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College Policies I Social Media Use Policy
Social media includes a variety of online tools and services that allow users to publish content and interact with their audiences. Currently, the most common social networks or websites within this rapidly changing media space include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and blogs. Through its institutional social media presence, the College communicates directly with and receives instant feedback from online communities that include students, faculty, staff, alumni, prospective students, families, and friends.
Faculty and professional staff, including supervisory employees, are expected to use good judgment if interacting with students or colleagues via social networking websites, and if posting information about the College or their employment on such sites or blogs. Faculty or staff members who manage social media as representatives of Washington College are responsible for following all normal expectations for professional behavior as representatives of the College.
If your social media presence is representing your Washington College department, group, organization or activity, you are also representing your own professional reputation and the College. Even on your personal site, if you indicate that you are a Washington College faculty or staff member, visitors to the site may perceive that you are speaking for your department or the College. By invoking your professional affiliation with Washington College, it may be hard to contend otherwise if you are not explicit about that fact. With this in mind, employees must not post messages on behalf of Washington College unless doing so is within the scope of their job duties.
The "Appropriate Use Guidelines" listed below provides suggestions on how to use social media in ways that can prevent you from inadvertently affecting your professional reputation or how the College is perceived.
- Be aware of liability. You are legally liable for what you post on your own site and on the sites of others. Individual bloggers have been held liable for commentary deemed to be proprietary, copyrighted, defamatory, libelous or obscene (as defined by the courts). Employers are increasingly conducting Web searches on job candidates before extending offers. Be sure that what you post today will not come back to haunt you.
- Be transparent about your role at Washington College. If you participate in or maintain a social media site on behalf of the college, clearly state your role and goals. Strive for accuracy and correct errors quickly. If you have questions about whether it is appropriate to write about certain material, ask your supervisor first.
- Be Respectful. Be professional and respectful always. Anything you post on a social media site in your role as a Washington College faculty or staff member reflects on you and the College. As such, be careful with your comments and avoid engaging in non-academic arguments or extensive non-academic debates with critics. If a negative post or comment is found online about Washington College or yourself, do not counter with another negative post. Instead, publicly offer to remedy the situation through positive action. Contact your supervisor for assistance with this issue.
- Maintain Confidentiality. Do not post confidential or proprietary information about Washington College, its students, its alumni, your fellow employees or yourself. Use good ethical judgment and follow all local, state and federal regulations, such as FERPA and HIPPA and college policies including the Washington College Confidentiality Agreement.
- Refrain from posting derogatory remarks. Employees are to refrain from posting derogatory, false, inflammatory or harassing comments about students, colleagues or former colleagues, alumni, donors, and trustees. The Acceptable Use Policy for Information Technology Resources prohibits using Washington College's computing resources to "send transmissions in a threatening or harassing manner." Employees must adhere to all rules and requirements outlined in the Acceptable Use Policy.
- Consider your audiences. Social media often span traditional boundaries between professional and personal relationships. Use privacy settings to restrict personal information on otherwise public sites. Choose profile photos and avatars carefully. Be thoughtful about the type of photos you upload.
- Protect your identity. Don't provide personal information about yourself or others that scam artists and identity thieves might steal. This includes telephone numbers, mailing addresses, email addresses and copies of personal documents.
- Protect others' privacy. Current and prospective students cannot be required, requested, suggested or compelled to engage with faculty, staff or other College representatives on their personal electronic accounts. Asking a student to "friend you" on Facebook, suggesting that your student worker provide you access to his/her personal email account, requiring your class members to follow you in Instagram, or requiring student athletes to show you their Snapchat postings are examples of practices that violate state law and the College's social media policy. Disciplining or retaliating against a student or prospective student (applicant) for not engaging with faculty, staff or other College representatives via social media also violates state law and the College's social media policy.
- Respect college time and property. The Acceptable Use Policy for IT Resources states, "Academic or administrative use of Washington College IT Resources always takes precedence over recreational and non-institutional use." The college computers and your work time are to be used for college-related educational and business purposes. It's appropriate to post at work if your comments are directly related to accomplishing work goals, such as seeking sources for information or working with others to resolve a problem. Limited personal use of computing resources is acceptable as long as it doesn't violate any policies, but for the most part, you must maintain your personal social media sites on your own time. Users should have no expectation of privacy when using College equipment or networks.
- Think before you post. Whether it's your personal or a Washington College social networking site, remember that nothing is truly private in social media. Think about your comments, photos or other content before posting. Remember that anything you share, even within closed networks, becomes publicly available information. Your content can be stored and shared globally instantly. If it's not something that you would share with the mainstream media, don't post it on your site.
Departments may establish additional guidelines specific to their department, which must be reviewed in advance with the Director of Human Resources. Supervisors are encouraged to discuss any potential violations of this policy with the Director of Human Resources. Violation of this policy may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination.


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Serving at NSF panels are fun. They are also very useful to understand the proposal review dynamics. NSF funding rates are around 10% for computer science and engineering research proposals, so understanding the dynamics of the panel is useful for applying NSF to secure some funding.
How do you get invited as a panelist?You get invited to serve at an NSF panel by the program director of that panel. (Program directors are researchers generally recruited from the academia to serve at NSF for a couple years to run panels and help make funding decisions.)
If you have been around and have successfully secured NSF funding, you will get panel invitations. They will have your name and contact you. But, if you are new, don't just wait. You can email program managers at NSF at your topic, and ask them to consider inviting you as a panelist, because you will need the experience. This doesn't always work, but it helps. I found this from NSF about volunteering as a reviewer at a panel.
Preparation for a panel: Reading, reading, reading, writing reviewsAs a panelist, you will be assigned around 8 proposals to review in 3 weeks. Each proposal body consists of 15 pages. So that means a lot of reading in the next couple weeks. And it can get boring, if you just read idly. You should try to read actively, discuss with the proposal, and write notes as you read the proposal that will help you prepare your review.
Tips on reading papers also apply somewhat to reading proposals. But proposals have their peculiarities. Proposals need to have nicely motivated vision and clearly defined research problems, but they don't need to have all the solutions worked up. Instead of full-fledged solutions, the proposals provide draft solution approaches and competitive advantage insights to attack these research questions.
Pitching a successful proposal is an art. I provide some tips at the end of this post.
NSF panel structureYou travel to NSF headquarters at Washington DC a day before the panel. (NSF pays for your travel and reimburses your stay.) Panels are generally for one and a half day. The first day all the proposals get discussed. (Actually some proposals that don't receive any "Very Good" ratings can be triaged/skipped; for those only the 3 reviewer reports are sent back without a panel discussion summary.) The second day (i.e., the half day) is for preparing and reviewing the panel discussion summaries of proposals discussed in the first day.
In the panel, everybody is smart and knowledgeable in their fields. Of course some are smarter and more knowledgeable, and it is a treat to listen them discuss proposals. If the panel is in your narrow field of expertise, it is gonna be a geek-fest for you. You will geek out and have a lot of fun. If the panel is in a field you are familiar but is not in your specialized field of expertise, it is still a lot of fun as you get to learn new things.
At the end of first day proposals are sorted into 4 categories: HC (High Competitive), C (Competitive), LC (Low Competitive), NC (Not Competitive). HC proposals get funded. Usually only 1-2 proposals out of around 20+ proposals make it to HC. The C proposals need to get compared and ranked, this generally happens the morning of second day. Only the top 1-2 proposals in C would get funding. LC and NC proposals do not need to get sorted.
The panel does not make the final funding decision; it only provides feedback to NSF to make the final funding decisions. NSF is fairly transparent and mostly goes with panel recommendations. If a proposal is not funded, the proposers still get detailed proposal reviews with the rationale of the panel review. In contrast, some other funding agencies such as DARPA, DOE may not even provide you with reviews/evalutions of your proposal.
NSF panels are tiring. You sit for one a half day and listen and discuss. And in the evening of the first day, you often have homework (hotelwork?) to read some extra proposals to help out in comparing/ranking proposals. Instead of trying to multitask during the panel (by answering your email, or reading other stuff), it is much better to just participate in the discussion, and listen to the discussion of other proposals, even the ones you have not reviewed. After traveling all that distance to NSF headquarters, you should try to savor the panel as much as possible.
Panel discussions, interesting panel dynamicsPanelists can make mistakes and may have biases. Common mistakes include the following:
- Panelists may play it safe and prefer incremental proposals over novel but risky proposals. Program managers sometimes warn about this bias, and try to promote high-risk/high-reward proposals.
- Sometimes panelists may read too much into a proposal. They may like to write/complete the proposal in their heads, and give more credit than deserved to the proposal.
- Panelists may be overly conformist, resulting in groupthink.
- There can be some good arguer, a charismatic person that dominates over the other panelists.
Lessons for pitching the perfect proposal to the panelMake sure your proposal has a novel research component and intellectual merit. Your proposed project should "advance knowledge and understanding within its own field" and "explore creative, original, or potentially transformative concepts". You need to get at least one panelist excited for you. So stand for something.
Be prepared to justify/support what you stand for. You can fool some panelists some of the time, but you can't fool all of the panelists all of the time. Don't make promises you can't deliver. Show preliminary results from your work. It is actually better to write the proposal after you write an initial interesting (workshop?) paper on the topic.
Write clearly and communicate clearly. Remember, the panelists are overworked. They need to review 8 proposals over a short time. It gets boring. So make it easy for the reviewer. Don't make the reviewer do the work. Spell out the contributions and novelty clearly, put your contributions in the context of the literature on that topic. If you make the reviewer work, you will leave him angry and frustrated.
Don't forget to write about the proposal's broader impact including education and minority outreach. If you omit it, it will bite you back.
All being said, there is still a luck factor. An adversarial or cranky panelist may ruin your proposal's chances, or a panelist that loves your work may make your case and improve your chances. The acceptance rate is under 10%. So good luck!
Disclaimer: These are of course my subjective views/opinions as an academician that participated in NSF peer-review panels. My views/opinions do not bind NSF and may not reflect NSF's views/stance.

subset: commoncrawl


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Maine sex offender indicted on multiple charges involving 9 children
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) � A Prentiss Plantation man on Maine's sex offender registry has been indicted on 14 more charges.
Clinton police say 49-year-old Timothy Hayes was indicted last week on charges including gross sexual assault on a person younger than 12, violation of conditions of release, violation of the Sex Offender Registry Act, and multiple counts of prohibited contact with a minor.
Police tell WABI-TV (http://bit.ly/1oM0eXQ ) that the charges relate to alleged contact with nine children, some in so-called "safe zones," including playgrounds and athletic fields.
Hayes was indicted earlier this month for sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy.
Authorities say these latest charges are all related.
Hayes is being held and it was not clear if he had a lawyer.
Information from: WABI-TV, http://www.wabi.tv


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Brenner Children's pediatric emergency department has moved back to its original location. Learn more
In order to help protect patients, family members and health care workers from the spread of COVID-19, no visitors are allowed at any of Wake Forest Baptist Health's outpatient or inpatient facilities, except in certain situations.Learn moreMore COVID-19 Updates
Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects the body's white blood cells (WBCs).
Normally, WBCs help fight infection and protect the body against disease. But in leukemia, WBCs turn cancerous and multiply when they shouldn't, resulting in too many abnormal WBCs, which then interfere with the body's ability to work as it should.
In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), too many immature white blood cells (called myeloid blasts) are made. These leukemia cells are abnormal and cannot mature into normal white blood cells. Of kids who have leukemia, 20% have AML.
Thanks to advances in therapy and clinical trials, the outlook for kids with AML has improved. With treatment, most are cured.
The cause of AML is unknown, though doctors know that certain medical conditions can increase a child's risk of getting it. However, just because a child has a risk factor does not mean that he or she will get AML.
Risks include inherited genetic problems such as Down syndrome, neurofibromatosis type 1, Fanconi anemia, Noonan syndrome, and other inherited bone marrow failure syndromes (IBMFS). Also, non-inherited conditions such as preleukemia (also called myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS) and aplastic anemia can increase the risk of AML.
AML is also more common in kids who've been treated with chemotherapy or radiation. In fact, AML is the most common type of secondary cancer in children who have previously had cancer treatment.
A child with an identical twin who was diagnosed with leukemia before age 6 has a 20% to 25% chance of developing AML. Fraternal twins and other siblings of kids with leukemia have two to four times the average risk of developing it, too.
Certain environmental factors can predispose a child to leukemia. For example, exposure to radiation (such as X-rays) before birth may trigger the disease in a developing fetus.
AML is called "acute" because it tends to worsen quickly if it's not treated. Chronic blood cancers, like chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), tend to progress more slowly. However, the symptoms of all types of leukemia are generally the same and include:
Sometimes a child might have painless lumps that can be felt in the lymph nodes of the neck, underarm, or groin area. These lumps of leukemia cells (called chloromas) can develop anywhere in the body.
If a doctor suspects leukemia, a child may undergo tests that include:
Because it can progress so quickly, there is no staging system for AML. Doctors generally characterize the disease as newly diagnosed or in remission.
Treatment is divided into two phases. The goal of the first phase, called induction, is to kill as many cancer cells as possible and achieve remission (a state where there is no evidence of disease in the body). The second phase — called post-remission, consolidation, or continuation therapy — is designed to eliminate any undetectable leukemia cells to prevent the leukemia from coming back.
Phases I and II of treatment may include the following therapies alone or in combination:
Being told that a child has cancer can be terrifying, and the stress of cancer treatment can feel overwhelming for any family.
Although you might feel like it at times, you're not alone. To find support that might help you or your child, talk to your doctor or a hospital social worker. Many resources are available to help you get through this difficult time.
Reviewed by: Emi H. Caywood, MD
Date reviewed: June 2015
© 2019 Brenner | Site Policies & Statements
The information on this Website is for general informational purposes only and SHOULD NOT be relied upon as a substitute for sound professional medical advice, evaluation or care from your physician or other qualified healthcare provider. If you have a medical problem or a health-related question, consult your physician or call Health On-Call at 336-716-2255 or 1-800-446-2255.


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Around the world in five covers
We asked acclaimed artists from five continents to design a front cover for our anniversary issue. Here, they reveal what inspired them.
Craig and Karl
New York/London
"Twenty years are a great reason to celebrate, and this is what our illustration conveys. We want readers to feel joy and optimism when they see our design, and that's why we chose bold, punchy colors."
Christoph Niemann
"My favorite time at the beach is the evening, when it gets cooler. The best thing is the light. The sight of the low horizon, the sparkling reflections on the water and the bathers' silhouettes is wonderful."
Cape Town
"I wanted to capture the beauty of Cape Town and show that the home city of our MUTI agency and nature can co-exist peacefully. Travelling means exploring new things and constantly experiencing little surprises."
Cristóbal Schmal
Santiago de Chile
"The picture is a mixture of images from various travel stories I have illustrated for Lufthansa Magazin in the past. Now, I know my way around geography! To travel means to explore the unknown and discover new aspects of oneself."
Wakana Yamazaki
"My picture shows a phoenix, a bird that is considered very auspicious in Asia, as well as a collection of Japanese characters who have set off in a joyful group to celebrate Lufthansa Magazin's 20th birthday."


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Indicative Rate * AU$28.00 to AU$99.00
The most central caravan park on the Capricorn Coast.
Relax and enjoy the natural beauty, close to golden tropical beaches, local shops and a range of eateries. Poinciana Tourist Park features spacious, shady sites set amidst tropical gardens, a saltwater pool, large covered barbecue area, self-contained cabins and modern amenities.
Poinciana Tourist Park is just 200 metres from beautiful Cooee Bay beach and the Coral Sea. A range of shops, good fishing, a local bus service and lots of tourist activities are all close by.
Dogs are welcome at Poinciana Tourist Park, so your canine companion can stay by your side. Conditions do apply, so please talk to them at the beginning of your stay for details.
They invite you to enjoy all that Yeppoon's friendliest park has to offer. Poinciana is ideal for your next holiday escape.
The en suite cabin offers a kitchenette, en suite, double bed and bunks.
The budget cabin has one double bed, one set of bunks and a kitchenette. There is no en suite. The rates shown are for two people.
Cabins, powered and unpowered sites are available. They have large grass sites and cement slabs available.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


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|Gd1w (talk)
|Date Created:
|Almost Complete (Needs fluff)
|Please feel free to edit constructively!
|Ice Fiend
|Large Elemental (Cold, Extraplanar)
|Hit Dice:
|10d8+100 (153 hp)
|50 ft.
|Armor Class:
|15 (-1 size, +5 natural, +1 Dex), touch 10, flat-footed 15
|Base Attack/Grapple:
|Claw +14 Melee (1d8+7) or Spike +14 Ranged (1d4+7)
|Full Attack:
|2 Claws +14 Melee (1d8+7) or Spike +14 Ranged (1d4+7)
|10 ft./10 ft.
|Special Attacks:
|Icy core, sentient spikes
|Special Qualities:
|DR 5/bludgeoning, icy core, SR 20, vulnerability to fire/bludgeoning
|Fort +17, Ref +4, Will +7
|Str 24, Dex 12, Con 30, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 14
|Hide +10, Listen +20, Move Silently +14, Spot +20
|Alertness, Iron Will, Skill Focus (Listen), Skill Focus (Spot)
|Elemental Demiplane of Cold
|Challenge Rating:
|Chaotic Evil
|11-18 HD (Large), 19-26 HD (Huge), 27-34 HD (Huge)
|Level Adjustment:
A semi-humanoid shape twice the height of a man, laden with vicious looking spikes on it's back, and made entirely of ice appears before you as you begin to see your breath become visible.
Ice fiends are elementals from the elemental demiplane of cold who have an inherent hatred for all things warm. Their sole desire upon finding something that is not like itself is to change it so that it is more like itself. Unfortunately, this change is almost always lethal to living subjects and can cause environments to become inhospitable to most forms of life.
A typical ice fiend stands 10 feet tall and weighs 800 pounds. Ice fiends are entirely composed of a stronger than normal form of ice which is more opaque than normal and somewhat less reflective.
Ice fiends speak a more direct dialect of Aquan (the words are much more specific and get at concepts quickly but are not as elaborate and inventive).
Combat Edit
Icy Core (Ex): If the ice fiend suffers damage from a non-fire based source it releases some cold energy into a 5 foot radius around itself and deals 1d6 points of cold damage to anything in that area. Any creature that takes damage from this cold effect must make a Fortitude save or be slowed for 1d4 rounds.
Sentient Spikes (Ex and Su): The ice fiend carries 8 sentient spikes on its back which are made of the same material that it is composed of. These spikes cannot move naturally but have a limited ability to teleport. Though normally dormant, the ice fiend may awaken the spikes for combat so that they may act independently or provide him with a ranged attack (range increment 100 feet). If acting independently, a spike may teleport above any target up to 100 feet away and fall upon them dealing 2d6 piercing damage (Reflex half). A spike may only use this ability once per minute. Whether the spike hits or misses, it thereafter transmutes into a 5 foot cube of ice (weighing 200 pounds) which may teleport up to 5 feet in each round thereafter. One round after transmutation, the spike deals 1d6 cold damage to anything within 5 feet of itself and creatures affected by this damage must make a Fortitude save or be slowed for 1d4 rounds. Creatures who touch the spike in this form or attack it with non-fire based natural weapons must also take cold damage and make a Fortitude save against the slow effect. If a spike would take damage from a non-fire source it also radiates cold as mentioned above to anything within 5 feet of itself. If a spike would be destroyed while in cube form through non-fire based means, everything within close range (25 feet + 5 feet/2 HD of the ice fiend) is dealt 2d6 points of piercing damage (Reflex half). Furthermore, the loss of a spike is harmful to the ice fiend and causes it to take 1d4 points of damage per HD (this damage cannot be healed until it regrows the lost spike) and a -2 on all rolls thereafter. Lost spikes regrow after 24 hours and upon regrowth the penalties to constitution and rolls incurred are removed. Each spike has 25% of the base hp of the ice fiend and shares its damage reduction, natural armor, spell resistance, and vulnerability to fire/bludgeoning.
These spikes generate a climate changing effect over a 2 mile radius even while dormant that lowers the temperature of the surrounding area by 4 degrees Fahrenheit for every HD of the ice fiend (minimum temperature is -200 degrees Fahrenheit). This effect causes the area within 30 feet of itself to be considered as difficult terrain for creatures without the cold subtype or a resistance to cold of at least 10.
Vulnerability to Fire/Bludgeoning (Ex): The ice fiend takes double damage from fire effects and bludgeoning damage (rather than 50% more as a result of it's cold subtype) and a -5 penalty to saving throws against such effects. Furthermore, it's damage reduction is ineffective against weapons somehow enhanced with a fire effect or that deal bludgeoning damage and it's spell resistance is ineffective against fire spells.
NOTES: Knowledge (The Planes) helps identify these creatures, higher HD deal more damage with cold effects and other parts of the sentient spikes ability but take an extra point of constitution penalty for each advancement category. At Huge HD, the spikes are even capable of casting greater dispel magic (except that it can dispel almost anything, is uncapped in caster level bonus, cannot affect spells with the fire descriptor, and is based on the HD of the ice fiend in place of caster level). At Huge size also consider having half the cold damage go through resistance and immunity and the spikes treated as dealing piercing damage that strikes as a spell and thus ignores DR.
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Monsters


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Value-Added Data Recast the U.S.–China Trade Deficit
Vol. 8, No. 5, July 2013
China accounts for a larger share of the overall United States trade deficit than any other country, an imbalance that has gained increasing prominence. The deficit has surged in recent years, growing by more than $200 billion since 2000 and amounting to almost 2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), up from about 0.5 percent of GDP in 2000.
Although some view this widening gap as symptomatic of a large and growing interdependence between the two countries, these data paint an incomplete picture and don't fully take into account that production networks span multiple countries. In the past, most goods were manufactured from start to finish within a country's borders. Today, the production of a single good, such as a mobile phone or computer, typically occurs across several countries, with each specializing in a particular phase or component of the final product.
When trade flows are recorded, they reflect the value of goods at each border crossing, as noted in customs reports. The full value of a good is assigned to the last link in the production chain, even if the contribution of that last country is minimal. Accounting for trade in this manner fails to identify the contribution of different countries in the intermediate production of the final good and is not representative of actual interdependence.
China, often dubbed the "factory of the world," is a key link in international production chains. Although its participation is mostly toward the final stages of production, its contribution to the final value of a product is often small. Conventional trade statistics attribute all the value to China, even though the product embodies inputs from around the world. As a result, Chinese exports are inflated, impacting the size of bilateral trade balances.
Rather than assign the full value of a good to the last country from which it was shipped, trade data should ideally also track the value and source of each production step and allocate the share of value accordingly. That is, instead of a "Made in China" label, a finished good assembled in China with inputs from different countries might bear a label saying, "Made 15 percent in Canada, 20 percent in Korea, 25 percent in Japan, 30 percent in the U.S. and 10 percent in China."
In practice, tracking every country's share in the value of each good would be next to impossible. However, using recently released data, economists have applied new methods of measuring each country's contribution to the value of final items. These methods involve combining available trade flow figures with value-added data and trade composition data.[1]
Defining Value Added
Value added refers to the amount by which the value of a good or service increases at a specific step in a production process. Inputs (computer chips and bare circuit boards) are converted into outputs (assembled circuit boards). These are then combined with other inputs (processor, an operating system, memory and a hard drive) to become a computer. The value of total (gross) output from every stage of production can be decomposed into two parts: the value of intermediate inputs and the value added during production. The value added at each step of production is computed by taking the gross value of the output and subtracting the value of all intermediate inputs. Equivalently, value added is defined as the value of output that compensates for the factors of production (such as labor and physical capital) that transform the intermediate inputs into output.
Data reveal that China engages in low value-added production, while the U.S. engages in high value-added activities. At the most aggregate level, the share of value added in gross output in China was 34 percent in 2005, compared with the U.S. at 53 percent.[2] Meanwhile, the average proportion for the rest of the world—Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries plus some non-OECD countries and excluding the U.S. and China—was 47 percent (Chart 1).[3] These numbers mean that for every dollar of gross output produced in China, only 34 cents is value created by Chinese factors of production, while each dollar of U.S. output attributes 53 cents of value to U.S. factors of production.
Trade Compositions
Another aspect of China's role in global production chains is explained by the composition of its trade. More than 75 percent of China's imports are intermediate goods, compared with 50 percent in the U.S. and an average of 60 percent for the rest of the world.[4] Final goods account for only about 25 percent of China's imports compared with 50 percent for the U.S. and an average of 40 percent for the rest of the world (Chart 2).
The composition of exports also varies across countries. While intermediate goods account for only 40 percent of China's exports, the share is much higher elsewhere, including in the U.S. where the average share is about 55 percent. Conversely, final goods account for 60 percent of China's total exports versus 45 percent for the U.S.
Looking at the direct trade flows between the U.S. and China reveals that intermediate goods account for 70 percent of U.S. exports to China. In the other direction, final goods account for 75 percent of Chinese exports to the U.S. China's sizeable imports of intermediate goods and exports of final goods suggest its role as an assembly hub of imported inputs into end products—it is typically at the end of the value chain in global production networks.
Understanding the Data
Combining value-added data with the trade composition figures paints an interesting picture. The U.S. engages in high value-added activities in early stages of production resulting in intermediate goods. Early stages of production of such high-tech items as computer central processing units often entail extensive use of resources on research and development and design. Production of these components requires a large share of highly skilled workers and sophisticated equipment, so the proportion of value added is high. These intermediate goods are then exported to countries such as China, where intermediate goods from various sources are combined and converted into final goods for export. However, the assembly process involves a small share of value added. The asymmetries between the U.S. and China in value-added shares and in trade composition have distinct implications for interpreting the interdependence between the two countries vis-à-vis trade statistics.
Measuring Value-Added Trade
To illustrate, suppose that computer components worth $350 are produced in Japan and exported to China, and a monitor assembly worth $100 is exported by the U.S. to China. Now, assume that China puts together and packages the monitor and other computer components into a final computer, which it exports to the U.S. for $500. Under conventional trade measures, customs data will record the transaction as a U.S. import from China valued at $500, even though most of the value was created in Japan. The contribution to the bilateral trade balance between the U.S. and China will be a deficit of $400 for the U.S.
However, not all the value of the computer should be attributed to China since it imported $450 worth of intermediate components to build the computer. Its value added in the computer was only $50, not $500. Using value-added trade measures, the transaction would be split to show trade from the U.S. perspective as an import of $350 from Japan and only $50 from China—a picture very different from the one represented in customs data. In fact, when measured in value-added terms, the contribution to the bilateral trade balance between the U.S. and China will be a $50 surplus for the U.S. (Chart 3).
This example, while illustrating the main idea behind measuring value-added trade, masks some important details and underscores the need for further analysis. For instance, the $350 in computer components produced in Japan may incorporate parts from Germany and Korea, which may also be made from inputs from other countries, including the U.S. and China.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the OECD provide estimates of value-added trade based on methodology proposed by economists Robert Johnson and Guillermo Noguera.[5] These data decompose the value of a final good in a given country into the individual values contributed by all other countries. Rather than allocating the total value of a good to the last link in the production chain, as is done in customs data, value-added trade estimates the contribution of each country in the production process to the overall value of the final good.
Reinterpreting the Trade Gap
When trade is expressed in value-added terms, the U.S. trade deficit with China is far less than it would be when measured in gross terms. In 2009, U.S. imports from China were $89 billion larger in gross terms than in value-added terms. On the other hand, U.S. exports to China were only $26 billion larger in gross terms than in value-added terms. Taken together, the U.S.–China trade deficit, computed as U.S. imports from China minus U.S. exports to China, is $63 billion larger using gross rather than value-added calculations.
Measuring trade in value-added terms lowers the deficit in 2009 by 33 percent, to $126 billion from $189 billion. These data also show that the U.S. is less trade dependent on China than conventionally thought. The U.S.–China trade deficit as a percentage of U.S. GDP falls to 0.9 percent from 1.4 percent in 2009 using value-added instead of gross trade (Chart 4). Put another way, since 2000, China's share in the overall U.S. trade deficit on average is more than 25 percent larger when measured in gross terms rather than value-added terms.
The difference between the two measures of U.S.–China trade has clearly widened since 2000, partly because the share of value added in gross output in China has declined by a larger amount than in the U.S. and most other countries.
The disconnect between bilateral gross and value-added trade deficits is not confined to U.S.–China trade. In fact, there are instances of bilateral U.S. trade deficits that are actually larger in value-added terms than in gross terms. This happens when U.S. exports to a country are overstated by a smaller margin than are U.S. imports from that country.[6]
Complementary Measure
Conventional measures of international trade fail to capture the impact of global supply chains; thus they paint an incomplete picture of bilateral interdependence when multiple countries are involved in the production of a final good. Value-added trade data provide a needed complementary measure to conventional compilations to aid in the understanding of bilateral interdependence, the underlying factors affecting it, and the business and policy implications.
The U.S. bilateral trade deficit with China is reduced by 33 percent when trade is recalculated on a value-added basis, meaning that the two countries are less trade dependent than commonly thought.
- This analysis focuses on 2009, the most recent year for which data are available for most measures of activity discussed.
- 2005 is the latest year for which value-added shares are available for a large set of countries.
- The non-OECD countries cited are those with data reported in the OECD input-output database: Brazil, China, Cyprus, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan and Thailand.
- Countries that make up the "rest of world" include OECD countries (excluding the United States) and the following non-OECD countries: Albania, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Croatia, Cyprus, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
- See the OECD–WTO Trade in Value Added (TiVA) database and "Accounting for Intermediates: Production Sharing and Trade in Value Added," by Robert C. Johnson and Guillermo Noguera, Journal of International Economics, vol. 86, no. 2, 2012, pp. 224–36.
- One case is the U.S.–Germany trade deficit. In 2009, the U.S. ran a bilateral gross trade deficit of $24 billion with Germany (0.17 percent of GDP). However, when measured in value-added terms, that deficit becomes $32 billion (0.23 percent of GDP).


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A la Tamil Nadu, a temple is coming up in Uttar Pradesh, dedicated to Mulayam Singh Yadav. A "Samajwadi Chalisa" - for the Samajwadi Party - is already out.
The temple could be ready by the time the Samajwadi Party completes a year in office in March 2013.
The state's information and public relations departments are in an overdrive, running advertisement campaigns in the print and audio-visual media.
It was on Nov 22, Yadav's 74th birthday, that the foundation was laid for a temple for the party's "supreme deity".
The temple is being constructed by party secretary Rajesh Saini at Nagla Mali in Aligarh district.
Saini says the money for the temple was collected through donations from the public. The land was offered gratis by the villagers.
"There is a movement to construct a 'bhavya' (grand) temple of Netaji," Saini said, referring to Yadav's sobriquet.
"We are neither misusing government funds nor forcibly demanding money. The temple is being built in keeping with the sentiments of the 'jan manas' (masses)," Saini added.
The estimated cost of the temple is Rs. 11 lakh. It will house a life-size statue of the wrestler-turned-politician Yadav.
Party sources confirmed that an order would soon be placed for a white marble statue in Rajasthan.
The one state where similar temples have come up for actors and political veterans is Tamil Nadu.
An architect has been hired to design the temple, which will have a 'sanctum sanctorum', a waiting room and an open hall to accommodate devotees.
Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary said: "I am told the temple is being built by some party workers at their own expense."
A "Samajwadi Chalisa" is being written by Kamta Prasad Keshri, a practitioner of homeopathic medicine who claims to be enamoured by "Netaji's style of functioning".
The composition of the 59-year-old doctor from Mirzapur is finding many takers.
Some Samajwadi Party workers feel they have a right to "sing paeans to their party leaders".
The Chalisa, comprising 40 verses and modelled on Hanuman Chalisa, was recently printed and distributed in Mirzapur and at party office Nov 22, coinciding with Yadav's birthday.
Keshri, who prefers to call himself a 'sanket kavi,' a poet of nuance, told IANS that while he has written satire and other forms of poetry, this was the first time he had composed a chalisa for a political party.
The "Samajwadi Chalisa" was composed when the Samajwadi Party stormed back to power some eight months ago.
Keshri said he would continue to compose poetry on Mulayam Singh and his son, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
"My aim is to ensure that the SP gets maximum seats from UP in the Lok Sabha polls. I will do everything I can with my pen to make that happen," Keshri said.
Keshri's earlier compositions include 'Mera Bharat Mahaan' and 'Devi Durga'.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav appeared to distance himself from sycophancy. He said he disapproved of the temple: "If such a temple is being built, even by an individual, the party is opposed to it."
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at email@example.com)


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If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
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- Let. The Motherfucker. Burn.
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Reader Comments
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SV, 8 Nov 2005 @ 2:20am
No Subject GivenThey're just settings the grounds for the kinda DRM we'll see in BluRay.
Tons of crap we have no clue about.
z0idberg, 8 Nov 2005 @ 2:36am
what the....?Looks like Sony either:
a) didnt think this issue was important enough to come up with a real escuse
b) in their rush to release a statement to try and nip this in the bud that was the best they could come up with.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
If I didnt know what a full frontal lobotomy was and someone decided to give me one without bothering to tell me about it before hand I am pretty sure I would care about it.
LaidLaw, 8 Nov 2005 @ 3:24am
No Subject GivenThere was this quote from Michael Jackson about the head of Sony Music being evil (http://www.aptnlibrary.com/cent_m_jackson_sony.html) and while the person in the context of the quote is no longer at Sony (http://www.writenews.com/2003/011003_sony_mottola.htm), I can't help but think, for all of his weaknesses (insert dirty joke here), maybe Jacko was only trying to expose Sony and its associations with the devil.
Music Sucks, 8 Nov 2005 @ 3:34am
Its their own fault...What, are people living under rocks these days??
Who is stupid enough to:
1. Buy a "music disk" from Sony
2. Insert it into their computer.
Servers them right.
amritanshu, 8 Nov 2005 @ 3:56am
whiskey tango foxtrot!some PPL dont know about rootkits but those who are writing them know that besides making your computer vulnerable, it will make it more prone to crash and unstable. Rootkits are hacks the techniques applied are 'not' recommended by M$ and it might crash on certain configurations where syscall patching is not safe.
The best part would be when all DRM are implemented as rootkit SONY wuldnt work with TIMES :P no sir you cant play BRitney(from TIME) after Eminem from (SONY) :))
Mudman, 8 Nov 2005 @ 6:12am
Re: whiskey tango foxtrot!wouldn't this mean that sony violated the DMCA by messing with M$-owned binaries? c'mon, we gotta do better than the italians!
Jim Beam, 8 Nov 2005 @ 4:21am
It's a SonyAbout what I'd expect from a company that pulls all support from their computers when the warranty runs out. You can't even download drivers after the warranty. Never buying another Sony product.
Chris H, 8 Nov 2005 @ 5:14am
Re: It's a Sony>Jim Beam< br>
Oh man... tell me you're kidding?
anon, 8 Nov 2005 @ 9:17am
Re: It's a SonyYes you can. It's called esupport.sony.com type in your model number with no dashes. Click on drivers and suppor, everything, updates, or os migration! :)
giafly, 8 Nov 2005 @ 4:36am
He was stroking a white cat...while he gave the interview. That Sony Exec?
WollyHood, 8 Nov 2005 @ 6:17am
Hope I Am Not The Only OneI hope I am not the only one who did this already, but did anyone else google the contact information for class action law practices and send them a note on this opportunity?
If you want to help alert some lawyers search on keywords like "class action practice" and "consumer rights". Hunt around until you find the email addresses and then send them a note like this boilerplate:
I recently became aware of the use of rootkit technologies, technologies typically used by system crackers and malfeasants, by Sony BMG to install user PCs with antipiracy software. Doing this introduces an almost undetectable but very serious security flaw on users PCs. This flaw is serious enough to make antivirus software and most security software unable to detect this system compromise. Further, it is done at such a low level within the Windows operating system that any defect in the construction of the software will translate to system instability on the part of the end user.
While I am not directly affected nor have any standing in this matter I thought this might be of interest to a lawyer experienced in class action litigation. The highly probable outcome of system instability and security vulnerability to the very sizeable population of Sony BMG CD purchasers seems a textbook example where class action law should come into play. While a group in Italy has filed suit against Sony BMG no one in the US has, to the best of my knowledge.
For further information on what is known of the Sony BMG compromise:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/security fix/2005/11/sony_raids_hack.html
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/79450/sony-drm-burrows-into-rootkit-code .html
For a very basic audio discussion on the cracker rootkit technology used:
Additional technical information on rootkit technology can be linked to from:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005 /10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html
Italian lawsuit press release:
Cordially Yours,
Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2005 @ 8:18am
Improve the situation Stop buying Sony CDs and pWhen I was a kid - i was trilled to have a Sony tape recorder. Sony was the best brand name.
Stop buying Sony products and they will get the message that custumers do care.
Now I see that Samsung MP3 players seem to be
liked better than Sony.
i.e. Samsung have now started producing better (quality and value) products. WATCH OUT SONY.
See also mercola.com - he also mentioned Samsung
Sony protection scheme is like a virus.
I think that if people will stop buying Sony
music - as the effects of the rootkid messes there PC ans cost the user time.
This will have the proper market effect.
Sony can keep doing what they are doing and
musicians who issue material under the Sony label will
have lower sales.
Remember the magic of the internet
it allows costomers to make better decision (with better inforamtion) and
use their(converting the information to action) money to tell the companies who are doing it better by buying their products.
The value of this blog is that is read by knowledgable people.
It helpts good ideas propogate quickly so that
a good new idea spreads fast, rewarding those businesses who satisify the customers.
It also allows bad idea to be stopped.
br>How about that for democracy in action
vote with your wallet -
quickly using your money
to improve the world.
Tim Howland, 8 Nov 2005 @ 8:52am
Why is Amazon still selling this product?Why is Amazon still selling this? Are they dying to be co-defendants in a class action lawsuit?
It's clearly defective merchandise... I mean, hell, it can blow up your computer real good- Amazon clearly knows about the scandal here- what are they thinking?
Some Random Dude, 8 Nov 2005 @ 9:17am
Re: Why is Amazon still selling this product?
The message is clear: Sony is trying to commit harikiri in the market place.
Help them accomplish their goal by boycotting all Sony products.
Chris, 8 Nov 2005 @ 9:38am
omfg sonywtf, sony thinks that john q public is a retard or somthing? i mean geez hmmm lets think about it, how many people burn cds and dont know what a root kit is, i feel that this is an invasion of privacy and the goverment should put a stop to it, legally you are allowed to make one copy of your cd(for backup purposes) and if sony is making it so you cant even back it up. i feel the "common" people need to definatly boycott sony and watch them wither!!!!
giafly, 8 Nov 2005 @ 9:47am
Turning the Rootkit against Sony"try to rename your favourite ripping software as $sys$whatever.exe and then run it again. You'll notice that the DRM system can no longer detect it, and thus you'll get good copy of the track you try to rip instead of one filled with noise. Thats just hilarious. I think everyone should simply not worry about removing the rootkit, as this is too difficult, and then just do at Matti says, and use the rootkit to make your favorite ripping tool immune to the DRM."
Posted by Brad Green on Mark's SYsinternals Blog
Slapp1, 8 Nov 2005 @ 10:24am
Re: Turning the Rootkit against SonyThats awesome! I will have to try that one when I get home from work!
Dean Stauffer, 8 Nov 2005 @ 9:56am
Sony's S*&tI am glad to see that in print because I thought I was having trouble hearing when I heard Sony's statement on NPR. Since when is not knowing what something is a reason to not worry about it. I don't understand many things that my doctor tells me, but that doesn't mean I don't worry about it. Way to go Sony!
Nullpo, 9 Nov 2005 @ 5:53am
$B%=%K!I,;`$@$J(BGate keeper otsukare. Kaigaidemo mewaku kakerunjanaiyo.
worldscolide, 9 Nov 2005 @ 7:36pm
Sad. Sad. Sad.i guess what sony dosn't realize is the fact that most of us that know how to use the computer properly have the auto play feature disabled on our CD Drives, making it very hard for the cd to "Install" anything with out us knowing. It's horrifying to know that sony, a company that i once respected, is doing this stuff. I guess that they don't want us to protect our investments. Of course this is why the machine that i use to rip CD's is a Linux box, this way i don't even have to deal with it. Long Live LINUX!!!
vicky, 4 Dec 2006 @ 6:35am
musici think they should have alot more info on music as alot of girl and boy like music but no one ever takes them up on it. so i think they should have more sites on music.
george, 28 Aug 2007 @ 1:33pm
rootkitsI DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE BUY A REPLY LIE NO MORE SONY FOR ME
Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2008 @ 1:25pmfjv ur ug gtuu c huf u uguhu hfgu u u tfu u u hg ug ug u u rguh ug uhgf u u gi tuh ut utu u geiu nug u iu u u ui ut hj u ugh hu u ut u u u u ru h ut u u iu i u u u u u g ugkx uu u u hj k kgk h h j jg ujgh h jhv hh h h hh hgk htjf hgb buj h fhdj jfn rjht g
fodder99 (profile), 30 Jun 2012 @ 10:21amSony have given up making TVs too, because they cannot compete with the likes of samaung.
Add Your Comment


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Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, who no doubt has felt the criticism of, first firing Rod Chudzinski, and second, still searching for a replacement, put pen to paper last week and wrote Browns fans a letter. Haslam tried to alleviate any concerns, or at least it seemed he did. The following is what Haslam wrote, and in parentheses the tongue-in-cheek translation.
Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, who no doubt has felt the criticism of, first firing Rod Chudzinski, and second, still searching for a replacement, put pen to paper last week and wrote Browns fans a letter. Never mind the Browns were the first to fire their coach in the immediate aftermath of — another — terrible season, and will be the last to hire someone.
Haslam tried to alleviate any concerns, or at least it seemed he did. The following is what Haslam wrote, and in parentheses the tongue-in-cheek translation.
Fans, (I can't believe we still have this many.)
I thought it was important to take a little bit of time to update you on our head-coach search. We have had the opportunity to speak to a number of outstanding candidates. We have purposefully been very methodical in our approach.
(No one will take the sack of money in front of them and I can't understand it. I'm offended, and they will rue the day they turned this down.)
We believe it is very important to stay disciplined to this process and to interview all of the candidates on our list. We are strongly committed to finding the right person to coach the Cleveland Browns.
(Because most of the NFL coaching fraternity is on to our three-card monte game, we have no choice but to be patient and wait it out. You think we're in desperation mode? Wait 'til you see the fella who takes this job.)
We understood from the beginning that if we wanted to speak to all of the coaches on our list that we may need to wait until they have completed their participation in the playoffs.
(Adam Gase, are you listening?)
We are prepared to wait as long as necessary because this is a very important decision.
(Important? Did I just say that? Y'all know I'm just spinning like a tire stuck in Tennessee mud, right?)
Everyone in our organization is committed to finding the right leader for our team.
(Unlike the last time, when we said the same thing and fired Chud before a year's time.)
We believe the head coach of the Cleveland Browns to be a very attractive position. We have one of the youngest teams in the League, a roster that includes five Pro Bowlers.
(Hey Banner, why in the hell aren't we winning then?)
In addition, we have more salary-cap room than all but one NFL team.
(Don't make me threaten to spend more money. Y'all realize I hemorrhaged money in 2013, right?)
We also have three of the top 35 picks in the upcoming draft and five of the top 83 selections.
(This can't possibly go wrong, what with our track record in the draft and all. I mean, how many times can a team screw up so many high draft picks?)
We are very much looking forward to adding a strong coach to our football team. On behalf of the Cleveland Browns, I cannot thank you enough for your valuable support and passion that you show for our team.
(An aside, here, these are the only 38 words not spun out from my machine.)
We look forward to communicating with you again after the search process in complete. Thank you again for your phenomenal support and loyalty.
(Now shut up and stop criticizing this search. We will trot someone out soon, and we will tell you — believe it or not — he was our guy all along, or the one who emerged from our many conversations, and quite candidly, the guy many people have told me can turn this mess around.)
There have been plenty of suggestions and criticisms of Haslam's letter to fans. With a couple of Northeast Ohio media types pointing out that if Haslam wanted to get his point across and convey a serious message to fans, he should have gone all Dan Gilbert and used a Comic Sans font.
Haslam and the Browns were busted up by ESPN's Keith Olbermann on national TV about the letter, too.
Look, there's nothing wrong with sending a letter to fans.
But, and this is a hunch, this search is going so terribly awry that Haslam had to communicate something and he did it without fielding questions from reporters because that went so well the last time.
Much was made of Peyton Manning's audible calls at the line of scrimmage last week when the Broncos' quarterback repeatedly used "Omaha" during his cadence. Manning was surprised how much attention it got from national media outlets. The City of Omaha thanked him for the publicity, too.
So if you were looking for Manning to clear anything up on it, well, you're going to be disappointed.
"Omaha is a run play, but it could be a pass play or a play-action pass depending on a couple of things: The wind, which way we're going, the quarter and the jerseys that we're wearing. It varies play to play. That's your answer."
Manning didn't even pick Omaha as the key word for Denver to use last week. It will be interesting to see if offensive coordinator Adam Gase changes up today against New England.
It was thought for a while that Gase was the Browns' No. 1 candidate to become the team's head coach. He still may be. Gase has declined to be interviewed until Denver's season is over, and that could be after the Super Bowl.
The Browns, meanwhile, seem to be looking for a Plan B. Landing Gase isn't a forgone conclusion. Can you blame him? Would you rather coach the Browns or Peyton Manning for another year?
Gase did earn points from Denver's brass for declining to interview for jobs until his season was over.
"I just felt like I was all in for what we were doing here," Gase said last week. "I just didn't want to stand in front of players and say one thing, and do something else. So I felt like it was the most important thing for what we needed to do for this team."
McDANIELS BROUGHT HIM
For as much as people complain about Josh McDaniels in Denver, it was McDaniels who brought Gase to Denver with him. Gase learned from the former McKinley quarterback as a coach.
"Probably the most important thing I learned from him was our emphasis on what the defense was doing," Gase said. "That was something a little different for me as far as the depth of what the coverages were, the fronts' pressures. That was probably my first real experience of having to understand what the other side of the ball was doing."
Zach Stipe had quite a professional ride in his third year on the job at Florida State. The 2004 Louisville High School graduate, who made it to the 2003 state cross country championship, was promoted within Florida State's sports information department to assist on this season's football team.
Stipe had a front-row, or more appropriately, a sideline view of the Seminoles' national title run.
"I feel like I'm the luckiest guys in the profession," Stipe said. "I'm still young and I'm thankful to have experienced everything I have. A lot of days this doesn't feel like work to me. When we were in Pasadena, it was a lot of work. There are some days I start at 9 in the morning and don't get done until 9 at night."
Stipe also got an up-close-and-personal view of crisis management while the school waited for word on whether quarterback Jameis Winston would face rape charges.
"I didn't have to deal with much of that other than (interview) requests," Stipe said. "When it gets to that level, the university gets involved. You have lawyers and the president and a lot of people above me dealing with that stuff."
As an employee who's paid by the university to make sure student-athletes are viewed in the most favorable public light possible, you wouldn't expect Stipe to be critical of Winston. However, he sounded genuine when asked what kind of person the Heisman Trophy winner is.
"He's fantastic. He has a natural charisma," Stipe said. "I've been in the locker room before when he talks and he's a natural leader and for a guy who's a redshirt freshman, that's pretty cool to see."
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What Are You Doing for Others?
Our thanks to the Animal Legal Defense Fund for permission to republish this post from the ALDF Blog. It was written by Tom Linney, Animal Law Program Staff Attorney.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?" Dr. King devoted his life's work to causes of social justice and equality. In August 1994, the King Holiday and Service Act designated the King Holiday as a national day of volunteer service. Instead of taking a day off, Americans are challenged each year to celebrate Dr. King's legacy by giving back to their community. So on January 18, please support the Animal Legal Defense Fund in its efforts to end animal suffering and abuse.
Make a difference in your community by getting involved in the following:
Letters, emails, and phone calls from concerned members of the public can make the crucial difference in cases of criminal animal cruelty. Sign up for ALDF's Actionline and you will receive urgent updates on cruelty cases around the country and learn what you can do to help.
Attending court proceedings for criminal animal abuse cases is a great way to demonstrate that your community cares about animal protection. Find the tools you need to effectively communicate with law enforcement and legislators about animal issues that are important to you on our Advocating for Animals page.
If you're not already a member of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, please join now or renew your membership. If you would like to put your legal expertise to work on behalf of animals, please join ALDF's Animal Law Program. To join ALDF's volunteer attorney network, please fill out our attorney membership application. If you are a law student, become a student ALDF member.
Another simple but powerful way to make a difference in your community is to go vegan, like Coretta Scott King and Dexter Scott King. Both recognized that animal rights is the "logical extension" of Dr. King's philosophy of non-violence. Coretta Scott King said, "When you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone." Please join the hundreds of dedicated attorneys and more than 100,000 members today and support the Animal Legal Defense Fund in its groundbreaking efforts to end the suffering of abused animals.
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The Special Plate Blues
There are many things I do not understand. Why people with umbrellas walk under awnings. Why the New York City subway system needs to remind us that escalators are for passengers only. How people can get jobs in the food service industry without speaking English. But I can accept those things. One I cannot accept is the thriving industry of collectors' plates.
I may be inclined to buy a picture of a memorable figure or event. This picture is not more appealing once given the ability to hold food. And limiting the number available does not make me want it more, since I didn't want it in the first place. Though I do appreciate the diminishing odds of receiving one of these crappy things as a present. I never question why they only make 1,000 of a particular plate. I question why they ever made any in the first place.
See, someone with an umbrella under an awning is annoying, especially if you're tall. Unless you enjoy being poked in the eye, the situation forces you to step out from under the awning and get wet. But the umbrella-holder should have been able to see you coming and move - especially since no one has yet to poke out their eye.
But collectors' plates are REALLY annoying. I will never buy one, but I am forced to endure the commercials. I will never be interested in one, yet I am forced to "ooohhh" and "aaahhh" when my friends show me theirs. And then I am forced to find new friends to replace those that own collectors' plates.
See, the "escalators are for passengers only" announcement is inane. Has this been a problem? What else has been taking the escalator?
"Excuse me sir, you can't be on this escalator."
"But I'm the train conductor!"
"I know. Escalators are for passengers only."
But collectors' plates are REALLY inane. Why put artwork on a plate? Why not a cereal bowl? Or more appropriately for Elvis fans, a gravy boat?
See, someone who can't speak English in a food service position in an English speaking country is ridiculous. I can just imagine their job interview.
"So, tell me a little bit about your background."
"Good, good. And where were you educated?"
"Excellent school. Are you willing to start right away?"
"You're hired!"
But collectors' plates are REALLY ridiculous. Okay, maybe not as ridiculous as trying to get a napkin from someone who thinks it's a straw, but they're still ridiculous. Collectors' plates are a case of supply creating demand. Because there's a limited supply, there's suddenly a demand. You mean to tell me there are only 1,000 of something that doubles as both a serving dish and a picture of Shirley Temple? I have one question - where do I send my two easy payments of $19.99?
As often happens when I criticize something (see week, every), I'm sure I will get some angry letters. I expect many to fully explain the history of collectors' plates and why they're an integral part of America's culture. In response I will explain that garish items like collectors' plates are the reason why other countries don't like American culture.
I want to know why the first collectors' plate was made. "Oh, I love this picture of Elvis. But I think it would look better were it partially smeared with mash potatoes. Or at least more realistic."
Though I can't understand why anyone would buy a collectors' plate, I can understand companies continually producing them. When a fool and his money have been parted, no one wants to give him a map to find his way back.
Though you could probably sell that map for two easy payments of $19.99.


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This story appears in the July 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine.
On a winter night last June, José Antonio Tuki, a 30-year-old artist on Easter Island, did one of the things he loves best: He left his one-room home on the southwest coast and hiked north across the island to Anakena beach. Legend has it the earliest Polynesian settlers hauled their canoes ashore at Anakena a thousand years ago or so, after navigating more than a thousand miles of open Pacific. Under the same moon and stars Tuki sat on the sand and gazed directly before him at the colossal human statues—the moai. Carved centuries ago from volcanic tuff, they're believed to embody the deified spirits of ancestors.
Sleepless roosters crowed; stray dogs barked. A frigid wind gusted in from Antarctica, making Tuki shiver. He's a Rapanui, an indigenous Polynesian resident of Rapa Nui, as the locals call Easter Island; his own ancestors probably helped carve some of the hundreds of statues that stud the island's grassy hills and jagged coasts. At Anakena seven potbellied moai stand at attention on a 52-foot-long stone platform—backs to the Pacific, arms at their sides, heads capped with tall pukao of red scoria, another volcanic rock. They watch over this remote island from a remote age, but when Tuki stares at their faces, he feels a surge of connection. "It's something strange and energetic," he says. "This is something produced from my culture. It's Rapanui." He shakes his head. "How did they do it?"
Easter Island covers just 63 square miles. It lies 2,150 miles west of South America and 1,300 miles east of Pitcairn, its nearest inhabited neighbor. After it was settled, it remained isolated for centuries. All the energy and resources that went into the moai—which range in height from four to 33 feet and in weight to more than 80 tons—came from the island itself. Yet when Dutch explorers landed on Easter Sunday in 1722, they met a Stone Age culture. The moai were carved with stone tools, mostly in a single quarry, then transported without draft animals or wheels to massive stone platforms, or ahu, up to 11 miles away. Tuki's question—how did they do it?—has vexed legions of visitors in the past half century.
But lately the moai have been drawn into a larger debate, one that opposes two distinct visions of Easter Island's past—and of humanity in general. The first, eloquently expounded by Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond, presents the island as a cautionary parable: the most extreme case of a society wantonly destroying itself by wrecking its environment. Can the whole planet, Diamond asks, avoid the same fate? In the other view, the ancient Rapanui are uplifting emblems of human resilience and ingenuity—one example being their ability to walk giant statues upright across miles of uneven terrain.
When the Polynesian settlers arrived at Rapa Nui, they had been at sea for weeks in open canoes. There were probably only a few dozen of them. Nowadays 12 flights arrive every week from Chile, Peru, and Tahiti, and in 2011 those planes delivered 50,000 tourists, ten times the island's population. Just three decades ago, cars, electricity, and phone service were scarce; now Hanga Roa, the only town, buzzes with Internet cafés, bars, and dance clubs, and cars and pickup trucks clog the streets on Saturday nights. Wealthy tourists drop a thousand dollars a night at the poshest of scores of hotels. A Birkenstock shop caters to footsore ramblers. "The island is not an island anymore," says Kara Pate, 40, a Rapanui sculptor. She's married to a German she met here 23 years ago.
Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888, but until 1953 it allowed a Scottish company to manage the island as a giant sheep ranch. The sheep ranged freely, while the Rapanui were penned into Hanga Roa. In 1964 they revolted, later obtaining Chilean citizenship and the right to elect their own mayor.
Ambivalence toward el conti (the continent) runs high. Easter Islanders depend on Chile for fuel and daily air shipments of food. They speak Spanish and go to the mainland for higher education. Meanwhile, Chilean migrants, lured in part by the island's income tax exemption, gladly take jobs that Rapanui spurn. "A Rapanui will say, What, you think I'm going to wash dishes?" says Beno Atán, a 27-year-old tour guide and a native himself. Though many Rapanui have married mainlanders, some worry their culture is being diluted. The population is now around 5,000, nearly double what it was 20 years ago, and fewer than half the people are Rapanui.
Just about every job on Easter Island depends on tourism. "Without it," says Mahina Lucero Teao, head of the tourism chamber, "everyone would be starving on the island." The mayor, Luz Zasso Paoa, says, "Our patrimony is the base of our economy. You're not here for us, but for that patrimony." That is, for the moai.
Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer whose Pacific expeditions helped ignite the world's curiosity about Easter Island, thought the statues had been created by pre-Inca from Peru, not by Polynesians. Erich von Däniken, the best-selling Swiss author of Chariots of the Gods, was sure the moai were built by stranded extraterrestrials. Modern science—linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence—has proved the moai builders were Polynesian but not how they moved their creations. Researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues somehow, using a lot of ropes and wood. "The experts can say whatever they want," says Suri Tuki, 25, José Tuki's half brother. "But we know the truth. The statues walked." In the Rapanui oral tradition, the moai were animated bymana, a spiritual force transmitted by powerful ancestors.
There are no reports of moai building after Europeans arrived in the 18th century. By then Easter Island had only a few scrawny trees. In the 1970s and 1980s, though, biogeographer John Flenley of New Zealand's Massey University found evidence—pollen preserved in lake sediments—that the island had been covered in lush forests, including millions of giant palm trees, for thousands of years. Only after the Polynesians arrived around A.D. 800 had those forests given way to grasslands.
Jared Diamond drew heavily on Flenley's work for his assertion in Collapse, his influential 2005 book, that ancient Easter Islanders committed unintentional ecocide. They had the bad luck, Diamond argues, to have settled an extremely fragile island—dry, cool, and remote, which means it's poorly fertilized by windblown dust or volcanic ash. (Its own volcanoes are quiescent.) When the islanders cleared the forests for firewood and farming, the forests didn't grow back. As wood became scarce and the islanders could no longer build seagoing canoes for fishing, they ate the birds. Soil erosion decreased their crop yields. Before Europeans showed up, the Rapanui had descended into civil war and cannibalism. The collapse of their isolated civilization, Diamond writes, is "the clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources" and "a worst-case scenario for what may lie ahead of us in our own future."
The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction. Diamond interprets them as power displays by rival chieftains who, trapped on a remote little island, lacked other ways of strutting their stuff. They competed by building ever bigger statues. Diamond thinks they laid the moai on wooden sledges, hauled over log rails—a technique successfully tested by UCLA archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project—but that required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. To feed the people, even more land had to be cleared. When the wood was gone and civil war began, the islanders began toppling the moai. By the 19th century none were standing. Easter Island's landscape acquired the aura of tragedy that, in the eyes of Diamond and many others, it retains today.
Rearrange and reinterpret the scattered shards of fact, though, and you get a more optimistic vision of the Rapa Nui past—that of archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of California State University Long Beach, who have studied the island for the past decade. It's a vision peopled by peaceful, ingenious moai builders and careful stewards of the land. Hunt and Lipo agree that Easter Island lost its lush forests and that it was an "ecological catastrophe"—but the islanders themselves weren't to blame. And the moai certainly weren't. There is indeed much to learn from Easter Island, Hunt says, "but the story is different."
His and Lipo's controversial new version, based on their research and others', begins with their own excavation at Anakena beach. It has convinced them that the Polynesians didn't arrive until A.D. 1200, about four centuries later than is commonly understood, which would leave them only five centuries to denude the landscape. Slashing and burning wouldn't have been enough, Hunt and Lipo think. Anyway, another tree killer was present. When archaeologists dig up nuts from the extinct Easter Island palm, the nuts are often marred by tiny grooves, made by the sharp teeth of Polynesian rats.
The rats arrived in the same canoes as the first settlers. Abundant bones in the Anakena dig suggest the islanders dined on them, but otherwise the rodents had no predators. In just a few years, Hunt and Lipo calculate, they would have overrun the island. Feasting on palm nuts, they would have prevented the reseeding of the slow-growing trees and thereby doomed Rapa Nui's forest, even if humans hadn't been slashing and burning. No doubt the rats ate birds' eggs too.
Of course, the settlers bear responsibility for bringing the rats; Hunt and Lipo suspect they did so intentionally. (They also brought chickens.) But like invasive species today, the Polynesian rats did more harm to the ecosystem than to the humans who transported them. Hunt and Lipo see no evidence that Rapanui civilization collapsed when the palm forest did; based on their own archaeological survey of the island, they think its population grew rapidly after settlement to around 3,000 and then remained more or less stable until the arrival of Europeans.
Cleared fields were more valuable to the Rapanui than palm forests were. But they were wind-lashed, infertile fields watered by erratic rains. Easter Island was a tough place to make a living. It required heroic efforts. In farming, as in moai moving, the islanders shifted monumental amounts of rock—but into their fields, not out. They built thousands of circular stone windbreaks, called manavai, and gardened inside them. They mulched whole fields with broken volcanic rocks to keep the soil moist and fertilized it with nutrients that the volcanoes were no longer spreading. In short, Hunt, Lipo, and others contend, the prehistoric Rapanui were pioneers of sustainable farming, not inadvertent perpetrators of ecocide. "Rather than a case of abject failure, Rapa Nui is an unlikely story of success," Hunt and Lipo argue in their recent book.
It's called The Statues That Walked, and the Rapanui enjoy better spin in it than they do in Collapse. Hunt and Lipo don't trust oral history accounts of violent conflict among the Rapanui; sharp obsidian flakes that other archaeologists see as weapons, they see as farm tools. The moai helped keep the peace, they argue, not only by signaling the power of their builders but also by limiting population growth: People raised statues rather than children. What's more, moving the moai required few people and no wood, because they were walked upright. On that issue, Hunt and Lipo say, evidence supports the folklore.
Sergio Rapu, 63, a Rapanui archaeologist and former Easter Island governor who did graduate work with Hunt, took his American colleagues to the ancient quarry on Rano Raraku, the island's southeastern volcano. Looking at the many moai abandoned there in various stages of completion, Rapu explained how they were engineered to walk: Fat bellies tilted them forward, and a D-shaped base allowed handlers to roll and rock them side to side. Last year, in experiments funded by National Geographic's Expeditions Council, Hunt and Lipo showed that as few as 18 people could, with three strong ropes and a bit of practice, easily maneuver a 10-foot, 5-ton moai replica a few hundred yards. In real life, walking miles with much larger moai would have been a tense business. Dozens of fallen statues line the roads leading away from the quarry. But many more made it to their platforms intact.
No one knows for sure when the last statue was carved. The moai cannot be dated directly. Many were still standing when the Dutch arrived in 1722, and Rapanui civilization was peaceful and thriving then, Hunt and Lipo argue. But the explorers introduced deadly diseases to which islanders had no immunity, along with artifacts that replaced the moai as status symbols. Snatching Europeans' hats—Hunt and Lipo cite many reports of this—became more appealing than hoisting a multiton red pukao onto a moai. In the 19th century slave traders decimated the population, which shriveled to 111 people by 1877.
As Hunt and Lipo tell it, Easter Island's story is a parable of genocide and culturecide, not ecocide. Their friend Sergio Rapu buys some but not all of it. "Don't tell me those obsidian tools were just for agriculture," he says, laughing. "I'd love to hear that my people never ate each other. But I'm afraid they did."
Today islanders confront a fresh challenge: exploiting their cultural legacy without wrecking it. A growing population and thousands of tourists are straining a limited water supply. The island lacks a sewer system and a place to put the swelling volume of trash; between 2009 and mid-2011 it shipped 230 tons to the mainland. "So what do we do?" asks Zasso Paoa, the mayor. "Limit migration? Limit tourism? That's where we are now." The island recently started asking tourists to take their trash home with them in their suitcases.
Tourists are forbidden to touch moai, but horses happily rub against them, wearing away the porous tuff. Though cars are now the preferred mode of transport, more than 6,000 horses and cattle—"more than people," grumbles tour guide Atán—still run free, trampling ground once trodden by Scottish-owned sheep and relieving themselves on once sacred platforms. But the islanders' own desire to develop their ancestral lands may be a greater threat to their densely packed heritage: more than 20,000 archaeological features in all, including walled gardens and stone chicken houses as well as moai and ahu. More than 40 percent of the island is a protected national park, which limits available land. "People have to learn that archaeology isn't their enemy," says Rapu.
Decades ago he himself helped get the moai at Anakena back upright. In the process he and his colleagues also discovered how the moai builders had breathed soul into their colossal statues after the long trek from the quarry: As a finishing touch, they placed eyes of white coral and pupils of obsidian or red scoria into the empty sockets.
A grove of coconut palms, imported from Tahiti, overlooks Anakena beach today, reassuring sunbathers and Chilean newlyweds that they really are in Polynesia, even if the wind is shrieking and the grassy rolling hills behind them look like the Scottish Highlands. The moai are eyeless now and not confiding—to the tourists, José Tuki, or anyone else—how they got there or which story of Easter Island is true. Tuki, for one, can handle the ambiguity. "I want to know the truth," he says. "But maybe the island doesn't tell all its answers. And maybe knowing everything would take its power away."
Hannah Bloch was a Pakistan correspondent for Time before joining the Geographic as an editor. Randy Olson has shot 27 features, including ones on war-torn Sudan and Congo's Mbuti Pygmies.
Society Grant Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo's moai experiment was funded by your Society membership.


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Miss Kay Irving
Kay Irving was a big part of the early days of Pony Club, although she was not involved in the very beginning of PCAV or Pony Club Australia, she soon came to be extremely important in setting standards and directions for the fledgling youth organizations.
She was some one who saw the benefit of the 'big picture' while emphasizing the importance of the individual. Kay was at the forefront of new ideas and technology, while basic, classic values and practices underpinned her teaching. She believed that it was more important that kids had fun and were safe, especially when beginning, than trying to coach them too early to be top level riders. Her interest in using child psychology to help kids learn was unusual for the era.
In her teaching and writing she talked almost as much about personal growth and individual responsibility as she did about horse care and riding techniques. Kay used whatever resources were available, and was keen to make use of what current technology had to offer. Instructional development was augmented by films brought in from the UK. Books and magazines were shared with riders. And Kay began a School of the Air class on horsemanship and riding from Broken Hill, in order to help kids who did not have access to the usual resources. She wrote constantly – letters, books.
Kay was born at Rosedale near Sale in Victoria in 1903, the middle of three sisters – Marjorie and Phillipa (Pippa). For the era, and a country family, they were well educated. The family moved to Edenhope then Tyrell Downs near Sea Lake. All three girls finished their education at Lauriston Girls School, where their aunts worked. By this time the family had moved to Riddells Creek.
Kay then went to Melbourne University to study teaching, gaining a Bachelor of Education. Following this she taught in the United Kingdom for two years.
In 1932, in Burwood, alongside the Jordanville Railway line, the three sisters bought a small property of 20 acres and established the Waverley Riding School. The venture took off and by the 1940's was the premier Riding School in Australia. It's accessibility by rail, along with hard work and openness to new ideas helped it to grow. It took day riders and also residential students. At times it homed up to 114 horses and could attract over 100 riders in a day.
"I learnt a lot more than riding and horsemanship. I learnt self-discipline, self-control, and consideration for other people. It stood me in good stead over the years." - Betty Adam – student at the Waverley Riding School. Betty Adam(now Wood) from Waverley Riding School p 81
In 1938 the Irving sisters performed a public formation ride, probably at the Royal Melbourne Show. Apparently it did not go well. (There was hurdling involved...) But about the same time Kay's sister Marjorie began training 12- 14 year old riders, dressing up for a 'soldier ride'. This led to the Black and White Musical rides, which had up to 16 riders. Fancy dress parades, maypole rides, the Prince Albert Quadrille – complete with wigs and gowns, they believed in having fun as well as working hard.
In 1945 the Waverley Pony Club was formed but initially could not be British Horse Society affiliated as it was a business. But Waverley Riding School members still completed D,C,B and A tests as per the British curriculum, did theory lessons and went on equestrian outings such as going to the movies.
The pressure of suburban development was being felt and the riding school moved to Oakwood Park near Heatherton Road in Dandenong in 1950.
The 1956 Olympic Team for the Melbourne Olympics was selected at the Irving's property Oakwood Park. They also ran fund raisers for the Olympic team going to Rome in 1960. While in Rome the discussion amongst equestrians led to the first Inter Pacific trip to California by Australian Pony Clubbers and while the return event to Victoria was being organized, discussions were begun to set up the Australian Pony Club Association.
The Irvings (known as the 'Irvs' to students and friends) were natural horse women, growing up on a rural property, in an era where riding was a part of life. They came to learn later about the appreciation of more advanced riding training – use of the aids, improving balance etc. They researched all they could find about improving horse care and riding. The British magazine 'Rider' from 1939, books by J.E. Hance, Henry Wynmalen 'Equitation' 1938, Wilhelm Musler 'Riding Logic' 1937, the movie 'Florian' 1940, featuring a Lipizzaner. Kay worked with Franz Mairinger who had come out from Austria to train and manage the Australian team.
"We had no idea of the 'science' of riding – the effect of weight and balance... We didn't know we weren't perfect. .. Tom Roberts wrote and told us about Franz M. Let's learn I said... We didn't know anything about riding the horse before F.M. ... whoever, whatever I'd contacted before – nothing had penetrated." (Kay Irving)
The sisters sold up the Riding School in 1958 and Kay became very involved with the Pony Club movement. After being approached by the committee from PCAV in December 1956, Kay was asked to put together a Syllabus of Instruction and to train potential Instructors. The first 3 day Instructors Courses were held in 1957 at Oakwood Park.
"Kay taught as she'd taught the Waverley Pony Club, staff and helpers – horse care, beginner's needs, fun and survival. She did, however, (as in later years of Waverley Pony Club) introduce the Franz Mairinger teaching principles of rider position and aids." (P 348 WRS)
In April 1958 Kay was made an honorary Life Member of PCAV, and about this time was appointed as Chief Instructor. Kay went on to be Chief Instructor concurrently in some other states, (South Australia in 1965, also in Western Australia and Tasmania) and was appointed to the National position as well.
In 1960 Kay went with the first InterPacific team to Pebble Beach in California as Team Coach.
"She led by example. She was always the same – to everybody. She was a bit gruff at times. Then she had a lot on her mind. People got to know that. In general terms she was practical and a 'hands-on' operator both in the ridden and oral communication. She had the ability to be able to stand 'out there' and get the best out of her students. Then she could sit down and write a syllabus of instruction." (George Cross, p 359 WRS)
In 1966 the Pony Club 'Manual of Instruction' was published, for national use by all Australian Clubs, followed by 'Horsemanship for the Australian Rider' in 1978. Other publications include the B Standard Notes; K Test Syllabus, and the 1963 Games Book.
Then there is the book '21 Lessons for Young Riders', inspired by her work with the Pony Club School of the Air from Broken Hill. This grew out of her being Chief Instructor at the time of the Pony Club Association of South Australia, and visiting Broken Hill Pony Club. While there in 1966 she asked if she could have five minutes to talk to the students about their horses and riding – the session was a hit and they used up all twenty minutes of the allocated time. Kay also gave some advice and support to the Riding for the Disabled group when they started in 1971, principally with training instructors.
The K Certificate - an Australian Pony Club only Certificate – and is named after her. It sits between the C Certificate and the more demanding B Certificate. This idea came from the well known 'knitting circle' which operated as a discussion group while keeping busy with the needles and yarn. Kay also used these gatherings to fund raise for causes such as the Olympic team.
Kay is remembered by Victorian Pony Clubbers with the naming of the PCAV office as 'Irving House' and in the Kay Irving Memorial Games, held with the State Games, Flat and Musical Ride annually. The Musical Ride is a particularly Pony Club event with its beginnings in the formation and Black and White rides developed by the Irving sisters a long time ago. Many Fancy Dress rallies are held by clubs each year, often at the Christmas break up; another fun tradition from the 'Irvs'.
'She consistently stressed Pony Club was not a riding academy but a youth organisation to train children to become good co-operating and contributing members of the community. The horse was the medium but not the "be all and end all"' (p377 WRS)
In 1976 Kay was awarded an M.B.E. for 'service to women's sports'
"Darling Kay is an M.B.E.
And we're as pleased as we can be.
If we'd been asked we'd tell the Queen,
A dame is what she should have been
Except that dames sound old and fat –
And goodness knows she isn't that."
(Judy Bagnold telegram to Kay, p385 WRS)
Kay continued to ride and compete until she was 81, her last horse was a thoroughbred she called Treasure. Marjorie died in her sleep at home in 1973. Kay and Pippa moved to Waverley II at Gruyere in 1985. Kay discovered gardening, while still doing a lot of work for Pony Clubs. Pippa died in 1986 after an illness. Kay continued to be involved with Pony Clubs until the end, and to live alone with lots of help from neighbours and friends until she died in October 1993. She never stopped being involved with horses.
Much of the material for this article was derived from the Waverley Riding School, by Ann L Robertson, 1994. (ISBN 0 64620652 4) – A detailed, colourful book of over 400 pages about the Irvings' lives.
Miss Kay's homework for District Commissioners from 1973


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I have a A105-s4074 with intel 945 embedded.
I have the latest updates from intel.
My problem is I need to be able to run HW T&L with vertex shader 2.O hardware accelerated (maybe not the hardware accelerated bit).
Intel says "it can't be done".
945 version 6.14.0010.4926
opengl 1.4.0 - so it says.
Do I have any options?
To my amazment I recently found that games think that I have version 184.108.40.20626, maybe this helps?


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Parents Coffee Morning
Connect International Event
Date: Friday 13 September 2019 at 10:00 hrs
Location: Denderz (Westerkade 5, Groningen)
Members Price: Free!
Non-Members Price: Free!
Parents Coffee Morning is a new initiative of Connect International, and it is meant for anyone interested in connecting with other moms/dads and kids from different cultural backgrounds. This is a great way to share experiences and knowledge, to get support from each other, to organize play dates, and just to talk about your kids and to have fun. Denderz is a beautiful child-friendly café (and a shop) with enough space for kids to play and for parents to enjoy a cup of nice coffee or tea.
Look for the Connect International sign at one of the tables!
Cost: Whatever you wish to spend on consumptions!
Register for this event
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