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23 March 2015 12:56 PM
The SNP and the Tories - is This the Love that Dare not Speak its Name?
Which UK party do the Scottish Nationalists most want to do well in the coming election? Might they prefer the Tories? And might the Tories, deep down, also prefer a Scottish exit from the UK to the continuing Union they claim to support? Is this the love that dare not speak its name?
Since their narrow failure to win the independence vote in September, the Nationalists have been in a very interesting position. I take the view that Gordon Brown's intervention, in the last days of the campaign, swung the result for 'No'. But the implied promise, that by staying in the Union, Scotland would even so be given almost everything short of actual independence, has led to the moral destruction of that Union. There's no doubt a vote now would go for separation.
I do not know if London's politicians could ever have made enough concessions, swiftly enough, to satisfy Scots that they were sincere about the Brown pledge. But I am sure that David Cameron's attempt to use the pledge to outmanoeuvre the Labour Party disgusted and disillusioned many of those who until then had been prepared to give the Union a chance. Any hope that the Union could survive in the long term (as long as we remain under EU sovereignty, anyway) died at that point.
Loyalist Tories (blinded to all other facts by their ridiculous refusal to grasp that their party is finished and ought to be) still have only the vaguest idea of the hatred for the Tory Party which exists in the North of England. Likewise they can barely conceive of the even greater loathing of the Tory Party which flourishes in Scotland itself. It is visceral, and not open to discussion.
Whether Mr Cameron , whom I regard as a thorough cynic, shares this blindness, I do not know. Somehow, I fear I will never get the chance to let him unburden his inner heart to me. My request for an interview with him still moulders in a drawer somewhere, long ago yellowed by time.
But, were I a cynical Tory strategist, in possession of the private polling such people see (whose results are easy to guess at) , I would be doing all in my power to manoeuvre Scotland into leaving the UK. I would never say so, because the remaining believers in my party would be outraged at such a betrayal of the Unionist principle. But I would carefully calculate my actions to achieve this end, without ever actually making it so obvious that it couldn't be denied. The feebleness of Mr Cameron's arguments for the Union before the referendum, his bad tactics in dealing with Mr Salmond, his post-referendum manoeuvres, can all be explained by incompetence or lassitude, and might actually have been caused by these things.
There's no shortage of bunglers in the Tory machine, and Mr Cameron is not actually an especially clever politician. Remember, this is the man who nearly split his party, quite needlessly, over grammar schools, who has twice reversed himself over Green policies, who did split it over same-sex marriage, who bungled the Juncker affair, who has twice reversed himself over green policies, who destroyed Libya, who embarrassed the Queen by claiming childishly to a foreign politician that she had been 'purring' over the referendum result, and who hired Andrew Coulson as a Downing Street aide against the strong advice of many.
Even so, it is wise to remember that political cynics, competent or incompetent, are distinguished by the fact that they do not have any principles. That is how they get on. Charles de Gaulle managed to fool French conservatives into thinking he would hang on to Algeria, while all along intending to pull out. He told them 'I have understood you' , and they thought he meant 'I agree with you', because that was what they wanted to think. Thus he came to power.
The Tory party's best hope of a getting a Westminster majority again is to get rid of Scotland. A UK shorn of Scotland would produce a Tory majority Parliament and so at least temporarily halt the slow but accelerating death of the Tory Party. But time is short. The core Tory vote is (literally) dying in droves as it is composed almost entirely of older voters. It is not being replaced. And as the new mass migrants become UK citizens, they are unlikely to become Tory voters. The break must happen soon if the Tory party is to regain its lost ability to govern with an absolute majority, and all the fundraising and other advantages that come with that status.
The SNP are aware of this. They play heavily on the Scottish hatred of the Tory party, and one of their most effective arguments during the referendum was to say that, if Scotland voted for independence it would never have another Tory government. Continued Tory dominance South of the Border would work for them in the post-election period , when they will work furiously to reopen the question of independence while the votes are running so strongly their way. By contrast, a Labour-dominated government in London would weaken their cause – not least Labour currently has absolutely no reason to want a Scottish exit from the Union. It still hopes to regain at least some of the votes and seats it is currently losing to the SNP. It is also quite willing to have some sort of informal arrangement with the SNP to hold power at Westminster, a deal the Tories cannot do without looking as unprincipled as they actually are. There's another aspect of this. The chances of a Labour majority government are now virtually nil, thanks to the SNP surge, so undermining the Tory 'Vote UKIP, get Red Ed' bogeyman campaign. The Tory campaign needs to re-engineer its bogeyman.
This brings me to various stories in this morning's newspapers, recounting interviews given by the SNP ex-leader Alex Salmond, over the influence his party might hold if Labour forms a government in May.
The Daily Telegraph said that words spoken by Alex Salmond, the SNP's ex-leader led to 'accusations that he would "hold Ed Miliband to ransom" '. I could not find, in the story beneath, who exactly had spoken these words, which also appeared in connection with the story in a number of other newspapers. But there was no doubt that the words actually spoken were not helpful to Labour, which is frantically trying to play down the Scottish threat, and to avoid committing itself to any kind of deal with the SNP. The impression was given that Labour is the SNP's patsy and puppet. Is it that straightforward?
What if the Tories and the SNP both ended up helping each other to get what they wanted – a Tory majority government at Westminster, and Scotland gone from the UK? A phrase from my childhood - 'accidentally on purpose' - springs to mind.
March 23, 2015 Comments (36) Categories: 'Democracy' , Cameron, David , Conservative Party (see also Useless Tories, Tories) , Conspiracy Theories , France , Labour Party , Scotland , Scottish Independence | Permalink
Alex Salmond made it plain on the Sunday Politics, he would do all he could to scupper an E.U.referendum as well as influence where HS2 started from to get his way and vote down the proposals in the Queen's speech.
Posted by: Mrs.B. | 26 March 2015 at 12:03 PM
In reply to Grant
I would like to say nice to hear from you Sid. But hiding as you do behind multiple names makes that a nonsense . As does what ever the anti Christ is in relation to whether the Marxist Salmond is ,or was whatever he thinks he is,or was.
Posted by: mikebarnes | 25 March 2015 at 06:42 PM
Roy Robinson :
The fall of the Hapsburg Empire, the Imperial Austrian Royal Family and the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War ; the one thing that saved Austria's integrity was the Roman Catholic Church. What will save Britain when it falls? The Church of England?
Posted by: Terence Courtnadge | 25 March 2015 at 05:41 PM
Mr Hitchens,
Occasionally you remind me of Bazarov from Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons', but then I remember your enduring commitment to our future. 2020 is a long way off yet; may the God of Our Lord Jesus be with us all until that time and beyond.
Posted by: Gadjo Dilo | 25 March 2015 at 05:07 PM
So, Tony Dodd, do you want to borrow it? It sounds like a handy gadget. I bet Amazon sells them and they are made in China.
PH said: "How can I urge anyone to vote when I regard the action as absurd and wrong, and probably immoral?"
Good question. One of the best things about being an expat is being removed so much from the political circus back home. It's quite refreshing. Plus I don't have to see my own country go down the drain.
of, you are pretty funny yourself. "The reason his ideological opponents think he is humourless is because he doesn't grin like a Blair tribute act when he's on television."
But then, "Knowing what he knows about the subjects he discusses on the magic lantern, he's quite right not to beam."
Indeed. I actually don't know how he holds his temper. It's too aggravating for words, for when people treat him as they do on TV it's a reflection of what they think of all the rest of us who simply believe in those things which were once considered to be normal. I would despair but it's against my religion.
Posted by: louiseyvette | 25 March 2015 at 04:40 PM
Mike Barnes "And Salmond is no nationalist, never was . A fervent Europhile with sticky fingers on the last drops of North sea Oil. Which Brussel will own anyhow ."
Salmond and Sturgeon are Church of Scotland. The Church of Scotland "disassociated" itself from the Westminster confession in 1986, that said "He (the Pope of Rome) is Antichrist, that Man of Sin and Son of Perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.".
Yet in a 2009 poll, over 51% of them still claimed to believe the office of papacy was indeed anti Christ (and therefore were anti EU).
If Salmond and Sturgeon could be shown the Scriptural evidence for this Protestant truth then they would not be so naive and be far more cautious about those Jesuits in the EU who seek to usurp sovereignty and power.
Posted by: Grant | 25 March 2015 at 02:53 PM
Thank you very much for your time, though you give me no name, rather as I anticipated. Yes, I realise I have the right not to vote, but SOMEBODY still gets in even then. No worries, I'll probably revert to my default position: vote for a person on his/her perceived personal qualities and not on a party basis, and I shall keep my choice to myself.
***PH writes. How can I urge anyone to vote when I regard the action as absurd and wrong, and probably immoral? Yes, of course somebody gets in. But the most important effect of an election may be on the future, ten or 15 years hence, A Tory-dominated government after May will not have significantly different policies from a Labour-dominated government. Indeed, they will be impossible to tell apart (except in Scotland, where different rules apply. A Tory dominated government will mean an accelerated departure of Scotland from the UK, a Labour-dominated government will delay that outcome).
But an election in 2020, in which the Tory Party is visibly finished and needs to be replaced, will be utterly different from an election in which the Tory party has survived as a significant force. It will offer possibilities of genuine change which are currently quite unavailable. A mass desertion of the Tories by patriotic British people, could change the country. Nothing else will. And, yawn, yes, if you feel for some strange reason that voting is a duty (to whom?) voting UKIP is no worse than not voting Tory. But nor is it any better.
@ PJS
I cannot see where Nationalism poses a threat were there any about . The Irish problem was always a religious one . Prodestants under the rule of the Vatican . And Salmond is no nationalist, never was . A fervent Europhile with sticky fingers on the last drops of North sea Oil. Which Brussel will own anyhow .
And I'm sure real proud Scots with real proud National feelings, will soon see the pup they have been sold. But far too late to reverse.
Britain today is very much like the dying Hapsburg Empire.We have our Franz Joseph the aged Emperor who has been around seemingly forever in the person of Queen Elizabeth the Second.Their successors even share the same name of Charles.Scotland is our equivalent of Hungary which made up the dual monarchy and the Welsh and Northern Irish could stand in for the Czechs and other Slavs.The main pillar in the edifice ruled from Vienna was Hungary.Once that went the whole structure collapsed.The England that will be left when Scotland goes is pretty much London and a hinterland that London pays for.Altogether a pretty sad state of affairs for what was once a great nation
Posted by: Roy Robinson | 25 March 2015 at 11:33 AM
A brilliant riposte, Mr Hitchens, thank you.
Posted by: Tony Dodd | 25 March 2015 at 11:32 AM
@Geoff Cavender, Peter Hitchens, anybody....
Who SHOULD we vote for in May then? I have to cast a postal ballot earlier (and with less knowledge of the current state of Britain) than most of you, and I genuinely don't know where to put my 'X'. If I hear nothing it'll be Tory. And please fob me off with nonsense about the democratic process not being all it's made out to be - we have to live in the real world and I doubt a better process can be suggested. Thanks.
***PH writes: It depends what he hopes to achieve by voting. If he wishes to legitimize (and perpetuate for the foreseeable future) the existing high-spending, hopelessly-indebted high-tax strong state, indifferent to crime and disorder, uninterested in the education of anyone but the privileged, hostile to private life and the family, suspicious of free speech, and dedicated to the erosion of national sovereignty, dedicated to the creation of a low-wage economy sustained by continuing high levels of immigration, then indeed a Tory vote will be a rational act.
For *any* other purpose, it would not be rational. As to what he should do instead, he is free not to vote,and the freedom not to vote is an important one, as it gives the people the ultimate power to deny legitimacy to political parties which have (as the Tories ought long ago to have done) lost all right to claim the allegiance of those who are their traditional voters. I don't really care how anyone votes, as long as they don't vote for the Tories. The destruction of the Tory Party is easily achievable, and is the necessary condition for any serious change for the better in our country.
Posted by: Gadjo Dilo | 25 March 2015 at 11:29 AM
Well said, louiseyvette. PH is a very funny writer. The reason his ideological opponents think he is humourless is because he doesn't grin like a Blair tribute act when he's on television. Knowing what he knows about the subjects he discusses on the magic lantern, he's quite right not to beam.
Posted by: of | 25 March 2015 at 10:37 AM
Did you see this BBC presenter interview Cameron? It was worse than North Korean propaganda TV. He started nodding in agreement with Camerons answers and we were intended to see that. I found it particularly nauseating when these two upper class snobs started nodding in agreement with each other about how everyone found Labour class warfare a red herring.
The title of this article is very funny. I did LOL.
Also very amusing were "Somehow, I fear I will never get the chance to let [Cameron] unburden his inner heart to me" and "A phrase from my childhood - 'accidentally on purpose' - springs to mind."
What a pity the Ideological opponents of Mr Hitchens think he is humourless. I imagine this is due to their own lack of humour.
Sorry to get on the religion bandwagon on this thread, but I really must object to
"Religion is a matter of faith, not of rationality or logic."
On the contrary, "Faith aids reason and reason aids faith."
Paulus M
You at least recognise the lie at the heart of SNP policies. It seems to escape most people. The so-called independence the SNP are offering is simply the substitution of direct rule from Brussels for the existing indirect rule from Brussels via Westminster.
As you write, the destruction of the UK is key to the survival of the European Project. For the third time in 100 years, an unsinkable aircraft carrier moored off the European coast has acted as the centre of resistance to European (German) hegemony. With the UK disposed of, the demoralised remnants of opposition from elsewhere in the EUSSR will be greatly weakened, if not silenced.
The laugh on the SNP and their supporters is that the EU will swallow the dismembered UK at a gulp and enforce all of the rules and regulations we have come to love, so that a disinterested continental European travelling from England to Scotland and back will see only those differences that are permitted because they are deemed to be unimportant. Still, for most SNP supporters, the chance to stick it to the English trumps all of the above.
Posted by: John Main | 24 March 2015 at 06:20 PM
Regarding the (presumably) perforative appellation "faux naif", does Mr Hitchens have a naivety detector, to determine whether it is "faux" or not?
****PH writes: Of course. Do you want to borrow it?
Posted by: Tony Dodd | 24 March 2015 at 04:45 PM
Mr Bunker,
Hello. I also consider Mr Hitchens' comments to you - "pawky", "faux-naif", "little" - rather insulting (and I imagine he might direct them in my direction too one day). For what it's worth, I've always found your comments regarding European politics informative and pertinent, coming from somebody who has lives in a different EU country and appears to have no particular axe to grind on that subject - may I call you a 'man in the street'? - if I recall correctly.
Anyway, his criticism of your comment appears to be plain wrong. You asked if Cameron made a certain promise and whether that promise still stands. You didn't ask whether the promise will ever be fulfilled. And you asked if that promise would not be an unbeatable reason for voters to vote Tory, you didn't question whether they'd be foolish to do so. Of course, if the voters all read blogs like Mr Hitchens' then it wouldn't be an unbeatable reason, because they'd start to entertain the same doubts, but I'm sure not all do. Presumably the crunch will be how many still have any trust in Cameron - I've also rather lost touch with UK politics, so I can't comment.
It is even worse than that. Now Mr Cameron has said (as I understand it) that he will not serve a third term it seems to me that the referendum question is dead and will not be held. Other commentators I have read (not Mr Hitchens) have said that Mr Cameron MUST hold a referendum or the Conservative party will get rid of him. Now Mr Cameron has said he will be gone by 2020 anyway there is nothing for him to fear to renege on yet another assurance to the electorate. Do NOT vote Conservative in May.
Posted by: Geoff Cavender | 24 March 2015 at 03:18 PM
The coming election is probably going to bore and disappoint more people than it excites or pleases. There is not much in the way of evidence to support the hope that the people of the UK have awoken to the grim circumstance in which they are now situated.
It might be true that the Conservative/LibDem coalition have made some progress towards getting the deficit under control. But they have certainly not made sufficient progress and the National Debt continues to spiral out of control.
There does not seem to have been much progress towards anything resembling stability in those parts of the world where the "intervention" by "western powers" has done so much damage. In the meantime, our "governments" in Westminster, Brussels and Washington have managed to enrage against us arguably the greatest chess playing nation on the planet.
Only now have they started to notice that Russia no longer boasts the rusty and "clapped out" military capability of pre-Putin years... but would actually be a formidable military adversary. And they do not even need to use some of their most recent technology against us directly... they can simply sell it to other people who do not like us much... like Argentina.
The surrender of sovereignty to the EU is not the big thing... it's what that says about us, our politicians and our country generally. That we have allowed the sale of so much of which British people were entitled to be rightly proud... from Bentley to Cadburys to Boots... means that we all now live in someone else's country anyway.
The young do not have the perspective of decades and have no idea of how far the UK has fallen. That is a small mercy.
Meanwhile, we continue to believe the idiotic idealism of the 1960s and imagine that our country will remain strong, viable and a "veritable bulldog" regardless of the kinds of people who inhabit it.
Whatever may or may not happen with the SNP and the alphabet soup of contemporary British politics... I fear that it is "game over" for the UK. Which means that it will also be "game over" for Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England.
Posted by: Ian | 24 March 2015 at 02:50 PM
Religion is a matter of faith, not of rationality or logic. (Example: The total illogicality of the terms 'omnipotent' and 'omniscient'.)
@ Dear ol' Mr Bunker
Hoorah!!!! We are agreed on something. Well the first part of your sentence anyway. It is true there is nothing remotely 'logical or rational' about putting your faith in something utterly invisible. Well at first anyway, but that is, I suppose, why it is 'faith' and not belief that water boils at a certain temperature or whatever.
But the 'omniscient and omnipresent' or whatever word you used... On this you are mistaken.
Great steps forward though Praise God and glory to Him in the Highest and Bless Mr Bunker (and others) for teaching me to 'dig in'.
Thank you Mr Bunker best regards
Posted by: gillian | 24 March 2015 at 12:33 PM
If anybody thinks that the Tories have any conservative instincts, put the phrase "Tories ditched policies as fast as they listed them" into a search engine.
You'll be rewarded with a 2010 article from PH's newspaper that shows the Tories were only too ready to throw overboard the vague promises that got them elected (scrapping death tax and the Human Rights Act, etc) – because they did not like those policies. They did not have to dispense with those things: the Lib Dems did not demand, for example, that inheritance tax be scrapped. Cameron's crew ditched it willingly, using the contortions of forming a pantomime horse as the reason.
Quote: "David Cameron used the coalition talks with Nick Clegg as an excuse to ditch 'daft' Tory policies he secretly wanted to get rid of all along - such as scrapping inheritance tax and getting rid of his pledge to rip up the Human Rights Act, it was claimed last night."
Yes this blog is recognising- to the regret of all Unionists- that the Union looks almost certainly over if the SNP gets the predicted landslide. The carcase of the UK is being dismembered by two jackals, the Conservatives and the SNP. It's remarkable with what glee the Tories put forth their poster of Alex Salmond with Ed Miliband in his pocket, and then how Salmond played up with his demands to support a Labour Government. For some reason the British Government is still more interested in the affairs of Ukraine.
Posted by: Andrew Pitt | 24 March 2015 at 08:42 AM
Whilst I agree with the main point of your article, in your second and third paragraphs you are far too ready to accept the Nationalist narrative. That has been the trouble with so-called Unionists these last forty years - and look where it has got us.
Posted by: PJS | 24 March 2015 at 04:14 AM
I think Alex Masssie makes a similar point about the cynical convergance of Tory and SNP interests on the Spectator website. He suggests an SNP victory plus some sort of Tory-led coalition or confidence and supply deal would suit the short-term ambitions of David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon very nicely.
Mr Cameron chose 2017 for his EU referendum ploy because, under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, in the unlikely event of there being a referendum and of it delivering a vote to leave the EU all the other nations of the EU would have to approve the UK leaving too.
Posted by: Neil Ashley | 24 March 2015 at 12:45 AM
I thank Mr Hitchens for that "pawky" response to my simple question. But Mr Hitchens errs - not for the first time. I DO read most of the articles published on this blog -that is a fact and he cannot deny it - and I also comment on many topics other than religion. (But I hardly expect him to apologize for having spoken the untruth about me.)
My question (which appears to have irritated him) was simply whether Mr Cameron's promise of a referendum still stood. The answer, if I can work it out from his lengthy and detailed 'explanation' appears to be: Yes, it is - but it's not going to happen. - Good. That is all I wanted to know. Now it's up to the voters to decide how to react to it.
Incidentally, I don't know why Mr Hitchens introduces religion into this thread,. I hope it is not his intention to start another religious discussion with me, because a) it would be tiresome and repetitive, and b) he would lose again - in a rational, logical argument, I mean. Not because I'm particularly clever or intelligent, but simply because logic and rationality are on my side. Religion is a matter of faith, not of rationality or logic. (Example: The total illogicality of the terms 'omnipotent' and 'omniscient'.)
Mr Hitchens' explained his reason for believing like this:
"I chose to believe because I prefer to live in an ordered purposeful universe , rather than in a chaotic, purposeless one." (!)
Really? So he thinks that whether the universe is orderly and purposeful or not depends on what he believes! ----- (And he now has the temerity to call MY views "faux-naif"!)
I could go on. But I won't. I would hate to spoil what I had hoped was still the "Eirenic spirit" that according to Mr Hitchens had grown up between. us I appreciate much of what he writes and am often of the same opinion. But if he wants another discussion on religion - that's fine by me.
Posted by: Mr Bunker | 23 March 2015 at 10:51 PM


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Lady Tigers take home Area 5A title
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, April 10, 2002
The Demopolis Lady Tigers took the sub-regional championship Monday night to become the Area 5A champions for the second year in a row.
The Lady Tigers hosted Bibb County in the final game of the area tournament Monday night to reel in a spectacular finish and the area title.
Starting cold in the first quarter, the Lady Tigers could not put numbers on the scoreboard.
Bibb County dominated the floor, putting 10 unanswered points on the board to Demopolis' zero.
The Lady Tigers took the heat and applied pressure late in the first and scored 11 points within two minutes of play to end the quarter ahead by a slim one point lead, 11-10.
Demopolis' high scorer Neketa Shepherd took a bad fall early in the first and left the game with an ankle injury. New head coach Tony Pittman sent in five-foot-nine sophomore Crystal Jones to sub for Shepherd.
Shepherd returned to the court in the second quarter wearing an ankle brace for support.
Pittman said he applied a new strategy Monday night to try and shut down the Bibb County scoreres.
The diamond and two apparently worked. By halftime, the Lady Tigers had tied the score 18-18 and came out in the third quarter to pull ahead with a commanding 10-point lead and never looked back.
The fourth quarter brought a little difficulty for the Lady Tigers.
Junior guard Tammy Raby was thrown out of the game after a brief altercation with a Bibb County player. Officials ruled unsportsmanlike conduct on both players and each was discharged to the bench for the remainder of the game.
With Monday night's win, the Lady Tigers now await the outcome of the Monroeville-Wilcox-Central game to see who they will play this Thursday on the Tiger home court, which will determine which team will play in the regional tournament in Mobile.
More Archive
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Freeman, Hall lead growing
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Figured I'd share a few pics from my current grow. They are gorilla glue from dinafem. I'm 2 weeks into veg now and I've had a few hiccups along the way. Ive made an attempt at mainlining and I got a bit aggressive with the bending and broke a branch that I eventually had to cut off. However the plant has made a full recovery and is looking very healthy. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is the thick leaves. Is this normal for an indica dominant pheno? I've only grown sativa dominant in the past. I've read this stain is sensitive to overfeeding so I've been keeping my ppm around 600, even a bit lower. I've also been struggling with low humidity. Even with 3 humidifiers running I'm only able to max out at 30-35% with light on. Might have something to do with that too, I'm not sure. Any ideas would be appreciated.
SSALOT looks like a little RH, or heat or light stress? What you got for all that?
My room Temps are between 25-29 Celsius lights on and 20-25 lights off. Rh is around 30 percent but if I let a humidifier run dry it can drop to 14. I have my light 36 inches from the canopy right now. I have 2 fans running to keep the heat moving as well.


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The Main Street Fairness Act needs safeguards before it should pass
Neil Stevens CTO, Daily Caller
January 23, 2012 1:49 PM ET
As Internet commerce grows, so too does the frustration of state sales tax collectors. Yet, interstate retail commerce has only grown since 1992, and the growth of Amazon.com in particular has attracted scrutiny from state politicians.
The Supreme Court decided – in 1967, and again in 1992 – that for a state to collect sales tax on sales to residents of its own state, a firm must have a physical presence there. 21 of 45 states with sales tax are in compliance with the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement, but under the Constitution such an interstate compact needs Congressional approval.
We're seeing both progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans, however, begin to agitate for a change to sales tax collection in America. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a conservative Republican and former Presidential candidate, attracted attention in his farewell address by calling for passage of H.R. 2701, the Main Street Fairness Act.
Both attempts in the House – in this Congress by John Conyers and 8 fellow Democrats, and by William Delahunt and 6 fellow Democrats in the last Congress – have not gotten far. The bill never got past subcommittee referral under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and it hasn't moved since its referral to the House Judiciary Committee July 1, 2011 under Speaker John Boehner.
Increasing pressures indicate, however, that a breakthrough seems to have been reached. There is now support among Republicans and Democrats to move forward with this plan. Republican Mike Enzi in the Senate sponsored a version of the bill that enjoys bipartisan support, in addition to the support of Republican governors Haley Barbour and Nikki Haley.
The agreement and accompanying Congressional act carry risks, though. By enacting a new interstate compact which would permit previously-disallowed taxation, we raise the tax burden on Americans shoppers and the legal compliance burden on American sellers. Even if supporters are correct that this would not be a de jure change, it would be so in practice.
Congress should seek to limit the downsides by imposing additional restrictions: limiting tax rates, applying narrow constraints on what legal burdens can be required of businesses, and requiring – rather than requesting – states protect citizens from any form of double taxation. Yes, the bill only states that it is "the sense of the Congress" that double taxation be avoided. This must be a requirement.
Our economy is weak as it is, with high unemployment and low job growth, and we cannot afford the luxury of giving states a new revenue source at the expense of growth. New revenue may make state budgeting easier – by reducing the need to make responsible tradeoffs in spending – but we must not sacrifice our greater national goals just to make anyone's job easier. We need more civilian jobs more than we need easier government jobs.
Calling something fair does not make it so. The invocation of "Fairness" in the titles of both the House and Senate bills does not make it fair to give an unelected interstate body a blank check to tax and regulate Americans within a broad mandate provided by Congress. Fairness to the people should come before fairness to businesses.
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Neil Stevens


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Tag Archives: Higher Education
Policy, Resources
Awhile ago, I mentioned India's plan to create 27,000 new colleges and universities over the next decade. Well, guess what? I was wrong. The number is now 35,600. Here's what I said a year ago about Education Minister Sibal's plan to expand India's capacity in higher education:
What does this have to do with American colleges and universities? Just as low-cost, high value service industries have migrated to India, the higher education market in the US will also start to buy more educational services there as well.
So I was immediately drawn to yesterday's Business Week article about California's intention to make a quick lunch of its seed corn by cutting university spending $1.4B and the likely effect that snack will have on job growth and tax revenue.
Particularly striking to me was VC Robert Ackerman's reaction to the massive and rapid expansion of higher education in Asia:
Right now, if I were the Chinese university system, I'd be running ads showing up on UC websites, recruiting students to universities in Beijing and Shanghai.
Now I am not a big fan of the proposition that value in higher education can be measured in dollars spent–if American institutions made better use of their budgets, then the resulting efficiencies would actually increase capacity–but there is little doubt that wholesale dismantling of universities across the country is a very bad idea.
We are shrinking university capacity at a time when India, China, Singapore and many other countries are increasing theirs. India alone will create 600 new research universities. China is increasing its capacity in research universities while the U.S. has created one new research university this century: UC Merced. Since Merced is part of the California system, its prospects are dimmer by the moment. Only a handful of new universities of any kind have been created in the U.S. since 1960, a period in which college enrollments have quadrupled.
Why is falling capacity so important? Because the worldwide market is growing, and we are systematically reducing our share of that market when economic competitors are moving in the opposite direction. I leave it as a homework exercise to determine what happens when an enterprise loses market share in a growing market.
Show me the value!
There has been a lot of discussion surrounding my post about Ephemeralization of American Universities. One of the solutions I advocate is concentrating resources where they matter most — and for most universities that is not in the first two years when increasingly commoditized, high quality content is available to replace ineffective bricks and mortar in-person classroom experiences. Many of my colleagues have argued that the classroom experience is not only pedagogically superior, it is what students value. That was an argument that always rang hollow to me. It did not match my experience and many of colleagues agreed.
But my anecdotal reporting of experiences has limitations. A new book by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa puts some weight behind the proposition that during the first two years of college students learn little. That does not mean the first two years has no value, but as the Ephemeralization pill experiment suggests, the value is much more likely to be social than academic.
Here's how Jacques Steinberg describes it in his New York Times blog:
The Choice: How Much Do College Students Learn, and Study?
By By JACQUES STEINBERG
A new book, and study, seek to take the measure of whether students generally increase their critical-thinking and writing skills once in college.
This is going to be a topic that generates a lot of heat. Behind it all is the question: why are we spending such a large part of the higher ed dollar on that part of the college experience that returns the least value?
Three Ideas
Institutions, Policy
It's one of my favorites. Tom Wolfe's June 8, 1970 New York Magazine article "Radical Chic: The Party at Lenny's" is a dazzling piece of writing that never fails to alternatively enrage and inspire as layer by painful layer the dangers of "integrating new politics with tried and true social motifs…" are laid bare. More than an essay, it's a universal metaphor.
Everyone from the Black Panther anarchists who were guests in the Bernstein house (but apparently thought that his was the BERN-STEEN residence) to Peter Duchin's wife Charay (who bubbled "I've never met a Panther before–this is a first for me!") comes away excoriated and diminished. Including Tom Wolfe.
My favorite passage is the brief exchange between Leonard Bernstein and Panther field marshal Don Cox:
"You can't blueprint the future," says Cox. "You mean you're just going to wing it?" says Lenny.
It's that way with every revolution, I suspect. Events are set in motion. If they are dangerous enough, they attract attention and sometimes even smug support from fashionistas who cannot quite believe that outcomes are uncertain. Edupunk is like that. It's an idea that sounds dangerous but somehow containable. Flying close to that flame might actually be fun.
At least that's what University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan probably had in mind when
In a bow to the "Edupunks," Sullivan explained that Virginia is incorporating student habits into its pedagogy.
"Radical Chic" came immediately to mind when she explained that a bow can be as cheap and impersonal as a $500 check at Lenny's dinner party. It's not exactly the Jeffersonian embrace that you might expect from an institution like Virginia:
"flash seminars" alert students to an edgy topic — no examples of how edgy — that will be discussed in a professor's living room. To raise the hype level, only the first 25 students who show up are allowed to participate in this non-credit-bearing activity.
A colleague of mine put an even finer point on the comparison:
"bow","hype level", professor's "living rooms", "edgy topics"– the academy domesticates the "bizarre acts" of flash behavior, clueless to its naffness.
It should come as no surprise to those of you who saw last week's announcement or have been following the plans that Richard Barke, Bill Rouse and I have for an open seminar on "Transforming Academia" at Georgia Tech's Tennenbaum Institute that that I am winding up the year thinking about big ideas in higher education.
In fact, right after Georgia Tech announced the creation of a Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U), I started getting phone calls and email. "What's the point?" one writer said. "Won't universities change over the next 40 years or so?" "What's your vision for the 21st Century?" asked one reporter. "Here's an idea that you have to look at," said a colleague. "It will change everything." The whole point of C21U is that over a hundred years, everything will change, and–from our vantage point at the start of the century–we have no way of knowing which ideas matter.
There is one thing that history teaches us: the ideas we think are important and radical and chic today have almost nothing to do with how things turn out. I thought it was fascinating that the first questions I got about C21U were the ones that Arthur Miller and Barbara Walters were asking at the Lenny's the night that Cox, Miller, and the other "funky, natural, scraggly, wild…" representatives of a new order stepped into polite society.
Would a turn-of-the-last-century gathering of influencers actually recognize the ideas that would shape higher education over the next hundred years? The New Year is an occasion for lists, so here's one: What are the three ideas that shaped higher education–for better or worse– in the 20th Century?
Why only three? After all, higher education went through massive changes from 1901 to 2000. But I would argue that these changes were consequences of three big ideas.
The University as a Factory: The first massive increase in funding for higher education came from John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. They transformed American universities, but the great philanthropists were also industrialists. They demanded that the chaos and debris of 19th century experimentation be swept away and replaced by fiscal and administrative discipline. The chaos was tamed, but the price was the creation of an institution that took in raw materials of a measurable grade and under the watchful eyes of managers and boards of directors produced graduates of a certain intellectual size and shape. Everything from standardized admissions testing, an obsession with measuring inputs, and a focus on classroom efficiencies to the layers of bureaucracy for administering an unwieldy system of accreditation stems from the demand of philanthropic foundations that universities operate with factory-like discipline.
The National Science Foundation: Before Vannevar Bush convinced Roosevelt and Truman to create a taxpayer-supported, national version of the Carnegie Foundation, sponsored research played essentially no role in university operations. Over the next sixty years, the rate of federal spending on university research rose nearly three times faster than the economy as a whole. NSF led the first explosion in federal funding, and it cause a shift in values at the nation's universities that forever coupled scholarship with sponsored research. The very idea of a research university was transformed in the process, and it soon engulfed the social sciences and the humanities in a new multi-billion dollar industry that–in addition to the elite research universities–now reaches into the thousands of regional and community colleges whose missions have expanded to include research.
The Multiversity: It was legendary University of California president Clark Kerr who observed in his 1963 lectures at Harvard that universities were no longer single communities, but had become the sometimes inconsistent homes to stakeholders who did not always share the same goals but needed to be supported and nurtured if the university in the 2oth century was to play the same national role that railroads did in the 19th century. Graduate and undergraduate education had to survive and prosper with medical and other professional schools, athletics, the arts and others. The idea of a multiversity coincided with the second great influx of money into higher education. Some say it was instrumental in the decline of the great public universities and the creeping missions of all institutions. At least in was the cause for abandoning forever the idea that money spent in the nation's colleges and universities should end up in the classroom.
Nobody would have recognized these as the great ideas of the coming decades. There would have been no Edupunk thrill in rubbing elbows with the bureaucrats who defined the "Carnegie unit " or a future MIT dean who believed that scientific talent was a national treasure. The great institutions were as likely to be state universities–which were still small and wealthy–as private colleges. Not one of the public universities on Raymond Hugh's 1925 list of top 20 research universities is at the top of the current U.S. News and World Report ranking of graduate programs. They were displaced by universities that did not even exist in 1901.
Before pulling out their checkbooks to support the new politics of higher education, radical chic party guests would have wanted to know what the plan was. Clark Kerr would have told Lenny, "You can't blueprint the future."
Lenny would have been incredulous: "You mean you're just going to wing it?"
Tip and Ring: A Parable of College Tuition
The latest economic parable explaining why tuition at American colleges and universities has risen twice as fast as health care costs is aimed at supporting an insupportable value proposition: a university education is cheap at twice the price. In my last post I talked about the danger to higher education in "clinging to myths", as MIT's John Curry put it. Justifying the high cost of a college education rests on one of those myths.
Here is the basis of the economic argument: since college costs are driven by labor intensive processes that require high degrees of skill and are resistant to technological efficiencies, we should look to the value received in other specialized service markets like health care and banking where quality demands 1-1 contact with a highly trained service provider. The conclusion is that higher ed prices have fared no worse than prices in those other markets. Some of the comments to my last post also repeated this argument.
The problem with this line of thought is that virtually none of the assumptions underlying it are true. Never mind that wholesale "mission creep" has systematically siphoned off value that should be delivered to students in the classroom in favor of dozens of other priorities. The basic underpinnings of the things-aren't-so-bad argument are simply fabricated.
Running a university is like running a business. There are denyers who dispute that claim, but the fact of the matter is that in higher education income has to balance expenses. If expenses rise, then a university president has to search for new sources of income. State subsidies are drying up. Endowment income has been shrinking. Research income does not help, and licensing income is, well, let's just say it's an unlikely source. The only source of new income is tuition, and the parable concludes by saying, "Labor costs are high, so let's get students to subsidize the increase."
There are not that many different ways to bring costs down in any business: (1) you can deskill your workforce, (2) you can find a more efficient physical plant, or (3) you can use materials better. There is no reason that a higher quality university education cannot be delivered to more people by applying one or more of these principles.
Let's take on the we-must-use-high-cost-labor assumption. Even if you are not a believer in online education, only a stunningly short-sighted point of view fails to recognize that ed tech is on a different innovation curve than classroom instruction. Compare the improvement in the educational blogging experience over the last six months with the rate of change in the classroom, where it can be argued that the last real technological innovation–one that became ubiquitous because of its obvious value–was the introduction of the chalk board in 1801.
I understand the thesis: university teaching cannot be deskilled because it is by definition undeskillable. Higher education is artisinal by its very nature. It has to be delivered by professors to individual students–or, at least, to small groups of individuals–in person. I agree with that: given the premise of an artisinal workforce, deskilling makes little sense. If we do nothing at all to change what and how we teach then what we have today is probably pretty close to the best that we can expect from the system. But I reject the premise out of hand. Which brings me to a very different way of looking at the economics of higher education: the parable of tip and ring.
Tip and ring is the technology that telephone operators used to manually switch telephone connections a hundred years ago. The tip and the ring of the plugs that operators used kept the twisted pair of copper wires in a telephone cable separated so that they could be inserted into the large patch panels of a central exchange switch.
Early studies of telephone operator efficiency by Western Electric indicated that a skilled worker at peak performance could switch up to 250 calls at one time. Everyone did the math. Given projected population growth and even the most conservative estimates for network growth, the current method of switching was going to be very expensive. Underlying labor costs would limit the extent to which Americans would have direct access to telephone communications. An investment banker in 1887, summarized the various Bell System technical memos on the subject very succinctly:
The possibilities of a private home telephone system throughout the country is out of the question. Almost the entire working population of the United States would be needed to switch cable.
Network engineers were aware of the current economic curve and a few brave souls piped up: "Well, what if we do things differently? What if we replace the human telephone operators with automated workings? Wouldn't we be able to multiply the number of switching operations per minute by many fold?" By 1918, rumors of the promise of deskilling in voice telephony reached the office of Theodore N. Vail, president of American Telephone & Telegraph:
Automated working is not adapted to our needs, any more than radiography will will ever supplant telegraphy by wires.
Human operators were eventually helped out by some technology, but it wasn't until the first crossbar switch was installed in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938 that automation began in earnest. It took a hundred years for the U.S. telephone systems to reach 700 million installed lines. In the next ten years, the number of lines doubled, while technology put voice call quality on its current growth curve. By 1986, fiber optic technology enabled Sprint to revolutionize the long distance telephone business with its "So clear you can hear a pin drop" marketing campaign. None of this would have happened if Theodore Vail had his way and the telephone business had remained dependent on a highly skilled manual workforce to switch voice calls.
So, yes: if higher education remains dependent on the tip and ring process of using an unnecessarily labor intensive system, costs will continue to rise. There are many–perhaps a majority–in higher ed circles who would repeat Vail's dictum: "Automated working is not adapted to our needs." To be more precise, they say, "Higher Education remains essentially an artisinal industry." There are others, however, who believe that fundamental change will not only bring costs down, it will bring the 1986 promise of pin drop quality to the 21st century university. And don't get me started about how wrong Vail was about mobile telephony.
Picking Daisies for American Universities
One of the commercials broadcast during the NBC Monday Night Movie on the evening of September 7, 1964 was a one-minute campaign ad for President Lyndon Johnson. It began innocently enough with a child picking daisies and ended in the horrifying nuclear catastrophe that would be the inevitable result of electing Johnson's Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater. Johnson's voice intoned: "These are the stakes!"
The Daisy Ad was broadcast only once, but it was in the view of many historians the decisive factor in Johnson's landslide victory. Goldwater was at the time a sitting two-term United State senator and the rock-solid leader of American conservatives. He was a fierce opponent of Roosevelt-era programs,which he considered financially irresponsible, but he was by all accounts anything but excitable. Nevertheless, the Daisy Ad defined Barry Goldwater as the man who would recklessly plunge the nation into nuclear war. It was a dramatic illustration of the ruination awaiting public figures who allow their opponents to define them.
The number of "These are the stakes!" portents of disaster for American Universities is on the rise. Everything from tenure to the economic benefits of a university degree seems to be under assault. Richard Vetter, Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP),says that an economic nuclear wasteland is the price of ignoring the recklessness of American higher education:
The pell-mell investment in sheepskins is beginning to look an awful lot like something our economy has seen in real estate: a debt-fueled asset bubble. It might end just as badly.
How do American universities respond? Meekly. As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, university leadership has been slow to recognize the direction and force of prevailing winds. A common mistake in business and politics is to focus on the feel-good stuff that is ultimately valueless, and universities are making the same mistake. The Chronicle reports that former MIT vice president John Curry told a gathering of heads of public universities to stop clinging to "worn out myths about campus strengths." Curry told the group, "We like our stories more than the truth." That leaves a vacuum for others to tell their versions of the truth. It was devastating to Goldwater and it will be devastating to higher education.
The CCAP has in recent months published a series of highly critical studies of cost and value in American higher education. I have mentioned some of them here. CCAP themes have gone viral in communities that are to all appearances unfriendly to the overall goals of higher education, among them the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.
It is no secret that conservative groups are increasingly cool to the idea of an academic meritocracy, preferring to view the inevitable hub-and-spoke network of influencers within the academic community as unfair to arguments and causes that would draw relatively few advocates on their own merits–a "liberal tilt" they call it. Now CCAP's Matthew Denhart has published a study for the Heritage Foundation that argues for less federal involvement in higher education.
You see where this is going. Taking themes that are deeply troubling to the future of universities, like the overreaching of accreditation agencies, and constructing a "Picking Daisies" story about the politicization of higher education, the silence of university leadership becomes the Goldwater response to the doomsday ad. Here's an example of the disconnect. On my campus, as on many others, there is still serious debate about the use of online education. We cling to the worn out myths about the value of classroom attendance when overall enrollments are growing at a paltry 2%. The most recent Sloan Survey of Online Education reports that during that same period online enrollments surged by 21%. I did not drop a decimate point. That's a factor of ten difference. It sounds to me a little like debating the desirability of damp weather as a tsunami is approaching.
Among the Sloan findings: class differences caused by increasing selectivity and rising costs in traditional public universities are driving a new generation of students toward online learning in unprecedented numbers. The unresponsiveness of public institutions to obvious trends like these clears the way for anyone who wants to define higher ed. What are traditional universities doing in the meanwhile? We argue about the effectiveness of increasingly baroque systems of ranking our own hubris-driven reputations, we fight tooth-and-nail against a level playing field for traditional and for-profit universities, we are able to argue with a straight face that college costs that have rise at twice the rate of health care costs are not really out of control.
The general public does not care about any of this. It's no wonder that they have tuned out pleas for more funding and are willing to turn their backs on a great engine of wealth creation in favor of just about any story that makes sense to them. Richard Vetter's story is that traditional higher education is the Goldwater who threatens the innocent daisy-picking American public. It doesn't make much sense, but it's better than the story that we tell.
Damaged Pipelines and the Future of Innovation
One of the strongest arguments for shoring up the nation's public universities, increasing graduate offerings, and expanding the role of expansive research plans in determining institutional priorities is the effect that investments like these have on America's ability to innovate. It's an argument that rings true, but as facts accumulate, it is beginning to look like public universities are not doing much to secure the future of innovation in the United States.
The nation's supply of scientists and engineers is fed by a pipeline that extends from the undergraduate programs of colleges and universities to the graduate programs that educate the next generation of PhDs. The massive investment in research at public universities should have had some impact on the health of this pipeline, but it has not.
A couple of weeks ago, I cited a depressing CCAP ranking of universities that placed many of the country's most highly respected research universities near the bottom of value-oriented rankings. Now there is a new survey from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute that adds more details to this portrait of failed priorities.
On a per capita basis the schools whose undergraduate programs are responsible for the most PhDs in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) disciplines are the ones that are also highly regarded by students and alumni for the value they deliver. There are only three public institutions in the top fifty: UC Berkeley (39), William and Mary (45), and a surprisingly strong 15th place showing for tiny New Mexico Tech. Who is at the top? Caltech is number 1. Private research universities like MIT, Princeton, and Chicago are also in the top ten. But so are schools with virtually no research funding. Harvey Mudd is ranked number 2. Reed, Swarthmore, and Carleton — all liberal arts colleges — are among the top ten as well. Many in the top fifty are small, but there are a couple of large institutions like Berkeley (35,000) and Cornell (21,000). About half enroll between 10,000 and 15,000 students. All are highly selective, but so are the most of the public universities that are members of the AAU.
In a recent post, I asked "Why universities do research?" This data makes the question even more pointed. The largest consumers of federal research dollars should be directing their energies to insuring the health of the STEM research pipeline. All of the schools in the top fifty manage to do it — some with little or no help from the federal government. So it makes perfect sense to ask what is going on at the other institutions. I have my own ideas — and I talk about them in my book — but I am also interested in hearing your thoughts. Is this another indication of a damaged pipeline?
Bankrupt!
In Where's the money….? I described for you the Department of Education's assessment of the financial health of the nation's private universities:
The U.S. Department of Education issues a regular report on the financial health of degree-granting colleges and universities. It is a sort of test of financial strength. When I started tracking the course of these institutions for my book, there were about a hundred non-profit colleges that failed the test. By 2008, that number had risen to 127. The Chronicle of Higher Education has just reported that 150 non-profits now fail the Education Department's test.
Now we have picture of the toll that the financial meltdown and runaway expenses are exacting on America's public institutions as well. Moody's Investor Services has just issued its report on the liquidity of public universities: "U.S. Public University Medians for Fiscal Year 2009 Show Tuition Pricing Power Amidst Rising Challenges." The report is available only to Moody subscribers, but Goldie Blumenstyk, writing in today's Chronicle of Higher Education, summarizes the key findings as follows:
The median level of debt for 200-plus public institutions rated by Moody's—$176.9-million as of the end of the 2009 fiscal year—has grown by 31 percent over four years. That's notably greater than the rate of revenue growth (25 percent), total financial resource growth (15 percent), and enrollment growth (13 percent) during that same period…For the first time, colleges' debt per student ($13,665) exceeded their financial resources per student ($12,893).
As a consequence, operating margins are at or near all-time lows for public institutions and are negative for many.
Tuition is rising at many public universities, but the cost to students is not being converted to increased educational value. In many cases, tuition increases simply service expanding debt obligations. While the liquidity of top-ranked public research universities is worse than their private top-ranked counterparts, the public medians have the ability to convert a larger share of their assets to cash in the near term. What Moody's doesn't say is where the liquid cash comes from.
The lack of transparency in public funding of higher education matters. A public university has a public budget, and we all know that in most states funds slosh back and forth between spending categories without regard to the rules of arithmetic that most of us have to live under.
One large eastern state delayed paying university employees until the start of the next fiscal year. Another one routinely delays most raises until the start of the next calendar year. Still another allows cash to flow freely between major athletic programs and major academic obligations in the hope that a great athletic season might generate enough private donation to repay internal mortgages. Cost-sharing contributions are shifted, research cost recovery is murky, and personnel obligations are sometimes backloaded for months and years.
Even in good times, generating cash for operations in a public university is an exercise in juggling future payments. With zero operating margins, administrators are the unlucky Monopoly™ player who has just landed on Park Place and realizes that the only way to pay the rent on the three hotels is to mortgage all of his properties. He spends the rest of the game hoping that he can keep his meager wages. Hope is not a strategy.
That is why the ability to raise tuition is so powerful. But, as Moody's new report makes clear, tuition increases are like passing GO. New tuition dollars fill budget gaps. They do not change a university's finances. It is only a matter of time before students figure that out and go for the e-pill.


text:
الرئيسية / English News
Gov calls on international community to act against Houthis massacre
الأثنين 06 أبريل 2020 08:05 م الصحوة نت - خاص
Alsahwa Net- The Presidency of Yemen's Parliament condemned on Monday a rocket attack targeted the Central Prison in Taiz city on Sunday's evening by the Houthis militia.
The attack resulted into death and injury of female inmates and damage of the women's section of the prison.
The government said that the Houthis bombed on the same day the pumping station of Safer oil pipeline in Sarwah of Marib.
The parliament's presidency said that both attacks are heinous crime and a terror act.
It indicated that both attacks represent war crimes against the civilians and key economic installations.
It called on the United Nations (UN), its special envoy to Yemen, sponsoring countries of the peace in Yemen and human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities towards all these "terror crimes".
For its part, the Yemen Human Rights Ministry called on the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to take serious position and condemn the Houthis crimes.
The rocket attack against the Central Prison in Taiz killed six female inmates and one female child who was visiting her mother.
The same attack injured also several female inmates.
The Ministry of Human rights condemned silence by the international community towards the Houthis' violations which they commit against the Yemeni people.
For his part, the Minister of Information, Muammar Al-Eryani criticized the attack and demanded the UN to pressurize the Houthis to halt their crimes against the civilians.
"This hideous crime is continuation of series of killings committed by militia against civilians without distinction between men, women, children and elderly people," said Al-Eryani.


It doesn't take a Ph.D. to understand global warming; it's simple common sense.
Air keeps energy (heat) from escaping. You know this when you put a comforter or down jacket on. It's not the feathers keeping you warm, it's the air they trap (the fluffiness).
This is why Venus is hotter at night than Mercury is during the day. Not only is Venus's atmosphere thick, it's composed of mostly CO2, which is a "greenhouse gas" (GHG) because it retains the Sun's energy more than other gases, such as nitrogen, do.
This leads people away from the core of climate policy: It's a moral imperative. Society is going to have to spend trillions of dollars to deal with the damages already caused by unconstrained burning of fossil fuels.
As Cap and Trade was the chosen elixir a decade ago, much of the talk now concerns a carbon tax of some type. Setting aside the politics for a moment, is a carbon tax good policy? Good tax policy raises money to do the things we need as a society in the least burdensome, or disruptive, way possible. Taxing activity that imposes a cost on society — like cigarettes, alcohol, or pollution — is attractive because it can benefit us both by raising needed revenue and acting as a disincentive for imposing costs on all of us.
But, a high cigarette tax, for example, is tough on people who have a physical addiction. So unless you are going to provide people with a way to break their addiction, you end up with an unfair and unsustainable vice tax with no treatment for the vice.
Similarly, the United States has built an energy system that treats the atmosphere as an open sewer where energy prices don't reflect social costs, and those bills are deferred to the next generation.
As a result, most people can't respond to a gas tax by moving closer to work or to charges on their electricity bill by switching to low-carbon power — it's just like taxing the addicted smoker.
Consumers don't control what their utility burns to generate electricity, or pick the carbon content of their fuel.
In the U.S., energy markets are almost never "free markets" in the way they're described in economics texts, meaning the signals a carbon tax is supposed to send would be muted.
In transportation for example, a $25 per-ton tax would roughly equal 25 cents-per-gallon to consumers.
This fee per-gallon, however, would only be visible to them after they've already made the most important purchasing decision in buying the car — from a carmaker that has no incentive to reduce its margins by building high-tech cars.
In the end, you'd have to levy a very high tax to see real effects. It'd be much less painful to help people break the addiction to carbon by giving them alternatives.
This points to the larger issue with nearly all carbon tax proposals: What's being traded away? In most cases to date, carbon taxes are proposed as an exchange for suspending other mechanisms. This risks going backward by removing the very policies that are driving technological progress in sectors such as transportation in exchange for an uncertain incentive.
If you trade away such policies as the fuel economy standards and the renewable fuel standard, you will slow the inadequate progress we are making towards decarbonization both in vehicle technology and low-carbon liquid fuels.
This trade-off is a problem even if you believe electrification is the answer for most cars, we'll still need carbon-free fuels for aviation (and probably shipping) and we've barely started that transition.
Effective carbon policy must be comprehensive across many sectors while being targeted enough to drive technology choice in each sector — while being sustainable enough to justify long term investments. We can't just punish people today for their addiction to a system built to ignore the costs of carbon. A solution has to pave the way for a transition to a fully decarbonized economy. That's a tall order for a single policy such as a carbon tax.
While a reasonable carbon tax is generally good tax policy (particularly if it replaces a more burdensome tax), because it raises revenue from something that is ultimately costing society, it's an incomplete climate policy on its own.
To be sure, a carbon tax can be constructed in a way to make a difference in the power sector, where fossil fuels are already losing the battle to cleaner forms of generation.
Pulling this lever could expedite the closure of dirty coal plants and make natural gas less competitive with cleaner power when new plants are needed. That's a good thing, and it should be pursued. But if we're serious about really solving the whole problem, we need to let go of our hang-ups.
A sustainable carbon tax is probably good tax policy, and might be a useful part of an effective climate policy, but it's not the magic bullet that will save us all.


Bogdanovicha str. 74 - Historical center of Minsk | Apart-Hotel "MinskLux"
Cozy studio apartment with a fresh design renovation in the central part of Minsk. Not far from the administrative , commercial and historical center of Minsk - 5 minutes by car or 15-20 minutes by walk. The house is located in a quiet courtyard . Not far from the house on the street Bogdanovicha there're : food shop and catering points , such as a pizzeria , a little further (on Bangalore square) - the restaurant " El Pomidoro " and " McDonald's ", one bus-stop to restaurant-club-casino «Belaya vezcha».


This entry was posted in NYC, Other Stuff and tagged Bamboo Shoots, Japanese Food, Matcha Salt, Tempura. Bookmark the permalink.
I have used fresh bamboo. In fact I harvested some from a creekside last spring and played around with it. Delcious. If tender enough, you can eat it raw. Tougher, stringy ones can be par boiled a couple of minutes in salty water. This smooths out the flavor and texture, more like the plastic-packed kind in markets. or hearts of palm. Mine was young and tender so I cut it into diagonals and tossed with seasoned rice vinegar (the sweet kind) and scallions for a really refreshing salad/side.
Wild bamboo grows on many roadsides and creeks throughout the south. Called Cane and used for fishing poles (see Andy Griffith), it's just another type bamboo, all of which are jurassic-sized versions of grass. The thickets here are favorite haunts for gardener friends scavenging natural tomato stakes and trellises. And for me scavenging dinner.
And here I was thinking you had to live in the Mekong Delta to be able to do stuff like that! As always thanks for sharing.
I don't find bamboo shoots here in Sicily, we're not that globalized yet. But we do get some Japanese products, and lots of Indian spices and products.


With the new year often come new goals, as business owners look to increase sales or build their brand. However, simply setting a goal is not enough. If you want to succeed, you have to hold your team accountable by tracking goals across departments.
We asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members to share goal-tracking tactics they plan to implement in 2019. Here's what they had to say.
Members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their tips on effective ways to track the progress of goals across departments in your business.
At our company, I like for upper management to always be in the know about the details of the company and for all departments to work as synchronously as possible to hit our targets. In order to achieve this, we have weekly meetings with all department heads to review objectives and track progress. By doing this, upper management is always aware of the nuts and bolts involved in achieving a specific goal, regardless if it's a part of their day-to-day task list or not. By knowing how their contributions are affecting the whole picture, it puts the onus on them to fulfill their end of the bargain, because they know their work is a prerequisite to someone else doing their part. When goals are met, we use a shared doc that sends notifications to all involved in order to track progress. Jared Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.


Gingivitis is the inflammation of the gums, due to the presence of bacteria may bleed sensitivity and discomfort appears. Usually the bleeding is higher in brushing, and is a sign that something is wrong in oral health. Proper hygiene and proper treatment can control it, but you will definitely need to see a cosmetic dentist or periodontist, to prevent the problem from getting worse. If gingivitis is not treated may appear periodontitis, a chronic disease that must be treated and checked regularly, as in advanced cases it can produce tooth loss and bone desorption. This is a disease that affects many people, and that can be contagious. It is important to identify the symptoms and into the hands of a good professional to design the appropriate treatment.
The second is more dangerous because it looks and plaque spreads faster. Hence the importance of a proper diagnosis and appropriate treatment, for a simple dental cleaning not reach this area of the mouth and let the site of infection to roam.
To remove tartar is necessary to use professional techniques to remove it without damaging the enamel. When tartar below the gum removal is difficult and in some cases it is necessary to perform a dental curettage. Sometimes may require the use of anesthesia, if you need to access a deep zone because it can become painful for the patient.
Proper oral hygiene three times daily is essential to prevent gingivitis and other dental diseases. Ideally, complete with floss and mouthwash rinse or inappropriate.
Another requirement is to go to the dentist once a year to do a review and a complete oral hygiene, which is also essential. Plaque to accumulate deficit hygiene hardens, becoming tartar, and then only a professional can remove it.
Certain foods, snuff, certain medications and other causes inherent in each patient are factors that favor the accumulation of tartar, and also damage our gums. Hence the importance of a visit to the dentist at least once a year.


text:
TV Choice: Streaming and downloading
It's not scary, it's the future of television! Get involved... From Saturday June 9.
Thursday, 7th June 2018, 1:42 pm
Updated Tuesday, 19th June 2018, 11:25 am
Ryan Gosling stars in Blade Runner 2049
BBC iPlayer: A Very English Scandal
It is 1960s England, homosexuality is illegal and the politician Jeremy Thorpe begins a whirlwind affair with a young stable hand, Norman Scott. But when the relationship turns sour and Jeremy's career goes from strength to strength, Norman becomes a secret that Jeremy is desperate to hide.
BBC Three: Murdered By My Boyfriend
Drama telling the true story of what happens to a teenage girl when she falls in love with the wrong man. The everyday story of young love turns dark and sinister when the handsome and charming stranger seeks to dominate every aspect of the young woman's life.
Sky Box Sets: Ballers Seasons 1-3
Dwayne Johnson stars as retired superstar American footballer Spencer Strasmore in this comedy drama. As the series starts former Miami Dolphins stand-out Spencer Strasmore and his friend Charles Greane must cope with the realities of life after football.
Prime Video: All OR Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks
For the first time ever, The New Zealand All Blacks rugby team allow cameras into their super secretive world to witness one of their most difficult seasons yet. Over four months, they face the demands of the most physically gruelling team sport on the planet to uphold a legacy of excellence.
Netflix: The Staircase
The Staircase is the compelling story of Michael Peterson, a crime novelist accused of killing his wife Kathleen after she is found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home, and the 16 year judicial battle that followed. The brand new episodes of this true crime phenomenon will air alongside the original series.
Sky Cinema: Blade Runner 2o49 (2017, Sky 15)
It would appear that Denis Villeneuve can do no wrong, for after the likes of Sicario and Arrival comes a truly staggering follow-up to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi noir masterpiece.
The setting is an eerie, futureworld LA 30 years after the events of the original, with Ryan Gosling following in the footsteps of Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard as Blade Runner K – tasked with hunting down and "retiring" rogue first-gen androids known as replicants.
It's a job he's dutifully performed for years, but after a bruising encounter with Dave Bautista's Sapper Morton and the mention of some unseen miracle, doubts and anxieties begin to take root. Sky Cinema and On Demand from Friday.
27 photos that will take you back to great nights out in Scholars and Ink Bar in Scarborough
Former Old Town resident George Sheader publishes a series of essays exploring life in Scarborough in his first book Me Old Mam and the Sea - how to get your copy
Retro – a nostalgic look at Bridlington's past: This week featuring Flamborough Gala, Bridlington Rangers Saxons, Flamborough CC and RNLI Lifeguards – plus many more photos from 2014
Partly restored historic tiled map makes a welcome return to Bridlington Railway Station
Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre reveals its first in-house production for this summer season - here's what it is


Attendees listen in a session at the 2019 Society for Human Resource Management Employment Law & Legislative Conference.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed a new federal overtime rule, which would raise the salary threshold for white-collar exemptions to $35,308. Nothing has been finalized yet, but the DOL may give employers little time to bring their pay practices into compliance so it can ensure that a final rule is in place well before the 2020 election, said Tammy McCutchen, an attorney with Littler in Washington, D.C.
Therefore, employers shouldn't wait for a final rule to determine which employees should be reclassified and which ones should be given raises if the proposed rule takes effect, she said at the 2019 Society for Human Resource Management Employment Law & Legislative Conference on March 19.
Employers should also take this opportunity to review workers' job duties and correct any exempt classification errors, she said. "Compliance will take more time than you anticipate."
"It is a good idea to start getting ahead of this issue and planning for changes in 2020," said Brett Coburn, an attorney with Alston & Bird in Atlanta. But he said employers shouldn't make any changes yet. "We still need to wait and see what the final threshold will be."
"It's past time for an update," McCutchen said. She was the DOL's wage and hour division administrator when the salary threshold was last raised in 2004.
The proposed level is a compromise between the current $23,660 threshold and the now-blocked $47,476 cutoff that was adopted by President Barack Obama's administration in 2016.
Employees must perform certain duties and earn the minimum salary to be classified as exempt from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act's executive, administrative and professional exemptions (the so-called white-collar exemptions). Otherwise, workers must be paid one and a half times their regular rate for all hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek.
The DOL estimates that if the new overtime rule is finalized, more than a million currently exempt workers would be reclassified to nonexempt and other employees would receive a raise to meet the new threshold.
The DOL is aiming to move fast. Although a federal judge blocked the Obama-era overtime rule's higher salary threshold, the case is still pending. The district judge granted a permanent injunction to block the rule, but the DOL had appealed the decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 5th Circuit stayed the appeal pending further DOL rulemaking.
"So the 2016 final rule is not dead yet," McCutchen explained. A domino effect is possible: President Donald Trump could lose the next election. A new president could take office before the 2019 proposal takes effect. The new administration's DOL could restart the litigation over the 2016 rule, and the 5th Circuit could reverse the injunction. Then the $48,000 salary level could come back.
"Unless you're fine with $48,000, DOL needs to finish its work … before the end of the year," McCutchen said.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review a draft of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM).
The DOL to review all comments.
The DOL to draft the final rule.
The OMB to review the final rule draft.
"There will be hundreds of thousands of comments to review," McCutchen said. And it's the DOL's legal duty to review them. "It's a lot of work."
Employee-advocacy groups would like to see the Obama-era rule revived. "Working people should not have to wait another day for government to be on their side," said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP). NELP has urged the DOL to rescind the new proposal and "fight to implement stronger protections."
Employers that wish to comment on the proposal may do so by visiting www.regulations.gov. They will have 60 days to comment from the time the rule is published in the Federal Register.
"I would like to see employers submit comments supportive of the $35,308 minimum salary level for exemption," McCutchen said.
"It's about reasonableness," she said. "It's about compromise, and it is about updating." However, she noted, employers may want to question the proposed threshold for the highly compensated test.
The employee must "customarily and regularly" perform at least one of the bona fide exempt duties of an executive, administrative or professional employee.
In the 2019 proposal, the DOL is seeking to raise the highly compensated salary threshold to $147,414. At that level, many employers in the South, as well as retailers, restaurants, nonprofits, and state and local government agencies will be shut out of the highly compensated test, McCutchen said. "It's a national rule. It has to work everywhere." And just as with the minimum wage, states can adopt their own, higher exempt salary level.


text:
Călugăreni est une commune roumaine du județ de Prahova, dans la région historique de Valachie et dans la région de développement du Sud.

Géographie

La commune de Călugăreni est située dans l'est du județ, dans les collines du piémont des Carpates courbes, à  au nord-ouest de Mizil et à  au nord-est de Ploiești, le chef-lieu du județ.

La municipalité est composée des deux villages suivants (population en 1992) :
 Călugăreni (), siège de la commune ;
 Valea Scheilor.

Politique

Religions

En 2002, la composition religieuse de la commune était la suivante :
 Chrétiens orthodoxes, 99,72 %.

Démographie

En 2002, la commune comptait  Roumains, soit la totalité de la population.

Économie

L'économie de la commune repose sur l'agriculture.

Communications

Routes

La route régionale DJ102R rejoint Gura Vadului et Mizil vers le sud et Tătaru et la vallée de la rivière Cricovul Sărat au nord-ouest.

Lien externe

 Carte du județ de Prahova

Notes et références

Commune dans le județ de Prahova

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Overview for the Leica Builder 500 9 Second Reflectorless Total Station Carry out even the most difficult of measuring tasks quickly and accurately with the Leica Builder (9-Second) Reflectorless Total Station. Easy to use yet equipped with powerful software, the Leica Builder 500 will cut as much as 40% off of the time you spend on difficult and tedious measurements, allowing you to save time and money. Superior Data Storage Stop worrying about how or where to store your data: the Leica Geosystem Total Station offers you numerous ways for you to transfer your data. Store up to 50,000 points in internal memory; all of your points will be there even if your machine is accidentally shut off in the middle of measuring. Bluetooth wireless capabilities enable you to seamlessly integrate your Leica Total Station with a PDA or handheld data collector. Or, use the mini-USB port, the included industrial Leica USB stick, or a simple RS232 serial cable to save measurements. Variety of Distance Measuring Options The Leica Reflectorless Total Station gives you the flexibility of choosing the distance measuring method that best suits the job at hand. Enjoy the ability to measure dangerous or inaccessible locations with reflectorless measurement, or choose the included flat prism for everyday measurement. You can even extend your total station's measuring range up to 10,000 feet by adding a round prism. Extreme Range and Accuracy You can count on Leica's patented PinPoint technology for precise measurement. The narrow laser allows you to easily measure facades, wall corners, walls inside buildings, roofs, and roof faces with bulls-eye accuracy. Standard wide lasers can give you inaccurate measurements, since they measure not only the point you'd like to target, but the surrounding area as well. The Leica Optical Laser measures only the spot you want measured, allowing you to take perfect measurements even in hard to reach spots. And of course, you'll get those results at just the touch of a button. Quick Setup The Leica Builder Total Station features a setup wizard, making it easy to setup your total station, even if you're a first-timer. Follow the intuitive interface on the LCD graphics display to level the builder, define your control line, enter offset values from your plan, and set out or record points. Work with line and offset values straight from the blueprint, by choosing coordinates or control lines as a setup position. Whichever you choose, you'll find that setup times are halved, allowing you to get started more quickly. Intuitive Interface The Leica Builder control panel takes the trouble out of measurement by providing you with a clear, intuitive interface. Easy to read even in the dark, the 6-line illuminated display features status icons that allow you to check the compensator and battery level at a glance. Use the QWERTY keyboard to enter your data with the large ergonomic buttons, and then browse the program menu for the measurement function you need. Make things even easier with the programmable softkeys, which enable you to input the functions you frequently use. Leica PowerSite Software Leica's exclusive PowerSite software application works together with the Windows-based Construction Data Manager to give you a seamless experience while uploading or transferring data. Nine pre-loaded software functions make calculating even the most difficult of measurements quick and error-free, significantly improving productivity: Layout Function: Check the alignment of columns, formworks, and fencing lines, and ensure against racking in greenhouses or other structures. Area and Volume: Ideal for tender preparations of all kind. Check the fit for windows, the volume of asphalt needed for a parking lot, or simply capture aligned surfaces on the spot. Get fast volume determination of stockpile monitoring, cutting to formation, and mass haul cuts and fills, allowing you to keep tabs on your earthworks progress as the day progresses. As-Built: Use the as-built function to ensure your blueprints are up to date and reflect the latest changes. With PowerSite, you can instantly transfer and update new data, or record measurements for drafting a completely new blueprint. Hidden Point:Obtain measurements for points not directly visible with the hidden point function; PowerSite software reveals the position of the hidden point, total station, and reflector in just a few steps. Angle and Distance: Check the height clearance under a bridge, mark ground floor elevations, and transfer reference heights in one work step. Tie distance: Used to compute horizontal distance, height difference, and grade between two target points, tie distance is the perfect solution for figuring out whether or not there is a clearance under a roof for that crane, or checking the drainage of a grade. Coordinate Geometry Calculations: A graphical display on the control panel shows the position of the station, used new points, directions, distances, and the new calculated point, allowing you to easily figure out this normally complicated measurement. Layout Line/Arc/Spiral: Easily plot the lines for a road or spiral staircase; the PowerSite software allows you to stake out and check points relative to a road alignment. Your Leica Builder Electronic Total Station comes complete with a true-zero offset Builder prism and mini prism pole with replaceable tip. Also included is a Leica industrial grade USB memory stick, and data cable USB to mini USB for secure data transfer. Two Li-Ion batteries with charger give you nearly 20 hours of use, ensuring you don't have to stop in the middle of a job to change batteries. You also get several adjustment tools to keep your Leica Total Station measuring accurately, a protective cover and lens hood to keep out dust or other destructive elements while taking a break on-site, and a hard carrying case to carry the Leica Builder and accessories. Choose the ultimate in measurement performance when you choose the Leica Builder (9-Second) Reflectorless Total Station. Not only will you save time, money, and improve performance, but you'll soon wonder how you ever managed without it. What's in the BoxLeica Builder 500 9 second reflectorless total station 772735CPR111 Builder prism, true-zero offsetGLS115 mini prism pole Tip for mini prism pole pointMS1 Leica industrial grade USB memory stick GEV223 data cable USB to mini USBSerial RS232 cableGEV189 USB data transfer cable GEB211 Li-Ion batteries (2) GKL211 Battery charger Adjustment tools Protective cover / lens hood Hard carrying case CD-ROM User manual1-year manufacturer's warranty Specifications for the Leica Builder 500 9 Second Reflectorless Total Station General Weight 11.2 lbs. (5.1 kg) Dimensions 23 in. x 18 in. x 15 in. (58.42 cm x 45.72 cm x 38.1 cm) Warranty 1-year manufacturer's warranty Protection Class IP55 (protected against hazardous parts, dust protected, protected against water jets from any angle.) Tripod Thread 5/8 x 11 in. Internal Memory 50,000 internal points Software PowerSite, Construction Data Manager Tribrach fixed Angle Measurement Measuring Method/Reading System absolute, continuous Tilt Sensor/Compensator Range 4 arcmin Setting Accuracy 2 arcsec Battery/Power Power Source Li-Ion batteries Battery Life about 20 hours Voltage 7.4 V Optical Plummet Image erect Level Circular Bubble Vial 6 minutes/2 mm Electronic Level 6 arcseconds Telescope Image erect Diameter of Objective Lens (Aperture) 1.57 in.(40 mm) Magnification 30x Field of View 1 degree 30 arcmin Sight Distance Precision/Focus Range 5.6 ft/1.7 m to infinity Reflectorless yes Display and Keypad Type monochrome, graphics capable LCD Sides single-sided Keys 20 Backlight yes Pixels 280 x 160 pixels Temperature Operating -4ºF to 122ºF (-20C to +50ºC) Storage -40ºF to 158ºF (-40ºC to +70ºC) Applications Surveying and Construction yes Mapping and GIS (geographic information systems) yes Utilities yes Environment Studies yes Geomarking yes Archaeology yes Accident Reconstruction yes Measurement Range (under fair weather conditions) Single Prism 1,640 ft. (500 m) No Prism 820 ft. (250 m) Reflective Tape 820 ft. (250 m) Functions Coordinate Measurement Point yes Angle and Distance Stake Out yes Stake Out Line yes Offsets yes Missing Line yes Remote Elevation yes Resection yes Area Calculation yes Measurement Time Fine < 1 s Rapid < 0.3 s Tracking 1.0 s Laser Plummet Accuracy 0.0590 in. (1.5 mm) at 4.92 ft. (1.5 m) instrument height Class Visible red laser class 2 Laser Pointer Class 3R Reflectorless range 820 ft (250 m) Wavelength 650 nm - 690 nm Range to reflective tape 820 ft (250 m) Range to glass prism 1,640 ft (500 m) Interface Bluetooth yes USB USB memory stick and USB device port Pin Port RS232 ..
Carry out even the most difficult of measuring tasks quickly and accurately with the Leica Builder (9-Second) Reflectorless Total Station. Easy to use yet equipped with powerful software, the Leica Builder 500 will cut as much as 40% off of the time you spend on difficult and tedious measurements, allowing you to save time and money.
Stop worrying about how or where to store your data: the Leica Geosystem Total Station offers you numerous ways for you to transfer your data. Store up to 50,000 points in internal memory; all of your points will be there even if your machine is accidentally shut off in the middle of measuring. Bluetooth wireless capabilities enable you to seamlessly integrate your Leica Total Station with a PDA or handheld data collector. Or, use the mini-USB port, the included industrial Leica USB stick, or a simple RS232 serial cable to save measurements.
The Leica Reflectorless Total Station gives you the flexibility of choosing the distance measuring method that best suits the job at hand. Enjoy the ability to measure dangerous or inaccessible locations with reflectorless measurement, or choose the included flat prism for everyday measurement. You can even extend your total station's measuring range up to 10,000 feet by adding a round prism.
You can count on Leica's patented PinPoint technology for precise measurement. The narrow laser allows you to easily measure facades, wall corners, walls inside buildings, roofs, and roof faces with bulls-eye accuracy. Standard wide lasers can give you inaccurate measurements, since they measure not only the point you'd like to target, but the surrounding area as well. The Leica Optical Laser measures only the spot you want measured, allowing you to take perfect measurements even in hard to reach spots. And of course, you'll get those results at just the touch of a button.
The Leica Builder Total Station features a setup wizard, making it easy to setup your total station, even if you're a first-timer. Follow the intuitive interface on the LCD graphics display to level the builder, define your control line, enter offset values from your plan, and set out or record points. Work with line and offset values straight from the blueprint, by choosing coordinates or control lines as a setup position. Whichever you choose, you'll find that setup times are halved, allowing you to get started more quickly.
The Leica Builder control panel takes the trouble out of measurement by providing you with a clear, intuitive interface. Easy to read even in the dark, the 6-line illuminated display features status icons that allow you to check the compensator and battery level at a glance. Use the QWERTY keyboard to enter your data with the large ergonomic buttons, and then browse the program menu for the measurement function you need. Make things even easier with the programmable softkeys, which enable you to input the functions you frequently use.
Choose the ultimate in measurement performance when you choose the Leica Builder (9-Second) Reflectorless Total Station. Not only will you save time, money, and improve performance, but you'll soon wonder how you ever managed without it.