Can LinkedIn Make The Grade?
LinkedIn wants to be an integral piece of your social network. With 70MM users, and a planned IPO, it hopes it can be considered at the same level as Facebook or Twitter. But it seems to me that they have a lot of work to do.
In the past week, the service has been hit with numerous outages – some planned, some not. But while the planned downtime is forewarned via banner messages on the site, the un-intentional have gone un-reported, un-acknowledged, and un-explained. Worse yet, few in my small circle even noticed. This bipartisan disinterest has led some people to suggest that the world would not even notice if LinkedIn were to disappear.
The LinkedIn blog site has remained up throughout any downtime, but the posts are not providing explanations – choosing to announce open-source code contributions and what motivates a "Data Scientist". Their Twitter feed, meanwhile, mentions absolutely nothing about uptime.
Instead, people are left to speculate and tweet on their own. Some have suggested that the outages are related to their new LA Data Center brought online in Dec. However, I have noticed some minor, though architecturally significant, features on the home page UI this week – such as a new-items count added to the title bar – and wonder if maybe the new codebase has proven to be less than bug-free.
Regardless, the mere fact that we have to speculate at all concerns me. If this were Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, or any of the popular online services, they would have kept users informed via out-of-band channels and provided a deeply technical post-mortem in the aftermath. For a social site that is geared for "professionals", LinkedIn is being neither social nor professional. Instead, they are showing that they have a lot to learn about Customer Service.


text:
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;

namespace XnaVG
{
    public sealed class VGImage
    {
        public bool LinearColorspace { get; private set; }
        public bool Premultiplied { get; private set; }
        public VGDevice Device { get; private set; }
        public Texture2D Texture { get; private set; }
        public TextureFilter ImageFilter { get; set; }
        public TextureAddressMode AddressMode { get; set; }

        internal VGImage(VGDevice device, Texture2D texture, bool linearColorspace, bool premultiplied)
        {
            Device = device;
            Texture = texture;
            LinearColorspace = linearColorspace;
            ImageFilter = TextureFilter.Linear;
            Premultiplied = premultiplied;
        }

        internal SamplerState GetSamplerState()
        {
            return new SamplerState
            {
                AddressU = AddressMode,
                AddressV = AddressMode,
                AddressW = AddressMode,
                Filter = ImageFilter,
            };
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
ITC website
Easing the burden of non-tariff barriers
The history of trade policy since World War II is one of remarkable success in terms of reducing tariffs.
by Alan Deardorff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan
In industrialized countries tariffs have fallen to about one-tenth of what they were, largely as a result of negotiations fostered by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In developing countries progress came later and has been less, but most developing economies have seen the wisdom of reducing tariffs quite substantially. Progress in reducing tariffs has, in part, exposed existing non-tariff barriers (NTBs) and, more so, prompted countries at all levels of development to invent new NTBs to serve the purposes that could no longer be achieved through tariffs. Thus, today, NTBs are by far the largest impediment to trade.
Some expansion of NTBs has been deliberately protectionist, but more has been the unintended or even unexpected by-product of policies pursued for other purposes. Regardless of these purposes, NTBs can severely hamper trade and interfere with countries' abilities to prosper by integrating with the world economy. This raises the question of whether today's international trading system is capable of dealing adequately with NTBs. One hope for doing so was the Doha Round of trade negotiations that began in 2001 under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Doha Development Agenda was intended to reduce or remove many forms of barriers to trade as well as cut back subsidies that are often just as disruptive, even though they may expand trade. The Doha Round has entered its eleventh year of negotiations and there are no signs that it will accomplish very much, if indeed it ever concludes. So, there seems to be no hope that NTBs will be reduced or constrained by multilateral negotiations.
This does not mean the WTO has lost its relevance. On the contrary, the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) continues to function well and effectively, and is expected to continue to do so. To the extent that it is able to address NTBs, the DSM is expected to become more important for this purpose over time. At the same time that multilateral negotiations within the WTO have languished, negotiations outside the WTO to form Free Trade Areas (FTAs) and other preferential trading arrangements have proliferated. One might imagine that attempts to address NTBs will shift from the WTO to FTAs; and to some extent that may occur. Similarly, there has been some success in addressing trade issues outside the full multilateral context and independently of FTAs through plurilateral negotiations among groups of countries with a shared interest. This form of negotiation promises scope in addressing particular NTBs. To understand how these various mechanisms may or may not work in addressing NTBs, it is helpful to distinguish NTBs by their purpose. Attempts to curtail NTBs are bound to fail if they do not take into account what countries are trying to accomplish when they are created. There are three categories of NTBs: protectionist policies; assistance policies; and non-protectionist policies.
• Protectionist policies are used by countries for the avowed purpose of helping their own firms and industries at the expense of those in other countries. This purpose has been the most common reason for levying tariffs, and preventing it has been the fundamental aim of the GATT and WTO. NTBs that serve this purpose, such as import quotas, local content requirements and public procurement practices, are often very similar to tariffs in their economic effects. GATT, which was conceived to counter such explicit protectionist motives, and the WTO have worked very well to constrain tariffs and at least moderately well to constrain these types of NTBs. Countries that use such explicitly protectionist NTBs know they will be subject to disputes in the WTO and will likely lose. For this reason, they may pull back from the brink of such overt protectionism. An example is the United States stimulus policy of 2008, which as originally drafted would have limited government expenditure on imports. President Obama was able to get the legislation modified to prevent such limits when they would run afoul of the United States's trade obligations under the WTO and North American Free Trade Agreement.
• Assistance policies aim to help domestic firms and industries, but not explicitly at the expense of foreign counterparts. Domestic subsidies fit the description as do most of the bailouts seen during and after the global financial crisis. Undeniably, these policies have adverse effects on foreign firms, but that is not their purpose. WTO international rules find these policies harder to deal with than protectionist policies. Sovereign governments will not give up their right to assist their own constituents and WTO international rules cannot simply prohibit such policies. In the past, rules have only permitted adversely affected countries to respond to protect themselves. This is the rationale behind WTO countervailing duties that work reasonably well for the narrow category of policies, essentially subsidies, to which they apply. Unfortunately, tools do not exist to allow countries to protect themselves from the adverse effects of many other assistance policies. For example, if a bailout of a car company makes it easier for the company to compete in markets to which both it and another country export, the other exporting country has no way, aside from costly subsidies of its own, to protect its companies.
• Non-protectionist policies are, perhaps, the most interesting. They are not meant to help domestic industries and instead have other distinct purposes. Most common are policies to protect the health and safety of people, animals and plants, and policies to improve the environment. These are purposes that most would agree are legitimate and are shared by many governments, but policies put in place to achieve these objectives often turn out to cause economic harm to other countries. For example, if the health of consumers is protected by requiring food products to be inspected in a country, that creates a barrier to providers from outside even if they have similar provisions for inspection in their own countries. Similarly, from an environmental standpoint a country may seek to protect endangered sea turtles by prohibiting methods of fishing for shrimp that harm them, but as that prohibition cannot be enforced abroad, the country bans imports of shrimp from countries that do not enforce a similar prohibition. In neither case is the purpose of the policy to help domestic industry, which actually incurs increased costs as a result of the policy, but the effect of the policy harms foreign exporters. Like assistance policies, non-protectionist policies cannot be addressed by simply banning them because their purposes can be viewed as legitimate and important. The trick is to find a way to reduce their adverse effects on other countries. For some policies, this may be achieved by agreeing common standards or gaining mutual recognition of different standards. For other policies, reliance on the WTO DSM may be effective, particularly if it can put pressure on countries to find alternative means of achieving their legitimate objectives. This is precisely what happened in the shrimp and sea turtle case: a WTO decision against the United States induced the country to remove its ban on imports and replace it with technical assistance to help foreign shrimp fishers avoid harm to turtles.
This all adds up to tempered optimism that NTBs can be dealt with largely by existing institutions. With some exceptions as noted above, the WTO DSM is capable of constraining countries from the use of policies that adversely affect other members too much. Such constraint has been, and will continue to be, at least moderately effective in stopping countries from doing significant economic damage to one another. Wherever possible, the constraint of the WTO should be combined with negotiation in FTAs and plurilateral groups to achieve coordination of policies that would otherwise interfere with trade. These approaches will not solve all NTB-related problems, but they can prevent the international trading system from reverting to chaos.
Issue 3-4/2019 in PDF

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The Zero Room
Matthew Davidson is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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Cartoon: Lifestyles of a stimulusaire
Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 26/12/2020 - 9:50am	in
Comics, Healthcare, Housing, stimulus
Hope you didn't forget to leave a plate of means tests out before Stimulus Claus arrived!
Follow me online if you want to.
Cartoon: America's worst responder
Comics, stimulus
Stay safe by staying home, wearing a mask, and helping Georgia flip the Senate.
Unsanitized: Deadline Day for Pre-Election Stimulus Comes, And Will Go
Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 22/10/2020 - 3:02am	in
chuck schumer, Mitch McConnell, Senate, stimulus, white house
Today is a "deadline" day for whether or not there will be an agreement on COVID relief before the election... Continue reading
The post Unsanitized: Deadline Day for Pre-Election Stimulus Comes, And Will Go appeared first on BillMoyers.com.
A "Brazen Giveaway" GOP HEALS Act is a $30 Billion Bonanza for the Pentagon
News, GOP, military spending, pentagon, stimulus
On Monday the Senate GOP released their outline for a new $1 trillion coronavirus stimulus package. A successor to March's CARES Act, the 177-page document, named the HEALS Act, includes no funding for hazard pay, the Postal Service, state and local governments, nutrition assistance, or help for uninsured or underinsured Americans, but incorporates a $29.4 billion bonanza for the Pentagon.
The package is presented as a necessary measure to help the country fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which has so far caused the deaths of nearly 153,000 Americans. But it appears that the GOP had a very different enemy in mind when writing some parts of it. "To prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically and internationally," the bill (pp. 35-38) allocates $686 million for the purchase of extra Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, $650 million for A-10 Warthog fighter-bombers, $720 million for C-130J transport planes, $283 million for AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and $1.068 billion for P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft.
It is not just the Air Force that will benefit from the new bill; it also includes $41.4 million for Raytheon missiles, $260 million for a new Navy fast transport ship, $250 million for amphibious shipbuilding programs and $375 million for armored combat vehicles. Most of these military spending requests are ones that had previously been subject to cuts in February as the Trump administration moved Pentagon money around to fund construction of the border wall. The plan also allocates (p. 11) $1.75 billion to the FBI for the design and construction of a huge new facility in Washington, D.C.
"Amphibious ships don't feed hungry children"
The new HEALS Act, which differs both in scope and its recipients from the $3 trillion Democrat-backed Heroes Act, which President Trump has promised will be "dead on arrival." Unsurprisingly, Democrats have condemned the new plan. "The bill contains billions of dollars for programs unrelated to the coronavirus, including over $8 billion for what appears to be a wish-list from the Department of Defense for manufacturing of planes, ships, and other weapons systems," said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy. "The bill provides nothing to address the long lines at food banks and shortchanges education and childcare, but we can shore up the defense industry? I am at a loss for words." "Amphibious ships don't feed hungry children," added House Appropriations Committee Chair Nita Lowey (D-NY).
Yet Democrats have supported other sections of the bill, particularly that to do with cutting unemployment benefits. While providing a second $1,200 check, the HEALS Act also reduces unemployment payments from $600 to $200 per week, although in the long term it would move to a system where the government would pay up to 70 percent of a worker's pre-COVID wages, a setup that most of Europe opted for in the beginning. "Look, it's not $600 or bust," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), claiming that a weekly $600 check serves as a disincentive to many to start working again.
The proposed act also ensures that businesses and other entities have near blanket immunity from coronavirus-related lawsuits coming from customers and employees. "Mitch McConnell's new coronavirus 'relief' proposal is an utter disgrace. It somehow manages to make the pandemic and economic pain even worse," wrote consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, labeling it a "brazen giveaway" to big business and the military.
A lack of popular support
Far from wishing to increase spending, a poll conducted earlier this month showed that the majority of Americans (including 69 percent of Democrats) supported Bernie Sanders' proposal to cut the $740 billion Pentagon budget by ten percent, using the savings to fight the coronavirus and the impending housing crisis it is causing. Yet Democrats in both the House and Senate joined with the GOP to vote down the idea. The $74 billion in savings, the National Priorities Project calculated, would have been enough to end homelessness, pay for 2 billion COVID-19 tests, create one million green energy jobs, or hire 900,000 extra school teachers.
The U.S. military budget rivals that of the rest of the world combined, with the majority of federal discretionary spending already going on warfare. Earlier this month, Congress and the Senate passed Trump's massive $740 billion military bill, an increase from previous years. Yet it seems too much can never be enough for defense contractors. While it is far from clear how attack helicopters and cruise missiles will help during a pandemic, it is not hard to see who will benefit from the new bill and whose interests are really being served.
Feature photo | Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, speaks to a NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan advisor during a visit to meet Afghan National Army soldiers at Kabul Military Training Center Jan. 16, 2011. Ernesto Hernandez Fonte | DVIDS
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.
The post A "Brazen Giveaway" GOP HEALS Act is a $30 Billion Bonanza for the Pentagon appeared first on MintPress News.
Trudeau government should spend more on affordable housing and homelessness
Canada, cities, federal budget, fiscal policy, Homeless, Housing, poverty, Recession, Social policy, stimulus
On July 21, the Alternative Federal Budget Recovery Plan was released. The document aims to provide public policy direction to Canada's federal government, in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
I was author of the Recovery Plan's chapter on affordable housing and homelessness, which can be accessed here.
Affordable housing, homelessness and the upcoming federal budget
Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 20/03/2020 - 10:14am	in
cities, Demographics, employment, federal budget, fiscal policy, Homeless, Housing, Income, poverty, public services, Recession, Social policy, stimulus, taxation, Unemployment
I've written a 'top 10' overview of things to know about affordable housing and homelessness, as they relate to Canada's upcoming federal budget. The overview is based on the affordable housing and homelessness chapter in the just-released Alternative Federal Budget.
A link to the 'top 10' overview is here.
Economic Response to Pandemic: Go Big, Go Fast
Uncategorized, stimulus
The health emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic is of
course the primary concern of Canadians, and the first priority for government
to address. But it is increasingly clear that the economic fallout from the
pandemic is also going to constitute an emergency. And it requires government
to respond as urgently and powerfully in the economic sphere, as they are attempting
for public health.
I was invited onto CBC Radio's special broadcast today to
discuss the economic consequences of the pandemic, and needed policy responses –
and also to comment on the policy announcements made by Finance Minister
Morneau, Bank of Canada Governor Poloz, and Superintendent of Financial
Institutions Rudin at a special joint news conference.
Here are some quick thoughts on what we can expect in coming
months, the nature and dimensions of the policy response, and – of course – how
we pay for it!
What We're In For:
There is no doubt that the macroeconomy, already near-stagnant
at the end of 2019, will now slide into recession. The immediate spillover
effects of cancelled transportation, cancelled tourism and entertainment events
and services, and reduced output in many different industries are knocking GDP
backward right now. Second-order effects will be experienced across a wide
swath of the economy, as both consumers and businesses scale back their
purchases dramatically. Even a short-term surge in purchases of groceries and
essentials (including toilet paper!) won't offset that shock decline in aggregate
demand.
Another category of impacts will be felt through disrupted
supply chains. Imported parts and supplies from overseas producers (especially
but not exclusively China) have been seriously disrupted, and that will have a
ripple effect on Canadian production – even assuming we are allowed to go to
work in the first place. All that will be enough to produce a serious, but not
unusual, recession: a loss of 2-4% of real GDP, lasting for 2-4 quarters,
driving unemployment up to perhaps 8%.
However, if we end up facing a full-out lockdown (as experienced
in China or Italy) then the downturn takes on a new order of magnitude. We could
see a decline in second-quarter GDP of perhaps 10% (at annualized rates), and an
enormous jump in unemployment (well into double digits). In fact, if government
statisticians are also on lock-down, we won't even be able to measure how bad
it gets. How soon and how sharply production begins to recover is unknown,
depending first and foremost on how quickly people are allowed to begin leaving
their homes and resuming normal activity (including working and spending). And
if the experience of the 'Great Recession' – a decade of slow growth and
underutilization that followed the 2008-09 GFC – is any indication, we would then
likely face an extended period of hardship, perhaps lasting another decade.
Another dimension of the crisis could be its potentially
dramatic effects on financial stability. It was out of that concern that the
announcement today featured all three critical government players (Morneau,
Poloz, and Rudin) at the same podium – and why all their announcements were
focused on the goal of maintaining credit flows (through emergency lending for
small and medium sized companies, lower interest rates, and relaxed credit quality
controls). Since the 2008-09 crisis, the private credit system has behaved in
predictably Minskian fashion: first cautious, then (as memories of the meltdown
faded) expansive, and finally speculative (entereing Minsky's "Ponzi" phase). This
time the debt bubble in the U.S. was concentrated in places other than real estate
(the focal point of the 2008-09 meltdown). Risky ('high-yield') corporate debt
is the most fragile link in the current financial daisy chain: already
high-yield bond markets have seen interest rate spreads explode (to 7-8
percentage points above normal corporate lending), and credit
is starting to seize up. With many fragile companies, some of them very
large, unable to borrow (even for routine or 'overnight' purposes) just as their
cash flow evaporates from the recession, they will face quick collapse. Other
financial weak spots exist in the U.S., too (including credit cards, student
debt, and some oversold equities).
In Canada, as in 2008-09, the financial system has been less
adventurous and hence is not as fragile. The biggest risk here would be a
serious downturn in inflated housing prices (the main legacy of our own debt
expansion), with cascading impacts on consumer spending, household financial
stress, and ultimately the stability of banks and other financial institutions.
Stopping that kind of contagion quickly is almost as important to the
government, as stopping the spread of the actual virus.
How Government Should
Respond:
I look forward to working with other progressive economists
to imagine and describe a fulsome, comprehensive, ambitious and concrete vision
for responding to this crisis. Here are some of the obvious areas:
Immediate Mobilization
of Resources to Protect Health: Obviously governments and health
authorities must now throw every possible real resource into protecting health,
as much as they can, including:
More staff at health facilities.
Alternate off-site or mobile testing capacities.
Home support for people quarantined or
recovering at home.
Quick expansion of capital equipment (including
buildings and equipment), as much as possible.
This mobilization will cost many billions of dollars, and
constitutes an unfortunate form of 'stimulus.'
Income Protection for
Workers: The pandemic has exposed a frightening and dangerous aspect of the
new precarious labour market. Only about half of employed people now work in a 'standard'
full-time permanent job with benefits – like sick leave. So when people are
instructed to stay home from work to avoid spreading the virus, many incur a
major and immediate financial loss. Unfortunately, that will compel some to ignore
the health advice and keep working – with catastrophic health consequences.
This pandemic is reminding us that the wellbeing of everyone, depends on the
wellbeing of everyone else. The short-sighted responses of some business
leaders, complaining about the cost of sick leave and that workers 'whine' or 'fake'
their conditions, is as morally repugnant as it is clinically destructive. (For
a despicable example, see Howard
Levitt's comments about workers imagining illness on CBC's The Current).
An obvious place to protect workers whose incomes are being
interrupted by the pandemic is through the EI system, but it needs immediate
and far-reaching emergency changes (I listed some of these in my recent
Toronto Star column):
Waive the 1-week waiting period for EI (the government has already said it will do that for sickness benefits, but it should do the same for all EI during the pandemic period).
Waive the qualifying hours requirement for the period of the pandemic (and, of course, it should be fixed long-term anyway).
Consider special emergency payments (similar to EI's existing natural disaster provisions).
Consider special payments to contractors, gig workers, and others not normally entitled to EI.
Accelerate work-sharing arrangements to allow more people to keep their jobs.
In addition to extending EI and other income supports,
workers need other protections in the coming period: including waiving
requirements to fetch doctors' notes and other red tape, and having full job
protection during the pandemic (so their jobs are not at risk for following
health advice). All of this highlights the need for big reform in Canada's existing
laws governing sick pay (only Quebec ensures minimum paid sick leave), STD and
LTD measures, and job protection. These problems were already glaring; the
pandemic has now brought them to everyone's attention, and reminded everyone
that their personal health depends on collective well-being.
Other ways to put spending power directly into the pockets
of low- and middle-income Canadians, reducing the financial barriers to staying
at home, could include direct one-time payments to all households (as Australia
did in 2009, with great success), or more targeted income assistance to reflect
and offset the economic impact on more financially vulnerable households. One
option in that regard would be to expand and accelerate payments of GST credits
and Canada Child Benefit cheques.
Debt Relief: Mr.
Morneau and his colleagues moved quickly today to assure businesses that they
can continue to access credit to maintain operations and stave off bankruptcy.
There will likely be a need for more hands-on support for firms in many
industries (including airlines and other transportation and tourism providers).
It makes sense to keep businesses from going bankrupt at a time when
unemployment is rising anyway, but those interventions need to learn from the
mistakes of past rescues. Conditions must be attached to protect employees at
these firms right through the crisis (like no layoffs), and to ensure that
rescued companies are held to long-term performance requirements (including
future Canadian production and employment). The memory of major banks and
automakers that were bailed out at the public's expense in 2009, and then
quickly returned to their bad old ways (speculative lending and industrial
disinvestment, respectively) reminds us to leverage our support during times of
crisis into long-run influence over their subsequent activities. The best
approach in that regard is to take public equity stakes in these businesses as
a condition of financial support (as some European countries did with banks and
other major bailed-out businesses).
At the same time, other segments of society also need
protection from their creditors, as their ability to work and earn disappears.
There should be restrictions placed on foreclosures and evictions (for both
homeowners and renters), and deferral periods for personal and credit card
debts.
Other Short-Term Fiscal
Stimulus: The federal government will need to consider other ways to inject
immediate spending power into the economy in its March 30 budget, or earlier.
Expanded transfer payments to the provinces for health-related expenses is an obvious
option. Other ideas are helpfully catalogued in the annual Alternative
Federal Budget documents.
Longer-Run
Reconstruction: On the assumption that the coming recession is harsh and
its after-effects long-lasting, the government will need to play a leading role
in the longer-term reconstruction and reorientation of the economy. The
traditional tools of stabilization (monetary and fiscal adjustments) are
clearly not capable of addressing the scale of the problem. Monetary policy,
indeed, has already lost most of its effectiveness: with interest rates near
zero, and borrowers scared deeply about what lies ahead, the emergency interest
rates cuts announced by the Bank of Canada this week will have virtually no
impact on real economic activity in the coming year or longer. (It probably won't
even reignite house price inflation, which has been its dominant 'achievement'
of late.)
And fiscal interventions will need to go far beyond
counter-cyclical stabilization. Canada's economy will need to rely on public service,
public investment, and public entrepreneurship as its main 'engines' of growth,
to recover from the coming downturn, prepare for future health and
environmental crises, and improve conditions in our communities. The abysmal
failure of private business capital spending in recent years – which has fallen
by one-third as a share of GDP since the turn of the century, despite hugely
expensive corporate tax cuts – was already indicating a growing role for public
investment to lead the way. Now, in this moment, it is laughable to imagine
that private capital spending or exports will somehow lead the reconstruction
of a national economy that will experience an unprecedented and scarring shock.
There is no shortage of urgent rebuilding required in our
economy and our communities: sustainable transit, green energy, non-market
housing, expanded public services (including aged care and early child
education), and any number of other urgent priorities. The case for mobilizing
those resources, under the leadership of governments and other public
institutions, is compelling. We can put people to work, repair the damage of
this crisis (and better prepare for the next one), and deliver valuable
services. All we need is the willingness to imagine a different model of
organizing and leading economic activity.
Last Nail in
Coffin of Deficit-Mania?
Incredibly, Conservatives like Jason Kenney and Pierre
Poilievre have still been scare-mongering about deficits, even as the public
health emergency gathered momentum. Kenney in particular should be politically shunned
for his incredible decision to attack Alberta's doctors and rip up their
employment contracts (alongside his other attacks on public health workers) –
just as we ask them to risk their lives, to save ours. This tired old deficit-mania
will have zero resonance with the public in coming months: they are quite
rightly preoccupied with more important things.
Nevertheless, long-standing indoctrination in the ideology
of austerity will hold back the government response to the crisis. Mainstream proposals
for fiscal stimulus will be too small to make a significant difference. For
example, bank economists today are suggesting injections worth 1% of GDP; that
wouldn't put a dent in the more daunting recession scenarios I described above.
It is not unusual for national governments to experience deficits equal to 5%
or more of GDP during severe economic downturns. That works out to $120 billion
for the federal government. Anything less than that, and the government is
literally not doing its job in trying to protect Canadians from this downturn.
Interest rates, already rock-bottom, have plunged in the
last month. The Government of Canada can now issue 30-year bonds for well below
1% annual interest. That is negative in real terms (ie. lower than inflation).
So quite literally, the government will save
money by borrowing more (paying back less in real terms, after 30 years, than
they borrowed) – to say nothing of the economic and social good that would be
done by putting that money to work in emergency public projects and services.
Of course, we can and should consider alternative financing
mechanisms (like quantitative easing and other methods of directly harnessing public
credit institutions to finance public works). That genie was let out of the
bottle in the 2008-09 crisis, but so far has been used in a stinted, one-sided
way: using central-bank-created money to purchase financial assets from
investors and institutions, in hopes they then spend or lend their excess cash
to get the economy moving. A much better approach – perhaps called 'People's
Quantitative Easing'? – would be to use created funds (from the central bank or
other public banks) to directly finance needed investments and services, thus
putting the new money directly into the projects and people that need it most.
That would have much more economic bang for the QE buck. But it would
constitute a sacrilege against the traditional property relationships embedded in
private credit banking.
A Turning Point?
Great crises like this are frightening and dangerous. Our
economic, social, and democratic institutions are still damaged and fraying
after ten long years trying to recover from the last meltdown. Dangerous
populist and authoritarian impulses have sprouted from that hardship.
Progressives are not sufficiently united, confident and focused on what needs
to be done, to turn the tide in our favour.
But a crisis can also be an opportunity. The failure of financialized,
neoliberal capitalism will be laid bare more clearly than ever in coming months.
For example, the inability of rich countries (like the U.S.) to provide even
rudimentary coordination and communication during a public emergency, resulting
in thousands of preventable deaths, starkly highlights the enormous misallocation
of human and economic capacity under capitalism, and its inherent and repeating
coordination failures. The private sector will definitely be unable to get the
economy back on its feet after this crisis. So we need to look elsewhere for
economic leadership.
Just as World War II 'solved' the Great Depression by mobilizing
enormous resources in an urgent attempt to meet a huge threat (global fascism),
we now need another, peaceful war – a war on poverty, on epidemics, and on
pollution. And by organizing ourselves as society to fight that war, we will
actually make ourselves better off right now: creating jobs and incomes, providing
needed care and services, generating taxes. And we will benefit in the long-run
by winning those 'wars,' and building a safer, sustainable world.
This is the time to develop and advance a progressive vision
for a massive, public-led reconstruction agenda. Parts of it already exist, in
various forms:
The 'High-Investment Sustainable Full-Employment
Economy' I describe in Chapter 28 of my Economics for Everyone.
The various incarnations of the Green New Deal
programme that have been proposed in various countries.
The CCPA's Alternative
Federal Budget.
The 'Jobs
You Can Count On' strategy developed by the Australian Council of Trade
Unions.
Conservatives and the wealthy they serve never let a crisis go
to waste. They follow well the advice of Milton Friedman:
a crisis actual or perceived produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the
actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I
believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies,
to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes
politically inevitable." (Capitalism and
Freedom, 1982, p. xiv)
Naomi Klein showed us how
the powerful take advantage of crisis to reinforce their power, even when it
was their power that caused the crisis. We gotta know they will try to do the
same with this crisis: pushing their well-known agenda of austerity,
privatization, and inequality into still more frightening and authoritarian
So we desperately need
our own courageous, ambitious, holistic alternatives. And if we do a good job
educating, organizing, and mobilizing around that more hopeful and democratic
agenda, then it too can become politically inevitable. That's the silver lining
to this very scary moment.
Jim Stanford is Economist and Director of the
Centre for Future Work, and divides his time between Vancouver and Sydney.
The HIP and the case of the missing risk
Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 07/09/2014 - 4:50pm	in
Uncategorized, Labor, neoliberalism, Outsourcing, stimulus
I really want to write more about the case of the missing risk – the one risk that should have been at the centre of concern for those planning the Home Insulation Program. The risk of injury and death to HIP workers and homeowners.
As became clear in the Royal Commission hearings, the possibility of injuries resulting from the scheme was initially part of the HIP Risk Register, but later fell out without comment or redress. To me this embodies the disconnect between the upper levels of the public service and government, and the reality of the work of implementing programs on the ground, that I argue is a symptom of outsourcing.
This is a snippet about the missing risk that I have included in a draft I've sent to The Conversation:
"Until the electrocution of 25-year old HIP worker Matthew Fuller in October 2009 the risks facing HIP installers were not even included in the 20-page central "Risk Register" drafted and administered by Coaldrake. When questioned about this Coaldrake told the Commission that she was merely a facilitator, and that no-one in DEWHA had ever told her workers could be injured as part of the program. This was not the case. The Commission uncovered the fact that injury to installers had been raised at an early DEWHA risk workshop. In fact this key risk had been listed in drafts of Coaldrake's own risk register that were circulated between 13th and the 27th March 2009. But when it disappeared off the register between 10.54am and 12.05pm on the 27th neither Coaldrake nor any of the DEWHA staff noticed."
But I think this issue could do with its own article…
ABC Drum "Lessons to be learnt from the pink batts disaster" 21/5/14
Labor, neoliberalism, Outsourcing, stimulus
The royal commission into the pink batts program reveals the need for well-resourced government departments, not gutted shells only able to dish out money to the market, writes Jean Parker.
Tony Abbott's $20 million anti-Labor political advertisement, otherwise known as the Royal Commission into Kevin Rudd's Home Insulation Program (HIP), is all but concluded. Eight weeks of hearings have revealed the picture of a worthy program turned lethal by a lack of public service capacity, and by the decision to outsource an inherently dangerous program to the market.
In the week that Joe Hockey's budget announced deep cuts to the public service and inducements to privatise yet more state government agencies, the lessons from the HIP should also be a warning to the Abbott Government.
The high point of proceedings, falling neatly two days after the budget, was the appearance of Rudd at his verbose worst.
Four years has added little to Rudd's understanding of what he agreed was a "system failure" that wrecked the HIP. What was revealed for the first time was Rudd's role in hand-picking key personnel for the program – environment secretary Robyn Kruk, stimulus coordinator Mike Mrdak, and Senator Mark Arbib, who Rudd tasked with being a "set of eyes focused on implementation difficulties across the entire Nation Building and Jobs Plan".
Interestingly, the Commission heard Kruk and Mrdak were the people who thought the Environment Department lacked the capacity, experience and skills to deliver the program. The solution was a HIP business model based on delivery by the free market.
Under the eventual market rebate model the Commonwealth was the funder, not the provider of the program.
On days 11 and 12 the Commission heard from then assistant director of the Environment Department, Kevin Keefe, who headed the HIP inside the department. Keefe testified that he was "blindsided" by the new model.
According to Keefe the message was clear:
Don't do things in a government slow way. Let's let the market do its work … let the market rip.
It was this design that made the program "an accident waiting to happen". The HIP created a $2.8 billion frenzy of unsafe and unsupervised work by young, untrained workers. Just as it was designed to do, virtually overnight the HIP created a surge of market activity. Where prior to the scheme there were roughly 70,000 houses retrofitted with insulation every year, at the height of the HIP the number reached 180,000 in one month.
As his father recounted in the Commission on Friday, the first worker killed in the HIP, 25-year-old Matthew Fuller, was employed by a telemarketing company run by two bankrupts and an Irish guy "in from off the street".
Matthew's employers were one of 10,000 companies that sprang up to take advantage of the HIP. Qualifying as a "registered installer" under the HIP meant you were able to "supervise" an unlimited number of subcontractors and employees.
Registration and claiming rebates was done entirely online and Kevin Fuller told the Commission that the required industry white card could be obtained online in an hour or so, while a training session was meant to be two days but was more commonly "a couple of hours in the morning, couple of hours in the afternoon".
These low barriers to entry meant Matthew's employers were subcontracting the insulation of houses within three days of starting the company. Matthew was electrocuted nine days later working unsupervised in a Brisbane ceiling.
Mr Fuller said despite a brief suspension as a result of Matthew's death, his employers recouped $2.64 million from the HIP at a rate of $40,000 a working day.
It was "make hay while the sun shines" as another registered installer told the Queensland Coroner last year.
This orgy of profiteering was no accident. It was the logical outcome of a policy design relying on the profit motive to deliver the program in an unregulated industry.
Former minister Greg Combet testified that he "lived in constant fear" of more disasters when he realised the sheer extent of dangerous and fraudulent behaviour endemic in the HIP. After four deaths and hundreds of house fires Rudd brought Combet in to terminate the program in the realisation that the HIP was off the rails.
As Combet's evidence shows, the cowboy attitude of Matthew's employers was far from isolated.
There had been patently, it seemed to me at that time, been an extensive amount of noncompliance. There were obviously flaws in the design of it.
The operations of the HIP show the need for a public service with the capacity and skills to deliver and regulate government programs.
This in-house knowledge and experience has been consistently eroded by 30 years of bipartisan support for outsourcing and privatisation. As the HIP reveals, what this results in is government departments that are little more than gutted shells whose only role is to dish out money to the market.
The HIP also shows the need for "red tape" regulations in workplace safety, and government departments with the resources and skills to properly police them. Yet the system failure that doomed the HIP could be repeated in the universities, the hospitals, and the infrastructure sector if Abbott's budget policies are implemented.
Rather than rebuild public capacity, Abbott's budget will further erode it. The lessons from the HIP should provide a warning to Abbott, but he doesn't seem to be listening.
Jean Parker is a researcher who wrote her PhD on Labor's stimulus spending under Kevin Rudd. She is a teacher at the University of Technology, Sydney and a member of Solidarity.
Published in the ABC Drum 21st May 2014: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-21/parker-lessons-to-be-learnt-from-the-pink-batts-disaster/5466762
New Matilda "The real lesson from Pink Batts" 6/5/2014
Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 07/05/2014 - 4:21pm	in
The Commission of Audit has handed the Abbott government a blueprint for privatisation at the exact time the pink batts inquiry is revealing the dangers of outsourcing, writes Jean Parker
On the same day that the Commission of Audit was released in Canberra, Tony Abbott's Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program (HIP) resumed its hearings in Brisbane. Reading like a neoliberal how-to guide, Tony Shepherd's report calls for a new wave of outsourcing and privatisations. Yet the evidence emerging from the HIP Royal Commission provides a salutary warning for Abbott and Hockey: outsourcing government programs to the market comes at a cost.
Abbott's instigation of a Royal Commission into Rudd's "pink batts" scheme is clearly an exercise in keeping Labor's failures fresh in our minds. But the Royal Commission paints a picture of a government program that failed primarily because of its reliance on "market delivery" — precisely what Hockey's Commission of Audit demands more of.
Over a month in to the Royal Commission it is increasing clear that it was the design of the HIP that made the program "an accident waiting to happen". By outsourcing the program to the free market the HIP allowed unsafe and unsupervised work to be carried out by young, untrained workers. The deaths of the four young men working on the scheme were not just tragic accidents, they were the result of a program design that came from Rudd's own office for Prime Minister and Cabinet and his hand-picked stimulus chief.
The insulation industry was deemed a great "shovel-ready" stimulus target by Rudd and his staff precisely because the lack of existing regulation meant there were no barriers to entry — great for flushing money into the economy and boosting small business, not great for creating meaningful energy efficiency or ensuring workers' safety.
Behind the headlines about missed warnings and a rushed rollout, much of the Royal Commission's proceedings have revolved around the program's business model. As the Brisbane hearings have revealed, the market delivered rebate model was not initially favoured by the Environment Department staff charged with getting the scheme off the ground, but was foisted on them by senior officials close to Rudd.
Former assistant director of the Environment Department Kevin Keefe described how, 20 days into the program, he was abruptly presented with a new "free market" business model. In March 2009 Keefe attended a meeting that included Senator Mark Arbib, Rudd's hand-picked stimulus coordinator Mike Mrdak and other senior staff from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Keefe believed the meeting would discuss the progress his department had made in getting the HIP up and running. But the heavy-hitters from Rudd's department "blindsided" Keefe and presented a wholly new model as a fait accompli.As Keefe testified, the message of the new model was clear: "don't do things in a government slow way. Let's let the market do its work … let the market rip". This laissez-faire logic was at the heart of the HIP's design around a rebate. As witness after witness has told the commission, a "principle" of the program was that the key legal relationship in the HIP lay between the householder and the installer. The Commonwealth was the funder, not the provider. Or, as then secretary of the Environment Department Robyn Kruk put it in her statement to the Commission "… there was a strong emphasis on encouraging a high level of participation by homeowners and low-skilled workers by removing red-tape and making the program business friendly".
The fateful decision to remove the requirement that each installer under the HIP be trained, to only requiring a trained supervisor (itself ill-defined in the program guidelines), was also justified by the notion that the government should not create "barriers" to participation.
Just as it was designed to do, the HIP created a surge of market activity virtually overnight. Prior to the scheme there were roughly 70,000 houses retrofitted with insulation every year — at the height of the HIP the number reached 180,000 in one month. As one installer reported to the Queensland Coroner last year, the attitude for the tens of thousands of start-up companies that flooded into the sector was "make hay while the sun shines".
Those responsible knew that the HIP rebate would distort the insulation industry and draw in thousands of new start-up businesses. From a stimulus perspective, that was the point. And yet still they designed the program around the premise that existing OH&S laws would be enough to regulate industry and ensure the safety of the new recruits entering the nation's ceilings.
It was when the department tried to beef-up safety rules, after the electrocution of 25-year-old Matthew Fuller in October 2009, that the anarchy created by the HIP was fully revealed. Even after then minister Peter Garrett banned stapling metal fasteners into foil insulation, an audit found that 33 per cent of installers were still using the banned metal staples. The "light touch" design of the HIP made it impossible to impose effective safety rules down the track.
For 30 years governments on both sides of politics have increasingly outsourced public services to the private sector under the rubric of efficiency and savings. The Commission of Audit's call to sell off state assets and build new infrastructure through public private partnerships is more of the same. The effect is a hollowed-out public service, unable to regulate, with no in-house knowledge of how to safely deliver services. If the government listens carefully to the messages coming from their Royal Commission they will think twice before continuing down this path.
Published by New Matilda 6th May 2014: https://newmatilda.com/2014/05/06/real-lesson-pink-batts
Designed by Antsin.com


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No construction work on the planned salmon farm despite the green light | Maine news
By Lynn Sommers	 Last updated Nov 27, 2021
BUCKSPORT, Maine (AP) – A planned salmon farm on the site of the former Verso paper mill in Bucksport has not started construction two years ago despite the required permits.
A spokesman for the company, Whole Oceans, which proposed the land-based aquaculture facility on 100 acres along the Penobscot River, was unable to provide any information on when construction began, the Bangor Daily News reported Friday.
The project received approval from the Bucksport Planning Board and approval from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection in 2019. In 2020, the company bought a second piece of land on the old mill site, which in his opinion required a review of its plans.
"Aquaculture at this level is complex and the addition (the second parcel) creates even more opportunities to consider," said Michael Thompson, a senior project coordinator at the time. "Even though you might not see a shovel in the ground just yet, you know our team works hard to create the best designs that will result in a world-class facility for Bucksport and the state of Maine."
Bucksport Code Enforcement Officer Luke Chiavelli told the newspaper he had not received any applications related to the construction of the second property. The current approvals are valid for five years.
The company is sticking to permits and has paid its taxes, Susan Lessard, the city's manager for Bucksport, told the newspaper.
"We're not going to tell them how to run their show," she said.
She said the company had told her it was in the process of hiring a new CEO and there had been several changes in the company's leadership over the past three years, the newspaper reported.
2 displaced after fire burns through Mattapan home – Boston News, Weather, Sports
It's the season for holiday scammers such as utility calls | New Hampshire News


Lewiston Getting Jazzy This Weekend!
I am also going for the food. The next few days I will give you my Jude The Foodie take on a way to plan your culinary experience along with your listening pleasure.
I have the honor of singing to honor Canada and the United States of America before the headliner, Diane Schuur, who sings on the main stage at 8:00 pm. She is a Grammy winner and I hope I get to meet her…how cool! Check out the Historic Lewiston Jazz Festival website for many more details.
If I could sing while I cook and make a fine living I'd quite my delightful day job before you can say Accidental Jazz!


Training Wheels: DSP....Direct Support Patriots!
I think this July 4th holiday is good a day as any to salute the 1.2 million strong, direct support professional workforce of the United States who are indeed patriots and professionals. Lastly, as stated directly from the NADSP Code of Ethics, direct support professionals who follow the code "assist us all in staying the course of securing freedom, justice, and equality for all." So, if you see a direct support professional, please tell them thank you. They are just as much patriotic and as important as the soldiers who protect our country from enemies, the police officers who protect our domestic interests and anyone who loves this country for the freedom we cherish. Hey, you likely may be relying on a direct support professional to help you ensure your freedom someday!! Happy Independence Day!!


Stage 5: after odin and the driver is installed, go to the next tutorial.
Stage 7: Shutdown your Samsung Device.
Stage 8: Now, you need to boot into Download mode. To boot into Download Mode: Press and hold "Volume Down + Home Key + Power Key". At the point when telephone vibrates Leave the "Power Key" yet Keep holding the "Volume Down" and "Home key". You will boot into the "Download Mode".
Stage 9: In the Download mode you will have the capacity to see a Warning Yellow Triangle Sign. In this circumstance you need to press the "Volume up" key to proceed.
Stage 11: Now, Open "Odin3" and connect your phone to the PC.
Stage 12: Once you have associated the telephone to the PC, Odin will naturally perceive the gadget and show "Added" message at the lower-left board.
Stage 14: Now, tap on the "Start" catch in Odin to start the Flashing procedure.
Stage 15: Once you see, the Green Pass Message then expel the USB link from the gadget (amid this procedure, your gadget will restart consequently).
Stage 16: Your Samsung Device will now stuck at (boot loop). Presently, You need to boot into Stock Recovery Mode, To Enable Stock Recovery mode: Press and Hold Volume UP key, Home Key, Power Key. At the point when telephone vibrates Leave the Power Key yet Keep holding the Volume UP Key and Home key. You will boot into the Recovery Mode.
Step 18: Once Cache Data is cleared, Select "Reboot System Now" from the recovery menu.
Stage 19: Now, your Samsung Device will restart with no issue with the Stock Rom you have downloaded.
[*] Data Loss Process: Flashing Stock ROM is dependably an information misfortune methodology. In this way, dependably take reinforcement of your own information before blazing the Stock ROM.
[*] Flashing Stock ROM or Downgrading Stock ROM does not void your Phone guarantee. In this way, dont worry about the gadget guarantee.
[*] Samsung Stock Firmware: If you are searching for the first firmware for your gadget at that point make a beeline for Download Samsung Stock Firmware for all gadgets page.
[*] Samsung USB Driver: If you are searching for the first USB Driver for your gadget at that point make a beeline for Download Samsung USB Driver for all gadgets page.


Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his Apostles continues to be exercised in the church. It includes three degrees: diaconate, presbyterate and episcopate.
Episcopal consecration of a bishop confers the offices of sanctifying, teaching and ruling. Priests are consecrated to preach the Gospel and to shepherd the faithful, as well as to celebrate the divine liturgy.
Deacons share in Christ's mission and grace. Among other tasks, deacons assist the bishop and priests in the celebration of the divine mysteries, and in dedicating themselves to the various ministries of charity.


Develops procedures that satisfy corporate, legal and regulatory guidelines and requirements and ensures accuracy of the intranet web pages for selected Retail Banking, Marketing and Internal Surveys pages. ... Participates in implementation of the "Clean Sweep" records management project and serves as Business Unit's Records Management representative.
Account Manager position is also relevant to job seekers with various work experiences such as: Business Manager Finance Marketing Banking Regional and Territory Sales Office Appointment Setter Tele ... Support Customer Service Real Estate and Auto Sales Retail Educators Graduates Agent Financial Services Leasing Accountant Representative Transitioning Military Personnel Business Graduates.
Account Executive - Sales Manager position is also relevant to job seekers with various work experiences such as: Business Manager Finance Marketing Banking Regional and Territory Sales Office ... Support Customer Service Real Estate and Auto Sales Retail Educators Graduates Agent Financial Services Leasing Accountant Representative Transitioning Military Personnel Business Graduates.
We are looking for an enthusiastic Route Sales Representative/Driver to join our growing team here at Domestic Uniform Rental, where we have been providing the industry's best service to our customers for over 90 ... Reconcile route paperwork and prepare daily bank deposit.
Reports all delinquent accounts to the ABC and sales management. ... Prepares daily bank deposits. ... The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.
Formed in 2009 by powerhouse brands Bank of America and First Data, we've grown to process more than 16 billion transactions at approximately 529000 merchant locations in 2017 alone. We're a leader ... The Business Consultant- Small Business Clients is an outside sales representative that is responsible for developing new merchant processing relationships with small to medium sized businesses.
You will be receiving job alerts for Banking Sales Representative Jobs in MI.


text:
Congratulations to our 2022 MPC Award Winners
Rose Ramirez and Deborah Small have been named as recipients of the 2022 Annual Medicinal Plant Conservation Award by United Plant Savers
(Submitted by Susan Leopold)
When I first started reading about arrests for harvesting white sage in the Etiwanda Preserve, it led me down a path to try and understand what was really happening. I traveled to the Etiwanda Preserve and reached out to various people. Two people who provided valuable insight were Rose Ramirez (Chumash/Yaqui), passionate native plant gardener, basket weaver, and photographer, and Deborah Small, artist, photographer, and professor at the School of Arts at California State University in San Marcos.
The Ethnobotany Project Book
Rose and Deborah are also co-authors of Ethnobotany Project: Contemporary Uses of Native Plants. Over the last few years, I have seen how they gathered their communities, working on developing valuable partnerships with activists and the California Native Plant Society. All this work has culminated in an incredible web page on the California Native Plant Society's website. Their "Saging the World" page presents in-depth information on the white sage trade and its impact. "Saging the World" is about supporting an indigenous-led effort to safeguard white sage. Earth Day 2022 was the premiere of a short documentary that Rose and Deborah brought to fruition as co-directors along with David Bryant.
The film is incredibly well done and visually captures the people and their interconnected relationship with the land. It can be so challenging to advocate for plants that are facing a changing environment compounded by the trending demand in the marketplace. This brings into question the management of wild places, enforcement, and legalities from increasing pressures of online marketing and popularized trends. The movie had my head spinning with the insight into not just what was taking place in California, but in Mexico as well.
It is with a humble heart and deep gratitude that we award Rose Ramirez and Deborah Small the Medicinal Plant Conservation Award for 2021. They are trailblazers in uniting the California Native Plant Society, the indigenous peoples of land, activists, and legislators on how we can create impactful change.
What can you do? Share this work with your community.
If you go to a store where they are selling sage, kindly ask them to watch this film. Thank you to Rose and Deborah and all involved in the creative way this work is being communicated to the world.
Stay tuned as this campaign is just emerging. We have work to do! I see "Saging the World" as a model for meaningful engagement in how we think about culturally significant plants and shift our perspectives.
There are no words to express my thankfulness! I have to say this is an overwhelming honor. Our first thought of course was for Barbara Drake. We could hear her voice and how excited she would be as she is always with us, and the white sage project would not be without her. She loved our ethnobotany work and believed in us and the importance of the work.
Last night, I began thinking of all the people who have inspired and supported us and our work, starting with Barbara Drake… Everyone who agreed to be a part of our Saging the World documentary and who shared their wisdom and resolve to protect white sage, and who continue to do so as panelists when we are showing the film in various venues. The incredible writers for the white sage Spring issue of Flora, including you. All the people we interviewed for our Ethnobotany Calendar in 2010, and for our original Ethnobotany Project book in 2015, and our Saging the World essay in News from Native California, in 2020.
We want to thank David Bryant and the California Native Plant Society for joining us in Saging the World. None of this would have been possible without all the wonderful people we now know as collaborators and dear friends. So, thank you and the United Plant Savers for this great honor!.
Categories MPC Award, Latest News


text:
Q: Is there a way Unity to constructor inject both registered type and concrete value I defined 3 interfaces and 3 classes accordingly. Class A depends on interface B, interface B depends on interface C and a concrete class. My sample codes look like
public interface IA
{
}

public class A : IA
{
    private IB b;

    public A(IB b)
    {
        this.b = b;
    }
}

public interface IB
{
}

public class B : IB
{
    private IC c;
    private string myValue;

    public B(IC c, string myValue)
    {
        this.c = c;
        this.myValue = myValue;
    }
}

public interface IC
{
}

public class C : IC
{
}

The special thing is class B, the constructor requires both type and a string (concrete value).
        using (IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer())
        {
            container.RegisterType<IB, B>()
                .RegisterType<IA, A>()
                .RegisterType<IC, C>();

            IA a = container.Resolve<IA>();
        }

How shall I define in code to instruct container to inject both IC and a string value to class B?

A: This provides a detail on injecting values into a registered object.  It is called an InjectionConstructor and provides the means you are looking for.  Not too hard at all.  Much you can do with Unity.

A: You can pass in an InjectionConstructor to your registration.
container.RegisterType<IB, B>(new InjectionConstructor(container.Resolve<IC>(), "myvalue-value"));

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The INCON Digital Infrastructure Award rewards venues that invest in their infrastructure to ensure a flawless digital experience for meeting and conference guests. This year, INCON has opened the award to two categories – Convention Centres and Hotel Convention Venues. Winners will be announced at IMEX Frankfurt in May 2018.
Join us at Slovenia booth i20 at ibtm world in Barcelona for the 2017 #worldICECREAMindex Winner Presentation. And more importantly, taste the winning store, Sava Hotels & Resorts, ice-cream!
The M&IT Awards is a glamorous black-tie event which brings together more than 1100 top industry personnel to celebrate excellence in service and product, whilst networking with industry leaders and celebrity guests!


Epigenetics refers to the molecular events controlling gene expression that are independent of changes in the underlying DNA sequence. These events include DNA methylation, covalent histone modifications, and non-coding RNA-related mechanisms. Epigenetic modifications of DNA, namely DNA methylation, have been shown to contribute to the etiology of chronic diseases with cancer at the forefront. DNA methylation is dynamic and serves as an adaptive mechanism to a wide variety of environmental factors including diet.
1) Do dietary bioactive compounds act through epigenetic mechanisms to prevent cancer and exert beneficial effects in adjuvant therapy?
Our hypothesis is that dietary polyphenols (e.g., resveratrol, pterostilbene, piceatannol, and coffee polyphenols) impact DNA methylation patterns and thereby gene transcription via modulation of expression and activity of epigenetic enzymes such as TETs and DNMTs. Changes in these enzymes, alter the occupancy of specific protein complexes in gene regulatory regions which determines chromatin structure and as a result gene transcription. Through this mode of action, polyphenols reverse cancer-specific patterns of DNA methylation; they lead to the activation of methylation-silenced tumour suppressor genes and concomitant suppression of demethylation-activated oncogenes and prometastatic genes. We are also exploring if epigenetic mechanisms regulated by polyphenols can sensitize cancer cells to traditional anti-cancer therapeutics.
2) Do dietary bioactive compounds reverse epigenetic aberrations underlying initiation of inflammation and inflammation-driven cancer?
Existing evidence suggests that at sites of inflammation the release of reactive oxygen species causes DNA damage that induces re-localization of epigenetic proteins and results in DNA methylation changes of associated genes during tumorigenesis. We hypothesize that bioactive compounds can prevent cancer development by targeting those changes in the DNA methylation patterns.
3) Do changes in epigenetic marks reflect exposure to bioactive compounds and constitute tools of cancer risk prediction and early detection?
We hypothesize that exposure to dietary polyphenols may leave stable marks in human body by inducing changes in DNA methylation patterns. Such molecular markers in easily accessible specimens are needed and should reflect long-term exposures. This will deliver quantitative tools for measuring the intake of bioactive food components in clinical and epidemiological studies.
Stefanska B, MacEwan DJ. Epigenetics and gene expression in cancer, inflammatory and immune diseases. Methods in Pharmacology and Toxicology book series, Springer, January 2017 (Editor).
Lubecka K, Kurzava L, Flower K, Buvala H, Zhang H, Teegarden D, Camarillo I, Suderman M, Kuang S, Andrisani O, Flanagan JM, Stefanska B. Stilbenoids remodel the DNA methylation patterns in breast cancer cells and inhibit oncogenic NOTCH signaling through epigenetic regulation of MAML2 transcriptional activity. Carcinogenesis 2016; 37: 656-668 (senior author).


text:
We are all contact centre agents now
Company Unified Communications Remote Working distributed workforce
Here's why that's a good thing…
"In the new contact centre, we're no longer reliant on hunt groups, and can onboard new services and new desks very easily, which has allowed for a much higher level of agility in terms of how we connect and collaborate with our colleagues and partners. We've also got a much higher level of control, so we don't need to go through our IT teams to make changes or updates when we need to, and can constantly refine our call flows."
Stacey Whyte, NHS Digital
Mention the contact centre, and most of us will immediately have a clear image in our heads of what such environments look like - typically a dedicated office space, where rows of staff answer customer communications by telephone. However, over the past few years, that image has become very much a thing of the past. With more and more organisations adopting a hybrid working model, and effective omnichannel communication now expected by many customers, the contact centre environment - its people processes, and technology - has been fundamentally transformed.
But in spite of the changes we've already seen, and the way they've transformed many organisations' customer contact strategies, the journey is far from over. It's time to redefine the role of customer contact software within the wider IT infrastructure, in order to bring it in line with the more flexible, more dynamic way in which future-minded organisations engage with their customers, manage workflows, and optimise productivity.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Exponential-e have supported numerous organisations in putting this into practice, and continue to develop our own contact centre solutions to ensure they support not just customer-facing staff, but also back-office staff, allowing them to assign, manage, and track tasks more effectively, and so - in turn - improve their customer outcomes.
By updating their IVR, NHS Digital reduced the number of customers mistakenly contacting their IT helpdesk by 45%.
Indeed, we have been inspired by the level of creativity with which our customers have utilised our platform to not only support the move towards hybrid working, but also develop a more holistic, collaborative approach to customer contact.
Let's consider these lessons and how organisations at all levels, in all sectors, can best apply them…
18 months since lockdown… What has been learned?
Throughout the course of COVID-19, the concept of a fully centralised call centre has become outdated, with 75% of call centres having fully embraced remote working1, in order to ensure their agents can continue supporting customers while still adhering to social distancing requirements. This could not have been achieved without the successful deployment of the right contact centre software.
Such software platforms have not only allowed agents to securely connect to corporate networks from anywhere, in order to access their critical applications, but access all relevant customer information through a single pane of glass at the point of contact, regardless of the customer's preferred channel of communication. With these tools in place, customers are free to make contact in whichever way they prefer (phone, video, audio, email, chat, etc.), safe in the knowledge that they will be put in touch with the most appropriate agent, who will have all the salient information at their fingertips and be able to engage directly with any internal SMEs whose expertise is required. This has allowed organisations to not only maintain 'business as usual' when it comes to customer satisfaction, but also provide their teams with a transformative model for making first-contact resolutions the norm.
So, 18 months since the first lockdown, how can the lessons learned inform organisations' wider customer contact strategies in the months ahead?
An updated IVR lowered calls to NHS Digital from citizens looking to speak to other NHS departments by 30%, while simultaneously providing them with the correct points of contact.
A new vision of the contact centre: collaboration, communication, and customer satisfaction
The kind of technology that has established itself as essential in the contact centre would previously have been regarded as tool costly to implement in many cases, but the rapid uptake in Cloud transformation has changed this, making these solutions not only accessible, but highly desirable to organisations at all levels.
Beyond helping optimise customer satisfaction, these solutions have enabled a more streamlined, more effective style of collaboration between geographically dispersed teams, making more effective use of the expanding volume of customer data that is generated each day to enhance service delivery and identify new opportunities for cost savings, and allowing all tasks to be automatically allocated, managed, and tracked. In light of these shifts, the concept of 'contact centre software' itself has become misleading, as these platforms are no longer purely for public-facing staff whose primary role involves receiving calls.
As we touched on above, these platforms have already helped teams within numerous companies develop new ways of working together in order to efficiently resolve customers' queries or complaints (including making contact directly, when necessary) while managers enjoy a high-level view of the customer journey and the performance of their teams. In this way, teams across organisations - including those in primarily technical roles – have found themselves playing a more active part in achieving their employers' customer satisfaction goals, with the software ensuring their expertise is utilised as intelligently as possible.
"We all expect things to be easy nowadays, and the contact centre should reflect that. No-one should be kept on hold, only to find that they've been connected to the wrong person. Technology allows for much smoother call flows, where we're able to put processes in place to ensure all callers are directed to the right place – whether it's an advisor, specialist, or an online tool – and constantly refine this journey by taking a deep dive into the analytics. Our advisors are less stressed and able to consistently deliver the outcomes we want, while callers enjoy a smoother, less stressful experience. It's just better for everyone."
Is it time to transform your own contact centre operation?
Consider the following questions:
Do you operate hunt groups (i.e., a system that automatically distributes calls between members of a designated group via a single phone number)?
Is 24/7 availability expected by your customers, even if your switchboard has clearly designated working hours?
Do customer queries and complaints frequently need to be distributed across multiple groups to be satisfactorily resolved?
Is the data generated during any customer interaction automatically consolidated, securely stored, and kept readily accessible to agents and SMEs?
Do you have full visibility of your staff's daily performance and workflows?
Do you have a process for ensuring someone is available to pick up tasks if the designated person responsible for them is unavailable?
Do you require better understanding of contact patterns, in order to identify any potential areas for improvement?
To what extent are tasks (including outbound interactions) automatically scheduled and assigned to the most appropriate team member?
If you answered 'yes' to any or all of these, you should seriously consider implementing Exponential-e's own contact centre solutions within your own IT infrastructure, in order to take full advantage of the numerous possibilities for intelligent automation, process optimisation, service delivery, and cost control. Taken as a whole, all this will support a truly cutting-edge customer contact strategy - with customer-facing and non-customer-facing staff combining their skills and experience to make effective communication with customers and a culture of ongoing improvement an intrinsic part of your day-to-day operations.
And at the end of the day, it's the customers who will benefit most!
1 ContactBabel, 2021
contact centre hybrid working remote working NHS Digital ContactBabel
We provide Cloud and Unified Communications services delivered over our own 100GigE secure, super-fast Network. Over the years we have invested heavily in expanding our Network reach, and building resilient Cloud and Voice infrastructure. Our service capability includes world-class Managed IT Services.
Technology and innovation drives our growth, and is complemented by our world-leading Customer Service and Support. We're trusted by over 3,000 customers, with 96% reference-ability, click here for our live NPS score. We work with technology partners with world-renowned technical capabilities and innovations to deliver our customer solutions.
But as our customers will tell you, it's not just the innovation and the brilliant customer support they value. They also value the Exponential-e integrity and ethos as their trusted partner working with them to design and deliver their solution on time and on budget.
Because ultimately, what you really seek in a partner responsible for your critical infrastructure is Peace-of-Mind-as-a Service. This is precisely what Exponential-e delivers.
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text:
AHSPIC
Almaguin Highlands Strategic Plan Implementation Committee
held Thursday, September 16, 2004
South River - Machar Community Centre
Present: David Stewart, Leia Halford, Christina Golding, Brenda Scott, Beata Barnard, Glenn Barnard, Kathy Parker, Kay Tod, Gilbert Lane, Cliff Reed, and Martin Parker
Regrets: Don Carter and Jeff Buell.
Resource Persons: Bob Sjonnesen, MNDM and Catharine Mayne, NECO.
Guest: nil
The meeting was called to order with Christina Golding in the chair.
Declarations of Pecuniary Interest – nil
Beata and Glenn Barnard, Economic Planning Meeting
Beata and Glenn Barnard noted people are ready for a follow-up economic conference to the Prosper from the Pavement Conference. They suggested 'Unity in Diversity' as the theme. They noted the region needs to build on its diversity. They reviewed their proposal with a visionary they know.
Christina Golding noted the costs will have to be examined.
Beata and Glenn Barnard felt the conference would be a community investment and would give an identity to the area and build on its uniqueness.
Bob Sjonnesen noted there are two sponsoring groups, the communities and businesses. At the current time NOHFC does not fund businesses but this is under discussion. He noted the regional Strategic Plan was completed about two years ago and did not know if the region was ready for another strategic planning exercise.
Brenda Scott suggested the conference be aimed at businesses, then if there is no interest there would be no costs.
Beata Barnard reviewed the concept of having a boardwalk along the Magnetawan River in the Village of Burk's Falls. Bob Sjonnesen recommended that the Magnetawan River Heritage Project be consulted.
Adoption of Minutes of August 19
Tod/Scott
That the minutes of the meeting of August 19, 2004 be adopted.
Reports from Members and Community Partners
Almaguin Festivals and Events
Leia Halford announced that the number of events for this year has now grown to 556. She is accepting events for inclusion in a 2005 calendar. Hopefully this will avoid duplication of dates for major events. The letter for the equipment data base has been sent out.
A Festivals and Events seminar is being planned for late October with speakers from northern events. The cost would be approximately $20 including lunch. The conference will focus on what event organizers are looking for and what is needed.
Bob Sjonnesen suggested that a letter be sent to the NOHFC requesting their assistance in the Festival and Events Conference.
Leia Halford announced that the PARC Association will be presenting a cheque to the Women's Own Resources Centre for $1,700, being the proceeds from the recent Celebrity Luncheon held as part of the Festival of the Arts.
2. Powassan Observatory
Christina Golding requested a letter of support from the Committee to the Municipality of Powassan in support of the proposed Powassan Observatory. The new site is near Trout Creek and the Trout Creek community is in support of the plan. The site is on crown lands.
Parker/Stewart
That the AHSPIC does hereby agree to send a letter of support to the Municipality of Powassan in support of the proposed Observatory to be located near Trout Creek.
Web Site Hosting Fees
Christina Golding noted the Committee through the Village of South River has received invoices for web-site hosting fees. There has been no funding allocated for the web site and a member had volunteered to maintain the site.
David Stewart noted he volunteered to maintain the site but someone has to pay the hosting fees to the server and name registration fee. The Municipality of McMurrich/Monteith paid the fees for one year. They were initially paid by the Village of Burk's Falls. The current bills need to be cleaned up so the site can be moved to a free server.
David Stewart noted the site has been improved from the initially developed site. He noted the region needs a central site.
Kay Tod noted the committee does not have the funds to operate the site.
It was noted that he committee has an allocation of $1,000 from the Blue Sky Economic Growth Corporation and some of this allocation maybe used for the web site costs.
Barnard/Tod
That AHSPIC request that part of the allocation from Blue Sky Economic Growth Corporation be used to pay the invoices for the web-site hosting fees.
Almaguin Highlands Logo
Kay Tod reviewed her report on her investigations of the use of the Almaguin Highlands logo which was originally developed by the Burk's Falls based Almaguin Highlands Economic Development Agency.
Kay Tod recommended that the committee, through the Village of South River, request permission to use the logo. She also recommended that the committee, through the Village of South River, also request permission to update the regional economic development CD as well.
It was noted that some businesses in the region are already using the logo.
Tod/K. Parker
That the AHSPIC, through the Village of South River, request permission from the Village of Burk's Falls to use the Almaguin Highlands logo and to update the economic development CD.
Review of Strategic Plan Actions Summary
The summary list of Action proposed in the Strategic Plan, prepared by Don Carter, was reviewed and updated.
Ministry of Northern Development and Mines
Bob Sjonnesen reported that the Ministry provided funding assistance for 180 student positions in the region this year.
Women's Own Resource Centre
Brenda Scott announced that she will be attending the Business Expansion and Retention Workshop in Sudbury in November.
Micro-Business Development Centre
Kathy Parker gave a presentation on the work of the Micro-Business Development Centre which is currently being given to Councils in the region.
Kathy Parker requested nominations for the Business Excellence Awards and distributed information on the awards. The presentations will be on October 26 at Ten Gables Golf Inn, Sundridge.
Kathy Parker noted that the senior government funding agencies are requesting support for the MBDC from municipalities in the region.
Almaguin Chamber of Commerce
Brenda Scott announced they are holding a meeting on Wednesday October 22.
Trillium Foundation
The Trillium Foundation has requested the committee host a meeting for the Trillium Foundation where they can meet with community groups to discussed the preparation of applications to the Foundation.
Stewart/Tod
That AHSPIC agreed to host a meeting for the Trillium Foundation.
LTAB – nil
Catherine Mayne announced she has a presentation she would like to make at the next meeting.
Blue Sky – nil
Almaguin Highlands Information Centre – nil
Correspondence – nil
Other Business – nil
Adjournment and Next Meeting
It was agreed the next meeting would be Thursday October 14 at 10 a.m. in the South River – Machar Community Centre.
The meeting was adjourned.
Back to AHSPIC Minutes and News


text:
Kiev now part one
Is post-Maidan Kiev the new Berlin or a city making its own future?
It's past seven in the morning, and I'm at a rave at the top of an empty office block. The dance floor is bathed in red light, thinning gradually as the morning comes. It doesn't look like the party's going to wrap up anytime soon. I came here from another rave in an arched brick warehouse space. There was barely any heating so you had to keep your coat on. Most of the DJs were from Odessa. It was perfect: lasers and darkness and kids dancing like crazy. My flight back to London is in six hours but I don't want to leave. I'm a tourist here but I feel like I belong. I can't remember the last time I had this feeling.
Two days before that, I'd been at the The House of Clothes, the main venue for the School of Kyiv art biennial. This vast modernist space, constructed in 1968, glowed in the early evening light, crisscrossed by geometric shadows. While the biennial has 16 locations, reflecting the multi-layered history and diverse character of the city, it's particularly exciting to discover modernist venues such as The House of Cinema or the Kiev Palace for Children and Youth. These are places you would simply not notice otherwise: dusty, covered with signage, overshadowed by glossy new buildings.
"What attracted us was lightness and brightness", says one of the School of Kyiv curators Hedwig Saxenhuber. "It's also like a journey in time, into the vision of a future which never became reality, particularly if you look at the city's new architecture". Some locations showcase other aspects of the city's history: there are a few contemporary galleries like Soshenko Studios, a well-known centre of the artistic underground, and the simultaneously horrifying and fascinating area of Vozdvizhenka: a newly-built shiny copy of old Kiev which replaced the decaying old buildings there before. Pumped up on fast wealth, it looks like an amusement park: plastic window frames, pastel colours and evidently cheap materials, cracks and loose bricks here and there.
A year on since Maidan, Kiev remains a very politically charged place. I go to the renowned square with artist Sasha Kurmaz. As he warned me, it's clean and new, and looks nothing like the burnt black circle of last year, having reverted back to its original look of a plexiglass plaza. Just opposite the square the newly repaired building is covered with a large, perfectly white banner, like a new clean page yet to be written on. The aftermath of Maidan is not located here; it's dissolved in the city, in small Ukrainian flags hanging from balconies, in large tasteless patriotic graffiti, in building fences painted yellow and blue.
Kiev's a crazy mixture of history and outrageous modernity, of in-your-face wealth and friends who never have any money
The School of Kyiv is not just about contemporary art. One of its key aims is to raise crucial questions of history and politics, and how to move forward from where Ukrainian society is now. Artists, curators, writers and academics from all over the world have come to discuss it. As the evening light fades behind the large windows of the House of Clothes, a discussion on decommunisation focuses on the dismantling of the Lenin monument in Lugansk. Opinions vary: artist Sanja Ivekovic says it resembles the favoured method of ISIS, while writer Masha Gessen insists that all Soviet symbols should be banned just like those of Nazi Germany. Academic Marci Shore brings up the generation which grew up in Soviet Ukraine, and reflects that many of them must feel their personal history is being raped by decommunisation. As I listen, the horror starts rising slowly inside of me. I remember my school history books. The history I've been taught, just like kids all over Russia, was distorted too — told from the perspective of the oppressor, lined with ideology.
One of the School of Kyiv locations is the National Museum of the History of Ukraine. The new shiny marble staircase is wrapped around an installation (not an artwork, he insists) by Nikita Kadan: bits and pieces of missiles found in Eastern Ukraine quietly hanging on string, a frozen shower of destruction in mid-flight stretching down from a Soviet tapestry at the top of the stairs onto a collection of institutional palm trees below. Some of the missiles, Nikita says, have got Russian markers on them. His actual artwork, titled The Possessed Can Testify in Court, explores the Soviet history of Crimea and the Donbass region. His works, postcards in thick frames filled with coal dust, share shelves with objects from the museum's collection: battered Soviet sculptures, souvenirs, corporate presents. Two of those look particularly mesmerising: glass cabinets with the outline of an island and miniature palm trees. They are presents from the workers of Crimea to the general secretary.
I think about the sentiment that filled the workers upon the act of giving, the joy and pride, and I feel nauseous. I have this feeling sometimes when hearing old Soviet songs: I think of my parents when they were very young, of their hopes for the bright future, the joyful May Day parades and the terror and repressions lurking behind them. My generation was born on the brink of the Soviet Union's collapse, and there is a lot of history running through our veins, at times terrifying and confusing. Opening my mouth I have to speak the language of the oppressor but it's the only one we have in common for now — yet I couldn't have felt more of a connection with my Kiev friends.
The "new Berlin" largely means a place which is cheap and mildly exotic, but not too much
The day before I leave I meet fashion designer Anton Belinskiy, nominated for the LVMH Prize this year for his collection proudly adorned with what seems to be the slogan of contemporary Ukrainian youth: Poor But Cool. We end up at Zhitniy Market, walking past tables with melons, plastic cups of raspberry and bright orange sea buckthorn. The building of the market is mindblowing: the ceiling is like a concrete cloth loosely hanging on four poles.
Anton is looking at silky kickboxing trousers with a Ukrainian flag on the front. The roots of his designs are probably here, alongside oversized fake Adidas sports jackets — or maybe they were created in spite of this. Running your own label in Ukraine today is not easy but he's counting on the future of digital platforms, on the fact that soon there's not going to be any need to go to fashion weeks.
Kiev is poor but cool indeed, but not only that. It's a crazy mixture of history and outrageous modernity, of in-your-face wealth and friends who never have any money. In three days I went to a talk on decommunisation and the future of gender equality, an opening of a luxury perfume store with champagne flowing and ladies in stilettos, and then a speakeasy in the basement of an old movie theatre which could have easily been in London or Brooklyn.
This diversity is probably why most of my Kiev friends shared some scepticism about the School of Kyiv. Why, one of them asked, were experts from Europe and US discussing decommunisation, when they have no experience of communism itself? It sums up pretty well the uneasy feeling of the western gaze which only wants to see the city through certain lenses.
These days Kiev, just like Belgrade and Budapest, is often described as the "new Berlin". This largely means a place which is cheap (thanks to the collapse of the local currency) and mildly exotic, but not too much. This is a tourist's approach to a place which only scratches the surface. During my stay I bought a t-shirt by artist Igor Okuniev which says ТРОЄЩИНА (Troieshchyna) in red block capitals over black. It's the name of a notorious dormitory suburb of Kyiv, where celebrated French artist Cyprien Gaillard shot some of his works. I like wearing it but I feel a bit ashamed because, even though I come from a similar background, I'm still an outsider. I leave, and my friends stay there — with their history, memory, future. That evening when I get back to London, they're still partying and haven't slept yet.
Text: Anastasiia Fedorova
Image: Anastasiia Fedorova, Ryan Koopmans, Sergey Kostromin, Yana Mikhaylenko, Misha Bochkarev
Ten good reasons to visit Ukraine's capital right now
soviet union school of kyiv letter from kyiv electronic music decommunisation anton belinskiy


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Although a GED credential can be earned by a homeschool graduate, HEAV recommends students obtain a parent-generated diploma in lieu of a GED.
*Note*This page addresses GED access for homeschooled students. See this page if you are a parent who has a GED in lieu of a high school diploma.
§ 22.1-254.2. Testing for general educational development; eligibility; guidelines.
The Virginia Department of Education issued Superintendent's Memo #68, March 23, 2007. According to Memo #68, all previous superintendents' memoranda addressing the GED should be disregarded.
Applicants under eighteen years of age, but at least sixteen years of age, must provide the GED examiner with documentation signed by the superintendent/designee certifying that the applicant has completed a home instruction program.
Applicants under eighteen years of age, but at least sixteen years of age, must provide the GED examiner with documentation signed by the division superintendent/designee certifying that the applicant has been released from compulsory attendance by the local school board.
Emancipated and adjudicated minors are subject to the compulsory attendance law, unless released by the local school board.
*Homeschoolers described as "released or excused from compulsory attendance" are religiously exempt students. Parents must provide documentation from the superintendent or his designee certifying the student is no longer under compulsory attendance according to the local school board.
The GED includes five tests that measure the skills considered to be the outcomes of a high school education. The tests focus on skills and concepts and the general abilities to analyze, evaluate, and draw conclusions rather than focus on specific facts.
Individuals may take the full battery of tests up to three times during a calendar year to qualify for a General Educational Development Certificate. Test scores may be combined in accordance with GED Testing Service policy.
For information on what you should do to prepare for the GED Test and preparation programs in your area, call 877-37MYGED or 877-376-9433. Visit Virginia's Race to the GED to find information about classes in your area, discover how to study by television or computer, take a practice test, or register for the test.
Testing applicants are not required to be Virginia residents. However, they must provide documentation of their current residence, whether in Virginia or another state.
An individual must make application prior to testing and provide a photograph ID at registration and at the time of testing. More information about GED testing can be found at Regulations Governing General Educational Development Certificates.
You may direct questions to Debbie Bergtholdt, GED state administrator, Office of Adult Education and Literacy at Debbie.Bergtholdt@doe.virginia.gov, or 804-371-2333.