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This text is translated into Russian by google automatic human level neural machine.
EastRussia is not responsible for any mistakes in the translated text. Sorry for the inconvinience.
Please refer to the text in Russian as a source.
Transbaikalia is preparing for change
Governor elections and large-scale municipal elections held in the region
Early elections of the governor and large-scale municipal elections were held in the Trans-Baikal Territory. They were noted by the high activity of observers, as well as by the convincing victory of the acting head of the region, Alexander Osipov, who did not leave any chances to his opponents.
The absolute leader in the struggle for the post of head of the region was Alexander Osipov, who received 248 378 votes, or 89,62%. Elena Krause was supported by 9 204 of the Transbaikal (3,32%). 7 160 voters (2,58%) cast their votes for Vyacheslav Ushakov, 5 729 voters (2,07%) for Yan Shpak. After the announcement of the results, Alexander Osipov thanked the residents for their support.
“I want to thank the Transbaikal people for fulfilling their civic duty - they took part in elections in the territory of the region. This is a key form of assessing the work of the authorities at all levels - settlement, district, region. I express my gratitude to all the Transbaikal people for sharing our faith that the region can be developed, achieve success, and make it better. Every day we will work together to improve life in the region. I would especially like to thank the leaders of the federal level, the plenipotentiary of the president in the Far Eastern Federal District for their help and support, for the belief that today we are able to work differently than we did in previous years, ”said Alexander Osipov.
He emphasized that the region’s government and ministries have a lot of work to do.
“The credit of trust that people have given us, we must justify, find all the necessary opportunities and solutions. Turning ten months ago, we can say: that which seemed unrealizable became possible. Today we need to set new tasks and raise the state of the industries that each of you directs to a new qualitative level, ”said the head of the region.
High activity of observers
Svetlana Sudakova, Chairperson of the Trans-Baikal Territory Election Commission, evaluating the turnout, noted that 277 453, or 35,9% of voters from 799 791 registered voters participated in the election campaign for early elections. According to her, the highest turnout was recorded in Aginsky (63,08%), Duldurginsky, Mogoytuysky, Tungiro-Olekminsky, Krasnochikoysky districts, and the lowest - in Kalarsky district (19,71%). At the same time, 27 Transbaikal residents were able to exercise their right to vote at digital polling stations in Moscow - there were 30 digital polling stations in the capital. The Transbaikal people submitted 37 applications there, however, on the day of voting, 18 people came to 27 precincts. Through the reception points in Transbaikalia, statements were issued by 6 504 people, 432 voters issued special statements.
During the election of the head of the region, six complaints appeared in the regional Electoral Commission, none of which found confirmation. In the municipal elections, citizens sent 12 appeals - two complaints were confirmed. On the map of violations of the movement "Voice" recorded eight appeals.
The past election campaign was notable for the high activity of observers. A total of 1 154 observers were declared. 989 observers were present at polling stations on the Unified voting day, of which 236 - from candidates, and 752 - from the regional Public Chamber.
“For the first time, we also participated actively in the presidential elections in Russia in 2018. We are grateful to those people who completely assumed the role of observers for free, ”said Natalia Drobotushenko, chairman of the Public Chamber of the region. - We resolved the appeals that came to us in a short time, since the precinct election commissions worked very competently, instantly responding to the comments of voters and observers. In addition, the election process took place for the second year under the control of the Center for Public Election Observation, which operated on the basis of the law faculty of the Trans-Baikal State University. ”
As Yekaterina Fisun, head of the party’s regional executive committee, said during a press conference on the results of the Chita City Duma elections, “United Russia” took more seats than it planned in the elections.
“The result was in fact higher than we planned. But not by much, ”Fisun clarified.
Acting chairman of the City Duma of Chita of the sixth convocation Andrei Yadrishchensky, who won in his constituency, explained that the party had the task to take 16 mandates, and took away 19.
In addition, according to Yekaterina Fisun, the party hopes that one of the five self-nominated candidates who passed the Duma will opt for United Russia and join the faction in Gordum.
Answering the question about the number of party candidates who went to the polls, Ekaterina Fisun explained that United Russia nominated candidates in all 30 constituencies.
“Our candidates represent the social sphere, industry, and the business community. There are both experienced politicians and many people who first go to power. The candidates held many meetings with the Chitin people, did not go away from the most pressing issues and talked about a specific program for the development of Chita, ”said Ekaterina Fisun.
On the whole, the election campaign of the 2019 of the year in the Trans-Baikal Territory went fairly calmly - there were no political wars, no compromising battles. Now the Transbaikal people are expecting fruitful work from the chosen government to improve the quality of life.


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Some of Eli Manning’s interceptions are explainable, such as those that bounce off Hakeem Nicks’ hands.
Others are inexplicable, like the pass Manning attempted with his left hand.
As capable as Manning has appeared under center this season, he’s also been susceptible to interceptions. Manning has thrown eight through five games and is on pace for nearly 26 interceptions this season.
“You just learn from each one,” Manning said. “You can’t get worried about them now. They happen, you try to learn from the ones that occur, and just play better football.”
In five full seasons as a starter, Manning averaged 15.8 interceptions. Only 24 of the 79 occurred during the past two seasons, an indication that his decision-making has improved. That makes this year’s elevated rate either an anomaly or a concern.
Manning must walk the tight rope between playing aggressively and intelligently. Coach Tom Coughlin understands the risk, but requires better decisions from his franchise quarterback.
“You don’t want to take that aspect away from him,” Coughlin said. “He’s always trying to make something even if it’s something out of nothing and all I stress with Eli and with any of them is to be aware of the circumstances, know the situation, don’t put your team in jeopardy. You don’t have to. Throw it away. We’ll have a next play. We’d rather have that be the consequence.”
Manning threw two interceptions in Sunday’s victory over the Houston Texans on third-and-long situations. Coughlin would prefer Manning throw the ball away and send the punting team on the field rather than give the opponent possession through a turnover.
“You always have to make smart decisions,” Manning said. “I have to understand the circumstances of the game and don’t need to force things at that point.”
• After missing three games with an ankle/Achilles injury that has been difficult to diagnose and slow to heal, center Shaun O’Hara returned to practice yesterday with limited participation. He took part in individual drills and worked on snaps, although he has not yet sprinted on the ankle.
“Everything I did today, nothing really was too painful,” O’Hara said. “That’s what we’re hoping happens tomorrow.”
O’Hara hopes to play in Sunday’s game against the Detroit Lions, but acknowledged it’s too early to tell. The first step is participating in a full practice, which he will try to do today.
• Linebacker Keith Bulluck is in a similar situation to O’Hara, although Bulluck expects to play Sunday after missing two games with a turf toe. The Giants limited Bulluck yesterday, but he feels he’s ready to play in a game and is simply awaiting clearance.
“It’s definitely a relief for myself,” Bulluck said. “I don’t know what it does for the team or the coaching staff, but for myself, just knowing if my number is called on Sunday I can go and perform, that definitely makes me feel good about myself.“
• WR Victor Cruz, FB Madison Hedgecock, DB Brian Jackson, DE Mathias Kiwanuka, DE Osi Umenyiora, RB D.J. Ware and T William Beatty were held out of yesterday’s practice. Bulluck, O’Hara and S Kenny Phillips were all limited.
RB Jahvid Best and QB Matthew Stafford were among seven players missing from the Lions’ practice yesterday. WR Calvin Johnson was among four players limited.

domain: news


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Bring wonder home.
Step your fashion foot forward with American Girl Drawstring Bag Stamping Kit! Featuring a fun bag that you can adorn with colorful stamped designs in pink, orange, purple, and green, this charming kit will yield one ultra adorable bag that you can use for school, church, or on-the-go. Stamp it and wear it out to show off to your friends!
Colors and styles of contents may vary.

domain: design


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Individual entrances, proper parking, paved driveways, manicured lawns and characteristic balconies in bespoke rainbow cashmere range of exterior paints is the perfect description for these Cohere apartment Buildings.
These are part of a residential construction project involving over 3.5 billion USD in total investment, completed in Angola.
However, this community that can house 500,000 people has been reduced to a “ghost town”.
According to some online articles on this project, there are 750 buildings of 8 floors each, with a dozen schools and space for over 100 stores and shops. Nonetheless, the actual residential area that hoped to target the middle class for the most part remains vacant.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC’s) report says that there are basically no cars or pedestrians… that the windows of apartments are closed… and the balconies remain empty.
My thoughts (laced with reviews floating online on the same)….
With President Jose Eduardo dos Santos having promised to construct 1 million homes for the ordinary common people of Angola in the 2008 elections, a low-middle cost residential construction project would’ve been the most ideal to fulfilling the president’s promise.
Already, the world assumes Angola to have a great majority of the population living in shacks, with no water and at an exorbitant cost where, statistically, a large fraction of Angolans still depend on less than 2 USD per day to survive.
The government therefore needed (needs) to have started giving priority to building low-middle cost housing especially that Angola doesn’t have a middle class but either a very poor or very rich people. Because, for many people, the selling prices of 120k to 200k USD in this community is simply preposterous. Even some of the highest white-collar workers couldn’t afford the down-payment alone.
I don’t fully understand the economics facet surrounding this phenomenon, of course, but to me, the design brief drawn up failed to meet the requirements of the proposed occupants, and in this case the middle class.

domain: politics


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Major contrasts in the climatic preferences of grass subfamilies have been noted for more than half a century (Hartley 1950), but their significance was only recognized following the discovery of C4 photosynthesis. Tropical and subtropical grasslands are dominated by the predominantly C4 Panicoideae and Chloridoideae (Hartley 1958a, b; Hartley & Slater 1960), which together account for more than half of the world's grass species (Fig. 1; Linder & Rudall 2005) and ~20% of gross terrestrial carbon fixation (Lloyd & Farquhar 1994). Their carbon-concentrating mechanism suppresses the energetically wasteful process of photorespiration that plagues C3 grasses at high temperatures, and significantly raises the efficiency of photosynthesis in warm climate regions. In contrast, C3 grass subfamilies such as the Pooideae are largely confined to temperate climates, where photorespiration is naturally limited by lower temperatures (Hartley 1961, 1973).
The evolutionary history of these patterns was elucidated only in the past two decades, following the realization that C4 photosynthesis imparts a distinctive carbon isotope signature to plant materials and trophic pathways. By analysing the isotopic composition of fossilized soils (palaeosols) and the teeth of herbivores, geochemists uncovered a surprise; the domination of low-latitude ecosystems by C4 grasses is a recent phenomenon in geological terms, occurring only 4–8 Myr ago (Ma) at the Miocene–Pliocene boundary, when C4 grasslands expanded across at least four continents (Fig. 2; Quade et al. 1989; Cerling et al. 1997). The factors behind this evolutionary phenomenon have remained controversial since its discovery.
At first, debate focused on the relative merits of CO2 as a driver of C4 grassland expansion (e.g. Cerling et al. 1994; Morgan et al. 1994a, b). The case for CO2 was persuasive, and based on the premise that selective and competitive advantages of C4 photosynthesis result from the energetic benefits of eliminating photorespiration at high temperatures and low atmospheric CO2 (Ehleringer et al. 1991, 1997; Cerling et al. 1997). These advantages over the ancestral C3 condition are reversed when photorespiration is naturally suppressed by low temperatures or high CO2, because the C4 carbon-concentrating mechanism requires energy. This leads to critical thresholds of temperature (around 20–25 °C at today's atmospheric CO2 concentration) and CO2 (around 500 p.p.m. in tropical environments) where C3 and C4 photosynthesis have equal energy requirements and, by extension, equal competitive and selective advantages (Cerling et al. 1997). The proponents of this elegant hypothesis noted the close correspondence between the theoretical temperature threshold and mean growing season value in modern regions of equal C3 and C4 grass species richness, and postulated that declining CO2 crossed an equivalent threshold at the Miocene–Pliocene boundary (Ehleringer et al. 1991, 1997; Cerling et al. 1997). Their ideas were supported by a geochemical model of atmospheric CO2, which indicated the necessary decline during the Cenozoic (Berner 1998).
By the late 1990s, the ideas underpinning the CO2 starvation hypothesis were widely accepted, but still awaited the crucial test provided by palaeo-CO2 reconstructions. This soon came with the publication of three data sets (Pagani et al. 1999; Pearson & Palmer 2000; Royer et al. 2001), each using an independent proxy for CO2, and each showing a long period of stasis in the level of atmospheric CO2 during the expansion of C4 grasslands (Fig. 3b; reviewed by Royer 2006). Unless these palaeo-CO2 proxy records are challenged on technical or theoretical grounds, the geological evidence therefore stands firmly against the CO2 starvation hypothesis for C4 grassland expansion, and new mechanisms must be sought. Instead, the latest evidence suggests that atmospheric CO2 dropped sharply through the C3–C4‘crossover threshold’ at 25–30 Ma during the Oligocene, when it initiated our modern ‘icehouse’ era of advancing and retreating polar ice sheets (Fig. 3; Pagani et al. 2005; Royer 2006). The emerging picture of palaeoenvironmental change therefore lends credence to an alternative hypothesis, proposing declining CO2 concentration as a key selection pressure for the evolutionary origins of C4 photosynthesis in the grasses, rather than C4 grassland expansion (Ehleringer et al. 1991; Pagani et al. 2005).
Here, I review two major issues currently facing geologists, physiological ecologists and ecosystem scientists with interests in this field. I first evaluate the proposed role of CO2 in the evolutionary origins of C4 photosynthesis, focusing on the question of when the pathway first arose in the grasses. However, my principal focus is on the current debate surrounding the causes of C4 grassland expansion, particularly the hypothesized effects of climate change and fire. I argue that a deeper understanding of these proposed abiotic drivers could be achieved by explicitly considering their contrasting interactions within independent groups of C4 grasses.
A crucial test of the CO2 hypothesis for C4 grass origins is to establish whether the first appearance of the pathway coincides with the Oligocene drop in atmospheric CO2. Using a molecular clock, Gaut & Doebley (1997) calculated that divergence of two major C4 grass tribes, the Paniceae and Andropogoneae (Fig. 1), occurred 25–32 Ma, leading later authors to argue that origins of C4 photosynthesis must therefore be at least this old (e.g. Kellogg 1999). However, subsequent phylogenetic analysis cast doubt on this idea, suggesting that C4 origins may have post-dated the divergence event, evolving in up to eight independent subgroups of the Paniceae and Andropogoneae (Giussani et al. 2001; Aliscioni et al. 2003; Sage 2004). Dating the nodes of the grass phylogenetic tree (Fig. 1) has proved difficult because it is becoming increasingly clear that variation in the mutation rate among branches generates large errors in molecular clocks (Pulquiéro & Nichols 2007). Attempts at calibration using the fossil record have yielded dates that vary hugely because of the low sample sizes used (Linder & Rudall 2005). More precise dating of evolutionary events within the grass family therefore depends crucially on a better resolved fossil record.
Fossils only provide minimum dates for nodes of the phylogenetic tree because the geological record is incomplete. This problem is particularly acute for grasses of open habitats, where the potential for fossilization is extremely low (Cerling 1999). The oldest C4 grass macrofossils date to only 12.5 Ma in the Middle Miocene (reviewed by Osborne & Beerling 2006). However, the pollen record for grasses overall stretches back more than 65 Myr to the Late Cretaceous (Jacobs et al. 1999), indicating the potential for much earlier C4 origins. Grass pollen cannot be identified below the family level, but phytolith traits map onto the grass phylogeny at the subfamilial scale (Piperno & Sues 2005; Prasad et al. 2005). Phytoliths form, to a varying degree, in all groups of living vascular plants (Piperno 2006). However, grasses have a higher silica production than most other plants (Hodson et al. 2005), and phytoliths in this family are more diagnostic than for most other plant groups. The interpretation of fossil phytolith assemblages is complicated by multiplicity (each species produces more than one phytolith morphotype), and redundancy (different species produce similar morphotypes) (Piperno 1988). Nevertheless, the comparison of fossil assemblages with modern reference collections has allowed robust statistical inferences about the phylogenetic affinities and ecology of extinct grass communities (Strömberg 2004, 2005).
Phytolith analysis has been used to identify grasses with affinities to the PACCMAD crown group (Fig. 1) from 65- to 67-Myr-old dinosaur dung in India (Prasad et al. 2005), and from the predominantly C4 subfamily Chloridoideae (Fig. 1) in 19-Myr-old Great Plains sediments (Strömberg 2005). Although this technique cannot establish when C4 photosynthesis originated in each clade, complementary methods have been developed for analysing the carbon isotopic signature of phytolith assemblages (Smith & White 2004). Interpretation of these data is difficult because of interspecific variation and differences in the biochemical nature of carbon compounds between C3 and C4 grass phytoliths (reviewed by Smith & White 2004). However, preliminary data suggest that up to 50% of Great Plains grasses may have used the C4 pathway by 12 Ma (Smith 2001).
Geochemical analyses of herbivore teeth, palaeosols and the molecular markers of plant cuticles trace the C4 carbon isotope signal back to 16–18 Ma in the Early Miocene (reviewed in Tipple & Pagani 2007). These data are consistent with the presence of C4 grasses comprising up to 30% of the total biomass in tropical and subtropical ecosystems throughout the Miocene (Fox & Koch 2003; Pagani et al. 2005; Tipple & Pagani 2007). However, the use of bulk isotope analyses to estimate C4 biomass in extinct plant communities is not a precise science. Critical uncertainties remain about the isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2through geological time, variation in the background signal caused by the water relationships of C3 plants and the taxonomic identity of the C4 plants (Tipple & Pagani 2007).
Partial resolution of these issues may come from a new analytical technique for measuring the carbon isotope composition of tiny samples, which currently allows C3 or C4 pathways to be identified from individual pollen grains with > 85% reliability (Nelson et al. 2007). This emerging method should enable researchers to establish directly the photosynthetic pathway of parent plants using grass pollen recovered from sediments dating to the Early Miocene and Oligocene. Unlike analyses of palaeosol or tooth carbon, this technique does not require abundant C4 plant biomass to resolve a C4 signal from the C3 background and offers the potential for identifying rare C4 plants in a predominantly C3 community, in addition to allowing identification of taxa to at least the family level. Furthermore, because it contrasts ‘pure C3’ with ‘pure C4’ samples, the technique is not compromised by variations in the isotopic signature of atmospheric CO2. Pollen-based evidence may therefore bridge the gap between postulated C4 origins and our oldest current evidence for C4 plants. However, questions will still remain over the precise taxonomic identity of these plants, and pinning down the earliest C4 grasses is only part of the challenge confronting geologists in this field. Plummeting CO2 concentrations were correlated with a whole suite of climatic changes during the Oligocene, including falling temperature and increasing aridity (Fig. 3; Zachos et al. 2001; Dupont-Nivet et al. 2007), and may not have been the only selection pressure for C4 photosynthesis.
Geological evidence therefore raises two linked questions. If CO2 was not the driving force, what caused the Miocene–Pliocene expansion of C4 grasslands? And, if C4 grasses were present from the Early Miocene onwards, why did they not dominate ecosystems earlier in their evolutionary history? The key to answering both of these questions may lie in fossil evidence that documents an abundance of woody C3 plants throughout the Miocene, forming forests, woodlands or savannas in regions that subsequently became C4 grasslands (reviewed by Osborne & Beerling 2006). Woody plant cover exerts a major limitation on C4 grass abundance, because trees and shrubs rapidly overtop herbaceous plants in the absence of disturbance, and most C4 species are intolerant of shading (Sage et al. 1999; Sage & Pearcy 2000). Explanations of C4 grassland expansion in the geological record therefore evoke a combination of climatic and disturbance factors that reduce tree cover, focusing primarily on changes in rainfall patterns and fire regime.
A number of alternative palaeoclimate hypotheses have been developed. The first is supported by the oxygen isotope signature of palaeosols in South Asia, and proposes that the Miocene replacement of C3 woody vegetation by C4 grasslands was driven by a strong increase in rainfall seasonality, caused by abrupt intensification of monsoon systems (Table 1; reviewed by Osborne & Beerling 2006). A second hypothesis based on oxygen isotope data from freshwater bivalve shells in Nepal suggests a decrease in the total amount of rainfall with no significant change in seasonality (Dettman et al. 2001), and a similar mechanism is evoked for East Africa, rooted in model simulations for the region (Table 1; Sepulchre et al. 2006). Both of these climatic drying hypotheses propose that an increased frequency and intensity of drought events killed trees and allowed the incursion of C4 grasses, to produce more open savanna or grassland vegetation (Table 1). Both are linked ultimately to tectonic events, including episodes of mountain building such as the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and East African Rift system, or changes in ocean circulation triggered, for example, by closure of the seaway between the Americas (reviewed by Osborne & Beerling 2006).
An alternative viewpoint has emerged from analyses of palaeosol structure, which use the soil horizon structure to infer a vegetation type of desert, grassland or woodland, and the depth of the calcic horizon to estimate rainfall amounts (Retallack 2001). Application of this approach to geological sediments suggests that spatial gradients in rainfall generated parallel regional variation in vegetation (Fig. 4). Ecosystems varied from desert grassland to dry woodland throughout the Early and Middle Miocene in South Asia, the central and western United States and East Africa (Fig. 4; reviewed by Retallack 2001). Palaeobotanical evidence from East Africa also indicates savanna and woodland vegetation during the Early and Middle Miocene (Jacobs et al. 1999). However, the inference of dry climates is not supported by plant macrofossils, phytoliths and pollen from the Great Plains, which indicate productive savanna or woodland vegetation with a significant C3 grass component (Jacobs et al. 1999; Strömberg 2004, 2005). The presence of palms, gingers and bamboos (Strömberg 2004), woody dicots confined to moister climates today (Axelrod 1985), and giant tortoises and alligators (Hutchinson 1982) suggests a relatively humid, rather than arid, climate. Palaeosol data suggest a major change in the ecology of these ecosystems during the Late Miocene, with C4 grasses displacing woodland communities in mesic regions and shifting the grassland–woodland ecotone to higher rainfall areas in North America, Africa and Asia (Table 1, Fig. 4; Retallack 2001). The causes of this ecotone shift are unknown, but have been attributed to the coevolution of grasses and grazers (Retallack 2001), and significant changes in fire regime resulting from shifts in the seasonal distribution, but not total amount, of rainfall (Keeley & Rundel 2005).
Evidence supporting a linkage between fire and the expansion of C4 grasslands comes from black carbon (BC) abundance in marine sediments, a geological proxy for fire occurrence. BC increases by 100- to 1000-fold in Pacific Ocean localities downwind of the Indian subcontinent (Herring 1985; Keeley & Rundel 2003), and 5-fold in the South China Sea (Jia et al. 2003), during the Miocene–Pliocene interval of major C4 grassland expansion in these regions. Sediments off the Atlantic coast of West Africa also show significant increases in charred grass cuticle and pollen abundance during the same period (Morley & Richards 1993). In the last 5 years, a new and compelling hypothesis has therefore added ecosystem-scale feedbacks between fire and vegetation to previous ideas about palaeoclimate (Table 1; Keeley & Rundel 2003, 2005).
Fire sustains C4 grasslands by killing woody plants and entrains a positive feedback because the dead foliage of grasses provides abundant fuel for fires, thereby increasing tree mortality and promoting the further spread of grasses (Keeley & Rundel 2003, 2005). The fire hypothesis therefore proposes that increasing climatic seasonality during the Late Miocene raised fire frequency by supporting rapid biomass production and the development of a high fuel load during wet summer conditions. Intensifying winter drought promoted drying, and increased the likelihood that this material would ignite, with ignition itself provided by lightening strikes at the end of the dry season. Further feedbacks on the fire regime have been proposed via the hydrological cycle (Beerling & Osborne 2006) and wind strength (Tipple & Pagani 2007), but these remain speculative at present.
Ecosystem fire regimes show an important interaction with climate. Fuel remains too moist to support frequent fires in wet, aseasonal environments, whilst the low productivity of dry climate regions produces too little fuel to carry significant fires (Keeley & Rundel 2005). However, given sufficient periods of dry weather, fire has the potential to displace mesic forests in favour of grasslands. This is demonstrated in modern ecosystems by complementary data from: model simulations showing that fire reduces forest cover by ~50% at the global scale (Bond et al. 2005); analysis of woody plant cover across Africa indicating that significant areas of savanna are maintained by disturbance in regions with sufficient rainfall to support forest (Sankaran et al. 2005); fire exclusion experiments which allow the establishment of fire-sensitive trees in mesic savanna ecosystems (Bond et al. 2003, 2005); and the fire-mediated replacement of native forests on Pacific Islands by invasive grasses (D’Antonio & Vitousek 1992). These observations each provide indirect support for the hypothesized mechanism of vegetation change at the Miocene–Pliocene boundary.
An emerging consensus therefore evokes interactions between palaeoclimate change, vegetation–climate relationships and fire frequency to explain the Miocene expansion of C4 grasslands (Table 1; Keeley & Rundel 2005). This ‘consensus scenario’ suggests that Early and Middle Miocene landscapes were dominated by C3 forests or woodlands, with C4 grasses occupying open ground between the patches of woody plants. Increasing seasonality during the Late Miocene concentrated rainfall into a hot growing season, creating a fire regime that removed woody vegetation and shifted the woodland–grassland ecotone to wetter areas (Table 1). Formulated in this way, the hypothesis asserts that climates capable of supporting frequently burning mesic C4 grasslands at the expense of woodland and forests were absent during the Early and Middle Miocene.
However, application of the hypothesis to North and South America is problematic in two important respects. First, patterns of climatic change in these regions at the Miocene–Pliocene boundary are less clear than those in Asia, and an increase in rainfall seasonality has yet to be demonstrated (Passey et al. 2002; Fox & Koch 2004; Osborne & Beerling 2006). Secondly, pollen records, phytolith assemblages and mammalian tooth morphology suggest that a transition from closed forest to open woody vegetation with a significant C3 grass component may have occurred as early as 25 Ma (Late Oligocene to Early Miocene) in the Great Plains (Strömberg 2004, 2005) and 32 Ma (Early Oligocene) in South America (Jacobs et al. 1999). The adaptive radiation of specialist grazers (Strömberg 2006) and an extremely high browser diversity in these Great Plains ecosystems resulted in species-rich mammalian herbivore communities by 15 Ma (Janis et al. 2000). Carbon isotope data demonstrate that some grazers showed a dietary shift in the Late Miocene, subsisting almost exclusively on C4 plants for the 2 Myr before C4 grassland expansion, with presumably significant, but currently unknown, effects on grass–tree dynamics (Fox & Koch 2004; Beerling & Osborne 2006).
I argue that our overall understanding and ability to test climatic and ecological hypotheses regarding Miocene ecosystems would be improved by an explicit consideration of C4 grass phylogeny. To make this case, I first present biogeographical data indicating significant contrasts in the abundance of different C4 grass clades along rainfall gradients, and show how this information might be used in hypothesis testing. Secondly, I re-analyse a published data set in the same context, suggesting that changes in the species richness of independent C4 grass lineages track the length of the rainy season. Finally, I present intriguing preliminary evidence of fire controls on the abundance of particular C4 clades.
The subfamilies Panicoideae and Chloridoideae together account for the majority of modern C4 grass species (Fig. 1; Linder & Rudall 2005), but analyses of regional biodiversity patterns suggest a crucial difference in the climate relationships of these major clades. For the United States and Argentina, the percentage of C4 species belonging to the Panicoideae shows a positive correlation with annual rainfall, whereas the same relationship for the Chloridoideae is negative (Fig. 5; Taub 2000; Cabido et al. 2007).
The mechanisms underpinning these relationships are unclear at present, but may be linked to the close association between biochemical subtypes of C4 photosynthesis and specific phylogenetic groups; the majority of Panicoideae species utilize the NADP-malic enzyme (NADP-ME) pathway whereas most members of the Chloridoideae use the NAD-malic enzyme (NAD-ME) pathway (Taub 2000). As a consequence, contrasting correlations with rainfall are also recognized for different C4 subtypes (Fig. 5b,c; e.g. Hattersley 1992; Taub 2000; Cabido et al. 2007). Experimental investigations suggest that these alternative forms of the pathway may be differentially adaptive in relation to water availability (Ghannoum et al. 2002), or a correlated environmental variable such as soil nutrient status (Ghannoum et al. 2005). However, none of these experiments have explicitly controlled for phylogeny, and the issue remains unresolved. Further questions remain about how these species richness patterns translate into plant abundance along rainfall gradients.
Despite these uncertainties, the geographical distributions of modern C4 grasses indicate that changing rainfall patterns will drive significant shifts in the phylogenetic composition of C4 grass communities. This observation has important implications for palaeoclimate hypotheses about the Miocene–Pliocene expansion of C4 grasslands, because it allows predictions about the clades of C4 grasses that are involved. First, the range of Middle Miocene ecosystems along inferred rainfall gradients (Retallack 2001) should contain varying proportions of C4 grass subfamilies, following the qualitative patterns in Fig. 5(a). Secondly, a shift in the woodland–grassland ecotone to higher rainfall areas should increase the proportion of C4 species belonging to the Panicoideae relative to the Chloridoideae. Finally, a decrease in the total amount of rainfall should drive the reverse pattern, favouring species of the Chloridoideae relative to the Panicoideae.
These opposing predictions are especially critical for regions such as East Africa and South Asia, where alternative hypotheses are postulated. Crucially, they can be tested by using emerging techniques for quantifying the relative abundance of different grass subfamilies within fossil phytolith assemblages (e.g. Prasad et al. 2005), providing a new means of evaluating alternative hypotheses using geological evidence. Conversely, the use of these techniques to reconstruct the phylogenetic make-up of Miocene grassland communities in the Great Plains could offer vital clues about the environmental drivers of C4 grassland expansion in this region. Finally, quantifying shifts in the abundance of different grass subfamilies could aid in the interpretation of carbon isotope signals. For example, a decrease in the proportion of Chloridoideae (NAD-ME) relative to Panicoideae (NADP-ME) species would be expected to ‘amplify’ the C4 signal, because discrimination against 13C is stronger in NAD-ME than NADP-ME grasses (Hattersley 1982), i.e. the NAD-ME type is slightly more ‘C3-like’. The power of these approaches would be increased greatly by a better understanding of how C4 grass distributions vary in relation to rainfall seasonality and fire frequency.
Previous studies suggest that species richness of the tribes Andropogoneae and Paniceae (Fig. 1; Panicoideae) may change significantly in response to the intensity and seasonality of rainfall. For southern Africa, Gibbs-Russell (1988) used a qualitative comparison of floristic and climatic data to show that Andropogoneae species account for the largest fraction of the Panicoideae in monsoonal summer rainfall areas where mean annual precipitation (MAP) > 500 mm. The opposite pattern occurs in the Paniceae, which account for the largest proportion of Panicoideae species in more arid summer-rainfall regions (MAP < 500 mm).
Hartley (1950, 1958a, b) carried out a similar analysis at the global scale, but expressed species numbers in each tribe as a fraction of the total grass flora, rather than restricting the analysis to the subfamily Panicoideae. Based on qualitative descriptions of maps, Hartley hypothesized that centres of the highest species diversity in the Andropogoneae are typically located in subtropical monsoon climates with a short rainy season (Hartley 1958a), whereas the highest diversity in the Paniceae occurs in less seasonal wet equatorial climates (Hartley 1958b). To evaluate this hypothesis further, I have carried out a quantitative analysis of the same species richness data sets (Hartley 1950, 1958a) by using climate data recorded at nearby meteorological stations (Müller 1982). A series of generalized linear models (GLIMs) were fitted to the data, using a quasibinomial distribution in place of the binomial distribution when data were underdispersed [glm(), R version 2.4.1, The R Foundation for Statistical Computing]. I used a forward stepwise approach, testing first the simple additive hypotheses posed in the literature, and then adding more variables and interactions.
Numerous previous studies have demonstrated that temperature is the primary global control on species richness for C4 grasses (reviewed by Sage et al. 1999), and the Andropogoneae and Paniceae tribes followed this general pattern (Table 2a,b). GLIMs for Eurasia–Africa and the Americas showed highly significant additive effects of mean annual temperature (MAT) and tribe on relative species richness (Fig. 6a,b, Table 2a,b). Relative diversity was lower in the Andropogoneae than the Paniceae (Table 2a,b), and this difference was more pronounced in the Americas than Eurasia and Africa (Fig. 6a,b).
I then added rainy season length (RSL) to the model, restricting the analysis to tropical and subtropical localities (latitude < 35°N or S). Because the latitude criterion excluded most of the data from the Americas, this analysis focused on Eurasia and Africa. RSL was estimated for each locality using a biologically based definition of the growing season for C4 grasses; as the number of consecutive months in which the mean minimum temperature > 10 °C and total precipitation > 30 mm (Collatz et al. 1998). The temperature threshold for growth was based upon two lines of complementary evidence: (i) experimental observations of chilling-mediated photoinhibition and impairment of leaf extension in C4 grasses (Long 1983); and (ii) the minimum summer temperature required for C4 species to persist in a grass flora (Sage et al. 1999), a threshold that was observed in this data set. These criteria defined a reasonable (non-zero) rainy season for all localities except those in desert regions (e.g. Syria and Yemen), where plants are probably associated with bodies of water or infrequent rains, or at high elevation (e.g. Lesotho), where C4 species may show an unusual resistance to low temperature extremes (Márquez et al. 2007). These localities with a zero RSL were excluded from further analysis.
The minimum adequate GLIM showed highly significant additive effects of MAT, RSL and tribe, but not the hypothesized interaction between MAT and RSL (Table 2c). Species richness increased with RSL in both tribes, but showed a differing nonlinear response: values for the Andropogoneae were low when 0 < RSL ≤ 3 months, and high when 4 ≤ RSL ≤ 12 months (Fig. 6c); in contrast, values for the Paniceae increased in an approximately linear response to reach a maximum at RSL ≥ 9 months (Fig. 6d). I therefore constructed a new GLIM attempting to account for these apparent nonlinearities by grouping RSL data into three temporal categories: 1–3, 4–7 and 9–12 months (there were no localities with RSL = 8 months). This model showed an additive effect of MAT, and an interaction between RSL and tribe (Table 2d). The interaction was caused by equal species richness in climates with a rainy season of 7 months or less, and greater species richness in the Panicoideae than Andropogoneae in aseasonal climates with rainy seasons of 9 months or more (Fig. 7).
This quantitative analysis supports the hypothesis that species richness in the Paniceae is highest in moist, aseasonal climates of the subtropics and tropics, but fails to show a similar association between maximal Andropogoneae diversity and a short rainy season. Instead, species richness in the Andropogoneae remains constant across localities with rainy seasons of 4–12 months (Figs 6c and and7).7). The analysis therefore highlights a phylogenetic contrast between the tribes that could prove useful for hypothesis testing in the geological record: a climatic change from moist, aseasonal conditions to a strongly seasonal climate is expected to drive a shift in the grass flora from a predominance of Paniceae species towards a more equal representation of the Paniceae and Andropogoneae. Further work is required before this expectation can be tested in the fossil record, because techniques for analysing phytolith assemblages cannot yet distinguish tribes of the Panicoideae. However, archaeologists already use phytolith-based diagnostics for identifying individual crop species of the Andropogoneae (Piperno 2006), indicating good promise for increasing the taxonomic resolution of this technique.
The value of these observed patterns of species richness would be increased greatly by an understanding of the underlying mechanisms. One possibility is suggested by Bond et al. (2003), who hypothesize that the Andropogoneae are key to the fire-mediated displacement of forests by grasslands in mesic climates of southern Africa. These authors note the dominance of this group in fire-maintained and nutrient-poor mesic savannas, the obligate dependence of Andropogoneae species such as Themeda triandra on frequent defoliation, and their decline in the absence of fires. Frequent fires are promoted by the rapid growth of Andropogoneae species during summer, the accumulation of tannin-like compounds in their foliage, and the low nutritional quality of leaves during winter (reviewed by Bond et al. 2003). These latter traits retard decomposition and result in a low palatability to grazers during the dry season, leading to the build up of a high fuel load for fires.
The evolution of such fire-promoting traits in one or more clades of C4 grasses during the Miocene therefore provides a possible explanation for how the grassland–woodland ecotone shifted to more mesic areas. But what might have selected for these characters? One idea is suggested by the Miocene radiation of grazers, and the specialization of some animals on a C4 diet prior to grassland expansion. Recent studies indicate that modern grasses have evolved a suite of characteristics to resist grazing, including the accumulation of phenolic compounds (e.g. tannins), a high silica content, and tough fibrous leaves with a low palatability and nutritional quality (Burt-Smith et al. 2003; Massey et al. 2007). Ecological theory proposes that selection for these traits is strongest in nutrient-poor habitats (Grime 2001), and empirical evidence shows that grazer-driven selection for unpalatable species occurs in dry ecosystems with a long history of herbivory (Díaz et al. 2007). Speculative links may therefore be drawn between high grazing pressure in nutrient-poor savannas during the Miocene, and selection for grazing-resistant (but fire-promoting) traits in C4 grasses. As these traits may also occur in C3 grasses (Grigulis et al. 2005), this hypothesis provides an ecological explanation for Miocene C4 grassland expansion that is not directly linked to photosynthetic pathway.
The origin of C4 photosynthesis and expansion of C4 grasslands were major events in Earth history with significant consequences for tropical and subtropical ecology. Newly uncovered geological evidence has bolstered support for decreasing CO2 as a selection agent for the pathway, leading to the expectation that C4 grasses first evolved during the Oligocene. However, these same data cast serious doubt on the role of CO2 in C4 grassland expansion. Instead, current ecological understanding of vegetation–fire dynamics in savannas has generated hypotheses integrating the roles of climate change and fire. I propose that the contrasting modern diversity patterns shown by independent C4 grass clades along climatic gradients generate a further expectation: that palaeoclimate change forced significant shifts in the phylogenetic composition of Miocene grass communities. New techniques for the geochemical analysis of pollen and the extraction of phylogenetic information from phytolith assemblages provide the necessary tools for testing these ideas, and will help to bring the evolutionary history of C4 grasses into sharper focus.
I thank The Royal Society for funding through a University Research Fellowship, and Andrew Beckerman, David Beerling, Jeremy Midgley, Gareth Phoenix, Brad Ripley, Caroline Strömberg and Vernon Visser for stimulating discussions during the preparation of this work, and critical comments on the manuscript.

domain: biology


text:
Shruti Haasan is an actress who has made a name for herself in Bollywood as well as South Indian industry. Being the daughter of superstar Kamal Haasan and ace actress Sarika, Shruti has got acting skills in her legacy. She is also a melodious singer and is acclaimed for her beauty and grace.
Here is a list of top 10 best movies of Shruti Haasan:
10. Dil to Bachcha Hai Ji
Shruti Haasan proved her talent as an actress in the Madhur Bhandarkar Hindi movie “Dil to Bachcha Hai Ji”. The 2011 romantic comedy had her share the screen space with Ajay Devgan, Emraan Hashmi, Omi Vaidya, Shazahn Padamsee and Shraddha Das, but Shruti still made her presence felt with her great acting.
The 2009 Hindi movie “Luck” marked the Hindi debut of Shruti Haasan and proved that she held the promise to emerge as a competent actress of the future. The star cast of the movie included big names like Mithun Chakraborty, Imraan Khan and Sanjay Dutt.
One of the milestones in the career of Shruti Haasan is the Hindi movie called “D-Day”, a 2013 release based on the story of the underworld. The movie had a big star cast including Rishi Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Irrfan Khan and Huma Qureshi, but Shruti proved herself with her outstanding performance.
7 .7th Sense
“7th Sense” is a Tamil science fiction movie, which hit the silver screen in 2009. The movie marked the Tamil debut of Shruti Haasan and had her paired opposite Suriya. It was directed by ace director A R Murugadoss.

domain: artistic


text:
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Save Liquid error (snippets/product-badge line 32): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
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domain: food


text:
A life fully lived for Christ–2 Timothy 4:7-8, part 2
Once a pastor in Norway was asked by a parishioner about how to understand death for the Christian. The pastor responded by telling him this story. “Well,” he said, “it’s like this. Once there was a peasant, and the peasant had some things to take care of in another village. So the next morning, he said to his wife that he had to travel to this particular village to do his business and that he would try to be back before nightfall.
“It was at this point that his little son said to him, ‘Father, may I go with you ?’ And any father would be thrilled to take along a son for the day and he said, ‘Of course,’ as he grasped his little hand and off they went in the morning sun, headed for the village that was some distance away.
“As they walked, they came to a river. Now the river was swollen because of recent rains, and the waters had catapulted through the particular channel they had to cross and had washed away most of the bridge. All that was left were some pillars and pilings and as a result, the little boy was very fearful and said, ‘Father, we will never get across.’
“The river was moving rapidly, but the father just looked at his son and said, ‘We’ll make it son, I’ll be very careful. I’ll hold on to you very tightly and we’ll get across.’ Grasping that little fellow by the wrist and holding on to him with the grip of a loving father, he began cautiously to pick his way from piling to piling, sometimes suspending the little guy over the torrent till he could lift him to the next place of safety, until they made it across.
“Once across, they went to the village and they did their business and when the business was complete they started home. But as so often is the case, their business dealings took longer than expected and it was already dark when they started their return trip. This particular night there was no light from the moon and the sky was filled with clouds, and as they walked along the trail through the forest towards the river in the darkness, the father heard the little fellow begin to cry.
“As he looked down, he asked, ‘What’s wrong, son?’ His son replied, ‘Father, we made it across the river in the light, but we’ll never make it across in the dark.’ Without saying a word, he reached down and scooped the little fellow up and pressed him to his chest, and in a matter of moments he was sound asleep.
“The next thing he knew, the boy woke up and found himself in his own house, in his own room, and in his own bed. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, it was morning and his father was standing in the doorway smiling–he was home.” The pastor said to the parishioner, “You see, that’s what death is like for the Christian. What you fear you never experience. You simply wake up and you’re home.”
Second Corinthians 5:8, “To be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” In our study of 2 Timothy, Paul’s words to Timothy give you a similar hope. Open your Bibles to 2 Timothy 4:6 to 8 and follow along with your outlines. After challenging Timothy to rely completely on God’s Word and to preach God’s Word, he wraps up his exhortation with the phrase at the end of verse 5, “fulfill your ministry.”
Then as Paul pens this final letter from a dark cell in a Roman prison, to Timothy who is battling external persecution from Nero and internal pressure from heretics, Paul actually shares what it is like to fulfill your ministry. Paul intentionally connects verse 5 with verse 6, by beginning verse 6 with a “for”. So Paul, what does a life fully lived for Christ actually look like–fulfilling your ministry?
Paul now, at the end of his life–with his execution just weeks, possibly months away, gives us his epitaph. And for an example of a fulfilled life, read with me verses 6 to 8. “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; 8 in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
Paul knows this second major imprisonment will be his last, so he writes Timothy in Ephesus a second time, because the inspired Word is being corrupted by heretics, and because Timothy is timidly fading under doctrinal pressure and Roman persecution. Paul commands Timothy to build convictions about God’s Word.
And Paul commands Timothy to preach the author’s intended message, God’s inspired Word, as is. Get God’s Word to God’s people without messing up God’s original message through His apostles. Paul commands Timothy to pay the price of suffering, endurance and difficulty like Paul did. Live a life which fulfills God’s intended ministry–fulfill your ministry.
So Paul now describes what that looks like, using his own obituary as an example. What do you want your story to proclaim as you look back on your life? What is a life fully lived for Christ actually look like? What can you pursue now which will result in you hearing from Christ, “Well done, good and faithful servant?” Paul tells Tim.
Last week In verse 6, he looks at his present life and ministry and declares he’s ready. This week in verse 7, he looks at the past and declares he was faithful. This week in verse 8, he looks at the future and anticipates heavenly reward. As you examine your life, are you ready to die and face judgment? Have you been faithful in life and ministry, and are you anticipating future reward? Let’s find out.
#1 THE PRESENT DEPARTURE which Paul is prepared for
Verse 6, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.” The drink offering was the final offering in the midst of a long offering process. Paul uses the entire offering process to describe his life. And now Paul uses the closing drink offering to indicate he himself, Paul, is also at the end of his life.
The pouring out of wine on the hot coals of the fire, used in the offering process, was a slow action producing steam, which rose to the heavens as an offering to God. For Paul, this pouring out has begun–Paul’s life is ending, though not quit finished yet. In verse 6, Paul describes his death as a soon to come departure. The Greek word for departure describes the unleashing of an animal from a cart, the loosing of the bonds of a prisoner, the loosening of a tent in order to take it down, and the leaving of a ship from harbor.
For the authentic born again Christian who dies, death is laying down the burden in order to rest. Death is laying aside the shackles in order to be free, death is striking camp in order to set up residence in a heavenly place. And death is casting off the ropes of this world and setting sail to end up in the presence of God. When a believer dies, they are not dear–they’re more alive than they have ever been.
They have not left, they have arrived. They are not away, they are home. For Paul, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Paul is prepared to die and face Christ. “Since I’m about to die and have fulfilled my ministry, now Timothy, you fulfill your ministry, Timothy–and you must be prepared to face Christ.” What’s that look like? Verse 7 . . .
#2 THE PAST COURSE which Paul was faithful to
The last judgment for the Christian is the judgment seat of Christ–the Bema reward platform. Romans 14:10c, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” Like every godly Christian, Paul never forgot the Bema was coming, but it held no terrors for him. As Paul evaluates his past, he says to Timothy in verse 7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” These three sweet statements prove Paul anticipated this coming judgment with eagerness–he longed to please the Lord in life and is not ashamed to face Christ in death. Look at the first.
First “I have fought the good fight“
Every nuance of this phrase is true. Paul began on the Damascus Road thirty years earlier, and after his time in the Arabian desert, he traveled the ancient world in three missionary journeys. The fourth ended in Rome. Travel back then was grueling–it took months, not hours. The dangers were not losing your luggage, but being robbed, getting sick, or shipwrecked, The most difficult was you faced an intense spiritual battle as you taught God’s Word and proclaimed the Gospel.
Paul was in a spiritual struggle. The Greek verb “have fought” from “I have fought the good fight” is from agōnizomai, the source of the English agonizing. In New Testament times, have fought was commonly used in the public athletic games, such as the Greek Olympics. Paul was in a spiritual fight, which was also costly physically.
So brave Paul contended not only with the false teachers and believers embracing bad doctrine, angry civic Gentiles and the political leaders of Rome. But the more difficult battle was Ephesians 6:12, “against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” The faithful Christian life is nothing less than a fierce and relentless spiritual struggle, which never ends until Heaven.
The faithful Christian constantly battles his own flesh, his own sin, his own ignorance and his own laziness. He has to battle the temptation to do things, good things that everyone does, then refuse to do better things a few are committed to, to actually accomplish the best things which only the select give their lives to.
What are some of those best things? Worshipping the Lord with your whole heart as a way of life. Discipling others. Serving Christ in ministry with your giftedness. Seeking to share the Gospel with the lost. Cultivating a marriage and family which points to Christ. Doing all you do to the glory of God. Loving Christ, His church and His people. The select, those willing to fight the good fight, will fight in order to give their lives to the best things.
Paul makes this observation to serve as a model for Timothy and to encourage him to rely on Christ’s enabling grace. Paul fought hard against a long list of dangers and suffered greatly from a harsh list of indignities, but in the midst of the battle, Paul shouted Romans 8:37, “In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” We live through Christ.
Look carefully at the three verbs in these three phrases, “have fought, have finished, and have kept“–they translate intensive perfect verbs, indicating completed action with continuing results. Paul had no regret, no sense of unfulfillment or no broken heart of incompleteness. After the Lord took control of His life, he lived life to the fullest. Everything God enabled him to do, he did. Paul left no unfinished symphony.
And this fight is not, “Let’s get ready to rumble!”–this fight is the good fight. “I have fought the good fight.” Paul calling the fight good meant this battle is noble. Paul never forgot who He was fighting for and what he was fighting about–a good fight. The Greek word “good” refers to that which is intrinsically good and genuinely beautiful in purpose.
You are not saved primarily for your own sakes. You are saved for the glory of God and to fulfill His holy calling to be His witnesses to an unsaved world. That noblest of all callings to the noblest of all causes should inspire every believer to Matthew 6:33, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness”. This good fight should motivate you to yield every gift, every talent, every resource at every opportunity with all of your energy, to lifelong service by God’s Word in God’s power. You are all in. Paul is showing Timothy and you what a fulfilled life is.
Second “I have finished the course“
Life is a race and Paul tells Timothy he has finished his race course. God sets a specific track for each of his children to run–it is unique to you. Some of Paul’s racecourse was revealed to him within days of his salvation in Acts 9, when Ananias informed him of the things he would suffer. Now Paul had completed his course. Paul humbly makes no boast about winning his race. Paul simply declares he’s finished his race. Everything God set before Paul, had been done.
God is sovereign, and you’re equally responsible. God has sovereignly arranged the course of your life, but you are responsible to remain focused and to run with discipline. Paul uses the racecourse to remind Timothy and you, in order to fulfill your ministry, you Christians must live your faith like an athlete who runs his race–you must exercise concentration and discipline.
The Greek word for course literally means running a race–so metaphorically, course was used of fulfilling a lifetime career, occupation or military service. The course is your life. But have no illusions, your racecourse is an obstacle race–there are challenges ahead. And the way you run is to avoid two things–one is obvious and the other is not.
Hebrews 12:1 and 2 describe both, “Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus.” Repent of entangling sin–that’s obvious. But Hebrews also says, “lay aside the encumbrances“–those are the weights runners would use to train for the race, then discard those weights when they actually ran their race.
An encumbrance is not evil in itself. Normally, it may be harmless–even worthwhile. The danger and harm comes when such things hinder our service to Christ. What good things, acceptable habits, fun events and normal distractions do you do which distract you from Christ–lay those aside when they hinder your service to Christ.
Anything that weighs you down as you’re running for Christ, anyone who distracts your attention when you should be concentrating, anything that moves your focus from the Lord’s work to something else, anything that saps your energy that should be dedicated entirely to Christ–lay those aside. How do I stay motivated?
The secret to winning your own racecourse is to fix your eyes completely on Christ. Love the Lord, follow your Savior, serve your Master, honor your King, submit to your God–then treat anything that is unnecessary in your life as a spiritual encumbrance. Time to clean house. In order to fulfill your ministry, you finish the course by laying aside encumbrances.
Third “I have kept the faith“
Keeping the faith refers to the incredible marathon race effort Paul gave in maintaining apostolic doctrine and fighting to keep a pure Gospel. Paul stayed true to the truth. Paul persevered in what he preserved. Paul recognized his sacred trust regarding the Word of God. The Greek verb “have kept” means to watch over, to persevere and to guard. When Paul says “kept THE faith” with the article “the“, Paul is describing the faith objectively as doctrine. Paul invested his life in preserving the truth of the Gospel and apostolic doctrine.
Like Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal, like Isaiah scolding Ahaz, like Jeremiah warning the people, like Daniel boldly preaching to Nebuchadnezzar, Paul spent his life in opposition to error and preserving God’s truth. With his life, Paul had guarded the body of truth entrusted to him. Paul stood firm in the faith before the rage of the Jews and the violence of the mob.
Paul stood uncompromising before Felix, Festus, and King Agrippa. Paul had not even wavered standing before the savage Nero. Paul finished his obstacle race, he kept the faith pure. He preached it, he lived it. He loved Jesus Christ, he honored His truth, he followed his Lord in all things. A fulfilled life is gained by one who pays any price to boldly teach Christ’s Word and proclaim the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Are you keeping the faith? In verse 7 with these three graphic clauses, Paul just told of his service for Christ, which all leads to a future hope.
#2 THE FUTURE REWARD which Paul is hoping for
Verse 8, “In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” Having discussed the present and the past, Paul turns his eye to the future. In the mind of Timothy and the first century reader, it is completely natural after the noble fight, the race satisfactorily run, and the faith steadfastly exercised, to receive the reward of grace.
First The future Reward for PAUL
Paul anticipated his future reward. With death behind him, he’d soon stand before Christ at the Bema judgment. Verse 8a, “in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day.” Paul is reminding Timothy that, although salvation is free, eternal rewards are earned. You are not judged for sin, but you are judged for your service to Christ.
Paul had no doubt he would receive a crown. The word translated crown refers to the victor’s crown in the Greek games–the victor’s reward made of oak leaves or ivy that was given to the winners of Greek athletic events. Paul expected to receive a “crown of righteousness.” Scripture mentions other crowns–1 Peter 5:4 mentions “the crown of glory,” James 1:12 mentions “the crown of life,” Philippians 4:1 refers to “the soul winner’s crown,” Revelation 2:10 refers to “the martyr’s crown.”
The Bible doesn’t say, but I believe Paul probably will receive all those crowns. The one he was sure he’d receive was “the crown of righteousness“–it would be his reward for having relied completely on the righteousness of Christ for salvation, teaching the Gospel where one must trust Christ’s righteousness to cover them and living a life dependent upon the Holy Spirit, so that the righteous one would live through him righteously.
Verse 1 confirms Christ Jesus the Lord is also the Judge. And this umpire respects the contest and the rules He Himself has laid down. Christ is the righteous Judge, who on that notable day, will give whatever is due. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul developed the entire subject of righteousness–how it is required, how it is received, and how it is reproduced. Paul knew the difference between the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us by God and the righteousness of the saints that is implemented in us by and through the Holy Spirit.
The Greek word of is a genitive–depending on what kind of genitive it is–the of in the phrase “of righteousness” could be the righteousness that covers us from salvation in Christ, or the crown of righteousness which results from the righteous actions of those who’ve been made righteous. Because of Christ, you are made perfectly righteous and on the basis of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice, you will be rewarded and/or in dependence on the Spirit as a believer, you can do righteous acts, which will be rewarded.
Like 1 John 3:7, “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” And like Revelation 19:8, “It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” Now it is possible to work really hard for Christ but lose your reward, because the focus of your service was not directed at Christ, nor done for God’s glory, nor labored in the power of the Spirit. But a life lived in dependence upon the righteous one, the righteous Judge, will display righteousness, which will later result in a crown of righteousness.
In true salvation, God makes you righteous before God–perfect. But in practical sanctification, righteousness is practiced and pursued. As far as was humanly possible in a body of flesh, Paul had allowed the indwelling Holy Spirit to make him like Christ. Paul sought to live by the Holy Spirit according to the Word of God. And as a result, Christ as the righteous Judge would see that Paul received the appropriate reward for His dependence upon the Spirit and the Word of God. And this reward can also come to you.
Second The future Reward for BELIEVERS
You also will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, where the righteous judge will evaluate your life. Second Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
Paul says here in 2 Timothy 4:8b, “The crown will be given not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” Paul linked the rewards believers will receive “on that day” with the measure of their love for His appearing. Paul is reminding you there are two kinds of people–those who fear standing before Christ and those who would love being near Christ. Which are you?
John Calvin was even more pointed. With my edits, Calvin says, “Those believers who are devoted to the world, who love this fleeting life, are not motivated by the coming of Christ.” And if you are here this morning, not excited about the coming of Christ, you are too devoted to this world. Is Christ’s coming a dread or a delight to you? Is it a pain or pleasant? Are you indifferent or intense about His return? Christ’s return changes everything . . . everything.
Live like Christ is coming back today. Look forward to His return. A steady focus on the Lord’s return for His bride is a powerful motive for righteous living. The apostle John said the same thing in 1 John 3:2 and 3, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
Sadly, it is possible for us to lose our crowns if we fail to live a Spirit-filled life which is obedient to the Word of God. If we fail to dependently by faith, serve Christ, disciple others, share the Gospel and love the Lord in all things–you and I will lose our reward. Paul looked back on his life and by grace, he fulfilled his ministry. As you look at your life, have you fulfilled your ministry? Are you ready to live for Christ? Are you ready to die for Christ? What should you do?
A To fulfill your ministry, be prepared to BATTLE the enemy
Satan had sought to undermine Paul’s teaching by opposing him. There had been Galatian legalists, Jewish ritualists, and Colossian Gnostics. There had been forged letters. There had been vicious attacks on his integrity, his personal appearance, and his unpolished speech. Paul’s stand against Satan was simple–2 Timothy 1:12b, “I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.”
What God committed to Paul, Paul committed back to God. Paul had practiced what he preached. He had waged war night and day against all the power of the enemy. Now Paul was a battle-scarred prisoner of war, but even so, the devil did not know what to do with Paul. If Satan turned Paul loose, he’d turn the world upside down for Christ. If Satan locked Paul up in prison, he’d win his jailers to Christ, engage in prayer that would exalt Christ, then write letters that would arm multitudes of believers in ages to come to please Christ and resist Satan.
If Satan killed Paul, he’d simply be promoted to glory, where he longed to be. You are to battle the enemy with truth lived and battle Satan with truth shared. Go to war and look forward to that day, fight for that day, serve for that day in order to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
B To fulfill your ministry, your race has a PURPOSE
In the same context of 1 Corinthians 9, Paul says some very dramatic things. On either side of running his race to win and doing all to God’s glory, he tells you the purpose of running and glorifying God– can you spot it?
“I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. 23 I do all things for the sake of the gospel… 24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. 31 Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God… 33 just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved” (1 Corinthians 9:22-24,31,33).
You run your racecourse so you might see those who are the enemies of Christ become His friends–that they would get saved. That those without Christ would be forgiven, cleansed, born again and made family. This is why Paul ran his race, and this is why you should run your race. Purpose for all genuine Christians is to want the lost to be found, the dead to be made alive, the filthy to be cleansed, and the sinner forgiven.
C To fulfill your ministry, you must be IN Christ
Just like Paul finished his course and is about to go home to Heaven, Christ dying on the cross for the sins of His children finished His course. Jesus declared in John 19:30b, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. The Greek word finished means to bring to an end, to complete, to perfect, so when the Lord triumphantly cried, “It is finished,” He meant His sufferings were over. The great work of redemption was done.
“It is finished“–that verb is also in the perfect tense, which is good news for you. Perfect means past completed action with present abiding results, meaning Christ’s work on the cross was finished, but its effects are still at work today. You today, right now, can be saved by the finished work of Christ. Jesus, being fully God, could be an acceptable sacrifice for sin on the cross. Jesus, being fully man, could take the place of man dying for sin in our place.
If you exchange your life for His, surrender your will for His, depending by faith on His Person and work, and turn from your sin, then you can be saved today. Only then can you fulfill your purpose. Turn to Christ now. Let’s pray.

domain: literature


text:
Which Mouthwash Should You Use?
There are different types of mouthwash available in the market today; breath-freshener, antibacterial, fluoridated, etc. The big question is, which one should you be using? Here are some tips on choosing the right type of mouthwash for you and your family:
For Bad Breath or Gum Disease Concerns
If this is the case, a mouthwash with an antibacterial formula is the best one to use. This type of mouthwash fights bad breath, gingivitis and plaque. Products that contain eucalyptol, thymol, menthol, and methyl salicylate are over-the-counter antibacterial mouthwashes that are effective in reducing plaque and gum disease. Antibacterial formulas are said to reduce bacteria counts in the mouth by an average of 75 percent.
For Bad Breath Concerns
For those whose only concern would be bad breath but not necessarily gum disease or tooth decay, breath-freshening mouthwash is the best option as this neutralizes odours. Studies show that zinc and chlorine, the primary ingredients in these rinses, defuse foul-smelling sulphur compounds that are produced by bacteria. Other products contain a germicide called cetylpyridinium – this has anti-gingivitis (gum disease-fighting), and antiplaque benefits. Breath-freshening mouthwashes are known to be easier on the taste buds since they have lower alcohol contents. However, these rinses are not as effective as antibacterial rinses in terms of counteracting gingivitis and plaque.
For Gingivitis or Periodontitis Concerns
In this case, a prescription mouthwash that fights gingivitis-causing germs may be th best choice for you. Clinical studies have shown that chlorhexidine, an active ingredient in prescription mouthwashes, has much stronger antibacterial properties than those ingredients found in over-the-counter brands. An important caution: chlorhexidine can stain teeth. Mouthwashes containing this ingredient are prescription-only and, will likely go hand in hand being monitored by your dental professional.
For Cavity Concerns
For this case, mouthwashes that contain fluoride, a mineral naturally found in water and soil, is the best choice. This will coat the teeth with a protective film that will strengthen the enamel of the teeth, making it more resistant to tooth decay. Fluoride is the only mouthwash ingredient that has been proven to prevent cavities, but it does not protect the teeth from gum disease.
Children whom are decay prone or, having orthodontic care are often encouraged to use this type of rinse.
Antibacterial ingredients are not compatible with fluoride, unfortunately. This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to have an all-in-one mouthwash. Parents need to monitor children closely when using mouthwashes as to not ingest only rinse and spit.
For an elaborate explanation, it is best to have a one-on-one talk with Dr. Marvin Lean or a member of the Team at Pickering Square Dental. He will help you decide on which mouthwash would be the best one for you and your current oral health status.
We are accepting new patients! Pickering Square Dental continues to grow and continues to accept new patients. If you are considering a new dentist for you and your family, we invite you to stop by to meet our team and take a tour of our office or to schedule an appointment.more

domain: medical


text:
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text:
It started and ended in Bishop, Ca and in-between there was much action. Here are just a few of the moments.
We were deep in the throngs of remodeling our coworking space, having finally finished demolishing a reasonably ok building, striping it down to it’s imperfect skeleton and were starting to rebuild. We turned a significant corner in the mega project.
I deadlifted 230lbs.
We bouldered a lot and I ticked a plethora of things from v5-v10.
The tablelands caught on fire.
I tried to send V11 but didn’t.
Julie Ellison with Never Not Collective followed me around filming – I mostly flailed.
Patrick O’Donnell and I put up a new route in Owens.
We were constantly toiling and making progress on Bishop Cowork.
We both red-pointed Ethan Pringles, Shart Attack, 5.14
Julie missed the shot.
We were curious about “Nudist” culture so we took a trip to Saline Valley.
I met up with Nina Williams in Yosemite and started climbing on our big wall project.
The toiling on Bishop Cowork slowed for a bit while we waited for the drywall but commenced shortly thereafter.
We climbed a bit in Pine Creek and trained, I really had only one objective on my mind.
My one-arm hangs got better as did my campusing endurance and pinch strength. I could taste the imminent success and I was hungry for it.
I started climbing on the project but, it was too warm.
I had a quick work trip to Canada to film a commercial.
We snorkeled with family in Key West. That was our very first non-climbing vacation.
I had a quick work trip to Switzerland. It’s quite civilized and as with most places in Europe, the rock seemed endless.
We climbed adventure routes in Tuolumne, testing our wits on the runout and delicate moves.
I sent TopGun, 5.14, in Tuolumne for the 3rd ascent. My project of 3 summers finally ending, a week later I had the pleasure of belying Ben for his ascent. We went back for the shot.
I relaxed a little.
I went to the Hulk a few times. I climbed Airstream, and got in some good double-rope practice on Red Dihedral.
A public climbing gym opened in Bishop.
I unwrapped a new project and set it aside until next summer.
I started practicing 1-3-5-7.
I led the Rostrum in 6 mega pitches.
I achieved 1-3-5-7.
We opened Bishop Cowork.
Ben immediately began remodeling the living space.
A group of us climbed The North Ridge of Half Dome.
I climbed Astroman and the Rostrum with Hannah.
I went met up with Nina in the Valley again. She sent the wall project in great style.
Julie got the shot.
Conditions arrived and bouldering season started with a bang.
Sandra and I raged in the climbing gym; Peter Croft said he didn’t even feel like a climber compared to us.
Julie should have been there for that shot.
I got really sore abs from doing Iron Dragons, I adapted after a week.
I climbed a bunch of grainy, no-star, but really good boulder problems.
We had a White Elephant Christmas party. Enemas, Trump, and weed were involved.
Friends came with their kids. We bouldered, marveled at the minds of children, endured some bitter cold, sent some things, tried some others and ended the year living the best way we know how.
March 12th, 2019 at 4:17 pm
So psyched reading this! Time to go have more fun!

domain: hobby


text:
CFOs are cashing in on options granted during the recession — sometimes reaping big rewards. Finance chiefs at the largest U.S. companies sold nearly $895 million of their company’s stock this year through Aug. 21, about 19% more than a year earlier and nearly eight times as much as in the comparable 2009 period, CFOJ’s Maxwell Murphy reports in today’s Marketplace section. Leading the pack of big sellers was LinkedIn CFO Steven Sordello, who unloaded $35.6 million in stock. Omnicom CFO Randal Weisenburger was a close second, selling 300,000 shares and surrendering another 379,299, with a total value of $33.8 million.
For a lot of CFOs, selling is a no-brainer. Stock prices have roughly doubled from the lows of early 2009 and CFOs also are sitting on bigger holdings, as the large option grants from during the recession start to vest. And the trend is likely to ramp up with tax changes looming next year.
Paul Hodgson at GMI Ratings says a lot of companies overdid it on options during the recession and didn’t think about the potential for a major market rebound when valuing their grants. If they had, they would have seen that their options grants didn’t have to be so large to keep pace with prior years.
THIS JUST IN: ECB President Mario Draghi won’t attend the Jackson Hole meeting for central bankers “due to the heavy workload foreseen in the next few day,” Dow Jones Newswires reports. No one from the ECB’s executive board will attend the conference.
THE DAY AHEAD:
S&P/Case-Shiller home-price data for June is expected to show its first gain since September 2010. Ahead of the Tape’s David Reilly notes that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned in his Jackson Hole speech last year that housing was holding back the recovery. A lot has changed since then, so how much emphasis he puts on housing when he delivers his speech on Friday will be telling.
Also out today: Consumer confidence data for August is seen edging up to 66 from 65.9.
And in Tampa, the Republican convention gets underway, while Tropical Storm Isaac continues to build strength in the Gulf of Mexico — and maintains its path directly toward New Orleans, the HIll reports.
Markets flash: Asia and Europe are both lower as investors lay low ahead of the Ben Bernanke’s speech at Jackson Hole. DJIA futures are up 0.1%.
EXCLUSIVE ON CFOJ:
Pension-funding relief could be short-lived. Companies with pension-funding shortfalls will be getting some major relief on their required contributions next year. But that relief could be short-lived, writes Vipal Monga. Mandatory pension contributions by S&P 500 companies are expected to total just $8 billion for 2012, after the IRS revised the rate companies use to calculate their obligations. But those with underfunded pension plans ultimately will have to make up their shortfalls, and paying less now means they will have to pay more later.
AOL special dividend beats tax rate change. With its $500 million special cash dividend, AOL joined a growing list of companies seeking to return cash to shareholders through such payouts ahead of tax rate changes set to take hold in 2013, writes Emily Chasan. Companies have announced 80 special dividends so far this year, compared to 53 in the same period a year earlier, according Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ. Investors currently pay the long-term capital gains tax rate of 15% on qualified dividends. But when the Bush-era tax cuts expire, some will pay more than 40% tax on dividends, which is leading companies like AOL to make payouts this year.
Hertz’s Dollar Thrifty deal structure built for speed. Hertz structured its $2.3 billion acquisition of Dollar Thrifty as a two-step merger in hopes of wrapping the deal up quickly to prevent another bidder from making a play, Vipal Monga writes. The structure allows the parties to close in six weeks, rather than three to four months under a standard, single-step deal. Hertz’s board feels the chances of a competing bid are low, but wanted to avoid giving a rival any opening — particularly Avis.
Manufacturers lobby for lower taxes. Manufacturers have a message for lawmakers: If you want to create jobs, overhaul the tax code and invest in infrastructure. “It all sort of starts and stops right there,” with corporate tax rates, Harley Davidson CEO Keith Wandell tells the WSJ’s James Hagerty. “We need to be more competitive [with other nations] in that respect.” Stephen Gold, CEO of the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, says that some members of his alliance would be willing to give up energy tax credits if they could get a lower corporate tax rate.
Meanwhile, Eaton CEO Alexander Cutler proposes an additional tax of 25 cents a gallon on gasoline to finance infrastructure. And Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan says the underinvestment in infrastructure has forced his company to “Canadian ports to import some parts for our U.S. factories because U.S. ports are so backed up and outdated.”
Chevron’s cash hoard fuels deal talk. Chevron’s cash level rose 60% over the last year and it’s carrying more cash on its balance sheet — $21 billion — than any publicly traded energy company, the Journal’s Daniel Gilbert reports. The company says its cash cushion reduces risk while it’s in “a period of heavy investment” and says its liquidity needs will diminish as its major projects near completion. One possible acquisition target is Chesapeake Energy since its largest shareholders—who now effectively control the board—are keen on a sale. But some analysts think Chevron might snap up a smaller gas company. Deutsche Bank recently noted that Hess could be an attractive target because of its operations in areas like North Dakota’s Bakken fields.
Apple seeks U.S. sales ban on Samsung devices. Apple has requested a U.S. sales ban on at least eight Samsung products, including various iterations of the Galaxy S II phone. Florian Mueller at FOSS Patents notes that while the business impact of such a ban would be limited, Apple could push for an injunction with open-ended wording effectively banning “any product, even products that haven’t been released yet, that infringes the same intellectual property in a way that is ‘no more than colorably different’.” Judge Lucy Koh has set a hearing for next month to deal with this request and other penalties, as well as a likely Samsung request to nullify Friday’s verdict.
Best Buy clears way for Schulze offer. Best Buy is opening its books to founder Richard Schulze, who will likely present a formal buyout offer to the board in early September, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. If the board rejects his offer, Schulze can present a second offer. And if that doesn’t work, he can take his offer directly to investors, either through a special shareholders meeting or the regular annual shareholders meeting in June.
Disney touts investment strategy. Disney CEO Robert Iger tells the WSJ that the company’s recent success with “The Avengers” and record theme-park turnout is more than just a blip. He says it vindicates a focus on long-term investments. “We made a decision not to be discouraged by what was happening in the economy in 2009 and 2010″ and to follow through with the investments. “Now people are feeling a little bit better about spending.” CFO Jay Rasulo touted the company’s big bet on Marvel Entertainment at a recent media analyst summit. With “The Avengers” posting strong results even beyond the box office—”It’s just exactly what we envisioned when we purchased that.”
IBM buys human-resources software maker. IBM is buying human resources software maker Kenexa for $1.3 billion in cash to help it bring data, culled from social media, to departments like sales and marketing and human resources, reports the WSJ’s Saabira Chaudhuri. The high price–a 42% premium over Kenexa’s Friday closing price—shows the growing importance human-resource software for the enterprise plays in acquisition strategies.
Deal gives regional bank a foothold in New York market. M&T Bank swooped into the lucrative metropolitan New York market with an agreement to buy struggling mortgage lender Hudson City Bancorp for $3.7 billion in cash and stock, the Journal’s Robin Sidel reports. It’s the biggest bank merger of the year and industry analysts expect more to come as smaller lenders merge to control costs. DealBook says the deal also helps boost M&T’s capital levels, which could help it get through annual Fed stress tests and comply with Basel III requirements.
ECB wants to water down Basel liquidity rule. The ECB is pushing banking regulators to relax a draft liquidity rule so lenders can use some asset-backed securities and loans to businesses in a buffer they must hold against a possible credit squeeze, Bloomberg reports. The ECB thinks a draft version of the liquidity coverage ratio, or LCR, could hamper “efforts to combat the debt crisis by curtailing lending and making it harder for central banks to implement their monetary policies.”
Spain’s economy is even weaker than first thought. Spain’s economic growth has been weaker over the past two years than previously reported, indicating an even deeper slump than earlier official estimates, the FT reports. The economy is expected to continue to shrink over the rest of the year and the next, and the government will this week raise Spain’s sales tax from 18% to 21% — a move some economists say will weigh on already weak domestic consumer demand.
European banks see uptick in business lending. Euro-zone banks ramped up lending to businesses in July, reversing the trend of the previous two months, Dow Jones Newswires reports. But overall, companies have scaled down their production-related investment over the past six months, the ECB said in its latest quarterly lending survey, and lending has remained weak.
- Ralph Lauren said its next chief financial officer will be Christopher Peterson, former CFO of Procter & Gamble’s global household care division. Peterson will join the company effective Sept. 24. Peterson succeeds Tracey Travis who left the company this month for the CFO post at Estee Lauder. He has held several corporate and operational roles at Procter & Gamble over the past 20 years and began his career in Smith Barney’s investment banking group, the company said in a statement. Robert Madore, the Ralph Lauren’s senior vice president of finance, had been serving as interim CFO and Travis had held the position since 2005.
- Life Partners Holdings said it has named a new CFO. The company appointed Scott Dubs, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers auditor with 24 years of prior CFO experience to the role. Dubs, 58, succeeds David Martin, who the company said resigned in July to pursue a new opportunity. Martin, the company, and two other executives were charged with accounting fraud by the SEC in January. Life Partners has said it believes the SEC’s claims are meritless. Martin had served as the company’s first true CFO since 2008 and received a compensation package valued at $203,756 in 2011, according to the company’s proxy. Dubs will be paid an annual salary of $125,000, and he will be eligible for discretionary performance-based bonuses, the company said in an SEC filing on Monday.


text:
The program begins today, includes 22 part numbers that represent roughly 80 percent of the replacement transmission market, and will run through March 15, 2017.
“These are new transmissions, not remanufactured units. These new units are built on the same production lines as transmissions for new trucks,” says Bill Fouch, aftermarket marketing manager, Eaton. “Content and all gearing are 100 percent genuine Eaton and includes all of our latest engineering upgrades.
“With this new promotion, we’re giving our customers even more reasons to benefit from the performance and features of the number one selling transmission in North America, and not having to settle for a locally rebuilt substitute.”
Eaton says the base 3-year/unlimited mileage coast-to-coast warranty may be extended to four years/unlimited mileage when the transmissions are bundled with a new Eaton clutch and Eaton-approved synthetic lubricant. Same-day shipment with no premium charge also will be available for truck-down situations through Eaton’s 15 strategically placed distribution centers during the six-month campaign, the company says.
“The new transmissions represent an important addition to Eaton’s growing aftermarket portfolio that has been designed to provide solutions for all of our customers,” adds Fouch. “During this promotion, our customers still have the option to choose an Eaton Factory Reman transmission if that best meet their needs.”
These new products are available through OEMs, for their dealers and end-user fleets who are operating businesses in the 48 contiguous U.S. states.


text:
In news that's sure to make Alec Baldwin happy, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is urging the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow more electronics on airplanes. Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC sent a letter to the FAA requesting the agency "enable greater use of tablets, e-readers, and other portable devices."
The letter, which was first obtained by The Hill, was addressed to Michael Huerta, the acting administrator of the FAA, and explains that electronic devices are becoming more important in the lives Americans.
DNEWS VIDEO: WHY DO WE HAVE TO TURN OUR PHONES OFF ON AIRPLANES?
"They empower people to stay informed and connected with friends and
family, and they enable both large and small businesses to be more
productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost U.S.
competitiveness," Genachowski wrote in the letter.
Afters year of grumbling dissent from disgruntled passengers, the FAA has finally agreed to review its policies about electronic devices during all junctures of the flight, even takeoff and landing. However, the review been in somewhat of a holding pattern.
"This review comes at a time of tremendous innovation, as mobile devices
are increasingly interwoven in our daily lives," Genachowski wrote in
As Nick Bilton pointed out in the New York Times Bits blog, the last time the FAA did any reviews of electronic devices on planes was in 2006, when tablets, smartphones and e-readers where just a glimmer in the eyes of tech developers and consumers. Even then, the FAA found no evidence that supported claims that electronic devices could or couldn't interfere with the plane. Yet passengers still had to abide by strict rules and turn off their gadgets during takeoff and landing.


Hustle Fleece Jogging Pants Navy Heather/White
The loose fit of Under Armour's Hustle sweats allows for an enhanced range of motion, great for jogging, boxing, karate-kicking ... you name it. These are your new favorite warm-up pants for pretty much everything you do. They're made of light, comfy and super-soft cotton blend fleece, so you might just want to keep them on for lounging around at home, too.
- Designer Features: Under Armour logo embroidery front right
- Size and Fit: Loose: Fuller cut for complete comfort. Tapered legs with ribbed cuffs. Model is wearing a size Small; Model is 6 ft 1 in, waist 31 in, inseam 34 in
- Pockets: Hand pocket at each side
- Waistband: 2-1/4 in wide ribbed elastic with external drawstrings for a stay-put fit
- Inseam: 30-1/2 in
- Side Seam: 40-1/2 in
- Fabric Content: 80% cotton, 20% polyester wicks away sweat and dries really fast; anti-odor technology prevents the growth of odor-causing microbes
- Care Instructions: Machine wash cold with like colors, non-chlorine bleach when needed. Do not use softeners. Tumble dry low. Do not iron.
- Under Armour style 1317455-411
- Item No. 86408


text:
Abandoned castle somewhere in Belgium. This is a very old castle with a very long history that has seen many changes, and it’s not the first time it’s been left abandoned.
I won’t tell all the story of this castle as I’m not an historian, but I can tell that it’s construction dates back from the 11th century, though this is not its actual style. It’s been destroyed several times, and its actual style dates from the 18th century. This is a very beautiful castle, at least from the outside, and from the distance it’s hard to tell if it’s abandoned or not. It was quite sad to see the inside of it. Sad because it’s not the natural decay that is responsible for the destruction of the inside of the castle, but humans. The castle was already abandoned for some years when someone bought it. The person that bought the castle had already bought another one and restored it to make an hotel out of it. It seems he had the same ambitions for this castle, and restoration was on its way. Unfortunately, this persons is now sued in justice for tax fraud, and the restoration works has now stopped for a long time. The place surely was magnificent in its time, but now, the workers have destroyed most of it: walls have been gutted to pass electric cables, new walls have been built but remains unfinished, the wooden floors have disappeared and are now just plain concrete… I had the feeling that I came too late to see this place, though I was happy to explore it. Better luck next time I guess !

domain: travel


text: Hi just want to see whether anyone listens to songs by Vitas. I am a great fan of his music. Really impressed by his singing and super high pitch voice. I asked around and not much ppl seems to have heard of him. So here to share his music. Below is the links to 2 of his songs, hope u guys will enjoy..