Copper Pans France
Feb0
The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 238.24, +0.78, +0.33%)
declined 0.3% to 236.91, marking the fourth day of losses for the index.
European equity strategists at Deutsche Bank said: “We expect the equity market will be prone to weakness as speculators presumably attack the peripherals.”
Last week, the index fell 3.9% in its worst week since early March, with shares dropping to three-month lows amid concerns about how the so-called peripheral European countries of Greece, Spain and Portugal are going to bring their budget deficits under control.
Finance leaders of the Group of 7 countries discussed Greece’s situation at a meeting in Canada over the weekend but didn’t announce any action. “The G7 was a non-event,” said Heino Ruland, strategist at consultancy Ruland Research.
Credit default swaps for countries such as Greece are expected to continue to widen “as long as the European Union is not presenting a detailed plan on how to avoid a default,” he added.
Since the start of the year, the Stoxx 600 banking sector has dropped 13.4%, including a 1.5% drop on Monday, with Credit Suisse (CH:CSGN 43.19, -0.41, -0.94%)
(CS 40.51, -0.95, -2.29%) shares down 2% and ING Group
(NL:INGA 6.12, -0.15, -2.34%)
shares down 2.9%.
Greek banks were notably lower, with Piraeus Bank shares falling 6.5% and National Bank of Greece (NBG 3.48, -0.46, -11.61%) shares down 7.7%, weighing on the broader
Greek market, which dropped 3.8% to 1,807.06.
Of major regional equity markets, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,083, +21.64, +0.43%) traded down 0.1% to 5,056.50, while the German DAX
index (DX:DAX 5,483, +48.67, +0.90%) climbed 0.4% to 5,453.48 and the French CAC-40
index (FR:PX1 3,595, +31.17, +0.87%) advanced 0.3% to 3,573.92.
Asian shares ended mixed while U.S. stocks traded with mild losses on Wall Street.
In the currency markets, the euro traded down 0.1% at $1.3664 against the dollar while gold futures advanced $12.40 to $1,065.20 an ounce in the commodity markets.
Shares of gold miner Randgold Resources (UK:RRS 4,467, +255.00, +6.06%)
(GOLD 69.33, -0.35, -0.50%) climbed 5.5% on Monday after its fourth-quarter net
attributable profit jumped to $32.1 million, from $9.1 million at the same point a year ago, boosted by higher gold production. Read story on Randgold.
Dexia (BE:DEXB 4.20, +0.18, +4.45%) shares rose 3.7% after the European Union agreed
to the financial services group’s restructuring plan late last week.
Other advancers included telecoms and drug makers — regarded as less sensitive to economic trends than cyclical firms such as construction stocks — with France Telecom (FR:FTE 16.48, +0.25, +1.51%) up 1.4% and Nestle
(CH:NESN 48.50, -0.10, -0.21%) up 2%.
On the downside, shares of business-software firm SAP (DE:SAP 32.61, -0.69, -2.07%)
(SAP 44.68, -1.28, -2.79%) lost 2.2% after the firm’s chief executive, Leo Apotheker,
resigned over the weekend. Read more on SAP.
BG Group (UK:BG. 1,081, -31.00, -2.79%) shares were down 3.2% after Barclays Capital
downgraded the natural-gas producer to equalweight from overweight.
“Given the de-risking theme in global markets, investors may choose to focus on the short-term returns offered by higher-yielding plays in the sector,” the broker said, noting that BG has outperformed its sector by 10% since December.
I lived in France for many years, and swore by my French copper pans and Godin gas stove. On arrival in Switzerland, where many homes (at least ours) were long ago converted to convection cookers, I longed for my Godin and shiny copper pans, all shaped to meet the special purpose they were made for.
But since my philosophy in life is to “go local”, whether I’m in the Sahara or Geneva, Switzerland, I immediately started doing my research, and was more than pleasantly surprised at Swiss engineering and design skills when it comes to modern cookware. Their cookware is not only made to last a lifetime; it is made to conserve vitamins and is ecological.
So to get to the end of this long-winded tale, I would suggest the following gifts for any cook, whether gourmet or amateur. They will thank you every time they use it, and they will most likely use it every day for just about the rest of their lives.
Swiss Diamond cookware
I already gave Swiss Diamond a rave review in my post of 12 June 2009, The perfect non-stick frying pan: Swiss Diamond. I haven’t changed my mind. Because they are made of thick, cast aluminium, they sear meat and fish like an old-fashioned iron skillet, but using less fat. The non-stick finish is unbeatable, practically unscratchable, because it really is made with minuscule diamond chips!
Kuhn Rikon Durotherm pans
Kuhn Rikon Durotherm heavy-duty, double-walled pans allow you to steam vegetables, meat or fish with no fat and little water. The water turns to steam and recirculates inside the pan, thus allowing you to maintain the vitamins and eat fat-free. Thanks to the double wall, the pans maintain the heat for 2 hours after cooking, so it’s great for cooking up dishes before guests arrive.
Durotherm pans are good for one-dish meals and cooking vegetables on an everyday basis. They also cook vegetables more quickly than boiling in a normal saucepan, and vegetables are never water-logged. The steam recirculation method prevents the vitamins from “leaking out” into the water.
I often steam my vegetables in a Durotherm, and then at the end carefully lay a piece of fish on top of the vegetables, making sure no water touches it, and put the lid on and let it steam-cook. It takes about 5 minutes for an average-size piece of cod, for example.
The glories of Swiss engineering
Ativan no prescription with discount Free ConferenceFrance World Cup Winning Squad
Feb0
The name Muhren is a famous one in the little fishing village of Volendam, just north of Amsterdam. Along with names like Tol, Veerman and Tuyp. You were either a famous musician ( The Cats) or a famous football player, if you were born with that surname.
Focusing on football here, the most famous Muhren was Gerrie. The older of the two brothers was picked up by the Ajax youth system when young, but when the Muhren family negotiated with Ajax, their claim was clear. If you want Gerrie, you have to take Arnold as well. In that way, the shy and humble brothers would find it easier to survive in the big smoke. Well, at Ajax – arrogant at best – Gerrie didn’t need his ego, mouth or personality to survive, his feet were good enough. Arguably the most technically skilled player ever – in the same vein as Vanenburg, Edgar Davids and Ronald de Boer – Gerrie Muhren quickly made a name for himself. Add to that the workrate of aforementioned Davids and you have the ideal left midfielder, ready to support the hot/cold Piet Keizer and the drifting Johan Cruyff. Gerrie Muhren became immortal in the annals of Ajax by humiliating Real Madrid in the Bernabeu by keeping the ball up his foot a number of times, taunting the Madrid players to take him on. No one did.
Classic stuff, although Richard Witschge’s keepie-uppies against Feyenoord are sensational as well
Younger brother Arnold was slower in his development. Wasn’t able to football his way into the Ajax 1 team and simply didn’t have the apparent skills and work-rate of his brother.
Arnold left Ajax, to play for FC Twente. The rest is history of course. In those days – like today – Twente was a force to be reckoned with. Frans Thijsen, Theo Pahlplatz, Jan Jeuring, Epi Drost…. Famous names in Dutch football. When Muhren left Holland to join Ipswich Town, he’d become a sensation in England, alongside his buddy Thijsen.
The Dutchmen brought continental football to England and their intelligence and passing skill changed the way English football would develop, opening the door for players like Ardiles and Bergkamp to add more cosmopolitan ingredients to the mix.
Manchester United recognized the brilliance of the 30+ years old leftie and signed him to add intelligence and composure to the team. Muhren would be the first Dutchman to win the FA Cup. In 1985, the 34 year old was in his last year at the Red Devils and Mr Ajax Sjaak Swart wanted to commit Arnold Muhren to play for Old Ajax ( Lucky Ajax). Muhren remembered the phone-call well: “I said, what to do you mean “Old Ajax”? I’m still playing my games for Man United, Sjaak! I could probably play for Ajax before I join the oldies….”. Sjaak Swart took the bait and told Arnold that he’d whisper it in Cruyff’s ear, who was Ajax’ head coach at the time.
Muhren: “Johan was thrilled. He called within 10 minutes and jumped at the opportunity. With Ajax, I had wonderful peak at the end of my career, resulting in my selection for Oranje in 1987.”
After winning the European Cup, in 1988, Muhren did a typical Muhren thing. The team would meet the Royal Family for celebrations and festivities at Paleis Soestdijk, but Muhren bailed. “I hadn’t seen my family for weeks. I decided I’d rather spend time with my own family.”
Muhren should have been one of the key people to celebrate. The midfielder was the oldest player ever to win the European title ( 37 years and 23 days old) and he is one of those players who was able to retire at a high. He only played 23 international games in his career and his last was a victorious finales, in which he gave the assist for the winning goal, most probably among the finest goals ever scored. He will always be seen as the Man of the Cross.
Muhren chuckles: “That was probably my worst cross ever, haha… I didn’t hit the ball right. I needed to give it more sideways spin, with my inside foot. The idea was for the ball to curve away from the goal, for Marco to take it and do something smart with it. The ball was too high and didn’t have enough curve. Any other player would have tried to control the ball and probably drift to the side of the field, to pass the ball back onto a midfielder and re-position. Not Marco though. He decided to do what his mind saw: score a sensational goal. If he would have hit the ball out of the stadium, right into the center of Munich, everyone would have said: Well, what do you expect with such a terrible cross, hahaha….”.
Muhren was selected before, for Oranje, when still at Man United. “Kees Rijvers was the team manager then and he decided not to select players playing in foreign competitions anymore. Can you imagine Van Marwijk saying that now? He later admitted that that was a grave mistake.”
Arnold Muhren was supposed to have played a World Cup tournament, back in 1978. “Willem van Hanegem decided not to go. I was the only other leftie in the preliminary squad and I expected Happel to pick me. Apparently, Ruud Krol – the captain – intervened and advised Happel to pick Ajax midfielder Dick Schoenaker instead. Dick was a tremendous midfielder and I like him as a person and all that, but I still don’t understand that decision.”
At the 1988 EC, Michels started with 4-3-3, with Bosman in the striker’s role and John van ‘t Schip on the left wing. After the defeat in the first game, Michels switched to 4-4-2 and dropped both Johnny’s in favor of Marco van Basten and Erwin Koeman. “But the victory in 1988 was the victory of the whole group. The dynamics and cohesion in the squad were great. The subs played a great part in it. We trained every day at match-level. Players like Schip, Bosman and Kieft were totally supportive of the starters and also the staff around the squad was great and focused. Take it from me, eleven great players will never win a title. It’s the whole you need.”
Muhren explains more: “We had five leaders: Gullit, Rijkaard, Van Basten, Koeman and Wouters were the top dogs. They wanted me assume such a role too, since I had my age and my Man United experience, but I was always a servant in football and I like that role. Everyone accepted their leadership and we were all totally focused. In the past, stuff happened with Oranje. Arguments, money-issues or sponsor issues… Not this time around. We all felt it was an honor to play and we wanted to win a title.”
“After the finals, the KNVB organized a formal party. It was horrible. We were led to this room where all the officials were and the sponsors, but we didn’t even have a table. As if they forgot about us. We were hungry, is what I remember. We slipped into the kitchen and there were those chairs, stackable chairs. We grabbed our chairs there and had dinner in the kitchen. We then slipped away and had a proper party in some discotheque. Only when we came back in Holland did we realize the madness, the sheer joy and celebrations that were going on. We missed all that totally in Germany. That boat trip in Amsterdam was a high point. I couldn’t believe what I saw. And the funny thing is, three days later, in Volendam, I was honored by the mayor. Right before I would go onto the balcony for the ceremony, my little son said: dad, we’re famous now…. And the door to the balcony opened and when we walked on, there were exactly two people on the square. One was simply walking past, on his way to the bakery and the other was sitting there, feeding the birds…”
Where are they now:
Ronald Koeman was head coach for AZ until recently. He’s in between jobs now.
John Bosman is wordwide scout for AZ.
Wim Kieft is coach of AFC’s A1 junior team, assistant coach of Young PSV and tv-analist for Sport1.
Wilbert Suvrijn lives in France and runs a bed&breakfast and deals in antiques.
Joop Hiele is the head of Feyenoord’s keepers’ academy.
Hans van Breukelen is a public speaker and motivational trainer.
Hendrie Kruzen is assistant coach at Heracles Almelo.
Frank Rijkaard is coach at Galatasaray
Sjaak Troost has a company in relationship-marketing.
Wim Koevermans is International Performance Director at the Irish Football Federation.
Ruud Gullit currently is the ambassador for the Dutch bid to get the WC2018 or 2022.
Marco van Basten retired.
Adri van Tiggelen is assistant coach at Sparta Rotterdam
Berry van Aerle is scout at PSV and supporters coordinator for his old club.
Jan Wouters is assistant coach at FC Utrecht
Aron Winter is project ambassador at the KNVB.
Arnold Muhren is youth coach at Ajax.
John van ‘t Schip is head coach at Melbourne Hearts in Australia
Gerald Vanenburg is between jobs.
Erwin Koeman is team manager of Hungary.
The Football Association of Ireland have confirmed that the Republic of Ireland women's senior team will face France in an international friendly on Thursday, February 25th in Richmond Park, Dublin 8.
The friendly will be used as key preparation for Noel King's side who will play two FIFA World Cup qualifiers in March with a visit to Israel on March 21st followed by a home game against Switzerland on March 31st.
The Girls in Green currently sit in 3rd place in Group 6 of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers behind Switzerland and Russia after four games.
France, who are currently ranked 9th in the FIFA Women's World Rankings lead Group 1 with maximum points ahead of Iceland, Croatia and Northern Ireland.
Speaking at the announcement, Irish manager, Noel King said, "I am delighted that we will host the very highly rated French team in Dublin later this month. The game will be used as an important exercise ahead of our difficult World Cup qualifiers against Israel and Switzerland in March. I will be calling up our strongest available squad for the game but we will be without two key players, Katie Taylor who is unavailable and Stephanie Curtis who is out for the rest of the season after she injured her anterior cruciate ligament in the 2-1 victory over Kazakhstan last October."
"At any level in football, the French national team are always going to be a very strong technical team. Last year, we played them away from home in a hard fought game which we lost 2-0. Winning is not necessarily the key component in this fixture as we develop our formation and tactics ahead of the World Cup battles that lie ahead of us. As a team, we have been improving steadily over the past number of years. It is games such as this in which we continue to develop and if we get a victory with a helping hand, I won't be complaining," said King.
International friendly
Republic of Ireland v France
Thursday, February 25th 2009
Richmond Park
Kick-off: 19.30
Invasion Of France Ww2
Feb0
what are some events that happened during world war 2 that I can talk about in my project. i need to have 15. but anything would help..i have to know what happened,who,where, and why its an important event of world war 2. thanksss
Events of World war 2???? please?
Here is a timeline of events relating to World War II.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/ti...
Reply:1939 ww2 starts, Report It
Reply:seriously this is a complex question, especially because there are so many points of veiw from so many different countries. Ill give ya a small list that you can do further research on, but your best bet might be to check out CALL OF DUTY (1,2,or 3) its a video game that has real battles, real peoples names, real locations and real everything. SO just find it on the net, find a level walkthrough or game overview and im sure you will be able to pull some useful info out of it. OK.. here goes ( and keep in mind this is from the american p.o.v.....
Hitler came to power. Takes over parts of hungary, austria
churchhill does nothing, Hitler controlls seas with u boats
Hitler invades poland, makes allies with Italy
britain, france, russia say screw that they declare war on nazis, and socailists
war fought on two fronts: west (france, britain) and east, (russia)
Russian front becomes a stalemate at stalingrad, cold winter months make the fighting come to a stand still
Western front gets beat to hell by germans, france is lost
Brittain is bombed but protected from invasion because it is an island. Intense air battles with brits. The whole time switzerland is neutral in the middle of the mess but Allies know better than to ask for their help and nazis no better than to invade cause they will get stompped by their in mountain machine guns.
War continues, Hitler continues to bomb london and the stalemate in the east remains....Finally the us decides to come into the war after the lusitania or something gets sunk by germans, it was a passenger boat, but lets be real here, it has all kinds of munitions and supplies for the brits. we were helping them the whole duration of the war.
Randomly the Japanese see an opportunity to kick us while we aren't looking and are already busy and tired, they bomb the hell out of pearl harbor. That really pisses us off.
Once that happens the american military mobilizes and prepares for a land invasion of france.
By that time the nazis had already dug in and were ready to kill most of the americans, and they did. but the americans were like ants they just kept coming and coming,, this was called d-day it was in 1944
invasion is very bloody very tough but americans pulled it off.
Americans slowly but surely move the germans back.
Stalemate in russia ends because the russians just quit from the war like a bunch a panti waists. but they were cold and tired so i'll give em a break.
Now hitler can concentrate on the western front only.
but too many americans have foiled his plans.
In the mediterainean theater the americans and brittish whomped the italians and the germans all in egypt and the upper deserst of africa. ooh -ra!
Italians quit as well, not too long after the russians.
This is when **** really hit the fan.
When Russia quits and Italy quits a major portion of the american fighting force ws moved to the pacific, we had not forgotten that the japs had sneak attacked us.
The war in europe winds down, we gain more ground and information and technoloogy then the germans do, so it is just a matter of time, so... hitler kills himself and the spoils are split, and many new laws and regulations are created in the treaty of versailles.
Iron curtain falls over eastern europe as they all become part of the soviet union.
western europe gets redrawn a bit but remains mostly the same, iron curtain splits germany in two. at the berlin wall.
Americans gain some ground in the pacific. at wake, iwo gima, and midway but after the invasion on D-day we are very very reluctant to go ahead with another land invasion lake we did in france... so we drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a city in Japan, the city is litterally vaporized and melted into glass, then two days later we do it again to a different city, nagasaki, same results, then the japs say ok we lose you win just dont drop another one of those things on us.
And that action is what caused the cold war and the ever present arms race that humans still continue today.
But it was the end of world war two when we vaporized those bastards who ambushed us. Then we began to rebuild europe, help the citied trapped by the communist regime behind the iron curtain. Berlin air lift etc etc. Then all the troops come home to america and get frisky and had lots and lots of babies, this is the reason for the baby boom, this is the reason me and you will never see any social security money, even though we have been paying into it our whole lives......Hey at least we dont speak german, thank god for our grandparents bravery and selflessness in the worlds time of need.
Hope that helps... Go Team America!!
Reply:One item of interest is the Nazi blockade of Leningrad that began Sept 8, 1941 and lasted for 900 days and during which ten times as many civilians died as were killed in the atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima.
In WW2 it was a legitimate war tactic to kill civilians.
Talk about a dream job for mappers - I'm so damn lucky. Just today someone brought me 65 aerial photographs taken by the bombers of the 457th Bombardment Group, over Normandy just prior to the D Day invasion (softening coastal targets), over France and Germany.
I have to scan them at 600 ppi, print them to scale to be shipped to Germany, for a purchase from EBay for these photos. I will print these for resale, then burn them to CD, plus he has more photos to bring me - about 80 more! These are the actual photos taken by the US Army Air Corps 1944.
The first photo below is the Normandy Coast taken on June 2, 1944 - four days before D Day. You can clearly see Omaha Beach in this photo - before the landing!
The second photo is the bombing of Plaven Bridge (I think this is France, but am not sure) many of these photos are hand labeled to include the date, bombing site, the plane that took the photo, and the 457th Bombardment Group listed.
If I find anymore, really cool photos of this set, I'll post them up here, but lots of the same kind of photos to scan yet. I might be able to post higher res images, since the biggest ones are only 9" x 10".
I thought these are awesome cool!
GP
457th-normandy.jpg457th-plaven-bridge.jpg