text:
Peninsula Rail Task Force
Work of the Taskforce
'Closing the Gap' – The South West Peninsula strategic rail blueprint
PRTF reports & documents
Extreme weather reports
From Parliament
Latest from Westminster
Westminster archive
HomeThe Task ForceWork of the Taskforce
Key campaign objectives that have been achieved or are in the pipeline include:
Dawlish sea wall: In February 2019, five years after the line collapsed at Dawlish, the Government confirmed funding for phase one of resilience works. This is scheduled for completion in Spring 2020. Whilst this is a positive step for resilience along the line, the PRTF will continue to campaign for funding for phases two and three of works along the Parsons Tunnel to Teignmouth section.
Cowley Bridge: The railway was shut 24 times from 2011 to 2018 due to flooding between Exeter and Bristol. In Autumn 2018, Network Rail completed work to the storm drains at Cowley Bridge as part of its flood alleviation project. The project has significantly reduced the likelihood of the river flooding onto the track and washing away ballast.
Signalling enhancements Penzance – Totnes: Phase one of this project was completed in 2018. The project is designed to improve reliability and enable an increase in services, with timetabled services increasing in 2019.
Timetable changes: Following slippage from January 2019, a phased introduction of timetable improvements across the South West Peninsula commenced in May 2019 to coincide with the commissioning of the last remaining Inter-City Express Bi-Mode trains being delivered to Great Western Railway. This included a doubling of services between Plymouth and Penzance and longer trains on a number of those services. Further changes to the timetable from December 2019, will see the introduction of a clock-face half-hourly service between Penzance and Plymouth. This will speed up services between Plymouth and London to provide a standard 3-hour 12 minute journey throughout the day, and 2-hourly additional stopping services between Paddington and Exeter. These timetable changes will be the largest shake-up on the network since 1976.
Night Riviera Service: In 2019, £14m was invested in increasing the capacity and also the quality of the sleeper service between Paddington and Penzance. This was soon followed by the introduction of the upgraded sleeper lounges at Penzance and Truro.
Penzance depot: 2018 saw the completion of £19m worth of enhancements to create the Penzance Traincare Centre, enhancing the maintenance facilities for both the new Inter-City Express Trains as well as the rolling stock used on the Night Riviera Service.
Williams Rail Review
The PRTF welcomed the opportunity to submit a response to the Call for Evidence to the Williams Review announced in December 2018.
The rail industry is currently fragmented as a result of competing goals across the public and private sector. This is impacting on delivering the ultimate aim of a reliable and resilient railway.
The existing operating model for the rail industry is not fit for purpose and the PRTF joins the call for the establishment of an industry wide strategic body to interpret government policy into an overall framework.
To read the full response, click here.
The members of the Peninsula Rail Task Force are:
Plymouth City Council
Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP
Heart of the South West LEP
The Task Force has a Board, which oversees the work of the partnership, comprising the LEPs and local authorities. It also has a Stakeholder Advisory Group, open to anyone with an interest in rail, to inform the work of the Task Force. More information is available here.
More information on the South West Rail Resilience Programme, the project name for resilience works of the rail line between Dawlish and Teignmouth, can be found here.


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UK Alumni Awards 2020
in Competitions, Undergraduate scholarships
Applications for the Study UK Alumni Awards are now open.
The Alumni Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of alumni and showcase the impact and value of a UK higher education. Award winners and finalists are leaders in their fields who have used their experience of studying at a UK university to make a positive contribution to their communities, professions and countries.
There are three award categories:
Professional Achievement Award – recognizing alumni who have distinguished themselves through exemplary leadership and achievements in their professional industry, and who can demonstrate the impact and scale of their achievements in their profession, and beyond.
Entrepreneurial Award – recognizing alumni who are active in initiating or contributing to innovative or creative new ideas, solutions or business opportunities, that have the potential for strong growth.
Social Impact Award – recognizing alumni who have made an exceptional contribution and commitment to creating positive social change and improving the lives of others.
All selected award finalists benefit from increased PR and press opportunities that raise their profile and share their success with international audiences.
Winners of the global awards will be celebrated on a global scale and invited to the UK for a networking and professional development opportunity.
Opportunities to connect with people of influence at award ceremonies, and afterwards: Alumni Award winners in India met the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the Queen's birthday party celebrations in Delhi
Press and PR opportunities and increased national/regional/global profile: Alumni Award winners have been featured in national newspapers of participating countries, for example, the Jakarta Post in Indonesia, and the Daily Graphic in Ghana
Professional contacts and connections
Reconnecting with UK university and the UK
Having a platform to be able to share experiences of UK education/career with others (particularly young people).
Tags: UK Alumni Awards
IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards Program 2021
Travel Video Contest 2020
Aadhithya
Serial inventor & innovator with an exemplary track record for problem solving with a diverse skill set. Won 50+ Global innovation awards with innovative technical solutions till date. Currently working on inspiring the next generation of innovators by making innovation opportunities and challenges accessible to people across the world as founder of Givemechallenge.com
UN Women Comic And Cartoon Competition
Breakthru Fintech Startup Competition
International Competition For Visual Identification Of The Camerimage
International Photography Awards IPA 2021
Aluminum Extrusion Design Student Competition

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Fifty years ago Freedom riders boarded buses to ride across the south testing the ruling that banned discrimination in interstate commerce. In January 2011, the Zepp Center's annual Civil Rights Tour recreated part of that ride. We met in Atlanta – twenty eight of us from Baltimore, Westminster, Chicago, Seattle, Rhode Island, Georgia, and more. We crossed every demographic line there is: age, race, sexual orientation, religion, profession, newcomers to nonviolence and old-timers.
We climbed on a bus and traveled west, from Atlanta to Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama where in 1961 Freedom Riders had been attacked by the Klan and one of the buses had been firebombed. In Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church (which itself was bombed in1963 killing three young girls), we spoke with Freedom Riders Catherine Burks-Brooks and Bernard LaFayette, who brought those times to life in a very personal way. Catherine's stories of her conversations with Bull Connor were riveting.
Bernard was with us on the tour, and during the long rides (the South is a big place) he explained the places and events that occurred there. Interwoven in his stories were lessons in nonviolence and how it was used throughout the Movement. Continuing west, we went into Mississippi and headed to Jackson, where many Freedom riders, including Bernard, were jailed.
He told us how important music was to the movement and how in jail in Mississippi they communicated and kept their spirits up by singing. "Buses are a comin, Oh yeah; Buses are a comin, Oh yeah; Buses are a comin, buses are a comin; Buses are a comin, Oh yeah." Aggravated by the singing, the jailers told them to stop, but they continued making up new verses. "Rollin into Jackson…." and "Better get you ready…" they sang on even after the guards took their mattresses and toothbrushes. Lunch at Peaches Restaurant was both a historical and culinary experience.
We stopped in Philadelphia Mississippi at the Mount Zion Methodist Church whose burning in 1964 started the chain of events that led to the deaths of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. The long dark ride along back roads that followed was not terribly comfortable in 2011. It was easy to imagine how terrifying those roads must have been 50 years ago. The ghosts are still there.
Turning eastward, we went to Montgomery, Al, where Freedom Riders were met again by the Klan, the police nowhere in evidence because, officials said, it was Mother's Day, and they were all visiting their mothers. We saw the church where the community gathered after that incident and were surrounded by an angry mob, precipitating federal intervention. We gathered at the powerful Civil Rights Memorial designed by Maya Lin that stands in front of the Southern Poverty Law Center, engraved upon it the names of those who died in the Civil Rights Struggle. We became part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott at the Rosa Parks Museum.
Back in Atlanta, we explored the history of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at its headquarters and spent the rest of the day at the King Center and the Martin Luther King Historic Site in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood.
By the time we got back to the airport, we were friends, we had sung many songs, we had had great conversations with each other, we had learned things that you can only know when you walk on the ground. We understood the power of nonviolence to effect change, and the training needed to put nonviolence into action.


text:
/* $Id$ */

/*
 *  Copyright (c) 2008-2009 Axel Andersson
 *  All rights reserved.
 *
 *  Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 *  modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
 *  are met:
 *  1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
 *     notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 *  2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 *     notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 *     documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 *
 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
 * WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
 * DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT,
 * INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
 * (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
 * SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
 * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
 * STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN
 * ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
 * POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
 */

#include <wired/wired.h>

WI_TEST_EXPORT void						wi_test_timer(void);

#ifdef WI_PTHREADS
static void								_wi_test_timer_function(wi_timer_t *);

static wi_uinteger_t					_wi_test_timer_hits;
static wi_condition_lock_t				*_wi_test_timer_lock;
#endif

void wi_test_timer(void) {
#ifdef WI_PTHREADS
	wi_timer_t		*timer;

	_wi_test_timer_lock = wi_autorelease(wi_condition_lock_init_with_condition(wi_condition_lock_alloc(), 0));

	timer = wi_autorelease(wi_timer_init_with_function(wi_timer_alloc(), _wi_test_timer_function, 0.001, false));
	wi_timer_schedule(timer);

	if(wi_condition_lock_lock_when_condition(_wi_test_timer_lock, 1, 1.0)) {
		WI_TEST_ASSERT_EQUALS(_wi_test_timer_hits, 5U, "");
		wi_condition_lock_unlock(_wi_test_timer_lock);
	} else {
		WI_TEST_FAIL("Timed out waiting for timer, currently at %u %s",
			_wi_test_timer_hits, _wi_test_timer_hits == 1 ? "hit" : "hits");
	}
#endif
}

#ifdef WI_PTHREADS

static void _wi_test_timer_function(wi_timer_t *timer) {
	wi_condition_lock_lock(_wi_test_timer_lock);

	if(++_wi_test_timer_hits == 5) {
		wi_timer_invalidate(timer);
		wi_condition_lock_unlock_with_condition(_wi_test_timer_lock, 1);
	} else {
		wi_timer_schedule(timer);
		wi_condition_lock_unlock_with_condition(_wi_test_timer_lock, 0);
	}
}

#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Norwegię na Letnich Igrzyskach Olimpijskich 1920 reprezentowało 193 zawodników: 187 mężczyzn i 6 kobiet. Był to szósty start reprezentacji Norwegii na letnich igrzyskach olimpijskich.

Zdobyte medale

Skład kadry

Boks

Gimnastyka

Jeździectwo

Kolarstwo

Kolarstwo szosowe

Lekkoatletyka

Konkurencje biegowe

Konkurencje techniczne

Łyżwiarstwo figurowe

Pięciobój nowoczesny

Piłka nożna

Reprezentacja mężczyzn

Turniej główny
Pierwsza runda

Ćwierćfinał

Turniej o drugie i trzecie miejsce
I runda

Pływanie

Mężczyźni

Skoki do wody

Mężczyźni

Kobiety

Strzelectwo

Tenis ziemny

Wioślarstwo

Zapasy

Żeglarstwo

Przypisy

Bibliografia

Państwa uczestniczące w Letnich Igrzyskach Olimpijskich 1920
Norwegia na igrzyskach olimpijskich

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Back in my senior year of high school, I was fascinated by the information I learned in my one-semester Psychology class. Not quite fascinated enough to pursue it further (because, science), but still… Little did I know that twenty years later I would be reading everything I could find about neurology, which is even more interesting and complicated (for me, anyway) than psychology. Of course, when the opportunity came to read and review A Life in Balance, the story of Frank Belgau, as told to his son Eric. The book takes us through the journey of how the Learning Breakthrough Program came to be.
I love that instead of just launching into the specifics of his program and all kinds of neurological tidbits about why it works (which I like to read, but can get tedious after a while), Frank started with his own story. He shares about his own reading difficulties as a child, and how he accidentally discovered that movement and coordination was linked to his learning disability.
He uses humor, and certainly isn't afraid to poke fun at himself, as he takes us briefly through his military experience — at least the part that he deems relevant to his later work — and his life in academia.
Frank Belgau is man who was born to be a teacher, but who only ended up as one accidentally. He's not afraid to admit that he learned from his students as they learned from him — or maybe it was that they learned together. he treated students in his "Minimally Brain-Damaged" classes as if they were the intelligent, creative people they were rather than the shadows the system wanted them to be.
The only thing that threw me was, I was a little confused when he spoke about first meeting his current wife. (Which is a sweet story, by the way.) He met her because her seven-year-old daughter was in his program at the University of Houston, and he says, "I then asked her how she could have nine children when her daughter was only seven." We do get an explanation (you'll have to read the book!), but why would he assume that the seven-year-old was her oldest child? I just thought it was odd that that was included.
While there are a few exercises at the end of the book that anyone can do at home (you'll need some space, probably outside – most of the activities need 20-25 feet), that's not the focus of the book. Rather than just medical jargon (although there is a little of that), A Life in Balance is the path of discovery, full of both failures and successes. I highly recommend it to parents, teachers, school administrators, and anyone interested in the science of how movement is related to neurology.
A Life in Balance is currently $16.94* and can be purchased here.
*Price is current at the time of this review, and is subject to change.
This entry was posted in The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew and tagged ADHD, ADHD alternative treatment, autism, book review, Brain Fitness, Brain Training, dyslexia, Dyslexia treatment, learning disabilities, Reading improvement, special needs by Amanda Beaty. Bookmark the permalink.


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History of Hermetic Philosophy
Esotericism in the Academy
What is esotericism?
Centre HHP
Collaboration with the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (BHP)
Organization and finances
Hermetic Amsterdam
Emerging International Networks
Studying at HHP
Summer course
Research at HHP
Prof. Dr. Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Dr. Marco Pasi
Dr. Peter J. Forshaw
Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, MA
John MacMurphy, MA
ESSWE 7
Organising Team
Esotericism Web Portal
Infinite Fire Webinar Series
Forshaw's lectures
Hanegraaff's lectures
Pasi's lectures
Infinite Fire Interview on Jung & Alchemy – Sonu Shamdasani, Peter Forshaw & Hans van den Hooff
Online Archives and Collections
Developing new knowledge about the complexities of Western culture
The HHP Centre is devoted to critical historical and empirical research in the domain of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, also referred to as Western Esotericism. Our research covers the entire history of Western Esotericism, from antiquity to the present. Reflecting the field's interdisciplinary nature, our researchers work from perspectives ranging from history of science and intellectual history to religious studies and art history. As part of the University of Amsterdam, our research falls under the umbrella of the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH) at the Faculty of Humanities. As part of the Religious Studies unit the HHP Centre participates in the interdisciplinary research group on Religious Dynamics and Cultural Diversity.
The presence in Amsterdam of the famous Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, situated in the Embassy of the Free Mind, and of the rich material of the Amsterdam University Library's Special Collections (Bijzondere Collecties) provides important research facilities for our staff.
The HHP's strong emphasis on historical research of primary sources is greatly advanced by these libraries and collections.
Journals, book series, and international activities
The European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) was founded in Amsterdam in 2005, and the staff at the HHP Centre continues to be deeply involved with the further development of this international learned society. Our staff has also been instrumental in setting up and running the leading peer-reviewed journal devoted to Western esotericism, Aries, and the Aries Book Series – both published by Brill under the auspices of the ESSWE. The HHP Centre is thus an intrinsic part of a larger international network that promotes, creates and distributes peer-reviewed academic research in the interdisciplinary field of Western esotericism.
Read more: Current research projects
Part of UvA
The Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP) is part of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. We are committed to the highest standards of critical academic scholarship, independent of any worldview.
Bushuis / Oost-Indisch Huis
Kloveniersburgwal 48,
1012 CX Amsterdam,
Email hermetica-fgw@uva.nl
Antoine Faivre remembered
15 December 2021: online lecture: Aeons, Fullnesses, and Lesser Gods
Colloque International "Politica Hermetica" 4 December 2021
Visit our Master's Open Day 9 November!
© HHP 2021 - Development by MIAX Online Marketingbureau


Incredible opportunity in Newton! This immaculate, meticulously maintained 6 bedroom, 4 bath home features a cook's kitchen with granite counters, stainless appliances, gas range, built-in pantry, cathedral ceilings, and an adjacent family room for entertaining. This home offers central air conditioning as well as hardwood and tile floors. Master bedroom with generous walk-in closets, and spacious bathroom that includes a whirlpool tub. Close proximity to The Street and The Chestnut Hill Square restaurants, shopping, gyms, and Wegmans. Nearby Solomon Schechter Day School and the JCC. Plenty of flexible space to create a guest suite with private bath and/or home office on first floor. Second floor with 4 bright bedrooms and closets galore. Fenced in yard for privacy and enjoyment. Fantastic floor plan for entertaining. The owners love this home and it really shows!


text:
Features > Apps & Games
Football Manager returns in time for Christmas
The greatest football management simulation in the world is returning to PC in time for Christmas. Football Manager 2013 will be released for the winter festivities and it is not just bigger but better than ever before....
Never miss a goal with the Camera Awesome app
Football fans are onto a sure-fire winner this season with the free Camera Awesome iPhone photography app, developed by leading online photo service SmugMug. Sharp-shooters can track their favourite players and ensure they never...
Fluid football: A new soccer strategy game
Apple users worldwide now have a new football game based around tactics, available to them for the new season. Fluid Football is now ready to be downloaded in the Apple store, for iPod touch, iPad and the iPhone. ...
Tiki-Taka: Euro All Stars 2012! - review
Few football fans could have watched Spain pass opponents into submission in Polkraine and not wish their own side could keep the ball like that. It's an ambition England will probably never achieve, but at least now you can do some...
Premier Football launches on Facebook
TeePee Games has partnered with social games company PageFad and signed up the Facebook game Premier Football. The game will now appear on the TeePee Games network alongside other popular sports and simulation titles such as FIFA Superstars,...
The Groundhopper app - now available on Android
The Groundhopper app is available for iPhone or Android. This app is the first to let you register your match visits and keep track of your growing number of visited grounds across Europe. You can share the visits with...
Take a closer look into the lives of footballers with Lords of Football
Lords of Football, the upcoming Football Lifestyle Sim from Geniaware, brings the everyday routine of football to life. Players can explore all aspects of the game from playing, training, advancing skills and all the drama that comes with an...
FA Cup app allows fans to lift the trophy
Getting your hands on the FA Cup is now easier than you might think, as a new app brings the official trophy to virtual 3D life. FA Cup sponsor Budweiser has teamed up with Aurasma, a world leader in what is known as 'augmented...
Top app 'PlayUp' announces major upgrade
PlayUp, the leading mobile social network for live sports, has announced a major upgrade to its globally successful iPhone app allowing sports fans to connect with friend networks in real time around the live action of all the world's major...
Football Director out now on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
Football Director is an 'accessible but deep' authentic football management game that includes 15 international leagues (including four English leagues), dynamic live league tables during matches, comprehensive squad-building and tactics, and a...
You are the Ref app released on iPhone, IPod Touch and iPad
The 'You are the Ref' cult football art strip, which has been hugely popular with fans and players since 1957, is now available as an app on iPhone, IPod Touch and iPad. You are the Ref features a series of awkward football...
New game release: Premier Manager 2012
One of the leading pick-up-and-play football management games is back for a new season with the November release of Premier Manager 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and PC. Premier Manager 2012 is an in-depth football management simulation...
Bored of fantasy football yet?
If your fantasy football team has not made the start to the season you were hoping for and you've already lost patience with it, then you may well be looking for a new challenge. A brand new...
Get to the heart of the game with FIFA 12
With the emergence of modern technology and the ever-growing realism of simulation games on laptops and game consoles such as the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, it's now possible for fans to quite literally 'get into the game'....
New football game launches
The NSPCC's ChildLine service has announced the launch of Soccer School, an online game with fantastic interactive graphics that sees players test their skills across more than 20 levels.


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Frank Cook (@frank_cook) Has a New Album Out
The Hip Hop PR Firm Reply 4:04 PM A+ A-
http://www.mohiphopblog.com/2017/10/frank-cook-frankcook-has-new-album-out.html
Bronx artist Frank Cook (@frank_cook) has a new album out. The 12 track project, titled "Hear Me Out", features gritty sounding beats with flows inspired by New York greats like Rakim, KRS-One, and Big Daddy Kane. Cook also features the vocals of Tavaras Tv on the 3 close out tracks "Star", "Sexy Feel the Room", and "The Groove". "Hear Me Out" was released earlier this month, and is part of his vow to pay homage to his late brother through music.
Stream the album in full here.


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We are proud to announce that NBC News Correspondent Harry Smith will be the keynote speaker at this year's convention.
One of television's most distinguished journalists, Smith has been a news anchor for more than 30 years. He is a graduate of Pella College.
Go to the convention page to find out more.
The University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication is a major sponsor of this year's convention.
Following the rules is key to avoiding problems in expanded media trials.


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Stephen Fry Roasts PC Police: 'Grow Up'
British actor Stephen Fry has had enough of speech codes, trigger warnings and college "snowflakes" who refuse to hear an opposing thought.
Get in line.
But Fry will feel heat for his latest interview, one where he slams social justice warriors who traffic in free speech clampdowns?
Last week, Fry appeared on "The Rubin Report," a politically incorrect forum hosted by Dave Rubin on Larry King's Ora TV.
Fry riffed on a number of topics, including his love for America despite its religious bent. The heart of the interview happens later, when Rubin presses him on one of his previous film roles.
Rubin noted that Fry appeared in "V for Vendetta [Blu-ray] ," the 2005 movie where the "authoritarian right" came after free speech. But, looking at western culture today, Rubin noted it's the "regressive Left" that's coming for the words we say.
Fry agreed.
"We fear that it's going to happen more and more because America leads and Britain follows in all kinds of ways," Fry says. "It's started to happen in Britain with the attempted removal of statues of people who are considered unlikable … they've become in a very '1984' way 'unpersons.'"
Fry then roasts the west's child-like status, from the superhero films we line up for to the sugary drinks we quaff down. He ties that directly to college students who recoil at the thought of an opposing thought.
"There is deep infantilism in the culture … they can't bear complexity. The idea that things aren't easy to understand … you have to think, there are gradations. No one wants that. They want to be told."
RELATED: Director: Today's PC Police Would Cuff Lenny Bruce
Some colleges refuse to stage certain classic productions now, Fry says, due to their violent content. The very presence of a rape scene, or conversation about sexual assault, can be enough to nix a show.
"The word rape now is considered rape," he says. "They're terrible things and they have to be thought about clearly. But if you say you can't watch this play … you can't read 'Macbeth' because it's got children being killed in it. You might trigger something when you were young that upset you once. Because uncle touched you in a nasty place. I'm sorry. It's a great shame. We're all very sorry that uncle touched you in that nasty place. You get some of my sympathy. But your self pity gets none of my sympathy. Because self pity is the ugliest emotion in humanity. Get rid of it. No one is gonna like you if you feel sorry for yourself … grow up."
And let the social media fallout begin. But will Fry apologize, backpedal or otherwise kowtow to the same forces he smashed during this interview?
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text:
Q: How to get ResultSetMetaData from Entity Manager? Is there a way to get the MetaData of the result returned by executing a nativeQuery on an Entity Manager in JPA?

A: AFAIK there is no way of getting the result set metadata since there is no way really, of getting the result set. But, turn it around: what do you want the meta data for? Most of the information from the result set metadata you already have to have to be able to annotate your entity classes.
The result set from conventional SQL/JDBC and the List you get from the EntityManager differs conceptually even if they can express the same semantics.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Carrelages Salles De Bain have several pictures linked each other. Take the most recent images of Carrelages Salles De Bain on this web, and you may get the photos from this blog for personal use. Carrelages Salles De Bain images are uploaded by our team on July 19, 2018 at 9:46 am. The photo collection of Carrelages Salles De Bain showed here is a few of the most outstanding photos around the internet and has been seen by 30 visitors.
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text:
#ifndef ZEPHYR_INCLUDE_BLUETOOTH_MESH_SHELL_H_
#define ZEPHYR_INCLUDE_BLUETOOTH_MESH_SHELL_H_

#include <zephyr/bluetooth/mesh.h>

#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif

/** Maximum number of faults the health server can have. */
#define BT_MESH_SHELL_CUR_FAULTS_MAX 4

/**
 *  A helper to define a health publication context for shell with the shell's
 *  maximum number of faults the element can have.
 *
 *  @param _name Name given to the publication context variable.
 */
#define BT_MESH_SHELL_HEALTH_PUB_DEFINE(_name)                                 \
		BT_MESH_HEALTH_PUB_DEFINE(_name,                               \
					  BT_MESH_SHELL_CUR_FAULTS_MAX);

/** Target context for the mesh shell */
struct bt_mesh_shell_target {
	/* Current destination address */
	uint16_t dst;
	/* Current net index */
	uint16_t net_idx;
	/* Current app index */
	uint16_t app_idx;
};

/** @brief External reference to health server */
extern struct bt_mesh_health_srv bt_mesh_shell_health_srv;

/** @brief External reference to health client */
extern struct bt_mesh_health_cli bt_mesh_shell_health_cli;

/** @brief External reference to provisioning handler. */
extern struct bt_mesh_prov bt_mesh_shell_prov;

/** @brief External reference to shell target context. */
extern struct bt_mesh_shell_target bt_mesh_shell_target_ctx;

#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif

#endif /* ZEPHYR_INCLUDE_BLUETOOTH_MESH_SHELL_H_ */


The winter weather may have set in, but avid cyclists in our area still have a reason to get on their bikes this Christmas.
A winter cycling challenge, organised by Love to Ride and supported by the Council and ENGIE, launched on Saturday 1 December, aimed at encouraging cyclists to hop on their bikes during the colder and darker months.
Between Saturday 1 December and Tuesday 25 December a daily prize draw is taking place for all cyclists who log a ride at www.lovetoride.net/nelincs.
Prizes up for grabs include safety clothing and equipment plus vouchers to spend in local cycling shops.
It's not too late to join in – simply make a journey on your bicycle and log it online before Christmas day.
Rides can be logged directly at www.lovetoride.net/nelincs or automatically uploaded via popular cycling apps which can link to Love to Ride.
Riders should be aware of the weather conditions at all times, and avoid venturing out in adverse conditions.
To find out the daily prize winner each day visit Love To Ride's Twitter and Facebook.


text:
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Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak (front, L) sits across from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C)...
Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak sits across from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the weekly...
Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak (front, L) sits across from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem November 11, 2012. Israel said it was poised to escalate attacks on the Gaza Strip on Sunday following a surge of rocket and mortar salvoes by Hamas and other factions in the Palestinian enclave. But conservative Netanyahu may be reluctant to seem weak ahead of a Jan. 22 general election that opinion polls currently predict he will win. Barak, a centrist in Israel's coalition government, played down speculation that the upcoming election was affecting Gaza policy. REUTERS/Sebastian Scheiner/Pool (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)
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text:
Q: if else statement from database record laravel 5.2 i want to create if else from database record.
for example : i've record "1" in "status" row.
"if status = "1"
echo Show Button
else
don't show button"

what code in controller and view?

A: Just put in the view your if
 @foreach ($itens as $item)
    @if ($item->status == 1)
    <input type="button"/>
    @endif
@endforeach

In your controller you don't need to care about it

A: You can use Laravel Blade Template Control Structures for this
i.e.
@if($status == 1)
...
<!-- HTML Code to generate button -->
...
@endif

Read more here


text:
The CSM
The CFS
Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples'
Mechanism for relations with the
UN Committee on World Food Security
CSM Key messages to CFS Advisory Group and Bureau extraordinary meeting
CFS Advisory Group and Bureau, News, News&Resources, Resources
Preliminary CSM messages to the Extraordinary
Meeting of the CFS Bureau and Advisory Group
(31 March 2020)
"No volveremos a la normalidad porque la normalidad era el problema"
Standing up to the crisis
The CFS was reformed in 2009 to strengthen the coordinated global policy response capacity on food security and nutrition which was found wanting during the food price crisis in 2007/2008. It was a high-level and collective commitment of member states and actors attending this virtual meeting today.
In this moment, almost 11 years later, we find ourselves in the midst of one of the most dramatic global crises of our times. It is subverting our livelihoods and horizons, urging us to make of this moment a turning point to ensure that from now on no-one is left behind.
All initial reports and analysis from communities, countries, research and UN centers, including from the HLPE, indicate that the current global health crisis has begun to generate or exacerbate critical situations in food systems at local, national and global levels.
This situation is likely to lead to a new, unprecedented global food crisis which will require a coordinated and effective global response, just as the global health crisis would desperately call for one.
CSM commends the CFS Chair for taking immediate and decisive steps to raise awareness about the impacts of Covid-19 on food security and nutrition, by convening the Virtual Meeting of the CFS Bureau and Advisory Group, commissioning the HLPE note and releasing his Statement.
The role of the CFS
Following these first reactions, it is now time for the CFS to concentrate on what is most urgently needed and has been at the core of its mandate since its reform: to promote policy coordination, convergence and coherence in response to the huge challenges posed by this new global food crisis to the right to adequate food of millions of people.
There is no other more inclusive intergovernmental and international platform in this world that can take on this task. The CFS has produced substantial policy guidance on many aspects of food security and nutrition over the past 10 years, approved by consensus by Member States following due consultation with all other participants. Now is the time to put them to use as effective responses to prevent, or at least mitigate and alleviate, the terrible effects of the upcoming food crisis on people at risk and the upsurge of hunger and malnutrition around the world.
No business as usual!
CFS cannot do business as usual. The Committee needs to shift its priorities to what is urgently needed today. The priority should now be that of scaling-up the multilateral response to the crisis while slowing down the policy negotiations processes originally planned for the next few months.
In this sense, the CFS should immediately review its proceedings and schedule for 2020/21 and establish the urgent intergovernmental process required to effectively address the challenge before all of us. Time is of the essence.
If anybody still believes we can replace the face-to-face CFS negotiations planned for May and July with virtual meetings and proceed as if nothing had happened, we need to be very clear: Our member organizations, communities, constituencies and, we believe, Member States and UN agencies as well will concentrate over the coming months on responding to the global health crisis and the related global food, financial and economic crises.
Our time and resources, as CFS members and participants, should be focused on the elaboration of a Global Policy Response to the new Food Crisis. This coordinated global policy response should be finalized and approved either by the upcoming CFS 47 Plenary session or at an extraordinary CFS Plenary Session. We suggest that the next CFS Bureau-Advisory Group meeting on 17 April should discuss the process and outline for this Global Policy Response. CFS members and participants are already engaged in, monitoring, assessing and analyzing the latest developments, drivers and expressions of the food crisis and should be encouraged to step up these efforts and share the results. The CFS Plenary 2020, to be held either in October 2020 or as an Extraordinary Plenary later in the year, should adopt, as the main point in the agenda, the Global Policy Response in presence of highest governmental representation from Member States. We have no time to lose.
Faced with the crisis the UNFSS necessarily moves to the back seat
The CSM understands that what is being referred to as a UN Food Systems Summit is an independent initiative of the UN Secretary General to raise political attention to the critical impact that the transformation of food systems may have on multiple dimensions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including but not exclusively the challenges of hunger and malnutrition in all its forms. It will be a political initiative of emblematic value, but with no direct normative implications in terms of policies, programmes and institutions. The role of the CFS needs to be coherent with this understanding.
The SG's effort to place food systems as a cornerstone of the Decade of Action and Delivery for Sustainable Development is certainly appreciated, although its modalities raise several concerns as explained in the collective letter of 550 Civil Society organizations submitted to the SG himself. But first and foremost, the world is confronted with a human crisis of horrific proportions, which once again will impose its heaviest tolls on the marginalized and most vulnerable.
The immediate evidence about how the crisis is unfolding exposes the multiple challenges generated by dependence on global value chains and the centrality of local food systems in ensuring food security and solid resilience to external shocks. Local food systems are primarily based on the agency of small and medium-scale food producers around the globe, and primarily small-scale in the developing world. This should be the fundamental premise and the hopeful prospect that should guide the normative process among UN Member States to establish clear pathways towards inclusive, equitable and sustainable food systems. To this end the debate needs to be grounded in the human rights and policy frameworks established by the past World Food Summits and the policy guidance approved by Member Governments in the FAO and the CFS. The inclusive and democratic nature of its normative process constitutes the reason why this debate needs to take place within the CFS. This is now the priority. The SG's initiative necessarily steps back to a second level of importance.
If and when the process towards the UN Food Systems Summit may be resumed, it will have to start from these normative foundations. The CFS policy deliberations could certainly contribute to informing the Summit and its preparations. But it will have to be clear that the Summit would be expected to reflect, share and amplify the democratic decisions taken by UN Members States in the institutions that are legitimately designated for such decision-making. No normative outcomes, programmes and other initiatives should be generated in a forum such as the UNFSS. Rather the emphasis should be on generating the necessary high-level political attention for legitimately adopted decisions to be transformed into actions.
Download the statement here
Tags: feat
CSM Preliminary messages on COVID-19
CSM Webinar: Learning about the COVID-19 crisis in the CFS
Translations of the HLPE issues Paper on COVID-19 now online!
CSM Updates and News, HLPE Reports, consultations and Processes, News, News&Resources
Upcoming CFS AG and Bureau meeting 11 January 2021
CFS Advisory Group and Bureau, News, Resources
HLPE e-consultation on the zero draft of the Report on Youth
HLPE Reports, consultations and Processes, News, News&Resources
Tweets by CSM4CFS
CFS 47th Plenary Session 8-11 February 2021
CSM Update | November, December and January 2021
Policy response to COVID-19
Connecting Smallholders to Markets
Food Systems and Nutrition
Global Food Governance
Global Strategic Framework
MYPoW
Protracted Crisis
Sustainable Agricultural Development, including Livestock
Urbanisation and Rural Transformation
Secretariat of the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM)
for relations to the UN Committee
on World Food Security (CFS)
FAO Headquarter, Room E – 128
Via delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome – Italy
cso4cfs@gmail.com
© 2021 Csm4Cfs. website by ManlioMa


replica designer bags wholesale I am a parent. My child is much younger than yours but he is a minor and I will go through his phone or anything he owns, if I am worried about him, I going to do it. BUT I would own that. Use your weight to find drive. Adjust your body position to make replica bags high quality sure you are pushing all of your weight down through the footpegs. This will replica bags online shopping india help the rear wheel find and maintain traction replica designer bags wholesale.


text:
Climate change: no need for an inquiry on the science
In a letter to the editor published in today's edition of The Australian Financial Review, former Treasury Deputy Secretary Des Moore, now Director, Institute of Private Enterprise, writes about Prime Minister Gillard's comments on the need for a "lasting and deep community consensus on climate change", and concludes:
Gillard would demonstrate her capacity as a leader if she established an independent public inquiry to test her belief in the need to reduce emissions of CO2.
I have news for Des Moore. An independent public inquiry on the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in progress for over 150 years, through the normal processes of peer reviewed published science. To the extent that any science is ever settled, the core science of global warming is; it is very basic undergraduate physics, which has been confirmed experimentally for over 150 years. The arguments and uncertainties are about the secondary effects and the consequences.
- A paper about the warming effect of the planet's atmosphere was first published in 1824 by the great French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier, with a follow-up paper in 1827. Fourier established the concept of a planetary energy balance, a balance between the planet's heat gain and its heat loss, and proposed that the atmosphere shifts the balance towards higher temperatures by slowing the heat loss.
- Beginning in the late 1850s, the 19th century Irish physicist John Tyndall FRS undertook reliable experimental work which established that the warming effect was due to the absorption and re-radiation of infra-red radiation by a number of gases, notably water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane.
- A quantitative analysis was undertaken in the 1890s by the Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius, who was the first to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes would cause global warming.
- The black body temperature of the earth – the temperature at which it would stabilise if all incoming radiation were absorbed and re-radiated - is 5.5 °C. Since the Earth's surface reflects about 28% of incoming sunlight, in the absence of the greenhouse effect the planet's mean temperature would be far lower - about -18 or -19 °C instead of the much higher current mean temperature, about 14 °C.
- Given all of this, I think that the onus is on the climate change deniers to explain to the rest of us why adding about 30% to the burden of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would not raise the temperature of the planet.
The theory is supported by a great deal of direct observation and measurement of global warming and of the secondary effects of that warming.
If Julia Gillard were to announce an independent inquiry into "the need to reduce emissions of CO2", most reasonable Australians would draw a perfectly reasonable conclusion that she had taken leave of her senses.
There is a legitimate role for economists in the climate change debate, but their role begins where the science leaves off. Science can tell us what we need to do; economics can tell us the most economically efficient ways to do what we need to do. We would all be better served, however, if people whose training is in law and economics rather than science would refrain from raising confusion about matters which they are equipped neither to understand nor debate. The economics is challenging enough; leave the science to the scientists.
Labels: Climate change, Public policy
Some reservations about the Gillard ascendancy
While I am generally pleased with the replacement of Kevin Rudd by Julia Gillard, there are enough nagging doubts and reservations to cause me to refrain from throwing my hat in the air. Among the principal ones:
(1) I worry about the use of the term "negotiation" in relation to the forthcoming interactions between the Government and the mining industry. This is not a negotiation. The Government makes laws, and persons both natural and corporate within the jurisdiction are meant to obey them.
Accordingly, a self-respecting Government does not negotiate with private companies what they are prepared to accept. What it does do in relation to a matter as complex as a resource rent tax is discuss the matter in detail with the affected parties and hear what they have to say about any perceived problems with the design of the scheme, for the principal purpose of avoiding any unintended consequences. These discussions should be on the basis that there will be a resource rent tax, but the Government will actually be listening to what the miners have to say about the design of the tax.
Perhaps I am just starting at shadows, perhaps it is just a bit of sloppy language, but in someone who chooses her words as carefully as Prime Minister Gillard appears to do, I worry and wonder.
(2) I worry deeply about language that suggests that the Government sees the need to take time over establishing a new consensus on climate change, time which I guess will be measured in years, not weeks or months. Consensus is great, but in this domain we need leadership. The deniers will never agree, and neither will the large emitters if they see that it is going to cost them something, as cost them it must. Efforts to establish consensus will simply give the antagonistic interest groups time to redouble their efforts and cause further delay. The Government knows what the issues are, it knows where everybody stands. It is time for the Government to make some decisions and get on with it.
(3) All of the language about understanding the anxieties of people about asylum seekers arriving on our shores fills me with foreboding. Although she said some reassuring things on her first 7.30 Report interview, words critical of attempts to inflame the issue, I fear that she is going to do the politically pragmatic thing on this issue, rather than the right thing.
In saying this I am not drawing an unfavourable contrast between Gillard and Rudd. When Rudd said he was not going to take a lurch to the right on this issue, he did it from the comfortable position of having already lurched, through the outrageous suspension of processing applications for asylum from Sri Lankans and Afghans, not to mention tasty little numbers like incarcerating people in Leonora, a remote mining town in Western Australia.
(4) I see no sign that Prime Minister Gillard will adopt any kind of balanced position in relation to Israel and the plight of the Palestinians. On the contrary, if her performance at the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum last year is anything to go by, we can expect a continuation of the reflexive obedience to Israel's interests that has come to characterise Australia's approach to the Middle East over a long period of time. Speaking just six months after Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli invasion of Gaza) she empathised with Israel's angst about Hamas firing home-made rockets over the barrier fence, but had nothing to say about the civilian casualties in Gaza. In her remarkably enthusiastic address to the Forum on 22 June 2009 (see transcript here) she spoke of our wonderful shared values, and spoke about how "exclusion and humiliation breed despair and hatred", but did not seem able to cross-reference this to what motivates the Palestinians who have been dispossessed for over 60 years, and lived under brutal military occupation for over 40 years.
(5) On foreign policy more generally, she has little if any background and one does not acquire a sure touch in this area overnight. That is not a disqualification, but the likely consequence is that she will adopt very "safe" approaches at a time when some imagination and critical judgements are needed. We need a Government which is prepared to challenge some tired old positions, but the likelihood is is that foreign policy will more than usually be an extension of domestic policy by other means – the key driver of foreign policy positions will be the desire not to offend any particular domestic constituency. The attitude to Israel is probably a function of this, and we can expect to see an uncritical approach to the US alliance because the political imperative will be to avoid being characterised as "leftish" or soft on national security or a danger to the alliance.
Again I am not drawing an unfavourable contrast between Gillard and Rudd. Rudd brought little to the development of Australian foreign policy, in spite of all the claims and posturing to the contrary.
I hope I am wrong about all of the above. Time will tell.
Posted by PAUL BARRATT at 5:26 PM 1 comment:
Labels: Australian diplomacy, Politics, Public policy
Reflections on the leadership change
Forests have been clear felled to provide the paper on which to print all of the commentary that has been published in the last few days about the collapse of Kevin Rudd's Prime Ministership and the election of Julia Gillard to lead the Australian Labor Party. I don't intend to try to cover all of the ground, but for what it is worth, here are some of the principal things that strike me:
(1) There has been a lot of silly and uninformed commentary, including from Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard, all of whom ought to know better, about Kevin Rudd having been elected Prime Minister, and Julia Gillard not having been as yet.
The Australian Constitution provides for a Westminster system of government, as a result of which we do not elect our political leaders directly. Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister of Australia as a result of three conditions being fulfilled. First, he was elected to a seat in the House of Representatives, as the local member for the Brisbane seat of Griffith. Second, in the 2007 general election the party which he led achieved a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives, and in accordance with our constitutional practice was entitled to form a government. Third, prior to the 2007 general election, he had been elected by his parliamentary party to lead it, and not surprisingly, he remained the leader after the election.
So unless, dear reader, you are on the electoral role as a resident of the Federal Electorate of Griffith, or are a member of the Parliamentary Labor Party, you had no say whatever in Kevin Rudd's ascension to the Prime Ministership, except to the extent that you contributed to the election of a Labor majority in the House of Representatives.
(2) The leadership of the Labor Party being a matter for the Labor Party itself, there is nothing inappropriate about the Party deciding to change its leader. The transition was organised by elected members of the Parliamentary Labor Party, and the only people who had a say in it were elected Parliamentarians. We will get our chance to express a view on this come election day.
(3) For all of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's silly hyperbole about "Sussex Street Death Squads", even the machine men of the NSW Right cannot organise a change of leadership unless the party is crying out for it. The principal architect of Kevin Rudd's misfortunes was Kevin Rudd himself. Put another way, Julia Gillard was not a solution looking for a problem; Kevin Rudd was a problem crying out for a solution.
(4) Kevin Rudd liked to think of himself as a "policy wonk", and someone who understood the workings of government. He was neither, and in fact was very much the type of politically aligned operator that has reduced public administration to desperate incapacity in just about every jurisdiction in the land. His sole experience of Federal Government was as a very junior diplomat on a posting to Beijing, a position which gives neither leverage over, nor insights into, the policy development process – or for that matter program implementation. He then became chief of staff to Queensland Premier Wayne Goss, and subsequently the head of the Queensland Cabinet Office. Both of these positions are close to the centre of power, but they confer on their occupant power without responsibility, and are remote from what goes on inside the government departments that are at the beck and call of the political leadership.
(5) The problem with this kind of career trajectory, of which we have seen no small number of examples since the 1984 Dawkins reforms of the Commonwealth Public Service, is that the chosen ones can go straight to the top without the discomfort or inconvenience of running a major organisational unit of a government department. The typical career path is from middle management to chief of staff or senior adviser, followed by appointment as a department secretary, or perhaps warehousing as a deputy secretary until a suitable vacancy at the department head level turns up.
This career path flies in the face of a very substantial body of management literature (see for example the work of Canadian organisational psychologist Elliot Jacques) which holds that no-one, no matter how talented, can be an effective senior manager without having matured as a manager at lower levels. One learns to manage great complexity by first learning how to manage programs and projects of lesser, but steadily increasing complexity. Armed forces understand this well, but not modern politicians. If you seek explanation for the poor quality of government services (including infrastructure planning and development) that surrounds you, and the extraordinary levels of waste and mismanagement, seek no further than this.
(6) Among the many things that Kevin Rudd did not understand was the value of an effective Cabinet process. Clear evidence of how central the Cabinet process is to a Westminster system of government is the fact that it has endured for centuries, without ever being mentioned in legislation or, in Australia's case, the constitution. The central principal of Cabinet government in our system is that, while Ministers are each commissioned by the Governor-General to administer certain enactments as defined in the Administrative Arrangements Order, there are some things that an individual Minister could do that would have the potential to bring the Government down. Accordingly, for these strategic issues, it is a matter of basic survival to ensure that these strategically significant issues are discussed by the whole leadership team, with a collective decision being made as to whether any given proposal is or is not a good idea.
Beyond that core issue, there is the question of ensuring, in relation to any idea that the Government wishes to proceed with, that all of the downsides and risk factors have been considered, and the requirements for successful implementation have been thought through. The standard model for achieving that in Australian Federal Cabinet practice is to require any Minister seeking significant policy change to place a submission before Cabinet. Cabinet submissions are required to be succinct (usually not more than seven pages), with clear recommendations, and costings agreed by the Department of Finance. The proposing Minister's department is required, in the course of drafting a submission, to consult all other departments upon whose responsibilities the proposal could have an impact, and to include in the submission a succinct statement of each department's "coordination comments". The submissions are then supposed to be lodged with the Cabinet Secretariat in time to be circulated to all members of Cabinet ten clear business days ahead of the meeting at which they are to be considered.
It doesn't always work like that (I have known times when the ten day rule has been more honoured in the breach than the observance) but at least this standard model provides for the orderly conduct of government business, and for Ministers to take informed decisions based on thorough briefing from all relevant departments and agencies.
(7) In this context it is useful to contrast the decision-making process which led to the RSPT debacle with the process by which the Fraser Cabinet deliberated on the taxation of the mining industry in about 1976, in response to an Industries Assistance Commission report which the Whitlam Government had commissioned in 1975. In the circumstances of the day the Treasury (at that time having the functions of both the Treasury and the Department of Finance) was extremely powerful, and the former officers of Rex Connor's Department of Minerals and Energy, of whom I was one, were treated in some quarters with considerable suspicion. But thanks to a properly run Cabinet process, the Department of National Resources was able to achieve a substantial reversal of the Whitlam Government's ill-advised decision to move from immediate write-off of capital investment in the mining industry to write off over forty years or life of mine, whichever was the less. It is ironic to think that if the Treasury had had its way back then, mining investment would have continued to be written off at 2.5% per annum, and we wouldn't be agonising about super profits in the mining industry because we would barely have a mining industry.
(8) A more subtle benefit of an effective Cabinet process is the opportunity it provides for the training of the next generation of public servants. You can send public servants off to all the courses in the world, and there is a place for some of that, but there is no substitute for junior and middle level officers having real responsibilities, and real opportunities to contribute to the major issues of the day, under the supervision of experienced senior officers. That level of junior officer engagement and supervision takes a little more time, but it is an investment in the future of public administration in our country. If the Prime Minister demands that everything be done by yesterday, it can only be done by very senior staff who can get it right first time – there is no time for any reworking. The result of that is overworked senior staff, and bright young people beneath them whose talents are being neither utilised nor developed.
(9) No-one who read the article about Kevin Rudd by Scott Prasser, co-editor of Corruption and Reform: The Fitzgerald Vision, published in the 11 January 2007 edition of The Australian (see Scott Prasser: Rudd's ruthless style entrenched Labor) can have been surprised either by the style of the Rudd Government or the way it ended. The key content is:
... aided and abetted by partisans such as Rudd and others recruited from academe and elsewhere, the Goss government implemented a new political fix of increased centralised control, partisan appointments across the public service, media management, continued executive dominance of Queensland's unicameral legislature and skilful containment of Fitzgerald's anti-corruption watchdogs such as the Criminal Justice Commission.
Where the Fitzgerald report suggested the public service needed to be able to "provide independent, impartial, expert advice" and to operate in an environment "without concern for the political or personal connections of the people and organisations affected by their decisions", the Goss reforms ensured greater political control through increased politicisation and centralised processes of a more competent administrative machine.
Posted by PAUL BARRATT at 10:59 PM No comments:
Labels: Politics, Public policy, Resources policy
No connection between asylum seekers and population
One of the nasty little dog-whistle messages that is in the air at the moment is the notion that "border protection" (code for institutionalised inhumanity towards asylum seekers) has some connection with the current debate about the appropriate growth trajectory for Australia's population growth. It doesn't, as the following statistics demonstrate:
- The outcome for the 2008-09 Migration Program was 171,318 places, an 8 per cent increase on the 2007-08 figure of 158,630 places.
- The planning level for 2009-10 was reduced to 168,700 places, a 1.9 per cent decrease.
- The number of boat arrivals in 2008-09 was 1,033, and the financial year to date figure for the current financial year was 4,916 as of 19 May 2010.
- In calendar year 2009 the total number of asylum applications was 6,170 – more than double the 2,750 boat arrivals for the calendar year. As everyone knows, most asylum seekers arrive by plane.
What these statistics show is that boat arrivals really amount to little more than rounding error on the formal migration program. If we accepted every single boat arrival as a permanent resident, the effect on the size of our population would be barely discernable.
This evening on the ABC Radio National program Australia Talks, conservative commentator Tom Switzer opined, in response to a question from program host Paul Barclay, that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott would make the question of asylum seekers a centre-piece of the forthcoming election campaign. I am sure he is right. The Coalition's excitable spokesman on immigration matters, Scott Morrison, never tires of telling us that the country is being overrun by boat people, and that the government must somehow "stop the boats". Tony Abbott himself nominated stopping the boats as the first of the three policy issues by which in his view Prime Minister Gillard must be judged.
We need a reality check here. At a time when the Global Financial Crisis is just starting to show us what it can really do, when the public transport systems of our two largest cities are collapsing around our ears, when the state of the nation's infrastructure generally is a disgrace, when no political party has anything useful to say about climate change, when the Murray Darling Basin is in a state of collapse, and the war in Afghanistan is deteriorating day by day, we are asked to believe that the number one issue facing Australia is the annual arrival of a few thousand asylum seekers.
The reason why Tony Abbott gives the issue such prominence is not because of its inherent importance. I suspect it is because he understands the "push" factors that are driving the increase in boat arrivals, and is delighted to highlight an issue over which he knows the government can have little control – politics at its basest.
Through the prominence which they give to the issue, our news media are complicit in making it politically difficult for governments to adopt the humane approach required by our international obligations to asylum seekers.
Synthetic CDOs: it's gambling
Spend two minutes of your life finding out all that you need to know about synthetic CDOs by watching this YouTube clip of Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat, Missouri explain to a bunch of Goldman Sachs executives what CDOs are all about: gambling, pure and simple.
No doubt Senator McCaskill lacks the sophistication of the Goldman Sachs execs she is addressing, who are undoubtedly the smartest guys in the room. She is new to Washington, having been elected only in 2006, and has lived in Missouri all her life, like three generations of her ancestors.
Maybe that is why she is able to see the CDOs for what they are. Judge for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Rt9iN159U
Labels: Economics, Financial markets
Iran is not the main problem
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says that Iran's nuclear program is the most difficult peace and security issue the international community will be confronted with over the next twelve to eighteen months.
Wrong. The most difficult peace and security issue the international community will be confronted with over the next twelve to eighteen months will be the one it has steadfastly refused to confront since 1948: the ongoing consequences of the unjust division of Mandate Palestine, with 83% of the land going to the relatively recently arrived Zionists and just 17% to the original Arab inhabitants, with catastrophic consequences for the dispossessed Palestinians. The invasion of the Suez Canal Zone in 1956, the wars of 1967 and 1973, the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, the Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, the Israeli blockade of Gaza since 2006, and the invasion in 2009, all attest to that.
Now Israel has the most right wing and extremist government in its history, a government that feels it owes nothing to anyone in the outside world, and that any step it chooses to take in the name of Israel is justified.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an appalling person. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the most dangerous man in the Middle East. Binyamin Netanyahu is.
Posted by PAUL BARRATT at 11:13 AM No comments:
Labels: Israel, Middle East, Palestine
Calling BP names
A few days ago US President referred to BP, the company at the centre of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, as "British Petroleum", much to the consternation of the British Government and others.
It was a cheap shot. British Petroleum formally changed its name to BP plc in 2001. It is a global energy company which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange as well as the London Stock Exchange. Having over the years taken over Burmah-Castrol, ARCO and Amoco, it has almost as many US shareholders as UK shareholders on its share register (39% and 40% respectively).
It was a cheap shot in another way. While BP owns the Deepwater Horizon project and must take ultimate responsibility for the ongoing disaster, let us not forget that the wonderful US icon Halliburton was the company that did the physical work and must have something to answer for.
And if we want to play the game of calling BP by historical names, I have a much better idea. Having on 12 June just passed the first anniversary of the stolen election in Iran, and while the air is still ringing with the cheers of those find something to celebrate in the strengthening of sanctions against Iran, why not go the whole hog and refer to BP as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). Then we could all be reminded of the events which set relations between Iran and the West on their current trajectory.
It needs to be remembered that it was on behalf of the then British Government-owned AIOC that CIA's Tehran station chief Kermit Roosevelt (now there is a good Democrat family name) organised the 1953 coup that, with the backing of the British Government and the complicity of the Shah, overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq, who had had the temerity to nationalise the Iranian oil industry – meaning, in effect, nationalise AIOC.
The coup came after the British Government had unsuccessfully contested the nationalisation at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
It is not as though the Americans had not sought to avoid the circumstances which triggered the nationalisation. The Iranian Government was resentful of how little benefit Iran was receiving from AIOC's lucrative business exploiting its finite reserves of oil – a position that Australians ought to empathise with while Prime Minister Rudd is banging on about the need for a super profits tax on the Australian mining industry. No skills were imparted to Iranians – the British did not wish to take the risk that Iran would one day be able to run its own oil industry – and Iranian oil industry workers not only worked for a pittance, they worked and lived under appalling conditions.
The Americans politely suggested to the British that they really should do something about the Iranian Government's concerns and the plight of AIOC's workers, only to be told rather patronisingly that Britain had far more experience at dealing with "natives" than the US did, and knew what it was doing.
And so tumult in the Iranian oil industry ultimately became tumult in the streets of Tehran, and culminated in the CIA-led, British-backed coup, following which the Shah got rid of all that silly democratic stuff about electing governments, and AIOC was re-privatised, except that this time around the original AIOC was only permitted to own 40% of the new company – that was part of the US-UK deal.
So we really do have a lot to be thankful to "British Petroleum" for.
Labels: Iran, Resources policy, US-Iran
As a sweetener to the Western Australian public Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised Western Australia $2 billion for infrastructure development to be funded from the proceeds of his proposed resource rent tax on the mining industry. He has made a similar promise to Queensland.
Two comments:
(1) The merit of a tax has nothing to do with all of the wonderful things that a government could spend the money on. The merit of taxes is all about tax principles and tax design, a key aim of the latter being to raise revenue without distorting business decisions.
(2) Things being as they are, a Kevin Rudd promise is not exactly a bankable document.
Labels: Minerals industry, Politics, Public policy, Resources policy
Flitton on the relationship with Israel
Diplomatic editor Daniel Flitton had a very worthwhile opinion piece on the strains in the relationship with Israel in the Friday 11 June edition of The Age – see Sparing Israel the rod spoils the friendship.
After noting that the interests of the two countries are not automatically in sync (something one could wish that the two major political parties had recognised many years ago) and discussing the case of the stolen/forged passports, he observes in relation to the intelligence sharing relationship that Australia has many sources of intelligence about the Middle East, notably the long-standing intelligence sharing arrangements with the United States and the United Kingdom, and observes:
Israel may well have a better idea of what is going on in its region than does Australia - precisely because it is Israel's region. Australia's interests in the Middle East are rightly more limited. Having a good understanding of what is going on in the world should not be confused with wasting time on problems that have little direct impact on our interests. Bureaucratic resources are not infinite and hard decisions must be made about where our priorities lie.
Besides, with few exceptions, when countries share intelligence it is received with a big question mark over why the information is being passed along. Is the material intended to inform, or to influence? Australia might be a friend of Israel but, as the passport episode has shown, there is good reason to carefully assess the motives of its spy agencies.
The question about whether intelligence is passed on to inform or to influence is of fundamental importance and applies to all our intelligence relationships. We should not always assume that what we are being told by our great and powerful friends can be taken at face value.
Labels: Intelligence, Israel
Freebairn on the resource rent tax
There is a fun thought experiment you can conduct on the basis of a recent remark by distinguished economist John Freebairn, Ritchie Professor of Economics at Melbourne University (see Melbourne University profile of Professor Freebairn here), who was one of the key consultants in the design of the resource super profits tax (RSPT).
A piece in The Weekend Australian Financial Review, 29-30 May 2010, (Why an economist loves this tax... by Patrick Durkin) states:
Freebairn guesses only half-a-dozen experts and economists in Australia would intimately understand the workings of the super profits tax.
The fun is in considering who these cognoscenti might be, and who might be left outside that charmed circle.
First, consider the fact that Freebairn was a signatory to a statement by 20 economists that came out in support of the tax during the preceding week (see text of Statement and list of signatories here). Freebairn seems to be saying that at least fourteen of his co-signatories did not really understand what they were signing.
Second, let us try to figure out who the six cognoscenti are. Presumably Freebairn himself is one, and Ken Henry another. Apart from Ken Henry there were four other members of the Tax Review Panel. If we include all of them there would be no room for anyone else.
That leaves no room for the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner or Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard. They wouldn't try to sell us something they didn't really understand, surely?
And what about the senior Treasury official, Executive Director (First Assistant Secretary) David Parker, who is chairing the Government's consultation panel?
And the people at KPMG Econtech who did the modelling that showed that the resource industry would grow after this substantial tax was imposed on it?
We seem rapidly to run out of room, and can only conclude that numbers of people who have played a key role in the design of this tax, and the decision making and advocacy thereon, do not really understand what they are doing.
Posted by PAUL BARRATT at 10:03 PM 2 comments:
Was Kevin Rudd looking for this fight?
Shortly after the Government revealed to a startled world its thinking about the particular form that a resource rent tax might take, an old Treasury colleague of mine commented to me that the fight that had broken out with the mining industry was no accident – it was a fight that Kevin Rudd wanted to have.
That is certainly the view of Sydney Morning Herald political editor Peter Hartcher, for whose views I have a great deal of respect; see Big miners gave Rudd the fight he was looking for, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 2010.
Hartcher begins:
One of the most mistaken ideas to take hold in politics in recent weeks is that Kevin Rudd has somehow been shocked that the big miners are reacting ferociously to his proposed new mining tax.
To believe this, you'd have to think Rudd some sort of moron. He certainly did not decide to spring a big new tax on the richest companies in the country, just before an election, in the expectation that they would calmly invite him to tea to negotiate.
Rudd wanted a fight. That's the whole point.
In explaining what the Prime Minister wants to achieve in taking on such a large and well funded industry, Hartcher says:
First, it is designed to make him look strong. Second, it is set up to position him as the champion of the values of Australian fairness against the miners' self-interest. Third, it makes Rudd a fighter on behalf of "working families".
And fourth, a fight generates its own publicity - it is filling the national political headspace on the subject of Rudd's choosing. Stories about ceiling insulation bungles and school hall rip-offs are bumped in the face of this titanic struggle.
I am inclined to think that there is also an element of political incompetence involved in this. As I commented in Resource rent tax: what happened to the nemawashi?, the Government would have been well advised to publish the Henry Tax Review the day it was delivered to them, accompanied by a statement that this was an independent review, and the Government would consider it carefully and announce its decisions in due course after consultations with affected parties and relevant experts. This would have given the Government the opportunity to gauge the reactions to all of the recommendations of the report, to gain a broader spectrum of expert opinion on each of them, and to design a suite of policies that it could both explain and sell. But I can just hear the inexperienced spin doctors counselling the Prime Minister not to put the report "out there" until he had all the answers – otherwise "you will only encourage speculation and might lose control of the debate".
If it is true that this is a war of choice – and I am sure the Prime Minister is happy to have the fight – we really do need to talk about Kevin (see We need to talk about Kevin) it would have to stand both as one of the greatest acts of irresponsibility and one of the greatest acts of narcissism in modern Australian political history.
Reflections on the Gaza blockade
The world is understandably in uproar about the loss of life on board the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara as it tried to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza yesterday.
Some observations on the event, and the context within which it happened:
(1) Take no notice of assertions by Israeli Government spokesmen like Defence Minister Ehud Barak or Israeli Government mouthpiece Mark Regev that the violence was started by the protesters. The maintenance of the siege on Gaza is itself the first act of violence – the forceful prevention of innocent civilians from acquiring the daily necessities of life to the extent that they can afford them.
(2) So too is the enforcement of the blockade, whether on land or at sea. It is a statement that we make the rules, and if you proceed we will apply to you whatever force we consider it expedient to apply.
(3) The interception in international waters of a civilian ship of a country (Turkey) with which Israel is supposedly at peace is an outrageous act of piracy, as is the kidnapping and detention of all of the people on board the flotilla.
(4) The fact that the one of the most powerful armed forces in the world could not figure out a way to take control of a civilian ship without killing ten people and wounding many more is an act of egregious military incompetence.
(5) In particular, no-one who wanted a peaceful solution would rappel commandos onto the deck from military helicopters at four o'clock in the morning, given the numbers on board. This was no doubt intended to generate shock and awe; the trouble with that is that one cannot be sure whether, when the adrenalin starts to pump, the reaction will be flight or fight. In this case it seems to have generated anger and fight, a response which Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev puts down to the fact that they were all radical Islamist extremists with links to terrorist organisations. He might find that explanation satisfying but I doubt that many others will.
(6) The incompetence on display is born partly of the extraordinary aggressiveness of the Israeli Defence Force. It is so habituated to the application of overwhelming violence that it seems incapable of graduated responses, and it is accustomed to applying lethal force with no questions asked, no accountability.
(7) The aggressiveness is also born of hubris – the Israelis believe that they can do whatever they like and there will be no reckoning to pay. The Americans unwittingly reinforce this attitude. When the Americans say that they are absolutely committed to the security of Israel they mean that the Israelis can afford to lighten up a bit, the most powerful nation in history is on their side. What the Israelis hear, however, is the message that it does not matter how badly they behave, the Americans will support them.
(8) Consider what happened on the deck of Mavi Marmara yesterday and ask yourself whether you really believe that there were no war crimes committed by the Israeli Defence Force during the invasion of Gaza, that there is nothing in the Goldstone Report which requires investigation (as our own government would prefer to believe). I don't believe a word of it, and at least one Israeli commentator has made that connection – see Akiva Eldar's Border Control/Did someone say Goldstone? in the left of centre Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, 1 June 2010.
(9) There is no shortage of despairing Israeli commentary about this debacle. See for example Bradley Burston's A Special Place in Hell/The Second Gaza War: Israel lost at sea, published in Ha'aretz on 31 May 2010. Burston writes:
A war tells a people terrible truths about itself. That is why it is so difficult to listen.
We were determined to avoid an honest look at the first Gaza war. Now, in international waters and having opened fire on an international group of humanitarian aid workers and activists, we are fighting and losing the second. For Israel, in the end, this Second Gaza War could be far more costly and painful than the first.
In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.
Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel's own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.
Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel's Vietnam.
(10) More in similar vein from Gideon Levy in Operation Mini Cast Lead, Ha'aretz, 1 June 2010:
Like in "Mini-Israel," the park where there is everything, but smaller, Israel embarked yesterday on a mini Operation Cast Lead. Like its larger, losing predecessor, this operation had it all: the usual false claim that is was they who had started it - and not the landing of commandos from helicopters on a ship in open sea, away from Israeli territorial waters. There was the claim that the first act of violence came not from the soldiers, but the rioting activists on Mavi Marmara; that the blockade on Gaza is legal and that the flotilla to its shores is against the law - God knows which law.
This action also featured the pathetic focus on "public relations," as if there is something to explain, and again the sick question was asked: Why didn't the soldiers use more force.
Again Israel will pay a heavy diplomatic price, once which had not been considered ahead of time. Again, the Israeli propaganda machine has managed to convince only brainwashed Israelis, and once more no one asked the question: What was it for? Why were our soldiers thrown into this trap of pipes and ball bearings? What did we get out of it?
If Cast Lead was a turning point in the attitude of the world toward us, this operation is the second horror film of the apparently ongoing series. Israel proved yesterday that it learned nothing from the first movie.
(11) The first law of digging holes is, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Israel has yet to learn this lesson. It responded to the election of a Hamas Government in a free and fair election in 2006 by imposing collective punishment on the people who elected it, in the form of a blockade, a blockade so rigorous that 80% of the people of Gaza depend upon humanitarian aid from the UN, and the people whose homes were destroyed in the Israeli invasion cannot rebuild because no cement is allowed in. This has done nothing to undermine Hamas, and the efforts to turn the people of Gaza against Hamas have been more successful in turning the West against Israel.
(12) Israel is now digging another hole. I heard on the ABC program PM this evening that Sydney Morning Herald journalists Paul McGeough and Kate Geraghty had been offered immediate deportation from Israel, but first they had to sign a form acknowledging that they had entered Israel illegally, so they had declined (a bit pedantic of them really – given that they were kidnapped in international waters there was a certain illegality to their entry, it's just that it wasn't their doing). Presumably all of the six hundred foreign nationals who are now being held in gaols all around Israel have similarly refused to sign. No doubt there will be some stout souls who will go on refusing for a long time, in which case they will become an increasing embarrassment to Israel.
(13) On PM this evening I heard Foreign Minister Stephen Smith saying in Parliament that the only durable solution is two states living in peace side by side. Forget it, the two state solution is dead. Talk of a two state solution is now nothing more than a fig-leaf behind which the likes of Tony Blair hide their ineffectuality. Time to start thinking about the mechanics of the one state solution – which is what exists at the present time, really.
(14) As far as the way out of this mess is concerned, I am with Gideon Levy in an interview on PM this evening. Israel had better start learning to talk to Hamas.
Posted by PAUL BARRATT at 10:52 PM 1 comment:
Labels: Israel, Palestine


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