Sunday, October 13, 2019

The Watergate Scandal :: President Richard Nixon

The tapes The hearings held by the Senate Watergate Committee, in which Dean was the star witness and in which many other former key administration officials gave dramatic testimony, were broadcast through most of the summer, causing devastating political damage to Nixon. The Senate investigators also discovered a crucial fact on July 13: Alexander Butterfield, deputy assistant to the President, revealed during an interview with a committee staff member that a taping system in the White House automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office—tape recordings that could prove whether Nixon or Dean was telling the truth about key meetings. The tapes were soon subpoenaed by both Cox and the Senate. Nixon refused, citing the theory of executive privilege, and ordered Cox, via Attorney General Richardson, to drop his subpoena. Cox's refusal led to the "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20, 1973, when Nixon compelled the resignations of Richardson and then his deputy in a search for someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox. This search ended with Robert Bork, and the new acting department head dismissed the special prosecutor. Allegations of wrongdoing caused Nixon to famously state "I am not a crook" in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors at Walt Disney World in Florida on November 17. While Nixon continued to refuse to turn over actual tapes, he did agree to release edited transcripts of a large number. These largely confirmed Dean's account, and caused further embarrassment when a crucial, 18Â ½ portion of one tape, which had never been out of White House custody, was found to have been erased. The White House blamed this on Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who said she had accidentally erased the tape by pushing the wrong foot pedal on her tape player while answering the phone. However, as photos splashed all over the press showed, for Woods to answer the phone and keep her foot on the pedal involved a stretch that would have challenged many a gymnast. She was then said to have held this position for the full 18Â ½ minutes. Later forensic analysis determined that the gap had been erased several—perhaps as many as nine—times over, refuting the "accidental erasure" explanation.. This issue of access to the tapes went all the way to the Supreme Court and on July 24, 1974 the Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that Nixon's claim of executive privilege over the tapes was void and they further ordered him to surrender them to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Essay --

The following essay addresses the effect and impact of environmental and ethical management within the sport and recreation industry, critically analysing such methods against current literature in the field. Utilising Carroll’s (1991) model of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), it seeks to evaluate, by means of an ethical audit, the current ethical principles employed in the operation of a London-based recreation facility, and objectively assess the extent to which the organisation is committed to the concepts of CSR management. According to Robin and Reidenbach (1987), business ethics demand an organisation behave in agreement with a shared set of believed principles related to moral philosophy, while social responsibility relates to the social conventions that exist between business and society. In other words, social responsibility includes all of the requirements and duties of business to the society it operates in, while business ethics, to some extent, involves the duties of business to the individual decision maker. While the two concepts of ethics and social responsibility are fairly dissimilar, they evidently share a common link. Based on Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), Turban and Greening (1997) argued that a company’s corporate social performance (CSP) was favourably associated with their reputation and attractiveness as an employer, suggesting that CSP may provide some competitive advantage in attracting staff. While ethical standards are defined as ideologies that when followed, encourage values such as trust, positive behaviour, justice, and compassion, there is no one consistent set of principles that all organisations adhere to, but rather, each has the ability to create the standards they de... ...h CSR activity, viewing this as a means for its managers to meet the apparent opposing concerns of social responsibility and bottom-line performance. However, to properly manage consumer relationships and its own reputation, GLL should not only adopt CSR as in integral part of its mission, but must also seek to communicate this widely to its members through use of effective social media. While it is plain GLL understands the demands placed on it and its divisional managers, by employees, suppliers, community groups, sporting governing bodies and local authorities, to increase their participation in CSR, it must be wary of this reality as it expands, as business norms and principles, regulatory structures, and stakeholder demand for CSR can and will vary considerably across differing regions of the UK, and along multiple lines of business (McWilliams, et al., 2006).

Friday, October 11, 2019

Contributions of Bill Gates Essay

Bill Gates was born on Oct. 28, 1955. He grew up in Seattle with his two sisters. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International. Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13. In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft’s chief executive officer. Gates dropped out of school for one year to work for TRW in computing, earning $30,000 (Microsoft, 2010). In 1974, Bill was attending Harvard University when Allen spotted an advertisement for a $350 assemble-at-home computer called the Altair 8800, manufactured by MITS, a company headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bill and Allen worked nonstop for six weeks to devise a simple version of BASIC, a programming language, for the Altair. They demonstrated their finished product to the company’s engineers with great success, and the following year, Bill and Allen founded Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft had entered the personal computer (PC) industry at an opportune time. In 1980 Microsoft won a contract with IBM to operate personal computers using Microsoft’s system, commonly known as MS-DOS. By 1983 the IBM PC had become the industry standard and MS-DOS was its operating system. In 1995, Microsoft introduced Windows 95 which again revolutionized the PC market, and became an industry standard (Master of Business, 2010). Bill Gates has accomplished so much beginning at age 13, starting with the creation of Traf-o-Data, then starting Microsoft, on to writing books, and finally becoming one of the richest and most giving philanthropist in the world. In 1970, Bill Gates and Paul Allen had been involved in some impressive software projects by then, most recently at TRW working on software to control the Northwest power grid. Traf-O-Data was a little different. Traf-O-Data was a computerized machine for processing paper tapes from traffic counters, those black hoses most of us have driven over on roads throughout the United States. It was an early example of a microprocessor-controlled â€Å"embedded system,† not really a computer as we  know it, but computerized. It began with the idea of automating the processing of traffic tapes for the local road department, which a group of students at Gates’s and Allen’s Lakeside School was doing by hand at the time and it would also require special hardware. Neither of the two had much hardware experience, so they enlisted the help of a friend, Paul Gilbert, to construct the machine while they wrote the software. The plan was to manufacture the Traf-O-Data and sell it to state and local governments, but their one demo was a failure. The tape reader malfunctioned and the sale was lost. They repaired and debugged the machine, but it never became a product—which was fortunate. Success would have distracted Gates and Allen at a crucial moment. As it was, by the time the lone Traf-O-Data began processing traffic tapes in 1975, the two had turned the operation over to Gilbert and moved on to form Microsoft (Startup – Albuquerque and the Personal Computer Revolution, 2006). Gates eventually sold this system to the city for $20,000 when he was only fifteen years old (Master of Business, 2010). Microsoft is founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. With annual revenues of more than $32 billion, Microsoft Corporation is more than the largest software company in the world. The company’s core business is based on developing, manufacturing, and licensing software products, including operating systems, server applications, business and consumer applications, and software development tools, as well as Internet software, technologies, and services. Led by Bill Gates, Microsoft has succeeded in placing at least one of its products on virtually every personal computer in the world, setting industry standards and defining markets in the process. Microsoft’s big break came in 1980 as IBM began developing its Personal Computer, or PC. While IBM contracted Microsoft to develop languages for the PC, IBM’s first choice to provide an operating system was the leader in the field, Digital Research. However, IBM and Digital Research were unable to agree on terms, so the contract for the operating system was awarded to Microsoft. As Microsoft was under a tight deadline and did not have an operating system of its own, the company purchased the rights to one from Seattle Computer Products for $75,000. The year 1980 also saw the arrival of Steve Ballmer, a close friend of Gates from Harvard, who was hired to organize the  non-technical side of the business. Ballmer later recalled the company’s stormy beginnings under Gates’s leadership: â€Å"Our first major row came when I insisted it was time to hire 17 people. He claimed I was trying to bankrupt him.† Conservative in his spending, Gates dictated th at the company must always have enough money in the bank to operate for a year with no revenues. Nearly 20 years later that policy still stood–in 1999 Microsoft had cash reserves of more than $13 billion and no long-term debt–while Ballmer, who had by then become Microsoft president, remained Gates’s closest friend and adviser. In March 1986 Microsoft held an initial public offering (IPO) of 2.5 million shares which raised $61 million. Within a year the stock had risen from $25 to $85, making Bill Gates a billionaire at the age of 31. Before 1990 Microsoft was primarily a supplier to hardware manufacturers, but after 1990 the bulk of the company’s revenues came from sales to consumers. That year Microsoft became the first software company to reach $1 billion in revenues, closing the year with 5,600 employees. Before 1990 Microsoft was primarily a supplier to hardware manufacturers, but after 1990 the bulk of the company’s revenues came from sales to consumers. That year Microsoft became the first software company to reach $1 billion in revenues , closing the year with 5,600 employees. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice and a group of 20 state attorneys general filed two antitrust cases against Microsoft alleging violations of the Sherman Act. While the antitrust suit against Microsoft showed threats of a forced breakup of Microsoft, innovations in the company continued. In 2000, Microsoft invested $135 million in the software publisher Corel. Apparently, Corel negotiated the investment, offering to drop â€Å"certain legal actions† it had against the company, even as it had no legal claims filed against Microsoft. The Department of Justice ruled that they would not enforce a breakup of Microsoft. By the end of 2002, the U.S. District Court approved the settlement Microsoft reached with the Justice Department. The settlement included preventing Microsoft from benefiting from exclusive deals that could hinder competition; uniform contract terms for computer manufacturers; the required ability of customers to remove icons from certain Microsoft features; and a requirement that Microsoft release specific innovational technical information to its rivals, in order to enforce competition. By 2004, with more than 56,000 employees and anticipated year-end revenues of  up to $38 billion, Microsoft continued to hold a strong lead in the computer software industry. (Funding Universe, 2004). Microsoft’s revenues this year will be around $36 billion, or $100 million a day (Overview of Microsoft Today, 2010). While at Microsoft, Gates started to write a series of books. His first book was published in 1995, The Road Ahead. The book was at the top of the â€Å"New York Times† bestseller list for seven weeks. In the edition of The Road Ahead, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates laid out his vision of an interconnected world built around the Internet. Based on the premise that life will be transformed by the convergence of inexpensive computing and inexpensive communications, Gates drew from his experience at the center of the personal computer revolution to give insights on the growth, evolution and impact of technology. (Microsoft, 2010). In 1999, Gates wrote â€Å"Business @ the Speed of Thought†, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. The book was published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries. â€Å"Business @ the Speed of Thought† has received wide critical acclaim, and was listed on the best-seller lists of the â€Å"New York Times†, â€Å"USA Today†, â€Å"The Wall Street Journal† and on Amazon.com. Gates has donated the proceeds of both books to non-profit organizations that support the use of technology in education and skills development (Microsoft, 2010). Gates has written so many other great books that have been translated into Spanish, German and other languages. Bill Gates has accumulated a huge personal fortune over the years. In 2005, Gates committed himself to donating $750 million to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation charity. The Gates foundation, which (at the time) is worth $30 billion, is now the largest charity to have been created by a single benefactor or private company, following a previous $3 billion gift from its founder last July. Mr Gates has stated that he intends to give away 90 per cent of his fortune, which is currently valued at about $50 billion (Bill Gates, Saviour of the World?, 2005). As of December 31, 2009, the total grant commitments since inception has came up to, $22.61 billion. The Gates foundation has given to several charities and organizations around the world (Foundation Fact Sheet, 2010). Works Cited (2010, January 26). Retrieved 2010, from Microsoft: www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/?tab=biography (2010). Retrieved 2010, from Microsoft: www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/writing/default.mspx Bill Gates, Saviour of the World? (2005, March 17). Retrieved 2010, from Marxist: www.marxist.com/bill-gates-capitalism-170305.htm Foundation Fact Sheet. (2010). Retrieved 2010, from Gates Foundation: www.gatesfoundation.org/about/pages/foundation-fact-sheet.aspx Funding Universe. (2004). Retrieved 2010, from Funding Universe: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/microsoft-corporation-company-history.html Master of Business. (2010). Retrieved 2010, from Bill Gates Microsoft: www.billgatesmicrosoft.com/history.htm Overview of Microsoft Today. (2010). Retrieved 2010, from Acedemic Earth: http://acedemicearth.org/lectures/overview-of-microsoft-today Startup – Albuquerque and the Personal Computer Revolution. (2006). Retrieved 2010, from Startup Gallery: http://www.s tartupgallery.org/gallery/story.php?il=45

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Funeral Blues Essay

Funeral Blues â€Å"A METEOR FROM the universe of Wystan Hugh Auden flashed into the atmosphere of American culture in 1994 when â€Å"Funeral Blues,† a poem written in 1936, was recited in a eulogy scene in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. † (Johnson) Many people have wondered what it is like to lose someone they love; if one does not know the feeling they are very fortunate. Some people think that without that certain someone, their life will cease to exist. In W. H.Auden’s poem â€Å"Funeral Blues,† a woman loses her lover and cannot even imagine how she is going to get on with her life; she puts her deceased companion on a God-like pedestal; and she loves him so much that she believes that he is her whole world. In â€Å"Funeral Blues,† Auden makes the bitter attitude of the speaker toward the subject of death apparent to the readers through the use of symbols, imagery, and metaphor. In the first verse, the speaker states â€Å"stop all t he clocks, cut off the telephone†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Auden Line 1).The clock being stopped may signify the fact the man who died has run out of time, or possibly to ask those who knew him to stop what they are doing and grieve. With the idea of the telephone being cut off, she wants to show the deceased the respect he deserves by honoring him with a moment of silence. In the second verse the speaker states, â€Å"let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead† (Auden 5). She uses this metaphor to reveal the pointlessness of her life. What is the point of planes flying in circles? They do not get anywhere flying in a circle. She is comparing the pointlessness of flying in circles to her life without her partner.The persona in the poem talks about her deceased partner as if he is on a God-like pedestal. The reader realizes just how important the deceased is to the speaker when reading the phrase â€Å"†¦He is Dead†. (Auden 6). The use of the capital letters displays the incredib ly close relationship between the two lovers. She talks about the aeroplanes scribbling sky messages, it is very doubtful that someone that is not in the limelight is going to have sky messages at their funeral that rarely happens at a celebrity funeral, let alone at a funeral of someone who is not in the limelight.To show the God-like significance, â€Å"He† is capitalized when she is talking about the writing in the sky. She also thinks that the funeral procession is going to be so long that they will need a police officer directing traffic. The persona in the poem continues to describe the intimacy between her and her lover, claiming that he was her â€Å"North, South, East, and West† (Auden 9). She has just realized that because of her companion’s death, along with everything else, her love has also come to an end.Like before, she commands the reader to carry out impossible tasks. â€Å"The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and d ismantle the sun† (Auden 13-14). She also begs for the oceans and forests to disappear. †Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. † (Auden 15) Without her lover, she feels like her life is meaningless. The speaker honestly believes that because of this tragic event, â€Å"†¦nothing now can ever come to any good. (Auden 16) She cannot picture her life without him, almost like she does not want to survive without him. W. H. Auden does not want one to find the meaning of the poem, but to feel the grief on how this person does not believe in living anymore since her loved one has passed away. It shows that she wants everything to stop and for everyone to feel what she’s feeling and mourn together with her. She put her lover on a God-like pedestal and thinks that he is just as important to everyone else like he is to her.Auden’s choice of words draws the reader into a greater understanding of the intensity and depth of feelings experienced upon the loss of a loved one. The symbolism used by the poet pulls us into the actual world of grief as the speaker searches for ways to mourn this passing. Works Cited Auden, W. H. â€Å"Funeral Blues. † Literature and the Writing Process. 9th Ed. McMahan, Elizabeth, et al. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2011. 614. Print. Johnson, Jeffrey. Christian Century 4 September 2007: 47-48. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 February 2013.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Del Monte Fresh Produce

The plaintiffs Del Monte Fresh Produce Company and Del Monte Fresh Produce, N. A. , Inc. incorporated in Delaware Florida, respectively and the defendants Dole Food Company, Inc. and Dole Fresh Fruit Company, incorporated in Hawaii and Nevada, respectively were developers, growers, processors and distributors of pineapples by profession. The plaintiff developed a new variety of extra sweet pineapples, which was named as MD-2 or the â€Å"Del Monte Gold Extra Sweet†.The cultivation of this new variety of pineapple was commenced in Costa Rica. In the year1991, Cabo Marzo, which was a Costa Rican farm and one of Dole’s suppliers of pineapples, managed to procure Del Monte’s MD-2 plant material. Subsequently, Dole announced in the pineapple market that it had developed a new super sweet pineapple variety, which it named as the â€Å"Dole Premium Select†, in order to offer competition to the â€Å"Gold Extra Sweet† variety developed by Del Monte. Procedu ral History:In the Southern District Court of Florida a complaint was filed by Del Monte against Dole for breach of section 1125 of the Lanham Act; violation of the Florida Trade Secret Act on account of misappropriation of trade secrets; conversion and the adoption of deceptive and unfair trade practices as per the provisions of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The contention of Del Monte was that not only Cabo Marzo but also Dole were cognizant of the fact that the M-2 variety of pineapple was belonged solely to Del Monte.In reply, Dole filed a motion seeking dismissal on the grounds of forum non conveniens. Issues legal question: The legal issue raised was whether a case that involved companies incorporated in the United States and conducting business operations in the United States could be dismissed on ground of forum non conveniens if an alternative forum was available. Broad holding: In instances where there is an absence of an adequate alternative forum and where dismissal of the case would not further public or private interest, the court may refuse to set aside a motion for dismissal.Narrow holding: The Costa Rican court did not have the authority to sanction the remedy sought by the plaintiffs and these US corporations sold most of their products in the domestic market, therefore there had been an infringement of the US competition law; consequently, the court may refuse to allow a motion for dismissal on grounds of forum non conveniens. Doctrinal Reasoning: The court referred to Doe v. Sun Int’l Hotels., Ltd and held that choice of forum indicated by the plaintiff should not be changed, unless the facts of the case warranted such a change (Doe v. Sun Int’l Hotels. , Ltd , 1998). The court further opined, on the basis of Republic of Panama v. BCCI Holdings that there should exist, an adequate alternative forum and that adjudication in such a forum should be conducive to public and private interest (Republic of Pana ma v. BCCI Holdings , 1997).It also held that adjudication in an alternative forum could totally deprive Del Monte of a remedy. Policy Reasoning: The doctrines established by the extant case law formed the basis for this decision and no change to the existing case law was effected. Miscellaneous: All the presiding judges were unanimous in their opinion. References Doe v. Sun Int’l Hotels. , Ltd , 20 F. Supp. 2d 1328 (S. D. Fla 1998). Republic of Panama v. BCCI Holdings , 119 F. 3d. 935 (11th Circuit Court 1997).

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Digital Word-of-Mouth Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5250 words

Digital Word-of-Mouth - Thesis Example The social ads could even appear with a friend's photo marked 'sponsored'. External sites such as eBay and Fandago use coding, called a Beacon, which detect a friend's activities. The biographical information of the user is used to channel the appropriate ads to the user's site. For instance, advertisers can limit their target customers to a certain age level, gender, or leisure/interest. Companies can create pages and add Beacons for free. But companies which advertise in Facebook do not have access to individuals' profiles the way their friends do. This is a big plus point of Facebook. So all in all Facebook's Beacon program appears to be a good step and is most likely going to benefit Facebook over the coming times because a large number of researches and studies indicate that because of the personal nature of the communications between individuals product information communicated in this way has an added layer of credibility and Facebook, considering its immense popularity which is ever increasing day by day; is definitely a best platform available to companies wishing to benefit from Digital Word of Mouth marketing strategies. Social media gives word-of-mouth nearly limitless reach. If Word of Mouth was limited to face-to-face communication, it would have limited reach. However, online communities and social media extend the reach of WOM. According to Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Facebook's advertising initiatives raise a crucial question that when users go on one website, do they reasonably expect their information to be transferred to another site This is no single answer to this. Effectiveness of Digital Word of Mouth as an advertising tool: Perhaps what is most important to be considered is the role of word of mouth advertising in persuading consumers. According to a post by Adrants regarding the validity of P&G's Vocalpoint which provides marketing services based on Digital Word of Mouth marketing: "While test market pilots proved Procter & Gamble's word of mouth arm, Vocalpoint, is a success and increases sales, the Word of Mouth Marketing Associatio