text:
Intelligence, Iran, Russia, Russiagate, U.S.
The War Party Is in Control
July 30, 2019 • 63 Comments
Republicans and Democrats alike are blaming U.S. crises on foreign adversaries instead of themselves, writes Daniel Lazare.
By Daniel Lazare
A few things are clear after Robert Mueller's testimony last week. One is that the former special counsel is an out-of-touch figurehead who doesn't even seem to have read his own report. Another is that Russiagate is a stinking sack of excrement – as California Republican Tom McClintock more or less described it (quote starts at 3:40:45) – that Democrats would never again mention if they had half a brain (which they don't).
A third is that America is now dominated by a war party that includes everyone on Capitol Hill other than a few isolationists on the right and the Bernie Sanders-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faction on the left. To be sure, there's disagreement as to whether the enemy is Russia or Iran. But such minor details aside, the logic is otherwise the same. Foreigners are out to get us. They are responsible for all our troubles. Americans must mobilize to stop them.
U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock questioning Robert Mueller, July 24, 2091. (YouTube)
Elementary concepts like evidence meanwhile fall by the wayside. During a visit to India last month, Mike Pompeo described Iran as "the world's largest state sponsor of terror" (quote at 27:15).
No one asked the secretary of state to back up his fantastic assertion, which overlooks the obvious fact that Al Qaeda and ISIS are both Sunni extremist organizations that despise Shi'ite Iran as much as they despise the United States, if not more. In June 2017, for instance, the Islamic State launched a devastating attack in Tehran that killed 17 civilians and wounded 43. In September 2018, it attacked a military parade in the southwestern Iranian town of Ahvaz, killing 25. Three months later, suicide car bombers belonging to Ansar al-Furqan, a militant Sunni group linked to Al Qaeda, killed two policemen and wounded 48 in the southeastern town of Chabahar.
Why would Iran finance terror when it's the victim? It doesn't make sense. But, then, reality, as Karl Rove once put it, is something that empires feel free to make up to suit their own purposes.
Iranians mourn the victims of ISIL attacks in 2017. (Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Evidence-Free Terrain
Mueller's assertion last Wednesday that Russia is interfering in U.S. elections similarly exists in an evidence-free terrain. "It wasn't a single attempt," he declared in reference to misleading Facebook ads placed by a St. Petersburg, Russia, troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency. "They're doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign."
The New York Times and Jeff Bezos's Washington Post agreed with Mueller and issued howls of concurring outrage. But how did Mueller know that Russia was hacking away "as we sit here"? What evidence does he have that they will do it in 2020? The answer is zero. To paraphrase "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," the attitude seems to be: "Proof? We ain't got no proof. We don't need no proof. I don't have to show you any stinking proof."
Indeed, proof of Mueller's entire thesis is somewhere between scanty and nonexistent. To be sure, the Internet Research Agency did purchase misleading ads in Facebook. But the amount it spent, roughly $44,000 prior to Election Day, was less than a thousandth of the collective Clinton-Trump social-media budget of $81 million. Moreover, the ads themselves were so amateurish and inept – a drawing of a muscle-bound Bernie Sanders in a Speedo, a picture of Jesus arm wrestling a pro-Clinton Satan, etc. – that it's hard to believe that they persuaded anyone at all.
"Sweeping and systemic," to quote the Mueller report, this was not. In October 2017, Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch told the Senate intelligence committee that some 470 phony IRA accounts "collectively made 80,000 posts between January 2015 and August 2017," which may have "reached as many as 126 million persons." Ominous as this may sound, two things are worth keeping in mind: (No. 1) fully half of this 32-month period either predates Trump's candidacy or postdates his election; and (No. 2) American Facebook users received a total of 33 trillion posts over the same time span, a figure more than 400 million times greater.
Drop in the Bucket
The IRA campaign was thus a drop in the bucket. What's more, there's no evidence that Russia had anything to do with it. In February 2018, when Mueller indicted the IRA, its owner Yevgeny Prigozhin, and 12 employees for fraud and illegal interference, he made no mention of a Kremlin link. He was less circumspect in his report 14 months later, which describes the IRA effort as a "Russian interference operation." But the only proof it offers – at least in the expurgated version made public in April – is a 2018 New York Times article stating that Prigozhin is known as "Putin's cook" because the Russian president dined at a restaurant he owns a few times in 2001 to 2003.
So glaring is the discrepancy that a federal judge presiding over the trial of an IRA sister company threatened to hold Mueller in contempt if he made any more statements about a supposed Kremlin connection.
As for hacking the Democratic National Committee, the other half of Mueller's tale of Boris-and-Natasha-style derring-do, the cupboard is also bare. Mueller's July 2018 indictment of the Russian military agency known as the GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye, or Main Intelligence Directorate) suggests that some sort of break-in may indeed have taken place.
But even if it did, the news is hardly shocking in the wake of Edward Snowden's June 2013 revelations about the National Security Agency harvesting millions of email and instant messaging contact lists, searching email content, invading computer privacy, and tracking and mapping cell-phone locations around the globe. These are activities that put the GRU to shame. Indeed, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel learned that she was one of 35 world leaders whose phone calls the NSA was routinely intercepting, she compared the agency to the Stasi.
Museum display of Stasi technology. (NikiSublime/Flickr)
The more important charge that the GRU not only hacked the DNC but passed along its findings to WikiLeaks doesn't add up. The problem is one of timing, as Consortium News pointed out the day the Mueller report was released. On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced that "leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton" were forthcoming. Yet the Mueller report (volume one, page 45) says that WikiLeaks did not establish contact with the mysterious online persona known as Guccifer 2.0 until June 22. If Guccifer is a GRU "cutout" created with the express purpose of passing data to WikiLeaks, why would Assange put out word 10 days before hearing from the supposed source?
The Mueller report adds that Guccifer did not send WikiLeaks its files until July 14. But how would this give WikiLeaks enough time to vet some 28,000 emails and other electronic documents before releasing them to great fanfare on July 22? This was the massive email dump that revealed that the DNC had tipped the scales against Bernie Sanders and caused DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign. But since WikiLeaks didn't know Guccifer from Adam, how could it be sure that the material he supposedly forwarded was genuine and tamper-free?
Assange More Credible
The answer is it couldn't, which is why Assange's statement that "our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party" is more believable than anything Mueller has had to say on the subject. Mueller is the ex-FBI chief who told the Senate intelligence committee on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction pose "a clear threat to our national security." Why trust him over a man whose record for veracity is still a hundred percent?
And why now? Why are Republicans and Democrats both casting logic and evidence along the wayside in order to blame everything on countries like Russia and Iran?
Pompeo: "Iran the world's largest state sponsor of terror." (YouTube)
The answer: growing social dysfunction into which the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine offers insight. The cover shows a bedraggled bald eagle alongside the question, "What Happened to the American Century?" Inside, Editor Gideon Rose asks how things could "fall apart so quickly," Fareed Zakaria bemoans the death of American hegemony, while Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson observe that "[r]ising death rates among middle-aged white Americans are … a symptom of the virtual collapse of the federal government's ability to address major public problems." Julia Azari of Marquette University adds that a "broken" political system has resulted in "a democracy that is simultaneously inclusive and ineffective."
It's an impressive list of woes, yet there's so much more: an energy crisis due to over-reliance on fossil fuels; a climate crisis due to global warming; an economic crisis due to slowing growth rates and skyrocketing wealth polarization; a constitutional crisis due to an unrepresentative Electoral College and a grossly malapportioned U.S. Senate, and a foreign-policy crisis due to what historian Paul Kennedy once described as "imperial overstretch," a concept that neocons such as Norman Podhoretz, George F. Will, and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick once dismissed, but which has returned with a vengeance since the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and other disasters.
It's positively Job-like. When a country has as many problems as these, the temptation to attribute it all to "foreign adversaries … intent on undermining American democracy" is overwhelming. Why take responsibility for one's own actions when it's so much easier to blame someone else?
Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nationto Le Monde Diplomatiqueand blogs about the Constitution and related matters at Daniellazare.com.
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Tags: Daniel Lazare Internet Research Agency Robert Mueller Russiagate U.S. Congress WikiLeaks
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63 comments for "The War Party Is in Control"
Brian Waddill
The Talpiot project. Technology transfer has left us vulnerable and maintaining relationships at all costs. Intel;Qualcomm; backdoors.
Ira Dember
Math check: 33 trillion posts in the indicated time span (total served up by Facebook) divided by "as many as" 126 million ads by possible Russian sources = roughly 1/4 million, not 400 million. Still a huge differential, a vanishingly small proportion in the glittering ephemeral sea of ads and posts.
Suppose we're exposed to 1 "Russian" sourced ad for every 250,000 ads and posts we see, as the numbers above suggest. One professional source estimated we see about 5,000 ads a day, https://stopad.io/blog/ads-seen-daily. At that rate, it would take 50 days to see see 250,000 posts including 1 "Russian" ad.
To put it another way: at 5,000 a day, we see about 1.8 million ads and posts a year. Perhaps 7 of them would be "Russian" ads.
There are a dozen ways the assumptions here could be way off. For instance, depending on your demographics and online behavior, you could be seeing a lot more than 1 squirrelly ad every 50 days. Suppose we're off by a factor of a hundred. If so, you might see 100 of those suspect ads or posts in 50 days. That would be two a day, out of around 5,000 ad impressions a day.
Are we clutching our pearls yet?
Mueller, Pompeo, Clapper, Brennan, Hillary, etc. and all the secondary and tertiary bottom feeders (in the life cycle of a false idea=narrative) in the payola scheme are not stupid. Like all actors, they all just agree to practice the formulaic narrative—it was the Russians who hacked etc. All the actors, including the media are mostly repeating the same lines—supported by the "assessment" and flimsy "dossier", over and over again until—most, who just dose themselves with mainstream news, drank-the-koolaid-narrative-pill and are believers.
I'll bet you there are a plethora of studies we've never seen—the newest ones including and using algorithms on the internet, show how to get outcomes you want from an 'unsophisticated audience'. All the studies have been done on our dime to deceive us!
I see a near-future class action lawsuit against these ABC agencies and the Congress for allowing, with our taxpayer dollars for us to be deceived, especially, by our public servants who are supposed to be doing our bidding—not the MICM's agenda. Most people don't realize that there are ongoing studies in mind control with all its sinister and mundane aspects. And we paying for Us to be deceived by Them!
The War Party has been in control since 1776 when jefferson, franklin, washington and all the rest of SLAVE OWNERS started their little criminal empire.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
The War Party is in Control?
In case you missed it, they've been in control of the United States since WWII.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 20 million people killed by the United States in that period.
All of it in pointless colonial wars.
Yeah, how do you think Americans would receive the news that THEIR lives are considered to be worth so little by the miscreants who control all in Washington?
Not well, I would assume, but they had better get used to that reality because there is no refuting it any more. The internet provides orders of magnitude more truthful data–more actual facts–than our government would ever dare consider doing.
We will all learn the hard way soon enough, when the goods stop moving, when the checks start bouncing and your credit cards are all refused because the financial institutions behind them have gone defunct, when the food, fuel and potable water run out because this system based on deceptions and debt collapses like a house of cards, leaving you stranded without a plane ticket out. Expect the zombie apocalypse, but without the zombies.
In addition to the US government, both mainstream and independent journalists (including Lazare) steadfastly refuse to investigate mounting evidence that the Israeli government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion (and is prepared to do the same in 2020).
The "Russia-gate" fiction has been orchestrated by both major American political parties to divert attention from the reality of Israel-gate: Israeli influence on US electoral politics and foreign policy.
Israeli intelligence operatives in the United States have directed compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including US political organizations, and the disclosures were intended to interfere with the US election process on behalf of Israeli political and financial interests.
As Bolton, Pompeo, Pence, and Trump, not to mention both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, clearly demonstrate on an almost daily basis, the pro-Israel Lobby is in control of the War Party.
But like Mueller's report and testimony, Lazare's reporting consistently avoids the evidence.
Lazare ends with the question, "Why take responsibility for one's own actions when it's so much easier to blame someone else?"
Indeed, why take responsibility for selling out to the pro-Israel Lobby when it's so much easier to blame the Russians.
A case in point, ignored by Mueller and Lazare:
A December 14, 2016 memorandum of understanding between the Psy-Group, an Israeli company owned by Israeli entrepreneur Joel Zamel, and British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica LLC, outlined a joint bid to win business from the U.S. government, provide "intelligence", and deliver social-media services.
In August 2016, Zamel met with Donald Trump at Trump Tower, Zamel and an emissary to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss how PSY Group could help Trump win, according to a May 2018 New York Times report.
During the 2016 US presidential elections, Cambridge Analytica worked both for the primary campaign of Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Trump's general-election campaign. The firm helped propel Trump to the presidency.
On 25 October 2017, Julian Assange said on Twitter that he had been approached by Cambridge Analytica, but that he had rejected its proposal.
Assange's tweet followed a story in The Daily Beast alleging that Cambridge Analytica chief executive Alexander Nix had proposed a collaboration with Wikileaks to find the 33,000 emails that had been deleted from Clinton's private server. CNN said it had been told by several unnamed sources that Nix intended to turn the Clinton email archive released to the public by the State Department into a searchable database for the campaign or a pro-Trump political action committee.
On 14 December 2017, it was revealed that Robert Mueller had requested during the fall of 2017 that Cambridge Analytica turn over the emails of any of its employees who worked on the Trump campaign.
In March 2018, following disclosures that Cambridge Analytica had improperly used the personal information of over 50 million Facebook users while working on Trump's presidential campaign, the Times of Israel reported that the company had used what Nix had called "intelligence gathering" from British and Israeli companies as part of their efforts to influence the election results in Trump's favor.
In May 2018, Bloomberg reported that Robert Mueller had investigated money flows to Psy-Group. The article noted the firm's close ties to the Israeli Army's psychological warfare unit:
"FBI agents working with Mueller's team interviewed people associated with PSY Group's U.S. operations in February, and Mueller subpoenaed bank records for payments made to the firm's Cyprus bank accounts, according to a person who has seen one of the subpoenas. Though PSY Group is based in Israel, it's technically headquartered in Cyprus, the small Mediterranean island famous for its banking secrecy.
"Shortly after those interviews, on Feb. 25, PSY Group Chief Executive Officer Royi Burstien informed employees in Tel Aviv that the company was closing down. Burstien is a former commander of an Israeli psychological warfare unit, according to two people familiar with the company. He didn't respond to requests for comment."
Cambridge Analytica and Psy Group, as two examples, could be involved in near-future class action lawsuits, along with the ABC agencies, and certain committees in Congress who were in the know. The only way to stop this madness is to proceed with both class action and private lawsuits. As soon as Psy Group was caught out, the company was disolved, but that may not prevent legal actions.
Stephen J.
"The War Party is in Control" assisted by:
"The Mad March of the Brainwashed"
Left, right, left right, see them march ready to bomb and destroy
Obeying orders from war criminals and maniacs; do you feel the joy?
Full of pride and waving their flags, all standing to attention
As they listen to the mad war criminals that brook no dissension
An order is an order even if it sets the world on nuclear fire
Left, right, left right, "Yes sir, what else do you desire"?
"Just make every missile hit its target, as we your leaders' watch on T.V.
Burn up the peoples' tax dollars, because this is, "the land of the free."
Left right, left right, the brainwashed take orders from the insane
When the nukes start flying, their landings will be the end game
Still, not to worry, the "leaders" will be hiding in their bunkers underground
Issuing the orders; as the brainwashed bomb the people, that live on the
Left right, left right, "A question sir, if I may, will we get a medal"
When we blow up the world, this fine and wonderful day"?
"Of course, you will my brave man/woman you are serving your country
And we will be watching all the action from our bunker, to put it bluntly"
Left right, left right, "Are you ready to fight and to do battle"?
"Are all the bombs and missiles ready, to kill people like helpless cattle"?
"Yes sir, yes sir, everything is ready and we are ready too"
"Just issue the orders and we will press the buttons, we are a brave crew"
Left right, left right and the brainwashed marched away
Ready to fire their missiles on an unfortunate land this very day
The war criminals that planned all this filthy hellish action
Are hiding in their underground lairs smiling with crazy satisfaction
The end result of all this treachery and insanity
Could probably be the end of the world and humanity
Left right, left right, orders are orders, and the enemy must be punished
Will nuclear war be the end result of the mad march of the brainwashed?
Will we all be extinguished?…
[more info at link below]
https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-mad-march-of-brainwashed.html
DH Fabian
America is the kid with frosting on his face insisting it was the dog who took a chunk out of the cake. One thing Mr. Lazare points out, that I hadn't caught: "Mueller's assertion last Wednesday that Russia is interfering in U.S. elections… " I did catch his testimony few weeks ago, in which confirmed that they found no evidence of Russian interference, but that (in his opinion) doesn't mean that they didn't. He then claimed that we who criticized the Clinton wing on social media in 2016 were really Russians pretending to be Americans. And I knew it didn't matter to those listeners who only hear what they want to hear. As has been pointed out, there are still many who devoutly believe Iraq had "stockpiles of WMD" long after this was proved to be a lie.
Russia-gate will die out one more time, then be brought back next year by the Democrats as an excuse for an expected election defeat. Granted, we've pointed out many times how Democrats split apart their own voting base, driving so many voters away. We have pointed out how the reckless Russia-gate lies only drove more voters away, establishing that today's Democrats are just too dangerous to vote for. But that gets a bit complicated, and the kids don't want to hear it. The party bosses know this, and will rely on, "Russia stole the election!" again, in spite of the frosting all over the Democrats' faces.
Every time I posted any comments on newspaper forums I would be accused of being a Russian bot or troll in St. Petersburg. The actual trolls operating out of farms at Langley got to be quite recognizable, using the same lines and insults time and again. If there were any Russian trolls interjecting their opinions on the American presidential race they were outnumbered a thousand to one by the clowns employed by the American spook agencies. If not, there were sure an enormous number of regular Americans who simply loved Hillary, took offense at any criticism of her, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that to not embrace her was absolute evidence of Putin's malign influence at work. Not enough to win, however. And, if they loved her with such fervor, why did hardly anyone come out to her rallies? If not for California and NY she loses the popular vote… by a LOT.
Nathan Mulcahy
As far as empire is concerned, the "Democratic" and the Republican parties are the two brands of the same "WallStreet/MIC/AIPAC" Party. When will people understand this?
Disagree on what point the popular anti-Israel meme. The Ds and Rs merely exploit Israel as a tool in their own propaganda campaigns. One clue: The US is one of the top suppliers of weapons to those Arab states that seek the eradication of Jews from the Mideast. The Mideast has been wildly profitable to US weapons manufacturers.
As far as empire is concerned, the "Democratic" and the Republican parties are the two brands of the same "WallStreet/MIC/AIPAC" Party
As pointed out by Joe Lauria in the most recent CN live, "Russian meddling" has been drummed into the American populace without the word "alleged" attached. Result = brainwashing. One problem we're having is our amazement this fraudulence could deceive so many, so we have continuing repetition from one journalist to another of the essential delusion and laying out critique based on facts.
We are also becoming aware of "stage setting" as the principal reason for the brainwashing. That is, a heavy barrage of propaganda is laid down as the way to justification for some forthcoming manipulation, accompanied with heavy sighs and flag waving. This is what is going on with Assange. Any decent investigation of his problems will come down to a man wronged for being a journalist Exposing The Mighty. The Russia-gate fraud has succeeded in convicting him, so that fair considering becomes very unlikely. As with Eugene Debs.
We ought to remember a page of US history taking place in WWI with the Espionage Act of that time, which imprisoned those, as with Debs, with a view considered not sacred enough to Establishment Policies. And to recall Germany, 1935 to 1940 particularly, with the double-talk and falsity of that time, led by a certain charismatic leader with a short black mustache.
Lessons may be learned, but are they learned well enough?
Susan MacKenzie
There is NO climate crisis. For heaven's sake!
Compelling argument to refute decades of scholarship.
vinnieoh
Heaven has nothing to do with it, or anything else, for that matter. But the surest way to assure hell on earth is to: click your ruby slippers together three times and repeat "There is No climate crisis, There is No climate crisis, There is No climate crisis…"
Looks like Ms. Mackenzie has been taken in by the Wizard, the man behind the curtain. Charlatans abound… yet the truth is there to see if only those with eyes would simply look clearly, steadily, and with humility. "For heaven's sake," indeed!
I see that your herring is quite red.
Jim other
The evidence says otherwise. The Trump administration's recent announcement of the year round navigation of the Arctic Ocean was not possible 50 to 100 years ago. What happened????
Lawrence Duffield
YMMV, but Iran's bankrupting one's country to develop nuclear weapons seems a sufficient proof of intent to make war, if not immediately, then as soon as is safe. So does sponsoring terror organizations. I don't think it necessary to wait until they feel they can "punch at our weight" before we make it abundantly clear this is anti-social behavior. Wars aren't supposed to be even fights.
That said, upgrading our own capabilities such that, when Iran achieves its own goals it still won't be able to successfully wage war against us is an act of prudence, not belligerence.
So I'm assuming that social behavior would be invading the countries to the east and west of Iran, turning them into total bloodbaths, and then telling Iran 'You're next'. Thank you for helping clear that up for me, American Psycho.
Ummm – you have proof, evidence that Iran is, has ever, worked toward nuclear weapons? And even were it to, the USA is much too far away to be in any direct danger (fallout always another problem given winds).
Meanwhile, the USA has an enormous nuclear arsenal consisting of all types of nuclear weaponry – and that's before we waste more billions on "upgrading" it. Which nation is more likely to drop, send such weapons anywhere? Which nation is it that has *already* slaughtered people using these weapons? Which nation is it that thinks it has a right to dictate to others how they should behave, what they should do (i.e. bow and scrape to the US-western world's diktats)? Which nation is it that has invaded and destroyed numerous others over the last 70 years?
Would that be the USA, perchance?
Iran has *not* invaded anywhere in 100-200 years.
I see, the real problem is the Mark's unruly behavior.
Then they're getting those nukes from the same guy that sold the emperor his new clothes? One thing that bankrupted the Iranians was the almost ten year war they fought against Iran. But they held their own for a long time on the strength of the military largesse Uncle Sugar lavished upon our then newly-acquired vassal state under the puppet rule of the Shah. When they each blew up each other's stuff, Europe, the Gulf Monarchies, and of course Uncle Sugar re-supplied Sadam, even the Soviets were sympathetic to the feckless Iraqis – on credit. Iranian friends were few and far between.
Then of course have been the almost non-stop sanctions and embargoes of Iran led by the US. And as sort of the cherry on the whole thing, the Saudis purposely depressed the oil market to chasten all competitors, but most importantly Iran, which briefly saw a flicker of light at the end of a long tunnel. Gotta love the Saudis; pure reductionists in the geopolitical game.
I have heard the accusations of corruption in today's Iran. With all the other BS being pushed validifying Iran I don't know how much of it to believe, or any of it. BUT, look around you; corruption is the word that so far defines the 21st century, and the epicenter is Washington, DC. Keep on believing that we're the good guys, because "a lot of people say so" ™.
Just re-read this. Iran was not at war with itself for ten years, but with Iraq. Chastened of course should have been chastised, and validifying was just me channeling George W. Oh well, it happens.
Gene Poole
When you say "our capabilities," to whom are you referring? Who are "we"? Second question: Isn't the US bankrupt enough for you yet after 70 years of extracting wealth from its citizens on the pretext of "defending us against our enemies"? Third question: Can the US's overthrowing of legitimately elected governments (we can limit ourselves, again, to the past 70 years just for the purpose of discussion; there's a list at https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list) by any and all means up to and including assassination be considered anti-social?
Lawrence Duffield,
Yes, those points might make a reasonable "realist" argument — if there were any truth to any of them… But there isn't. They are all complete lies.
jim glover
I like the Boris and Natasha reference!
Richard A.
"Social Media Giants" squirm when pressed on meddling from anyone besides Russia:
https://youtu.be/-VBN0vavNz8?t=51
I suspect they would have found troll farms like the IRA all around the world had they looked for them, but that would have gone against the anti-Russia narrative.
I'm very skeptical of "troll farms" to begin with. People don't need to be paid to express their opinions. We saw how Democrats claimed that those who criticized the Dem right wing and/or disputed the anti-Russian allegations, were really just "trolls," and often paid trolls at that. In their arrogance, they cannot fathom that we don't all march in lockstep behind them.
Riva Enteen
To highlight Drew's comment: One can write the most thought out well documented academic-like essay and the true believers in Russisagate will dismiss it all with a mere flick of the wrist. This is the most pervasive and hardcore group-think I've ever witnessed. It's strained friendships and family relations.
His words are so ominous, with nuclear apocalypse at stake. What is to be done? We have lost many, if not most, of our comrades of yore.
A. McNeal
The war party consists of Donald Trump and his dummkopfs.
And before that Obama and his minders, and before that W and his minders, and before that Slick Willy and his minders, …..
I'd love to see them all on the docket at the Hague.
The US led by the likes of Trump and that horse's arse Pompeo accusing Iran of being"the world's largest state sponsor of terror" is laughable on its face. Since the World War II scholars report that the US has slaughtered 20 million to 30 million people.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051
Peter Loeb
I never watched the TV show (the "live"televised hearings). I saw a piece of it on a wall TV while I was waiting for
a doctor's appointment. It was boring. The most interesting part was the gentleman with an impressive mustache sitting
behind Mueller.
I got bored as well with the reports of who done it and who didn't.
I think I made the right decision.
Many forget the so-called "lessons of history". I suggest Francis Jennings, first few chapters of THE INVASION OF AMERICA and
THE CREATION OF AMERICA(entire).
What exactly is "democracy" and what has it ever been?
I can recall first hand and personally similar elements. Going back only a few decades when my Dad had to sign
a "loyalty oath". But in fact, the history of human violence goes back hundreds of years and more.
But to begin to persuade others of the non-existence of "democracy" when its assumption is an integral part of
living here (it seems to guarantee our superiority , virginity etc.) and gives us solace. Many millions have sought
and often found such comfort in myths.
I was intending to circulate this article but after rereading it, felt regurgitating these meaningless facts is
a waste of time.
Yes, looking back, there may have been moments of a possible Democracy, but the wealthy class and their lawyers in Congress found ways to kill those moments dead before they could have life and develop into what a Democracy really is. So America starts out by usurping Native lands and then buys slave labor to amass wealth. Only now, in 2019, there is the Reparations card being played by some politicians to gain constituents in an election cycle, not a true discussion of the issue.
As someone else already pointed-out in another thread, once you create the image of the enemy as filthy, inhuman vermin, it's not that big a step to get the go-alongers to step-right-up and shriek for that *enemy's* obliteration. Or at least to cow-tow to it.
Always appreciate the writers and commenters who keep it real and suss-out relevant details. Some of us try to contribute in other ways. I wrote something in reaction to a recent article by Scott Ritter questioning masked threats of annihilation against ginned-up adversaries. It may serve here.
Here's the opening quote used in that article:
"I could win that war in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people," Trump said. "I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth, it would be gone. It would be over in, literally, in 10 days. And I don't want to go that route."
Threat posture
Don't the Hub-Bubs
in Hubbub Land
love them some braggin'?
Hark back to times
of tote them bales,
drag that wagon.
Big Daddy Brag
got his grin-on.
Fessin'-up stories
to crack-yer chin on.
Hand-Clappers clap
in bright blue ties.
Lies on their breath;
death in their eyes.
To scare a vole
from its hole,
a hawk hovers.
Beats his wings,
he's menacing
to break its cover.
Six ways from Sunday,
it's all screwed tight, tighter.
Situation's in hand,
'cause might makes right righter?
What could go wrong,
the philosopher moans.
Threads of humanity
held together
by koans.
Ritter knows and not just believes, as to what.he knows is not make believe, eyes that see and ears that know; truth is like that.
Tis easy to start a war. but wars are unpredictable and oncenstarted hard to end.
It is said by many that the US is a.war making nation, but when was last time US government actually had permission of the people, both Houses of Congress and they, Houses, have a.Constiyutional Duty to say yar or nay to Declaration of War?
The last time US military faced a determined National military , Vietnam Conflict, US military and all Branches of Government got butts kicked.
The most technologicly and destructive military on Earth fights not national militaries but civilian militia.
Iraq military did not fight, other than a few patriotic and those who had not yet gotten word from commanders to surrender.
In a nation of 360 millions it is easy to find those who kill for money or aid those who do.
The Waprior Creed of Oath used by military has nothing to do with protecting Americans and their Constitution.
All in Uniform of military branches becomenWarrior heros, no matter the slaughter of Civilians, the uniform became HOLy, and we must all genuflux to it.
From the time before America's were discovered unto today when has not the world outside of Eurocentric derived exploitive cultures not been targets of warfare by those northern hemisphere nations and peoples?
Our excuse back then was the world was full of uncivilized savages, Japan and China were also deemed such clear into 1950s, and so was all of Africa band Middle East with only Israel exempted by design, all to bring civilization and moral sophistication to them.
The means of choice, military, and warfare was always immensely profitable for the nations with strongest military, the victors.
U.S of A. history has always denied the rapacious nature of it governing establishment and of, up until the 1970s, majority of its populace.
They of old said, " Ignorance Is Bliss", but as to the vast majority of US since its beginning it should be said, "The vast majority of its populace has deliberately chosen to live in " Blissful Ignorance".
A contrived historical narrative that stressed the purity of thought no matter the outcome or cost to non US people that justified all of transgressions of morality and destruction of humanity the nation took part in.
Soft warfare was what Europe had to resort too after it was destroyed by Wars I and II and only by the US war party's guidance and economic wealth were they able to hold sway over their old miliyarily conquered colonies.
We are not seeing a revival of militarism, such as expansion of NATO, just that it never was fully removed and todays is but a willingness of following US military orderings.
All the trappings of civilization, clothing and technology, are but things to hide behind the true nature of man.
The amount of bull$hit is staggering to put it mildly .They lie with a straight face apologetically .It is already hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would not notice that the asylum is now in control in the USA . Is it like a horror movie or a Monty Python skit ?
Bob Guertling
I was going to leave a similar post but you summed it up perfectly. If I had youth and health I would move to the mountains of Alaska and tune out all media and just live off the land until the nuclear bombs hit. Most Americans are totally controlled sheeple.
I'm not saying that I disagree with your notion that this is absurd, but I do take issue with your choice of terms.
"The lunatics" are always the extreme of the side you disagree with. It's the lower scale version of the propaganda we shove on middle eastern "terrorists" vs the "heroes" that bombed Japanese civilians en masse. Adding to the heap does not make it disappear.
Sally Snyder
Here is an article that looks the compensation packages for the Chief Executive Officers of America's largest defense contractors :
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/05/americas-defense-contractors-profits.html
Thanks to the unfettered generosity of American taxpayers and Washington's endless war stance, these individuals find themselves among the best paid "workers" in the United States.
Mr Lazare it doesn't seem to bother the millions who have lapped up the "Russia did it" delusion that there is no evidence to back up Mueller et al's assertions. Not at all. Electoral college realities be damned. A DNC leak – a hack is the preferred narrative.
Clearly there are millions in the US who truly believe in the "American exceptionalism" bullshit – their perception skewed by the lies, obfuscations, distortions and distractions disseminated by the MSM.
Meanwhile it would seem that the US government in one of its propaganda guises is creating a new VoA station to provide "information" to the clearly heretofore bamboozled Rohingya people. Now I don't doubt that the Burmese minority has little to no access to outside information, news and that what news it does receive is slanted. But to posit anything that VoA broadcasts is (impartial) "information" is disingenuous at best. And of course NPR never mentioned (that I heard) that VoA is the US equivalent of RT or Sputnik or even more of a US propaganda outfit.
I must protest! RT/Sputnik is the Russian equivalent of NPR/PBS. While all 4 are government funded, they also have the dictate to provide the news. VoA/RFE/Radio Marti are all unabashedly propaganda.
Here's the thing that bothers me. I've never had RT lie to me. The MSM does outright lie to you. They claim that we have a free press here in the US but the MSM will squash any story that American authorities want squashed. That sounds like a government controlled press if ever I heard one.
I have noticed a pattern to the "nightly news" shows. First an "eye grabber", ie. natural disaster or something similar, then propaganda messages for the evening, then finish it off with a "feel good" puff piece.
I don't hardly ever watch MSM, but whenever I do, I see the same pattern repeated again and again.
Mr Harrison, I think that you mistake my meaning. Or perhaps – reading what I wrote more carefully, I clearly didn't express myself properly.
Yes, VoA is a vehicle for propaganda purposes. So too is NPR and the BBC (including the latter's World Service).
NPR and the Beeb *always* preface their mentions (when they mention) RT or Sputnik (interestingly less the latter than the former) as "state-funded"/"state-controlled" although not always the latter expressly – the presenter saying "state-funded" is expected to convey the latter.
All that I intended, given that that NPR always prefaces its mentions of RT/Sputnik as "State" media (funded/controlled), then it *ought* to have done the same with VoA. I did not mean that I, personally, think that either RT or Sputnik are propaganda media (certainly no more so than either NPR or the BBC).
And I check them both out several times a day because I want to read what the Op-ed contributors have to say about current events and have another perspective on what is going on in the world. My go to websites include this one, MoA, RT, Sputnik, Black Agenda Report, American Herald Tribune, Dissident Voice, Global Research, Mondoweiss, MintPress News and others… the radio is on the keep a lid on the silence that is my late husband's absence. But it is useful, if the cause of much ranting on my part, to hear what NPR and the BBC, as representatives of the MSM, are purveying to their audience, what it is that our ruling elites want us to be distracted by, believe.
Unfortunately, RT's commenters are nothing like the commenters here at CN. The fact that RT allows truly vile, retrograde, racist and sexist comments to remain while often, but not always, censoring anything highly critical of Donald Trump, is a reason I no longer read RT. If their commenters reflect their actual views of the world and its peoples, then I'd rather read articles and comments here on Consortium News. Whoever moderates at RT is not doing RT ANY favors.
> Unfortunately, RT's commenters are nothing like the commenters here at CN
Exactly where are they? I read RT International, UK, and US regularly, but don't see any comments.
Indeed, indeed. We are witnessing the desperate flailings of a power structure that has grown accustomed to being obeyed. Although occasionally, as Obama put it, we have to twist a few arms. Unfortunately, if you're always having to twist a few arms, your control is being constantly challenged. The next thing you know, you're getting ignored as Turkey buys the S400 system anyway and your threats are ignored by India as you try to catch flies with vinegar instead of honey.
Will Rodgers had a saying for this. When you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging.
Drew Hunkins
One can write the most thought out well documented academic-like essay and the true believers in Russisagate will dismiss it all with a mere flick of the wrist.
This is the most pervasive and hardcore group-think I've ever witnessed. It's strained friendships and family relations.
A sobering revelation.
It was bad during the Vietnam War, but, this mass refusal of reality is really worrisome.
I was twice chased out of my father's home by a sibling and fan of Rachel Maddow.
Gabor Maté on America in denial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR07OtEhKPE
Yes Clark M Shanahan, we are left with no recourse but a silent, surreptitious eye roll whenever rabid Rachel fans appear. I am sorry your own sibling treated you badly. Keep on keeping on… what else is there to do but seek the truth, no matter what that truth is to paraphrase the dearly missed Mr. Robert Parry?
Your description of what happened regarding the wild-eyed Maddow fan isn't unexpected. Scary times.
A lot of very prominent people will be very embarrassed about this period in their lives when some semblance of sanity returns years from now and the truth and motives of today's players becomes widely known. It will be a lifting of the veil similar to what happened after McCarthyism had run its course in the 1950's. Big time celebs like Alec Baldwin, Robert DiNiro, Stephen Colbert, Harvey Weinstein and Rob Reiner will become very sheepish about having been such full-throated loutish "Jerks for Hillary." I'm talking about the obnoxious incessant get-in-your-face loud mouths. There are many other would-be enlightened "beautiful people" who will simply quietly pretend all this never happened.
Reading the Mueller report, he gives all the details of the malware he found on the DNC and DCCC computers, and their links to the GRU. Since we know the US government never asked to see the computers, Crowdstrike must have prepared this report.
I'm impressed. Crowdstrike is a company that is hired when an organisation gets hacked, e.g., someone gets all the creditcard numbers and PINs of its customers. They then prepare a report exonerating the corporation completely. And this is what they've done here for the DNC, and the establishment media reiterates that Russian's theft of the election from St Hillary is irrefutably proven and that this obvious 'fact' is accepted by all except a few conspiracy theory nutcases.
That all the 'evidence' is fabricated should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about IT and hacking, but it is accepted by the overwhelming majority of Americans (and most others who read English language media).
Add to this Bush, Jr's 2003 State of the Union address, rated as one of the very best by the Washington Post, when he revealed that Iran had planned, financed, and organised the 9/11 attacks, and these attacks were perpetrated by the Ayatollahs' co-religionists: the Taliban, led by Mullah Omar (a popular name with the Ayatollahs), Iraq, led by Saddam Hussain, another big Iranian ally, and the DPRK. This has been judged by the US Federal Court system, and they ruled that no Saudi had anything to do with 9/11, and that Iran was 100% responsible and must pay damages to all the victims and their families.
Pilate asked, 'What is truth?' I ask, 'Where is truth?' and it cannot be found anywhere in the establishment media, only in a few tiny publications like Consortium News.
I wonder how many people actually fell for "Russia-gate." The same media that lied from the start now give the impression that the Tale is established fact, accepted by the masses. Yet, it's obvious that this isn't true. The more people learn about Russiagate, the more they reject it.
It's people who think they have social standing to burn that decide who "conspiracy theory nutcases" are. This is more than colloquial, but it's the same as it ever was. The moment someone with an opinion you can't possibly agree with can be deemed "delusional", those at the top start punching below the belt while a spade gets called a heart.
Look at the some of the fallout in Trump's not-quite-so-inner-circles when things started to go sour on him for an obvious example of this.
ISIS/Al Qaeda are US/Israel/NATO militia based on history and arms supplies. I would say attacks on Iran are not mere driven by Muslim sects but by imperial hegemony by the West and ME soecial relations.
Indeed, Daniel Lazare! The war party is the direct result of the aristocracy gone greed. Luckily the old geezers in ancient Athens told us how to identify these oligarchs and how to deal with them:
http://osociety.org/2019/07/30/pay-back-for-the-oligarchy/


text:
You are here: Home » News » 22 governments participate in high-level meeting of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) in Berlin
Global MPI Data Tables for 2014/2015
Detailed MPI data is available to download from the tables below. Tables 1.1 – 5.3 were updated in Winter 2014/2015 and are appendices to the Methodological Note – Winter 2014/2015. They include:
Detailed MPI results at the country level (110 countries)
Breakdown of MPI results by rural and urban areas (108 countries)
MPI at the sub-national level for 803 regions of 71 countries
Table 6.1-6.6 was updated in June 2014 and covers changes to multidimensional poverty over time for 34 countries and their sub-national regions where possible. It is an appendix to the Methodological Note – Winter 2014/2015 andMultidimensional Poverty Dynamics: Methodology and Results for 34 countries.
The tables are divided into sheets to help in navigating through the data. The chart below provides detailed information on what is included in each data table and sheet. You can download the tables by clicking on the icons in the right-hand column.
Table Contents Download
Tables 1.1-2.3 Main MPI results, headcount ratio by dimensions, contribution of deprivations and other measures of poverty and wellbeing at the national level (110 countries)
Tables 3.1-4.3 Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations in rural and urban areas (108 countries)
Tables 5.1-5.3 Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations at the sub-national level (803 regions of 71 countries)
Tables 6.1-6.6 Changes to MPI poverty over time, including annualised changes in headcount ratio and intensity, changes in each indicator at the national level and changes in destitution where available (34 countries)
Citations: Please cite MPI data from tables 1.1 – 5.3 as: Alkire, S., Conconi, A., Robles, G. and Seth, S. (2015). "Multidimensional Poverty Index, Winter 2014/2015: Brief Methodological Note and Results." OPHI Briefing 27, University of Oxford, January.
Please cite data from tables 6.1-6.6 as: Alkire, S., J. M. Roche and A. Vaz (2014): "Multidimensional Poverty Dynamics: Methodology and Results for 34 countries", Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Oxford University. ophi.qeh.ox.ac.uk
Afghanistan (AFG)
Guatemala (GTM) Nigeria (NGA)
Albania (ALB)
Guinea (GIN)
Pakistan (PAK)
Algeria (DZA)
Guinea-Bissau (GNB)
Palestine, State of (PSE)
Angola (AGO)
Guyana (GUY)
Paraguay (PRY)
Armenia (ARM)
Haiti (HTI)
Peru (PER)
Azerbaijan (AZE)
Honduras (HND)
Philippines (PHL)
Bangladesh (BGD)
India (IND)
Rwanda (RWA)
Barbados (BRB)
Indonesia (IDN)
Saint Lucia (LCA)
Benin (BEN)
Iraq (IRQ)
Sao Tome & Principe (STP)
Belize (BLZ)
Jamaica (JAM)
Senegal (SEN)
Bhutan (BTN)
Jordan (JOR)
Serbia (SRB)
Bolivia (BOL)
Kazakhstan (KAZ)
Sierra Leone (SLE)
Bosnia & Herzegovina (BIH)
Kenya (KEN)
Somalia (SOM)
Brazil (BRA)
Kyrgyzstan (KGZ)
South Africa (ZAF)
Burkina Faso (BFA)
Lao PDR (LAO)
South Sudan (SSD)
Burundi (BDI)
Liberia (LBR)
Sudan (SDN)
Cambodia (KHM)
Libya (LBY)
Suriname (SUR)
Cameroon (CMR)
Lesotho (LSO)
Swaziland (SWZ)
Central African Rep. (CAF)
Macedonia (MKD)
Syrian Arab Republic (SYR)
Chad (TCD)
Madagascar (MDG)
Tajikistan (TJK)
China (CHN)
Malawi (MWI)
Tanzania (TZA)
Colombia (COL)
Maldives (MDV)
Thailand (THA)
Comoros (COM)
Mali (MLI)
Timor-Leste (TLS)
Congo (COG)
Mauritania (MRT)
Togo (TGO)
Congo DR (COD)
Mexico (MEX)
Trinidad and Tobago (TTO)
Cote d'Ivoire (CIV)
Moldova (MDA)
Tunisia (TUN)
Djibouti (DJI)
Mongolia (MNG)
Turkmenistan (TKM)
Dominican Republic (DOM)
Montenegro (MNE)
Uganda (UGA)
Ecuador (ECU)
Morocco (MAR)
Ukraine (UKR)
Egypt (EGY)
Mozambique (MOZ)
Uzbekistan (UZB)
El Salvador (SLV)
Myanmar (MMR)
Vanuatu (VUT)
Ethiopia (ETH)
Namibia (NAM)
Viet Nam (VNM)
Gabon (GAB)
Nepal (NPL)
Yemen (YEM)
Gambia (GMB)
Nicaragua (NIC)
Zambia (ZMB)
Ghana (GHA)
Niger (NER)
Zimbabwe (ZWE)
Many poverty measures identify a household as poor or non-poor based on the achievements of all its members. Using the household as the unit of identification has the benefit of enabling a poverty measure to draw on information about persons of different ages and genders, and in different life situations. However, it also loses individual information because this is summarized at the level of the household. For example, the underlying microdata contain additional information on individual children. As a consequence, gendered and intrahousehold inequalities, for instance, are not evident even when data for them exist. This paper proposes methods to augment a household multidimensional poverty index (MPI) by applying individual-level analyses to the same dataset, and analysing these alongside the matrix of deprivations underlying an MPI. In particular we scrutinise (i) what proportion of deprived children live in multidimensionally poor households; (ii) what proportion of deprived children are girls or boys; and (iii) what proportion of deprived children live in households in which other children are not deprived in that same indicator. We also observe (iv) what other deprivations deprived and poor children experience in addition to the focal deprivation. Finally, we study what proportion of people live in households where children of different ages experience two different child deprivations concurrently. More complex analyses can also be undertaken that combine information on the deprivation status of more than one eligible member, and we illustrate this to identify pioneer children, who completed six years of schooling although adults in their household have not. Overall, this study provides a prototype methodology that can be mainstreamed into subsequent national and global MPI analyses in order to shine a light on child poverty multidimensionally. We illustrate the methodology with analyses of the global MPI for seven countries in South Asia.
Citation: Alkire, S., Ul Haq, R. and Alim, A. (2019). 'The state of multidimensional child poverty in South Asia: a contextual and gendered view', OPHI Working Paper 127, University of Oxford.
This joint handbook by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford, provides practical guidance for policymakers, statisticians, practitioners and others seeking or engaged in developing a national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). It is also intended as a resource for academics, journalists and others interested in broadening their country's poverty metrics, in line with the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With the use of the national MPI, UNDP and OPHI hope to strengthen national capacities of policymakers, technical experts and other stakeholders to:
Build a deeper, more holistic understanding of what poverty means in their national contexts, in complement with existing monetary measures;
Track, report and review progress in reducing multidimensional poverty, in keeping with the 2030 Agenda SDG target 1.2;
Use evidence to improve policies, reach the most severely poor and facilitate approaches to implement the SDGs that work across sectors to address the deprivations that leave people behind;
Broaden national ownership and engagement in efforts to eradicate poverty in all its form.
Download the Handbook here.
Tables 1.1-1.7 Main MPI results, headcount ratio by dimensions, contribution of deprivations and other measures of poverty and wellbeing at the national level (105 countries). Download
Tables 2.1-2.12 Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution by different poverty cut-offs (105 countries). Download
Tables 3.1-3.6 Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations by age groups. Download
Table 4.1-4.6 Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations in rural and urban areas (105 countries). Download
Table 5.1-5.6
and 5a1–5a4
Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations at the sub-national level. Download
5a. India disaggregation by district. Download
Table 6a 6a. India: Changes over time. Download
Table 7 The table presents an archive of all MPI estimations published since 2010. These are not harmonised for comparisons over time. Table 7 covers 361 estimations for 120 countries in 2018, of which 256 estimates are based on the original MPI and 105 estimates are based on the 2018 revised MPI. Download
Ghana Nigeria
Albania Guatemala Pakistan
Algeria Guinea Palestine, State of
Angola Guinea Bissau Paraguay
Armenia Guyana Peru
Azerbaijan Haiti Philippines
Bangladesh Honduras Rwanda
Barbados India Saint Lucia
Belize Indonesia Sao Tome and Principe
Benin Iraq Senegal
Jamaica Serbia
Bolivia Jordan Sierra Leone
Bosnia and Herzegovina Kazakhstan Somalia
Brazil Kenya South Africa
Burkina Faso Kyrgyzstan South Sudan
Burundi Lao PDR Sudan
Cambodia Lesotho Suriname
Cameroon Liberia Syria
Central African Republic Libya Tajikistan
Chad Madagascar Tanzania
China Malawi TFYR of Macedonia
Colombia Maldives Thailand
Comoros Mali Timor-Leste
Congo Mauritania Togo
Congo DR Mexico Trinidad and Tobago
Côte d'Ivoire Moldova Tunisia
Djibouti Mongolia Turkmenistan
Dominican Republic Montenegro Uganda
Ecuador Morocco Ukraine
Egypt Mozambique Uzbekistan
El Salvador Myanmar Vanuatu
eSwatini Namibia Viet Nam
Ethiopia Nepal Yemen
Gabon Nicaragua Zambia
Niger Zimbabwe
Data tables 1.1-2.3 Main MPI results, headcount ratio by dimensions, contribution of deprivations and other measures of poverty and wellbeing at the national level (104 countries). Download
Data tables 3.1-4.3 Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations in rural and urban areas (104 countries). Download
Data tables 5.1-5.4 Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations at the sub-national level. Download
Table 7 The table presents an archive of all MPI estimations published since 2010. These are not harmonized for comparisons over time. Table 7 covers 256 estimations for 120 countries in 2016. Download
Children's Multidimensional Poverty: disaggregating the global MPI
Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2017
'Multidimensional Poverty Index – Summer 2017:
Brief Methodological Note and Results', OPHI MPI Methodological Note 44.
Press release: Half the world's poor are children
Data tables 1.1-2.3
Main MPI results, headcount ratio by dimensions, contribution of deprivations and other measures of poverty and wellbeing at the national level (103 countries)
Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations in rural and urban areas (102 countries)
Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimension and contribution of deprivations at the sub-national level (988 regions of 78 countries)
The table presents an archive of all MPI estimations published since 2010. These are not harmonized for comparisons over time. Table 7 covers 256 estimations for 120 countries in 2016.
Multidimensional poverty, headcount ratio by dimensions and contribution of deprivations for different age groups at the national level (103 countries).
Multidimensional Poverty Index – Winter 2016: Brief methodological note and results.
OPHI MPI Methodological Note 43, 2016.
The table presents an archive of all MPI estimations published since 2010. These are not harmonized for comparisons over time (for harmonized estimations see Table 6 from summer 2016 update). Table 7 covers 241 estimations for 119 countries in Winter 2016.
Multidimensional poverty in Africa (8 pages). OPHI Briefing 40, 2016.
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2016: In brief (2 pages). OPHI Briefing 41, 2016.
Multidimensional Poverty in Africa: An overview (8 pages) (in French). OPHI Briefing 43, 2016.
Multidimensional Poverty Index – Summer 2016: Brief methodological note and results. OPHI Briefing 42, 2016.
Press release: Latest figures on where 1.6 billion poor people live
Changes to MPI poverty over time, including annualised changes in headcount ratio and intensity, changes in each indicator at the national level and changes in destitution where available (50 countries)
The table presents an archive of all MPI estimations published since 2010. These are not harmonized for comparisons over time (for harmonized estimations see Table 6). Table 7 covers 232 estimations for 118 countries in 2016.
Poverty Maps. OPHI Briefing 37, 2015.
MPI – Winter 2015/2016: Brief methodological note and results. OPHI Briefing 36, 2015.
22 governments participate in high-level meeting of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) in Berlin
Ministers from over 20 countries belonging to the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) gathered in Berlin this week to endorse multidimensional poverty as an overall goal of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and endorse the establishment of a new MPI 2015+ measure of extreme poverty in the post-2015 development context. The network and its participants endorsed Multidimensional Poverty Indices (MPIs) as a powerful policy tool for enhanced poverty reduction at the regional, national and subnational level, with the ability to illuminate the state and progress of marginalised groups.
Keynote speeches were given by:
HE Dr Kenny Anthony, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia
HE Dr Margarita Cedeño de Fernández
Vice-President of the Dominican Republic
Juan Manuel Valle Pereña, Executive Director of the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation, Government of Mexico
The event, the first high-level meeting of the Network since its launch at the University of Oxford in June 2013, provided a forum for senior delegates to share conceptual, methodological and practical information on the implementation of multidimensional poverty measures in their respective countries.
Hosted by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the meeting brought together Vice Presidents, Ministers and Deputy Ministers from 25 governments, including Bhutan, Brazil, China, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, Turkey, South Africa and Vietnam. Senior representatives from international institutions such as OECD, UNDP, Southern African Development Community (SADC), Organization of American States (OAS) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) were also present.
At the meeting the network launched the official Multidimensional Poverty Network website that gives information about the work of poverty being conducted by each participant country. Presentations given during the event are available to view on the website and the communiqué issued by the network can be read here.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
import unittest

import numpy

import chainer
from chainer import cuda
from chainer import functions
from chainer import gradient_check
from chainer import testing
from chainer.testing import attr
from chainer.testing import condition

class TestHuberLoss(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        self.shape = (4, 10)
        self.x = (numpy.random.random(self.shape) - 0.5) * 20
        self.x = self.x.astype(numpy.float32)
        self.t = numpy.random.random(self.shape).astype(numpy.float32)

    def check_forward(self, x_data, t_data):
        x = chainer.Variable(x_data)
        t = chainer.Variable(t_data)
        loss = functions.huber_loss(x, t, delta=1)
        self.assertEqual(loss.data.dtype, numpy.float32)
        loss_value = cuda.to_cpu(loss.data)

        diff_data = cuda.to_cpu(x_data) - cuda.to_cpu(t_data)
        expected_result = numpy.zeros(self.shape)
        mask = numpy.abs(diff_data) < 1
        expected_result[mask] = 0.5 * diff_data[mask]**2
        expected_result[~mask] = numpy.abs(diff_data[~mask]) - 0.5
        loss_expect = numpy.sum(expected_result, axis=1)
        gradient_check.assert_allclose(loss_value, loss_expect)

    @condition.retry(3)
    def test_forward_cpu(self):
        self.check_forward(self.x, self.t)

    @attr.gpu
    @condition.retry(3)
    def test_forward_gpu(self):
        self.check_forward(cuda.to_gpu(self.x), cuda.to_gpu(self.t))

    def check_backward(self, x_data, t_data):
        gradient_check.check_backward(
            functions.HuberLoss(delta=1),
            (x_data, t_data), None, eps=1e-2, atol=1e-3)

    @condition.retry(3)
    def test_backward_cpu(self):
        self.check_backward(self.x, self.t)

    @attr.gpu
    @condition.retry(3)
    def test_backward_gpu(self):
        self.check_backward(cuda.to_gpu(self.x), cuda.to_gpu(self.t))

testing.run_module(__name__, __file__)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Contact us to book your 3 week trial £15 places are filling up fast!! Don't miss out!!
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My classes are inclusive and accessible for Families, babies, toddlers and young people, our Yoga is inclusive for people with health conditions. Kay is a fun and exciting way of teaching children yoga, it helps with fine and gross motor skills, be mindful and respect themselves.
Classes currently held at Nostell Village Hall on Sunday mornings 10:30am to 11:30am.


Wines of Argentina, the organization responsible for the image of Argentine wine in the world, works to enhance the positive image of our industry in the trade, among opinion leaders and consumers. Since 2009, it has led the way in the use of new technologies in the wine trade.
Its campaigns give users the chance to get to know more about the wines, the industry and the culture of Argentina through contents of general interest, games and the views of specialists, which contributes to enhance their enjoyment of the world of Argentine wine.


It should be obvious that the LeBron James-Dwayne Wade duo cannot be seriously compared with the Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen duo. Jordan and Pippen not only led the Chicago Bulls to a pair of "three-peats" sandwiched around Jordan's baseball sabbatical but Jordan and Pippen approached the game with a fundamental seriousness and focus that James and Wade have yet to display on a consistent basis. When James pranced around on stage predicting that the Heat would win "not one, not two..." championships he revealed that he does not truly understand what it takes to be a champion and just how difficult it is to reach that level. He also sent a message to the rest of the NBA's top stars and elite teams essentially saying that he was about to become the Jordan of this era, preventing the rest of them from getting even one ring--and don't think for one moment that this message did not resonate very deeply with the challengers that the Heat will face over the next few years.
Magic Johnson has repeatedly made a very important point about the Miami Heat: they rely too much on their talent. When James and Wade get into open court situations they are unstoppable and the Heat stack up wins against inferior competition--but when they face good teams that don't turn the ball over or take bad shots James and Wade are still able to put up gaudy individual statistics for the most part but the Heat hardly look like an all-time great team. In contrast, Jordan and Pippen were not only two of the most talented players ever but they were also grinders; they worked on their games in the offseason and they worked during every game in the regular season and playoffs. One of the defining moments of their collective greatness happened in game seven of the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals, an 88-83 Chicago victory over Indiana during which the Bulls shot .382 from the field. Jordan shot 9-25 (.360) and Pippen shot 6-18 (.333), so Chicago's two biggest stars both dragged down their team's already lackluster field goal percentage--but Pippen scrapped and fought for a game-high 12 rebounds (six on the offensive glass), Jordan snared nine rebounds (five offensive) and the Bulls grabbed 22 offensive rebounds. The Bulls did not beat the Pacers with highlight plays or by looking pretty; they did not beat the Pacers with a high-wire act in transition: they beat the Pacers in the paint. That is the type of game that I do not think that the LeBron James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh Heat can win when the stakes are highest and that is why I have consistently picked them to not win a championship (although James and the Heat did briefly fool me after they defeated the Bulls in the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals).
The Heat look unbeatable when they get their transition game going but they are comically ineffective in the half court set, particularly against zone defenses; last season I referred to Miami's "clown car" offense because in a half court set the Heat frequently look as disorganized as clowns piling out of a car at the circus. Zone defenses were not legal in the NBA back when Jordan and Pippen's Bulls dominated but it is highly doubtful that Jordan and Pippen would have been incapable of shredding a zone into a million pieces. A zone can be attacked either with accurate outside shooting or with quick ball movement followed by penetration into the exposed gaps. Unfortunately for the Heat, James and Wade are not reliable outside shooters nor are they particularly adept at playing without the ball; neither James nor Wade can consistently hit enough perimeter shots to defeat a zone defense and neither James nor Wade can run a half court offense predicated on ball movement and player movement: James and Wade both want to have the ball in their hands so that they can stare down the defense and run an isolation set (that is also the reason why James and Wade's skill sets are not complementary--when one of them is staring down the defense with the ball the other one is standing in the corner playing the role of a non-sharpshooting spot up shooter).
When James abandoned Cleveland to form a power trio in Miami with Wade and Bosh, the "stat gurus" gushed that the Heat would break the 1996 Bulls' record for regular season wins (72) en route to creating a dynasty featuring multiple championships--but what has actually happened has been entirely different: the 2011 Heat had the third best record in the NBA (58-24) and fell apart in the NBA Finals versus a team that only had one All-Star, while the 2012 Heat have already lost more times in 48 games (13) than the 1996 Bulls lost in the full 82 game season (10). In nine full seasons together, Jordan and Pippen led the Bulls to six championships and five 60-plus win seasons (including three seasons with 67 or more wins, with each of those seasons culminating in a championship); they dominated in the regular season, they treated every game like it mattered and they embraced the challenge of defeating elite teams in playoff competition.
The James-Wade-Bosh trio may win a championship eventually. They may even win this season's championship (though I doubt it)--but I will be shocked if they remotely approach the postseason dominance achieved by the Jordan-Pippen Bulls. Rather than comparing the Heat to the 1990s Bulls, a more relevant and interesting comparison is with the 2006-2009 Cleveland Cavaliers teams that upset a 64 win Detroit team in the playoffs (2006), made it to the Finals once (2007) and twice had the best record in the NBA (66 wins in 2008, 61 wins in 2009); will James' Miami Heat assemble a body of work that surpasses what James' Cavaliers accomplished? When James fled to South Beach I said that he may never play for a better team than the one that he left behind and the results on the court have yet to disprove that assessment. It is true that the Heat have only been together for less than two seasons and only had one playoff run so far but don't assume that they have years and years to figure everything out; Wade is an old 30, a nine year veteran who has spent his career throwing his body around the court and dealing with assorted injuries: his playing style is not one that will likely allow him to age well. The NBA's new collective bargaining agreement makes it more expensive to keep three stars on the payroll, let alone surround them with complementary talent, so if the Heat keep failing to win a championship with this trio it is not at all implausible that the team would decide to trade one or even two of the stars; Philadelphia's so-called "Wonder Five" made it to the NBA Finals just once (1977) but after the Sixers cleaned house and surrounded Julius Erving with an entirely new supporting cast the team made three trips to the Finals in the first four years of the 1980s, finally winning the title in 1983.


In a field packed with some of the world's best swimmers, Singapore's Quah Zheng Wen and Yeo Kai Quan did the nation proud by winning three silver medals in the FINA/ airweave Swimming World Cup 2015.
Despite a slight sore throat and fever the day before, Quah, who is asthmatic, added to his tally of a silver and three bronzes from previous legs to bring his medal total to six with good performances in the 100m butterfly and 50m backstroke.
"On our part, the SSA will seek legal advice and may consider joining other parties and individuals in any class action suit which is brought against any Singapore-listed company which is linked to the burning of forests in Indonesia which is now causing one of the worst haze episodes to affect the region and in particular Singapore," he continued.
Team Singapore Swimmer Quah Ting Wen said: "Some us us find it pretty hard to breathe, we're finding ways to deal with it. We still can do things indoors, like we do our land training.
Despite the poor air quality swimmer Madeline Lye, 12, had a great time meeting and competing with her swimming idols. "I'm swimming with all the good swimmers. Katinka (Hosszu), Alia (Atkinson) and everybody else which is great. I can just brag in school and start telling people that I am in the same lane as Katinka and that I met them and I got photos with them." she said with a mischievous grin.
Coach Sergio Lopez added that this was the first time he had encountered a prolonged period of haze and should this persist in the years ahead he will have to create contingency plans to train overseas to keep his athletes in top form.


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Home 2nd Amendment
NYC Shooting Surge Highlights de Blasio's Ineptness and Futility of Anti-Gun Edicts
in 2nd Amendment
Bill de Blasio can't dictate his way out of New York City's problems, which means that's exactly what he'll continue trying to do as long as other people's money holds out. (Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons Share Alike 2.0.)
U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- "NYC's surge in gun violence sees spike in kid, teen and young adult victims," WNBC-TV 4 reported Monday. "New York City has been grappling with an outstanding increase in gun violence over the past few months."
Shooting stats are up overall and across all age range categories. The increases are "jaw-dropping," we are told, and all socialist Mayor Bill de Blasio can seem to think to do is "decry the recent violence [and express] deep condolences." While former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's contention that the department is no longer allowed to do "things that work" is revealing (he no doubt means on-demand suspension of the Bill of Rights) what clearly does not work is New York City's draconian citizen disarmament mindset.
It's not for lack of de Blasio and his fellow gun-grabbers trying. After giving Michael Bloomberg a scare by not immediately signing on to Mayors Against Illegal [read "Your"] Guns, the mayor ultimately got with that program and started implementing Intolerable Acts of his own. What that means to a socialist is taking money from the productive sector and then transferring the wealth, like the $12.7M de Blasio earmarked for a pilot program with "violence interrupters," which is a transparently manipulative way of saying "ex-gang members" (with a big question mark on the "ex").
Seeing how well that didn't work, de Blasio came up with another plan to spend other people's money:
"Seeking to quell stubbornly persistent gun-related violence in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday will unveil a new system for handling such cases, creating a dedicated gun court in Brooklyn and a 200-officer police division focused on gun crime."
And you have to admit, he offered one hell of a creative benchmark for success:
"Bill de Blasio Says Face-Slashing Epidemic Probably a Result of NYPD Gun Seizures"
Not that seizures actually had any long-term effect, but no matter. The "man of the people" mayor not only has his own taxpayer-funded armed bodyguards, but he also has enough to spare to help his son move into an Ivy League university (one that costs more than the median household income in this country).
That's some "classless society"!
Not done spending money he never earned but has the power to claim, de Blasio took further crime and safety measures, like tapping another $10M to attract and embed ex-cons into the populace:
"No one will be disqualified from the program based on their past criminal history, even if they have gang ties or were sex offenders, according to Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte."
That would be the same Joe Ponte who resigned over ethics "lapses." In his defense, with de Blasio setting the tone, how was he supposed to know exploiting taxpayers for personal gain was verboten?
Still not content with making New York an even more dangerous place, de Blasio set about raising the "base price of a pack of cigarettes to $13." Noting "New York City's dangerous, multimillion-dollar cigarette black market," what could go wrong?
With any of de Blasio's "policies"…?
Like suing the Department of Defense for failing to report discharged service members who are prohibited from possessing a gun – while the police department he appoints the commissioner for refuses to disclose information on its lost or stolen guns.
Or partnering with David Hogg to add anti-gun voters to the rolls.
Or getting "busted" quoting communist murderer Che Guevara? Or "allow[ing] illegal immigrants in [the] taxpayer-subsidized housing pool"? Or releasing a "migrant who then raped and murdered [a] 92-year-old woman"? (And "migrant"? Really?)
"Mayor Bill De Blasio defends policing policies as NYPD statistics show rise in shootings, other major crimes," CBS New York reported in February. No matter, there are churches and synagogues (but not mosques?) to close. And speaking of closures, he has presumed himself the arbiter of whose lives and livelihoods are, to use his words, "important," and Black (Marxist) Lives Matter wins.
For the rest of us, he has established snitch channels (with hilarious unintended consequences).
All this is just de Blasio. We could go back to the Bloomberg administration, or to all the anti-gun mayors before him, and further back to the Sullivan Act, and subsequent New York State edicts and specialized New York City prohibitions (look at what's required just to get "permission" to own a gun – forget about carrying one "legally" unless you're connected or a celebrity).
Yet with all this, what do we see? The violence is on the upswing and everything thrown at it has been shown not to work – including a police chief taking a knee for the mob and getting the hell beaten out of him anyway. People who can't protect themselves can't protect anyone else and have no legal duty to anyway. So much for the mayor's "leadership" on this, which consists of painting "Black Lives Matter" on a public street in front of Trump Tower.
What this shows though, is something that every rights advocate ought to be sharing with everyone, including their political representatives: New York City is a laboratory where all the experiments the gun-grabbers demand imposing on a national scale are shown to have failed. Let the riots deceptively characterized as "protests" continue and grow, and let the police continue to become demoralized and disgusted with the city's "leadership," and when it comes to more so-called "gun violence," we ain't seen nothin' yet. Especially with de Blasio bragging about emptying the jails.
And predictably, they'll blame the guns.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at "The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance," is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
Source: https://www.ammoland.com/2020/07/nyc-shooting-surge-highlights-de-blasios-ineptness-and-futility-of-anti-gun-edicts/
Tags: Bill Brattonbill de blasioDavid Codreadavid hoggGun Rights NewsNew York CityNYPD
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley Pushes for Civil Rights Investigation in McCloskey Case
Life-Long Democrat & Gun Banner, John Lewis, Dead at 80
ConcealedPatriot
Acting Secretary Wolf Condemns The Rampant Long-Lasting Violence In Portland ~ VIDEO
Michigan Deputy Shoots Suspect Wanted for Stabbing in Mask Argument


Responding is Jimmy Wong, global head, eye and face protection advanced technical service engineer, 3M, St. Paul, MN.
There are many reasons eyewear lenses can fog up. Working with a fogged lens can be frustrating and dangerous, and removing eyewear to wipe away fog can expose eyes to potentially dangerous workplace impact hazards and debris.
For workers in metalworking, oil and gas, construction, and other physically demanding environments, safety eyewear is designed to try to keep lenses clear of fog – even when workers are in hot and humid conditions or climate-controlled areas. For example, in the food industry when machinery and equipment must be washed down, a high amount of moisture is in the air and eyewear can easily fog up – getting in the way of safety and productivity.
When assessing how to reduce fogging when wearing safety eyewear, environmental, health and safety professionals should first review how the hazard can be engineered out. Dehumidifiers or other environmental controls such as temperature regulation can help maintain steady levels of heat and humidity, which can help keep lenses more clear. Providing a comfortable work environment will reduce perspiration, a natural way the human body cools itself.
However, if the environmental conditions are outside of EHS control, certain personal protective equipment can leverage anti-fog technologies and help reduce eyewear fogging.
Traditional anti-fog technology comes in two forms: hydrophobic and hydrophilic. Hydrophobic coatings are typically found on car windshields and cause the water to bead more easily, allowing the water to gain mass and roll off. This is less common for eyewear and faceshields due to the close proximity to the face.
In contrast, hydrophilic coatings are used to reduce the surface tension – typically using surfactants – allowing the water to create a continuous film on the lens. This is often preferable because light can then pass through water with minimal distortion, unlike droplets found in fogging.
Hydrophilic anti-fog coatings can help reduce fogging, but the technology has limitations. Hydrophilic, or having a strong affinity for water, means the coating can be dissolved by water. As you continue to use it, the effectiveness of anti-fog properties lessens and eventually stops working. To regain anti-fog properties, users can reapply coating using anti-fog sprays or wipes, which require additional cost and time.
Another limitation is oversaturation of coating due to poor airflow to the lens. Anti-fog coatings are not designed to "remove" water that causes fogging, but instead manipulate it so that it allows the user to see clearly. If there is not enough air to draw water off the lens, the film can become so thick that the coating can no longer control it, potentially causing distortion. As a result, it is a recommended best practice to balance gap coverage and airflow. If the task requires indirect or no venting, taking frequent breaks or using a full-face powered air purifying respirator are some options.
Today, PPE is available that incorporates premium anti-fog technologies that are bonded directly into the surface, and retains its hydrophilic properties for a longer duration of time so there is no need to reapply. By using safety eyewear with anti-fog technologies incorporated, workers can see clearly for longer, helping them stay safe and productive in most environmental conditions.


You won't find a NOVA property management team with more experience or knowhow on their side. By partnering with us, you'll have decades of experience and professionalism at your disposal. Our team is dedicated to higher customer satisfaction and we want to help you make the most of your rental property with cost-effective management. We implement best-practice solutions designed to get you unbeatable results.
Whenever you have problems or questions, we're never more than a phone call away. We love to solve problems & find solutions for our clients and we work quickly to address your concerns.
Want to monitor the health of your rental home? Simply sign into the account portal to view statements, important notes, and more. Best of all, it's available to you 24/7, meaning you can keep a close watch at any time.
Voted Loudoun 's #1 Property Management Company 2016, 2017, and 2018!
Todd spent the early part of his career in public accounting before leaving to take a job at one of the area's most successful Real Estate Investment Trusts where he serves as the Senior Vice President of Acquisitions and Development. During his tenure, the company has purchased over $1.8 billion in assets and has entitled over 2.9 million square feet of development. He also led a team that managed over 700 residential units. He earned his B.S. in Accounting from Virginia Tech and his MBA from the Darden School of Business at The University of Virginia. He serves as the Vice Chair of the Loudoun County Economic Development Advisory Commission and is a Board Member of the National Association of Real Estate Companies. Todd lives with his wife and four wonderful kids in Washington D.C.
President and Founder of Pearson Smith Realty (Northern Virginia's fastest growing real estate brokerage), Eric was born in Ashburn, VA and graduated from The University of Mary Washington, where he was the captain of their varsity basketball team. In his spare time you can find him as a member on Loudoun County Special Olympics' Council, chasing after his son Royce, or still attempting to play basketball and spending time with his family and friends.
David was the Vice President and Manager of Field Operations for a property management company based Illinois with over 1,000 units prior to moving back to Virginia to join the Pearson Smith team. He was responsible for creating and implementing a preventative maintenance program and for managing the relationships with their preferred vendor network. David has also lead the leasing division for a portfolio of over 1,750 units.
Patty Young is a licensed Real Estate Broker and Real Estate Instructor. Her strong commitment to clients and extensive industry experience makes her an invaluable part of our team. She serves as the President-Elect for her local NARPM chapter in Northern Virginia, as well as the President-Elect for the Virginia State Chapter. Additionally, Patty volunteers with many organizations and truly loves to elevate this industry. Patty has earned multiple designations through National Association of Realtors, including Professional Residential Manager, Pricing Strategy Advisor, and Military Relocation Professional.


Welcome to the 2018 winter edition of TNR.
Easily navigated lanes and paths will be explored for a 90-minute ride.
Dress your lower body for the temperature, dress your upper body for the wind-chill.
Do an ABC-Quick check of your winter-beater bicycle.
Use clear lenses on your eyewear.
← SAVE THE DATE – Nov 22, 2018!!


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Twitter Account Gets CBS Sitcom Deal
The news that a popular Twitter account called "Shit My Father Says" snagged a CBS sitcom proves the internet is harvesting new ideas for television prime time. The Twitter account was created by 28 year old Justin Halpern who moved in with his parents, and quotes crap his dad says. It's truly hilarious. But, I can't help but feel depressed about how instant opportunity is being given to someone whose output doesn't rely on talent and hard work but just a dumb idea. So does that mean ideas from legit writers and comedians are being shoved aside for concepts that arise from the popularity stemming from internet buzz? Sadness.
This is alright on one level. Sometimes incredibly funny, talented writers take video camera in hand and produce their own shows for YouTube viewers. Take Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone, for instance. They are two funny guys who gained success by creating video shorts that eventually caught the attention of Lorne Michaels. Also, Funnyordie.com harbors a hot bed of funny writers and performers - some famous, some not - creating comedy shorts on their own individual platform that have stirred interest from HBO earlier this year when it entered into a partnership with FOD, kicking off a series for the cable network.
However, in the pithy world of micro blogging, where Halpern's father's morsels of bizarre comments are only added once every few days on Twitter, what substance can be hulled from such low maintenance work? Why not give Paul F Tomkins a television deal? His tweets are funny and he actually has a career making people laugh. What about Rob Huebel? His tweets are consistent, creative and popular. His account could easily spawn a sitcom about a guy who tweets his bizarre thoughts to the Twitterverse. I'm not saying it should happen. I'm just saying. (But I'd like to see it happen.)
Meanwhile, Halpern gets a sweet deal that many other writers and performers would kill for. What does Justin's dad think of all this?
Maybe his dad should get the sitcom.
Labels: Twitter
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[View all lots in this auction]
Lot 438: Bentley Turbo R Sports Saloon
The Harrogate Sale, Bonhams (13 November 2013)
Introduced at Geneva in 1985, the Turbo R continued the modern 'Blower Bentley' theme but with the added refinement of suspension better suited to the car's increased performance. Outwardly the R differed from the preceding Mulsanne Turbo by virtue of its cast-alloy wheels shod with low-profile Pirelli tyres, while inside there was a revised fascia with rev-counter included amongst the comprehensive instrumentation. In a break with Rolls-Royce tradition, power figures were made public for the first time, revealing that the engine produced 320bhp and a staggering 475lb/ft of torque, which on the road translated into a 0-60mph time of around 7 seconds and a top speed of 143mph. Described by Autocar as 'an outrageous concoction of sledgehammer performance and sybaritic luxury', the Turbo R remains as formidable now as when it debuted nearly 30 years ago. A fuel-injected 1987 model, this Turbo R has covered circa 89,000 miles from new and been used sparingly since being serviced earlier this year. Described as a smooth, comfortable driver, the car comes with service history from H R Owen, Douglas Daniels, Ghost Motors and others, together with a substantial quantity of expired MoTs supporting the recorded mileage. We are advised that it will have been driven to the sale from London. Offered with the distinctive registration 'D5 RRM', this well documented Turbo R also comes with tool kit, handbooks, current MoT/tax and Swansea V5. An ignition immobiliser and modern CD player are the only notified deviations from factory specification.
The Harrogate Sale
Bonhams, Harrogate, Yorkshire, UK
Hammer Price
Hammer Price (inc premium)
Condition rating
D5 RRM
SCBZS0T01HCH20033
60004L410IT/8
Engine - cylinders


I talked about aspects and orb in part 1. There are other considerations in order to qualify the aspects we are looking at.
Going towards the degree to form an aspect and moving passed that degree are different in quality.
Going towards (called 'applying' aspect) is considered stronger than moving from (called 'separating' aspect). This is of course not just square, but regarding any aspect.
Quick test: are the following aspects applying or separating?
They are: 1. applying opposition, 2. separating square and 3. applying trine. Always follow in zodiacal order!
In a similar fashion, there is another qualification regarding aspects called 'overcoming'.
Planets in the right hand side (=earlier in zodiacal order) exert more influence or prevail over ones in the left hand side (=later in zodiacal order). This is about sextile/square/trine aspects between planets, since opposition does not involve right/left.
These two are not equal in weight, so to speak, but Mercury is overcoming the Moon, since it is in an earlier position in zodiacal order. Mercury is prevailing over the Moon, or the Moon is dominated by Mercury, in their square relationship.


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Rengeteg mítosz és legenda kering egy ősi kultúra, Atlantisz körül, mely réges-régen még a mi kultúránk előtt létezett. A legfejlettebb...