Bill McKibben

William Ernest McKibben (born December 8, 1960) is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and leader of the climate campaign group 350.org. He has authored a dozen books about the environment, including his first, "The End of Nature" (1989), about climate change.
In 2009, he led 350.org's organization of 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. In 2010, McKibben and 350.org conceived the 10/10/10 Global Work Party, which convened more than 7,000 events in 188 countries, as he had told a large gathering at Warren Wilson College shortly before the event. In December 2010, 350.org coordinated a planet-scale art project, with many of the 20 works visible from satellites. In 2011 and 2012 he led the environmental campaign against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project and spent three days in jail in Washington, D.C. Two weeks later he was inducted into the literature section of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award in 2013. "Foreign Policy" magazine named him to its inaugural list of the 100 most important global thinkers in 2009 and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009. In 2010, the "Boston Globe" called him "probably the nation's leading environmentalist" and "Time" magazine book reviewer Bryan Walsh described him as "the world's best green journalist". In 2014, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "mobilising growing popular support in the USA and around the world for strong action to counter the threat of global climate change." He has been mentioned as a possible future Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Energy should a progressive be elected President.
Early life.
McKibben was born in Palo Alto, California. His family later moved to the Boston suburb of Lexington, Massachusetts, where he attended high school. His father, who once, in 1971, had been arrested during a protest in support of Vietnam veterans against the war, wrote for "Business Week", before becoming business editor at "The Boston Globe", in 1980. As a high school student, McKibben wrote for the local paper and participated in statewide debate competitions. Entering Harvard College in 1978, he became an editor of "The Harvard Crimson" and was chosen president of the paper for the calendar year 1981.
In 1980, following the election of Ronald Reagan, he determined to dedicate his life to the environmental cause.
Graduating in 1982, he worked for five years for "The New Yorker" as a staff writer writing much of the "Talk of the Town" column from 1982 to early 1987. He shared an apartment with David Edelstein, the film critic, and found solace in the Gospel of Matthew. He became an advocate of nonviolent resistance. While doing a story on the homeless he lived on the streets; there he met his wife, Sue Halpern, who was working as a homeless advocate. In 1987 McKibben quit "The New Yorker" after longtime editor William Shawn was forced out of his job. He and his family shortly after moved to a remote spot in the Southeastern Adirondacks of upstate New York, where he began to work as a freelance writer.
Writing.
McKibben began his freelance writing career at about the same time that climate change appeared on the public agenda following the hot summer and fires of 1988 and testimony by James Hansen before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in June of that year. His first contribution to the debate was a brief list of literature on the subject and commentary published December 1988 in The New York Review of Books and a question, "Is the World Getting Hotter?"
He became and remains a frequent contributor to various publications, including "The New York Times", "The Atlantic", "Harper's", "Orion", "Mother Jones", "The American Prospect", "The New York Review of Books", "Granta", "National Geographic", "Rolling Stone", "Adbusters," and "Outside". He is also a board member at and contributor to "Grist".
His first book, "The End of Nature", was published in 1989 by Random House after being serialized in "The New Yorker". Described by Ray Murphy of the "Boston Globe" as a "righteous jeremiad," the book excited much critical comment, pro and con; was for many people their first introduction to the question of climate change; and the inspiration for a great deal of writing and publishing by others. It has been printed in more than 20 languages. Several editions have come out in the United States, including an updated version published in 2006.
In 1992 "The Age of Missing Information" was published. It is an account of an experiment in which McKibben collected everything that came across the 100 channels of cable TV on the Fairfax, Virginia, system (at the time among the nation's largest) for a single day. He spent a year watching the 2,400 hours of programming, and then compared it to a day spent on the mountaintop near his home. This book has been widely used in colleges and high schools and was reissued in a new edition in 2006.
Subsequent books include "Hope, Human and Wild", about Curitiba, Brazil, and Kerala, India, which he cites as examples of people living more lightly on the earth; "The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation", which is about the Book of Job and the environment; "Maybe One", about human population; "Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously", about a year spent training for endurance events at an elite level; and "Enough", about what he sees as the existential dangers of genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Speaking about "Long Distance" at the Cambridge Forum, McKibben cited the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi's idea of "flow" relative to feelings McKibben had had—"taking a break from saving the world", he joked—as he immersed himself in cross-country skiing competitions.
"Wandering Home" is about a long solo hiking trip from his home in the mountains east of Lake Champlain in Ripton, Vermont, back to his longtime neighborhood of the Adirondacks. His book "Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future", published in March 2007, was a national bestseller. It addresses what he sees as shortcomings of the growth economy and envisions a transition to more local-scale enterprise.
In fall 2007 he published, with the other members of his Step It Up team, "Fight Global Warming Now", a handbook for activists trying to organize their local communities. In 2008 came "The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life", a collection of essays spanning his career. Also in 2008 the Library of America published "American Earth," an anthology of American environmental writing since Thoreau edited by McKibben.
In 2010 he published another national bestseller, "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet", an account of the rapid onset of climate change. It was excerpted in "Scientific American".
On April 19, 2019, McKibben published , which details the growing concerns over climate change, how the Koch Brothers are contributing to an increase in carbon emissions by funding oil companies, and his concern with libertarianism, which he argues was sparked by the politics of the Reagan Revolution. He frequently argues that the Nordic model is preferable to a deregulated capitalist system, and that rapid innovation may come to hurt humanity.
Some of his work has been extremely popular; an article in "Rolling Stone" in July 2012 received over 125,000 likes on Facebook, 14,000 tweets, and 5,000 comments.
Environmental campaigns.
Step It Up.
Step It Up 2007 was a nationwide environmental campaign started by McKibben to demand action on global warming by the U.S. Congress.
In late summer 2006 he helped lead a five-day walk across Vermont to call for action on global warming. Beginning in January 2007, he founded Step It Up 2007, which organized rallies in hundreds of American cities and towns on April 14, 2007, to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The campaign quickly won widespread support from a wide variety of environmental, student, and religious groups.
In August 2007 McKibben announced Step It Up 2, to take place November 3, 2007. In addition to the 80% by 2050 slogan from the first campaign, the second adds "10% [reduction of emissions] in three years ("Hit the Ground Running"), a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, and a "Green Jobs Corps" to help fix homes and businesses so those targets can be met" (called "Green Jobs Now, and No New Coal").
350.org.
In the wake of Step It Up's achievements, the same team announced a new campaign in March 2008 called 350.org. The organizing effort, aimed at the entire globe, drew its name from climate scientist James E. Hansen's contention earlier that winter that any atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) above 350 parts per million was unsafe. "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that." Hansen et al. stated in the Abstract to their paper.
350.org, which has offices and organizers in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, attempted to spread that 350 number in advance of international climate meetings in December 2009 in Copenhagen. It was widely covered in the media. On Oct. 24, 2009, it coordinated more than 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, and was widely lauded for its creative use of internet tools, with the website Critical Mass declaring that it was "one of the strongest examples of social media optimization the world has ever seen." "Foreign Policy" magazine called it "the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind."
Subsequently, the organization continued its work, with the Global Work Party on 10/10/10 (10 October 2010).
Keystone XL.
McKibben is one of the environmentalists against the proposed Canadian-U.S. Keystone XL pipeline project.
People's Climate March.
On May 21, 2014, McKibben published an article on the website of "Rolling Stone" magazine (later appearing in the magazine's print issue of June 5), titled "A Call to Arms", which invited readers to a major climate march (later dubbed the People's Climate March) in New York City on the weekend of September 20–21, as part of the People's Climate Movement. In the article, McKibben calls climate change "the biggest crisis our civilization has ever faced", and predicts that the march will be "the largest demonstration yet of human resolve in the face of climate change".
On Sunday, July 5, 2015, McKibben led a similar climate march in Toronto, Ontario, with the support of various celebrities.
Electoral politics.
During the 2016 Democratic presidential primary campaigns, McKibben served as a political surrogate for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders appointed him to the committee charged with writing the Democratic Party's platform for 2016. After Sanders' defeat by Hillary Clinton, McKibben endorsed her and spoke at their first joint event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He has been mentioned as a potential future Cabinet member should Sanders win the presidency.
Keynotes.
In 2020, McKibben delivered a keynote at "2020 Vision: Finding Hope in Climate Action."
Personal life.
McKibben resides in Ripton, Vermont, with his wife, writer Sue Halpern. Their only child, a daughter named Sophie, was born in 1993 in Glens Falls, New York. He is a Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, where he also directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism. McKibben is also a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. He is a long-time Methodist.
Since 2013, McKibben has been listed on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education.
Views.
In 2016, McKibben wrote in "The New York Times" that he is "under surveillance" by "right-wing stalkers" who photograph, pursue, and inquire about him and members of his family in search of ostensible instances of environmental hypocrisy. "I'm being watched," he reported. Two years later, he wrote in the "Times" that he has been receiving death threats since the 1990s.
In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, McKibben signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."


William R. Wilkerson

William Richard "Billy" Wilkerson (September 29, 1890 – September 2, 1962) was the founder of "The Hollywood Reporter", a real estate developer in Las Vegas and owner of such nightclubs as Ciro's. His series of columns known as "Billy's List" helped to initiate the red scare that led to the Hollywood blacklist.
Personal life.
Wilkerson was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 29, 1890. He began to study medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but when his father died leaving extensive gambling debts, Wilkerson quit school to support himself and his mother. He became a compulsive gambler himself, but quit when his son was born in October 1951.
Wilkerson was in relatively poor health throughout the latter half of the 1950s due to decades of excessive smoking. He continued to head "The Hollywood Reporter" and write his daily "Tradeviews" column until shortly before his death. Wilkerson died of a heart attack on September 2, 1962, at his Bel-Air home, one day before "The Hollywood Reporter"′s 32nd anniversary. He is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
Wilkerson was married six times. His wives were:
Career.
When a friend won a Fort Lee, New Jersey movie theater in a bet, Wilkerson agreed to manage it in exchange for half the profits. Expanding his work in the movie industry, he became district manager at Universal Pictures under Carl Laemmle.
"The Hollywood Reporter".
Wilkerson published the first issue of "The Hollywood Reporter" on September 3, 1930. He began each issue with a self-penned editorial entitled "Tradeviews", which proved highly influential.
In 1946, he began a series of columns in "The Hollywood Reporter", listing suspected Communist sympathizers; "Billy's List" helped to initiate the "red scare" that led to the Hollywood blacklist.
Business ventures.
Wilkerson opened a series of social nightspots on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip. Seeing opportunities in Las Vegas, he made key investments there as well.
Restaurants, nightclubs, and hotels that Wilkerson started:


Pasquantino v. United States

Pasquantino v. United States, 544 U.S. 349 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a plot to defraud a foreign government of tax revenue violates the federal wire fraud statute.
Background.
Prior to 1996, Canada raised the excise tax on liquors such that Canadian excise taxes greatly exceeded comparable United States taxes. From 1996-2000, Carl and David Pasquantino purchased large amounts of liquor over the phone from discount stores in Maryland. In order to avoid paying Canadian excise tax on imported alcohol, they hired individuals to smuggle the liquor over the border by automobile. The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives learned about the smuggling operation and investigated, leading to the arrest of the Pasquantinos and their associates.
Federal district court.
The smuggling operation did not violate any federal alcohol statute or any applicable anti-smuggling statute, so the Pasquantinos and one of their conspirators, Arthur Hilts, were indicted under the federal wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343. The statute prohibits using wires, radio, or television to conduct "any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises." The statute was implicated when the Pasquantinos ordered alcohol over the phone.
Before trial, the Pasquantinos and Hilts asked the court for a dismissal, claiming that the government did not have a sufficient interest in enforcing Canadian revenue laws and that the Canadian tax revenue did not constitute property under the wire fraud statute; the court denied the motion and the case went to trial. The Pasquantinos were convicted by a jury and sentenced to 57 months in prison for each of six counts, to be served concurrently, and Hilts to 21 months in prison.
Canada also indicted the men for tax fraud, but had not adjudicated the claim before the U.S. criminal court made its determination.
Federal appeals court.
The Pasquantinos and Hilts appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The Fourth Circuit initially vacated the convictions in a 2-1 panel decision, deciding that the prosecutions violated the common law revenue rule. According to the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States, the "revenue rule" means that “[c]ourts in the United States are not required to recognize or to enforce judgments for the collection of taxes, fines, or penalties rendered by the courts of other states.” The panel reasoned that the prosecutions violated the rule because they required U.S. courts to interpret and enforce foreign revenue law.
The Fourth Circuit granted a rehearing "en banc", vacating the earlier ruling and reinstating the convictions by a 9-2 vote. According to the "en banc" court, the revenue rule was inapplicable to the prosecutions because the rule was intended only to bar enforcement of a foreign judgment in U.S. courts.
The Fourth Circuit decision deepened a circuit split. The Second Circuit had held the revenue rule inapplicable, and that prosecutions for operations to defraud foreign government are not barred by the federal wire fraud statute; the First Circuit had vacated such convictions, reasoning that the convictions were penal enforcement of foreign laws and ran afoul of underlying purposes of the common law revenue rule.
Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari, noting the split among circuit courts on the applicability of the federal wire fraud statute in cases where a scheme to defraud involves foreign tax revenue.
Majority opinion.
In a 5-4 decision, Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the court, joined by Justices Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, and Kennedy. The court held that prosecution for international tax fraud was possible in U.S. court under the federal wire fraud statute. The majority concluded first, that the petitioner's acts fell within the literal terms of the wire fraud statute; second, that the prosecutions did not violate the common law revenue rule; and third, that no underlying purpose of the rule suggested it should apply to the prosecutions.
The court applied the modern definition of the common law revenue rule, which prevents "courts of one sovereign [from] enforc[ing] final tax judgments or unadjudicated tax claims of other sovereigns." The court found the revenue rule to be inapplicable because U.S. officials brought the prosecution, rather than Canadian officials. The court also reasoned that the revenue rule is inapplicable because Canadian tax laws were "incidental" to the enforcement of the wire fraud statute.
Dissents.
Justice Ginsburg wrote the dissent, joined by Justice Breyer and in part by Justices Scalia and Souter. The dissent argued that the revenue rule does not allow for a prosecution that is essentially charging the violation of another country's revenue laws, and that the majority wrongly gives the federal wire fraud statute extraterritorial effect.


Call signs in Australia

Call signs in Australia are allocated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and are unique for each broadcast station. The use of callsigns on-air in both radio and television in Australia is optional, so many stations used other on-air identifications. Australian broadcast stations officially have the prefix VL- and originally all callsigns used that format, but since Australia has no nearby neighbours, this prefix is no longer used except in an international context.
Call sign blocks for telecommunication.
The International Telecommunication Union has assigned Australia the following call sign blocks for all radio communication, broadcasting or transmission:
While not directly related to call signs, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) further has divided all countries assigned amateur radio prefixes into three regions; Australia is located in ITU Region 3. It is assigned ITU Zones 55, 58 and 59, with the Pacific Islands in Australian jurisdiction in Zone 60.
Australia is assigned CQ Zones 29 & 30.
Call signs for radio.
All radio call signs begin with a single-digit number indicating the state or territory, followed by two or three letters. In most cases, two letters are used for AM stations and three for FM, but there are some exceptions, such as 5UV in Adelaide, which broadcasts on an FM frequency, and 3RPH in Melbourne, which broadcasts on an AM frequency. While some AM stations retained their old call signs when moving to FM, most add an extra letter to the call sign. For instance, when 7HO Hobart became an FM station, it adopted the callsign 7HHO.
Certain ABC radio stations, particularly outside of metropolitan areas, may use five-letter call signs for FM stations: "xABCFM" for ABC Classic FM, "xABCRN" for Radio National, and "xABCRR" for ABC Local Radio – the "x" being the state number. Also, SBS FM radio stations use a five-letter call sign, "xSBSFM". (Sydney and Melbourne's AM stations use "2EA" and "3EA", meaning "Ethnic Australia".)
There are a number of exceptions:
The following are lists of Australian radio station call signs.
Australian radios usually had the positions of radio stations marked on their dials.
Australia's postcodes, introduced in 1967, use the same digit as the radio callsigns, followed by an additional three digits (eg. NSW: 2XXX, Victoria: 3XXX, etc.).
There is an urban myth that call signs were based on Australian military districts but this incorrect as the following list of military districts show: 1 = Queensland; 2 = New South Wales; 3 = Victoria; 4 = South Australia; 5 = Western Australia; 6 = Tasmania; 7 = Northern Territory; 8 = New Guinea, and Papua.
Television call signs.
Television station call signs begin with two letters usually denoting the station itself, followed by a third letter denoting the state. For example, NBN's call sign stands for Newcastle Broadcasting, New South Wales. There are some exceptions:
Amateur radio.
Amateur radio in Australia has its own set of call signs, managed by the Australian Maritime College, normally starting with the prefix VK, the state identifier, and then 1,2,3, or 4 letters.
As of July 29th 2020 - the following AR callsign structure is in place in Australia:
Advanced VK$aa, VJ$a, VK$a, VL$a
Advanced/Standard/Foundation VK$aaa-VK$zzz
Repeater / Beacon VK$Raa-VK$Rzz
It is also no longer necessary to change one's callsign should the amateur move states within Australia or advance to a higher licence class.
Amateur radio or ham radio call signs are unique identifiers for the 19,500 licensed operators in Australia. Call signs are regulated internationally by the ITU as well as nationally by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) which is Australia's regulator for broadcasting, administering spectrum use through the provisions of the Radio-communications Act 1992. ACMA is also responsible for amateur radio licensing. The Wireless Institute of Australia had the responsibility for the management of amateur station call signs from 2 March 2009 until February 2019 .
Amateur radio call sign assignments within Australia.
The usual prefix for Australian amateur call signs is VK. The numeral that separates the prefix from the suffix indicates the state/territory in which the operator is licensed.
Since 1 November 2009 callsigns in the VK9 region have been treated the same as all other call areas, and individual islands are no longer designated by a special letter.
Operator class call signs.
With the exception of repeaters and beacons, the ACMA removed the relationship between the first letter of a call and the type of licence as of July 29, 2020. Should someone move state they no longer need to change their call for one with their new states number in, they can retain their existing callsign.
Prior to this change, the following structure was in place:
AX prefix.
A special event prefix of 'AX' can be substituted for 'VK' on occasions of national significance (e.g. Sydney Olympic Games) and each year on Australia Day, Anzac day and World Information Society Day.
VI prefix.
A special event prefix of 'VI' can be substituted for 'VK' on occasions of state/territory significance.
VJ & VL prefixes.
The special (contest only) prefixes of 'VJ' & 'VL' are only used with 2x1 contest call signs, implemented from July 29th 2020. 2x1 call signs may ONLY be used during contests.
Overseas visiting amateurs.
Visiting amateurs who qualify under a two-party joint agreement between Australia and their home country can use their home call sign, and attach a '/VK' after it. If a visiting amateur is issued an Australian call sign, they can combine both (e.g. VK1AAA/WA7AAA).
Visiting amateurs holding a "full" callsign from a CEPT agreement (TR61/01) signing country PREFIX their home callsign with VKn/ (where n is the number for the state or territory they are in) and may operate for up to 3 months within Australia after which time application for a reciprocal licence under CEPT agreement TR61/02 is required.
Call sign history.
David Burger has written the definitive history of call sign allocation in the country.
Wireless experimenters were in most states by 1897, and the first list of call signs and licensees is from 1911. In 1912 the first system of a designated range for each state was issued by the PMG Department based on an XAA–XZZ block of letters. When all the three letter call signs were issued, provision was made to expand to four (e.g. XAAA). In 1914 a numeral was inserted after the 'X' to indicate the state (e.g. XAA became X1AA).
In 1927 the Washington Radiotelegraph Conference decreed that Australia should use the prefix range of VHA–VNZ for communication identification. However, amateur radio itself was not subject to this designation, and 'OA' became effective for amateurs from 1 February 1927. "O" was for Oceania and "A" for Australia. By 1929 Australia began the practice of using 'VK' for amateurs as well.
With a lack of official issuance, though, some radio experimenters continued with various formats such as XA-4CD, OA2-BH, VK.2AK and VK-4SU. There was even VK3D.L. and VK3H-W.
1947 Atlantic City convention and subsequent.
As of 19 September 1947 Australia adopted the ITU international call sign protocol and recognised amateur radio stations as valid licensees. The ITU issued Australia with the AXA–AXZ, VHA–VNZ and VZA–VZZ blocks.
VK#xx and VK#Axx call signs were issued to amateurs.
Changes within Australia happened according to this table:
State indicators.
Letters and numbers used by Australian stations:


Direct Stream Digital

Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is a trademark used by Sony and Philips for their system of digitally recreating audible signals for the Super Audio CD (SACD).
DSD uses pulse-density modulation encoding - a technology to store audio signals on digital storage media which are used for the SACD. The signal is stored as delta-sigma modulated digital audio, which is a sequence of single-bit values at a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz (64 times the CD audio sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, but only at 1⁄32768 of its 16-bit resolution). Noise shaping occurs by use of the 64-times oversampled signal to reduce noise and distortion caused by the inaccuracy of quantization of the audio signal to a single bit. Therefore, it is a topic of discussion whether it is possible to eliminate distortion in one-bit delta-sigma conversion.
Development.
DSD is a method of storing a delta-sigma signal before applying a decimation process that converts the signal to a PCM signal. Delta-sigma conversion was first described by C.C. Cutler in 1954, but was not named as such until a 1962 paper by Inose et al. Decimation did not initially exist and oversampled data was sent as-is. The proposal to decimate oversampled delta-sigma data before converting it into PCM audio was made by D. J. Goodman in 1969.
DSD technology was later developed and commercialized by Sony and Philips, the designers of the audio CD. However, in 2005, Philips later sold its DSD tool division to Sonic Studio.
DVD-Audio was endorsed by the Warner Music Group, while the SACD format was endorsed by Sony and Universal Music Group, with an especially high-profile by UMG imprint Virgin Records. Despite this, in 2011, "The Warner Premium Sound series" of albums was released by Warner Music Group, marking the first time the label released titles in a SACD format, with recording in DSD. The series grew to ten rock and pop albums, with Super Audio CD/CD hybrid discs containing both an SACD layer and a standard CD layer.
Sony did not promote SACD actively in North America, with the result that DVD-Audio gained competitive traction in the market. Elsewhere, such as in Europe or Japan, SACD gained more of a foothold. Examples include the German Stockfisch Records, which releases vinyl editions of albums and DSD-recordings, released as hybrid SACDs.
Many music companies that specialize in Super Audio CD products therefore use DSD encoding. A number of independent record labels have also worked directly with Sony to focus on DSD products or the DSD recording process.
DMP Digital Music Products was an early user of the SACD digital audio format. In 1997 their release "Alto" by Joe Beck & Ali Ryerson was the first commercial recording captured with Sony's Direct Stream Digital recording technology. The label's "Just Jobim" by Manfredo Fest in 1998 was the first project captured with the new Meitner DSD conversion technology. In 2000, DMP released the world's first multi-channel SACD—"Sacred Feast" by Gaudeamus.
The majority of Telarc International Corporation's releases were on (generally hybrid) SACD, and are DSD recordings. Telarc often worked with early audiophile company Soundstream, and re-released many of its original Soundstream recordings in SACD format. Soundstream, which made the first digital recording in the United States, recorded in 16 bit PCM at a sample rate of 50 kHz via its own proprietary digital recorder. This 50 kHz PCM format was converted to DSD for release on Telarc SACD.
The record label Mobile Fidelity had engineers who decided to adopt the Super Audio CD over the DVD-Audio disc as a high resolution digital format after listening tests and technical evaluations. On the label's Hybrid SACD releases, the SACD layer is a direct DSD recording of the analog master tape, while the CD layer is a digital down conversion of the DSD, with Super Bit Mapping applied. Post-2001, CD-only are sourced from DSD, but omit the SACD layer.
In 2007, Blue Coast Records was founded in California for the purpose of recording and releasing music recorded with the DSD format, primarily focusing on jazz and acoustic artists.
On August 28, 2013, the Acoustic Sounds label launched SuperHiRez.com, which sells mainstream albums from major record labels that were produced with Direct Stream Digital or PCM audio formats. On September 4, 2013, Acoustic Sounds announced an agreement with Sony Music Entertainment to provide the company's new digital download service with albums that have been produced or remastered in Direct Stream Digital format.
The format is used on albums such as "Pop, Songs & Death" in 2009, and the remastered The Rolling Stones album "Their Satanic Majesties Request" in 2002.
DSD technique.
SACD audio is stored in DSD, which differs from the conventional PCM used by the compact disc or conventional computer audio systems.
A DSD recorder uses delta-sigma modulation. DSD is 1-bit with a 2.8224 MHz sampling rate. The output from a DSD recorder is a bitstream. The long-term average of this signal is proportional to the original signal. DSD uses noise shaping techniques to push quantization noise up to inaudible ultrasonic frequencies. In principle, the retention of the bitstream in DSD lets the SACD player use a basic (one-bit) DAC design with a low-order analog filter. The SACD format can deliver a dynamic range of 120 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz and an extended frequency response up to 100 kHz—though most current players list an upper limit of 80–90 kHz.
Most professional audiologists accept that the upper limit of human adult hearing is 20 kHz and that high frequencies are the first to be affected by hearing loss.
The process of creating a DSD signal is conceptually similar to taking a one-bit delta-sigma analog-to-digital (A/D) converter and removing the decimator, which converts the 1-bit bitstream into multi-bit PCM. Instead, the 1-bit signal is recorded directly and, in theory, only requires a lowpass filter to reconstruct the original analog waveform. In reality it is a little more complex, and the analogy is incomplete in that 1-bit sigma-delta converters are these days rather unusual, one reason being that a one-bit signal cannot be dithered properly: most modern sigma-delta converters are multi-bit.
Because of the nature of sigma-delta converters, one cannot make a direct comparison between DSD and PCM. An approximation is possible, though, and would place DSD in some aspects comparable to a PCM format that has a bit depth of 24 bits and a sampling frequency of 88200 Hz.
Because it has been extremely difficult to carry out DSP operations (for example performing EQ, balance, panning and other changes in the digital domain) in a one-bit environment, and because of the prevalence of solely PCM studio equipment such as Pro Tools, the vast majority of SACDs—especially rock and contemporary music, which rely on multitrack techniques—are in fact mixed in PCM (or mixed analog and recorded on PCM recorders) and then converted to DSD for SACD mastering.
To address some of these issues, a new studio format has been developed, usually referred to as "DSD-wide", which retains the high sample rate of standard DSD, but uses an 8-bit, rather than single-bit digital word length, yet still relies heavily on the noise shaping principle. DSD-wide is PCM with noise shaping—and is sometimes disparagingly referred to as "PCM-narrow"—but has the added benefit of making DSP operations in the studio a great deal more practical. The main difference is that "DSD-wide" still retains 2.8224 MHz () sampling frequency while the highest frequency in which PCM is being edited is 384 kHz (). The "DSD-wide" signal is down-converted to regular DSD for SACD mastering. As a result of this technique and other developments there are now a few digital audio workstations (DAWs) that operate, or can operate, in the DSD domain, notably Pyramix and some SADiE systems.
Another format for DSD editing is Digital eXtreme Definition (DXD), a PCM format with 24-bit resolution sampled at 352.8 kHz (or alternatively 384 kHz). DXD was initially developed for the Merging Pyramix workstation and introduced together with their Sphynx 2, AD/DA converter in 2004. This combination meant that it was possible to record and edit directly in DXD, and that the sample only converts to DSD once before publishing to SACD. This offers an advantage to the user as the noise created by converting DSD rises dramatically above 20 kHz, and more noise is added each time a signal is converted back to DSD during editing.
Note that high-resolution PCM (DVD-Audio, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc) and DSD (SACD) may still technically differ at high frequencies. A reconstruction filter is typically used in PCM decoding systems, much the same way that bandwidth-limiting filters are normally used in PCM encoding systems. Any error or unwanted artifact introduced by such filters typically affects the end-result. A claimed advantage of DSD is that product designers commonly choose to have no filtering, or modest filtering. Instead DSD leads to constant high levels of noise at these frequencies. The dynamic range of DSD decreases quickly at frequencies over 20 kHz due to the use of strong noise shaping techniques that push the noise out of the audio band, resulting in a rising noise floor just above 20 kHz. The dynamic range of PCM, on the other hand, is the same at all frequencies. However, almost all present-day DAC chips employ some kind of sigma-delta conversion of PCM files that results in the same noise spectrum as DSD signals. All SACD players employ an optional low-pass filter set at 50 kHz for compatibility and safety reasons, suitable for situations where amplifiers or loudspeakers cannot deliver an undistorted output if noise above 50 kHz is present in the signal.
Double-rate DSD (DSD128).
Referred to as DSD128 because the sample rate is 128 times that of CD. Since its establishment content creators have started to make 5.6 MHz DSD128 recordings available, such as the audiophile label Opus3. Additionally a 44.1 kHz variant at 5.6448 MHz has been supported by multiple hardware devices such as the exaSound e20 Mk II DAC. The Korg MR-1000 1-bit digital recorder samples at 5.6448 MHz, twice the SACD rate.
Quad-rate DSD (DSD256).
Referred to as DSD256 because the sample rate is 256 times that of CD. The Pyramix Virtual Studio Digital Audio Workstation allows for recording, editing and mastering all DSD formats, being DSD64 (SACD resolution), DSD128 (Double-DSD) and DSD256 (Quad-DSD). A 44.1 kHz variant of 12.288 MHz has been established. The exaSound e20 DAC was the first commercially available device capable of DSD256 playback at sampling rates of 11.2896/12.288 MHz. The Merging Technologies Horus AD/DA Converter offers sample rates up to 11.2 MHz, or four times the SACD rate.
Octuple-rate DSD (DSD512).
Referred to as DSD512 because the sample rate is 512 times that of CD. It has a sample rate of 22.5792 MHz (512 times that of CD), or alternatively 24.576 MHz (512 times 48 kHz). Hardware such as the Amanero Combo384 DSD output adapter, and exaU2I USB to I²S interface, and software such as JRiver Media Center, foobar2000 with SACD plugin (up to DSD256 only), Roon, HQPlayer and Neutron Music Player are all able to handle DSD files of this advanced sampling rate fully natively.
DSD playback options.
Sony developed DSD for SACD, and many disk players support SACD. Since the format is digital, there are other ways to play back a DSD stream; the development of these alternatives has enabled companies to offer high-quality music downloads in DSD.
DSD disc format.
Some professional audio recorders (from Korg, Tascam, and others) can record in DSD format. Transferring this signal to a recordable DVD with the appropriate tools, such as the AudioGate software bundled with Korg MR-1/2/1000/2000 recorders, renders a "DSD Disc". Such discs can be played back in native DSD only on certain Sony VAIO laptops and PlayStation 3 systems. HQPlayer from February 16, 2011, version 2.6.0 beta includes support for direct/native playback from DSD Interchange File Format (DSDIFF) and DSD stream files (DSF) to ASIO devices with DSD support. Moreover, Sony produces two SACD players, the SCD-XA5400ES and the SCD-XE800, that fully support the DSD-disc format. Only the DSF format is supported. DSF is a stereo-only, simplified form of DFF, the format used for SACD mastering and 5.1-channel downloads. However, since most personal computers have only PCM audio hardware, DSD discs must be transcoded to PCM on the fly with the proper software plug-ins with questionable quality benefits compared to native high resolution PCM sources like DVD or Blu-ray Disc Audio.
In June 2012, Pioneer launched a series of SACD players compatible with DSD-disc. The PD-30 and PD-50.
In January 2013, TEAC announced a DSD-disc compatible player, the PD-501HR.
DSD over USB.
An alternative to burning DSD files onto disks for eventual playback is to transfer the (non-encrypted) files from a computer to audio hardware over a digital link such as USB.
The USB audio 2.0 specification defined several formats for the more common PCM approach to digital audio, but did not define a format for DSD.
In 2012, representatives from many companies and others developed a standard to represent and detect DSD audio within PCM frames; the standard, commonly known as "DSD over PCM", or "DoP", is suitable for other digital links that use PCM. The 1.1 revision added protocol support for higher DSD sample rates without requiring an increase the underlying PCM sample rate. Many manufacturers now offer DACs that support DoP.
DSD vs. PCM.
There has been much controversy between proponents of DSD and PCM over which encoding system is superior. In 2001, Lipshitz and Vanderkooy stated that one-bit converters, as employed by DSD, are unsuitable for high-end applications due to their high distortion. In 2002, Philips published a paper arguing the contrary. Lipshitz and Vanderkooy's paper was further criticized by Angus. Lipshitz and Vanderkooy responded to the criticisms. Stuart also defined sigma delta modulation a "totally unsuitable choice" for high resolution digital audio.
Conventional implementation of DSD has an intrinsic high distortion. Distortion can be alleviated to some degree by using multibit digital to analogue converter. State-of-the-art ADCs are based around sigma-delta modulation designs. Oversampling converters are usually used in linear PCM formats, where the ADC or DAC output is subject to bandlimiting and dithering. Most modern ADC and DAC converters use oversampling and a multi-bit design; in other words, while DSD is a 1-bit format, modern converters internally use a 2-bit to 6-bit format.
Comparisons of DSD and PCM recordings with the same origin, number of channels and similar bandwidth and noise have yielded contradictory results. A study conducted at the Erich-Thienhaus Institute in Detmold, Germany found that in double-blind tests "hardly any of the subjects could make a reproducible distinction between the two encoding systems." In contrast, a 2014 study conducted at the Tokyo University of the Arts found that listeners could distinguish PCM (192 kHz/24 bits) from either DSD (2.8 MHz) or DSD (5.6 MHz) (but not between the two DSD samplings), preferring the sound of DSD over PCM: "For example, Drums stimulus of DSD (5.6 MHz) has p = 0.001 when compared against PCM (192 kHz/24 bit) in overall preference.
This suggests that DSD version was statistically significantly preferred over the PCM version."
DSD met with relatively little success in the consumer market, even though the SACD was actually more successful than its direct competitor, the PCM-based DVD-Audio. Direct manipulation of recorded DSD data is difficult due to limited availability of appropriate software. The advent of new high-resolution PCM standards, such as DXD, further restricted its market niche. DSD, however, is still used as an archival format for studio applications, and it's seen as a possible replacement for analog tapes.


Medard Gabel

Medard Gabel is the executive director of the non-profit research and development organization EarthGame. He also leads BigPictureSmallWorld and the Global Solutions Lab. He is the former executive director of the World Game Institute and director of The Cornucopia Project and the Regeneration Project at Rodale Press. He has done work for Tanzania on regenerative agriculture, as well as work in Costa Rica, Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, China, Malaysia and elsewhere. He has written six books on world food and energy problems and solutions, the U.S. food system, multinational corporations, and strategic planning.
Medard Gabel’s seminal 1985 paper on regeneration, "Regenerating America: Meeting the Challenge of Building Local Economies" is the acknowledged first appearances of the idea of regeneration in the social and economic spheres. His prophetic 1975 and 1980 books Energy, Earth and Everyone were the first globally comprehensive inventory and explication of all renewable energy sources, as well as plans for the roll-out of renewable energy and the phase out of fossil and nuclear fuels. Much of what the book envisioned and called for has or is happening.
Mr. Gabel has designed and developed a variety of global problem solving and data visualization tools, such as the World Game Workshop, of which he was the chief architect and developer while the executive director at the World Game Institute, and the Earth Dashboard— the most compete rendering of the vital statistics for “Spaceship Earth” yet developed. He has also developed software applications, such as Global Recall, global databases, such as Global Data Manager, Internet based global simulations, such as NetWorld Game, and games and short films. He has worked as a consultant and/or run workshops for the UN, U.S. Congress, the governments of the Netherlands, Tanzania and Spain, as well as World Bank, UNEP, GM, Motorola, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, Exxon, AT&T, DuPont, British Airways, and other major multinational corporations. He worked with Buckminster Fuller for 12 years on a variety of projects—from work on the foundations of a Regenerative Resource Industry to participating in the first and designing and running subsequent World Game Workshops, to organizing Fuller’s archives, arranging the 42-hour video lecture by Buckminster Fuller presenting “everything I know,” and designing multiple versions of the World Game, including the World Climate Change Game, World Environment Game, World Diversity Game, and the online NetWorld Game. He is now working on WorldGame 2.0 with colleagues from the World Game Institute and the Global Solutions Lab, and writing a number of books.


George Tabori

George Tabori (24 May 1914 – 23 July 2007) was a Hungarian writer and theater director.
Life and career.
Tabori was born in Budapest as György Tábori, a son of Kornél and Elsa Tábori. His father Kornél (Cornelius) died in Auschwitz in 1944, but his mother and his brother Paul Tabori (writer and psychical researcher), managed to escape the Nazis. As a young man, Tabori went to Berlin but was forced to leave Nazi Germany in 1935 due to his Jewish background. He first went to London, where he worked for the BBC and received British citizenship. In 1947 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a translator (mainly of works by Bertolt Brecht and Max Frisch) and a screenwriter including Alfred Hitchcock's movie "I Confess" (1953).
His first novel, "Beneath The Stone", was published in America in 1945. In the late 1960s, Tabori brought his own and the work of Brecht to many colleges and universities. At the University of Pennsylvania he taught classes in dramatic writing which resulted in Werner Liepolt's "The Young Master Dante" and Ron Cowen's "Summertree". Two of Tabori's plays in English -- "The Cannibals" and "Pinkville"—were produced by Wynn Handman at the American Place Theatre in New York City from 1968 through 1970. In 1970 his play "The Prince" was filmed by John Boorman as "Leo the Last" with Marcello Mastroianni and Billie Whitelaw; the film won the Director's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in that year.
During his time in America, Tabori married Viveca Lindfors. In addition to his own child with Lindfors, Lena, Tabori adopted Lindfors' two sons, John and Kristoffer. Kristoffer later became an actor and Lena a publisher.
In 1971, Tabori moved to Germany, where his new emphasis was theater work, and mainly worked in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna. His 1991 "Goldberg Variations" is a satirical farce based on Biblical stories which end in disaster.
He died in Berlin, aged 93.


Richard Scott Smith


Faith Hubley

Faith Hubley (née Chestman; September 16, 1924 – December 7, 2001) was an American animator, known for her experimental work both in collaboration with her husband John Hubley, and on her own following her husband's death.
Biography.
Born to Sally and Irving Chestman, Russian-Jewish immigrants, she grew up with three siblings on Manhattan's West Side during the 1920s and 1930s. She spoke little about her childhood and left home at age 15 to work in the theater, adopting the name Faith Elliott. At age 18, she moved to Hollywood, starting as a messenger at Columbia Pictures. She subsequently worked as a sound-effects and music editor, and then script clerk for Republic Pictures. She later worked as a script supervisor ("12 Angry Men") and editor ("Go, Man, Go"; with the Harlem Globetrotters).
Career.
The Hubleys jointly founded Storyboard Studios as an independent animation studio, vowing to make one independent film a year. They collaborated on more than 20 short films, up until John's death during open-heart surgery in 1977. At that time they were working on the Doonesbury television cartoon, "A Doonesbury Special". Faith Hubley, with Garry Trudeau and Bill Littlejohn, completed the special despite the doubts of NBC executives. The Hubleys won Oscars for their shorts: "Moonbird" (1959), "The Hole" (1962) and "A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature" (1966); they also received Oscar nominations for "Windy Day", "Of Men and Demons", "Voyage to Next" and "A Doonesbury Special". Her many solo projects established her as a significant film creator in her own right. She began her first solo project, "W.O.W. (Women of the World)", after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1975.
Between 1976 and 2001, she completed 24 further solo animated films. Her films often feature abstract imagery and non-linear stories; many draw on themes of mythology and indigenous art. She was also a painter, with her works being exhibited in galleries in Europe and the United States. Unlike conventional hand-drawn animation where a camera takes pictures of paintings on celluloid that are lit from above, she used a technique were drawings on paper were illuminated from below, giving the animation a special look.
Preservation.
The Academy Film Archive preserved several of Faith Hubley's films, including "A Smattering of Spots", "A Doonesbury Special", and "The Hole".
Awards.
Faith Hubley received honors from the Cannes, Venice, London, and San Francisco film festivals. She won fourteen CINE Golden Eagle awards, and received honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and Hofstra University. Her 1981 animated film "Enter Life" can be seen at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, as part of the Early Life exhibit. In 1995, the National Gallery of Art presented a retrospective program of her works.
Death.
Faith Hubley died in 2001, aged 77, in New Haven, Connecticut, following her long battle with breast cancer, 26 years after her initial diagnosis.
Family.
She married John Hubley in 1955. The couple had four children: Mark Hubley, animator Emily Hubley, musician/artist Georgia Hubley, and Hamp Hubley. Their children's voices were featured in a number of their films.
References.
Works


Keenan Cahill

Keenan Cahill (born March 20, 1995) is an American Internet celebrity from Chicago, Illinois who lip-syncs to popular songs on YouTube.
Cahill launched his first lipsynced YouTube video on August 28, 2010 on the Katy Perry song "Teenage Dream". Guest artists on his channel have included Jennifer Aniston, 50 Cent, Flo Rida, Katy Perry, Tinie Tempah, Maroon 5, Cody Simpson, Jason Derulo, Big Time Rush, Glee, The Wanted, LMFAO, Drake Bell, Justin Bieber, Gym Class Heroes, Xuso Jones, WWE wrestler The Miz and "Jersey Shore"'s Paul DelVecchio. He has also released a number of singles on iTunes.
In popular culture.
In March 2011, at a Danish award show, TV 2 Zulu Awards 2011, he performed in a video where he was lip-synching the songs which were nominated for the Hit of the Year award.
Earlier that month, the video was released for Uncharted, a single by Sara Bareilles off her album Kaleidoscope Heart. Cahill was one of a number of celebrity lip-syncers on the video, joining Adam Levine, Josh Groban and Ingrid Michaelson, to name a few.
In April 2011, Cahill appeared with Brian Wilson and Cody Ross of the San Francisco Giants performing Taio Cruz's hit, "Dynamite". The video also promoted a fundraiser campaign for Cahill launched by Wilson and Ross to be effected during a meeting on May 25, 2011 between the San Francisco Giants and Miami Marlins.
Cahill was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for Choice Web Star. During her California Dreams Tour, Katy Perry met Keenan and they performed "Teenage Dream" together in a video.
In August 2011, a war of words via Twitter between Cahill and WWE wrestler The Miz culminated in the two facing off in a "lip-sync battle" with the chosen song being The Miz's WWE entrance theme ("I Came to Play" by Downstait).
In September 2011, Cahill was nominated for Viral Web Star at the J-14 Awards. Keenan had a one-hour documentary aired on NT1 in France, Belgium and Switzerland reportedly watched by 5 million people. He later had a 13-minute documentary air on M6 in France.
In Fall 2011, Cahill performed in a music video with The Oak Ridge Boys for their song "What'cha Gonna Do" and appeared with them live at the Grand Ole Opry.
Cahill released three singles through iTunes: "Hands Up" featuring ElectroVamp (2012), "Closer" featuring SHY & DRS (2013) and "Back to Us" featuring Lovey James (2014).
Personal life.
Cahill has Maroteaux–Lamy syndrome, which in his case and some other cases result in individuals developing an appearance much like that of people with dwarfism (Cahill is 127 cm (4' 2") tall), including thickening of the dura (the membrane that surrounds and protects the brain and spinal cord), shortened trunk, crouched stance, restricted joint movement, and enlarged hands.
Diagnosed at the age of one, Cahill was treated with a bone marrow transplant in 1997 to slow down the progression of the disease, and he has had multiple surgeries, including surgery to relieve intracranial pressure.


Lori Erica Ruff

Kimberly Maria McLean, a.k.a. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff (October 16, 1968 – December 24, 2010), was an American identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six years after her death. She was eventually identified as a native of suburban Philadelphia who left home at age 17, in the fall of 1986, because she did not get along with her mother and stepfather. Within the next two years, she obtained the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner, a 2-year-old girl who had died with her two sisters in a house fire in 1971. McLean used the child's birth certificate to obtain an Idaho state identification card, then moved to Texas and had her name legally changed to Lori Erica Kennedy.
Kennedy gradually acquired more documents in her new name, including a Social Security number. After earning a GED and a college degree, she married into a wealthy East Texas family and gave birth to a daughter. Due to her off-putting, secretive behavior, she clashed with her husband's family, and her marriage eventually collapsed. She died by suicide in the driveway of her former in-laws' home in Longview, Texas, on Christmas Eve 2010.
After her death, her husband and his family found the evidence of her falsified identity in a lock box in her closet. A 2013 "Seattle Times" feature article about the case was published in news outlets around the world and created enormous interest in the online "websleuth" community.
McLean's true origins remained a mystery until 2016, when her identity was confirmed using a combination of public records and direct-to-consumer autosomal SNP analysis of her husband's and daughter's DNA, leading back to the McLean–Cassidy family on Philadelphia's Main Line.
Activities before marriage.
In May 1988, McLean obtained the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner, a 2-year-old girl who was killed, with two of her siblings, in a house fire in Fife, Washington in 1971. McLean requested the birth certificate in Bakersfield, California, Becky Sue Turner's birthplace. She then traveled to Idaho, where she used the document to obtain a state ID card on June 16.
McLean, posing as Becky Sue Turner, then appeared before a judge in Dallas July 5, 1988, and legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. A week later, she obtained a Social Security number, removing traces of her true identity. She also took a birth date of July 18, 1969. She received a Texas driver license in 1989 and qualified for a GED the following year. She enrolled in Dallas County Community College, and in 1997 she graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in business administration.
Marriage.
In 2003 McLean met Jon Blakely "Blake" Ruff, the son of a socially prominent family in East Texas, in a Bible study class. Ruff describes her as being incredibly secretive, particularly regarding her past. She had told him she was from Arizona, that both her parents were dead, that she'd had an unhappy childhood, and that she had no siblings; she also said her father was a failed stockbroker. The couple eloped in January 2004 after Nancy Ruff, Blake's mother, had inquired about placing a wedding announcement in the local newspaper. The only person in attendance at their wedding ceremony, held in a church outside Dallas, was the officiating preacher.
After getting married, the Ruffs moved to Leonard, Texas. They tried several times to have a child, but had trouble conceiving and suffered multiple miscarriages. This led investigators to believe that Ruff was older than she claimed, though the difference turned out to be less than a year. She eventually gave birth to a baby girl via In vitro fertilisation in 2008.
Divorce and suicide.
Marriage breakdown.
Ruff was "extremely protective" of her daughter, often refusing to let anyone else hold her and even taking the baby with her to use the restroom. She would also obsessively track the Ruffs' family history and try to find out their family recipes, but she still refused to talk about her own past.
Eventually, Ruff did not want her in-laws to have any contact with her daughter; as a result, the Ruffs began encouraging Blake to get out of the marriage. After some failed marriage therapy sessions, Blake Ruff moved back to his parents' house in Longview and filed for divorce, leaving Lori with their daughter in Leonard.
Suicide.
In the months between the separation and Lori's suicide, she behaved very erratically. A neighbor recalled that she and her daughter appeared to be undernourished and that Lori would often ramble incoherently to herself while pacing back and forth outside. She also began sending harassing emails to the Ruffs, created a scene at a custody exchange, and stole a set of house keys from them. The harassment was so severe that the Ruffs filed a cease and desist order just before Lori's death.
On December 24, 2010, Ruff's body was discovered in her car in the Ruffs' driveway, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. In the car were two suicide notes: One 11‑page note addressed to "my wonderful husband" and another addressed to her daughter, to be opened on her 18th birthday. The Ruffs opened and read the letter, but it contained only "ramblings from a clearly disturbed person" and no details about Lori's past.
Investigation.
Discovery of past.
After Lori's funeral, some of the Ruffs drove to Leonard to see if they could find out more about her in her house. The house was discovered in disarray, with piles of dirty dishes, laundry, and trash stacked up around the house, as well as shredded documents and papers with incoherent scribblings on them. They then discovered the lock box in a closet, pried it open with a screwdriver, and discovered the documentation of Ruff's past. Also found in the lock box was a paper with several seemingly random scribblings.
The suicide notes were quickly determined to be incoherent ramblings that offered no clues to Ruff's identity. Other papers included the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner and a judge's ruling granting a name change to Lori Erica Kennedy. A friend of the family verified that Becky Sue Turner had died in a house fire at the age of 2.
The writings on the paper found in the lock box included the scribblings "North Hollywood police," "402 months," and "Ben Perkins." The nature of these scribblings led some followers of the case to believe that Ruff was trying to avoid prison time, due to the references to police, a possible jail-term length, and the name of Ben Perkins, a Los Angeles attorney. When contacted, however, Perkins stated that he had never heard of Becky Sue Turner or Lori Kennedy. (Perkins, who was black and who marketed his legal services to LA's African-American community, had never taken on a white client during his career.) In addition, there were no matches for the woman in any existing fingerprint and facial recognition databases. The fact that Ruff was able to cover up her identity so well in a time before the Internet has led to speculation that she had enlisted the services of a so-called identity broker.
In September 2011 the Ruff family, with the help of a congressional aide, sought the help of Joe Velling, an investigator for the Social Security Administration (SSA). Velling agreed to help identify her as a case of identify theft. After following numerous leads he was stumped, and sought the help of the general public to identify her through an article published June 22, 2013, in "The Seattle Times". The article was subsequently republished in numerous newspapers around the world.
Identification.
Colleen Fitzpatrick, a former nuclear physicist who created the field of forensic genealogy, learned of Lori Ruff in 2013 and began work on the case. Fitzpatrick had Ruff's husband and daughter tested by a direct-to-consumer testing company, through which she was able to obtain Ruff's DNA results using genetic genealogy phasing techniques, which essentially subtracted Blake Ruff's DNA from Lori's. Ruff had a first cousin named Cassidy on her list of matches; however, the name was very common and the cousin was not responsive. After two years, Fitzpatrick finally identified Ruff when she discovered a third cousin match who was related to the Cassidys. Knowing the identity of the third cousin led her to Ruff's identity.
Fitzpatrick informed Joe Velling, who had in the meantime retired from the SSA. He flew to Pennsylvania to meet the potential family. Velling approached a relative, who immediately identified the deceased Lori Ruff as Kimberly McLean.


Zakef gadol

Zakef Gadol (Hebrew: , with variant English spellings) is a cantillation mark that is commonly found in the Torah and Haftarah. It is represented by a vertical line on the left and two dots one on top of the other on the right.
The Zakef gadol is one of two versions of the "Zakef" trope. The other is the Zakef katan, part of the Katan group. A "zakef segment", which includes either a zakef gadol or katan, will either be followed by another zakef segment or the Etnachta group, usually starting with a Mercha.
The Zakef gadol generally functions as a "separator" between two segments of a verse. Words that bear the zakef gadol are generally short with no preceding conjunctive. It is used in situations where a Zakef katon would be expected, but where there is only a single word.
The Hebrew word זָקֵף translates into English as "upright". גָּד֕וֹל translates as "large".


Sven Otto Littorin

Sven Otto Julius Littorin (born 1966) is a former Swedish politician and architect of major structural reforms. As Minister for Employment in the cabinet of Fredrik Reinfeldt, he was in charge of the major overhaul of Swedish labor policies between 2006-2010. As President of the European Council of Ministers, in its Epsco formation, he oversaw the European Union response to labor market effects during the financial crisis of 2008-09. As party secretary of the Moderate Party 2002-2006, he played a major role in restructuring the party. As chief of staff to Minister for Fiscal and Financial Affairs during the Swedish banking crisis of 1992, he was one of the architects behind the Swedish banking rescue that Paul Krugman later proposed as a model for solving the Financial crisis of 2007–2008.
He was born and grew up in Östergötland, where he was active in the Moderate Youth League from an early stage. He was national chairman of the Moderate School Youth, a part of the youth league, 1984-1985. He has a B.Sc. in Economics and Business Administration at Lund University. His résumé formerly also listed an MBA from the unaccredited Fairfax University (at the time licensed in Louisiana), but that degree was removed from his list of qualifications after it aroused controversy in June 2007 In 2011, Littorin was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. Since 2011 he has been a Political Affairs Consultant, based in London, England.
Between 1991 and 1993, he was chief of staff to Minister for Fiscal and Financial Affairs, Bo Lundgren, later leader of the Moderate Party. After that he worked in the private sphere for, "inter alia", Kreab. In 1997, he co-founded Momentor AB, a venture capital company, and worked as a Senior Partner until 2002. In 2002, he was appointed party secretary by Bo Lundgren and later became a part of Fredrik Reinfeldt's team. He has played an integral part in the subsequent modernisation of the party. After the success of the Moderate Party in the 2006 general election, he resigned as Secretary General, and was later named Minister for Employment in the cabinet presented by Prime Minister Reinfeldt on 6 October 2006. Until 31 December 2006, this ministerial post was located within the Ministry of Enterprise, after which a separate Ministry of Employment. On 7 July 2010, he announced his immediate resignation, citing personal circumstances.
Reforms.
As Sweden's Minister for Employment, Littorin was in charge of USD 12bn of the government budget; the second largest part of public spending, covering areas such as the unemployment insurance system, active labor market programs, and nine government agencies, including the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Work Environment Authority, and the Labor Court.
Littorin was in charge of some of the major policy reforms introduced during the first government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. These reforms included a major overhaul of the unemployment insurance system and a complete renovation of the Public Employment Service, introducing new instructions, a new board of directors, a new management team, a new structure and organization, new targets and incentives, as well as opening up for private competition. He has the current record of having answered the highest number of questions in Parliament - 337 - during one single term. As a Minister, he gave over 4.000 interviews, and made numerous public appearances domestically and internationally; among others for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund, and World Economic Forum.
During the Swedish Presidency of the European Union in autumn 2009, Littorin was also President of the European Council of Ministers, in its Epsco formation (Ministers for Employment, Social Policy, Health, and Consumer Affairs). As such, he oversaw European Union response to labor market effects caused by the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Littorin was also member of the Swedish Government's Globalization Council.
Resignation.
On 7 July 2010, Littorin announced his immediate resignation. He had the day before been confronted by a reporter for Swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet" whether it was true or not that he had purchased sex. Littorin denied the allegations, but nevertheless resigned from the government. The official reason that he stated was the harshness of the media against him and his children, as well as "for private reasons", following divorce and a custody battle over his children.
Since 2013, he is married to Therése Evling.


Frank Murud

Frank Murud (born 23 December 1955) is a former chief of real estate in the city administration of Oslo, who became notorious for the embezzlement of ca. 89,5 million NOK from the company Undervisningsbygg, which is responsible for constructing and maintaining public schools in Oslo.
Embezzlement of public school funds.
As a city employee from 2003 to 2006, Frank Murud handed out jobs worth 89,5 million NOK to a friend and business partner in the company Håndverkekspressen.
Previous embezzlement.
In the years 1999-2003, Murud embezzled c. 9,2 million NOK from the company Neas AS.
Criminal conviction.
When his embezzlement was revealed, Frank Murud confessed in both cases.
In 2007, he was convicted of embezzlement and corruption and sentenced to 7 years in prison, he was also barred from engaging in independent form of trade for life, and convicted to return 112 million NOK. He appealed his sentence, but it was upheld by the Higher Court and the Supreme Court.
Murud is married and has two sons and a daughter.


NZ Classic Car magazine

NZ Classic Car is a monthly automotive magazine that has been published since December 1990. Its first issue was January 1991.
The magazine also has an associated website that covers all things related to classic and historic cars, events, clubs, and related car culture in New Zealand and to a lesser extent Australia.
History.
It was the first magazine to be published after the inception of Parkside Publishing by Gregory and Carolyn Vincent. The publication began as a simple idea to put local classic car owners in touch with shows, events, car clubs and trade professionals. The people chosen to write for the magazine, and to highlight the local classic car scene, were passionate about the subject, and were generally classic car owners themselves.
It is one of the longest running motoring magazines in New Zealand and is the third biggest selling car magazine behind NZ Performance Car and NZ Autocar.
The magazine celebrated its 200th issue in August 2007. Originally in black and white newsprint format the magazine is now glossy and bound.
The magazine and its contributors act as a voice for, and stand up for the rights of, people who want to enjoy classic and historic motoring. It has also featured many New Zealand motorsport personalities whose stories would have otherwise been forgotten or ignored, including Ross Jensen, Robbie Francevic, Ron Roycroft, Hec Green, Ralph Watson, Johnny Riley, Ken Smith, Spinner Black, and Howden Ganley.
A NZ Classic Car Yearbook is published just before Christmas. Five special issues on New Zealand motorsport and motoring history have also been published.
"NZ Classic Car"'s offices are in Grey Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand.
Government policy.
The magazine is one of several that are recognised authorities by the New Zealand Government for defining a classic car or special interest vehicle and is usually mentioned in policy documents relating to transport changes that will affect classic and historic cars by Land Transport New Zealand.
Magazine contents.
As of the November 2008 issue, the typical magazine contents include:
Website.
Daily news articles are available weekdays which are additional to magazine content. Full magazine articles are available from previous issues, often including additional photos and information (including videos) that could not be fitted into the magazine.
Some writers run blogs on the website, and a forum is run as a subsite to encourage user interaction.
Users can purchase books related to classic and historic cars, as well as back issues and subscriptions in the online shop. Crosswords from previous issues are loaded online.
Editorial staff.
The first editor of NZ Classic Car was Greg Vincent, the owner of Parkside Media. He passed editorial responsibility over in about 2000 (issue 101) to Allan Walton who had been with the magazine since its inception. Walton was well known in the classic motoring scene having been involved with classic cars since the early 1980s. Walton co-authored – along with acclaimed Christchurch photographer, Terry Marshall – Looking Back: The Motorsport Photography of Terry Marshall, a photo-book highlighting New Zealand motorsport from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Controversy.
NZ Classic Car has argued for the continued enjoyment of classic and historic cars by their owners. This has occasionally seen it make submissions to New Zealand government that may not be considered to be the most environmentally friendly options. NZ Classic Car argued to keep leaded petrol, and for exemptions on exhaust emissions for classic cars.
Support of Targa in New Zealand.
NZ Classic Car supported and sponsored Targa New Zealand from the first running in 1995. NZ Classic Car and Targa parted ways after the 2006 event.
Intermarque Concours d'Elegance.
Located at Ellerslie Racecourse, the Intermarque Concours d'Elegance runs every February. Held in Auckland, it is New Zealand's largest concours event. NZ Classic Car has had a presence at every event since 1991, and since 2004 has been the event's main sponsor.
Awards.
Long-time contributor Trevor Stanley-Joblin, and publisher Greg Vincent have both been recipients of the Meguiar's Collector's Car Person of the Year Award.


List of American non-fiction environmental writers

This is a list of American non-fiction environmental writers.


Salem Ludwig

Salem Ludwig (July 31, 1915 – April 1, 2007) was an American character actor and highly esteemed acting instructor.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Ludwig was blacklisted in 1957 and could only find minimal stage work. He had many film and television credits and remained active, even after his 90th birthday, until his death at age 91. A biographical film, "An Actor's Life" was made by budding director/actress Carol Schaye, who wanted to portray actors as talented, working individuals rather than just the character they see. He was represented by Theatrical Agent Archer King.
He is known for many films including: "Life on the Ledge" (2005, Grandfather), "Unfaithful" (2002, Man with Suitcase), "The Business of Strangers" (2001, Man at Pool), "Fast Food, Fast Women" (2000, Leo), "The Object of My Affection" (1998, Mr Shapiro), "I'm Not Rappaport" (1996, Walter), "For Love Or Money" (1993, Customer), "Family Business" (1989, Nat), "Heartburn" (1986, Judge), "Endless Love" (1981, Mr Switzer), "The Arab Conspiracy" (1976, Ghassan Kaddara), "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" (1968, Mr Fine), "What's So Bad About Feeling Good?" (1968), "Three Sisters" (1966, Ferapont), "America, America" (1963, Odysseus Topouzoglou), and "Never Love a Stranger" (1958, Moishe Moscowitz).
His television roles included attorney Solomon Rabinowitz, in an early episode of "All in the Family" Rabinowitz memorably advised Archie Bunker not to pursue a whiplash case, telling him "In a court of law, you can't beat a station wagon full of nuns." (The nuns would all have been witnesses against Archie.)


David Foreman

David Foreman (born 1947) is an American environmentalist and author, he is a co-founder of Earth First! and a prominent member of the radical environmentalism movement.
Biography.
David Foreman, was born in October 18, 1947 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His father was an United States Air Force sergeant. Foreman attended San Antonio Junior College and University of New Mexico, where he majored in History. In his early life he was active in conservative politics, campaigning for Barry Goldwater and forming the Young Americans for Freedom conservative youth chapter on his junior college campus. In 1968, Foreman joined the Marine Corps' Marine Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia and received an undesirable discharge after 61 days.
After his experience with the Marine Corps, he worked as a teacher at a Zuni Indian reservation in New Mexico and would shoe horses.
Activism and environmentalist work.
The Wilderness Society.
Between 1973 and 1980, he worked for The Wilderness Society as Southwest Regional Representative in New Mexico and the Director of Wilderness Affairs in Washington, DC.
By the late 1970s, Foreman had become increasingly disillusioned by what he viewed as the “professionalization” of the environmental movement. After the United States Forest Service's Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II resulted in the opening of thirty-six million acres (146,000 km²) of land for logging in 1979, Foreman left Washington and abandoned his job as an environmental lobbyist.
Earth First!
In April 1980, Foreman and friends Howie Wolke, Ron Kezar, Bart Koehler and Mike Roselle took a week-long hiking trip in the Pinacate Desert. It was during this trip that Foreman is believed to have coined the phrase “Earth First!” The movement that subsequently bore that name was inspired, in some part, by the writings of Edward Abbey, author of the novel "The Monkeywrench Gang". In contrast with the cautious lobbying efforts of the established environmental organizations, “monkeywrenching” – industrial sabotage traditionally associated with labor struggles – would become the chief tactic of the Earth First! movement in the 1980s. The "Earth First! Journal", which Foreman edited from 1982 to 1988, featured lively debates on the ethics and effectiveness of this controversial tactic.
In 1990, Foreman was one of five people arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation following operation THERMCON, in which FBI agents infiltrated an Arizona Earth First! group, encouraging them to sabotage a powerline feeding a water pumping station. While Foreman had no direct role in the attempted sabotage, he was arrested on a charge of conspiracy. He was permitted to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for handing two copies of "Ecodefense" to an FBI informant, and received a suspended sentence.
After less than a decade, Foreman left Earth First!, disillusioned by the changing character of the organization. According to Foreman, the incorporation of Marxists and Anarchists into Earth First! changed the movement, and not for the better. Many Earth First! members attribute Foreman's departure from the organization as having to do with his alleged sexism and racism. Foreman went on to form the Rewilding Institute.
In 1990, Foreman left EarthFirst! to pursue other work.
Other.
From 1976 to 1980, he was a board member for the New Mexico chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
Foreman co-founded the Wildlands Network in 1991, which aims to establish a network of protected wilderness areas across North America.
From 1995 to 1997, he served on the Sierra Club’s board of directors, but departed after the organization rejected his proposed policy on restrictive immigration.
In 1997, Foreman co-founded the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. In 2003, David Foreman and the board of directors of the Wildlands Project founded a new think tank, the Rewilding Institute, dedicated to "the development and promotion of ideas and strategies to advance continental-scale conservation in North America and to combat the extinction crisis."
Writing.
In 1985, Foreman published the first edition of the book "Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching", sharing the editing credits with one “Bill Haywood”. "Ecodefense" collected articles published in "Earth First! Journal"’s “Dear Nedd Ludd” column, which provided advice to would-be monkeywrenchers on sabotage techniques.
Foreman is the author of "The Lobo Outback Funeral Home", a novel, "Confessions of an Eco-Warrior", a collection of essays, and "Rewilding North America: A Vision for Conservation in the 21st Century". He also co-authored "The Big Outside" with Howie Wolke. Most recently, he authored "Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife", which argues that human overpopulation is the primary cause of biodiversity loss and other environmental problems.
Controversy.
In an 1986 interview, Foreman said the United States should not be providing aid for the Ethiopia famine and hunger crisis, but rather, “let nature seek its own balance.
Foreman had an increasing pro-border, anti-immigrant, Nativism voice, and initially it was coming from some of his writing with EarthFirst! Foreman and Edward Abbey both argued against immigration because it put “more pressure on the resources”. As time went on, the idea of "population control" became part of the issue and was a point of debate within the environmental movement, eventually led Foreman to be forced out of EarthFirst!
He has been compared to a visionary by some and as a threat to the movement by others. Some of the science used for decision making within the Wildlands Network has been questioned, and termed, "lofty scientific ideals" since it could take 100 years to realize an outcome.


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