text:
Back in February I posted how I randomly stumbled across this photo of the Manhattan Dubrow's in a Google search. It was credited to Elaine Norman.
This evening, Elaine Norman contacted me and sent me MORE amazing photos of the Manhattan Dubrow's. Here's three of them. More to come over the next few days.
Here's what Elaine had to say:
"I came across your blog after reading the New York Times page with Marcia Bricker Halperin’s wonderful photos of Dubrow’s. It brought back a lot of memories for me when I worked as a textile designer in the Garment Center. Occasionally, I would eat at Dubrow’s (when not bringing my lunch) and loved the appealing, old-world vibe of the place. I’m sending along some of my photographs that were taken shortly before the auction in 1985 (you currently have one of my photos on your blog). Sadly, even the once-vibrant and bustling Garment Center, like so much of New York City’s noteworthy neighborhoods, is becoming a thing of the past. It’s good that you have this homage to such a distinctive place in the history of this city."


Scientists have discovered a “great valley” in the southern hemisphere of Mercury, providing more evidence that the small planet closest to the sun is shrinking. Scientists used images from NASA’s Messenger spacecraft to create a high-resolution topographic map that revealed the broad valley — more than 1,000 kilometres long — extending into the Rembrandt basin, one of the largest and youngest impact basins on Mercury.
Watch What Else Is Making News
“Unlike Earth’s Great Rift Valley, Mercury’s great valley is not caused by the pulling apart of lithospheric plates due to plate tectonics; it is the result of the global contraction of a shrinking one-plate planet,” said lead author of the study Tom Watters, senior scientist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
About 400 kilometres wide and three kilometres deep, Mercury’s great valley is smaller than Mars’ Valles Marineris, but larger than North America’s Grand Canyon and wider and deeper than the Great Rift Valley in East Africa, said the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Mercury’s great valley is bound by two large fault scarps / cliff-like landforms that resemble stair steps. The scarps formed as Mercury’s interior cooled and the planet’s shrinking was accommodated by the crustal rocks being pushed together, thrusting them upward along fault lines, the study said.
NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission was launched on August 3, 2004 to understand Mercury, the smallest, densest and least-explored of the terrestrial planets.


text:
WASHINGTON – Corn and soybean ending stocks were reduced due
to increased demand in the Dec. 10 U.S. Department of Agriculture’s world
supply-demand estimates report.
U.S. corn use for 2013-2014 was projected higher with
increases for food, seed and industrial use and for exports.
Corn used in ethanol production was estimated 50 million
bushels higher, reflecting the strong pace of weekly ethanol production since
mid-October. Exports also were projected 50 million bushels higher based on the
pace of sales to date and higher expected global consumption.
On the supply side of the balance sheet, U.S., feed grain
supplies for 2013-2014 were raised this month with a 5 million bushel increase
projected for corn imports. With a record crop now estimated for Canada,
additional quantities of Canadian corn are expected to find their way into the
U.S. current marketing year ending stocks were projected at
1.792 billion bushels, compared to 1.887 billion estimated last month.
The 2013-2014 season-average farm price for corn is
projected 10 cents lower at the midpoint with the range narrowed to $4.05 to
$4.75 per bushel based on prices reported to date.
Average prices received by farmers, however, are expected to
continue to be reported above prevailing cash bids well into early 2014 as some
sales will reflect the higher forward prices available before harvesting.
Global coarse grain supplies for 2013-2014 are projected 3.6
million tons higher. At more than 1.420 million tons, supplies are up 122.8
million from 2012-2013 and 103.1 million above the previous record in 2011-2012.
Corn accounts for more than 80 percent of the increase over
this period with 2013-2014 world corn production up 101.4 million tons from last
Global corn output for 2013-2014 was raised this month with
Canada and Ukraine increased 1.1 million tons and 1 million tons,
Global 2013-2014 coarse grain consumption was increased 4.3
million tons with half of the increase from higher foreign corn
World corn ending stocks are projected 1.9 million tons
lower as the U.S. reduction is only partly offset by a 0.5-million-ton increase
The USDA increased soybean exports estimates by 25 million
bushels to 1.475 billion, reflecting record commitments — shipments plus
outstanding sales — through November.
Soybean crush was raised 5 million bushels to 1.690 billion
as strong foreign demand for soybean meal, led by the European Union and
Southeast Asia, more than offsets a reduction in domestic soybean meal use.
Soybean oil supplies are increased in line with higher crush.
With total use unchanged, soybean oil stocks were increased
55 million pounds to 1.69 billion.
Although total use was unchanged, soybean oil used for
methyl ester is projected lower, reflecting expanded production of non-ester
based renewable diesel.
Soybean ending stocks for the current marketing year were
projected at 150 million bushels, down 20 million from last month.
Prices for soybeans and soybean meal were projected higher
The U.S. season average soybean price range for 2013-2014 is
projected at $11.50 to $13.50 per bushel, up 35 cents on both ends of the range.
The soybean meal price is projected at $400 to $440 per
short ton, up $25 on both ends of the range. The soybean oil price range is
projected at 38 cents to 42 cents per pound, down two cents on both ends.
Global soybean production is projected at a record 284.9
million tons, up 1.4 million due to increases for Argentina and Canada.
Argentina production is projected at 54.5 million tons, up 1 million due to
higher projected area.
Brazil’s soybean production remained unchanged at 88 million
tons, 6 million more than last year.
Global oilseed trade is projected at 128.3 million tons, up
1.6 million from last month.
Increased soybean exports from the U.S. and increased
rapeseed exports from Canada account for most of the change.
Global oilseed ending stocks are projected at 82.8 million
tons, up 2.1 million as lower soybean stocks in the U.S. are more than offset by
increased soybean stocks in Argentina, Canada, the European Union and Russia and
higher rapeseed stocks in Canada and Australia.
Global wheat supplies continue to grow.
Projected U.S. wheat supplies for 2013-2014 were increased
10 million bushels this month with higher projected imports.
Record production and higher exports for Canada are expected
to add to wheat supplies in the U.S. Imports are up 5 million bushels each for
hard red spring and soft red winter wheat.
Projected exports for all wheat are unchanged, but minor
adjustments were made by class with SRW wheat exports raised 5 million bushels
and HRS wheat exports lowered an offsetting amount. Projected ending stocks are
raised 10 million bushels.
The 2013-2014 projected season-average farm price is lowered
10 cents at the midpoint with the range narrowed to $6.65 to $7.15 per bushel as
near record world supplies and increased export competition reduce price
prospects for U.S. wheat.
Global 2013-2014 wheat supplies are raised 5.3 million tons
to 887.3 million. This is up 32.1 million tons from last year, but 9 million
tons below the record supplies of 2011-2012.
Global 2013-2014 production was raised by 5 million tons
with most of the increase for Canada based on the latest Statistics Canada
estimate which put production at a record 37.5 million tons.
This is up 4.3 million tons from last month’s forecast and
5.4 million tons higher than the previous record in 1990-1991 as excellent
summer weather and an extended growing season boosted yields to record
Global wheat trade for 2013-2014 was raised this month with
larger available supplies in key exporter countries and stronger demand expected
for several importing countries.
Exports were raised 1.5 million tons for Canada, 1 million
tons for the European Union and 0.5 million tons for Australia.
Global wheat ending stocks are projected 4.3 million tons
higher, mostly on increases for Canada and Australia.

domain: food


text:
There was drama outside a Kenya Commercial Bank in Naivasha on Monday afternoon as three men were cornered by police over involvement in Kshs 2 million theft.
The three suspects are said to have terrorized clients from the bank who make withdrawals. The suspects are believed to have broken into a car on Saturday and stole Kshs 2 million.
The area residents run for safety when anti-crime officers pulled over the scene in commando-like style in their cars, cocked guns and nabbed the suspects. They blocked their car from speeding off.
Robbery attempt comes just days after a KCB branch in Thika was robbed off Kshs 50 million. Three suspects were arrested and arraigned in court with a ruling expected later today.

domain: news


text:
Presenter Dr. Christiane Kuhl, PhD, of University Hospital Aachen in Germany will share results from the PROMISE trial, which compared the use of gadopiclenol at 0.05 mmol/kg to gadobutrol at 0.1 mmol/kg for body MRI. The research included 304 patients with lesions across a variety of areas who underwent two MRIs using both of the agents. Three readers assessed the performance of the agents according to the following measures: border delineation, internal morphology, and degree of contrast enhancement. Kuhl and colleagues calculated percentage of enhancement and lesion-to-background ratio for each agent and tracked any adverse events patients may have experienced.
The results? The two agents were comparable when it came to visualizing lesions, and there were no significant differences between the two for lesion-to-background ratio. The three readers reported no preference for either agent in 74.6% to 82.6% of the exams, and the incidence of adverse events (mostly injection site reactions) was comparable between the two, at 18.1% for gadopiclenol and 20% for gadobutrol.
The research suggests that gadopiclenol could be an effective, lower-dose alternative to gadobutrol -- which could address concerns about gadolinium retention and its potential negative effects. Stop by this presentation on Sunday to get more information.

domain: medical


text:
We have the most powerful military, yet we live in terror. We have the most expensive and “supposedly” advanced healthcare, yet we are sick and dying. We have thousands of motivational speakers and gurus who claim to have the answer to happiness, yet we are depressed and angry. Why is this? Stay tuned.
Free Your Mind

domain: psychology


text:
Add this to the list of "Things That Should Never Have Happened." Billy Ray Cyrus (Miley's Dad) is featured on a hip hop version of his hit "Achy BRraky Heart" called "Achy Breaky 2." How do you say "garbage" in country?
The new hip hop version
The original 1993 version of the song

domain: celebrity


text:
Did you know Nitrous Oxide gas is 265 times more greenhouse warming than CO2?
Nitrogen is essential for all living organisms. Its availability is one of the key factors determining agricultural productivity. Although nitrogen is present in large quantities in the air, it is not sufficiently available to crops. Farmers use fertilizers to make nitrogen available for their crops. However, nitrogen use efficiency is low as only about half the nitrogen applied through fertilizers is absorbed by crops. The rest remains in soil, leaches into ground and surface waters or is lost to the atmosphere as ammonia and/or nitrous oxide gas.
In its Farm to Fork Strategy the EU Commission announced that it will act to reduce nutrient losses by at least 50% and the use of fertilizers by at least 20% by 2030. Innovative solutions have been developed which help reduce nitrogen losses. These include using nitrification inhibitors to reduce, for a certain period, the conversion of ammonium into nitrate and thus reduce the formation of the powerful greenhouse gas: nitrous oxide. Ideally this technology should be combined with precision agriculture techniques to ensure that only exact amounts of fertilizers required by crops are applied to each part of the field. Scientific studies  have demonstrated that use of nitrification inhibitors can reduce nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural systems by 44% and nitrate leaching by 47%.
To know more about the nitrogen use efficiency, find below a short video.
 Qiao, Chunlian & Liu, Lingli & Hu, Shuijin & Compoton, Jana & Greaver, Tara & Li, Quanlin. (2014).
How inhibiting nitrification affects nitrogen cycle and reduces environmental impacts of anthropogenic nitrogen input. Global change biology. 21. 10.1111/gcb.12802.

domain: literature


text:
It all started with a back packing trip to Nepal in 1999. The plan was to continue to the further east, but the interest and love to this amazing country made us stay. We saw how the Nepali people used felt. We wanted to combine simple Danish design with this fantastic raw and rustic fabric, and the idea of “Én Gry & Sif” was born.
“Én” in Danish means “one – and only one”. All Én Gry & Sif products are handmade, so there is only “one” of each, since there will always be small differences in each product.
Én Gry & Sif is Danish design, but all handmade in Nepal by very skilled workers. All products are made of pure natural wool from New Zealand.
It is mostly women Én Gry & Sif support by their work, since it is shown that the women are the best to make sure that the income goes to the families.
In 2009 Én Gry & Sif got there Fair Trade certification from The World Fair Trade Organization.
The Nepali people is smiling, open minded and very friendly. The love to the Nepali people is great and will always be there.

domain: design


text:
I wasn't one of those people who was given a camera at young age and fell in love with photography.
No, one of my biggest passions was (and still is) traveling around the world and experiencing different cultures.
And it was while doing this that I developed an interest in photography.
In the beginning the emphasis was on capturing memories, but since a couple of years photography has become an important aspect of my travels.
Since then I also try to incorporate a more artistic element into it.
Thank you for your interest.
Marc van Kessel

domain: artistic


text:
Making glass more clear
by Staff Writers
Evanston IL (SPX) May 01, 2019
Not everything about glass is clear. How its atoms are arranged and behave, in particular, is startlingly opaque. The problem is that glass is an amorphous solid, a class of materials that lies in the mysterious realm between solid and liquid. Glassy materials also include polymers, or commonly used plastics. While it might appear to be stable and static, glass' atoms are constantly shuffling in a frustratingly futile search for equilibrium. This shifty behavior has made the physics of glass nearly impossible for researchers to pin down.
Now a multi-institutional team including Northwestern University, North Dakota State University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has designed an algorithm with the goal of giving polymeric glasses a little more clarity.
The algorithm makes it possible for researchers to create coarse-grained models to design materials with dynamic properties and predict their continually changing behaviors. Called the "energy renormalization algorithm," it is the first to accurately predict glass' mechanical behavior at different temperatures and could result in the fast discovery of new materials, designed with optimal properties.
"The current process of materials discovery can take decades," said Northwestern's Sinan Keten, who co-led the research. "Our approach scales molecular simulations up by roughly a thousand times, so we can design materials faster and examine their behavior."
"Although glassy materials are all around us, scientists still struggle to understand their properties, such as their fluidity and diffusion as temperature or composition vary," said Jack F. Douglas, a NIST research fellow, who co-led the work with Keten. "This lack of understanding is a serious limitation in the rational design of new materials."
The study published recently in the journal Science Advances. Wenjie Xia, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at North Dakota State University, was the paper's first author.
Glass' strange behavior stems from the way it is made. It starts as a hot pool of molten material that is then rapidly cooled. Although the final material wants to reach equilibrium in a cooled state, it is highly susceptible to changing temperatures. If the material is heated, its mechanical properties can change dramatically. This makes it difficult for researchers to efficiently predict the mechanical properties by using existing molecular simulation techniques.
"As simple as glass looks, it's a very strange material," said Keten, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering.
"It is amorphous and doesn't have an equilibrium structure, so it's constantly evolving by slow movements of its molecules. And then there is a lot of variation in how it evolves depending on temperature and molecular features of each glassy material. These processes take a very long time to compute in molecular simulations. Speeding up computations is only possible if we can map the positions of the molecules to simpler structural models."
Glass' structure is in stark contrast to a crystalline solid, in which atoms are arranged in an ordered, predictable and symmetrical manner. "It's easy to map atoms in crystalline materials because they have a repeating structure," Keten explained. "Whereas in an amorphous material, it is difficult to map the structure due to the lack of long-range order."
"Because of the amorphous and disordered nature of glass, its properties could vary with temperature substantially, making the prediction of its physical behavior extremely difficult," Xia added. "Now, we have found a new way to solve this problem."
To address this challenge, Keten, Douglas, Xia and their collaborators designed their algorithm to factor in the many ways glass molecules would move or not move depending on varying temperatures over time.
To calculate the position of each atom within glass would be painstakingly slow and tedious - even for a high-powered algorithm - to compute. So Keten and his collaborators used "coarse-grained modeling," a simplified approach that looks at clusters of atoms rather than single atoms. Their new methodology efficiently creates parameters for the interactions among these coarser particles so that the model can capture the dramatic slow-down in molecular motion as the glassy material cools down.
"We cannot do an atom-by-atom simulation for even glass films of nanoscale thickness because even that would be too large," Keten said. "That's still millions of molecules. The coarse-grained models allow us to study larger systems comparable to experiments done in the lab."
So far, Keten and his team have checked their algorithm against three already well-characterized and very different types of polymeric glass-forming liquids. In each case, the algorithm accurately predicts the known dynamic properties across a large range of temperatures.
"Explaining the physics of glasses has famously been one of the biggest problems that scientists haven't been able to solve," Keten said. "We're getting closer to understanding their behavior and solving the mystery."
Scientists develop low-cost energy-efficient materials
Moscow, Russia (SPX) Apr 24, 2019
An international team of scientists from the National University of Science and Technology "MISIS" (NUST MISIS), Tianjin University (China), as well as from Japan and the United States has developed new energy-efficient iron-based alloys which combine high mechanical and magnetic properties with low cost and open up new opportunities for industry. The research results are published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds. Today, scientists from different countries are facing the task of creating ne ... read more
|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.

domain: chemistry


Extended Reach Drilling (ERD) is an established technique to economically access reserves from an existing infrastructure, reducing the need for additional drill centers and consequently reducing the drilling and facilities environmental footprint. Advancement of the ERD envelope is possible through detailed planning, technical design and operational excellence.
Challenges of ERD wells:
- Geomechanics/Wellbore Stability
- Excessive drag and torque limitations
- Setting Completion at Planned Depth
- Destructive drilling dynamics
- Rig/equipment limitations
Rubicon offers a wide range of technologies and expertise to help maximize and extend the ERD envelope. Enabled through our advanced Applications Engineering teams and industry leading software, we provide our customers with a better understanding of the wellbore environment. Our technology portfolio combined with our team of experienced professionals help reduce risk, mitigate unplanned costs and improve overall performance.


text:
Designed to help the young ski enthusiasts develop their techniques and try out for the Mont-Orford Ski Club.
Must be between 6 and 12 years old by January 7th 2023.
When booking, please add any request as well as your child’s level in the comment box.
Do not hesitate to contact us for more information.
Exploration 3 – Parallel turns most of the time *Green areas
Adventure 1 - Parallel turns sometimes *Blue areas
Adventure 2 - Parallel turns most of the time *Blue areas
Adventure 3 – High performance parallel turns *Blue areas
Performance 1 - Carving *Blue areas
Performance 2 – High performance parallel turns *Black areas
Performance 3 - Carving and ski rebound management *Black areas
No products found.

domain: hobby


text:
The Society of Architectural Historians Philadelphia Chapter presents an overview of Penn Historic Preservation Program Masters Candidate Brett C. Sturm's plan to conserve and preserve Frank Furness' 1876 centennial arch.
Tuesday, November 27 at 6:00pm.
Upper Gallery of Meyerson Hall
210 S. 34th St.
University of Pennsylvania Campus
Free and open to the public.
Please email Mary Anne Eves at firstname.lastname@example.org or phone 610-566-2342.
In the late 19th-century visitors to Fairmount Park or Laurel Hill Cemetery often arrived via steamship along the Schuylkill River. In the 1880s you began your climb up the meandering staircase by entering under an intricately carved sandstone arch. The arch, designed by Frank Furness, was originally a feature of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition along States Avenue to promote Connecticut brownstone as a building material. For decades the arch has been obscured by thick brush along Kelly Drive. Earlier this year, Penn Historic Preservation Program Masters Candidate Brett C. Sturm prepared a masonry conservation plan for the arch. Recently the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust has started to implement that plan. Please join us as Brett presents an overview of his plan to conserve and preserve this important piece of Philadelphia’s past.


text:
When folk consider flowers for Valentine’s Day, the perennial favourite is the red rose. I think there is something intensely romantic about a single, velvety, dark red rose, but if I were to be receiving a bouquet of roses, I think I would prefer pink roses.The bonus with giving or receiving roses is many are fragrant too, with most of the old fashioned varieties perfuming a whole room with their beautiful, rich scent.
Of course, as you may have already guessed, I don’t just love old fashioned pink roses, but pink blooms in general and find them a great source of inspiration for my flowery silk scarf designs. And with that in mind, here’s a jug of last summer’s dahlias providing just such stimulus!
6 thoughts on “The Romantic Rose for Valentine’s”
Gosh, you’re getting in well ahead of the day! I agree that for scent, you can’t beat many of the pink ones, but I do love a cream rose too.
I find Feb 14th is one of those days that is suddenly upon me as it is also my father’s birthday and, no, 😊 he isn’t called Valentine!!
My uncle was! John Valentine Clark, born 1909. Known as Jack or Val. Beautiful photos and scarves as always. Perhaps pink is one of your favourites as it suits your daughter’s complexion (and therefore yours too?) so well.
Yes, I often think my Grandmother could have at least given my father a middle name and Valentine would have been fine! Mind you my mother’s name was Valeria so we could have had two Vals in the family. 😃 😉
Some lovely blooms…What an interesting effect with the photo of the lovely model fading somehow behind your brilliant scarf!
Thank you. I do love the odd pink flower!


text:
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Global Innovation 1000
Every year since 2005, Booz & Company has conducted the Global Innovation 1000 study, which investigates the relationship between how much companies spend on R&D and their overall financial performance. And every year, we reinforce the conclusion that there is no correlation between the two. Our findings and further analysis of what makes the most successful innovators great led The Economist to call the Global Innovation 1000 "the most comprehensive assessment of the relationship between R&D investment and corporate performance," and Tom Peters praised it as a "provocative, research-based article that is sure to get you thinking."
Since its inception, the study has been mentioned in more than 150 publications in 27 countries, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. In 2007, we received the Special Achievement Award for Advancing the Innovation Dialog from Innovate Forum, and in 2008 the Product Development & Management Association presented us with its Best of Visions award. And we were privileged to present the study’s results to the National Academy of Sciences & Engineering.
Since its inception, the study has included an analysis of corporate R&D by industry — the healthcare and software & internet sectors consistently spend the greatest proportion of their sales on R&D — and on global trends in innovation. Over the years, we have expanded the scope of the study to include critical issues such as the importance of customer-driven innovation and the recession's effect on R&D spending. Every year, the study has produced quantifiable insights and invaluable lessons for helping companies make more productive use of the R&D dollars they spend.
2010: How the Top Innovators Keep Winning
Succeeding at innovation requires two key elements: a focused set of innovation capabilities that is carefully tuned to a company’s innovation strategy, and the ability to align the innovation strategy with overall corporate strategy. This year’s Global Innovation 1000 reveals the capabilities best suited for each innovation strategy, whether it be need seekers, market readers, or technology drivers. Companies that achieve this, and then succeed in aligning their R&D efforts with overall strategy outperform their industry peers in terms of both profit margins and market capitalization growth.
To download the actual study in PDF, please click below:
Global Innovation 1000


text:
Thompson, Brian - 'The Captain's Table'
London 1875 and Sir William Skillane has promised his daughter Mary in marriage to a business associate Robert Judd. Judd however is an evil villain and will stop at nothing to gain Skillane's fortune. Mrs Bella Wallis meanwhile is trying to help an old friend Billy Murch to rescue his one time lady friend, the music hall artiste Molly Clunn, who is dying in one of the foulest parts of London. In addition, Bella's lover Philip Westland's friend - William Kennett - is in love with Mary Skillane and is determined that Judd will not prevail.
Switching between London, Rotterdam and deepest Cornwall. Bella is reunited with Westland and other good friends - Charles Urmiston, Hannah Bardsoe, Percy Quigley and Billy Murch.
This story is very entertaining and Bella becomes a much more "flesh and blood" woman than in the previous book, THE WIDOW'S SECRET. She continues to write popular fiction under the name of Henry Ellis Margam and in a nice touch "The Widow's Secret" is the current bestseller of the moment. Judd proves to be a worthy adversary and Bella and her friends are in constant danger and it is left to Billy Murch to save the day.
Full again of memorable characters with exotic names - Molocca Edwards, Liza Givens, Kashvilli (a bearded Georgian sea captain ) and Linny Trethewey, THE CAPTAIN'S TABLE is well written - as we've come to expect from the author. This is developing into an excellent series.
Geoff Jones, England


text:
She walked along the shores by day and night. She walked in a black, bustled gown. A heavy mourning veil covered her head and shielded her face.
She walked along the shore with her gaze always watching the ocean’s rushing ebb and flow.
The tears that fell from her eyes hit the shore, crystallizing into salt that the ocean grabbed and stole away.
She always walked alone.
She was feared and dreaded.
A figure of myth and misfortune.
To see her once was bad luck.
To hear her cries was misfortune.
To see her face – her pale, dead face – was a sign of certain death and disaster.
So, no one ever approached her.
No one ever spoke to her.
No one ever dared to look at her.
So, she walked on.
Endlessly alone on the salted shores.


Embedded Systems Design & Embedded Software Engineering Custom test equipment for your critical or time-sensitive test tasks
For decades our in-house product development team has designed and produced embedded systems as well as engineered embedded software for industrial test stands (for example our Guardian FCT tester incl. its boards, Sentry AOI tester, RMESS24 etc.). We will gladly use our experience to create special designs for your critical or time-sensitive test tasks.
Real-time test applications
Solutions for test tasks with high demands for timing and stability
Outsourcing of critical test tasks to an optimized controller
Cross-industry experience in embedded software engineering for test applications
Reliable execution of your test tasks with embedded systems & embedded software development
Critical or time-sensitive test tasks frequently need to be executed by dedicated hardware rather than a universal controller. We support you when it comes to designing and manufacturing custom test equipment and its firmware – from the simple processing logic to complex testing algorithms.
Embedded hardware for your requirements
As a foundation for the hardware of your embedded system we can draw on the components of our Guardian functional testing system. Of course, further developments of these components (e. g. interfaces for KNX, ZigBee, Bluetooth or QI) or completely purpose-built hardware (e. g. sensor or load boards) are possible as well.
Typical process of an embedded programming project
1. Requirements engineering
We discuss your wishes and translate them into software and hardware requirements.
2. Conceptual design
Our embedded software developers elaborate an optimal embedded system design for your requirements.
3. Presentation and approval
Our embedded programmers present our concept and fine-tune it together with you.
We construct a viable prototype and wait for your final approval.
5. Production and delivery
We produce the ordered amount of your embedded system and deliver the devices.
Frequently asked questions about embedded programming
Embedded systems are required for test sequences which have high demands for stability and timing (e. g. real-time applications). Furthermore, the use of embedded test systems can be reasonable for test routines which are very frequently executed.


text:
The Justice of the Peace, and Parish Officer: With the Practice of Country Attornies in Criminal Cases; Comprising Also All the Necessary Forms of Commitments, Convictions, Orders, &c, Томи 1 – 3
Shaw and Sons, 1846
Відгуки відвідувачів - Написати рецензію
Не знайдено жодних рецензій.
according aforesaid allowed appear applied appointed apprentice attend authority borough cause charged child committed common complaint constable conviction costs court deemed defendant delivered directed distress district division duty enter evidence examined exceeding execution expenses fact felony gaol give given granted guilty hand hearing hereby highway holden horse house of correction imprisonment indictment intent justices keep keeper kill labour land lawful less levied liable licence Majesty's manner master mentioned months necessary neglect notice oath offence otherwise overseers paid parish party passing payment peace penalty person petty poor pounds powers present prison proved punishable quarter sessions reasonable receive refuse repair respect road seal sell serve shillings stat statute sufficient summons surveyor taken therein thereof tion town unless Vict warrant witness writing
Сторінка 33 - ... awarded; and upon such notice being given, and such recognizance being entered into, the justice, before whom the same shall be entered into, shall liberate such person if in custody; and the court at such sessions shall hear and determine the matter of the appeal, and shall make such order therein, with or without costs to either party, as to the court shall seem meet...
Сторінка 190 - CD ; and if, within the space of days next after the making of such distress, the said last-mentioned sum, together with the reasonable charges of taking and keeping the said distress, shall not be paid, that then you do sell the said goods...
Сторінка 721 - Person, one Moiety to the Informer, and the other Moiety to the Poor of the Parish where such Offence shall be committed...
Сторінка 316 - I direct that the said sum of (ie the penalty only) shall be paid to of aforesaid, in which the said offence was committed, to be by him applied according to the directions of the statute...
Сторінка 449 - That if any Person shall by any false Pretence obtain from any other Person any Chattel, Money, or valuable Security, with Intent to cheat or defraud any Person of the same, every such Offender shall be guilty of a Misdemeanor...
Сторінка 540 - That all Actions and Prosecutions to be commenced against any Person for any thing done in pursuance of this Act shall be laid and tried in the County where the Fact was committed, and shall be commenced within...
Сторінка 278 - Given under my hand and seal, the day of ; in the year of our Lord . (Signed) EF (LS) No.
Сторінка 379 - ... and no warrant of commitment shall be held void by reason of any defect therein, provided it be therein alleged that the party has been convicted, and there be a good and valid conviction to sustain the same.

domain: law


text:
With reactions to his new album spreading rapidly across the internet, JAY-Z has managed to start conversations about quite a range of important topics. In one of the 10 tracks featured on 4:44, JAY-Z mentions his therapist, a lyric that will hopefully help to destigmatize the idea of seeking assistance for mental health.
"Smile," the third song from JAY-Z's newly released project, discusses a variety of pressing issues, including sexual identity and the perils of being a black man in America. Amid those meaningful statements, JAY also seems to reveal that he sees a therapist halfway through the song. During the nearly five-minute track, he raps, “My therapist said I relapsed." It was certainly a surprising, yet refreshing, admittance on his part.
On the surface, it's unclear whether or not the mention was just happenstance or has a deeper purpose. Nevertheless, it could very well prove to be an important reference for the mental health community. Particularly, if it stands to remove some of the stigma associated with mental health. Throughout history, there's been an overwhelmingly negative notion related to therapy, which has seemingly created an aversion to the idea of seeking out treatment — sometimes placing feelings of shame or guilt on participants.
Hopefully JAY-Z's openness can make a difference for those who may be uncomfortable with the idea of receiving therapeutic treatment. One Twitter user pointed out the rapper's 4:44 admission and opened up a valuable conversation regarding the subject via social media.
Perhaps this could be just what some people need to begin changing their views on therapy and mental health in general. It's worth noting that JAY-Z's album has been out less than 24 hours, but its messages have already begun to touch many fans who admire him and his work. As it stands, JAY-Z's open and honest narrative on this body of work may improve a myriad of social issues.

domain: sociology


Jonathan Reisman, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine at Machias, is appealing his case, Reisman v. Associated Faculties of the University of Maine (AFUM), to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Friday, Jan. 2, The Buckeye Institute, the organization representing Reisman in his case, filed an appeal to SCOTUS calling for an end to laws in Maine and other states that force public-sector employees to accept compelled union representation. This process, called exclusive representation (a policy for which unions advocate), prevents nonmember employees in a bargaining unit from representing themselves in matters with their employer.
In 2018, the high court ruled in Janusv. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) that public employees cannot be required to pay dues or fees to a labor union as a condition of employment. Before Janus, nonmember public employees were compelled to pay “agency fees” to a union for the cost of the organization’s representational activities concerning the employee, despite rejecting the union’s representation by refusing to join or opting out of membership.
SCOTUS ruled this practice violates the First Amendment rights of public employees. Reisman is asking the high court to consider exclusive representation laws under the same principle. If compelled payments to a union violate a public employee’s First Amendment rights, compelled representation must also violate employee’s rights.
“Professor Reisman is a hardworking public employee who has for many years been forced to associate with a union with which he disagrees and suffer it to speak for him,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute and a lead attorney on the case. “If state law cannot compel public employees to financially support union advocacy — as the court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME — how can states require these same public employees to accept representation from unions that many of them have chosen not to join? These are serious questions about the constitutionality of exclusive representation — questions which the U.S. Supreme Court needs to address.”
“Despite resigning his union membership, Professor Reisman is required by Maine law be represented by a union with which he does not agree and of which he is not a member,” said Andrew M. Grossman, a partner at BakerHostetler in Washington, D.C., and counsel of record on the Reisman v. AFUM petition. “Following the Court’s landmark Janus ruling, it is clear that these laws are unconstitutional, and we hope the Court will recognize them as such.”
Reisman formerly served as a grievance officer with his union before resigning his membership after the Janus decision. His former union, AFUM, is affiliated with the Maine Education Association and the National Education Association, which has taken political stances that Reisman finds objectionable.
While the outcome of Janus freed him from the requirement of either joining the union or being forced to pay representation fees, Maine law still forces AFUM to be Reisman’s exclusive representative, meaning he is still associated with the positions the union takes.
If the Supreme Court agrees to hear Reisman’s case and rules in his favor, the First Amendment rights of public employees to represent themselves in matters with their employer would be restored. The end result is true freedom of speech and association, not compelled speech and association as required by state labor law.
In 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that requiring public-sector workers to pay dues or fees to a union without affirmative consent violates their First Amendment rights. In other words, the ruling in Janus v. AFSCME prohibited public-sector unions from collecting compulsory payments from workers. Since that time, public unions have relied on their allies in state legislatures across the country to bolster their control over public sector workers and undermine the Janus decision. Conversely, workers have taken a stand against their unions, through opt-outs and litigation, to try and gain control over their own employment.
In August 2019, the Commonwealth Foundation released a report that ranked states based on their public-sector labor laws. They used 11 policy measures to fairly assess states’ laws, administrative codes and regulations related to public-sector workers. Under the foundation’s assessment, Maine received a D grade (as seen to the left) because post-Janus general labor policy continues to adversely affect taxpayers. However, the report indicated there were 29 other states that earned a C grade or above. The criteria used to determine rankings can be found here and Maine’s assessment is illustrated in the table below.
While there are more than 100 pieces of legislation related to Janus that were or are being considered by state legislatures in 2019, workers have taken another approach to creating change. Public-sector employees have been inspired by the Janus ruling and are trying to achieve additional reforms that protect their First Amendment rights through litigation across the nation. The Commonwealth Foundation’s report tracked 73 lawsuits post-Janus. These new challenges come in the form of recovering lost dues and agency fees that were collected before or after the Janus decision, the constitutionality of opt-out windows, the availability of public employees’ information to the public, and challenging the idea of exclusive representation.
Dues and Agency Fee Recovery
Solomon v. AFSCME DC 37 — Filed July 23, 2019
Plaintiff Scott Solomon, a city planner in the New York City Department of City Planning, is seeking a refund of agency fees collected between July 23, 2016 and June 27, 2018. Prior to the Janus decision, the New York Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act gave unions that were certified as the exclusive representative of public employees in collective bargaining the ability to collect agency fees from public employees who were not members of the union. Solomon is seeking damages in the full amount of agency fees and assessments seized from their wages, plus interest, for violations of their First Amendment Rights.
Because Solomon was required to pay fair share fees as a condition of employment before the Janus decision ruled the practice unconstitutional, he may be entitled to recover the dues he paid to the union within his states’ statute of limitations.
Mattos et al., v. AFSCME Council 3 — Filed September 3, 2019
In this case, 19 plaintiffs filed a federal class-action lawsuit against their public sector union to recover non-member agency fees collected before the Janus ruling. More specifically, they want the dues collected between September 4, 2016 and June 27, 2018. The plaintiffs assert that AFSCME Council 3 collected agency fees prior to the Janus decision without affirmative consent and as a condition of employment. Because these funds were collected without the affirmative consent of the plaintiffs, they are seeking to be awarded damages or restitution in the full amount of agency fees and assessments seized from their wages, plus interest, for violations of their First Amendment Rights.
Halloran v. AFSCME Council 5 — Filed September 16, 2019
Susan Halloran, a senior account clerk at Inver Hills Community College, was pressured to join AFSCME Council 5 on April 15, 2019. During a training session, she was asked to sign a dues authorization form on a union representatives’ tablet. When she asked how much would be deducted from her paycheck, the union representative was unable to apprise her of the exact percentage that would be taken out. Halloran claims she felt pressured to sign the dues authorization form and was not told she had a choice to decline as a result of the Janus decision.
After calculating the cost of union dues annually, Halloran decided to contact the union representative to withdraw her registration, partially due to the cost of medical bills for cancer treatments. The union representative declined her registration and instead told her she is responsible for an entire year of dues. As a result, Halloran is seeking a declaration that the union card she signed under pressure cannot be used as a basis for affirmative consent because “such authorization was given without knowing and intelligent waiver of her First Amendment rights.” In addition, she wants the court to declare that the withdrawal of her waiver was timely, made in good faith and would not have caused substantial harm to other parties. Lastly, she wants to be awarded damages for the dues that have been collected since April 2019.
Because she felt pressured and was unaware of her rights under Janus, Halloran should have the ability to opt out of paying dues to the union, especially if it is going to hinder her ability to pay for essential medical bills.
Wenzig v. SEIU Local 668 — Filed w/ Amendment October 28, 2019
Janine Wenzig, an employee in the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, paid approximately $440 in agency fees annually to SEIU Local 668 as a non-member. In this case, Wenzig and Catherine Kioussis are seeking to recover the funds they and other state employees paid to the union as non-members between August 7, 2017 and June 27, 2018. Again, this is a case whereby non-union public employees were compelled to fund their union without affirmative consent before the Janus ruling. Therefore, they may be eligible to recover damages in the amount paid in agency fees between August 2017 and June 2018.
Stroeder v. SEIU Local 503 — Filed July 30, 2019
Colleen Stroeder, an employee at the Oregon Department of Transportation, was told by her supervisor that she was required to become a member of SEIU Local 503 and pay union dues. As a result, around $800 was deducted from her paychecks annually. After the Janus decision, Stroeder learned that she was not required to join the union or pay compulsory dues. Thereafter, she sent a letter to the SEIU to resign her membership and cease dues deductions.
In response, the union directed her to an opt-out window codified in state law that had passed 10 days before she sent her union resignation letter. According to state law, employees had a mere 15 days to opt-out of their union annually. Therefore, the SEIU rejected her request to opt-out and cease dues deductions. As a result, Stroeder filed a lawsuit to challenge to the opt-out window and to recover dues paid to the union. According to the plaintiff, the opt-out window prevents her from freely associating or disassociating with the SEIU.
Public employees should have the option to join or leave their workplace’s union as they please. Oftentimes, labor organizations and public officials create opt-out windows to make it easy to join a union but extremely difficult to leave.
Jackson v. Napolitano — Filed July 30, 2019
Michael Jackson and Tory Smith, employees at the University of California, San Diego, believed they were required to join and pay dues to their union prior to the Janus decision. Once they learned about their rights under Janus, they tried to opt out of Teamsters Local 2010. Due to a gag rule (a law that prohibits employees from speaking with their employer and vice versa about payroll deductions, union membership and their rights under the Janus decision) on the books in California, Jackson and Smith are prohibited from discussing their membership or payments to Local 2010 with the university.
When they approached the union about withdrawing, they were told they would not be able to opt-out until a 30-day window before the expiration of their contract. For them, the contract is in effect until March 31, 2022. If Jackson and Smith chose to do nothing, they would pay approximately $1,850 and $1,950 to Teamsters Local 2010, respectively, before their union’s contract expires.
Both Jackson and Smith were not afforded the opportunity to give free and affirmative consent to waive their First Amendment rights before the Janus ruling. Before the Supreme Court’s decision, they were presented with a false dichotomy; either pay dues for membership or agency fees for non-membership. Before Janus, they did not have the choice to refuse having funds deducted from their paycheck and sent to the union. Therefore, both plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages for the amount of dues they paid to the union without valid, affirmative and freely-given consent.
In addition, the plaintiffs are seeking the gag rules be ruled unconstitutional when affirmative consent is not freely and expressly given. In other words, employees should be able to learn about their rights under Janus from their employer. Further, they want a declaratory judgement that the union membership cards signed before Janus cannot be considered valid, freely-given affirmative consent because Jackson and Smith were presented with a false dichotomy of choices.
Uradnik v. Inter Faculty Organization — Filed December 4, 2018
Kathleen Uradnik, a political science professor at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, decided to challenge the idea that the labor organization at her workplace is the sole representative for public employees and has the exclusive right to speak on their behalf. She made the choice not to join the Inter Faculty Organization because she opposes some of the stances the union takes during collective bargaining and when they advocate for political causes. In addition, the Inter Faculty Organization’s contract prevents Uradnik from serving on any faculty committees, including the Faculty Senate, because she is not a member.
Through Minnesota state law, labor organizations are granted the power of exclusive representation, or the ability to negotiate on behalf of all employees in a workplace, a provision unions fight for in labor law. Even employees who disagree with their unions’ stances during collective bargaining are silenced because of the unions’ “right” to exclusive representation.
Uradnik is seeking a preliminary injunction on designating unions as the exclusive representatives for public sector employees. On April 29, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to grant certiorari to Uradnik but gave her a chance to have the case heard before a U.S. District Court based on its merits.
Reisman v. Associated Faculties of the University of Maine — Filed August 10, 2018
Jonathan Reisman, an economics professor at the University of Maine at Machias and former grievance officer for his union, is also attempting to challenge exclusive representation in court. More specifically, he is challenging the Maine Labor Relations Act, which prohibits public employees from representing themselves in collective bargaining and other negotiations with the university. Like other workers across the nation, Reisman was unhappy with some of the political and policy stances taken by the state and national partners with whom his union is affiliated.
Because a portion of his dues were funding his union’s state and national affiliates, he decided to opt-out and resign from his position as a grievance officer. Despite his decision, the union still acts as the exclusive representative for his workplace and bargains on his behalf. When the Associated Faculties of the University of Maine (AFUM) speaks to the university about wages, hours, benefits and other conditions of employment, Reisman cannot contribute his input to that dialogue. In other words, this relationship with AFUM is non-consensual and Reisman wants it terminated.
In the lawsuit, Reisman is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent AFUM from representing non-union employees. Last month, Reisman lost his battle with the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston when they upheld the U.S. District Court’s decision to dismiss the case. However, his attorney intends to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States. If the Supreme Court decides to grant certiorari, it may become a landmark case in the fight to protect workers’ First Amendment rights.
Suhr v. New York State Department of Civil Service (NYSDCS) — Filed October 25, 2019
On April 24, 2019, Daniel Suhr filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request with the New York Department of Civil Service to obtain public employees’ names, home zip codes, hire dates, labor organizations, bargaining units and payroll deduction selections to inform them of their newfound rights under Janus. The NYSDCS released all of the information except zip codes attached to the names of individual public employees and cited Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order 183. After Suhr was denied upon appeal to the NYSDCS FOIL Appeals Officer, he filed a petition with the New York Supreme Court to declare the FOIL Appeals Officer is in error and that Executive Order 183 does not prevent the NYSDCS from administering the zip codes of public employees. In addition, Suhr wants the court to direct the NYSDCS to give him the information sought.
It is clear the Janus decision has sparked other public-sector employees to speak out against their unions to reaffirm their constitutional rights. While the list of litigation above is non-exhaustive, it illustrates how public sector workers feel about unions restricting their First Amendment rights in the workplace.
The Legislative Council on Wednesday met to vote on nearly 400 bills submitted by lawmakers for consideration in the second session. Despite a number of non-emergencies being admitted into the second session, lawmakers turned down a bill where an emergency case actually exists.
The bill request, LR 2828, sponsored by Rep. Dick Bradstreet of Vassalboro, would have brought state law into compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. In Janus, the high court ruled that public employees cannot be compelled to pay dues or fees to a labor union without first affirmatively consenting to pay. The ruling states:
“The First Amendment is violated when money is taken from nonconsenting employees for a public-sector union; employees must choose to support the union before anything is taken from them. Accordingly, neither an agency fee nor any other form of payment to a public-sector union may be deducted from an employee, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.”
Currently, Maine law is at odds with the SCOTUS ruling. In the collective bargaining laws governing municipal public employees, state employees, University of Maine System employees and judicial employees, state statute says a public employee can refrain from joining a union, “except that an employee may be required to pay to the organization that is the bargaining agent for the employee a service fee that represents the employee’s pro rata share of those expenditures that are gemaine to the organizations representational activity.”
These four sections of law must be changed because, under Janus, an employee cannot be required to pay fair share fees. Fees, dues and other payments can only be deducted if a worker affirmatively consents to pay.
The legislative request failed on Wednesday by a 6-4 vote, with Reps. Kathleen Dillingham and Trey Stewart, and Sens. Jeff Timberlake and Dana Dow voting in favor while Reps. Matt Moonen and Ryan Fecteau and Sens. Nate Libby and Eloise Vitelli voted in opposition. House Speaker Sara Gideon and Senate President Troy Jackson also voted against the measure.
LR 2828 should be accepted into the second session and easily passed because conforming to federal labor law is not a partisan issue. State law currently violates the First Amendment rights of public employees, whose rights were also under assault in the first session. Public sector unions and their allies in the Maine Legislature are doing everything they can to prevent public employees from understanding their First Amendment rights under Janus, and by denying this request on Wednesday, are actually undermining constitutional protections for public employees.
The Janus ruling established that public sector workers cannot be required to pay dues or fees to a public-sector union without first giving affirmative consent for the funds to be withheld from their paychecks. The Court found that requiring employees to pay dues or fees without consent is a form of compelled speech and violates employees’ First Amendment rights. The ruling ended the deduction of agency or so-called “fair share” fees from public employees’ paychecks.
While the State of Alaska already stopped deducting agency fees from non-members’ paychecks, state statute does not describe how to obtain affirmative consent from employees. As a result, the state defers to the “union-sponsored” system of obtaining this permission whereby the state is not involved. This is problematic because the employee is faced with the decision to waive or retain his or her First Amendment rights against compelled speech, and the state is charged with deducting dues or fees from the employees’ payroll based on that decision.
Because the state doesn’t directly obtain consent from employees and isn’t involved in that process, it is impossible for the state to know if state government employees gave voluntary affirmative consent for dues deductions. In other words, the employer must have clear and compelling evidence that the waiver of the employee’s First Amendment right was given without coercion.
Since payroll deductions are a state-facilitated process and are created by state law, the Attorney General’s opinion recommends the state handle obtaining affirmative consent from employees to ensure there is clear and compelling evidence they gave it knowingly and without coercion.
In his opinion, Attorney General Clarkson said,
“By ceding to the unions themselves the process of eliciting public employee’s consent to payroll deductions of union dues and fees, and unquestioningly accepting union-procured consent forms, the State has no way of ascertaining—let alone by ‘clear and compelling evidence’—that those consents are knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. The State has thus put itself at risk of unwittingly burdening the First Amendment rights of its own employees.”
The attorney general recommends using a state-run affirmative consent, or opt-in system, rather than relying on the unions themselves to obtain approval from employees to ensure all consent forms are signed with “knowing, intelligent, and voluntary” consent. In addition, he recommends creating a renewable process annually to prevent the employee consent agreements do not become “stale.”
After the Attorney General released his opinion, the Alaska AFL-CIO came out against it, expressing that the Attorney General’s “end goal is obvious; he’s attacking public workers to lower pay and benefits for every worker in Alaska, and to slash the services Alaskans count on.”
Despite the union’s bullish rhetoric, their real concern is that greater transparency and choice would result in fewer public employees paying dues and agency fees. In other words, this move would take power away from public-sector unions and give it to the public employees in the form of understanding their constitutional rights and making informed decisions.
Maine should follow Alaska’s lead in taking on the role of obtaining affirmative consent for payroll deductions. In addition, the legislature needs to consider changing state statute to reflect the Janus decision by nixing the “requirement” for employees to pay agency fees. Put simply, it is no longer constitutional and needs to be fixed when they come back for their Second Regular Session.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, in which the high court ruled that public-sector employees could no longer be compelled to financially support a union. While the ruling was a historic victory for First Amendment rights, many public workers are still unaware of how the ruling affects their employment and workplace.
Under Janus, public workers can no longer be required to pay agency fees (commonly referred to as “fair share” fees), or payments taken from a worker’s paycheck to compensate a labor union for its representational activities. Before Janus, these funds were deducted from workers’ paychecks, even though these workers were not members of the union.
Thursday, June 27, 2019 marks one year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mark Janus, a former union employee who was aggrieved because the agency fees that he was forced to pay to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) were being used to promote political speech with which he disagreed.
Janus worked for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services as a child support specialist, and he disagreed with not only AFSCME’s political stances, but the tactics and positions that the union took toward collective bargaining. He believed the positions taken by AFSCME did not take the fiscal crises in Illinois into consideration, and therefore did not represent the best interests of Illinois citizens, himself or his colleagues in the department.
Agency fees are supposed to be a “proportionate share” of what union members pay for services and representation, covering activities “germane to [the union’s] duties as collective bargaining representative.” The agency fees deducted from Janus’ paycheck totalled $535 annually, and were used to conduct activities with which he disagreed.
The main argument in support of agency fees is that collective bargaining agents are required to represent all employees during negotiations, thus both members and non-members should be required to pay for these services. However, some employees, such as Janus, may not agree with the positions taken by their union during the collective bargaining process, yet they are forced to pay for a service they do not want. Before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFCSME, unions could coerce employees to pay agency fees, and have historically labeled workers like Janus as “free riders” for receiving the perceived benefit of these services without being dues-paying members. But consider the following quote from the Janus decision:
“Petitioner strenuously objects to this free-rider label. He argues that he is not a free rider on a bus headed for a destination that he wishes to reach but is more like a person shanghaied for an unwanted voyage. Whichever description fits the majority of public employees who would not subsidize a union if given the option, avoiding free riders is not a compelling interest. As we have noted, “free-rider arguments . . . are generally insufficient to overcome First Amendment objections.” To hold otherwise across the board would have startling consequences. Many private groups speak out with the objective of obtaining government action that will have the effect of benefiting nonmembers. May all those who are thought to benefit from such efforts be compelled to subsidize this speech?”
In addition to the quote above, the free rider argument was further scrutinized by the high court because public-sector unions desire the ability to represent all employees in order to have power over the collective bargaining process. The Supreme Court argued that the power gained by representing all employees outweighs the burden of representing non-members who do not pay dues, and concluded that agency fees are a violation of public employees’ First Amendment protections under the U.S. Constitution. In addition, the Court ruled that agency fees cannot be deducted from a non-union public employee’s paycheck without affirmative consent. While this is a clear benefit to public employees, there is still work that needs to be done to protect these rights.
My Pay My Say Maine, a project of The Maine Heritage Policy Center, is a new initiative in Maine dedicated to educating public employees on their right to opt out of union membership and stop subsidizing activities with which they disagree. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States was estimated to have approximately 7.17 million public employees who are members of a union in 2018, or around 33.9 percent of public-sector workers overall.
While the Janus decision has freed non-union workers from paying agency fees, legislators this session rejected a bill, LD 1232, that would have removed provisions from state statute that require public-sector employees to pay dues, fees or assessments for collective bargaining. While this proposal included Right-to-Work reforms, the Labor and Housing Committee could have reported out an amendment that simply struck the existing provisions within state law that conflict with Janus decision. This change should be made because public-sector employees deserve to know they are no longer required to pay dues or agency fees to government unions, and these protections should be codified in state law.
The current statute reads, “an employee may be required to pay to the organization that is the bargaining agent for the employee a service fee that represents the employee’s pro rata share of those expenditures that are germane to the organization’s representational activities.” This begs the question: Are lawmakers actively working to conceal the rights of public employees under Janus?
These devious tactics are not new or unique to the state of Maine. Within two weeks of the Janus decision, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York signed an executive order to prevent public entities from sharing public employees’ contact information with outside groups. In essence, he did not want outside groups to inform public-sector employees of their rights to opt out of their union. A bill with similar intent passed with legislative approval in Maine and was signed by Governor Mills on June 20.
LD 1451 mandates that public employers provide a collective bargaining agent with the name, job title, workplace location, home address, work telephone number, personal telephone number, work email address, personal email address and date of hire of new employees. In addition, this information cannot be disclosed to the public and cannot be obtained through a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request. In summation, this new legislation allows unions to bombard public employees with information about joining their union and prevents outside organizations from informing those same employees of their constitutional rights under Janus.
In addition to providing this information to unions, public employers are going to be required to provide a meeting space for an employee and collective bargaining agent to meet on the employer’s premises for at least 30 minutes, and permits bargaining agent to use the employer’s email system to communicate with employees. Public employees can only opt out of receiving communications from a collective bargaining agent or stop allow them from having further access to their information after the initial meeting and disclosure of private information is made.
In summation, public-sector unions will stop at nothing to continue suppressing public employees’ right to opt out of union membership and stop subsidizing the organization. The My Pay My Say Maine website and campaign will assist in the endeavor of educating public employees about their rights under Janus.
Regardless of one’s position of union membership, it is reproachable to prevent individuals from learning about First Amendment protections in the workplace. These attempts to suppress information only serve the interests of unions, not the workers they are supposed to represent.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Janus v. the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The Janus V. AFSCME decision is one of the biggest rulings in favor of the First Amendment in recent history. The ruling defends public workers from compelled speech in support of unions through the deduction of dues and fees from workers’ paychecks.
Prior to Janus, employees who did not wish to join a union were compelled by states and collective bargaining law to pay the union “agency fees.” Agency fees were long seen as a means for workers to compensate unions for their collective bargaining efforts—regardless of whether or not the worker wanted the organization to bargain on their behalf.
Unions had long fought to keep agency fees, often referring to tem as “fair share fees,” and contending that they are necessary to prevent “free riders”—a term for nonmembers that benefit from collective bargaining but don’t pay union dues. Hence why, during arguments before the high court, the union’s defense was that agency fees were not compelled speech and were instead fees for services from which nonmembers benefitted.
The Supreme Court did not agree with organized labor’s characterization of agency fees as non-political speech. In fact, when writing for the majority, Justice Alito explained that union speech is political speech because “it covers critically important and public matters such as the State’s budget crisis, taxes, and collective bargaining issues related to education, child welfare, healthcare, and minority rights.” Thus, Justice Alito dismantled AFSCME’s argument that agency fees are not associated with political speech.
The Janus decision makes clear that the deduction of agency fees from workers’ paychecks violates the First Amendment. In fact, the decision goes one step further by stating that, in order for a union to deduct fees or dues of any sort from a union’s paycheck, the public worker must give the organization affirmative consent.
In the year since the monumental Janus decision, many public sector employees have stopped paying agency fees. Union reports from 2018 show that AFSCME lost 98 percent of its agency fee payers after the Janus decision, while the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lost 94 percent.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Mark Janus last June has freed hundreds of thousands of public sector employees from unwanted agency fees. However, the decision has not completely freed workers from union control.
Currently, many states have laws on the books that make government unions “exclusive representatives” of employees within a workplace. Such laws create a representational monopoly where only one union or organization is permitted to negotiate on behalf of the employees within the bargaining unit. In other words, individuals in a unionized workplace who are not members of the union are not allowed to negotiate on their own behalf. This is likely the next step for workplace freedom after Janus; workers who are not members of the union should be permitted to negotiate with their employer separate from the union.
One year after Janus, progress is being made towards allowing employees to work under the conditions they choose. However, much work is still needed to ensure employees are not being forced to associate with entities with which they do not wish to associate. Nevertheless, there are still many public employees who are unaware of what their rights are in the workplace under Janus.
Three employees of Kent State University on Monday, April 29 filed suit against the University’s Board of Trustees and the Association of Federal, State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 8 because of the union’s refusal to recognize their resignation of membership.
In August 2018, Annamarie Hannay, Adda Gape and John Kohl, custodians for student residence halls at Kent State, resigned from their union expecting the automatic deduction of dues from their paychecks to cease.
The union refused to honor their resignation, maintaining that the plaintiffs could only resign within the union’s arbitrary opt-out window. The university has continued to deduct dues from the plaintiffs, who each pay almost $600 to AFSCME each year against their wishes.
The case filed on Monday by the Buckeye Institute and Liberty Justice Center seeks to reaffirm the First Amendment rights of public employees as established in the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME last June. Unions engage in political speech, and as dues money is fungible, workers are compelled to support their union’s political speech whether or not they agree with it.
In Janus, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that unions may not withhold dues or fees from employees’ paychecks without their affirmative consent, including agency fees. This should mean that any permission given to deduct dues before June 27, 2018 should be null and void because any affirmation would have been made before members’ were aware of their newly-recognized right to freely associate.
Kent State University’s refusal to acknowledge the plaintiffs’ request amounts to an unconstitutional assault on the free choice of public workers.
“I sent in my resignation to the union and Kent State in August 2018. Since then, not only has my resignation been denied, but I’ve also received confusing and contradictory messages from the union about when I could finally stop paying them money from every paycheck.”
Annamarie Hannay, Kent State University Employee and plaintiff
Per Janus, not only should public employees be allowed to resign from their union if they wish, they should not be forced to pay any dues to the union. One could conclude logically that given the freedom of workers to refuse to pay dues, they should also be allowed to forgo union representation if they wish. On the second page of the Janusdecision, Justice Samuel Alito expressed skepticism of exclusive representation:
“Designating a union as the employees’ exclusive representative substantially restricts the rights of individual employees. Among other things, this designation means that individual employees may not be represented by any agent other than the designated union…”
This is the crux of another pending case relating to the First Amendment rights of public workers, Uradnik v. Inter Faculty Organization (IFO).
Uradnik will be argued in front of the U.S. District Court in Minnesota after the Supreme Court refused a request by the Buckeye Institute to hear it immediately. Kathy Uradnik, a professor of political science at St. Cloud University, is challenging her union — the Inter Faculty Organization (IFO) — and its rules that bar non-union faculty from serving on any faculty committee or even on the Faculty Senate. This scheme is currently written into the St. Cloud University faculty contract.
Ms. Uradnik is arguing that her First Amendment rights are being restricted because she is compelled to be represented by a union of which she has declined to join, and contends the current contract relegates her to second-class status among her colleagues because of her decision. A ruling in her favor could allow her and the University to negotiate wages and benefits independent of the union. This ruling would have implications for other public employees in Minnesota, as the IFO organizes multiple university faculty associations.
Of course, a union should not be forced to represent any worker that does not join its ranks, either. The principle applies both ways. Why should the union be forced to represent non-members? Would that be fair to those who gave their clear consent to become members and pay dues?
As these and other cases concerning the implications of Janus and the rights of public workers progress through the courts, expect to see these aspects of the First Amendment thoroughly explored. Between questions of opt-out windows, exclusive representation and the meaning of “affirmative consent” in determining membership, there is much to be answered as the legal relationship between public workers and unions continues to evolve.
Are you a public employee? Public sector labor unions in Maine have been granted access to your personal information, regardless of whether you’re a member of the union. They’ve been granted exclusive access to this information under LD 1451, a bill sponsored by Rep. William Pluecker and signed into law by Governor Janet Mills on June 20 that gives this information to unions without giving you an opportunity to opt out of the disclosure.
Make no mistake, LD 1451 was introduced in response to the Supreme Court’s decision inJanus v. AFSCME that struck down “fair share” or agency fees and gave public employees a choice whether to financially support a union.
Under LD 1451, unions get access to all names, home addresses, telephone numbers, personal email addresses and birth dates of municipal, state, judicial and University of Maine system employees. This information will be disseminated regardless of whether a worker chooses to join a union. There is no mechanism in the law for a public employee to opt out of the union having access to their personal information; a public employee could not prevent their employer from disclosing this information to the union under the bill. The only opt-out permitted under the law comes after an initial disclosure of private information to a union.
The measure also requires employers to give public-sector labor unions a space to meet with employees, gives unions the right to meet with new employees for a minimum of 30 minutes during work hours and the right to use the employer’s email system to communicate with employees.
Giving unions exclusive access to employees’ information while excluding it from outside organizations is a purely political move that undermines the First Amendment rights of public employees. In response to Janus, a number of organizations have been created to inform public employees of their rights under the decision, including My Pay My Say and Workers Choose. The passage of LD 1451 prevents outside organizations from easily making contact with public employees to educate them about their constitutional rights to opt out of paying dues and fees under Janus.
Instead of giving employees a choice, LD 1451 helps unions establish a monopoly over public employees’ personal information, regardless of whether a public employee wants this information to be accessible to a union. This begs the question: Why should the state allow public-sector unions to have exclusive access to public employees’ private information? The answer is simple: Public-sector unions do not want public employees to know they have a choice. They don’t want workers to learn how to opt-out of paying dues, or that they can no longer be forced to compensate unions under the Janus decision.
This tactic is far from being new. Within two weeks of the Janus ruling, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York signed an executive order to prevent public entities from sharing public employees’ contact information with education groups. In essence, Gov. Cuomo did not want efforts like My Pay My Say or Workers Choose to reach public employees in his state. LD 1451 has the same effect in Maine.
Despite the Janus ruling, Maine lawmakers in the most recent legislative session neglected to remove provisions from Title 26 that require public employees in Maine to pay agency fees. Maine law is currently in violation of federal labor law, and lawmakers should immediately move to strike agency fees from Maine statute in the Second Session of the 129th Legislature.
To be clear, LD 1451 is not pro-worker; it totally disregards the wishes of public employees. This bill only serves the interests of labor unions who fear public employees will exercise their newfound constitutional rights under Janus.
At its core, LD 1451 is an attempt to work around the Janus ruling by giving public employees’ contact information to unions without employees’ consent, and withholding the same information from other groups that have an interest in informing employees of their Janus rights.
I am an associate professor at the University of Maine at Machias, where I have taught for 34 years. Until recently, I very proudly served as grievance officer for the Machias chapter of my union: the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine. I enjoyed serving AFUM and colleagues in that capacity.
However, I have since opted out of membership in my union because I could not get out of being associated with its state and national affiliates. I have ultimately had to make the difficult decision to sue for the right to speak for myself even now that I am no longer a member of the union. My first day in U.S. District Court is Wednesday in Portland.


text:
Maze Theory has announced a multi-platform gaming expansion for Doctor Who, starting early next year with a game for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC, along with a “horror/sci-fi” mobile phone takeover game. The mobile game is being developed in partnership with Kaigan Games, which has developed “found phone” horror games‘SIMULACRA’ and ‘Sara is Missing’.
The two new games will complete a ‘trilogy of experiences’ which started with “Doctor Who: The Edge of Time” VR game, which was released in November 2019.
Fans can expect new adventures, new game mechanics, intriguing subplots and iconic features such as the TARDIS, terrifying Weeping Angels, imposing Daleks and – of course – the chance to collude with the Doctor herself.
Current details are scarce, but for those of us in the US, we can rest assured that these games WILL be available worldwide!!
It will 100% be available in the US. Will be worldwide.
— MazeTheory (@Maze_Theory) May 11, 2020


text:
Yesterday I shared my postpartum depression story and today I want to talk about the steps I’ve taken to treat postpartum depression naturally. I hope anything I share about this sensitive topic of postpartum depression can offer encouragement to any mother that may be facing it. Postpartum depression is a topic that doesn’t get discussed enough but the truth is there should be no shame in this. Raising children is a beautiful, messy process and sometimes that process includes PPD.
When I had accepted the fact that I would most likely experience postpartum depression a second time, I began to gather tools that I could use and do research on how to treat postpartum depression naturally. Treating postpartum depression and anxiety with nutrition was a battle I was prepared to fight. Here are the steps I’ve taken to help treat postpartum depression naturally.
I shared my experience with postpartum depression in this post, reading it may help you understand how I came to the place to attempt to treat postpartum depression naturally.
Taking Action to Treat Postpartum Depression Naturally
It is said that PPD is more likely to occur if you’ve already experienced it with a previous birth. Because of that, I had been open with my midwife in the early stages of my pregnancy and remained open with her when I began to experience prenatal depression.
She explained some things that could cause postpartum depression and took action by testing my vitamin B-12 and vitamin D levels, which both came back low. I began to take 5,000 UI of vitamin D3 daily and receive a weekly B-12 injection for 8 weeks then continued supplementing with B-12 capsules afterwards.
Folate versus Folic Acid
During that time, my midwife encouraged me to find a prenatal that contained folate instead of folic acid, explaining to me that folate is better absorbed by the body than folic acid. The vitamin I had been taking did not use MethylFolate so I tried to work with my insurance to receive a prescription to EnBrace HR, a folate therapy vitamin for depression. My insurance wouldn’t cover the prescription and it was far out of our budget, so I decided to switch to Honest Prenatal vitamins which contains MethylFolate. Research shows there may be a relationship between folate and postpartum depression.
Dennis’ birth came and after two weeks the depression hit. This time around, I was all too familiar with the feeling of it. I prayed for the peace that only Jesus provides, confided in my husband and close friends, and reached out to my midwife for help. I also began to take a folate supplement in addition to my prenatal, to attempt to mimic the benefits of EnBrace HR.
Testing Hormone Levels
At my six week postpartum appointment, because I was experiencing postpartum depression, my midwife tested my thyroid panel. The results revealed that I was low in Free T3. Low Free T3 (FT3) doesn’t indicate a problem with the thyroid, but a problem with the gut that isn’t properly converting T3 into Free T3. Stress also plays a role in our bodies ability to convert Free T3. My midwife recommended that I go on a non-inflammatory and gut supportive diet for 3-6 months, to help my hormones get to where they needed to be.
The Important of Nutrition and Gut Health
I decided to keep my diet simple by doing the Whole 30, since I previously had a good experience with it and knew how to navigate it. I’ve completely cut out dairy, grains, sugar, alcohol, and artificial preservatives from my diet. After two months of eating to support my gut and feeling emotionally stable, I went out to eat and ordered a hamburger fried without any oil. It seemed a bit greasier than usual and that night my gut was not happy. Three days later, I woke up to the familiar emotions of postpartum depression, exactly like that first morning when Dennis was two weeks old. That only helped me confirm the connection between the brain, the gut, and nutrition.
It’s been three months since I’ve cut out potentially inflammatory foods from my diet and I’ve been amazed that certain tasks actually feel possible again. I am also being sure to slow down when I wake up knowing that day is going to be a challenge emotionally in order to reduce stress, since stress could have an impact on gut health.
What You Can Do
First, be patient with yourself in this season and don’t push yourself too hard. Instead of worrying about having the house in perfect order or your pre-pregnancy body back, spend time loving on your precious baby. Stress is a deal breaker when it comes to allowing our bodies time to heal.
Nourish Your Body with Real Food
The easiest thing you can do to treat postpartum depression naturally is to eat nourishing, wholesome foods and avoid processed, refined foods that cause inflammation and wreck havoc on your gut. I know this can be hard, eating out is just so easy, but there are healthy alternatives. Keep meals simple by cooking a protein, some roasted veggies, and a salad. Also make an effort to avoid processed foods, artificial preservatives, and refined grains and sugars. Two resources I recommend to encourage you to change your diet is the book It Starts with Food and Kristin Marr’s site, Live Simply.
Test Hormone Levels and Deficiencies
The next best thing is to test for deficiencies and have your thyroid tested. I found Everly Well kits on Amazon that I plan to use when I need to retest my thyroid. They have a thyroid test and a vitamin D + inflammation test.
Help your Body Heal
Lastly, you can support your body as it takes time to heal and replenish after birth by supplementing with high quality vitamins and minerals.
Supplements + Vitamins for Postpartum Depression
Please remember, I am not a medical professional and can only share my experience and what has worked for me. With that said, here are the supplements that I’ve mentioned in this post that I have been taking regularly to treat postpartum depression naturally. I chose these specific supplements based on the quality of the brand, the absence of fillers, and the price I needed to fit my budget.
During pregnancy and afterwards I have been taking these supplements:
After birth, based on my research, I added these to my daily supplements:
- Jarrow Formulas Folate
- Source Naturals Magnesium Malate
- Viva Naturals Omega-3 Fish Oil Supplement
- Garden of Life Probiotic (I’ve switched between the Women’s supplement and the Mood supplement)
- I also try take this Digestive Enzyme before each meal, when I can remember
Treating Postpartum Depression and Anxiety Naturally
Being able to treat postpartum depression naturally with the help of midwives that truly care about my wellbeing has made such a difference in my ability to function day-to-day. It wasn’t always this way, as I have been through the dirty muck of postpartum depression and anxiety with no idea what was going on. I have lived those days where my brain felt too compressed to be able to think clearly. There were days where the best I could do was rely on television for my children in order to lie down and rest my head.
This post was to share with you what I wish I knew then about the connection between the brain, the gut, and nutrition and how eating carefully and supplementing appropriately can make a difference. Those days may not be completely over, and there is grace for that, but today I am thankful for the impact real food has had on my experience.
Please keep in mind that each person is different. Not one approach will work for everyone. Please remember you are valuable, you are loved, and this depression does not define who you are as a person or a mother. There is a crisis hotline to call in times of trouble. It is free and available 24/7 at 1-800-274-8255.
Above all else, the ultimate healer is Jesus, who is able to heal not only in this world but willingly heals our souls for eternity. I am thankful to be reminded that whatever ails me in this present life is not permanent and that there is hope for the future that is to come. Throughout all of the despair of postpartum depression, there is always hope, even when things seem hopeless.
If you have any questions or would just like to share your story, I’m here to listen. Please reach out to me via the comments, Instagram, or email me at firstname.lastname@example.org. Postpartum depression does not need to be hid in the shadows and there is no reason to be ashamed.


In celebration of the Christmas season, Brigham Young University-Idaho’s 2018 performance of “A BYU-Idaho Christmas” will be broadcast across the state on Idaho Public Television (IdahoPTV).
A 60-minute edited version of the concert will air on both Friday, December 13, at 9:00 p.m. MST and Tuesday, December 24, at 8:00 p.m. MST.
The 2018 concert features special guest Brian Stokes Mitchell along with the BYU-Idaho Symphony Orchestra, Concert Choir, Vocal Union, Men’s and Women’s Choirs, and dancers from the College of Performing and Visual Arts.
“This is the fourth year BYU-Idaho has worked with IdahoPTV to share ‘A BYU-Idaho Christmas’ with people across the state. As more community members make attending this concert an annual tradition, we hope others throughout the state are able to feel the spirit of Christmas as they watch these performances on Idaho public television,” said BYU-Idaho Media Relations Manager Brett Crandall.
Brian Stokes Mitchell is a Broadway actor and singer, a two-time Tony winner and was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2016.


text:
Forest Green Glass Beads Vase Filler LARGE 46 oz BULK Container
Closeout Final Sale
Get vase fillers for your DIY wedding or home decor centerpieces like this forest green glass bead vase filler. These green glass beads mixed with other colors are great for table scatter and submersible flower arrangements for extra beauty!
- 46 oz per Container (Container is 4" Wide x 6" Tall)