reporting. While previous reports have tended to endorse impartiality at the expense of accuracy, the most recent report addresses the negative impact that impartiality can have on the perception of scientific issues.
As the report points out, in cases where scientific evidence is abundant and generally undisputed, exercising strict impartiality can create a false sense of controversy by placing equal weight on the facts presented by scientists and the opinions presented by so-called "science deniers." In an attempt to mitigate this effect of impartial reporting, the BBC Trust recently advised reporters to limit airtime given to science deniers.
While this policy appears to be a step in the right direction for the UK, assigning news outlets with the task of ensuring responsible scientific reporting fails to address the root of the problem. To improve the quality of scientific reporting in the United States and abroad, we need to place a greater emphasis on individual accountability for all individuals who discuss scientific issues (journalists and non-journalists alike) and begin to enact some level of penalization for those who disseminate blatantly fabricated facts and information.
Although the examples are numerous, recent events surrounding the debate on global climate change are particularly demonstrative of the lack of accountability for disseminating false information in the U.S. In a recent meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Natural Resources and Environment, for example, Kentucky state Sen. Brandon Smith gave the following statement: "I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars." Other than Senator Smith's claim that there are no coal mines on Mars, his statement lacks any factually correct information and is based on severely flawed logic.
Mars is not the same temperature as Earth, nor do scientists know enough about Mars to even begin to understand its climate fluctuations and/or the degree of comparability between Mars and Earth. While it would be unreasonable to expect politicians to have expertise in every area of science, if an individual plans to base an argument on the temperature on Mars, it would be best if that individual actually knew something about the temperature on Mars.
Senator Smith's statement is, sadly, only one example of the many factually incorrect and logically flawed statements presented by politicians in recent decades, and it emphasizes the importance of promoting individual accountability in scientific reporting. Only once we begin to do this can we begin to prevent the dissemination of false information and the over-exaggeration of controversies surrounding current events. Failing to do this (in my scientifically invalidated opinion) is egregiously irresponsible and poses a threat to global ideas, innovation and progress.
Brianna J. Sleezer is a Ph.D. candidate in the neuroscience graduate program at the University of Rochester.


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About Chip
Democratic Crisis
The Democratic Crisis
This is the fourth in a series of blog posts that I'm writing in the aftermath of the election. Entitled "bringing out the best in us," I'm trying to figure out how we can use the transition in Washington and, now, the arrival of coronavirus vaccines to end 2020's overlapping crises and create a more peaceful and equitable country and world. Taken together, they reflect the commitments we at the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) made in response to President-elect Biden's victory.
This one is about the threats facing democracy.
Most of these posts will be written from a peacebuilding perspective. However, this time I'll start by drawing more on the other half of my career in which I was a fairly conventional political scientist and spent much of my time thinking about democracy. That led me to the pretty mundane conclusion that we have to protect our democratic institutions and norms.
However, once I added peacebuilding and systems theory to the mix, I realized that we political scientists haven't been asking the most important question. We obviously need to protect democracy as we know it. However, it is just as important—and a lot more inspiring–to use the current crisis to bring out the best in us and take our democracy to a new level. If we don't we might find ourselves in serious trouble indeed.
It is also the most superficial of the posts I've written so far in this series. While I'm sure that we need to strengthen democracy in these ways and more, it is by no means clear how we will make it happen, a topic I will be focusing on more in the posts to come.
Bringing Out the Best in Us
This is the fourth in a series of blog posts on how we can bring out the best in ourselves in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and while all the other crises we are living through this year continue to rage. Writing them will be a learning experience for me, because I have a lot of threads to pull together which I will be doing as I read, talk with colleagues, and write. I will add links to the list below as I write.
Defining the Best in Us
In this first post, Defining the Best in Us, I explore the challenges we face in the aftermath of the 2o20 election.
Getting (Politically) Unstuck
Getting (politically) unstuck explores how peacebuilders can begin getting us out of the rut(s) we are in.
Reconciliation 2020
Here, I consider why reconciliation is so important today in the United States and beyond.
This post explores what we can do to meet the democratic crisis and improve life for us all.
Take on the Issues
Preventing Violence and Reducing Polarization
Beyond Dialogue for its Own Sake
Leverage Policy Makers
Where do we to from Here
The Worst Form of Government Except for All of the Others
I should start with part of my career's backstory.
Building democracies was a key part of the comparative politics curriculum when I was in graduate school, but not in what I thought was a useful way given the politics of the early 1970s. Our mentors had experienced fascism and World War II first hand, many as refugees who fled totalitarian regimes in Europe.
As a product of the 1960s, my own interests lay elsewhere. Unlike my mentors, I was was convinced that we had outgrown the cultural norms, economic dislocations, and political instability that had fascism possible in the countries I studied and then started teaching about.
Democracy and its discontents did surge to the top of my agenda after I started teaching in the late 1970s with the beginning of a series of "waves" in which new and, at times, stable democracies were created in the rest of Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Africa. Democratization truly grabbed my attention in the 1980s when my peace activism led me to add the Soviet Union to the countries I focused on in the classroom.
Still, when I was asked to write the first of what turned out to be ten editions of a textbook on comparative politics, I chose a way of dealing with democracy that—at least in retrospect—is at odds with the idealism that characterizes my life as an activist. I always thought of saving, supporting, and strengthening democracy as issues that mattered "out there," but not in the United States or Western Europe which I focused on in most of my teaching and writing.
People with unusual beliefs are rarely asked to write mainstream textbooks. Mine succeeded at least in part because I found ways of cloaking my unusual ideas in a conventional-looking package. In this case, I covered all of the material you would have then found in market-leading books and added my blend of unusual ideas and quirky examples to the mix.
I played it particularly safe in discussing democracy. For our purposes here, the key was my decision to build the conceptual chapter around a famous statement by Sir Winston Churchill
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others.
It is not a particularly ambitious or inspiring definition even when you take Churchill's track record and intended irony into account. To make things seem even less ambitious and inspiring, I crafted what might be called a minimalist set of criteria to use in determining if a country was democratic or not:
Choosing the government through free and fair elections
Protecting the rule of law in place?
Ensuring basic human rights respected?
I then added two more criteria which are not always found in conventional definitions but which seemed important for ensuring democracy's survival, though I expressed some doubts on the need for both of them.
Creating tolerant political culture as part of a strong civil society
Relying on a market-oriented economy
Other things could vary once those criteria were met, including the institutions a country chose to use, how individualistic it was, whether it adopted particular public policies, how much social and economic inequality it could tolerate and so on.
I don't want to get into any of these themes in more detail here, since they should be familiar to most readers who would recognize the key terms in this typical word cloud for democracy, whether they took a course in comparative politics or not.
Still, I made the case that, whatever its flaws, democracy was better than the alternatives. In other words, I agreed that Churchill was right.
Today's Threats
When it came to illustrating democracy in action, there were some gray areas, especially when it came to determining whether I could use the term established or secure in describing the regimes in places like India, South Korea, Taiwan, or the Czech Republic. Luckily, I could avoid the problem when it came to the countries that were big and important enough to include with full chapters in the book—the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and Canada
When I finished the tenth edition in 2017, I could see that those well-established democratic regimes were not quite as secure as they were when I wrote the first edition in the early 1990s. Still, I did not expect them to be in the danger they find themselves in a mere three years late.
In other words, I'm still convinced that Churchill was right.
However, if that's the best we can do, we deserve the problems that are breathing down or metaphorical necks.
As an American, it would be easy for me to blame the Trump presidency for those problems. However, as a comparative political scientist, I can't do so. However much he has added to those threats, he had little or nothing to do with creating most of them or taking some of them to such dangerous levels.
You can see that in a number of issues that are affecting these and other once stable democracies. You also don't need me to spell them out in any detail.
Reactions against interdependence
Immigrations
Nostalgia for "better times" that never really existed
None have reached a point that they have put any of the five minimal definitions I mentioned earlier into jeopardy to such an extent that the democratic regime itself could collapse.
But they could. More ominously, we are already seeing signs that some key indicators are trending in the wrong direction—most notably those involving cultural norms.
Strengthening Democracy: A Big Hairy Audacious Goal
Obviously, we want to stem the tides that are threatening democracy. And, there are some wonderful initiatives underway that could make a difference by addressing some of the specific problems democracies like the one in the United States face, including the recent book by Robert Talisse which I've reviewed elsewhere that argued that we have "overdone" democracy and expect it to be a cureall.
I reach a somewhat different conclusion. Thinking solely in terms of the kind of democracy we have today ends up selling ourselves short. This is where using a peacebuilding lens comes into play, though I will have to take three brief detours before we get there through the work of the Democracy Fund.
Beyond Making Counterarguments
Shortly before 9/11, I reconnected with my childhood friend, Dick O'Neill, who ran the Highlands Forum, which helped senior leaders at the Pentagon think outside the clichéd box. Dick helped me see that it rarely makes sense to make counterarguments that undermine existing beliefs as many of us soon did by talking about counterterrorism. Dick was not suggesting that we should ignore terrorism by a long shot. Instead, he wanted us to focus on constructive alternatives to it as he helped us do when he joined the Alliance for Peacebuilding board of directors a few years later.
Here, that means going beyond attempts to undermine the arguments made by the men and women whose actions undermine democracy. In addition, we have to develop ways of expanding what democracy means in ways that will draw millions of new activists to support a democracy that is more vital and egalitarian than anything we have seen so far.
Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste
Dick also introduced me to another one of Churchill's one liners, though Sir Winston almost certainly was not the first person to use it:
We peacebuilders already had our own meme that we used under such circumstances. The way the ancient Chinese (at least according to some linguists) brought together the characters for danger and opportunity in conveying what we have in mind by the single word, crisis.
From that perspective, we need to focus on the opportunities the current crisis presents us with more than the dangers we face, because you need to reframe the issues in a new way that offers constructive alternatives to the status quo.
In this case, that means proposing a new and better version of democracy because we assume that phrases like "building back better" do not mean that we will return to a normal that existed before COVID and Donald Trump and everything in between.
In other words, bringing out the best in us means defining and working toward a very different future when it comes to democracy and all of the other issues which are on our agenda as 2020 mercifully draws to an end.
Big Hairy Audacious Goals
Coincidentally, I was reading BE 2.0, the update of Jim Collins and the late Bill Lazier classic book in which the term, big, hairy audacious goal made it into print for the first time. Adding their work to the mix finally got me out of an intellectual bind in which I settled for a minimalist definition of democracy in one half of my professional live while insisting on extremely visionary versions of peacebuilding in the other one.
Our BHAG (Collins' acronym, not mine) will involve making progress on the specific issues such as health care, policing, economic equality, climate change, and a whole lot more which I'll focus on next time. My guess is that we won't get there unless and until we realize that what we mean by democracy has to be expanded.
Peacebuilding has to be in that mix.
The Democracy Fund
Luckily for our purposes, an organization which is closely affiliated with one of the most forward thinking peacebuilding networks is making progress in laying out what a new, stronger version of democracy could be like. The Democracy Fund was created in 2014 as part of the Omidyar Group, a network of organizations which use systems-based approaches in helping solve a variety of pressing social problems—including supporting democracy and peacebuilding.
The fund is by no means the only group constructively working on democracy these days. It is, however, unique in anchoring what it does in systems theory which is the key to the future of democratization, peacebuilding, and just about everything else.
I write about systems theory a lot in these blog posts, most recently in one I did in an earlier series on recovering from the pandemic, We're All In This Together. While I've developed those ideas in a lot more length in my most recent books on both comparative politics and peacebuilding, systems theory's key principle meshes with the new realities of our globalizing world. Everything we do affects everyone and everything else either directly or indirectly.
And that means that our ways of thinking about and dealing with each other have to take those realities into account. In simplistic terms again, all of the Omidyar Group's projects are based on the assumption that "what goes around comes around."
In the six years since its creation, the Democracy Fund has invested over $150 million to strengthen the kinds of norms and institutions I laid out in my textbook definition and expand what we mean by democracy in an interdependent and globalizing world which did not exist when the great theorists developed those notions a century or more ago. As this image suggests, the Democracy Fund's many projects focus on two broad themes, each of which is also part and parcel of what we peacebuilders who anchor their work in systems theory believe in.
Strengthen the Democratic Core. The inner circle roughly mirrors the core themes in my conventional definition. For good or ill, the events of recent years have shown us that we fall short on many of them which is the first thing that the Democracy Fund wants to improve. One example should illustrate what I mean here. The Fund has a series of projects designed to enhance the way the media can enhance civic participation and, more generally, help people engage constructively in political life.
Go Beyond the Core. As the outer ring of "influencers" suggests, the Democracy Fund works on the assumption that we cannot achieve what it calls a healthy democracy as long as their significant barriers to democratic participation. Therefore, many of its projects explicitly take on the negative effects racial and economic inequality have on American democracy—whether my minimal criteria are met or not. As this complex systems map the Fund uses to guide its work suggests, as long as those kinds of impediments exist, they will continue to negatively impact the quality and effectiveness of any democratic regime.
No short blog post can do justice to the Fund's work. Therefore, I encourage you to spend the time to wander around its site and see for yourself why moving beyond the minimalist core is critical for the future of democracy and everything else we hold dear.
Next Time: Tackling the Issues
It is my contention that we won't be able to make progress on any of the specific issues we face until and unless we take these kinds of steps to strengthen democracy in the United States and around the world.
That's where I'll pick up the thread next time.s
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Alliance for Peacebuilding or its members.
Chip Hauss2020-12-29T12:08:57+00:00
About the Author: Chip Hauss
Chip Hauss is Senior Fellow for Innovation and Board Member Emeritus at the Alliance for Peacbuilding.
On Coups and Reconciliation
Tackling the Issues
Email: chip@charleshauss.info
Web: charleshauss.info
Copyright Charles Hauss 2019 | All Rights Reserved |
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Janelle is committed to providing a real estate buying or selling experience that will serve to be seamless and satisfying. Her active involvement in the community will ensure buyers and selles are well connected. She has a friendly easy going nature making her a pleasure to work with.
Absolute bargain property perfect for any buyer. Includes airconditioning, ceiling fans, shed, carport and so much more.
This beautiful Queenslander is up for grabs. This home will suit any buyer from a first home buyer through to an investor. Located in a lovely, family friendly neighborhood, just a few minutes away from schools, shops, entertainment and public transport. This home features:-- Fully fenced, large 816m2 block, with room to put in a pool or shed.- Hardwoord floors throughout. - Three airconditioned bedrooms all with ceiling fans. - Modern bathroom fit for a family. - Airconditioning throughout.


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Nuclear power: private vs state
Radiation symbol
In light of the crisis at Japan's Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, the privatization of nuclear energy in the country has come under fire. Some question whether the accident could have been averted if the plant had been run by the state.
No matter how hard Tokyo Electric Company's workers try, disaster still looms at Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. Attempts to cool the reactors have been applauded for bravery, but it has been a week since cooling capability was lost, and there is no end in sight to this crisis."The implications are that the radiation has already spread a fair distance, there will probably be an area around the plant like Chernobyl that will be uninhabitable for the foreseeable future and will get far worse than this," said Dr. Jeffrey Patterson, an expert on radiation exposure and professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.The plant's cooling systems may have been crippled by a natural disaster, but some are now questioning the merits of the decision to build reactors near the so-called Ring of Fire."This is completely a human-made disaster, because that plant should never have been located there in the first place, and citizens have pointed that out," said Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the Green Action environmental group.The fact that Japan's nuclear industry is in private hands has also led to accusations that profits were put before safety.Fukushima's owner already has a questionable past, with a history of falsifying safety records at the site back in the 1980s."I think we also have to review the idea of privatized nuclear power because it means cutting corners, and we're watching those corners being cut today," argued journalist and author Afshin Rattansi."What we would like to see is for the government to take control of these nuclear reactors from private corporations, because private corporations' main purpose for existence is to maximize profits, and by maximizing profits in the nuclear sector, we are talking about minimizing concerns for public health and safety," added Keith Harmon Snow, a war correspondent and former UN investigator.It may be down to private investors to get the ball rolling. It is the other way around if things go wrong. "I think that it is going to be inevitable that the state will take over to contain these plants. They will probably need to be covered with concrete and sand much like Chernobyl was. I think the state will take over the responsibility for that. I think that whether the state does it or private companies do it, it's very difficult for anyone to do this job," said Dr. Jeffrey Patterson.Japan has experienced nuclear tragedy before, in 1945 when the US dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today the Japanese are trying everything they can to avert another nuclear disaster, this time at Fukushima, while the world waits for the wider consequences, unsure of how many will be affected.
Trends:Earthquake in Japan Fukushima disaster news
Fourth blast hits Japan nuclear plant - media
Japanese stiff upper lip to encounter disaster aftermath
Meltdown fears in Japan
World considers nuclear-free future
Japan in nuclear standby
Japan braced with fear, preparing for the worst
Japan races to restore cooling at nuke plant


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Q: Elfinder AJAX - Data is not JSON I am currently getting the folling error when trying to upload an image in Elfinder:

Invalid backend response. Data is not JSON.

I am 95% sure is is a ajax issue as when I take the code out of the switch it works just fine. Even in the switch I am able to view all files and directories but uploads are still an issue
Here is my PHP:
if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && ($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH'] == 'XMLHttpRequest'))
{
    $admin      = new systemAdmin;

    $response   = array('ok' => 0);
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            if(in_array('filemanager',$admin->user_auth['authority']))
            {
                include_once($admin->get_setting(5) . '/classes/core/class.elFinderConnector.php');
                include_once($admin->get_setting(5) . '/classes/core/class.elFinder.php');
                include_once($admin->get_setting(5) . '/classes/core/class.elFinderVolumeDriver.php');
                include_once($admin->get_setting(5) . '/classes/core/class.elFinderVolumeLocalFileSystem.php');

                $opts = array(
                    'locale' => 'en_US.UTF-8',
                    'roots' => array(
                        array(
                            'driver'     => 'LocalFileSystem',
                            'path'          => $admin->get_setting(5) . '/media/',
                            'startPath'     => $admin->get_setting(5) . '/media/',
                            'URL'           => $admin->get_setting(2) . '/media/',
                            'treeDeep'      => 3,
                            'alias'         => 'Filemanager',
                            'mimeDetect'    => 'internal',
                            'tmbPath'       => '_thumbs',
                            'utf8fix'       => true,
                            'tmbCrop'       => true,
                            'tmbBgColor'    => 'transparent',
                            'accessControl' => 'access',
                            'acceptedName'  => '/^[^\.].*$/',
                            'attributes' => array(
                                array(
                                    'pattern' => '/\.js$/',
                                    'read' => false, 'write' => false, 'hidden' => true, 'locked' => true
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    echo json_encode($response);
}

And here is my JS:
        var funcNum = getUrlParam('CKEditorFuncNum');
        var elf = $('#fileManager').elfinder({
                commandsOptions : {
                getfile : {
                    onlyURL  : true,
                    multiple : false,
                    folders  : false,
                    oncomplete : ''
                }
            },
            height: '488',
            url : '/ajax.html?type=connector',
            getFileCallback : function(getfile) {
                window.opener.CKEDITOR.tools.callFunction(funcNum, getfile);
                window.close();
            },
            resizable: false
        }).elfinder('instance');

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The end of Feb and early March proved an interesting contrast between those warm February days and the constant windy early weeks of March. the fish were moving up for surface flys during the February period but have been pushed deep with the March windy conditions. We had a few days when fishing on Coot and Rosies became nearly impossible due to the gusts of wind.
At the time of writing we are hopefully heading into a couple of weeks of calmer weather conditions, this should encourage more fly life with Buzzer hatches appearing, other than Black Buzzer the best fly's at the minute are Blue Damsel and Montana. We have had 2 lovely Browns out in the last few weeks, one of 10lb 8oz for Mr Hoper and an 8lb 6oz caught by Mr Stevens, we will carry on stocking more of these, so make sure your knots are secure!
As we come into a busy period for the fishery please make sure you check either the phone message, noticeboard or website for any closed dates on the lakes.
We look forward to seeing beside the lakes on some lovely warm Spring days.


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Theatre in St Albans | Maltings Arts Theatre
Find us / contact
The kids are alright!
With a cast comprising of some of the most talented young actors in the local area, OVO made a triumphant return to the open-air theatre arena last month, with its most ambitious production yet, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Performed in the spectacular surroundings of the Roman Theatre of Verulamium, St Albans, the classic tale of young lovers and warring fairies was given a unique and irreverent twist by directors Adam Nicholls and Janet Podd, who decided to set the play in the imagination of a child and remix it into a darkly comic musical production.
Drawing on a diverse range of cultural influences including the classic children's story Peter Pan, Disney's Toy Story and recent Netflix cult hit Stranger Things, the original text was combined with new material, written by The Colours Of Kenny Roach playwright, and former St Albans resident, Rebecca Russell, while a live band provided the soundtrack, which featured the music of Lily Allen, Little Mix, Beyoncé, to name just a few.
No stranger to taking on the Shakespeare greats, the creative team behind 2016's award-winning sellout production of As You Like It at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall were reunited, but this time the focus was on the children.
Ranging from the ages of 7-15 years old, the child cast were chosen from a broad range of different schools in St Albans and the surrounding areas, including St Albans School, St Peters and Beaumont School and Sir John Lawes in Harpenden and Parmiter's in Watford.
Erin Pointer, 11, from Sandringham School, said "As soon as I knew I got the part, I was excited about taking on Shakespeare's character, Hermia, and making her a child. I was quite nervous about performing in the Roman Amphitheatre because it is quite a big space with so many people, but it's been an amazing experience, the open-air theatre is a beautiful set for A Midsummer Night's Dream and the audiences have been brilliant. Ben Pulford, 11, from Sir John Lawes School, who played Demetrius, added, "I have had an amazing time at OVO rehearsing and performing in this show. Everyone I have worked with is so caring and professional. It has been such a pleasure to be able to learn from, work and perform with them."
Director and OVO founder, Adam Nichols, said "OVO is strongly committed to developing the next generation of theatre talent, and we've welcomed the opportunity to work with some of Hertfordshire's best young actors. They have brought amazing energy and enthusiasm to our unique take on A Midsummer Night's Dream, and our audiences have been charmed and delighted by their outstanding performances."
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Black Sandals for Spring - Hej Doll | Simple modern living by Jessica Doll.
In my last Minimal Closet post, I shared some of my favorite striped tops, this time I'm talking about one of my absolute favorite pieces of my wardrobe, the black sandal. With the warmer weather I don't think I've taken mine off. Black sandals are definitely a favorite for Spring. I have a few pairs that are in constant rotation in my closet, hi California winter! They can be worn with anything from denim to dresses depending on the formality and look you are going for.
My favorite pair of sandals are very similar to the second pair in the lineup. They are gladiator style with a modern flare. Sadly they are no longer available, but these Vince Camuto Kensil Sandals are about as close as I can get. I love them because they are not too casual or formal and tend to elevate casual pieces I pair them with. I also own pairs of sandals similar to three, four, and five in the lineup so I guess you could say that I have a thing for black sandals. What can I say? They go well with the weather here in California.
I don't have any progress to share on our new closet, hopefully soon! You can always stay tuned on instagram for my up-to-the-minute updates.
Do you own black sandals? What is your favorite style? How do you wear them?
OooooOh. It is not warm for sandals here yet but I love the middle pair the best.
I'm really drawn to those too, but I'm so bad with slides, they always fall off! Haha.


text:
/recommendto/form?webId=%2Fcontent%2Fbooks%2F9789210452250c001&title=Foreword
Foreword — Recommend this title to your library
World Economic Survey 1975
Main Title: World Economic Survey 1975, pp 3-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18356/fa08c4a1-en
The International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade — adopted by the General Assembly in resolution 2626 (XXV) on 2k October 1970 — calls for a biennial review and appraisal of performance and progress. Two such cycles have been completed. In 1973 the Secretary-General presented an empirical analysis of Implementation of the International Development Strategy 1/ and a report on The International Development Strategy: First Over-all Review and Appraisal of Issues and Policies. 2/ In December 1973 the General Assembly completed its first review and appraisal with the adoption of resolution 3176 (XXVIIl). In 1975 a second empirical analysis was presented as Part One of the World Economic Survey; it was entitled Mid-term Review and Appraisal of Progress in the Implementation of the International Development Strategy. 3/ The General Assembly undertook its own review and appraisal and in December 1975 adopted resolution 3517 (XXX) which, inter alia, decided to include on its provisional agenda for the thirty-first session an item entitled "Revision of the International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade" in the light of the Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order and other recent declarations, requesting the Secretary-General to submit appropriate documentation for this purpose.
Book DOI: https://doi.org/10.18356/589c7eef-en
10.18356/fa08c4a1-en


The SRA liquid (also referred to as the Synthetic Refrigerant Catalyst) is added to the refrigerant of an existing air-conditioner or refrigeration system. SRA is a synthetic engineered catalyst that achieves over 15% energy saving on air-cooled and over 10% energy savings on water-cooled systems. Power Knot supplies the correct amount of fluid for small to very large systems. SRA works on all common refrigerants including R-22, R-134a, R-407, and R-410A.
After you add SRA, you will immediately start to save energy, or for the same energy, you will have greater cooling. As a synthetic component, SRA causes no damage to the cooling system but on the contrary, it extends the life of the system and thereby reduces maintenance.
SRA is applicable for air cooled and chiller units in residential, commercial, industrial, automotive, and refrigerated transport applications.
Power Knot guarantees that SRA will deliver at least 10% efficiency gains on your system.
SRA will deliver efficiency gains of 15% to 35%. If the cooling unit already has sufficient cooling capacity, then SRA will deliver electricity savings.
If the cooling unit does not have sufficient cooling capacity, SRA will increase the cooling capacity of the system by 15% to 35%.
With SRA, heat pump systems will save energy in winter heating mode as well as summer cooling mode.
Energy efficiency is perhaps the most important technology businesses can use to reduce operating expenses and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The USA Energy Information Administration states that HVAC and refrigeration systems consume over 24% of all electricity in the United States each year.
Efficiency of cooling systems represents a major opportunity for businesses to reduce costs.
SRA is a blend of two synthetic components that work together to improve the cooling system. The first component removes oil fouling on the walls of the evaporator and compressor pipes. This improves heat transfer in these pipes by over 70% and delivers colder air to the ventilation.
The second component delivers greater lubricity to the compressor oil. This allows the compressor to use less power and run cooler,. This thereby increases the life of the compressor.
The result is that you typically obtain at least 20% savings in energy, at least 20% reduced maintenance costs, and at least 20% extension of the life of the compressor.
Power Knot sells and supports its products worldwide. The SRA synthetic refrigeration additive has been installed in thousands of systems; it is compatible with most cooling and heating units in every country so it can save money globally.
SRA is added in the refrigerant line of the existing cooling system or heat pump. You do not need to drain down the refrigerant in the system and normally you do not need to turn off the system. This installation requires a certified HVAC technician, and takes several minutes.
If you have several cooling units, a technician can complete the installation of SRA in many units in a day.
SRA is a proprietary synthetic formulation that does not chemically alter the refrigerant or the oil.
SRA is non-toxic, non-hazardous, does not have ingredients that damage the ozone layer, is safe to handle and dispose, and is compatible with modern synthetic compressor oils.
SRA does not contain any form of a chlorine or chlorinated compound, sulfur or sulfated compound, and does not break down into chlorine or sulfur acids over time.
SRA does not contain any solids such as graphite, PTFE (Teflon), or molybdenum disulfide.
SRA does not void the warranty on the equipment.
The Synthetic Refrigerant Additive is manufactured by Power Knot and supported globally. This is a liquid that is added to the refrigeration circuit of an air conditioning system, chiller, cooler, or freezer. It improves the efficiency of the system by about 15%. Power Knot guarantees that it will improve the efficiency by at least 10%. (The SRA is also referred to as the Synthetic Refrigerant Catalyst.) The SRA is generally shipped from California.


text:
Monticello to dedicate city pool in memory of Dr. Tim Chase
by News Release | May 20, 2016
The City of Monticello will dedicate the city swimming pool at McCloy Park in memory of the late city alderman, Dr. Tim Chase.
A dedication ceremony will be held at the pool on May 27 at 4 p.m. in conjunction with the 2016 season pool opening.
The public is invited to attend a brief ceremony paying tribute to Dr. Chase. Following the ceremony, the pool will open to the public with free admission until 6 p.m.
Dr. Timothy David Chase
"Dr. Chase was passionate about Monticello parks, especially this pool," said Monticello Mayor Zack Tucker. "One of Chase's first jobs was a lifeguard in McCloy Park. Later, he served as pool manager, and on (the city) council, one of its strongest advocates. Naming the pool he loved, in the community he served, is one way we can honor his long standing service to our community."
The pool, which first opened in 1980, will be named the "Dr. Timothy Chase Municipal Swimming Pool."
The city's splash pad in Jordan Park is scheduled to open for the summer season on the same day.


Adware, such as Lupny.com is really popular recent months. Similar software differs from normal viruses in that their actions can't be identified as exactly malicious. There are plenty of promises declared and the functions listed on the web-site of this program, but do you truly think, that you can trust them? If Lupny.com will function on your computer for 5-7 days or more you will realize, that it isn't truly worthy, and will try to uninstall it. But, program can recover itself past the disposal. What is Lupny.com? How Lupny.com penetrated your laptop? How Lupny.com can be eliminated? In this item we will answer these questions, and give you the entire info on Lupny.com.
The viruses that show you links and prevent to surf the Net can be divided on two classes: adware and hijackers. The first group strikes the entire PC, placing hype and ads on each new tab in browser and even if the browser is closed. The group № 2 acts only in the browsers by changing the search results, showing incorrect output and redirecting you to viral websites. All of these groups of viruses are covered with explicit descriptions of their functions, and the user decides that they are useful. However, the longer you use Lupny.com, the worse will be the state of your laptop. If you'll leave Lupny.com without supervision soon, you will understand that the machine is full clogged with all kinds of strange, useless or even really dangerous software. Fatal failures, the poor performance of your machine, spontaneous shutdowns, low speed of response and reboots will become very frequent. It will be helpful for your system, if you delete the hijacker until the system will appear in such terrible state.
There are some actions which Lupny.com must do before it can function. First of all, it creates a task to restore in case of disposal, and to obtain updating from the web-site of its developers. After that, Lupny.com begins to change browser settings. When the homepage and pre-set search engine are altered, user always sees the infected web-page in all browsers and on every tab. Also, hijacker alters your browser options, related to advertisement. The browsers nowadays have a service which hides the intrusive advertising, banners, pop-ups and other kinds of hype. The harmful program deactivates these features, and you understand that the quantity of advertising in all browsers is dramatically increased. In addition, to that the amount of advertisement has increased noticeably, its quality became really low. If adware functions on the workstation for a week, user just can't browse the Web because of ads, redirections and pop-ups in browser and sometimes even to launch the PC. Why Lupny.com does this? All efforts of Lupny.com are serving the one target: to force you to make a click. Viral links may lead to the different web-pages. Some of them offer products, some - provide toll-free software or something else. The main thing to understand about such sites is: they bring benefit only to their creators. Any try to download anything from suchlike web-site will summon big problems. We hope, you realize that Lupny.com isn't the best program to store on your PC, and it has to be deleted.
We believe that you, having read the previous paragraph, understood the necessity for fast uninstall of hijacker from the machine. We'll support you perform it fast and without undesired effects. Uninstall may be executed in manual manner or with help of antivirus. Each of these manners is worthy and provides efficient uninstall of malware. The diversity between them consists not in the efficiency, but in easiness and the level of security. Foremost, the manual removal depends on your practice. During hand uninstall you will need to delete the program itself, to clean the browsers from unwanted programs, reverse its controls to their default position and remove specified registry values. Don't try to do the hand disposal if you aren't sure that you can do it. Below this part we made the step by step guide, and the video guide about how to eliminate Lupny.com from a system. But you must remember that antivirus is the best alternative for novice users. Elimination through antivirus is really faster than deletion in manual manner and excludes the chance of fault. Another advantage is that you will not simply clear your system from viruses, but also provide the security from such threats in the future. At the moment, the most admissible antivirus according to the price/quality ratio is Spyhunter, and we suggest you to buy it. This AV-software is respected all over the world, and ensures serious defense. Spyhunter uses daily updated virus database, it does not consume lots of CPU power and does not interfere with other anti-viruses.
Choose Lupny.com and press button "Remove from Opera"
Download from a suspicious web-site. When you're on a web-site, you are shown a pop-up window with an offer to install few programs, which might seriously support you in some things. The promises of suchlike software are usual, they are: search for advantageous discounts on the Web, the realization of some actions in the social networks, automated download of all updates and drivers for your hardware, showing the newest free media-content such as music, movies and games, the acceleration of Net surfing. If on some web-site you see an offer to download the tool with these functions - it is completely harmful, and the site itself is unreliable.
Suspicious software may be bundled with good software. Nearly each toll-free tool suggests you to install something aside from the needed tool. You download the program, and then you see the window with the suggestion to get the brilliant file manager, special software, browser, the new toolbar for it, and God knows what else. The checkboxes are already filled, and once you press "OK", the installation begins, and you'll install 3-4 suspicious tools, instead of needed one.
Sometimes user downloads viruses voluntarily. Smart composed description of the product and its brilliant (and nonexistent) features misinforms the user, and he installs the virus.
The e-mails are used very often, to spread viruses but it is rarely used by hijackers. We hope that if you're reading this paragraph of the article, Lupny.com will be fully uninstalled from your computer. If you choose the uninstall in manual mode, you must know how to determine that there is a virus on your machine.
Operating System boots really slowly. The programs that launch at startup are, in most cases, the cause of slow boot. On the taskbar you will see all currently launched programs, and choose the ones that are good and which aren't.
Appearance of advertising in all tabs. If the numbers of ads has grown up noticeably - it is, most likely, the undesired software.
The dependable tools became unstable and slow, PC reboots and turns off by itself.
You notice a lot of programs that you've never seen before. If the tool emerges in your system without your resolution - it is, nothing else than the malware.
If you notice one of these red flags in your system - you should make a full scan with assistance of anti-virus, or manually uninstall all the undesired and harmful programs from your machine. Don't trust in everything you see on the Net, watch for the symptoms of malware on the machine, and it will anytime be clean and effective.


text:
NBC picks up Bruckheimer's 'Chase'
Posted by Tanea
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At NBC, the pickups just keep on coming.
The network just gave a greenlight to Jerry Bruckheimer's action-procedural "Chase."
"Chase' has all the undeniable elements of a thrill ride that you would expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer action series," said Angela Bromstad, president of primetime entertainment, Universal Media Studios. "Equally important, it also features a great cast. Kelli Giddish is a breakout star as the lead."
"Chase" joins previously announced NBC pickups, dramas "Undercovers" and "The Event," and comedies "Love Bites" and "Outsourced."
"Chase" is described by the network as "a fast-paced drama that drops viewers smack into the middle of a game of cat-and-mouse as a team of U.S. marshals hunts down America's most dangerous fugitives." Giddish ("Past Life") stars as U.S. Marshal Annie Frost, "a cowboy boot-wearing deputy whose sharp mind and unique Texas upbringing help her track down the violent criminals on the run."
Cole Hauser ("K-Ville"), Amaury Nolasco ("Prison Break"), Rose Rollins ("The L Word") and Jesse Metcalfe ("Desperate Housewives") also star as members of Frost's team.
The pilot is directed by David Nutter, who's shot the pilots for a slew of TV series, from "Supernatural" to "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" to "The Mentalist."
"Chase" is produced by Bonanza Productions, in association with Jerry Bruckheimer Television and Warner Bros. TV.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Jesse Metcalfe in UK Cosmopolitan for June 2010
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Sorry I've been away! I have final exams in school next week so I've been a little busy. But I had to come in and post this.
I'm sure you've seen, but Jesse is featured in the June 2010 UK Cosmo magazine! I've added a scan to the gallery, from Tabloid Prodigy. Amazing!
Jesse Metcalfe at Coachella
Pictures of Jesse at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this weekend. He looks amazing as usual. lol. These pictures are from DH-Central.net!
Jesse Metcalfe at Sandals Emerald Bay – video
Here's an Access Hollywood video of Jesse with Cara Santana at the Sandals Emerald Bay Golf Tournament last weekend.
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Put businesses together that address one homogenous market (local or global depending on clients' decision making level) and that are large enough to be efficient under one leader; an empowered and accountable President/Managing Director who sets the strategy for his/her business along with an ambitious vision.
Reward progress in Economic Profit (EP) growth by sharing value creation with outstanding leaders.
Develop an exciting customer centric vision of the future - think big.
Develop strategies to facilitate accomplishment of the vision.
Use various means of communication to ensure people know the vision & strategy.
Hold team discussions to check and improve the understanding of the vision & strategy.
Set up action plans with clear-cut distribution of responsibilities.
Take obstacles away so that people can implement the strategy.
Keep goals simple, focus, always maintain a consistent course.
Work with passion to exceed customer expectations and earn their trust.
Systematically solicit feedback and strive to continuously improve the customer's experience.
Encourage their teams to share knowledge with customers and help them achieve their goals.
Deploy enormous energy and time to find and hire the best.
Raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion.
Recognise exceptional talent and give them roles with true team leadership.
Make sure that high performers enjoy and contribute to their best.
Demonstrate a strong drive for high quality output.
Set the highest standards and always deliver more than what is required.
Create positive tension to get the most out of people.
Always expect and recognise high performance.
Create or influence an environment in which people perform, grow, contribute and enjoy.
Allow people to implement their own ideas.
Challenge people in constructive ways.
Monitor progress on critical actions and metrics/KPIs. Quickly become hands-on if things derail.
Implement decisions fast and effectively.
Stay connected to details and dive deep in the business when needed. No task is below them.
Relentlessly explore ways to improve existing business returns.
Provide financial support for high-impact ideas.
Maintain a balanced view between bottom line short-term goals and innovative, long-term growth.
Be very cost conscious. Spend the Company's resources frugally like their own.
Show strong bias for action.
Are metrics-based but prepared to decide without exhaustive analysis – many decisions are reversible.
Know that speed of action matters.
Value intuition and calculated risk-taking.
Demonstrate a strong drive for excellent output.
Stay focused, keep it simple and consistent.
Listen attentively, speak candidly and treat others respectfully.
Be clear on expectations, direction and requirements.
Walk the talk, show commitment.
Show integrity and credibility – be tenacious.
Be frugal. Accomplish more with less.
Have backbone. Disagree and challenge when not convinced but once a final decision is taken, commit fully.
Always question the status quo (Can we do better? Is there another way?).
Come up with alternatives, creative solutions to unmet needs, problems and demands.
Form a culture that supports change and innovation.
Act on behalf of the whole Company beyond just their own team.
Constantly seek to pull in high potential people from outside the team and facilitate/promote their best team members throughout the Group.
Encourage cross-functional, cross-business team work.