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The word “Governance” is difficult to define. It‘s use may be associated with a set of principles, the exercise of legitimate authority through law and regulation, or processes for ensuring accountability and managing risk within organizations
[1, 2]. There are complex relationships within and across local, national and global levels of governance
. Governance has dimensions which must be considered when evaluating governance practices. The three dimensions commonly cited are political, economical and institutional. The political dimension refers to the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced. The economical dimension refers to the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies, including management of public resources. The institutional dimension includes the respect of citizens and the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them
Governance has been defined by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority in the management of a country’s affairs at all levels. Brinkerhoff et al., defined governance as the rules that distribute roles and responsibility among societal actors and that shape the interaction among them
. The United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) defined governance in terms of institutions, rules and systems of the state. The World Bank has taken the economical view of governance defining it as economic policy making and implementation with a focus on accountability and use of public resources
. Governance goes beyond government to include relationships and networks at various levels. It must be acknowledged that the concept of governance is not a coherent or agreed theoretical concept and there are debates about the nature of governance
Governance has been cited as a key determinant of economic growth, social advancement and overall development
. Research has shown that the modes of governance may influence health outcomes through their association with patterns of incentives and with regulatory and performance management regimes
. The achievement of millennium development goals is partly dependant on governance practices in low and middle income countries
Health system governance concerns the actions and the means adopted by a society to organise itself in the promotion and protection of the health of the population. The rules defining such organization and its functioning, can be formal or informal
Health systems contain three categories of actors: government, providers, and beneficiaries/clients. Health governance involves the rules that determine the roles and responsibilities of each of these categories of actors, and the relationships, structures, and procedures that connect them. Good governance in health reflects the application of a set of normative principles: accountability to patients and the broader public, an open policy process where competing interest groups operate on a level playing field, state capacity and legitimacy to manage the policy process and implement health policy decisions, effective and responsive service delivery, and the participation of civil society and private sector actors in both policymaking and service delivery
In its health system building blocks which include service delivery, human resources, health information, Medical supplies, finance and governance, WHO has emphasised governance or stewardship as crucial in health system strengthening. WHO acknowledges that governance is one of the most complex building blocks. It involves overseeing and guiding the whole health system, private as well as public, in order to protect the public interest. This requires both political and technical action, because it involves reconciling competing demands for limited resources. With increasing demands for transparency and accountability the role of health system governance has become even more important
Good governance should, in theory, lead to better performance. More accountability to beneficiaries can be an incentive for health officials and providers to improve services
Thus to achieve a system of good health governance, a number of areas need to be addressed. These include improving the policy process through ensuring policy‒making based on evidence and open, informed, fair and equitable involvement of key stakeholders. Community participation has to be enhanced through increasing local information and leadership, and institutional incentives and openness of officials. Corruption has to be reduced, through tracking financial flows and disseminating information, auditing and citizen oversight
Saddiqi et al., proposed 10 principles for assessing governance of the health system. These were strategic vision, participation and consensus orientation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, equity and inclusiveness, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, intelligence and information and ethics
In 2007, Health Systems 20/20 conducted an Internet-based survey on the practice of good governance in the health sector in collaboration with the Health Systems Action Network (HSAN). The survey posed a set of good practices related to health governance and asked respondents to indicate whether their experience confirmed or disconfirmed those practices. 17 questions were subsequently distilled from the semi structured and qualitative questions that represented statements about good health system governance. The responders were mainly mid level managers and the focus was at national level rather than primary care
. These questions were also used to assess governance practices in Rwanda as part of health system strengthening intervention
. However, these statements have not been validated for regular use in evaluating health system governance especially in rural settings were the concepts of governance may be less clear. We applied the 17 governance statements and adapted the statements to fit the primary care health workers working in rural health facilities of Zambia. The aim was to establish whether the statements were valid for assessing governance practices at primary care level and to identify the latent factors or domains of governance that were captured in the 17 statements or items. This was done as part of the baseline study.
This work is part of larger study in Zambia known as Better Health through Mentoring and Assessment (BHOMA) which is a randomised step wedged community intervention that aims to strengthen the health system in three rural districts of Zambia. There are 42 target health facilities in the three study. The full methodology of the main study is described elsewhere
 (Personal communication). In this study we used the governance tool developed by the health system 20/20 for measuring health system governance in the 42 health facilities. It contains 17 semi structured statements about good governance practices
[9, 14]. The answers were graded between 1 and 4 (4 = Agree 3 = Some what agree 2 = Some what disagree 1 = Disagree).The target respondents were the health facility management team in the rural health centres of Zambia. These were mainly the health facility incharge, clinical officers, nurses, environmental health technicians, pharmacists and in some places Classified Daily Employees (CDEs) who are usually lay workers working at health facility either voluntarily or are on government payroll. After explaining the self administered tool to the team they were then allowed to sit on their own and read each statement and then graded the performance of the health facility on each statement. They were only to come up with consensus responses on each statement. The teams consisted of 2–10 members with an average of 3 members per health facility. The research team did not take part in the grading and did not sit in the room where the grading was being done. The tool was pre-tested in pilot facilities which had settings similar to the study sites.
Principal factor analysis with Varimax and Kaiser Normalisation was used to determine the latent governance factors captured in the 17 statements. After factor analysis 16 statements had a coefficient above 0.4 and thus were retained for further analysis. Reliability test for the 16 items was done using cronbach’s alpha.
The maximum possible score by each health facility was 64.These scores were converted to percentage for easy comparisons. The total district score was calculated by the sum of individual health facility scores. After identification of the latent factors these were analyzed separately as domains which made the overall governance score.
Ethical approval was obtained from University of Zambia Biomedical Research Ethics Committee and London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
All participants signed written consent before taking part in the study. Confidentiality was maintained during data collection and publication.
For the qualitative component of the study, nine health facilities were selected from the three districts. The selection criterion was that in each district one rural, one semirural and one urban health facility was to be included. At each facility, In-depth interviews (IDI) were conducted with the health centre in-charge, Chairman of the Neighbourhood health committee (NHC) and a pharmacist were interviewed. Around the catchment area of each health facility, two Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were held with men and women. In total 30 IDIs and 18 FGDs were conducted.
Qualitative data was analyzed using Nvivo version 9. The full methodology and results of the qualitative study are reported elsewhere
. Here we report on two elements of governance: Community participation and Accountability for medical supplies.


India Court: Phase-Out Diesel Buses
NEW DELHI, India (AP) _ India’s Supreme Court ordered the city of New Delhi on Thursday to immediately begin phasing out diesel-burning buses and convert the capital’s transportation fleet to cleaner compressed natural gas by Jan. 31.
At least 9,000 of 12,000 municipal buses still run on diesel, two years after the court first ordered public vehicles to switch to compressed natural gas.
The court has previously criticized the inaction of the agencies involved in the conversion process, saying they had no concern for a pollution-free environment, the right of every citizen.
At its last hearing on the issue, the court had given the New Delhi authorities until Thursday to come up with a plan to convert public buses to compressed natural gas, to make sure enough of the fuel is available, and, in the meantime, to check that the diesel being sold in the city of 13 million is pure.
The court had said that it would give a new deadline, and on Thursday declared that by Jan. 31, 2002 all city-owned buses must be running on compressed natural gas.
The city has missed several previous deadlines.
Drivers of buses, taxis and auto-rickshaws have staged several strikes _ leaving millions of commuters stranded _ to protest the court’s orders.
While owners of most taxis and three-wheeled auto-rickshaws have converted their vehicles to run on compressed natural gas, they often wait in line for hours to get it.
It’s one-third cheaper than gasoline, but the city has authorized only one company to supply it, at a few stations.
Buses, used by most travelers, have been slower to convert.


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Ammo Casing Type: Brass
Ammo Bullet Weight: 40 grain
Caliber Multi: .22 LR
Muzzle Energy: 128 lb/ft
Muzzle Velocity: 1125 fps


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What do you really know about Ferguson?
Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the NSA Spying Scandal closely. In fact, I’ve been following it for several years, since before I first ran into Barrett Brown. Seriously. The leaks about go back a long way, and most writers appear to have missed the implications.
The above statement may seem rather strong to those who don’t know the background. Caldera International was a Linux Distributor. The company had made many improvements to Linux (including the first GUI installer), and while the Caldera version was never as popular as the Red Hat version, it was generally well respected. But Caldera was a money losing proposition. It had never made a profit one during it’s years of operation.
One move that Caldera made to try and become profitable was to buy the Unix business from the Santa Cruz Operation. The aim was to use the software distribution channel that Santa Cruz had successfully built up as a Unix vendor to sell more Linux, as Linux was expected to replace Unix in the X86 marketplace.
And then came Darl. The story gets really murky at this point. The people involved either aren’t talking, or are lying like a rug. This sounds harsh, but it’s the only viable conclusion based on the available evidence.
The public story is that Darl noticed that Caldera’s main source of income was the Unix business it had bought from Santa Cruz, and decided to concentrate on growing it. He also started asking questions about how Linux could be competitive to Unix in features and capabilities when it was a free software project (Darl apparently considered Free Software to be ‘hobbyist’ products, the sort of thing your Aunt May did on Saturday evening). As I said, this is the public story. Supposedly Darl was convinced that someone had transferred capabilities from Unix to Linux, and so Caldera sued IBM.
The lawsuit against IBM which originally was for $1 Billion US sent a shockwave throughout the tech community. Many of us wondered if maybe there wasn’t something to it – after all, the source for Linux was widely available, and if someone had copied something they shouldn’t have into it, it would be easy to find. Another consideration is that only an idiot would sue IBM without solid proof. Seriously. Would you launch a lawsuit against a company that was capable of ‘darkening the sky over Utah with lawyers’ without solid evidence to back up your claims?
I, along with a lot of other geeks started looking for answers. One of my searches lead me to a blog over at Radio Userland called Groklaw in early 2003 (the blog moved to Groklaw.net soon after). The blog was written by a PJ (Pamela Jones), who said she was a Geek and a Paralegal. PJ had written a lot of detailed articles. She explained how the legal system in the United States worked, evaluated the legal filings in the Caldera v. IBM case as they were filed, researched cases that were referenced and explained why they were important, and effectively ran an online seminar for programmers on legal system basics. It was a great resource.
Due to the interest in the case, Judge Kimbell told both parties to minimize redactions in the documents that they filed, and not to minimize the number of documents filed under seal. Because of this we learned that Caldera had hired people to investigate and prove the transfer of code, and that they reported that they COULD NOT FIND PROOF OF ANY TRANSFER. They filed their reports before the original lawsuit was launched. Darl, the CEO knew that he didn’t have any proof. None. But he went ahead with the lawsuit against IBM anyway.
Also there was the issue of whether or not Caldera actually owned the Unix copyrights. It was about this time that Novell, the seller, claimed that they sold the business to Santa Cruz, not the copyrights. So now Caldera sued Novell too. And Red Hat sued Caldera. And Caldera sued AutoZone. And Daimler Chrysler.
It was like watching a rabid dog running down the street, attacking everything in sight.
Or maybe watching a train wreck in slow motion. It was less than six months after the original lawsuit had been filed that PJ, along with the regulars who hung out at Groklaw managed to prove that what Darl was claiming was impossible. Which didn’t stop Darl of course. Remember at the start that I said only an idiot would launch a lawsuit of this sort?
It’s only now, that Caldera (which changed it’s name to SCO Group, apparently to confuse the Jury) has finally ended up in court, in front of a jury. The CEO is gone, they are in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, and even if they win, they probably won’t survive.
And every day, for the last six years, I’ve visited Groklaw at least once a day. My wife at one point accused me of having an online affair with PJ, much to my amusement.
Thank you PJ – for doing a wonderful job. For teaching me so much. For working so hard.
Thursday March 11, 2010
I’m not a tax law expert. I’m especially not a U.S. Law tax expert, Canadian Tax law I know a bit about. However the people over at Microsofttaxdoge.com appear to know a fair bit about the tax laws, specifically in regards to Washington State law. Now they may be a bit biased, but the article ‘Washington to Give Microsoft a $100 Million Annual Tax Cut…and Possible Amnesty on Past Tax Evasion‘, if accurate, is troubling.
Microsoft plays a good game, trying to market their company as a responsible corporate citizen. Using the rules to avoid paying taxes by having an office in another state to collect one type of revenue may be legal (I’m not familiar with the local rules). It may not be legal. But avoiding taxes when your home state as a horrible budget deficit is not the act of a responsible corporate citizen.
Read it. Think about it. There could be 1.2 billion owed, depending upon how the law is interpreted. And the assemblyman responsible for the newest legislation used to work for Microsoft. The optics on this one are really bad.
Tuesday February 16, 2010
I don’t often agree with Gene Quinn over at IPWatchdog. Gene thinks that if it moves, you can patent it (or at least it seems like that). Gene thinks that Climate Change is a myth. So we disagree on some issues.
That said, I’ve formed the impression from jousting with him at IPWatchDog that Gene is basically a nice guy. He cares about the little guy. Which is apparently why he’s on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
Gene has written several articles critical of Inventhelp.com. He is somewhat skeptical of their claims, and actually went so far as to classify them as a scam. They didn’t like this, and ‘Invention Submission Corporation”, doing business as Inventhelp is suing Gene, and his wife.
I am not a lawyer, so while I’ve read the court filing, I’m not going to claim to understand the fine details. But I recommend that everyone read it, remembering that it was written by a lawyer who is trying to put the best spin on her client’s position. Compare the ‘Facts’ section, with the posts on IPWatchdog and with the information available from Inventhelp.com. You will probably notice some points that don’t match the facts as stated. I did. I don’t know how significant the deviations are.
But… I’ve seen Inventhelp.com’s advertisements in the past. I’ve read them. And you know what? If it isn’t a scam, it sure as hell looks like one. It reminds me of those emails I keep getting from my friends in Nigeria.
Gene says he’s going to fight this. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m going to sit back and cheer for him.
Tuesday January 26, 2010
PS: I suggest doing a Google search on the term ‘Inventhelp scam,’ it returns some really interesting links.
Oh dear. I hadn’t seen this post of Barry’s before he retweeted it. Um, how do I put this politely? Barry, you messed up.
Prof. Geist tries to taint the recording industry as blatant copyright infringers, without ever delving into the industry wide accepted custom for clearing mechanical rights. The pending list system, which has been around for decades, represents an agreed upon industry wide consensus that songwriters, music publishers (who represent songwriters) and the recording industry use and rely on to ensure that music gets released and to the market efficiently and the proper copyright owners get compensated.
But Barry, the recording industry are blatant copyright infringers. Or at least they sure give that impression. Let’s see:
I think that by this point you get the idea. Barry is trying to make his clients out as kindly, well meaning toffs (lords) – like Frodo in J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, when instead they seem to be more like Anthony Soprano.
As to the ‘Mechanical Licensing Agreement‘ that Barry likes so much – think about this. Your major source of money says to you, hey, it would be real convenient to do things this way, using the compulsory licensing… Don’t you hear Tony’s voice? Are the artists really in a position to object?
Barry states that the amount is only $58 million. Think. Only $58 million. This of course assumes that his clients are telling him the truth, and that there aren’t any interest payments due, and that everything is accounted correctly. And it would never occur to Barry to question them, after all, to him, they are the good meaning toff’s illustrated so well by Tolkien. In a Fairy Tale. They’d never do anything like slip four extra words into the The Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999 would they? After all, they keep telling us that they have the best interests of the artists in mind. So they wouldn’t have done anything like that, would they? So what if the artists assert their copyright termination rights. The companies support the artists – they should be happy! Not. An article on Law.com covered this very nicely, one of the lawyers interviewed represents the Eagles, Journey, and John Dozier Jr.’s favourite artist, Barbara Streisand.
But they did. They did just that. From Wired:
The record labels tried to defuse this bomb in 1999 by sneaking an amendment to the Copyright Act through the House of Representatives that would add sound recordings to the Act’s list of copyrights that were considered “works for hire,” which would make them exceptions to the grant termination clause. According to one source close to the situation, the labels told Congress that the Copyright Act already covered sound recordings as exceptions because albums of music are “compilations” — but that “just to be absolutely clear, [the labels] wanted to put it in so nobody can debate it.”
After musicians, including Carly Simon, reacted negatively, the amendment was withdrawn amid public outcry leaving record labels with precisely two options for fending off notices of termination, neither of which looks promising. The first is to continue to claim that albums are compilations, which doesn’t pass the common-sense test (compilations include songs from different artists), and probably won’t pass legal muster either.
So the friendly, kindly toff’s did try to slip something in, and got caught with their hands in the till. Figuratively. But it was a close run thing.
If you can only read one of the articles, the Wired one has a really good explanation of how the Recording Industry tried to pull a Tony Soprano on the artists. And it was a damned close thing – if it wasn’t for someone catching it, it might have slipped through.
And the labels wonder why the artists don’t trust them. You think they’d get the picture by now. No, wait, they do know how much the artists don’t trust them. And don’t care, as long as they get to keep raking in the shekels.
Disclosure – I spend a lot of time with musicians. If you are in a pub listening to musician shop talk, the shear cynicism that pervades the musicians side of the argument will shock you. I’m not saying that musicians are saints. They aren’t. But the treatment they get from the labels is often little better than blacks got after the Civil War. Free often means free to starve. Me, I prefer musicians. They create something. The labels just package it, and try to take all the credit and money they can, leaving only enough for the artist to pay rent, if that.
Monday January 18, 2009
PS: Barry, why don’t you return my calls?
The acquittal of OINK.CD admin Alan Ellis has caused a firestorm of confusion across the net, with comments flying fast and furious claiming just about anything you can imagine, and a lot you probably couldn’t imagine. The problem is that so far we don’t know a lot. After the initial raid the police and prosecutor in England went silent, and to the best of my knowledge some of the major pieces in the case (like the original search warrant) are still not available for analysis.
And of course the reporting of the case was variable. Some of the articles seemed credible, others, including the original BBC report were incredulous to say the least.
Still, after reading a blog posting by Pangloss, I thought I’d take a shot at it. Pangloss seemed a bit confused about what happened and why, and with good reason. But if you are willing to do enough digging, there is information available, and I’m a stubborn sort.
OINK.CD (full name Oink’s Pink Palace) was a BitTorrent tracker. BitTorrent is a file transfer protocol, designed to allow fast efficient file transfers, which was invented by Bram Cohen, the founder of BitTorrent Inc. BitTorrent as a protocol, puts a lot less stress on the central server, as each user who downloads part of a file, also makes that part of the file available. In practise this means that as a Torrent is first seeded it will run slowly, speeding up as more users have parts of it. This makes it especially useful for distributing large files, such as operating systems (Linux, Solaris, and BSD kernel based operating systems are usually distributed using BitTorrent). World of Warcraft is another heavy BitTorrent user, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has used it to distribute TV shows.
As a tracker, OINK.CD did not host any files. In effect a Torrent tracker can be considered a specialized search engine.
Now we get into the fun stuff – the above is fact (to the best of my knowledge). The rest of the article is speculation based on news reports and press releases, which may or may not have been accurate (and even the ones that were accurate may have been wrong – if I quote you, and you don’t know what you are talking about, it doesn’t matter how accurate my quote was – it’s going to be wrong).
OINK was an invite only tracker. You had to have an invite to get access, which meant that you had to know someone who was a member in good standing. I have been told that there was no cost to join. Users had to maintain a certain upload/download ratio, specifically for every megabyte you downloaded, you had to upload the same. No leaches need apply. If you weren’t able to maintain a good ratio, too bad. Unlike some sites, donations were NOT credited towards your download ratio, and were totally voluntary.
Note that this is what I’ve been told. I don’t know if my source really did have an account there.
The first that most people heard of OINK, was when a writer named Darren Shan hired the law firm of Addleshaw Goddard, claiming that people were downloading his books from OINK. OINK at this time was run from OINK.ME.UK, however the law firm went after the Domain registrar, and this cause OINK to change the domain to OINK.CD in July of 2007. While this trouble appears to be separate, it is possible that the news about OINK’s problems may have raised it’s profile with the music industry, even though there were claims by the IFPI that they had been investigating OINK for two years. IFPI claims have to be looked at carefully all through this case – for example they claimed that OINK was illegal, and the jury apparently found that it wasn’t.
The second major story about OINK to hit was the raid and arrest, on October 23, 2007, which was covered by the BBC, TorrentFreak, Gazette, Sun, and the Guardian. To the best of my knowledge, the Guardian was the only news site to publish any sort of correction, and as Bobbie Johnson of the Guardian pointed out, a lot of the information from the Police and IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) was obviously incorrect. You can still view the IFPI Press Release on their website. Curiously the Cleveland Police have removed all traces of of the press release from their site, and there is nothing at archive.org or in the Google cache. A search for ‘operation ark royal’ shows up a link for an updated press release, but you get an ‘access denied’ message when you try to access it. I have emailed the Cleveland Police for copies of the press releases, and will update this when and if I receive them.
The police claim in their statement that the operating of OiNK was “extremely lucrative” and “members paid donations via debit or credit cards, ensuring their continued access to the site”. The former is highly unlikely, while the latter is completely untrue. While I was not a member of OiNK, mainly because I already have more music than I can listen to, I have friends that were, and unlike some other private torrent trackers, where you can donate to bounce your download/upload ratio back up to 1.0, OiNK was well known as being one of the most vigorous pursuers of those who failed to keep their ratio at the required level. As one former user has wrote on a forum:
Donations were completely voluntary. At most you received advanced search features which allowed you to break down your searches by year/artist/album/genre etc. You also gained immunity from the inactivity ban sweeps. They put it this way: “No amount of money you donate will replace the bytes you’re not uploading.” All that donations did was give you two invites, give you a star, make your irc hostname end in .donor, give you advanced search abilities and access to statistics, no ratio changes, nothing.
Running a site with 180,000 users would incur significant server costs. OiNK, again like other sites do, never begged for donations towards those costs. For the police to claim that this was “extremely lucrative” smells like the proverbial, and for the Scum to suggest the man arrested was making hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, extrapolating from the statement that “this is big business, with hundreds of thousands of pounds being made” is outrageous.
Now I don’t know who the writer is, since his profile isn’t public, but what he has written matches what I was told, and what I’ve seen posted in other places on the net. And he/she makes a very important point – the first sentence of the IFPI press release says:
British and Dutch police today shut down the world’s biggest source of illegal pre-release chart albums and arrested a 24-year old man in an operation coordinated between Middlesbrough and Amsterdam.
The problem with this, is that the only logical source of pre-release albums, is the record industry. Think about it. Do you have access to the latest recording by ‘insert star artist name here’? I know I don’t. I don’t work in the industry. Oh, I have stuff that no one else has, but I have a recording studio in my basement, and I recorded it myself. So what we have here, is an industry claiming that outsiders are causing it’s problems, when the only logical source of the problems is internal! Does this make sense to you? Indeed, a 2003 study into pre-release issues in the movie industry pointed the finger at industry insiders (PDF Warning).
OK, so let’s look at the next thing that happens. On the same day as the arrest, somehow the IFPI and BPI (The British Recorded Music Industry) have somehow managed to take over the site. Think about this. Allan Ellis has been arrested, but hasn’t been charged yet. So how could the ownership of the domain have been legally transferred? Especially since the registered owner spent most of the day in p0lice custody. It’s pretty hard to sign over a domain registration document from inside a police station, where you are ‘helping police with their inquiries’ as the quaint British term goes. One would not expect a private organization to have been allowed access to someone in that sort of situation, and if they weren’t allowed access, how could he sign? And of course Allan Ellis had at this point not even been charged with anything, never mind being found guilty of anything illegal in a court of law!
And then to confuse things even further, somehow on October 27th, The Pirate Bay managed to gain control of the domain.
***** End Part One *****
I had the impression when I started that I’d be able to cover this fairly quickly, however the amount of information I’m finding is phenomenal, so I’m cutting this off at about 1500 words, and will be back tomorrow with another segment. Based on what I’ve got so far, I am expecting the total when completed to be 10,000 words or more.
A lot of people know that I’m not a fan of Microsoft Operating Systems. In fact, if I could bill Microsoft for all of the time I’ve spent trying to fix their mistakes, I’d be a rich man now.
What most people don’t know, because they don’t read court filings, is that Microsoft has deliberately attempted to block competition in Operating Systems, and Client Software for a good many years. In fact the company was found guilty of anti-competitive acts in several countries, including the United States.
However if you don’t have a technical background, it can be hard to understand what Microsoft did, and why it’s important. In simple terms, what Microsoft did was make sure that their products were interoperable when first introduced, so that they would be widely adopted, and once the products were widely adopted, would introduce incompatibilities into them, so that Microsoft products would only work well with other Microsoft products. They would then blame the competing product, claiming it didn’t work properly.
The result was a series of Microsoft products that worked great with other Microsoft products. Since other vendors products didn’t work well with Microsoft products, the easy way for most customers was to adopt a 100% Microsoft ecosystem.
This wiped out many Microsoft competitors, and once Microsoft felt it had a commanding lead in a market, it would increase prices on it’s products. This is documented by Anti-Trust cases that Microsoft lost both in the European Union and the United States.
There was also a class action lawsuit launched against Microsoft in the state of Iowa, called Comes v. Microsoft. The case was unusual in that the lawyers for the class posted all of the documents that they obtained from Microsoft during discovery on a website. Many people took advantage of the availability and downloaded copies. Mirrors of the original site can be found in various places around the net.
This week Groklaw, a geek legal site run by the redoubtable Pamela Jones, a paralegal, published several of the documents as text. In addition to the work done by the Boycott Novell website, the work done at Groklaw gives a view inside Microsoft, where as far back as 1999 Microsoft was more concerned with blocking Linux adoption, than they were in providing a superior product.
Groklaw’s main concern is the damage Microsoft has done to Free Software, but Free Software hasn’t been Microsoft’s only target. They used the same attacks against a wide range of competing companies, including IBM, Novell, Digital Research, Word Perfect, Corel, Apple, Commodore, Atari, Berkeley Softworks, Lotus, Borland, Real Networks, Netscape, Micrografx, Beos, Sun, Go Corporation, Ashton Tate, and Stac Electronics. Many of these companies no longer exist due to Microsoft’s machinations, which have left a trail of wrecked companies and lives.
It’s impossible to determine how much damage Microsoft has done to the world economy by it’s anti-competitive actions. We know that the EU Competition Commission levied a fine that was over a billion euros, and which apparently has done little or nothing to change Microsoft’s actions. It appears that fines are part of the cost of doing business from Microsoft’s point of view.
However it’s possible that Microsoft has in the end done more damage to themselves than to anyone else. For years Microsoft was the 800 pound gorilla of the computing industry. Since 2003 Microsoft has not introduced one product that has achieved widespread adoption, and has lost money on every new field that the company has entered. While it’s difficult to be sure, it appears that Microsoft’s focus on preventing competition, has done more damage to Microsoft than the competition, at least in the last 6 years, due to a lack of focus on product design. It doesn’t matter if you are a monopolist, if you design a product that isn’t attractive to your customers.
For example many people think that Microsoft’s XBox360 is wildly successful. And Microsoft did sell a lot of these since their introduction. But at a tremendous cost. The systems have been very unreliable, with Microsoft having to replace enormous numbers of them under warranty. No other consumer electronic device has every had as high a failure rate.
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile was supposed to be the operating system that would introduce smart phones to the masses, however first RIM with the Blackberry, and then Apple with the IPhone have produced devices that worked better than Windows Mobile devices, and nearly wiped Windows Mobile out as an operating system. Microsoft claims that Mobile is still a major part of their corporate focus, however it is difficult to see how they can gain back the market share that they have lost.
Microsoft’s Zune Media player is another product that hasn’t sold at all well. While the device does work, it seems unable to compete with the Apple IPod, or for that matter with the less expensive Chinese made media players.
Apple has hit Microsoft hard, literally taking the top end of the personal computer market by storm. Some estimates give Apple 50% or more of the market for computers costing over $1000.00 US. Apple’s Mac-PC ad campaign has helped to introduce a new generation of computer users to the Mac platform, which only a few years ago most people had written off as dead. In Canada some estimates put Mac OSX at 10% of the total market of in-use systems.
Firefox has taken market share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer every month since it’s introduction. In fact in some areas of the world it now appears to be the dominant browser, despite Internet Explorer being shipped with every copy of Windows. Other browsers are also taking market share from Microsoft, including Opera, and Apple’s Safari.
Microsoft Office has also taken a hit, with a variety of competing Office Suites nibbling at it’s market share. Word Perfect is still around, and gaining share slowly. More dangerous to Microsoft is Google Office, an online collaborative suite. For those who don’t want to keep their data on the cloud, and can’t afford Word Perfect or Microsoft Office, there’s Open Office, which is a free download, and has most of the functionality of Microsoft Office. In fact it’s better than Office in some ways, for example when opening legacy Office documents, OpenOffice works better.
The question is, can Microsoft still compete? The answer appears to be no, in the short term. It got fat and complacent, just like General Motors did. General Motors had to go into bankruptcy protection to survive. But GM produced a hard product. Microsoft doesn’t. And that could be what kills Microsoft.
Saturday January 16, 2010
Oh dear. The total idiots at The SCO Group finally had a court decision that fell partly in their direction. Partly. The Appeals Court has decided that Summary Judgment was the wrong way to deal with the case, that it should have gone do jury trial, as there were facts which a jury was best able to address. This of course happened just as the trustee was appointed taking control of the company away from management.
What will happen next? It’s hard to tell. So far nothing has happened the way I thought it would, when I thought it would. But at present SCO looks like a Zombie from one of the Living Dead films.
Well, they have one true believer. Maureen O’Gara continues to sing the company theme song. You have to wonder why she is doing this? It gives the impression that they are either paying her (or she has invested heavily in SCO Group stock).
So we’ll have to wait and see. But it’s in the hands of the Trustee now, and unless someone (possibly from Redmond) is willing to put a lot of money on the line, it looks like the train wreck is nearly over.

domain: law


The Whites are reportedly reigniting their interest in the 19-year-old midfielder as Marcelo Bielsa didn’t rule-out any possible incomings in the January window, with a central midfielder the most likely position to be strengthened.
Vous l'entendez cette voix au loin qui crie "Frappe cousin, frappe"?— Toulouse FC (@ToulouseFC) December 24, 2020
Lors de #PAUFCTFC, @kone_manu a ouvert son compteur but en @Ligue2BKT pour le plus grand bonheur de ses coéquipiers
Konè was among several targets that Leeds were looking at in the summer window before a deal broke-down between Leeds and Bayern Munich for Michael Cuisance. Links to new incomings at Elland Road have already arrived with a double-deal for Fiorentina stars, Erick Pulgar and Christian Kouame being talked about in the Italian media.
Now CalcioMercato report that Leeds are looking to rival Serie A table-toppers AC Milan for the signing of Konè who has drawn comparisons to Paul Pogba during his young career. Meanwhile, Milan’s director of football Frederic Massara “had the opportunity to speak to Koadio Konè’s agents” - and likely has spoken to them at length, but it is not yet clear if the Italian giants intend to go for a deal now or in the summer.
RMC Sport reported in September that contact had been made between Leeds and Konè’s agents, with AC Milan’s interest dating just as far back, with a possible race set to ensue on who goes for the deal.
Emmanuel "Manu" Kouadio Koné , Tolosa— TANO® (@talebanikov) December 28, 2020
Centrocampista Centrale pic.twitter.com/4yo730oHLK
Currently playing in Ligue 2, Konè has made 17 appearances this season, scoring just one goal and is yet to make a league assist for Toulouse. Not only is this in Ligue 2, but also in Ligue 1 in which Konè made 13 appearances last season with his other Toulouse goal coming in the cup last season.
Despite his lack of goals and assists so far, Konè is highly considered in Europe and France’s plethora of exciting youngsters. He’s a central midfielder who has played primarily as an eight, but can also play a more advanced or defensive role in the midfield, a quality that Bielsa finds crucial when signing and developing players.
It’s difficult to predict exactly how the January window will go for Leeds, but the primary criteria remains the same - we will not sign a player unless he makes us better or has the potential to be great. Make of that what you will.


text:
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domain: game


Letter IEDI n. 1043–The role of public investment to reactivate the post-COVID-19 economy
Today's Letter IEDI summarizes the main aspects of the study prepared by IMF researchers entitled “Public Investment for the Recovery,” recently published in the Oct/20 Fiscal Monitor report.
The document highlights the importance of public investment to stimulate private demand and boost economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The IMF maintains that, from a macroeconomic point of view, the arguments in favor of public investment are more vigorous in advanced economies and emerging economies with expected nominal interest rates and inflation at historic lows. This is because these economies have fewer restrictions to finance the necessary expansion of public investment via debt.
It should be noted, however, that this is not about all kinds of investment, but about high-quality projects that bring social benefits, competitiveness and productivity to countries. That is, for the IMF, in a context of low and/or negative real interests, obtaining loans to finance investments is desirable, provided that policy makers ensure that the amounts and quality of investment do not worsen excessively the dynamics of debt. Such a warning is considered crucial for countries that do not issue key currencies in the international financial system.
However, even for low-income developing countries and some advanced and emerging economies that face financial constraints, the IMF considers that expanding public investment could result in positive short and long-term multipliers.
For this to happen, nonetheless, a gradual pace is essential. That is, it would be necessary to carry out a gradual increase in public investment financed by loans in order not to pressure interest rates and, at the same time, prioritize quality investment projects that maximize socioeconomic return.
Thus, given the severity of the COVID-19 crisis, unlike other occasions, the IMF suggests that balanced public accounts should not be pursued immediately after the crisis, avoiding the negative effects of premature austerity policies like those adopted by advanced economies in the wake of the 2008–09 international financial crisis.
The study highlights that investment needs were significant even before the pandemic hit and have increased even more since then. Public and private capital stocks as a proportion of GDP have been declining since the 1990s.
Although public investments in education and economic infrastructure have been relatively preserved —by the way, at an insufficient level in view of demand, according to the Fund— rates have fallen in the sectors of health, housing and environmental protection. This movement is pointed out as a reason for the weakening of countries' resilience to the COVID-19 crisis.
The IMF suggests that governments act immediately, observing the following steps: (1) focus on maintaining existing infrastructure and preventing COVID-19, (2) review and prioritize active projects, (3) create and maintain a project pipeline that can be delivered in a few years, and (4) start planning for new development priorities arising from the crisis.
For the Fund, in order to be timely and efficient, any increase in public investment must meet the following conditions:
• Priority should be given to spending on tackling the health crisis and maintaining the existing infrastructure.
• Governments must identify and create a portfolio of projects carefully evaluated and ready for implementation within the next 24 months. This portfolio should include more complex investment projects that promote digitalization and/or reduce the likelihood and impact of future crises (including those arising from pandemics, climate change, etc.).
• The selection and bidding procedures for public investment projects must be strengthened immediately to curb corruption, delays and rising costs.
As a basis for its arguments, the document presents the results of an empirical exercise to measure the impact of government investment shocks on output, employment and private investment, in periods of low and high uncertainty, carried out for a sample of 72 advanced economies and emerging markets.
In this exercise, researchers at the Fund found that, in periods of high uncertainty such as the current crisis, an increase in public investment equivalent to 1 percent of GDP in advanced economies and emerging markets could raise output by 2 percent over a two-year horizon.
In the medium and long term, it is estimated that the fiscal multiplier in the current context is higher than in normal times and well above 1.0. The magnitude of the fiscal multipliers would, however, depend on the quality of projects and institutional efficiency in countries.
With regard to impacts on employment, the results indicate that in periods of high uncertainty employment grows between 0.9 and 1.5 percent over two years in response to a public investment increase equivalent to 1 percent of GDP. In advanced and emerging market economies, the investment shock would result in the creation of 20 to 33 million jobs, directly and indirectly.
Estimates also showed that public investment has a powerful attraction for private investment, because it signals the government's commitment to growth and stability. In other words, public and private investment have a complementary character (crowding-in).
A significant increase in public investment tends to raise private investment even among companies with liquidity restrictions. The impact is, however, greater for firms less financially constrained and with low leverage. Hence the importance of companies getting to the end of the COVID-19 crisis with low levels of debt.
The study also investigated, for a sample of 400 thousand companies in eight sectors of activity, which types of public investment and sectors are most efficient in stimulating private investment.
The results indicate that public investments in health and other social services have a strong impact on private investments in the time horizon of one year. The crowding-in effect is also more significant in areas that are critical for either solving the health crisis, such as communication and transportation, or boosting the economic recovery, such as construction and manufacturing.


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MacKenzie, Ross Zac and the Dream Stealers, 297 pgs. Chicken House, 2012. Language - G, Sexual Content - G; Violence - PG;
Nightmares are spreading like the plague and there's a logical explanation for it: in the world of Nocturne, Dream Eaters are taking over. They get power from the bad dreams of Wakelings, so the Dream Eaters are causing more nightmares to harness this power. Now Zac and his grandma are going to Nocturne in order to help the Knights of Nod defeat these Dream Eaters before it's too late.
Everything from vampires to potions to flying cars are found in this magical world. These awesome magic tricks are very intriguing and suspense kept me hanging on to each page. The adventure Zac has into the crazy world of Nocturne will turn your world upside down, too. You'll never dream the same way again.
EL, MS - ADVISABLE. Reviewer: CCH

domain: entertainment


text:
Visit my other Sky Watch photo here.
I do not have figure clouds today because I cannot find them in my stocks, lol. Whenever I see sunrays coming out of the clouds I always think as if someone moved the curtains to peek down the earth.
Wouldn’t it be nice to tiptoe on these fluffy clouds? Happy Sky watching everyone!
These are wonderful. The idea of someone pulling back a curtain is very poetic. Thanks.
WOW! Awesome clouds! really nice!
My Sky Watch Friday posts
The dark gray cloud looks like a hand reaching down.
Nice captures…really love that first one. The second one looks like a big comfy bed.
I suppose you could tip toe across the cloud tops but it would be a modern miracle. Still it might be possible. They are very pleasant to look at.
I really like this shot. This is a nice set of photographs and your critical eye chose the details all related to composition, color, texture and presentation. I was impressed.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend and take the time to smell the roses.
—Brookville Daily Photo
It is well known that we Portuguese once sailed the seven seas searching for new lands, wealth and adventures.
We were brave in those days and gave the world new worlds!
Luckily I don’t have to sail the big oceans on a small ship to sea the wonders of our world …
No Sir, I just need to check with Mr. Tom, the finest host there is, for a trip around the world with SKY WATCH TOURS and with a click here, a click there I am quickly in the USA, England, Brazil, Italy, China, Australia, Finland … well, everywhere.
And on each stop I come to see a little marvel of our world under a great sky!
Hope you can come and see my piece of the sky at lenses & visions
The first picture was just amazing !!!
Nice weekend wish to you from Norway.
the rays coming down from the skies always makes me feel hopeful and reminds me that Someone is always out there, looking out for us … 🙂
Beautiful sky i like the first one, i do wish tho that i could read what you have typed along with the photos your back ground is very busy and small light print is hard to read. Maybe just me and my bad eyes.
What a great SWF post. The clouds are stunning.
Yes, it does seem that a curtain is being pulled; I like the beams of light that are escaping. Very nice photograph for our Sky Watch.
Wonderful clouds for SWF. I LOVE clouds.
have a nice weekend!!
Hi, G! dramatic top photo…let’s call it “angels peeking”.:D
How the sky chnages.Both so different and so gorgeous.
Perfect entry for skywatch… all I can say is that “you’ll be the sun in somebody else’s sky”…LoL! Mine’s up too hope you can drop by…
Great sky watch post!!
Beautiful sky shots! I’m playing for the 1st time at Small Reflections with a view from my front patio.
Hugs and blessings,
The top cloud in that second photo looks almost like a hand reaching out… at least to me. Nice shots. I like the idea of a curtain being pulled back.
That first shot is a real stunner… Great work.
Best regards, Don.

domain: artistic


text:
Working sudoku puzzles exercises your logic and problem-solving skills, giving your brain the exercise it needs without breaking a sweat!
With over 300 puzzles ranging from easy to difficult, there’s no shortage of puzzles to tickle your sudoku fancy!
A spiral spine allows the puzzler to lay the book flat while solving each puzzle.
Page Count: 192
Trim Size: 7 3/8 X 9 1/8
Binding: WIRE SPIRA
ISBN 13: 978-1-60553-173-1

domain: hobby


text:
Welcome to the North’s wild heartland – the roadless core of our vast territory, rife with rivers, peaks, lakes, and just a handful of radiant communities. Norman Wells, the hub of the Sahtu region, is a hard-working oil town in the shadows of the Mackenzie Mountains. Délįne is the Sahtu’s spiritual epicentre, nestled on Great Bear Lake. You could spend weeks on end touring these two communities, but if you’ve just got three days, here’s how to make the most of it:
Launch your Sahtu adventure at the Norman Wells Historical Society’s museum, where the region’s rich past and wild present are vividly displayed. In the front yard you’ll find a trove of colourful antique vehicles, ranging from Canol Pipeline-era army trucks to a little sternwheeler that freighted supplies to Norman Wells back in the fur-trading days.
Inside the museum there’s a wild assortment of artifacts: memorabilia from the town’s oil boom nearly a century ago, a stuffed muskoxen, displays on local aviation history, an ancient snowmobile – the list goes on.
On the way out, make sure to peruse the gift shop, which boasts one of the best collections of Dene and Metis artwork that you’ll find anywhere in the Northwest Territories.
Now stroll down to the nearby riverbank. With no roads in or out, Norman Wells’ lifeblood is the broad Mackenzie River, sliding relentlessly toward the polar sea. Across the water are the Mackenzie Mountains, rising in weathered ranks clear to the Yukon border. And in the middle of the river you’ll see six manmade islands dotted with bobbing pumpjacks – this is, after all, an oil-drilling town.
After lunch, try your hand at a round of Arctic golf at the Ptarmigan Ridge Golf Course …
… or go hiking up in the Franklin Mountains just behind town, where Devonian-era fossils abound on an ancient seabed.
Round out the day with a flightseeing trip. North Wright Aviation offers 1.5-hour aerial excursions across the river, hitting the highpoints of the Canol Trail. You’ll see the remains of Camp Canol, dramatic Dodo Canyon and Carcajou Falls, the vast Plains of Abraham, the Vermillion Creek Sinkhole and more.
Then tuck into dinner at Ventures Lounge. When you turn in for the night, be sure to pull your blinds. With the Arctic Circle just a few dozen kilometres away, summers in Norman Wells are bright 24/7.
Take off for the Northern cultural mecca of Délįne. A brief flight from Norman Wells will bring you to this small Dene town, formerly called Fort Franklin. The home of the Sahtúgot’ı̨nę people, this is the sole community on the shores of Great Bear, the largest lake entirely within Canada.
Here, get into the rhythm of the local culture. Stroll the shoreline, checking out the fish-drying racks, teepees, the place where Sir John Franklin’s crew debuted the sport of hockey in the winter of 1825/26, and the shrine to the late spiritual leader Prophet Eht’se Ayah.
Then, ships ahoy! Climb aboard with a local outfitter for fishing trip out onto the big lake. Great Bear incubates the largest Lake Trout in the world. Just a few years ago, a fisherman here in Délįne netted an 83-pounder. Using a rod and reel, sportfishers have landed Great Bear Trout that exceed 70 pounds.
Once you’ve fished to your heart’s content, bunk down for the night at Délįne’s timberframe Grey Goose Lodge, lovingly decorated with ornate Dene artwork.
Today, you have a range of options. Spend another day fishing for monster Trout. Or, head out with an outfitter to explore Canada’s largest national historic site, Saoyú-ʔehdacho, encompassing two vast peninsulas on Great Bear Lake that showcase the rich heritage of the Sahtúgot’ı̨nę people.
Or, spend the day engaged in cultural activities in the community. You’ll have the chance to meet Dene elders who will share traditional stories, legends and knowledge of their homeland – about the days not so long ago when their people were always on the move, fishing in summer, following moose in the autumn, and hunting caribou in winter.
You may have the opportunity to sit with local artists as they craft snowshoes; tan hides; or sew moccasins, gloves or boots, using caribou hide, beaver fur and beadwork to create traditional items that are both gorgeous and functional.
Or, walk area trails with them, following in the footsteps of their nomadic ancestors, berry picking and learning about the flora, fauna and traditional medicines taken directly from the land.
And if you’re lucky, you might be in town when a traditional handgames tournament in going on – one of the most high-spirited events in the Northwest Territories.

domain: travel


An unclear course set for Nashua skate park's moveBY SIMON RIOS
Union Leader Correspondent
January 28. 2013 9:15PM
NASHUA - The David W. Deane Skateboard Park has long been Kyle Bouley's home away from home.
Widely recognized in the skate community as one of the best public skate parks in New England, the Deane park is fated to be demolished in the coming years to make way for an ambitious development at the confluence of the Nashua and Merrimack rivers. City officials assure the skaters that a park will be built in its stead, but what that will look like - or where it will be, when it will be built or who will finance it - is up in the air.
"The plan they have going over there, if they're going to use the land that the skate park's on, they're going to have to rebuild one of equal or greater quality," said Bouley, 27, recounting the general belief of the skate community.
A carpenter by trade, Bouley has been going to the park since its construction in 2000. He rides BMX bikes, something that wasn't originally allowed at the skate park on the Nashua-Hudson border, which now hosts a healthy mix of bikers and skaters.
Bouley met his riding friends through the skate parks in Nashua, Litchfield, Merrimack and other towns. And while some municipalities have failed to maintain their parks, Bouley said the one in Nashua has long been considered the best in the state.
"It's just a better quality skate park for sure, like the transitions are really smooth," he said. "Everything's formed as correct as they can come."
That's thanks to sound planning on the part of the city. At a cost of $120,000, the Deane park was built by Team Pain, a Florida company that specializes in skate park construction. Bouley said when parks are built by standard cement companies they often don't get the details right - not so at the Nashua park.
"The way the park flows, you can drop in from any one side of the park now and turn around and keep going back in a circle - it's almost effortless every time," Bouley said.
On warm days it's teeming with people, regularly attracting skaters within a 50-mile radius. Bouley said it's common to see people from other New England states, even as far as Canada, visiting the park.
Less than 10 years after the park's construction, the city contracted Connecticut-based developer Renaissance Downtowns to develop the land the park sits on. Renaissance plans to break ground in the fall to develop the 26-acre plot - owned partially by the city and partially by a private interest - to include housing as well as retail and public amenities.
In 2009, aldermen authorized the Business and Industrial Development Authority to transfer the Bridge Street site. According to the minutes from an April 2009 public works meeting, Mayor Donnalee Lozeau said, "If the David W. Deane Skateboard Park and the practice ball field needed to be relocated that the developer would incur the associated costs."
In spite of the mayor's comment, Renaissance and city officials claim the developer is not liable for the park's relocation.
Still, Renaissance insists that the skate park will be replaced.
"Under no situation do we see our development moving forward without a new skate park," said Jim Vayo, who heads Renaissance's Nashua operation.
Alderman-a-large David Deane, the park's namesake and the man responsible for the park's existence, raised the issue at a December meeting of the Planning and Economic Development Committee, saying it was his understanding that the relocation would be paid for by the developer.
Tom Galligani, the city's economic development director, said the legislation did not specify who would pay for the project.
"I can tell you something Mr. Galligani: You are going to have a revolt on your hands that the administration has no idea is coming," Dean said at the meeting
Galligani said Friday that the contract between the city and Renaissance stipulates that it's on the city to rebuild the park. Renaissance is likely to purchase the land, which he said has not been assessed. Whether the sale will cover the cost of the skate park is up the in the air.
He said the existing skate park - which cost $120,000 to build - adds no value to the land.
The mayor is forming a working group dedicated to relocating the skate park. Galligani would not say who would be included in the group. Asked for an idea where the park might be located, Galligani said, "I'm not going to give you an idea. It's too premature."
Public works director Lisa Fauteux said the responsibility to relocate the park lies collectively on public works, the mayor's office, and economic development, as well as the board of public works. She said no decisions have been made as to where the park will be relocated.
"I think a number of sites have been thrown out there but nothing has materialized as of yet," she said.
Fauteux referred the New Hampshire Union Leader to parks and recreation superintendent Nick Caggiano, but Caggiano wasn't even clear that the park is to be relocated.
Brian Fiske is the manager at Eastern Boarder, Nashua's oldest and biggest skate shop, which was instrumental in the construction of the Nashua skatepark. The Deane park "has had a massive impact on a lot of peoples lives," Fiske said. "The kids love skateboarding. It means everything to them. They identify with skateboarders, skateboarding, the whole culture."
Fiske said details about the park's future are unclear, and that people at the shop are upset that they haven't been contacted by the city.
Asked what the skateboard community's involvement will be in pushing for a new park, Fiske said, "We personally would do everything in our power to bring awareness to all of the people."
If the park is done right - in consultation with the skate community - Fiske said the rebuilding of the Deane park could be an opportunity for the city.
"We don't have to have a $3 million skate park in Nashua," he said, "but we need to figure out what we want to do and get it in the hands of the right people. This is the key-you put it in the hands of the people who know what they're doing."
"All we do here at parks and rec is maintain the skate park," he said. "We're not involved at that level of negotiating with where it's going or how that deal's made."
Bouley and his friends are open to the idea of a new skate park - they even welcome the idea so long as a new one goes up before the current one comes down.
"The skate park is the bright spot over there obviously, but there's a lot of land back there," he said. "It would be nice if they did something with it - bring it more into the light so that it's more accessible to the public."
Bouley said he and 10 of his friends would be eager participants in a community effort to build a new park.


text:
"Batu Caves" Batu Caves Tip by apbeaches
Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur: 127 reviews and 296 photos
The Batu Caves is a limestone hill, which has a series of caves and cave temples, located in Gombak district1 mi) north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It takes its name from the Sungai Batu or Batu River, which flows past the hill. Batu Caves is also the name of the nearby village.
The cave is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia
Rising almost 100 m above the ground, Batu Caves temple complex consists of three main caves and a few smaller ones. The biggest, referred to as Cathedral Cave or Temple Cave, has a 100 m-high ceiling, and features ornate Hindu shrines. To reach it, visitors have to climb a steep flight of 472 steps.
At the base of the hill are two more cave temples, Art Gallery Cave and Museum Cave, both of which are full of Hindu statues and paintings. This complex was renovated and opened as the Cave Villa in 2008. Many of the shrines relate the story of Lord Murugan's victory over the demon Soorapadam. An audio tour is available to visitors.
The Ramayana Cave is situated to the extreme left as one faces the sheer wall of the hill. On the way to the Ramayana Cave, there is a 50-foot (15 m) tall murti of Hanuman and a temple dedicated to Hanuman, the noble monkey devotee and aide of Lord Rama. The consecration ceremony of the temple was held in November 2001.
The Ramayana Cave depicts the story of Rama in a chronicle manner quite effectively. The cave is well lit and allows the visitor to stroll leisurely viewing the depictions along the irregular walls of the cave. One might experience the feeling that one is strolling through the giant intestines of the mighty demon, Kumbhakarann, brother of King Ravana of Lanka.
Address: Jalan Batu Caves, 68100 Jalan Batu Caves, Selangor, Malaysia
Directions: 13km north of Kuala Lumpur
Phone: +60 3 2287 9422
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Thesis: Human Preconception Sex Selection: Informing the Public of Sex Selection Methods and Ethical Considerations
By questioning methods of sex selection since their early development, and often discovering that they are unreliable, scientists have increased the creative and technological capacity of the field of reproductive health. The presentation of these methods to the public, via published books on timing methods and company websites for sperm sorting, increased interest in, and influence of, sex selection within the global society.
Format: Essays and Theses
Subject: Technologies, Ethics
A Series of YouTube Videos Detailing the “CRISPR Babies” Experiment (2018), by He Jiankui
In 2018, He Jiankui uploaded a series of videos to a YouTube channel titled “The He Lab” that detailed one of the first instances of a successful human birth after genome editing had been performed on an embryo using CRISPR-cas9. CRISPR-cas9 is a genome editing tool derived from bacteria that can be used to cut out and replace specific sequences of DNA. He genetically modified embryos at his lab in Shenzhen, China, to make them immune to contracting HIV through indirect perinatal transmission from their father, who was infected with the virus.
Subject: Publications, Experiments, Ethics
Nettie Maria Stevens (1861-1912)
Multiple theories about what determines sex were tested at the turn of the twentieth century. By experimenting on germ cells, cytologist Nettie Maria Stevens collected evidence to support the connection between heredity and the sex of offspring. Stevens was able to interpret her data to conclude that chromosomes have a role in sex determination during development. For her time, she was an emerging breed: a woman of science making the leap from the world of data collection to that of male-dominated interpretive work.
Subject: People, Reproduction
Early development occurs in a highly organized and orchestrated manner and has long attracted the interest of developmental biologists and embryologists. Cell lineage, or the study of the developmental differentiation of a blastomere, involves tracing a particular cell (blastomere) forward from its position in one of the three germ layers. Labeling individual cells within their germ layers allows for a pictorial interpretation of gastrulation. This chart or graphical representation detailing the fate of each part of an early embryo is referred to as a fate map.
The Source-Sink Model
The source-sink model, first proposed by biologist Francis Crick in 1970, is a theoretical system for how morphogens distribute themselves across small fields of early embryonic cells. A morphogen is a substance that determines the fate and phenotype of a group of cells through a concentration gradient of itself across that group. Crick’s theory has been experimentally confirmed with several morphogens, most notably with the protein bicoid , the first discovered morphogen. The model provides a theoretical structure for the understanding of some features of early embryonic development.
Bicoid is the protein product of a maternal-effect gene unique to flies of the genus Drosophila . In 1988 Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard identified bicoid as the first known morphogen . A morphogen is a molecule that determines the fate and phenotype of a group of cells through a concentration gradient across that developing region. The bicoid gradient, which extends across the anterior-posterior axis of Drosophila embryos, organizes the head and thorax.
Edwin Grant Conklin (1863-1952)
Edwin Grant Conklin was born in Waldo, Ohio, on 24 November 1863 to parents Nancy Maria Hull and Dr. Abram V. Conklin. Conklin's family was very religious and he seriously considered a theistic path before choosing a career in academics. Conklin's scientific work was primarily in the areas of embryology, cytology, and morphology, though many questions regarding the relationships between science, society, and philosophy had an influence on both his writings and academic lectures.
"Maternal consumption of peanut during pregnancy is associated with peanut sensitization in atopic infants" (2010), by Scott Sicherer, et al.
In 2010, a team of US researchers concluded that the more peanuts a pregnant woman ate during her pregnancy, the more likely her newborn was to be sensitive to peanuts. They published their results in 2010's "Maternal consumption of peanut during pregnancy is associated with peanut sensitization in atopic infants." The work resulted from the collaboration of Scott Sicherer and Hugh Sampson, both from the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York, New York along with other colleagues.
Subject: Experiments, Reproduction
Roman v. Roman (2006)
In the case Randy M. Roman v. Augusta N. Roman (2006), the Court of Appeals of Texas followed courts in other states and upheld the validity and enforceability of in vitro fertilization (IVF) consent agreements. The Romans, a divorced couple, each sought different outcomes for their cryopreserved preembryos created during their marriage. Randy Roman sought to have them destroyed, and Augusta Roman sought to implant them in an attempt to have biological children.
In the Womb (2005), by Toby Mcdonald and National Geographic Channel
Written, produced, and directed by Toby Mcdonald, the 2005 National Geographic Channel film In the Womb uses the most recent technology to provide an intricate glimpse into the prenatal world. The technologies used, which include advanced photography, computer graphics, and 4-D ultrasound imaging, help to realistically illustrate the process of development and to answer questions about the rarely seen development of a human being.
Subject: Outreach, Reproduction
Dysmenorrhea as a Menstrual Disorder
Dysmenorrhea refers to painful menstrual bleeding and often includes symptoms such as cramps in the lower abdominal region, pain radiating down to the thighs, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, and headaches. There are two types of dysmenorrhea, called primary and secondary dysmenorrhea, which develop in different ways. In cases of primary dysmenorrhea, people experience painful cramps before and during most of their menstrual cycles, which does not happen as a result of a different underlying condition and is mostly due to hormone imbalances.
Clinical Tests of Estrogen Injections on Women with Abnormal Menstrual Cycles During the Early 1920s by Jean Paul Pratt and Edgar Allen
In the early twentieth century US, Jean Paul Pratt and Edgar Allen conducted clinical experiments on women who had abnormal menstrual cycles. During the clinical tests, researchers injected the hormone estrogen into their patients to alleviate their menstrual ailments, which ranged from irregular cycles to natural menopause. The hormone estrogen plays a prominent role in the menstrual cycle by signaling the tissue lining the uterus (endometrium) to thicken in preparation for possible pregnancy.
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014)
In the 2014 case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the US Supreme Court ruled that the contraceptive mandate promulgated under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act violated privately held, for-profit corporations’ right to religious freedom. The contraception mandate, issued in 2012 by the US Department of Health and Human Services, required that employer-provided health insurance plans offer their beneficiaries certain contraceptive methods free of charge.
Subject: Legal, Reproduction
Keith Henry Stockman Campbell (1954-2012)
Keith Henry Stockman Campbell studied embryo growth and cell differentiation during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the UK. In 1995, Campbell and his scientific team used cells grown and differentiated in a laboratory to clone sheep for the first time. They named these two sheep Megan and Morag. Campbell and his team also cloned a sheep from adult cells in 1996, which they named Dolly. Dolly was the first mammal cloned from specialized adult (somatic) cells with the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).
Christiane Nusslein-Volhard (1942- )
Christiane Nusslein-Volhard studied how genes control embryonic development in flies and in fish in Europe during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the 1970s, Nusslein-Volhard focused her career on studying the genetic control of development in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In 1988, Nusslein-Volhard identified the first described morphogen, a protein coded by the gene bicoid in flies. In 1995, along with Eric F. Wieschaus and Edward B.
Frank Rattray Lillie's Study of Freemartins (1914-1920)
Frank Rattray Lillie's research on freemartins from 1914 to 1920 in the US led to the theory that hormones partly caused for sex differentiation in mammals. Although sometimes applied to sheep, goats, and pigs, the term freemartin most often refers to a sterile cow that has external female genitalia and internal male gonads and was born with a normal male twin.
“Invasive and Non-invasive Methods for the Diagnosis of Endometriosis” (2010), by Albert L. Hsu, Izabella Khachikyan, and Pamela Stratton
In 2010, Albert L. Hsu, Izebella Khchikyan, and Pamela Stratton published “Invasive and Non-invasive Methods for the Diagnosis of Endometriosis,” henceforth “Methods for the Diagnosis of Endometriosis,” in Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology. In the article, the authors describe how specific types of endometriotic lesions appear in the body and evaluate five methods for diagnosing endometriosis. Endometriosis is the growth of endometrium, the tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus, outside of the uterus.
The NuvaRing is a self-administered hormonal contraceptive device in the form of a flexible plastic ring that is inserted into the vagina. It releases the hormones etonogestrel and ethinylestradiol, which are synthetic forms of the female reproductive hormones progesterone and estrogen, respectively. The pharmaceutical company Organon first made NuvaRing in the Netherlands in 1980s. The Netherlands first approved it for use in February of 2001, and the United States did the same in October of that year.
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction, Legal
Matthew Howard Kaufman (1942–2013)
Matthew Kaufman was a professor of anatomy at the University of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh, UK, who specialized in mouse anatomy, development, and embryology during the late twentieth century. According to the The Herald, he was the first, alongside his colleague Martin Evans, to isolate and culture embryonic stem cells. Researchers initially called those cells Evans-Kaufman cells. In 1992, Kaufman published The Atlas of Mouse Development, a book that included photographs of mice development and mice organs over time.
Berthold Karl Hölldobler (1936– )
Berthold Karl Hölldobler studied social insects like ants in Europe and the US during the twentieth and early twenty-first century. He focused on the social behavior of ants, the evolutionary origins of social insects, and the way ants use chemicals to communicate with each other. Hölldobler’s research reached popular audiences through his co-authored Pulitzer Prize winning book The Ants and through an award winning nature documentary called Ameisen: Die heimliche Weltmacht (Ants: Nature’s Secret Power).
In the Womb: Identical Twins (2009), by National Geographic
National Geographic's documentary In the Womb: Identical Twins focuses on the prenatal development of human identical twins. Director Lorne Townend uses three-dimensional (3D) and four-dimensional (4D) ultrasound imaging and microscopy to depict twin development , genetic and epigenetic variations in the fetuses, and methods of fetal survival in the confines of the womb. Artist renditions of scientific data fill in areas of development inaccessible to the imaging tools.
Subject: Outreach, Reproduction
Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves testing for specific genetic conditions prior to the implantation of an embryo in the uterine wall. This form of genetic screening has been made possible by the growth of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technology, which allows for the early stages of development to occur in a laboratory dish rather than in vivo. The purpose of PGD is to identify what are considered to be abnormal embryos in order to select the most desirable embryos for implantation.
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Role of Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) in Alcohol-Induced Craniofacial Abnormalities
Prenatal exposure to alcohol (ethanol) results in a continuum of physical and neurological developmental abnormalities that vary depending on the timing, duration, and degree of alcohol exposure. Heavy exposure during development may lead to the condition Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), characterized by growth deficits, neurological deficiencies and minor facial abnormalities. Alcohol is a known teratogen, an agent that causes birth defects and acts upon developing embryos through mechanisms that are not yet fully understood.
Girolamo Fabrici (1537-1619)
Girolamo Fabrici, known as Hieronymus Fabricius in Latin, was given the surname Aquapendente from the city where he was born, near Orvieto, Italy. Born in 1533, Fabrici was the eldest son of a respected noble family, whose coat of arms appears as an illustration in the title page of Fabrici's book on embryology, De formato foetu. Little is known of Fabrici's parents. His father is recorded as Fabricio, and Fabrici is said to have been named for his paternal grandfather.
Georgeanna Seegar Jones (1912-2005)
Georgeanna Seegar Jones was a reproductive endocrinologist who created one of America' s most successful infertility clinics in West Virginia and eventually, along with her husband Howard W. Jones MD, performed the first in vitro fertilization in America, leading to the birth of Elizabeth Jordan Carr. Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 6 July 1912. Her father, Dr. John King Beck Emory Seegar, was a practicing physician at the time working in the field of obstetrics.
Subject: People, Reproduction

domain: medical


The situation at entry-exit checkpoints on the boundary line
with the temporarily occupied Autonomous republic of Crimea remains rather
tense but controlled.
After the midnight, on August 8th, occupation
forces once again stopped passengers’ passing in front of the entry-exit check
Consequently, the passing at the entry-exit checkpoint
"Chongar" is being carried out roundtrip
but rather slowly. Controlling authorities of the occupies territory are
performing passing procedures in front of the entry-exit checkpoint “Chaplynka” only concerning individuals who are heading for
the temporarily occupied peninsula. The entry-exit checkpoint "Kalanchak" still remains completely blocked – Russian
law enforcement agencies are not performing the passing procedures on this
At the same time, there is no significant traffic congestion
within entry-exit checkpoint at the boundary line. Not more than 100 vehicles
are expecting in the queues at the entry-exit checkpoints "Chongar" and "Chaplynka".
High activity of the aggressor state - Russia is observed
thereabout the boundary line. Ukrainian border guards observed 9 helicopters
Mi-8 of the Russian Armed Forces as well as 2 unmanned aerial vehicles flights
above the peninsula.


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March 8, 2021 - Contemporary Issues
Topic: Medical decisions at the end of life
Contemporary Issues continues our Lent study of death and dying. On March 8, we welcome palliative care physician Dr. Rebecca Lachenmaier, medical director at UnityPoint Hospice. She will talk to us about the medical aspect of the dying process. What decisions can we make now while we're healthy that will make the job easier for the hospice medical director and our family caregivers?
Covenant's Sunday sermons and educational offerings are posted here. Blessings!


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Reynal Interiors - Des Moines Interior Designer Website
Amanda Reynal of Reynal Interiors, a Des Moines-based interior design service, just launched her brand new website! Amanda is an interior designer with seventeen years of experience working in several interesting markets including New York, London, and Des Moines. Amanda is able to provide her clientele with a very elegant, young, and balanced approach to home decoration. Her ability to combine her understanding of the traditional principles of design with a contemporary aesthetic and the use of color has made her a popular addition to her local design community.
Take a minute and stop by www.reynalinteriors.com to view the latest Visionary Services website design release.


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A federal judge has sided with the Justice Department (DOJ) in a lawsuit aimed at further declassifying information related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
The case stems from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in 2017 by the James Madison Project and investigative journalist Brad Heath. The lawsuit sought FISA applications to and orders made by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court concerning President Donald Trump, Trump organization, his campaign, and people associated with the president. In 2018, the DOJ released 412 pages of heavily redacted documents related to Page (pdf).
The plaintiffs then requested the court for further disclosures of the redacted documents, asking for 21 pages to be made unredacted and challenging the redactions and withholdings of the remaining pages.
In March, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled against the plaintiffs saying that a press release by the president and a number of his Twitter posts did not constitute a declassification order in relation to 21 of the pages.
Trump had previously promised to declassify FISA action and in September 2018 he directed several agencies to immediately declassify “pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page,” and “all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.”
The plaintiffs then contended that the judge did not address their complaints about the remaining 391 pages, and requested the judge to rule on the “the appropriateness of the redactions and withholdings” in those pages.
The plaintiffs argued that Trump’s Twitter posts “had called into question the good faith bases of the Government’s redactions and/or withholdings” and should reject DOJ’s withholdings from the remaining pages.
The posts in question relate to the president’s comments regarding Page’s FISA documents. In the first post, Trump wrote: “Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!”
In the second Twitter post, the president wrote: “It was classified to cover up misconduct by the FBI and the Justice Department in misleading the Court by using this Dossier in a dishonest way to gain a warrant to target the Trump Team. This is a Clinton Campaign document. It was a fraud and a hoax designed to target Trump….”
The DOJ had previously argued in March that those two posts “are insufficient to overcome the presumption.”
“In their motion for summary judgment, Plaintiffs relied on two tweets that they claim reflect the President’s criticism of the redactions, but these vague and nonspecific tweets, based on no personal knowledge and not commenting on the precise issues presented to the Court, are insufficient to overcome the presumption,” the department lawyers wrote.
On Monday, Mehta agreed (pdf) with the DOJ, saying that Trump’s posts “amount to little more than ‘[a] mere assertion of bad faith [that] is not sufficient to overcome a motion for summary judgment.'”
“Although Plaintiffs tout that the tweets ‘come from the highest governmental authority … neither tweet reveals any personal knowledge on the part of the President with respect to the actual withholdings and the exemptions invoked,” he added.
Mehta added that although the president asserted that the documents are “ridiculously heavily redacted,” that assertion “does not undermine the validity” of the DOJ’s invocation of specific FOIA exemptions.
“[H]is insistence that the records were ‘classified to cover up government misconduct’ is unsupported and, without more, cannot overcome the national security justifications put forward in the detailed affidavits submitted by Defendant,” Mehta wrote.
The president appeared to back away from his September 2018 promise to declassify the documents set out in the White House press release, after receiving criticism in response to the announcement.
“I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies’ called to ask not to release,” Trump wrote while adding that the DOJ inspector general had been asked to review those documents on an expedited basis.
“I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary,” he added.
DOJ’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December last year on its investigation into alleged FISA abuses in the surveillance of Page. The report found “at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications, and many additional errors in the Woods Procedures.”
A follow-up review (pdf), released in a report earlier this year, determined that FBI agents broke the bureau’s policy by failing to follow the “Woods Procedure,” which requires agents to compile supporting documentation for each fact in a FISA application. The Woods Procedures were implemented in 2001 in an effort to “minimize factual inaccuracies in FISA applications” as well as to ensure that the statements are “scrupulously accurate.”

domain: news


Exclusively designed for Carbon Telescopic Arm to generate extraordinary buoyancy underwater with weather resistant ABS material which carries lower specific gravity, and hollow design. Maximum two Mega Float Tubes can be attached on both ends of the Carbon Telescopic Arm. The Float Tube is designed to screw on Carbon Telescopic Arm and fixed with the dedicated lock ring. The Float Tube can hold a Lens Holder for Float Arm or a Shoe Base Spacer on its side.
*Attaching a Mega Float Tube on the side without grip of the Carbon Telescopic Arm won’t have minimum extension.
|Function / Efficiency|
|Depth rating||70m / 230 ft.|
|Underwater Weight||360g / 12.7 oz (Buoyancy)|
|Dimensions||103 x 84mm / 4.0 x 3.3 in (DIA x L)|
|Weight||171g / 6.0 oz|
|Materials||ABS resin, corrosion-resistant aluminum alloy, rubber etc.|


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Many IRA custodians offer their clients to invest in alternative assets such as MarkitLend, so you might also want to check with your provider. .
Read the Investor Materials. Investors are urged also consult an independent advisor and to carefully consider the risks of investing.
Visit AltoIRA and setup your account.
Visit our MarkitLend AltoIRA Investment Page and AltoIra will do the rest!.
If you have any problems, Contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
Sit back, relax, and watch your investment grow. Or better yet, do something you enjoy doing while we work for you.

domain: economics


text:
Lil Wayne said in a statement posted on his official Facebook page that he did not intentionally step on the American flag during a recent video shoot.
The controversy started when a YouTube video filmed on set of the rapper’s music video shoot for the song “God Bless Amerika” showed the rapper performing behind a huge American flag.
Early on in the video, the flag is dropped to the ground and Wayne keeps performing for the camera, occasionally stepping on the flag while he paces.
“It was never my intention to desecrate the flag of the United States of America,” Lil Wayne said in a statement posted on his official Facebook page on Tuesday, June 18. “I was shooting a video for a song off my album entitled ‘God Bless Amerika.’ The clip that surfaced on the Internet was a camera trick clip that revealed that behind the American Flag was the Hoods of America. In the final edit of the video you will see the flag fall to reveal what is behind it but will never see it on the ground.”
“In most people eyes including my own who were raised in that environment, the Hood is the only America they know and the only America I knew growing up,” he added. “I was fortunate from my God giving talents to escape the Hood and see the other beautiful places this country has to offer but most people who are born in that environment don’t get that chance. That’s their view of their America.”
He finished the statement with, “That was Dwayne M Carter from Hollygrove New Orleans view of America. That’s who I’m speaking for in this song.”
“God Bless Amerika” is from the rapper’s recent album “I Am Not a Human Being II.” This is the second controversy the rapper has faced this year. Last month, PepsiCo dropped him as a spokesperson for Mountain Dew following the controversy over the rapper’s explicit lyric about civil rights icon Emmett Till in the song “Karate Chop” by Future.

domain: celebrity


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