text:
Global Trade Shield is a leading provider of comprehensive business risk solutions including the strategic management of intellectual property, due diligence and other business intelligence, fraud and corporate investigations, crisis containment and recovery services in South East Asia.
Global Trade Shield undertakes highly discreet investigations, uncovers solid intelligence and provides value-added analysis to help decision-makers understand and mitigate risk, make informed decisions and maximize opportunities. Our team is comprised seasoned professionals drawn from backgrounds in senior law enforcement, intelligence, the legal profession, academic and economic research and investigative journalism, all are trained to be compliant with legal, ethical, and anti-corruption standards.
Corporate Intelligence Issues
Companies, irrespective of size, periodically face the unnerving task of dealing with malicious complaints or other allegations of wrong doing. Such unwelcome news can occur at any time and target anybody in the business. However, many companies lack the resources to thoroughly investigate or mitigate the risks or potential damage such incidents can cause. Indeed, the allegation may be such that an in-house investigation is not appropriate and would attract additional allegations of biasness or protectionism. In such situations companies are often under the spotlight, and demonstrating good corporate governance is a high priority to avoid regulatory scrutiny. When executives or their legal counsel need to resolve a rumor, an allegation or establish the facts surrounding an incident, GTS can bring extensive experience and a perceptive understanding of the Asian business environment to support our clients by decisively responding to their issues.
All work conducted on behalf of our clients is conducted ethically and in full compliance with local and international laws GTS offers a range of tailor-made corporate investigative services, including:
Conflict of Interest Investigations
If a company is faced with allegations that employees have external, undisclosed business interests or relationships that pose a real or potential conflict of interest to their corporate responsibilities, GTS is well placed to conduct discreet inquiries and fact-gathering using only legal and ethical techniques. All Information is gathered and presented to the client to facilitate a business decision regarding the future of an employee, department or operational process, and to evaluate any damage to the corporation.
Investigations into Intellectual Property Lose
For many companies, its prime asset is intellectual capital. Theft or diversion of intellectual property, such as designs, processes, pricing information or customer data can seriously impact a company’s business, profitability and competitive advantage. GTS has experience revealed such intellectual property theft has involved a competitor who has engaged in corporate espionage or similar.
With the advance of globalization, lengthy supply chains and strategic partnerships companies are now working with a broader range of partners, many of whom they may never have meet. Disputes are therefore inevitable. Companies often face the difficulty of obtaining information and intelligence to provide support in dispute negotiations with a counter party that has operations in a completely different geography. GTS operates throughout the S.E Asia region and can provide clients with seamless fact-finding capabilities to support their critical information needs.
Commercial Bribery Allegations
Sadly, in many parts of the world graft is still endemic, whilst in others it is subtler and hidden from view. Our investigators are capable of undertaking detailed inquiries when there are such suspicions or allegations. Corruption activity often initially involve two happy sides and therefore uncovering evidence requires in-depth industry knowledge, investigative experience and a capability to work in a variety of jurisdictions whilst producing the necessary evidence and reports to address the relevant issues. Such an approach may include gaining the cooperation of government agencies and understanding cultural nuances. GTS’s experience enables us to demonstrate a wide range of investigative strategies and solutions to management to support sound decision making.
Alleged Unfair Dismissals or Harassment Investigations
Allegations of unfair dismissal or harassment must be handled promptly and sensitively. Investigation of sexual harassment allegations, in particular, must always be conducted by an independent party that can be trusted by both the accuser and the accused. GTS can provide that independence and trust. Using seasoned investigators, local language skills and cultural sensitivity, GTS gathers, evaluates and documents the facts so that management can make appropriate decisions.


text:
PUNE: The Kothrud police on Saturday arrested two people, including a woman, and booked another two for allegedly kidnapping two students on June 25.
The arrested are Meena Ashok Ghode of Kothrud and Prakash Ramchandra Dodake of Thergaon.
Those booked are Kumar Ashok Ghode of Kothrud and Kailash Ramchandra Dodake of Thergaon. The police said that the victim's father had lodged a missing persons' complaint after his 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son did not return home.
He had rushed to the residence of Kumar Ghode after receiving information that they were last seen with him. The Ghode family informed him that Kumar had gone to meet his uncle, Kailash Dodake, at Thergaon. When they went to Dodake's residence, they were told that Kumar had gone to Alandi. The parents then rushed to Alandi, but failed to trace him.
Meanwhile, the police said that the suspects had dropped the boy home, but the whereabouts of his sister were not known. They said, Ghode was in love with the girl and they had gone to Alandi to get married, but had not yet returned.

domain: news


New products hit the street that upon first glance you don’t think too much about. But sometimes, when you give one a chance, you learn that item is a hit!
So it is with King Innovation’s TreeLight Mount.
Mounting light fixtures in trees, or even into wood siding or posts, required a junction box or surface mount of some kind. Never fun to install when balancing at the top of a 30’ ladder! Dropping screws, juggling your tools, you know the drill.
Try the TreeLight Mount! Quickly screws in with a power drill or just a screwdriver through the side hole. (Screw driver worked fine for me and is easier to carry up and down ladders).
Concerns were expressed about damage to a tree. I shared those concerns until I used it.
- Damage to the tree is minimized because there is only one puncture through the cambium.
- The material is non-poisonous.
- The length of the shank allows for many years of growth before tree girth becomes an issue.


The new coronavirus continues to spread in China, while the WHO ruled on Thursday 23rd January 2020 that it was too early to declare the international emergency.
Nearly a dozen Chinese cities were cordoned off on Friday 24th January 2020 at the epicentre of the viral epidemic, the toll of which increased again shortly after the WHO gave up declaring an international emergency.
Twenty-six dead out of a total of 830 infected people : the toll of the new coronavirus which appeared in December on a market in Wuhan (centre) has further worsened.
“This year, our New Year is very scary,” said a taxi driver from Wuhan, the city of 11 million inhabitants who have been de facto in quarantine since Thursday. “We no longer dare to go out because of the virus”.
The long Chinese New Year holiday starts this Friday, on the eve of the Year of the Rat which begins on January 25. The hundreds of millions of trips generated by this leave could encourage contagion.
A previous report released Thursday by the National Health Commission reported 18 deaths and more than 600 cases of contamination, the vast majority in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital.
Of the 830 cases, 177 are considered serious, according to the Commission, while 34 “cured” patients were able to leave the hospital. More than a thousand suspected cases are under investigation.
Faced with the crisis, the communist regime took on Thursday the unprecedented decision to ban all trains and planes leaving Wuhan and block the highways.
Only a few planes were still announced during the day for the city. Buses and boats on the Yangtze, the longest river in China that water Wuhan, have been ordered to stop in both directions.
” Not afraid “
For the second day in a row, the streets of Wuhan were empty, shops closed and traffic reduced to a minimum. Wearing a mask is compulsory under penalty of a fine.
Only a guard stands guard outside the hospital where people with viral pneumonia are being treated.
” I am not afraid. I try to do my job as well as possible, ”he told AFP without wanting to reveal his name.
“In this dramatic situation, we must all do our duty seriously, otherwise we will not get out of it. ”
Other towns near Wuhan are cut off from the world.
About a hundred kilometres to the east, an agglomeration of two million inhabitants, Huangshi, announced Friday morning the suspension of public transport and the closure of a bridge over the Yangtze.
In total, some 26 million people are affected by these measures in Hubei, a province of nearly 60 million inhabitants.
No “international emergency”
At the end of a two-day meeting at its headquarters in Geneva, the World Health Organization recognized on Thursday January 23, 2020 “the emergency in China” but judged that it was “too early” to speak of a ‘public health emergency of international concern’.
WHO has so far used the term international emergency only for rare cases of epidemics requiring a vigorous global response, including H1N1 swine flu in 2009, Zika virus in 2016 and Ebola fever, which has ravaged part of West Africa from 2014 to 2016 and the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2018.
The WHO said it hoped the sweeping measures adopted by China would be “both effective and short-lived”.
“We understood that the measures taken in the city of Wuhan resulted from the initiative of this city and did not result from an epidemiological evolution”, explained the president of the emergency committee of the WHO, Didier Houssin.
WHO says there is currently no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside of China and that it appears to be “limited to family groups and health care workers”.
WHO does not recommend travel restrictions but establish screening at airports. The organization also calls on “all countries” to put in place measures to detect cases of coronavirus, against which there is currently no treatment or vaccine.
In Davos, where the World Economic Forum is held , the Coalition for Innovations in Preparation for Epidemics (CEPI) announced Thursday that clinical trials for a first vaccine could take place “as early as the summer”.
Cases of contamination have been announced in Asia (Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam) but also in the United States.
The epidemic fears a repeat of SARS , a similar virus, which killed some 650 people in mainland China and Hong Kong between 2002 and 2003.
Symbol of the concern which has seized all of China, the Forbidden City of Beijing, the former palace of the emperors, has announced its closure until further notice to avoid any risk of contamination between visitors.
The capital has also decreed the cancellation of New Year’s festivities, which usually attract hundreds of thousands of onlookers in the parks.
From Montreal, Cirque du Soleil announced that it was suspending a show in China at the request of the authorities.


text:
Church Anniversaries Worth Celebrating
As good as it is to reconnect with former pastors and see old church photos, there's a lot more you can do to plan a meaningful church anniversary in your congregation or denomination. A feature story exploring the celebration of church anniversaries.
|Church Anniversaries Worth Celebrating
Like any church celebrating an anniversary, Westbury Gardens United Reformed Church had lots to feel good about. They planned an enjoyable weekend to mark 25 years in their current building.
“But we wanted to make it more than a time of pure nostalgia. We wanted to make our 25th church anniversary a starting point for the future, both on an individual basis and as a church,” says Geoff Townsend, pastor of the Blackburn, England, congregation.
The way Westbury Gardens URC chose to focus its anniversary fits well with insights that other congregations and denominations are applying to their anniversaries. They are using the anniversary year or event to celebrate, reclaim identity, and learn new things as they go forward.
Hard times, faithful God
Westbury Gardens timed its anniversary weekend to coincide with the United Kingdom’s annual harvest festival. Like farmers who appreciate what their crops have yielded, despite hail and disease, Westbury Gardens has overcome many obstacles.
The congregation began in 1847 as a Sunday school class that met above a blacksmith shop. In 1878 they formed Furthergate Congregational Church, about one kilometer from its current building. In 1972, Furthergate joined with Congregational and Presbyterian churches in England and Wales to form the United Reformed Church. That same year, the congregation learned they might have to move…to make room for a new motorway.
During nine years of limbo, they waited for the government compulsory purchase order, looked for a new site, and planned a new building.
“Houses around Furthergate were demolished, and the church was on an isolated island. If it were not for the faith and commitment of the minister, elders, and members of the congregation, there would have been no congregation to move to the new church,” says church secretary Kathleen Cross.
“But if we thought life would be easier on the new site, we were mistaken,” she continues. Westbury Gardens is in Lancashire, a northwest England county once known for cotton mills and textile factories. As industry declined, the church neighborhood slid to England’s bottom 10 percent for unemployment, crime, poor health, and urban decay.
Townsend says that less than a fifth of church members still live within walking distance. Most drive in from up to eight miles away. “For many, this is their ‘family’ church where they or their parents were brought up,” he explains.
Much as Westbury Gardens people enjoyed the anniversary worship services and photo and video displays, they agreed that the Saturday prayer labyrinth was the highlight.
The church rearranged sanctuary chairs to create a prayer walk with floral displays at each contemplation station. The walk began with an invitation to move out of darkness into God’s light and love. Along the way, prayer walkers could:
- Choose a small stone, imagine it holding their worries, and symbolically give those concerns to God by dropping the stone in a pail of water.
- Draw symbols of hurts they’d suffered or caused, and put the symbols in a waste bin, while accepting God’s power to receive and offer forgiveness.
- Study a compass as a visual reminder to focus on God.
- Plant a seed to accept God’s call to help create a more just world.
- Look in a mirror to meditate on being “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) in God’s image.
“The labyrinth took people on a spiritual journey. Some listened to recorded commentary on headphones. Others walked with a booklet. They reflected on where they were, where they wanted to be, and how they wish to be remembered,” Townsend says.
The prayer walk ended in the sanctuary center, where people could sit, reflect on God’s freely given love, and, if they wanted, write their legacy wish on a card and hang it on branches.
“The combination of music, spoken and written word, and visual imagery was very powerful,” says elder Derek Estill, who’s taken part since Furthergate days. The labyrinth helped him savor past memories and think deeply about what matters.
Much has changed since the church’s first decade at Westbury Gardens, when members moved away and vandals damaged the building.
“Our increasing isolation became apparent during a Bible study. We realized that outreach and connecting with local neighbors is essential to being a Christian church,” Estill recalls.
Townsend adds, “After a lot of discussion within the eldership and the whole congregation, we adopted a new mission statement. It reads: ‘As a church we seek to:
- Be responsive to God’s call
- Encourage each other to grow in Christ
- Further develop our links with other Christian churches locally to witness in the neighborhood
- Continue to be a resource on which the local community can draw and seek new ways of providing a service.’ ”
The congregation helped form a community umbrella organization with area churches, tenant groups, and sporting clubs. This partnership has brought soccer, judo, community theatre, computers, internet access, and jobs to the area.
Westbury Gardens members opened their building, hearts, and minds to outside groups. “We recognized the need to make ourselves and the building more vulnerable to risks and increased wear and tear,” Estill says.
He and Townsend joined the town’s interfaith council, which includes Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, and Sikhs. “We’ve learned to talk openly—with people of no faith or other faiths—about how faith affects our lives,” Estill says.
Throughout biblical history, the congregational offering has been a way to renew worshipers’ covenant with God. So during its anniversary weekend, Westbury Gardens renewed its commitment to serve neighbors near and far. It set up a stall to sell fair trade goods. And at both anniversary worship services, the church took offerings for Christian Aid, which helps people improve their lives and remove root causes of poverty and injustice.
Being a good neighbor also shaped the anniversaries of two churches in low income areas of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The basilica of St. Adalbert observed its 125th “rather quietly through prayer and a series of concerts,” says pastor Thomas J. De Young. The concerts let thousands of people enjoy the basilica’s restored stained glass windows and wonderful acoustics.
First Christian Reformed Church began in 1857 and has been an integral part of its current neighborhood since 1912. “People around here see the church as an important stabilizing influence and resource. An anniversary is an opportunity to freely share the celebration with the broader community,” says pastor Bill De Vries.
That’s why First CRC’s 150th will culminate with a neighborhood party and why 10 percent of anniversary funds will go to meet community needs for housing, food, or jobs.
“Good history makes us think again about the definition of things we thought we understood pretty well, because it engages not just what is familiar but what is strange. It recognizes that ‘the past is a foreign country’ as well as being our past,” Rowan Williams writes in Why Study the Past?: The Quest for the Historical Church.
This slim book by the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury cautions against writing a “version of the past that is just the present in fancy dress.” He also warns against “dismissing the past as a wholly foreign country whose language we shall never learn.”
Remember, rejoice, rededicate
That makes sense to Peter Borgdorff, executive director emeritus of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in North America and chair of the CRC 150th anniversary year planning.
“There’s always a temptation to look back and glorify the past. But Wes Granberg-Michaelson, a friend in the Reformed Church in America, likes to kid me, ‘Why would you want to celebrate a church born in sin?’ And the CRC did come out of a split. That’s true of any Protestant church,” Borgdorff says.
So the CRC 150th anniversary year—devoted equally to remembering, rejoicing, and rededicating—begins with “a chance to assess the past. Our history includes good things. There’s also some pain and need for repentance.
“We need to confess our conflicts, our litmus test mindset of orthodoxy that has played out since our origins. We’ve politicized issues, going back and forth, yet always claiming the Holy Spirit’s guidance. And we’ve been a little smug in our relation to the Dutch churches and in refusing to join the National Council of Churches,” Borgdorff says.
A mass worship service and dozens of regional events will celebrate the denomination’s reasons to rejoice, such as all the strong institutions birthed by this faith community.
During the rededication phase, Borgdorff hopes church members recommit to following Christ…and to affirming the CRC’s place in the church worldwide.
He knows many Christians now identify more strongly with a local church than with a denomination. And while diving into local ministry is good, Borgdorff says, “You can become so focused on the immediate environment that you don’t see we live in a global village. We can’t sidestep issues in the Middle East and Africa.
“The 2006 Synod adopted a new ecumenical charter. We’re starting a conversation about whether to adopt the Belhar Confession, which grew out of South Africa and deals more specifically with racism and righteousness in public life than our other confessions do.”
A fall conference, Assessing the Past, Facing the Future, will offer reflection on where the CRC is headed.
Rich Preheim has always worked in Mennonite denominational circles and is now interim director of Mennonite Church USA Historical Committee.
“I have read plenty of anniversary accounts. They leave me wondering if the book’s subject—be it a congregation or area conference or church institution—ever erred. It’s a challenge to deal with mistakes in a redemptive manner. It means being honest, confessing our errors where possible, and using the opportunity to learn and grow,” Preheim says.
He advises Mennonite church anniversary planners to think about how Romans 12:2 (“be not conformed to this world”) has shaped Mennonite and Amish identity. “Ours is a faith rooted in being different. We have long stood apart from the ways of the world, often for good—and sometimes, at first blush, even downright silly—reasons,” Preheim says.
This nonconformity plays out in regulations regarding dress among “Plain Peoples” and the historic peace stance. Along with refusing to take up arms or pay war taxes, Mennonites have pioneered peacemaking and conflict mediation.
“But while some of us embrace, to varying degrees, our distinctives, others try to distance themselves. They’ve become virtually indistinguishable from mainstream Protestant evangelicalism. In accepting lipstick and high school basketball, some Mennonites have also ended up accepting other beliefs, such as the validity of military action.
“Mennonite conscientious objectors have been tremendous examples of faith and commitment. I fear their stories aren’t being told…or heard,” he says.
The Mennonite Church USA is a recent merger of two Mennonite denominations. Preheim wonders whether “our new identity has been hampered by the lack of understanding of our old identities.”
God’s people experiencing God
Pastors, buildings, and mortgage burnings make easy ways to trace a church’s timeline.
“But what do you really know when you know that this pastor served from then to there? It’s more vital, more important, and more interesting to retell people’s experience of God with God’s people,” says Lester Ruth, professor of Christian worship at Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.
For example, researching older hymnals and written prayers gives anniversary celebrants access to how people worshiped in another era. This method reveals the words and language they used to talk with and about God in worship.
Ruth also recommends interviewing older and former church members, asking for family diaries and journals, checking newspaper archives, and exploring dusty church closets. And it’s good to videotape current worship services for future generations.
“Ravenswood Evangelical Covenant Church in Chicago found things they forgot they had, including an eight-millimeter movie and audio tape of the last service in their previous space,” Ruth says.
Conference and denominational archives often have old church records. Academic historians at denominational colleges and seminaries can recommend books about worship and life in specific eras or areas of a denomination.
Ruth’s Early Methodist Life and Spirituality documents that 19th century Methodists in Delaware and Virginia knew John and Charles Wesley condemned slavery. But they worried that “not owning slaves would have cut them out culturally,” Ruth says. So Methodists brought slave purchase details to church, where leaders would decide how long they could work a slave before freeing him or her.
“We look back and wonder, ‘What were they thinking?’ Fifty years from now, maybe someone will watch a video of a worship service done in TV quiz show style and wonder the same thing,” Ruth says.
For the Charles Wesley Tercentennial, Ruth and other Asbury Seminary members are taping testimonies of people touched by Wesley hymns. They’re also running a contest to develop new settings for Wesley texts.
“I hope that Methodists reclaim Wesleyan identity and use this tercentennial to explore the Trinitarian theology in Charles Wesley’s hymns. Good theology has an artistic quality. I’d love to see songwriters become as good as Wesley at theology and lyrics,” Ruth says.
Download Through Every Generation: 150th Anniversary Worship Resources for Christian Reformed pastors and worship planners. Reflect on Banner articles about faith formation and rethinking CRC identity during the 150th anniversary. Read Our Family Album: The Unfinished Story of the Christian Reformed Church by James Schaap.
Check out Charles Wesley 300th Anniversary highlights, such as a choral festival, events in the U.K., and British and North American resources. Download the script for “The Charles Wesley ‘Hymnical.’ ”
Start a church history book club that helps you explore congregational stories, individual spiritual journeys, and more.
Get church history and anniversary planning resources from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church in America, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, and Presbyterian Church (USA). Seek out scholarly resources on religious experience in the U.S. and Canada.
Browse the 113th anniversary booklet for Calvary Baptist Church, an African American congregation in Salt Lake City, Utah. Plan a Presbyterian Heritage Sunday or Methodist Property Sunday (U.K. tradition). Follow this model for an annual anniversary service.
Start a Discussion
Talk about how to observe a church anniversary in your congregation or denomination:
- What kinds of dedications or annual or special anniversaries are coming up for your congregation? What themes would you like to focus less or more on compared to past celebrations?
- How likely is it that your anniversary will include an outreach element, whether to neighbors, an overseas partner church…or to people who have drifted away from your fellowship?
- What do you think about the idea of including confession in your anniversary observance?
- How often do you collect written, audio, or video testimonies or life stories from your members? What is your system for archiving these—so future generations can know this part of your congregation’s history?
Share Your Wisdom
What is the best way you’ve found to address and talk about best practices for planning church anniversaries?
- Did you find a way to gather life stories from your members or former members? If so, did you create a handbook for using and sharing those testimonies during your church anniversary?
- If you checked with your regional or national denominational headquarters about their historical archives, did you come up with a checklist or plan for what to save and what to ship to those archives? If so, will you share those materials with us?
- Which book, drama resource, visual art, or conference helped you create a more meaningful church anniversary?

domain: sociology


text:
Pierre Hahn <pierre28@...>
between the years 1799 and 1815 Napoleon was the civic presence in the
Palatinate region. >from the Jewish genealogical perspective the most
important edict was the one which commanded the Jews to declare their new
names. Are there lists available and what towns are covered ?
Pierre M Hahn, San Francisco <pierre28@...>

domain: geography


text:
On Sunday night, President Joe Biden issued a video statement fully backing the efforts of the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union (RWDSU) to unionize workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse. Nearly 6,000 workers at the facility, which is located just outside of Birmingham, are currently voting on whether to join the RWDSU.
Biden clearly called on workers in Alabama to vote “yes” on the union drive, for which balloting concludes on March 29. “The National Labor Relations Act didn’t just say unions are allowed to exist,” he said. “It said we should encourage unions.”
He continued, “Today and over the next few days and weeks workers in Alabama and all across America are voting on whether to organize a union in their workplace. This is vitally important—a vitally important choice—as America grapples with the deadly pandemic, the economic crisis, and the reckoning of race—what it reveals about the deep disparities that still exist in our country.”
Biden’s intervention is historically unprecedented. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law in 1935, the leaders of the newly organized industrial unions declared that “The president wants you to join a union.” But FDR never actually said that.
In this case, Biden gave no indication of impartiality, all but calling on workers to vote the union in and accusing Amazon of intimidation. Biden is putting the entire prestige of the White House behind the vote. He would not have done this unless he felt that the direct support of his administration was both necessary to ensure a “yes” vote in Bessemer and strategically important.
The very fact that Biden has intervened so forcefully exposes the claims that what is involved in the unionization campaign at Amazon has anything to do with the interests of Amazon workers. Biden’s entire career in the Senate, from 1973 to 2009, coincides with the abandonment by the Democratic Party of any program of social reform and its accommodation to “Reaganomics.”
Long known as Delaware’s “senator from DuPont,” Biden served on committees that were most sensitive to the interests of the ruling class, including the Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. He supported the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, a milestone in the deregulation of the banks, and other right-wing measures. After nearly four decades in the Senate, Biden became Obama’s vice president, helping to oversee the massive bailout of Wall Street following the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent restructuring of class relations to benefit the rich. That included the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, based on a 50 percent cut in the pay of all newly hired autoworkers.
In the 2020 elections, Biden won the Democratic Party nomination for president through the intervention of the party leadership on the basis of an explicit repudiation of any program of social reform. Biden was promoted as the right-wing alternative to Bernie Sanders.
Biden’s aggressive intervention on behalf of the unionization campaign at Amazon can only be interpreted as a strategic, and not merely tactical decision by a significant faction of the ruling class. What are the considerations motivating this policy?
First, the ruling class confronts an unprecedented crisis, which has been enormously intensified by the pandemic. As a result of the refusal of the ruling class to take the necessary measures to save lives, nearly 530,000 people have died from COVID-19 over the past year. The impact of mass death, combined with the disastrous social and economic situation, is having a profoundly radicalizing impact on the consciousness of workers and youth.
Trump has responded to this situation with the promotion of fascistic organizations that will be used as a spearhead against working class unrest. The Democrats are attempting to smother social opposition by utilizing the unions. This is combined with their relentless efforts to divide workers against each other through the promotion of the politics of racial and gender identity. Significantly, Biden framed his intervention at Amazon in racial terms, presenting unions as instruments for defending “especially Black and Brown workers.”
Second, the international situation is no less concerning to the ruling class, which is determined to maintain its global hegemonic position through the use of military force. The Biden administration is carrying out an increasingly confrontational policy toward Russia and, in particular, China. The logic of this policy leads to war. In the event of a major “great power conflict,” the pro-capitalist unions will be critical in promoting national chauvinism and suppressing the class struggle. War abroad requires a disciplined “labor movement” at home.
Biden’s intervention at Amazon is part of a broader strategy of promoting the unions and integrating them ever more directly into the state apparatus and corporate management. Prior to his inauguration in January, Biden pledged that he would be the most “pro-union” president ever.
In mid-November, shortly after the 2020 elections, Biden held a meeting with the leaders of all the major unions, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, along with corporate executives from General Motors, Microsoft, Target and other companies. Biden reportedly told the meeting that he is “a union guy,” but insisted “that’s not anti-business.” He added that “we’re in a pretty dark hole right now,” but “we [that is, the union executives, the corporate CEOs and the incoming Biden administration] all agree on common goals.”
The strategy Biden is pursuing is known as corporatism—that is, the integration of the government with the corporations and the unions on the basis of a defense of the capitalist system. In 1938, Trotsky drew attention to this tendency when he wrote, in the founding document of the Fourth International, “In periods of acute class struggle, the leading bodies of the trade unions aim to become masters of the mass movement in order to render it harmless… In time of war or revolution, when the bourgeoisie is plunged into exceptional difficulties, trade union leaders usually become bourgeois ministers.”
Trotsky was writing at a time when workers in newly established industrial unions were engaged in insurrectionary struggles against the ruling class, including the mass sit-down strikes of autoworkers in the US.
It has been decades since the AFL-CIO was associated in any way with the defense of workers’ interests against the corporations and the ruling class. Since the isolation and defeat of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike in 1981, the trade union movement has been completely integrated into the structures of corporate management. During the 1980s, the unions played a critical role in isolating and suppressing opposition to the ruling class counter-offensive spearheaded by the Reagan administration.
With the assistance of the unions, strike activity was almost entirely suppressed in the 1990s and the first decades of the 21st century, facilitating an increase in social inequality to levels not seen since the 1920s.
In 2018, during oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the case of Janus vs. AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), a lawyer for AFSCME summed up the role of the unions by saying that the “agency fee”—the requirement that public service employees in some states pay the equivalent of dues even if they opt out of joining a union—“is the tradeoff for no strikes.” Without maintaining the financial security of the unions, he warned, “you can raise an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”
The corporatist organizations like the AFL-CIO are still called “unions,” but their actual practice and role bear no relationship to the function traditionally associated with the term “union.” They are not workers’ organizations, but instruments of management and the state.
The ruling class, however, is extremely concerned with and sensitive to the growth of opposition in the working class, which has been concretized in the movement for rank-and-file committees, including among Amazon workers, which has been spearheaded by the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site. The ruling class is, moreover, aware of the ability of workers in the US and internationally to utilize social media and other forms of communication to share information and organize outside of the control of the corporatist unions.
There is particular concern over the political radicalization of Amazon workers, who have become even more critical to the overall process of capitalist exploitation since the onset of the pandemic. The world’s fifth largest employer added 427,000 jobs in 2020, bringing its total to 1.3 million employees worldwide, including half a million in the US.
The promotion of the unions is aimed at countering the expanding movement of rank-and-file workers. It is aimed at subordinating workers to the array of laws that come into effect when the unions are established as the “sole legitimate” representative of the workers. In return, the union executives will be given access to the union dues that come from the institutionalization of these organizations in broader sections of industry.
The combination of aggressive backing by the government and anger and opposition among Amazon workers could produce a victory for the union drive in Bessemer. Whatever the outcome of the vote, the fight to establish and build rank-and-file committees must be developed and expanded. Workers cannot allow themselves to be disciplined by the pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist trade union apparatus.
This must be combined with a new political strategy to mobilize the working class in the US and internationally in the fight for socialist policies, including the expropriation of pandemic profiteers like Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and the transformation of Amazon and other logistics companies into public utilities, democratically controlled and collectively owned by the working class.
At its most fundamental level, the promotion of the unions by the ruling class is aimed at quarantining workers from socialism. The overriding fear of the ruling class is that the objective radicalization of the working class, intensified by the pandemic, will acquire a socialist leadership and political program. It is this fear that is behind Biden’s extraordinary intervention at Amazon.
- Why are trade unions hostile to socialism?
- Build rank-and-file committees at Amazon! For maximum safety, universal testing, and workers’ control of production!
- The United Auto Workers corruption scandal and the case for rank-and-file committees
- Union lawyer tells US Supreme Court: “Union security is the tradeoff for no strikes”


text:
Chittagong Kolkata flight | Regent Airways adds another feather in their wings as they launched yet another international flight from Chittagong to Kolkata after successful launching of Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur and Dhaka-Bangkok flight within a very short span of time. As a far sighted vision, Regent Airways expanded their international fleet in addition to the popular domestic flights. This airline earned much popularity in a short span of time for their flight operations, though being a new addition to domestic airline operators.
Regent Airways launched the Chittagong Kolkata flight from yesterday (Friday) which will fly 3 days per week on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.
Chairman of Regent Airways and Managing Director of Habib Group Mr. Yeasin Ali and Hazrat Shah Amanat International Airport Manager Wing Commander Nur-e-Alam inaugurated the Chittagong-Kolkata-Chittagong flight yesterday. Among others Chief Executive Officer MA Momen, Deputy Managing Director Salman Habib, Director Zuhayer Shafique and Deputy General Manager Anisul Alam Chowdhury of Habib Group were also present.
For a round trip in the Chittagong Kolkata flight, a passenger will have to spend around 14,000 BDT, sources said claiming the lowest fare in the route. Regent Airways eyeing to launch more international flight to Hongkong, Singapore from Chittagong, it added. Among these, Chittagong-Bangkok-Chittagong flight will be launched very soon according to the Regent Airways authority.

domain: travel


text:
Working at Crunchy Data on the
spatial team, I'm always
looking for new features and fun things to show on live demos. I recently
started playing around with
ST_Letters and wanted to jot down some quick code
samples for playing around with this feature, introduced in PostGIS 3.3. These
examples are super easy to use, they don't need any data!
The screenshots shown below came from pgAdmin's geometry viewer and will also work with other query GUI tools like QGIS or DBeaver.
Here's a simple example to get started with
ST_Letters. This will work on any
Postgres database, running the PostGIS extension version 3.3+.
It's also possible to overlay letters on a map, just like any other polygon.
Since the default for
ST_Letters results in a polygon starting at the baseline
at the origin of the chosen projection, with a maximum height of 100 "units"
(from the bottom of the descenders to the tops of the capitals).
That's not ideal. We need a way to both move it and resize it.
First, we want to make a point in the middle of San Francisco in order to serve as a centroid for where we want to move the letters, and we also want to rescale the letters in order to approximately fit over the City of San Francisco. Using the formula for converting units in WGS84 to meters, 0.001 works approximately well enough to fit over the San Francisco Bay Area.
Next we use
ST_Translate in order to move the letters from the top of the map
to fit over the Bay Area. Finally, mostly because it looks cool, we use
ST_Rotate to rotate the polygon 45 degrees.
WITH san_fran_pt AS ( SELECT ST_Point(-122.48, 37.758, 4326) AS geom), letters AS ( SELECT ST_Scale(ST_SetSRID( ST_Letters('San Francisco'), 4326), 0.001, 0.001) AS geom), letters_geom AS ( SELECT ST_Translate( letters.geom, ST_X(san_fran_pt.geom) - ST_X(ST_Centroid(letters.geom)), ST_Y(san_fran_pt.geom) - ST_Y(ST_Centroid(letters.geom)) ) AS geom FROM letters, san_fran_pt ) SELECT ST_Rotate(geom, -pi() / 4, ST_Centroid(geom)) FROM letters_geom;
A great use case for
ST_Letters is for demoing PostGIS functions. In this
post, I'm going to demo the function
ST_ConcaveHull, which creates a concave
polygon which encloses the vertices of a target geometry.
recently updated in PostGIS 3.3.0, in order to use GEOS 3.11, which makes the
input parameters easier to understand and results in a large speed upgrade.
Here's a short demo of how different parameters of
ST_ConcaveHull operate on points generated by
First, let's generate a table of randomly generated points that fill in the letters in 'postgis'.
CREATE TABLE public.word_pts AS WITH word AS ( SELECT ST_Letters('postgis') AS geom ), letters AS ( -- dump letter multipolygons into individual polygons SELECT (ST_Dump(word.geom)).geom FROM word ) SELECT letters.geom AS polys, ST_GeneratePoints(letters.geom, 100) AS pts FROM letters;
SELECT pts FROM word_pts.pts
Then, we set the convexity to a fairly high parameter (
indicating a highly convex shape), and don't allow there to be holes in the
SELECT ST_ConcaveHull(pts, 0.75, false) FROM word_pts;
Doesn't look much like 'postgis'!
Next, we reduce the convexity, but don't allow holes in the shape.
SELECT ST_ConcaveHull(pts, 0.5, false) FROM word_pts;
A little better, but still hard to recognize 'postgis'. What if we allowed holes?
SELECT ST_ConcaveHull(pts, 0.5, true) FROM word_pts;
This starts to look a bit more like the word 'postgis', with the hole in 'p' being clear.
As we start to make the shape more concave, it begins to take on more and more recognizable as 'postgis'....until it doesn't and starts to look closer to modern art.
SELECT ST_ConcaveHull(pts, 0.35, true) FROM word_pts;
SELECT ST_ConcaveHull(pts, 0.05, true) FROM word_pts;
ST_ConcaveHull is also useful on multipolygons, and follows the same
properties as demo'd on multipoints. It's important to note that if there are
already holes in the existing multipolygon, setting
will still create convex polygons with "holes" in the middle, following the
original polygon. The concave hulls will always contains the original polygons!
SELECT ST_ConcaveHull(ST_Letters('postgis'), 0.5, false);
As the convexity decreases and holes are allowed, the shape looks more and more like the original polygons in the original table.
SELECT ST_ConcaveHull(ST_Letters('postgis'), 0.1, true);
The last demo here is the function
ST_TriangulatePolygon, new in PostGIS 3.3.
This function computes the "best quality" triangulation of a polygon (and also
works on multipolygons too!). This can be extremely useful for computing meshes
of polygons in a quick and efficient manner.
ST_Letters provides a useful starting point for demoing functions on points
and polygons. The new improvements in
ST_ConcaveHull make it more useful for
generating concave hulls of geometries and they are significantly more intuitive
ST_TriangulatePolygon can be useful for finding meshes of polygons and
multipolygons. The team at Crunchy Data will continue to make important
contributions to PostGIS in order to help our users create interesting and
innovative open source solutions!
January 12, 2023 •More by this author


OK, according to this LA Times coverage, there’s a little more to the Brammo Shocking Barack agenda than we’ve heard.
After they arrived in Washington, the riders and Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher met Tuesday with officials from the Energy Department and with lawmakers, including their home state senators. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Brammo, which employs 52 people at its southwestern Oregon plant, was poised to become an economic driver for the state.
The company is lobbying to extend an Energy Department grant program to include two-wheeled vehicles. It also wants to expand a 10-percent federal tax credit available to electric vehicle buyers under the economic stimulus law.
Now, I’m getting torn about this caper. There are a few things that really started eating at me… with this story, I’m wondering why we didn’t know about these meetings and the E.D. Grant program side of the story. I know Schiff got a haircut, I didn’t know there was lobbying going on. From the site and the tweets, it sounded like nobody got to talk to anyone… strange. Somehow this makes me feel cheap, and used… well. That’s not something unusual for me…
Here’s what’s bugging me.
First, OK, they’re retracing the trip of the CEOs in a big jet, for $4. Fine, but they flew two motorcycles in from Oregon with a crew of 6. Now, I could do the math if I didn’t hate math so much, but my guess is they’re spending more for the trip than the CEOs in their Gulfstream. OK, OK, I get the point, but this is really close to just plain spin. A budget of zero? I think not, and now you’ve squandered your most precious gift- my trust.
Next, am I really supposed to believe that they’re taking 3 weeks of a head engineer and a creative director’s time to do this trip and waddle around Washington ringing doorbells? If not, and from the story above it appears not, then why don’t they just dish and tell it? If so, then here’s my biggest concern. Did they really, truly believe that Washington DC is going to drop everything and meet them? That President Obama will walk out, at the drop of a hat, and help them sell their products? (“Sales event”, by the way, is what one contact they quoted called this…)
This just makes them look naive and unrealistic, and reinforces a lot of the impressions of what the EV industry is all about- either the ultra-rich who can afford a Tesla, or a bunch of dreamers who have no grasp on reality. There’s enough out there to fight, misconception-wise, about EVs without help. Sorry, guys, I’m just sayin.
Finally, and this is petty, I know, but jeesh. This is being touted as some holy grail, to bring a solution to America’s transportation and economic problems to the attention of Washington DC and the American People. Seriously, what this is is a publicity stunt, pure and simple, in the grand tradition of all publicity stunts, and it curiously coincides with the product release (this weekend, I believe) of the Enertia at Best Buy. It is a Sales event, not a political statement. Again. Cheap and used…
Want an interesting read? Read this Op/Ed piece by Frank Rich about Balloon Boy’s dad. He makes the point that during times of economic recession and depression, desperate publicity stunts start coming out of the woodwork. It really, really bothers me that this caper could even be close to being considered a publicity stunt by anyone. Especially by me…
Brammo? This was a great trip, and could have, if the cards were on the table, served us all in the EV community really powerfully, sorry for the pun. I just wish you’d called it what it is… Sales and Marketing, and left the high horse at home.
Funny, early on I got on the comments section of a blog supporting the effort. I still support it, and it’s been interesting to see how they’ve done things and how effective it’s been. Although they have only just over a thousand followers on Twitter, it looks like the national press is picking it up now, and who knows where it’s going to go… but I’d ask this. If it does go big, and you do get some press, then decide if you’re just releasing a product, or you’re carrying a bigger cross. And no, you can’t have it both ways.
Oh, one more thing, and this is clearly me being a bitch. “The first American Electric Motorcycle”? Now, granted Vectrix is a scooter, and was assembled in Poland I guess, but c’mon. Maybe it’s just because it’s a company down the road from me, in New Bedford, MA, but these guys have been around for a while, and did a great job, and are holding on by their fingernails. Now is the time to close ranks and support everyone, and Vectrix needs all of our support, from every quarter. It would serve Brammo well, as well as this industry, to give credit where credit is due.


text:
He died with his pride gathered like a blanket around him, with his men fighting gallantly around him, and with the image of his wife in his mind. The sky above his still body was
almost black, the clouds twisting shapes among the darkness.
The soldiers, dressed in the traditional Elvendell armour with the sword and the dragon emblem on the high right side, remained optimistic throughout the battle, even though their High
Prince was dying and all hope was indeed lost.
Each man allowed images of home to weave throughout his mind, bringing silent comforts to them. The High Prince shifted on his back, searing pain stampeding along his side and spine. A
young soldier, with a face smothered in blood and dirt stooped, his head bowed beside him.
“My Lord,” he whispered his voice hoarse from both the campfire ashes and the smoke from the blazing forest. “We are all going to die, aren’t we?” his voice soft unnervingly soft. The
question was one that the High Prince dreaded. If he told his men they would die, what type of leader, war lord, High Prince would he be? And if he told them they would march back to Elvendell and
the Islands with the Dark Prince’s head upon a pike and be re-united with wives, parents and children, he would be unfaithful.
“My Son,” he replied, “The next moments, the next years, they are all the future. You can change your future. You can die, here, now upon these fields or you can return to the beautiful
valley where your family await and the horned birds will sing your praises. Choose your future, young man. Become a hero.” His voice ached and his lips were parched.
“What is your future my lord?” the young man asked quietly, leaning upon an unsheathed sword.
“My future is to be the Guardian of the High Queen. I have lived, I have loved and that love had been returned to me. It is now that I leave.”
© Copyright 2016 Gadzookziie Spice 99. All rights reserved.

domain: literature


The students of Jahangirnagar University (JU) yesterday staged a march protesting the communal attack on India.
On Wednesday (February 26) under the banner of `Sadharan Chhatra Adhikar Sangrakkhan Parishad’ the procession started from the central Shaheed Minar of the university and ended with a brief rally in the same spot, circling the social science faculty building.
Addressing the rally, Khan Muntasir Arman, president of JU branch of the organization, said, “India is a multinational state. But after Narendra Modi came to power, he is trying to establish a pro-Hindu state. He has abolish section 370 of the constitution, promoting the communalism by banning various citizen services such as Internet service. This sectarianism will adversely affect South Asian politics. Even the country’s foreign ministry is silent. We strongly condemn on the brutal attack on citizen.”
Conducted by Jahangir Alam, general secretary of the organization, Shakil Uz Zaman, joint convener of the organization’s central committee, Iqbal Hossain and Abdullah Al Noman Dhrubo addressed the program, among others.
Source : The Bangladesh Today


text:
A gene associated with Alzheimer’s disease appears especially dangerous to women and may be one reason that more women than men are diagnosed with the disease.
The gene, known as APOE4, increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s in both sexes. But a study published Monday in the Annals of Neurology found that the gene had only a minimal effect on men, while in women it nearly doubled the risk of developing Alzheimer’s or a related condition called mild cognitive impairment.
“We believe that there is an increased risk for Alzheimer’s in women, and it may be that APOE4 is playing a sizable role in this,” says Michael Greicius, one of the study’s authors and head of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders.
Women make up nearly two-thirds of the 5 million people in the U.S. diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. One reason is that women are more likely than men to live long enough to develop the disease. But there have been hints that factors beyond longevity could be contributing to the disparity, Greicius says.
Studies dating to the 1990s have suggested that one of these factors could be the APOE4 gene. About 15 percent of the general population carries the gene, but about 50 percent of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s have it. The gene variant is just one risk factor for Alzheimer’s, but scientists say it seems to be an important one.
Greicius and his colleagues reviewed medical records of more than 8,000 older people. Some had the APOE4 gene, some didn’t. The records — many of them part of a data set funded by the National Institute on Aging — showed which people developed Alzheimer’s disease over a three- or four-year period.
And when it came to the subset of people who carry the APOE4 gene, Greicius says, there was a clear pattern. Men with the gene were only slightly more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, while women with the gene faced 1.8 times the risk compared with other women.READ MORE.

domain: biology


text:
This specific ISBN edition is currently not available.View all copies of this ISBN edition:
"This book is superb it explains the entire process of writing a literature review very clearly. It covers everything from why literature reviews are important to how to present the review. It is easy to read and very clearly laid out. It is a step by step guide to writing a review which is extremely helpful as the prospect of reviewing literature can be quite daunting. This book has been an extremely useful text whilst studying for my degree and I would have no problems recommending it to anyone ... I would recommend this book to anyone who is about to embark on writing a literature review as it will make the whole process much less daunting.
Vicky Bain, Student Nurse, University of Nottingham, UK
"Many lecturers will be familiar with the concern of students trying to clarify what is meant by a literature review: this book does just that... The book has a logical flow but can also be dipped in and out of, dependent on the style of literature review to be undertaken. It is clearly laid out and easy to follow, and the sections are clearly defined... There is a useful glossary defining common terms. I would recommend this book."
British Journal of Occupational Therapy
"A comprehensive, easy to read guide which will help students to understand how to undertake a literature review, and how to use the resultant information effectively."
Anne-Marie Warnes, University of Central Lancashire
"A very useful little book that answers all the questions that students ask."
"A good step-by-step guide on how to produce a comprehensive piece of work."
Simone Bedford, Swansea University
"This is a very useful, sensible and well organised piece of work and students will benefit from it enormously."
Peter Jones, London South Bank University
Doing a Literature Review is essential reading for all undergraduate students who are writing a literature based dissertation within the health and social care field, or as an introductory text for postgraduate study. It is also a useful text for those who are new to reviewing and appraising literature in the search for answers to questions that arise in practice.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Helen Aveyard is Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, in the School of Health and Social Care where she is involved in the teaching and development of research education. Prior to this she held a research scholarship in Health Care Ethics at King's College University of London where she undertook a doctoral study examining the ways in which informed consent is addressed by nurses prior to nursing care procedures.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Book Description Open University Press, 2007. Paperback. Condition: New. Never used!. Seller Inventory # P110335222617

domain: library


Supports up to 4 GSM/WCDMA channels;
Enables full flexibility to traditional telephony systems to go GSM/WCDMA network;
Support standard PCI/PCI-E interface.Request a Quote
We have three kinds of WCD100 modules. Please mark the kind of WCD100 module that you want to purchase in the processing of order. In the following passage, we will intorduce the information of these modules.
OpenVox G410 Series provides scalable connectivity to GSM/GSM/WCDMA networks for your Linux machine. It supports up to 4 GSM/WCDMA channels and enables users to access the mobile network with their existing asterisk IPPBX.
The G410 Series comes with fully GPLed drivers for the linux 2.4.X and 2.6.X kernels. The OpenVox GSM/WCDMA card can be connected to any other OpenVox card to build a real TDM switched PBX.
G410 Series enables full flexibility to traditional telephony systems to go GSM/WCDMA network. It also allows systems integrators to transform highly priced fixed to mobile voice traffic into a much cheaper mobile to mobile call management, with considerable savings.
G410 Series works with Asterisk®, Elastix®,PBX in a Flash, trixbox® and IPPBX/IVR projects as well as other Open Source and proprietary PBX, Switch, IVR, and VoIP gateway applications.
- GSM/WCDMA connectivity for PBX
- Mobile PBX
- GSM/WCDMA VoIP gateway
- SMS gateway
- GSM/WCDMA callback services
- 4 GSM/WCDMA channels
- 1 SIM card per GSM/WCDMA channel
- Power Consumption: 30W Maximum at 3.3 V or 5 V.
- Operation temperature: 0°C to 50°C
- Storage temperature: -40°C to 125°C
- Dimension: 17.9cm*9.9cm*1.8cm
- Weight: 209g
The following is the information about three kinds of WCD100 modules:
- American standard can support :
- European standard can support:
- Janpanese stadards can support:
- RoHS compliant
- Certificates: CE and FCC
- Linux (all versions, releases and distributions from 1.0 up)
Minimum Hardware Requirement
- CPU: 1000-Mhz
- RAM: 128MB
- Available PCI/PCI-E Slot
- IMEI and PIN modification
- SMS batch receiving/sending in text and PDU mode with decoding of MSC(Mobile Service Center)
- AT command availability
- Support USSD, CLIP, CLIR
- DTMF detection
- Support external antenna
- Modular Design for GSM/WCDMA channels
- Support GSM/WCDMA Network
- Up to 4 Simultaneous GSM/WCDMA Calls (Per PCI/PCI-E Slot)
- 3-Month “No Questions Asked” Return Policy
- Five Year Warranty


There's nothing more frustrating than misplacing your car keys. Telsa might be able to help with that.
The company recently received approval from the Federal Communications Commission's office of engineering and technology to patent a new key fob for its electric cars, The Verge reports.
Perhaps the most notable feature of the new key is that it was tested for Bluetooth Low Energy which opens up the possibility that the key could directly sync with a Tesla vehicle or even function as a key finder.
Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNBC.
Bluetooth technology is already used by iPhone and Android apps and could easily be applied to the existing technology.


U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley recently introduced the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement, or COVFEFE act, which would amend the Presidential Records Act to include the term social media. (Bloomberg)
The name of the bill comes from Trump's likely typo in a midnight Twitter post last month: "Despite the constant negative press covfefe." The tweet stayed online for hours before it was removed.
Quigley cites Trump's "frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account" as the reason behind the bill. He says in a statement, "Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable for every post."
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
45 uses Twitter to make official statements, which must be documented. His tweets regarding his Muslim travel ban were actually used against him in the Court of Appeals, which ultimately ruled against the administration.
You can read the bill here.
Shout out to anyone who voted for Rep. Quigley in the 5th District of Illinois. Let's all thank him by sending him postcards of appreciation here:
Washington, D.C. Office | 2458 Rayburn HOB, Washington, DC 20515
Lakeview District Office | 3223 N. Sheffield Ave., Chicago, IL 60657
Portage Park District Office | 4345 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60641
And, as always, bug your Representatives and urge them to support this bill! Find your reps here.


VMworld last week was a great success for Cisco (well, if you don’t count the #v0dgeball challenge). Leading up to the show we announced that the ASA 1000V cloud firewall was shipping, we announced a new major release of the Nexus 1000V virtual switch, and a new version of our Virtual Network Management Center.
Talking to customers is always the best part of the show, hearing what their challenges are, and positioning our technology to fit their needs. On Wednesday, I met up with Paul O’Leary, an Infrastructure Specialist with the international law firm of King & Wood Mallesons. Paul is a big fan of the Cisco Nexus 1000V and shares why his networking team loves it so much, and how it consistently saves them time in managing their network policies.
We showed Paul some of the features coming out in our next release, like the vCenter plug-in, and vTracker for viewing statistics on the virtual fabric, et al., and he was really excited. Anyway, Paul was good enough to let us share his thoughts with you rather spontaneously, so without any further ado, let’s roll the video:
But wait, there’s more… Read More »
Tags: Cisco ONE, Nexus 1000v, OpenStack, vmworld, VXLAN
It is amazing how the data centre world has changed in the last few years. A Data Centre used to be a collection of network elements to interconnect static servers (and their associated storage), with traffic patterns that were highly predictable and mostly north-south. Cloud and virtualization have changed all of this: a data centre is now a collection of compute and storage resources which can be securely sliced up into virtual networks and placed anywhere according to real time needs, interconnected by a fabric. The virtualization of servers, network services such as firewalls and load balancers, and even network devices such as switches and routers, has created a very dynamic landscape in terms of how fast you could configure a virtual network, in a way where location shouldn’t really matter, and where compute and storage resources can be added on the fly, based on demand. Multi-tenant Data Centres, such as the one to deploy Virtual Private Clouds, need to support 10000’s of these virtual networks. And every one of these virtual networks needs a lot of different service instances to stitch together the virtual network across virtual servers, virtual switches, virtual firewalls, virtual load-balancers, and virtual routers. Traffic patterns have shifted to East-West, because of the new applications which spread processing across many hosts, and because of the ‘location freedom’ that virtualization allows. Network infrastructure needs to be cost-effective to handle all this traffic, while the increased lookup-table size caused by the any to any traffic patterns often led to increased cost. Read More »
Tags: LISP, network virtualization, VXLAN
Today marks the general availability of the eagerly-awaited Microsoft Windows Server 2012 platform. According to Microsoft, “Windows Server 2012 redefines the server category, delivering hundreds of new features and enhancements spanning virtualization, networking, storage, user experience, cloud computing, automation, and more.” Earlier Cisco blog posts discussed how Cisco has collaborated with Microsoft to achieve Windows 2012 certification for our UCS servers, as well as integrating our management tools into Microsoft System Center and PowerShell.
In this post, I’d like to highlight the integration of the Nexus 1000V virtual switch into the Windows Server 2012 platform, and particularly the Hyper-V hypervisor. We have been working closely with the Windows Server 2012 team for the past few years towards this goal, and announced Nexus 1000V and VM-FEX support for it at the Microsoft BUILD conference last year. Read More »
Tags: Cisco ONE, DCNM, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows Server 2012, NAM, Nexus 1000v, OpenStack, UCS, Virtual Security Gateway, VM-FEX, VNMC, vPath, vsg, VXLAN
VSM's across remote data centers
Nothing sits around and gets stale for long at Cisco (outside the break rooms anyway). On the heels of shipping our Nexus 1000V 1.5.2 release earlier this week (which you can download from here), we are ramping up to show the upcoming generation of the virtual switch next week at VMworld in San Francisco. This new major release 2.1 will be going into beta in October, and will represent a quantum leap in ease of deployment and management, as well as greater security for cloud environments.
Features of the new Nexus 1000V 2.1 Release:
- vCenter Plug-in – Provides a holistic view of the virtual network to the server administrator from within VMware vCenter. A Nexus 1000V dashboard in vCenter shows the virtual supervisor module (VSM) and virtual ethernet module (VEM) details, such as VSM health status, license information, PNIC information, connected VM’s, et al.
- Support for Cisco TrustSec – Extends Cisco TrustSec security solutions for network-based segmentation of users and physical workloads to virtual workloads, leveraging Security Group Tags (SGT) for defining security segments. Data center segmentation and consistent security policy enforcement can now be implemented across physical and virtual workloads.
- Cross Data Center High-availability – Supports split Active and Standby Nexus 1000V Virtual Supervisor Modules (VSMs) across two data centers to implement cross-DC clusters and VM mobility while ensuring high availability. In addition, VSM’s in the data center can support VEM’s at remote branch offices. Read More »
Tags: ASA 1000V, Cisco ONE, CSR 1000V, Hyper-V, NAM, Nexus 1000v, OpenStack, TrustSec, Virtual Network Management Center, Virtual Security Gateway, virtual switch, VMware, vmworld, VNMC, vPath, vsg, VXLAN
Today Cisco made a new version of its Nexus 1000V virtual switch available for immediate download. The newly available Nexus 1000V 1.5.2 release can be downloaded for a 60 day free trial from here. As most of you know because you’ve been reading all my blog posts over the last year, the Nexus 1000V is the edge switch for virtual environments, bringing the network edge right up to the virtual machine, by residing in the hypervisors and connecting virtual ports to the physical network and beyond. The Nexus 1000V is the foundation for our entire virtual network overlay portfolio, including all of our virtual L4-7 application and security services, our cloud orchestration software, VXLANs and more.
The new release supports the latest version of VMware’s vSphere hypervisor, and includes vPath 2.0 with service chaining between virtual services. I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago about the importance of vPath in inserting virtual services into data center networks, and now we also have a great new white paper available on vPath service insertion technology. The most important enhancement in vPath 2.0 is that you can now insert multiple services in the path between the source and destination addresses in your virtual network. Read More »
Tags: ASA 1000V, Nexus 1000v, vmworld, vPath, vWAAS, VXLAN


text:
FORMER AZ TV STAFFS WAITS FOR FULFILLMENT OF PETITION
Today in the Yasamal District Court under the chairmanship of the Judge Tahir Ismayilov a court hearing on Az TV’s pensioners’ lawsuit against Social Defense Fund might be conducted.
Ayyub Karimov, the plaintiff’s lawyer told the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety that, “As Yasamal Court sent an information request to the Constitutional Court, during last court hearing I sent a petition. It is not obvious whether the petition is accepted or not. That is why the court hearing will not be conducted”.
Recall that, till August 2006 the TV channel staffs were stopped to get pensions. So, the court hearing stems from that problem. Television employees’ another reason for filing a lawsuit was State Social Defense Fund’s irresponsibility regarding this problem. So, the Fund didn’t reveal whether the pension will be given or not. On December 19 during the court hearing, Ayyub Karimov the lawyer filed a petition related to sending an information request to the Constitutional Court by Yasamal District Court due to clarifying whether television employees’ pension is legal or not.
ACTION IN CONNECTION WITH FREEDOM OF SPEECH DEFENSE.CONDUCTE
WORKING GROUP RAISES JOURNALISTS’ MATTER

domain: politics


text:
Another card for the Papercrafter's Workshop challenges this week - yesterday's challenge was to do something floral!
This was an image that I stamped last summer with my niece... both the flower stamp set (Oopsie Daisy) and the jar (Just Mason Around) are from The Greetery, and both were stamped in Distress Oxide inks. I pulled out the image today and added some shading overtop with my Copic markers, defining the flowers, and adding some shadows to the whole image. I stitched the image to some aqua cardstock with my sewing machine, and used 3D adhesives to adhere it to my gingham base. Check out the Papercrafter's Workshop on facebook and play along with the challenges!
Wow, this looks really beautiful!! I LOVE it!
Post a Comment

domain: design


text:
“Angsty Syd navigates high school awkwardness, family drama and an unrequited crush on her best friend while trying to rein in her budding superpowers.” A well-executed project, which falls short on a few things it intends to cover. It is a coming of age dramedy and an origin story at the same time.
We see Syd trying to get by with the everyday struggles of the life of an average teenager. There is her attraction towards Dina and the resulting struggle with her sexuality, her relationship with Stanley which, at first, does not seem like just friendship, and Staley’s admiration for her. Syd’s mother adds a little spice to the plot by way of their strained relationship stemming from not dealing with the trauma caused by the unexplained suicide of Syd’s father, which seems like lack of support to Syd. The dynamic Syd has with her brother is a joy and lightens the mood a little. There is also the feeling of not being understood, quite common on teen focused plots. What sets it apart is that she has telekinetic powers and dealing with that is something others in her life would actually not understand.
The powers manifest when Syd is stressed out, which feeds into her lack of control over them, which in turn feeds the anxiety, and Syd is shaken as she gradually recognises that she is the one causing them. Each experience she has with this adds to her character development through the episodes rather than just leading to more anxiety and eventual chaos, which it does, and we see a glimpse of mystery at the end of the season. But the show manages to keep the focus on Syd herself, and not solely on what she can do with her superpowers.
The character development and the dynamic between the characters are good. The focus fades out, however, as we move father away from Syd in the social nexus, which is not something to be complained about. What can be complained about is the seemingly missing pieces when it comes to Dina, with the lack of a similar depth we see with Stanley, for example. One more thing here – there is not enough in the plot to ground the fact that Dina is Syd’s best friend.
Syd’s monologues through her diary seem a little out of place, as Sophia Lillis’s performance is more than enough to get the point across, and the few points that are not covered are or can be presented directly in the plot. What adds on to this is that Syd does not seem like a character inclined towards writing and maintaining a diary. But I may be missing something in this regard.
The gradual tone of the plot is enjoyable. Performance of the cast is remarkable. The world built around the story and the washed-out, retro aesthetic of the show match and complement the story well. With each episode spanning less than half an hour, it is a binge-worthy show I would recommend.

domain: entertainment


text:
A BIT ABOUT ME
Behind the Canvas
Hello Everyone! I’m Nik, a Southern California makeup artist of 12 years specializing in Bridal Makeup! I serve the LA, OC,IE, and SD areas but am always available for travel and destination weddings. Currently featured on SBSN, Zola, Wedding Wire, and The knot. I find enjoyment in making brides of any tone, age, or gender feel and look their best!
If you’re looking for a Makeup artist and enjoy Radiant, Soft Glam makeup looks with long lasting applications for your big day, Be sure to Fill out a contact form and I will be in touch within 24 hours.

domain: artistic


text:
USA Today reports:
The matchup for Super Bowl 57 is set. The Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs won their respective games during Sunday’s conference championship round and will meet Feb. 12 in the battle for the Lombardi Trophy. The Eagles will serve as the home team in the game, which will be played in State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, meaning that Philadelphia will have the option to select its jersey color choice, dark or light. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. ET on Fox. Rihanna will headline the Super Bowl 57 halftime show.
Read the full article.
Alright I’m in. Cincinnati’s famous Montgomery Inn ribs on me. Also, given his Kansas City Chiefs tie on Monday, maybe @RogerMarshallMD wants in? https://t.co/QOBDeOGC0n
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) January 29, 2023
We settled on ribs from @JDVance1 if (and when) he loses, KC Joe’s from me in the highly unlikely event the @Chiefs don’t prevail
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 29, 2023
I can taste those ribs now https://t.co/G90rZsw6m6
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 30, 2023
Pole climbers outside Philadelphia City Hall. Shirtless selfies on top of one & hoisting a Lombardi Trophy nearby FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/WC2v3HgzcC
— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) January 30, 2023


text:
A founding figure of 20th century Canadian theatre and drama, Herman Voaden (1903-1991) was the most significant and original playwright in English-Canada until Robertson Davies' more literary dramatic writing emerged in the late 1940s.
Voaden's work in the theatre as playwright, experimental director, producer, educator, editor and cultural nationalist from 1928 to 1980 constitutes a unique phenomenon in the history of Canadian theatre and drama. For a decade, from Rocks in 1932 to Ascend As the Sun in 1942, his multi-media “symphonic expressionist” dramas proclaimed his belief in the “spiritual clarity” of the Canadian North and in the transcendence of human mortality found in love and …
Citation: Wagner, Anton. "Herman Voaden". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4559, accessed 26 September 2023.]


Divorce agreements can dictate the religious upbringing of a child: which church to attend, or how strict a religious education should be. What happens after divorce if an ultra-orthodox mother concludes she is a lesbian and wants to live a normal life?
The New York Case
In last week’s New York case involving the Weisbergers, the parents agreed to give the children a Hasidic Jewish upbringing in all details, in the home or outside of home, including which school the children attend.
Three years after the divorce, the mother came out as a lesbian, disparaged the basic tenets of Hasidic Judaism, allowed the children to wear non-Hasidic clothes, permitted them to violate the Sabbath and kosher dietary laws, and referred to them by names that were not traditionally used in the Hasidic community.
The trial judge ruled in favor of the father, circumstances had changed so much that he should have sole custody because of the mother’s transition from an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic lifestyle to a “more progressive, albeit Jewish, secular world.”
The court noted that the mother’s conduct was in conflict with the parties’ agreement, which “forbade living a secular way of life in front of the children or while at their schools.” The court posited that had there been no agreement it might have considered the parties’ arguments differently.
Florida Religious Upbringing
In Florida, there is no provision in our laws purporting to authorize such judicial enforcement in married parents. Religion and divorce is a matter I’ve written on before.
In a divorce action, the court’s powers over custody of children are found in the Florida Statutes. When a court is required to decide an issue as to the custody or support of minor children, the sine qua non of the exercise of those powers is the best interests of the child.
There is absolutely nothing in the statutory listing that expressly makes the religious training of the child a factor that the court should consider.
The Florida Statutes command all parents to confer on all major decisions affecting the welfare of their child, and to reach an agreement as to any required decision.
When the matter involves the religious training and beliefs of the child, courts cannot make a decision in favor of a specific religion over the objection of the other parent. Generally, a child’s religion is no proper business of judges.
New York Law Changes
The appeals court in New York reversed the father having sole custody of the children, and final decision-making authority over medical, mental health issues, with supervised therapeutic visitation to the mother.
When presented as an issue, religion may be considered as one of the factors in determining the best interest of a child, although it alone may not be the determinative factor.
Clauses in custody agreements that provide for a specific religious upbringing for the children will only be enforced so long as the agreement is in the best interests of the children.
Importantly, no agreement of the parties can bind the court to a disposition other than that which a weighing of all of the factors involved shows to be in the children’s best interest.
The Washington Post article is here.


Supplies: 2 skeins of fingering weight yarn (440 yds ea)
Knitting needles: US 7 circular needles w/40” or 60” cables
Stitch markers, optional
Size 6 beads
Gauge: Because the shawl is not fitted, there is not a gauge. If you decide to use bigger or smaller needles, the shawl will turn out bigger or smaller.
Shawl size: At the base of the shawl it is 8.5” wide. From outside edge to outside edge at the ends of the shawl it is 57”.
K - Knit
P - Purl
K1fb - Knit one front and back
p2tog - purl 2 together
ssk - slip, slip, knit
RS - Right side
WS - Wrong side
C4F - Slip 2 stitches to cable needle, bring to the front of your work, k2, k2 from cable
C4B - Slip 2 stitches to cable needle, carry needle to back of your work, k2, k2 from cable
sb - Insert needle as if to purl, slip bead to front of work (back of stitch) and then purl as usual.
BORDER OF SHAWL:
Slip 42 (50, 54) beads onto your yarn before beginning. I always thread a few extra, just in case.
With the waste yarn do a provisional crochet cast on. You will cast on 256 (304, 328) stitches. 256 stitches will have 21 owls, 304 will have 25 and 328 will have 27
Knit three rows (garter stitch)
Row 4 (ws): k4, p8, *k4, p8; repeat from * to last 4 stitches, k to end
Row 5 (rs): k1, k1fb, p2, *C4F, C4B, p4; repeat from * to last 4 stitches,
Row 6: k1, k1fb, k2, p8, *k4, p8; repeat from * to last 5 stitches, k to
Row 7: k2, p3, *k8, p4; repeat from * to last 13 stitches, k8, p3, k2
Row 8: BEAD ROW: K5, p2, sb, p2, sb, p2 *k4 (p2, sb)2x, p2; repeat from * to last 5 stitches, knit to end.
Row 9: k2, p3, *k8, p4; repeat from * to last 13 stitches, k8, p3, k2
Row 10: k5, p8, *k4, p8; repeat from * to last 5 stitches, knit to end
Row 11: k1, k1fb, p3 *C4F, C4B, p4; repeat from * to last 13 stitches, then C4F, C4B p3, k2
Row 12: k1, k1fb, k3, p8, *k4, p8; repeat from * to last 6 stitches, knit
Rows 13, 15, 17, 19: k2, p4, *k8, p4; repeat from * to last 2 stitches, k2
Rows 14, 16, 18, 20: k6, p8, *k4, p8; repeat from * to last 6 stitches, k6
Row 21: k1, k1fb, p4 *C4F, C4B, p4; repeat from * to last 2 stitches, k2
Row 22: k1, k1fb, *k4, p8; repeat from * to last 7 stitches, k to end
Row 23: Purl
Rows 24-34 as follows:
Wrong side: *p2, k2; repeat from * to end
Right side: *k2, p2; repeat from * to end
Knit two rows
Bind off loosely.
BODY OF SHAWL:
Remove the provisional crochet cast on and slip each stitch individually onto your needles. You will probably have to “flip your stitches” when you go to knit them. They will probably be twisted. Make sure you check.
Once you get your live stitches on your needles, count them to be sure you have the correct amount 256 (304, 328)
Starting on the front of the shawl:
*Row 1 Knit
*Row 2 Purl
Row 3 - K131 (155, 167) stitches, turn
Row 4 - p9 stitches, p2tog, turn
Row 5 - k9 stitches, ssk, k3, turn
Row 6 - (you will have 12 stitches on the needle) p12, p2tog , p3.
Continue short rows as established
*If you want to make your shawl deeper continue with Rows 1 and 2 for 10 or 12 rows, then continue on to row 3
When you get to the last 2 rows, you will have 4-6 stitches on each side. Go ahead and knit (or purl) to the end of the row, turn and complete the last row. Bind off.
Block in crescent shape. When blocking, run wires thru the short ends of the shawl. Pin down in a crescent shape. When you block, pin between the “posts” under the owls’ feet. This will stretch your shawl out and you will not have to pin the top or inside of the crescent down.
If you want a more rounded shape and not such strong points, after you pin under the owls go back and pin at the bottom of the fence posts inbetween. This will give the shawl a smoother edge or bottom.


text:
Miami International Airport is a major airport in Florida, USA, operated by the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and is owned by the Miami-Dade County government. It is the primary airport serving the Miami area, located in an unincorporated area in Miami-Dade County, 13 km northwest of Downtown Miami. The public airport, historically Wilcox Field, covers an area of 1,520 hectares and resides at an elevation of 8 ft (2 m) above mean sea level. It is equipped with four asphalt runways: runway 8L/26R measures 2,860 m × 46 m (9,383 ft × 151 ft), runway 8R/26L measures 3,400 m × 60 m (11,150 ft × 200 ft), runway 9/27 measures 3,900 m × 60 m (12,800 ft × 200 ft), and runway 12/30 measures 3,050 m × 46 m (10,007 ft × 151 ft). Miami International Airport provides regular scheduled services throughout the Americas, Europe, and East and West Asia. It is the largest gateway between the USA and Latin America, and the main airport for long-haul international flights to and from South Florida.
MIA's main terminal is still the one used from 1959, save for several new additions. The single terminal facility is semi-circular in shape, divided into three sections: the North Terminal is Blue and consists of Concourse D; the yellow Central Terminal contains Concourses E, F, and G; and the red South Terminal contains Concourses H and J. Level 1 contains ground transportation access and the baggage carousels, Level 2 contains ticketing/check-in, restaurants and cafes, retail outlets, and access to the concourses. On Level 3 of Concourses D and J are the two immigration and customs facilities of MIA.
Services and Facilities
Miami International Airport is one of the largest airline hubs in the country. It serves as a hub for American Airlines, Eastern Airlines, and the charter airline Miami Air International for passenger services, and Atlas Air, FedEx Express, LAN Cargo, and UPS Airlines for cargo. It is also a focus city for Avianca, Frontier Airlines, LAN Airlines, and TAM Airlines.
There are three parking facilities in MIA: directly in front of Concourse E is a two-level short-term parking lot, and within the terminal's curvature are two seven-story parking garages. No reservations required, but passengers are advised to check the map online for location of airlines and the nearest parking options.
Ground transportation at MIA is available 24 hours a day. Options are licensed taxicabs and SuperShuttle vans from the arrival level, outside the baggage claim area, and Hotel shuttles from the departure level. Pre-arranged ground transportation services from MIA include bus and limousine and Tri-Rail Commuter Train Service just outside the airport.
The airport is also connected to the Miami Central Station and Miami Intermodal Center (also called Miami Airport Station) via the new MIA Mover electric-powered train. It is a rapid transit, commuter rail, intercity rail, and intercity bus transportation hub, which also has a Rental Car Center. The rental car facility allows guests to choose from 16 rental car companies and 6,500 rental cars to make their stay more convenient.


text:
Billabong Shadow Play Lowrider Bottom Multi Reversible
A paradise play on neutrals, lava tones reverse to a sunbaked tan in the Shadow Play bikini. Printed with dark tropicals on one side and printed Hawaiian earth tones on the other, the classic cut Lowrider silhouette features a taller front and back rise and fuller bum coverage, creating a flattering fit for all shapes.
Reversible bikini bottoms.
Fullest bum coverage.
Tallest front and back rise.
Solid reverses to floral print.


The aluminum giant Alcoa (AA) may mark the unofficial start of the earnings season Tuesday, but a slew of other big names next week is apt to be better Wall Street bellwethers.
Yum, parent to Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC, reports Tuesday night along with Alcoa. Analysts collectively expect earnings to climb 17% to 97 cents per share, with revenue up 11.3% to $3.64 billion.
The world's largest restaurant chain — with 38,000 spots in more than 120 countries — got a bit of a shout-out from hedge fund giant David Einhorn, who said its higher-end Cantina Bell menu could give more upscale burrito joint Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) trouble.
But the big driver for Yum Brands' profit has been China. Investors will want to see if the recent deceleration in growth there has continued.
Retailer Costco comes Wednesday. Analysts expect EPS to climb 20% to $1.30, with revenue up 12.1% to $31.59 billion. The purveyor of everything from bulk diapers to caskets was one of the biggest winners in September, posting a 6% hike in sales at stores open a least a year. Retailers more broadly — excluding drug stores — put up 3.9% gains, according to data from Retail Metrics.
On Friday comes the one-two punch of No. 1 bank by deposits JPMorgan, and No. 4 Wells Fargo.
Analysts think JPMorgan's revenue will be flat at $24.37 billion, but expect EPS to climb 18.6% to $1.21.
Global investment banking fees industrywide fell 3.8% in Q3 to their lowest level in more than three years, according to the latest data from Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting, which cited the eurozone debt crisis as the main cause. But JPMorgan held the top spot with $3.6 billion in such revenue so far this year, the report found.
Wells Fargo was the 10th-largest investment banking fee earner over those same nine months, bringing in $1.4 billion, the report found. Analysts expect it to post earnings of 87 cents, up 21% from a year ago. Revenue is expected to climb 9.1% to 21.42 billion. Wells' stock is trading just below a 4-year high set on Sept. 14.
The following week comes the No. 2 bank by deposits, Bank of America (BAC). It likely put to rest some lingering questions over the housing mess with the $2.43 billion settlement it agreed to last month to resolve claims it misled investors in its 2008 buyout of investment bank Merrill Lunch. BofA said results on Oct. 17 will include about $1.6 billion in litigation expenses.
As for Alcoa, expectations are far more modest. Analysts expect EPS of 1 cent, down from 15 cents a year ago, with revenue declining 13.2% to $5.57 billion.
Collectively, analysts see earnings slipped 2.3% across the S&P 500, which would be the first decline since Q3 2009.


Different agents execute deals at difference paces. Scott Boras has often waited until late January or even February or March to conclude a negotiation on an elite player, as he works for what he believes to be appropriate value. The Levinson brothers, on the other hand, often finish deals at the other end of the offseason -- early -- by running the gamut of teams quickly, determining what they believe to be the negotiating tipping points for their clients, pushing to resolution, and getting them off the board.
It's not a surprise, then, that two of the very first high-end relievers to agree to terms in a glutted bullpen market are both Levinson clients -- Jeurys Familia, who got a three-year, $30 million deal with the Mets, and Joe Kelly, who agreed to $25 million over three years with the Dodgers. Those contracts now will probably begin to cement the scale for what relievers might expect to get this winter -- and could temper hopes significantly.