For the record: I was at work at 6:45am yesterday for a site visit and was stood up, so I was very tired and was in my bed at 8:30 though I wasn't asleep until 10. I normally am asleep about 10,10:30 though so someone's comment earlier about it "only" being 11pm my time was hilarious to me.
As far as today - great. I've lost and my corpse gets to shamble through.
I don't care about how townie each of you is. I really don't.
What I want to know if what each of you, individually, did during the game to help me win - by keeping me alive, helping me work out my questions, helping me understand their implications, etc. So no "oh moody helped you and I'm town just like he is!". You gotta say what you did personally.
Of course, the scum one of you has the advantage that you can take credit on behalf of the scum team for not killing me, though keeping me alive was always in your best interest because, well, look where we are today... If scum claims though I'd like a whole long explanation about how we got here, because I enjoy the theatrics of such things.
Is moody/suzaku's role a role that exists in the game and doesn't alignment change?
So.............. great lot of good THAT did me. I'm blind here guys.
I suppose one thing in my favour is that I have never, as far as I remember, doubted your honesty. For more specific details, you'll have to wait for me to wake up tomorrow, cause it's getting late where I am.
Unfortunately for me, the fact that jimbob has been much more active this whole game probably gets him brownie points.
I'll try and collect up my argument when I'm at a proper computer with time available. I might be able to do so at one of my next lunchtimes. Otherwise, it'll be tomorrow evening my time. Off the top of my head, I can say that I have suggested some questions at various points during the game, and supported lynching Matt instead of adnapemit on D5 to give you a chance to win. Jack may have done either or both of these things as well, but I can't easily check atm.
Deadline is in 11/2 days.
To add onto Sabrar's post, I'm imposing my own unofficial 24 hour deadline from the time of this post now.
If you haven't posted your appeal for Why You Helped The Indie The Most, I'll vote with the person who has posted.
If nobody posts for 24 hours I'm gonna flip a coin.
Madge wrote: To add onto Sabrar's post, I'm imposing my own unofficial 24 hour deadline from the time of this post now.
Sounds reasonable. I'll be posting this evening as promised in my previous post.
In my first post about the game, I state that I believe you are most likely telling the truth.
I (accidentally) took some of the focus off you D1 by jumping at shadows with moody's lie detector statement.
I didn't want to lynch you D1 even when there was no-one more suspicious than you.
By the evening of D1, I was already convinced that you were telling the truth. Unfortunately I had no suggestions re questions to ask.
I understood your logic for why you voted for me on D2, and did not react badly.
I used my Pope ability on Night 2. It is possible that the Mafia tried to kill you that night, and I might have saved your life.
I used a (faulty) GPS on you N3 to give you another witness to prove you were telling the truth.
I had the idea to allow you to win (and was ninja'ed by moody having the same idea) when you were afraid town would win and you hadn't guessed the end day in time.
I tried as quickly as possible to work out what happened at the start of D6, which helped you because at that point you needed to know in order to win.
I managed to clear you with logic D6 when some people had the idea that you might have been mafia from the very beginning. In the same post, I show that it is in your best interest to side with town.
I reckon I was the one asking the most impertinent question of Sabrar during D6.
That's it. It's not as much as I would like, but oh well. Not much else I can do now but wait and let the benevolent all-powerful Madge decide.
FQJA: Knowing that jimbob is the scum makes this post simultaneously infuriating and yet hilarious.
jimbobmacdoodle wrote: I'd considered doing that myself The question would then have been, which of us was scum pretending to be town pretending to be scum?
Not going to do my case now, but I really wanted to point out that my "logic wouldn't help us at all" idea was in reference to which of us 4 were scum using claimed results, rather than the gross generalisation you are painting it as. In particular, I'm pretty sure I consistently ruled out Madge as scum from as soon as Suzaku had claimed his results, which demonstrates that I wasn't saying abandon all logic, but we didn't have enough information to outright rule that one or other player was scum (or not scum), EXCEPT for Madge.
jimbobmacdoodle wrote: Not going to do my case now, but I really wanted to point out that my "logic wouldn't help us at all" idea was in reference to which of us 4 were scum using claimed results, rather than the gross generalisation you are painting it as. In particular, I'm pretty sure I consistently ruled out Madge as scum from as soon as Suzaku had claimed his results, which demonstrates that I wasn't saying abandon all logic, but we didn't have enough information to outright rule that one or other player was scum (or not scum), EXCEPT for Madge.
I could say the same thing about you, but oh well.
I'll freely admit that I was somewhat sceptical of your claim D1, but then I am naturally cautious about early indie claims, because it's easy to hide. However, I swung around to generally believing you after your proper claim here. In that same post, I also suggested asking a question to try to confirm/rule out a cult (and I still claim that was a good question, but I guess that's a matter of opinion).
Later on I disputed the idea that you were a safe lynch.
In my big reads post towards the end of D1, I continued to say I believed you.
I responded to your question asking why scum would arrest dimochka.
In my D2 reads list I stated that I said "I think it extremely likely that Madge is who she says she is".
I explained when analysing the three "indie" claims in this post that I believed your answer as well, and saw no reason why you might have lied (assuming you were an Oracle, which I believed you to be).
I continued to be clear that I broadly believed you come D3. Same again later on that day.
Pointed out during D3 that the day could have ended D4 with two correct lynches (and indeed we had them both more or less pinned by that point).
In my big D3 reads/logic post I made clear that I believed your claim, and also ruled you out as being scum assuming a 3 scum game, based on logic.
Suggested Jack track you so that we could verify his GPS.
Continued to believe you D4.
On D4, made clear my belief that D5 was going to be the last day.
Continued to make it clear in my 4 scum logic post that although the logic didn't rule you out as scum, I still believed it unlikely that you were.
And again, come D5, I continued to show I believed you.
I supported the not lynching adnapemit plan in order to allow you to win. In that same post, I also suggested asking a question to determine the number of remaining Mafia players. That was before you revealed that you asked exactly that question already! I also suggested a couple of variants to that question to try to determine if adnapemit had any teammates.
Stated that you couldn't be scum D6 based on Suzaku's claim. Repeated this several times throughout the day.
At the end of this post I suggested a question for N6, not that it particularly would help you win, I'll admit.
Pointed out that although not a guaranteed loss, No Lynch would upset you and therefore make it hard for Town to win, therefore discouraging No Lynch.
Summary: Apart from some initial scepticism before your full claim, I have consistently believed you, and have also demonstrated through logic that you weren't scum in what I believed to be the most likely case. I suggested questions for you D1, D5 and D6, the first two of which I believe would have been helpful to you, the latter didn't really matter. I suggested a couple of times when I thought the game would end, in an attempt to help you with your guess, and supported delaying a lynch so that you had a chance of winning. In general, I've tried to be helpful to you, even if you didn't take the advice I offered. I also believe that my general attempts to analyse the game should have helped you decide when the game would end, though only you can judge how much it did.
I hope that information is useful in helping you make the decision.
Firstly: the automatic win would be for scum to have come clean, explained why they did what they did, and gone through the backstory of how the scum numbers were modified, with bonus points for attempting to signal me yesterday that they could point out.
So neither of you achieved that.
I'm going to try and make my decision based on the evidence before me, a bit sad that there was no big scum reveal that would have appeased my love of theatrics. I want to make it clear, on the record, that I want to choose town (though I'm not especially trying to), because I'm mad at the lying scum who is purporting to be town and denying me of the aforementioned theatrics.
For the record: I think jackHK's pope power probably didn't save me. Scum knows that I'm at least in principle willing to side with them at endgame, even if they openly claim their alignment. A town player would do no such thing. I knew I was always going to be the last on scum's hitlist, or at least near the bottom, so part of my strategy in claiming was to ensure that they knew not to kill me and to kill town instead, as well as to make town like me because I'm a source of useful information for them.
In the end.... I think I'm siding with Jack. I have gone back and forth on it a lot. Like, literally 4 times I have changed the name at the beginning of this sentence.
It's actually entirely based on Jimbob's mentioning not to vote no lynch yesterday. It is after the silversmithing is alleged to have occurred, when more kills are great for scum, especially helpful!jimbob!scum who is unlikely to be lynched anyway (though it didn't work out). And I think that scum!jimbob should have come out today and given us a rousing finale performance. Jack on the other hand was normal, ordinary town. And town were the ones who really could have chosen to lynch me, so I'm trying to reward them.
So, I've lost. I hope whoever I helped win is grateful.
Thanks for modding a great game for us, Sabrar!
That's hammer and game over one way or the other.
Please wait for official end-post.
Town (minus Vengeful Siblings) wins due to JackHK remaining alive as the only townie.
Suicidal Communist (matt96) wins after achieving both parts of his win-condition.
Prophet (Madge) loses for incorrectly guessing when the game would end.
Vengeful Siblings (generalz and moody7277) lose as they were unable to avenge their Sibling's death.
Mafia (both old and new) loses.
Mod-thoughts to follow sometime later.
Please give me any feedback about roles/balance/level of bastardry/whatever!
Thanks to everyone for participating - hope you all enjoyed it!
Last edited by Sabrar on Thu Sep 15, 2016 10:56 am UTC, edited 1 time in total.
You could have won, Jim, if you'd just come clean.
Town - I'm glad you got something out of it. Pity we couldn't win together but you all tried!
Sabrar - thanks for running the game it was fun!!! Did scum know that a silversmith was in play?
Town - we could have won more easily if you weren't so nice with independents!
Remind me to buy you a beverage of your choice when I'm next in Perth (we have a pretty major office there, so not as unlikely as it may seem).
You know, I was so worried that jimbob would come clean (it seemed the obvious thing to do) that I really was considering trying to fake being mafia. But I think I left it too late to pull it of convincingly.
Madge wrote: Sabrar - thanks for running the game it was fun!!! Did scum know that a silversmith was in play?
No, it was intended as a surprise to everyone.
I'm surprised I managed to work out basically what had happened and then Voted wrong anyway!
@Suzaku Watch out, I might take you up on it.
Small world though isn't it? I remember my husband was applying for a job in Sydney and I was like, hmmm, I could force Carlington to be my friend.
Then I wonder what sort of random cross section of people we must all be, hiding behind our avatars and our penchant for online games, and wonder if it could be anything other than kind of awkward.
@Jack oh how I was hoping it would end with a double mafia claim. I would have loved that. Fun!! Theatrics! Stuff happening!!! I've had a lot more fun ever since I started thinking of mafia games as a sort of performance, and I'm glad that the end of this story had town winning despite almost throwing the game away by helping me. It's a good ending that I returned the favour.
Quick question, did I actually get people to suspect I was anti town or was I only a safe lynch to give Madge a chance to guess?
matt96 wrote: Quick question, did I actually get people to suspect I was anti town or was I only a safe lynch to give Madge a chance to guess?
Bah, so close. I was too nervous about Madge siding with town as soon as scum claimed, due to her previous claims that she would help town even if she lost. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten Madge's love of theatrics! I think that was my first time in a final day LYLO shoot-out, and I honestly don't know what I'd do next time in a Kingmaker situation.
I was a little upset to have my win condition swapped out from me at such a late stage of the game. I could have bought it if I'd known it might happen, but it felt like I'd done so much hard work earlier on, only to have it all completely negated. That being said, I reckon the only thing I'd have done differently if I'd known I was a silversmith was to not go with the preserve adnapemit plan to help Madge D5, probably claiming to illustrate it as well. But that would have probably cost me the next day, if nobody else believed me. I was also surprised that my roleblock couldn't block adnapemit killing me, as I think that's a little non-standard. I think if win-condition changing effects are in play, they should either be clear to the player who is going to be affected, or it should be under the control of a faction, like a cult, probably with some kind of restriction. Otherwise, bastardry seemed reasonable.
Still, the game was fun, and I enjoyed trying to grasp victory from the jaws of defeat.
Madge wrote: @Suzaku Watch out, I might take you up on it.
It was entirely serious and I intend to make good on it.
I have to admit that I had a bit of a hard time getting into this game. With a slow-burn power (and a bit of a history of bowing out early) and quite a lot of time at the beginning ending up devoted to "how-to-break-the-game" questions for Madge I was about ready to pack it in at one point.
Very glad I didn't though. The last couple of days were awesome fun. Thank you Sabrar.
- Having a Vengeful Sibling be a Silversmith on top of that is a logistical nightmare that I don't want to handle.
- Mediator is a strong role, especially so that it didn't contain the usual 'cannot target the same player twice in a row' restriction, therefore I didn't think that being useless against the Silversmith scenario would be that much an issue. It is non-standard for sure though and I can understand if jimbob is a bit upset about it.
- In retrospect it would have been better if I'd have allowed SirGabriel to claim the Usurper part of his role but I thought it would be more fun this way. I'll know better next time.
jimbobmacdoodle wrote: I enjoyed trying to grasp victory from the jaws of defeat.
Perhaps. As it was I had a chance of winning if I could convince town to lynch dimochka D1, but if I had revealed I was Usurper, it would be difficult for me to win without publicly forming a scum/independent alliance (which could have worked perfectly in this particular setup, although I had no way of knowing that). I think it would have been better just to not have an Usurper at all, given the number of powerful investigative roles in the game.
I meant claiming it for your scum-buddies, that way you could have co-operated to lynch dimochka and establish yourself as a townie (at least for a couple days that might have been enough to reach parity).
Sabrar wrote: I meant claiming it for your scum-buddies, that way you could have co-operated to lynch dimochka and establish yourself as a townie (at least for a couple days that might have been enough to reach parity).
I assumed dimochka would be opposed to that plan, apparently I was wrong.
Eh, now you know. I play to my wincon, no matter what (you can check out my last two days of play in necro-cultia to see what I mean). If my dying helps a team member get a lot of townie points, I'm perfectly fine with that. That goes for any alignment I play. What I didn't like was that I felt like you were bussing me way too much to have the same wincon (and without me understanding the reasoning behind it), and I assumed that you were therefore not mafia-aligned.
No big deal, it happens. From my end, I'll remember to consider the fact that someone might have a wincon similar to yours and take that into account when I'm deciding how to respond. Still a fun game, especially the twist in the end with Jimbob. I guess we weren't as weak as I thought we were. And I did say that I think we have 4 mafia; guess I wasn't totally wrong!


text:
September 29, 2008 | National Review Online
Biden's Baggage
Tiny Delaware barely registers in the Electoral College, but Barack Obama selected Joseph R. Biden Jr., the state's senior senator, as his running mate. There's one explanation: foreign-policy heft. Biden has tons. Obama has none.
Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the doyen of transnational progressives, Rolodex bursting with this chargé d'affaires and that secretary-general, bookshelves buckling under back issues of Foreign Affairs. Even in scandal, he's a man of the world: The plagiarism that derailed his 1988 presidential run found him lifting phrases from Neil Kinnock, a fixture of the British Left who steered Labour through serial drubbings. For Democrats and the Council on Foreign Relations crowd, that episode was more an overeager demonstration of good taste than a natural progression from Biden's earlier misappropriation of a law-review article, which nearly got him expelled from law school. Democrats savor the thought of their Joe lecturing a jejune Alaskan hockey mom on the finer points of ententes cordiales when the candidates debate next month.
But if Iraq is the topic, a more interesting debate would pit Biden against . . . Biden. By comparison, John Kerry is a paragon of consistency: Biden was not merely for the Iraq War before he was against it; he was also against it before he was for it.
As President George H. W. Bush launched the 1991 Gulf War to drive Saddam Hussein's marauding army out of Kuwait, Biden argued passionately against doing so — a position he later admitted was a mistake. He subsequently morphed from Iraq dove to Iraq hawk, a transformation that happened to coincide with the election of a Democratic administration. In 1993, when Bill Clinton ordered a cruise-missile attack on an empty Iraqi intelligence headquarters in response to Saddam's assassination plot against Bush, Biden was a staunch supporter. By early 1998, the born-again hawk was imploring Clinton to take military action against Iraq. Worried about the dictator's "ability to produce the most deadly weapons known to mankind," Biden warned that, "left unchecked, Saddam Hussein would in short order be in a position to threaten and blackmail our regional allies, our troops, and, indeed, our nation."
Though he now repeats the Left's charge that the Bush administration willfully misconstrued intelligence coming out of Iraq, the Clinton-era Biden dismissed the very notion that there existed any reliable intelligence on Baghdad's arsenal. "As long as Saddam's at the helm," he inveighed during a September 1998 hearing, "there is no reasonable prospect [that] . . . any . . . inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out . . . the entirety of Saddam's [WMD] program." Along with John McCain, Biden agitated for the Iraq Liberation Act, which made seeking regime change in Baghdad the policy of the United States. And in December 1998, the Delaware Democrat strongly backed Operation Desert Fox, in which Clinton ordered four days of bombing attacks without congressional authorization or Security Council approval.
By late 2001, a Republican was in the White House and post-9/11 polls reflected public demand for robust action against terrorists and rogue states. Biden comfortably reprised his Iraq saber-rattling. Al-Qaeda's atrocities convinced him that the assurance of superpower retaliation was no longer sufficient to discourage America's enemies. It didn't matter to him that Iraq was not an imminent threat; Biden saw the economic sanctions faltering, presumed Iraq's weapons programs remained viable, and argued that U.N. resolutions should be strictly enforced. "If we wait for the danger from Saddam to become clear," he reasoned, "it could be too late."
By the summer of 2002, Biden was publicly stating that war with Iraq was a virtual certainty — tracking his 1998 assertion that "the only way we're going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we're going to end up having to start it alone . . . . It's going to require guys . . . in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking Saddam down." Countering critics of his October 2002 pro-war vote, he insisted, "I do not believe this is a rush to war. I believe it is a march to peace and security.
. . . [Saddam Hussein] possesses chemical and biological weapons and is seeking nuclear weapons." Though Biden predicted a lengthy, difficult battle, he stressed the imperative of persevering: "We must be clear with the American people that we are committing to Iraq for the long haul; not just the day after, but the decade after."
Biden hedged his bets, of course, co-sponsoring a failed resolution that would have called on the administration to exhaust all diplomatic options. Biden always favors exhausting all diplomatic options — chatter, after all, is inexhaustible, a proposition the loquacious senator often is at pains to prove. The resolution was a bid for wiggle room — take credit for success but second-guess if things get tough before that "decade after" rolls around. Still, as the March 2003 invasion neared, Biden was adamant: "The choice between war and peace is Saddam's. The choice between relevance and irrelevance is the U.N. Security Council's."
POLICY OF CONVENIENCE
For all Biden's twaddle about doctrines and concepts, there is a simple technique for divining this foreign-policy solon's bobs and weaves: Consult the polls and the calendar. His opposition to the Gulf War was an example of Democrats' post-Vietnam squeamishness about military actions abroad. His 1998 hawkishness dovetailed with growing public anger after the U.S. embassies in East Africa were bombed by bin Laden, in whose activities the Clinton administration suggested Iraq was complicit. Post-9/11, Biden was a top adviser to Senator Kerry's campaign. Convinced that Democrats could not win unless the public believed they took national security seriously, he pushed his reluctant candidate to talk tougher. Over time, Iraq became more difficult and the expected caches of WMD failed to materialize, but as long as the mission enjoyed public support, Biden maintained that Saddam had been both a long- and a short-term threat to the United States, as well as an "extreme danger to the world." Even a year after the 2004 election — which, the senator told the The New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg, the Democrats lost because voters decided Bush was strong and Kerry weak — Biden declared, "The decision to go to war was the right one." The ensuing problems, he elaborated, stemmed from the conduct of the mission, not the mission itself.
But change, we now know, was in the air. Howard Dean, who had risen from the fever swamps to the cusp of wresting the nomination from Kerry, was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Biden was eyeing a presidential run of his own. Though he scoffed that "no goddam chairman's ever made a difference in the history of the Democratic party," Biden couldn't help but appreciate the declaration of MoveOn.org's Eli Pariser: "It's our party. We bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back." He couldn't help but notice the elevation of Barack Obama. By the fortuity of not being in the Senate in 2002, Obama had been spared the need to cover himself and his party with a vote for war. As an inconsequential state legislator from an ultra-Left Chicago district, Obama could afford to oppose the invasion of Iraq. And now that opposition was gaining him traction.
The result was a one-eighty that would have been comical if the stakes hadn't been so high. The Foreign Relations chairman turned against the war with a vengeance, clinging to the bogus narrative that congressional Democrats had been gulled by the administration's "manipulation of intelligence" — intelligence Biden had reviewed himself. Biden characterized that intelligence as worthless because of Saddam's duplicity, and superfluous because "everyone in the world thought [Saddam] had [WMD]. The weapons inspectors said he had them." After years of calling for a surge in U.S. forces to quell the post-invasion insurgency, Biden bitterly opposed the surge once Bush ordered it in late 2006 — when the Democrats' presidential debates were on the horizon. At a January 2007 hearing, he thundered: "Why do we want to stop the surge? We don't agree with the mission." Of course "the mission," defeating al-Qaeda and securing Iraq for "the long haul," was the same one Biden had championed for years.
With this transformation, Biden has managed an unlikely feat: He has been just as wrong about Iraq this time around as he was in 1991. Though Biden maintained that the surge would fail ("Sending additional troops to Baghdad will place more Americans in harm's way with little prospect for success"), even Obama today grudgingly concedes it has "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."
With similar gloom, Biden predicted the 2005 Iraqi elections were "going to be ugly," marred by violence. Instead they went off smoothly. By late 2006, Biden concluded that Sunni-dominated Anbar province had "morphed into an indigenous jihadist movement" and that "no number of troops can solve the sectarian problem and we don't have enough troops to definitively deal with the jihadist threat." In reality, the jihadist movement was not indigenous and, bolstered by the surge's modest increase in U.S. forces, Anbaris rejected al-Qaeda. Anbar is now one of the war's greatest triumphs: The enemy has been vanquished and control of the province has just been turned over to the Iraqi government.
These developments underscore the folly of Biden's ballyhooed 2006 proposal for a soft partition of Iraq into a loose federation of three ethno-sectarian enclaves. Now rendered irrelevant by events, the gambit — premised on an ill-conceived understanding of Iraq's demographics and a disregard for its constitution — promised a chaotic descent into civil war, massive population displacements, and the possibility of luring Turkey and Saudi Arabia into a conflict that already includes Iran and Syria. Biden's plan did succeed, however, in uniting Iraqis: Revulsion for the proposal cut across the ethno-sectarian divide.
And now, the dénouement. Well into 2005, Biden pronounced that timetables for a U.S. withdrawal would be a "gigantic mistake." The imposition of arbitrary deadlines, Biden assured his fellow experts at the Brookings Institution, would "encourage our enemies to wait us out," cause Iraq to "degenerate quickly in the sectarian violence," and result in a debacle reminiscent of "Lebanon in 1985, and God knows where it goes from there." But — surprise! — Biden then had another epiphany. He now sees the wisdom of withdrawal timelines, such as those urged by his running mate, whom he previously dismissed as too green for the heady arena of foreign affairs.
SOVEREIGNTY DIMINISHED
Iraq is a synecdoche for Biden's career as a foreign-policy guru. He entered the Senate 35 years ago, when he was all of three years removed from Syracuse law school. In 1973 he took his place in the Watergate Congress, the most liberal and hostile to presidential power in the nation's history. Democrats enacted the War Powers Resolution over a weakened Nixon's veto, purporting to limit the commander-in-chief's authority over the armed forces; they defunded the Vietnam War effort, ensuring U.S. defeat and the carnage that followed it; and they passed the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, transferring control of foreign intelligence from the president to the courts.
Biden evolved into an internationalist of the highest order. He is probably the Senate's most ardent admirer of the United Nations, regardless of how ineptly and corruptly it performs. He has never met a multilateral treaty he didn't like, no matter how much sovereignty it surrendered. He vigorously supports the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which directs states to "modify social and cultural patterns of conduct" and installs the government as paymaster to enforce equal compensation for jobs of comparable value. He urges ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which vests children with a right to receive and impart "information and ideas of all kinds" over any "media of the child's choice" — without regard to age or parental consent. He wants the U.S. to accept the International Criminal Court, which purports to empower an independent prosecutor to bring war-crimes charges against nationals of any country — including ours — whether it has ratified the treaty or not. Like McCain, he has been a supporter of the Law of the Sea Treaty, a redistributionist scheme that creates its own mini-U.N. (the supervisory "Authority") as well as a new international legal tribunal, the rulings of which would inevitably interfere with American naval operations and national security. As for the economy-wrecking Kyoto global-warming compact, Biden thinks the U.S. must "re-engage," since "the very survival of the planet depends upon it." McCain supports a less restrictive approach based on U.S. law rather than international conventions.
Furthermore, Biden has already attempted — so far unsuccessfully — to address his running mate's shortage of legislative accomplishment by rushing Obama's proposed "Global Poverty Act" through his committee. This monstrosity of a law would require the U.S. to commit 0.7 percent of its gross national product through 2015 to foreign aid. The 0.7 percent figure is rooted in an oft-repeated and usually ignored aspiration spelled out in a 1970 U.N. General Assembly resolution; the 2015 target was set by international bureaucrats at the U.N.'s "Millennium Summit" in 2000. The effect would be to skyrocket U.S. largesse from its current annual level of about $21 billion (the world's most generous) to a whopping $85 billion. As described by U.N. adviser Jeffrey Sachs, the Millennium Project anticipates that the total transfer — $845 billion by 2015 — would have to be raised by "a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels."
PARTY VS. PRINCIPLE
Biden is first and foremost a combative partisan, but he modulates his left-wing orientation in accordance with public opinion, following the polls slavishly when exigencies like 9/11 arise.
When a Democrat is in the White House, Biden's internationalist moralism proves remarkably flexible. During the Carter administration, Biden's easy cynicism made an impression on the Soviets. When Biden traveled to Moscow in 1979 for discussions about the SALT II treaty, Vadim Zagladin, deputy head of the Central Committee's International Department, noted in a memo (later obtained by the dissident Vladimir Bukovsky) that Biden and his companion, Sen. Richard Lugar, had not raised human-rights concerns — the duo said they didn't wish "to spoil the atmosphere with problems which are bound to cause distrust in our relations." "Unofficially," Zagladin recounted, the senators "were not so much concerned with solving a problem of this or that particular citizen as with showing to the American public that they do care for 'human rights.' . . . In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely don't care for the fate of most so-called dissidents."
During the Clinton administration, suspected terrorists were periodically captured for extraordinary rendition, the FBI conducted warrantless searches for national-security purposes, and the president launched military incursions without congressional warrant or U.N. approval. Biden remained a steadfast supporter of U.S. intervention abroad. Like McCain, he not only called for arming the Bosnian Muslims but wanted U.S. ground forces to be deployed under NATO against the Serbs in Kosovo, an option opposed by most Republicans as unrelated to vital national interests and ultimately rejected by Clinton.
In contrast, Biden fights Republican administrations tooth and nail, broadly construing the ever-expanding web of statutes, regulations, court decisions, treaties, and customary international law in order to accuse his ideological adversaries of all manner of perfidy. He opposed President Reagan's anti-Communist efforts in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Angola while battling the Reagan defense buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative. That is to say, after helping ensure defeat in Vietnam, Biden risked defeat in the Cold War before courting defeat in Iraq. In the Bush administration, Biden voted with his party to block reauthorization of key Patriot Act provisions until Democrats, with an eye on the midterm elections, relented in March 2006. He opposed surveillance reform (legal authorization for U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor foreign enemies outside the U.S.) because it granted immunity to the telecommunications companies that had helped our spies eavesdrop without warrants on suspected international terrorists after 9/11.
Biden also objected to the president's 2002 withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He claimed the administration could not validly invoke the clause permitting withdrawal due to "extraordinary events," and that "no new enemy has fielded an ICBM missile, which is the only missile our national missile defense is intended to stop." Leaving aside the extraordinary events of the 9/11 attacks, the fact that North Korea and Iran were already known to be pursuing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the fact that ICBMs are not the only missiles our defense is designed to stop, it happens that the Soviet Union, the only other party to the bilateral ABM treaty, no longer exists.
THE CHECK'S IN THE MAIL, THE TEHRAN
Finally, were it not for the national spotlight on his Iraq farrago, Biden would be best known for his relentless appeasement of Iran, the world's leading sponsor of jihadist terror. Along with top members of Clinton's inner circle, Biden was in the vanguard of foreign-affairs "engagement" enthusiasts who got goo-goo eyes in 1997 when the Islamic Republic's then-president, Mohammed Khatami, proposed a "dialogue between civilizations." The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps had only recently assisted Hezbollah in bombing the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, murdering 19 members of the U.S. Air Force. And Iran was busily pursuing its nuclear aspirations. Still, as American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin recounts, Biden stubbornly pushed for cultivating Iranian "reformers" and encouraging trade and dialogue to bring the mullahs around. The European Union followed just such advice, increasing trade threefold with Iran, which promptly diverted 70 percent of the haul to its military and nuclear programs. The mullahs responded to this sensitive diplomacy by installing as their president a hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is more clearly reflective of the "Death to America" philosophy.
As the Iranians laughed all the way to the bank and continued killing Americans in Iraq, Congress voted last year to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization, a move that imposes economic sanctions. Only 22 senators opposed that designation; Biden and Obama were prominent among them. That called to mind the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. As policymakers considered potential responses to the attacks, Biden had a brainstorm. "Seems to me," he told Foreign Relations staffers, that "this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran."
Governor Palin must admit: She doesn't have the foreign-policy background to come up with something like that.
Read in National Review Online

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Exponential fit precision lost I have a data:
data = {{1504., 0.38623}, {1698.56, 1.70795}, {1855.34, 4.77922}, {1998.22,
  9.76965}, {1957.13, 7.34756}, {1924.72, 5.8017}, {1793.82,
  2.84449}, {1679.68, 1.14792}, {1604.06, 0.765434}, {1422.63,
  0.183902}, {1350.57, 0.078183}}

And I wanted to fit function
nlm = NonlinearModelFit[data, $\frac{c1}{Exp \left[\frac{c2 \left(\frac{3*10^8}{583.92*10^{-9}}\right)}{x+273.15}\right]-1}$, {c1, c2}, x]
I get warning: ...is too small to represent as a normalized machine number; precision may be lost.
How to fit this function?

A: I guess, there is simpliy a typo with 583.92 10^-9  Get good result with positive exponent
model[x_] = c1/(Exp[(c2 ((3 10^8)/(583.92 10^9)))/(x + 273.15)] - 1)

nlm = NonlinearModelFit[data, model[x], {c1, c2}, x]

Normal[nlm]

(*   1.50253*10^6/(-1 + E^(27202./(273.15+ x)))   *)

Plot[Normal[nlm], {x, 1300, 2000}, Epilog -> Point@data]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The reinforcement of Western countries' borders, the transfer of the control of these frontiers to other nations, the rapid mutations of the societies of sending countries, transforming the conditions of migration : new flows, new profiles, new projects, new issues, new risks involved, which policies coproduced by governments try to influence, provoking unexpected itineraries as a result.
This research theme questions the recompositions produced by these modifications of national and international migration flows in processes linked to the life cycle, employment, the transmission of knowledge, social hierarchies and political mobilizations. It involves the working conditions of migrants and the circulation of elites in a context of globalized economies and learning, even as migratory careers are more and more diversified. It puts into perspective the constraints which governments who control movement place upon migratory practices, as well as on strategies constructed locally by migrants. It also aims to study the transformation of sending and receiving countries through the mobility of individuals.


text:
Home / Discipline e prodotti / Urologia / Banca dati bibliografica / blog / Banca dati bibliografica / Geng JH et al, 2015: Noncontrast computed tomography can predict the outcome of shockwave lithotripsy via accurate stone measurement and abdominal fat distribution determination.
Geng JH et al, 2015: Noncontrast computed tomography can predict the outcome of shockwave lithotripsy via accurate stone measurement and abdominal fat distribution determination.
Peter Alken
Geng JH, Tu HP, Shih PM, Shen JT, Jang MY, Wu WJ, Li CC, Chou YH, Juan YS.
Department of Urology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Department of Public Health and Environmental Medicine, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Department of Radiology, Kaohsiung Municipal Hsiao-Kang Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Urolithiasis is a common disease of the urinary system. Extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (SWL) has become one of the standard treatments for renal and ureteral stones; however, the success rates range widely and failure of stone disintegration may cause additional outlay, alternative procedures, and even complications. We used the data available from noncontrast abdominal computed tomography (NCCT) to evaluate the impact of stone parameters and abdominal fat distribution on calculus-free rates following SWL. We retrospectively reviewed 328 patients who had urinary stones and had undergone SWL from August 2012 to August 2013. All of them received pre-SWL NCCT; 1 month after SWL, radiography was arranged to evaluate the condition of the fragments. These patients were classified into stone-free group and residual stone group. Unenhanced computed tomography variables, including stone attenuation, abdominal fat area, and skin-to-stone distance (SSD) were analyzed. In all, 197 (60%) were classified as stone-free and 132 (40%) as having residual stone. The mean ages were 49.35 ± 13.22 years and 55.32 ± 13.52 years, respectively. On univariate analysis, age, stone size, stone surface area, stone attenuation, SSD, total fat area (TFA), abdominal circumference, serum creatinine, and the severity of hydronephrosis revealed statistical significance between these two groups. From multivariate logistic regression analysis, the independent parameters impacting SWL outcomes were stone size, stone attenuation, TFA, and serum creatinine. [Adjusted odds ratios and (95% confidence intervals): 9.49 (3.72-24.20), 2.25 (1.22-4.14), 2.20 (1.10-4.40), and 2.89 (1.35-6.21) respectively, all p < 0.05]. In the present study, stone size, stone attenuation, TFA and serum creatinine were four independent predictors for stone-free rates after SWL. These findings suggest that pretreatment NCCT may predict the outcomes after SWL. Consequently, we can use these predictors for selecting the optimal treatment for patients with urinary stones.
Kaohsiung J Med Sci. 2015 Jan;31(1):34-41. doi: 10.1016/j.kjms.2014.10.001. Epub 2014 Nov 6.
Peter Alken il Mercoledì, 15 Luglio 2015 09:05
In a previous study of the same group (Juan HC, Lin HY, Chou YH, Yang YH, Shih PM, Chuang SM, et al. Abdominal fat distribution on computed tomography predicts ureteric calculus fragmentation by shock wave lithotripsy. EurRadiol 2012;22:1624-30) the authors stressed that "To our knowledge, we are the first group to analyse SWL outcomes according to intra-abdominal fat areas evaluated by unenhanced CT." In that study on the prediction of stone free rates after SWL for ureteric stones the cut of values and the odds ratios for residual stones after a multivariate logistic regression were given (Tab.):
Different from the previous publication in the present study stone size, stone density, TFA and serum creatinine were independent predictors for stone-free rates after SWL. Neither the stone location nor the stone compositions are given and the data cannot easily be compared with those of the previous study. The authors do not specifically refer to their previous publication. I am not sure if "Consequently, we can use these predictors for selecting the optimal treatment for patients with urinary stones."
In a previous study of the same group (Juan HC, Lin HY, Chou YH, Yang YH, Shih PM, Chuang SM, et al. Abdominal fat distribution on computed tomography predicts ureteric calculus fragmentation by shock wave lithotripsy. EurRadiol 2012;22:1624-30) the authors stressed that "To our knowledge, we are the first group to analyse SWL outcomes according to intra-abdominal fat areas evaluated by unenhanced CT." In that study on the prediction of stone free rates after SWL for ureteric stones the cut of values and the odds ratios for residual stones after a multivariate logistic regression were given (Tab.): [img]http://storzmedical.com/images/blog/Geng_JH_20151.png[/img] Different from the previous publication in the present study stone size, stone density, TFA and serum creatinine were independent predictors for stone-free rates after SWL. Neither the stone location nor the stone compositions are given and the data cannot easily be compared with those of the previous study. The authors do not specifically refer to their previous publication. I am not sure if "Consequently, we can use these predictors for selecting the optimal treatment for patients with urinary stones."


Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband, Commander Mark Kelly founded Americans for Responsible Solutions in 2012 following the tragic shooting of the congresswoman and many others in Tucson, AZ in January 2011. In May 2013, the congresswoman's chief of staff, Ms. Pia Carusone, tapped Mike Gordon of Stout & Teague to help identify and negotiate for new headquarters space on their behalf. After a wide search across many of DC's emerging districts, ARS made the leap to Rock Creek Group's new 1426 9th Street project in the heart of D.C.'s historic Shaw neighborhood. "Though many real estate folks already know well about this hidden gem immediately east of Logan Circle, few conventional office tenants understand the areas growing amenity base and overall attraction", said Mike Gordon of Stout & Teague. "Shaw is young, vibrant, and transit oriented, very much like the ARS staff".
With the redevelopment of the Shaw Metro Station to the north, Mount Vernon-Convention Center Metro to the south, and the brand new O Street Market directly across the street, the ARS team will grow in step with the surrounding urban renewal. The high ceilings, light-filled glass partitions, and exposed brick from the original townhouse walls circa 1900, made this full floor option perfect for ARS's multi-mission platform. It can be quiet, conventional office space one day and a high octane political campaign headquarters the next. Special thanks to Russell Canard of Cresa Partners for his work representing the landlord in its efforts to welcome ARS.


Productivity has more than doubled in manufacturing in last 20 years, which is a boon for competitiveness, wages, and the rest of the economy, says Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.
Anaheim, CA – U.S. policies make it tough for manufacturing to excel and yet manufacturing continues to drive economic growth. Jeremy Leonard, economist, with Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, explained to a group of journalists and analysts on Nov. 10 that the U.S. has more manufacturing than any other country, despite higher costs and challenges in getting enough qualified engineers.
Leonard, part of the Rockwell Automation Manufacturing Perspectives program, the day before Automation Fair, said policies make it difficult for manufacturers to compete effectively. "We have to ensure offshoring happens for the right reasons, to support foreign markets. Manufacturing will grow faster than the overall U.S. economy growth." The idea that the U.S. doesn't manufacturer anything here anymore is simply false, Leonard said.
"U.S. manufacturing is the engine for growth in the global economy , and I say this over and over again," he noted. Productivity in manufacturing is growing much faster than in the rest of the economy. Productivity has more than doubled in manufacturing in last 20 years, which is a boon for competitiveness, wages, and the rest of the economy, he said.
– Research Rap: Good Economic News for Manufacturing ?
MAPI, based in Arlington, VA, was founded in 1933, as Machinery and Allied Products Institute. MAPI has more than 500 companies as members, including Rockwell Automation. MAPI efforts include a quarterly economic forecast, released Nov. 10. Also in November is an annual update of the organization's five year forecast. U.S. GDP at 3.5% for the third quarter, benefited from the stimulus package and the cash for clunkers program, Leonard said. Next two quarters will deliver anemic growth, perhaps 1%, he predicted.
Consumption spending continues to be hammered because of the housing bust and very weak labor markets, plus, unemployment was above 10% last month, Leonard said. In 2010 we're looking at 0.5% growth. Why? Capacity utilization has plummeted to lows unseen since the Great Depression and that has to be filled before additional capacity is built, Leonard explained. Unemployment will remain at double digits through 2010, as companies seek a more firm confirmation of economic recovery, he predicted. Until then, they're likely to be conservative with spending.
Leonard expressed no immediate concerns about inflation, saying he expects to see the U.S. Federal Reserve move interest rates higher toward end of 2010.
Of U.S. R&D investment, 70% goes to manufacturing, and it's paid off with manufacturing holding 90% of U.S. patents, Leonard said. Manufacturing needs protection, since each $1 investment in manufacturing returns $1.37 in economic growth.
Grinning a bit, Leonard suggested that services cannot provide the economic benefits of manufacturing: "I don't know who said it, but it's true that we cannot add value to the U.S. economy by people giving themselves haircuts."
Manufacturing production has increased over the past last 20 years. While the share of overall U.S. employees in manufacturing has decreased, the volume of what's manufactured has increased. More is being produced with fewer resources, which liberates resources for growth in others areas. I don't think the information industry would exist if manufacturers weren't producing more for less.
Concerns for U.S. manufacturing include high structural costs compared to trading partners, comprised of high corporate tax rates, health care costs, tort liability costs, and high cost of regulatory compliance. There's a skilled labor shortage and the skills gap is projected to increase as the numbers of engineering degrees is down 20% since the mid-1980s. More troubling, 40% of ninth graders will lack skills for tomorrow's manufacturing jobs.
Investment in R&D: 70% of R&D done by business depends on applied research done in federal labs, Leonard said.
What needs to be done? Multinationals should be able to locate jobs outside of U.S. to serve local businesses more cost effectively, but not only to send the goods back to the U.S. for sale, Leonard said, calling on policymakers and politicians to work with business leaders to make the U.S. business environment more efficient and friendly.


text:
In her striking debut feature film, Mia Hansen-Løve uses a minimalist style and a hand-held camera to tell an intimate story of missed opportunities and new beginnings. Pamela, a young woman living in Paris, attempts to reconnect with her father, a recovered drug user whose substance abuse led to the dissolution of the family.
Pamela grows up in Austria, with her mother Anette and her father Victor, a French writer with a growing drug use problem. Her parents struggle with their relationship. They do not even speak to each other in the same language - she is Austrian, he is French. Victor's drug abuse is in full swing when Anette takes her daughter with her and moves to Paris. Eleven years later, Pamela, now a young woman, decides to contact her father again, against her mother's wishes.
All Is Forgiven is a Mia Hansen-Løve's ambitious feature film debut, which immediately attracted attention and was selected as part of the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2007. The film is a testimony to the director's mature tackling of topics that still traverse her filmography: family relationships, the persistence of memories and the effects of time, and the possibility of love with and despite trauma.
Mia Hansen-Løve is a French director and screenwriter born in 1981. She started her career as an actress, before going behind the camera for several short films. She directed her feature debut, All is Forgiven, in 2007, which was nominated at Cannes. She went on to direct several award-winning films, such as Father of My Children (2009) and Things to Come (2016).
2016 L'Avenir / Things to Come
2014 Eden
2009 Le Père de Mes Enfants / Father of My Children
2007 Tout est pardonné / All is Forgiven
2005 Contre-coup (Kortfilm)
Tuesday 18. january
Verdensteatret
Friday 21. january
Programme: Retrospective: Mia Hansen-Løve
Original title: Tout est pardonné
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Run time: 1h 45m
Screenplay: Mia Hansen-Løve
Photo: Pascal Auffray
Cast: Paul Blain, Marie-Christine Friedrich, Victoire Rousseau, Constance Rousseau
Dialogue: French
Producer: Philippe Martin, David Thion


These free Energy Medicine appointments includes Reiki and/or Pranic Healing. Appointments are for 60 minutes, including time for consultation with the student practitioner. Clients are encouraged to sign up for more than one appointment since the most benefit comes from a series of regular visits.
Call (314) 647 - 8080 to find the time that works for you.
Oscar, a graduate of the 2017 Energy Medicine Master Track performs energy medicine on a mother with her child.
Like any professional clinic, clients will fill out a confidential health form. Since it is an educational clinic, clients will also be asked to leave their feedback on a questionnaire after the appointment, to help students improve their practice.
We look forward to sharing the sense of calm and love that so many people experience from energy medicine!


Srinagar: Surgeons at the Government District Hospital, Anantnag are reported to have removed a 14.4 kg ovarian cyst from the body of a 19 year old girl who was brought to the emergency of the hospital. The cyst, with the shape of a huge football was overlaping with the other organs inside the uterus.
Ironically, the patient and the family had no inkling about the huge mass inside her abdomen reports DNA. The patient had been suffering congenital heart disease and visual impairment, and battling with symptoms of above including breathlessness, would mostly ignoring her general stomach pains.
On complaint of regular stomach ache, she went to a private doctor who diagnosed the cyst and adviced operation. However, due to un-affordability, the patient and the family did not follow up, till one day she had to be rushed to the government hospital with complaints on intense abdominal pain.
"The patient was admitted with abdominal distention and pain. Ultrasonography showed a huge cyst. A Contrast Enhanced Computerized Tomography (CECT) scan was conducted which revealed that the huge ovarian cyst was occupying the whole abdomen, pelvis, pushing diaphragm, and heart superiority," Dr Azad Malik, Consultant Surgeon, Government District Hospital, Anantnag, who conducted the surgery, told DNA.
During the 45-minute procedure, a football sized cyst was removed from her abdominal uterine cavity on January 19. "The cyst we removed weighed 14.4 kilogram. The patient was transfused two units of blood. She is better now and we resumed orals on Saturday," said Dr Malik.
Owing to her existing condition of CHD , the patient was operated along with the involvement of a Cardiologist. "Due to her heart condition, she developed breathlessness. A cardiologist intervention was also provided. Later, she was shifted to Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences for cardiology consultation. Doctors have reported that she is fine know and will be discharged in a couple of days", said Dr Malik.


Moving into a new home is an exciting time, although it does require some planning in advance. This is especially true for new homebuyers who are also pet owners. Luckily, moving into a new home with your dog doesn't have to be stressful. If you're a new homeowner with a dog, there are several things you can do to make your moving day run as smoothly as possible - for yourself as well as your four-legged friend.
If you're moving into your first home, there are a few things you'll need to take care of in your current home before you leave. For instance, you'll want to make sure the home is clean and repair any damages so you can recover your deposit money.
When it comes to moving into your new home, you'll want to take a few precautions in order to keep stress and anxiety levels at a minimum for yourself, as well as any two-legged or four-legged family members. Sometimes, this might involve leaving your moving day to the professionals.
First, you might consider boarding your dog for the day or hiring a professional dog walker. This keeps your dog safe and occupied during your move. Hiring one of Fresno's many professional moving crews can be another way to reduce your stress level and ensure a successful moving day.
1) Let them know you have a dog. Ideally, you should tell your movers about your dog ahead of time so there are no surprises on moving day. Talk to them in advance about how to properly and safely interact with your dog, especially if your dog is prone to running away or is known to be temperamental around strangers.
2) Be aware of the moving policies. Do any of these policies involve dogs? Will you need to have proof that your pet has been vaccinated? What are their policies over damages or injuries? If this is a long-distance move, you'll need to stop and let your dog out for potty breaks and exercise at regular intervals. What (if any) policies does your moving crew have on these pit stops during the drive?
3) Plan ahead. For the safety of everyone involved - including your beloved pet - plan on keeping your dog in a separate room while the moving crew is at your home. That will be safer and less stressful for your dog while also allowing the moving crew to work.
4) Pick the right time to move. Consider day of the week, time of day, rush hour, any holidays, work and school schedules, and other variables that can have an impact on how successful (or stressful) your moving day becomes.
For instance, don't move at 9 a.m. in Fresno; this is the busiest time of day to move, according to HireAHelper. Because rush hour and traffic concerns can create unnecessary stress on your moving day, you might consider moving at a different time of day. If you have a large home with lots of belongings, you'll also want to plan for more hours and a buffer window to allow yourself and your moving crew plenty of time to safely transport all your beloved possessions.
The more you plan ahead, the less stressful your moving day will be. Once the move is over, you'll be ready to unpack and start settling into your new home.
To help your dog settle in, don't wash his or her blankets and bedding, as tempting as that might be. Having familiar scents from your previous home will help your dog feel at ease in his or her new surroundings. By planning ahead for your dog's comfort, you can help reduce the amount of time it will take to him or her to adjust to your new surroundings.


All Comments to Corbin 39 Owners Group's Photos | Fotki.com, photo and video sharing made easy.
Tangaroa will soon, once again, taste the waters of the Pacific . I wish you safe, long and happy cruising aboard Tangaroa.
not sure how to get in touch. boat is in Vallejo California. and at marina. contact harbormaster for contact info with owner. Vallejo ca. municipal docks.
original owner took boat up to Alaska on way back from new Zealand. boat is currently for sale and is at Vallejo marina. California. price is now 55k and new owner has upgraded the essentials. rig. sales. engine. same interior needs an update. email mailto: for info .
I would llike to list boat for sale 55k and enter my email address so people can contact me direct. brokers are not good here. vince.


text:
Carex longii är en halvgräsart som beskrevs av Kenneth Kent Mackenzie. Carex longii ingår i släktet starrar, och familjen halvgräs.

Underarter

Arten delas in i följande underarter:

 C. l. longii
 C. l. meridionalis

Bildgalleri

Källor

Externa länkar

Starrar
longii

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month, but we evaluate and educate our patients every month of the year. Treatments for glaucoma in the U.S. are primarily eye drops, laser or occasional surgery. The CyPass Micro-Stent is a new surgical option that shows great promise and may make us reevaluate the order of our prescribed glaucoma therapies. See below for more information. Enjoy!
Our surgeon, Dr. Aaron Porter, is now performing the CyPass Micro-Stent which is a new development in the treatment of glaucoma. This surgical procedure is performed during cataract surgery and is used for the treatment of Primary Open Angle Glaucoma. Patients with glaucoma may suffer from increased eye pressure which can cause vision loss.
The CyPass implant is placed between the sclera and ciliary body of the eye at the same time patients are undergoing cataract surgery. The stent is an extra step in maintaining a balanced eye pressure.
When the stent is put in place, the device allows the liquid inside the eye to drain more freely and decrease the chance of an increase in eye pressure. One of the most important tasks in managing glaucoma is to monitor eye pressure to make sure that the patients' levels are staying within a normal range.
One FDA study evaluated patients that were having cataract surgery along with the CyPass implant. Out of the 374 patients that received the implant, 73% of patients achieved lower eye pressures as opposed to the 58% that just had cataract surgery alone. Many patients are able to stop using their eye drops. The biggest advantage of the procedure is recovery time. Compared to the standard glaucoma procedure which has a recovery time of roughly three months, this surgery has a recovery time of just a few days. As a glaucoma patient or someone who has an interest in glaucoma, click here to email our Glaucoma Clinical Health Coordinator, Katie, for any questions.


I never had an opportunity to meet Steve Ditko. His art and ideas in Spider-man were unique to me in the young early days of becoming acquainted with comics. The reality of his enormous creative talent and relentless ideals remained, however, elusive to me until some time after I'd traversed the first few years of my comics career.
Ditko's ideological foundation, Rand Objectivism, filtered through the human condition, will always have a subjective tint to its ethical stance. It quickly became a political player, yet failed to satisfy a preferred outcome in the face of what also might be a subjective concern: What happens when free-market capitalism becomes commandeered by the powerful elite, through lobbies and political manipulations, conspiring to economically enslave the working masses?.
Still, cerebral mavericks such as Ditko hold an allure that's often more powerful than that of their ideologies. The very act of defying not only a blatantly unfair system, but also the elite players who support and prop it up, projects a greater sense of a courageous independent spirit, than the often predictable voices of a conformist majority.
After the initial jolt from hearing of his passing had passed, I remembered somewhat of a common thread between us, beyond my admiration for his emotional storytelling and rejection of the merchandising of comics creators as a commodity.
Charlton Comics' Captain Atom was Steve Ditko's very first superhero creation in the early 1960's – after his celebrated work in horror and mystery genres in the 1950's. I was fortunate to contribute something small to this character in the early 90's DC iteration: Armageddon: Alien Agenda #2, where our professional paths had crossed in the periodicals.
The comics industry's reaction to Steve Ditko's departure is a resounding letter of love, admiration and respect for the creator who wouldn't be contained within the procedural and ideological limitations, that many of his peers accepted as an unchangeable reality they needed to maneuver within.
Have peace and Godspeed, Steve. Thank you for creating like a wizard and standing tall like a man.
Next Who are the New Heroes?


St. Louis is home to an impressive amount of inventive entrepreneurs, movers and shakers. Whether it's indie makers, innovative chefs or citizens propelling small businesses to succeed, their presence is felt in STL culture.
For the first time ever, ALIVE Magazine with Element Restaurant & Lounge and Climb So iLL will gather more than 50 distinguished panelists, award-winning restaurants, curated vendors and entrepreneurs under one roof to celebrate St. Louis achievement and discuss what's next.
Well Crafted is Saturday, Nov. 8, from 6-11:30pm and will be held at the Powerplant Building that houses Climb So iLL and Element. The venue is located next door to Butler's Pantry and The Palladium in Lafayette Square near Park Avenue and Truman Parkway.
Tickets can be purchased online starting at $15 or at the door starting at $20.
Hosted by Angela Ortmann (@STLWineGirl), featuring guest bartender Matt Obermark, with music by DJ Billy Brown.
Show your Well Crafted program or wristband for $5 cocktail specials from Knob Creek at Planter's House and 33 Wine Shop & Bar in Lafayette Square until last call, Nov. 8 only!
General Admission: This ticket level includes access to the event with unlimited tasting from Knob Creek, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, Four Hands, Guinness, Anheuser-Busch, Strange Donuts, Zettie's Confections, The Hive Gourmet Popcorn, Element and more.
A Little Extra VIP: This ticket includes access to the event with unlimited tasting from Knob Creek, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, Four Hands, Guinness, Anheuser-Busch, Strange Donuts, Zettie's Confections, The Hive Gourmet Popcorn, Element and more. Plus, A Little Extra VIP ticket-holders will be given a Well Crafted custom tote bag full of goodies from the vendors and sponsors as well as a dinner ticket giving you access to the buffet dinner at Element featuring Guerrilla Street Food, Mai Lee and more.
Highest Level VIP: This ticket includes access to the event with unlimited tasting from Knob Creek, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, Four Hands, Guinness, Anheuser-Busch, Strange Donuts, Zettie's Confections, The Hive Gourmet Popcorn and Element , plus a Well Crafted custom tote bag full of goodies from the vendors and sponsors. You'll also receive a dinner ticket giving you access to the buffet dinner at Element featuring Guerrilla Street Food and more. This ticket includes access to the VIP lounge with the speakers, sponsors and media guests with open bar and a free buffet style dinner. Only 20 tickets are left.
Purchase tickets for Well Crafted.


text:
6 Major Dangers of Social Media for Kids and Teens (+ What to Do About It)
She's twelve.
For the past three years, you've had her carry a simple flip phone in case of emergencies.
Now, that phone has said it's final salute and it's time to get a new one.
But she doesn't want the same one she had before.
"Lucy has an iPhone and it's awesome. Mom, it's not like I'm gonna do anything bad," she says to you in her best pleading voice, at the first hint of your arching, "I don't know about that," eyebrow.
"I'm three years older, and all the kids have smartphones now," she goes on. You now suddenly have a headache and are hit with the realization that this whole parenting thing just got a whole lot harder.
Have you ever been in this situation? If you have children, you will eventually.
According to the most recent research, a child gets their first smartphone at 10.3 years old while 50% of children have their first social media account by age 12.
A bit scary to think about, isn't it?
Of course, by no means are you required to give them a smartphone at such a young age. However, you also can't stave off the world of social media from your teen forever.
Eventually, they'll be introduced. So, it's better you do it on your terms.
But first, is there just a lot of hype surrounding social media's real impact on kids? Is it ultimately bad or good?
Is social media bad or good?
It's true that smartphones themselves aren't fundamentally good or bad.
They give us all kinds of useful functionality and quality-of-life improvements while also being the carrier of some things that can be harmful to our mental health.
So long as you properly manage your use, you can take advantage of the positives while effectively managing the negatives.
Of course, it's not quite so simple as that.
In her film, Screenagers, filmmaker, mother, and Stanford-trained physician Dr. Delaney Ruston digs into the issue of modern tech use in children and teens and its effects on families.
We won't spoil the film, but suffice it to say that frequent Internet consumption is affecting kids in a big way, and social media is a large part of that.
Check out episode 28 of the TFM podcast, where Robert talks with Dr. Delaney Ruston about the effects of heavy screen use on teens:
Ep28: Dr. Delaney Ruston, Physician-Turned-Filmmaker Behind Screenagers
Educators, Parents, Students
The dangers of social media are real
In Cox Communications's recent Teen Internet Safety Survey, they found that the average teen spends nearly 6 hours online each day with 92% of those being social media users.
They also found that as a result of that frequent Internet and social media use:
1-in-4 Teens have been the victim of cyberbullying via social
Half (50%) of teens have witnessed cyberbullying
And more parents are taking steps to manage their teen's Internet use, roughly half of teens admit taking steps to hide their online behavior from parents
Clearly, social media has its benefits. It can:
Connect us in ways we never could
It provides a safe gateway for more introverted personalities to practice being social (though isn't a healthy long-term replacement for face-to-face contact)
It can keep us informed of the world's events and gives the average more of a voice than in the past, and
Allow us to follow the things and people that interest us
However, the dangers of social media for teens are arguably much more compelling, and only now are we truly beginning to understand what they are.
6 Dangers of Social Media for Kids and Teens
Without a doubt, if you're a parent, you need to take steps to help your kids develop healthy habits with technology like smartphones, social, and the Internet in general.
But social media stands as a much more immediate and pressing challenge to our kid's well-being for several reasons.
That's why in this guide, we'll be covering everything you need to know about overcoming the dangers of social media to teens, including…
The 6 dangers of social media for kids and teens:
Social comparison
Reduced attention
Personal data-stealing and abusing of information
Cyber-bullying
Set up a tech contract
Teach them self-love
Empower their own sense of competency
Additional resources on managing tech use in kids and teens
First, let's talk about the major dangers of social media for kids and teens. After we dive into that, we'll talk about what you can do about it.
1. Addiction
According to a recent study published in scientific journal ScienceDirect, over 210 million people around the world suffer from Internet and social media addictions.
One of the greatest dangers of social media inherent in itself is addiction. According to Shirley Cramer, Chief Executive of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) in the UK, "Social media has been described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol."
"[Social media] is now so entrenched in the lives of young people that it is no longer possible to ignore it when talking about young people's mental health issues.," Cramer says.
Both cigarette and alcohol addictions are much more chemical than psychological like social media, even hereditary in the case of alcoholism, so we don't want to draw that comparison too closely.
However, just speaking of them in the same breath is enough to paint a very clear picture of what we're dealing with.
Addiction is a dangerous downhill slope that can affect virtually everything.
In teens, social media addiction can affect their academic performance, family relationships, and even physical health. It can even double depressive symptoms in teens that spend more than 5 hours a day on their smartphone.
Part of the problem in terms of both smartphone and social media addiction is the way software/apps are being designed to trigger us.
We talked about this recently with Indistractable author Nir Eyal on episode 35 of the TFM podcast, which you can listen to here:
Ep35: Nir Eyal, Author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
Once you've checked that out, learn more about tackling tech addition in teens with episode 52 of the TFM podcast, where we interview Michael Jacobus, founder of Reset Summer Camp:
Finally, take that new knowledge and apply it with Nick Wolny's practical tips for dealing with smartphone addiction in episode 48 of the TFM podcast:
48. The Four Protocols to curb your smartphone addiction with Nick Wolny
2. Social comparison (and the self-hatred that comes with it)
One of the most oft-cited dangers of social media is the way it creates a breeding ground for social comparison.
Several studies such as this one from PsycNET have found that regular social use causes social comparisons that lead to reduced self-esteem.
And a survey by the RSPH asked 1,500 teens to track their moods while using the five most popular social media platforms. Instagram and Snapchat were at the top of the list, with teens reporting the platforms often making them feel inadequate, anxious, and self-hatred.
Social media creates a kind of comparison trap for teens, who often see their peers or the glittering lives of Instagram influencers fill their feed with unrealistic notions about everything from their beauty to intelligence, talent, and success.
Influence and social media
Users are often pressured themselves to keep up a perfect front to impress their followers, having become addicted to the validation of others.
This happens partly due to the structure of social media offering only snapshots or moments in someone's life. And, understandably, that the average person only ever wants to post about the good things in their life.
The problem is, from the outside in, this makes the person's life look perfect and yours comparatively sad and inadequate.
Some brave social media influencers have come out to shed a light on the nature of social media and influence in general, posting unedited pics of themselves or writing about what their life is really like.
However, those stories are few and far between.
Teens often see the accomplishments of others on social media whom they envy and immediately look at themselves and feel like they're not enough.
This can cause bitterness, hatred, and for those teens to often seek validation more aggressively than before, posting pics of their own body or trying too hard to make themselves look good in front of others on social.
But the validation teens get from that is never great enough to stop those comparisons, so they continue to look to others and feel more and more self-hatred, often spiraling into depressive symptoms.
3. Reduced attention
One of the more direct dangers of social media, studies have found that frequent social use can increase instances of multi-tasking.
That might not sound like a big deal, until you realize what that frequent multi-tasking does to us.
The more you multitask, the more your performance on any individual task declines and the harder it becomes to focus on any one thing. The challenging part about it is, the more we multitask, the more productive the brain feels (though the less productive it actually is).
To learn more about this, check out our recent episode (41) of the TFM podcast with Laurie Wolk, author of Girls Just Wanna Have Likes: How to Raise Confident Girls in the Face of Social Media Madness, where Robert talks with Laurie about how social media affects teen attention and confidence:
Educators, Parents
4. Personal data-stealing and abusing of information
This is a danger not often talked about, though in some ways it can be a bit more disturbing.
Social media acts as a playground for predators, both predators of teens and identity.
Having a public profile on social immediately invites your child to:
Be harassed by classmates
Receive messages from strangers
Have their basic information stolen
However, even a public profile isn't actually private, so make sure to take time to explain to your kids that it's not as easy as hitting "private" in their social apps and calling it a day.
"Private" isn't private enough
Identity thieves are smart.
They know that a lot of people pick simple things like their dog's name for their password, so they pay attention to little details your teen reveals without realizing it to steal logins and even their identity.
In addition to identity and information thieves, teens need to be made aware of predators.
It's a misconception that they would show up outside your child's school and stalk them or try to convince them to jump in their car. Instead, they use persuasion to convince your teen to go to them to avoid trouble.
Let them know that it's unsafe to talk with anyone online that they don't already have a face-to-face relationship with. Also, inform them of how predators typically operate so they can spot the behavior.
Oversharing
Then there's posting.
It's easy to get caught up in the moment and post something that you regret later and could put you in an embarrassing position.
Child trafficking human rights organization Love146 recommends that teens ask two questions before posting online:
"Is this something I would say or do face-to-face?" and;
"Would I be OK with this photo/quote of mine being posting in the school hallways?"
Anything your kids post online can be used against them, especially in cases of cyberbullying, so make sure they're exercising reason before posting.
More on how to share more mindfully on social in episode 66 of the TFM podcast with Amy Giddon:
66: Engage in the Collective Experience of Expression with Amy Giddon
How to stop oversharing personal data on social in episode 60 of the TFM podcast with David Ryan Polgar:
60. How to Stop Oversharing Personal Data with David Ryan Polgar
And how to draw the line on what to share on social with Rachel and Kyle Wright (episode 49):
49. Where to draw the line on what to share on social media with Rachel & Kyle Wright
5. Cyber-bullying
Cyber-bullying is one of the greatest concerns of parents, and for good reason.
As we talked about earlier, half of all teens have witnessed cyber-bullying and a quarter have been cyber-bullied before. And still other studies have found that as many as 59% of teens have been cyber-bullied.
Cyber-bullying attacks at the heart of what makes being a teen so difficult. When you're young, you're building up your self-esteem and finding yourself.
When your own peers attack you, that can have a huge impact on how you feel about yourself, sometimes resulting in self-harm, panic attacks, or even suicide in extreme cases.
This is where you may decide that monitoring social media is a necessary evil, as it's difficult to be certain of what your child is being exposed to online otherwise.
However, here are some other things you can do to aid in catching cyber-bullying in its tracks:
Notice changes in your child's mood, especially just after their social use
As well as changes in your child's sleep quality and demeanor, such as visible anxiousness, nervousness, or reluctance to go to school
Remind your child regularly that you love and support them, and make it the norm to talk about their day
And make sure they know what cyber-bullying looks like. Show them examples online and make sure they know how to recognize cyber-bullying if they see it.
6. Social isolation
A final short but important point is what frequent social media use does to teens and their close- especially family– relationships.
A study published in American Journal of Preventative Medicine (AJPM) found, "Young adults with high SMU [social media use] seem to feel more socially isolated than their counterparts with lower SMU."
It's a curious thing, that we're connecting in one way more than we ever have before. And, yet, many teens, as well as adults, feel socially isolated as a result of our new digital social world.
A lack of close relationships, both strained relationships with parents and feeling isolated from your peers, can lead to a myriad of negative effects, from anxiety to depression, stress, and reduced physical health.
Tech has swept through our lives at an incredible speed. So, most people are still learning how to manage their tech use and how it affects their relationships.
To learn how to recalibrate your relationships by becoming more mindful about your tech use, check out episode 68 of the TFM podcast with Marygrace and Natalie Sexton and Bethany Baker:
68: Recalibrate Your Relationships with A-GAP Reprieves – Marygrace Sexton, Natalie Sexton & Bethany Baker
Also for parents: how to mentor, not monitor social use in your children and reconnect with them with Teodora Pavkovic (episode 57):
57. Reconnecting with Kids in the Age of Technology with Teodora Pavkovic
What you can do about it
Your teen's use of social can and should be regulated. But it's virtually impossible to keep them off social altogether without it backfiring and pushing them away.
Instead, you want to build your child up so that they're made aware of and equipped to deal with the challenges that social media poses.
So, first, take some time to actually talk to your teen about the dangers we talked about above. Mention the statistics and how the comparison trap works.
Then, you can take these steps to help equip them with the tools they need to properly manage their tech use.
Learn more about empowering your kids to manage the challenges of tech use for themselves in episode 45 of the TFM podcast with Jenifer Joy Madden:
Ep45: Jenifer Joy Madden – Durability & The Digital Age
1. Set up a tech contract
This is one of the simplest but most important steps you can take. Preferably, the moment they start going online.
What is a tech contract? It's an agreement you establish with your child about when and how they can use their devices.
For example, you could include this in your contract… No smartphones:
When out with family
2 Hours before bed
During class
You could also limit their time on social media (as well as video games, the Internet as a whole) in general and set rules for how they can use their devices in other ways.
If you set this up early on, it will help teach them to establish boundaries and give them an example or framework for what healthy tech use looks like.
Just make sure you take adequate time explaining what the purpose of the contract is and why you're doing it (for them, it's a positive!).
For more on setting up boundaries with tech, check out this episode (55) of the TFM podcast with Caroline Castrillon:
55. It's Time to Set Boundaries with Technology with Caroline Castrillon
2. Teach them self-love
Self-love is the opposite of the self-hatred teens develop as a result of the social comparison trap.
By developing self-love, your teen will be less likely to draw those same comparisons, and when they do, they'll have much less sway over their perception of themselves.
To teach your teen how to deal with one of the most prevalent issues with regular social media use, engage your teen in one of any number of self-love practices such as:
Loving-kindness meditation, or
Regular affirmation
Really any practice here works that heightens their self-awareness and teaches them how to make friends with themselves.
It's also important they know that we all feel inadequate sometimes. It's human nature to feel like we're not enough and part of their job as a human being going about their life is to step beyond those intrinsic notions of inadequacy to realize that they are and have always been enough.
3. Empower their own sense of competency
As part of the comparison trap, teens often see their peers or others such as certain influencers with the car they want, the house, money, clothes, or success and feel like they're not smart enough or good enough to do what they've done.
It's your job as their parent to not only tell them they're amazing and talented and worthy but, to build them up so that they see it themselves.
Neuroscientist Ron Dahl told Greater Good in a recent interview that our self-worth is shaped more by our own experiences than what people tell us.
Instead of always telling them they're great, then they go to school and get a C on their math test, show them what they can do.
One of the best ways to do that is to help them obtain what are called "mastery curve experiences".
A mastery curve is when you work at something, struggle (even fail), then get better over time:
"A mastery curve creates one of the most solid supports for adolescents," Dahl says. "And it's rewarding, too. It's part of the reason why kids who won't spend three hours a day doing anything else will spend 14 hours a day playing video games."
By encouraging mastery curve experiences, you're reinforcing moments where they can show themselves that they're strong, smart, resourceful, and capable. So, instead of you always trying to tell them, they know it themselves deep down.
While there are several real dangers of social media use we need to proactively help our kids navigate, there are several things you can do to manage those challenges and help them cultivate a healthier relationship with the Internet, social media, and their devices in general.
To learn more about how to manage tech use and how it's affecting kids, check out these additional resources:
How to Help Teens Build Their Self-Worth
The Troubling Effects of Parents' Screen Use on Children – And What To Do About It
3 Lessons from Nir Eyal on Building Positive Habits with Technology
24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week
20 Apps To Help Stressed Parents Find Balance
How to Improve Focus: A Comprehensive Guide to Improving Focus in Work and Life
And to get more resources for helping you manage you and your kid's tech use, join the TFM community email list, you'll get our free guide on managing tech use and finding balance with simple mindfulness techniques as a gift:
Learn how to manage tech use, reduce stress, and find balance with our free PDF guide on simple mindfulness techniques.


Zee Cinema has unveiled its new brand philosophy, 'Jazba hai jeene mein, jab cinema hai seene mein', which captures the emotion of achieving the unachievable. Zee Cinema's brand positioning 'Seene mein cinema' is aimed at inspiring every Indian to make the most of everything that life has to offer.
Zee Cinema brings magical stories that inspire millions of Indians to pursue their dreams and live the lives they always desired, 'Cinema size'. The channel released a brand film during the Zee Cine Awards 2019, which reflects the new philosophy and positioning, accentuating the essence of inspiration and motivation.
With the brand repositioning, the channel intends to cement its position as a thought leader and a distinct channel that has a strong emotional connect with its viewers. While Zee Cinema has always been a 'Champion of Cinema', the channel now wants to consolidate its position as a 'Champion of Culture'. Zee Cinema boasts of a wide range of inspiring movies like Simmba, Uri, Manikarnika, Zero, Dangal, Raazi, Satyamev Jayate, Secret Superstar, Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, Parmanu, Padman, among others.
The never-say-die attitude of Indians and their zeal to dream and conquer has been the inspiration behind Zee Cinema's new brand positioning.
Zee Cinema's brand film highlights the channel's new positioning 'Seene mein cinema' with a light-hearted take on life's struggles. The film opens in a doctor's cabin, where a man learns about being diagnosed with cancer. Right from the moment the news is broken to the patient, to the moment where his family throws a party to celebrate his life; the man draws encouragement from cinema to overcome the hurdles and live life to the fullest. The man, who is a die-hard Bollywood fan, exemplifies the channel's positioning of 'Jazba hai jeene mein, jab cinema hai seene mein'.


NEW DELHI, Sept 7: HCL Technologies on Friday named Prateek Aggarwal as the company's new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) with effect from October 1, 2018.
"The company constituted a committee of the Board to review internal and external candidates and selected Aggarwal as a successor to Chanana," the statement said.
Next articleWinners of Inter-School Chess Championship posing along with dignitaries and officials.


text:
Q: ASP.NET WebMethod holding threadpool thread on long running SQL procedure I have a reporting page which builds a report from a database table. The report is displayed in a tabular format. To handle user interactions I have built a JQuery table plugin which allows a user to customize their report with custom sorting, filtering and paging.
The JQuery plugin uses a set of ajax requests to populate the table with data. These ajax requests call asp.net (c#) webMethods which in-turn uses a set of classes to build SQL and execute the Query. The Queries built are run in the same thread as the WebMethod this causes a problem because the SQL can take in excess of 30 seconds to return. I have been reading about starting new threads and the asynchronous approach. My problem is I obviously don't want to hold a thread from the ASP.NET pool for the entire execution of the SQL as it is only waiting for I/O.
Is it possible to return the thread to the threadpool while waiting for the response from the SQL Server? Can this be achieved using the Begin and End ADO.net commands?
The reason I ask is at the moment this is not a problem but as the number of users using this system increases all the threadpool serving new users will be saturated running these long queries.

A:
Can this be achieved using the Begin and End ADO.net commands?

Exactly!


text:
Five steps to defeat the Taleban and al-Qaeda
Martes, 29/Ene/2008 Amir Taheri The Guardian
In the foothills of the Hindu Kush, every season is regarded as auspicious for something. Winter is for taking a new concubine. Spring, however, is reserved for fighting. This is why as Afghans look forward to their new year, Now Ruz, on March 20, they are also preparing for an upsurge in a war that started with the overthrow of the Taleban seven years ago.
Last spring the Taleban and its al-Qaeda allies suffered serious defeats at the hands of Nato, especially British, troops. The jihadis lost two of the four provinces they controlled, including Helmand, the jewel in their crown. This spring they are determined to defend their two remaining provinces while taking the war into the rest of Afghanistan with suicide attacks.
With Afghanistan about to heat up, Pakistan is also certain to face a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks. As far as the jihadi movement is concerned, the global struggle against the "infidel" and its local allies does not stop at the Khyber Pass.
The talk in Islamist circles is that al-Qaeda neglected Afghanistan and Pakistan by focusing on Iraq, where it never had a chance of ultimate victory if only because the Shia and Kurds, who together account for 80 per cent of the population, reject the jihadi ideology.
For the jihadis, Pakistan and Afghanistan are two battlefronts in the same war. The United States, Nato and their local allies, however, still behave as if the two neighbouring battlefronts were on different planets.
Until last spring Nato spent much of its energies chasing wild geese in Kabul. The Italians were tapped to create a new police force. The Germans got the task of creating an Afghan judiciary. The British were asked to eradicate opium poppies. The French, well they agreed just to show the flag in Kabul. The Americans and Canadians did some fighting close to the border with Pakistan, supposedly hunting down the ever-elusive Osama bin Laden, but never chasing armed fugitives into Pakistani safe havens.
Remarkably, Nato seldom took the initiative in flushing the Taleban and al-Qaeda out of their strongholds. For seven years the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been marked by much posturing on all sides. The jihadis never threw in all they had into these battlefields because they hoped for victory in Iraq that would force the "infidel" out of the lands of Islam under the pressure of public opinion.
Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, did commit himself to just enough anti-terrorism to make him look indispensable and keep US dollars pouring in, but took care not to burn bridges to the jihadis. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, made the right noises but did not commit his new army, created courtesy of Nato, to a full fight against the Taleban. Rather, he kept channels open to the radical groups in the name of Pashtun ethnic solidarity. The jihadis fighting in Pakistan knew that they would not be molested once they escaped into Afghanistan. Those fighting in Afghanistan knew that, once in Pakistan, they would be safe. Presidents Karzai and Musharraf gave the impression that they hated each other more than they did the Taleban and al-Qaeda.
There were three reasons why no one wanted to fully commit to the Afghan and Pakistani battlefronts. For the Bush Administration, Iraq was always the priority. American ambivalence about these two fronts of the global War on Terror allowed Nato members to opt for posturing, not full-scale engagement.
The failure of the so-called "international community" to develop a coherent strategy in Afghanistan was another reason. Nato, the UN, the EU and various groupings of aid donors never co-ordinated their disparate efforts into a coherent policy. In some cases, these various players bid against one another, spending more resources on internal rivalries, and, at times, even undoing each other's good work than on pulling in the same direction to help to win the war.
Finally, persuaded that the US and its Nato allies were not strategically committed to the region, presidents Karzai and Musharraf tried to hedge their bets by allowing some space for the jihadis while flirting with the Khomeinist regime in Tehran. Both leaders believe that US commitment to the War on Terror is genuine only as long as George Bush is President. Since Tony Blair's departure, Britain's commitment is also seen as in doubt. "We cannot read Gordon Brown," a senior Afghan official told me recently.
For all that, the jihadis can and must be defeated in both theatres. Some urgent steps need to be taken.
President Musharraf must resist the temptation to cheat at the February 18 general election. With all parties taking part, a democratically elected government in Pakistan is possible. That would deal a serious psychological blow to the jihadis on the eve of their spring offensive.
President Karzai should take the Afghan-Pakistani security Jirgah (assembly) more seriously. It has so far held two meetings. But it must meet on a weekly basis, if necessary. "Safe havens" for terrorists must be closed in both countries.
Nato must fix a date for its members to commit the needed forces, complete with reservists, at least through 2009. It must do less politicking and more fighting by going after the terrorists rather than waiting until attacked. Nato units that think they are there to run soup kitchens could be replaced by the Salvation Army.
The various international operations should be put under one leadership, preferably Nato rather than the UN. The message must go out that the emphasis is shifting to winning the war.
The training of Afghan and Pakistani anti-terrorist units must be stepped up. So far, six units, some 12,000 men, have been trained and deployed. This is not good enough.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are not exotic faraway lands that the Western democracies can leave and forget about whenever they so wish. They are battlefields in a global war that recognises no frontiers.
Amir Taheri, an Iranian commentator and author of Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism.
MundoOriente PróximoInternacionalTerrorismo InternacionalAfganistán, Pakistán, Terrorismo yihadista
Otros artículos de Amir Taheri, de The Guardian o del 29/01/2008.
Terrorismo yihadista
Información: Usted puede enlazar esta entrada. Tanto los comentarios como los pings están cerrados. También puede compartirlo con sus amigos:
'Yihadismo' paquistaní en Barcelona | Inicio | Rebel from a bygone era