The decision by officials in  Trollhattan,Sweden to pay the man  ($4,500) means the municipality won’t have to face a review of the case by Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen).

The incident stemmed from an office visit by a man who had been offered an internship with the integration division at Trollhättan municipality.

When the man was set to meet a female supervisor at the office, he refused to shake her hand, explaining his religion forbade him from shaking hands with women unless he washed his hands directly afterwards.

The female supervisor then reportedly told the man that he could not intern at the office if he was not comfortable shaking everybody’s hand. She also allegedly added that the office had hand sanitizer that he could use.

While the incident was later reported to the Equality Ombudsman, the national office that investigates suspected cases of discrimination, the case was settled before the ombudsman began its investigation, with Trollhättan municipality choosing to pay damages to the man.

“The intern candidate explained that his religion forbade him from shaking the hand of a woman he did not know,” municipal spokesman Said Niklund told the TTELA newspaper.

“By law, a person who feels they’ve been disadvantaged because of their religion has a right to damages. We made a mistake, we took responsibility for it, and the person was compensated.”

The incident has reportedly had repercussions at the workplace, however, damaging the morale among the staff at Trollhättan’s integration division. An investigation into the workplace environment is under way.

The leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats said on Saturday the party planned to report the municipality to the Ombudsman for Justice (Justitieombudsmannen, JO), stating that “equality is more important than multiculturalism”.

“This case is extremely upsetting… it is absurd and makes a mockery of equality and Swedish values,” party leader Jimmie Åkesson said in a statement.

The Local

Unlike other traumatic events  National disasters is the equalizer, because we have no control. Despite all the technological and scientific advances, no one can predict exactly when and where.    The warning system saved many lives in Moore. The warning system save hundreds, thousands of lives.

The news outlets are running the same film clips over and over.   I saw one lady in her seventies, her home wasn’t touched by the 1999 tornado but this time she lost everything.   She said it with a smile.  Everything she and her husband had worked a lifetime was gone.  Memories, pictures of her children, and grand babies gone.   Her face was covered with bits of wood and there was dried blood on the side of her face and she smiled.  I’m here she said, I have my dog and my memories are in my head.  I have a new story to tell.

I was struck by her matter of fact-ness.   We work, we save we plan for things and some of us don’t see the big picture.  That woman said, I’m alive.    I lived to tell the story of this horrible day.

CityFella

When I announced that I driving to Stockton, every single passenger said they were afraid they where going to get shot.  The media has done a thorough job.        Two of my buddies are from Sacramento, and one is from Chicago, this was their first visit to Stockton.      The tour started at the Stockton Arena and Ballpark, my passengers were tense as we toured downtown.  Even though most buildings were vacant and boarded up  the area was very clean.

On Pacific, windows opened and my friends where enjoying the ride in the Miracle Mile area.  They admired the stately  homes near the University of the Pacific. We stopped and snacked near Sherwood Mall.   My friend from Chicago commented about the cleanliness of the city.  The Sacramentians were impressed with the Brookside area off March Lane.

I wasn’t surprised by the reactions of my friends.  When I lived in San Francisco, I regularly kidnapped San Franciscans and drove them across the Bay Bridge into Oakland.  Oakland too, suffers from a bad reputation  Oakland is a beautiful city with large parks  with a gem of a  lake downtown. There are grand views of San Francisco and the bay from the hills. (Earlier this month Oakland was named the most exciting city in America)   San Francisco was #3 and New York was #6

SEE: http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/10-most-exciting-cities/

Yahoo says, Stockton was the second most dangerous city in the state behind Oakland.  Both cities have struggling economies.  Both cities reduced  their police departments, the result is a spike in crime.     Last year, Stockton became the largest city ever to file for protection under Chapter 9 of the US Bankruptcy code.

Economist  believe it will  be some time before Stockton economy rebounds.

Doings in Stockton 

There are several museums  in Stockton.  The Stockton Symphony is the third oldest professional orchestra in California  after the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.   The Port of Stockton is the busiest port in the Valley.

Good News

The Stockton Thunder,Stockton’s minor league Hockey team is in the  final playoffs with Las Vegas. The Trophy is  the Kelly Cup.  The Thunder leads the league in attendance for four straight seasons.

Crime is down in the city ,and the new Mayor, Anthony Silva is proposing a half cent tax increase to hire 100 policemen.

In the last few years Stockton has been mired in bad news the new Mayor is trying to bring pride to the city.

This picture has made national news.

There is crime in Stockton, there is also crime in Sacramento, San Jose, New York, Riverside, Seattle, Hartford, Santa Rosa and thousands of other cities.  Try not to be too influenced by the media, Stockton is a good town.

CityFella

While Madonna, Prince, Bruno Mars, J Lo and Chris Brown  appeared on ABC’s  Billboard awards, Pitbull (akaArmando Pérez) and Taylor Swift appeared on the Billboard Awards and  CBS’s Tim McGraw‘s Superstar Summer Night Special”  both  show’s were on a 9pm Sunday night.

Can he walk and chew gum?   I don’t know. But it appeared Chris Brown couldn’t dance and sing at the same time.   His dancing ( borrowed lovingly from Michael Jackson  )was  excellent.  But unlike MJ, his vocals skills couldn’t keep up with his dancing skills.

Madonna Segment Starring Madonna-who just rushed over from night mass to receiver her Top Touring Artist Award

There were several good performances last night, including The Band Perry, Bruno Mars, Taylor  Swift(who won 8 awards) and Prince.

Years ago, someone said Paula Abdul‘s kiss of death statement on American Idol is when she would begin her critique with“well you look good”           

J-Lo outfit  was inspired by Glee and  Kinky Boots that’s the only inspiring thing can be said about her performance .

POWERBALL

“I had a dream, a dream about you, baby.

 It’s gonna come true, baby.

They think that we’re through.

When I woke from that miserable dream I was poor with credit cards.  No Audi A7 with driver. No private Jets, personal assistants.     Saturday, afternoon my swine credit card wouldn’t work at the pumps at the Chevron on Richards Blvd.  So I had to get into line, with people buying last minute Powerball tickets.  Twenty two minutes in line watch people bless and kiss their tickets .

Wanna work for the Sacramento KINGS?

They said, the Sac Kings would generate Jobs.  Well, boy howdy!  Jobs they have..   40 new jobs.  Manning the phone at the Sleep Train Arena.   According to Fox 40, these jobs pay $8.00 an hour.      That a  bit less than Wal Mart and considerably less than In N Out Burgers.  Were sure their hidden perks .

Alice needed only 2 weeks on the job before she ended up in bed with Alex. Soon after, other employees at the health department in Buffalo noticed that the two were working a lot of late nights together.

Not surprisingly, the relationship between Alex, 48, and Alice, 26, became front-page news in the office. Then it made headlines in the Buffalo Courier.

It wasn’t just because Alex was married that the paper ran a story titled “Very Scandalous.”

He was also Alice’s boss.

And the year was 1893.

Welcome to the workplace romance. What was shocking to people in the late 1800′s seems almost a shoulder shrug today. In fact, nearly 40 percent of employees say they’ve dated in the office, according to a 2011 survey by CareerBuilder. And of these, almost one in five dated the boss.

How did we get here? The sexual revolution of the 1960′s, combined with an almost quadrupling of women in the workforce in the second half of the 20th century, was pivotal. Large numbers of men and women suddenly found themselves in close working quarters just as they were experiencing the freedom to sleep around with little social consequence, says Julie Berebitsky, Ph.D., author of Sex and the Office: A History of Gender, Power, and Desire.

At the same time, people began marrying later in life; according to U.S. Census data, today more than 7 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 44 live alone, compared with just over 1 million in 1960. The result: Offices across the country are filled with young singles who, says Michael Rosenfeld, Ph.D., an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University, are experiencing a “second adolescence” of serial dating and sexual experimentation. Those same offices can also be a great environment for amour. Fill a fluorescent-lit, temperature-controlled stable of cubicles with men and women. Force them to interact for 8-plus hours a day. Give them a water-cooler to congregate around. Then, every so often, set them free—an office party, a business trip, some off-site training. Is it any wonder that they go at it in the supply closet?

“The social psychology of who we fall in love with, and why, makes total sense at work,” says Amy Nicole Salvaggio, Ph.D., an assistant professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of New Haven. “That shared experience is a personal glue that holds people together.” (Here are 6 Tips to Date Your Coworker—without ticking off your boss.)

But things can also get sticky. When Alex and Alice’s affair became public, the higher-ups at the health department knew they had to do something. They suspended him and forced her to resign, which was the outcome anyone would have expected in 1893: Few women were in the white-collar workplace then, and even those who had landed office jobs were considered naive and, in the event things turned ugly in a romance, dispensable.

By the 1980′s, employers had learned to be more evenhanded in their discipline. Fearful of potential sexual harassment lawsuits, companies sometimes fired both parties for dating each other. Today, however, employers are accepting office romance as an unavoidable product of the workplace, says Lisa Mainiero, Ph.D., a professor of management at Fairfield University and the author of Office Romance: Love, Power, and Sex in the Workplace. “Companies now look the other way unless performance is affected.”

That’s lucky for you, because when it comes down to it, there’s probably no better place to identify and attract a mate than your job. For one thing, you have more mojo delivering a PowerPoint presentation at work than a pickup line at a bar. The office is where you look and sound your sharpest. It’s where you show off your earning power, brainpower, and ambition—qualities universally valued by women, says David Buss, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In his landmark study of 37 societies from sub-Saharan African villages to cities in the United States and Europe, Buss, an evolutionary psychologist, found that women around the world, irrespective of their environment and culture, valued power and success in their men. Playing with puppies and children in the park aside, you may never look as attractive to women as you do on the job. (Your dressed-up work attire surely doesn’t hurt. Do you look your best? Make sure you have The Only 5 Suits You’ll Ever Need in your closet.)

Meanwhile, she’s never been more exposed. Short of shacking up, working with a woman gives you insights into her that you won’t find anywhere else. You can learn all sorts of revealing tidbits. Maybe she calls her mom six times a day. Or perhaps her cube walls uncover a cute but possibly obsessive interest in piglets. And you’ll almost certainly see how she handles stress, budgets her time, and resolves interpersonal conflict—all information you might otherwise acquire only with an apartment lease or an engagement ring. This opportunity to get to know someone before dating is one reason that more than 10 percent of couples today meet on the job, says Rosenfeld.

But don’t dive into the office dating pool just yet. As much as things have changed from the time of Alice and Alex’s implosion, workplace romance still has its own unwritten rules. Most men discover them by trial and error, public humiliation, or unemployment. Luckily, you have their mistakes to learn from. Take Grant, for example.

Rule #1

HR is important, but your coworkers call the shots

When Grant (whose name has been changed, as have all names in this article) met Amanda, he was 23, just starting at Yahoo!, and on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder. She was 29, a strawberry blonde, dressed in all black, a pencil behind her ear. He was instantly attracted. She was his supervisor.

Many romances between bosses and their employees begin just as innocently. What’s surprising is how few companies have a policy on these or any other type of office relationship: only 25 percent, according to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management.

Of course, there can be a huge difference between what’s allowed and what’s smart. In the same report, 80 percent of HR professionals and 60 percent of employees felt that boss-subordinate relationships should be prohibited. In fact, people who date a superior are trusted less and lied to more often by coworkers than those who date a peer, according to Sean Horan, Ph.D., a professor of communication at DePaul University in Chicago. “People might think you are getting access to unfair resources,” he says. “They are going to communicate with you differently.”

Fortunately for Grant—at least when it came to his career—Amanda wasn’t interested. But by the time he transferred to a new department, the two were hanging out a lot. They ate lunch together and had drinks with coworkers. As though banished forever to the realm of “friend,” Grant even slept on Amanda’s couch while he was between apartment leases.

Then one night, after a dinner party at her place, they started kissing. He woke up the next morning in her bedroom and slipped out. (Bad move! Here’s How to Pull Off a One-Night Stand.)

Rule #2

Figure out if it’s a fling before you take off your clothes

As far as Grant was concerned, that night was the start of a long-in-the-making romance. For Amanda, it was a drunken mistake. That disconnect between perceptions would be difficult for any guy, but when you have to face the woman you slept with the next morning at work and then the morning after that and so on, you’re pretty much stranded on the island of Awkward.

This was what happened with Max, then 23, and Louise, then 27. It wasn’t long after they first met on the job that they went from chatting by the watercooler to drinking beers at the nearby pub to groping each other under the conference room table. Work was fun for a change.

But just as Louise was prepared to become more serious with Max, he was ready to end it. What happened next with them is what happens in many unsuccessful office romances: One person moves on, the other broods. Louise watched Max flirt with coworkers. She fumed. Lucky for Max, she was a silent brooder. That’s not always the case. Rejection can do crazy things to a person’s mind.

How crazy? A study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology found that heartbreak actually triggers the same brain regions that are active in drug addicts and in people experiencing physical pain. Stomaching rejection from a coworker in the office is a bit like a cokehead attempting to kick his habit in a crack den. There’s really only one way to make things better: “You have to get rid of the stimulus,” says Helen Fisher, Ph.D., the biological anthropologist at Rutgers University who conducted the brain scan study. “When the stimulus is working in your office, that is very difficult.”

Rule #3

Be breakup-ready

Not to be a buzz kill, but no matter how promising your new relationship seems in the moment, more likely than not it won’t work out. More than 60 percent of all new couples call it quits within the first year, according to Rosenfeld. Given these odds, the best way to avoid the ugliness of an office breakup may be to talk about the possibility while you’re still in the blissfully nascent (albeit ignorant) stages of courtship.

Mainiero interviewed 100 female business executives about office romance and found that the women who viewed their breakups most positively were those who had already discussed the worst-case scenario on the first date. That’s right: the first date. If you attempt to do triage once things have already fallen apart and emotions enter the picture, you’re too late. And since your ex-girlfriend doesn’t become your ex-coworker, you want her to be happy, or at least not blubbering in the bathroom. “It may sound odd,” says Mainiero, “but it’s a good idea to set up strategies.”

For Grant and Amanda, the romance seemed to go wrong even before it had the chance to go right. She wanted to remain friends. He wanted all or nothing. Under normal circumstances, a guy might be persistent. But in the office, persistence can translate into creepiness, which can translate into a call from HR. In short: Grin and bear it. As awkward as it was, that’s just what Grant did. “I was so furious,” he says. “There was a period of silent treatment.”

In a way, Grant and Amanda were lucky. Around the same time their relationship was failing, another office couple showed them exactly how not to act. The couple was constantly breaking up and getting back together, mad at each other one moment and madly in love the next.

“Their relationship was ridiculous,” recalls Grant. “It became a serious problem.” But that’s the thing: Once you’ve wandered into relationship drama at work, there’s no telling what might trigger the next blowup. Levelheaded as you think you are, try being polite to the person who, hours earlier, called you a selfish bastard.

Rule #4

Never mix pillow talk with office talk

To avoid starring in your own 9-to-5 soap opera, keep all relationship conversations out of the office in the first place—even when things are going great. That will make it easier to hold the negative stuff at bay, says Tina Tessina, Ph.D., a relationships psychotherapist and author of The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again. “If something goes bad, you will have the reflexes to not let those feelings out at work.”

Consider the approach Rick and Nina took. They first became involved when Rick, 26, was a legal intern at the firm where Nina, 25, was a research assistant. Eventually Rick was hired full-time as an attorney, at which point he made a conscious decision to treat Nina even more professionally than he did the other researchers. “At work we are very rigid around each other,” he says. “With every other person on her level in the organization I’m pretty chummy.”

There’s another reason to keep your distance in the office. Tempting as it might be, hanging out with your love interest during work hours can lead to what Tessina calls “hyper-cliquing,” or bonding with someone at the expense of other relationships. Soon your coworkers will feel neglected, then resentful. This is more than just bailing on your buddies for a girl. These people hold a stake in your career.

Rule #5

Try putting yourself in her heels for a change

You may see your workplace as uberenlightened and sans sexism, but the reality is that women still need to fight for the things men take for granted. That’s why if you’re romantically involved with a coworker, there’s a good chance she’s going to worry more than you will about what others around the office think about your relationship.

Here’s an example of what she’s up against. In a study published in the British Journal of Management titled “Don’t Screw the Crew,” Kathleen Riach, Ph.D., a senior lecturer in management at the University of Essex, England, found that gender stereotypes emerged when she asked employees across a chain of pubs in the U.K. how they felt about coworker romances. “The man was often viewed as a kind of masculine stud who had conquered women at work,” Riach says, “whereas the women were more likely to be seen as being promiscuous.”

When Vivian, 27, and Mike, 33, first started dating, she was writing for the newspaper where he was the weekend magazine editor. Meaning well, Mike once boasted to another editor that Vivian was a great reporter. The editor just laughed and gave Mike a macho jab in the gut that said he knew just what kind of “reporting” they’d been up to. It was all in good fun, but when Mike told Vivian what had happened, she was mortified. “He was trying to use his status to help me in my career,” she says. “I really didn’t want him butting in.”

Rule #6

Don’t kid yourself; they know

Grant and Amanda didn’t talk for weeks. After the tension became unbearable, they agreed to meet outside the office. Turns out Amanda had needed time to process what happened before deciding she wanted to be with Grant. They started seeing each other. But it was early, and they didn’t want their colleagues to know.

In the CareerBuilder survey, 37 percent of people involved in a romance said they kept their relationship a secret at work. But did they? No matter how stealthy you think you’re being, coworkers often pick up on the subtlest signs of romance, whether it’s a quick hand squeeze in the hall or a one-beat-too-long look across the conference table. And even if you don’t give it away, bad luck might.

On one of their morning train commutes from Amanda’s place, she and Grant ran into the head of HR, who wondered aloud why Grant was in the neighborhood. Didn’t he live on the other side of town? He was coming from a dentist’s appointment, he said. But it was 7 a.m. From the look on the HR manager’s face, it was clear she wasn’t buying it.

If it reaches the point where others take notice, just fess up. The way coworkers find out about a relationship can affect their opinion of both parties, says Horan. In interviews he conducted with people whose coworkers were involved in romances, those who were told flat out about the relationship had a more positive response than those who, say, caught the couple kissing in the parking garage.

Rule #7

Do not do it on top of the copy machine

Or on a filing cabinet. Or in any of the other places where 20 percent of the 35,000 women surveyed by the now-defunct group World WIT said they’d had a sexual encounter with a coworker in the office, including in conference rooms, elevators, and storage rooms, and yes, even on the boss’s desk.

Most relationships go through an I-can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you stage. But you can, and you must. It’s not only violating company policy that you ought to worry about. It’s striking a nerve with the newly divorced woman in the next cube. It’s pissing off the IT guy who hasn’t had sex in 6 months. The truth is, more than half of employees—your coworkers—feel that public displays of affection should not be allowed in the workplace, while only 35 percent of HR professionals do, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

In the case of Andrew, 26, and Mia, 34, it didn’t take long for their harmless flirting to catch the attention of coworkers. When he kissed her impulsively during a team-building exercise, she got spooked about how people might react. And no wonder: Mia had already received a playful card from a coworker that she didn’t find all that amusing. It read: “Happy birthday to the office slut!”

Rule #8

Protect your good name

Speaking of sluts: Don’t be one. Even just the perception that you’re the office Casanova could be a “major turnoff” to your female coworkers, says Stephanie Losee, coauthor of Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding—and Managing—Romance on the Job. More important, it can also feed the gossip mill, which may have an unexpected impact on your career: A 2009 Indiana University study showed that people who are targets of coworker whispers are also likely to be gossiped about publicly during formal work meetings.

As Jason, 32, found out, sometimes the lothario label can have a long life. He’d been dating Jen, 29, for nearly 4 years when a trade publication ran an article that he was leaving AOL—where they’d met—for a position with another company. Soon after the story went up, so did a reader comment warning women at Jason’s new workplace to watch out. “He sleeps around,” the person wrote. It didn’t matter that he and Jen were living together by that point. His player reputation had stuck.

That’s not to say office dating isn’t worth the risks. Remember Grant and Amanda? While the first time he wound up in her bed didn’t go over well, these days—10 years later—it’s where he wakes up every morning.

By Jane Porter/Men’s Health

A man incensed by the tall grass in his neighbor’s lawn took out his frustrations in a big way: he doused their house in gasoline and set it on fire.That’s according Cartersville, Georgia homeowner Marty Corbitt and his 3-year-old daughter Kylie, who were terrorized and still inside the house when neighbor Phillip Bennett, 58, flew into a rage and set it aflame.

‘The mean man burned down my house,’ Kylie told reporters as she clung to her father in front of their gutted home.

Overreaction: Marty Corbitt says neighbor Phillip Bennet doused his house in gas and burned it down after a dispute over tall grass

Marty Corbitt told WXIA that, before the incident, Bennett had been a good neighbor who lived across the street from the Corbitts for about four years.  But then a week of animosity over Corbitt’s unkempt lawn spilled over and Bennett approached Corbitt Wednesday morning and threatened to kill him.

And that was just the start of it.  ‘He kicks my door, tells me I’ve got five seconds to come outside,’ Corbitt told reporters.

Heartbreaking: ‘The mean man burned down my house’ says Kylie Corbitt, 3, who was inside the house with her dad when Phillip Bennett allegedly torched it

Always greener? Corbitt says Bennett was a good neighbor for years, until last week when a battle over the Corbitt’s grass ensued 

Bennett then left as Corbitt called 911, only to return carrying two canisters of gasoline and smashes a pane of glass in the Corbitt’s kitchen door.

Dangerous: Police say suspect Phillip Bennet has an extensive criminal record and was considered armed and dangerous before he turned himself into police Thursday

‘Then, he turns around and grabs a brick, throws it through the window. And then he grabs a gas can and starts pouring it into the kitchen. And as he’s pouring he takes his lighter and lights it. And flames were everywhere,’ Corbitt said.  The husband and father of one ran to his daughter’s room and fled with her to another neighbor’s house.  ‘And watched the house burn,’ he said.

Video footage and photographs from the Facebook page of WGHF radio show fire fighters at the scene, battling to tame the flames. But the home was a total loss. Corbitt’s wife Katie was at work at the time of the alleged arson and told reporters her chief concern was the safety of her daughter. ‘The fact that my little girl was in the house when he started that fire,’ she told KARE11, while fighting back tears.

Bennett fled his home and was considered by police Capt. Mark Camp as armed and dangerous ‘due to past criminal history.On Wednesday afternoon, police were able to make contact with him by phone and tried to convince him to surrender.

Then, on Thursday, Bennett turned himself in to U.S. Marshals in Murphy, North Carolina. He is now in a county jail awaiting transport back to Georgia. The Corbitts are staying with relatives.

Fueled: Corbitt says Bennet smashed a kitchen window, dumped in gasoline, and set the place aflame, all while he and Kylie were inside

Totaled: Corbitt said his home, which was his grandmother’s, was a complete loss

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Its happening where the lights are bright.   Downtown- Midtown and East Sacramento.   Baby Boomers, empty Nesters and Millennials  are returning to the urban core where one can walk to restaurants,shops museums and other venues.

The once dormant condo market is on fire in midtown.   During the Economic crises, they couldn’t give condos away, many became rentals.     Over 83% of the L Street Lofts are sold. After many years inactivity, sold signs are common at Tapestri Square  in midtown.

There are many developments in and around Sacramento.  Construction has begun in Sacramento’s newest neighborhood, Township 9 .  it located on (Richards Blvd and 7th Street‘s is beginning to take shape.  The development will eventually have retail and a mix of low and medium height buildings.

Sometimes its location location location

A new neighborhood is under construction on the west side of the Tower Bridge.  Unlike Township 9 , its parks, bike and jogging trails are already in place.  Macy’s is a five minute drive or 10 minute walk.

There is a park in place

The Development is Bridge District  in West Sacramento.  Its 188 acer development.  Its boundaries are  Raley’s Field to the north, Sacramento River to the east.

What is unique about this project, is its celebration of the river.  Most developments in Sacramento including the planned Township 9 . Turns its back away from the River.   Eventually 5000 thousand people will live in a mixed use community.   Five minutes from downtown plaza , (and the proposed new arena) near  museums, and the restaurants of downtown and midtown.

Construction on “The Rivermark” began last month  the first families will move in the fall of 2014.

West Sacramento is  slowly becoming the little city across the  river  that could.

CityFella 

CityFella

“The key role for Vision 2021 is to align the work of federal government entities, but also to work together with the private sector to arrive at the level of sustainable development,” said project manager of UAE Vision 2021 Ahmad Lootah at the Prime Minister’s office.

“Our plan to make the UAE a world leader is ambitious, but possible. We already have world class achievements, such as the infrastructure,” he added.

Vision 2021, a date that coincides with the UAE’s 50^th anniversary, advocates a diverse economy that can only grow in a sustainable manner.

In the past years, the government has already made significant changes towards a green growth, such as investment in clean energy and eco-friendly development projects.

“If someone will come to me six years ago and say that DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority) will build a green building, I would laugh,” pointed out Lootah.

Yet, with ever more projects to embrace water and energy efficiency as well as environmental growth, sustainable development is reachable.

“We still face major economic and environmental challenges,” said directorate of Energy and Climate Change at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sameer Assaf.

“UAE has one of the highest carbon dioxide footprint per capita and the highest water consumption per person in the world. Also, UAE has one of the highest population rates, increasing by 300 per cent in the past 20 years, and shortage in gas. All these are pushing us to go for green growth,” he stressed.

According to Aisha Al Abdooli, supervisor at the Green Growth Strategy Follow Up Office (Ministry of Environment and Water), green growth is the tool to obtain a sustainable economy.

Her office, which was established in January 2012, has identified seven economic sectors in the UAE, oil and gas and transport included, and is now working to find means to transform these sectors into green, sustainable industries and economies.

“By the end of September 2013 we will have an action plan for each of these seven sectors, which we will submit to the Cabinet for approval. Once approved, all stakeholders of these sectors will have to implement the new strategies,” she announced.

Currently, the Green Growth Office is working with representatives of the seven UAE industrial and economic sectors to make sure the green switch is achievable.

By: Silvia Radan/khaleejtimes

This man Jeremiah Hartline 19, from Tennessee

said, these kind of  people (The Walking Dead)

Were chasing him and [were] clinging to the truck,”Hartline swerved the truck side to side to shake the Zombies off.”  Resulting  in  Several Crashes on I-15 near Temecula, California  Until the rig he was driving overturned 

Jeremiah collided with 5 vehicles and 6 people were injured (minor)  The Freeway was shut down for 15 hours

He was charged  with assault ,auto theft, attempted auto theft, reckless driving, hit-and-run resulting in injury, driving without a license and multiple sentence-enhancing great bodily injury allegations. To which he said …….

Monday, May 13,2013

Jeremiah, accepted a plea deal offered by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office to plead guilty to the three counts and one allegation of causing great bodily injury, court records show. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed four other charges, including reckless driving with injury.

He could have received a sentence of up to 12 years, four months had he been convicted of all seven counts following a trial, District Attorney’s Office spokesman John Hall stated in an email. Instead, Hall said, the agreement specifies a prison sentence of up to five years. Hartline is scheduled to be sentenced on June 24.

No more Zombie TV for Jeremiah, their nothing but trouble!

CityFella