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Why the Real Threat to Journalists Isn't Automated Writing
By Edward Tenner
Artificial intelligence is a small problem for the news world-- the real worries of the Twitter-era are over-saturation and lack of funding
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Will the Pulitzer Prize for 2016 be awarded to a computer program? In the time-honored tradition of necessary hype, that's the prediction of one of the academic entrepreneurs behind a startup offering automated writing services to hard-pressed newspaper and magazine editors.
John Lavine, the dean of the Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, which is participating in the project with its Intelligent Information Laboratory, is quoted by Steve Lohr in the New York Times: "This kind of technology can deepen journalism." Yes, cynics might counter -- by about six feet. It certainly wouldn't do if students started to believe their tuition was going toward making themselves obsolete, but there's a case (as Dean Lavine and the founders believe) that computer-human journalism could improve the product.
After all, as I've suggested in the Atlantic, computer chess analysis has helped develop the game. Artificial intelligence writing programs may also have a possibly unintended beneficial effect, showing how much typical journalism, including a lot of technology writing, is so formulaic a computer could do it. It might debase the product but it could also challenge writers and editors to aim higher. Elite reporters and newspapers are safe if only because they will always have priority access to most key sources, who are unlikely to respond kindly to automated e-mail interview requests.
The big issue for reporters, editors, and publishers isn't automated text generation. It's the explosion of free human-authored content on the Web, just as the problem for established chess professionals in the U.S. -- as I argued -- has not been computers themselves but the rising number of world-class players emerging especially in Eastern Europe and Asia, thanks to Web-based access to databases and strong human and machine sparring partners.
The Wall Street Journal brought this out in a piece on the turmoil around Yahoo:
Making money off digital content isn't easy and it's getting harder.
"People tell me that content is king, but that is not true at all," says Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer at Vivaki, the digital-media unit of Publicis Groupe SA. "Most people make money pointing to content, not creating, curating or collecting content."
The article's graphic sidebar, for example, noted over 1,000 articles indexed by Google on the firing of Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz. As another Journal article by Carl Bialik notes, "each piece of information, on average, gets less exposure today than in the past." The challenge of all paid content, human- or machine-driven, free or paywalled, is rising above the background noise of similar ideas and overlapping facts as accessed by search, just as a professional photographer must offer something unavailable from even a skilled amateur, or a stock service.
Yet working against this is another trend, noted by yet another WSJ columnist, Gordon Crovitz, quoting the economist Tyler Cowen:
"When access is easy, we tend to favor the short, the sweet, and the bitty. When access is difficult, we tend to look for large-scale productions, extravaganzas, and masterpieces." Mr. Cowen says, "The current trend -- as it has been running for decades -- is that a lot of our culture is coming in shorter and smaller bits."
In other words, careful and uniquely human writing will be unread, while McProse -- of which there's such a human-produced glut A.I. programs are almost superfluous -- will thrive. That's a sobering alternative to the utopia of cyborg human-machine journalism. The most likely result of the new technology is a further division of writers into a few with brand identity and an even more pressed majority, some of them at least equally talented.
Back to that Pulitzer prediction. Given the growing capabilities of automated educational grading programs my own prediction is that by 2016 the Pulitzer decision itself will have been outsourced to a machine called Big Joe.
This article available online at:
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Dog Daze
O man. Time to catch up again!
Host fam siblings
Here you can buy the famed fermented mare's milk, kymys.
Oh hi, Lenin.
The master plan itself
My nocturnal friends say "hello!"
-Consult a thermometer and confirm that the temperature inside your body is exactly four degrees cooler than the ambient temperature outside.
-Lay around in a puddle of sweat
-In your typical conservative village, meet a tattooed, unmarried 25-year-old woman with a penchant for chess, jogging and talking about cannibalism. Fast friends.
-Discover where to buy lava lamps, legos, tie-dye, dildos and other gift items in Bishkek.
-Bed bugs? Check.
-Giardia? Check.
-Circle the city for hours on buses because they all go in concentric circles around your destination.
-Learn that the reason you often see three or four small shops on the same corner selling the same products is that, according to your host mom, people are just too impatient to wait in line.
-Regularly flag down men in white vans for rides. Feel totally normal about this.
-Another summer camp! Kudos to Kyle for creating sustainability by training local university students to act as trainers, with volunteers serving only as support. Be pleasantly surprised during the session on gender when students, unprompted, bring up transgender and LGB folks in positive light.
-Suddenly come down with severe nausea, joint pain and fatigue. Then get pelted by rocks from children with slingshots while walking home.
-Get better
-Disco with drag queens
-Down some drugs to keep the red lines from radiating any farther from your infections.
-Punch three new holes in your belt.
-Find all-natural peanut butter for a mere 60 som. Woohoo!
-Start a yoga group
-First bell! First day of school. First schedule – a.k.a. that piece of notebook paper tacked to the wall with so many eraser marks you can't read it. Schedule subject to daily change. One teacher doesn't know what subject she'll be teaching from one day to the next. Welcome to the post-Soviet system.
-Ignore red flags, as your counterpart – assigned to be your cultural guide, interpreter and link to your new community - seldom looks at you or speaks to you, much less team-teaches with you.
-People inform you constantly that a good Kyrgyz husband will kidnap you, and you find it difficult to attend a wedding without knowing whether to congratulate the bride or offer your condolences.
-Deliberate how to respond to the 11th grade students who catcall you in the halls and in the middle of class, because your Kyrgyz language skills make you sound like a 5 year old, and oddly your English language skills make the students laugh and parrot “hello!”
-Be forcibly dragged by the assistant director into a room full of Russian-speaking students, to have the door closed on you all, leaving you alone to stare blankly at each other for 45 minutes.
-Throw yourself into project after project after project to retain your sanity.
-Listen as people tell you how patient, flexible and hard working you are.
-Uncharacteristically desire to punch people in the face.
-Toss and turn in the night as bedbugs continue to bite, irreversibly scarring your body.
-Step in vomit.
-Truck on.
Basically, September kicks off a series of stressful months during which I question my purpose here and stretch my capacity for bullshit. As you can see, I am still here and feeling chill. It got better :) So stay tuned, folks.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Ubakyt Uchat - Time Flies
Let me catch you up. Life is good. Still, I've spent the last few weeks complaining to my long-suffering friends about bedbugs, dog bites, bacterial diarrhea, kids with slingshots, colleagues who stare off into the distance and then walk away whenever I attempt conversation, and the challenge of being a gender-variant individual in a gender-binary society, besides the normal stressors that volunteers face, like a total lack of privacy coupled with a feeling of total isolation and no idea how to express yourself through the vocabulary of a five year old child. This makes for great dinner conversation, especially when you can confuse words like “pig” with “uncircumcised penis.”
Well, I asked for a challenge. I'm sticking to it.
I live for the people that I meet and the moments that remind me where I am and how far I've come. This Is Kyrgyzstan (TIK). Even when Kyrgyzstan Wins Again (KWA), I have to laugh. I have, for example, walked into a camel. It was dark outside. The camel was sleeping next to the road. This is normal. Last week a colleague approached me, wearing a dapper suit and a white kalpak, to matter-of-factly inform me that he would not be coming to work because it is his daughter’s wedding, and he must slaughter the sheep. This is also normal. Last month my five year old host sister had three of her teeth pulled because they were rotting in her head. TIK. I give myself extra time to get ready in the morning, because my toilet is a small hole in the ground and I can’t pee straight. KWA.
No complaints.
Here we go!
Stand front and center with your fellow trainees and perform an excellent rendition of Watermelon during the national song at your Swearing-In ceremony. Then put your hand over your heart, swear to defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and count yourself among the ranks of Peace Corps Volunteers.
Now what?
Milk a cow.
Do your laundry. By hand.
Lose the first layer of your skin due to chronic, blistering sunburn because, at this altitude, SPF 30 doesn’t cut it.
Take to the streets in a minibus stuffed with sixteen host family relatives and hold tight as you sit on an unbolted kitchen chair amongst cartons of carrots and bags of bread on your way to a beautiful place called Issyk Ata (which can be translated as either Place of the Holy Father, or Hot Daddy) a natural hot spring in the mountains where flowers smell like butter and fountains smell like eggs. Politely decline the Russian man who mistakes you for a German and insists that you bathe in his swimming pool.
Happy Birthday to you! Shock your village with the revelation that you are, in fact, older than your high school students.
Receive word from your school director that you are to conduct English club daily for 800 students in addition to facilitating sport days and weekend excursions to museums and other culturally rich locations. Meanwhile get lost walking to the end of your street.
Conduct a chill conversational English club and turn the Hokey Pokey into a neighborhood hit.
Attend a day-long feast in honor of one of your three grandmothers, wherein much tea is poured, many toasts are uttered and hundreds of guests eat, drink and run. Following said feast, find yourself suckered into hand-washing the dishes.
Admire the interior décor of the most versatile form of transportation in Kyrgyzstan: the marshrutka. Essentially a stripped-down mini bus, the marshrutka contains a small black hole which enables more passengers to squeeze inside beyond any sane capacity. Make all future decisions regarding these vehicles based on the artistry of their plastic-ensconced scorpion stick drives and swinging overhead tassels.
Draw babies with infected bellybuttons for the Ministry of Health.
Meet drag kings who give you the shirts off their backs.
Watch a hail storm roll over the village.
Culture tip: In America, we talk about seeing the Man in the Moon. In Japan, I’ve heard they see a rabbit. In Kyrgyzstan, I’m told, there is a girl hauling two pails of water. A folk tale tells how she was forced to work day and night by her evil step-mother, until the moon took pity on her and lifted her into the sky. Personally, I see a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Word of the month: Shakyr = ring. Children like to count my piercings, and frequently beg me to show them the one in my tongue. This is surprisingly not ooyat. The elders just shrug and say, “Moda.” (That’s fashion.)
Donate blood to bedbugs.
Celebrate American independence in Kyrgyzstan.
Be instructed on the finer points of boiling eggs, because if you can’t pronounce the word “boil” you must not be capable of doing it.
Ride a wedding train around the capital city, soliciting cheers from bystanders everywhere. Wonder if said bystanders would still cheer, if they knew that the wedding party consisted of girls who like boys who used to be girls who like girls who used to be boys.
Lead a workshop about international business because the man originally slated to run the session opted to spend the weekend in Issyk Kul, where the water is always warm and the sun is always shining.
Go to Issyk Kul, and visit your Kyrgyz language teacher and his adorable family. Swim in a lake at the foot of the mountains, eat the best apple you’ve ever tasted and observe the ritual of Koi Soi. Koi means sheep. Soi means slaughter.
Split a sheep’s eyeball between a few of your closest in-country friends and agree to always look out for one another, through the bad times and the good. (see Steve’s most excellent journal for more on this:
See fireworks. See fireworks fly. See fireworks fall. See fireworks light the mountain on fire, and nearly kill us all.
Come home to find your grandmother now sporting a green unibrow.
Summer English camp! Teach kids from all corners of Kyrgyzstan how to make Play Doh from scratch.
Win an eating competition, and then spend the next two days evacuating your bowels in all manners possible. TIKKWA: Filter your water.
Cultural tip:
Word of the month: Jomok = folk tale. Temirlanagai, my language teacher, told me a tale about Issyk Kul that goes like this: in the beginning, God created all of the people and all of the lands. The creator then held a meeting to give each people their own piece of land. However, the Kyrgyz slept through this meeting. When they woke up, they went to God and asked what land they would live on. God said that all of the land had already been given away. The Kyrgyz were very sad and did not know what to do. So God considered the problem, and came back to the Kyrgyz. “You know,” said God, “I saved a little piece of land just for myself. It’s called Paradise, and I will give it to you.” And thus, the Kyrgyz got Issyk Kul.
I think there is a moral in there somewhere.
At the orphanage
My room. Oh, the pinkness.
Graffiti in Bishkek
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Eye Candy
Flashback to April... This is the first building we see on arrival to country. The architecture is typical of the Soviet era, and common throughout Bishkek. Some people call it an eyesore. I like it. There's something aesthetically pleasing about an unexpected reality. Like scars. Birthmarks. Broken statues. Things that demonstrate survival. It's striking to see the diversity of buildings downtown. On a single street there will be a wooden hovel that wouldn't look out of place on a rural lane, beside a crumbling Soviet structure, beside a sleek new grocery store, beside European-style cafe. The people too reflect this diversity... but I'll leave the rambling for another post ;) Enjoy some pictures!
Friends walking to the magazin / dukun / little shop on the corner.
And then they set the stage on fire. You think I am joking.
A village street. Don't feed the dogs.
A city street. Don't feed the camels.
My family.
Hot springs! The water smelled like eggs.
At the hot springs, there is a tree where people tie strips of cloth (or candy wrappers) to the branches and make a wish.
My kids.
Braided sheep intestines. More on this later.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
I'm not dead yet
It's official. I'm slacking on the blog. But rest assured, I'm not slacking on life.
I'm happy to report my standards have gone up. I live in a small village near the capital with a host family of six. When I need food, it's there. When I need water, it's there. I even have the option to make it hot. I've avoided the open manholes and roaming packs of dogs. I've milked a cow and laundered clothes by hand. I've watched more television in the past three weeks than I ever watched in the states, because it's not unusual for a family here to have a flat screen TV and no running water. I've ridden the marshrutkas, strolled the bazaars, stroked a wild hedgehog and mastered the outhouse.
It's the small things, folks.
Let me catch you up:
Here we go! Break the ice at the K-19 meet-and-greet. Who are these people?
Wander alone through Istanbul airport saddled with the luggage of several other people. Long story. Lesson learned: Don't take on more than you actually want to carry.
Welcome to Kyrgyzstan! Holy crap, there is a man in a penguin suit. Thanks, K-18s.
PST begins. Little do we know that this dilapidated, drafty hotel is truly the lap of luxury. Lesson learned: Don't lean on the railings.
Host Family Matching Ceremony! Get on stage in front of hundreds of people and find your new mom, so she can take you by the hand and teach you how to feed, bathe and care for yourself all over again.
Kyrgyz food isn't bad. Just be prepared for a lot of meat, fat and oil. And nan. And chai. Oh, and chai.
Culture point – Toilet paper does not go in the toilet or down the hole. Use the waste bin.
Word of the month – Жакшы (jaksha) Good. The MOST used adjective I've ever heard. As in, “Баaры Жакшы!” It's all good.
Acquire a mysterious infection that results in a crap-load of pus coming out of your hand. Get well soon.
Hear the chorus of your life in a foreign tongue, “Are you a boy or a girl?”
Begin wearing a head scarf.
Feel grateful to be healthy while other Trainees do the Kyrgyzstani shuffle and start building thigh muscle in the outhouse.
PST continues. Feel your brain begin its decline into a pool of mush.
Why do Kyrgyz people eat so much meat? Because it has Vitamins Ү, ϴ and Ы. The difference between Ү and Ы can mean the difference between “vomit” and “girl”. You call the cow a “house” and say “I'm sorry” to people when you greet them.
Gain ten pounds.
Disco at an orphanage. Disco on a marshrutka.
Culture point – Dogs are not housepets. When walking outside, keep rocks in your pockets.
Word of the month – Уят (ooyat) Shameful. The MOST appropriate word for standard American behavior. As in, "Уят жок.” No shame.
(See Meghan's awesome blog for more on this:
Observe a sheep slaughtering.
Get schooled in a soccer match by boys wearing clogs.
Permanent Site Placement! Where did your dart land on the map? You are staying in Chui, the northernmost Oblast and most Russified region, and will work with a former German language teacher. Prepare to brush up on your Russian while you keep plugging away at the Kyrgyz.
Become deathly ill during your site visit, leaving the locals alarmed that they have received a broken Volunteer. No refunds.
Teach your host sister how to play Speed - a card game that sounds like the Russian word SPID, which translates to AIDS. Other false friends: “moth” sounds like “drunk” and “sick” sounds like “fuck” and “um” sounds like “vagina”. No ums, ahs or uhs? We're all going to become better public speakers.
Language Proficiency Interview! Score advanced-low. In actuality, sound like a slow 3 year old.
Culture point – It is okay to double-dip.
Word of the month – Майда бышкан нандай (Maida bishkan nandai) Like fatty, fried bread. A good way to make your elders laugh when they ask you how you are doing.
You are now an official Peace Corps Volunteer! Hurray.
It's a whole new world here. I'll try to keep y'all posted, but for now enjoy some more pictures:
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Get Your Soviet Face On
My outhouse. On a scale from one to ten, mine has earned a sweet 9.5 for depth, lack of smell and general cleanliness.
Outside the family home.
Just another day in Kyrgyzstan.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
My desire to go has come, and to me bread is necessary
In my last post I mused on gender in language. This time around I'm pondering self-centeredness.
From what I can tell the Kyrgyz language has no modal verbs such as want, will, should, can and must. English is filled with these. I want to go. I need a jacket. You shouldn't lick doorknobs. In Kyrgyz, adverbs replace the verbs and make statements more indirect.
Commands, for example, sound more like suggestions. You should go, becomes "if you would go, it would be good." I don't want to go, becomes "my desire to go has not come." Kyrgyz speakers do not have things either. Instead, things exist. I have a cat, becomes "My cat exists."
If people in this region value the needs of the collective over the needs of the individual, the language seems to reflect this by removing "I" entirely. The self is only implied through its relation to a desire, need or possession.
I'm going to have to change the way I think, before I open my mouth.
In other news, Why I Will Be Okay.
1. Bring on the fried goat and fermented milk! I'm not a fan of American food anyway.
2. I already only shower once a month and, I've been assured, don't offend the noses.
3. Two beers cans = one camp stove. I try to be crafty.
4. I've lived in the city. I've been mugged, frozen, lost, assaulted, hit by car doors and dined out of dumpsters. I've lived in the country. I've fought chickens for eggs, dug cat holes in the dirt, climbed mountains, butchered pigs and run for miles. I'm privileged as an American, but this apartment still doesn't have hot water, reliable plumbing or a bathroom door.
5. I have so much love from my friends, family, colleagues and partner. Just knowing this keeps me going through hard times.
6. No worries.
It's a phrase that falls from my lips at least once a day, partly because it has become my automatic response to all of life's mishaps, but mostly because I truly believe in the wisdom of letting go of what things we can't, shouldn't and don't need to control.
I depart this weekend for three months of intensive training, so for now, no news is good news!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Without Gender
Салам! бул Кыргыз тили.
Street signs, newspapers, friendly banter and Beware of Dog... every day, I'm deluged with symbols and sounds that tell me what to do, where to go and how to respond. Without language, I'd be lost. Gestures convey a lot of information, sure, but try explaining modal auxiliary verbs with nothing but your fingers.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I'll be teaching English in a secondary school. I'm pretty confident in my expertise on the subject, being a native speaker and a writer by trade. But abroad? I'll need to master a new language. If I can't buy an onion at the market, I can't expect to hold a very meaningful conversation with my colleagues.
The Kyrgyz Republic has two official languages: Kyrgyz and Russian. The latter is spoken mainly in cities and in business. I've been studying both. In Russian, as in the Romance languages, all words are masculine, feminine or neuter. It distinguishes between men and women in most roles, e.g. businessman vs businesswoman. In Kyrgyz, however, there is only one word for he, she and it. There is no designation of a "chair" as male or female, as if an inanimate object has genitalia. Just one pronoun. So far, I haven't noticed many words beyond "mother" and "father" that explicitly assign gender to a person. As someone interested in sociolinguistics and gender roles, I'm beginning to fall in love with Kyrgyz.
How does having a genderless language affect society? Does it lead to more equality? Less? Is gender still expressed in some other way? I hope to find out.
I've heard that historically Kyrgyz men and women had fairly equal footing, with everyone participating in activities like horseback riding, hunting and animal husbandry. Today women hold advanced degrees and work in universities, hospitals and nongovernmental organizations, but they are also expected to marry early, raise children and tend the household more than men.
So maybe language isn't a strong influence on culture. But just for fun - what if English had no words for he or she, or man or woman? How would it change the way you interact with people on a daily basis? Would it matter if you had a waiter or a waitress? And why?
I expect a 300 page essay exploring this theme from every one of you. Annnd... go!
To the extent of my small knowledge, the intro says, "Hi! This is the Kyrgyz language." Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Hosea 2:14; Hosea 4:11; Hosea 7:6; Hosea 7:11; Hosea 7:14; Hosea 10:2; Hosea 11:8; Hosea 13:6; Hosea 13:8 (New American Standard)
Restoration of Israel
14 "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness And speak kindly to her. 11 Harlotry, wine and new wine take away the understanding. 6 For their hearts are like an oven As they approach their plotting ; Their anger smolders all night, In the morning it burns like a flaming fire. 11 So Ephraim has become like a silly dove, without sense ; They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. 14 And they do not cry to Me from their heart When they wail on their beds ; For the sake of grain and new wine they assemble themselves, They turn away from Me. 2 Their heart is faithless ; Now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars And destroy their sacred pillars. 8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim ? How can I surrender you, O Israel ? How can I make you like Admah ? How can I treat you like Zeboiim ? My heart is turned over within Me, All My compassions are kindled. 6 As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, And being satisfied, their heart became proud ; Therefore they forgot Me. 8 I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, And I will tear open their chests ; There I will also devour them like a lioness, As a wild beast would tear them.
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Europe: Day 4, Amsterdam
Because you can never get enough beautiful old canals: Ignoring the tacky 70s mall that houses the Utrecht train station, press through the narrow medieval streets to the Oudegracht, the "old canal," dug around a thousand years ago. It's lined with bookshops and restaurants with terraces directly on the water. Take a right at the canal, past the four enormous green women on your left (the caryatids supporting the façade of the Winkel van Sinkel, a department store that's been converted into a grand café). Keep walking along the canal until you see the Gothic spire of Domtoren, the tallest cathedral tower in the Netherlands. If you're feeling perky, climb up to the top (reservations recommended), where, on a clear day, you can see all the way to Amsterdam. Then walk across the square (site of the Roman fort to which Utrecht traces its ancestry), through the beautiful medieval cloister, and out the other side. Located to your left on the Nieuwegracht--a canal dug in 1390, yet still "new"--is the house of the only Dutch pope, Adrian VI. Continue to the end of the canal, then turn right, where you'll see the Centraal Museum; then take the first right, down the Lange Nieuwestraat. At the Universiteitsmuseum, have lunch in the botanical garden in the shade of Europe's oldest ginkgo tree. Afterward, go back to the Centraal Museum and board the Rietveld Bus (reservations required) to the fascinatingly uncomfortable Rietveld Schröder House, a de Stijl landmark from 1924. After the bus returns you to the museum, walk back down the Oudegracht to the train station.
Return-trip snack
Warm homemade stroopwafels--pairs of waffly wafers filled with delicious caramel ($1)--from the cart located in the big, ugly mall (Hoog Catharijne) at the train station; the cart is just past the ATMs.
Winkel van Sinkel: Oudegracht 158, 011-31/302-30-30-30, dewinkelvansinkel.nl. Domtoren: Domplein 9-10, 011-31/302-36-00-10, domtoren.nl, reservations recommended, $10. Centraal Museum: Nicolaaskerkhof 10, 011-31/302-36-23-62, centraalmuseum.nl, $11. Rietveld Schröder House: Reserve through the Centraal Museum, 011-31/302-36-23-62, [email protected], $21, includes entry to the Centraal Museum.
Train info
30 minutes each way. Round-trip ticket: $15. Trains between Amsterdam Centraal and Utrecht run every 10 to 20 minutes all day. The ride takes about 30 minutes, and tickets ($15 round trip) can be purchased at a machine or counter at the station. It's cheaper to buy a Dagretour (day return) than two 1-way tickets; the ticket is valid on any train that connects the two cities, but you must return the same day. Schedules at ns.nl.
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Avastin in Combination With Chemo Associated With Increased Fatality
Avastin in Combination With Chemo Associated With Increased Fatality
For the full JAMA article, go here.
In cancer medicine, it's not a case of throwing targeted drugs at the problem. It's knowing "what"targeted drugs and "how" to use them in "individual" patients (not average populations). The problem is that few drugs work the way oncologists think they do and few of them take the time to think through what it is they are using them for. What may limit the effectiveness of Avastin is that there are multiple ways by which tumors can evolve that are independent of VEGF and independent of angiogenesis. It could be vastly more important to measure the net effect of all processes (systems) instead of just individual molecular targets (like VEGF). The cell is a system, an integrated, interacting network of genes, proteins and other cellular constituents that produce functions. You need to analyze the systems' response to drug treatments, not just one or a few targets or pathways. Whiz bang therapies often get a pass on toxicities because they are just so darn cool (Herceptin and CHF in the adjuvant setting is another example). Again, the problem is that few drugs work the way oncologists think and few of them take the time to think through what it is they are using them for.
Meanwhile, it's hard to tell a medical oncologist (and patient) to ratchet back on the anti-VEGF drug they're using when the disease setting is stage IV lung, ovarian, or pancreatic cancer. Therapy-related, late onset sequelae are becoming a very real problem.
Barbara Gallagher @
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From: Allison Winter, ENN
Published December 5, 2012 09:30 AM
Eurasian Jays: Suspicious Stashers or Stealthy Stealers?
In order to prevent other birds from stealing their winter food supply, Eurasian jays, a member of the crow family, try to stealthily hide their collection when a potential thief is near. However they are also minimizing their sounds in an attempt to stay unnoticed and spy on other birds' hoards.
Eurasian jays are creative hoarders that bury food like acorns and seeds in thousands of locations over the course of a year so they can retrieve their reserves when food is scarce. However, these hidden reserves do not always remain a secret and the stealing of these hoards is a common practice among species in the animal kingdom.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge first conducted an experiment where they gave the jays options to hide food in two different mediums: gravel and sand. The birds' preferences for using these different substrates were tested when they were alone, when they had another bird that could see and hear them and when there was another bird that could hear but could not see them.
The researchers found that if a Eurasian jay is hiding it's plunder and hears but does not see another bird nearby it will hide its cache in the less noisy substrate, in this case, the sand. Researchers conclude that this is done to avoid drawing unwanted attention from potential thieves that might then try to spy on the bird.
In the second experiment, researchers measured how many times the subjects chirped or made vocal noises depending on who was around.
The new research can be found in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Read more at the University of Cambridge.
Eurasian Jay image via Shutterstock.
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Domestic Charges
Domestic related charges such as domestic assault, can be some of the trickiest criminal case to defend. These cases have a strong emotional component, in addition to significant political policy overtones.
Whether or not the incident is indicates a serious threat, or the evidence of a crime is strong, prosecutors are rarely willing to just drop the charges. No district attorney is willing to risk being accused of being “soft on domestic abuse”. Most district attorneys are elected to office, and many hold higher political aspirations.
District attorneys and prosecutors are fearful of any chance that someone arrested for domestic violence related charges later hurts the victim again. If there is a prior record of an arrest but no charges or prosecution, that fact would be potentially damaging and embarrassing. It is much simpler for DAs to instruct prosecutors to be unreasonably tough in every case, even on minor charges with little evidence.
The situation with police officers is similar. In many cases, if the officers at the scene of any incident have any possible suspicion at all of violent behavior, their official policy is to arrest on the spot.
Look, it is true that domestic abuse and spousal violence is a serious problem. We absolutely don’t want to minimize that women are hurt by husbands, boyfriends, and other domestic abusers, and the results can be horrific and tragic.
But a doctrine of better safe than sorry” in arresting someone is the opposite of “innocent until proven guilty“. And these two ideas don’t have to be incompatible in all cases, they are just different situations. A police officer’s job is to support and protect public safety. But our criminal court system is there to defend and protect citizens, and provide justice for all.
The bottom line is just because you were arrested doesn’t mean you are guilty of a crime. This is true in all cases, but it is particularly important in cases where the police may suspect domestic violence or assault.
But it is true that in these cases you are going to need a very good and experienced lawyer to defend you, tell your side of the story, and fight for your rights and fair treatment under the law.
Domestic Violence Laws Around the Country
In many states, there are no specific criminal penalties for domestic related criminal offenses.
But you may face enhanced penalties for a criminal charge that is related to a domestic relationship (see below).
Enhanced penalties for criminal charges with a domestic component can be:
• Domestic Violence Counseling
• Anger Management
• Alcohol or Drug Substance Abuse Treatment Programs
• Restraining Order / Protective Order / No-Contact Order
• Other possible enhanced penalties relating to the charge that could include jail time and fines.
Domestic Violence Related Charges
What is a Domestic Relationship?
Laws vary from state to state, but typically for a crime to be considered domestic violence, the defendant and the victim must be
• Husband/Wife/Spouse
• Former Spouse
• Girlfriend/Boyfriend currently, or formerly (some states have a minimum dating period to meet this requirement, such as 6 months)
• Current or former roommate
• The parent of your child
• Other family relationship, including parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins in some cases. Exact familial relationships that fall under domestic abuse laws can vary.
Domestic Violence Defense Strategies
There are a variety of ways to defend people accused of domestic charges. Some include challenging the letter of the law, and some include negotiating for a reasonable outcome.
If your relationship does not meet the legal definition in the statute, they domestic charges should be dropped. For example, if you had a relationship, but it lasted less that 6 months, it may not be considered a domestics relationship under the law.
There are very few “simple” domestic assault or violence cases. The facts are tricky, you’ve often got emotional and conflicting testimony, and a prosecution that is typically aggressive with these charges.
For a realistic assessment of the best way to defend your charges in court, you need a detailed consultation with an experienced criminal defense lawyer who has defended these cases before.
Domestic Charge Defense FAQ
The person who is supposedly the victim wants to drop the charges. Does that mean my case is over?
Not necessarily, no. Most prosecutors can go ahead with a case even if the victim is not cooperative.
However, the case will almost certainly be tougher for them to prove in court. We may be able to argue for a dismissal, or negotiate a reduction in charges to make sure you don’t have a domestic violence conviction on your record.
But sometimes the prosecutor will want to move forward anyway, and we could have to take a case to trial and argue in front of a judge or jury.
The person who is the victim absolutely lied and made up the whole story because he or she was mad at me at the time. How can I get my charges dropped?
I know this happens more often than most people think. But that doesn’t mean that the charges will automatically go away.
The prosecutor will have to be convinced that this is true, and the victim isn’t lying now due to pressure. So it really depends.
It may take some legal wrangling and tough negotiations to make your case go away. And even a lying witness can sometime be very convincing. But ultimately if there is no evidence that a crime was committed, it’s a good case to fight in court, if necessary.
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Finance and Economics Discussion Series: 2010-11 Screen Reader version
Managing Beliefs about
Monetary Policy under Discretion
Elmar Mertens
August 2009
Keywords: Optimal monetary policy, discretion, time-consistent policy, Markov-perfect equilibrium, incomplete information, Kalman filter
In models of monetary policy, discretionary policymaking often lacks the ability to manage public beliefs, which explains the theoretical appeal of policy rules and commitment strategies. But as shown in this paper, when a policymaker possesses private information, belief management becomes an integral part of optimal discretion policies and improves their performance.
Solving for optimal policy in a simple New Keynesian model, this paper shows how discretionary losses are reduced when the policymaker has private information. Furthermore, disinflations are pursued more vigorously, when the hidden information problem is larger, even when inflation is partly backward-looking.
JEL Classification: E31, E37, E47, E52, E58
1 Introduction
Starting with Kydland and Prescott (1977) and Barro and Gordon (1983b), the theoretical literature on rules versus discretion has documented clear benefits from commitment in monetary policy. Many economic decisions in the private sector are forward-looking and depend on policy expectations. In such an environment, policy rules and commitment strategies benefit from their ability to manage public beliefs about future policies. However, most of the rules-versus-discretion literature is based on models of perfect information, symmetrically shared between the central bank and the public.
Monetary policy is often conducted under imperfect information of various sorts. On the one hand, policymakers may face uncertainty about the state of the business cycle, the nature of structural relationships in the economy or a lack of access to timely data. The problems arising from this perspective have for example been analyzed by Sargent (1999) or Svensson and Woodford (2004) to name but a few. On the other hand, policymakers may also be privy to confidential information, for example arising from staff efforts in gathering and analyzing economic data or supervisory activities. Extending the work of Cukierman and Meltzer (1986), Faust and Svensson (2001); Faust and Svensson (2002), this paper focuses on the design of optimal monetary policy, when the policymaker has private information.1
This paper shows how belief management becomes an integral part of discretionary policies, when the central bank has private information. In this case, the public will make inferences about the hidden information based on observed policy actions such that current policies directly affect inflation expectations.2 The trade-offs faced by a discretionary policymaker resemble then those known from commitment problems.
Investigating the design of optimal policy when the central bank has private information also contributes to the literature on optimal transparency. Morris and Shin (2002) caution against providing the public with too much information. But Woodford (2005) doubts whether their conclusions will be relevant in a forward-looking model, where the economy is mostly affected by expectations of future policies. The model analyzed here provides an intriguing counterexample to this conjecture, in that policy losses are lower under hidden information when comparing discretionary policies in a New Keynesian model. Since hidden information gives scope for belief management under discretion, the result occurs precisely for reasons stressed by Woodford (2005).
Attention is limited here to Markov-perfect policies. In the spirit of "bygones are bygones", Markov-perfect state variables equilibrium must be relevant for current payoffs. When the public is imperfectly informed, its prior beliefs matter for public payoffs and they become a distinct, endogenous state variable of the policy problem, which is influenced by policy actions. By managing this state of (public) beliefs, the policymaker indirectly responds to past policies, even when reputational mechanisms via history-dependent strategies, known from Barro and Gordon (1983b) or Chari and Kehoe (1990), are excluded from the analysis.
In Markov-perfect models, a current decision-maker can influence a future decision-maker only via endogenous state variables, such as capital or government debt. In the model presented here, belief management leads to Markov perfect outcomes that share similarities with those from models with commitment respectively reputational mechanisms. Previous research has already recognized how discretionary outcomes can be improved by adding endogenous state variables to the policy problem. Usually, this is done by modifying the central bank's loss function, for example by adding concerns for interest rate smoothing Woodford (2003b) or by replacing inflation stabilization with price level targeting Vestin (2006).
What is novel about the present paper, is how beliefs naturally emerge as such an endogenous state variable, without the need for modifying the central bank's loss function or other aspects of the economy. To the extent that hidden information problems are an essential feature of interactions between policymakers and the public, this suggests that the importance of discretionary biases in practice might be different, and likely smaller than what is suggested by full information models.3
The problem of "public learns about central bank" studied here is distinct from settings of "bank learns about economy" studied for example by Sargent (1999), Aoki (2003) or Svensson and Woodford (2004). In the latter settings, atomistic individuals take policy as given without regard for inference problems faced by the policymaker. Policy constraints like the Phillips Curve are largely preserved. In the linear quadratic case studied by Svensson and Woodford (2004), certainty equivalence holds and optimal policies are identical to the full information case when actual values are replaced by policymakers' expectations. A key complication for my paper is that the central bank is a strategic, not an atomistic player, who takes the public's inference problem into account when devising its policy. This changes the policy constraints in non-trivial ways.
The framework adopted here exclusively assigns the policymaker, and not the public, with superior information. This is an extreme assumptions. Reality is best described by dispersed information, endowing different bits and pieces of hidden knowledge to the private sector and policymakers. The policy constraints change in dramatic ways when agents are learning about the policymaker, because of his strategic position in the economy. Those strategic effects are the main concern of the paper.
The effects of hidden information on optimal policy are illustrated with a simple New Keynesian model -- a model not chosen for its realism, but in order to document the differences with the symmetric information benchmark most clearly within a widely studied setting. The paper solves for the optimal discretion policy in a New Keynesian model where the output target of the policymaker is not directly observed by the public. The public only observes policy actions, but cannot disentangle whether the underlying shock to the output target is persistent or transitory. The policymaker faces a direct feedback from higher inflation expectations when choosing more expansionary policies cautioning him to temporarily boost aggregate activity at the expense of higher inflation. Compared to a full information model, a key difference is how optimal policy contracts the economy in response to inflationary beliefs. Moreover it does so more vigorously, the larger the credibility problems from hidden information. This result has important implications for the conduct of optimal disinflations.
To the best of my knowledge, my paper provides the first analysis of disinflations with an explicitly optimizing monetary policymaker and unknown policy targets.4 The results confirm conjectures by Sargent (1982) and Bordo et al. (2007) about the necessity to disinflate more quickly, when credibility is at stake. Other economists, for example Gordon (1982), have rather argued for prolonged and modest disinflation paths when inflation is persistent. Strikingly, my result is shown to carry over also to a setting with a hybrid Phillips Curve, where inflation persistence is partly exogenous. Evidently, disinflation costs are higher in such a setting. However, by bringing down inflation expectations early on a more aggressive disinflation policy still minimizes these costs, since it avoids inflation to persist based on ill-founded beliefs.
The information structure used here is similar to the models of Faust and Svensson (2001); Faust and Svensson (2002) and Cukierman and Meltzer (1986) who cast their models within similar linear-quadratic settings, but without providing a general framework capable of handling various models with endogenous state variables. Faust and Svensson (2001) focus on the welfare effects of credibility with a Lucas-supply curve. Using a forward-looking Phillips Curve, their results can be confirmed and extended here: Policy losses are reduced when output targets are unobservable, such that there is an explicit role for public beliefs. This disciplines the pursuit of persistent output targets, even when time-consistency is imposed on policy.
So far, problems of this kind have mostly been analyzed in highly stylized and often static settings.5 But the models used for policy analysis are typically dynamic and of larger scale. The technical appendix to this paper presents a flexible, yet tractable way to analyze optimal policy under hidden information, which is applicable to the kind of DSGE models used in policy analysis. The procedure remains tractable and transparent by relying on a linear-quadratic representation of the policy problem driven by Gaussian shocks. A key complication for models with imperfect information is to track the distribution of public beliefs. In a linear, homoscedastic setting, that collapses to tracking the evolution of means via the Kalman filter.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces hidden information in a textbook version of the New Keynesian model and shows how hidden information changes the policy problem. An extension incorporating belief shocks is shown in Section 3. Implications for disinflation strategies are analyzed in Section 4. The related literature is discussed in Section 5. Section 6 concludes the paper. A technical appendix extends the methods used here to a general class of linear quadratic policy problems.
2 A Simple Model of Hidden Information
This section illustrates the issues arising from hidden information with a simple textbook version of the New Keynesian model. The model model is purely forward-looking and the signal extraction problem is univariate. The next section extends this model to a setting where a hybrid Phillips Curve interacts with shocks from a richer information structure.
2.1 New Keynesian Economy
The model is largely identical to the textbook model of optimal policy in a New Keynesian model known from Clarida, Gali, and Gertler (1999), Walsh (2003) or Woodford (2003a). The only difference is a stochastic preference shock to the policymaker's objective function, which is unobservable to the public. Otherwise my model and its notation follow closely Gali (2003) where further details can be found. A key feature of the model is that inflation is determined purely by public expectations of current and future policies. This puts centerstage the concerns of the public about the policymaker's intentions.
Private Sector As in the textbook model, aggregate decisions of the private sector are represented by the New Keynesian Phillips and IS curves. In this simple model, IS curve and the short term interest rate are even redundant and the output gap can be used as policy control.
The private sector is populated by a continuum of identical firms and households, which trade goods and labor services. There is no capital accumulation and output equals consumption. Firms are monopolistically competitive and use staggered price-setting as in Calvo (1983). Optimal pricing decisions lead to the New Keynesian Phillips Curve as in Yun (1996) and King and Wolman (1996). The log-linearized Phillips Curve is
\begin{align} \pi_t &= \beta \pi_{t+1\vert t} + \kappa x_t \end{align}
where \pi_t is inflation and x_t is the output gap6. The parameter \beta is the representative agent's discount factor and \kappa is a reduced form parameter influenced amongst others by the frequency of price-setting.7 For any variable z_{t+1}, z_{t+1\vert t} denotes its private sector forecast. The underlying information set will be explained later.
The output gap measures the difference between actual output and its natural rate. The latter would be the output of the economy if there were no nominal frictions.8 My discussion will exclusively focus on monetary shocks that leave the natural rate unaffected. Conditional on those shocks, variations in the output gap are thus identical to variations in output and consumption.
Policy Objectives The policymaker seeks to minimize a present value of expected losses
\begin{align} E_t \sum_{k=0}^\infty \beta^k \left\{ \pi_{t+k}^2 + \alpha_x (x_{t+k}-\bar x_{t+k})^2 \right\} % \text{where}\quad L_t & = \pi_t^2 + \alpha_x (x_t-\bar x_t) \label{BURGUNDY:eq:loss201} \end{align}
with \alpha_x\geq 0. The expectations operator E_t reflects the policymaker's information set, to be described later. The non-standard feature of the loss function is the time-varying target for the output gap, \bar{x}_t, which will be specified as an exogenous stochastic process.
In principle, one could think of various ways to motivate the presence of \bar{x}_t in the loss function9. However, the information structure used below will require that \bar{x}_t is not observed by the private sector. To keep the model close to the NK benchmark, I maintain the assumption of a homogeneously informed private sector and follow Cukierman and Meltzer (1986) who interpret the output target as arising from time-varying preferences of the policymaker. Under this view, \bar{x}_t represents the outcome of political influences on monetary policy to stimulate the economy. These preferences are assumed to vary exogenously with political representation in the government and the makeup of central banker's preferences.10 Such hidden pressures could arise even when the independence of the central bank is formally enshrined in law, since actual independence is a more fragile concept. For example Abrams (2006) gives a striking account of hidden but forceful policy influences. His study documents how U.S. President Nixon covertly pressured the then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Arthur Burns to ease policy in the run-up to the Great Inflation.
Under either interpretation, the output target is capturing a form of heterogeneity otherwise not present in the model. In particular (2) does not necessarily represent a social welfare function. Faust and Svensson (2001) use a similar loss function for the policymaker. Their notion of representative welfare would then be to evaluate (2) at the average output target (here: zero)11, L^R_t=\pi^2_t + \alpha_x x^2_t. But without specifying the underlying heterogeneity and associated welfare weights this is at best an aggregation with unknown distributional consequences.
In reality, short-term interest rates are the typical instruments of monetary policy. But in this simple model, the short term interest rate can be perfectly substituted by the output gap as policy control. The IS curve is then redundant for determining equilibrium.
Discretionary Policy under Symmetric Information
Before turning to the informational structure of the model, it is helpful to study optimal policy when there is symmetric information. For the time being, let the output target follow a univariate AR(1) process \begin{equation*} \bar{x}_{t+1} =\rho\; \bar x_t + e_{t+1} \quad\text{where}\quad e_{t+1} \sim N(0,\sigma_e^2) \quad\text{and}\quad \vert\rho\vert<1 \end{equation*} which is mutually observed by the policymaker and the public.12 Under symmetric information, their expectations coincide such that z_{t+1\vert t} = E_t z_{t+1} for any variable z_t.
Lacking a commitment technology, the policymaker can always reoptimize his policies and for each optimization he takes his future choices as given. Sine there are only exogenous state variables, he takes the public's inflation expectations as given, too.13 Only Markov-perfect, discretionary equilibria are considered. This excludes for example trigger strategies to support commitment outcomes.
The solution to this problem is well known. The first order condition balances the inflation cost against the desire to attain the output target:
\begin{align} \alpha_x (x_t - \bar{x}_t) + \kappa \pi_t &= 0 \end{align}
(Section 2.3 below, will compare this optimality condition against its counterpart under hidden information.) Substitution of (3) into the Phillips Curve yields the following Markov-perfect policies:
\begin{displaymath} x_t = \frac{\alpha_x (1 - \beta \rho)}{\kappa^2 + \alpha_x (1 - \beta \rho)} \bar x_t \equiv \bar{f} \; \bar x_t \quad\text{and}\quad \pi_t = \frac{\kappa}{1-\beta\rho} \;\bar{f}\;\bar x_t \end{displaymath} (1)
Inflation and output gap inherit the dynamic properties of the target process. A well known property of optimal policies in a linear quadratic framework is their certainty equivalence, which holds here, too, since \bar{f} does not depend on the volatility \sigma_e of the target shocks. Under hidden information, this will be different.
Sensibly, \bar{f} is bounded between zero and one. In principle, the policymaker could always attain the output target by choosing \bar{f}=1, but for \alpha_x<\infty this has to be weighed against the inflation resulting from this policy. At the other extreme, there would be no inflation if \bar{f}=0, but only at the cost of missing the target, which matters if \alpha_x>0. Values outside the zero to one range would lead to further target deviations and be associated with unnecessary inflation. This will be useful to bear in mind when analyzing policies under hidden information.
Policies with \bar{f} close to unity will be called "bold" and it is instructive to see how policy depends on the preference weight \alpha_x and the persistence of the target process. Inspection of (4) reveals the intuitive property that policies get bolder the higher the preference weight on output, in fact \bar{f} varies between zero and one when \alpha_x is varied between zero and infinity.
Policies are less bold, when the target is persistent. Higher persistence of the target causes higher persistence in policy and thus higher inflation. This is a dynamic version of the inflation bias known from Kydland and Prescott (1977) and Barro and Gordon (1983a) and similar to the stabilization bias known from Svensson (1997).
Under hidden information there will be persistent and transitory shocks to the output target, neither of them being directly observable to the public. As in the full information case, what matters for the inflation response to a policy shock is its perceived persistence. The policymaker will then seek policies that are as bold as possible, while trying to keep perceived persistence as low as possible.
2.2 Hidden Information
Hidden information is introduced by assuming that the public can observe only policy, x_t, but not shocks to the policy target. To make the public's signal extraction interesting, the target is henceforth driven by two components, one persistent, one transitory:
\begin{align} \bar{x}_t &= \tau_t + \varepsilon_t && \varepsilon_t\sim N(0,\sigma_\varepsilon^2) \ \tau_{t+1} &= \rho\; \tau_t + \eta_{t+1} && \eta_t\sim N(0,\sigma_\eta^2) \quad\text{and}\quad 0<\vert\rho\vert<1 \end{align}
The private sector has no structural uncertainty about the economy. All parameters are known, including the specification of the target process. The public must however infer the realizations of \tau_t and \varepsilon_t based on the observed history of policies, denoted x^t.14
The policymaker observes the complete history of the target components and his expectations are typically different from those of the public. As before, for any variable z_t, the policymaker's expectations are denoted E_t z_{t+1} = E(z_{t+1} \vert \tau^t,\varepsilon^t) with the obvious property z_t=E_tz_t. Public expectations are z_{t+1\vert t} = E(z_{t+1}\vert x^t). By construction, x_{t\vert t} = x_t and \pi_{t\vert t} = \pi_t (since inflation is a choice variable of the private sector) but typically \tau_{t\vert t} \neq \tau_t and \varepsilon_{t\vert t} \neq \varepsilon_t.
Surprises in z_t relative to the public's past information will be called "innovations". Formally, they are defined as
\begin{align*} \tilde z_t &\equiv z_t - z_{t\vert t-1} \end{align*}
Innovations provide an orthogonal decomposition of the public information set since \tilde z_{t\vert t-1} =0. Even though they are unpredictable from the public's perspective, they may well be predictable based on the complete information set, and typically E_{t-1}\tilde z_t will not be identical to zero.
Since the model is linear with Gaussian disturbances, rational expectations of the public can be computed recursively from the Kalman filter. Given prior beliefs z_{t\vert t-1} and x_{t\vert t-1}, the public observes a realization of policy x_t and updates its beliefs according to
\begin{align} z_{t\vert t} &= z_{t\vert t-1} + K_z \tilde x_t \quad \text{with Kalman gain}\quad K_z \equiv \frac{\cov{(z_t, \tilde x_t)}}{\var{\tilde x_t}} \end{align}
A convenient property of the Kalman update is that it preserves the linearity of the model. The difference with adaptive expectations is that the gain coefficient is an endogenous parameter, identical to the least squares slope of projecting z_t on \tilde x_t. The present model is particularly simple since there is only one observable, x_t, such that K_z is a scalar. (A multivariate setting will be illustrated in Section 3.)
Signal Extraction for Given Policy
As will be verified below, the optimal policy is linear and has the form
\begin{align} x_t &= f_\tau \tau_t + f_\varepsilon \varepsilon_t + f_b \tau_{t\vert t-1} \end{align}
for some scalars f_\tau , f_\varepsilon and f_b. Compared to the symmetric information case, the dependence on \tau_{t\vert t-1} is novel. It captures policy responses to public beliefs. As will be shown shortly, it influences the persistence of policy shocks, which is a crucial factor in determining inflation.
The public belief system is a straightforward application of the Kalman filter with (6) as state equation and (8) as measurement equation. In the parlance of time-series econometrics, policy poses an unobserved components model to the public. Key for the Kalman filter is the ratio of policy loadings on the realized components of the output target, f_\varepsilon /f_\tau . Only these loadings, and not f_b, are relevant for the Kalman filter. (Details are given in Appendix B.) This "mixing ratio" f_\varepsilon /f_\tau determines how much a policy innovation reveals about \tau_t instead of \varepsilon_t. It allows the policymaker to change the signal-to-noise ratio in the public's signal extraction problem.
From the perspective of the public, policy is driven by the iid innovations \ensuremath{\tilde{x}_t}and it has an innovations representation in the form of an ARMA(1,1) process:
\begin{align} x_t &= \rho x_{t-1} + \tilde x_t + \rho \psi \tilde x_{t-1} \ \text{with}\quad \psi & =(f_\tau + f_b) K_\tau - 1 \notag \end{align}
For the public, the above innovations representation is observationally equivalent to the hidden components representation of policy (8). Both generate the same variances and autocovariances of policy, whilst implying different impulse responses as will be illustrated below. Via \psi, the persistence of this ARMA depends on the policy coefficients f_\tau , f_\varepsilon and f_b. For plausible assumptions of the policy coefficients, \psi is bounded between zero and minus one. For \psi=0, persistence is largest as policy follows an AR(1) with auto-correlation equal to \rho. For \psi=-1 both roots of the ARMA(1,1) cancel and policy is iid. (Details can be found in Appendix A.)
Together with the Phillips curve (1), the innovations representation of policy is sufficient to determine inflation in a way which crucially depends on the "average persistence" of policy as captured by the ARMA roots \rho and \psi.
\begin{align} \pi_t &= \kappa \sum_{j=0}^\infty \beta^j x_{t+j\vert t} = \frac{\kappa}{1-\beta\rho} \left((1 + \beta \rho\psi) \tilde x_t + x_{t\vert t-1} \right) \end{align}
The policy function has two levers to affect the persistence of x_t: First, there is the mixing ratio, which has been discussed above. If policy largely ignores the persistent target, i.e. if f_\varepsilon /f_\tau is large such that K_\tau is close to zero, the MA root gets close to cancel the AR root and policy is (correctly) perceived to be almost iid. In this case, inflation also approaches the solution (4) under symmetric information with \rho=0.
But due to the second lever, f_b, things need not collapse to the AR(1) case, when the mixing ratio tends to zero. In this case, \psi converges to \rho\cdot f_b, which is not necessarily zero.15 f_b represents the marginal reaction to people's prior beliefs and affects the persistence of policy, too. A negative f_b counteracts policy persistence induced by \tau_t. The marginal reaction to beliefs is likely negative since beliefs \tau_{t\vert t-1} will be inflationary; this conjecture will be verified in Section 2.4.
To keep inflation low, it is tempting to conclude that the policymaker should better ignore the persistent output target. Alternatively, a high mixing ratio could be chosen, with a higher responsiveness to transitory than persistent shocks, for example f_\tau=1 and f_\varepsilon=100. But neither choice would likely be a sensible policy, since output plays not only an informational role. Attaining the output targets matters, too; calling for f_\tau=f_\varepsilon=1 and f_b=0. For example, ignoring the persistent target by setting f_\tau=f_b=0 alleviates inflationary cost, but it also leads to persistent shortfalls from the \tau-target. Neither would it appear sensible to overshoot the output target, for example by setting f_\varepsilon=100. The optimal trade-off is the subject of the next sections. But an important restriction imposed by rational expectations has already become clear: at least on average actual policies must match public perceptions.
2.3 The Discretionary Policy Problem
This section sets up the discretionary policy problem for the simple, purely forward-looking New Keynesian model when there is the above structure of hidden information. Extensions of the model, including a hybrid Phillips Curve, will be analyzed in subsequent sections of this paper. The concepts and methods presented here are generalized to a wider class of linear quadratic models in the technical appendix of this paper.
Markov Perfect Equilibria Attention is limited here to Markov-perfect equilibria, which exclude reputational mechanisms via the kind of history-dependent strategies considered by Barro and Gordon (1983b) or Chari and Kehoe (1990) and avoids the associated multiplicity of equilibria. In the spirit of "bygones are bygones", state variables in a Markov-perfect equilibrium must be relevant for current payoffs.16 In the symmetric information setting shown above, these were the contemporaneous values \tau_t and \varepsilon_t (but not any elements of their history). Both of these state variables evolve in a purely exogenous fashion which accounts for the myopic behavior of discretionary policy under symmetric information: In Markov-perfect models, a current decision-maker can influence a future decision-maker only via endogenous state variables, like capital or government debt. This channel is however absent in the symmetric information version of the New Keynesian model.
Once hidden information is introduced, an additional state variable becomes relevant: Since the public observes only x_t but neither \tau_t not \varepsilon_t, it is the public beliefs about the target components which are relevant for public payoffs. Precisely, it is the prior beliefs (\tau_{t\vert t-1} and \varepsilon_{t\vert t-1}) and not the posteriors (\tau_{t\vert t} and \varepsilon_{t\vert t}) which qualify as state variables for the time t decision problem, since the latter are already influenced by time t policies. In the present setting, \varepsilon_t is iid and \varepsilon_{t\vert t-1}=0 so only \tau_{t\vert t-1} needs to be tracked. The vector of Markov-perfect state variables is then
\begin{align*} S_t &= \begin{bmatrix}\tau_t & \varepsilon_t & \tau_{t\vert t-1} \end{bmatrix}' \end{align*}
The transition equation for the new state variable is given by the Kalman Filter. The response of beliefs to policy depends on the Kalman gain K_\tau, which reflects how much policy reacts to \tau_t.
\begin{displaymath} \tau_{t+1\vert t} = \rho \tau_{t\vert t} \quad\text{and}\quad \tau_{t\vert t} = \tau_{t\vert t-1} + K_\tau \tilde x_t \end{displaymath} (2)
The discretionary policymaker retains the freedom to reoptimize his policies at each point in time. On the one hand, this allows a recursive representation of the policy problem as a dynamic program. On the other hand, he does not commit to future policies so these have to be taken as given in the decision problem. To be precise, what is taken as given is how the policymaker reacts to future state variables: Future policies are not given numbers but a given function of future state variables. This distinction is important here, since one of the state variables, \tau_{t+1\vert t}, is under the influence of current policy so that future outcomes can be influenced. The continuation value of his dynamic program is a function of future states, denoted V^0(S_{t+1}) and the policy objective is to minimize
\begin{align} \pi_t^2 + \alpha_x (x_t - \tau_t- \varepsilon_t)^2 + E_t V^0(S_{t+1}) \end{align}
The linear quadratic nature of the model allows to guess (and verify) that the value function will be quadratic and policies linear in the state vector, which simplifies the analysis considerably:
\begin{align*} V^0(S_{t+1}) &= S_{t+1} ' V^0 S_{t+1} + v^0 \ \Rightarrow \quad E_t V^0(S_{t+1}) &= 2 v_{13}^0 \rho \tau_t \tau_{t+1\vert t} + v_{33}^0 \tau_{t+1\vert t}^2 + t.i.p. \end{align*}
for some positive definite matrix V^0 with elements v_{13}^0, v_{33}^0>0 and a scalar v^0. Throughout this paper, a zero superscript "^0" indicates coefficients embodying a guess about (future) policy and "t.i.p." are terms independent of time t policy.
The time-invariant solution to the discretionary policy problem has the linear form anticipated in (8). In principle, the policymaker is free to deviate from this "rule" at any time. He will just not find it optimal to do so.
An important constraint on the policy problem is the optimality of beliefs and decisions in the private sector. Optimality of beliefs are captured by the Kalman filter (7) and the the policymaker sees himself faced with a fixed Kalman gain K_\tau^0 when contemplating his policy problem. Optimal decisions of the private sector are represented by the Phillips Curve (1) where the policymaker takes as given how inflation expectations are related to future state variables; \pi_{t+1\vert t} = g^0 \tau_{t+1\vert t} for some scalar g^0. To sum up, the policy problem is to minimize
\begin{align} V_t &= \min_{x_t,\pi_t,\tau_{t+1\vert t}} \pi_t^2 + \alpha_x (x_t - \tau_t- \varepsilon_t)^2 + 2 v_{13}^0 \rho \tau_t \tau_{t+1\vert t} + v_{33}^0 \tau_{t+1\vert t}^2 + t.i.p. \ \text{s.t.}\quad \pi_t &= \beta g^0 \tau_{t+1\vert t} + \kappa x_t %&= \beta g^0 \rho (1 - K_\tau^0(f_\tau^0+f_b^0)) \tau_{t\vert t-1} + (\kappa + \beta g^0 \rho K_\tau^0) x_t \ \tau_{t+1\vert t} &= \rho (1 - K_\tau^0(f_\tau^0+f_b^0)) \tau_{t\vert t-1} + \rho K_\tau^0 x_t \end{align}
whose solution is indeed of the form anticipated in (8). Whilst beliefs embodied in g^0, V^0 and K_\tau^0 are taken as given in the policy problem, in equilibrium they must be consistent with the solution to the policy problem. This poses an intricate fixed point problem. Fixed points between current expectations and future policy as in g^0 and V^0 are common in Markov-perfect models under symmetric information. What is new is the fixed point between current policy and beliefs about the systematic relationship between current policy and states contained in the Kalman gain K_\tau^0.
Changed Policy Trade-Offs with Belief Management
The first-order conditions of (13) require optimal policy to satisfy
\begin{align} \alpha_x (x_t - \bar{x}_t) + \kappa \pi_t + \rho K_\tau^0\mu_t &= 0 \end{align}
where \mu_t is the multiplier on the belief constraint (15). It is the term involving \mu_t which distinguishes the optimality condition (16) from its counterpart under symmetric information (3) discussed above.
To shed some light on the fixed point considerations behind the solution to (13), suppose that the output target is positive and the policymaker must balance an increase in output against its inflationary costs. The marginal value of relaxing the belief constraint is likely positive, owing to the positive autocorrelation in the persistent component of the target. Likewise, the Kalman gain K_\tau will be positive, since policy will co-move positively with the target. The new "belief term" \rho K_\tau^0\mu_t in (16) will then caution the policymaker against pursuing the output target too aggressively. As will be seen in the numerical analysis below, optimal policy will be less bold under hidden information -- except when shocks to \tau_t are so rare that the Kalman gain K_\tau is very small.
The change in policy trade-offs under hidden information can be nicely illustrated with a picture similar to Kydland and Prescott (1977). Under symmetric information, the policymaker's indifference curves over output and inflation are concentric around \pi_t=0 and x_t=\bar{x}_t=\tau_t+\varepsilon_t. The optimality condition (3) seeks the tangency point between the indifference curves and the policy constraint. The latter being the Phillips Curve with intercept \beta\pi_{t+1\vert t} = \beta \bar{g}^0 \rho \tau_t for some \bar{g}^0. This is depicted by the dashed lines in Figure 1. In equilibrium, \bar{g}^0 must be identical to the optimal policy coefficient computed in (4), which is a positive number. That is, the larger policy responds to a given level of the persistent target, the higher the intercept it faces in equilibrium.
Figure 1: Policy Trade-Offs in the Simple Model
Note: Phillips Curve and indifference curves for policy problem in simple New Keynesian model. Computed for the case of a publicly anticipated, persistent target level: \tau_t=1, \tau_{t\vert t-1} =1 and \varepsilon_t=0. Dashed lines show symmetric information case with \pi_{t+1\vert t} =\bar{g}\rho \tau_t and \bar{g} computed from the equilibrium policy (4). Solid lines depict Phillips Curve (17) and indifference curves (18) under hidden information. Optima occur at the circled tangency points.
Under hidden information belief management comes into play and changes the picture. To reach some substantive conclusions, I am willing to make the following assumptions about the policy coefficients. Apart from being plausible, they will be verified to be true in the computations below for a wide range of calibrations. First, policy should react positively to target shocks, f_\tau^0>0. Second, policy seeks to counteract belief f_b^0<0. But third, it still seeks to accommodate a target, even when its realization coincides with public beliefs: f_\tau^0+f_b^0>0.17 These imply that K_\tau and g^0 are positive.
A key result is that hidden information steepens the slope of the Phillips Curve when compared against the symmetric information case. Substituting the belief dynamics (11), the Phillips Curve becomes
\begin{align} \pi_t &= \beta g^0 \rho \left(1 - K_\tau^0(f_\tau^0+f_b^0)\right) \tau_{t\vert t-1} + \left(\kappa + \beta g^0 \rho K_\tau^0 \right) x_t \end{align}
The steepening of the Phillips Curve worsens the policy trade-off and makes policies less bold with respect to both target components. Underlining the importance of beliefs, the intercept of the Phillips Curve depends now on the public's prior beliefs, \tau_{t\vert t-1}, instead of the actual value of \tau_t. Coming out of steady state with \tau_{t\vert t-1}=0, this alone makes policies bolder than otherwise. An important aspect for the fixed point computations is that, via K_\tau, the slope of the Phillips Curve becomes ever steeper the bolder policies are with respect to \tau_t, which again tames the boldness of equilibrium policies.
Belief management changes the indifference curves as well. Most importantly, output acts as a signal about the persistence of policy targets which again influences the evaluation of future losses in the policy problem. This shifts output preferences, such that they are not centered around \bar{x}_t=\tau_t+\varepsilon_t anymore. Substituting again the belief dynamics, the indifference curves can be computed from
\begin{displaymath} \pi_t^2 + \alpha_x (x_t - \tau_t- \varepsilon_t)^2 + \gamma_0 x_t^2 + \gamma_1 \tau_t x_t + \gamma_2 \tau_{t\vert t-1} x_t \end{displaymath} (3)
where the scalars \gamma_0>0, \gamma_1\lessgtr 0 and \gamma_2>0 depend on the coefficients of (18). 18 These indifference curves are centered around \pi_t=0 and
\begin{align*} x_t^\ast &= \frac{\alpha}{\alpha+\gamma_0}\underbrace{(\tau_t + \varepsilon_t)}_{\bar{x}_t} - \frac{1}{2} \gamma_1 \tau_t - \frac{1}{2} \gamma_2 \tau_{t\vert t-1} \end{align*}
Regardless of slope and intercept of the Phillips Curve, x_t^\ast is the "maximally desirable" level of output. Apart from its dependence on the original target term \bar{x}_t, it shifts both with the actual and perceived level of the persistent target component \tau_t. But for starters consider a transitory shock to the output target, say \varepsilon_t=1 whilst \tau_t=\tau_{t\vert t-1}=0: Any policy response will partly be attributed to a persistent shock and thus increase \tau_{t+1\vert t} causing future inflation. The associated losses to the policymaker are captured by the \gamma_0 term of the indifference curves. Independently of the Phillips Curve, the policymaker does then not even desire to attain that transitory target but only a fraction \alpha/(\alpha+\gamma_0) thereof.
Since \gamma_2>0, public beliefs \tau_{t\vert t-1} shift the indifference curves towards lower output levels. While \gamma_1 cannot be signed analytically, it happens to be positive over the range of calibrations considered below and this contributes to making policy less bold. All in all, prior beliefs of the public \tau_{t\vert t-1} > 0 caution policy in two ways: First they increase inflation immediately (the intercept of the Phillips Curve) and -- if not counteracted by current policy -- they herald future inflation and shrink the "maximally desirable" level of output, x_t^\ast, towards zero.
2.4 Optimal Policy in the Simple Model
This section presents results for the optimal policy. Calibration values are taken from Gali (2003) with equally weighted policy preferences (\alpha_x=1) and equal-probable shocks to the target components ( \sigma_\eta=\sigma_\varepsilon=1), see Table 1.19 The solution algorithm for the underlying fixed point problem is discussed in the technical appendix.
Table 1: Model Calibration
\ensuremath{\beta} 0.99
\ensuremath{\sigma} 1.00
\ensuremath{\theta} 0.75
\ensuremath{\phi} 1.00
\ensuremath{\kappa} 0.1717
Policy Preferences
\ensuremath{\alpha_x} 1.00
Driving Processes
\ensuremath{\sigma_\varepsilon} 1.00
\ensuremath{\rho} 0.90
\ensuremath{\sigma_\eta} 1.00
\ensuremath{\sigma_{\bar x}} 1.00
\ensuremath{\sigma_n} 1.00
Notes: Private-sector parameters taken from Gali (2003)'s calibration to quarterly U.S. data. Innovation variances are each normalized to unity and not intended to match the scale of any second moments. The sensitivity of results to \rho and \alpha_x is discussed in Section 2.4. As shown there, variations in \alpha_x are isomorphic to varying \kappa. As a measure of credibility, \sigma_n is varied in Section 3.
Optimal Mixing Ratio and Belief Responses
Key statistics of the policy function are the mixing ratio f_\varepsilon /f_\tau , which governs the Kalman gains, and f_b via which policy responds to prior beliefs. As anticipated, f_b is negative. The policy response to \tau_{t\vert t-1} is synonymous with counteracting inflation expectations of the public formed in the past. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the public's prior beliefs of the hidden state and the public's inflation expectations in this simple model:
\begin{displaymath}\pi_{t\vert t-1} = \frac{\kappa}{1-\beta\rho} (f_\tau + f_b) \tau_{t\vert t-1}\end{displaymath}
How optimal policy seeks to quell past beliefs can be seen from the impulse response shown in Figure 2. The first two columns show responses to shocks in \tau_t and \varepsilon_t. The third column documents responses to initial conditions \tau_t=0, \varepsilon_t=0, \tau_{t\vert t-1}=1. This corresponds to a situation where the policymaker is faced with erroneous beliefs about his inflationary output preferences. The optimal response is a prolonged contraction until beliefs and outcomes have settled back in steady state after about four periods. Given that the New Keynesian model generally lacks endogenous persistence, the length of this learning process is a remarkable outcome echoing the results of Erceg and Levin (2003). Moreover, the effect of fighting past beliefs is also present in the other impulse responses. When the true target shock is iid, this leads to a contractionary policy one period after the shock. This pattern is similar (though not fully identical) to commitment policies under full information. In both cases, a credible promise to undo expansionary shocks in the future lowers inflation expectations; similar to the disciplinary channel emphasized by Walsh (2000), 2001 2001 and Gaspar, Smets, and Vestin (2006).
Figure 2: Optimal Policy in the Simple Model
Note: Impulse responses of output gap (x_t) and inflation (\pi_t) under hidden (straight lines) and full information (dashed) to unit standard deviation shocks \tau_t and \varepsilon_t. The column labeled \tau_{t\vert t-1} shows responses to initial conditions \tau_t=0, \varepsilon_t=0, \tau_{t\vert t-1}=1.
The other lever of policy is the mixing ratio, which is higher compared to the full information case.20 Under hidden information, policy is less bold in its pursuit of persistent output targets. This lowers the signal-to-noise ratio in the public's signal extraction problem and the public (correctly) places a lower probability on a policy innovation \ensuremath{\tilde{x}_t}being caused by a persistent target shock.
Innovation Responses The model with hidden policy components is observationally equivalent to a symmetric information model where the policy target follows a univariate ARMA(1,1). Both yield the same second moments and have identical likelihoods. But there is an important difference: The hidden components model distinguishes different sets of impulses responses, which can be associated with different episodes in monetary policy.
Figure 3: Innovation Responses in the Simple Model
Note: This picture documents the updating of public beliefs about the evolution of output gap and inflation after a unit innovation in policy ( \ensuremath{\tilde{x}_t}) at time zero. Dashed lines are true impulses under the full information measure to structural shocks \tau_t (top line on each graph, red) respectively \varepsilon_t (bottom, green). These structural responses are scaled to yield a unit innovation in output. Dashed blue lines document update impulse responses formed by the public at times 1 (with square marker) respectively time 2 (circles). Top panel shows the output gap (x_t), inflation (\pi_t) is shown in the lower panel.
The differences between true impulse responses and public beliefs are illustrated in Figure 3. For output and inflation, the figure shows two sets of impulse response: First, the expected responses computed by the public, after observing a unit innovation in policy, \ensuremath{\tilde{x}_t}, at time zero. After its initial upwards jump, output remains expanded at about half its impact value and decays persistently thereafter. The inflation path is equally equally elevated and persistent.
Secondly, the figure shows the true responses to the structural shocks \tau_t and \varepsilon_t, computed under the full information measure spanned by (\tau^t, \varepsilon^t). They are scaled such as to yield a unit innovation in output as well. After a shock to the persistent target, \tau_t, policy is persistently more expansive than originally expected by the public. The difference between these two sets of impulse response represents the errors of public forecasts made in the initial period. As the structural responses unfold, the public learns about the true nature of the shock. The figure also shows how public beliefs are updated in subsequent periods, leading to persistent upwards, respectively downwards revisions of beliefs. The innovations responses are rational and on average correct. Persistently positive forecast errors to a shock in \tau_t are offset by persistently negative forecast errors when a shock to \varepsilon_t occurs.
When particular periods are supposed to have been dominated by one set of shocks rather than another, patterns of persistent forecast errors in public beliefs should be reflected in survey data. For example, Erceg and Levin (2003) use survey data to characterize the Volcker disinflation as a period of persistently excessive inflation forecasts. Their model uses a Gaussion information structure similar to mine, but for a fixed policy rule. The methods presented here can be used to derive the parameters of such a rule within an explicitly optimizing framework of monetary policy under hidden information.
Sensitivity Analysis of Policy Coefficients
Policy trade-offs are particularly affected by two parameters: The relative variance of transitory to persistent target shocks and the preference weight \alpha_x, whereas increases in the slope of the Phillips Curve, \kappa, affect policy trade-offs similarly to decreases in \alpha_x.21 When considering changes in the importance of the target components \varepsilon_t and \tau_t, the overall variance of the output target will be fixed at some level \sigma^2_{\bar x}. Denoting the weight on \tau_t by \omega\in[0;1] this translates into
\begin{displaymath}\sigma_\varepsilon^2 = (1-\omega) \sigma^2_{\bar x} \quad\text{and}\quad \sigma_\eta^2 = \omega (1-\rho^2)\sigma^2_{\bar x}\end{displaymath}
Figure 4 documents changes in the policy coefficients f_\tau , f_\varepsilon , f_b as well as the mixing ratio f_\varepsilon /f_\tau due to variations in \omega and \alpha_x. The upper panels also show the corresponding values of f_\tau and f_\varepsilon under symmetric information. Because of certainty equivalence, their surfaces are flat along the \omega-axis. When there is hidden information, f_\varepsilon is uniformly smaller than under symmetric information. This is caused by the public's inability to distinguish between realizations in the two target components. Any innovation in x_t will be partly attributed to have been caused by the persistent component \tau_t. This has two adverse effects in the first-order condition (16): First, if the true shock was to the iid component \varepsilon_t, inflation will be higher compared to the full information case. Second, since the public expects the target change to have some persistence, there will also be inflationary costs in the future, tracked by \mu_t. Both effects caution the policymaker and lower f_\varepsilon compared to the full information case.
Figure 4: Sensitivity Analysis
Note: Sensitivity of policy function due to variations in preference weight \alpha_x and variance weight \omega in the simple model of Section 2, keeping other parameters at their baseline values from Table 1. In order to provide the best perspective on each surface, axes are rotated differently in each panel. Transparent surfaces in Panels (a) and (b) depict corresponding variations in f_\tau , respectively f_\varepsilon in the symmetric information model.
Because of the second effect, f_\tau is mostly smaller under hidden information as well. As the public underestimates the persistence of policy after a shock to \tau_t (see Figure 3), inflation is lower than under full information. This would give the policymaker some slack in pursuing the output target, if it were not mostly outweighed by the marginal effect of policy on beliefs, which are represented by the term \rho K_\tau \mu_t in the first-order condition (16). However, when the probability of a persistent shock is very small (\omega close to zero) or when the policymaker is known not to care much about attaining it (\alpha_x small), the Kalman gain K_\tau will be small and public beliefs \tau_{t\vert t} will be very insensitive to policy and their importance vanishes in (16). In those cases, persistent shocks are very hard to detect for the public. But when they occur, the policy response can be bolder than under symmetric information as is shown in Panel (a) of Figure 4.
It is worth recalling that a higher mixing ratio and a more negative reaction to prior beliefs increase the persistence of the policy process, causing higher inflation. Indeed, as can be seen from Panel (c) of the figure, f_b is negative everywhere. The belief reaction is strongly negative, when there is more weight on inflation in the loss function (smaller values of \alpha_x) and when persistent shocks are more prevalent (\omega close to one). Both cases make it more important, respectively more likely, that inflationary beliefs are kept in check.
Under discretion, the policymaker takes the public's belief system as given, without actively seeking influence it, whereas commitment policymaker would have to consider the systematic effects of his actions on the Kalman gain for example. Still it is instructive to see how policy affects the public's signal-to-noise ratio via the mixing ratio. As shown in Panel (d), this ratio increases when policy preferences place more weight on output than inflation. As inflation becomes more and more costly for the policymaker, f_\tau is decreasing faster than f_\varepsilon , which makes it ever harder for the public to detect persistent policy changes. When changing \omega, the mixing ratio is largest for intermediary values, typically above \omega\geq 0.5. In this range, hidden information problem is most prevalent and a high mixing ratio helps to lessen the sensitivity of beliefs to policy. When \omega approaches unity, the public can expect any policy to be caused by a persistent shock with near certainty and the mixing ratio drops to its full information level. When the target is almost exclusively driven by iid shocks (\omega\to 0) expected future inflation drops towards zero and the mixing ratio drops to one as f_\tau approaches f_\varepsilon .
Policy Losses
Comparing policies under hidden information against outcomes under full information begs the question what would be the preferred setting. Considering the loss function of the policymaker, it turns out that the ex-ante expectation of the policy loss, E(V_t) is improved under hidden information over the wide range of calibrations discussed above. Figure 5 reports how the improvement in policy losses under hidden information are large enough that an average inflation rate corresponding to about one-standard deviation unit would have to be added to inflation under hidden information for policy losses to be equal; the compensating inflation is somewhat smaller when the volatility weight on persistent shocks, \omega, is very small; and it can be considerably larger when persistent shocks are very prevalent and the weight on inflation stabilization is large.22
Figure 5: Improved Policy Losses under Hidden Information
Note: Panel (a) shows differences in expected policy losses between full and hidden information settings. A positive number means that policy losses are larger under full information, implying that hidden information outcomes are preferred. The difference in losses is expressed as a compensating increase in average inflation under hidden information, scaled in standard deviation units. Baseline calibration as shown in Table 1 wth variations in prefernce weight \alpha_x and variance weight \omega as indicated in the figure. Panel (b) shows impulse responses of output and inflation for different policies under under hidden information with. Straight lines show the optimal policy. Dash-dotted lines use the optimal coefficients f_\varepsilon and f_\tau but neglect prior beliefs (f_b=0). Dashed lines correspond to using the symmetric information policy when there is hidden information. Compared with discretion under full information, the compensating rates of average inflation correspond to 0.37, 1.11 and 1.82 units of the standard deviation of inflation in each equilibrium.
Moreover, the same holds when considering the notion of "representative" loss discussed in Section 2.1. The reason is simply that the improvement in outcomes is due to the policymaker's restraint in pursuing the output targets. By lowering inflation and output gap, this is clearly beneficial for the "representative" loss, which would be minimized by keeping the output gap at zero anyway.
The benefits of reduced inflation also outweigh the policy losses from staying away from the targets, at least from an ex-ante perspective considering both persistent and transitory shocks as well as their respective likelihoods.23 Conditional on the occurence of an iid shock \varepsilon_t, inflation is of course higher, and the policymaker misses the target by more than he would under full information, see Figure 2. On average, this is however outweighed by the benefits incurred when a persistent shock occurs.
Considering the different levers present in the policy function (8) under hidden information, a quantitative decomposition of the reduction in policy loss looks as follows: First, there is the optimal policy under symmetric information. Feeding this same policy through the system but under the hidden information, losses drop by an amount, correspond to a compensating rate of average inflation of about one third of the standard deviation of inflation in the new equilibrium. The optimal policy under hidden information then seeks to improve upon this by changing the mixing ratio and by reacting to past beliefs. Using the optimal mixing ratio, but neglecting the response to prior beliefs (f_b=0) makes expected losses drop further; compared to full information the compensating average inflation amounts to about one standard deviation of inflation. In addition to this, the optimal policy reacts also negatively to prior beliefs and the average inflation compensating for the improvement in losses over full information equals almost two standard deviations of inflation. For comparison, the difference in full information losses of discretion and commitment corresponds to a compensating average inflation of about two-and-a-half standard deviations of inflation under discretion.
3 Belief Shocks
The simple New Keynesian model analyzed so far has only one communication channel between policymaker and public: Policy actions themselves. Since policy is driven by more shocks than there are communication channels, the public cannot perfectly infer the drivers of policy, not even in equilibrium. In reality, there are however other communication channels than the policy instrument itself. If these channels are informative, they will alleviate the public's inference problems and affect the scope of belief management for policy. This section extends the information structure of the simple model to a richer setting, nesting the cases of full and hidden information considered before.
In addition to observing policy, the public is now assumed to receive a noisy signal about the persistent output target. The target signal is contaminated by noise shocks n_t, which will be called "belief shocks". They are iid and the public's measurement vector is \begin{equation*} Z_t = \begin{bmatrix}x_t & (\tau_t + n_t) \end{bmatrix}' \quad\text{where}\quad n_t \sim N(0,\sigma_n^2) \end{equation*} and the notation for public beliefs of a variable z_t is now adapted to z_{t\vert t} \equiv E(z_t\vert Z^t). The presence of two correlated observables in the public's inference problem requires to extend the univariate filtering methods discussed in the previous section. Also, the state vector needs to be augmented by n_t. (Notice that n_{t\vert t-1} = 0.) A detailed presentation of handling this and larger settings has been relegated to the technical appendix.
The belief shocks are uncorrelated with fundamentals (here: \tau_t and \varepsilon_t) and play no role under symmetric information. But under asymmetric information they matter since they are correlated with an informative signal about fundamentals, giving rise to fluctuations driven by "non fundamental" shocks.24 Inflation is affected by belief shocks via the forward-looking Phillips Curve (1), making it suboptimal for policy to ignore belief shocks. As with given prior beliefs about the output target (\tau_{t\vert t-1}), they will raise inflation and optimal policy should want to fight their effects by contracting output. In the present model, economic responses to noise shocks will exhibit patterns similar to cost-push shocks, echoing results of Angeletos and La'O (2008b).
By changing the volatility of noise shocks, the extended model also nests the cases of hidden and full information analyzed in the previous section. The scope for hidden information increases with the volatility of belief shocks. For \sigma_n=0, the model is identical to the full information model, since \tau_t is perfectly observable. The opposite occurs when \sigma_n is very large. In this case, the signal becomes useless and the model converges to the hidden information setting from the previous section where policy is the only observable.
Figure 6: Impulse Responses with Belief Shocks
Note: Straight lines are impulse responses to a unit belief shocks n_t. For any variable z_t, dashed lines (red) depict the evolution of prior beliefs z_{t\vert t-1}. Calibration values from Table 1. Dash-dotted line in middle right panel, "n_{t}", depicts impulse response of the belief shock.
Impulse responses to a noise shock are shown in Figures 6, again using the baseline calibration from Table 1. Under this configuration, each of the three shocks in this model occurs with the same probability. When the target signal \tau_t+n_t goes up because of a noise shock, this leads to ample confusion for the public. Current and expected inflation rise, since the public attributes part of the signal to the persistent target \tau_t, To counteract these erroneous beliefs, policy contracts output. This is sensible in two ways: First it directly lowers inflation via the output term in (1). Second, it signals that the target \tau_t may in fact not have gone up and thus reduces expected inflation. In the baseline calibration, it takes about four periods (one year) to fight these erroneous beliefs.
The resulting pattern of contracting output and elevated inflation is similar to the dynamics known from cost-push shocks. Figure 6 also documents that public beliefs of future output and inflation are both elevated during the entire episode, which distinguishes belief shock induced dynamics from cost-push behavior, since the latter would typically be accompanied by an expected recession as well.
Varying Transparency
How does policy change with the volatility of belief shocks? To answer this question, Figure 7 shows how policy coefficients and expected losses change when \sigma_n is varied between zero and infinity. As discussed above, the limit points in this experiment are the symmetric information model, respectively the previously studied model with no target signal except for policy. The policy coefficients f_\tau , f_\varepsilon and f_b vary smoothly and monotonically between the comparative statics of hidden vs full information studied before. They are all smaller and policy losses are reduced as the extent of hidden information increases with \sigma_n.
Figure 7: Varying Transparency
Note: Change in policy coefficients, expected policy loss and Kalman gains while varying as the volatility of belief shocks, \sigma_n is varied along the x-axis. Computations are based on the belief shock model of Section 3. The middle left panel shows scaled response coefficients, f_n, to a belief shock, since the size of belief is changed on the x-axis. The straight line shows responses to a belief shock with unit-standard deviation, f_n\cdot\sigma_n. The dashed line scales the coefficient such that belief shock generates a unit increase in inflation on impact, f_n /\pi_0 (with units indicated on the right hand axis). (There is no inflation response to a belief shock when, \sigma_n=0, and the plot shows no data for this point.) The bottom left panel shows Kalman gains K_x (solid line) and K_s (dashed line) from the public's updating equation (19). (Notice: The solid line, K_x, converges to 0.94 not one as the variance of belief shocks grows to infinity.)
The policy response to noise shocks is always negative. The reasons are similar to what has been discussed in the previous section for the negative response to prior beliefs f_b. A contraction lowers inflation directly via the Phillips Curve and indirectly via beliefs. For better comparison with the other coefficients, the middle left panel of Figure 7 shows how the policy reaction to one-standard deviation shock, f_n\cdot\sigma_n changes with the shock variance. The noise response peaks at an intermediary level of the noise variance, where the public places roughly equal weight on policy and the target signal in its updating of beliefs. Formally, the public beliefs evolve as
\begin{displaymath} \tau_{t\vert t} = \tau_{t\vert t-1} + K_x \ensuremath{\tilde{x}_t}\xspace + K_s (\ensuremath{\tilde{\tau}_t}\xspace + n_t) \end{displaymath} (4)
Changes in the Kalman gains K_x and K_s for various noise levels are shown in the bottom left panel of Figure 7. In the extremes the response of policy to noise shocks is zero, as either the size of the shock shrinks to zero (and there are no erroneous beliefs to fight) or the public pays no attention to a signal with infinite noise.
A natural interpretation of variations in noise variance is to view these as changes in transparency about the central bank's output target. The above results then document clear disadvantages from transparency. In a somewhat related model, Faust and Svensson (2001), Proposition 6.3 appear to establish the opposite: Namely that central bank losses were increasing, not decreasing, in transparency. The difference lies here in the definition of "transparency", and it is instructive to see how apparently innocuous differences in a model's setting can lead to different conclusions.
In the experiments of Faust and Svensson (2001), transparency means that targets can be perfectly inferred once policy is observed. In the experiments above, transparency (\sigma_n=0) makes the target component \tau_t directly observable, regardless of policy. Both imply the same information sets in equilibrium. But the constraints faced by the discretionary policymaker differ in profound ways. Under discretion, the policymaker takes the public beliefs system and its Kalman gains as given. When the target is perfectly observable, as is the case above, the current policymaker cannot influence beliefs, since the Kalman gain K_x in (19) is zero.25 In contrast, when targets are perfectly inferable from observed policies, this link is retained causing the difference in outcomes.
4 (In-)Credible Disinflations and Exogenous Persistence
A pertinent question in monetary policy is whether to conduct disinflations quickly or gradually. The answer involves a minimization of the economic costs incurred by the necessary output contractions along the disinflation path. These costs hinge on the persistence of inflation. If persistence is large, a larger or more protracted contraction might be necessary. A pertinent policy question is then whether to chose the "cold turkey" approach of a quick disinflation, involving a large initial contraction, or whether to chose a more gradual approach, implementing a longer sequence of smaller contractions.
Academic research has offered different advice on these issues, see for example the discussion between Gordon (1982) and Sargent (1982). Arguments for or against either approach differ in whether credibility is assumed to have an effect on inflation persistence or not. A quick disinflation could enhance the credibility of the policymaker's intention to disinflate and help reducing the inflation rate by itself. Taking this view, Sargent (1982) favors the "cold turkey" approach. Being more concerned with exogenous sources of inflation persistence makes Gordon (1982) lean towards advocating more gradual disinflation paths.
The framework presented in this paper allows to address these questions in a fully dynamic framework with an optimizing policymaker. The linear quadratic approach allows to handle multiple, endogenous state variables, including those arising from partially backward-looking inflation dynamics. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first explicitly optimizing analysis of disinflation strategies when policy goals are unobserved.26
The following disinflation experiment is considered: How should policy react to a surge in inflation due to unfounded public beliefs? In an admittedly stylized way, this resembles the initial conditions of the Volcker disinflation as discussed by Erceg and Levin (2003) and Goodfriend and King (2005). Such inflation beliefs may be caused by a belief shock, n_t, or inherited via \pi_{t\vert t-1} = g^0 \tau_{t\vert t-1}. Qualitatively, results are similar in either case and the discussion below will focus on responses to belief shocks.
In the model of the previous sections, the cost of disinflation depends largely on the policymaker's capability to lower policy expectations quickly. In the belief shock model of the previous section, policy induces a stronger contraction of the economy in response to beliefs \tau_{t\vert t-1} when credibility problems are larger, see the middle right panel of Figure 7.27 While this suggests that disinflations should be more aggressive, it does not yet speak to concerns about the trade-offs under exogenous inflation persistence.
To see how policy changes in the presence of exogenous persistence, the Phillips Curve is augmented with a backward-looking term, representing price indexation at the rate \gamma.28
\begin{align} \pi_t &= \frac{\gamma}{1+\beta\gamma} \pi_{t-1} + \frac{\beta}{1+\beta\gamma} \pi_{t+1\vert t} + \frac{\kappa}{1+\beta\gamma} x_t & = \gamma\pi_{t-1} + \kappa \sum_{k=0}^\infty\beta^k x_{t+k\vert t} \notag \end{align}
In this hybrid Phillips Curve (20), inflation is not only determined by the expected path of future policies known from (1), but also by lagged inflation. Policy innovations are still the ultimate driver of inflation, but they carry less weight in changing current inflation.
Figure 8: Disinflation with Exogenous Persistence
Note: Panel (a): Impulse responses of output and inflation to a belief shock with varying degrees of price indexation ( \gamma=\{0;0.5;1\}) in the Phillips Curve (20). Belief shocks are normalized such that they produce a unit response in inflation on impact. Panel (b) reports the impact coefficients of output in response to such normalized belief shocks for different values of the indexation rate \gamma and noise level \sigma_n^2. (Other parameters calibrated as in Table 1.)
Figure 8 compares impulse responses to a belief shock n_t when varying the indexation rate \gamma \in \{0;0.5;1\}; for \gamma=0 the model is identical to what has been studied above.29 For better comparison of the disinflation policies, the belief shocks have been scaled such as to yield a unit innovation in inflation on impact. As higher indexation rates increase exogenous inflation persistence, optimal policy contracts the economy ever more aggressively to a belief shock -- bolstering the case for the "cold turkey" approach. The lower panel of Figure 8 confirms this also over a wider range of values for the noise variance \sigma_n^2.
Even though policy contracts the economy more vigorously when exogenous persistence is larger, disinflations are not necessarily quicker. Due to the higher exogenous persistence in inflation it takes longer for inflation to fall when \gamma is larger. Policy cannot avoid the higher degree of backward-lookingness in inflation. But this is precisely why an aggressive initial contraction is warranted. It does not only fight beliefs as in the previous section. By reducing current inflation, it reduces also the amount of future inflation caused by ill-founded beliefs to be carried forward via the backward-looking term in the Phillips Curve.
6 Conclusions
This paper has solved for the optimal discretion policy in a New Keynesian model with unknown output targets and finds that the policy seeks to contract the economy in response to inflationary beliefs. In addition, the pursuit of output targets is scaled back, because of their inflationary effects on public beliefs. This policy, in particular its history dependence, shares some similarities with commitment policies. To the extent that hidden information is a realistic feature of actual policymaking, this suggests much smaller costs for real-world policymakers from retaining some degree of discretion as long as they keep public beliefs about their intentions in check.
The stylized model analyzed here implies that intransparency of policy targets is preferable -- at least under discretion. However, an important caveat is that public beliefs matter here only for linking economic activity to pricing decisions in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve. The welfare effects of transparency might be subject trade-offs, leading to more differentiated results, when expectations of future activity were to affect both investment and pricing decisions.
The model gives also rise to belief shocks as a source of business cycle fluctuations. Similar to the work of Lorenzoni (2006), such shocks shift public perceptions about economics fundamentals, whilst the actual fundamentals remain unchanged. Under imperfect information, these shifts in public beliefs are rational since the belief shocks are correlated with informative signals about fundamentals. The optimal discretion policy seeks to quell the erroneous beliefs arising from these shocks. In the New Keynesian model studied here, belief shocks induce dynamics similar to cost push shocks, which is similar to belief shock dynamics found by Angeletos and La'O (2008b) based on higher-order dynamics.
Apart from illustrating the optimal policy under imperfect information within a widely studied New Keynesian model, the technical appendix to this paper provides a general solution method which allows to extend the analysis to larger settings, relevant for practical policy analysis. By relying on linear quadratic approximations and Gaussian uncertainty, the optimal policy problem becomes tractable without losing its economic intricacy.
For the class of models considered here, public beliefs about the policymaker's hidden information become a distinct state variable of the policy problem, when a policymaker is better informed than the public. These public beliefs are shaped by observed policy actions, giving a scope for managing beliefs about future policies that is otherwise absent in a discretionary policy problem. Since public beliefs are a natural state variable under imperfect information, managing this state of beliefs is Markov-perfect and time consistent.31
A fruitful area for future research would be to extend the analysis to a policymaker's private information about economic fundamentals, for example determinants of potential output. Such information would be widely dispersed amongst different members of the public as well as the central bank, suggesting to combine the policy concepts studied here with the dispersed information settings studied for example by Lorenzoni (2006) or Angeletos and La'O (2008a).
1 Innovation Representation in the Simple Model
This section derives the ARMA(1,1) innovations process (9) for policy in the simple model of Section 2. First, policy can be separated into innovation and public expectations
\begin{align} x_t &= \underbrace{f_\tau\tilde\tau_t +f_\varepsilon\tilde\varepsilon_t}_{\tilde x_t} + \underbrace{(f_\tau+f_b)\tau_{t\vert t-1}}_{x_{t\vert t-1}} \end{align}
The ARMA representation follows from using \tau_{t+1\vert t} =\rho\;\tau_{t\vert t} and the Kalman filter to express the evolution of prior beliefs as
\begin{align*} x_{t+1\vert t} = \rho x_t + \rho \left((f_\tau+f_b) K_\tau -1\right) \tilde{x}_{t} \end{align*}
2 Kalman Filter in the Simple Model
In the simple model of Section 2, the signal extraction problem of the public uses the policy function (8) as measurement equation and the AR(1) transition of \tau_t (6) as state equation. The Kalman gains are \begin{equation*} K_\tau = \frac{1}{f_\tau} \frac{\Sigma_\tau}{\Sigma_\tau + \bar\sigma^2} \quad\text{and}\quad K_\varepsilon = \frac{1}{f_\varepsilon} \frac{\bar\sigma^2}{\Sigma_\tau + \bar\sigma^2} \end{equation*} where \bar\sigma^2 \equiv f_\varepsilon^2 / f_\tau^2 \cdot \sigma_\varepsilon^2 and \Sigma_\tau solves the Riccati equation
\begin{align*} \Sigma_\tau &= \sigma_\eta^2 + \rho^2 \bar\sigma^2 \frac{\Sigma_\tau}{\Sigma_\tau + \bar\sigma^2} = \frac{\sigma_\eta^2}{1 - \rho^2 \frac{ \bar\sigma^2}{\Sigma_\tau + \bar\sigma^2}} \end{align*}
As discussed on Section 2.3, it is plausible to assume that 0\leq f_\tau\leq 1, 0\leq f_\varepsilon \leq 1, f_b\leq 0, and f_\tau+f_b\geq 0. It is then straightforward to verify that -1\leq \psi \leq 0, since the Kalman gains are positive and f_\tau K_\tau + f_\varepsilon K_\varepsilon =1.
3 Compensating Rate of Average Inflation
Section 2.4 evaluates ex-ante policy losses based on the policymaker's objective function
\begin{displaymath}E(V_t) = \frac{E\left( \pi_t^2 + \alpha_x (x_t-\bar x_t)^2 \right)}{1-\beta} \end{displaymath}
The difference in losses under hidden versus full information, can be expressed as a compensating rate of average inflation, \bar\pi, which would equalize policy losses in both equilibria when added to the dynamics under hidden information.
\begin{displaymath}E((1-\beta) V_t\vert\text{Full Info}) = E \left( (\pi_t+\bar\pi)^2 + \alpha_x (x_t-\bar x_t)^2 \vert\text{Hidden Info} \right)\end{displaymath}
As an alternative measure of policy losses, this "compensating average inflation" abstracts from the validity of the linear quadratic framework for non-zero (or non-indexed) inflation rates in steady state.
Since this paper looks only at shocks to output targets, the calibration does not try to match a level of second moments observed in the data and the compensating rate of average inflation is scaled by the standard deviation of inflation under hidden information.
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1. A complete literature review can be found in Section 5. Return to Text
2. Of course, in equilibrium inflation always depends on monetary policy. But in perfect information models of discretionary policy, this dependence occurs mostly indirectly and in ways beyond the control of a current period policymaker. Return to Text
3. See also 1998 1998, who downplays the relevance of time-inconsistency as a major distortion in real-world decisions at central banks. Return to Text
4. The closest counterpart to my analysis should be the work of Ireland (1995) who imposes a sluggish response of public beliefs to policy announcements. Return to Text
5. See for example the classic contributions by Backus and Driffill (1985a), Canzoneri (1985) and Cukierman and Liviatan (1991), where my definition of static includes also repeated play of one-period games. More recent work includes the papers by Ball (1995) and Walsh (2000). Fully dynamic, but limited in size, are the models of Gaspar, Smets, and Vestin (2006), Faust and Svensson (2001; 2002), Cukierman and Meltzer (1986). A more detailed discussion of the literature can be found in Section 5. Return to Text
6. Throughout the paper, all variables are in log-deviations from steady state, which implicitly assumes the existence and uniqueness of a steady state under discretionary policy. Return to Text
7. Details are given by Gali (2003), p. 159 from whom notation is adopted. Return to Text
8. King and Goodfriend (1997) explain how the New Keynesian model can be separated into a core real business-cycle model (RBC), which evolves as if there were no nominal frictions, and a set of "gap" variables that track the difference between the RBC core and the actual economy. This separation has been widely adopted for example in the textbooks of Walsh (2003), Woodford (2003a) and Gali (2008). Return to Text
9. For starters, time-variation in the output target could arise from variations in wedges between the frictionless and the efficient level of output. Time-varying markups would for example shrink distortions from monopolistic competition. There are non-monetary tools to fight such distortions, for example the kind of fiscal tools discussed by Gali (2003). \bar{x}_t could then capture changes in the government's policy of handling these distortions. Return to Text
10. In the real world, pressures mounted on central bankers appear to be a recurring, though not necessarily permanent feature. For example, in the short history of the ECB there were the early attempts by German Finance Minister "Red" Oskar Lafontaine and later overtures from the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Return to Text
11. In the results discussed below there will not be a conflict in ranking outcomes under this measure as opposed to the policymaker's objective. Return to Text
12. The process is mean zero and allows also for negative targets. But all variables are in deviation from steady state. By allowing for a (known) average target, this would lead to the classic inflation bias in steady state. (In the context of the present model, details can be found in Woodford (2003a).) To be consistent with non-zero inflation in steady state, the Phillips Curve is then viewed as allowing for indexation to the steady state rate of inflation as in Yun (1996). Return to Text
13. In general, the policymaker could not take inflation expectations as given numbers but as a given mapping from expected future state values, where the latter may be partly under his control. This will be the case under hidden information. Return to Text
14. In principle, this includes also the history of inflation rates \pi^t. But as a choice variable of the private sector, inflation merely reflects the private sectors information set, without providing additional information beyond x^t. Return to Text
15. Since x_t=x_{t\vert t} in this simple model, it follows that f_\tau K_\tau + f_\varepsilon K_\varepsilon =1. When the mixing ratio goes to zero, this collapses to f_\tau K_\tau =1. Return to Text
16. Persson and Tabellini (2000), Chapter 11 review applications of Markov-perfect equilibria to macroeconomic policy problems. Return to Text
17. This assumption implies that the public expects policies to be expansionary, x_{t\vert t-1}>0, when \tau_{t\vert t-1} > 0. Return to Text
18. It is straightforward to show that \gamma_0>0 follows from the positive definiteness of the value function, and \gamma_2>0 from the aforementioned assumptions on the policy coefficients. Analytically, \gamma_1 cannot be signed, but for the variety of calibrations considered in the numerical simulations below it turns out to be positive. Return to Text
19. Given the limited range of shocks considered, the calibration is not designed to match the level of variations observed in the data. Return to Text
20. For the baseline calibration, the mixing ratio is 1.2340 under symmetric information and 1.2866 under hidden information. Return to Text
21. The loss function can be written as L_t=\kappa^2 \bar\pi_t^2 + \alpha_x(x_t-\bar{x}_t)^2, where \bar\pi_t = \sum_{j=0}^\infty \beta^j x_{t+j\vert t}. Return to Text
22. Additional details are given in Appendix C. Return to Text
23. Expected loss, E(V_t), is the unconditional expectation of the policymaker's value function across states of nature. (See the Technical Appendix for computational details.) Optimal policy is of course defined on a state-by-state basis. Return to Text
24. The meaning of "fundamentals" is intended here in the sense of the full-information economy. Return to Text
25. This is similar to what Faust and Svensson (2001), p. 374 call the regime "OG: observable goal and intention", for which they find results corresponding to what has been found in this paper. Return to Text
26. Related is the work of Ireland (1995) who finds similar results when imposing a sluggish response of public beliefs on policy announcements. As an alternative, Ireland (1997) 1997 seeks to reconcile the conjectures of Sargent (1982) and Gordon (1982) by differentiating between disinflations at high or low levels of inflation. Return to Text
27. Similarly, the negative response to a belief shock is stronger for larger values of \sigma_n, up to the point where the growing noise variance beliefs react less and less to these shocks as . Return to Text
28. As in Woodford (2003a) or Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (2005) this can be derived from the optimizing behavior of Firms under Calvo pricing. Firms who do not optimize their prices are supposed to change prices at the rate \Pi_{t-1}^\gamma where \Pi_{t-1} is last period's level (not log) of inflation. As shown by Woodford (2003a), this changes also welfare functions such as (2) to be concerned with quasi-differenced inflation \pi_t-\gamma \pi_{t-1} instead of inflation. The point of the experiment is here is however to consider how exogenous persistence changes policies whilst keeping the objective function constant. The policymaker's loss function is thus kept unchanged. Return to Text
29. Other parameters are calibrated at the values shown in Table 1. Return to Text
30. A further difference is that their analogue to the iid shock \varepsilon_t is not a target component but a control error of policy. Return to Text
31. This excludes the explicit reputational mechanisms based on history dependent strategies known from by Barro and Gordon (1983b) or Chari and Kehoe (1990) are excluded from the analysis. Return to Text
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
MVNOs—a new threat to cell phone providers?
Ever seen MVNO and not been sure of what it means? MVNO stands for Mobile Virtual Network Operator. These are companies that provide mobile phone services but has to rely on other networks in order to operate. It does not own the infrastructure that allows the phones to operate, it merely sells the phone and plans and uses a company that owns the network to run them.
How This Works
An example of an MVNO is a prepaid cell phone provider. The business selling the prepaid phones and plans enters an agreement with the mobile network operator (big names such as AT&T and Verizon) to access bulk wireless services at reduced rates, in order to increase prices to sell to customers. The MVNO is able to piggyback the mobile service network without having to invest in its own infrastructure.
Popular MVNOs
1. Virgin- one of the earliest and most successful MVNOs, Virgin Mobile has a very wide range of phone and plan options; a lot of phones found at Virgin can only be purchased through a contract service provider, a good example of this being the iPhone. Plans range from $35-$55, and have varying features with each.
2. Straight Talk- offered through Walmart, this prepaid cellular phone company is a very popular choice for those who do not wish to enter into a contract with mobile phone providers. Straight Talk operates on Verizon’s network, and offers a wide variety of phone plans, from a basic $30 a month plan that includes talk time, texts, and data, to the $495 a year plan, which includes unlimited talk, text, and data for a full year.
3. iWireless- this MVNO is offered through Kroger, and operates on the Sprint network. They offer a wide selection of phones, from basic phones to 4G smart phones, along with a few different plan options. Plans start at $10 a month for basic texting and talk times, and go up to $75 a month for unlimited features.
4. Boost Mobile- not specifically offered out of a retailer, Boost Mobile is an independent MVNO that is very successful. It too runs on the Sprint network, and has a wide selection of phones and plans. A great feature of these plans is the price shrinking, where on time payments mean a lower bill.
Benefits of MVNOs
So why choose an MVNO? What makes it better than a service provider? MVNO mobile providers are a great option for those who do not want to be stuck in a contract. Contract phones are costly, and run on the same networks as a lot of MVNOs. For budget conscious people, one of these mobile carriers is the better choice. Many even have their own staff of support and help centers, so you don’t have to deal with the contract carrier’s help centers.
The biggest draw is cost—compare an average phone bill of $45 on an MVNO plan, to that of upwards of $100 with a contract plan. MVNOs are revolutionizing the way the mobile phone industry is operating, making cellular service even more readily available. Mr Issa Asad.
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Samsung Announces New TLC NAND SSD, the SSD 840 Evo
Samsung Announces New TLC NAND SSD, the SSD 840 Evo
Samsung has just announced a new consumer-grade SSD at its SSD Summit in Korea. The new drive is called the SSD 840 Evo and it is Samsung's second drive to use TLC NAND and will also feature a new MEX controller.
TLC NAND utilize 3-bit-per-cell MLC NAND, this means that each cell can store up to eight possible data values as opposed to the more commonly used 2-bit-per-cell MLC NAND which can only store up to four. Therefore, for the same capacity, the TLC die will be smaller, which means more dies per wafer and lower production costs for NAND memory makers; and also more affordable drives for consumers.
Samsung's earlier SSD 840 drive was the first to use TLC NAND and was noted for its poor write performance. The new SSD 840 Evo will attempt to rectify this. The MEX controller is based on the MDX controller in the SSD 840 and SSD 840 Pro, but with higher clock speeds - up from 300MHz to 400MHz.
Additionally, SSD 840 Evo will feature TurboWrite technology, a high performance write buffer that operates in SLC mode. Data is first stored to this buffer and then written to the drive when it is idle.
The SSD 840 Evo will also be the first to implement Dynamic Thermal Guard, which dials down performance if it sense that the drive is operating above its ideal operating temperature range.
The SSD 840 Evo will be available in five capacity points - 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 750GB and 1TB. Prices begin at US$109 for the 120GB model and top out at US$650 for the 1TB model.
Source: Anandtech
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FAQ about Launch X431 Diagun III
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Customers can go to register to download the software after factory authorized.
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4. Q: when I want to diagnosis my car, but I cannot connect with Bluetooth, why?
A: you should make sure the cc number of Bluetooth is the same with main unit cc number, if it is the same, you should resend the main unit to us, we will check the hardware.
5. Q: Can x431 diagun iii work with abs ECU data live streaming, code reading, and resetting codes of Toyota Celica gt4?
A: It can work with diagnostic, but cannot work with another function.
Newest Launch X431 Diagun III
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Wednesday, 16 November 2011
10 interesting facts about guitars
Well, it's 1:30am on a Wednesday night and I can't sleep for love or money, so, to keep my mind off my navel and the gig lined up for Saturday (which is stirring up tremendous excitement within me), I am going to type out a few tidbits of info to do with guitars and their history. I hope you enjoy reading them.
1. The guitars origins are to be found in central Asia and India.
2. The oldest known representation of a guitar being played is a Hittite carving that is almost 3 and a half thousand years old.
3. It is believed that the word 'guitar' has it's origin in Persian. Tar means string in Persian.
4. The Lute, an instrument that no doubt influenced the conception of the modern guitar, was played by the Norse hero Gunther in the Legend of Siegfried. He played it with his toes while dying in a snake-pit.
5. Nigel Tufnel of the band Spinal Tap repeated Gunthers trick in the Movie, "This Is Spinal Tap".
6. Although the guitar is generally strung with six strings, guitars can be bought with as many as 11 strings. 12 string guitars are strung in 6 pairs of octaves. There are also different types of guitars that can have a multitude of strings tuned to notes as drone strings as with certain slide guitar models, or strings to be plucked without fretting as with Harp guitars.
7. The first electric guitar was built in the 30's.
8. The composer Franz Schubert composed his music on guitar. He couldn't afford a piano.
9. Leo Fender, Inventor of the Stratocaster and Telecaster, wasn't a guitarist. He played Saxophone.
10. The smallest guitar in the world is 10 micrometers long. It was made by researchers at Cornell University, and when the strings are plucked by an atomic force microscope, they resonate, though inaudibly. 10 micrometers is about the same size as a blood cell, so it stands to reason that only a fairy midget could benefit from the thing's existence.
"Oh boy, Sleep! That's where I'm a Viking!"
Saturday, 12 November 2011
The final two modes - Phrygian and Locrian
Up until now I've been treating each mode on it's own. I've done so because each of the modes I've treated 'till now have been quite different to one another in terms of their steps, sound and application. I have chosen to write about the Phrygian and Locrian modes together only because each contains a flattened second, which sets them apart from the others and also gives them a sort of 'exotic' sound when played.
Here, again, is the C Ionian (major scale)
In order to change the Ionian to the Phygian mode, one flattens the second, third, sixth and seventh degrees of the Ionian, and so in the case of C, one plays the notes
What one gets when one uses this mode is an exotic sounding minor scale. Below this is a tab of the scale played up near the nut.
The Locrian mode is the same but for one note difference. In the case of the Locrian mode, the 5th degree is flattened as well. This tailors the scale to work well over diminished chords as well as minor7flat5's and so forth.
I am tabbing out in the first position for one octave from C to C. The C Locrian contains no open strings if the guitars in standard tuning.
By now, so long as you've had a look at all of the other articles on modal playing that I've published, you should be well able to figure out how to apply these modes all over the neck of your guitar, so this time round, I am not going to provide tabs for them in all positions. Instead I'm going to leave it up to the interested reader to do so.
In the future, I will be posting licks and fingering exercises that will draw on one's knowledge of modes and modal playing. I found it easy to learn the modes in the order that I have written about them in my blog. Perhaps you will too. I've seen people demonstrating them in other ways, but I found them generally confusing. I will write about one of these ways later today or tomorrow. I found it unhelpful to me because, instead of concentrating on the qualities of the modes - what they sound like and their applications - it shows another way that they all relate to the Ionian mode in a startling pattern of sequence. Music is an art for the ear and I learnt them by their sounds and the fingering used to achieve them. I think it easier to do so that way.
if you find my article helpful you can follow my blog or like my Facebook page. I write frequently on the subjects of guitar music theory and technique, Luthiery and general things that tickle my fancy. I play in a band called The Gents of Leisure and if you're interested, you can check out our Facebook page for some music and news of our whens and wheres.
Until the future,
May The Force be with You.
Friday, 11 November 2011
Using the Aeolian mode.
Over the last month I have written articles to explain some of the elements of the Ionian, Dorian, Lydian and Mixolydian modes. I have tried to present them in an order that, for one approaching the subject of modal playing from the beginning, would be simplest to internalize and apply.
The subject of today's article - the Aeolian mode - can also be referred to as the Natural Minor Scale. I always begin by offering up the C major scale (or, in other words, the C Ionian mode) as it is by altering this scale that one acquires the others.
The C Aeolian differs from the C ionian as follows:
The Aeolian mode, or Natural Minor Scale, is very easy to find musical examples of. It is very popularly used in all music, but especially in classical music and metal. A very good example of the natural minor sound would be Metallica's Black Album ballad 'Nothing Else Matters', a tab for which can easily be found in The Tab Library. I'll feature the link at the end of the article.
Consider the following tab.
That is the C Ionian played on one string to easily reveal the steps.
And that is the C Aeolian shewn in a likewise manner.
Here is the C Aeolian played in an open string position, for one octave from C to C.
In the first position without open strings,
In a second position, for two octaves, from C to C,
In a third, again two octaves,
And finally, linking a few positions together.
Play the scales over a C minor chord, and experiment. Look for patterns. Once I've covered every mode individually I will offer an article on the patterns existing between them.
If you enjoyed this article and/or found it helpful, please feel free to subscribe to my blog or like my facebook page. Should you have any queries about my services or anything that I've written, why not leave a comment, or drop me an email. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
Till next time, I wish you all the good times and all your favorite hamburgers. Radcore.
P.S. I said I'd post a link to the Tab Library. You need Powertabs to use it. If you don't have Powertabs, click the link below.
It's free, and the file is tiny.
Then, visit the tab library. Search there for the tune you want the music for and download it. It is quick and easy.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
The CAGED beast. Playing chords all over the neck of your guitar fluently.
This article will only really serve as a brief introduction to the CAGED system of playing guitar. I'm only publishing it to demystify it a little for those who are unfamiliar with the concept. It's really very simple as a concept, and works on a premise of remembering 5 basic open chord shapes, and transposing them up the fretboard toward the bridge by barring off where the guitars nut would be, or by simply playing part of the shape.
The CAGED system is also very useful when it comes to melodic playing and soloing. By using the CAGED system, and by consistently applying it, you will find it easier and easier to fluently choose the notes you want to hear, and you'll find that your arpeggiation of melodies will become off the hook.
The concept, as I said, is simple. Consider these open chords.
All of those chords have specific shapes. The nut of the guitar (which, in my diagrams, is the dark line at the top) is the 'capo' in the open position. that 'capo' can be moved up the neck. You do this by barring off where the capo is with your index finger. Let's see if I can find a picture...
In the image above, this fella's finger acts as the capo.
Now, consider these chord diagrams.
What I've done there is I've taken those five basic open chords and moved each one in turn up a step, barring the notes that need to be parred and omitting the strings that need omitting.
Take the C shape (I'm circling the root note in red),
Take that shape and move it up two frets. Use your little finger (your fourth finger that is) to fret the 5th fret of the 5th string, and lay the other fingers down as the following diagram shows
and viola! A D chord played using the C shape. This is the basis of how the CAGED system of playing works.
Your A open chord (root circled)
moved up two frets (a full step) omitting the 6th string and barring the chord from the 5th string
There you've a B flayed in the A shape.
moved up a full step to A:
Your open E major chord
up a full step to F sharp
and my last chord pictures for today, open D major
up a full step to E major.
Take those examples and play around with them. Pay attention to the patterns formed by the root notes in each pattern. That's a great way to know which pattern to play when and where more instinctively. Strum the chords. Arpeggiate them (play them note for note in sequence.) Skip notes. When you're done with all of that, refer back to the article on chord formulae entitled "Slugs and snails...". Then you can figure out how to alter these shapes to include minor chords, sevenths and other altered chords.
Above all, enjoy yourself.
If you enjoyed reading this and found it helpful, please feel free to subscribe to my blog or like my facebook page. I write about music, music theory for guitarists, Luthiery and occasionally post articles of a more general nature.
Also, recently I was given an old camcorder by my brother Andrew, and so soon I will be posting a vlog about guitar playing and some of my favorite places in South Africa, which I hope you'll find entertaining and informative.
I play in a band called The Gent's of Leisure. Visit out facebook page:
for some music and news of our when and wheres.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Slugs and snails and puppy-dog tails are what I'm made of, but what are chords made of?
My last entry was all about setting the intonation on a guitar. I posted it because I believe that it is a simple thing to do and every guitarist should know how to do it. Today, I am writing about chord formulation, again, because the principle is simple, and every musician should understand and apply it.
As it is with the modes that I have been writing about, chords are formulated relative to the steps of the major scale. I like to use the key of C major as the basis of my examples because it contains no sharp or flat notes. It runs C, D, E, F, G, A, B and back to C again. Tabbed out on one string:
Now, if you've been around this block a few times already, you will understand that a major scale in any key contains the same steps as any other. There is a whole step (two frets) between the first interval and the second (in this case, fret three the C and fret 5 the D), a whole step between the second step (D fret 5 and E fret 7), and half step (one fret) between the third step (E fret 7 and F fret 8), a whole step between the fourth and fifth steps (F and G), a whole step between the fifth (G) and sixth steps (A), a whole step between the Sixth (A) and seventh (B) notes and finally a half step between the seventh and the eighth (the root note C).
Numerically represented, the major scale simply runs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Chords are made up of arrangements of these notes as represented by their numbers and the characters of those numbers I.e.: are they to be flattened, added etc.
A major chord possesses a triad of notes referred to as a major triad (duh), and is made up of a 1st, a 3rd and a 5th of the major scale. In the case of C major, these are C, E and G. So, a C major open chord looks like this.
A Minor Triad consists of a 1st, a flattened third and a fifth. In the case of C minor the triad looks as follows.
Here is an example of a fleshed out C minor chord.
There we have a chord containing the root (C), The 5th (G), again the root, The flattened 3rd (E flat) and the fifth again (G).
The great Joe Pass was a phenomenal jazz player and a master of chord usage. He used to say that he thought of everything in terms of major, minor and sevenths. So, now lets review the Seventh Chord.
Seventh chords are popular in all forms of music for their openness. They can be 'coloured in' in a great many ways by adding other notes to them. There are three main types of seventh chords: The minor 7th, the dominant 7th and the major seventh.
The formula for a minor seventh chord is 1 (C), flat 3 (E flat), 5, and a flat seven (B flat). A C minor 7 chord can be played as follows:
A dominant 7 chord is a major sounding chord with a flattened 7th note. It's formula is 1 (C), 3 (E), 5(G), flat 7 (B flat). Example:
In the case on a major seven chord, one merely raises the seventh of a dominant chord a half step, thus making it a major interval. The steps making a C major 7 chord are 1(C), 3(E), 5(G) and 7(B).
Now, say we were to continue running up numerically after the 8th (root) note of the scale I.e.: 1(C), 2(D), 3(E), 4(F), 5(G), 6(A), 7(B), 8(C), 9(D), 10(E), 11(F), 12(G) and 13(A). That is what is happening when you see chord names like C9, C11 or C13. These are actually extensions of dominant 7th chords. Look at C9.
There you have a dominant 7th chord with a D one octave up from the 2nd of the C major scale. The notes are 1(C), 3(E), 5(G), dom/flat 7th(B flat) and 9(D). C9.
C(1), E(3), B flat (flat/dominant 7) and F(11).
C(1), B(flat 7), E(3), and A(13).
Jimbo Hendrix used this one alot.
Played in C it looks like this:
The +D is the sharpened 9th degree of C major.
That's enough with the sevenths.
To finish off this article I'd like to say that I believe that, if one only understands the simple numerical representation of the degrees or notes in the major scale, one can can go on to construct any old chord one wants. The types of chords that I've not written about here can easily be worked out under the same principles. Suspended 2nd chords are merely major chords including their second degrees. Suspended 4ths, major chords including their 4th's. Diminished chords have their third and fifth notes flattened. Augmented chords have their 5ths sharpened.
You will find all sorts of chord names as you go along. Minor 7th flat 5's, major 7 flat fives. Really. All sorts. So check them out. Try to figure out what they are asking you for. Once the penny drops, that's if it hasn't already, you will feel awesome.
If you liked this article and found it helpful, please subscribe to my blog. I post often on the subjects of music theory, Luthiery and generally sprout news whenever the spirit takes me. I also play in a band called The Gents of Leisure and you can check out our Facebook page for some music and news of where and when we are playing.
If you would like me to clarify anything that I've written about, please let me know by emailing me or simply commenting.
Be swell.
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Intoning your electric guitar.
It is very difficult to explain using text only, the in's and outs of basic guitar setup. One has to provide some kind of visual presentation, diagrams and what not. Look at mine.
Cool hey? I made it using MS paint. Now I should explain it a little using someone else's picture.
The text on that image is very small indeed. Still, this article is only about intoning your guitar so that it is in tune all the way up the fretboard. Setting the intonation is probably the simplest part of an electric guitar setup, but I have found that many guitarists have no idea how it's done. In this article I will try to clear it up for you.
To intone your electric guitar you need:
- A good, well-fitting screwdriver, flat or phillips depending on the screws used in the bridge. (Sometimes, as is the case with a solid tailed PRS one would need an appropriately sized hexagonal key. I am not going into that today though.)
- An accurate tuner. (I use a Peterson Strobostomp for it's accuracy, but that's possibly a little over-kill. The Peterson Strobostomp is accurate to 0.1%, which not even a talking dog could verify.)
- A little patience.
I have blown up just the two labels because they are the parts (or rather, the set of parts) that we are concerned with now. The bridge is a block to which is mounted a set of saddles. The saddles come in sets of three (as is the case with most Telecasters) and sets of six. A set of six saddles for a Statocaster type guitar looks like this.
Gibson type guitars generally come with Tunomatic bridges. They look like this.
Take note of the screws entering the Strat typre saddles from the page top and the screws entering the tunomatic going into the page. Strat type saddles are usually mounted with phillips head screws while tunomatics are usually mounted with flat head screws.
The idea behind intoning a guitar string is simple. The note at the 12th fret fretted should be the same note as that string played open but one octave up from it.
That is because the 12th fret should be pretty much at the mid-point of the string.
Step 1.
Play the open string. Ensure that it is in tune.
Step 2.
Play the 12th fret note of the same string. Do not press too hard as this will cause slight deviation in the pitch. While the note is ringing, have a look at your tuner. What does it say?
If the note is flat, it simply means that the string is too long from the saddle to the nut. To correct this, one need only adjust this length by manipulating the screws at the bridge. The note is flat and therefore, the string needs to be shortened. Turn the screw (carefully now, don't damage the head!) the correct way to bring the saddle forward toward the nut. Do this a little bit at a time. Once you have moved the saddle, you will need to repeat steps on and two.
It should be clear then that, should you find the note at fret12 to be sharp, you need to lengthen the string, turning the screw to draw the saddle back and away from the nut.
Keep repeating the steps until the string is perfectly in tune, and then move on to the next, and then the next, until you've done all of them.
It is a rare occurrence, but now and again a guitar's bridge might be set in the wrong place by the guitar maker. This doesn't only happen with inexpensive guitars. I have found such mistakes to have been made on Custom Shop Gibson guitars valued at 40 to 50 thousand Rands. If you simply can't get your guitar in tune, this may be the case, but as I said, this rarely happens. Try changing the string first. If the problem persists, ask a Luthier for help.
If you found this all very confusing, please let me know. I'd love to make it as simple to follow as possible.
Metal dudes.
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[–]humon2 0 points1 point ago
It is because it is difficult for many atheists to understand how someone can live in this world and believe in such outrageous things as fact. My understanding is that religious people hold these things in a place in their mind that is not held to the same standards as everything else.
I agree that it is not correct to say that they are all stupid, but in this respect it definitely makes sense to say they are stupid but it isn't completely true. Religious things are exempt from reason in the religious mind. They can be brilliant in every other aspect but they are still vulnerable to the following:
Stupid people believe/think stupid things. If someone believes/thinks something stupid, they are a stupid person. <-- That second sentence is how it comes about. It is not always a true.
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Possible Duplicate:
How does accept rate work?
If I question is closed (in this case its because of a duplicate) and doesn't have a good answer I will obviously not accept. Does that work against you in your "Accept Questions Pct" score? It looks like it does and I think it shouldn't because its unclear what to do in this situation besides just leaving the question closed as a duplicate.
share|improve this question
@Chchiray - i have flagged for deletion but no one has responded yet ? – leora Jul 27 '12 at 13:20
Dude, give it some time, I'm looking at it now. The fact that someone is looking at it 15 minutes after you posted.... sheesh – casperOne Jul 27 '12 at 13:22
Patience is a virtue. – Chichiray Jul 27 '12 at 13:23
I've reopened your question, as on second viewing, it's not really a dupe (it's a new issue, but you might want to bring some of the contents of that question into your question). That said, it can get new answers (or you can provide one of your own) which you can eventually accept. – casperOne Jul 27 '12 at 13:26
Oh, and side note, this isn't a bug as you have a question as to how it works. Those are support. And the extra tags help =) – casperOne Jul 27 '12 at 13:27
From the FAQ on accept rate, closed questions do not count. – Krampus Jul 27 '12 at 14:03
add comment
marked as duplicate by Krampus, jadarnel27, Pops, jonsca, Tim Stone Jul 31 '12 at 21:26
1 Answer
up vote 3 down vote accepted
No, closed questions are not included in the accept rate.
See also:
If the whole question is so bad that it's eligible for deletion, then you could just delete it youself (that works only if the question has no upvoted answers), or flag for moderator attention with the kind request to delete the question, along with an explanation of the why.
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Today is Friday, December 13, 2013rss RSS feed
By Dr. T. David Gordon
The Center For Vision & Values
The Center For Vision & Values
The last thing we wish to appear is bigoted.
• 20 User comments to “Conservative Commentary: Gay Marriage, Bigotry & The Public Interest”
1. Mental gymnastics such as these put forth by Dr. T. David Gordon are indicative of bigotry.
It is unfortunate that Dr. T. David Gordon is unable to see this.
However, bigotry does have a tendency to fog the lens through which we view the world.
2. Okay let me put this real simply for you: gay marriage ABSOLUTELY serves the public good. Wouldn’t you agree that it is in the public interest for couples to settle down into monogamy instead of being promiscuous, which would promote the spread of disease? Marriage promotes monogamy, which everyone I think would agree is a good thing. That’s not to say that gay couples can’t be monogamous without marriage – but giving them the same tax benefits and legal recognition as heterosexual couples promotes their union, helps keep them together and prevents discrimination (I would say we also have a public interest in preventing discrimination and treating all citizens equally). And please don’t tell me that gay people have the same rights as straight people because they are allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex. That’s like getting rid of every women’s bathroom in the country and then saying “but you have the same right as men to use the men’s bathroom! You just need to grow a penis first.” The other reason that gay marriage benefits society is because, despite what your bigoted mind cannot see, gay people DO raise children. They adopt, they use IVF or they get surrogates. These children right now are denied legal recognition of their families, denied tax benefits and health insurance. Legalizing gay marriage would HELP the thousands of children being raised in these perfectly legitimate, safe families that are proven to be just as healthy as hetero-lead families (any study that shows otherwise is looking at families lead by SINGLE parents, not TWO parent households led by monogamous, loving same-sex parents). And lastly, when we marginalize gay people and deny them rights, they are more likely to commit suicide. ALSO – when we deny gay people rights, it is also statistically proven that STRAIGHT people commit more suicide. So legalizing gay marriage really benefits everyone in society for these many many reasons. Try to open your mind.
3. The comparison of gay marriage to “tax benefit for athletic directors” is completely and utterly asinine. For one, we are not talking solely about “tax benefits”, we are talking about treating EVERY American with equality, dignity, and respect. I don’t want to get married only for the tax benefits; I want to get married out of love and commitment to be shown the same respect my heterosexual neighbors are shown, to announce to the world that I LOVE my husband, and to have that love recognized by not only the government, but by everyone. For the “author” to equate love to money in regards to marriage, shows simply that he/she/it has never experienced true love or commitment and he/her/it’s (quite overly verbose) article is fluff and a scourge against anyone with a logical sense of thinking.
4. so if studies show that married couples, whether same or opposite gender couples, live healthier lives and exhibit greater mental good health, wouldn’t that be enough of a public purpose, in and of itself, to warrant marriage equality? and query: what study did the author ever come across that suggested sex within marriage is more enjoyable? i’ve heard the opposite far more often.
5. If government’s involvement in marriage is purely concerned with reproduction, then the government is focusing on the wrong thing. The same rights, responsibilities, benefits, and protections should be extended to all parents, regardless of whether they are married or not. And those who are married but are not parents should not get those things that are related to reproduction.
But that is not the government’s sole interest in marriage. There are other situations, such as conflict of interest laws (e.g. a judge must recuse himself if his spouse has a vested interest in a case), bribery (a company that buys lavish gifts for the husband of a city council member in return for favorable votes from her has committed a crime), confidentiality (a woman cannot be forced to testify against her husband in court based on things he told her in confidence), copyrights (a man becomes owner of his wife’s copyrights when she dies), and soldiers (the wife of a soldier can buy groceries at the base commissary) where children are not at all related to the protections and benefits provided.
6. Dr. Zaius on August 8, 2013 at 10:00 PM said:
Hey Bill, most would say that your retort is indicative of bigotry. Unfortunatly for you, you do not see the anti-Christian, anti-traditional marriage bigotry that your side promotes.
7. In his hurry to write off same sex relationships, the author forgets two self evident things:-
– LGBT couples bring up children too, some their biological own, some through adoption, surrogacy etc., just as straight couples do.
– child rearing aside, it is in the public interest to encourage stable long term relationships.
Also, Christian doctrine is irrelevant when one is considering the public interest. The US is a secular state.
8. Adrian B. on August 9, 2013 at 9:31 AM said:
“whenever I raise the question of the hypothetical public interest in gay marriage, I get blank stares.”
Dumb is clearly contagious. You need smarter friends.
The public interest in same-sex marriage is the same as in heterosexual marriage: A society in which individuals can protect themselves, their relationships, and their families on an equal basis, without arbitrary discrimination from the government, is better for everyone. Is Grove City College a remedial education center for the mentally damaged and deranged? It certainly sounds like it.
9. Oh, lord. Where to begin?
“By the evidence of most polls, nearly half of Americans favor gay marriage, even though only 3-5 percent of Americans are gay … so why does nearly half the population favor the matter?”
Whereas 30 years ago most people couldn’t name any friends, family members, or co-workers who were Gay, today most people. Social networking platforms like Facebook have also made the proverbial “closet” virtually obsolete. And with that awareness has come vastly increased understanding, acceptance, and support.
What does this have to do with marriage as a civil institution? Couples do not need to marry to procreate, nor is the ability or even desire to procreate a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license. There are also and always will be countless Gay couples that raise countless adopted children to healthy, well-adjusted adulthood. If marriage provides children with a more stable home environment, what sense does it make to prevent Gay couples with children from marrying?
“Does human reproduction serve the public good?”
Of course it does, and nothing about marriage equality for law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples is going to affect that in any way. It’s not as though the marriage equality movement was some sinister plot to make homosexuality compulsory.
10. What this has to do with guns, I don’t know. All we can do if we don’t like the queens is to show our disgust and let them answer for what they do. Of course there are a thousand ways to sin and no one is immune. It is just when we support it that we make ourselves just as guilty. God hates no one, just their sins. If gays think they aren’t sinning, then let them answer to him one day. If we support them, in what they do, we might as well be doing it too. But if we condone any sin, we are just as guilty. There are plenty to pick from.
11. What? Open our minds until our brains fall out? And does anyone really think a sane and godly society should treat the grave sin of homosexuality with the “equality, dignity, and respect” that we treat the God-sanctioned sanctity of (traditional) marriage? We must remember that all of society will reap what just a few want to sow in this matter, and that sin tends to reap a curse, and not a blessing. The author here makes a perfectly good point, but it’s only one among so many other valid reasons to reject the temptation to allow this sin to destroy our civilization.
12. Marinevet on August 9, 2013 at 11:26 AM said:
For the athletic director issue, the correct question to ask would be “should athletic directors have *the same* tax benefits as every other American?” Most people would certainly answer yes.
Some straight couples have children, and some don’t. Both type of straight couple has the full right to marriage. Some gay couples have children, and some don’t. Yet, in 36 states, both types of gay couples are denied the right of marriage.
That inequality isn’t right, and more people are realizing that every day. In ten years or less, all 50 states will have marriage equality. And we’ll be a better nation for it.
13. Cthulhucalling on August 9, 2013 at 11:57 AM said:
T. David Gordon could get a job at the circus with all the contortions that had to be done to make this sound like anything other than a piece justifying discrimination against gays.
With his mental gymnastics, he fails to account for couples that choose not to procreate at all, gay couples that produce children via surrogates and in-vitro, nor does he even begin to address the elephant in the room: why the government is involved with the business of marriage to begin with. There is a difference between “marriage” (a legal contract) and “holy matrimony”, which is the religious side of things. If we’re to look at just the public interest of things, we should certainly immediately ban smoking, drinking, eating red meat, swearing, sex for anything than for procreation, and basically anything fun or that exercises our freedom. Think the future society in “Demolition Man”.
Let’s not also forget that over half of so-called “traditional” marriages end in divorce, hardly a stellar example of how superior heterosexual marriages are.
How such drivel is even relevant to a shooting sports website is beyond me.
14. As I see it, when the government began regulating marriage and using it as a criteria for benefits, it became something of a two-headed creature: one head is the religious marriage, which remains free to be applied as the churches see fit; the other is the secular marriage, the one that is licensed and regulated by the state and, by virtue of being a government institution, must be available to all people without restriction.
The government can’t force a church to perform gay marriages, but the churches can’t prevent the government from recognizing the same.
As to why this is even a subject for a shooting sports web site, I haven’t a clue.
15. I guess being a professor of religion does not include a biblical worldview on this topic of homosexuality. God says its a sin and leads to eternal death. I would think that would end the debate because regardless of what YOU think, its what God thinks that is important and HE is the eternal judge.
This column by T. David Gordon has been reprinted on at least two other gun enthusiast websites besides this one. Despite the fact that many of my Gay friends own guns and support the 2nd Amendment, there still seems to be a disturbing amount of anti-Gay sentiment amongst gun enthusiasts.
17. Ask the wrong question; get the wrong answer. Simple as that.
He asks “Why does the public have an interest in gay marriage?” and makes two errors simultaneously: (1) it’s the GOVERNMENT we’re concerned about, and (2) it’s ANY marriage that should be the subject of the question.
Why does the GOVERNMENT have an interest in marriage? ‘Marriage’ is a contractual matter. It should be nobody’s business beyond those contracting marriage: -m- males and -f- females where either -m- or -f- may be any number (including zero). Yes, this would open the door to three men and eight women contracting marriage. Who cares?
And what’s this doing on AMMOLAND?
18. Marinevet on August 10, 2013 at 10:29 AM said:
If we lived in a theocracy, biblical interpretation would be relevant to our civil laws. We don’t, and it isn’t.
Anyone is free to believe their religious beliefs and follow them, but Jews shouldn’t be able to ban me from eating bacon, Quakers shouldn’t be able to ban me from going to war to protect my country, and anti-gay Christians and Muslims shouldn’t be able to ban gay American citizens from getting married.
19. Marinevet….no one is keeping you from getting married as long as you qualify (marriage to opposite sex). But if you want State sanctioned abominable sin, well, that’s another matter entirely.
20. Marinvet on August 11, 2013 at 1:54 PM said:
I’m straight and have been married for 22 years, but I don’t need to force everyone else to be just like me. What you personally consider to be “sin” should impact your life, not be forced on other people. Jews believe eating pork is sin, but I’m going to eat bacon. Some southern baptist churches believe that interracial relations and marriage are sin. However, those marriages should not be illegal because of that. My religion and relationship with God guides me in my life; I’m not going to force others to follow my religion.
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10 Commandments of Wildly Successful Network Marketers
1. Create your definition of success.
What is your Why? How will you know you have reached your goal, achieved your Why? Make sure you put a date on your goals.
2. Change your thinking so you can change your life.
Personal Development is key to changing your mindset. Read books, mix with like minded people, invest in your personal growth, keep learning.
3.Don't give up on your dreams because your too fat, too broke, too single, or too old, did I say too single? Keep them heavily in your thoughts, after all thoughts become things. You can do this through using vision boards, or have your written dreams with you in a place where you can see them daily.
4. Don't get stuck - and if you do get stuck, successful people know how to get unstuck fast. To get unstuck you need to take little steps, do something every day to advance your way out of the situation. Acknowledge the things you have control over, stay focussed and keep your eyes on the prize. Where you need to call on the support of your team members, your upline, your mentor or coach.
5. Dream your future - but create your game plan. Know where you are going, take action to make your dream come to fruition.
6. When someone tells you,'you can't' say to them just ‘watch me'. Remember if you think you can you can, if you think you can't your right.
7. Focus on results- don't focus on challenges or problems, look for the solutions.
8. Recognise mistakes and learn from them. Learn from your mistakes and have a problem solving attitude
9. Its OK to have fun and work - make time for yourself and your family and friends. Enjoy what you do, if you don't then why are you doing it?
10. You have to give back to keep the cycle of success going this is the law of attraction, the law of the universe.
Want More?
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Yahoo, once known for great products and their ability to connect to the common man, now makes news of the wrong kind by tussling with Microsoft and waging a war of words with investors like Carl Icahn that lead to sharp declines in their market valuation. Against such a bleak backdrop, talent exodus continues and signs-up arch rival Google as an advertising supplier. What next? Perhaps, an anti-trust investigation. Continue Reading.
Update: It isn’t quite black Thursday, but it is still a day Yahooligans are not going to forget for a while. First they announced that their deal with Microsoft is off. Microsoft responded with a note of disappointment. Their stock tanked — down $2.63 a share, or 10 percent, for the day. The continuous slide in Yahoo stock — now less than $10 a share than what Microsoft offered — assures that Yahoo has lost almost all of its friends on Wall Street. The greed gremlins like Carl Icahn are only going to increase their attacks on the beleaguered Internet company, and would like to be off with Jerry Yang’s head.
And if that was not enough, the exodus of executives — Usama Fayyad, Yahoo’s chief data officer; Jeff Weiner, executive VP (network division); and Jeremy Zawodny — continues, indicating that in this battle to save itself, the commander-in-chief lost the support of his key lieutenants. (Apparently, a hiring freeze has gone into effect as well.)
Yahoo also announced that it is going to use Google for search and contextual advertising.
The deal is expected to add $800 million in revenue and between $250 million and $450 million in operating cash flow in the first year. As a comparison, Google signed a deal with MySpace for $900 million in 2007 that ends in 2010.
I think this is yet another critical blunder by a company that lost its way three years ago when then-CEO Terry Semel lost interest in the company, putting it on a path of mediocrity. Of course, as one of my gurus once said, in hindsight, everyone is an idiot (or a genius).
And while that might assuage the short-term concerns Wall Streeters have, the company is shooting itself in the face with this deal. It’s almost like knowing your spouse is going to divorce you while you’re standing in the aisle, waiting for the priest. This is akin to Chrysler going to Toyota with its hat in its hand, asking them to sell them engines for their car. I bring this up mostly because on their blog, Google writes:
Did Google doyens check on GM’s performance lately? Or their hybrid sales record? Or, for that matter, Canon’s printer market share? Oy vey! Where is Business 2.0′s “101 Dumbest Moments in Business” list when you need it? In my opinion, with this deal, Yahoo has publicly acknowledged that Google is superior to them when it comes to search and contextual advertising.
More importantly, the Google-Yahoo agreement is most definitely going to be investigated by the Department of Justice. (Senator Kohl, chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, issued a statement saying that they are going to be looking at this deal very, very carefully.) One attorney very familiar with anti-trust law pointed out that there is a reason Google and Yahoo announced the deal for the U.S. and Canada — because such a deal will almost never past muster in Europe. On this side of the Atlantic, he pointed out, the language of the agreement is designed to feign innocence.
Yahoo! will be able to complement its own advertising program with Google’s advertising technology. Yahoo can use Google’s advertising technology on as many or as few of its search results and content pages as it chooses. This non-exclusive agreement allows Yahoo! to enter into similar agreements with other advertising providers. [Google Press Release]
How stupid do they think the government investigators are to fall for this drivel? Even if Yahoo enters into an agreements with others, Google is going to win. I mean, if Google’s past performance is any indicator, then as a company they enjoy superior technology and offer better inventory for online advertisers. That is precisely the reason why they are a leader, and that is why Yahoo cut a deal with them in the first place.
Anyway, from the looks of it, the U.S. government investigation is going to entangle Yahoo in underwater weeds of uncertainty. Google, on the other hand, will be victorious in defeat — they would have frozen Yahoo into inaction for awhile. Upon thinking about this further, I realize that it also buys the company some time: It throws Microsoft, Icahn et al off its trail, for another three months while the government investigates.
Yahoo’s best hope now is that someone wants to buy it — News Corp., AT&T, eBay, Microsoft, or even AOL — maybe at a valuation that is much lower than what Microsoft was ready to pay the first time. The sad part of this whole thing is that Yahoo was once a great company that had great products, and that made news by launching great products. Jerry Yang was once Silicon Valley’s wonderboys, and now he is helping his ship run aground.
1. “…Yahoo’s best hope now is that someone wants to buy it – News Corp., AT&T, eBay, Microsoft or even AOL…”
Now that’s just silly. Think about it, you basically wrote a story with no opening for the company, no future, then say that they should be sold.
Wall Street will shoot themselves in the foot with this one. If the company is sold to any of those people, what difference will it make? Can they help better monetize the Yahoo properties, which is what needs to be done?
The answer is no.
And for all Microsoft’s bluster, there is no way that they could monetize those properties any further given their dismal track record. Icahn is no fool, he knows that a sale would mean the end of the road for Yahoo as a business, since no one (except Yahoo or Google) can increase monetization.
Yahoo will do better to remain an independent company and focus laser-like on monetization efforts instead of trying to find a buyer.
Because finding a buyer is a signal that they’ve thrown in the towel and are just waiting for the doors to close in a few years.
2. Ericson,
Yahoo’s laser-like focus on monetization efforts (can we say “Panama?”) has failed them.
What they just did is give their business to Google at a significant discount… because Yang doesn’t like Microsoft.
I’m no Microsoft fan, but I think Yahoo just cut off its nose to spite its face. I don’t see any short-term future for the company. The Google deal destroys a ton of value in exchange for a little bit of cash – maybe they have a long-term plan for how they’re going to spend that cash and recreate some value, but I have very little faith in Yang and Decker at this point.
3. julian miller Thursday, June 12 2008
i like yahoo and always have. they are a good company liked and respected by many. they have a very very very good thing going and that is why microsoft wanted to buy them for so so so much money. they don’t have ms’s money but they still have the same company as before this whole event.
stocks go up and down all the time. they have maintained their independence. if the the stock holders wanted the big bucks they could have sold on the rumours. yahoo is a big, strong company and is in an enviable position they are where microsoft wants to be. not bad.
whats most interesting is the bad pr microsoft has. how does one company manage to generate so many enemies and such amazingly bad pr. that is the remarkable thing.
4. @ Ericson Smith,
You do bring up some good points, and I updated the post accordingly, though it still doesn’t quite answer all your questions.
5. Amazing how everyone is quick do discount. Yahoo! has it’s problems for sure but AOL, ASK, MSFT, AT&T it is not. Credit where credit is due. Sure, search isn’t happening but search isn’t where everything happens. Terry fucked up, yes. Jerry may have not been as quick to act as we would have hoped and the Red Sox were cused until they weren’t.
I for one hold out hope. I have always loved Yahoo! and still do. There’s a difference between what the street wants and what people [outside SV] want. I see that in Yahoo!’s products everyday. Yahoo! has always been a company that’s tried to do the right thing even if it’s failed at times, I’m proud of you Yahoo!. Always have been.
6. @ drob,
Good points and I think why Yahoo are still is in business because like you, people love them. I have been following this company for a while and somehow they because to bloated, bureaucratic and forget that they are a product company that makes great products. Now they do consensus-driven products, and that is systematic problem. Lets not confuse love with reality. Like you I continue to use their products including their new email, MyYahoo and IM client on Mac.
7. Remember YahooBay? May be it is time to resurrect the concept!
8. “Now they do consensus-driven products, and that is systematic problem.”
may be it’s time to think about ‘who does what’ to ‘who is doing what’, and ‘who is not doing what’.
9. [...] own lifeblood and survive as a husk of its former self. Also, notice that the deal only applies to the U.S. and Canada; Yahoo’s European market share is being left out to slide into [...]
10. YHOO is a train wreck. I was a user of many of their services but slowly left as they seemed to be clueless.
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Checkers Drive-In Restaurants is a medium sized fast food chain which sells hamburgers and french fries and various other American fare. The campany is based in Florida and is comparable to In-N-Out Burger, but where as In-N-Out is a West Coast thing, Checkers is located primarily on the East Coast from Maine to Florida. All the locations have a certain 1950's flare as well as a racing or NASCAR theme. Also, they all have two drive throughs. They have roughly 900 resturants.
The Checker's chain is split into two different restaurants, one called Checker's which is in the North East and the other called Rally's which is down South, though there are some Checkers down South as well, specifically in Florida. They have virtually the same exact food and setting. Both prominently feature red and white checkered decorations and retro dinner feels.
The sandwiches are named things like The Champ, the Double Champ with Cheese and the Big Buford which is basically a double cheese burger with all the toppings. I don't know why it is called the Big Buford. I looked all over for a reason, but I got nothing. Like all burger chains, they sell french fries, though they call theirs "Famous Fries". As well, they sell something called Screamin' Chicken Strips which I have not had the occasion to try, but I can probably safely recommend skipping them. They also sell hotdogs and chilidogs both of which are very disgusting.
They are really excellent hamburgers and very cheap. The fries are amazing. I will admit though, that I have never eaten Checker's sober.
Checker's is the Official Burger of the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400. I'm not sure what that means, but hey... they make damn good burgers and fries.
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After a brief discussion with some of the big shots in Windows Phone development on Twitter the other day, we came to the conclusion that the "7" and "7.5" in Windows Phone development is a bad way of making resources available to people, specially when the versions are going to grow over the years.
As everything is tagged today, but refers both to 7.0 and 7.5 (formerly known as 7.1, aka. Mango), this causes a bit of a problem.
My suggestion is to re-tag to , and make the other tag synonyms to the tag. This would future-proof the tagging.
share|improve this question
The problem seems to be that we already have a windows-phone tag. The windows-phone-7 tag should be kept around and reserved for version-specific questions, just like all other version-specific tags (e.g., c#-3.0, .net-4.0, etc.). A mass retag or obliteration of the windows-phone-7 tag doesn't make sense, as there will inevitably be some version-specific questions that should have a version-specific tag. – Cody Gray Aug 2 '11 at 7:59
But the general tag is still [windows-phone-7]. The wiki, followers, and description are on the [windows-phone-7] tag, not the generalized one. Which encourages people to use the version-specific tag, even when it's wrong. But if that's changed, we could re-tag all questions where the API have changed to be version-specific, and all where the answer is still valid to be a general question. – Claus Jørgensen Aug 2 '11 at 8:03
That's clearly a matter of interpretation. I disagree that windows-phone-7 is the "general" tag. If windows-phone does not have a tag wiki, then you should propose one. That's not a problem with the tag system. I don't understand why you think that the Windows Phone tags should follow a completely different pattern from all other software with version-specific tags. – Cody Gray Aug 2 '11 at 8:05
I agree. Version-specific tags as well as a more generic tag have their place for Windows Phone as much as they do for any other platform, although the period for which a version-specific tag will be relevant is much shorter (i.e. just during the transition from one version to the next). Once a version is released to consumers, it is unlikely that developers will need to ask more questions for the previous version. – Derek Lakin Aug 2 '11 at 8:06
The problem is that the windows-phone-7 tag haven't been considered version-specific before about a month ago. Where as with .NET and C# you always known the versions was different. Windows Phone 7 was considered the official name by many, until Microsoft finally made it clear the name is Windows Phone. But I've updated the wiki for both tags now. But what you suggest is that we go on re-tagging general questions to the [windows-phone] category then? – Claus Jørgensen Aug 2 '11 at 8:08
Also for comparison: [windows-phone] have 44 followers. [windows-phone-7] have 1.2k. I think this illustrates the "problem". – Claus Jørgensen Aug 2 '11 at 8:10
@Derek: this is kind-of non-meta: But is there a reason why you assume that old versions will no longer be targeted? Are all devices guaranteed to be updated to the latest version eventually? Isn't it possible that some devices (and maybe even a significant portion of the market) will be stuck in some old version? (Kind-of how it's now with Android, unfortunately). – Joachim Sauer Aug 2 '11 at 10:41
Yes, all devices are guaranteed to the latest version according to Microsoft. They been set out not to do the mistake that Android did. Not all devices may have same hardware features, but the phone OS will always be updated. – Claus Jørgensen Aug 2 '11 at 10:52
So the proposed solution is that we start re-tagging all general questions to [windows-phone] and leave the device specific ones as [windows-phone-7] and [windows-phone-7.5] , yes? – Claus Jørgensen Aug 2 '11 at 10:57
@Joachim There's no guarantee that all users will upgrade to the latest version (though why is beyond me!), but developers will not produce apps for the "old" version once a new version comes out. – Derek Lakin Aug 2 '11 at 10:58
@Derek: Maybe I should have rephrased this: Will all users have the chance to update to the latest version until the end of time? Or will some phone models and/or providers be locked out of the updates? – Joachim Sauer Aug 2 '11 at 10:59
The current policy for Mango is all devices gets the chance to update. If Microsoft changes the policy in the future, noone can tell. – Claus Jørgensen Aug 2 '11 at 11:00
@Joachim As far as I know and has been made public, all users will have the opportunity to update to the latest version and there will be no blocking by model or provider except for specific developer handsets provided for free by Microsoft to developers (e.g. the original Samsung Taylor). Obviously "until the end of time" is a long time and a lot can happen, but that's my understanding at the moment. – Derek Lakin Aug 3 '11 at 6:50
add comment
3 Answers
Your question/concern is also related to Windows Phone "codename Mango" and version numbers
For reference, "Windows Phone" was used as a term in some marketing and promotional material for devices running the Windows Mobile 6.X operating system.
From a marketing perspective "Windows Phone" is clearer than a generic, non-specific term ("mobile") that can be further confused by a variety of numbers. I suspect that was why it was used then. I also suspect that's why it's being considered for [re]use now. (To avoid confusion between 7 & 7.1|7.5.) Plus it wasn't widley used in relation to WM6.x.
Tagging is a folksonomy. If 1130 people say it should be one thing and 1 (or 44 - although I expect that most, if not all of them, follow both) say something else then the larger group win.
Tweets are generally less a lot permanent than questions on SO. The rules for tagging there don't necessarily apply here. The twitter hashtag change is a response to dealing with identifying 7 and 7.1|7.5 specific tags. The specific version isn't as important on Twitter and so it is appropriate there. If and when Windows Phone 8 is released I suspect we'll see #wp8dev tags at that point to distinguish there.
Windows Phone 7 IS the product name. The expectation is that the product will be publically rebranded "Windows Phone" (without the 7) when "codename mango" is officially released. At that point the OS will still be "Windows Phone 7.X" and the development tools/SDK will still be "Windows Phone 7.X".
The 7 in "Windows Phone 7" was never a version number it was part of the name. The version number was "7.0".
windows-phone was created as a generic tag and has historically been used as such. Although not much and has mostly been used in combination with the windows-phone-7 tag.
windows-phone-7 is generic to all minor versions of 7.x.
"windows-phone" is like a super generic tag. Especially when it's Windows Mobile heritage is considered.
It is WAY to early to make any assumptions about future version of Windows Phone [7] either major or minor. It's not realistic, therefore, to make assumptions about future proofing.
Retagging [general] questions so they are then tagged with a tag which is followed by many, many fewer people is likely to lead to those questions being less likely to be answered or answered well.
Mass retagging is not appropriate if a synonym is not also created. Without this people will continue to use what you deem to be the wrong tag. Unless someone can forever go and change these (and no one can) then we'll end up with the situation we now have with the 7.1 and 7.5 tags (see link above) where people continue to create questions which don't match the choice of the person with the motivation to go and manually reedit a load of tags.
There is no guarantee that devices running "Windows Phone 7" can be upgraded to any future version of "Windows Phone". The only guarantee I'm aware of having been made previously is that devices running "Windows Phone 7" will be able to be updated to future versions of "Windows Phone 7". There is no guarantee about future compatibility with "Windows Phone 8". I can no longer find a record of this anywhere but recall it from conversations held with staff at Microsoft when the platform was first launched.
share|improve this answer -- The '7' been officially dropped now. – Claus Jørgensen Aug 31 '11 at 20:30
Now we have 4 tags, with several questions being tagged only the sub-category, making them less visible to regulars. And I think time proved my point regarding the name. Either we change "7" to "7.0", or we merge "windows-phone" and "windows-phone-7". Also, the "7.5" tag should be removed. It doesn't make sense, at all, since every 7.5 tag would by definition, be off-topic. – Claus Jørgensen Jan 14 '12 at 15:57
add comment
up vote 1 down vote accepted
With the update in the marketing guidelines, the "7" now officially been removed.
And is now the same as , so this matter is now obsolete.
share|improve this answer
I thought we'd learnt with all the who-haa around people wanting to retag all the 7.1/7.5/mango questions that it doesn't matter what you want people to use. People asking questions use tag names which match the names on the products/tools they are using. If you're really concerned about questions going unanswered I'd suggest looking at all the relevant tags together:… – Matt Lacey Sep 1 '11 at 14:45
I still don't get why you support the idea of so many fragmented tags? There's no value to it at all. It only services fragmenting the questions, and the visibility of them, nothing else. – Claus Jørgensen Sep 1 '11 at 19:26
I don't support it, I just recognise this is the situation we're in and people are continuing to create questions with a variety of tags. Tags should be used to clarify and focus the area in question. IF a question is specific to the 7.1 tools then tagging it such shouldn't be a problem. It is, afterall possible to use multiple tags – Matt Lacey Sep 2 '11 at 8:56
I don't really think the version-specific tags adds any value at all. Most people asking questions right now, barely know there's different versions. And in a half year, 7.0 won't exist anymore, and nobody will write apps for it, as you can't support 7.0 apps after you upgraded to Mango on the AppHub. – Claus Jørgensen Sep 2 '11 at 13:13
Looks like the tag was remapped through votes now :-) – Claus Jørgensen Sep 3 '11 at 7:08
And now all the tag mappings been removed. Bloody stupid. – Claus Jørgensen Jan 14 '12 at 15:55
add comment
I take to mean the phone OS that shipped for many years that runs the compact .net framework. This has very little in common with Windows Phone 7, as the API and apps are not the same.
Microsoft created the problem by not valuing the work developers had done with windows-phone.
share|improve this answer
No, that's [windows-mobile]. [windows-phone] is the official name of Windows Phone (7, and 7.5 (Mango)) – Claus Jørgensen Aug 2 '11 at 8:20
@Claus, What's "official" does not change how poeple talk in eveyday life. – Ian Ringrose Aug 2 '11 at 8:57
@Ian: I admit that that's I'm not well-informed in this area (mobile Windows platforms), but I don't remember people referring to pre-Windows-Phone-7 mobile Windows platforms as "Windows Phone". Windows Mobile, Windows CE or even Pocket PC are the terms I used to hear/read. – Joachim Sauer Aug 2 '11 at 10:38
Agree with Joachim - "Windows Phone" came out of nowhere with the release of WP7. Before that it was WM, WCE, PPC, Compact Framework etc – Kate Gregory Aug 2 '11 at 13:20
@Kate, try asking a normal person what owns a windows-mobile with they have a "windows phone" and see what answer you get.. – Ian Ringrose Aug 2 '11 at 14:50
@Ian - I never met a non-developer with a Windows Mobile device unless they had been bulk-issued by their employer, and those people didn't use brand names for them. I never heard anyone call it a Windows phone. – Kate Gregory Aug 2 '11 at 15:06
@Ian: even if that's true: SO is not for "normal persons", it's for developers. So what is relevant is how developers call that platform. I also don't tag my Windows-related questions "Word" just because someone says "I've got a Word computer". – Joachim Sauer Aug 2 '11 at 15:13
@Kate, they are still common in the UK, and yes a lot of people paid for there own. (Remember we had good mobile data speeds a lot sooner on this side of the Atlantic.) – Ian Ringrose Aug 2 '11 at 22:28
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What conditions does life need_HERO
What Conditions Does Life Need?
What Conditions Does Life Need?
• Exhibition Text
• LIFE as we know it REQUIRES:
Life on Earth’s surface derives its energy from the Sun. Another realm of life thrives around seafloor hot springs and in fluid-filled cracks deep below the surface, utilizing the chemical energy of those environments. The chemistry that builds and sustains life requires a fluid medium in which atoms and molecules can react. For all known forms of life, liquid water provides that environment. Carbon atoms are ideally suited to form complex molecules. Carbon is the structural backbone of all the building blocks and material for life, including proteins and DNA.
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(CNN) -
When Jim Whittaker became the first American to stand on top of Mount Everest 50 years ago, he was anything but elated.
Reaching Earth's highest point only 10 years after New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary became the first to summit, Whittaker said 50 mph winds were "blowing like hell," compounding the already outrageous temperature of 35 below zero.
The jetstream blasted Whittaker and Sherpa Nawang Gombu as Whittaker pounded the pick of his American flag into the ice.
But when the two men looked down from their perch, 29,028 feet above sea level, they realized summiting was not their journey's end. They still had far to go, and they'd just run out of bottled oxygen on top of the world.
"Oh, boy, we've got to get down," Whittaker thought. "Getting to the summit is half of the climb. You're working so hard to get up, you don't really think about anything else."
Whittaker's expedition members' childhoods had been filled with a passion for climbing.
Richard Pownall was bitten by the mountaineering bug in 1943 when an English teacher sent students to the library to pick out a book. After reading about climbing, Pownall got a summer job working at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, but that stint couldn't sate his curiosity and zeal for exploration.
Whittaker discovered his passion at 14, scaling the peaks of the Northwest U.S. and, later, while guiding people up Mount Rainier in college. After summiting Mount McKinley, the highest U.S. peak, the next natural step was "the big one," he said.
When the Americans began scaling Everest, their journey was far different from that of today's climbers. For one, they were the only team on the mountain at the time.
They also had to trek 185 miles through the sweltering Chitwa Jungle, their packs stuffed with cold-weather gear for when the elevation rose. That's about the distance from Seattle, Washington, to Portland, Oregon, though the Nepalese trek involves pathways along 18,000-foot ridges, Whittaker pointed out.
Today, climbers fly 140 miles into Nepal and trek 40 miles into base camp.
Once at Everest, it wasn't long before Whittaker's expedition experienced disaster. Two days into the climb, three men were opening a route through the Khumbu Icefall -- where descending glaciers break off into jagged, car- and house-sized chunks -- when glacier pieces collapsed around them, burying them in ice, Pownall said.
He was able to climb out, but ended his summit attempt.
Jake Breitenbach, a 27-year-old guide from Jackson, Wyoming, didn't survive. He was buried deep in the ice. His body wouldn't be recovered until much later.
"You're halfway around the world," Whittaker said. "You immediately think of your family."
They were all shaken, but Everest's fierce conditions forbade them from dwelling on it. They had to keep moving. They could mourn later.
Though the view from the peak is spectacular, the Himalayas and Nepal unfolding beneath them, Whittaker said his team was more amazed by the scenery on their way back down. After months of living in thin air, they noticed the air became thicker and softer as the oxygen increased.
At one point, they found themselves clustered, looking down at a little blade of grass coming up through the scree.
"This green, emerald green -- God, it was just incredible," Whittaker said. "There is nothing growing up above, no color -- it's all snow, ice and rock. We were in tears. We had lost Jake up on the mountain but now we were coming back into life, this beautiful, lush, gorgeous planet that supports life. A little blade of grass just stunned the whole team."
Almost 49 years after summiting Everest, Whittaker, then-83, found himself back at base camp in 2012. His son, Leif, 27, wanted to reach the so-called "Head of the Sky" for a second time. Leif Whittaker had done it without his father in 2010.
Whittaker and his son had trekked to a base camp in 2003, but they had no intention of summiting.
Whittaker said he never encouraged or discouraged his son from mountaineering, but his son discovered it for himself at age 15. After being asked so many times if he'd follow in his dad's footsteps up the face of Everest, Leif found his answer on their 2003 trip.
"It was the natural power and majesty of that place that I felt some special connection to," Leif said. "I think we all are affected by landscapes in a different way, and for me, a boy who had grown up with that idea of Mount Everest in his head, seeing Everest for the first time made me want to climb it."
Whittaker hoped to walk into base camp with his son in 2012, but a day from their destination, he caught an intestinal bug. The seasoned mountaineer who had once conquered Everest was within him, telling him to keep going, but he decided it was too dicey.
Meanwhile, Leif Whittaker faced a different danger: overcrowding. Ten people died on Everest in 2012, raising questions about how many people should receive permits to scale the perilous peak.
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en An Israeli Biocomputer Can Now Detect Multiple Signs of Disease from Inside the Body <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="media media-element-container media-default" style="width: 525px;"><img alt="" class="" data-image_style="article_image_large" typeof="foaf:Image" src="" /><div class="field field-name-field-file-title field-type-text field-label-hidden"> A Biomolecular Computer at Work </div> <div class="field field-name-field-file-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"> At least, this is how it was explained to us. </div> <div class="field field-name-field-file-credit field-type-text field-label-hidden"> Gil, et al. ©2011 American Chemical Society </div> </div><p>Wouldn't it be easier to deal with disease if our bodies just fixed themselves? That's asking quite a bit from our physiologies, but Israeli researchers are working on tiny nano-computers that could do the job for us. They envision <a href="">tiny machines made of biomolecules</a> that autonomously troll the body looking for disease, computing a diagnosis and delivering drugs all at the same time. It's a long way off, but they're making progress--they've just developed a biomolecular computer that can autonomously identify multiple molecules at the same time.</p> <p>From a biomolecular computing standpoint (as well as from a diagnostics standpoint), that's pretty huge. The researchers have previously demonstrated a biomolecular computer that could sense disease indicators one at a time. Existing in a two state system, it essentially was programmed in a "yes" state for a certain disease indicator. It then performed a series of computation steps, checking for one mRNA disease indicator after another.</p> <p>If all the indicators of a certain disease are present, the biocomputer would end unchanged in the same "yes" state. If any of the indicators were not present, it would end in a "no" state. It was rudimentary, but it was a diagnosis if an imperfect one.</p> <p>The breakthrough here is that the team's biocomputer now can now detect disease indicators from a variety of sources--mRNA, miRNA, proteins, and a variety of small molecules like ATP. The new biocomputer also needs fewer interactions with disease indicators and is designed with fewer moving parts.</p> <p>The idea is to someday create swarms of biomolecular nano-computers that can autonomously and continuously patrol our bodies for the signs of disease. Because they can now detect indicators from more than one source, diagnoses would be more accurate. And with more and better computation, the biomachines could also deliver the first round of preventative drugs to the site of burgeoning disease, acting as a first line of defense against infection.</p> <p>Of course, all this is years--decades, really--away. The idea that of nanomachines--even ones constructed of biomolecules--swimming our bloodstreams loaded up with drug payloads is a bit anxiety-inducing. What if they malfunction or misdiagnose? What if they were to accidentally release too much of a drug at the wrong place at the wrong time, or to inadvertently mix the wrong drugs into a harmful pharmaceutical cocktail?</p> <p>You might lose sleep at night wondering what the tiny machines inside of you were up to. Even so, the idea of constant, vigilant, autonomous oversight of every organ in the body is pretty tantalizing.</p> <p>[<a href="">PhsyOrg</a>]</p> </div></div></div> Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:43:49 +0000 Clay Dillow 125904 at
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« Colbert for President! | Main | City Council Meeting in NYC- Focus Topic »
Somebody got murdered
A body was found on 35th and CHicago this morning. It was covered by both the Star and Tribune and the Pioneer Press. Police have no suspects and haven't released the name of the victim.
Neither of these stories really contain much information. The Pi Press is essentially two paragraphs. It doesn't go into much depth past the fact that the event occurred. The Star covers the process of him being discovered and the incident being reported to police. It does a shitty job of helping us understand, first they say that a bicyclist discovered the bodya dn then they interview a woman who says that the victims friends banged on her door this morning and said someone was stabbed so she called the police. Which is it? Or both? If police showed up earlier than why didn't they find the body. Maybe this is just a temporary update but it's very incomplete.
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Naked Boys Singing
Date: Thursday, 10/11/2007
Time: 7:30 pm
Venue: Lincoln Theatre
Tickets: $20 Buy tickets online
Type: Feature presentation
Metro Weekly Rating: starstarstarstar (4 out of 5)
by Sean Bugg
WHEN EVALUATING the quality of a gay film festival, one has to ask: Is there anything more critic-proof than a movie featuring show tunes and penises?
Naked Boys Singing pretty much has its festival box office built into the title. And while it's not a stunning achievement of cinema by any stretch of the imagination, it does end up being an entertaining, if slight, diversion.
For those who caught the D.C. production of the legendary off-Broadway hit, the film version of Naked Boys offers a different experience -- namely better production values and better eye candy. For the most part, the film is a straightforward presentation of a stage show with an audience, although from time to time it veers into odd editing that enhances the feel of it being a ''movie,'' but undercuts the experience itself.
Really, this isn't the type of film where the audience is looking for close-ups.
Naked Boys Singing is at its best when at its most frivolous. Numbers such as ''Naked Maid'' and ''Perky Little Porn Star'' are completely silly, but ultimately charming. ''The Entertainer,'' done in Cabaret style with a lead in high heels, is a knockout.
''Nothin' But the Radio On'' is less successful, as is the fully-clothed ''Robert Mitchum,'' a paean to an era when male beauty wasn't all about muscles -- delivered by a muscled cast straight out of a gay gym. The same mixed message undermines ''Muscle Addiction,'' a number that suddenly mutates into a scene from Cruising.
Where Naked Boys Singing really falters is when it goes heartfelt. ''Window to Window'' is the type of song that became a chestnut the moment it was written. Add in the spectacular creepiness of voyeurism and inane neediness -- does it never occur to these guys to say hello when they pass each other on the street? -- and it's just a mess.
With few exceptions, the cast is vocally strong and visually appealing, though somewhat interchangeable -- there's the white guy, the Asian guy, the white guy, the black guy, the muscled white guy, the Latin guy, and a couple of white guys.
But you don't need anyone to tell you that. Just go back and look at the title. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then it most likely is.
More information
Festival Venue:
Lincoln Theatre
For more info visit the official Reel Affirmations website.
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Tell me more ×
I was wondering if someone could help me? Im looking for an old anime that i watched as a kid. It was a movie on our local tv so I can point you in that direction. But all I can remember is that the main characher is a woman, and she was riding some kind of hovercraft-robot and in the end I think she sacrifised herself and destroyed the evil guys and I guess it has something to do with saving her son. Kinda blurry but I think I recall her having her son bath in the lake. The action is somewhere in woods. Cant tell you anything else about the plot. I know its not Robotech nor Gundam. If someone can help me it would be much appreciated.
share|improve this question
It could be "mahoromatic maiden", Check it out the last few episodes. – Nishant Apr 22 at 16:25
FYI: – coleopterist Apr 24 at 6:06
@Nishant thanks for the effort m8 but thats not it... drawings are way more mature . it had no humor. kinda like first season of robotech – fish_bre Apr 25 at 22:45
add comment
closed as off-topic by TylerShads Sep 1 at 3:56
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Sunday, March 18, 2007
Our daily dose of Fred Thompson: John Fund Interview
It seems that John Fund agrees with Bill Hobbs:
Fred Thompson is shaking up the GOP presidential field. And he's not even running yet.
So too may Fred Thompson. When we meet on Thursday night, it's only been four days since he appeared on Fox News to merely announce he was "looking at" running. Chuck Todd, the political director of NBC News, notes in amazement how "a retired senator can show a tiny bit of interest and literally shake up the race overnight."
I think it shows how starved we are for someone who can run on his record and we can trust won't stab his party in the back.
I was struck by the way Thompson answered the questions in contrast to the way McCain did. Thompson was straightforward and could give a good defense for his positions (well, he is a lawyer after all):
Mr. Thompson has also been criticized for failing to back some comprehensive tort-reform bills because of his background as a trial lawyer. Here he insists his stance was based on grounds of federalism. "I'm consistent. I address Federalist Society meetings," he says, noting that more issues should be left to the states. For example, he cast the lonely "nay" in 99-1 votes against a national 0.8% blood alcohol level for drivers, a federal law banning guns in schools, and a measure limiting the tort liability of Good Samaritans. "Washington overreaches, and by doing so ends up not doing well the basics people really care about." Think Katrina and Walter Reed.
He also sounded like he was running. He gave a "I like the other guys but...." kind of answer:
But what really struck me in this interview was the brilliance of his campaign strategy. It would be a campaign that would reflect the Zeitgeist of the party. We are sick of Washington and the Republican establishment. He is part of that establishment but he's running as a reformer. This is exactly what the base is looking for, someone who knows the problem and isn't afraid to face it. Problems that Bush and the current crop of Republicans have failed to address. This is the way that McCain would probably like to run but can't because he is part of the problem:
Indeed, the federal government's inability to function effectively would likely be a major theme of any Thompson campaign. "Audits have shown we've lost control of the waste and mismanagement in our most important agencies. It's getting so bad it's affecting our national security."
Mr. Thompson says that while a senator he was long concerned with U.S. intelligence failures. "The CIA has better politicians than it has spies," he says, referring to the internecine turf wars that have been a feature of the Bush administration.
A key problem, Mr. Thompson notes, is a general lack of accountability in government, where no one pays any price for failure. When asked about President Bush's awarding the Medal of Freedom to outgoing CIA Director George Tenet after U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq became apparent, he shakes his head: "I just didn't understand that."
The next president, according to Mr. Thompson, needs to exercise strong leadership "and get down in the weeds and fix a civil-service system that makes it too hard to hire good employees and too hard to fire bad ones." He doesn't offer specifics on what to do, but notes the "insanity" of the new Congress pushing for the unionization of homeland security employees only five years after it rejected the notion in the wake of 9/11. "Should we tie ourselves up in bureaucratic knots with the challenges we may have to face?" he asks in wonderment.
On domestic issues, Mr. Thompson says a major reason Republicans lost last November was that they aided and abetted runaway government spending. Yet Democrats, he contends, are incapable of following through on their pledges to be fiscally prudent. "Their political coalition needs more revenue like a car requires gasoline," he laughs. "Reagan showed what can be done if you have the will to push for tough choices and the ability to ask the people to accept them."
Read the rest of the article. His positions are in line with Reagan's on taxes, the growth of government, he is solidly behind the war on terror and he's for a tough stand against Iran. He's the one the party should have as it's spokesman, the advocate for our beliefs, to go out there and sell conservatism the way Reagan did. After eight years of Bush's brand of compassionate conservatism it would be a welcome relief.
BTW, you people who come here and want to push your candidate will not find me to be receptive. I will support the party's nominee but I won't change my mind on Thompson. I know the strengths and weakness of all the candidates in the race and I have reasons for not supporting them, so I won't be swayed by you to support your candidate. I'm just not interested, so don't even try. If Thompson doesn't run, then we can talk.
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Styling a label?
10:11 am on Sep 8, 2009 (gmt 0)
I actually need some help...eek :-/
I have a form I'm styling which is a set height (28px) and I cannot override this.
Inside the input box is a value. The value shows text inside the input box. What I need is a way to style the value text so it aligns evenly with the input box. It is currently top left and I would like it middle left with some left padding.
The basic code is:
<input name="WebmasterWorld" type="text" value="Enter your article search here" />
Is there a way of styling just the value?
10:14 am on Sep 8, 2009 (gmt 0)
No matter, figured out the answer :-)
You have to compensate for the padding and borders by reducing the width and height of the inputs to reflect the dimensions given. Do this and it will all align.
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Sunday, March 26, 2006
Generally, I tend to agree on most things political with Michelle Malkin. The one issue where we differ is on immigration. She states that America is not a nation of immigrants:
(Isn’t it funny, by the way, how the politically correct multiculturalists who claim we are a “nation of immigrants” are sooo insensitive toward Native American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, and descendants of black slaves who did not “immigrate” here in any common sense of the word?)
Even if we were a “nation of immigrants,” it does not explain why we should be against sensible immigration control.
While I agree that "sensible immigration control" is definitely needed--particularly in these days of fanatic Islamic jihadist threats (in fact, I would go so far as to put a moratorium on all immigration to this country for a period of time--say 1-2 years) while we continue to sort out the danger and develop countermeasures); nevertheless, I must respectfully disagree about the "not a nation of immigrants" position.
My disagreement has two aspects. The first is my own family history. All four of my grandparents individually came to America from Italy in the early part of the 20th century. Their stories and their passionate desires to become part of the American dream have inspired me for most of my life; and are part of my own cultural heritage which I deeply value and have tried to pass on to my own daughter who was born after all of them had passed away.
Back in my college days I became very aware that many of the people who most appreciated my country were not my fellow Americans, but were immigrants from various countries. They all had the perspective of having lived elsewhere and understanding what was special about America. Often, their feeling rekindled the fierce pride I felt in my Grandfather, who volunteered--barely able to even speak English yet-- for the US Army in World War I. He told me once when I was a very young child how "blessed" I was to grow up in a country where "freedom is in the very air you breathe".
Or the love and gratitude, I feel for my mother's mother, who took me out to lunch one day and encouraged me to become a doctor--and not to listen to my mother, who felt it was not appropriate that a woman go into a "masculine" career. "I came to this country because there was no future for women where I grew up. But you are an American and you are free to grow up and be whatever your abilities permit."
Did I mention that my Grandmother at age 15 stowed away on a boat to America and entered New York without a penny to her name, ultimately starting her own sewing business, before she met my Grandfather?
My immigrant Grandparents always understood what this country was fundamentally about.
In short, while I was lucky enough to be born an American, I am proudly descended from some incredible people who chose to be American. And I salute them and thank them from the bottom of my heart. In fact, I believe the real strength of this country comes from people who consciously and deliberately choose the liberty that America offers--whether they are born between the shining seas of this wonderful land or they make their way here by other means.
The second aspect of my disagreement with Michelle is best found in the famous poem by Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty:
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
This poem lyrically communicates one of the oldest and most deeply-felt American values. Most Americans, although not immigrants themselves, have ancestors that came to this shore seeking freedom from oppression, and a new chance at life. America has always opened her arms and welcomed them. And we are a strong and vibrant country because of it.
The recent introduction into the politically correct lexicon of "multicultural" is, I feel, a perversion of the message on the Statue. There is, of course, nothing intrinsically negative to valuing and treasuring, and even maintaining one's cultural heritage--as I and my family still do. But the implication of the multicultural gurus is that every culture; every tradition is morally, politically, economically, socially, aesthetically, and in every other way equivalent to American culture.
I do not think that perspective stands up to reality. The implication of the "diversity" divas is that diverse cultures are the strength and beauty our "national quilt".
Well, yes each diverse component does contribute. But it is the overall quilt itself that is the desired result. It is the quilt's entire design that determines its beauty, meaning, and utility. A quilt is a fabric design made by cutting shapes from one or more fabrics and sewing them on top of another piece of fabric. In America we have made a "crazy quilt" comprised of the members of every national, ethnic, religious and racial group on the planet. The "batting" and "bindings" of the quilt are what pull the individual blocks together into its overall pattern. No one block determines the overall pattern and each block is subsumed into the pattern.
I have no problem with natives of say, Turkey, or Haiti, or China saying that their cultural beliefs are better than America's. That is their perogative--I don't agree with them--but they are entitled to their opinion. But if one's own culture is so excellent--why come to the U.S. to live? If a person is not open to America's culture and accepting its values and goals, why come here?
The immigrant--by virtue of the of the very fact of their immigration-- is acknowledging the superior qualities of the country he or she immigrates to--or why immigrate? Becoming a citizen of this country presupposes that you accept those values and are no longer a Turk, Haitian, or Chinese--but are now an American.
Having commented on the value of immigration for both the immigrant yearning to breathe free; and for America itself, which is stonger because of the "melting pot" or "quilt" that brings together the strengths of many culures; how should America's borders be controled so that they "provide for the common defense"; while at the same time are able to take in the world's "tired, your poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free"?
I don't pretend to have all the answers to that difficult question. But I do believe that we are a nation whose strength derives from all the people who choose America -- even if they are fortunate enought to have been born here.
The global war on terror presents those of us who support immigration and want to keep America's shores always open for those in the world yearning to breathe free, with enormous challenges. How do we wage this war for the very existence of our country and its values, without losing the liberty that makes our country worth fighting for to begin with?
That is a question worthy of debate and discussion and not just slogans, marches and platitudes issuing forth from both sides. On that, I am sure Michelle and I would agree completely.
One final word. I tend to think that Glenn Reynolds is absolutely correct, however, that the recent marches in favor of illegal immigration will only have the result of stricter laws being passed.
I wish that both sides would simply stand-down for a time and permit a reasoned debate and the development of sensible, and not draconian, solutions. Because, for me at least, this issue stands at the very center of what America is all about.
No comments:
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EE The Player
From Legend of the Five Rings Rules
Jump to: navigation, search
The player
Player keywords, abilities and values
Clan alignment
A player’s Clan alignment, for example “Scorpion Clan” or “Unicorn Clan,” is the same as his or her Stronghold’s.
A player using an unaligned Stronghold (one with no Clan alignment) has no Clan alignment. An unaligned player does not have the same Clan alignment as unaligned Personalities.
Effects that say “You are an [X] Clan player.” give the player that Clan alignment.
Legal Clan alignments in Emperor Edition are:
• Crab Clan
• Crane Clan
• Dragon Clan
• Lion Clan
• Mantis Clan
• Phoenix Clan
• Scorpion Clan
• Spider Clan
• Unicorn Clan
Other Clan alignments given by effects only exist in games where those effects apply.
Example 1: The Forgotten Temple is an unaligned Stronghold and its player has no Clan alignment.
Example 2: An unaligned Stronghold gives the Panda Clan alignment to its player. This makes “Panda Clan” a Clan alignment in games where this stronghold is in play, but it is not a Clan alignment in other games.
Family Honor
A player’s Family Honor, or Honor for short, represents the respect and integrity he or she is seen to have in the Imperial Court. It may rise and fall over the course of the game. A player is responsible for keeping an accurate record of his or her Family Honor that the other player can check. Players may also confirm their opponents' Family Honor by keeping their own record.
A player’s starting Family Honor is taken from his or her Stronghold's Starting Family Honor stat.
Family Honor is a numerical value that follows different rules than card stats. Family Honor may have a negative value. Also, because Family Honor is marked in the game, changes to it do not have a duration; they are instantaneous.
If an Honor gain or loss is reduced or increased by another effect, the reduction or increase is not itself counted as an Honor gain or loss.
Reduction of an Honor gain cannot turn it into a loss, nor can reduction of a loss turn it into a gain; the minimum value of a gain or loss is zero. Losses are expressed in positive numbers even though their ultimate effect is to reduce Honor.
An Honor gain of 0 points is not considered an Honor gain for things that check whether a gain happened. Likewise, an Honor loss of 0 points is not considered an Honor loss for such purposes. Reduction of an Honor gain or loss to 0 points may effectively prevent it. See Timing. Each separate Honor loss or gain happens all at once. EXCEPTION: Some effects may check for a specific amount of “total Honor” gained or lost during a certain period. These effects keep a running tally of relevant Honor changes. If a multi-point Honor change would take the total above the specific amount, the change is split into two gains or losses. The gain or loss that takes the total to the specific amount is separate from, and comes before, the gain or loss in excess of the specific amount. This splitting happens at the “when” timing point of the Honor gain or loss.
Example: An action says in part: “From now until the turn ends, after a player gains 5 total Honor from his own card effects, negate his further gains from such effects.” During that period, the player gains 1 point of Honor (total gain = 1), then 2 points from a different effect (total gain = 3), then 3 points from a third effect. Because the third effect takes the total over 5, it is split into a gain of 2 points (total gain = 5), and a gain of 1 point. The gain of 1 point is negated.
References to "points of Family Honor" assume a positive Family Honor value.
Example: Matsu Misato's Ranged 3 Attack, which gains "+1 strength for every 10 points of Family Honor you have," does not gain any strength when you are at -10 Family Honor.
Maximum hand size
A player starts with a maximum hand size of 8, referring to the number of cards he or she allowed to keep in hand at the end of the End Phase. A player with no maximum hand size has an effectively infinite maximum hand size.
Maximum hand size is a stat of the player and follows the rules about EE_Card_features#Stats. {ADDED 9 June 2012]
Player abilities
Players may gain abilities and traits from effects. The following is a reminder list of the abilities players start the game with. Some of these actions are known by a special game term, in parentheses below, which also can refer to the Personality performing it.
Example: A Personality performing Lobby is “lobbying,” as well as performing a Lobby action.
(Equip) Repeatable Limited: Choose your performing Personality and target an attachment card in your hand: Attach it to him, paying all costs.
(Equip) Repeatable Battle: Choose your performing unbowed opposed Shugenja and target a Spell in your hand: Attach it to him, paying all costs. You may take an additional action to use a Battle ability on that Spell.
Both the Limited and Battle ability are Equip abilities.
(Lobby) Political Limited: If you have higher Family Honor than each other player, bow your performing Personality with 1 Personal Honor or higher: Take the Imperial Favor.
Favor Political Limited: Discard the Imperial Favor and a card: Draw a card.
Favor Political Battle: Discard the Imperial Favor and target an attacking enemy Personality: Move him home.
(Tactical Advantage) Repeatable Tactical Battle: Discard a card and choose your performing Tactician Personality: Give him a Force bonus equal to the Focus Value of the discarded card.
This action can only give one Force bonus per turn to each Tactician due to the rule about performing Tactical actions (see Tactician).
(Order Seppuku) Repeatable Open: Target a dishonorable Courtier, Samurai, or Shugenja Personality you control: He commits seppuku.
In the above ability, the Personality does not perform the seppuku, by the rules on performing.
(Conquest) Reaction: After a battle resolution ends, choose your performing attacking Conqueror Personality at that battlefield: Straighten his unit. It will not bow from the battle’s resolution.
(Proclaim) Reaction: After you bring a Personality in your province with your Clan alignment into play without Clan discount, if it is your turn: Gain Honor equal to his base Personal Honor.
(Naval Invasion) Reaction: After engaging, once per battle, if you are the Attacker and your current army has more Naval cards than the side oppos¬ing it, choose your performing Naval Personality: You have the first opportunity to take a Battle action, which he must perform.
In cases where multiple cards perform a Battle action, only one need be Naval.
(Kharmic) Repeatable Limited, pay 2 gold: Discard a Kharmic card from your hand to draw a card.
(Kharmic) Repeatable Limited, pay 2 gold: Discard a face-up Kharmic card from your province, refilling the province face-up.
Players winning and losing
L5R has a number of different victory conditions that reflect different paths to mastering the world of Rokugan or eliminating other players from contention.
Honor victory
An Honor victory represents overwhelming political acclaim in the Imperial Courts. At the point when a player’s turn begins (that is, prior to anything triggered "after the turn begins"), if that player has 40 or more Family Honor, he or she wins through an Honor Victory.
Military loss/victory
A Military victory represents the destruction of your last adversary’s last base of support. A player loses immediately after his or her last Province is destroyed (see Provinces), and is then eliminated from the game.
When two players are in a game (including the later stages of a game that started with more players), and one player loses this way, the last remaining player has won a Military Victory. This is considered a Military Victory even if the last province was destroyed by some other means than battle resolution.
Dishonor loss/victory
A player can lose by Dishonor, representing his or her faction being expelled from Rokugani society for offenses against honor. If a player’s Family Honor ever becomes –20 or below, the player loses the game at the beginning of his or her next End Phase, even if he or she returns to -19 or higher Family Honor.
When two or more players are in a game and a player loses in this way, if there is only one remaining player, he or she has won a Dishonor Victory.
Enlightenment victory
Enlightenment victory represents finding a path of insight beyond the material world, reflecting on experience in war and peace through the philosophies of the Five Elements. A player wins through an Enlightenment Victory after the start of one of his or her turns if he or she has in play five Ring cards, each with a different element keyword, and each of which last entered play by its own text (as opposed to other effects that can put a Ring into play).
Special victory conditions
Cards in the game may give other conditions of winning or losing. Winning by one of these cards, or because one of them caused the last remaining other player to lose, is designated by the title of that card.
Player elimination
If a player loses the game and two or more players remain, all cards from the eliminated player’s play deck are removed from the game (regardless of who controls them), all created cards under his control are removed from the game, all his remaining Provinces leave the game (without literally being destroyed), and he leaves the game. An eliminated player’s tokens that are still in play after this, as well as his created cards that are controlled by other players, remain in play.
If an attacker is eliminated in the middle of a series of battles, the player to his left determines the order remaining battles will resolve in.
Effects generated by eliminated players’ cards or actions persist for their normal duration. For effects that will end during some future turn of the eliminated player, end them after the previous remaining player’s turn and before the next remaining player’s turn.
Turn order
Turn order proceeds to the left. If no order or starting player is specified for a sequence of occurrences affecting different players, they are carried out in turn order, starting with the active player.
If an effect alters which player goes first in an action round (for example, taking battle actions in a battle), turn order proceeds leftwards from him or her.
The play deck
The “play deck” is the set of cards chosen by the player with which to play the game. It actually consists of two decks – one of black-backed Dynasty cards, one of green-backed Fate cards – a Stronghold, and versions of the starting Holdings Border Keep and Bamboo Harvesters. These cards are chosen according to a format.
L5R has a standard competitive format, Emperor 40/40 (referring to current base set and the minimum number of cards in the Dynasty and Fate decks, respectively), and a number of alternate formats.
L5R has a standard competitive format organized around the current base set, Emperor 40/40. The two numbers refer to the minimum number of cards in the Dynasty and Fate decks, respectively.
Unless format rules or a card specifically state otherwise, all play decks must be constructed according to the following two general rules:
• No more than one copy of each Unique card, by card title, may be included in the play deck.
• No more than three copies of any non-Unique card, by card title, may be included in a play deck.
EXCEPTION: Other than the special cards Border Keep and Bamboo Harvesters, cards with the same title but different Experienced levels (including non-experienced versions) count as different cards for deck construction.
If a card or card type “does not count against deck construction limits,” its existence in the deck does not count towards the minimum deck count required by the format. In practice this means the deck has to contain more cards than the stated minimum.
In Emperor 40/40 format:
• All cards in a play deck must be Emperor legal – their most recent printing must have the Emperor expansion symbol.
• Older printings of cards that have been reprinted with the Emperor expansion symbol may be used in a deck, but are always played by the stats and text of their most recent printing, following cardinal rule 2.
• If an Emperor Edition legal card has the “Soul of [X]” keyword, showing that it is a renamed version of an older card, then the older card specifically named by the keyword may be used as a proxy for the EE legal card. The proxy is played with the title, stats and text of the EE legal version. If the proxy card itself is a “Soul of” and refers back to an even older card, the older card may not be used as an EE legal proxy; only cards directly named by Emperor legal “Soul of” cards may be proxied.
• The Dynasty and Fate deck each must contain a minimum of 40 cards.
Rules for formats other than Emperor 40/40 are listed under the Alternate Format Rules section.
Back to the Comprehensive Rules
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“Gervais didn’t provide details, but it’s expected to be more comedic than educational.” (You might have to pay for it, also.) (I’m sure it will be worth it just kidding I actually don’t think that!) (THIS GUY!)
Comments (11)
1. Lorry jokes.
2. Whatever, if Rex Harrison isn’t involved I’m not interested.
3. Who needs to speak English? Most people in the world already speak American, that’s really all you need.
4. Ricky was a guest on Trust Us with your Life last week. The crew had to act out scenes from his life, and in one of them, 12 year old Rickey asked his mother why he was so much younger than his siblings, and she said it was because he was a mistake. I know! Really sad, right? How do you improv that into laughs? I felt sorry for little Ricky. And for the comedians.
5. So now we don’t even think Ricky Gervais is funny, like, at all? Sheesh.
6. Guys, I think this is just a webinar where he teaches English to Mongoloids?
7. Ricky Gervais, please save some of the goodwill you’ve earned for a rainy day.
8. Wait, why do we hate this thing we know nothing about yet?
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Take the tour ×
I tried to open a split pane to run another command but instead it displays the same in both panes and I can only interact with one of them. I thought it would split the view so I could use the two panes independently like two windows.
I have the Visor installed but I don't think it would interfere.
Terminal - version 2.1.1
Visor custom (84d1873) based on 1.5
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4 Answers
up vote 11 down vote accepted
It's meant to be like that. See this Super User answer:
I would add that, for two separate terminals, you can use separate tabs as well.
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this is really disappointing... – vrinek Jan 18 '11 at 10:39
There is always emacs if you are already in Terminal, but the learning curve is a bit steep. – Mark Thalman Jan 28 '11 at 13:14
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iTerm 2 supports split panes with independent shells in each pane, not one linked shell.
Split panes in iTerm 2
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Supposing you use iTerm 2, would you say that it works "better" than Terminal.app + Visor for a quick "pop-in, do-something, pop-out" workflow? I am a Rails web developer if that helps to visualize my needs. – vrinek Jan 28 '11 at 10:15
@Vrinek not sure. You could still use Visor and iTerm2. – mankoff Jan 28 '11 at 14:49
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You should really have a look at "screen" (that´s an already installed command line tool, not a separate application), which gives you the ability to split your Terminal into two (or more) separate ones. I use that with Visor and it works like a charm. Have a look around here, there are quite a few tips on how to use "screen" on a Mac.
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Also don't over look tmux. Its like screen but more features I believe.
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Can you add a bit more details to your answer? Why is tmux better, how does it solve to problem and where do I get it if needed? – patrix Oct 25 '12 at 4:17
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How do I get work from DH's company?
(6 Posts)
Basketofchocolate Thu 11-Jul-13 22:25:05
Have sent an email. Wish me luck!
Basketofchocolate Thu 11-Jul-13 16:05:42
Do you think it's ok that I know about the work cos DH works there? Is it ok to be up front about that, do you think?
Was wondering about covering letter (email) and CV or whether asking for boss to meet up.
DH struggling to find out who responsible (part of the problem, as no one currently owns the process/issue - this is where I come in).
Is it crazy to work at the same place as DH as it's not a big company.
xmarksaspot Thu 11-Jul-13 12:21:29
Try and show the business benefit - how much more profitable will they be
Dackyduddles Thu 11-Jul-13 12:14:41
Draft something? Maybe we can help finesse it?
Dackyduddles Thu 11-Jul-13 12:13:40
Well I would ask him to find out who is responsible. Manager or hr.
Then write a cover letter and cv. In the letter explain you have heard x and you can offer y solution. Be very specific. If also have a salary (hour or year) in mind too.
Basketofchocolate Thu 11-Jul-13 12:05:31
Am looking to start working for myself doing similar to what I used to do before SAHM (not worked for almost 2 years).
Discussing this with DH and on what would be my ideal, he reckons there's work going at his company. Not as a full-time job or anything, which is perfect. It is work I can do easily and from home.
So, how do we go about asking whether they want someone to do this work? I am not sure whether it's a bit weird him recommending me - as if he's creating work for his wife. However, there is a genuine need. The company bosses may be happy to leave it as it is though and not feel/see the need or need to pay for anyone to do the work that is not getting done (company can survive without, just could be better for customers and therefore better service and more professional if done).
Basically, any suggestions on how I/we approach the situation and how do you go to someone and say 'I think I can help you with this, please pay me some lovely money for it'.
All suggestions welcome.
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Tell me more ×
What is the benefit of running code through the command prompt/terminal vs an ide?
I've noticed recently when using the progressbar module of python that the progress text is updated on the same line in the command prompt window while the ide prints each text on the next line. Why are these different? Are they not running though the same interpreter?
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Which IDE? IDLE? – Joel Cornett Aug 23 '12 at 0:09
Eclipse Pydev and IDLE... – BJEBN Aug 23 '12 at 8:48
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2 Answers
up vote 3 down vote accepted
The IDE adds an extra layer of software between the program and the python interpreter.
What you are seeing is probably that the IDE's output window is not a complete terminal emulator, and doesn't understand or ignores the commands that the progressbar module uses. to keep the output on the same line.
Have a look at ipython. It is a very nice environment for testing and running python code.
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+1 for ipython, fantastic environment. – Jeff Tratner Aug 23 '12 at 2:21
Thanks - I wasnt aware of Ipython... – BJEBN Aug 23 '12 at 8:48
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Each IDE is infact interacting via the command line and redirecting streams into it's implementation of showing those outputs, Each IDE has it's own way of doing this, command prompt is more powerful if you are expeirienced and easy to try one off scripts, try ipython which is great for beginners and learners alike for fast access to the programming environment and trying out module.
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Presented by Blackberry
Talk Mobile Gaming
What we’ve got here is a failure to stream
by Rene Ritchie, Daniel Rubino, Kevin Michaluk, Phil Nickinson
Our media lives in a world of clouds, and those clouds have to be frustrating and secure. Who's gonna do it? You? You, media consumer? I have greater obstinance than you could possibly fathom. You weep for your MP3 and you curse the studios. You have that luxury.
You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that your music, while delightful, doesn’t belong to you. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, could be improved. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't want to talk about at parties, you know I'm blocking that cloud. We use words like copyright, streaming, licensing. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something broken. You use them as a rallying cry.
I have neither the foresight nor the inclination to explain myself to one who listens and watches from the cloud the very media that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said 'thank you', and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you build your own cloud and stream yourself. Either way, I clearly don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
Media in the cloud is broken. It's hampered by bandwidth, protectionist contracts, and entrenched short-sighted interests. How do we overhaul the system and get to a bright future of online media?
Let's get the conversation started!
1. 01 NickinsonPhil Nickinson I’m pickin’ up streaming vibrations
2. 02 MichalukKevin Michaluk If it weren't for you meddling studios, broadcasters, and telecoms...
3. 03 RubinoDaniel Rubino I love the smell of director's commentary in the morning
4. 04 RitchieRene Ritchie You want UHD? You can't handle the pixels!
Phil Nickinson Android Central
I’m pickin’ up streaming vibrations
There’s a good chance you’ll never again purchase another compact disc. (Kids, ask your parents.) And it’s not perfectly reasonable that you’ll never have to “own” another track of music ever again in your life.
We’ve reached a point in which the ability to play back a particular piece of music at any time on any device trumps all else. Who cares where the song lives? So long as it reaches my ears, what do I care?
For many, this has been a pretty big mental hurdle. How much time did we put into keeping our MP3 folders organized? Making sure we had backups - just in case - and then figuring out the best way to play our music on our computers, home entertainment systems and, later, our phones.
If you grew up using an iPod and, later, an iPhone, you’re probably used to syncing over local files from your computer to your phone. You can do it on other platforms, but it’s just as clunky (maybe even more so, and iTunes is notoriously bad). And copying gigabytes of music is horribly inefficient.
Lockers really aren’t that much better. The idea behind them is that you technically own a file, then you upload a copy of it to some other service (Amazon and Google Play Music are but two.) And you can then stream those files to any device that connects to that service. Again, that’s a lot of work for a 3-minute pop song.
Streaming, for better or worse, is where it’s at. Audiophiles will cringe, and rightfully so. Audio quality is sacrificed for bandwidth. And there’s still a great debate to be had over whether the artists are properly compensated. I have a feeling most are not.
Streaming, for better or worse, is where it’s at.
There’s the issue of data caps, and being offline. The U.S. cellular operators are moving us all back to tiered data plans, and streaming music needs gobs of data. And there are others of us who spend a good deal of music-listening time in places that the cellular data just doesn’t reach. So they're back to local storage of one sort or another.
So the real answer here is that a mix of local storage and streaming is probably what you’ll need to look out. Fortunately for us, as users, it’s getting quicker and easier every year.
Kevin Michaluk
Kevin Michaluk CrackBerry
Why can't we watch whatever TV we want, whenever, wherever, and on whatever device we want? Because entrenchment, that's why.
Today there are basically four ways to get television. You can get it for free from terrestrial broadcasts, but that limits you to a few local stations at best. You can pay to get TV over a wire from the cable company, or beamed down from an orbiting satellite, and have a selection that's simply absurd. And you can watch TV online, sometimes for free and weeks after on the previous mediums, or sometimes you can pay and get it faster, but still not quickly.
All thanks to entrenchment. The studios, broadcasters, and cable and satellite companies have all made enormous fortunes with this model. They have no qualms locking customers into their systems, making it nigh impossible to get content elsewhere. The frequent accusations of collusion among the cable providers to quash competition aren't without basis, though the likes of Verizon, AT&T, and Google are disrupting that model with fiber deployments.
With all of the money they've made and continue to make, why would they try something new and potentially jeopardize that profit stream? The television industry saw what happened when the music industry ignored the internet, but they've taken the wrong path. Instead of embracing the internet as another revenue stream - possibly a great one - they've reacted with fear, locking down and crippling online products.
If I could stream TV when I want, wherever I want, I'd gladly pay for that in lieu of traditional service.
Online TV streaming is limited by geography, by time, and most perplexingly thanks to a bizarre web of contractual agreements, by your subscribing to television service from a partner cable or satellite transmitter. I don't know about you, but if I could stream TV when I want, wherever I want, I'd gladly pay for that in lieu of traditional service.
The internet threatens slow-to-adapt institutions. It nearly decimated the music industry, and it's all but destroyed traditional newspapers. Movie studios and television - multi-billion-dollar empires both - are investing heavily on the wrong side of the fight. Given the option to ally with the web, they've opted to fight it.
The problem is this that it's difficult for us to fight it. I could cancel my cable subscription, but it's not like I can get all of the same content online in a timely manner. The established model is tremendously entrenched, and there's hardly any sign of this changing any time soon.
Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino Windows Phone Central
I love the smell of director's commentary in the morning
One area where physical media wins over digital downloads is in the availability of extras. Things like director's commentary, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and other features to “enhance” the movie-watching experience (like camera switching or alternate endings) are noticeably absent from digital downloads.
Is that a big deal, or are such accoutrements just gimmicks meant to add a bullet list on the DVD cover to make you feel like your purchase was worth it? Obviously it’s a matter of personal preference and surely some would rightly argue that a director’s commentary is a treasure trove of information that even years later adds insight to a forgotten motion picture.
But it’s not clear that those extras translate into valuable repeat user experiences. In other words, you may watch those extras once and never go back to them. The movie itself you could watch time and time again.
It’s not clear that those extras translate into valuable repeat user experiences.
Adding extras to a digital download is compounded by two problems: streamlining the file size for practical downloads and encapsulating those different layers. A physical disc has none of these limitations, which is why they can pack them full of frivolous media.
But the biggest selling point for digital downloads is its “instant” nature. Add an extra gigabyte of information and now the convenience factor begins to drop and that already assumes studios have figured out how to add those extra layers to a single video file.
Maybe there's a place for offering these extra features as optional (and paid, obviously) add-on content in the vein of the highly-successful in-app purchase model, but that'd require an overhauling of the distribution infrastructure.
The trend, though, may be that consumers are bucking those extra features. Savvy shoppers today are leaning more and more to streaming once or keeping a digital copy for instant viewing rather than amassing a library of physical discs. If studios can keep the costs down for digital downloads (they do save a lot by not having to print, package and ship these discs), then losing those extras to save a few dollars may be worth it.
But the director commentary or alternate ending features are problems that need to be solved should digital ever fully supplant physical Blu-ray. Studios have recently experimented with the release of companion apps for smartphones and tablets, bringing more interactive extra content to the table for a charge. But it remains to be seen if that model is going to take off.
Rene Ritchie iMore
You want UHD? You can't handle the pixels!
Decades ago - never you mind how many! - I was walking the streets of Hong Kong and I glanced up into one of the many, many neon-encrusted electronic store windows to see one of the very first plasma TV sets. It was tiny, maybe 24-inches, and had only 480 vertical lines of resolution. Yet it was also gorgeous, especially when compared to the suddenly grotesque-looking CRT screens beside it. And the price tag? US$25,000. Yeah.
The price of plasma, and then LCD and LED televisions came down, of course, and the resolution went up. Now you can get reasonably good 60-inch flat panels at 1080p resolution for beyond reasonable amounts of money, delivered right to your door. Hell, you can get a 1080p panel on an Android smartphone, and a panel with even more pixels on the iPad retina or Google Nexus 10, for a short stack of hundreds.
It’s unbelievable. It’s obscene. It’s display porn.
You can get a 1080p panel on a smartphone, and a panel with even more pixels on a tablet, for a short stack of hundreds.
After walking the halls the last couple of years at CES, 1080p is also no longer the limit. 2160p is already here. Double the vertical and horizontal resolution of 1080p. They used to call it 4K, now they call it UHD (Ultra HD). Whatever. It makes really big, 6+-inch screens as sharp as the under-40 crowd, and while they’re priced out of the reach of most consumers today, they too shall fall towards the mainstream soon enough.
The Hobbit was also released last year in HFR (high frame rate). Instead of the typical 24 frames of movie-per-second, we got 48. Enough to smooth motion beyond what the human eye can discern and make special effects and makeup look utterly fake. Animation on mobile has been hitting 60 fps for a while now - better on some platforms than others, but I’m not here to judge - but for content, it’s again a doubling of the pixels to push.
Will we see a 4K display from HTC or Samsung sometime soon? These displays already operate at speeds that exceed HFR, but do we need the resolution too?
No, of course not. But this is electronics. This is feeds and speeds. Phones won’t go to UHD, but tablets? Desktop displays? They absolutely will, and soon. All we need is the content to go with it.
4K and HFR, can mobile keep up? No!
- Derek Kessler / Managing Editor, Mobile Nations
The current state of online media is fraught with frustration. Studios, publishers, and distributors ignored the internet in its infancy and multiple media industries have been upended by the web. The advent of file-sharing nearly destroyed the music industry thanks to their inability to get web-based paid distribution up-and-running in a remotely timely manner. Traditional news outlets with massive fixed costs have been bludgeoned by distributed and flexible online organizations.
The music industry is finally coming around to what they can do with the internet, in part because they've had little choice but to go along with it. Television and movie studios, however, had the advantage of time - the drastically-larger file sizes of an hour-long MP4 vs. a 4-minute MP3 coupled with slower internet speeds in the past meant that audio-visual file sharing didn't take off as quickly as plain old audio.
They've had time to lock down their systems with technology and contracts, and in the end they're hurting themselves, their partners, and consumers. We as customers simply want to be able to watch or listen to whatever we pay for, wherever we want, and on whatever device we want.
Is that really so difficult of a request?
Talk Mobile
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December 13, 2013
Posts by chiquita
Total # Posts: 6
A diver rested at -340 feet. Then she started descending, and 20 minutes later she was at -420 feet. How many feet per minute did she move?
When sky divers initially fall from an airplane their velocity v in miles per hour after free falling d feet can be approximated by v=60/11√d. (Because of air resistance, they will eventually reach terminal velocity.) How far do sky divers need to fall to attain a veloci...
Use of the Internet in a country is given by the function f(x)=0.485x^2-1.694x+0.315, where the output is in millions of users. In this formula x=6 corresponds to 1996, x=7 corresponds to 1997, and so on until x=20 corresponds to 2010. Estimate when the number of Internet user...
what can i do to be a better learner in my english class
English 11
ireally dnt get this question
11th grade
having a cabinet is a tradition begun by which president
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Saturday, September 09, 2006
Doctor appointment for Social Security Disability
If you have an appointment to be seen by a doctor for a social security disability or SSI disability medical examination, there are a few things you can reasonably expect...and a few things you should probably not expect.
First, the things you can expect:
1. The exam will probably be short (ten minutes is usually a good benchmark).
2. The doctor may be a bit rude (this has been the experience of many claimants).
3. The doctor who sees you may practice in a specialization that has nothing to do with your particular medical condition. For example, it is not unheard of for a gynecologist to perform a social security medical exam for a claimant whose only alleged condition is degenerative disc disease.
Here are some things you should not expect:
1. Treatment -- a doctor who performs social security exams is not there to provide treatment but, rather, recent medical evidence for SSA.
2. Knowledge of your case -- sometimes these doctors are sent copies of your medical records by the disability examiner working on your case, but this is not always true and even when such records are sent there is no guarantee that the examining doctor will actually read your records.
3. An unbiased attitude -- many of these private physicians who conduct social security examinations are curt and rude and too many of them do little to hide this (if you have a particularly bad experience, report this to the disability examiner who scheduled the exam for you).
If you are sent an appointment letter for one of these exams, by all means go since a failure to do so can negatively affect your case. However, keep in mind that these exams are usually scheduled for one purpose only, which is simply to get a recent snapshot of your medical condition so your claim can be decided and your case can be
Return to the Social Security Disability SSI Benefits Blog
Other Posts
Can you afford a lawyer for a social security disability claim?
Social Security Disability and the two year waiting period for Medicare Benefits
Apply for disability
Disability denied
Disability Mental - Disability
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Influenza a and HIV
wingsofeagle posted:
Hello, First, thanks so much for the work you do!
I gave and received both protected anal sex and unprotected oral sex with a male friend about 5 weeks ago and up to this week (sorry to be graphic but I did actually slip into him while grinding 1 time - in and out as a top). Because I was an unprotected top, even if it was a brief moment, was this risky? It really was an accident.
I came down with a headache, and fever this week and completely sweat through my clothes at night waking up drenched. Went to md and he performed a flu test and blood work. Tested positive for influenza a through a nasal swab test. Started tamaflu and still have headache and fever. No swelling of lymph nodes or rash. So, I know I have the flu.
Two questions: 1. If HIV is a strand of influenza a, and I test positive for influenza a, is it possible (even remotely) that I don't have the flu and have HIV? 2. Could tamaflu help me if I did have HIV?
wingsofeagle responded:
Sorry...I guess this is a dumb question. If I could rephrase...
Can HIV show up as being positive for for flu a?
My white cell cd4 counts are normal. If I was seroconverting would they be lower?
Nieciedo replied to wingsofeagle's response:
First things first: HIV is not a strand of influenza. It has nothing whatsoever to do with influenza beyond the fact that they are both viruses and, as such, cause similar symptoms during the initial infection period.
A test for influenza is designed only to return results for flu, and an HIV test is designed only to return results for HIV. A flu test would not tell you anything about HIV, and an HIV test wouldn't tell you anything about flu.
So, to answer your questions:
1. You definitely have the flu. The test you had done gives you no information whatsoever about your HIV status. Your HIV status is totally independent and unconnected with whether you have the flu.
2. Unfortunately, Tamiflu does not provide any benefit for HIV.
Now, for your risk:
Oral sex, both giving an receiving, is such an extremely, extremely low-risk activity that it is generally not worth worrying about.
Unprotected anal penetration is a bit riskier. The average estimated risk of infection for a man in the top role with a bottom known to be HIV-positive is about 1 in 1500, but that assumes a typical sexual act, not just a brief insertion. Since you don't know your partner's HIV status, the chances that you were infected from this encounter are much, much lower.
You should probably get tested at 90 days for peace of mind, but I don't think you really have much to worry about.
Nieciedo replied to wingsofeagle's response:
CD4 cell counts would not be affected by HIV for many years after infection in an untreated person, so that is likewise not an indicator - one way or the other - of your status.
The only way to determine your status is an HIV test. For a conclusive result you would need to get tested 90 days after the encounter. However, a test now will be over 95% accurate and may give you some peace of mind.
wingsofeagle replied to Nieciedo's response:
Thanks so much for the reassurance. I will get tested in about a month for HIV.
I can't tell you how valuable this discussion board is. You can answer wquestions with authority that my general practitioner got wrong. You guys are awesome! Thanks sooooo much!
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Fun with Raiding
Ah Raiding, the past time of champions. The creator and breaker of guilds everywhere. Like the One Ring, it will bring people together and bind them. Wait...scratch that. It's not quite as evil as the One Ring. In fact with the right guild, it's actually fun. Even wiping can be a less frustrating experience if you are surrounded by good people. Personally raiding for my guild is going pretty well as we are 5/12 which is not zomg uber world first but it's good enough for us at the moment.
How do we keep going as a raiding guild you may wonder? If you didn't wonder that well I am going to pretend that you did wonder it for the purposes of this post. Well we have been raiding as a guild since vanilla when epics were really epic and required a lot of time and effort to get just one epic. While some people have come and gone, we have kept the same officer core together which adds institutional memory to guild raids and activities. When explaining fights we'll reference past boss encounters which have similar mechanics and this helps people visualize the fight better.
The most important thing that we do as a guild that has kept us together is that we have fun. How do we have fun you are probably wondering. (And I am just going to say that you are wondering that so I can continue with my post.) Well...we have fun! Raiding is an activity that often leads to burnout if done in excess so you have to find things to ease the mood and make people relax and enjoy themselves.
We do get serious when we need to but we still manage to have a great time because we all remember that it's only a game. If we don't down the current internet dragon today, we'll get it the next raid. I don't think I have ever singled someone out and tore them a new one because we wiped on a boss due to something they did. I have raided with several other guilds over the years and while I have never had that happen to me, I have seen it happen to other people in the raid. To me that is just dumb and accomplishes nothing except making that one person feel like crap and reducing the raids morale. Happy raiders will stay in the raid until the boss dies, unhappy raiders want to leave after a wipe or two.
How do you keep your raiders happy? That is the million dollar question. Each raider is different, some will be happy only when bosses are downed, some are happy just being social in raids, some are happy just listening to everyone else talking. As a raid and even a guild leader, you have to figure out what makes your people tick. If all else fails...give away gold. Who doesn't like to receive free gold after all?
What do we do to keep the raid light and fun? We laugh throughout our raid, play /roll casino while buffing, tease whoever dies on trash, make jokes about having a designated person to die first in most encounters. The last one is a very serious thing we do as we have a person who just can't seem to stay alive on trash or on some bosses. Not because they are a complete fail but because they seem to be the person who gets targeted by mobs for bad debuffs, fire gets spawned under them, when tanks get cc'ed the adds turn as one and target that person. It's almost like Blizzard is trying to tell that person that he is not liked. We start our raids with guesses on how many deaths he will have by the end of the raid and the winner gets some gold. Why do we encourage sacrificing one person for the good of the raid? Because it's a joke and it helps lighten the mood. People go into boss fights in good spirits and ready to put forth their best.
Am I enjoying raiding? Yes. Do I enjoy the people I raid with? Yes. Is my guild recruiting? Yes. Was that a shameless plug? Yes. And so I end this ramble with the following piece of advice: Be excellent to each other.
1 comment:
1. Raiding with AoA is always fun, thanks to how Jed and all of the officers run the raids.
*looks pointedly at recruiting link :D*
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WHAT IS THIS? I have patched util-linux-2.9r so that "login" will generate and use encrypted home directories. This patch will only work with 2.2.X kernels that have been patched with the strong encryption patches available on www.kerneli.org. WHY? I couldn't get CFS to work on my laptop, and TCFS hasn't been ported to 2.2.X yet. ppdd is still pretty new. If there was a linux version of "Scramdisk", I probably wouldn't have bothered to write this. NO, I MEANT WHY SHOULD I USE IT? You could use it to keep your home directory encrypted when you're not logged in. When you log in, your directory is automagically decrypted. When you logout, your home directory, and the files in it, are encrypted again. Hmm, my friend D. says this isn't correct. He says whatever you read/write is decrypted/encrypted on-the-fly. Anyway, if you're running linux on a laptop, and the laptop gets stolen, your files can't be read. WHAT'S THE CATCH? This is *alpha* software. It no doubt contains bugs, more bugs, and yet more bugs. Use it at your own risk. The author accepts no responsibility for loss of your precious data. If you're not comfortable patching critical system programs, this probably isn't for you. You should be comfortable with loop devices before making use of this patch. HOW DOES IT WORK? If your home directory begins with "/crypt/", the following happens when you log in: - a free loop device is found. - you're asked for the size of your home directory (4/8/16/32/64/128/ 256/512/1024 MB). - once you've selected a size, a nMB-sized file named "/crypt/(your-id)" is created (ie. /crypt/101). - you are asked for a passphrase and given your choice of encryption algorithm. - if this is the first time you've logged in, the password you gave is one-way hashed and put into the file "/crypt/(your uid).x", or compared against the contents of that file otherwise. if the given passphrase(s) don't match, you get bounced out at this point. - the loop device is set up using the previously created file and the passphrase you supplied. - if this is the first time through, a ext2 filesystem is created on the loop device, otherwise the filesystem is checked for errors. if no errors are found, the filesystem is mounted on the loop device and you can proceed normally. - if you're logged in and you log in again from another VT, you're asked for the passphrase, which is compared against the stored passphrase, and if they match, you can proceed. this is to stop somebody who knows your login password, but not your EHD passphrase from piggybacking into your directory. - when you log out the last time, the filesystem is unmounted and the loop device is freed. HOW DO I USE IT? - you must be running 2.2.X with strong encryption. go to www.kerneli.org to download the kernel patches to enable strong encryption in your 2.2.X kernel. - you must have loop devices enabled in the kernel, as well as strong encryption. - you must find a copy of "util-linux-2.9r.tar.gz", then gunzip and untar it somewhere to produce the directory "util-linux-2.9r". as an alternative, you can download the already-patched file "util-linux-2.9r_ehd.tar.gz" directly from this website and skip the next step. - download the file "ehd-X.Ypatch". put this file into the same place you put "util-linux-2.9r". type the command patch -p0 < ehd-X.Y.patch you should now have the directory "util-linux-2.9r_ehd". - change directory to util-linux-2.9r_ehd. - if your system doesn't use PAM (PAM = Pluggable Authentication Modules, used by default in RedHat, apparently not used in Slackware, i'm not sure about Debian or any other variants), you'll have to modify the file "MCONFIG" and comment out the line "HAVE_PAM=yes". - type "./config". - cd util-linux-2.9r_ehd/mount, and type "make" to create a version of "losetup" that contains BLOWFISH encryption. - before installing "losetup", test it by doing the following: dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/testfile bs=1k count=1024 ./losetup -e blowfish /dev/loop0 /tmp/testfile mkfs -t ext2 /dev/loop0 1024 mount -t ext2 /dev/loop0 /mnt umount /dev/loop0 ./losetup -d /dev/loop0 if that worked, strongly-encrypted loop devices should be working correctly. - after building "losetup", cd ../login-utils, and type "make login". - test "login" by doing the following: - make sure that you're logged in AT LEAST once as root on another VT! - make sure you have at least 4MB free under "/" ! - cp /bin/login /bin/login.old && chattr +i /bin/login.old - cp -f login /bin/login - mkdir /crypt - create a user called "test", with a home directory of "/crypt/test". - try logging in as "test". you should see You don't seem to have an encrypted home directory. Setting one up for you. Choose a size for your home directory: 4: 4MB 8: 8MB 16: 16MB 32: 32MB (default) 64: 64MB 128: 128MB 256: 256MB 512: 512MB 1024: 1024MB Size [32MB] ? 4 Creating a 4MB home directory. Patience please ... done. Choose an encryption method: 0: BLOWFISH (default) 1: CAST128 2: DFC 3: IDEA 4: MARS 5: RC6 6: SERPENT Encryption method [0] ? Using the BLOWFISH encryption method. You'll need a passphrase to decrypt your home directory. It can be up to 256 characters long. *DO NOT* use your login password! Passphrase: - type in a passphrase. you should see Again, please: - retype your passphrase. if you retyped it correctly you should see Saving encrypted passphrase ... (a few seconds pass) done. Creating filesystem ... (a few seconds pass) done. Mounting filesystem as your home ... (a few seconds pass) done. - logout, and then try logging in the same way again as "test". you should see Last login: Mon Jun 7 20:09:23 on tty3 Your home directory appears to be encrypted. Passphrase: - type in your passphrase. you should see Checking filesystem ... looks OK. Mounting filesystem as your home ... done. I REBOOTED AND NOW I CAN'T LOG IN ANYMORE! Stale lock files can be left around in "/var/lock/login" if the system loses power / is rebooted when an encrypted-home-directory is active, which will make it impossible for the user to log back in. The solution to this problem is to put the following line into the file "/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit" (or the equivalent on non-RedHat systems) to remove any stale lock files when the system comes up: ... /bin/rm -f /var/lock/login/* ... CAVEATS Root can read your files once you've logged in. You can't change your password once you've set it, and if you forget it, you're screwed. "su" and "ssh" aren't supported yet. If you remove or muck with "/crypt/XXX" and/or "/crypt/XXX.x" and/or "/var/lock/login/*" while you're logged in, things will break badly. If anybody but you is in your directory when you logout, the filesystem won't umount and the loop device won't be deallocated. If "e2fsck", "mkfs", and "mount" are in funny places, it won't work. If things go very wrong, you may be able to recover using something like the following: # losetup -d /dev/loop0 (or loop1 or loop2 or whatever) # /bin/rm -fr /var/lock/login If that doesn't work, reboot, and everything should get cleaned up correctly. I wouldn't change root's home directory to "/crypt/root" myself, but if anybody wants to try, I'd be interested in hearing what happened. Probably things will blow up in a spectacular fashion and hose your system. Don't say I didn't warn you. DOCUMENTATION For now, aside from this file, there is none. Read the source. BUGS No doubt there are bugs. If you find them, please send email. Try to be descriptive. "It doesn't work!" isn't much help. And before you ask, I can't help you if you forget your passphrase. Pick up any phone and ask for the NSA, they'll be glad to help you :) Constructive comments, money, and beer are welcome. Flames and spam -> /dev/null. Id Est July 11, 1999
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human ear
Detection of linear acceleration: static equilibrium
The gravity receptors that respond to linear acceleration of the head are the maculae of the utricle and saccule (see Anatomy of the human ear: Inner ear: Vestibule). The left and right utricular maculae are in the same, approximately horizontal, plane and because of this position are more useful in providing information about the position of the head and its side-to-side tilts when a person is in an upright position. The saccular maculae are in parallel vertical planes and probably respond more to forward and backward tilts of the head.
Both pairs of maculae are stimulated by shearing forces between the otolithic membrane and the cilia of the hair cells beneath it. The otolithic membrane is covered with a mass of minute crystals of calcite (otoconia), which add to the membrane’s weight and increase the shearing forces set up in response to a slight displacement when the head is tilted. The hair bundles of the macular hair cells are arranged in a particular pattern—facing toward (in the utricle) or away from (in the saccule) a curving midline—that allows detection of all possible head positions. These sensory organs, particularly the utricle, have ... (200 of 16,045 words)
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Longview Car Vandalism - KYTX CBS 19 Tyler Longview News Weather Sports
Longview Car Vandalism
Longview Car Vandalism
Posted: Updated:
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Bobby Summerford lives here on Kingsbury Court in Longview, a neighborhood trying to get some peace after vandals played an expensive prank.
Summerford says the vandals cost him hundreds of dollars in damaged paint jobs to his two cars and he's already been hit several other times this year
"As I came out to church Sunday morning, the back of my truck was covered in eggs. So I told my wife I think we've been hit again. She went 'again?'." - Summerford
"Bobby Summerford says he was sick and tired of having his cars vandalized, so he installed these cameras, to keep watch while he isn't." - Kevin Boyce
A measure that may seem extreme for some but for Summerford, it's to protect the ones around him.
"If I have to spend a little extra money on security cameras to keep this neighborhood safe than that's what I'll do" - Summerford
The cameras paid off, Capturing video of 3 men jumping out of this car and egging half a dozen cars in the neighborhood including two of the Summerford's.
"To them destroying someone else's property doesn't mean anything. But I've worked hard for my things." - Summerford
Longview Police hope someone recognizes the people in the video and comes forward.
In the mean time, Summerford is preparing in case it happens again..
"We're gonna upgrade, and have cameras to where we can get better footage."
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Papakea Resort - 121 vacation rentals
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If you're planning a vacation to Hawaii, you'll want to check out Papakea Resort vacation rentals. These beach rentals are more affordable than a hotel, especially for longer stays, allowing you to enjoy the luxury of a beach condo at a reasonable price. Papakea Resort beach rentals have many acres of lush lawns and beautiful gardens, ensuring you're surrounded by beauty on your vacation.
Papakea Resort Beach Rentals: Your Home Away From Home
When you choose one of the Kaanapali resorts, you're making a choice to relax in comfort. You can enjoy the convenience of a fully equipped kitchen, where you can prepare your own meals on your own schedule. Instead of worrying about making dinner reservations, you can prepare the meal of your choice. The Papakea Resort vacation rentals also have washers and dryers, allowing you to do laundry when needed.
Luxury Entertainment at Kaanapali Resorts
Papakea Resort vacation rentals feature golf courses, swimming pools, and spa amenities. Whether you enjoy tennis, golf, or yoga, the resort doesn't disappoint. If you prefer to relax in your room, you can cookout on your balcony or enjoy the complementary WiFi that's offered throughout the resort.
If you're planning a Hawaiian getaway, you're sure to enjoy the Papakea resort. You can relax in style and enjoy the entertainment of your choice. Take in the local attractions, play a few rounds of golf, or snorkel in the ocean. Vacation rentals allow you to enjoy the beauty that Hawaii has to offer at your own pace. There's no need to fret about check in or check out times, dinner reservations, or where to go for breakfast. Instead, you can focus on relaxation. Vacation rentals are an affordable alternative to hotels. Discover how you can spend more time in Hawaii for less money. It doesn't get much better than that.
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Pantoea agglomerans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Gram stain of Pantoea agglomerans under 1000 magnification
Pantoea agglomerans
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Bacteria
Phylum: Proteobacteria
Class: Gamma Proteobacteria
Order: Enterobacteriales
Family: Enterobacteriaceae
Genus: Pantoea
Binomial name
Pantoea agglomerans
(Ewing and Fife 1972)
Gavini et al. 1989
Type strain
ATCC 27155
CCUG 539
CDC 1461-67
CFBP 3845
CIP 57.51
DSM 3493
ICPB 3435
ICMP 12534
JCM 1236
LMG 1286
NCTC 9381
Enterobacter agglomerans Ewing and Fife 1972
Bacillus agglomerans Beijerinck 1888
Erwinia herbicola (Löhnis 1911) Dye 1964
Bacterium herbicola Löhnis 1911
Bacterium herbicola Geilinger 1921
Pseudomonas herbicola (Geilinger 1921) de’Rossi 1927
Corynebacterium beticola Abdou 1969
Pseudomonas trifolii Huss
Pantoea agglomerans is a Gram-negative bacterium that belongs to the family Enterobacteriaceae.
Formerly called Enterobacter agglomerans, this bacterium is known to be an opportunistic pathogen in the immunocompromised, causing wound, blood, and urinary-tract infections. It is commonly isolated from plant surfaces, seeds, fruit (e.g. mandarin oranges), and animal or human feces.
It is difficult to differentiate Pantoea spp. from other members of this family, such as Enterobacter, Klebsiella, and Serratia species. However, Pantoea does not utilize the amino acids lysine, arginine, and ornithine, a characteristic that sets it apart from the other genera. (Winn, et al.; "Koneman's Color Atlas and Textbook of Diagnostic Microbiology", Sixth Edition, 2006: Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins)
Pantoea agglomerans is found in the gut of locusts, which have adapted to use the guaiacol that Pantoea agglomerans produces to initiate swarming of locusts.[1]
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May 5, 2012
Sandra Dallas on Her Mother’s Response to a Tragedy
In 1948, my sister Donna died of polio. She was 13 years old. Her death was a devastating loss not only to our family but to everyone who knew her. She was a beautiful girl, with black hair and dark eyes, and she was my best friend. Nearly 60 years later, a woman who’d lived near us recalled Donna’s death as “a neighborhood tragedy.”
Donna was spending the summer with our grandparents in Moline, Ill., when she contracted polio. Mom and Dad rushed from Denver to her bedside, arriving just an hour before she died. Only their faith and the fact they had two younger children --- I was nine, my brother Michael, seven --- kept them going.
Like all parents who lose children, Mom looked for a way to remember my sister, not with a monument such as a stained glass window, but something living, something that would contribute to the lives of others, especially children. What could be more important than books? So on the train back to Denver where my parents accompanied Donna’s coffin, Mom decided she would establish a library at our church, one of the largest Presbyterian churches in the country. At first, the library was to be in Donna’s memory, but Mom realized it would be more meaningful if the library memorialized others, too. And so she established the Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church Memorial Library, and over the years dozens, perhaps hundreds of people were remembered by the gift of books.
The library began with Donna’s own books, her Nancy Drews, her small collection of childhood favorites, such as her much-loved SMILING HILL FARM. The library grew as others cleaned out their bookshelves or made monetary donations to purchase books in memory of loved ones. What began in the corner of a meeting room became a real library with its own room filled with books about religion and history, children’s volumes and fiction, as well as books written by church members. There is a shelf of my books, which are dedicated to Donna and Mom and Dad.
Mom, who never went to college, taught herself librarianship. She pioneered ways to fund the library. Her methods were adapted by other churches, and in 2001, she was given an award by the Church and Synagogue Library Assn. She died less than a month later. Her last conversation was about the library. If she had lived, Mom would have been 100 years old this year.
My brother, younger sister, and I received over a hundred condolence notes from church members, many with checks to purchase books in Mom’s memory. And at her funeral my brother intoned, “If any of you have overdue library books, now would be a good time to return them.”
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Social Media Tips for Parents
How to Make Your Child’s Blog Private
The Differences between an Au Pair and a Nanny
Getting Your Children to Listen to You
Good communication skills are the foundation for building a great relationship with your kids. However, so many different elements get thrown in the way that listening and communicating aren't always easy or effective.
Here are some techniques that you can use to improve communication with your kids. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll mind you or agree with what you're saying, which is okay, but at least they'll hear what you're saying.
Talking vs. being heard
Mother: "I've informed you a googolplex times to abstain from vexing your sibling."
Child: "Huh, Mom?"
• Get down to your children's level.
• Use simple words.
• Get to the point.
• Don't yell.
Getting down to your children's level
When you really want your kids to hear you when you talk, physically get down to their level. If you can't squat, pick them up and put them on your lap. Look them right in the eyes, speak calmly and slowly, and say what you have to say. Don't be vague or babble and don't try to impress your children with your fabulous expanded vocabulary.
You certainly don't need to get down to your children's level to say, "Good morning," or "Are you hungry?" Save this kind of action for serious conversations such as, "Now, Simon, what did you do with Mommy's keys?" or, "Do you understand why you got into trouble for hitting your brother over the head with the bat?" But don't forget that the most important part of communicating is being a good listener. Communication can't work both ways when you're doing all the talking and none of the listening.
Using simple words
As adults, parents sometimes are brave enough to say, "What exactly does that mean?" They do this hoping they don't sound too much like a dork. Kids, on the other hand, will smile at you, and nod, or better yet, stare at you with blank looks on their faces.
Here are some real-life comparisons of interpretations from your mouth to your child's ears.
• What you say: "Jordan, you need to be responsible and put your dirty clothes in the clothes hamper every night."
What he hears: "Jordan, you need to be rah-pitty-blah and put your dirty clothes in the clothes hamper every night."
• What you say: "Jeremiah, don't piddle. You're supposed to clean your room."
What he hears: "Jeremiah, don't pid hole. You're supposed to clean your room."
• What you say: "Don't be sarcastic to your sister."
What he hears: "Don't be sark a stick to your sister."
Talk to your kids by using words that they understand. Getting your point across is easier when your kids know what you're talking about. If you don't think they understand, ask them to explain what you've just said. That is a great test to see how well you're getting your message across.
When you don't talk to your kids using words that they understand, you may as well be speaking Swahili. That's why you hear many successful parents talking in short, blunt sentences, using simple commands, although they sometimes sound like they're talking to a pet: "Sit. Stay. No, no, no! Stop, stop, stop! Good boy."
At some point, you'll have to expand your vocabulary; you won't always have to talk on a preschool level. When you begin introducing new words to your children, take the time to ask whether they understand what you've just said. Many times, they'll smile meekly and say, "Yes," insincerely. Just ask them to explain what you said. If they're missing your meaning, explain it to them in another way or define the word that's throwing them off.
Always ask children whether they understand. If they seem unsure or hesitate, then ask them to explain it back to you. That's really the only way you'll ever discover whether you're getting your point across. Of course, you may have a child who doesn't hesitate to ask you what certain words mean. Then there's no question as to what is understood.
Getting to the point
Pretend that you're being timed on a conversation egg timer. If you don't say what you need to say within a short time, you've lost the attention of most children. On the other hand, when you're too brief, they'll ask for more information, if they need it.
Your kids understand you a lot better when you're specific and when you get right to the point, so:
• Don't ramble on and on.
• Don't go into long explanations.
• Say exactly what you mean.
Children don't have to listen to you. They can choose not to listen the same way that you choose not to listen to certain people. You can't force, bribe, beg, or plead enough to get them to listen. They don't care. Even if you're in the middle of a sentence, they'll walk away when they get bored or are just tired of listening. Good communication between you and your children is the foundation for a long, happy, and growing relationship. If your children aren't listening to you, you've lost that foundation to build upon.
Don't yell
Yelling is the worst way to communicate.
Here's a guarantee: When you yell at your kids, they're not listening to a thing that you're saying. All they're doing is sitting there teary-eyed and upset because you're yelling or they're getting angry themselves. Your point is lost, they're upset, and you're upset. Nothing has been accomplished.
When you yell, your message doesn't get across. So whenever you reach the point where you're about to yell at someone, stop and leave the room. Just for a second, mind you. Take a few deep breaths, get your composure back, and approach the situation again.
Your job is to communicate your ideas to your children in a calm manner. Yelling shows your kids that you've lost control of yourself.
You're trying to be a role model and teacher. Yelling isn't a trait that you want to pass on to your kids. In fact, it comes back to haunt you as your kids grow older and their hormones get all stirred up. After all, when you yell, you're only teaching them to yell.
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When Moral Choices are Done RightJanuary 23, 2013 by
It seems like moral choices, or choices that have consequences on the story and characters, are sort of the "hip" thing as of late. Some thrive off this feature, and others are bogged down by it. There exists in my mind a right and wrong way to implement moral choices in games, and a couple of notable examples inspired my theory.
Firstly, there are the games where there's the good path and the bad path. My experience with these comes in the form of InFamous and Bioshock. At some point around the beginning of the game, you'll decide to yourself what you want to be: the good guy or the bad guy. From then on, all of your choices are a decision between good and evil. Rescue the Little Sisters or harvest them? Poison the water supply or cleanse it?
Besides, rescuing is the only choice that makes logical sense.
You don't want to switch the path you've chosen because the game rewards you sticking to either good or evil. In these moral-choice situations, you're thinking, "which decision works toward the path I'm already on?" because you want to earn the right abilities/rewards and the right ending. In games like this, you're likely not thinking about the characters or the repercussions of your actions. Thus, your moral choices don't carry much weight at all.
Fallout 3, for me, came so very close to getting it right. Here were some real moral choices, and they weighed heavily on me. Sometimes, I felt guilty, and I'd wonder if I made the right choice. But it always bothered me how my "karma" would be tracked. So, just because I once gave bottles of water to a homeless man, the surly retired raider won't be my companion. The choices in the game were great, but the karma aspect interfered with them.
Why would you ever want to turn evil?
The superstars of moral choices in my experience are Heavy Rain and the Telltale Walking Dead series. First of all, the choices you have to make are so unfair and cruel that they're amazing to experience. They don't track your overall goodness/evilness, and they instead let each decision have its own consequence. Maybe it's thanks to their particular style of adventure game, but they just got it right.
When I was presented with a tough decision in either of these games, I thought about the other characters, I thought about how much I would put myself through, I thought about what was fair and what wasn't. When I start thinking about how a decision will affect my karma meter, the moral aspect of it is lost. For some games, moral choices are a superficial feature that detracts from their overall package. Others games absolutely thrive off it since they do it right, and I hope to see more of those in the future.
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from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
• Pertaining to or characterized by pleonexia; morbidly greedy or covetous.
Sorry, no etymologies found.
• In sum, his position represents the immoralist challenge in a fully developed but streamlined form, as reducible to a simple question: given the conventional character of justice and our own pleonectic nature, why should any one of us be just, in any context in which injustice would be profitable?
Callicles and Thrasymachus
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Sexual policies and politics during the occupation of Japan
by Jeff Kingston
Occupying Power: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Postwar Japan, by Sarah Kovner. Stanford University Press, 2012, 240 pp., $50.00 (hardcover)
Love, Sex and Democracy During the American Occupation, by Mark McClelland. Palgrave MacMillan, 2012, 252 pp., $85.00 (hardcover)
Six decades after the U.S. occupation of Japan (1945-52) ended, two fascinating books probe the sexual policies, politics and norms that animated and emanated from this encounter with considerable reward from rather different angles.
Sarah Kovner focuses on the post-1945 sex industry serving GIs, while Mark McClelland delves into how the American presence influenced carnal attitudes and practices among Japanese.
Kovner argues that “Sex work provides a powerful subject to analyze social change.” She discusses the establishment of official brothels by the Japanese government for the occupying troops and their disbandment by American Gen. Douglas MacArthur due to health and moral considerations. This did not stifle private enterprise and did not help limit sexually transmitted diseases among the troops, much of which they apparently brought with them and spread among Japanese sex workers and hence their colleagues.
Draconian measures were employed to eradicate STDs, including forced testing of Japanese women detained during random sweeps in streets and parks, even as U.S. authorities limited availability of penicillin for Japanese hospitals and exacerbated the epidemic.
Due to the desperate circumstances in war-ravaged Japan, panpan (prostitutes) were a familiar sight on the streets, irresistible to GIs on the prowl while for many Japanese they were a source of shame, target of censure and unwelcome reminder of defeat.
Kovner points out that tolerance toward prostitution as a “necessary evil” did not extend to those who served American servicemen. She argues that the moral posturing over prostitution ignored the fact that a majority of sex workers needed the money and had few options. Oddly, after “more than 300 years of being regulated and in some cases celebrated, they were now made to represent everything wrong with postwar society.”
The new constitution written by the U.S. occupiers promoted democracy and women’s rights, and was a key factor in bolstering various groups advocating a legal ban on prostitution. Kovner’s detailed analysis of this movement and the politics of prostitution is illuminating, explaining how sex industry bribery of Diet members facilitated crucial compromises ensuring that outlawing sex work in 1956 had limited practical impact. Kovner also draws our gaze to the unintended consequences of efforts to ban prostitution, arguing that it has made it harder for women to organize against abuses, an ongoing problem in contemporary Japan.
Mark McClelland’s excellent and intriguing appraisal of how Japanese responded to a new climate of sexuality under the American occupation draws on several years of research that began auspiciously enough at the Museum of Perverts in Kagurazaka. The U.S. authorities promoted democratization and liberalized attitudes toward gender relations, sparking considerable interest in American dating practices and sexual techniques. Combing through the popular press, McLelland surveys sexual discourse as a means to better understand changing norms and what was going on in bed.
While occupation authorities banned references to the febrile fraternization between GIs and Japanese, there were no such restrictions on covering sex among Japanese. An entire chapter on the kiss debate might seem excessive, but it is a fascinating analysis of how osculating became a symbol for democratization. During the occupation, Alfred Kinsey’s study on sexual behavior in the United States was quickly translated and sparked open discussion of sexuality, a discourse that drew on notions of modern democracy and eager experimentation in the name of scientific inquiry.
The occupation was part awakening and part reawakening as Japanese shed the Victorian inhibitions promoted by the State since the late 19th century. Thus, despite a rich libertine tradition and tolerance regarding inclinations Americans often termed deviant, many sexperts thought there was much catching up to do.
McCelland points out that defeat had profound consequences for Japanese sexual practices and postwar morality. The media dwelled on the emasculating process of surrender and according to him, “an increase in male homosexuality was considered a symptom of defeated nations. “He argues that Japanese authorities maintained a policy of benign neglect toward male-male sexuality, a practice he suggests had spread on distant battlefields and came home to roost.
The press, no longer constrained by wartime strictures, extolled the pleasures of ryoki (curiosity hunting), generating a boom in cruising for fleshly adventures. Ironically, “it became much easier to talk about sex in the Japanese media in the late 1940s than it was in the United States.” But sexual liberation was highly asymmetrical, meaning what was good for men was not necessarily advantageous for women. Sex journalism catered to men’s fantasies while also providing tips on lovemaking. The author explains that male readers were enjoined to “regulate their own climaxes so as to better optimize ideal conditions for the climaxes of their partners.”
McClelland subverts top-down perspectives on sexuality in his riveting bottom-up perspective based on media accounts. We learn, for example, about the cross-dressing male dansho (prostitutes) of Ueno, their battles with police, chivalrous protection of female sex workers and special techniques, all reported dispassionately by the media. While sexual liberation was welcome by many, McClelland concludes that some people may have felt hassled by the relentless and invasive projection of new norms and performance standards that butted in on their sex life.
Jeff Kingston is director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan
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Team needs for Atlantic Division- my opinion but feel free to leave yours! Celtics on the clock..
The celtics have like a one year window before danny Ainge is gonna start rebuilding. Here is what I think they need to do to get back to the championship.
1. Resign Jeff green and give him a bigger role maybe even start him. He could be your next big star after the big three is done. Rondo,Green and ? could possibly be the next big three. Plus the younger legs would help Rondo's game in transition.
2.Sign and trade Big baby before he leaves and the C's get nothing in return. There is alot of team that need inside help and hopefully the Celtics can get a potential starter in return
3. Target a couple free agent who want to win but also want to start at there position. I think player get to comfortable when there role is quaranteed.
Target free agent list:
1. DeAndre jordan- Rondo assist ratio would go thru the roof plus he can defend, block shots and score in transition. Not to metion he is a crowd pleaser who is hella athletic
2. Reggie Williams, Micheal Redd, Shane Battier, Grant hill,- All of these players can score but I think you have to go with battier because he can defend at a high level
3. If they cant get Jordan they need to get a five who can change the possesion arrow. Every sice Big perk lgot traded the Celtics lane is wide open with ray, and pual on the wing. Garnett aint a spring chicken any more they need help in the middle bad. Dalembert might be a option but he already said he wants to go to a running team. I'm thinking NY or the heat but who knows.
4. Resign west but pick up a true veteran point guard. Rondo is a animal but he is over played and unhealthy they may need to pick up Tj ford or even Mcgrady and no he is not a true point but he has played with the ball in his hand his whole career and he is now a better decision maker than ever.
Let me know what yall think!
B-ball fan
Registered User
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Posts: 2155
Points: 2338
I'm a Cs fan, and I am really hoping some other team offers Jeff Green a contract too exorbitant for Danny Ainge to match. I didn't have high hopes for the Jeff Green acquisition, and I still don't see what is so great about him. Glen Davis, even with his offensive struggles, is better than Green, who plays very poor defense, doesn't rebound well at all and is below average for a 3 at almost every aspect of the offensive game. Green's fg% from every location on the court was below average for an NBA player last year, and the Celtics were dramatically better when he was on the bench, just as OKC was before them (To be fair, Green wasn't the only problem with OKC's starting line-up). I wasn't against trading Perkins, who was coming off an injury, was not going to be able to change the outcome of any Celtics playoff series, and may have left in the offseason anyways, but Green wasn't a good target unless they can sign and trade him.
Signing DeAndre Jordan would certainly be a great steal, but I highly doubt LAC will let him leave. You are absolutely right that the Cs need to resign West and/or sign another pg. The Cs need to keep Rondo healthy for the playoffs. I agree that TJ Ford would be a great option and maybe Patty Mills would be a good player to sign as well if they don't get Ford.
Since the Celtics need help in the middle, I think realistically they should target Joel Pryzbilla if he is healthy and resign Glend Davis. I think Davis might be a bit overrated to be honest, as he is not a good offensive player and a liabity at that end when his shot is off, which it typically was last year, when he shot one of the lowest percentages in the NBA on long twos. He is a great defender at either big man position, though, and the Cs may not be able to afford to lose him. Jeff Green is the better option for the Cs to sign and trade.
I agree that the Cs need to sign a veteran wing. I like Mike Dunleavy, but any of the players listed by gmforhire would be decent as well. Marquis Daniels may also be an option, but I don't know if he is healthy enough to take a chance on again. That spinal injury was scary, and apparently is Daniels is susceptible to that happening. The Celtics do need offensive help, though, as they were a bad offensive team, so I would prefer Dunleavy, Redd, McGrady, and Williams to Battier or Daniels.
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Malcom Bridge Middle School
Chess Club
Kimberly Howeth
Club Sponsor
The Malcom Bridge Middle School chess club and chess team are provided to give the students an opportunity to play chess competitively and for enjoyment. The chess club allows the students to improve their chess skills while spending time with their friends. The chess team is chosen from the chess club to represent the school in competitions.
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Chemistry alone cannot explain the origin of life - Taipei Times
Thu, Jan 17, 2013 - Page 9 News List
Chemistry alone cannot explain the origin of life
By Paul Davies / The Guardian
Sara Walker, a NASA astrobiologist working at Arizona State University, and I have proposed that the significant property of biological information is not its complexity, but the way it is organized hierarchically. In all physical systems there is a flow of information from the bottom upwards, in the sense that the components of a system serve to determine how the system as a whole behaves. Thus if a meteorologist wants to predict the weather, he may start with local information taken at various locations, and calculate how the weather system as a whole will change. In living organisms, this pattern of bottom-up information flow mingles with the inverse — top-down information flow — so that what happens at the local level can depend on the global environment, as well as vice versa.
To take a simple example: Whether a cell expresses a gene can depend on mechanical stresses or electric fields acting on the whole cell by its environment. Thus, a change in global information (a pattern of force) at the macroscopic level translates into a change in local information movement at the microscopic level (switching on a gene). More generally, a range of signals received from its environment help to dictate how a cell’s DNA is distributed and transcribed. Walker and I propose that the key transition on the road to life occurred when top-down information flow first predominated. Based on mathematical models, we think it may have happened suddenly, analogously to a heated gas abruptly bursting into flame.
There is a second distinctive way in which life handles information processing. The language of genes is digital, consisting of discrete bits, cast in the language of a four-letter alphabet. By contrast, chemical processes are continuous. Continuous variables can also process information — so-called analogue computers work that way — but less reliably than digital. Whatever chemical system spawned life, it had to feature a transition from analogue to digital.
The way life manages information involves a logical structure that differs fundamentally from mere complex chemistry. Therefore chemistry alone will not explain life’s origin, any more than a study of silicon, copper and plastic will explain how a computer works. Our work suggests that the answer will come from taking information seriously as a physical agency, with its own dynamics and causal relationships existing alongside those of the matter that embodies it — and that life’s origin can ultimately be explained by importing the language and concepts of biology into physics and chemistry, rather than the other way round.
Paul Davies is director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University.
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First Afghanistan, now Libya. Can Nato actually win any of its wars?
As its campaigns falter, the military alliance could find that in future fewer countries are willing to sign up to fight
British Royal Marines under fire in Helmand.
British Royal Marines under fire in Helmand. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
The armed forces of the world's mightiest military alliance, Nato, have failed twice now to win a war. American, British, French and other foreign troops are preparing to withdraw from a combat role in Afghanistan, the first war in which Nato deployed ground forces, while the US, Britain and France again also appear to be on the point of giving up the fight in Libya, saying Gaddafi can stay there after all, provided he gives up power.
Since Iraq, a US-led war waged by a "coalition of the willing", the number of willing has gradually decreased. Now, after Afghanistan and Libya, they are likely to be fewer than ever.
Nato countries have spent billions – Britain more than £14bn at the last count – failing to counter an insurgency in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in Libya, they have conducted more than 6,000 strike sorties – with Britain destroying more than 700 targets at a cost of well over £120m at the last count.
You cannot "drop democracy from 14,000ft", David Cameron said weeks before enthusiastically joining Nicolas Sarkozy in trying to do just that. Ironically, it was the defence chiefs who were trying to pull him back. Then the head of the navy, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, and the head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, realised they may be on to a good thing. The navy could show it has some uses – firing cruise missiles from its submarines, seizing a rare opportunity to fire its frigates' guns, providing humanitarian relief. The RAF could for the first time show off its Eurofighter/Typhoon's ability to attack targets on the ground rather than practise dogfights with imaginary Soviet fighters. Arms companies could demonstrate how smart their weapons were.
What's more, they could point a finger at their political master, Liam Fox, for agreeing to deep cuts in last year's strategic defence and security review (SDSR). We could have done better had HMS Ark Royal and her fleet of Harrier jump jets not been scrapped, navy commanders suggested. That will teach you to threaten to cut the number of Tornado jets, muttered air force commanders.
Which leaves the poor army. Though Apache helicopters, which have been attacking targets in Libya from their base on HMS Ocean, belong to the army, ground forces have played no role in the conflict. Afghanistan has delayed deep cuts in the army, though General Sir Peter Wall, chief of the general staff, recently let slip they are well on their way.
What role will the army, the navy or the RAF have in future are questions that, after Libya, will be harder than ever to answer. They are unlikely to rely, as they have in the past, on the US, which made it clear from the start it did not want to drop bombs on Libya, and resisted all British attempts to persuade it to do so.
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Nokia’s unannounced Lumia 505 gets real. Launching with Win Phone 7.8 on Telcel soon.
The Nokia Lumia 505, a customized sister device to the low-end Lumia 510, is said to be coming exclusively to Mexican carrier Telcel “soon”. We first reported on this story last week and we were a tad skeptical only because there has been nothing official—either from Telcel or Nokia—on this phone.
Now in Telcel’s holiday catalog, the elusive device is shown in full, making this a bonafide Windows Phone that is on its way to Mexico...
The deets on the Lumia 505 are in line with what we’ve been expecting: a 3.7” Super AMOLED display (800x480), 8MP rear camera, 4GB internal memory and yes, it will come with Windows Phone 7.8 out the gate.
The phone will arrive in Black, Red and Magenta for color selection.
There’s no word on pricing or exact availability, but the Lumia 505 is listed under “Coming soon” meaning it shouldn’t be too long before folks can get this handsome device in their hands.
Thanks, Rolando V., for the tip!
Reader comments
Not a first... I think it was the focus that had a microSD slot. The HD7 also has one, but it's not accessible (you have to void the warranty to access it)
This means WP7.8 is ready to go as of right now... And we don't have it... At least that's what im taking away from the article
You provide a link to an article which you yourself havn't read very well! Nowhere in the article does it say "that 7.8 phones would be released within a couple of weeks". What it says is that "Windows Phone 7.8 will begin to ship ... in the coming weeks". "Coming weeks" could refer to two weeks or to twenty weeks! In short, we know it's coming but just not exactly when.
Because back in June, Microsoft and Nokia said Windows Phone 7.x would continue to get support and be released for lower-end devices. They're not killing off the OS, not for another ~2 years.
Still doesn't make sense why there holding on to an "old" OS. Don't get me wrong, I do love 7.8 but why not make WP8 its primary and lower down specs on that? After all it is all about the "newest." iOS makes their versions on all iPhones (even though some of the features aren't seen on all iPhones). Yes we know that features like siri aren't seen on all devices but consumers see the iOS 6 on their legacy phone yet it makes them happy. If you could choose between two phones, both same low price and similar looks, would you buy WP7.8 or WP8?
The reasons for WP7.8 seem to be to allow for a cheaper processor. I think the minimums for WP8 are higher than 7.8. With the 620 at $250 it seems odd, but the 505 is going to be cheaper than that. It's going to be a hell of a lot better than a cheap android, bada or S40 in my opinion. It also means there is more reason to support 7.8 devices longer term.
Oh you can be sure the Lumia 505 is way better than the cheap androids like the Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Galaxy Pocket. The Y and the Pocket are really crappy with their miniscule and low-res screens and their laggy android gingerbreads. not to mention the poor signal reception!
Us that stayed in 7.x still want support and I am glad Microsoft is still supporting early adopters of the OS. If we were left behind, we'd be dust just like Windows Mobile, and we certainly don't want that to happen again.
I never said not to support wp7 devices. What bothers me most is that after having an OS become "outdated" they keep on pushing out budget devices with that operating system. We are lucky enough to have our phones for a year because we'll still get updates till our upgrade times come. Unfortunately for the ones who are gonna buy a wp7 device now you're not gonna have a long road of updates. It'll eventually stop all together. Microsoft isn't gonna devide their team to make sure that an outdated OS is gonna stay alive (much like Windows Mobile). Im just saying there's not much of a future for wp7.8 devices
But it is happening again. WP7 is agonizing for a bit longer but its life support machine switch was put in the off position by MS. Soon its gonna happen to WP8. October 2013 I guess. There are too few customers not to do the same profitable thing again. The OS will probably be re-branded this time - Metro Phone? Surface Phone? We'll see in about a year probably.
What about the new 920 or the 810 ? XD that's just not fair we want the new windows phone 8 devices XD especially 'cause there a lot of people here in Mexico are fans of nokia cellphones =P.
I don't understand why they're releasing new yet old devices for WP7.8.. we all know these devices wont upgrade beyond 7.8 and they dont even sport the new microsfot logo. I understand the whole budget phone thing but they couldve released cheap WP8 devices like the 920 instead. Just my opinion. Either way WP7.8 is better than nothing but still.. bleh.
Looks badass to me. Always good to have choices. If you want WP8 then 620 should be the way to go. If you don't care then maybe 505. The difference is 505 and 620 look significantly different in terms of design language. Compared to the "cute-ish" 620 this ones more edgey. Nokia's just throwing out choices which we should be appreciating. Not just whining about small details.
With those Specs the pricing shouldn't go higher than the 620..that is... Nokia's aggressive lately.
The crappy Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Pocket are also priced about that much with their tiny low-res screens and small internal storage, 2MP cameras, and their laggy gingerbread OS.
My opinion on releasing a 7.8 handset is simple. Because alot of Lumia 900 buyers were "p****d off" that only to hear wp8 announced a couple of months later. It is mainly aimed at them, hence I believe the L900 will be the first to see 7.8 update. 7.8 is a wp8 update but there being honest by saying not all features will be available. Announcing a wp7.8 handset can only mean one thing... Windows phone 7.8 coming soon as well as the Microsoft "promise" that they will not leave legacy phone users in the dark. Well atleast until the end of WP8 I would think. That's my opinion. HTC titan user, Uk
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8:16 am ET
Jun 17, 2014
Wealth Management
The Only Three Purchases That Are Worthy of Debt
• 1 - "Luxury" Cars and Homes are a trap for the aspirational. Purchase when the time comes.
2- Everyone loves buying a home or condo... but why are you paying half your net income on your house payment? Its a trap that contributes to lost retirements as well.
3- Living an ascetic life is a fools errand, but how we buy things determines our success as well.
• Point of clarification: A car is not an investment. The consumption is spread over time so financing makes some sense. Make no mistake though, a car is an expense not an investment.
• You're friend who never made more than 40k a year, who is now in his late 80's couldn't have done that in today's economy, so that's bs. If he retired in his 60's and began working in his 20's that puts him in a completely different financial climate, especially for the lower middle.
• I would disagree with the debt decision for an automobile purchase. Since cars depreciate, it's not an investment, at least not a good one. Get by driving what you can and save for a nicer vehicle. Not making a car payment will allow you to invest for the future much more quickly and driving a cheap car for a few years while you're young won't damage you for life.
• Like the others posting here a automobile is NOT a investment for the future. It is a cost. Sure , you could look at it as a necessity to take you to/from the place that you go to earn income, but in today's online, remote office environment, this point is becoming more and more irrelevant.
• Of course, if you have a significant life-threatening medical issue, you may have to finance it. It is unfortunate, but can you really say "no" to a heart transplant?
• I too have a friend - albeit in his 60's - who is a multi-millionaire while making about 50k per year. His only secret was to save 15% of whatever he earned. And he lived what I consider a normal lifestyle. No BS.
• My parents always said that -Wealth- is accumulated one dollar at a time.
Tell that to consumerist America.
• The car, yes, cuts both ways. I think it is a tradeoff between no-debt and reliable transportation. Remember, a house is not an investment either, it can go up or down, you may be force to move at a down time (lots of folks in volatile markets such as CA can attest to this). You need shelter, you need transportation.
You need to look at total cost to own in a car, repar record, resale value, etc. Some more expensive cars retain more of their value so are not the albatrosses some folks think. Also, many cars can be had for really low financing rates, even 0%.
LIke anything, there is not a single good answer, but don't dismiss a higher price or new car. And the huge depreciation hit when you drive it off the lot is a myth. That is if you pay MSRP or higher. There are LOT of deals to be had where you remove much of that first year depreciation if you shop smart.
• "You’re friend who never made more than 40k a year, who is now in his late 80′s couldn’t have done that in today’s economy, so that’s bs"
Sure you can, it's the magic of compound interest and livning in a places other than the major US cities. No, he could not do it in NYC, but yeah, he could do it in a suburb of Dallas. Probalby includes the house value as well. Even if your house does not go up, you do end up paying it off and can tap it by downsizing or a reverse mortgage. So, after 30 years your house is an asset, not a debt.
• Good advice. I'll go farther to say not worth it to finance a car. Buy decent used paying cash, or finance only at 0% when avail.
• Cars are not an investment as the value does not go up with the exception of collectible or some specialty vehicles. They are a consumable item, just much more expensive.
Education is closer to an investment but students do not typically look at ROI. As a society, we need to educate our youth better on how to make college choices that reflect value more accurately, especially if we are going to call education an investment.
• ...now, in his 80s, he is a multi-millionaire...
So he has millions, pays big time taxes, can't eat what he would want to, travel how he could when he was in his 40-50s, and will end up giving his millions to "you guessed it" - the government in taxes, and medical bills),
Wouldn't you rather live for today and enjoy rather than skimp on small pleasures - those memories and vacations will last forever. When you are old and sick, it won't matter if you are a millionaire or just getting by. Actually the latter may be better - you will depart earth faster (and suffer less in the process).
• None of the three have to be financed, unless you're a social slave to conspicuous consumption. Upper years of college can be largely paid for -- say if you've chosen a career path that includes co-operative education. Cars are just noxious expenses (says the man who has his name on four at this point) that should run for years with basic maintenance. Houses, well, few are willing to "live small"; and so fall into a indebted "welfare trap" of entitlement -- that's why parents borrow to pay for college instead of downsizing, and so on.
• Out of curiosity, the friend who made 40k and still retired a millionaire... is that income adjusted for inflation? In the mid 80's, an income of 40k would be equivalent to an income of 90k+ in 2014 dollars.
• He had NO kids for sure @$40K....and no life, not much sex, vacation, life experiences....and you are driving a GM product!!!! That is total waste of money you'll be pouring money into that "investment" while someone that buys a Japanese car such as a Toyota can in the long term save money or spend it on a mocha or two...and get from point A to B in a saver, more economical way without breaking the bank...and you can read that by going to the library (ie you dont need to subscribe to Car and Driver and "waste" money) and read that in your spare time..........................................
• I've learned never to take advice from anyone who drives a Pontiac Bonneville
• Financed college - parents wouldn't help and college was my ticket out of town. It was an investment in a better job that eventually paid itself off. Also rented apartments, cheapest I could find. Financed cars because I didn't have that much money outright and it was a means to get me to and from my job, so that loan was necessary, but I do pay them off as fast as practical. Saved up some money to put a down payment on a home so I'll have it paid off in 30 years, which is when I'll retire and having a place free and clear to live in is part of my retirement plan. The only 'investment' is the education. I don't expect to make money on my home. I need a place to live and consider it part of my retirement plan (yep, I've been saving for retirement since my first job w/ a 401K - be sure to get the full match!).
I also never bought cheap toilet paper - if you want to splurge on something, let it be the good TP!
• Three purchases worthy of debt...a divorce has to be one of these three.
• Especially if married to Mamie.
• what a waste of a life. saving money until you are in your 80s and can't do anything. i spend every dime i earn, rent my place, and have had a great life for decades. if things go downhill society will care for me.
• Homes; Yes
Cars; no
If you have to finance a car, you can't afford it.
• @ sad really
No doubt about it, you are a liberal, Well guest what sad, hanks to your buddies in Congress and especially BO there isn't gong to be any money left to take care of you. I worked hard invested well and now I'm a multi millionaire. When that time does and you are broke , I'm going to laugh my a off at you.
• She made her first mistake by going into debt to pay for college. My advice to young people is to avoid all those colleges with gyms, climbing walls, and designer coffee shops. Find a good low cost state university, don't study BS liberal course like Woman's Studies, work while you go to school, and don't worry about finishing in four years. And when you get your degree don't think that is the end of your schooling. Alway work hard, live within your means, don't go out and get drunk or stoned, exercise, eat right, and learn something new each day. All old fashioned advice that's frowned upon today...but it works.
• If a car is needed in order to get you to work,
then financing a car is indeed a very good idea.
New economy cars can be leased for under $250 per month.
Of course, if you can get to work in other ways, do it.
But all transportation costs money.
Except if you can work or ride a bike to work.
• "hanks" to my buddies? what a MORON. trust me, i will be living off the $ losers who never enjoyed life made. it's called socialism and i will take advantage of it. and there's PLENTY of $ left
• that bob wright fellow sounds like the life of the party . . . not. life is not to be wasted being "conservative" and having no fun, it's better to burn out than to fade away which is all "Bob" will ever do
• Actually Sad Really I agree with Bob. Your post are derogatory and actually quite sad really. Why resort to name calling for someone you disagree with? Then you pull out the gramur card? Really sad. I am resigned to know that I have to share the earth with people who do not really contribute to bettering this world, only take and take. Do you have to throw it in our faces? I don't consider building my family's wealth to be wasting my life, and it may surprise you that I am enjoying it quite well. I also know that, either healthy or not, my family and I will be better off because of my restraint. Here's to you and an improved outlook on life!
• sure thing "Matt" . . . and I'm Buzz Aldrin, I walked on the moon
• Excellent financial advice.
Can you do something about the Federal Reserve Board financially raping savers?
• The author is right. But I'm not surprised to read so many who think his advice is silly or wrong-- and some actual haters among you all. We also saved, spent money on the right things and indeed we do enjoy it. We don't waste or squander it, and our splurges are carefully planned. But we can do them. And when we need a surprise $4000 for surgery, a new transmission (on an older car!) or a new furnace, we can pay CASH. We can send our kids to private colleges and because we didn't waste our money, we can pay for it, and have to anyway. They, in turn will get a good start.
• yes scrimp and save and work all your life denying yourself enjoyment in the here and now for the satisfaction of knowing a certain sum of money theoretically exists in an account all these years later. you're fooling yourselves AND you missed out on life with a conservative game plan. MOST people are DEAD by age 80! any by the way i do NOT appreciate the right wing attacks and LIES posted on me here. i fully said i pay my way now and spend everything i earn for present benefits. i then added that if and when i can't i will call on the socialist benefit state to take care of me as is my right
• Agree with many that automobile is a luxury purchase and one should only buy as much home and education as one can afford TODAY. Before accepting debt financing for college, figure out how much you will have left after paying for housing, food, and transportation from the after-tax income you will receive based on median entry-level wages for one graduating in your field of study from your university and living in the type of location you will find acceptable. With respect to buying a house, it depends on if you want to live in or rent it out both near-term and long-term before you can determine if buying makes sense and which financing structure will result in least after-tax total cost of ownership expense.
The THIRD DEBT which IS ACCEPTABLE is for urgent, necessary healthcare treatment. I am not advocating to go without health insurance. Unfortunately, some do not have the earnings to have the cash to cover their deductible, yet need care immediately. The sooner you get care, the sooner you recover and are in a better position to avoid chronic health issues. Chronic health issues expense compounded by lost earnings and additional insurance expense over ones lifetime are a high cost to pay because of being thrifty when the issue could have been addressed and cured.
• #4: your children's education (because they didn't ask to be born)
• I like video affiliate platform at Modulates. How about you? way more flexibility in marketing plus feedback.
• If a car is viewed as an investment, it's a bad one that loses 10% of its value the day it is purchased, new. It is an expense and a significant one.
• What about health care costs high deductibles and premiums? Is it okay to go into debt year after year to pay for your health care? If not, what alternative is there?
• Anyone who would borrow to buy a car needs his head examined.
• wrong. borrowing to buy a car is perfectly reasonable provided it is your only form of transportation. some people need to drive up to an hour, both ways, to get to work.
• Bought an '07 4 door wrangler in '09 w/ 16k miles for $18k (my first car out of college). Financed $16k through my credit union which cost me <$2k over 5 years. The dealership I bought it from offered to buy it back for $18.5k last year. Almost turned it into an investment and almost took the dealership up on their offer until I saw what auto prices are like today. I don't anticipate I'll be able to get that kind of value out of auto debt again and now that the car is recently paid off I'll be looking to squeeze as much additional value out of it as possible.
• The author of this article drives a 2001 Pontiac Bonneville? That's totally fine. I, however, only get to live once and I am going to enjoy it. If you're fine driving a 13 year old appliance for a vehicle, good for you.
• I see the first two. What's the third one?
• Make 3 pots: 1) Real Life 2) Play Life 3) Troubled Life and fund each responsibly. The system is not going to keep you as comfortable as you kept yourself. You will have fun; it is not gonna be disney everyday. Troubles will happen and you'll want the security that your money will buy.
• What an empty life "Sad really" has that he needs to blow money on cars and such in order to enjoy himself. It must be awful to be that young and feel that's the only way to have enjoyment.
I could pay cash for a Tesla Model S or a high-end BMW today but I would rather have that money in the bank -- that makes me happier and gives me more options. I wouldn't get $80,000 worth of enjoyment out of those cars. And they wouldn't impress anyone, either.
A hint for potential buyers of luxury automobiles: Nobody is nearly as impressed with your purchase as you are.
• Most people do not need to borrow for a car. The one time I borrowed money to buy a car, it was to buy a nicer car than I needed -- with even more money wasted on depreciation and maintenance. The availability of a loan allowed me to make a stupid decision. Happens too much with too many people these days.
• I get the point about your friend however he has a good chance of being the richest man in the nursing home ! A balanced spending plan is better than skimping just to accumulate money.
• Agree with Jim, there is very little need to go into debt for transportation. Buy used, and within your budget. If you must take out a loan, do it on a low cost used vehicle. New cars are one of the worst financial decision people make in this country. And then they do it again and again and again. I know way too many people who do not own a home, but have a brand new car. One has a car worth more than my home in Florida. It will depreciate and he will still be renting when it is paid off and almost worthless.
• "I have a friend who never made more than $40,000 in any year, and now, in his 80s, he is a multi-millionaire."
who is he saving money for?
• This is really good, in general. Others have commented that a car is not an investment, but in many cities you need it to get to and from work. The car also conveys status for men, and a 23-year-old driving an old junker isn't all that attractive to women. However, that's just what I did, and I kept it running myself. (Almost) needless to say, I'm not driving an old junker now, since I did essentially what he advises.
George Clason's little book, "The Richest Man in Babylon" should be required reading.
• A 23-year-old man with the right attitude doesn't need any props whatsoever to attract really great women.
• I am not impressed by this advice. Now that I am in my 40's, I have more perspective. I was able to pay off my college debt within 1.5 years (I didn't have a kitchen table or any new furniture, and I was driving an old car handed down from my parents). This period of frugal living enabled me to then purchase a home, which I sold at a large profit (I was lucky the market was going up then.) But even if the market hadn't been going up, I still would have had a good place to live and gradually been earning equity on a home. I AM SURPRISED that Gus Sauter didn't recommend focusing on paying off debt IMMEDIATELY, BEFORE buying a new car or saving for retirement. Remember that most employer plans expect employees to invest their 401k money into mutual funds or stocks. (!!) I wouldn't call that an investment, I would call that a 'gamble' since the stock market could go down rapidly. Paying off debt immediately is not only smart, but IT IS A SURE THING. Who knows what will happen with stock market or housing market? And a car will definitely depreciate!!!! Let's get some more conservative advice here in case there are young people who really need to pinch their pennies and still be able to come out financially strong by middle age!
• Proverbs says, "The borrower is at the mercy of the lender/" The word picture is the borrower is on his elbows & knees with his face pressed to the pavement with the lender's foot on his neck. So tell me again what the three purchases are that are worthy of debt.
If you are in debt, get out of debt as quickly as possible, no new cars, no vacations, no dinners out, eat potatoes and rice. Then after you are out of debt save up the money for education and transportation. Concerning buying a house- this is the way it works- you pay the mortgage holder $100 and the federal & state governments kindly give you up to $30 in tax credits. Hmm, pay $100 to get $30.
• I guess your friend that is in his 80's and a multi-milliionaire will make his children or grandchildren happy or make a large donation in his will, but why do you think it is so great to be a multi-millionaire at 80. I don't. Would he have had a more enjoyable and meaningful life than being 80 and a multi-milliionaire, if he had enjoyed the funds he accumulated during his life. Enjoyment could have been using to buy something he enjoyed or donating to a cause he believed in or a person that needed assistance. I have no interest in being so thrifty that relatives are just waiting for me to die hoping to cash in on my savings. I am sure he has enjoyed life--maybe could have enjoyed more in my opinion.
• Not in Obama's America. If you have savings or assets shed them and get on the dole. Get the freebies. There is no incentive for lower income Americans to save. If you save you risk becoming the middle class target. Borrow for current consumption and then hope the taxpayer bails you out or default. ITs a shame.
• You should save some and you should spend some. The idea that a CIO is driving a 14 year old car that will be replaced in 5-10 more years is silly. He should be driving a new lease car every 3 years with his income so he has some enjoyment in the present. Why save to the point that your whole life is an exercise in deprivation? Who says you will live to be 80 anyway?
• Credit should be used for education, houses, cars, and major appliances. Once you have the card paid off, you should put aside 10% of your income to replace your cars and appliances.
• Very wise counsel.
Sadly, rather than endorsing this position, politicians are spending valuable political capital trying to ensure steady "access to credit" for those least able to absorb the terrible consequences of overextended finances.
Populism at the expense of decency.
• Sellers all urge us to go into debt to purchase their product or service. That's the way free market systems work. BUT the one freedom we have, that no one can ever take away from us, is our freedom to choose how we will respond. We can choose to spend more than we ern or we can choose to spend less than we earn. That's a critically important freedom, and our choices on debt today basically determine how unequal we will be tomorrow. Using credit to live beyond our means helps the economy while the credit lasts, but, when credit runs out, the pleasures turn quickly to pain, and the borrower is no longer an equal to those who saved. The road to inequality starts with deciding to save or to borrow.
• He is absolutely wrong about transportation.
• <![CDATA[]]>
• This guy's going thinking of driving a Pontiac Bonneville for 23 years? And paying the maintenance costs on that is going to be cheaper than ditching the car for a newer model before then? Even my mechanic doesn't recommend that. Sounds like one of those "experts" that don't know the cost of a loaf of bread, because somebody else does their shopping for them.
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Mystery geysers blasting out of the bottom of Enceladus have confounded astronomers for almost a decade.
Astronomers suggest that tidal tugs from Saturn likely explain the mysterious geysers blasting off of one of the planet's small moons.
The moon, Enceladus, was discovered to be releasing plumes of water vapor from its south pole in 2005. Observations made in a fly-over by the international Cassini spacecraft revealed that the plumes emerged from four "tiger stripe" fissures on the south pole of the moon.
Debate ensued over whether the small moon, only about 310 miles wide, hosts a hidden ocean under its icy crust and where the energy originated that powered the plumes. One argument focused on whether gravitational tidal forces alone (or else radioactivity in the moon's core) could explain the plumes.
In the journal Nature, a planetary science team led by Cornell's Matthew Hedman reports the plumes appear several times brighter, and thus bigger, than normal when Enceladus is farthest from Saturn on its elongated orbit around the planet. That seems to confirm that the tidal tugs of Saturn, the second-largest planet in the solar system, power the plumes. "More material therefore seems to be escaping from beneath Enceladus' surface at times when geophysical models predict its fissures should be under tension and therefore may be wider open," they conclude.
You might suppose that Saturn's gravitational pull on Enceladus would be at its weakest when it is farthest away from the planet, but that is exactly the point in time where the tidal stress on the icy moon are greatest, the study says. Essentially, at that far point in the moon's orbit, the ringed world's gravitational pull reels Enceladus back onto its closer orbital track around the planet, raising a tidal effect on the icy crust of Enceladus that might crease open crevices.
The evidence all points to a southern sea or lake under the crust of the moon, which vents from the tiger stripes when Saturn's gravity pulls them wider open. Astronomers are particularly interested in the plumes because they contain traces of complex organic, or carbon, chemistry thought to be one of the necessary ingredients for life on other worlds.
"Enceladus is thus one of the few places beyond Earth where we can watch geology happen in real time," says planetary scientist John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., in a commentary accompanying the study. "The likely presence of liquid water and complex organic chemistry makes Enceladus especially intriguing as a potential habitat for extraterrestrial life, providing additional motivation for investigating its interior."
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Italian Food at Grappa Restaurant (Half Off). Two Options Available.
91% of 631 customers
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In a Nutshell
Chefs draw from the owner's family recipes to make chicken saltimbocca in marsala-wine sauce, fettuccine bolognese, and stuffed mushrooms
The Fine Print
Expires Sep 22nd, 2013. Limit 1 per person. Limit 1 per table. Valid only for option purchased. Dine-in only. Not valid with any specials. Not valid toward alcohol. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
Choose Between Two Options
• $15 for $30 worth of Italian food
• $25 for $50 worth of Italian food for parties of four or more<p>
The menu showcases appetizers of bruschetta ($6.95) and fried calamari ($9.95) and entrees of spinach-and-ricotta ravioli in tomato sauce ($15.95), shrimp scampi ($19.95), and veal marsala ($17.95).<p>
Grappa Restaurant
Those seeking Grappa Restaurant might be surprised by where they find it—nestled inside a small building that used to be a house, in the middle of an industrial-warehouse street, between two commercial districts. But behind the front door lies a different atmosphere—only 11 tables sit inside the 700-square-foot space, surrounded by walls striped in pale yellow and blue and decorated with Botticelli paintings. At the center of the room, venetian Fortuny lamps cast light from behind white and yellow silk emblazoned with gold designs. The petite restaurant reverberates with classic pop tunes by singers such as Frankie Valli, often accompanied by crooning from the restaurant's three servers—Will, Carol, and Natalie—who also urge the regular clientele to join them.
Grappa Restaurant's chefs base their menu of traditional Italian food on dishes from the owner's childhood, when her grandmother and mother would fill the kitchen with aromas of seared veal, chicken, and marsala-wine sauce. The chefs conjure these familial scents and flavors as they stuff veal or chicken saltimbocca with ham and mozzarella; toss fettuccine bolognese with chicken sausage, meat sauce, and basil-almond pesto; and drape spinach-and-ricotta ravioli in housemade tomato sauce. Servers often end meals much like sophisticated elementary-school students end food fights: with traditional Italian desserts such as housemade ricotta cannolis.
It was somewhat of a revelation. I ordered the Shrimp Fra Diavolo, and thought it was one of the most delicious Italian dishes I had ever tasted.
Todd R., 12/30/11
The owner greeted and seated us, made some suggestions (we asked), took our order, and was generally attentive without hovering
Catherine B., 8/18/12
91% of 631 customers
• “Wonderful, friendly restaurant with excellent food and service. Prices are reasonable and the food is delicious.”
• “Great local place”
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Watertown, Massachusetts 02472
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Great date experiences and other fun two-person activities
For those looking to get out of the house with the ladies
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I want to modify a file in vista ( C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts ) but I can't write it to disk.
Similar thing happen with other files that are not under my user directory. C:\Users\me
I am in the administrator group.
What is needed to edit these files?
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1 Answer 1
up vote 6 down vote accepted
With UAC turned on, you're not running as an administrator normally. That's why you can't edit it. The simplest thing to do is to right-mouse click notepad and choose "run as administrator". You'll be prompted with a UAC prompt. You should then be able to edit and save the file.
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Thanks Knox... I just had this scenario perplex me in Win7 when trying to change that file. I decided to let UAC do its job, and I am running as non-admin in Win7. It didn't occur to me. I would have expected a UAC prompt, but none came. Now I know; thanks. – p.campbell May 26 '09 at 13:45
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A question about a recipe: Pabellon Criollo on Crispy Fried Plantains
I have a question about step 4 on the recipe "Pabellon Criollo on Crispy Fried Plantains" from MyCommunalTable. It says:
"Pull plantains from oil with a slotted spoon and place on paper towel lined cookie sheet. When cool enough to touch, place on counter and flatten with bottom side of a plate until 1/2 inch thick. It should be in an oval like rectangle shape. Drop into salted water. Repeat with all of the plantains. Soak for 1 minute."
What does soaking the plantains in salted water do? I double-fry plantains all the time and I´ve never heard of this, but am always curious to learn new techniques. Thanks!
asked by Elaura over 3 years ago
1 answer 1684 views
added over 3 years ago
I have been told that soaking the plantains for a few minutes in salted water makes them crisper. My friend says that her family does it, while another friend has never done it. I think in the end, it is your call. If you like the result that you have always gotten, why change? Godd question
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after some confusion in the comments to
I thought I make into a question. According to the PHP manual, a valid class name should match against [a-zA-Z_\x7f-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9_\x7f-\xff]*. But apparently, this is not enforced, nor does it apply for anything else:
define('π', pi());
class ␀ {
private $␀ = TRUE;
public function ␀()
return $this->␀;
$␀ = new ␀;
var_dump($␀ );
works fine (even though my IDE cannot show ␀). Can some erudite person clear this up for me? Can we use any Unicode? And if so, since when? Not that I would actually want to use anything but A-Za-z_ but I'm curious.
Clarification: I am not after a Regex to validate class names, nor do I know if PHP internally uses the Regex it suggests in the manual. The thing that confused me (and apparently the other guys in the linked question) is why things like $☂ = 1 can be used in PHP at all. PHP6 was suppposed to be the Unicode release but PHP6 is in hiatus. But if there is no Unicode support, why can I do this then?
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I dont think you can fully use unicode until php6... but it might have some sort of partial support in 5.3.. ive never tried myself nor do i follow it closely :-) – prodigitalson Aug 5 '10 at 17:03
see Minutes PHP Developers Meeting – stillstanding Aug 5 '10 at 17:10
Does the regex \x7f indicate the byte value 0x7f? – Paul Nathan Aug 5 '10 at 21:17
4 Answers 4
up vote 31 down vote accepted
This question starts to mention class names in the title, but then goes on to an example that includes exotic names for methods, constants, variables, and fields. There are actually different rules for these. Let's start with the case insensitive ones.
Case-insensitive identifiers (class and function/method names)
The general guideline here would be to use only printable ASCII characters. The reason is that these identifiers are normalized to their lowercase version, however, this conversion is locale-dependent. Consider the following PHP file, encoded in ISO-8859-1:
function func_á() { echo "worked"; }
Will this script work? Maybe. It depends on what tolower(193) will return, which is locale-dependent:
$ LANG=en_US.iso88591 php a.php
$ LANG=en_US.utf8 php a.php
Fatal error: Call to undefined function func_Á() in /home/glopes/a.php on line 3
Therefore, it's not a good idea to use non-ASCII characters. However, even ASCII characters may give trouble in some locales. See this discussion. It's likely that this will be fixed in the future by doing a locale-independent lowercasing that only works with ASCII characters.
In conclusion, if we use multi-byte encodings for these case-insensitive identifiers, we're looking for trouble. It's not just that we can't take advantage of the case insensitivity. We might actually run into unexpected collisions because all the bytes that compose a multi-byte character are individually turned into lowercase using locale rules. It's possible that two different multi-byte characters map to the same modified byte stream representation after applying the locale lowercase rules to each of the bytes.
Case-sensitive identifiers (variables, constants, fields)
The problem is less serious here, since these identifiers are case sensitive. However, they are just interpreted as bytestreams. This means that if we use Unicode, we must consistently use the same byte representation; we can't mix UTF-8 and UTF-16; we also can't use BOMs.
In fact, we must stick to UTF-8. Outside of the ASCII range, UTF-8 uses lead bytes from 0xc0 to 0xfd and the trail bytes are in the range 0x80 to 0xbf, which are in the allowed range per the manual. Now let's say we use the character "Ġ" in a UTF-16BE encoded file. This will translate to 0x01 0x20, so the second byte will be interpreted as a space.
Having multi-byte characters being read as if they were single-byte characters is, of course, no Unicode support at all. PHP does have some multi-byte support in the form of the compilation switch "--enable-zend-multibyte" (as of PHP 5.4, multibyte support is compiled in by default, but disabled; you can enable it with zend.multibyte=On in php.ini). This allows you to declare the encoding of the the script:
// code here
It will also handle BOMs, which are used to auto-detect the encoding and do not become part of the output. There are, however, a few downsides:
• Peformance hit, both memory and cpu. It stores a representation of the script in an internal multi-byte encoding, which takes more space (and it also seems to store in memory the original version) and it also spends some CPU converting the encoding.
• Multi-byte support is usually not compiled in, so it's less tested (more bugs).
• Portability issues between installations that have the support compiled in and those that don't.
• Refers only to the parsing stage; does not solve the problem outlined for case-insensitive identifiers.
Finally, there is the problem of lack of normalization – the same character may be represented with different Unicode code points (independently of the encoding). This may lead to some very difficult to track bugs.
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Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this thorough explanation. It all makes sense now. – Gordon Aug 6 '10 at 10:47
locale independent lower case How about İ=>i and I=>ı in turkish? – nerkn Oct 30 '10 at 17:05
@nerkn That's the part where I say "However, even ASCII characters may give trouble in some locales" and link to a thread when that's precisely discussed. – Artefacto Oct 30 '10 at 22:50
Your character is encoded as 0x80 0x90 0xe2 or something like that, thus it matches your regexp when not interpreting the unicode (working on single bytes).
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(From php.net)
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I think the OP's point is that, while this is the "standard", it doesn't seem to be enforced. The question being "will this always be okay". – Ryan Kinal Aug 5 '10 at 17:11
@Ryan almost correct, just that I'm not so much interested in "will this always be okay" but rather in "why does this work at all". – Gordon Aug 5 '10 at 18:50
From my understanding, the current versions of PHP have some unicode support, but it is inconsistent. As others have suggested, this was going to be addressed in PHP6, which was canceled (not postponed). At the end of the day, some "exotic" characters will work, and others won't; and obviously, as you suggested, it is better to stick with A-Za-z0-9_.
At the same time, I have heard rumors that the unicode discussion was recently restarted, presumably from scratch, as the original proposal for UTF-16 in PHP6 involved tons of effort with very little return.
Side note: From what I have read, the next major PHP release will be PHP 5.4, which might feature horizontal integration (traits), array shorthand, built-in HTTP server, and some other much needed functionality.
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Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University - Official Website
Lugansk, 91034, Ukraine.
E-mail - [email protected]
Telephone - +380-91-9425-888
"Welcome to the Official Website Of East Ukrainian National University"
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At present it is a huge educational-scientific complex that is constantly developing. t won’t be an exaggeration to say that the whole history of the university’s development proves its enormous ability to stay alive. East Ukraine Volodymyr Dahl National Universityactivities covers wide range of subjects and in research.
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So, please, get acquainted with our site, get the information about our departments, directions of training and professions, about gripping and exciting life of our university. You will for sure feel the respect for our higher educational establishment.
Do come to us! You are always welcome!
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The 9/11 Conspiracy
What's Our Government Hiding?
Recent Entries
10th-Nov-2006 07:29 pm - Is 9/11 Truth Dying
Another good article from the PrisonPlanet people on the elections, and the Democrats stubborness to impeach...
Click here for the article..
Yet even more from Prisonplanet:
Segments of the video that were interspersed with footage of the "laughing hijackers," Jarrah and Atta, showing Bin Laden giving a speech to an audience in Afghanistan on January 8 2000, were culled from what terror experts describe as surveillance footage taken by a "security agency."
This explains the lack of a soundtrack in the video and the fact that the tape does not focus solely on Bin Laden but pans around and shows the attendees in the audience.
Furthermore, film of the Bin Laden speech, reported by the dominant media as new footage, was previously broadcast in the UK docudramaThe Road to Guantanamo, which was first seen on British television nearly seven months ago in March.
News reports over the weekend contained the admission that the U.S. government had been in possession of the footage since 2002, while others said it was found when the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and yet it was still bizarrely reported that the tape, bearing all the hallmarks of having been filmed and edited by undercover US intelligence and having admittedly been in US possession for five years, was released over the weekend by Al-Qaeda.
Either Al-Qaeda has been given access to US intelligence surveillance tapes of its own organization or the tape was released by the US intelligence apparatus. The evidence provides no other explanation.
The fact that the same footage was used in The Road to Guantanamo is startling because the context of the clip in which it is seen portrays British and American intelligence agents showing doctored footage to detainees, whereby their likeness has been edited in with CGI to the Bin laden rally scene, using it to intimidate them into confessing to being Al-Qaeda members.
The latest video tape hoax is only the most recent of a dirty laundry list of past examples where old, re-hashed, or outright faked footage of Bin Laden and his followers was mysteriously obtained and released at the most politically expedient time. These examples are all referenced in our original investigation.
The agenda dovetails with the necessity of the torture program - there are very few real terror cells in existence outside of the puppet mastery of the U.S. and British intelligence apparatus. To maintain a state of fear and obedience amongst the target "home audience," there need to be regular "two minutes of hate" intervals and the artificial creation of supposed terrorist networks and plots.
The tapes are also a desperate attempt to prop up the official version of 9/11 as its credibility crumbles globally and a firestorm of awakening to the fact that the attack was an inside job rages.
I encourage everyone to fully imbue themselves of our original investigation and make it a viral story across the Internet. Click here to get the original story and lobby for mainstream media to pay attention.
We need to demand higher standards from our media starting with a proper investigation as to who the true source of this tape was and an immediate skepticism towards all such future alleged "Al-Qaeda" video tape releases.
A press that lazily dismisses the origins of these tapes as a side-issue is playing a central role in disseminating unchecked war propaganda and violating every code of journalistic ethical conduct.
The U.S. government's role in obtaining and carefully stage-managing the dissemination of these tapes, many of them old footage re-released over and over again, is now without a doubt manifestly obvious and demands immediate Congressional investigation as part of a wider probe into the admitted fake news scandal that has characterized the Bush White House as the most duplicitous and manipulative administration in history and befits a regime that is engaging in psychological warfare against the American people.
30th-Sep-2006 07:06 pm - America The Dictatorship?!?
Once again from the folks at Prisonplanet....may God help us all...
This is another telltale facet that proves the bill applies to U.S. citizens and includes them under the "enemy combatant" designation. We previously cited the comments of Yale law Professor Bruce Ackerman, who wrote in the L.A. Times, "The compromise legislation....authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."
Calling the bill "our generation's version of the Alien and Sedition Acts," the Times goes on to highlight the rubber stamping of torture.
"Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable - already a contradiction in terms - and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses."
Since with this bill, in the aggregate, Bush has declared himself to be above the Constitution and the laws of the United States, the allegiance of American citizens is no longer to the flag or the freedoms for which it stands, but to Bush himself, the self-appointed dictator, and any diversion from that allegiance will mandate arrest, torture and conviction in a military tribunal under the terms of this bill.
Similar to the UK's Glorification of Terrorism law, which top lawyers have slammed as vague, open to interpretation and a potential weapon for the government to kidnap supposed subversives, the nebulous context of "wrongfully aiding the enemy," could easily be defined to include publicly absolving an accused terrorist of involvement in a terrorist attack.
That renders the entire 9/11 truth movement an aid to terrorist suspects and subject to military tribunal and torture. In addition, Bush's recently cited National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which is available on the White House website, labels conspiracy theorists as terrorist recruiters.
This should leave us with no doubt as to which parties are the target of the government's torture and intimidation campaign.
Could protesting a war approved by the government and their bootlickers in Congress and the Senate be considered breaching an allegiance to the United States? Could campaigning against the bombing of a target country be considered wrongfully aiding the enemy?
When the USA PATRIOT act was rushed through at the height of an anthrax scare without any members of Congress even having time to read it, we were assured that it was to fight terrorists and would not be used against the American people.
Since then a plethora of cases whereby the USA PATRIOT act was used against U.S. citizens emerged, including the internment without trial for over three years of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was finally released after no evidence of terrorism was uncovered.
The so-called "compromise" before the bill was passed and the media acclaim of John McCain as some kind of human rights champion is one of the biggest con jobs ever inflicted upon the American people.
Shortly after the bill was finalized it was spun by Bush security advisor Stephen Hadley as "good news and a good day for the American people." McCain said that it safeguarded "the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions."
In truth the legislation does the exact opposite, giving Bush carte blanche to "interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions."
The bill also allows hearsay evidence (obtained via phony confessions after torture) to be considered by the military tribunal and bars the suspect from even having knowledge of the charges against him - making a case for defense impossible. This is guaranteed to produce 100% conviction rates as you would expect in the dictatorships of Uzbekistan or Zimbabwe and other torture protagonists who are in many cases allied with the Bush administration and provide phony confessions obtained from torture that allow the U.S. government to scare its people with the threat of imaginary Al-Qaeda terror cells waiting to kill them.
Following the Supreme Court's ruling to previously strike down Bush's shadow penal system, Alberto Gonzales is already out threatening federal judges to shut up and get behind the dictator or face the consequences.
Gonzales has the sheer gall to attack judges for even considering to "overturn long-standing traditions or policies without proper support in text or precedent," which is exactly what Gonzales, Bush and the rest of the White House criminals are doing themselves by de facto abolishing the Bill of Rights!
This is a dark day for the United States, the day America died and the bastard birth of a literal dictatorship.
27th-Sep-2006 10:07 am - Ventura Disputes 9/11 Accounts
Once again from the fine folks over at PrisonPlanet:
Former Minnesota Governor, actor and wrestling star Jesse Ventura has publicly questioned the official version of events behind 9/11 and gone further than ever before in citing Operation Northwoods and the Gulf of Tonkin as examples of how the government has planned and carried out staged war provocations in the past.
Ventura has temporarily left his Baja Mexico surfing lifestyle to lend support to Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. At a press conference yesterday Ventura said that the Republicans and Democrats were "destroying our country" and its political process. Sporting a beard and dreadlocks, the former Vietnam veteran also criticized the Iraq war.
Alex Jones and his film crew were able to set up a last minute interview with Ventura at a San Antonio restaurant after his appearance before a packed house at the University of Texas.
Ventura first stated that he had many unanswered questions about 9/11. The former Governor cited Operation Northwoods, a 1963 Joint Chiefs of Staff plan to stage terror attacks and kill American citizens to start a war with Cuba, as an example of how the U.S. government wanted to kill its own people and blame it on foreign enemies to justify war. Ventura found it painful, having dutifully served himself, that elements within the government would go to such barbaric and deceitful lengths to con its own populace into supporting militarism.
Ventura then raised the issue of the Gulf of Tonkin, citing recently released declassified information confirming that American ships were never attacked and the incident was manufactured in order to provide the entree to the Vietnam war. This was particularly unpalatable for Ventura because he joined as a Navy Seal on September 11 1969, fought in Vietnam and lost many friends there.
Ventura asked that if the U.S. government were prepared to stage such a gargantuan historical event in terms of its significance in leading a nation to war then, why they would they refrain from doing so again today?
Ventura also highlighted 9/11 itself in contrasting the lax response of NORAD air defense to the four commercial airliners on 9/11 compared with the immediate interception of golfer Payne Stewart's Lear Jet in October 1999.
Ventura said that the argument that Americans should give up liberty in exchange for security in the war on terror was horrible and that government should never be trusted. He encouraged Americans to be skeptical of anything the government claims in light of their past duplicity.
Ventura seemed visibly upset during the interview, calling the American public apathetic, seemingly wanting to say more, and openly stated the possibility that he would be targeted by the government for his dissent on 9/11 and the Iraq war.
Ventura had previously aired his skepticism of the official version of events on Jay Leno and elaborated on a 2004 radio show but the former Governor went further than ever before during this interview.
19th-Sep-2006 10:20 am - Bush The Patsy?
So says the latest from the Infowars Yahoo! group I'm in...
Bush Tacitly Implies WTC Controlled Demolition?
Makes strange 'explosives in U.S. buildings' reference during torture speech Friday
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison | September 18 2006
During his speech Friday in which the President argued for the gutting of the Geneva convention and the legal classification of torture, Bush made a strange comment about explosives and their placement in U.S. buildings. Was this a tacit admission of 9/11 controlled demolition?
Here's the quote in full from the White House website.
The onset of both towers' collapse began at high points in the buildings. Is Bush implying planted incendiary devices were responsible for their destruction?
Comments on the meaning of what Bush said varied on the 911 Blogger website.
"There is no way to spin this around to say, "yeah, we knew all along that there were explosives in those buildings." But I'd sure like to see him try it! Imagine all the left gatekeepers who have openly scoffed at the "bombs brought down the towers" theory, suddenly trying to come back around to support the new government spin!"
"I think Bush is being set up to take the fall for 911," writes one, fearing Bush will be used as a higher level patsy to placate the burgeoning 9/11 truth movement.
Ben Fountain and Scott Forbes, who both worked in the twin towers, are on the record as saying that there were numerous evacuations and power-downs of the twin towers in the weeks leading up to the attack - more so than would be usually expected for a high profile building.
In an online interview, Forbes said that the power down which took place the weekend before the attack was "unprecedented" and required a shutdown of the top 50 floors of the south tower - the reason for the shutdown was given as "re-cabling."
Forbes said the sight of strange men in overalls going in and out of the building with tools was highly unusual and that the "coincidence" of it occurring days before the attack was highly suspicious.
There has been some speculation within the 9/11 truth movement that the evidence for controlled demolition having been used on both the towers and building 7 is so overwhelming that the government will eventually be forced to spin a whitewash and formulate a "limited hangout" that Al-Qaeda somehow managed to rig the buildings with explosives before the attack.
In May 2002 the New York Daily News reported that Mohammed Atta was in Manhattan in the days before the attack and other outlets have also carried claims that the hijackers were in the twin towers asking directions and casing their target before September 11.
Forbes is adamant that the "men in overalls" performing "re-cabling" operations were ethnically diverse and by no means largely Arab as would have to be the case if the government went with this story.
Though Bush's quote is certainly interesting it is unlikely to represent an entree into a change of tack whereby the government admits controlled demolition but then pins the blame on its erstwhile patsies.
To concede such gargantuan ground would undo the work of several massively funded government studies as well as the 9/11 Commission and it would only undermine further the credibility of the entire official story.
The hubris and arrogance of the Bush administration ensures it does not do 'retractions' and you won't see one here. The survival of the official lie depends solely on its constant repetition and any deviation from that mould would result in catastrophe for the collaborators and conspirators who carried out 9/11.
Below are portions of the latest Alex Jones/Prison Planet/9-11 posting:
Documentary film maker and radio host Alex Jones, coordinating today's 9/11 truth movement events in downtown New York City, says that the atmosphere around ground zero has dramatically changed, with the majority of firefighters and police officers now sympathetic to the claim that 9/11 was an inside job.
Alex is featured at the end of the Associated Press video here imploring viewers to understand that 9/11 was "a self-inflicted wound designed to create a police state in the U.S. and capture us as an engine for world government and world domination."
Alex was assigned to lead a protest march today which he described as over 1000 strong as it snaked across ground zero and through lower Manhattan.
Saying that the "entire atmosphere had changed," Alex explained how police support for protesters at ground zero had gone from 20% support two years ago to around 60% support now - with many willing to affirm that sentiment on camera and many knowledgeable about Alex Jones' work and the 9/11 truth movement.
"Police just saying 'keep your investigation going, we appreciate you' on video," said Jones.
"The firemen we've been talking to - a hundred per cent are on our side and have seen the documentary is just incredible what's happened at the grass roots."
Jones said that the few debunkers who were spewing Bush administration style propaganda were met with distain from the police.
"I think that thing that triggered it was the fact that the government lied about the dust, the asbestos all of it," said Jones in citing why first responders and police have become increasingly skeptical about anything the government says about 9/11.
A benchmark of the wildfire success of the 9/11 truth movement can be measured with a new CNN poll released today that shows the amount of American citizens who "blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks," has risen from a third to over a half over the past four years.
via PrisonPlanet:
Pat Buchanan, currently riding high in the New York Times bestseller list with his book The Third World Invasion, told the Alex Jones Show that if there was another terror attack in the US, George W. Bush would be responsible due to his refusal to control the borders and that his place in history would be finished.
Here is the exchange from the show.
CALLER: "If 9/11 and the war on terror is indeed legitimate, why wasn't the border totally militarily secured on September 12th 2001?"
BUCHANAN: "It's because George Bush doesn't want to secure that border - I do believe he wants an open border between the United States and Mexico - he does not share the concern of a lot of us that this is a national security problem."
ALEX JONES: "Pat, won't he just get more power if there's another terror attack - that he could take more American liberties?"
BUCHANAN: "I think if the terrorists have come across that Mexican border, I think his place in history is finished."
ALEX JONES: "But my point is, if he got so much power out of 9/11 and got to grandstand...."
BUCHANAN: "Well there's no doubt about it, war is the health of the state."
ALEX JONES: "So do you agree with me that they could try to spin it, even though with common sense we would see it as another attack, they could kind of spin it and ignore the border issue and Bush could get even more power out of it?"
BUCHANAN: "Well yes, sure, sure, he might put in a lot more laws and things like that but I do think people would say look, you did not seal that border just as the caller said when you had three or four, when you had five years to do it you didn't do it and now we got hit again - you are responsible this time."
Buchanan went on to warn that the open borders policy is being crafted by the Republican elite in alliance with Mexico's Vicente Fox.
"Fox and Bush have been colluding on this policy since before 9/11 - Vicente Fox was standing right beside Bush when Bush declared the Minutemen vigilantes," said Buchanan.
Buchanan said the elite were targeting the middle class for destruction and using rampant illegal immigration to realize that goal.
"I do believe that the American middle and working class of this country as I wrote in the title of an earlier book, are victims of a great betrayal - their manufacturing jobs are being sent abroad, illegal aliens are coming being invited into their country, the products of China are pouring in, American jobs are being lost, they're bringing in Indian kids and bright young kids from Bangladesh to take the jobs of Americans."
"The middle class is under assault," said Buchanan as he illustrated the deliberate agenda for mega corporations to construct a new world order system.
"Their ambition is to remove all national barriers and frontiers so they can move people and goods wherever they want to which they feel is most efficient for the company - so they put the company ahead of the country and they genuinely believe that what we need is a global market where these big corporations can move all over the global market and there's a global government there that runs it all - this is the new world order idea."
Buchanan identified "the Crystals and the Weekly Standard and all the rest of them," along with the Rockefeller Republican hierarchy as the masterminds behind the push to eliminate US sovereignty and put in place the American Union.
"I think if the Republicans do not secure these borders they're going to be wiped out - now the Democrats aren't going to do it either but you'll get a new kind of Republican party coming," said Buchanan.
Some more info off of Prison Planet....
In January of 2003 FBI and CIA whistleblowers told Capitol Hill Blue that the White House was scripting phony terror alerts to maintain hysteria, upkeep President Bush's approval ratings and milk extra defense funding. The report that five Pakistani men had entered the States via Canada and were planning on carrying out a dirty bomb or biological attack was completely conjured up by the Bush administration's black propaganda office. New York Harbor was shut down to visibly pump up the fear. One of the named suspects, Mohammed Asghar (pictured left), was tracked down to Pakistan by the Associated Press. He was a fat guy running a jewellers shop and had never even been to America.
World Net Daily commented,
More goodies from the Infowars Yahoo! group:
POWELL: Is this real-world or exercise?
WATSON: What was that?
ROUNTREE: Is that real-world?
DOOLEY: Real-world hijack.
NASYPANY: These guys are smart.
Mohammed Atta: "His attention span was zero."
Marwan Al-Shehhi: "He was dropped because of his limited English and incompetence at the controls."
Salem Al-Hazmi: "We advised him to quit after two lessons."
via PrisonPlanet:
Edmonds appeared as a guest on the Alex Jones Show to give an update on her organization's progress and indicated that the preponderance of evidence, plus the outright cover-up surrounding 9/11 - suggests that criminal elements at the very apex of the US military-industrial complex had a direct hand in carrying out the attack.
A partial transcript appears below:
Alex Jones: Sibel Edmonds-- 9/11. I mean, you personally-- I mean, I've heard you on other shows, I've talked to you here. All these prominent people have come out. I mean, clearly you've said that elements of the government had the motive for 9/11. Arabs wouldn't bring down the greatest military in the world upon them. The majority of Arabs in major polls-- what 90% in foreign polls-- believe it was an inside job. What I'm ask-- now half of Americans do in Zogby polls. I'm asking you-- I mean, clearly, where does the evidence point on 9/11?
Sibel Edmonds: Well, that is the whole point, Alex. They are not letting out all the evidence. And since we don't have it to this date. It is as I was telling you, the [unintelligible] Force has been all classified. They also had 35 pages-- and this is according to Senator Graham-- the most important evidence and information on 9/11 by the Senate and House Joint Inquiry that happened in 2002 classified and 5 years later everything about it is classified. And again, you are still having people who are gagged. So this already points out that they don't want the evidence out. And they are keeping the evidence out of the public--
Alex Jones: But even if they cut evidence out of reports, we have the clear evidence of Thermite in the buildings, we have clear evidence of C.I.A. insider trading, N.O.R.A.D. standing down, U.S. troops already massed in central Asia, Bush having the launch order two days before to attack Afghanistan. I mean, Sibel, when you put all that together-- I'm asking you personally-- where does all the evidence point?
Sibel Edmonds: The evidence points to a massive government cover-up.
And that raises the question of why. Now we can answer that in so many different ways and we can speculate, but as I said, the most important thing is to stay with the facts. Not the facts that the government claims to be the facts, but the facts that are absolutely undisputed.
Alex Jones: Sibel, what I'm asking you is, in your gut, do you think 9/11 to some extent is an inside job?
Sibel Edmonds: Well, again, as I am telling you, I'm trying to tell you is, I have all the evidence of cover-up. Now, who were the people behind this? And why? And how? We don't have a definite answer. As I said, we can come up with theories, we can come up with speculation, but they do not--I mean, in my opinion, they are not facts. But also what government has been giving us, again, I don't consider those a total--you know-- total truth or fact either.
Alex Jones: Would you be surprised?
Sibel Edmonds: No. I wouldn't.
Alex Jones: You wouldn't be surprised if elements or criminal elements or private contractors were involved in 9/11?
Sibel Edmonds: No, I wouldn't be surprised.
Alex Jones: So you wouldn't be surprised like many others, because of the evidence and the cover-up you've seen, if 9/11 was an inside job?
Sibel Edmonds: At this point, I'd have to say no, I wouldn't be surprised.
Alex Jones: Do you think the evidence is leaning towards that?
Sibel Edmonds: Well, again, considering the level of cover-up and the length at which they have gone to gag people and prevent information-- this information from coming out, I would say yes.
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Figure 1.
(A) and (B). Inverse regulation of major metabolic and cell signaling KEGG pathways. For 20 different human tissues, KEGG pathways were compared between the ten samples displaying the highest and the lowest values of OXPHOS gene expression (study and sample characteristics are listed in Additional Files 2 and 3). The directional regulation of 200 major KEGG pathways (number of up- minus down-regulated genes in a given KEGG pathway normalized to the total number of regulated genes within a study) was color-coded with yellow and blue representing low and high expression of the pathways, respectively. KEGG pathways were then sorted according to their similarity to "oxidative phosphorylation" which is represented by the first row (labeled OXPHOS). Metabolic pathways were consistently positively correlated with each other and negatively correlated with the expression of cell signaling pathways. ALA+ASP metabolism = alanine and aspartate metabolism.
Barth et al. BMC Genomics 2010 11:197 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-11-197
Download authors' original image
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If you've been looking for an MVNO that speaks your language, and that language happens to be Español, then you're in luck. Dexa is a new GSM-based MVNO that plans to cater to the large Hispanic demand for prepaid phone service. The best guess for the actual carrier is Cingular, because Dexa is copying their marketing speak of "fewest dropped calls." That means there won't be data available to Dexa customers, just voice service, since Cingular doesn't provide data to MVNO customers. Right now Dexa is only available in LA, but with the large Hispanic market in the US we have a feeling they could be expanding fairly soon.
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Saturday, December 27, 2014
Progress in the span of a lifetime
Women and the achievement of a dream
Progress in the span of a lifetime
The temptation today is to focus on Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid's Monday decision to endorse a government-run health insurance option, and to point out that after 60 years of stalemate, we are now much farther along the road toward substantive health care reform than ever before - a vivid reminder that transformative progress in America often seems like an impossible dream, until it happens.
But never mind the latest twist in the health care story; I'd rather riff a bit on this broader theme of progress. It came to mind last night as I listened to New York Times columnist Gail Collins, who was in town to talk up her new book about "the amazing journey of American women" since 1960. (Disclosure: Collins and I worked together in the late '70s.) It's easy to forget how much has changed for women - in the national political realm alone - since the Mad Men era and JFK's New Frontier. It's hard to even conjure how profoundly different those days were, and yet they occurred well within the lifetimes of millions of Americans alive today.
In a span of 50 years - a blip in the life of a nation - "all the presuppositions about gender have been smashed," as Collins put it, during her talk at the National Constitution Center. "It knocks me out whenever I think about it...We've done amazing things in a tiny, tiny piece of time."
On Capitol Hill today, 17 percent of the House and Senate lawmakers are women. (The tally is 17 female senators and 75 congresswomen.) Those stats don't seem very high, given the fact that more than half the voters in any national election are women and that more than half the population is female. But, as Collins' book ably demonstrates, things were a lot worse even in the early '70s - when there were zero female senators and as few as 13 female congresswomen (which translates to 2.4 percent). Plus zero female Cabinet members, and zero U.S. Supreme Court justices.
In those not-so-distant days, female Senate and House members tended to widows who got their jobs only because their elected husbands had died in office. Voters in congressional elections didn't go for the idea of supporting female candidates who had live husbands and family obligations back home. Collins chronicles the fate of Coya Knutson, a Minnesota congresswoman who managed to win on her own: "Her alcoholic husband, Andy, who was left behind to run the family hotel, torpedoed her career in 1958 by issuing a 'Coya, Come Home' letter claiming his marriage was being destroyed by her political success. She became the only Democratic incumbent to lose the 1958 election."
During most of this era, the sole female senator was Maine's Margaret Chase Smith. She couldn't visit the bathroom in the Senate lounge because women were officially barred from using it. During the '70s, when Colorado congresswoman Pat Schroeder tried to enter a black-tie dinner at the exclusive Touchdown Club in Washington - a dinner for which she had tickets - she was barred at the door by a guard who said that the event was closed to women, and who warned her that if she didn't leave, "you'll be carried out."
Women seeking to air their discrimination issues on Capitol Hill were often ridiculed by male lawmakers. At one point during the '60s, airline stewardesses (as they were called at the time) complained to a House committee that they were allowed to keep their jobs only if they stayed thin, single, and young. They told how their airlines would routinely check them for weight gain and body measurement. On the latter point, a male House member, in a show of jocularity, asked the stewardesses to "stand up, so we can see the dimensions of the problem." (Congresswoman Martha Griffiths, one of the early pioneers, did register a dissent. As Collins tells the story, when some airline executives argued that businessmen would cease to fly their friendly skies unless the stews were young and attractive, Griffith retorted with a bit of women's perspective: "What are you running, an airline or a whorehouse?")
It took a few decades for mainstream culture to absorb the feminist sensibility; in the political realm today, the results are obvious. It's noteworthy - yet rarely even remarked upon, which itself is a sign of progress - that so many of the key players in the congressional health reform debate are women: among them, Olympia Snowe, Nancy Pelosi, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu. (When Snowe recently said that it's important to translate "the empathy of your experience into legislation," nobody even seemed to notice the gender-specific nature of her comment.)
Collins also pointed out last night that Hillary Clinton set precedents in 2008 even while losing her presidential bid; namely, it is now taken for granted that more substantive women will seek the presidency, and ultimately win it, in the future. Collins said, "It was such a trauma for so many women, the Hillary thing. It didn't work out and a lot of people's hearts were broken. There were a lot of sexist attacks, although we have to remember that five percent of this country is nuts." (Only five percent?) "And she made a lot of early mistakes as a candidate...but ultimately she taught the country that it's normal to have a woman running for president, to have a woman who can serve as commander-in-chief, and I think that's a humongous achievement."
Nirvana will never arrive, of course. Progress is not synonymous with perfection. Collins points out the tally of women on Capitol Hill, and in other major political posts that typically serve as springboards to the presidency, will continue to lag behind the overall female demographics - simply because "women start their political careers later than men." And they start later because they're still more tethered to home and kids than men are; in Collins' words, women still haven't resolved "the tensions of trying to raise children and hold down a job at the same time."
On the other hand, in just half a century, women have "created a world their female ancestors did not even have the opportunity to imagine."
And that's what I mean by progress.
Dick Polman Inquirer National Political Columnist
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What is meta? ×
I am trying to send a POST request to Meta using my account... but it's just not working very well. Using netcat, I was able to post one comment, but I have had no luck getting it to work with a PHP script.
I used a TCP monitor to capture the packets going back and forth between my browser and the server and managed to figure out some of it.
I am hoping someone on the team can help me here. Here is the POST request I'm sending:
POST /posts/51812/comments HTTP/1.1
Host: meta.stackoverflow.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
Accept: text/html, */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Keep-Alive: 115
Connection: keep-alive
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest
Referer: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/51812/
Cookie: usr=*********; somusr=*********
Pragma: no-cache
Cache-Control: no-cache
Content-Length: 87
As you can see, a normal request. I have a few questions though:
• What is the fkey parameter for? Where does it come from? What I have been doing thus far is fetching the page I want to post the comment on and using a RegEx to dig up the value.
• Why does the server return the following and what does it mean?
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Cache-Control: private
Location: /error?aspxerrorpath=/posts/51812/comments
Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:44:07 GMT
Content-Length: 171
Any help or pointers would be appreciated.
share|improve this question
Weird... this post has a downvote but it's not showing up. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 1:56
Usually that means it's a flag (flags don't cause the summary reputation to be recalculated), but I don't know what this would've been flagged for – Michael Mrozek Jul 26 '10 at 1:58
If posting with netcat works but not with PHP, doesn't that mean your PHP code is wrong? ergo, belongs on SO. – Ether Jul 26 '10 at 2:28
@Ether: No, the PHP code is syntactically correct. It's just that the SO web servers are sending funny responses to my requests. I can't seem to figure it out. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 2:32
2 Answers 2
This is by design. We don't want bots posting here, and I won't be providing any information to assist in the creation of said bots.
share|improve this answer
@Jeff: I'm not making a bot. I'm trying to enhance StackMobile with write capabilities. Since there is no write-enabled API, I'm stuck using HTTP. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 3:41
I think this is a good stance. Wait for a version of the API if you need to be able to post anything programatically. – jjnguy Jul 26 '10 at 3:42
I've almost got it going... I managed to post a couple comments now and again in a highly controlled setup. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 3:43
@George just wait until the read/write API gets released – Earlz Jul 26 '10 at 3:43
@Justin, @Earlz: But I don't want to wait. You saw how long it took to get v1.0 out. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 3:46
@george ok, but know that the entire team's day, every day, will be spent thinking up new ways to break you. – Jeff Atwood Jul 26 '10 at 3:50
@Jeff: Don't worry, I'm ready to give up - the whole thing is so complicated. I've got shell windows, network traffic analyzers, scripts, and browser extensions all over my desktop. Sigh. I was hoping it would work. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 3:58
Have (either of) you tried jQuery? – Andrew Jul 26 '10 at 7:28
First users ask for a mobile interface. Jeff says, "Nah. But we'll provide an API so you can write your own!". Now that someone actually did write one, the poor guy can't get support to make it post. Jeez! – user27414 Jul 26 '10 at 17:15
@Andrew: ha ha ha! That won't help, of course. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 21:01
@Jon: Thank you! I was beginning to think nobody cared that this won't work. I spent literally hours yesterday and the day before debugging HTTP requests, constructing a complex proxy, and banging my head against the wall. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Jul 26 '10 at 21:03
Hi George. I hacked together something that works (pending any changes in StackOverflow's URLs and webpage structure). Here is the github: https://github.com/danchoi/ask_stack
My solution involves using SeleniumRC/Firefox as an intermediary between the command line tool and the StackOverflow server. This will let you post a question to StackOverflow from the unix command line.
By the way, my goal is not to faciliate spamming SO. I had a problem, which is that I wanted to write my StackOverflow questions in Vim and post them from the command line, and I hacked a solution.
share|improve this answer
Hmmm... that's neat. I'll have to take a look at it. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Apr 22 '11 at 20:12
btW the tool only posts questions right now, but the same approach should work for comments. There is also apparently a way to keep things clean and run Firefox in a kind of "headless" mode using Xvfb so it doesn't open two Firefox windows each time. – dan Apr 24 '11 at 16:25
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Comments Threshold
RE: 175$ becomes the price
By awer26 on 4/29/2007 1:51:08 PM , Rating: 2
Absolute aid given is just as important as the % given. No, Denmark shouldn't have to give as much as us, and we should definitely give more than them, but we shouldn't have to match percentages. If a person with $1,000,000 gives $500,000 in charity I think it is better than a poor person with $10 gives $5. Recouping the $5 is going to be much easier than the $500k (yes that's an extreme example, but its the same principle)
RE: 175$ becomes the price
By mthambi on 4/30/2007 11:15:58 AM , Rating: 2
I don't think you understand. The comparison is not between a person with $1000000 giving $500000 and one with $10 giving $5. It is between 100 people having $10 each ($1000) giving $500 vs 1 person having $10 giving $5.
To look at it another way, I am sure EU gives a lot more in absolute aid than the US.
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BBC BLOGS - West Country Cash
« Previous | Main | Next »
'Scrap public pensions,' says pensions guru
Dave Harvey | 09:50 UK time, Wednesday, 8 September 2010
It was the battle Mrs Thatcher ducked.
"Leave it for another government," the former PM was reported to murmur, when presented with a civil service dossier marked "Public Sector Pensions."
The Iron Lady, famed for relishing a fight with miners or Argentinians, flinched when it came to dinner ladies' nest eggs.
Mark Dampier, Head of Research at Hargreaves Lansdown in Bristol
Well, now a man has picked up the dossier she dared not open. A man respected throughout the City of London for his financial savvy. As it happens, a rather affable man who doesn't usually go looking for trouble.
"I'm afraid my unpopular measure is simply, we must stop public pensions now, and replace them with private pension plans."
Mark Dampier is Head of Research for Hargreaves Lansdown, the massively successful investment brokers based in Bristol. The firm recently reported an 18% rise in pre-tax profits, they've signed up 48,000 new clients and now look after £17.5bn of people's money. So these people understand money.
Much of their expertise is in pensions or other ways of saving for your retirement. And Mark Dampier has long banged on about the need for more people to save. Never stops cajoling journalists like me to encourage youngsters to think about the dark day the pay check stops coming and they still have bills to pay.
So Mr Dampier is not "anti-pension". Far from it. What's he got against special pensions for firefighters and French teachers then, bin men and brigadiers?
You can watch his whole argument here, if you like, as he sets it out on a special Points West Debate on the Spending Review, to be broadcast on Thursday evening, 9 Sept, BBC One, at 10:35. It will also be on the iPlayer, here.
I was at the recording, and I can tell you Mr Dampier didn't go down well. A teacher accused him of "raiding the poor to rescue the country from the mistakes of rich bankers". Council union people asked him if he'd like to work for twelve grand a year, and then have a fat cat steal his pension. A policeman, of 50, said millions of public servants like him had worked unstintingly in the national interest, and didn't deserve to be treated like this.
It's a lively debate, ahead of its time, and well worth watching.
The Points West Debate on Spending Cuts, filmed in Filton College, north of Bristol
"I wasn't surprised at the reaction," Mark Dampier told me afterwards, "but if anything it makes me more convinced."
Now of course he's not arguing teachers and nurses should be left with nothing, nor that people in their 50s should have the promised pension ripped from them just as they reach retirement. Future staff, he says, should have the same pensions as everyone else in the private sector, no more and no less.
What struck me was that this is an argument where the two sides pass like ships in the night. The public sector reaction is fueled by understandable emotion. Betrayal, anger, envy are everywhere. But Mr Dampier's argument is simply cold financial logic.
In 2008-9 the Treasury paid out £13,387m to NHS Pensioners. It was over a tenth of the total NHS budget of £119bn. (You can see the figures for yourself here , halfway down page 6). Since one in four public sector workers are in the NHS, a rough total for the national pension bill for retired government staff would be in the order of £50bn.
The point is, it's a lot of money. And public sector pensions are much more generous than private ones. Here's how Mark Dampier explains that:
"Take for example a nurse earning £25,000 a year. Currently she pays 6.5% of her salary towards her pension - that's £1,600 a year. We taxpayers then promise her a further 14% on top. Overall, £3,500 goes towards her pension each year.
Then take someone working in the private sector, a shop worker perhaps, also on £25,000 a year. On average employees like this pay 6% of their salary towards a pension - equating to just £1,500 a year - less than half what the nurse receives. How can that be right?"
Will his radical plan ever happen? That depends on a political calculation. Teachers unions, council unions, police officers and nurses can all be relied on to oppose change, perfectly understandably. But for every public sector worker in the UK, four people work for private firms.
So for every person furious at Mr Dampier's proposal, there will be four people who pay the bill he's trying to cut.
He know's it is unpopular, possibly brutal. But is there an option?
The rest of this argument is for you. Have your say, then come back and read what others say. Mark Dampier himself will read this page, and respond. I know it's an emotive issue. In 20 years in journalism, I've never reported a proposal Mrs T considered too hot to touch. Over to you then...
• Comment number 1.
Our Union Barons are now planning actions to show the Govt just who is in charge of the Country..
We may as well sort this long needed problem at the same time. Bit like going to the dentist and having em all out - painful but gets it over with.
• Comment number 2.
Makes logical sense to me, and no-one loses out:
- current public sector get to keep their ridiculously generous pensions that should never have been agreed in the first place, so they are happy
(note the level of understanding the private sector are being asked to bear here, not to be taken lightly)
- and new public sector workers are in same boat as the Private sector, i.e we're all finally on a level playing field, so they can grumble to themselves at missing the boat, but have no grounds to complain.
Implement asap.
• Comment number 3.
The 'investment bankers'would say this wouldn't they? They have already raided most private pension funds to fuel their greed and would dearly love to get their hands on the billions of pounds in public pensions so that they can cream this off for themselves too. Surely the important thing to do is to take pensions out of the financial sector gamblers' pots altogether and to work towards bringing private sector pensions up to the reasonable (but rarely gold plated) standards of the public sector?
• Comment number 4.
What Mark Dampier doesn't mention is that the senior management in companies (ie people just like him) are creaming off at the expense of their employees. They may have reduced their employees pension entitlements from final salary to defined contributions but what they are shy about telling you is they have made sure that their pensions are generous in the extreme and well protected. What Mark failed to mention is that public sector pensions are currenty under review. Everyone is expecting they will be substantially reduced to be more in line with the private sector. So that just leaves the senior management in companies such as Mark Dampier. What does he think about their pensions?
• Comment number 5.
As a now retired firefighter, I would have been delighted to have the same pay and conditions as the firefighters in the private sector, just along the road from my station was the local oil refinary, when incidents of any consequence happened as they did from time to time, we local authority firefighters did exactly the same job sometimes more than our private sector colleagues, except we paid eleven percent of pay for our pensions, only this april do our private sector collegues now pay a whopping one percent! (incidentally they got a rise to pay for their pensions)for a very similar pension, my pay when taken into consideration of all the perks my private sector colleague has is approximately half theirs!
My private sector colleague will rarely if ever attend a road traffic collision unless involved in it, my private sector collegue will rarel if ever have to drive for up to forty minutes through traffic to get to an incident, my private sector colleague will never attend fires where children die, local authority fire fighters have a much more diverse job than their private sector collegues so give us the same pay and pension, we would have no complaints only praise!
You really want the public sector for nothing thats your real point!
Not forgetting the vested interest of hargreaves lansdown who stand to make themselves even greater profits.
I accept that many private sector pensions are in difficulty, much of this could be laid at politicians who raided pension funds, then managers who took pension holidays instead of continuing with their share of payments in the last two decades.
Surely the ambition should be that all have a decent pension in retirement, after all do some not claim that Britain is about the fourth wealthiest nation in the world, yet many can not have dignity as they get older!
• Comment number 6.
He's right. Public servants of all types have for decades been quietly larding their pensions to a degree that looks more like kleptocracy than responsible and fair remuneration.
It's no good pleading injustice when the civil servant who has earned an equivalent salary to their private sector counterpart (which frankly they now do) can retire early to live on an index linked income funded by dipping into the assets of people worse off.
The private sector does not consist of bankers on £250k a year, it is mainly office and support workers on nearer £25k.
• Comment number 7.
Speaking as someone who has worked in both the public and private sectors, I have no problem with this, as long as pension entitlements which have already been built up are protected. You can't retroactively cut the benefits of twenty years' service in half, because there's no way people can be expected to predict that sort of thing and protect themselves from it. However, there's no reason why future pension entitlements shouldn't be built up at the same rate as the private sector, because people will know about the cut in advance and be able to save extra money into a private pension if they wish.
Of course, the generous pension is what compensates for the lower salaries of the public sector, so the economic benefit of cutting that provision may well prove to be a mirage. The Government will either have to increase its salaries to compensate, or make do with a lower calibre of personnel as the best people head for greener pastures.
• Comment number 8.
At last, someone speaking some sense, lets have a level playing field for once for everybody before I get too old
• Comment number 9.
And who will step into provide these pensions and sell pension products -let me guess organisations such as Hargreaves Lansdowne who take a fee of 1% etc of the managed fund. When the value of this falls their is no risk to them but the pensioners lose their savings! Mark Dampier works for an investment broker i.e. a salesman for financial products.
Even when the stock market performs well these products are poor value due to the fees. See quote from recent article in the telegraph...
"British savers are retiring with pension pots worth 50 per cent less than some of their European counterparts, despite having invested the same amount of money, because of an array of hidden charges, one of the country’s leading pension fund manager says today
Mr Pitt Watson, a senior executive at Hermes Fund Managers, says that a range of little-known fees and levies typically wipe more than £100,000 off the value of a middle-class worker’s private pension"
See below for full article
The big scandal is poor and risky pensions for private sector employees not decent pensions for public sector employees!
Mark Dampier talks of a shop work getting a lower pension than a nurse and argues that this is unfair.
Well the fact is once the shop worker has retired the company has no further obligations for them! But the government on the other hand has an obligation to both the nurse and the shop worker. If the shop workers pensions is poor it will be topped up by the government in the form of pension tax credit and also supplemented by the state pension.
This is such a poor argument it is frankly ridiculous!!! Convinced about something because it is unpopular - if we follow this logic (that if its unpopular it must be right) we should get going with a new poll tax and possibly start fighting another war - anyone for invading Iran?
• Comment number 10.
Mark Dampier is either wrong or being misleading for the sake of effect:
"Take for example a nurse earning £25,000 a year. Currently she pays 6.5 per cent of her salary towards her pension - that's £1,600 a year. We taxpayers then promise her a further 14 per cent on top. Overall, £3,500 goes towards her pension each year."
Ignoring the sexism implicit in that sentence, it is not true on those figures that taxpayers are promising a further 14% on top - £3500 is 14% of £25,000 - so the taxpayer is making up the pension from 6.5% to 14%.
This is rather less - an extra 7.5% from the employer (taxpayer). While this doesn't substantially change the argument, it does weaken it by halving the 'headline' figure of 14% from taxpayers. Traditionally, public sector pay has been markedly lower than private sector pay and part of the trade-off has been employer contributions to pensions and (in theory) job security.
Having said that, it is now true that there is a more equal playing field between private and public pay, so maybe we should begin to rethink the relative pension provisions for future employees - but that could go either way - if a considerate and compassionate society decided that a decent level of employer contribution was required from the private sector (who would have to adjust salaries accordingly - and the public sector would then follow suit), then neither side would have to suffer in their dotage - but then, this is hardly the time for consideration and compassion, we are led to believe.
• Comment number 11.
As a serving teacher (with less than 4 years to go until I reaching the retirement age of 60) I have sympathy with the need for government to deal with the issue of public sector pensions. I am also (inevitably) relieved that most suggestions would not have a major impact on my pension on the quire reasonable grounds that it is now far too late for me to change arrangements now. I would accept an increase in my pension contributions as going someway to reduce the need for taxpayers to fund my pension. I would also accept that it is reasonable to expect public sector retirement ages to rise (as has already been agreed and implemented for new entrants several years ago, by the way).
What I do not accept is that this should all be done without any compensating incentives. As has already been mentioned by earlier contributors, public sector pensions - generous as they are in the current economic climate - are part of an overall contract with our employers and any changes have to be viewed in that light. I cannot earn a bonus no matter how well my students perform in their examinations. I am not paid for the extra-curricular activities I undertake to enhance my students educational experience. I have no wish to be paid for either of these but I do expect that these aspects of my work should be remembered when renumeration (including pensions) are considered.
• Comment number 12.
Where to start with this nonsense? I suppose the first thing to make clear is a few facts:
1. The NHS pension scheme is currently in surplus and pays in about £2bn to the treasury. The average female pension is £4,000 per year.
2. Most, if not all schemes, have in the past been similarly in surplus and have paid billions into the exchequer.
3. Virtually all the 'gold-plated' schemes have already been massively reformed so the only further change would be to remove benefits that have already been promised. I think the MPs may have the last such generous scheme left.
4. One reason why there is such an apparent overspend in the future is that these estimates are based on cutting the number of public employees. One sure way to make a scheme more expensive is to lose 600,000 contributors!
I find it amazing that so much space is given to the suggestions of someone who has a very vested interest in his proposals, especially when no space is given to the facts that undermine his arguments.
Now who was it went for a cosy chat in No 10 over how to report the cuts?
• Comment number 13.
The example of a nurse and a shop worker both earning £25,000 is a good one. People in the public sector have good pensions relative to our wages true but it is effectively deferred salary. A nurse will have studied for 3 years to gain her basic qualification which happens to be a degree and will be responsible for continuing professional development as part of her UKCC registration (License to practice)She is responsible for life and death situations The guy in the shop earns the same but has no such responsibilities nor expected to have the same degree of education and skill set. If public sector pensions are dismissed, then the state should expect to pay more for its workforce to keep their salaries in line with their private sector peers
• Comment number 14.
"A man respected throughout the City of London for his financial savvy" thinks a shop worker earns £25,000 a year?
They'd be lucky to earn half that.
He's completely clueless and out of touch. It's hardly surprising the City of London destroyed the economy if this is what passes for informed opinion and "financial savvy".
• Comment number 15.
11. old_n_grey
1 - I am too (but I've already got my hands on my pension, which makes me lucky).
2 - You're right, of course, to point out that such changes will not affect people's existing pension rights (that would be a far too dangerous course to try), so we're talking here of new employees to the public sector.
There is a good argument to be had about all pensions and how they are dealt with - on the one hand, should all employees be 'forced' to contribute (along with their employers) towards a reasonable pension - not something that many people under 30-40 (even 50) ever think about. So, is there a 'duty-of-care' argument there for the government?
On the other hand, should we just say: 'it's your fault, you should have thought of it - we paid you well enough'?
Proponents will split either way of the divide on philosophical / political opinions, but it seems sensible to me that a government could rightly say, in order to avoid picking up the tab later, that reasonable pension provision should be built in to employees' pay in the same way that national insurance is (or am I straying a bit too far left-wing here?).
Your point about lack of opportunities for bonus payments is also correct - as you say, there needs to be a compensatory system to deal with this equitably - whether that is reflected in pension provision or elsewhere is part of the interesting discussion.
• Comment number 16.
13. LynnMD
I don't think the example of the nurse and shop worker is a good one, as I explained above - but I think your overall point is excellent - what sort of a society are we where we pay a nurse with all the incumbent responsibility and high-level training the same as a shop worker?
'If I ruled the world ....' - you'd be better paid than me (PS. not a shop worker).
• Comment number 17.
Private sector pensions are affected by the performance of the underlying investments and by the the interest rate paid on gilts. People who retired on private pensions twenty years ago will have a significantly better pension (for comparable contributions) than people retiring now. This is because the stock market peaked then and because gilt rates have fallen ever since.
The effect of this is that there is a kind of ‘lottery’ with a private sector pension. In my opinion, this is unfair to these who retire when things are bad. Public sector pensions avoid this lottery and provide a predictable pension, which the private option does not.
Thus I believe there is a strong case to retain the present structure for public sector pensions.
For the example given of the shop worker, a major factor affecting the pension is the contribution level, which seems low compared to the NHS worker.
I believe that we will all need to make bigger contributions to balance the books but the mechanisms used must be fair, give a predicable return and avoid paying large ‘commissions’ to financial advisors and fund managers.
• Comment number 18.
So Mark Dampier, who is a major beneficiary of the public flotation of the company for which he works, thinks public sector workers should have the same pensions as private sector workers. But no public sector worker can expect to be rewarded with cheap or free shares / options in the enterprises for which they work. How will that inequity be addressed?
Private pensions are underfunded not least because many companies took 'contributions holidays' in the good times, and then cried poor in the bad times. It was not workers who failed to make adequate provision for retirement but their employers.
Mr Dampier's company, Hargreaves Lansdown, has been an aggressive promoter of Self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), so he has a naked self-interest in the proposals he advances, especially since HL's charging structure pushes the unsuspecting into the arms of fundmanagers who will charge 1.5 to 2% per annum for holding shares that would cost nothing to hold outside a SIPP. It is a moot point whether we should all be forced to depend on the casino of the stock market to provide for retirement, but the outrageous lottery of enforced purchase of annuities might then be avoided.
But if this, the 5th wealthiest nation in the world, really cannot afford to provide proper pensions for those who provide its public services, then let us do away with pensions and their paternalistic restrictions and performance-crippling charges altogether, and simply give people tax incentives to save for wahtever purpose they choose. Just don't be surprised when emigration is high on their list of priorities!
• Comment number 19.
I'm about to retire from an academic, at the age of 60. I'd like to make a couple of points. Firstly, public service salaries are generally much lower than in the private sector, and the admittedly generous pension allowance is some compensation for this. Presumably, we're all relieved that there are people who chose to be nurses rather than Bob Diamond. Secondly, I did take up options to buy extra years and extra pension, which has meant that, for many years, my salary has been considerably less than it might have been. I was, as it were, saving for my pension. These options are open to others. Perhaps one solution might be to pay far more equitable salaries to one and all, instead of having the obscene pay differentiation (what's Bob Diamond going to DO with £21 million?) that currently prevails.
• Comment number 20.
There are so many sheep out there believing everything employers, Government & newspapers tell them - no wonder the bankers & Dampier are laughing all the way to retirement.
Throughout history, gains made by working people in relation to health, education and working conditions have always been fought for through collective action or the threat off – this time around protecting our hard earned rights will be no different – class matters no matter how you paint it, just wait and see.
• Comment number 21.
Yes, make it a level playing field. Let the private sector, upgrade their employees pensions, to the same level as the public sector.
Public sector workers will support that. The public sector workers are understanding, and generous. They, like the rest of the country, already pay for the Chief Executives of large companies, some of whom are earning in excess of £10M pa.
Let the people of this country be well off in old age. Don't let's get dragged down to the lowest common denomiater. Upgrade the private sector pensions NOW!
• Comment number 22.
No, it is not financial logic with irrefutable sense. Mr Dampier is only looking at the small narrow picture that is pensions.
You can't compare public sector pensions with private sector pensions without considering the disparity in wages and terms and conditions etc.
Mark Dampier compares a nurse on 25K with a shop keeper on the same. This isn't a true comparison at all! If anything it should be a public sector nurse on 22K compared to a private sector nurse on 27K. The public sector nurse receives 25 days off a year plus public holidays and the private sector nurse receives 25 days including public holidays. The public sector nurses receives no perks. The private sector nurse receives health benefits, bonuses, discounts and more.
So, from my real life analogy above you can see, Mark Dampier, the only benefit to working in the public sector are the additional days off a year and the generous pension. Take the generous pension away and the workforce leaves, simple economics really isn't it?
• Comment number 23.
Mr Dampier
Other comments have pointed out that public sector workers are less well paid than equivalent private sector workers. Most studies have concluded this, and guaranteed benefit public sector pensions are a perk that so some way to addressing this.
The point here is that the public sector finds it cheaper to guarantee future payments than the private sector does, so valuing public sector pensions in the same way as private pensions is meaningless. The public sector has a very secure source of future income from tax, and can also borrow money at much lower rates of interest than private sector companies. Therefore is makes sense for the Government to offer this benefit in lieu of greater pay.
In short, especially in a period where pubic sector pay is being frozen to deal with the deficit now, it does make sense to compensate workers with better benefits in the future.
• Comment number 24.
Yep, great example nurse on £25,000 gets the same salary as a shopworker. Ever wondered why she's still a nurse and not doing a far less stressful unskilled job in a shop for the same cash.....maybe its the half decent pension! People are getting so carried away with public cutbacks for what will prove a temporary blip in history and people seem to forget the fact that the country is in so much debt because over £1 trillion of taxpayers money was used to bail out the banking industry. Get yourself worked up about ridiculous bankers bonus payments not nurses pensions.
Incidentally bonus payments sourced directly from the £1 trillion bailout money and the Bank of Englands ineffective quantitative easing programme (wheres all this additional cash created by QE gone btw? - Answer bankers backpockets/QE is the banks recent collosal profits btw, while devaluing the currency for the rest of us). How else could the banks be posting such great profits in a declining real economy? We're all being taken for mugs by the financial industry
• Comment number 25.
Exactly what you'd expect from a 'financier' respected by the 'City'. I've worked for over 20 years as a civil servant so would stand to lose a large prportion of the contributions and benefits accrued. I would have no way to rebuild that lost money and would end up drawing on a state pension if it falls below a certain level.
To simplistically compare a 'shop worker' with a nurse is totally niave and ridiculous. Most civil servants work for far less than that paid for similar skills and ability in private industry, the pensions and benefits of the public pension and other terms and conditions do a little to rebuild that gap.
20 years ago a nurse, policeman and generally most civil servants were paid a far higher wage when compared to the private sector than today. Over the past 20 years most civil service pay rises have barely kept up with inflation, private wages have been far more generous. It used to be that a job in the 'government' was a job for life with a high standard of living and respect, nowadays most of the media see the public service as a necessary evil, and revel in the fact they are having to cut staff and have a 2 or 3 year wage freeze.
Private companies also offer employees very generous bonuses, stock options or shares in the company, using the 'shop worker' analogy a well known supermarket pays its staff a cut of the profits as a reward for the success of the business. Meanwhile most civil servants are lucky if they get paid the actual full wage for the job they are doing. It took me 10 years to progress from my starting wage to the actual full wage for the job I was doing, even though I got very high performance marks nearly every year.
Each and every civil servant has signed an employment contract and deserves that to be honoured. How many of the public in the private sector would be happy to have their existing contract torn up in front of their eyes and replaced with one that cuts their leave allowance in half or makes them work weekends and night shifts. Most civil servants earn less than 20K a year so to suggest they all get thousands paid into their pensions every year is very misleading.
• Comment number 26.
There will always be a 'Private vs Public ' argument. However there seems to be an apartheid when it comes to Public Service workers, a kind of envious hate amongst the private sector workers - a seeming illusion that public workers have a cushy number. For myself, I have ran my own business for over 20 years, and in my experience the vast majority of public workers are poorly paid, and overburdened by short staffing levels and vast collective amounts of unpaid overtime, restricted opportunity for advancement, and little chance of promotion. So why do these (in my opinion) unsung heroes put up with unpaid overtime et al ? Easy. it's called a public employee pension ! So if the conDem government want have even higher costs than present, by all means scrap public workers pensions, but be prepared for private sector level wages and pay the proper - private going rate for overtime. Even if if the govt. were to countenance the extra costs of these, the jobs of Nurses, Policemen, Teachers and other vital and dedicted workers would be so unattractive, that recruitment would always be a problem. No matter where the number crunchers come from, Hargreaves Lansdown or elsewhere, the common sense of how things work in the real world in this instance, should be heeded above number crunchers and brainless politicians.
• Comment number 27.
Mr Dampier might be well respected in the City of London, but as a humble ex-college lecturer I would question his calculations concerning the costs of "public worker pensions". In the example quoted, the nurse on £25,000pa the "taxpayer contribution" indicate equates to £1,900pa. Compare that to the additional cost of an "agency nurse", with a self-funded private pension, and I think even Mr Dampier (with his obvious self-interest in private pensions) would find the £1,900 investment very reasonable.
I recollect when Margaret Thatcher attempted to tempt public sector workers away from superannuation to annuity pension. Several of my colleagues found many years later that the monies they transfered from their "public pension scheme" into their "new private pension scheme" had been taken-up in ongoing commision and other expenses - thus greatly reducing their pension value. All too often we hear from "respected experts" views that hide undeclared vested interests - continually the "private sector" tries to gain profit from "public sector activities". What Margaret Thatcher, and now, with gay abandon, the new "coalition of political chummies" are ignoring is the dependence of the "private sector worker" on the activities provided by "public sector workers". In Mr Dampier's example, do we really want an Americanised Public Health Service - which in America is not that public as the majority of the population live in fear of the personal cost of "illness". Pensions are constituent of most workers' contracts of employment - stipulations made to contributions and expected outcomes. As with all market forces at times of shortage the contracts benefit the recipient - and this country has a history of shortages of nurses, doctors, teachers, and various other public service providers. It was a previous Conservative government that went round the Caribbean extolling the benefits of life in Britain to provide bus drivers, nurses and other poorly paid service jobs. One Enoch Powell was quite active in the propoganda in enticing people to this nation.
Look at the range of "privatised public services" that now fail to provide - care of the elderly; care of pre-school children; public transport; water, gas, electricity utilities - all are pricing poorer users out of their services. Anicdotally, in 1983 an aunt and uncle returned from "privatised" America because they could not afford the "healthcare costs" that were imminent in their old age.
The cost of "public services" are a burden on all, but as with all things the burden falls proportionately more on the poorly paid. The taxation system continually favours those who take most from the financial pot - why not ask Mr Dampier what his, probably non-contributory pension costs those who use his services and expertise. In my experience bank employees have had subsidised mortgages; managerial staff have subsidised private education for their children; and in the main have non-contributory pensions. I do not see Mr Dampier questioning the burden on the "cost of goods and services" that these incur.
Your article intimates at private sector jealousy of public sector benefits, but takes little regard of private sector perks, historical bonuses (admittedly increasingly appearing in swathes of the public sector), that have increasingly priced British goods out of world markets. Or would Mr Dampier progress to "union bashing" and blaming greedy workers, and their increasing rights, rather than looking closer to home for the cause of much of this countries financial ills.
At present about 7% of the school population attend private schools, by the time these pupils progress towards A level studies this increases to 18%. Yet, at the major Russell Group universities they represent in excess of 47% of students. Politicians have grand schemes for funding university education, Mr Cable is trying to "privatise/commercialise" scientific research - insisting it should be self-funding. Then why are those who choose to pay for the privileges that private school education provides (demonstrably access to Russell Group universities) not required to pay for the privilege of world renowned university education. The choices are made by those who most benefit from a system that is more a reflection of our Norman "baronial structure" than a 21st century nation trying to progress in an increasingly technology reliant world.
Privilege of pension rights - why not attend to the greater abuses of privilege that exist in draining resources from the nation. Inland Revenue demands for taxes that have been miscalculated, £1.8bn over and £2.1bn under charged, a net gain of £300m to the Revenue. How much is lost through tax avoidance, by private organisations and individuals, and how much brighter would the British (even world) economy be if all taxes were paid. Maybe Mr Dampier and his expertise should be targeted towards that much larger problem.
• Comment number 28.
Interesting to see Mark Dampier straying into Tom McPhail's territory.
• Comment number 29.
Firstly let me say that I have both public and private pension pots. I cannot understand how my public sector one appears to grow by 15 - 25% each year when my private one struggles to grow at all.I do think that all new public sector employees should have a reduced pension arangement. However I also think that something needs to be done to encourage people to save for old age or we will be in a dire situation in 20 to 40 years time.
Personally I have given up on pension as too inflexable when my employment appears to change every year and I have no idea if I will want to retire at 55 (to look after eldery parents) or 75 because I am still enjoying working.
• Comment number 30.
At last, someone with some sense! In the old days the public sector had less pay but better pensions than the private sector - it made sense.
Today, the public sector have better pay, better pensions and better 'perks'. The public sector bang on about bankers pay when they mention cuts - but they need to wake up - not everyone in this country is a banker. In fact is a very tiny percentage are and it is the average person like me who has to pay these completely unfair bills.
Hopefully common sense will rise to the top and these justified pension reforms take place - well done Mark Dampier - you have my complete support.
It seems anyone who works in the public sector believes they are better than, and deserve more than, those in the private sector!
Once we have reformed pensions, someone needs to tackle the public sector 'perks'. Why do most of the public sector recieve 6 months or more full pay maternity yet the private sector just have 6 weeks at 90%?
These proposals are reasonable and fair to the country as a whole.
May I suggest just one last thing. It is unfair to hit those that are due to retire in the next 10-15 years however I think it would be fair to introduce a pension cap for these people, especially some of the very high earners in the public sector who earn more than £40,000 a year or more.
Unions can go on about bankers getting us into this mess but it is the unions that force through pay rises and perks with threats of implementing strikes and I would argue it is their greed that has given this country more of a headache in terms of costs going forward than any bank has.
• Comment number 31.
Final salary pensions are just another part of the gravy train for public sector workers. Bankers get their bonuses, million and millions more get theirs courtesy of the taxpayer long into retirement.
Stop them now and save the country a fortune. IF we are in an age of austerity then surely it is the right thing to do
• Comment number 32.
A guy whose salary is hundred of thousands or more (and that comes from people pensions) saying that pensions of those earning 10-100 times less than him must be reduced because there are not not enough money ...
Bloody bankers
• Comment number 33.
"...less than half what the nurse receives. How can that be right?"
Because nurses help save peoples lives! The big issue should be, why do people who drive a desk in local authorities get the same pension rights as nurses, teachers and the police? It is these individuals, who do jobs the same as those in industry, who should be treated the same as those in industry.
• Comment number 34.
there have been a few misinderstandings. First,HL doesnt have any special executive pension plan. We all have self invested pension plans, something i believe everyone should have,the MPs should take a lead here by taking one.Nor are pension plans expensive as they were once,Dan sites the article from the daily Telegraph,but much of this was out of date.HL has been at the fore front of reducing charges for pensions and many other financial products. I am NOT suggesting that public sector employees don't get what they have already accrued,just that we phrase out the existing schemes and replace them with what the rest of us have,contributions from employers can still be made into a personal pension,but the levels would then be transparent for all to see. At present they are probably close to 25%/30%,which is being paid for by all the taxpayers, a level which is costing us all a fortune.This liability is standing at about £1trn and going up!! The really bad joke for many public sector workers is there is NO fund,your contributions are merely helping to pay for those who have already retired. At least my way you end up with your own fund. Your pension is largely based on a politicians promise, can you really sleep at night with that thought?!
• Comment number 35.
Weredoomed's comments are interesting, but he of course benefited from one of the most generous (and flexible) of public sector schemes.
Firefighters are able to access their pension long before many others and will therefore draw considerably more over their lifetimes than the average pensioner. I wonder if Weredoomed considered that?
Also, as they retire earlier, they are often able to (should they wish or be able) continue to work and even start another career.It is alos not unheard of (I have known many as do many people I know) for a firefighter to moonlight between shift patterns.
Now, I know it is a dangerous job and often causes people to have to retire from that job early, but that is not a good argument on its own.
That is a decision made when entering the service, and is goes with the territory. Its the same decision soldiers make who also put their lives at risk. Yet soldiers's pensions (unless you're an officer) are poor. In fact, they compare (un)favourably with much of the private sector.
While I agree many want to get the public sector on the cheap, Weredoomed should count his blessings that he was in a scheme that provided so generously for his future.
However, to all those who think stopping final salary pensions will save money in the long term, I ask this: where do you think those people will turn for money in retirement? When they lose their 'gold-plated' pension schemes, the millions (yes, millions) of workers who earn between the minimum wage and national average salary levels, will undoubtedly turn to the state, and so, Craig and others, the taxpayer will continue to foot the bill.
Remove the excesses by all means, but don't confuse the pensions of those in executive roles with those of other public sector staff.
Oh, and for the record, I'm a private sector worker, and always have been.
• Comment number 36.
Fisrly Mark is a very rich man, and it is all very well a very rich man telling the working class to save. It is very difficult, our money is either going on over inflated rents, courtesy of 'buy to letters', or over inflated house prices, again courtesy of the greed of 'buy to letters', and 'cheap' money over the last decade. The baby boomer generation have a lot to answer for, leaving my younger generation with the legacy of crippling debt, just to fuel their short term greed.
It is a disgrace that this very rich baby boomer, dares tell me that he now wants to get rid of my public pension.
• Comment number 37.
Mark Dampier: "We all have self invested pension plans, something i believe everyone should have"
Please Mark if you could explain how much profit your company makes from helping people make investments for their pensions then we could all agree that your company would have a lot to gain if all public sector pensions went private!
The above article I quote is not out of date it is from August this year.
The pensions that your industry have provided for pensioners have performed really poorly with massive fees taken by fund managers - rather than admit the failure in this arena you attack the public sector pensions and say they should be poor too!
Jeremy Grantham an experienced and consistently high performing fund manager in the US has written about this extensively in his newsletters for GMO.
If public sector pensions move to the system you advocate this would mean government would borrow money which would then be given to fund managers who would take a cut and then reinvest a significant chunk of the money in government bonds such as inflation linked gilts. This circular investment situation would be frankly ridiculous - the only gainers from the situation would be brokers (such as Hargreaves Lansdowne) and fund managers.
• Comment number 38.
Why not compare a public sector nurse with a private sector nurse?
Of course, you would need to look at the total employment package, but as a start you could include their relative salaries, financial bonuses, perks such as free/cheap private health insurance, share incentive schemes, etc.
This could then be used to find a total for an hourly rate of remuneration.
The same method of direct comparison could also be used for many other public sector jobs.
So, returning to my original question - why not compare nurses with nurses? Answer - Mr Dampier probably has done and hasn't liked the answer!
• Comment number 39.
Mr Dampier's argument is nonsense and I think disingenuous. The employer’s contribution should rightly be considered part of an employee’s salary. A fair comparison, therefore , is to compare the total employment cost – i.e. salary + NI + employer's pension contribution - for equivalent jobs in both the private and public sectors. I doubt any fair comparison would have private sector workers doing worse than those in the public sector. The irony is that by working in the public sector an individual is opting, whether he knows it or not, to save more of his salary. The very thing that Mr Dampier says he wants.
• Comment number 40.
As some have rightly pointed out this guy would stand to gain considerably from this.
I think given that private pensions are rubbish and extremely expensive at best is not an argument that all pensions should leave people in a position where they need to rely on the state pension despite lining the likes of Mark Dampier's pockets through unjustifiably high charges and management fees. I am sure it works out at about 40% with some policies go to the bankers not the annuity holder.
I work in the Private Sector, and do feel that some jobs such as running after criminals may actually be a young guys game and performs an invaluable public and economic service. The police contractually agree not to perform industrial action and in return pay very large pension contributions but also expect the state, taxpayers, and corporates who benefit to contribute.
The persistent undervaluation of both the social and economic contribution that police, teachers, and many others perform really gets on my nerves. The fact that they defer much of their potential earnings for retirement seems quite rational, And people who seem to think public sector is overpaid they should perhaps look at their own workloads and decide if maybe their envy is based on the fact they are underpaid and generally being exploited to a far higher degree. Because the private sector are really bad except with the most senior employees I for one do not think as a society we should follow that path with public servants and essentially screw them as hard as possible.
The entire premise of this is that somehow private pensions are good or provide a decent standard of living in retirement is a fallacy. The history of the private pensions industry is awful in this country and state/taxpayers often has to pick up the pieces. In fact large amounts of those publicly pensioned employees are working to enhance the position of those exploited by the private pensions industry and private employers.
Why do we want to emulate the worst aspects of private sector practice in the public sector? Yeah money is tight, but only if you are a slave to this market rather than its master.
• Comment number 41.
Dark Vector: "Of course, the generous pension is what compensates for the lower salaries of the public sector,"
Hmmm, and there lies the problem - the expectation of a lower salary has gone, hence the endless strikes to get X% increases per year. I remember reading about binmen being on 30K (quick google backed that up, - that says it all. The public sector want pay equivalent to everyone else, but also keep the more than generous pension - you can't have it all without disadvantaging the private sector, hence private sector annoyance.
• Comment number 42.
What he forgets to add is that most employers contribute to encourage/reward their staff.
My former employer paid double my contribution up to a maximum of 12%, so that makes 18%, not six.
• Comment number 43.
And as for all those thinking Hargreaves Lansdown are simply out to make money from this, that's irrational and niaive - to suggest that, and ignore this massive issue, is to stick your head in the sand.
This issue needs to be resolved now, it can't go on - understand: we can't afford the current situation.
• Comment number 44.
• Comment number 45.
For far too long the Government has avoided the key issues on pension saving for the UK workforce, choosing in stead to make pensions one of the most complicated areas of financial consideration. Scrapping Public sector pensions and creating a level playing field with simplified rules is far far overdue.Time for this Government to act is at hand.
• Comment number 46.
Mark Dampier really should reveal the pension details of senior executives like himself. We wouldn't want him to be accussed of hypocrisy now! Why do the rich and powerful always expect the sacrifices to be made by the less well paid ?. As for the whole tone of this article can the journalist please try to hide his awe of people such as Dampier. It was the banking and finance industry and their greed that got us into this mess.
• Comment number 47.
from Mark dampier. Dan its what the article says thats out of date not the article, and Martin it is the younger generation thats going to have to pay the older generations bills and public sector pensions will be a huge bill for the younger set.To some of the others i say the poltics of envy always cause greater problems. There are around 4 workers to every public sector worker,they are not all bankers,and they are paying for your pensions and the bill is rising every year.
• Comment number 48.
34. At 09:59am on 09 Sep 2010, mark dampier wrote:
Hi Mark ... (even if it's not really you ...)
This whole area is a minefield ... public and private.
1. Private Sector SIPPs can go down as well as up ... what happens if you're one of the unlucky ones? Work till you drop?
2. Public sector pensions require a supplement from the taxpayer of £10bn a year ... and this is only going to go up as the public sector shrinks in size. A significant chunk of this £10bn will come from private sector pensioners getting a pittance in comparison to a public sector final salary scheme. How can this be fair?
3. Private Sector Annuity plans are a complete rip off. The best you can get on a non-index linked plan is 5%. That means that you need to be retired for 20 years before you start spending any of 'their' money. Meanwhile the annuity company sits on your interest, which (at say 4%) will amount to half your original lump sum over 20 years. Free money for them. Why do government regulations not allow me more freedom with my pension pot ... the local building society is a far more appealing option?
4. Increasing the retirment age might be an option to ease the burden for some types of employment; but for those still in manual jobs, their life expectancy has not risen in the last 50 years; and in some areas it has even dropped. Even if they were willing, would they be able to work for longer?
5. The equity markets, on which most private sector pensions depend have seen negative growth over the last 10-15 years. Even now after a reasobable rally, FTSE is 1500 points off its highs of the late 90's. This is not unusual ... it took the Dow 25 years (and a world war) to recover to its pre-1929 values. Growth is not guaranteed.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. If we want to work for 40 years and retire for 20, we probably need to be putting 30% of our salary away a year ... but who would you trust the 30% to?
• Comment number 49.
I am a retired teacher. I suffered since 1976 from severe anxiety, panic attacks and agoraphobia. I struggled on in my job, using tranquillisers, and hardly took a day's absence. I set up a small business and left teaching in 1986 after 13 years service. I was perfectly entitled to claim my pension then because my health was really poor but I did not; instead I managed on my small earnings from my business. When I was no longer able to run my small business I lived off my savings until they ran out and then applied for ill-health retirement to obtain my pension. At that time I had already been awarded both mobility and care allowances for Disability Living Allowance (about £1800 per annum) after fighting for 3 years the intransigent DWP (who insisted for 3 years I was perfectly normal but then left the tribunal minutes before I entered and told the tribunal that they fully accepted my case); I think that award and my GP's medical report showed clearly the extent of my illness. However, Teachers' pensions refused to pay me an ill-health pension on the grounds that I could work at home (but, of course, made no suggestions as to what form of work I could obtain at home). This was only 3 years prior to my actual retirement age so large sums of money were not involved.
I then applied for incapacity benefit but was told that as I had lived off my savings for the last two years then I had made no NI payments so did not qualify. I had paid about 35 years of NI contributions but did not qualify for help; had I paid only two years (the most recent two) then I would have qualified.
My DLA payment was given to me "indefinitely" but now I am told I will have to reapply in the next few years; this is because the Government wants to take that money away from me to repair the damage caused by the fat cats whilst allowing them to keep their huge bonuses.
I should obtain my State pension in 5 years BUT it is possible the Government will increase the age of retirement before I get to 65.
So, this is what I think:
1. Take no notice of what they tell you about not affecting pensions of existing Public Servants. The Government is prepared to change things as they wish and at very short notice. Words like "promise" and "indefinite" mean nothing.
2. Public Servants will not be helped when they are ill. The Government has appointed firms to run Public Service pensions on the basis that those firms keep their lucrative contracts only if they screw everyone who dares apply for early retirement.
3. The poor, the ill and the elderly will suffer most in the spending cuts. When (or "if") the public finances return to normal then we will have cut spending to such an extent that there will be billions of pounds available in a future Budget .... it will be given to the rich. We will be told this is because these are the people who will make our economy grow (really? I thought they were the ones who just destroyed it) and that their wealth will "trickle down" (I agree, the hugely expensive wines they consume will trickle down their throats by the gallon).
4. The people of this country should not stand idly by and see their standards of living decimated while allowing the wealthy to improve theirs. This is a fight as big as that fought by the Unions when they were first formed. Note that Thatcher tried to destroy the Unions .... but she left one alone ... it is the National Farmers Union .... I know, of course, that it is a different form of Union but my point is that she did nothing to hurt the wealthy (and any reader of this who thinks farmers are poor needs to wake up ... that is the propaganda they promote via the media owned by the farming landowners with the help of the extremely wealthy farmers/landowners known as the Royal Family. It works because people are so gullible).
5. The Government will attempt to turn the public against public servants, the ill, the elderly, the disabled and the immigrants* (who do jobs at very low pay that most of us will not do); they will divide our nation. They will attack the poor and help the rich. People will stand idly by at their peril.
(* Do you know that the Government is restricting all groups of immigrants EXCEPT the wealthy, who are allowed to settle here without any restrictions. Most of these wealthy people settle in London, push up house prices, and become the chums of Government Ministers and MPs. So you can be a poor immigrant who is willing to wipe the bottoms of someone with dementia but they are being told to stay away or you can be a wealthy fat cat who lends his Villa to an MP for his summer hols and you are being encouraged to settle here. If you don't think this matters then wait until you are elderly and find no one willing to work in our care homes).
• Comment number 50.
Unfunded, defined benefit pensions are a pyramid scheme: for everyone drawing a pension from a scheme, we need several people paying into the scheme through pension contributions or taxes. To keep the pyramid standing, we need to keep expanding the state exponentially (to get more pension contributions) and welcoming large numbers of immigrants (to get more tax payers). We can't keep doing those things for ever. Better a managed transition to funded, defined contribution schemes than the chaos of letting the pyramid collapse.
• Comment number 51.
Just a quick note to thank everyone for taking part in this debate. I thought it would divide people, and it clearly does.
Remember, if you are in the West Country you can see the TV debate on this subject, which Mark Dampier kicks off, tonight - Thursday 9 Sept - at 10:30 after the Ten O'Clock news. If not, you can catch it on the iPlayer from tomorrow, here:
• Comment number 52.
read this, how about these fat cats pensions and salaries being sorted out, at the same time. I am sick of this greedy country, and the working classes being indoctrinated, doing nothing about it. WAKE UP, WE NEED TO STAND UP AND RISE AGAINST THESE WRONGS
• Comment number 53.
To be honest the whole system stinks, I can't wait until I die, I wish I had the courage to commit suicide
• Comment number 54.
• Comment number 55.
• Comment number 56.
• The inequality of this is the key point. I’m sure Mr Dampier has a nice generous pension package, and yet he has no problem telling those that work in the public sector that the, trivial pension levels in comparison, are too high. He also works for an investment broker. In what way is he contributing to society as a whole, compared to nurses, teachers, firemen, policemen etc. If his type of job was deleted would society notice? It sure would if any of the public sector jobs were. Furthermore, why does them comparison with the private sector not include the board rooms of the country? Where pensions are so high its obscene. The higher the level of inequality the more the masses will protest, and its never been higher.
• Comment number 57.
Hargreaves Landsdown have a vested interest in encouraging people to take private pensions. If these pensions were more transparent and gave decent returns then they would attract more investors. But for the average working man the returns are poor and the providers difficult to deal with.
Surely we should be aiming to increase the value of the poorest pensions instead of reducing the value of the best? If this was the case then HL etc. would have to give better returns for their customers and would attract more investors, instead of relying on the government to drive employees to the current crop of pension providers. That is easy money for them!
MPs should lead the way, and opt out of their current scheme, if the current pension providers are so good.
• Comment number 58.
I can see the cold logic and the hot feelings in this matter.
One way to look at it is that private pensions (for most employees) are not good enough, so shouldn't we also be dealing with that issue too?
Yes something has to be done and yes it will take at least 20 years to bring about, but we need to make a start now. My only concern about getting rid of public sector pensions and making everyone have private pension schemes is that there are too many companies over the last 20 years have taken pension holidays, this must NOT BE ALLOWED ANYMORE! All pension funds should be continuously added to at all times, and no breaks allowed.
In the future I believe everyone will have the same type of pensions and therefore a more level playing field, but what is good economic medicine for the goose needs to be like wise for the gander, in other words top excecutives also need to have their final salary pensions taken away too. Many of the private companies today that have taken their staff off final salary or similar schemes still have final salary pensions for their executives - smacks of Animal Farm to me!
All pesnsions should be based on the employee putting 7% of salary into the pot, with the company putting in at least another 7%. This rate should be the same for ALL employess, managers and executives too, they get paid enough anyway to be able to save several hundred thousand pounds over their working life to top up any pension plan they have.
The other thing is if the Government are going to be saving 100s of billions of pounds every year then are we to get a guarantee from them that there will never be any more private pension fund collapses, that governemnt money can be put to one side (along with appropriate amount from private industry too) to ensure people still get their pensions in the future?
• Comment number 59.
As always seems to be the case with a contentious topic such as public sector pensions, the comments fall into 2 very stark camps; scrap them all or keep them all.
Thankfully, John Hutton's Public Sector Pension Commission will be able to analyse the many alternatives to the 'all-or-nothing' approach. The status quo cannot continue financially, it is simply unsustainable, so any changes have to be focussed on delivering for those who need it most.
The simplist approach is to 'cap' the pension that can be provided by the public sector schemes, e.g. £40,000 p.a. The number of huge pensions that are now being underwritten by the taxpayer is growing rapidly, this represents a disproportionate cost.
High-earning public sector employees are increasingly receiving private sector style bonus packages as well as their 'gilt-edged' pensions, so if they need to save more they have the disposable income to utilise Mr Dampier's SIPPs as well, if they so choose. So the cap does not hurt them and it does not disadvantage the teachers, policemen, nurses etc. who deserve the reward of a public sector pension for their service.
There is more than one answer. We need to have a 'grown-up' conversation about the extent of services that we, the public, want and then target the taxpayers' resources to providing those the best way we can, with well-paid and well-motivated staff.
• Comment number 60.
I am outraged by the comments of this man Dampier.
By Mr Dampier's own example, he expects a fully qualified nurse who has probably studied medicine for 4 years and has another ten years of experience to be earning the same as a "shop worker". This is a joke. The only reason the nurse is only on £25k in the first place is because consecutive governments have negotiated to keep their pay down with the understanding that this would be compensated for by having a decent pension. This is what the unions fought for over decades and is enshrined into Public Sector contracts. So now our friend Mr Dampier (who himself is likely to have a very nice pension thank you) wants to strip the workers of their entitlements? And who exactly would be best placed to step in and offer his services once the Public Sector pensions are raided? Oh, it's Mr Dampier and his cronies again.
Wake up Great Britain and stand up for your rights. Now.
If you don't, you will regret it. While you struggle to pay your bills in retirement the likes of Mr Dampier will be sunning themselves in the Bahamas, paid for ultimately by you.
• Comment number 61.
Who is this guy Dampier?
I watched his speech again and for someone who is supposed to be "Head of Research for a massively successful investment broker" he is surprisingly ill informed on Public Sector Pensions as other comments from here will confirm.
Are these the kind of people we want in charge of our pensions, either public or private? If they were as "massively successful" as they claim, why are most of my private sector colleagues all complaining about the state of their private pensions which have all been dipped by banks, brokers, directors, the government and the like.
I'm sure Mr Dampier is a fine upstanding citizen but he certainly has nothing to offer to this debate other than blatant self interest. I don't know what Mr Dampier's pension arrangements are, but I'll bet his views would be very different if someone suggested that HIS pension be scrapped.
• Comment number 62.
Andy (#23)
The concept of promising better benefits in future to help offset the pain of low benefits/wages now is a good one in principle - however, it assumes that the cost of those better benefits in the future can be borne when the time comes.
My understanding is that this is essentially one of the big problems. The amount of money tied up in future promises is growing rather than shrinking, whilst the capacity to meet those promises is shrinking rather than growing due to changes in life expectancy, new generations being smaller in number than previous generations, etc.
A secondary issue is the sense of entitlement the current system has given. People who've paid contributions for (x) years feel they've earned the promised rewards, even though their contributions actually went to paying for past workers' current pensions and their future rewards are all based on future workers picking up the bill.
Nothing they've contributed has gone into a 'pot' to be drawn from in the future in the same way that a personal pension would. As such, we can end up with the inequitable situation where the government promises current workers pensions of, purely for example, £10,000 per year based on them having paid 5% of their salary.
The future workers paying for this may then need to pay, again purely for example, 10% of their salary to get £10,000 per head as they need to cover the shortfall caused by demographics. And the amount they receive has a corresponding impact on the following generation.
The disconnect between those funding and those receiving pensions was invisible provided younger generations were always larger than the older ones, as it wasn't a problem. Now the situation is reversing, to solve it requires a) plugging the population gap with immigration, b) forcing the younger generations to overcontribute to make up the shortfall in what was promised to previous generations (which they won't receive themselves), or c) reducing the rewards promised to older generations to match what can be afforded based on the same level of contributions by the younger generation. Or a mix of all three.
Currently the favoured approach is essentially b)...and whilst I don't necessarily agree completely with Mark Dampier, I think he's right to warn of the assumption that the current young and future generations will be happy to accept 100% of the cost in order to uphold the commitments that the previous generations are asking for.
Even if that's the case doesn't mean the time bomb won't explode at some point in the future. Better to solve it now, IMO.
• Comment number 63.
Lets take a simple family of 3 (grandpa, dad, son).
Grandpa (age 80) has worked all his life as a civil servant, paid his taxes and pension contributions and is now retired on a public sector pension. He doesn’t have a pension pot as his pension contributions into the pot during his working life were used to pay the pensions of his father and grandfather before him. However, he is sure that his son’s contributions from his working life will come indirectly to him.
Dad (age 60) has also only recently retired and worked all his life as a private shopkeeper. He also paid all his taxes but his pension contributions were saved privately to provide a pension pot for himself; which he now uses in retirement. Therefore he is self sufficient.
Grandpa expected his son’s contributions to pay for his pension but now he must rely on his grandson.
Grandson (age 40) is currently unemployed…therefore not contributing anything; even worse, he is actually claiming money.
Now lets flex the example… in the UK, there could be 3 Grandpas, 2 Dads and 1 Grandson. Who will pay the Grandpas their pension.
Solution 1: taxes will increase to tax the Grandpas, Dads and Grandsons
Solution 2: everyone start saving for their own pensions in their own pots
• Comment number 64.
I work in the private sector and my wife in the public sector.
So I’ve no axe to grind either way.
But I think perhaps I may just use this sharp knife.
If you want equality of pensions between public and private sector, why not go the whole hog and simply equalise all pensions based on the number of years worked.
You want equality of pensions Mr Dampier? Perhaps this is your moment.
On the other hand if you abolished the debt based creation of Government funding, Public Sector pensions may become affordable. After all we wouldn’t be paying interest of 5% on £1 trillion.
For those who don’t understand watch the first two videos and then visit the other two websites.
• Comment number 65.
I recollect PWC (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) recently calculating the cost of replicating public sector pensions within the private sector at 33% of payroll. No doubt this estimate will increase with improving mortality too. The cost is of course even higher for MPs pensions due to their overly generous accrual rates.
A notional cost of 33% of pay, with 26% being funded by the employer (ie taxpayer) underlines the true cost of these benefits. It is a great pity that the private sector cannot match this cost and provide similar benefits to the remaining 80% of the UK workforce, but the brutal reality is that it can't afford to! Therefore if the current situation persists we will end up with the private sector paying more money for public sector pensions than it can afford to pay for its' own pensions. That surely cannot be equitable.
I would therefore like to see full recognition and acknowledgement of the actual cost of these pensions by public sector employees and their unions. I would also like to see a progressive move towards pre-funding.
• Comment number 66.
Great to see this issue getting coverage but couching it in terms of public v private sector is unlikely to generate sensible debate.
A better question would be whether defined benefit schemes can have any place in retirement planning.
It doesn't matter whether it's higher taxation to fund growing public sector obligations or lower investment returns from funding private sector deficits. Either way, the ordinary (defined contribution) saver picks up the tab for the spiraling cost of providing pensions to a privileged group of people.
Leave the question of whether unfunded state schemes are a good idea to the debate on fiscal balance
• Comment number 67.
Mark Dampier is saying that public sector schemes are unaffordable because they are based on the pay as you go system and these will place intolerable pressures on those working in years to come as an increasing number of baby boomers retire. It is a fair enough point to make.
To remove this untolerable burden he suggests that the public sector employees have individually funded account (including contributions from the employee and employer - though much reduced employer contributions than present because of affordability). The money would be invested in the market place. It sounds a good idea as the pension investment would be protected from the machinations of politicians (witness the change from RPI to CPI in uprating pensions).
The only problem is that this will never, ever fly as a serious proposal for the reasons set out by danj180 at comment 37. It is is the most inefficient and costly way for the government/taxpayers. To quote "If public sector pensions move to the system you (Mark D) advocate this would mean government would borrow money which would then be given to fund managers who would take a cut and then reinvest a significant chunk of the money in government bonds such as inflation linked gilts. This circular investment situation would be frankly ridiculous."
The current issues with public sector pension schemes come from the expected increase in cost. In March 2010 the National Audit Office said the cost of the unfunded schemes would increase from 1.5 per of GDP - more or less the cost over many years - to 1.9 per cent of GDP before falling back again some years later. It is this 0.4 per cent of GDP increase that is getting people hot under the collar (although they may not realise it as such). If the cost were to remain at 1.5 per cent of GDP you would suppose there would little of the current debate although equality of provision between the private and public sector may still arise.
There would therefore seem to be a half way house. The Government/ taxpayer seem to be comfortable with paying 1.5 per cent of GDP for unfunded pension schemes (so keep things as they are for the bulk of an employees pension provision). But where forecasts show that this is likely to change upwards employees could be asked to fund the difference in advance in the type of account suggested by Mark Dampier.
• Comment number 68.
I am 33 years old and as far as I can see, my taxes will end up supporting quite a few public sector retirees. Especially more so, as the population ages.
I refuse to pay higher taxes for this.
Therfore, I have accepted a job abroad and am taking my labour to another country. If more and more people decide to do this, WHO will pay the pensions.
I am grateful to the UK, but adios!! I will watch what happens with interest..... and hopefully still claim my state pension and free BBC!!
• Comment number 69.
Pensions and their unfairness has been one of the most controversial subjects on Have your Say certainly for the past couple of years or so.
It wasn't something that worried too many folks until fairly recently because it was something they took for granted. That if you paid into a pension it automatically grew and provided a decent annuity or index related pension when you retired.
However market performances and inflation have been low for few years now and as annuities are declining in value which is what most in the private sector relied on public sector pensions continue in their original format without taking account of the market influences.
This has led to black holes having to be filled by those taxpayers who are suffering a deterioration in their own savings.
Even the big private companies on the footsie 100 can no longer afford to fund these expensive schemes so it seems ridiculous that the Public Sector have not made any attempt ro reform theirs.
Trying to explain pensions to people now and why they are unaffordable when for years the policy seemed to be to make them so complicated no-one was supposed to understand how they worked is one big challenge for anyone.
For a start how do you explain to someone who thought that their contributions were going into a pot of their own that they were only paying for someone else's pension today and that they would have to rely on someone else to pay their pension when they retired.
Ignorance is bliss so they say and knowledge is power until the day of reckoning arrives.
• Comment number 70.
Mose wrote:
1. Public pensions when defined benefit (like the NHS largely) are not a pot of money you can move around - they are literally paid from our NIC's. There is nothing to be 'raided'
2. If they are DC (personal pensions) they are owned by the Trust for the benefit of members and again cannot be 'raided'
3. The raiding of private funds (personal pensions) was dne by Gordon Brown removing tax advantages of pension schemes.
You need at the very basic knowledge of pensions before you spout off such utter rubbish as you have.
• Comment number 71.
I do not know Mark Dampier, I do not work for HL, I am not involved in the pensions industry (except for fact that I contribute to a pensions scheme) but I do agree with Mark Dampier that the traditional public sector scheme needs to be scrapped.
1. Govt (Labour of course) has effectively abolished traditional final salary schemes for the private sector. It is completely wrong that there should be one law for the private sector and a different law for the public sector.
2. Stop blaming companies for taking contribution holidays they had no choice - again govt (Conservative this time) was responsible for this by changing the law such that companies got heavily taxed (or should that be fined) for running large pension surpluses.
3. Final salary schemes only really work if (a) the workforce contributing is larger (and/or much more highly paid) than the pensioner taking pension from the scheme. What we have had in many schemes is the current pensioners taking more out than is being put in by current workforce which leads to inevitable problems. This is only going to get worse as it is clear that public sector workforce needs to be reduced
4. There is nothing wrong with money purchase pensions (although I would still like lower charges) but you have to accept that the risk likes with the pension provider of declines in investment returns. I understand that most pension managers gradually move the investment portfolio from shares to govt bonds as you get closer to retirement age to compensate for this.
5. Scrapping traditional public sector schemes does not necessarily mean rubbish pensions, it all depends on what employer contributions are made. I would imagine the public sector unions would, entirely reasonably, seek to get those as high as possible.
6. Public sector funds could become the drivers of economic growth in UK if they had a mandate to invest in UK companies.
I have to say that no govt ever seems to understand pensions. Conservatives messed up pension surpluses, Gordon Brown destroy the traditional financial salary scheme, and the current proposals on tax and pensions are so utterly insane that in some circumstances a worker could be worse off by accepting a pay rise. I think it has something to do with pensions being long term and politicians being incapable of thinking beyond tomorrow's newspaper headlines
Personally I have never trusted any govt promise about pensions and I would not advise anyone else to trust any govt (of any political leaning) either
• Comment number 72.
To : 35. At 10:09am on 09 Sep 2010, Those_were_the_days
It is very interesting you point out the benefits from my pension, little of which I question, I have a very good pension which I appreciate, however, my point was and still is this, My private sector comparison less than five miles from my station is paid almost, though not quite, twice my pay, my pension contribution was eleven percent his only now one percent, mine a final salary, which is no longer available to new recruits, his also final salary over very similar timescale, we both work a similar work pattern, except in the local authority we actually work more shifts per year. You may ask why I did not move to the private sector, I believed in the big society long before david cameron, we are in this world to help one another, sadly their are to many selfish, greedy, hedonistic people in this country.
I look forward to pay increasing to compensate for a much reduced pension benefit to that of the private sector for my colleagues still in the fire service, that is we really want a level playing field and not just any chance to kick the public sector!
As to moonlighting, I can say with my hand on my heart I did not moonlight, I know firefighters that have part time jobs paying their taxes etc. moonlighting infers the black economy I know of no fire fighter doing so. if you want to look at monlighting/ part time work I suggest you look first at the senior executives earning millions from many footsie one hundred companies!
Yes I have continued to work after retirement from the fire service, indeed I work alongside a retired soldier, retired bank manager, retired salesman, a great many people work while receiving a pension, this is irrelevant to the debate, if anthything we are obeying the requests of industry and government.
• Comment number 73.
That made me smile. Sorry.
• Comment number 74.
The point being missed by some is that the pension contribution from the "government" IS part of pay, not a gift - from them as an EMPLOYER. A shop worker getting paid £25K is not comparable to nurses who now must have degrees, pay for expensive training courses, deal with horrific injuries and illnesses. Public sector workers won't just shrug their shoulders, they'll changes jobs or countries. Why the government wants to equate itself with the worst employers who whinged about the minimum wage etc is beyond me - equality of misery, great idea. Moving away from final salary to average salary is fair enough but average local authority worker pensions of £4K, and teachers £9K hardly suggests a massively feathered nest to me!
• Comment number 75.
54% of top directors are still in final salary schemes
One wonders if Mark Dampiers pension is included in the 1/30 or 1/60 the hypocracy is amazing!
leaders should lead by example, or as usual in this country do as I say, not as I do.
• Comment number 76.
Thank goodness someone has had the guts to raise the issue politicians never will - their career is too short to have to face the music.
For many years actuaries have been pointing out the pension issue to their clients in the private sector and slowly but surely salary based pensions are being phased out. There cannot be many jobs out there where new staff enjoy a final salary pension. If there is, do not buy shares in the company; it will not survive! My old company changed when it went public in 1987, it was advised to buy out the existing final salary rights and convert them to private pensions or the market would react badly to the float.
I was lucky, my pension was paid for me at 20% of salary per annum but I was a director of the company.
If public sector pensions, based on final salary, are not changed this country will be bankrupt buy 2050, if not before then for other reasons. Forcing the length of working life as an alternative is repulsive in my view. Let everyone in the country be on the same terms, it is the only fair solution.
When my old man worked for the public sector, everyone knew they were paid less than the open market but the pension made up for it. Now, most public sector workers earn more (look at the stats) but still have the pension, mainly because of their strong unions and blackmail postion they are in. Either privatise or convert to equal terms.
• Comment number 77.
Well done Mark Dampier - someone has to stick their neck out & help get these unaffordable public pensions under control.
The level of public sector pensions paid out compared to the almost negligable contributions made by public sector workers is a scandal which should have been addressed years ago.
• Comment number 78.
Mr Dampier has his facts understated. It is a lot worse than he says. The NHS pays in 14% to add to the 6.5% nurses pay in. But the 14% doesn't pay for it all - there is still a huge shortfall which the Treasury has to cough up as well. My public sector pensions commission recently analysed the costs and found that the cost is over 40% to the Government.
• Comment number 79.
Several points:
1. It really is not the place of Mr Dampier, or any other millionaire, to lecture the rest of us on how we should save (if we can afford it) for our retirements. Most people with a great deal of money owe their fortune to luck, rather than outstanding skill, and in not a few cases their weath has been accumulated by means which are, at least, dubious if not downright criminal. A little humility in the face of good fortune might be a more appropriate stance.
2. Mr Dampier is essentially suggesting that the present unfunded pension schemes should be stopped, and replaced by investment-backed pensions. A pause for thought at this point might suggest that doing this is not the panacea he supposes. You see, in order to produce the returns to fund the pensions the money has to be invested somewhere. As I'm sure Mr Dampier knows, if indeed he is a pensions 'expert', and not merely a self-serving controvertialist UK pension funds already own a good slice of the UK stock market, and through investments in Government Bonds they underwrite at least part of the National Debt. The introduction of an incvestment based pension fund for 1.8 Million NHS workers, for example, would result in significant increase in the amount of money seeking returns on the financial markets, and this is likely to result in a reduction in the average rate of return the this money can get. This is a simple consequence of the laws of supply and demand. It is therefore concievable that by doing this ALL pensioners, not just public sector pensioner would end up worse off than they are now.
3. The perfomance of funded pension funds, like most other products of the so-called financial service industry has not been great.(Think endowment mortgages, for example.) This is one of the reasons why final-salary pensions are all but extinct in the private sector. The performance of these schemes has not been helped by practises such as empoyers giving themselves pension 'holidays' - not contributing to pension funds and using the money to pay increased dividents or higher executive salaries when the fund appeared to be in surplus. Oddly, they (and the markets) don't like the idea of contributing more now the funds are in deficit.
4. Mr Dampier commented that the average pay-out from private sector pensions was ever worse than the pay-out from public sector pensions. He said that the reason for this was that people had not been saving enough, which is fair enough as far as it goes. But he didn't comment on WHY people hadn't been saving enough, and aren't saving enough today. One major factor is that people can't afford to because wages for most people are actually quite low, and the cost of living, and especially housing is quite high. Yet, I suppose that if people at the bottom of the heap started agitating for higher pay so they could save more for their retirements Mr Dampier and his ilk would be ready to slap them down with a different set of arguments about how their 'unreasonable greed' would do 'permanent damage' to the economy!
5. This is not to argue that the present public sector pension arrangements are perfect, or that the policy of retirement at 65 is paticularly justifiable, given the increase in life expectancy of the population. It seems odd that firefighters and police can retire on a full pension at age 50, given that they have the reasonable expectation of another 15 years of working life under the present arrangements. Surely it should be possible to provide resettlment and retraining for such individuals, such as is offered by the armed forces, so that they can go on to work in other jobs rather than drawing their pensions at such a young age? Maybe this is done now, but we don't hear much about it if it is.
6. The problem of coping with a population which is both aging, but actually healthier than ever before, is not a simple one. Simplistic arguments, and quick-fix solutions such as that proposed by Mr Dampier are not even particularly helpful contributions to the debate, let alone to be considered as serious propsals. However politicians who find such nostrums ideologically attractive may be tempted to seize upon them for short term populist gain at expense of all our futures. If Mr Dampier has some more carefully considered thougths on the problem then it would be interesting to hear them, but last night's headline grabbing performance leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
• Comment number 80.
Dampier should compare like with like ......the nurse on 25k a year is not on 25k, she is on 25k plus 14% employer pension contribution ie 3500 equals 28.5k.
The nurse does not pay 1600,she does not pay 3600 either , she is paying 5100 towards her pension.
So her final salary pension at twice the 25k worker's pension is actally costing her 5100/1500 = 3.4 times the private worker .
The nurse pays 70% more than the private worker for every penny she receives.
Dampier knows this fine well, and is at it.
And the government are at it, because not a penny of thet 5100pa ever gets invested.
• Comment number 81.
The terms and conditions of Public sector workers in relation to their pensions have not materially improved since 1970. Why is there a problem now? One is because the last labour government expanded the public sector and thus the future pension liability, and secondly because the costs and risks of final salary pension schemes have become "unaffordable" to private sector companies. most people really don't understand pension and their unions have proved incapable of protecting entitlements in the private sector. So not only have companies closed their final salary schemes to eliminate risk (the company was liable for any deficits) they have reduced the percentage of pay going into the replacement scheme - this opportunism has been on a massive scale. Governments of all shades have allowed this trend to go unchecked but New Labour arguably have been the worst. So progressive were they that they allowed private sector pensions to be decimated and didn't care about it (after all in the progressive eyes of New Labour the private sector is bad and the public sector is good). So the real debate should be about providing a decent works pension for all not bringing the public sector pensions down to average private levels. The private sector should be forced to provide comparable pensions to their staffs as public sector pensioners receive. Yes the companies will pass on their costs in the form of higher prices which we all will pay, but to live in retirement in dignity is a primary human right. All New Labour did was to pay extra to poor pensioners through the pension credit, thereby adding yet more to its its payroll vote already swollen by the extra public servant it had sanctioned (with borrowed money from tomorrows taxpayers).
The campaign should be for decent pensions for all workers - MD's suggestions ignore this fundamental point.
• Comment number 82.
I was quite open to the idea until I read that rediculous quote "Take for example a nurse earning £25,000 a year. Currently she pays 6.5% of her salary towards her pension - that's £1,600 a year. We taxpayers then promise her a further 14% on top. Overall, £3,500 goes towards her pension each year.
He asks how that can be right. All my working life I have been told it's not about salary, it's about total remuneration package. So he is not comparing like with like, instead he is comparing a nurse whose remuneration is £25,000 plus 14% that's put into a pension and a shop worker who earns £25,000. That's how it's right.
I can't see anything wrong with one person having a package that includes an element that isn't cash (it's been going on for years) and there may other reasons why it's not right, but if Mark Dampier has used this as his central argument against the logic of the current system, then it suggests to me that the argument is flawed.
Moving on, I really don't think this should be about the differences between public and private sector pensions, when I read the headline I expected it to be about the provision of the state pension, now that's something that can be logically questioned at this point in time.
• Comment number 83.
Its a shame this nettle has not been grasped before. Its simple - Mr Dampier tells the truth and should be applauded.
• Comment number 84.
Two questions for Mr Dampier.
1. How much money have you got?
2. How did you get it?
The answers will help us all understand any conflicts of interest you may have. Thanks
• Comment number 85.
The problem that Mr Dampier has not taken into account is that public servants pensions are subsidised
• Comment number 86.
Good to see that Mark is willing to contribute, although I find it quite amusing that those who talk about 'fat cat' private pensions are accused of 'envy' whereas those commenting about public sector pensions are only interested in 'fairness'. Clearly, we are in the area of Yes Prime Minister's "irregular verbs", as in:
"I give confidential briefings, you leak, he is being prosecuted under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act."
What I would like is to ask Mark is three straight questions that as an 'expert' he should be able to answer.
1. Can he name five public pension schemes that are still being offered as final salary schemes to new and recent entrants?
2. Can he give the total amount of surplus contributions that these pension schemes have paid into the Treasury over the last, say, 25 years?
3. If he believes so strongly in fairness would he welcome the return of the 'unearned income' band for tax, which could raise significant funds and could apply to those with a pension of above, say, £40,000 a year?
• Comment number 87.
We have a once in a generation opportunity to fix this balooning liability - the people who will really pay the price if we don't are our children and our children's children. We owe it to them to have the moral courage to sorth out the behemoth which public sector pensions have become....
• Comment number 88.
This constant need to bring ordinary workers down to the lowest level of pension possible makes me so mad that I have had to register for a BBCid to comment. I recently read on the BBC site that the poverty level of income is £14,000. I can say from personal experience that there aren't many public servants who are going to retire on that much. The old Civil Service scheme (long closed to new entrants) needed 40 years service to qualify for a full pension. This means that to achieve the poverty level today you would need to be retiring on a salary of £28,000 after 40 years service. I can assure you that there aren't too many ordinary civil servants who will come anywhere near that. Most as has already been mentioned will retire with pensions of around £4000 a figure that would leave them eligible for pension credit and other benefits. We should be working for a fair living pension for all. At the moment the true fat cats have the rest of us all busy trying to lower ourselves into misery by eroding the few benefits left to the poorest paid workers in the public or private sectors.
• Comment number 89.
I don't see many people questioning the assumption that public sector pensions are better than private sector ones, and I don't understand this.
Over the course of my career I have contributed to 5 pensions, 3 in the private sector and 2 in the public sector. The best two, and the worst one was from the private sector. The public sector ones were in the middle.
So why don't we see private sector organisations and the pension industry "gurus" like Mark campaigning against private sector companies offering better pensions than the public sector can offer?
• Comment number 90.
As someone who has worked for over 25 years in the lower reaches
of local government my so-called 'gold plated pension' is going
to be anything but. I am due to retire in the next two years
but like many of my colleagues in a similar position and age
will not be waiting around to see the benefits we have saved
towards snatched away. It is not compulsory to join the local
authority scheme where I work but rather than let the state support
me I decided to contribute towards a pension having a fairly substantial
sum deducted every month from a not particular wonderful salary, so the
implications that somehow I and others like me are all going to live in the lap of luxury is a grossly unfair statement.
• Comment number 91.
I have been passionate about the gross unfairness of public sector pensions v private pensions for years.
How can it be fair if one works for the public sector and one works for the private sector taking home the same salary, paying in the same pension, for the same years of work..yet the public sector person can retire at 60 on 2/3rds final salary and enjoy an life time index linked pension.The private sector person has to retire at 65 and will get largely 1/3 to 1/2 of final salary with NO index linking; on a like for like pension.
All public sector pensions are unfunded,and are massively in debt to pay for it...see any local government financial statements..
That is why all the public sector struggles with providing a decent service because it is burdoned with a huge pension debt.
We as a country cannot afford these gold plated pensions any more.
Perhaps Hargreaves and Lansdown should take over all public sector pensions and provide their pensions based on their accrued pot.. like what I have to do shortly..then parity across the board will reign.
• Comment number 92.
Just for clarification which public sector pension allows people to retire at 60 on 2/3rds salary?
I know for a fact that the Teachers Pension scheme (before it was reformed) was based on each worked year being 'worth' 1/80th for pension purposes. So a teacher starting at the earliest possible opportunity at 21 who worked every year until they were 60 would retire with a pension of 39/80ths which is under half their salary. This would be the maximum available.
It is as a result of the 'low' accrual rate and therefore the need for many years of continual working that so many public pensions paid are pretty low. As I said earlier the average female NHS pension paid is £4,000 per annum.
Also it is factually inaccurate to say that "All public sector pensions are unfunded". The Local Authority Scheme a funded scheme! Apparently the 101 LGPS funds hold more than £120 billion in investments and assets, enough to pay benefits for over 20 years The LGPS has a positive cash flow, with income from investments and contributions exceeding expenditure on benefits by £4-5 billion every year.
On such an important matter it is vital that rather than opinions there are facts which inform the debate. That is my greatest concern about the whole of this article high on opinion but not enough real facts.
• Comment number 93.
Some contributors seem to be completely unaware of the facts - I refer them to the national audit office reports over the last year or so. In particular, to suggest anyone in the NHS is being subsidised by the government is PLAIN UNTRUE - that scheme GAVE the government £2 billion last year! The tax payer doesn't give them anything.
"Bill McMillan, head of pensions at NHS Employers, said the NHS Pension Scheme was the only one of the four schemes over the past 10 years that had paid more into the exchequer than it had taken out."
Also, the fact that some scheme pensions are paid from current contributions is not the fault of the workers. Saying they don't deserve a pension, having paid in for many years, is rather like saying "tough" to the people who worked for Robert Maxwell when he was helping himself to their pension fund. Add to this 2 years (or perhaps more) of pay freezes whilst private sector salaries probably improve, and the real value of those pensions will be reduced anyway.
I have worked in both public and private sectors and my private sector pension is worth twice the public sector one for the same service.
Public workers HAVE planned for their retirement - they have elected to work for an employer which included a good pension in the pay package. A pension is part of their pay just as much as when a company provides a car, free parking, subsidised restaurant, uniform or whatever. Just because it is delayed for 30 or 40 years doesnt mean everyone doesnt know it is important!
If the country doesnt think we can afford to pay people working for it as much as we do now, then so be it. But dont be surprised when you get a lower calibre of staff, and dont complain when you suffer all the consequences of that - you get what you pay for, I'm afraid!
• Comment number 94.
Most public sector pensions are paid on a pay as you go scheme, the same as all benefits..where do some people get the idea that there are lots of money sloshing around for these pensions/benefits are deluded.If that is the case then why do we have a public sector pension deficit..??
Just look at your local authority pension deficit and multiply that by all counties and the government departments, and you have some idea of the massive deficit/debt.
Its going to be an interesting future, to see who will pay for all this ..
Happy days..
• Comment number 95.
Steve Bee's take:
"We should not forget that fundamental principle when we talk about other aspects of pension policy. The pay that people receive from their employers (irrespective of whether that employer is the Government itself or not) can come in the form of cash paid into their bank accounts or paid out as deferred income in later life; a pension. But both forms of money, cash and pension promises are pay for work already done by employees under the terms and conditions of their employment. The pensions promised so far to public sector employees like nurses, teachers and the police force are no different to the pay that was put into their bank accounts for the work that they did in the past. It is their money."
• Comment number 96.
Dave Harvey gives the impression of knowing only one person in Bristol: Mark Dampier.
• Comment number 97.
I totally 100% agree with Mark Dampier, I have been saying the same to my private sector work colleagues for the past 9 months. Of coarse falling on deaf ears with the ones who have spouses or partners in this fantastic pension scheme every public sector worker is paying for. Also more importantly this country can no longer afford.
• Comment number 98.
Absolutely correct, public pensions should be no higher than those of staff in the private sector with a similar salary profile.
The notion of higher pensions for lower pay is simply rediculous. Government should move the whole lot over to the publi sector. In this way the added volumes should drive economies of scale on costs and better control of coorporate boardrooms since everyone will have an interest in business performance through their pensions.
• Comment number 99.
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World's largest banks join forces to stamp out child internet porn
· Proposed body will share information about sites
· Paedophiles can have access to finance cut off
The world's biggest banks are joining an international effort to crack down on child pornography on the internet by taking action to cut off its sources of financing.
Last month at the meeting of the International Monetary Fund - an annual gathering of the most powerful international financiers - up to 50 of the world's largest financial institutions were canvassed for their views.
The UK's financial community was yesterday urged to join the campaign and hammer out solutions to a business estimated to be worth between $5bn and $20bn (£2.7bn and £10.7bn) globally - six times larger than the online music trade.
Large banks in the UK are being asked to join a financial coalition against child pornography, and back its "light a million candles" awareness campaign, by Standard Chartered, the London-based bank which does most of its business in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and which led the series of meetings at the IMF.
Mike DeNoma, Standard Chartered's head of consumer finance, wrote to the British Bankers' Association yesterday urging it to join the international campaign. The father of six has made the issue a personal crusade after being introduced to the subject by his sister who was doing some charity work in the US.
"We are aiming for the commercial eradication [of child internet porn] by 2008," he told the Guardian.
"You can certainly go after the individual [paedophiles and websites] but the faster way would be to try to cut off the payment link," Mr DeNoma said. He was speaking just hours before beginning a gruelling 508-mile endurance bike ride today through California's Death Valley to raise money for the cause. "Imagine the outcry if people were using their credit cards to buy heroin or cocaine." he said. "Yet people are using internet payment methods, including credit cards, to buy pornographic images of children. The internet has provided the pornographers with accessibility while the international cards payment system has helped enable the exponential growth of the business."
Among the ideas being promoted by Mr DeNoma - an American living in Singapore - is the creation of a clearing house to hold all information about child pornography, such as the websites offering graphic images for sale. This would be one way to help banks share information about possible criminal activity, something it is difficult for them to do because of the Data Protection Act which prevents banks disclosing information about customers.
For banks it is a fight on two fronts - ensuring they do not provide start-up capital for illicit websites and stopping customers using debit and credit cards to pay for pornographic images.
"Nobody comes in and says they are going to sell child pornography. They come in and say they going to sell fishing tackle or something like that," Mr DeNoma said.
None of the UK's main domestic players have so far joined the financial coalition, which was launched earlier this year. But Mr DeNoma's intervention comes as Britain's banks are preparing for new domestic laws to stop the credit cards and bank accounts of convicted paedophiles.
As a result of changes to data protection laws, convicted paedophiles who have used their debit or credit cards to buy internet child pornography can have their access to finance cut off.
Apacs, the body which controls the payment system in the UK, is working with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre which links all the domestic organisations that can help tackle child sex abuse. The first cases are expected shortly.
According to one industry source, the data protection changes are a rare example of the financial services industry being able to make a real contribution to crack down on the crime. Some bankers, however, feel they do not go far enough - particularly because they are still unable to swap information about customers whose cards have been halted and accounts frozen because of convictions.
One banking executive said this meant offenders could just turn to another institution for new debit and credit cards. "We can't explain why the card has been stopped," the executive said, other than to say the customer had breached the card's terms and conditions. "There are holes in the process. Although it's a step forward, the new [UK] legislation is not a panacea."
A bank could close an offender's account only to be approached by another who had been barred by a rival firm. "It seems most likely that they will move to another provider and that we will receive business from customers who have had their cards withdrawn elsewhere," the executive said.
A spokeswoman for Apacs pointed out that in practice, purchases of illicit images could be made using someone else's card anyway. "Some people who commit this crime will be using fraudulent cards," she said.
In that instance, ensuring that sites are prevented from opening in the first place will be even more crucial.
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Culture Of Joint Fluid
Culture Of Joint Fluid
Alternate Names
• culture of joint aspirate
A culture of joint fluid, or aspirate, can identify bacteria or organisms in joint fluid that may be causing an infection in a particular joint. The test is normally done when a joint is swollen, painful, or appears to be infected.
Who is a candidate for the test?
This test is normally performed to help diagnose arthritis, or an infection in a joint.
How is the test performed?
First, a sample of fluid is taken from the swollen joint. The skin overlying the joint will be anesthetized with a local anesthetic, such as lidocaine, and then be carefully cleansed before the procedure is performed.
Then, a sterile needle is inserted through the skin into the joint. A small amount of fluid is withdrawn from the joint.
This sample is sent to a laboratory for testing. Usually, the fluid is then placed on special culture media to see if bacteria or other microorganisms will grow.
What is involved in preparation for the test?
There is no specific preparation required for this test. A person should request specific instructions from his or her health care provider.
What do the test results mean?
Fluid in a joint is usually sterile. This means that no microorganisms are present. If the joint fluid contains microorganisms, such as bacteria or fungi, they will grow in culture in the laboratory. This allows a microbiologist to identify the microorganisms and design a course of therapy to treat the infection. For example, a bacterial infection would be treated with antibiotics.
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• Sunrise at the Cholla Cactus Garden
Joshua Tree
National Park California
Plant Communities
Plant communities, or what we call "associations," describe groupings of various plant species that are often dependent upon latitude, soil characteristics, and elevation. Using these descriptions makes it easier to understand why certain plants only grow in certain places; it also helps to identify plants in unfamiliar terrain.
Plant associations within the park are divided into tree-dominated, shrub-dominated, herbaceous-dominated, and sparse/non-vegetated. Each association is named after the most conspicuous plant in the landscape.
Tree-dominated plant associations in Joshua Tree include: California juniper, singleleaf pinyon, Joshua tree, desert willow, ironwood, California fan palm, blue palo verde, smoketree, Gooding willow, Freemont cottonwood, and mesquite
Shrub-dominated associations are the most diverse group, numbering 49. Mormon tea, creosote bush, creosote bush/white bursage, blackbrush, brittlebush, cheesebush, Mojave yucca, teddy-bear cholla, and desert almond are just a few examples
Herbaceous-dominated associations are those communities that are mostly comprised of species like perennial bunch grasses or annual grasslands. Joshua Tree has two herbaceous-dominated associations: big galleta grass and cheatgrass.
Sparse associations include non-vegetated areas (e.g. desert pavement, rock outcrops, dunes, playas, washes, and disturbed areas) and areas with less than two percent shrub cover. These areas may be dominated by annual wildflowers during moist years, but normally appear devoid of vegetation.
Did You Know?
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Jeff Green wasn't the only teammate Happy Harvick had it out with. And by now, you shouldn't expect anything less!
The difference with his feud with Robby Gordon, however, was that it didn't die after the two were no longer under the same roof.
Trouble between the two "hot heads" began early during their three-year relationship as drivers for Richard Childress Racing, when the rookie Harvick spun out his teammate at what was then Sears Point. It wouldn't be the pair's last battle on the track... or, for that matter, their last battle.
“If you've got some competition within, it could make it better,” Harvick said, “but most of the time, I think it makes it worse.”
In 2003, during a then-Busch race at Rockingham, Harvick was leading in an RCR car when Gordon, driving his own entry, took out his Cup teammate when he was trying to get his lap back.
"That was a lapped-down car sliding into a leader," Harvick said when asked about it.
"You'll have to ask the guy holding the steering wheel. I haven't talked to him; it's a waste of air."
Gordon was equally pleasant.
"He told me I was No. 1," Gordon said. "But he does that every week."
To add more to the feud, Harvick and his former teammate have each cost each other a win at, you guessed it, Sonoma. The other Gordon (Jeff, for the folks at home) even got involved in 2003 when Robby Gordon went below the yellow line to beat Harvick back to the caution. Gordon would win, sending his teammate to third.
"It was good hard racing, except for that chicken move under yellow." Harvick said.
The four-time champion took the side of Harvick when discussing the end of the race.
"(Gordon) won the race fair and square, except for that move right there. I don't care if they call it a gentlemen's agreement or not, what he did, especially to his teammate, is absolutely ridiculous.
"If he can be proud and satisfied with himself over there in Victory Lane because he knows he passed his teammate under caution, then by all means have at it."
Robby Gordon, celebrating in victory lane while the second- and third-place finishers cried foul, had strong words for Gordon, who he'd had altercations with before, saying it was none of the driver's business and that "his pass on Harvick was a payback for what he viewed as a 'cheap-shot' pass earlier."
It wasn't the flashiest feud involving the brash Harvick, but it definitely grabbed headlines in California, the birthplace of both drivers.
Richard Childress was right on the mark, though, when he called his race team a very dysfunctional family. Indeed, RC... indeed it was.
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Joel 1 (New Century Version)
View In My Bible
1 2 Older leaders, listen to this message. Listen to me, all you who live in the land. Nothing like this has ever happened during your lifetime or during your ancestors' lifetimes. 3 Tell your children about these things, let your children tell their children, and let your grandchildren tell their children. 4 What the cutting locusts have left, the swarming locusts have eaten; what the swarming locusts have left, the hopping locusts have eaten, and what the hopping locusts have left, the destroying locustsn have eaten. 5 Drunks, wake up and cry! All you people who drink wine, cry! Cry because your wine has been taken away from your mouths. 6 A powerful nation has come into my land with too many soldiers to count. It has teeth like a lion, jaws like a female lion. 7 It has made my grapevine a waste and made my fig tree a stump. It has stripped all the bark off my trees and left the branches white. 8 Cry as a young woman cries when the man she was going to marry has died. 9 There will be no more grain or drink offerings to offer in the Temple of the Lord. Because of this, the priests, the servants of the Lord, are sad. 10 The fields are ruined; the ground is dried up. The grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the olive oil runs out. 11 Be sad, farmers. Cry loudly, you who grow grapes. Cry for the wheat and the barley. Cry because the harvest of the field is lost. 12 The vines have become dry, and the fig trees are dried up. The pomegranate trees, the date palm trees, the apple trees -- all the trees in the field have died. And the happiness of the people has died, too. 13 Priests, put on your rough cloth and cry to show your sadness. Servants of the altar, cry out loud. Servants of my God, keep your rough cloth on all night to show your sadness. Cry because there will be no more grain or drink offerings to offer in the Temple of your God. 14 Call for a day when no one eats food! Tell everyone to stop work! Bring the older leaders and everyone who lives in the land to the Temple of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. 15 What a terrible day it will be! The Lord's day of judging is near, when punishment will come like a destroying attack from the Almighty. 16 Our food is taken away while we watch. Joy and happiness are gone from the Temple of our God. 17 Though we planted fig seeds, they lie dry and dead in the dirt. The barns are empty and falling down. The storerooms for grain have been broken down, because the grain has dried up. 18 The animals are groaning! The herds of cattle wander around confused, because they have no grass to eat; even the flocks of sheep suffer. 19 Lord, I am calling to you for help, because fire has burned up the open pastures, and flames have burned all the trees in the field. 20 Wild animals also need your help. The streams of water have dried up, and fire has burned up the open pastures.
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Jenny is dead
By: Savage84
Page 1, An awaking experience of a rising consciousness.
Jenny is dead. She killed herself. And like it is many times; no one would have ever thought that she would do such a thing. The story of her life is not a sad one, nor is it filled with constant pleasure. She went through a lot of struggle, which I thought had only made her stronger. Now it seems like she hadn’t killed herself, but the story of her life did.
A while ago she reached a point where her suffering felt so intense that she couldn’t take it anymore. The pain inside her had actually taken over her, she was completely identified with it – she had become the pain itself.
From that point on she let go of everything to keep herself alive, so to say. Keeping her mind clear was her way of going through this situation. She wasn’t filled with pain anymore, but also had no other feelings, no love, no joy of being, just emptiness. She was like an empty human shell, a ghost, a spacious entity that had taken a human form. It was like she was already dead.
Someday, when she woke up in the morning, she noticed a switch in her perception and feeling of being. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet but felt a strong feeling of positivity which I would describe as love. She focused on this feeling, observing it without judging or analyzing it, simply witnessing it as it started to fill her body. It spread through every single cell, a feeling of still aliveness. She opened her eyes and was astonished. Everything seemed more beautiful, the colors were more intense; all forms seemed to look sharper, still but alive. The light which was shining through the curtain was perceived as pure love. She walked around her room in awe, everything looked different. There was not only form or matter, but also the space which allowed the form to be. Every item even though it was not really alive seemed to be alive and filled with a universal energy which is connected to everything that exists.
She felt like she had been reborn and wondered why she had not seen the intense beauty surrounding her earlier. She had given up the image in her head of who she was. All the pain from the past and the following emptiness did not exist anymore. She deeply realized that she had created her own suffering simply by giving it value and by allowing the negativity to take control over her, having the illusion that she actually is an emotion or thought, or whatever has happened in her past, or is happening in her mind now.
But now she felt innerly free and was filled with love, experiencing the present moment. All her past was now no more than a story, but not who she really was. She didn’t want to go anywhere, trying to save herself into the future, like having a goal to go to some point in her future in order to be fulfilled and happy. She realized that she can never become happy, she can only be happy. The present moment is always everything there will ever be, life cannot happen tomorrow, it can only happen now.
She let go of all questions like “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?” and so on. She simply experienced the joy of being, not demanding anything from life. She didn’t see her life and herself as separate, she had become one with life.
After that event I just saw her one more time, which was when she told me the story that I just wrote down for you. It was a wonderful feeling being surrounded by her. She was still but alert, and looked relaxed & happy. I felt like every word that she said, every movement she made, every glimpse was pure love. She had completely changed, and I even thought for a moment that I’m sitting next to some super-enlightened Buddha-Alien being.
The last words she said to me were: You too can be free, Heinrich. But you cannot work towards it; you can only be it, now. Everything you will ever have is the present moment and it should be honored & made your friend under any circumstances. Always work with it, not against it. Don’t resist it, and don’t judge it. Allow it to be as it is. I cannot tell or show you the truth, Heinrich. Words are just a pointer to the truth. Love, and do what you will. Are you breathing at this moment?
It took me a while until I understood why she had asked me if I’m breathing.
Are you breathing at this moment?
© Copyright 2013Savage84 All rights reserved. Savage84 has granted theNextBigWriter, LLC non-exclusive rights to display this work on Booksie.com.
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A changing of the bodyguards for Kim Jong-un
South official says North replaced military soldiers with party officials
Sept 13,2012
North Korea has replaced the bodyguards of leader Kim Jong-un with ruling party officials, a South Korean government official told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday, raising speculation that the power of the communist regime is apparently shifting to the party away from the military.
So far, members of the military have worked in the so-called general guard bureau, which is responsible for protecting the leadership.
In the past, these well-trained soldiers, indoctrinated with juche (self-reliance) propaganda and accompanying the dear leader have exerted influence over North Korean politics.
The South Korean official, who is working in foreign affairs and national security, told the JoongAng Ilbo that the government “analyzed information on [current affairs in] North Korea” and “assumes that the replacements were made before Kim Jong-il’s death.”
The official said that it could have relevance to North Korea’s recent power transition from the military to the ruling party, under the rule of new leader Kim.
Otherwise, the official added that the regime is trying to protect the young leader against a possible military coup by replacing the military guards.
Another source familiar with North Korean affairs told the JoongAng Ilbo that the regime “could be conscious of the powerful military bodyguards” or “trying to prevent the military from protesting the current power transition into the ruling party.”
A military source also said that it could be related to the resignation of Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, a former chief of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, who suddenly stepped down in mid-July.
“At the centennial anniversary of founding leader Kim Il Sung’s birth on April 15, Ri dispatched two divisions of bodyguards by himself without authorization [from Kim Jong-un] and he was criticized because of that.”
However, when it came to allegations that uncle Jang Song-thaek dominated the general guard bureau, the South Korean government official denied it.
“There’s no reason that powerful Jang should dominate the bodyguard bureau, which has lost most of its roles and privileges [by the ruling party].”
Meanwhile, a high-ranking official at the Ministry of National Defense reportedly said recently that “it seems that the North Korean regime is dying.”
“Currently, the official North Korean currency is 100 [North Korean] won to $1, but on the black market, it surpasses 6,000 [North Korean] won,” the official reportedly said.
“It’s a matter of time before we witness the collapse of the regime unless Kim Jong-un improves the sluggish economy and the impoverished livelihood of people, caused by accumulated economic problems and the failure of the currency reform.”
By Chang Se-jeong [[email protected]]
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TCP Fast Open: expediting web services
TCP Fast Open: expediting web services
Posted Aug 2, 2012 15:57 UTC (Thu) by gdt (guest, #6284)
Parent article: TCP Fast Open: expediting web services
"Router latencies" isn't really an issue, as they are easily enough solved by increasing the bandwidth (which reduces the time to receive and transmit a packet). (And yeah, I'm avoiding the "bufferbloat" overprovisioning of buffers at the network edge here, because when that exists RTO is not much help -- saving one RTT when you have multiple RTT in the queue ahead of you isn't a huge win.)
The speed of light in optical fiber is the major contributor to latency. The speed of light in fiber is roughly 150Km per ms, this is much slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. The speed of light in a fiber can be improved, but at the cost of narrowing bandwidth. This tradeoff isn't available to users, but is determined during ITU standards-making. Moreover the tradeoff isn't huge, in the order of 5% of latency. But the tradeoff does have a major effect on the cost of Forward Error Correction ASICs.
Once you get out of the tail links, the lowest speed you'll encounter on a ISP backbone is 1Gbps. You've got to have well more than 1,000 router hops before you'll get 1ms of ingress playin, cell switching and egress playout. The other devices which can add significant latency are the middleboxes at the other end of the link: firewalls, load sharers and so on.
(Log in to post comments)
TCP Fast Open: expediting web services
Posted Aug 2, 2012 23:44 UTC (Thu) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
So when will we see companies building vacuum tubes used to speed up the light when crossing large parts of land or maybe the atlantic ?
That is the thing I care about. ;-)
Is anyone doing research on that yet ?
TCP Fast Open: expediting web services
Posted Aug 4, 2012 12:20 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Warning: work in this area can be dangerous. See e.g. the series, ahem I mean feasibility study, bookended by <http://www.amazon.com/The-Collapsium-Wil-McCarthy/dp/0553...>, <http://www.amazon.com/To-Crush-Moon-Wil-McCarthy/dp/05535...>.
(Though admittedly the Queendom did go to rather more extreme lengths to increase the speed of light than mere vacuum tubes, and displayed a cavalier degree of carelessness, indeed insouciance, regarding the fact that keeping trillions of black holes in your solar system in very large arrays moving at well below orbital velocity is insanely dangerous.)
TCP Fast Open: expediting web services
Posted Aug 4, 2012 13:34 UTC (Sat) by Jannes (subscriber, #80396) [Link]
actually TFO should be a huge improvement in a bufferbloated situation. If there is 1 second of bufferbloat, then 'Saving one RTT' means saving 1 second.
Not saying it's a solution to bufferbloat of course.
TCP Fast Open: expediting web services
Posted Aug 4, 2012 23:12 UTC (Sat) by drdabbles (subscriber, #48755) [Link]
This may be true in theory (I'm not sure), but in practice it's completely wrong. Bandwidth tells you only how much data can be passed through a link in a given time period. Saying a link is capable of 1Gbit/sec means if you consume every possible bit for every possible cycle for 1 second, you'll have transferred 1Gbit of data over the wire. Many links have a frame/second limit, so if your frames aren't completely full, you've wasted bandwidth and decreased the utilization of the link.
Router latency is caused by many factors. Some can be router CPU shortages, memory resource shortages, the time it takes to transfer a frame from "the wire" to the internal hardware and vice verse, how quickly a packet can be processed, whether packet inspection is happening, etc. This, relatively speaking, can be a very long time. Typically it's microseconds, but certainly not always. Either way, it represents a minimum time delay with only a practical ceiling (IP timeout / retransmission). So increasing bandwidth to an already slow router only makes the problem worse.
Also, if you have a link that passes through 1000 routers, it's bound to hit a dozen that are oversubscribed and performing horribly. This is especially true as your distance from the "core" increases and your distance to the "edge" decreases. This is why major datacenters are next to or house the major peering points of the Internet.
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Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
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Tell me more ×
I have 3 tables. Person, Group and PersonGroup. Each Person can be in multiple Groups. In the PersonGroup table there's a field called ShowCount, which says how many times a Person should be shown.
Example: Person Bill is in group StackOverflow and should be displayed 3 times so the output should be like this
is there a way to do this with SQL?
share|improve this question
Yes, it's possible. Two ideas: 1) join with a "numbers" table 2) recursive CTE. – Mark Byers Oct 13 '11 at 11:01
Your data model sounds a little odd - why is bill in the same group three times? – Paddy Oct 13 '11 at 11:06
He's not. if he was there would be three entries. The ShowCount says how many times his address should be printed out (or be on the report). – domueni Oct 13 '11 at 11:08
See this similar question:… (the answer by @van) – ypercube Oct 13 '11 at 11:21
Or this answer by @Evan:… – ypercube Oct 13 '11 at 11:23
show 1 more comment
3 Answers
up vote 1 down vote accepted
Hello a numbers table can help you with solution. You can find the function code at
Here is a sample t-sql script
from PersonGroup pg
inner join Person p on p.personid = pg.personid
inner join Groups g on g.groupid = pg.groupid
inner join dbo.NumbersTable(1,12,1) n on pg.showcount >= n.i
I hope this helps,
share|improve this answer
add comment
Try this
from person P
join PersonGroup pg on
join master.dbo.spt_values where type='P' and number>0 and number <= pg.ShowCount
share|improve this answer
add comment
so thats how we did it now:
WITH ShowCounter AS (SELECT 1 AS ShowCount
UNION ALL
SELECT ShowCount + 1
FROM ShowCounter
WHERE (ShowCount + 1 <= 100))
SELECT Person.Name
FROM ShowCounter
INNER JOIN Person ON ShowCounter.ShowCount <= Person.ShowCount
ORDER BY PersonGroup.PersonGroupID
this works for ShowCount <= 100
share|improve this answer
add comment
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Previous Page Table of Contents Next Page
Mr. Miles is Director of the Institute for Marine Studies, College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington.
The author reviews developments in the fisheries of the North Pacific following the extension of coastal state jurisdiction, the choices made by coastal states as a result of the extension of jurisdiction and the implications of these choices for both coastal states and regional fisheries commissions. He first describes the fisheries situation in this the most important fishing region in the world, the complex and inefficient regulatory controls existing before the extension of jurisdiction and the impact of extended jurisdiction, which resulted in the establishment of a more efficient regulatory system. The fishing nations most affected by the extension of jurisdiction were Japan and the Republic of Korea, which incurred considerable loss of access to stocks they had previously exploited. The article reviews the evolution of coastal state fisheries policy, which, in the case of both USA and USSR was predicated on policy decisions to develop national fisheries at the expense of foreign fishing operations and to conserve the stocks. US policy and the Japan/US fisheries relationship are first analysed, with separate treatment of each of the three main fishing areas of the US zone. The picture presented is one of a decline in total foreign catches coupled with an increase in US joint venture landings and processing allocations. The issues raised by joint ventures in the region were controversial and the US policy not always consistent. These issues and the evolution of US policy are explored and the linkage explained between joint ventures and pressures on the part of the US to gain greater access to Japanese markets. The article then describes the Japan/Soviet fisheries relationship, which was characterized by periods of stability in allocations in the Soviet zone interspersed with a number of drastic reductions in allocations, which had severe repercussions on the Japanese fishing industry.
In the second part of the article, the author assesses the impact of extended coastal state jurisdiction on the evolution of regional fisheries commissions. The extension of jurisdiction made significant differences to only two out of the five commissions active in the region; both the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission (INPFC) and the Japan-Soviet Commission had to be transformed to reflect the vesting in the State of origin of primary management authority for the important salmon fisheries. These changes and the circumstances surrounding them are described in some detail and an assessment made of the likely impact on the Japanese high seas salmon fleet. The article then turns to US/Canada relations over salmon, focussing on the problems of reciprocal interception of US and Canadian salmon and the political and constitutional complexity of the management structure and authority in the US. The history of bilateral negotiations is recounted, and their culmination in the treaty concerning Pacific Salmon of 1985. The article then reviews briefly the situation with respect to halibut and fur seals in the North Pacific region.
In his conclusion, the author notes that the major winners as a result of the extension of coastal state jurisdiction in the region have been the USA and the USSR and predicts some future trends. These are likely to include increased pressure for access to Japanese fishery markets and demands from countries in the Northwest Pacific for joint venture arra of hatchery-reared chum salmon in Japan.
During the period 1975-76, while assisting Jean Carroz and the Department of Fisheries of FAO to plan for adaptations to structure and programme in the new ocean regime, we were unable to foresee in any detail what developments would occur in the North Pacific region.1 It was clear, of course, that the substance of the article on anadromous species in the then Single Negotiating Text of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) would be directly applied by the United States of America, Canada and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to Japanese high seas fishing for salmon in the North Pacific. Beyond that, however, coastal states seemed to have a fair number of options for development, both nationally and with the other existing regional commissions, and it was not clear in what directions they would choose to move. This paper, in homage to the late Jean Carroz, is an attempt belatedly to fill that gap. Consequently, I shall summarize and explain the choices which coastal states did make and assess the implications of these choices both for coastal states and for regional commissions in the North Pacific. I shall also attempt to extrapolate some of the new trends into the future.
1 MILES, E.L. An assessment of the impact of proposed changes in the Law of the Sea on regional fishery Commissions, on FAO Technical Assistance Programmes in fisheries and on the FAO Committee on Fisheries and Department of Fisheries. FAO document COFI:C/4/76 Inf. 3, February 1976.
The North Pacific as a whole, in terms of tonnage produced, is the single most important fishing region in the world. However, most of the fish are caught in the northwest Pacific (FAO Area 61). In 1984, out of a total world catch of 82.8 million metric tonnes (mmt), 26.4 mmt (31.9 percent) were caught in the North Pacific of which 23.7 mmt were caught in the Northwest Pacific.2 In 1975, just prior to extensions of national jurisdiction in the region, the North Pacific accounted for 27.6 percent of the total world catch; China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea derived 100 percent of their catches there, Japan 91.2 percent of its total catch, the Republic of Korea 89.9 percent and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 33.3 percent.3 The United States at the time caught only 12.5 percent of its total production in the area and for Canada the figure was 13 percent. In the world of fisheries, these are very high stakes.
2 FAO. 1986. Yearbook of Fishery Statistics: Catches and Landings, 1984, Vol. 58, Table A-1. Rome.
3 MILES, E.L. et al. 1982. The management of marine regions: The North Pacific. Berkeley, CA, Univ. California Press. Table 1.1.
From a regulatory point of view, the situation was extremely complex and rather inefficient. A large number of bilateral and trilateral agreements covered a minimal number of stocks and most of the stocks fished were, in fact, unregulated.4 While there had been extensions of coastal state sovereignty, most of them were limited to continental shelf resources, primarily crab. There were three multilateral long-term agreements: the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission (NPFSC), the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission (INPFC) and the Commission for Fisheries Research in the Western Pacific (CFRWP), which had become inactive by 1967.5 In addition, there were six long-term bilateral agreements, including the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission (IPSFC) (United States and Canada), and four sets of intergovernmental and non-governmental agreements between Japan and the USSR, the Republic of Korea and China and China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Finally, there were nine ad hoc short-term bilateral agreements in force in the northeast Pacific.
4 KASAHARA, H. BURKE, W.T. 1973. North Pacific fisheries management. Resources for the future (RFF), Program of International Studies of Fisheries Arrangements, Paper 2. Washington, D.C., pp. 39-50.
5 This summary is based on Miles et al., 1982, Chapter 3.
Compared with this situation, the impact of extended jurisdiction has been both comprehensive and more efficient. All stocks are now regulated, most of the ad hoc, short-term bilateral arrangements have been replaced, the long-term bilateral and multilateral arrangements have been significantly amended, the Japan/USSR bilateral arrangement was substantially changed, and only the Japan/Republic of Korea, Japan/China and China/Democratic People's Republic of Korea bilateral arrangements have remained in place.
The coming of extended jurisdiction was a shock primarily to Japan and the Republic of Korea. Initially, the United States and Canada unilaterally extended jurisdiction over fisheries to 200 miles in 1976, the USSR followed suit in 1977, which forced a reluctant Japanese Government to reply in kind the same year and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea also extended its jurisdiction in 1977. Neither China nor the Republic of Korea, both facing difficult issues of boundary and territorial conflicts with several parties, has yet extended jurisdiction.
This pattern of extensions reflected domestic pressures, which could no longer be constrained, in the United States and Canada to impose effective controls over foreign fishing fleets, provide better conservation and develop their own harvesting and processing capabilities. Since the US zone was of considerable importance to Japan and the Republic of Korea, both countries faced serious problems of dislocation of their fisheries. These were compounded by the establishment of a Soviet zone in the North Pacific. Ironically, the Pacific was not a primary Soviet interest in that decision, which was in fact triggered by developments in the Atlantic. But, once having extended its jurisdiction, the USSR would have to look comprehensively at its objectives and options there as elsewhere, especially now that its fleets were being excluded by extensions of coastal state jurisdiction in other regions. This could only result in greater dislocation for Japan. With the Republic of Korea now completely excluded from the Soviet zone, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea successfully expanded its operations within that zone. As governments sought to accommodate themselves to these changes and to translate authority into policy, they embarked on a constant series of negotiations lasting several years.
The United States implemented a new management system based on regional councils, and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council gave very high priority to phasing out foreign fishermen as fast as possible. The intensity of conflict over issues of conservation of stocks declined in the northeast Pacific as coastal states developed effective control over all foreign fishing in their zones. In its place, conflict increased significantly over three new types of issue: (a) joint ventures involving fishermen and/or processors of the coastal state as explicit or implicit conditions for access to the zone, (b) the regulation of fishery practices and (c) claims for greater access to markets in the foreign fishing country and objections to import quotas and other trade barriers by nationals of the coastal state.6
6 For detailed analysis of these early trends, see Ibid., Chapter 6.
The transitional period in the northwest Pacific was less turbulent. The Republic of Korea sustained a permanent deprivation as a result of its exclusion from the Soviet zone and sought, with some success, to expand its allocations in the northeast Pacific at the expense of both Japan and the USSR. The USSR lost access to the US zone in the northeast Pacific as from 1980 as a result of increasing political difficulties with the United States unrelated to fisheries. The initial Japan/USSR negotiations in the northwest Pacific were difficult, protracted and involved painful losses for Japan but, after 1978, the situation was stable until 1984. The existing Japanese relationships with Republic of Korea and China remained stable and a satisfactory industry relationship was developed with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
What policies, then, have coastal states pursued since the implementation of extended jurisdiction and what has been achieved and/or lost?
It would be wrong to give the impression that the sequences of events and their outcomes are the result of calm, deliberate analysis of trends and the choice of options determined by clear sets of objectives. Reality is far more turbulent and untidy at both national and regional levels. But, even so, the cumulative effects of actions taken within the region are both clear and additive.
In the United States, for instance, policy debates and processes within the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council are not especially orderly and there is, indeed, considerable disagreement among and between the principal players over both objectives and their consequences; but consensus exists on two decision rules which can be stated as "conserve the stocks" and "phase out the foreigners". While the players may disagree about particular measures to be employed at any moment to realize these objectives, the cumulative effects of this operative condition are powerful and consistent. Similarly, once the USSR established an extended fisheries zone in 1977 and faced exclusions of its fleet in other parts of the world, the northwest Pacific was obviously one of its major available options for compensating for losses suffered elsewhere. Consequently, the contribution of the northwest Pacific to the Soviet total catch increased from a little less than 33.3 percent in 1975 to 58.5 percent in 1984.7
7 The 1984 figure is calculated from FAO. Yearbook of Fishery Statistics: Catches and Landings, 1984, Tables A-3 and B-11 to B-94. Note that the 1984 figure is entirely derived from the northwest Pacific (FAO Area 61) since the USSR had lost its directed allocation in the US zone in 1980.
These two conditions define the terms of the great drama that is currently being played out in the fisheries relationships of the region. They determine the steady decline of Japanese catches in the US and Soviet zones and generate recurrent and painful cycles of fleet reduction as a result. This transformation of the Japanese role in fish production in the region is managed in a deliberate fashion by the Japan Fisheries Agency and, to some extent, by the Japanese industry. However, the available options are few. They involve the significant growth of joint ventures in harvesting and processing fish within the US zone, a much smaller involvement of joint ventures within the Soviet zone, the successful identification of offshore fishing areas in the northwest Pacific outside all 200-mile zones, dramatic successes in increasing production of hatchery-reared salmon and managing the decline of the Japanese distant-water fleet and portions of the offshore fleet. This also requires payment of significant amounts of compensation to fishermen by the Japanese Government.
Two offshoots of the conditions described above are also worthy of note. The rapid increase in the US catch of bottom-fish resources historically unutilized or underutilized by the US fleet, combined with the rapid growth of joint ventures, has led to insistent demands for freer access to Japanese markets and a changed relationship between the United States and Japan on fisheries imports and exports. These trade issues are now treated at a very high level within both governments and, given the continuing conflict over generalized trade imbalances, US exports to Japan are likely to grow rapidly as Japanese fishing within the US zone declines.
The second point is again a troubling one for Japan. In 1984, the Japanese total catch passed the 12 mmt mark, incongruously testifying to the continued growth of the Japanese catch even in the face of steady losses of two of its historically major fishing areas. It should, however, be recognized that more than 30 percent of this catch is based on sardines caught in the offshore area. This is a fundamentally unstable situation in view of the volatility of these pelagic stocks. No doubt, if and when these stocks are depleted, some other species will grow to fill the niche, as usually happens. But this will take time and in the interim yet another painful cycle of reductions in the offshore fleet will be required.
In the analysis which follows, the details on which the above characterization is based will be presented. The analysis will focus on the Japanese relationship with the United States and the USSR, since this is the determining factor of the transformation of fisheries relationships in the region under the impact of extended jurisdiction. This does not mean that the policies of China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan Province of China are not important; only that they have restricted impacts on the region as a whole, and it is the region which is the focus of this paper.
Let us begin in the northwest Pacific and consider separately the trends within the three primary fishing areas of the US zone, i.e., the Washington/Oregon/California region, the Gulf of Alaska region and the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands region. Table 1 shows the trends for the Washington/Oregon/California region. The foreign catch in this region declined from 129 812 mt in 1977 to 15 081 mt (7.74 percent) in 1984. While the total catch in the period had increased by 50 percent to 194 735 mt, the combined US joint venture landings and joint venture processing allocations had risen from zero in 1977 to 179 654 mt in 1984, or to 92 percent of the total catch. The joint venture catch itself, which began in 1978 with only 894 mt, really showed its potential in 1981 with 45 140 mt and moved rapidly thereafter to 79 654 mt. While this development primarily benefited US harvesters, the processors were indeed ahead of the harvesters in this fishery from the very beginning.
TABLE 1. Total Foreign and Joint Venture Catch (metric tonnes) 1977-84 in the Northeast Pacific: Washington/Oregon/California Region
Total foreign catch
129 812
98 683
117 275
46 928a
71 307
7 253
15 081
Total joint venture landings
9 054
28 470
45 140
69 153
73 246
79 654
Total joint venture processingb
(10 000)
(35 000)
(43 000)
(75 000)
(100 000)
(100 000)
(100 000)
Total catch
129 812
109 577
161 329
118 398
191 447
176 406
173 246
194 735
Source and Notes: BERGER, J.D. et al. Foreign and joint venture catches and allocations in the Pacific northwest and Alaska fishing area under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 1977-84. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Technical Memorandum, NMFSF/NWC-99, March 1986, Tables 4-11.
a The sharp decrease in the total foreign catch for 1980 is explained by the US withdrawal of the Soviet allocation, as a result of differences over events in Afghanistan.
b The totals for all joint venture processing allocations, and therefore the combined totals, are slightly less than the actual totals because precise calculations have not been made of the very small amounts of "other fish" which accompany the Pacific whiting allocations according to predefined ratios.
A similar pattern is evident in the Gulf of Alaska region, as can be seen from Table 2. The total foreign catch declined, though not as precipitously in an absolute sense, from 199 492 mt in 1977, with a high of 232 542 mt in 1981, to 123 708 mt in 1984. The relative decline of the directed foreign catch, however, was precipitous - from 100 per cent in 1977 to 21 percent in 1984. The combined US joint venture landings and processing allocations rapidly increased from 1982 to account for 79 percent of the total catch in 1984, or 468 686 mt.
For the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands region, the same trend though not as pronounced, is shown in Table 3. The foreign catch decreased to a lesser degree in both absolute and relative terms in the period, from 1 301 614 mt (100 percent) in 1977 to 1 192 714 mt (60 percent) in 1984. The combined US joint venture catch and processor allocation in the same period, however, rose from zero in 1977 to 788 801 mt (40 percent) in 1984. Both of these increased rapidly from 1980 onwards.
The aggregate performance for the entire US zone in the northeast Pacific is shown in Table 4. The total foreign catch declined from 1 630 918 mt in 1977 to 1 331 499 mt in 1984. This is an absolute decline of only 22 percent but a relative decline of 40 percent. Conversely, the combined US joint venture landings and processor allocations rose from zero in 1977 to 1 437 141 mt in 1984, when they accounted for 52 percent of the total catch. Obviously the trend is a rapidly increasing one. This has given rise to an intense debate within the North Pacific Council on the desirability of completely phasing out all foreign participation in fisheries within the US zone, even including both types of joint venture. It is difficult to see that such a policy objective would make sense, either regionally or nationally for the United States, but this remains to be decided.
TABLE 2. Total Foreign and Joint Venture Catch (metric tonnes) 1977-84 in the Northeast Pacific: Gulf of Alaska Region
Total foreign catch
199 492
165 174
163 350
208 044
232 542
153 734
147 469
123 708
Total joint venture landings
1 492
1 911
16 967
74 449
142 985
219 625
Total joint venture processing
12 077
26 592
31 960
141 932
249 061
Total catch
199 492
165 222
164 842
222 032
276 101
260 143
432 386
592 394
Source: BERGER, J.D. et al. Foreign and joint venture catches and allocations in the Pacific northwest and Alaska fishing area under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 1977-84. NOAA Technical Memorandum, NMFSF/NWC-99, March 1986, Tables 12-11.
TABLE 3. Total Foreign and Joint Venture Catch (metric tonnes) 1977-84 in the Northeast Pacific: Bering Sea/Aleutian Region
Total foreign fishing
1 301 614
1 403 245
1 303 835
1 302 168
1 273 413
1 118 369
1 125 548
1 192 714
Total joint venture landings
32 571
78 534
108 603
211 155
357 541
Total joint processing
58 684
85 717
78 740
181 452
431 260
Total catch
1 301 614
1 403 245
1 303 835
1 393 423
1 437 664
1 375 712
1 518 155
1 981 515
What is clear is that joint ventures in harvesting have contributed substantially to the regional economy, not only in providing additional income to the fishermen but, particularly, in opening up opportunities for crab vessels which would have been unemployed after the collapse of the crab fisheries in 1982. Joint ventures in processing have also contributed substantially to the regional economy by providing both income and employment, but they have created yet another internal conflict between the US at-sea processors which utilize foreign factory ships thereby avoiding the costs and delays of shore deliveries, and the traditional shore-based processors which are facing a period of long-term decline caused by shifts in the cost/earnings structure of the industry. As a result, the latter continue to push for governmental protection.
Indeed, the whole issue of joint ventures was always highly controversial in the North Pacific Council and the US policy was not always clear and consistent.8 Objecting to the ruling that fish caught by US harvesters and delivered over the side to foreign processors in the US zone would not count against that country's allocation, the processors sought, and eventually won, an amendment to the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (MFCMA) in 1978 which permitted such allocations only if it was determined that processors either did not have the capacity, or would not utilize such capacity, to process the amount and type of fish requested.
8 For an analysis of the early conflict (1977-1980), see Miles et al., 1982, pp. 202-213.
The policy resulting from this "Processor Preference Amendment" is, therefore, based upon a clear ranking of priorities for allocating the resources within the US zone. Harvesting and processing by the US industry receives first priority. Harvesting by US vessels combined with foreign processors receives second priority. Harvesting and processing by foreign industries receives a definite third priority. But the enunciation of what is a fairly straightforward and not uncommon approach did not end the internal conflict within the North Pacific Council.
The continuing conflict followed two separate lines of development. On the one hand, joint ventures led to the development of two US fleets fishing the same stocks and responding to different market demands. Since the joint venture fisheries were not vertically integrated, the fishermen sought high volumes of catch. The domestic industry fishermen targeting the same stocks, however, were vertically integrated and sought higher yields from the stocks out of a lower biomass, primarily because their market demanded larger fish. This led them to call for the implementation of area separation of fleets and mesh size regulation.9
9 Remarks made by Bart Eaton, fisherman and a director of Trident Seafoods Corporation at a seminar on US/Japan fisheries relations on 3 March 1982, jointly sponsored by the US/Japan Friendship Society of Seattle and the Institute for Marine Studies, University of Washington.
TABLE 4. Total Foreign and Joint Venture Catch (metric tonnes) 1977-84 in the Northeast Pacific: Exclusive Economic Zone, 1977-84 (all areas)
Total foreign fishing
1 630 918
1 667 102
1 584 460
1 557 140
1 557 262
1 447 550
1 273 017
1 331 499
Total joint venture landings
10 546
62 952
140 641
252 205
358 163
656 820
Total joint processing
(10 000)
(35 000)
113 761
187 309
284 642
423 384
780 321
Total catch
1 630 918
1 678 044
1 630 006
1 773 853
1 905 212
1 684 397
2 054 564
2 768 640
Source: Tables 1-3
On the other hand, there emerged a significant conflict between the new at-sea joint venture US processors and the traditional shore-based processors located mainly in Alaska. For obvious reasons, the latter were also supported by organized labour which saw its interest lying in governmental protection to avoid displacement. This conflict heated up markedly in 1986 as foreign fishermen began to take advantage of a loophole in US domestic law which permitted flag transfers of fish-processing vessels to the US flag. Such flag transfers would be highly advantageous to the at-sea processors because their capital costs would be virtually zero. If they are also permitted to utilize foreign crews, both the shore-based processors and organized labour think that this would be the final blow.10
10 The Wall Street Journal, 4 December 1986, p. 6.
One possible compromise would be to maintain the loophole in order to derive the significant levels of efficiency this would make possible, but prohibit utilization of foreign crews. Even so, this would provide only temporary support for shore-based processors whose future, given the structural changes which have occured and are occuring in the fisheries industry, is as bleak as foreign fishing fleets seeking continued directed fishing allocations in the US zone. This is a significant development which was neither sought nor designed by US policy.
From the point of view of foreign fishing companies, especially Japanese, joint ventures are clearly a second best solution. Not only do they reduce the amount of fish available for directed catch, but they also represent increased opportunity costs which lead to price increases for the finished products in Japan. Price increases, in turn, stimulate product substitution. Joint ventures also exacerbate trade conflicts since they increase demands for Japan to lower tariff barriers and increase import quotas. These demands have been more and more successful and have resulted in a major shift in the Japan/United States fisheries trade relationship since 1976.
Between 1967 and 1976 the major source of Japanese imports of fish products was consistently the Republic of Korea with the United States varying interannually from a far second to sixth place. Japan also, during the same period, consistently exported the largest quantity and value to the United States.11 The situation since 1976 is exactly the reverse, as a result of extended jurisdiction combined with the US attack on the general imbalance of US/Japanese trade. Since 1979, Japan has imported far more fish products in quantity and value from the United States than it has exported and the United States is now consistently the leading trading partner of Japan in both imports and exports.12
11 MILES ET AL., 1982 Tables 6.16 and 6.17.
12 GINSBERG, J.G. NASAKA, Y. 1984. Japan's Fisheries, 1983. US Embassy CERP Report, Tokyo. Appendices 8, 9 and 11.
This link between joint ventures and trade is not inevitable. It was deliberately made by the US industry as a means of inducing Japan to support the development of US capabilities as part of the price of continued access to directed allocations in the US zone, and the industry-to-industry relationship was far more important here than the intergovernmental one.
The first industry-to-industry meeting was held in Seattle, Washington, in June 1982, just at the time when (and perhaps because) the traditional US crab fisheries in the northeast Pacific had collapsed. After difficult negotiations, it was possible for the two sides to agree that for the period 1 June 1982 to 31 May 1983 the Japanese industry would make over-the-side purchases of Alaska pollack (Theragra chalcogramma) from US fishermen amounting to 120 000 mt, which would be increased to 200 000 mt during the period 1 June 1983 to 31 May 1984.13
13 Opening remarks of Clement Tillion, Chairman, US/Japan Industry-to-Industry Meeting, 4-6 November 1983, Anchorage, Alaska.
At the second industry-to-industry meeting, held in Anchorage, Alaska, in November 1983, another agreement was reached.14 This called for over-the-side purchases of 330 000 mt of pollack for the calendar year 1984. The US side sought an additional 30 000 mt from areas in which joint ventures with Japan had not previously operated. However, the Japanese side made this contingent upon "...a significant level of fishery allocations to Japan..." and on "...full and timely release of US fishery allocations to Japan..." The US side also raised issues of Japanese trade barriers for fish products, and this led to the following agreement:
"...members of the Japanese delegation agreed to work toward the development of mutually beneficial trade in US processed bottom-fish products. Members of the US delegation agreed to work toward the full and timely release of US fishery allocations to Japan."
14 Memorandum of discussions concerning cooperation between the US and Japanese industries for 1984, n.d., pp. 2-3.
These agreements were a major benefit to US joint venture fishermen and processors since they provided the basis for a permanent involvement of the US industry in the production and marketing of resources previously either unutilized or underutilized by them.15 This is a legitimate and effective use of the authority gained by extensions of coastal state jurisdiction, though it comes with significant costs for Japan and other foreign fishing countries in the US zone. But it should be noted that even this success did not end the conflict over joint ventures and foreign fishing within the US zone. The reasons for this have been succinctly summarized by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and Fisheries Affairs, Ambassador Edward E. Wolfe, Jr.16
Noting that in the ten years since the United States extended its jurisdiction over fisheries, foreign fishing had declined by 67 percent, Ambassador Wolfe went on to say:
"Why, then, with such significant progress, do we continue to find the issue of foreign fishing so contentious? If foreign fishing has declined by two-thirds since 1977, shouldn't domestic controversy over it have declined in direct proportion? Not necessarily. In many respects the opposite is true. At times, domestic controversy over foreign fishing seems inversely proportionate to the amount of fish involved."
"There are reasons for this. With a greater share of our fish being taken by domestic fishermen and harvesters, competition among domestic interests has grown. With competition keen, every advantage counts. If that advantage is supplied by foreign fishermen or processors, controversy over foreign fishing heats up."
15 Information available in January 1987 from the Sixth US/Japan Industry Negotiations, held in December 1986, shows, however, that the exchange of increased joint ventures for stable directed allocations for Japan has broken down. Japan now has the option of joint ventures with a very small and rapidly declining directed allocation. For the year 1987, joint ventures will account for a range of 1.4-1.6 mmt from the US zone off Alaska and the DAP quota is set at 450 000 mt. As a directed allocation, Japan has been allowed only 47 000 mt of cod, 5 000 mt of Greenland turbot plus a small incidental catch. Most significantly, the Japanese allocation for pollack in the eastern Bering Sea has been reduced to zero.
16 Remarks delivered at the Center for Oceans Law and Policy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 25 October 1986.
Ambassador Wolfe also noted that the leverage of allocations had been used to induce desired behaviour in a wide variety of controversies, some of which had been entirely unrelated to fisheries. He pointed out that, as foreign fishing in the US zone declined, the value of allocations for leverage also declined, and he warned that "... we must be careful not to enmesh foreign governments in domestic disputes resulting from domestic competition for domestic shares of the same pie". It remains to be seen whether the US industry will heed this advice.
Let us begin by comparing the Japanese experience with allocations in both the US and Soviet zones between 1977 and 1986. Table 5 contains the data for the US zone while Table 6 contains the data for the Soviet zone.
The US allocations, in spite of the turbulence, were actually quite stable through 1986, varying only within a narrow range. Significant increases in 1980 and 1981 can be explained by the exclusion of the USSR from the US zone but, after 1981, these allocations have gone elsewhere. Undoubtedly, it costs Japan more to maintain these allocations than ever before in fishing fees and joint ventures. While transaction costs have risen dramatically, the actual dislocative effects have not been great until the sharp break at the beginning of 1987.17
17 In 1977, for instance, Japan had to retire only 27 vessels from the US zone. See Miles et al., 1982, Table 6.11.
TABLE 5. Japanese Allocations in the US Zone, 1977-84 (in metric tonnes)
Gulf of Alaska
Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands
105 000
1 063 400
1 168 400
101 785
1 129 025
1 230 810
107 931
1 063 585
1 171 516
159 423
1 218 317
1 377 740
217 439
1 181 443
1 398 882
196 753
1 159 715
1 179 468
142 917
1 023 302
1 166 219
131 649
1 022 891
1 154 540
TABLE 6. Total Catch and Allocations for Japan in the Soviet Zone and for the USSR in the Japanese Zone, 1975-86 (metric tonnes)
Japanese Catch and Allocations in the Soviet Zone
Soviet Catch and Allocations in the Japanese Zone
914 000
300-400 000 (est.)
365 000
700 800
458 850 (est.)
850 000
650 000
750 000
650 000
750 000
650 000
750 000
650 000
750 000
650 000
750 000
650 000
700 000
640 000
600 000
600 000
Sources and Notes: While no extended fishing zones were in existence for either Japan or the USSR in 1975. The figures show the reported and estimated catches for the areas that were later to be covered by extended jurisdiction.
Figures for 1975-78, MILES et al., 1982, Tables 6.8, 6.9, 6.12, 6.13 and pp. 188-189; figures for 1979-83, US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA/NMFS. Foreign Fishery Information Release No. 83-2, 25 January 1983; for 1984, FFI Release No. 85-5, 21 March 1985: and for 1985, FFI Release No. 86-9, 8 May 1986.
The Japanese experience with the USSR, however, is a more curious and more difficult one because it combines stability with several great dislocative breaks. The initial break occurred in 1977 when Japan lost a little more than 200 000 mt of the catch which was traditionally caught in the area which had been covered by Soviet extensions of jurisdiction. While the total amount was not great, the burden fell on the salmon and herring fleets, and 555 salmon vessels and 205 herring vessels had to be retired.18 In all, 1 054 fishing vessels were retired from the North Pacific, thereby presenting the Japanese Government with a massive problem of compensation and relocation of fishing families. Most of these retirements were generated by curtailments of fishing opportunities in the Soviet zone. After this initial hurdle, the relationship was fairly stable until 1985 when the Japanese allocation was reduced by 100 000 mt, but another drastic shock was in the offing; in 1986 the USSR suddenly reduced the Japanese allocation from 600 000 mt to 150 000 mt.
18 Miles et al., 1982, Table 6.10.
By 1985, extended coastal state jurisdiction had resulted in a total reduction of 1 810 fishing licences in Japan with 1 500 of those accounted for by the United States, the USSR and Canada.19 Most of these 1 500 licences had been taken out of the North Pacific fishery. Evidence that further difficulties lay ahead came in July 1984 when the USSR indicated to Japan its intention to terminate the existing bilateral agreement on fishing at the end of 1984.20 This was not actually done until the end of 1985, but the effects were devastating.
19 FUJINAMI, N. 1986. Perspectives of a fishing nation: Japan. In Miles, È.J. ed. The management of world fisheries: Implications of extended coastal state jurisdiction, p. 284. (In press)
20 HABERMAN, C. End of fishing accord with Soviet Union, limits on whaling stun Japanese, International Herald Tribune, 9 July 1984, p. 6.
With the reduction of the quota to 150 000 mt, the number of permissible fishing vessels for Japan in the Soviet zone declined from 5 623 to 1 600, and there were drastic cuts in the pollack and flounder allocations.21 The actual reduction in the number of permitted vessels was less dramatic than it seemed since only 1 815 of the vessels permitted to fish in the Soviet zone in 1985 actually fished there. Even so, it was clear that another round of vessel retirements followed by payment of compensation would be in order. However, while the various fishing associations were seeking more than 129 billion yen in government assistance, a sum of only about 22 billion yen was forthcoming from the national government plus renewal funds of 10 billion yen to be loaned at a 3 percent interest rate.22 In addition some funds (c. 4 billion yen) would also be available from prefectural governments.23
21 Japan-Soviet Fishery Agreement formally signed..., Suisan Keizai, 30 April 1986. Translated by R. Abe, US Embassy, Tokyo.
22 Money to compensate for ship reduction in northern-sea fishery amounts to 19 500 million yen, Suisan Keizai, 13 October 1986. Translated by R. Àbe, US Embassy, Tokyo.
23 26 billion yen in compensation for reduction of northern-seas fishing boats..., Nihon Keizai, 9 October 1986, p. 3. Translated by R. Abe, US Embassy, Tokyo.
It is not clear whether Japan faces a complete phase-out of fishing in the Soviet zone in the short term, or whether the relationship will persist at the current low level in which each partner derives approximately an equal share of the benefits. The initiative, however, is clearly with the USSR.
Five regional commissions in the northwest Pacific have been affected to varying degrees by the extensions of coastal state jurisdiction. Two of these are multilateral: the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission (INPFC) and the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission (NPFSC). The other three are bilateral: the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission (IPSFC) and the Japan-Soviet northwest Pacific Fisheries Commission. While both the INPFC and the Japan-Soviet Commission had fairly broad terms of reference concerning species coverage, their primary focus was the high seas salmon fishery of Japan. Therefore, a species approach has been adopted in this section and the INPFC, the Japan-Soviet Commission and the IPSFC are discussed under one heading.
It should also be noted that, of the five commissions in question, extended jurisdiction made significant differences to only two, i.e., INPFC and the Japan-Soviet Commission, because the distribution of authority prior to 1976 gave equal weight to the state of origin and the state engaging in high seas salmon fisheries. Extended jurisdiction drastically changed this relationship by vesting primary authority in the state of origin. Consequently, both the INPFC and the Japan-Soviet Commission had to be transformed. In the other three cases, the exercise of authority was never a major problem. All three mechanisms were designed to respond to significant problems in the management of shared stocks in relation to which the coming of extended jurisdiction represented a minor change, as in the case of halibut (IPHC) and the coastal and inshore salmon problems faced by the United States and Canada (IPSFC). In relation to fur seals (NPFSC) the coming of extended jurisdiction was almost completely irrelevant. For both the IPHC and the IPSFC, the actual sharing had become a contentious issue over a period of time, but that has never been a problem for the NPFSC.
In view of the authority problem previously referred to in relation to the Japanese high seas salmon fishery, the arrangements existing prior to 1976 had to include decision-making procedures to secure Japanese consent to regulations proposed by the states of origin. The device utilized by the United States and Canada is known as the "abstention principle" as contained in the International Convention for the High Seas Fisheries of the North Pacific Ocean, with Annex and Protocol of 9 May 1952.24
24 Committee on Commerce, US Senate, Treaties and Other International Agreements on Fisheries, Oceanographic Resources, and Wildlife to which the United States is a Party, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, 31 December 1974, pp. 231-243.
The Convention had created a Commission (INPFC) and provided for Japanese abstention from fishing stocks of halibut, herring and salmon in areas specified in the Annex and in the Protocol. Based on assumptions then current about the extent and location of substantial intermingling of stocks of Asian and North American salmon, the Convention provisionally decided and stipulated in the Protocol that the line of meridian 175°W longitude would be a salmon abstention line since no Japanese high seas fishing for salmon would be permitted east of 175°W. Later, in 1956, the Japan-Soviet Convention for the Northwest Pacific Fisheries, dealing inter alia with Japanese high seas fisheries for salmon of Soviet origin, made the line of 175°W its eastern boundary.
The Japan-Soviet Commission quickly became an arena in which the two parties simply fought out, on the basis of widely diverging estimates, the issues of potential yield and quotas. On the non-research side of things, the INPFC had an equally difficult experience, albeit procedurally more formal. The Convention (Art. III) had assigned several crucial jobs to the Commission, the two most important being that of determining annually whether the stocks specified in the Annex qualified for abstention by Japan, and of determining, through study, whether any additional stocks of fish in the Convention area should be added to the Annex. The criteria proving qualification for abstention were also stipulated and decisions required the consenting votes of all three parties to the Convention. A similar decision rule was specified for changing the provisional line of 175°W whenever the joint research programme yielded results showing that a different line would better divide stocks of Asian salmon from stocks of North American salmon. By 1975, the United States and Canada were convinced that results showed that the line should be moved to 175°E, but Japan refused to agree.
Extended jurisdiction swept away this entire superstructure in less than two years; new arrangements were in place on both sides of the North Pacific by 1978. The key to these changes lies in Article 66 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, an early version of which had been agreed to by the principals by 1975.25 This solution concedes that "states in whose rivers anadromous stocks originate shall have the primary interest in and responsibility for such stocks". While it is the state of origin which establishes total allowable catches and other regulatory approaches, a duty to consult with states fishing those stocks is imposed but fishing is permitted only landwards of the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Finally, enforcement of regulations beyond the EEZ "...shall be by agreement between the state of origin and other states concerned".
25 See Article 54 of the Single Negotiating Text (SNT), Part II, document A/CONF.62/WP.8, Part II, 7 May 1975.
On the basis of this formulation, the United States moved almost immediately to bring the structure and decision process of the INPFC into line with the requirements of the MFCMA and gave notice in February 1977 of its intent to withdraw from the INPFC in one year unless the Convention was renegotiated. These negotiations began in October of 1977 and were completed in April 1978 and the changes they induced are striking.
The most important change is that the previous annex which stipulated the criteria for implementing the abstention principle, and the protocol enshrining the original line of demarcation of 175°W longitude, have been replaced by an annex which sets out the new fishing regime as now extending to 175°E longitude. The Commission itself has a changed focus (Art. III), with the emphasis now being on the exchange of information and a forum for cooperation on stocks of anadromous and non-anadromous species in the Convention area. In addition, the contracting parties pledge themselves (Art. IV) to work toward the creation of an international organization with broader membership dealing with non-anadromous species in the Convention area.
The contracting parties also agree to coordinate their scientific research programmes with respect to anadromous species in the Convention area and to species of marine mammals caught incidentally in those fisheries (Art. X). A new and detailed set of procedures relating to enforcement beyond 200 miles is specified in Article IX. These provisions embody a trend which had its origins in the northwest Atlantic in the mid-1970s, i.e., duly authorized officials of any contracting party may board vessels fishing for anadromous species in the Convention area. Arrests or seizures for cause are permitted but, "Only the authorities of the contracting party to which the above-mentioned person or fishing vessel belongs may try the offense and impose penalties therefor".
With respect to regulation of fishing effort and catch, the approach adopted by the United States and Canada eschews specific annual quotas and relies instead on a system of time and area closures relative to the operations of the Japanese mothership fleet and the land-based gill-net fishery. The incidental catch of marine mammals (particularly Dall's porpoise) is also regulated. It was anticipated that these time and area closures would reduce Japanese interceptions of North American salmon by 75-85 percent.26 However, two issues were left which were to cause great difficulties in 1985-86. These were the extent of Japanese interceptions of North American salmon, particularly western Alaska chinook, in the area left unregulated in the central Bering Sea and the extent of Japanese fishing on the northern chum runs. This issue will be discussed later in the paper.
26 Miles et al., 1982, pp. 170-173, 220-221.
In the northwest Pacific, the initial approach adopted by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was to replace the Convention Concerning Fisheries on the High Seas of the Northwest Pacific Ocean, and the bilateral Commission which it had created, with another long-term bilateral agreement and Commission in 1978, but these new arrangements (the Japan-Soviet Fisheries Cooperation Agreement) reflected fully the realities of extended jurisdiction. The negotiations on the salmon quotas for 1977 and 1978 had been negotiated separately from other quota issues. The 1977 quota had been 62 000 mt but in 1978 the USSR insisted that this quota be reduced to 35 500 mt. This came at a particularly bad time for Japan since it was negotiating the new INPFC arrangements with the United States and Canada and the new restrictions implied fairly catastrophic changes for the Japanese salmon fleet, especially for the portion which fished mainly in the Soviet zone.27 The final quota arrived at was 42 500 mt, where it remained until 1983. In 1984 this was cut to 40 000 mt, a further cut in 1985 reduced it to 37 600 mt, and another drastic cut in 1986 further reduced it to 24 500 mt.28 At that time, the USSR also indicated that Japanese fishing for salmon of Soviet origin may be completely prohibited by 1989.29
27 Ibid., p. 191.
28 NASAKA, Y. Salmonid programs and public policy in Japan. Paper presented to the World Salmonid Conference, Portland, Oregon, 3-4 October 1986, Table 3. See also, Japan-Soviet salmon negotiations settled ..., Suisan Keizai, 27 May 1986, translated by R. Abe, US Embassy, Tokyo; and Number of salmon vessels to be reduced 25 percent..., Suisan Keizai, 11 August 1986, translated by R. Abe, US Embassy, Tokyo.
29 Salmon fishery may be banned within next three years ..., Suisan Keizai, 16 May 1986, translated by R. Abe, US Embassy, Tokyo.
It is interesting that the 1986 reduction in quota came after Japan and the USSR had decided to formalize their "cooperative relationship" in fisheries in May 1985. Most of this agreement, in fact, relates to anadromous species and is based on the formulation of Article 66 in the UN Convention.30 One paragraph of that agreement reads:
"The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will give consideration to Japan's normal fish catch of anadromous fish species, to the forms of its fishing operations and to all sea areas where the catching of such fish has been carried out."
30 See Full text of the Agreement between the Japanese Government and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Cooperation in the Fishery Field, Nikkan Suisan Keizai, 14 May 1985, p. 2.
Noting that the warning of total phase-out by 1989 came at the end of the 1985 reviews and was not made as a formal proposal, Japan argued that it was contrary to both the Japan-Soviet Fishery Cooperation Agreement and the UN Convention, and therefore indicated its opposition.31 The USSR, in turn, replied that both those agreements prohibited offshore fishing for anadromous species but that there had been instances of Japanese vessels operating outside designated areas and catching excess amounts of fish. The warning was clear that, unless Japan effectively curbed such illegal operations, the complete ban would go into effect.
31 Salmon fishery may be banned within three years..., Suisan Keizai, 16 May 1986.
Again, these difficulties with the USSR occurred when Japan was experiencing even more severe difficulties with the United States in 1985-86 over Japanese interceptions of western Alaska chinook. This conflict rapidly escalated to the point where it threatened to get out of hand and infect other major issues between the two parties.
As seen from the US (primarily Alaskan) side, the basic issue was the unacceptably high Japanese interceptions of western Alaska chinook in the central Bering Sea which threatened the integrity of the compromise underlying the renegotiated INPFC arrangements. From this point of view, the combined time and area closures approach reflected concessions on both sides, in which Japanese effort in the international area outside the US and Canadian zones would be restricted in return for Japanese access within the US zone at times when salmon of North American origin were low in abundance. However, since 1980, the effort of the mothership fleet in the international area (central Bering Sea) had been increasing to the point where it seemed possible that half of the total harvest of western Alaska chinook might be taken on the high seas as immature fish one or two years away from their inshore migration, and weighing less than one third of the weight they would have had had they reached inshore waters. The total catch of the land-based gill-net and mothership fleets in addition to that of the foreign trawl fleets in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands subregions was estimated to be 994 000 fish in 1980.
Seen from the Japanese side, however, the picture was quite different. The mothership fleet argued that the combined effects of restrictions imposed by the United States and the USSR were to squeeze Japanese high seas fisheries into a fishing ground that was only 13 percent of the total area. Even so, they targeted only salmon of Asian origin. Salmon of North American origin were fully protected, as was shown by the rapid increases in the yield of the runs since the INPFC was revised in 1978. Rather than the one million fish interception figure utilized by the US side, Japanese estimates were 400 000 fish for the same year.
"But even if we based our calculations on the American estimate of one million, the 'interception' is less than 0.8 percent of total catches of salmon in Alaska, which reached a record 145 million fish in 1985, and has averaged 128 million fish annually over the latest five years".32 Furthermore, if all interceptions were completely eliminated, the estimated total salmon migration into Alaskan rivers would increase by only 0.3 to 0.4 percent.
32 Statement by Shu Ohtaka, Editor-in-Chief, Suisan Tsushin, n.d.
The issue became a highly visible and emotional one in Alaska and was taken up by very influential members of the US Congress, most notably by Senator Ted Stevens. Sufficient pressure was then put on a reluctant US Government to withhold a major portion of the Japanese groundfish allocation when the United States accused Japan of stonewalling in the negotiations. Not surprisingly, that linkage had explosive effects in Japan where fishermen and their representatives in the Diet interpreted US actions as aiming at the destruction of the Japanese high seas fishery. They, in turn, threatened to withhold import quotas for processed pollack and joint venture fish from US waters until the US released Japan's groundfish allocation.
In the midst of this intense confrontation, the US Department of State was seeking to find a solution which would achieve a 50-60 percent reduction in Japanese interception of North American salmon and still allow the Japanese high seas fleets to catch almost the same amount of salmon of Asian origin as they had been catching (about 30 million fish).33 Eventually, a solution was found as a result of painful concessions made by each side. The essential elements of the compromise will close the central Bering Sea to the mothership fleet by 1994 in return for increased effort within the US zone. Fishing in the eastern half of the Bering Sea will be phased out by 1988 and in the western half by 1994. Total fleet days within the US zone will increase to 140 days after the high seas area is closed.34 For the land-based fishery, the eastern boundary of 175°E has been moved to the west by one degree (174°E) and is subject to review in three to five years in the light of joint research to be undertaken. The agreement was denounced by Alaskan fishermen35 but was submitted to an extraordinary meeting of the INPFC, after consultation with Canada, and approved. The Alaskan objection was that the "solution" ignored the Japanese interceptions in the North Pacific Ocean as distinct from the Bering Sea. As such, it did not provide adequate protection.
33 Ambassador Negroponte's opening statement to Japanese journalists, 17 January 1986.
34 Record of discussions between Japan and the United States regarding salmon interceptions, Tokyo, 6-8 March 1986, Annex I.
35 Anchorage Daily News, 19 March 1986, Section B.
What, then, is the future of the Japanese high seas salmon fleet? No doubt the pressure has been relentless, but this was presaged by the formulation of Article 66 in the UN Convention. By 1994, all high seas fishing for salmon in the Bering Sea will have been phased out, but it will probably continue in the central North Pacific barring some future major confrontation over interceptions. The problem is the same on the western side vis-à-vis the USSR, and it was probably no coincidence that the USSR chose May of 1986 to raise the flag of a complete ban in three years' time on Japanese salmon fishing in the Soviet zone.
But the Japanese high seas salmon fleet, while much reduced, need not disappear. Stable allocations are available within the US zone in return for reduced interceptions on the high seas. This is a self-enforcing arrangement given the complementary interests of the parties. The same would have to be true in the northwest Pacific, especially since the USSR has drastically cut the Japanese overall quota to 150 000 mt (not including salmon). Unless Japan has continued access to salmon quotas within the Soviet zone, there will be no obvious incentive to curtail high seas fishing for salmon of Soviet origin. This is, in toto, a much smaller "pie" than formerly but it is not negligible either in quantity or value. As the Bishop of Tyndale said, in the twelfth century: "It is better to have somewhat than to be done out of altogether".
United States/Canada salmon. The total focus of US/Canada salmon concerns goes far beyond the focus of the IPSFC which is limited, in its terms of reference, to managing the sockeye and pink salmon runs of the Fraser River. If that were the only problem, extended jurisdiction would be entirely irrelevant in this case, and there would be no reason to do anything with the existing arrangement beyond adjusting shares of the catch over a period and compensating Canada for foregoing industrial development of the upper Fraser River.
The real problems here are extremely complex and essentially twofold. The first is the broad problem of reciprocal interceptions of US salmon by Canadian fishermen and vice versa. This is complicated because of the extremely intricate geography of the region and because of the variety of fleets and fisheries which have developed over the years. Balancing trade-offs of catch is in itself an onerous task of great technical complexity. Reciprocal interceptions also retard investments in artificial propagation of salmon (enhancement) since neither government can be sure that its nationals will reap the benefits of investment of public funds.
The second problem is a combination of political complexity, notably on the US side, and the cultural power of salmon as a symbol of historic importance in the northwest Pacific. Extended jurisdiction is of relevance here in terms of the authority to manage. While the MFCMA created a new management structure based on regional councils, it fractionated authority even further by adding yet another bureaucratic level. After 1976, therefore, instead of just three states and the Federal Government which were required to concert policy vis-à-vis Canada, there were now three states, two regional councils and the Federal Government. Nor was this all, since the effect of the Boldt Decision in 1974 made the native Indian Tribes within the United States powerful players in their own right.
The initial need to respond to the implications of extended jurisdiction really emerged in 1964 and 1966 when first Canada and then the United States extended their fisheries jurisdictions to 12 miles.36 This resulted, in 1970, in the first bilateral agreement between the parties concerning the whole range of reciprocal fishing privileges. This agreement was revised in 1973 and then extended annually until 1977. At that time the MFCMA required the negotiation of a new reciprocal fisheries Agreement which was completed on 24 February 1977. However, as the United States embarked on a series of increasingly stringent regulatory measures on all salmon fishing within its zone through the North Pacific and Pacific Fishery Management Councils, adverse impacts on Canadian fishermen increased and the reciprocal Agreement broke down in 1978.
36 This summary is based on: HENRY, K. A history of Canada-United States fishery relations since the turn of the century, unpublished paper, April 1978; and HENRY, K.A. 1981. International salmon interception. Science, politics and fishing: A series of lectures. Corvallis, OR. Sea Grant College Program, Oregon State University, pp. 127-139.
Bilateral discussions on the salmon interception problem had been held every year since 1970, but the formal negotiations for a comprehensive treaty began in 1977. While these were continuing, the situation deteriorated rapidly until access was terminated by Canada on 1 June 1978. The United States replied in kind and the stalemate continued through the 1979 fishing season.37
37 Miles et al., 1982, pp. 174-175.
As the negotiations progressed to the spring of 1979, the approach adopted by the negotiators sought to create a new Pacific Salmon Commission covering all interception issues from northern Alaska to southern Oregon, and detailed provisions on interception limitations were being hammered out.
But in the spring of 1979, Donald L. McKernan, the chief US negotiator, died. Moreover, internal difficulties on both sides jeopardized the acceptability of what had been done so far. As a result, the new US negotiator, Dayton L. Alverson, and his Canadian counterpart, Michael P. Shepard, shifted their strategy to a search for joint gain in which they sought to stabilize interceptions in the short term, cooperate to maximize the production of salmon and equitably share the results.38 Sharing was to be achieved by the application of two principles: first, each country should benefit from its own enhancement and, second, the parties would work to derive a formula that would give each country a share equal to its total national production.
38 Agreed summary record of Canada/United States discussions on a comprehensive agreement on the management and development of Pacific salmon stocks of mutual concern, Lynnwood, WA. 20-25 October 1980.
In addition, rather than continue the attempt to define a very detailed and specific set of arrangements, the negotiators sought to design:
"...a general framework Convention which would include a series of binding principles and a series of specific provisions related to an initial salmon interception limitation scheme, management of stocks bound for transboundary and Fraser rivers, and technical resolution procedures. A Commission (with appropriate subsidiary panels) would be formed immediately on ratification to implement the Convention during the first year in which the Convention comes into force."
"Once the Convention is in place, it would be necessary for the parties to negotiate further detailed implementation provisions regarding specific fisheries and approaches to management, development, research and monitoring".39
39 Ibid., p. 3.
This approach bore fruit but was effectively opposed in 1983-84 by a coalition of fisheries interests in Alaska. The United States, therefore, required renegotiation of the Convention. But this issue, not surprisingly, had by that time gone to the top of the Canadian agenda with the United States and was dealt with by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan. Both chief executives agreed that the problem had to be solved and appointed special negotiators with the power to impose solutions on recalcitrant, domestic coalitions if need be. This last push produced an agreement in January 1985 which was based very largely on the agreement which had been proposed in 1983-84.40 In fact, only some of the annexes were changed.
40 Treaty between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America concerning Pacific Salmon, signed on 16 January 1985. The Treaty was ratified by the US Senate in March 1985.
The Treaty created a Pacific Salmon Commission composed of a decision-making group of eight representatives divided into two national sections, comprising four representatives each from the United States and Canada, and three subsidiary panels based on previously-defined geographic subregions: a Northern Panel, a Southern Panel and a Fraser River Panel. The latter incorporates the old IPSFC. Each national section has one vote and decisions require approval from both sections. Annex IV of the Treaty sets out fishing regimes, with detailed sharing provisions, for the following two to fifteen years.
The fragmented authority problem on the US side has been solved by a very ingenious proposal offered by the representative for the Indian Tribes. The US panel of four commissioners contains one representative each from Alaska, the Federal Government and the Indian Tribes and a combined representative from the states of Washington and Oregon. The federal representative does not vote within the US side and the decision mechanism calls for agreement from the other three. The self-enforcing ingredient here rests on an understanding that without such agreement there will be no allocation. Without an allocation in any year, there can be no fishing.
The other interesting ingredient on the US side is that the State of Alaska wanted a commitment from the Indian Tribes not to sue the State to apply the Boldt Decision. On the other hand, the Indian Tribes wanted a treaty and they wanted the State of Alaska to support it. The solution arrived at was that the Indian Tribes have agreed not to sue as long as the Treaty is in force and as long as the United States meets its treaty obligations. In turn, the State of Alaska has agreed to come under the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court in Seattle.
All the portents are good for this Treaty to provide the basis for an effective solution of the total United States/Canada salmon interception problem. In the first place, the underlying interests of both coastal states are complementary. Both have extensive plans for salmon enhancement which could not be realized without solving the interception problems. Both parties also faced very difficult domestic problems - particularly the United States - which could not be solved without simultaneous or prior settlements of the international problems. Finally, US and Canadian scientific advice was unanimous on what would be required to rebuild the stocks. This facilitated agreement.
It is difficult to see how the State of Alaska benefited from its opposition to the agreement in 1983-84. It gained initially from substantially increased catches in the two-year period during which the agreement was not in force, but this was at the price of lower catches for the next 15 years to facilitate rebuilding. The Treaty can therefore be regarded as the vindication of the approach adopted by the two negotiators, Shepard and Alverson, in 1979.
The Halibut Commission (IPHC), created in 1925, has as its primary objective the development and maintenance of stocks of Pacific halibut to levels permitting the maximum sustained yield to be taken from that fishery (Art. III). But, in doing so, the Commission was not empowered to deal with the economic dimension of management.41 This was to prove a major hindrance along with the Commission's inability to respond to the development of large-scale, distant-water trawl fisheries of Japan and the USSR after 1956. Extended jurisdiction, of course, would provide some relief by imposing effective controls on the foreign fleets. While it did not solve the whole problem, it even created a new one in the rapid growth of domestic trawl fleets in the United States, which were not put under the same stringent controls faced by the foreign fleets.
41 Miles et al., 1982, pp. 64-68, 165-167.
As required by the MFCMA, the United States gave the required two-year notice of its intention to terminate the Convention on 1 April 1977 in order to bring the Convention into line with the new Act. This was not an especially contentious issue between the parties but there were conflicts over respective allocations, and the halibut issue was linked to the larger issue of reciprocal access to each other's zones by vessels participating in the groundfish fisheries of Canada and the United States. A new Agreement came into force on 29 March 1979. Article III of the Protocol amending the original Treaty of 1925 allows the IPHC to continue with its traditional objectives. However, the Convention still does not empower the Commission to consider the economic dimension of management.
This arrangement reflects an important complication. The Halibut Commission is the management authority over the halibut resource but it does not have full authority in regulating the licensing of vessels to implement limited entry schemes. For this to be done in the US zone where most of the fishing occurs it would have to be implemented by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council. Such action, therefore, would require the joint efforts of both the IPHC and the NPFMC. This was actually attempted during the period 1982-84 but it failed as a result of significant opposition within the US fleet and the consequences of failure seriously aggravated the problem. But there is no need to treat this issue in any detail here because it is unrelated to extended jurisdiction.
Extended jurisdiction had no discernible impact upon the renegotiation of the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention in 1980. Some minor difficulties occurred over an attempt generated by environmentalists and the Marine Mammal Commission to incorporate the standard of the US Marine Mammal Protection Act ("optimum sustainable population") to the Fur Seal Convention, but it was successfully resisted by the other contracting parties on the grounds that the standard could not be defined operationally.42 The Convention was extended in 1980 and the original arrangement seems stable, even though there is increased opposition within the United States to the harvesting of fur seals in the Pribilof Islands.
42 Ibid., p. 222.
The major winners as a result of extensions of coastal state jurisdiction in the North Pacific are the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The northwest Pacific has increased the Soviet total catch by 25-28 percent since 1976. The northeast Pacific has become the most important region in the US domestic catch. Canadian fisheries interests in the Pacific are relatively small. The major losers are Japan and the Republic of Korea, but Japan has had great success in increasing production from its offshore fishery which more than compensates in quantity for losses suffered elsewhere.
The situation shows that while there was potential stability in allocations at a far higher level in the United States/Japan relationship through 1986, at a significant cost for Japan in joint ventures, this is no longer the case as of 1987. However, even with joint ventures there will always be continued threats and challenges because only certain groups of US fishermen benefit from them, and the other fishermen have nothing to lose from challenging these arrangements. At the same time, the US Federal Government clearly sees that the overall benefit of the nation will not be served by a complete phase-out of all foreign fishermen from the US zone in the short-to-medium term. Moreover, the United States will have effective leverage over Japan, especially with respect to trade in fisheries products, only if allocations for Japanese-directed fishing in the United States zone remain at a significant level. Without those, the United States will have to search for other levers.
Three trends into the future are clear. First, the problem of import quotas on fishery products into the Japanese market will increase in salience and will continue to be dealt with at a higher level than previously. Indeed, in October 1986, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) held its first meeting on this problem. Japan will be at a greater disadvantage at this level because the European Economic Community countries are also seeking easier access to the Japanese markets.43 Second, Japan will face increased demands from countries in the northwest Pacific, most notably from the USSR, China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, to include joint ventures as part of the price of future access.44 Third, the significance of the Japanese high seas salmon fleet will continue to decline in relation to imports from the United States and the dramatic increase of production of hatchery-reared chum salmon in Japan. In 1976, for instance, Japan imported 4 000 mt of salmon and produced domestically 38 000 mt of chum salmon, while the high seas fleet produced 82 000 mt.45 In 1985, by contrast, Japan imported 116 000 mt (mostly from the United States) and produced domestically 168 000 mt of chum salmon, while the high seas fleet produced 34 000 mt. This is truly a major shift.
43 IQ system on marine products reach crucial point..., Suisan Keizai, 30 September 1986. Translated by R. Abe, US Embassy, Tokyo.
44 Communist nations showing new moves, Suisan Keizai, 22 September 1986; and North Korea studying collection of fishing fee..., Suisan Keizai, 24 September 1986. Translated by R. Abe, US Embassy, Tokyo.
45 Nasaka, Y. (above note 28), Table 1.
With respect to regional commissions, the dominant impression is that coastal states chose to adopt pragmatic approaches to these issues reflecting the ad hoc specific points to be solved in each case. The major change induced by extended coastal state jurisdiction was experienced only on the high seas salmon-fishing issue. The other three cases were affected either only slightly or not at all, but the opportunity was seized nonetheless to update the statutes of the commissions and, sometimes, to adapt their designs to changed conditions.
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Generally favorable reviews - based on 25 Critics What's this?
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Generally favorable reviews- based on 34 Ratings
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• Starring: ,
• Summary: A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is writer/director Dito Montiel's candid debut capturing his youth in the mid-1980s in the toughest neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. Exuding the rawness and authenticity of such classic urban dramas as "Kids," "Mean Streets," "Do the Right Thing" and "Saturday Night Fever," the film is based on Montiel's memoir of the same name. (First Look Pictures) Expand
Score distribution:
1. Positive: 19 out of 25
2. Negative: 0 out of 25
1. Reviewed by: Don R. Lewis
Downey Jr. and LaBeouf as Dito as well as Chazz Palminteri as Monty are outstanding. Channing Tatum (who I've never heard of) is also amazing as the tortured soul Antonio.
2. 80
This is an exceptionally assured debut, and Montiel exhibits rare care with editing and sound design. His real forte, though, is casting, to which a brief scene featuring Downey and the incandescent Rosario Dawson powerfully attests.
3. 80
It's forceful and alive and spilling over with crazy poetry.
4. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is inchoate, but it demonstrates that instincts and brio can compensate for a lot.
5. The framing sequences with Downey and the climactic scenes between father and son are a mess. Downey, at 41, is too old to be playing a character who can be no more than 31 or 32, and 50-year-old Eric Roberts is an even greater distraction as Montiel's imprisoned friend Antonio.
6. As it dips in and out of the boys' lives, and occasionally wanders back to the contemporary Dito surveying the old neighbourhood, Saints never really integrates its two time periods.
7. 50
I suspect this guy can make a good movie if he learns the right lessons; he's made about half of one here. But the praise heaped upon A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is way too much, way too soon.
See all 25 Critic Reviews
Score distribution:
1. Positive: 11 out of 14
2. Negative: 2 out of 14
1. Marco
Feb 21, 2007
Unbelievably beauty, strange poetics, daring choices of voices filtering over scenes and a story that is hard to follow, but draws you in enough to blow your mind away in the end. It seems at time out of balance, but that is the beauty of it. and for some really weird reason, the ending, the compassion, the sincere deeply heartfelt empathy made me even shed a tear. Expand
2. SteveS.
Nov 10, 2006
One of the Years Best and most violently thoughtful films. Amazing performances from Chazz Palminteri, Dianne Wiest, and surprisingly, Channing Tatum. Expand
3. Jul 2, 2013
A time before Downey Jr. was Iron Man, before Shia LaBeouf became the annoying kid in Transformers and before Channing Tatum was a sizeable household name, they were brought together for a biopic of Dito Montiel and his early years in New York, now a man who has eluded his past by becoming quite a successful writer, the film jumps between two timelines as we witness Dito and his early days in 1980s Astoria, New York, played by LaBeouf, and the present day, now played by Downey Jr.
The most stand out part of the earlier days in Dito's story is that of his damaged friend Antonio, played by Tatum, who gives a very heartfelt performance as the bullying and egotistical teen that is also beaten viciously by his father.
We occasionally see older Dito as he appears to be thinking about these pivotal moments in his past, guilt, heartache but seemingly joy flashes across his face, as his reluctance to come back to his childhood bearings start to show. In his past we see how determined he became to try and get out of his neighbourhood after meeting a new Scottish classmate who fills Dito's head with dreams of California.
Recognising Your Saints is often portrayed as a coming of age drama, deal with the issues that most teens face, identity crisis. But with Dito, his heightening sense of fear for his safety, his father's apparent love for Antonio who isn't is son and of course the pressures of leaving this all behind.
The unique editing of the film along with its very candid shots and reality show-esque dialogue have created a very emotionally riveting story of a man's real life, While all the cast involved are fantastically at the top of their game, my personal admiration goes to Channing Tatum, playing a man he bottles up every feeling and emotion he has in his big and bulging physique, who takes no prisoners, is awkward and hostile around new faces but ultimately looks out for his friends, perhaps too much.
Shia LaBeouf and Robert Downey Jr combine various characteristics and moving performances to bring the director and protagonist Dito Montiel to the screen, LaBeouf squashing his childhood baby face and Downey Jr continuing to prove himself as one of the finest actors of his generation. Also mention for the parents Monty and Flori, played with powerful performances from Chazz Palminteri and Dianne West.
A moving, beautifully shot and outstanding script have equaled to and enjoyable but heartbreaking tale of a boy with a messy life but with the same hope as many in his position, to leave his past behind and not let people hold him down.
4. DieterM.
Oct 19, 2006
'A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints' is a beautiful, yet decidedly feel-bad movie. Great acting, great scenario, great photography, and aye lot of emotion. Gritty, but great. Expand
5. Jan 25, 2013
Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints takes the style and approach similar to Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale and Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which both overshadow this film for their grandscale look on issues and the exploration into certain relationships and how they grow and decimate over time. All three films possess common attributes; all three take place in a part of New York, they are directed by first-timers, they are stories that the men hold close to their hearts, all utilize the storytelling method of narration or breaking the fourth wall in some way, and they focus on a large group of characters all with something to say. Whether it's worth hearing or not is up to you.
A Bronx Tale effected me in a way that totally came out of left field. By delivering its brutal honesty with cold, authentic realism was audacious and showcasing three exquisite talents (one of them, Chazz Palminteri, present here), it delivered a coming of age drama, deeper and more reliant on values than any one I've previously seen. Do the Right Thing was a crisp, lively drama relying on racial tensions and impending chaos that would ensue from enduring a brutally hot day in Brooklyn. Spike Lee brilliantly concocted tension through character development and human conversation, and almost implying, throughout the course of the entire film, that no character did "the right thing." But whatever your definition of the right thing was, you could disagree with me.
Montiel is more interested with telling his story more than tacking on a fancy moral or showing any deep, subversive element in particular, which is perfectly fine with me. His close-to-home story is buoyant on its own, relying on strong performances from charismatic leads and is elevated by bright, humid, and mercilessly seamy cinematography. Montiel himself is our protagonist, played in his later years by Robert Downey Jr., a successful writer, yet absent family-man, Dito's mother calls him one day, twenty years after leaving behind his home in Queens, to return home to convince his father (Chazz Palminteri) to go to the hospital after falling gravely ill. Upon returning home, he sees Queens isn't much different, still crime-infested and relatively unprotected from the destructive youth and the passive adults, but notices that his longtime friends' ambitions of being lawless and as juvenile as possible have surged into adulthood.
This story is spliced with flashbacks from 1986, the year when Dito (Shia LeBeouf) abandoned everything he erected in Queens, when Dito was only concerned about hanging with his friends Antonio (Channing Tatum), Laurie (Melonie Diaz), and Mike (Martin Compston), causing trouble and wreaking havoc. The film casually follows the youth's events and run-ins with relationships, sexual encounters, conversations, and troubled instances, and often showing their home-lifes as the least of their concerns.
Palminteri gives a wonderful performance here, confidently lax, yet remarkably genuine and subdued, often providing his son Dito with father-like guidance that often gets ignored when the going gets tough. When Dito is seen in present time, he is unforgiven by his father who views his move to leave home not noble and commendable, like some would, but rather shameful and deviant. He views his son's return home as no more than a cop out move, somewhat more shameful than him leaving. His offer to make amends feels forced and trite and he ain't buying it.
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints consistently maintains a gritty atmosphere and always feels alive and raw, even when it's at its calmest times. The performances, mainly from LeBeouf, Tatum, Downey Jr., Palminteri, and Rosario Dawson, who could've benefited from more screentime, use the story's difficult themes of family relations and devotions to their favor, and never does much of this lack genuine feeling, thanks to Mantiel manning the camera and working the pen on this project. To call this film "solid" would be sort of an understatement, yet to call this "groundbreaking" or even "wonderful" would be a bit much. I'll go with "meaningful:" seems to meet them halfway.
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Shia LaBeouf, Rosario Dawson, Melonie Diaz, Chazz Palminteri, Martin Compston, Eric Roberts, Channing Tatum, Dianne Wiest. Directed by: Dito Montiel.
6. LiefS.
Dec 31, 2008
Trying best I can not to be bias, having the movie take place in the place I grew up myself; I have to give the movie an 8. I deducted two points for really little things such as catching a few geographical flaws like the trains going the wrong way and the wrong lines of the trains; this is extremely small but as the movie was so realistic; they should have noticed this and also some scenes just ran for a little too long; the actual movie length was fine but just certain conversations like Downy Jr. in the car with his friend could have been cut shorter. Expand
7. SamJ
Oct 27, 2006
How is it possible for this amateurish, poorly-made and stereotyped movie to get these kind of reviews. We've seen it all before, done far better! This film is an embarrassment. Expand
See all 14 User Reviews
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Anyone who has bought school textbooks knows about the relatively large price it adds to education. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Education issued a report titled An Economic Analy[s]is of Textbook Pricing and Textbook Markets (and yes, there is a spelling error in its title) which said:
Between 1986 and 2004, textbook prices rose 186 percent in the United States, or slightly more than six percent per year (GAO, 2005). Meanwhile, other prices rose only about three percent per year (GAO, 2005).
Students may find it profitable to purchase the economics textbook from a British bookseller and then pay to have it
transported back to the United States.
For example, in mid-July 2006, Barnes and Noble’s (U.S.) website offered to sell a new copy of Krugman and Wells’ Economics textbook for $126.75, whereas Blackwell’s in Great Britain advertised the same book on its web site at $76.31. Needless to say, it does not cost $50.44 to send the book from Oxford to the United States.
There may be a simpler way to save money on textbooks for the coming school year, however. Amazon announced:
Students Can Now Save Up To 80% with Kindle Textbook Rental
The “up to 80%” off goes into play if the rental is for a 30-day period. Rental periods can be any length between 30 and 360 days. Amazon says the books are “Rent Once, Read Everywhere.” This means that any of the Kindle readings apps or the Kindle itself can be used to read the rented textbook.
There is the possibility that a textbook owner could sell the textbook after the school year and incur less of a cost than renting the textbook.
You can find the Kindle Textbook rental site at:
FYI: Another interesting commentary on the reasons for the perceived high costs of school textbooks can be found in this Billings Gazette article:
Why are textbook costs so high?
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24 Caprices, Op. 1
Niccolò Paganini
Item: 99-8550717
UPC: 730099571722
PRICE: $9.99
Category: CD Recording
Format: CD
Paganini's popular reputation rested always on his phenomenal technique as a violinist, coupled with a showman's ability to dominate an audience and to stupefy those who heard him by astonishing feats of virtuosity. His playing served as an inspiration to other performers in the nineteenth century, suggesting to Chopin, in Warsaw, the piano Etudes, and to Liszt the material of the Paganini studies that he wrote in 1838. The very appearance of Paganini impressed people. His gaunt aquiline features, his suggestion of hunched shoulders and his sombre clothing, gave rise to legends of association with the Devil, the alleged source of his power, an association supported by the frequent appearance by his side on his travels of his secretary, one Harris, thought by some to be a familiar spirit or a Mephistopheles watching over his Faust. Stories of a pact with the Devil were denied by Paganini himself, who, with characteristic understanding of the value of public relations in a more credulous age, told of an angelic visitation to his mother, in a dream, foretelling his birth and his genius.
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Teen Driver Safety Frequently Asked Questions
Are young drivers over represented in the percentage of fatal crashes in the United States?
Yes. Drivers between 15 and 20 years old accounted for 6.9 percent of the U.S. population in 1998, but 14 percent of all drivers in fatal vehicle crashes. (NHTSA)
What is Virginia's policy on underage drinking and driving?
Virginia has a zero tolerance law for drinking and driving for persons under age 21. If you are convicted of driving after illegally consuming alcohol and were found to have a BAC of 0.02 and less than 0.08, the court penalty will include a suspension of your driving privilege for one year from the date of conviction, and a minimum mandatory fine of $500, or the requirement that you complete at least 50 hours of community service.
Have the percentages of teenage drivers fatally injured in vehicle crashes because of drinking changed over time?
During the 1980s, the percentages of fatally injured drivers with high BACs (0.10 percent or more) declined among drivers of all ages. Reductions were greatest among young drivers, in part, because of changes in age laws for purchasing alcohol. In 1980, fewer than half of the states had alcohol-purchasing requirements for 21 year-olds, although 49 percent of all fatally injured drivers younger than 21 had high BACs. This percentage declined dramatically as states adopted older ages for purchasing alcohol, and by 1998 it had declined to 22 percent, the biggest improvement for any age group. (IIHS)
How serious is the teenage motor vehicle crash problem?
In 1998, 5,606 teenagers died in the United States from injuries in motor vehicle crashes. The crash risk is particularly high during the first years in which teenagers are eligible for driver's licenses. Thirty-six percent of all deaths of 16 to 19 year-olds from all causes are related to motor vehicle crashes. (IIHS)
Do teenagers require more sleep than adults?
Yes, teenagers need more sleep than younger children and adults. Many teenagers need at least 9 hours of sleep each night, but most get less than 6.5 hours of sleep each night. (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)
What is the most effective step to take when becoming sleepy when driving?
The most effective step when becoming sleepy while driving is to stop driving. If there is no other choice, consume the equivalent of two cups of coffee, take a nap, or call for a lift. (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)
What factors contribute to motor vehicle crashes involving young drivers?
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, most crashes involving young drivers result from inexperience, risk-taking behavior, high-risk situations, alcohol use, illegal drug use, and not wearing a safety belt. (NHTSA)
Why is so much attention focused on young drivers?
A significant percentage of young drivers are involved in traffic crashes and are twice as likely as adult drivers to be in a fatal crash. Sixteen-year-old drivers have crash rates that are three times those of 17-year-olds, five times those of 18-year-olds, and twice those of 85-year-olds. (NHTSA)
What is a juvenile licensing ceremony?
In Virginia, all persons under age 18 receiving their first driver's license must participate in a juvenile licensing ceremony. In this ceremony, teenage drivers and their parents or legal guardians appear before a judge to receive a permanent driver's license. (Virginia Driver's Manual)
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Why do guys like belly buttons so much?
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MollysLips(Age:18 to 24)
Category: Behavior
Every guy I've been with loves my bellybutton... kind of strange, in my opinion. Why do guys like them so much?
Update: Thanks everyone for your comments!
3000 characters left Anonymous
Question Id
From Guys
From Girls
What Guys Said
• AshBrown
When I think about it, it is difficult to explain why, but OMG ! Sexy belly buttons on a toned tummy drive me wild and I can look at them forever. I particularly like the neat ones. The wider and more open they are, the lesser attractive they look.
• Xenophobia
cause we enjoy pushing your buttons...
• palek
I personally have no interest whatsoever in belly buttons, and, in fact, if I should find a woman without one, I'd marry her on the spot. I'm am, however, fascinated by a womans inner ear. Perhaps you'd better stick with what you got.
Well it ain't all guys that like them, because I find them to be turn off. Not sure what the ones who do like them see in it.
i have no idea. I actually don't think it would be accurate to say 'guys like bellybuttons'. I'm actually slightly bothered by them, but maybe I'm different.
• Question Asker
Okay, I knew that but why does it have to indent on the outter stomach? I don't know. Makes no sense to me but I figure there is a reason.
• Answerer
It's where the umbilical cord attaches on the baby's body before it's born. it's basically how a fetus eats and breathes while it's still in the womb.
• Question Asker
I don't even know what their purpose is...
• Answerer
So weird, I know!
i just think they look weird. it's even weirder when you think about what they are.
• Question Asker
I don't even see how people can touch theirs. I can't touch mine, I hate the feeling. Even more so when someone else touches mine.
• wrestler119
lol I don't really know, but I guess you can say they are like a third nipple, and if you have a really sexy stomach then ur belly button would be the best part because its like in the middle and yeah its hard to describe
What Girls Said
Home > Behavior Questions > Why do guys like belly buttons so much?
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A Girl Asked Guys did you ever pretend not to see your crush on the street?
Guys did you ever pretended not to see your crush on the street?If so, why did you acted this way?thanks
A Girl Asked Guys or girls. How often do you think about the person you like?
Guys or girls. How often do you think about the person you like?What about someone you are interested in?Someone you are in a relationship...
Would you lose interest in your crush if they're dating other people?
Phoenix1991 asked Yesterday
Not really
Yeah it does
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Women in Technology
Hear us Roar
Subject: Oh, and the original intent.
Date: 2005-10-20 17:01:33
From: ikayak
Response to: Oops, the quibble:
You don't have all of the surrounding goo:
public static class foo void main(String[] args) { stuff }}
that's required to satisfy the compiler.
Full Threads Oldest First
Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1.
• Oh, and the original intent.
2005-11-03 13:16:53 evoke [View]
Pardon ?
For a terse textbook example this seems relevant, of course. For a 450000 line project with 900+ classes, I've just searched for main() methods and found only 7 instances, 6 of which are for various quite familiar cmdline batch utilites and 1 of which is for a rich client entry point. Which isn't very convincing to me that typing this in is exactly killing the project...
If the likely counterargument is that, ok, but surely typing in 'public class' goo is bothersome...I don't actually think I've actually typed that phrase in 2+ years.
And I'm not being facetious, it's merely because in production-level projects it rapidly becomes best practice to clone proper header block with copyright disclaimers and cvs dollar-tag blocks, and javadoc tags and a class defintion already set up, etc. In my particular case I've even gone the minor laziness farther of binding that static text chunk to a function key in my editor to eliminate the cut-n-paste bother. Tap-a-key simple. But even without the key binding, not exactly overly bothersome.
I do admit, being adept with Lisp and Python and yet coding Java for the corporate master, that there are cases where Java's language limits lead to inconveniences and pattern insertions that I grrr against, such as, say, lacking a covariant return type. However the mere goo of typing a 'main' or 'class' definition, or accessors, isn't compelling in itself, as we have trivial key bindings and Eclipse and IntelliJ one-button clicks and so forth for that stuff.
If you want to convince me that Ruby can rock steady with increased productivity, I'd contend you ought to avoid omissions of complexity and persuade versus examples of SlickEdit tricked out with macros and key bindings, or an experienced dual-use Eclipse / IntelliJ developer.
Closure and code blocks and covariants and so forth are where Ruby and Lisp and dynamically typed languages start to slay. Goo is not precisely fluffy, but isn't, I would assert, a compelling debate point, particular toward the middle and higher range projects where you assert Ruby needs to go, where all manner of assorted copyright and cvs tag and etcetera goo are already being neatly aggregated, dealt, and dispensed with.
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Anyone know who the was the first and only other player to do it?
That's right the giants own YAT!!
Also other players to throw for 7 in a game were Joe Kapp and George Blanda to name a few but all the others threw at least 1 INT in those games. Title not only was the last to do it in the 60s but did it w/o any Picks.. Maybe Eli gets the giants the record back with 8 Sunday night, lol
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Anonymous908 Wrote:
Mar 20, 2013 4:18 PM
Its still not that cut and dry. It might be possible that a predisposition to homosexuality could be passed through genes, I honestly don't know. But this I do know. There is no such thing as a "gay" gene that actually causes a person to be gay. There are examples of monozygotic twins (identical twins) who are genetically identical growing up so one becomes gay and one is straight. If it were ALL up to biology this would not be possibile because their brains were virtually indentical at birth. Anything differences between these twins can rightly be attributed to the influence of their environment and free will (my favorite).
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Kirsty's Vintage Home
(54 Posts)
I was looking forward to Kirsty's new series - but the first episode was a bit of a letdown.
As far as I could see, the main problem with the couple's home was lots of clutter in the lounge, and none of what Kirsty did actually addressed this. The biggest change was the decluttering that they did - and I did find myself wondering what had happened to all the baby's toys - there seemed to be a lot less toy storage (less of general storage too, for that matter) after than before, but no toys at all on view, apart from the vintage cradle and the vintage whirligig. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of stuff was relocated to the baby's room, because it was too modern and plastic for the retro look.
That said, I did like what they did with the bedroom, and thought it was clever to use two mirrors one above the other, over the chest of drawers. And I liked the quilt, and was interested to see the process of machine stitching a quilt like that.
Overall, though, I was a bit disappointed - maybe because the 'look' for this week was sixties inspired, and that doesn't float my boat at all.
ppeatfruit Tue 11-Dec-12 12:56:49
Yes grendelsmum "Ve haff gutt taste" grin!!
GrendelsMum Mon 10-Dec-12 17:58:59
Oh, hello Ppeatfruit - just saw you on the AmEx thread and here we are again.
ppeatfruit Mon 10-Dec-12 16:50:14
No I thought it twas much better last week back to its traditional handicrafty feel.
OnTheBottomWithAStringOfTinsel Fri 07-Dec-12 18:02:57
Will it be a Segway with chintz handles next week, do you think? wink
drjohnsonscat Fri 07-Dec-12 17:57:36
As a regular on the feminism boards and stauch supporter of men and women's equal rights to do whatever they want to do and be whoever they want to be, can I just say that I would look askance at any man who agreed to go on Kirstie's Vintage Home.
Wouldn't you just tell your DW "No. I am not publicly humiliating myself with Kirstie and her mad craft friends by being filmed making an applique felt robin out of scraps from grandma's sewing basket. I am a 42 year old accountant - not a fey wisp of a girl who dreams of living in a cottage with some elves".
GrendelsMum Fri 07-Dec-12 17:50:40
Oh good, delighted that she's made another mad object, worn another mad outfit and travelled in an unrealistic way.
minko Fri 07-Dec-12 15:03:11
Just saw a bit of this last night when she made a changing mat. Does she always travel by scooter? (Foot push adult scooter that is for non-viewers) It looked ridiculous! And she didn't lock it up when she went into the shop.
HalleLouja Fri 07-Dec-12 12:01:12
I haven't watched this Kirsty series. But the wedding ring lady has a shop in my village.
I loved it when she entered all the competitions that was fun.
whatkungfuthat Fri 07-Dec-12 07:54:36
I saw baskets dipped in paint on a holiday homes show with Lisa Faulkner, they were in a newly renovated boutique hotel. Someone other than Kirsty has fallen for it thinks they look naice.
GrendelsMum Thu 06-Dec-12 22:43:38
Yes, that was a bit dull, although the wedding did look absolutely lovely in the end. I want to see more people's crappy homes tidied up a bit and with baskets randomly dipped in paint.
whatkungfuthat Sat 01-Dec-12 15:30:00
Did anyone see this week's? It was hardly the whole wedding that it had been made out to be as most of the stuff had been done by other people. The rings bit confused me as they were filmed looking at elaborate designs but ended up with plain gold bands.
GrendelsMum Mon 26-Nov-12 13:55:52
I reckon it went something like 'darling, why don't we promote my new textile business by going on a programme all about making your house look lovely?' only for them to discover that they had to make their house look a bit shit to fit the rules of the programme.
I also reckon that they'd just cleared that dresser off in a hurry so as not to look too arty.
Janeatthebarre Mon 26-Nov-12 13:44:33
I found this week's programme a bit strange. The wife is a former art teacher who now works as a textile designer, yet she seemed to have no 'eye' or imagination whatsoever when it came to her own home.
GrendelsMum Sun 25-Nov-12 12:31:29
I love the programme in a bit of a car crash telly way. DH and I snuggle up on the sofa with pizza after an appalling day at work and shout things like 'those baskets look crap!' and 'just clean the bloody kettle'.
Actually, though, I thought that they had gone quite a way to addressing the storage problem in the second episode - the playroom was choc-a-bloc with storage, two dressers, a whole load of boxes and baskets etc, so possibly if they stop hoarding (which I think was the underlying problem after her illness, poor lady) they'll manage it all. I got the impression with that one that there was quite a lot of 'why' behind the mess that they were skipping over.
LividDil Sat 24-Nov-12 17:43:33
When they went to the salvage yard this week and bought a load of old tat for £100 I couldn't help thinking of the I Saw You Coming sketch by Harry Enfield
whatkungfuthat Sat 24-Nov-12 16:57:18
Anyone see this week's? I've got one of those 30's glass bowl light shades on chains mine is naicer but I was aghast at the way it was put up with 3 hooks just bunged in the ceiling. You are supposed to use a special rose with a hook in it that has a cross brace.
pengymum Mon 19-Nov-12 13:21:08
I only saw one episode - the fin de siecle bedroom one and didn't see all of it! I liked the fabric covering the chair seat but hated the colours they painted them - would have been much better just sanding off the dark varnish. The dipped baskets were rubbish and looked like a child had done them. Did think the bedroom was better but that was probably because it was so crap to begin with!
The thing with these programmes is that they don't show you how to do anything properly! Too much time spent telling you what is coming and then recapping! It drives me mad! I watch on FF to see the before and after and slow down if anything interesting comes up. Thank goodness for catch up tv!
Jusfloatingby Mon 19-Nov-12 13:03:49
I actually thought this week's episode was a big improvement on last week's. When she said they were going to do the rooms up in 1950s style I was thinking it would be all antimacassars and china ornaments, but I thought the playroom looked really bright and attractive (and I loooooved the chairs) and I really liked the bedroom as well. I agree the baskets dipped in paint were rubbish. It just looked like someone got bored after a few minutes and didn't bother to finish the job. But overall I thought it was a big improvement.
I thought the house she showed them that was inspired by Grease looked ridiculous. It was more like a film set than someone's home. I think the secret of making vintage work is to just have touches of it around the place. Over do it (like the couple last week) and you just look like you're living in a time warp.
I liked Life Laundry because it tried to deal with the reasons why somebody's home had got like that in the first place.
I have a sinking feeling that this program is going to result in a whole lot more perfectly nice old furniture being trashed painted then flogged on eBay as Shabby shit Chic angry
SoggySummer Sun 18-Nov-12 15:36:43
I am another dissapointed person I thought it was going to be like her christmas series she did or the one where she entered lots of village competitions. If they stuck to the craft side it would have been so much better.
whatkungfuthat Sun 18-Nov-12 15:22:44
Where were the wardrobes in the bedroom at the end? They had cupboards made but they were full of shelves. Surely that little room round the corner would have made a perfect walk-in wardrobe rather than a twee little place to sit?
ppeatfruit Sun 18-Nov-12 15:11:10
Thecrack I was also hmm when they based the bedroom on 'Fin de siecle' wedding veils WTF??
Horsemad Sun 18-Nov-12 12:45:06
I suppose they thought "What the bloody hell can we do here?!!!!"
TheCrackFox Sun 18-Nov-12 12:32:32
He really did look Frankie Boyle!
The bed hanging thing was all abit Miss Haversham and was one big ugly dust gatherer. I really didn't get the point on basing a whole decorating scheme on a wedding veil.
Jojoba1986 Sun 18-Nov-12 12:15:26
I love Kirstie! I agree this programme is a let down though! It seems to be a case of people clearing out all their junk while she finds people to show them crafts that are either boring, ugly or too expensive/specialised for normal people to do! I'm hoping she does a more rustic, country-style episode. I can't stand all these bright, gaudy colours!
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Facebook Message Saved Hostage
A woman in Sandy, Utah, was held against her will, along with her 17-month-old son, for almost five days by the father of her child. He had taken her cell phone and refused to let her leave, but she eventually found a laptop and was able to access Facebook.
The post prompted someone to call police, who went to the home to check on the woman's welfare.
Critchfield was on probation for charges related to a domestic violence incident. Link -via The Daily What
(Image credit: Salt Lake County Jail)
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Yes, she could have used email. Any social network would have worked, and would have been seen by more than one person. It wasn't anything in particular about Facebook that saved her; it was just what she used.
And I will remind you that insulting other commenters is against the rules at Neatorama. I would hate to have to delete comments, so please keep it civil.
Thank you.
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Fair enough. I can see how someone going through that would be totally screwed in the head and not be able to string two thoughts together.
What's your excuse?
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The cynic in me finds this suspicious. If she had a laptop, there were multiple ways she could have used it to get help. Like sending an email.
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We're so lucky that we have FaceBook, because there is nowhere else to go for help when you're online.
Right now, I'm having chest pains, so I'm going to update my status. Hopefully someone will "poke" my heart back into rhythm if I lose consc
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HOME > Chowhound > Cookware >
Soccer ball Ice Cream Maker?
The Dairy Queen Apr 11, 2007 05:10 AM
I bought one of these on a lark last year, but haven't gotten around to using yet because the ground is still intermittently covered with snow. I know it's gimmicky, but it seemed like a fun way to combine a little activity with making ice cream. Has anyone else tried these? Any tricks or tips or cautions unique to making ice cream in this compared to a more conventional home ice cream maker?
1. h
heWho Apr 11, 2007 03:06 PM
We received one of these for Christmas and I was shocked at how well it worked. My fiance is NUTS about ice cream and since December she's made 5 or 6 different batches, most of which were really good. The first time we used it we rolled it on the floor back and forth to each other. That worked well enough but was actually more time consuming than just holding it in your arms and rolling it around like a basketball.
If you just follow the instructions and scrape down the sides after about 15 minutes of rolling you'll be fine, we haven't had any problems with freezing icecream. One concern for camping is that we've found the ice cream needs a little bit of time in the freezer to harden up. I suppose we could just keep rolling it around, but then it is much harder to scoop out.
The one warning I'll give is that it's REALLY loud. The SO's latest method to deal with this is to get a big towel, close the bedroom door and roll it around on the bed.
Good luck, and definitely give it a try!
4 Replies
1. re: heWho
The Dairy Queen Apr 11, 2007 04:29 PM
Hey, this is so encouraging! Do you have any favorite recipes you've tried? Do you just use normal ice cream recipes or do they have to be specially adapted to the ball?
Thanks for the tip about the noise--I guess we'll roll it around on the carpet, or, our original intention if it works, on the grass in the yard.
*staring at the blanket of snow out my window and longing for grass*
1. re: The Dairy Queen
heWho Apr 12, 2007 07:26 AM
We've made 2 strawberry ice cream recipes that were really, really great. We also made the mint chocolate chip recipe that came with the ice cream ball (I think?) and it was really good. We haven't had to adapt the recipes in any way, but we've had to tweak the ice to salt ratio a bit. I think it actually depends mostly upon the ice (small cubes break down faster of course). Make sure you have plenty of ice, you'll go through a lot (you have to refill after 15 minutes, during which time you'll also have to open the ball to push the ice cream down the sides.)
We recently picked up the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream recipe book and it has tons of good recipes and gives a really good break-down on different kinds of cream/milk to use. It's worth picking up, but any recipe you try will be just as good out of the ball as it would an ice cream maker. It's just a bit more work, but that's half the fun... I'm sure kids would really enjoy rolling the ball around.
As for kicking it like a soccer ball, I'd say go for it. The worst thing that could happen is the cover comes off and you ruin your batch of ice cream... it's just cream and sugar!!
1. re: heWho
jzerocsk Apr 12, 2007 09:26 AM
I'd be more worried about breaking my foot than breaking the ball...those things are pretty heavy when you load them up!
1. re: jzerocsk
The Dairy Queen Apr 12, 2007 09:42 AM
We weren't really planning on kicking it around the yard--it really is very hard plastic--and I'm sure it's heavy when filled with ice and the makings for ice cream, we really planned on just rolling it around the yard. I suppose I shouldn't have called it a "soccer" ball in my title, but that's what it LOOKS like.
But, now I'm really excited to try it!
2. t
thinks too much Apr 11, 2007 05:47 AM
You're not supposed to kick or throw them, sady. I've used mine twice for kicks while camping. It makes a very small amount of icecream and if you don't scrape down the sides every once in a while, the sides get frozen hard as a rock while the inside is still liquid.
2 Replies
1. re: thinks too much
The Dairy Queen Apr 11, 2007 05:53 AM
Hehe--you used it for "kicks" while camping. Nice pun.
Thanks for the feedback, disappointing though it is (what did I expect, really?) I bought one of the bigger ones, so, hopefully that solves the amount problem. But the frozen outside, watery inside thing concerns me. Have you noticed it more with certain kinds of recipes than others?
Also, how did you chill the canister while you were camping--just in a cooler full of ice? (Camping, of course, is one of scenarios I'd imagined using it...picnics and outdoor BBQ's are the others)
I did get that you weren't supposed to kick it; it's more like you're supposed to roll it, right? But, I thought tossing it back and forth was okay. No?
1. re: The Dairy Queen
thinks too much Apr 11, 2007 06:00 AM
I chilled the canister by putting the salt and ice into it, let it sit for a few before adding the cream. We could roll it, we even tossed it a tiny bit, flagrantly ignoring the warnings not to do that. The second time worked better since I stopped every once in a while to scrape down the sides and remix it. I've only used it twice, so my data base isn't big enough.
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Spanish Air Force
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The Badge of the Spanish Air Force
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The Spanish Air Force (In Spanish: El Ejército del Aire de España or Fuerza Aérea Española) Is one of three arms that contained them Spanish Army and has allocated an Article by the eighth of Spanish Constitution the task of ensuring the sovereignty and independence of Spain , to defend its territorial integrity and constitutional order, with special care in their airspace and maintaining international security, peace operations and humanitarian assistance.
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Let us know if you see one -- gas prices might get below $3 a gallon.
The average price of a gallon of regular has dropped nearly 14 cents nationwide in the past two weeks, to $3.38. Some areas are seeing even lower. The cheapest gas in America is in St. Louis, where you can find it for $3.01.
Unfortunately, the downward trend isn't going to last long. Crude prices have been holding steady of late, so refiners and gas stations likely won't be able to drop their prices much lower.
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Atlas Shrugged By Ayn Rand Study Help Essay Questions
1. Why do the men of the mind go on strike?
2. What are the reasons for Rearden's willingness to support the family that seeks to destroy him?
3. Why does a great mind like Robert Stadler's believe that joining the looters is necessary?
4. In a book whose main positive characters are geniuses, what is the significance of a "common man" such as Eddie Willers?
5. Explain the "sanction of the victim" principle that Hank Rearden identifies and uses at his trial.
6. What are the causes of the Taggart Tunnel disaster?
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Dagny Taggart pursues John Galt because
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Vista and Kubuntu - easy installs, uneasy comparisons
You would think that after nearly a quarter of century of mouse driven GUIs and billions of dollars of research, desktop OS developers would have got it right by now. Apple pretty much has achieved this by tightly integrating and controlling both the hardware and software. However, the story is very different with Microsoft and the various Linux camps.
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Episcopal church to affirm gay clergy
Robinson's election brought the 77 million-member Anglican fellowship to the brink of schism. Last month, breakaway Episcopal conservatives and other like-minded traditionalists formed a rival national province called the Anglican Church in North America.
To calm tensions, the Episcopal General Convention three years ago passed a resolution that urged restraint by dioceses considering gay candidates for bishop. No other Episcopal bishops living openly with same-sex partners have been consecrated since then.
"The constitution and canons of our church as currently written do not preclude gay and lesbian persons from participating," in any part of the church, said the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, on the committee that drafted the statement. "These people have responded to God's call."
However, the Episcopal gay advocacy group Integrity, said in a statement Monday night that the declaration "effectively ends" the temporary prohibition on gays in ministry. Integrity called the vote "another step in the Episcopal Church's `coming out' process."
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who leads the Episcopal Church, was among bishops who voted to approve the declaration. The statement also affirms the Episcopal Church's commitment to participate in and help fund the Anglican Communion, the third-largest grouping of churches worldwide, behind the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Christian churches.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, had attended the Episcopal national meeting in Anaheim, Calif., in its opening days last week. He said, "I hope and pray that there won't be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart."
On the Net:
Episcopal Church: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/index.htm
Anglican Communion: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/
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Matthew Tift
Drupal. Public Media. Musicology. Yoga.
Open-Source Music: 10 More Reasons Why It Fits
Tue, 06/05/2012 - 21:01 -- mtift
A few days ago I offered my version of an introduction to open-source music and suggested a few reasons why I think public media organizations should be proponents of open-source recordings and scores. Here are 10 more reasons why this would be a good idea for public media:
1. It's a digital world. Free and open access to digital music can greatly help expand music audiences. Especially for some digital natives, classical music scores might as well not exist at all if they are not online and searchable. For these folks, a great CD and printed sheet music is a world apart from an instantaneous great recording + moving score + video all mixed together.
2. Think of the children. The score-following technology that is used on sites like allows kids (or anyone, really) to learn about music by watching the notes they hear, much like underlined words in a children's program on public television can show children how words look. And although watching the notes go by on the screen can be a learning tool, it is especially awesome when video is added to the mix.
3. Music lovers become marketers. Additional free and open-source scores would help public media's biggest classical music lovers more easily share the music they love.
4. Engagement is all the rage. Having listeners request their favorite music is a common practice. With a public media station that supports open-source scores, audiences might get a chance to vote for the piece they want their station to sponsor. Other listeners might find joy in helping to edit the next piece sponsored by their station. Public-media sponsored recordings could provide talented -- especially local -- performers more opportunities to record music and those same performers could help in creating the scores they would be playing.
5. Capital campaigns for music. Donors often like to be involved in capital campaigns because the product of those campaigns is frequently long lasting, such as a new or renovated building. Music scores that can be used by all would have that same long-lasting quality. Open-source software is free, but time is money. Along those same lines, performers creating open-source music deserve to be compensated and it doesn't take much to envision donors wanting to contribute to a recording by their favorite local musician, hand picked by their favorite classical music station.
6. Expand audiences. Ever heard someone mention aging classical music (or public radio) audiences? Hip new forms of interaction might encourage younger audiences to get involved with their local station. There is likely a subset of our audiences that would not only enjoy watching the scores online while listening to a broadcast, but also to see the music host make notes on the score in real time, much like is demonstrated here.
7. Appeal to shorter attention spans. By creating a new kind of engagement, someone who might not want to sit through a concert, or even listen to an entire symphony, might be interested in helping to create new scores. Free software and a welcoming community could invite these people to participate online or even at station-sponsored, score-creating events.
8. New or better partnerships. By contributing to online catalogs of open-source recordings and scores, public media would create new reasons for establishing partnerships with music teachers, researchers, music camps, and other organizations. I think the appropriate buzzword here is "synergy."
9. Not for everyone. Broadcasting open-source recordings and linking to open-source scores might not change how many people experience their public media, and it does not have to interfere with those who would rather focus their attention on listening. These activities are meant to augment the broadcast and are relevant for only a select subset of our audiences.
10. The great unknown. When the U.S. government created they didn't necessarily know what people would do with the data. The same could be said of efforts to expand access to music data, in that we don't know how people will use it, but we know it creates the opportunity for new and innovative applications. When search is added to this technology, it could help to solve the age-old problem of remembering the source of the melody or chord progression that is stuck in your head.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it should demonstrate some of the many reasons why a public media organization might want to get involved in the open-source music movement.
Image by opensourceway.
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A few years ago I went to a museum, where there was a board with 2 bar magnets, on a pole each so they could rotate. If you rotated them so the lined up with the same poles (N) facing each other, they'd repel spinning until the south poles lined up, then they'd repel and spin so the north poles lined up and so. This was without any extra help, once you lined them up they would just keep spinning by their selves. How exactly is this possible that the 2 magnets kept producing kinetic energy?
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Did they continue there movement indefinitely or stopped? – LifeH2O Dec 16 '10 at 10:31
What means "on a pole"? Something like compass needles on points? Was there a base made from wood or plastics carrying the magnets? Or was the arrangement fixed on a table? Such gadgets typically contain some coils and electronics and a battery to avoid conflict with first law. – Georg Dec 5 '11 at 10:42
So anyway energy was stored in the magnets [by placing them in the desired position] and as a result another form of energy was formed [k.E]. So can we call this a renewable energy? Can it be a good source of energy? – user14342 Oct 25 '12 at 0:21
Okay, first of all, do you know in which museum you've saw that device? (i.e.: name, location) Thank you! – John Smith Mar 23 at 23:07
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They are not producing energy; their movement is a result of the work you've put during setting same poles to face each other. They will eventually stop, since this energy is dissipated by friction on their fixings and at some point their momentum will decrease to the point it will be not enough to push the system through energy pick when the same poles are nearby. After this, they will relax to their energy optimum, so probably into configuration when different poles are facing each other.
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I didn't start the magnets spinning, I just held them still so the North poles were exactly opposite each other and then let go, so hardly any energy was put in, and yet the magnets were still spinning by the time I got bored of watching them. You said they do not produce energy, yet you then said this energy will be dissipated through the fixings. – Jonathan. Nov 2 '10 at 21:40
@Jonathan: But you PUSHED the magnets together from their optimal positions. The magnets simply converted some of their potential energy into kinetic and eventually to internal energy through friction. – Vortico Nov 2 '10 at 21:53
@Vortico yes, but if I just pushed 2 non magnetic bars (of the same density and size) together in exactly the same way (same time and same energy) they wouldn't spin? – Jonathan. Nov 2 '10 at 21:58
@Jonathan - No, because the magnets produce a force on each other. By positioning the magnets from S-N S-N to S-N N-S you have done work on the system by over coming the magnetic field and put the system into a state of high potential energy. That potential energy is then converted to kinetic energy in the movement you saw and will eventually be dissipated by friction just like Vortico said. – Davorak Nov 2 '10 at 22:08
I guess that does make sense after thinking about it but I would never have thought the energy I put into setting them = the spinni :) – Jonathan. Nov 2 '10 at 22:35
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protected by Qmechanic Mar 23 at 23:08
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April 5, 2009
The New Forks High Uncovered
The Merc With A Mouth over at IMDB reports that New Moon may be filming at her school!
She writes that a movie is going to be filmed at her school, but it's being kept secret:
So far they have closed off half of the cafeteria and added giant blue pillars and they have changed the hallway lights into a light blue tint. I go to [XXX] in Vancouver BC, exactly where it says they are filming. Even more proof is that they are not telling any students what movie it is, which means they are trying to keep it secret.
(Photo of Merc With A Mouth's High School Cafeteria newly decorated with flags and Blue Pillars!)
Also, Merc With A Mouth shares that the crew has added round tables, and country flags in the cafeteria. However, the clincher is the Forks High paraphernalia she spied:
Anyways I have 100% proof they are filming New Moon here. There was a shirt that said "Forks High" that they put into the trophy case at the front, but when I saw, the crew member quickly hid it with a purple blanket and covered it up, then they locked the case. Its like they were... hiding something. lol.
1. LMAO
i know exactly where that school is!!
i just graduated from that highschool last year!
just went back to the school yesterday, they've already set up some cameras, ready to shoot for 3 days this coming week!!
2. they've also announced it on the radio that it's being filmed there as well!! but they're only filming there during the evening
3. oh man, that's awesome. Lucky you :) maybe you'll get to see some of the stars....!
4. Damn you guys are so lucky ! We got HSM here but NOBODY CARES !!!
5. munchkins604: hehe...can i ask you which school they're filming at? i have a couple of guesses but i could be wrong? =p
6. hi does anybody no the exact location i would really appreciate it u could pls give to me i live in vancouver and i would luv just to drive by the set of new moon. if u like instead just pls email me @ [email protected]
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People who constantly criticize others and enjoy making negative comments at every opportunity, actually reveal their own poor self-image and weakness of character. In contrast to them, there are those who delight in offering praise to others, and who never tire of pointing out the strength and virtues of those around them. In doing so, they reflect a loving heart and healthy, positive view of themselves. Instead of condemning others, they joyfully commend others, and would much rather build up than tear down.
These individuals not only refrain from negative and hurtful talk them selves, but also help to discourage unkind remarks from others. I am reminded of a wonderful man that I knew in my childhood, who refused to share in an unkind word. If someone remarked, "He's no good at sports.", he would quickly respond, "Yes, but he always plays fair." If a critical one commented, "He isn't very smart.", he would simply add, "That May be true, but he always tries hard to do his very best." To the comment "have you noticed what a poor dresser he is?", he invariably replied, "Yes, but have you noticed that he is always so neat and clean!" It was his custom to counter every negative observation with a positive comment. In doing so, he discouraged negativity in others who quickly learned that he refused to be their audience.
What a beautiful example that man offered to us to follow! Taking to heart the words of St. Paul, "Get rid of all bitterness, passion and anger. No more shouting or insults, no more hateful feeling of any sort. Instead be kind and tender-hearted to one another..." (Eph. 4:31-32), let us each resolve that we will refrain from evil speaking, being kind and tender hearted to one another. In this way, we will not contribute to the harsh and ungodly spirit of criticism but will try to cancel it whenever we can. Let it be said of us that rather than point a critical finger, we chose to hold out a helping hand instead.
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