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Dvorák: Symphony No. 6
by Colin DavisColin Davis
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As fine a symphony as Dvorák ever composed is given a performance as fine as any ever recorded in this September 2004 recording by Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra of Dvorák's "Symphony No. 6." The LSO, with its consummate virtuosity, has recorded memorable performances before, notably the Kertesz and the Rowicki recordings from the '60s. But although Davis has demonstrated his complete command for Dvorák's symphonic idiom in his powerful recordings of the last three symphonies with the Concertgebouw, he has not recorded his interpretation of Dvorák's "Symphony No. 6" until now. Because while Dvorák's last three symphonies are standard repertoire, his "Sixth" has never been accepted into the symphonic canon and most conductors rarely program it. But as Davis and the LSO's urgent performance demonstrates, Dvorák's "Symphony No. 6," with its soaring lyrical and powerfully muscular themes, its emotional depths and immense strength, and its warm colors and infectious rhythms, is as fine a symphony as Dvorák ever composed. LSO Live's sound is a bit recessed, but at the same time, a little too loud.
Lso Live Uk
Symphony No. 6 in D major, B. 112 (Op. 60) (first published as No. 1, Op. 58)
Colin Davis Primary Artist
music by john eliot gardiner
rachmaninov symphony 1 balakirev tamara
sibelius symphonies nos 5 6
music by london symphony orchestra
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 & 5
Listeners may feel that Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor is overly ...
Listeners may feel that Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor is overly familiar, and that his Symphony No. 1 in C major is only slightly less so; indeed, many already possess a favorite recording or two that ...
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique; Waverley Overture [SACD &
Valery Gergiev has twice recorded Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, first with the Vienna Philharmonic on ...
Valery Gergiev has twice recorded Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, first with the Vienna Philharmonic on a 2003 Philips release, then with the London Symphony Orchestra on a 2014 release on the LSO Live label. Both recordings were issued as hybrid ...
Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4
The energetic Valery Gergiev is hardly known as a Brahms specialist, but Brahms symphonies began ...
The energetic Valery Gergiev is hardly known as a Brahms specialist, but Brahms symphonies began to show up on his London Symphony Orchestra programs in 2013, and the present release on the orchestra's own LSO Live label captures several of ...
Carl Nielsen: Symphonies Nos 1 & 6
Following his 2011 release of Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, The Inextinguishable, and the Symphony ...
Following his 2011 release of Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, The Inextinguishable, and the Symphony No. 5, Colin Davis presents another pair from the cycle in live performances, the Symphony No. 1 and the Symphony No. 6, Sinfonia Semplice. These ...
Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 92, 93 & 97-99
The London Symphonies of Franz Joseph Haydn were composed for impresario Johann Peter Salomon, who ...
The London Symphonies of Franz Joseph Haydn were composed for impresario Johann Peter Salomon, who introduced the composer to London over two visits between 1791 and 1795. Except for the Symphony No. 92 in G major, Oxford, which Haydn took ...
Mahler: Symphony No. 7 [Hybrid SACD]
Following his explosive readings of the First and Sixth symphonies, the third release in Valery ...
Following his explosive readings of the First and Sixth symphonies, the third release in Valery Gergiev's astonishing Mahler cycle features the Symphony No. 7. The LSO's revelatory concert performances of the Seventh have been one of the highlights of the ...
Concluding his cycle of Gustav Mahler's symphonies on LSO Live, Valery Gergiev delivers a compelling ...
Concluding his cycle of Gustav Mahler's symphonies on LSO Live, Valery Gergiev delivers a compelling reading of the Symphony No. 9 in D major that really puts paid to this critically praised project. Since Gergiev's recording of the Adagio from ...
Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos. 1-5; Overtures; A Midsummer Night's
Mendelssohn Symphonies Nos 1 5 Overtures A Midsummer Nights Dream,John Eliot Gardiner ...
Mendelssohn Symphonies Nos 1 5 Overtures A Midsummer Nights Dream,John Eliot Gardiner


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Tag Archives: St Francis
Snails Have Feelings Too!
Not exactly breakfast at Tiffany's but breakfast at the river cafe. And not exactly breakfast either – I preferred a freshly baked friand and two cups of coffee – my way.
I sat in the spring sunshine and watched the ducks, bottoms up, having their breakfast. The sparrows hopped so close that I could see the tiny inky black dots like a bib in front of the male birds' necks. As I walked up the steps to the grocer, the scent of the miniature lemon bushes flanking the water-slide bisecting the flight of steps wafted past. The cherry trees were in that delicate stage of fading blossom with a faint green haze of leaf buds emerging. Altogether, so enjoyable that I decided to take my time going home.
Turning down a country road with a few houses at scattered intervals, I slowly drove down peering up long drives trying to see the houses at the end. One long and infinite drive was lined with poplars, the translucent apricot- coloured spring leaves just uncurling, shiny and shimmering with the sun striking through them, and their bunches of pale green catkins wriggling in the breeze.. On one side of the road was a meadow snowy with daisies, and a little further down, was another one sparkling with gold buttercups.
They wouldn't gladden a modern farmer's heart, but they did mine. Cows no longer browse on all the herbs and grasses that their system needs, they just get cultivated grass of one variety which feeds them: but this doesn't give them the balance of minerals and herbs they instinctively seek out when left in organic fields with all these nutrients available to them.
I only know this from a farming friend whose cows needed copper injections, but when someone left the gate open, they rushed out and began browsing in the mixed grasses along the roadside. When their health improved immediately, he was converted there and then to organic farming. I also heard a radio programme last week in which an organic farmer said his vet's bills dropped from over two thousand dollars a month, to a hundred and eighty a month when he switched over to organic.
Further down the road some horses were grazing contentedly in the sun, one beautiful palamino stretched out on his side soaking up the warmth. I hastily drew up at this curve in the road, for a big clump of deep blue Norfolk Island forget-me-nots had self-seeded and were sprawling along the verge. I snapped off two sprays which had gone to seed and put them carefully on the front seat so I could see if any seeds fell off.
Heading back I detoured to a tiny wharf on the edge of the estuary. The first settlers who came here in 1850 had landed their goods from Auckland here, and by 1880 this little wharf had been built. All the traffic into this region came up from Auckland and was decanted ashore here. A few years later, an enterprising local man built a shop out over the water next to the wharf, so that fresh goods could be taken straight off the boats, and this tiny space between cliff and sea became the hub of the area.
Now, only the restored wharf remains, and I stood there in the sunny silence watching the tide flow up the river, clear and blue. There were some huge shells down on the mud, so I climbed down the steep steps to gather a handful, magenta and maroon and plum colours merging into sherry and then cream. Big curved shells, and flat fluted ones, with not a chip or a mark on them.
As I stepped towards them, my black patent shoes sank deep into the mud, and I had a moment's panic. But then thought, well you can always wash patent leather. I gathered a handful of shells, and then wiping the soles of my shoes in the grass, stopped in another bay with a tiny boat building industry, before driving home.
I put the forget-me-not stalks in a flower bed to dry and seed, but when I put the shells to dry in the sun, I found I'd inadvertently brought a muddy looking snail shell home too. I could see there was a live sea-snail inside, so put it carefully out of the sun to take back. It was only about an inch wide.
I was going to take it to the harbour, but then thought that was a bit unfair. If I'd been abducted accidentally by giants or aliens, I'd want to be dropped back home, so I did the same for the snail or crab.
Many people think it fanciful to attribute human feelings to other species, but since they can show fear and joy and all the other human emotions, why not credit them with other responses too? Some Christian authorities describe it as anthropomorphism, and use the term patronisingly and derogatively – okay for St Francis, but not for the rest of us!
But since we know that even a snail's brain contains between 5,000 and 100,000 giant neurons, and they know when they're being carted to market in a basket, and have lifted the lid in a concerted effort, broken out and escaped in recorded instances, can we really assume that any creature has no feelings or intelligence?
Elisabeth Tova Bailey wrote an exquisite book called 'The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating', a story about her companionship with a snail that came into her sickroom in a potted cyclamen. Snails, she discovered, lay eggs in different places, and visit them all regularly until their babies are hatched. So snails are maternal. The secret life of snails we can only guess at!
After reading her book I've been unable to put out snail bait in the garden. I either grow plants they don't like, do companion planting, or in the case of petunias, put out some lettuce leaves by them at night, and they obligingly eat the lettuce leaves instead of the petunias. I know of a couple who go out late at night and gently gather up all the snails in their garden and taken them to a wild place where they can do no harm to a garden.
We don't know what place snails occupy in the great chain of creation, but what we Are learning is that every creature seems to have a purpose. We are learning that now GM plants are bred with pesticides in them that kill off pests, good insects are also dying, and bumble bees who ingest pesticides, lose their sense of direction. In Africa where pesticides are widely used, not only are they polluting the lakes and rivers causing fish to die, and fishermen to lose their livelihoods, but the animals and birds that feed on creatures that have absorbed pesticides are also dying.
So it seems to me that every little snail and spider and insect may just matter more than we realise. That to tinker with the ecological chain, is as destructive to our planet as drilling for oil in the seas, burning down forests, clubbing baby seals to death, and all the other hostile acts that we perpetrate on our world. So I was happy to return my little captive to its home in this world – which is also our home – and the only one we will ever have.
There was plenty of risotto left over from the day before, so before putting it into the fridge that night I had fashioned it into patties. The next day they had set so firmly I didn't bother to roll them in flour, but just put them straight into some hot olive oil and butter, and fried both sides. The crispy outside, and soft tasty inside were delicious, and sprinkled with parmesan, I almost felt the leftovers were better than the original dish.
Man is so made that he can carry the weight of twenty four hours – no more. Directly he weighs down with the years behind and the days ahead, his back breaks. I have promised to help you with … today only; the past I have taken from you …
From God Calling written by Two Listeners in the thirties. You can Google it and find the messages for each day. The language is slightly dated after 70 years, but the messages are still timely.
Filed under animals/pets, cookery/recipes, environment, environment, food, great days, life/style, philosophy, spiritual, sustainability, The Sound of Water, Thoughts on writing and life, Uncategorized, wild life
Tagged as anthropomorphism, environment, food, organic, organics, philosphy, snails, spiritual, St Francis
Diana died on 31 August fifteen years ago. Those old enough to remember, know where they were at the moment when they heard that John Kennedy had died, taking with him the hopes and idealism of people all around the world.
And most of us I think, also know where we were when we heard of the death of Diana – there's only one Diana. Her death left a huge hole in the consciousness of the world. For fifteen years we had gloated over her clothes, admired her beauty, shared her children, followed her travels, marvelled over her commitment to others, felt her pain at her failing marriage, hated her rival, regretted her lapses of judgement in men and other things, and always loved her.
Who can forget the pictures of her kneeling at the feet of an old blind lady just after her engagement – no Royal had ever knelt to their adoring audience before? Who doesn't remember those pictures of her on her knees again, arms open wide, love blazing from her face as she greeted the sons she hadn't seen for a few days? Can anyone forget that picture of her mastering her fear and courageously walking through a minefield to show the world what wars do to women and children?
Do people remember those pictures of her holding the hands of a leper, and another of her sitting with an Aids patient with his hands in hers? These pictures flashed a message around the world – no-one should ever be an outcast. We should include the old and the sick and the pariahs.
And then there were those unforgettable ones of her in a Bosnian cemetery where she came on a grieving mother, and with no common language between them Diana put her arms round this stranger and held her. Being available to her grief, no words necessary. And the shots of her carrying a little Black American girl in her arms to take her for a ride in her limousine, the one wish the little girl had expressed.
There were other pictures – the woman who went to hospital to collect her husband with his broken arm in a sling – the same husband who then, unbeknown to the world at the time, took his mistress up to Scotland to convalesce with his grandmother. Meanwhile, Diana continued to visit the young man she'd befriended in that hospital, and then to visit his family when he got back home.
She went to a childrens' hospital every few days to paint a little girl's finger nails pink. She wrote so many comforting handwritten letters to people, that after she died, and the stories were told, people could only marvel.
She did so many kind things in private, and as her marriage broke down, some foolish things in public. But in many ways she lived out all the archetypes of women, and maybe that's why some people loved her, and some didn't- if they were repelled by the archetype. So she personified Persephone, the shy goddess of springtime, who in her dark moments refused to eat; she personified Ceres, the mother and good friend, with compassion for all; Hera, the angry, vindictive, jealous and rejected wife of Zeus; Minerva, the career woman who was meticulously briefed and organised in contrast to her husband's chaotic office, and all the other goddesses. (I wrote of this in depths in my book 'The Sound of Water').
She also had that much misused word – charisma – hardened journalists felt her presence, watched her love in action, and melted. She was down to earth- talking to a mayor on an official visit, she had him eating out of her hand when she asked him how much money he gave his children for pocket money!
She had courage. As a shy twenty-one year old on her first tour – in New Zealand – she emerged from a hall to greet the waiting crowds, and was met by a barrage of placards and yelling protestors shouting about Ireland. For a moment she stopped, shocked, and then stepped straight up to the other people standing in front of the protestors and greeted them, all the while enduring the barrage of insults. That took grit. She had courtesy, refusing to shelter from the rain under an umbrella, unless the mayor's wife standing with her shared it too, the mayor's wife told me.
In psychological terms, the first relationships people have with their parents shape their later lives. Diana, as the third daughter, was initially rejected at birth by her father who wanted an heir. That sort of emotional shock would have stayed in her psyche, and projected an unconscious fear that she would be rejected by the men she loved. So she was. Her husband rejected her, and then the Pakistani surgeon who she loved for two years and hoped to marry – until he couldn't face the hullabaloo which surrounded her.
Her last fling on the rebound was unlikely to have lasted. Dodi Fayed simply didn't have the intellectual and emotional depths that Diana would have needed. She called herself as thick as a plank, because she had failed her school exams. But it's a given that strife at home blocks children's progress at school. They can't concentrate on their lessons when they have emotional trauma going on, and Diana was always torn between her warring parents. On the other hand, people who knew Diana encountered a lively mind and wit, a phenomenal memory, and a musical talent that meant she was able to plunge into the notoriously difficult Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto without any music, when asked to play.
Like all un-integrated people she had many flaws. Who does n't? That's no reason to denigrate her, as it's become fashionable to do in the years since the world wide grief at her death. Her gifts to the world outweighed her private problems. And what were those gifts, apart from her two sons? She left us with a memory of a beautiful soul who wasn't afraid to love and act spontaneously; who gave compassion- and acceptance – to all who crossed her path, and whose example has given others the courage to open their own hearts and express their feelings.
Her motto was 'compassion in another's troubles, courage in your own'. Her acts of random kindness were legion. Her life, her mothering, and her work were an inspiration, while fashion has never been the same since she went to Paris and died. I, like many, still miss Diana's presence on this earth, and wish I had seen her grow into the magnificent mature woman which was her potential. She was only thirty-six when she died.
A friend recovering from a major operation came for supper last night, so I made a bit of an effort. Whole chicken legs, slashed at intervals and the slashes stuffed with chopped garlic and grated lemon rind and juice, marinated for some hours before hand. Before popping into the oven, I sprinkled them with flour mixed with ginger, salt and pepper, and sprinkled with some olive oil. Then into a hot oven for about an hour or until cooked. The skin is crisp and tasty. I'd made some of the cream potatoes from the recipe other day, and we had them with Brussels sprouts and little spring carrots.
Not bad. I experimented with a pear and almond tart for pudding – the pastry a wonderful quick easy recipe for another day – the frangipane didn't taste as almondy as I would have liked… so a bit of jiggling to do there.
So precious is a person's faith in God… never should we harm that.
Because He gave birth to all religions. St Francis of Assisi 1182 -1226
Filed under cookery/recipes, fashion, food, great days, life/style, love, princess diana, royalty, spiritual, The Sound of Water, Thoughts on writing and life
Tagged as beauty, courage, death, fashion, food, love, princess diana, royal family, spiritual, St Francis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Tribes 2 Cup
Blueyonder join the Official UK Tribes 2 Cup as a major server provider.
Posted 20 Apr 2001 by Staff
Blueyonder http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/ have today announced their commitment to the Official UK Tribes 2 Cup. They will be responsible for 50% of the servers hosting the Official Tribes 2 Cup, in association with Sierra, a Studio from Vivendi Universal Publishing.
The three-month Tribes 2 tournament will start at the end of May and will be based primarily on the game type "Team Hunters". Registration for the event will go live at 8pm GMT today, Friday 20th April, via the Euro-Tribesplayers website, http://www.euro-tribesplayers.com/ukcup/.
Teams of 8 players from all over the UK will participate in "Team combat on an epic scale" over a 7-week group tournament. The victors from each group will then battle in a knockout tournament, with the 2 finalists meeting head-to-head at i8, the 4 day LAN event at the end of August, http://multiplay.co.uk/
To be eligible, teams must have at least 8 UK resident players, who will also be available to attend the final at i8. Transport & entry to the LAN event is provided for all finalists.
The competition will be played on servers sponsored by some of the major Gaming ISPs - confirmed servers also include Netgames UK http://www.nguk.net and Gameplay http://www.gameplay.com
Outline Rules
Teams will consist of 8 players. Players can be of any age over 13. There are no restrictions on ping/PC specifications.
Spectators other than those approved by the Admin team are not permitted on match servers. The cup admins reserve the right to arrange press/media coverage of all games.
Tribes unable to field a minimum of 5 players will have a default loss awarded against them.
Teams will be divided into "Groups" of 8 teams per Group. Over 7 weeks, each team will play all other teams in their group. Teams are awarded 3 points for a win, and one point each in the event of a tie.
The winners of each group will go forward to a knockout stage in order to decide the 2 finalists. The 2 final teams will be invited to the i8 LAN event (www.multiplay.co.uk) to compete for the winner's title, transport and ticket costs will be covered. Teams must have 8 players available to be at i8 over the 24th - 27th weekend at the end of August.
Matches will take place on Team Hunter DM maps (TBA). Each match will consist of TWO 10 minute games, with a 5 minute break at half time. The team scores for each half will be added to decide the winner.
Team damage will be set ON for all games.
Teams must be on server within 5 minutes of the start time, any team with less than 5 players on the server at that time will default.
A representative of each team must be in IRC (irc.quakenet.eu.org) in #ukcup at least 10 minutes before match time, in order to be given the server password.
Players must wear team tags (eg. [ABC]john, john{abc} etc) so that they are easily recognisable as a team player.
About Euro-Tribesplayers.com
ETL (European Tribes League) was founded in mid 1999 by Brit, who ran www.planet-tribes.com and www.tribesplayers.co.uk at the time. Its principle was playing 3 games over 3 game types (CTF. C&H and F&R). Over the following 6 months it became the nexus of tribes in Europe bringing together teams from all over in one competition. Midnight Order (MnO) won that first league in a thrilling final. Soon after while awaiting the start of the 2nd league season, the UK site was transformed into a European hub of gaming with the rebranding of the site to www.euro-tribesplayers.com. The new site had community personality columns, hosted diverse European clans and had some multi-lingual articles as the occasion arose.
The league went from strength to strength and in the second season the runners up from season 1 (Crushed Frogs - cF) won in a tight finish beating MnO. The site grew with a steady stream of local community information.
The ETL became the only contest to tell who is the #1 in Europe at that particular point of time. Where Ladders and such are great events, true championships need playoffs and points to get there. ETL matches have previously been played on three game types: capture the flag, capture & hold and find & retrieve. Which gives more challenge to be the best in different kind of game styles.
Structure of the event has always been pretty simple. Teams are randomly placed in few divisions and two highest scores from each pool went to playoff rounds. Except second ETL season when teams were placed in divisions by their previous achievements and then teams in division 1 played for the crown by themselves. First ETL champion title back in '99 went to MnO, second (2000) to cF and the third and last Tribes1 ETL season (2001) was dominated by Ooz.
Tribes2
As we move into Tribes2 both Euro Tribesplayers and the ETL are changing to fit the mood of the community. We are launching a fully personalised site to give localised information to the various subsections of the community, including own language forums for each culture.
In linking with theladder, the euro-shoutcast network and Psychic (the voting system for tribes games) we bring the community together in an attempt to further unite the tribesplayers in Europe.
We have a wide admin structure with key community players in each country to help coordinate the new system, effectively creating a governing body for community led tribes2 development in Europe.
VU Interactive Publishing Intl is the structure that covers every stage of the international marketing and a series of administrative tasks (distribution, press relations, trade marketing, catalogue, promotion of brands, sales, localisation) for the Games and Education divisions of VU Publishing. Located in Meudon-la-Forêt, France, it is headed by Christophe Ramboz.
Vivendi Universal Publishing is one of the five core businesses of Vivendi Universal, the world's second-largest communications group. It brings together publishing activities spanning all media vectors in five main markets - games, education, literature, health and information - and holds strong positions in each. The group is in particular n°2 worldwide in games on PC & Mac.
In 2000, Vivendi Universal Publishing reported revenues of 3.6 bn (pro forma), including 46 % outside France.
With 22,000 employees and 300 brands in 40 countries, it aims to become the unchallenged leader in its chosen sectors.
Companies: Sierra On-Line
Games: Tribes 2
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Understanding estrous cycles, mating, pregnancy and birth is important in managing animals for high reproductive rates. However, in order to understand these things, an adequate understanding of anatomy is crucial. The anatomy sections below describe the sexual and reproductive organs present, outside and inside the goat's body, as well as their functions in both females and males.


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Property Sales Tax on the island soon to be adjusted
In response to several issues facing Badung District, especially regarding the plan to boost regional revenues and the sales value of taxable objects (NJOP, or Nilai Jual Objek Pajak), Commission III of the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) held a coordination meeting with Badung's Regional Revenue Agency (Bapenda) on Tuesday (25/04).
In the meeting, members of Commission III questioned the readiness of Bapenda in executing the government's plan to boost local revenues in 2018. Putu Alit Yandinata, head of Badung's Commission III, stated that the meeting was held to maintain communication between the legislative and executive body, who are in charge of budgeting, so there will be no differing information. "Moreover, there are issues related to the increase of the NJOP up to 1000 percent," Yandinata said, as quoted by Bisnis Bali. "We need to know the root of the problem so that we can properly explain it to the public in regard to any increase."
He sees that the increase is normal because the price of land in South Kuta (which the island collectively has used as a base price for years. Ed) has become redundant. "You couldn't possibly find a piece of land worth four million there—they have all increased. This issue will also be dealt with by BPK (Indonesia's Audit Board) and KPK (Corruption Eradication Commission) because the government has not increased land tax in the last couple of years."
A similar opinion was sounded off by Made Sutama, Head of Badung's Revenue Agency. He said that the meeting was important because they are able to find a solution together. "I can explain about the increase of the NJOP—it's actually not an increase but an adjustment," said Sutama. "From data gathered by BPK and KPK, we were asked to adjust the numbers. As a result of that, we will be giving incentives to farmers, which is to free them from paying property tax [or PBB], but commercialized land will receive a tax increase."
Regarding the high price of land in South Kuta, he said that currently there are is no land worth IDR4million per are (100 m2) any more. "Previously we used 4 million per are in the last NJOP, but that number isn't relevant any more when we were out there on the field. Now it has to be adjusted."
Photo: nomadcapitalist.com
Dutch Footballer Nick van der Velden Joins Bali UnitedNews
QUARTERFINALISTS DECIDED AT KOMUNE BALI PRO PRES. BY THE MAD HUEYSNews


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Welcome to Orkas
Publications and Articles
Increasing Transmission Capacity.
More variable resources, wind and solar, will require more electric transmission. It will be needed to balance the variability over larger areas, and to bring remote generation like offshore wind to the load.
The main challenge to building more transmission lines is the difficulty to get necessary permits to build. Added to the challenges is that in the most electrically congested areas it tends to be the most difficult to take existing transmission lines out-of-service for any extended time.
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The Future of Electric Transmission.
September 17, 1964 President Lyndon Johnson addressed the Intertie Victory Breakfast in Portland, Oregon. It was the closure of more than a decade of multi-dimensional political controversies and challenges, and the start of probably the largest electric infrastructure project in the United States after the US Government built the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams and power stations on the Columbia River in the 30s and 40s.
The Pacific Northwest/Pacific Intertie is the transmission lines that enabled hydro power from the Columbia River to flow to California. The Intertie consists of both HVAC (High Voltage Alternating Current) and HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) lines, which after expansions now have a combined capacity of 7,900 MW.
Pacific Intertie. 500 kV HVAC transmission line to the left. ±400 kV HVDC transmission line to the right. Photo: michael1111.blogspot.com
Annual Sales of EVs Just Short of 2 Million.
….. and the 2018 EV winner is Tesla Model 3.
All numbers are not yet reported, but all indications are that worldwide EV (both all electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) sales in 2018 will be over 1,9 million. It is a 70 % growth over 2017. Impressive, but in relation to all 81 million cars sold in the world in 2018 the EVs represent about 2.4 %, which is up from 1.4 % in 2017.
China continues to be the leader with some 850,000 EVs (estimated based on the first 9 months) in 2018. EV sales in the U.S. will exceed 350,000 vehicles. It is an increase with almost 80 %. Europe saw a slower growth than the U.S., about 23 %, but still reached more EVs, an estimated 375,000 (based on the first 11 months).
The Future of Power Generation.
Marcellus shale gas-drilling site in Pennsylvania.
Photo: Nicholas A. Tonelli.
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it is about the future." Niels Bohr, the Nobel laurate in Physics, is credited with this line. It is always possible to develop a model that fits the past, but much more difficult to have the same model to correctly forecast the future.
Recent analysis by EIA (Energy Information Agency) and Lazard find that the lowest cost power generation is natural gas, wind and solar. It looks clear, going forward, what to invest in, but before doing so, there may be some lessons to be learnt from the past about making predictions.
Resilience, Transmission Lines and Conductors.
Photo by Egor Kamelev from Pexels.
Transmission lines sag. The magnitude of the sag depends on several factors like the distance between the towers or poles, the weight of the conductor and temperature, both the ambient temperature and the heat of the line, which is the function of the load on the line. Sags should not be a problem, since there are defined formulas to calculate the sags as well as rules on required clearance to ground or vegetation. Nevertheless, losing transmission lines due to short circuits caused by tree-to-(power) line contact can be a major reason why blackouts cascade. If the system is already stressed, losing a line results in overloads on remaining lines. The overloaded lines heat up and sag more, maybe beyond emergency ratings or tree trimming has not been kept up, increasing the risk for tree-to-line contact and more lines will be lost. It happens fast, like a cascade, as was the case in the 1996 Western North America blackout, the 2003 Northeast blackout, the 2003 Italy blackout, and many other blackouts.
Profound Changes in Power Generation.
In 2017 natural gas fired power plants generated 32 % of the electricity in the United States. Coal fired power plants delivered about 30 % of all power, while nuclear delivered about 20 %. Nearly 20 % came from renewable energy sources, out of which 47 % came from hydro power plants and about 37 % came from wind turbines.
Eight years earlier, 2009, when the shale-gas revolution had started to take off, coal was the number one source, 44 % of all electric generation. Natural gas represented 23 % of the generation and nuclear was at 20 %. Renewable generation, basically hydro and wind, produced 10.5 % of the electric power. (EIA data).
Natural gas has replaced coal as the primary source of power generation. Nuclear is basically unchanged at 20 %, while renewables with the growth of wind and solar generation, has doubled and represents about the same proportion of the power generation as nuclear.
In an industry that traditionally changes slow it is a big shift that has happened fast.
EV School Buses. Take Two.
There are about 550,000 school buses in United States and Canada. Each day some 26 million children ride on school buses.
For long school buses have been the ideal candidate to go electric instead of being diesel. Eliminating the exposure of the exhaust from diesel engines would be a significant health benefit. In addition, from the electric grid perspective the battery storage in the school buses could be a valuable resource for balancing the system, thanks to school buses having defined schedules, idle during the middle of the day and parked during the summer.
Emit – Capture – Utilize – Store.
In January 1972 the Val Verde (now Terrell) natural gas process plant started to capture carbon dioxide (CO2, or, short, "carbon") and transport it in a pipeline to the Kelly Snyder oil field in West Texas. It was the first commercial use of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). EOR had been slow in the making. The first patent for EOR was issued in 1952 and field test had been done in 1964, but in the last three decades EOR has become a well-established technology in the North American oil industry. Most of the CO2 comes from naturally occurring sources.
CO2 is the main anthropogenic (human induced) greenhouse gas (GHG), about 76 %. Consequently, it is the focus when addressing global warming.
Prepare – Withstand – Adapt – Recover.
"Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems" was a paper by the Canadian ecologist C.J. Hollings published in the Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1973. The concept of resilience was used to describe the persistence of natural systems in face of changes in the ecosystem. The paper has had a major impact within ecology and the concept of resilience has later been expanded to many other areas, including the electric grid.
The 2003 Northeast blackout and extreme weather events like hurricane Katrina (2005), superstorm Sandy (2012), polar vortex (2014), hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria (2017), as well as awareness of new risks, such as physical and cyber-attacks, etc., have contributed to the increased attention to the resilience of the electric grid and ways to strengthen it.
Annual Sales of EVs Exceeds One Million.
When summing up 2017, it should be noticed, that it was the first year, when annual worldwide sales of EVs (electric vehicles, both battery only and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) exceeded 1 million vehicles.
The exact numbers are not yet available, but it looks to be well over 1.1 million EVs. By far most of the EVs, about 580,000 were sold in China. 200,000 EVs were sold in United States, and about 305,000 were sold in Europe.
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Embark on a Northern Territory adventure from Darwin to Alice Springs, taking in the region's biggest and best draws along the way. Witness Uluru during a stunning sunrise, wander through the majestic canyons of Kata Tjuta and admire the views from Kings Canyon. Enjoy exclusive access to Arnhem Land and get a taste of the tropics in Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks, as well as Katherine Gorge. A region of exceptional landscapes and intriguing cultural attractions, this tail-to-top adventure through the Territory is a trip that will leave you with a profound appreciation of Australia's raw and rugged natural beauty.
Get back to basics with this classic overland adventure.
See the sun rise over Uluru, walk the rugged rim of Kings Canyon, discover the highlights and national parks of Australia's Top End in authentic outback style.
This is a basic trip, covering the highlights of Australia's Top End and Red Centre in a short amount of time.
Temperatures in the Red Centre and Top End be extreme. During the day the weather can be hot (and the Australian sun is strong) so please bring appropriate clothing, use sun protection and drink plenty of water. In the evenings temperatures really drop, so ensure you have base layers and warm clothing.
We leave Darwin with a bright and early start, and head to the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park. Firstly, we make our way to see the stunning rock art at Ubirr before climbing to the top of a lookout to see the sprawling Nardab Floodplain. Next stop, head to the border of Kakadu and Arnhem Land to experience a Guluyumbi cruise along the East Alligator River. Travelling with a Bininj guide, understand more about the cultural importance of the East Alligator River to the region's traditional custodians. Once the cruise wraps up, jump in a vehicle and cross straight into Arnhem Land for an unforgettable afternoon of exploration at an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art complex known as Mawurndaddja. This complex has a spectacular series of galleries with rock art spanning from the present time to many thousands of years of age. Your guide will explain the importance of this art, the methods used to perform this expressionism and the anthropological system used to date the art as you are guided through the site. Spend the afternoon exploring this historic ancient site before heading back to Kakadu and settling into this evening's campsite.
After breakfast, head to either Maguk (Barramundi Gorge) or Gunlom Falls and cool off with a dip in the plunge pools. Stop off at the Lazy Lizard Hotel and shop at Pine Creek before heading further south after lunch. Journey for around three hours in a private vehicle to your campsite on the doorstep of Nitmiluk National Park. Once comfortable, have dinner with the group before relaxing in your tent for the night.
The rest of today is free to explore.
The major point of difference with this trip is that the itinerary is flexible. Where you go and in what order will largely depend on what your group want to see, what the weather's doing, and what your trip leader recommends. Therefore, the following description is only a rough outline of what you can expect. The region's big name attractions, however, you're guaranteed to see: Uluru/Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon, Palm Valley and the Western MacDonnell Ranges. Several lesser known attractions – Rainbow Valley, Owen Springs, Ruby Gap and the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges – you'll get to visit if seasonality and time permit.
The following itinerary is therefore only an example of the form your trip could take.
Starting off in either Alice Springs or Yulara, make your way to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and take a guided walk through the awe-inspiring Domes of Kata Tjuta. Then head to Australia's most iconic landmark: Uluru. As the sun begins to set below the horizon watch the rich colours change against the backdrop of a blazing Red Centre sunset. Head back to camp for a hearty dinner, and ponder what the following day may hold.
This morning's departure is at 0605am. Please be ready with your bags packed for an early start.
After breakfast, get your hiking shoes on and head out to explore the impressive formations of Kings Canyon. You'll be left breathless by the sheer beauty of the canyon, as you trek through the Amphitheatre, the Lost City, the lush and ancient Garden of Eden and the North and South Walls. Lunch is a welcome prospect, and after you've relaxed for a little while we head along an iconic Red Centre dirt track to the Western McDonnell Ranges where we stay overnight at our permanent campsite at Glen Helen.
Note: Total driving time takes around five hours.
Total walking time is approximately three hours.
Spend this morning exploring the mysterious palms at Palm Valley. The only road in is in a dry river bed. This afternoon explore the Western Macdonnell Ranges, highlights include Ormiston Gorge, where we keep our eyes peeled for wallabies whist admiring its colourful walls, continue on to the exceptional vistas at Ellery Creek Big Hole and perhaps cool off with a dip. Your guide will find a suitable place to set up our bush camp tonight.
Note: Total driving time is about 45 minutes.
Today we'll be exploring one of the Outback's best kept secrets – the Eastern Macdonnell ranges. Learn about the 'Caterpillar Dreaming' on a short walk at Emily Gap, then travel on to Trephina Gorge for a 1-hour guided walk through this area of beautiful rock formations and myriad birdlife. For lunch we'll be calling in at the historical Ross River Homestead, an iconic building established in the 1890's as a regional supply centre to the goldfields. Back on the dirt track, next stop is the 'Ghost Town' of Arltunga, which serves as a magnificent example of early European settlement. Learn about the case of mistaken gemstone that led to a mining rush here, and which also precipitated its abandonment. After exploring the best of the Eastern Macdonnell Ranges, it's back to Alice Springs for a late afternoon arrival. No accommodation is included tonight.
There are currently no scheduled departures on our Total Territory Top End & Outback trip. If you are interested in other trips in the region visit one of the links below.
1. Tour commences in Darwin on day 1 at 6am and finishes in Alice Springs on day 11 at approx 6pm. Onward travel to be booked the following day.
6. This is a combination trip, made up of two of our most popular trips.


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Time to tackle climate variability, emissions
GRDC chairman, John Woods.
THE Australian grain industry needs to get on the front foot to mitigate climate variability and reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of production to stay ahead of the game in a rapidly-changing world, according to Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) chairman, John Woods.
Addressing the GRDC Grains Research Update in Perth, Mr Woods said the GRDC, in collaboration with CSIRO, would be directing investment to support the nation's grain industry to better measure and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
He said agriculture around the world was facing increasing pressure on issues of climate variation, adaptation, emissions and carbon footprints.
"There is a bunch of pressures on us, but these are the macro pressures. I haven't seen these squeezing industries, or potentially squeezing industries, so quickly. The dynamic has changed so quickly," he said.
"It will impact how we manage crops, how we breed for heat, drought and frost and how we manage our farming systems. Those challenges are going to become more exacerbated over time."
Mr Woods said consumer sentiment had shifted dramatically in recent years and it was time for the grain industry to act so it didn't get caught "asleep at the wheel".
"In relation to climate change and emissions, in my view the debate has moved on. Agriculture in Australia is a $60 billion industry, grains make up about $15 to $17 billion of that. We are around a quarter or more of the action in agriculture," he said.
"We tend to keep our head down. We get whacked around a bit on things like glyphosate, but tend not to be exposed too much on climate change and emissions. But that is something we need to be very aware of."
Regulation, capital, market access
Mr Woods said the shift in consumer sentiment was already impacting the grain industry in three key areas: regulation, access to capital and market access.
"It's clear that future capital investment in the grains sector will be influenced by our ability to develop effective mitigation strategies and approaches to accountability," he said
"We all require capital. BlackRock, the largest wealth management firm in the world, is reallocating capital around emissions and climate challenges. They have just announced they are moving out of all fossil fuel investments over the next three years.
"There are also global banks now talking about agriculture having 'brown' penalties and 'green' incentives. I haven't seen anyone pull the trigger on this yet, but this is the language bankers and investors are now using.
"The third thing shifting on us is market access. Markets internationally and domestically are now starting to ask us what is our emissions profile in the grains industry and what are we doing about it? Our canola market in the EU relies on sustainability metrics. That is going to get harder and harder. We need to demonstrate clearly what our emissions profile is."
Investing in emissions reduction
Mr Woods said the 18-month investment by GRDC and CSIRO would provide baseline data about the current level of greenhouse emissions in the grain industry, explore opportunities for mitigation and shape a realistic plan for emission reduction.
"We are going to identify the baseline of 2005, which is the international benchmark for emissions. We will then reflect on that as to how we operate today in 2020 as a grains industry. We will also look at what are the available mitigation measures growers can implement to both reduce emissions and increase profitability. We will also look at the R&D that needs to be done to accelerate that," he said.
"Let's have a landing on what the emissions are for grains going forward.
"We want to make sure we have tools for growers to do practice changes on farms and what that impact will be on emissions and profitability."
Mr Woods said the investment outcomes would be essential in supporting and enabling the work by the wider grains industry to develop a Grains Industry Sustainability Framework, being led by Grain Growers Ltd.
"This investment will build on previous work undertaken through industry collaborations such as the Climate Research Strategy for Primary Industries (CRSPI) and the Managing Climate Variability Program collaboration, as well as investments to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertiliser and explore soil carbon sequestration opportunities," he said.
More than 50 per cent of emissions from the grain industry involve fertiliser use, particularly nitrogen.


Tariq Ramadan, Muslim, scholar, activist, Swiss citizen, resident of Britain, active on several continents, is a hard man to pin down. People call him "slippery," "double-faced," "dangerous," but also "brilliant," a "bridge-builder," a "Muslim Martin Luther." He wants Muslims to become active citizens of the West but four years ago was himself refused permission to enter the U.S. He could not take up the teaching position he'd been offered at the University of Notre Dame. Oxford University took him on as a visiting fellow instead.
To his admirers, he is a courageous reformer who works hard to fill the chasm between Muslim orthodoxy and secular democracy. Young European Muslims flock to his talks, which are widely distributed on audiocassettes. A brilliant speaker, he inspires his audiences, rather like Black Power leaders did in the 1960s, by instilling a sense of pride. A friend of mine saw him last year in Rotterdam, talking to a hall packed with around 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. To them he had the aura of an Islamic superstar. Even my friend, an Iranian-born Dutchman with entirely secular views, was impressed by the eloquence of this Muslim thinker, who wishes to press his faith into the mainstream of European life. His critics see things differently: they accuse him of anti-Semitism, religious bigotry, promoting the oppression of women and waging a covert holy war on the liberal West.
I first met Ramadan last year in Paris. The French news magazine Le Point had organized a debate between the two of us on Muslims in Europe (or "Eurabia," as some fearful people are now calling my native continent). I was instructed to "really push him." But if the hope of Le Point was for sparks to fly, they were disappointed. Ramadan is much too smooth for sparks. Slim, handsome and dressed in a very elegant suit, he spoke softly in fluent English, with a slight French accent. His first languages were French and Arabic, but he heard English at home in Geneva, spoken mostly by visiting Pakistanis.
So who is Tariq Ramadan? What does he stand for? Even physically, he proved a hard man to pin down. We had made an appointment, but fixing a time was a challenge. His Oxford college had no idea where he was. A home number could not be provided. E-mail messages went unanswered. Perhaps he was in Rotterdam, where he holds a chair in "Identity and Citizenship" at Erasmus University. Perhaps he was in France, or maybe somewhere else, appearing on a television talk show, signing books, speaking at a conference. Finally, a secretary from his office in Paris was able to make a connection. He was in Stockholm. We managed to meet the next day at the house of a friend in London. Ramadan, beard neatly clipped, was dressed, as always, in a smart suit and an open shirt.
Traditionalist principles, for Ramadan, apply to politics as much as to religion. Muslims, he says, should not try to create a "parallel system" to Western democracy, let alone aspire to building a Muslim state. "There is no such thing," he says, "as an Islamic order. We have to act to promote justice and inject our ethics into the existing system." According to Ramadan, the global order of neoliberal capitalism allows the wealthy West to dominate the world. Resisting this order is part of his task as an activist professor, who derives his "universal principles" from his Muslim faith. This message not only provides educated European Muslims with a political cause but is also pushed with considerable success at such international leftist jamborees as the World Social Forum, where the world's antiglobalists meet.
"Liberal" was a surprising description of Ramadan's father, Said Ramadan, al-Banna's favorite disciple and a tireless promoter of political Islam. He had to escape from President Nasser's Egypt, after the Muslim Brotherhood was banned there in 1954 (a Muslim Brother was accused of trying to kill Nasser), and settled in Geneva. The youngest of six children, Tariq was named after Tariq Ibn Ziyad, the North African Muslim who conquered Spain in 711. Ramadan denies being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood — one of whose credos is "God is our goal, the Prophet our model, the Koran our law, holy war our way and martyrdom our desire" — but is proud of his illustrious background. To many Muslims al-Banna is still a very great man. When I met Ramadan later in the week at the gigantic East London Mosque, I heard him being introduced, with a tone of reverence, as al-Banna's grandson. "With older people it lends authority to what I'm saying," Ramadan told me, as we walked through the mosque, where the main languages were Bengali and Urdu, apart from quotations from the Koran, which were in Arabic.
Even though Ramadan's father represented the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, promoting the cause of Islamic government, Ramadan went to a mainstream Swiss school, where he got a solid grounding in French literature and European philosophy. He graduated a year early and studied philosophy, literature and social sciences at University of Geneva. By age 24, he was already dean of a high school and later lectured in religious studies at a college in Geneva and the University of Fribourg. I was fascinated to learn that of all European philosophers, Ramadan chose to study Friedrich Nietzsche, who had anticipated the death of religious faith. He even wrote his doctoral thesis on Nietzsche. Had he ever experienced any doubts himself?
In 1986 Ramadan married a Swiss woman, the sister of one of his football buddies who had converted to Islam. She took the name Iman, and they moved with their young children to Cairo in 1991, where Ramadan studied Muslim philosophy with scholars from Al-Azhar University. Their stay in Egypt deepened his understanding of Islam but also turned him into a convinced European. "I felt I had been misled," he told me. "The philosophical connection between the Islamic world and the West is much closer than I thought. Doubt did not begin with Descartes. We have this construction today that the West and Islam are entirely separate worlds. This is wrong. Everything I am doing now, speaking of connections, intersections, universal values we have in common, this was already there in history." At the same time, he realized that "home" was actually in Europe, that while Islam was his faith, his culture was European. Ramadan's intellectual struggle to bridge different traditions was a personal one too.
And this may also have been the reason that the U.S. State Department revoked his work visa in July 2004. Ramadan had already sent all his family possessions to South Bend. His children had been enrolled in local schools. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Ramadan was denied entry under a provision of the Patriot Act that bars foreigners from the U.S. who "endorse or espouse terrorist activity." After the A.C.L.U and various academic groups contested the government's refusal to process Ramadan's application for another visa, a federal judge ruled that the State Department had to make a decision. The State Department refused to issue another visa on the grounds that Ramadan had donated roughly $900 to two European organizations that give aid to Palestinians. The organizations were, and still are, legitimate charities in Europe but since Ramadan made his donations have been blacklisted in the U.S. for supposedly giving money to Hamas. The A.C.L.U. lawyer, Jameel Jaffer, told me that Ramadan had fallen foul of the same principle that used to bar Communists from coming to the U.S.: his politics are not welcome.
Some of Ramadan's critics, most notably the French journalist Caroline Fourest, who wrote a sharp attack on him titled "Frère Tariq" (Brother Tariq), draw a direct line from Hassan al-Banna, through Said Ramadan and Tariq Ramadan himself, to the militant Islamism threatening the West today. Such was the disquiet in France about Islamist violence that Ramadan was barred from that country in 1995. The ban was eventually lifted. Ramadan prefers to see the family legacy in terms of "Islamic socialism, which is neither socialist, nor capitalist, but a third way." In this reading, his father's friendship with Malcolm X is much more significant than any Saudi Arabian connection. This is why Ramadan was a popular speaker with African-American Muslims before his visa was revoked.
To be a sworn enemy of capitalism does not mean you are a communist, a fascist, a religious fundamentalist or indeed an anti-Semite, but it is something these otherwise disparate groups frequently have in common. Advocating a revolt against Western materialism on the basis of superior spiritual values is an old project, which has had many fathers but has never been particularly friendly to liberal democracy. Ramadan's brand of Islamic socialism, promoted with such media-friendly vitality, in conferences, interviews, books, talks, sermons and lectures, has won him a variety of new friends, especially in Britain and France.
Ramadan, as Kepel observes, is "balanced on a tightrope," for his socialism is not always congenial to devout Muslims. Marx (along with "the Jew," "the Crusader" and "the Secularist") is a demonic figure for the Muslim Brothers. Ramadan is candid about his enemies: "My fiercest critics come from majority Muslim countries. Traditional Salafists condemn me for being against Islam." Conversely, Ramadan's defense of certain practices rooted in Islamic tradition creates much suspicion among those who might otherwise agree with his politics.
Two media-driven controversies helped to make Ramadan both famous and notorious. The first was an exchange on French television in 2003 with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister (now running for president as the candidate of the conservative Union for a Popular Movement party), well known for his description of rioters in poor immigrant neighborhoods as "scum." Sarkozy accused Ramadan of defending the stoning of adulterers, a punishment stipulated in the section of the Islamic penal code known as huddud. Ramadan replied that he favored "a moratorium" on such practices but refused to condemn the law outright. Many people, including Sarkozy, were outraged. When I talked with Ramadan in London, the mere mention of the word "stoning" set him off on a long explanation.
The other, perhaps even more contentious issue, also raised by Sarkozy, was Ramadan's supposed anti-Semitism. A month before the television debate, Ramadan posted an article on a Web site named Oumma.com, titled "Critique of the (New) Communalist Intellectuals." This article had been turned down by both Le Monde and Libération. Ramadan's main argument was that "French Jewish intellectuals" — like Bernard-Henri Lévy, Alain Finkielkraut, Bernard Kouchner, André Glucksmann and Pierre-André Taguieff (in fact not Jewish at all) — who used to be "considered universalist intellectuals" had become knee-jerk defenders of Israel and thus "had relativized the defense of universal principles of equality and justice." Ramadan was trying to turn the tables on those who accuse Muslims of obsessing about their victimhood by accusing "Jewish intellectuals" of doing precisely that, thinking of just their own tribal concerns, while Ramadan's pursuit of justice for Palestinians was supposedly part of a universalist project. These intellectuals were of course "the rivals" who, in Kepel's phrase, had "abandoned" the left, just as many early neoconservatives had done in the U.S.
What enrages former or current progressives is the apparent paradox that lies at the heart of Ramadan's political rhetoric. On global capitalism he speaks like a 1968 left-wing student revolutionary, but on social affairs he can sound like the illiberal conservatives whom those students opposed. In American terms, he is a Noam Chomsky on foreign policy and a Jerry Falwell on social affairs. One of Ramadan's fiercest critics in France, Caroline Fourest, fears that he has long-term plans to challenge European secularism through religious bigotry. She told me over the phone that she considered Ramadan "more dangerous than the obvious extremists, precisely because he sounds more reasonable." The question of women is key to this.
I was not sure this answer left me much the wiser. Later I put some of Caroline Fourest's allegations to him — that he had advised Muslim girls to avoid shaking hands with men; that he warned against mixed swimming pools; that women should not be allowed to engage in sports if their bodies were exposed to men. He claims that these quotes were taken out of context. "What I mean," he said, "is that men and women should have a choice. If they want to follow the rules of modesty, they should be able to choose to do so. Myself, I shake hands with women." I asked him whether his own daughters practiced their faith. He laughed and said that he certainly hoped so, but they were free to choose. Both were sent to ordinary public schools in Switzerland and Britain.
This is the world in which Tariq Ramadan operates, an urban Western environment full of educated but frequently confused young Muslims eager to find attractive models they can identify with. I thought of the Somali-born Dutch activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as charismatic in her way as Ramadan. Having had her fill of controversies in the Netherlands (she wrote the film "Submission," which led to the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist), she now works at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Her mission, too, is to spread universal values. She, too, speaks of reform. But she has renounced her belief in Islam. She says that Islam is backward and perverse. As a result, she has had more success with secular non-Muslims than with the kind of people who shop in Brick Lane.
Ramadan offers a different way, which insists that a reasoned but traditionalist approach to Islam offers values that are as universal as those of the European Enlightenment. From what I understand of Ramadan's enterprise, these values are neither secular, nor always liberal, but they are not part of a holy war against Western democracy either. His politics offer an alternative to violence, which, in the end, is reason enough to engage with him, critically, but without fear.


There are 1.2 million SMEs in Canada that have employees.
98 percent of businesses in Canada have fewer than 100 employees.
Over 78,000 new SMEs were created in Canada in 2013.
Over 10 million people in Canada work for a SMEs.
22 percent of SMEs operate in goods-producing industries. 78 percent of SMEs operate in service industries.
SMEs were responsible for $106 billion (25 percent) of Canada's total value, of exports in 2013.
Export intensity (percentage of revenues derived from exporting) falls as firms get larger.
SMEs contribute 39 percent to Canada's GDP in 2008.
Since 2011, more SMEs are died than born every year.
Source: Statistics Canada, Entrepreneurship Indicators Database .
The likelihood of exporting increases with business size.
48 percent of all SME owners are between 50 and 64 years old.
15.7 percent of SMEs were majority-female owned in 2014.
24 percent of SME owners have a bachelor's degree and 14 percent have a master's or above.
42 percent of SMEs innovated between 2012 and 2014.
21 percent of SMEs held some type of intellectual property in 2014.
Only 51 percent of SMEs requested external financing in 2014.
About 86 percent of the amount of debt financing requested by SMEs was authorized.
26 percent of SMEs imported goods or services in 2011.
3.2 percent of SMEs outsourced business activities from outside of Canada.
3 hours per month is the average time spent by an SME complying with government regulations.
The cost of regulatory compliance fell from 0.81 percent of SME GDP in 2005 to 0.75 percent in 2011.


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For Kentucky Felons, Voting Must Be a Right, Not a Gift
Voting shouldn't exclude ex-felons.
Sadie Bograd
Horse girl and proud of it. Has strong opinions about fonts.
Montgomery County Public Schools Students Call for Financial Literacy Requirement with New Resolution
High school students encouraged the adoption of a financial literacy graduation requirement for all students in Montgomery County at an October Board of Education meeting.
Sophie Nguyen
One Year After Richland School District's Student Voice Panel: What Changed?
Richland School District students reflected on the outcomes of the district's student voice panel in the last school year and the resulting changes.
Shreya Mehta
Baltimore County Board of Education's November 9 Meeting Lays the Groundwork for Key Calendar Changes to Come
Baltimore County's Board of Education discussed the addition of new religious and cultural holidays to the academic calendar.
Sabrina Thaler
This holiday season, as families gather around the fire to open gift-wrapped boxes filled with the latest gadgets, many ex-felons will receive a present far more valuable: the right to vote. Yet what seems like a joyous occasion raises a troubling question — is voting a privilege to be bestowed only on the favored few, or a critical right that forms the very foundation of our democratic government?
In Kentucky, convicted felons are permanently disenfranchised; their voting rights can only be restored by an executive order from the governor. Prior to leaving office, former governor Steve Beshear signed an executive order to automatically restore voting rights to nonviolent ex-felons upon completion of their sentences. Two weeks after taking office, governor Matt Bevin rescinded that order, claiming that it was unnecessary.
Since Bevin took office, more than 1700 felons have submitted applications to restore suffrage. As of this September, Governor Bevin had granted 981. That leaves over 700 applications we have no way of tracking. Even more troubling, according to Judy Johnson of the Lexington League of Women Voters, is that Bevin signs applications only twice a year: on the Fourth of July and Christmas. Our governor apparently does see re-enfranchisement as a special gift to be dispensed only on holidays.
As Amanda Hall, an ex-felon who now works for the ACLU of Kentucky, told me, "There's no rhyme or reason to whose rights the governor restores, or whose he doesn't, or when he signs those papers." Hall's own application sat on the governor's desk for "about two and a half years," an exorbitant length of time that is dishearteningly common in Kentucky.
"There's no rhyme or reason to whose rights the governor restores, or whose he doesn't, or when he signs those papers."
The severity of this situation becomes clearer when viewed in a national context. After Florida's recent passage of Amendment Four, which automatically restored suffrage to people with prior felony convictions, Kentucky is one of just two states, alongside Iowa, that permanently disenfranchises its felons.
(Rob Carr/Associated Press)
And what a problem it is: almost one in ten adult Kentuckians have lost the right to vote due to a prior felony conviction, including an estimated one in three African American males. Kentuckians in the latter group are over twice as likely to lose their right to vote as to have a college degree. This racial disparity in and of itself is a sign that the current system is broken.
Furthermore, felony disenfranchisement erodes the very foundation of our government. State Senator Reggie Thomas explained that "as a citizen of a democracy, one of the central rights you have is the right of self-determination." Therefore, as Johnson claimed, "Any kind of voter suppression cracks the framework of democracy."
Losing the right to vote also means losing the ability to participate in politics, causing many felons to feel disengaged from their society. Studies have shown that disenfranchised felons are twice as likely to recidivate as those with voting rights.
Indeed, ex-felons often value their right to vote more than the thousands of eligible Americans who fail to turn up to the polls each year. In her personal experience, Hall says she felt "empowered" when she voted this November for the first time in eight years. "I felt like I had a voice, a small fraction of say-so in the direction of my life and the lives of the people that I love."
Without the ability to file ballot initiatives like in Florida, it can seem difficult for Kentuckians, even those with voting rights, to induce legislators to pass legislation to re-enfranchise felons. But we must exercise strong political will on behalf of those whose voices have been silenced.
But we must exercise strong political will on behalf of those whose voices have been silenced.
So in this holiday season of joy and relaxation, let's remember one thing: voting may feel like a gift. But it should be a right.


text:
Lepidosperma amantiferrum is a sedge of the family Cyperaceae that is endemic to Western Australia. It has no synonyms.

Lepidosperma amantiferrum is a tufted, rhizomatous sedge which typically grows to a height of . Its leaves and culms are distichous (i.e., arranged in two rows on opposite sides of a stem and in the same plane).
In Western Australia it is found in the IBRA Mallee biogeographic region where it grows in yellow sandy loam with banded ironstone gravel and rocks on gentle lower slopes.

References

Plants described in 2007
Flora of Western Australia
amantiferrum
Taxa named by Russell Lindsay Barrett

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


While robots are a long way from matching human emotional complexity, Japan is perhaps the closest to a future where humans and intelligent robots routinely live side-by-side and interact socially.
In the past several years, the government has funded many robotics-related efforts, including some $42 million for the first phase of a humanoid robotics project, and $10 million a year between 2006 and 2010 to develop key robot technologies.
After all, this country invented Tamagotchi, the hand-held mechanical pets that captivated the children of the world.
Japanese are also more accepting of robots because the native Shinto religion blurs boundaries between the animate and inanimate, experts say. To the Japanese psyche, the idea of a humanoid robot with feelings doesn't feel as creepy -- or as threatening -- as it might in other cultures.
Still, Japan faces a vast challenge in making the leap from toys, gimmicks and the experimental robots churned out by labs like Takeno's to full-blown human replacements that ordinary people can afford and use safely.
Japan is already an industrial robot powerhouse. Over 370,000 robots worked at factories across Japan in 2005, about 40 percent of the global total and 32 robots for every 1,000 Japanese manufacturing employees, according to a recent report by Macquarie.
A single robot can replace about 10 employees, the roadmap assumes -- meaning Japan's future million-robot army of workers could take the place of 10 million humans. That's about 15 percent of the current work force.
"Robots are the cornerstone of Japan's international competitiveness," said Shunichi Uchiyama of the Trade Ministry.
Japan's love affair with robots could be said to be more than 300 years old.
Wooden wind-up dolls known as karakuri appeared as early as the 17th century. Especially famous is a kimono-clad tea-serving machine considered one of the world's first "robots." It carried a bowl of tea on a tray from the host to the guest, waited patiently until the guest replaced the bowl, and then returned to the host.
Based on Western gun- and clock-making technology, these robots were designed as helpers or crowd-pleasers.
That was long before Czech playwright Karel Capek's science-fiction drama, "R.U.R.," introduced the word "robot" to the public at large in the early 1920s. Capek's machines are at first happy to toil as laborers for their human creators, but stage a rebellion that triggers the end of the human race.
But, "In Japan, where robots are the good guys in anime or comic books, people just don't feel as threatened by robots as they do in the United States or Europe," said Brian Carlisle, president of Auburn, Calif.-based Precise Automation and former head of the U.S. Robotic Industries Association.
"The Japanese accept robots, and robotics technology has the potential to enter many new kinds of applications," Carlisle said. "Naturally, the possibilities are larger here."
Toddler: CB2, a robot designed to mimic a real child between 1 and 3 years old, looks around the room at a robotics lab in Osaka.
Follow his lead: A Japanese man dances with the Partner Ballroom Dance Robot, a 3-wheeled device that anticipates its partner's movements.
Patient: Actroid, a humanoid robot originally designed to be a spokesmodel, is now being used in Tokyo to help train dental students.
Companion: PaPeRo is designed to be a live-in partner that can discriminate among, and memorize the faces of, up to 10 people.
Skeleton: A robot designed to make human-like facial expressions in response to words is rewired without its skin in a Tokyo lab.
Replica: An image of a man is projected after a 360-degree scan was made of his head to duplicate his features on a robot in Tokyo.