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FALL 2012 • VOLUME 19: NUMBER 4
UNRWA Betrays Its Mission
by Nitza Nachmias
Fall 2012 , pp. 27-35 (view PDF)
https://www.meforum.org/3354/unrwa-mission
The twentieth century experienced some of the worst instances of population displacement in history: the 15 million ethnic Germans forced out of their homes in Eastern Europe after World War II; the millions of Muslims and Hindus fleeing the newly established states of India and Pakistan during the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1948; the millions of Armenians, Greeks, Turks, Finns, Bulgarians, Jews, and Kurds, among others, driven from their lands and resettled elsewhere.
By contrast, the 600,000 Arabs who fled their homes in mandatory Palestine and the nascent state of Israel during the 1947-48 war[1] have been kept in squalid camps for decades by their Arab hosts as a means of derogating Israel in the eyes of the West and arousing pan-Arab sentiments. And as if to add insult to injury, the U.N. Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), established in December 1949 as a temporary means for relieving the plight of the newly-displaced refugees,[2] has transformed into a permanent organization that has substantially exacerbated the problem whose resolution it was supposed to facilitate.
The only Arab country to actually take legal and social steps to integrate the refugees into society was Jordan; its 1952 constitution stipulated that the refugees were Jordanian citizens by law. Although many Palestinians maintain that they are second-class citizens within Jordan, some have risen to unimagined heights such as Queen Rania, wife to the kingdom's current ruler, Abdullah II. Here, King Abdullah II (right) and Queen Rania welcome U.S. Sen. John McCain (left) to the Royal Palace, March 18, 2008, Amman.
Between Repatriation and Resettlement
The idea underlying the establishment of UNRWA was that "assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability." Yet it was clear from the outset that these "constructive measures" were of a temporary nature and that "direct relief should be terminated not later than 31 December 1950 unless otherwise determined by the General Assembly at its fifth regular session."[3]
Within a year, however, it had become evident that UNRWA had no intention of folding up. Based on its operational report, on December 2, 1950, the General Assembly passed resolution 393 (V), which asserted "that direct relief cannot be terminated as provided in paragraph 6 of resolution 302 (IV)" and recommended that UNRWA's activities be continued "in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area."[4]
The solution to the refugee problem that UNRWA's establishment was supposed to facilitate had been outlined by General Assembly resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, which envisaged the repatriation of the refugees and/or their resettlement in their host countries as part of a comprehensive peace settlement to be mediated by a soon-to-be-established three-member Conciliation Committee for Palestine (UNCCP).[5] In line with this outlook, resolution 393 instructed the establishment of a $30 million "reintegration fund which shall be utilized for projects requested by any government in the Near East and approved by the Agency for the permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief."[6] This sum was increased in January 26, 1952, to $100 million for the fiscal year July 1, 1952-July 1, 1953 (compared to a mere $18 million assigned to relief operations)—thus indicating the U.N.'s continued emphasis on resolving the refugee problem.
Tasked by resolution 194 with facilitating "the repatriation, resettlement, and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation," UNCCP suggested shifting funds assigned for compensation to resettlement because "the majority of the refugees can only hope to receive as compensation a much smaller sum than will be required to resettle them in the Arab countries." Moreover, "when the time comes to pay compensation, it is to be hoped that a large number of the refugees will already have been resettled by UNRWA."[7] This was also the hope of U.N. secretary-general Trygve Lie, who said: "The refugees will lead an independent life in countries which have given them shelter … the refugees will no longer be maintained by an international organization … They will … provide for their own needs and those of their families."[8]
In a Jerusalem meeting on February 6, 1951, Sir Henry Knight, a member of UNRWA's advisory commission, reported some good news: "The prospects in regards to reintegration were not bad," he said. "Jordan seemed ready to accept a certain number of refugees; Egypt had already proposed a programme of public works, which more or less constituted a commitment on her part, and Mr. Tacla had implied that Lebanon would accept for resettlement 20,000 to 25,000 refugees of Lebanese origin."[9]
The overall plan was to offer the Arab governments vast resources and engage international experts in initiating sustainable agricultural projects that would change the economies of these countries while simultaneously absorbing the refugees. Because Syria, Jordan, and Egypt were in dire economic straits, UNCCP and UNRWA believed that they would ultimately accept the U.N. money that came with the programs and resettle the refugees.[10]
From the Israeli side, there was also promising news. As early as the Lausanne peace conference (April-September 1949), Israeli negotiators had "declared that if the Gaza area were incorporated in the state of Israel, its government would be prepared to accept as citizens of Israel the entire Arab population of the area, both inhabitants and refugees, on the understanding that resettlement of the refugees in Israeli territory would be subject to such international aid as would be available to refugee resettlement in general."[11] Israel's offer was motivated by security concerns: to prevent Gaza from becoming a launching pad for attacks against the fledgling Jewish state.[12] (This fear materialized in the mid-1950s when Arab fedayeen began to cross the border and launch violent raids against Israel's southern villages.)
The Israeli proposal was rejected by the Egyptian government, which demanded that all the refugees in Gaza be allowed to return to their villages in southern Israel. Confronted with this rebuff, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dismissed the Egyptian demand out of hand and insisted that the Arab states resettle the refugees in their own countries.[13]
A Drawing Board for Resettlement Plans
By the early 1950s, it became increasingly clear that repatriation was no longer an option. John B. Blandford, chairman of UNRWA's advisory commission, acknowledged this in a confidential memo: "There is probably common agreement that there is no gain for either of our efforts in fanning anew the fires and hopes of repatriation … It would seem desirable that the refugees be fully and promptly informed."[14] This left resettlement as the only possible solution.
On January 26, 1952, the General Assembly passed resolution 513 (VI) allocating "the expenditure of US $50 million for relief and $200 million for reintegration … to be carried over the period of approximately three years starting as of 1 July 1951." The resolution asked UNRWA to "explore with the governments concerned the desirability and practicability of transferring administration of relief to those governments at the earliest possible date …[and] considers that relief expenditures should be reduced in suitable proportion to reintegration expenditures."[15] Later that year, Blandford asked for an additional $30 million for reintegration projects as a means to reduce UNRWA's budget for relief.
To a limited extent, the constructive aims of the resolution were accepted. Egypt offered area in the Sinai for 10,000 refugee families if water could be found and if there was no prejudice to refugee interests with regards to repatriation or compensation. Jordan also agreed to the use of the fund for small projects with similar political qualifications. Soon, the first constructive steps were taken; out of these initial operations came knowledge of the area, surveys, irrigation plans, economic planning experience, and some progress on the ground.
U.N. secretary-general Lie maintained his optimism: "The Arab States would have a change of opinion, and they would recognize the inevitability of reintegration of refugees elsewhere than in Israel."[16] Resettlement seemed most logical and natural in Jordan, which in 1950, annexed the territories of Judea and Samaria (which subsequently became the West Bank of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan) where most of the refugees were based. In 1952, the Jordanian constitution stipulated that the refugees were Jordanian citizens by law,[17] and in 1954, a new law was enacted (6/1954)[18] confirming the status of those who had acquired Jordanian citizenship under the previous law (56/1949).[19] In stark contrast, the rest of the Arab states refused to grant citizenship to refugees on the pretext of preserving their "right of return" to Palestine.
Resolution 513 of January 1952 also instructed UNRWA "to explore with the governments concerned arrangements looking towards their assuming administration of reintegration projects at the earliest possible date."[20] But the charge was spurned by the Arab regimes and prevented the creation of a unified working coalition needed to achieve economic development for the region as a whole. But optimism did not wane due to the lack of real progress. Reporting to the eighth session of the General Assembly on October 26, 1953, the acting director of UNRWA, Leslie J. Carver, argued that "it was practically impossible to bring about the rehabilitation of all Arab refugees in the existing economic and political circumstances. There was, however, a prospect that, by their early employment on projects under consideration by the host governments and UNRWA, many refugees would be able to become self-supporting."[21]
The U.S. government was also involved in the resettlement plans. President Truman's International Development Advisory Board worked on resettlement options and concluded that "under proper development, Iraq alone could absorb an Arab refugee population of 750,000 people."[22] Encouraged by this general spirit of optimism, the General Assembly increased the resettlement fund from $250 million to $293 million.
With this impressive budget in hand, UNRWA drafted resettlement plans based on the principle that the projects would be carried out by the refugees, and this would, in addition, solve the problem of unemployment. UNRWA also prepared training programs for them. The reintegration fund would also give loans and grants to refugees to enable them to establish small enterprises, would build houses near their employment, establish rural farms where land was available for cultivation, and construct irrigation works and access roads.[23] The plan promised the refugees economic, social, and political independence while the host countries would gain economic development and prosperity.
With the July 1952 Free Officers' putsch in Egypt and the Soviet Union's assertive moves into the Middle East, Washington began to take more of an interest in greater progress on this front. Eisenhower's secretary of state John Foster Dulles felt his first priority was to convince the Arab world of Washington's evenhandedness and suggested resettlement of the refugees should be divided between Israel and the Arab states: Israel would repatriate a fixed number of refugees while the Arab states would absorb the remainder. It was hoped that Israel and its neighbors would "share water resources on an equitable basis and agree to border adjustments."[24]
Eisenhower appointed a team of experts, headed by U.S. ambassador Eric Johnston, which developed the "Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan" (the "Johnston Plan") for the resettlement of thousands of refugee families. Though the plan was rejected by the Arab League, both Israel and Jordan were eager to implement their respective components, resulting in the establishment of Israel's National Water Carrier[25] and Jordan's East Ghor Main Canal (today the "King Abdullah Canal") project—but not in a durable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.
Dashed Dreams
Before long, UNCCP and UNRWA reports lamented the slow progress of resettlement plans on the one hand and the waning prospects of repatriation on the other. "The refugees should be made to understand that previous U.N. resolutions and Arab League pledges guaranteeing their right of return were hopeless," noted an internal U.S. diplomatic memorandum. "It would be near impossible for them to dream of returning to Palestine in large numbers. The refugees would then be made more receptive to the principle of resettlement."[26]
A 1953 UNRWA commissioner report summarized the dilemma in similarly stark terms:
Signs of progress on major schemes are unfortunately lacking. The time taken to negotiate programme agreements with governments has been far longer than was expected when the three-year plan was originally conceived. … The time required for the preliminary engineering work involved in the preparation of specifications plans and designs for a major project must be measured in months, and the construction of a large dam or hydro-electric plant and of the main and subsidiary irrigation canals, in years … it will be several years before the full benefits of the projects can be achieved.[27]
For the most part, resettlement options in the Arab host countries went from poor to nonexistent. Keeping the 200,000-250,000 Palestinian refugees in harsh conditions in the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian government refused to grant them citizenship or to settle them elsewhere in the country on the pretext that "Egypt was densely populated and unable to extend substantially the area of its arable land … it would be difficult to resettle a number of refugees on its existing territory."[28] Similarly, the Lebanese government refused to integrate the 100,000 refugees into Lebanese society because it did "not feel that there are opportunities for refugees to become self-supporting … there are therefore no new programme projects in Lebanon at present."[29]
Syria was another disappointment. In 1950-52 there were hopes for a successful resettlement of some 80,000 refugees in the country, and UNRWA initiated the construction of housing projects in Damascus.[30] However, the Syrian government rejected UNRWA's pilot project proposals and refused to make state domain land available for the permanent resettlement of refugees.[31]
The only exception to this rejectionist pattern was Jordan where the government took legal and social steps to integrate the refugees into society. King Abdullah's goals were less than altruistic; he wished to expand his kingdom through annexation of what would come to be known as the West Bank as well as to reap a windfall of financial and technical assistance. As early as July 1949, the Jordanians informed UNCCP and Israel of their intention to resettle 200,000 refugees in return for substantial financial support,[32] and two years later, Jordan and UNRWA signed an agreement "for Palestinian refugees in the Near East," and the Hashemite kingdom was promised generous loans and grants "with a view to raising the general standard of living of all inhabitants including refugees."[33] In cooperation with UNRWA, the Jordanian government completed a 200-unit housing project for refugees, a large undertaking by a development bank with approved capital of 400,000 Jordanian dinars provided by UNRWA; some small training projects were also expanded into a $1 million vocational program.[34] Despite U.S. satisfaction with these modest beginnings, the assassination of King Abdullah (on July 20, 1951) made his more ambitious plans to resettle all the refugees who had fled to the West Bank and Jordan quite difficult to achieve.
The Failure of Early Resettlement Plans
Several major obstacles hindered the execution of the resettlement plans. As noted above, the Arab League and the Arab governments adamantly objected to resettlement despite the offer of substantial economic incentives, showing total indifference to the suffering of the Palestinians. Instead, the Arab League demanded repatriation of all refugees to their original homes in Israel: "Arab countries are unable to take on full responsibility for the quest for international peace as long as the refugee problem exists, and they have done their best in order to solve this problem … [T]he international community must take on this burden, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations."[35]
To former UNRWA official Sir Alexander Galloway, this conduct proved that the "Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die."[36] Likewise, Palestinian academic Mohammad Khaled al-Aza'r argued that
it was not only the result of lack of preparedness … or general Arab economic and social underdevelopment. This weakness was much more a result of the Arab minimalist approach towards human rights in general, including the rights of the refugees. The concept of individual rights and the protection of those rights, not to mention the specific protection of refugees, were completely absent from the Charter of the Arab League … For a long time, the Arab League focused its attention on Israel's practices against the Palestinian people without paying attention to the Arab conduct towards Palestinian refugees.[37]
Strikingly, a 1961 UNCCP report revealed that it was Israel that apparently made good faith efforts to ameliorate the refugee situation. After detailing the lost opportunities for resettlement resulting from failed negotiations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the report testifies that alongside the previously mentioned offer vis-à-vis Gaza, "Ben-Gurion did not exclude the possibility of accepting for repatriation a limited number of Arab refugees, but he made it clear … that a real solution of the refugee problem lay in the resettlement of the refugees in Arab states."[38]
With prospects for resettlement frozen, UNRWA abandoned those efforts and became a giant service-providing bureaucracy. In 1952, its director stated that it was "the largest food purchasing organization in the entire Near East."[39] The organization's budget for relief increased from $27 million in 1952 to almost $80 million in just a few years. The major beneficiary of its operations was Jordan, which received additional aid from the United States and Britain. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Arab League saw in UNRWA not only an important asset that could be used against Israel (through the perpetuation of the refugee problem) but as a cash-cow to be milked by Arab regimes.
In particular, UNRWA helped the Arab League uphold its strategy of promoting Palestinian statelessness for its own purposes. "Whereas the Arab League did not adopt a resolution forbidding the granting of citizenship by member states to Palestinian refugees," wrote Aza'r, "it expressed, at the same time, its general desire to … preserve their Palestinian identity and their political rights."[40] UNRWA's continued distribution of refugee-ID cards to refugee descendants thus supported the Arab League's approach of barring citizenship for Palestinians in the Arab states.
Undoubtedly, UNRWA's misinterpretation of its original mandate as well as its unprecedented redefinition of "refugee" contributed to the failure of its early resettlement plans. In 1959, Dag Hammarskjöld, the second U.N. secretary-general, pointed out that the organization had adopted a definition of a Palestinian refugee with no legal basis: "UNRWA's working definition of a person eligible for its services ... is not contained in any resolution of the General Assembly but has been stated in annual reports of the director and tacitly approved by the assembly."[41] Yet it was not until 1982 that UNRWA requested the General Assembly to legalize its longtime misconduct and "to issue identification cards to all Palestine refugees and their descendants, irrespective of whether they are recipients or not of rations and services from the Agency."[42]
At the end of the 1948 Israeli-Arab war and throughout the 1950s, once it became clear that repatriation was not an option, UNRWA vigorously pursued and indeed succeeded in resettling hundreds of thousands of refugees in Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank. However, large-scale plans that would have resolved the problem once and for all were not implemented.
Several factors contributed to this failure. To begin with, the $300 million budget approved in 1951 was insufficient for the extensive economic development schemes. The plans demanded vast investments in regional water and irrigation projects as well as in advanced agricultural systems. Moreover, the assumption that such complex projects, involving states still not at peace with each other, could be completed in three years was unrealistic as was the belief that supplementary funds would be coming from the host states and neighboring oil-producing countries. As a result, comprehensive resettlement plans based on vast economic development projects were abandoned in the late 1950s.
A misperception of the ultimate goals of key players played a determining role in this failure. Both UNCCP and UNRWA wrongly assumed that reintegration and resettlement were economic, not political processes. The Arab states thought otherwise and made it clear that resettlement of the refugees outside of Mandate Palestine was a political issue that could be exploited at will.[43] As one Arab U.N. representative put it, successful resettlement initiatives "would include the supposition that the Palestine problem is, at long last, solved—and this is far from being the case …[T]his solution … is no more than an effort to justify Jewish immigration into Palestine by another immigration of Palestine refugees into the Arab countries. This idea is profoundly shocking to us."[44]
Throughout the years, tens of thousands of Palestinian families—over two thirds of the population[45]—have left UNRWA-administered "refugee camps" and resettled in Jordan, the West Bank, and other countries outside of the Middle East with many becoming citizens of their host countries. Only a minority of the descendants of the original 1948 families still reside in the camps, mostly in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. Yet UNRWA continues to keep these resettled persons on its refugee rolls with its most recent 2010 records showing about five million "refugees" and ignoring the fact that close to three and a half million people are fully resettled.[46] The same reports indicate that less than a million-and-a-half people reside in areas designated as "refugee camps."[47]
Notwithstanding this fact, UNRWA has created, during its sixty-two years of operation, a vast bureaucratic network of some 30,000 Palestinian employees with full tenured benefits, who, in turn, provide social services to millions of Arabs regardless of their legal or economic eligibility. Consequently, UNRWA, the Arab host states, and especially the Palestinian Arab beneficiaries have a vested interest in perpetuating the organization's operation and keeping alive the fiction of millions of needy Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA's current operations are neither benevolent nor humanitarian. The agency functions as a "non-territorial government," perpetuating the false idea that five million Palestinians are still refugees and in need of humanitarian assistance. As such, UNRWA's existence is harmful to all players involved: Israel is criticized for not resettling the "refugees," the Palestinian Authority is denied governing its own citizens, and donors give billions to a nonexistent cause, money that should have been used to help genuine refugees in real distress.
UNRWA's operation has to be phased out gradually and carefully. Within this framework, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon have to award full citizenship to all the Palestinians who have resided in their territories for generations (Jordan has already done it). UNRWA, with the help of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Labour Organization, and other international organizations, should transfer all its facilities (schools, medical clinics, etc.), as well as most of its employees to the local governments' educational and health systems while those donors wishing to continue their support of the Palestinians should negotiate their assistance procedures directly with the relevant Arab governments. The phasing out of UNRWA's operation is vital to the peace process and the stability of the region.
Nitza Nachmias teaches in the master of arts program on conflict resolution at Tel Aviv University.
[1] Efraim Karsh, "How Many Palestinian Arab Refugees Were There?" Israel Affairs, Apr. 2011, pp. 224-46.
[2] U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) res. 302 (IV), Dec. 8, 1949, para. 7.
[3] UNGA res. 302 (IV), Dec. 8, 1949, para. 6.
[4] UNGA res. 393 (V), Dec. 2, 1950, paras. 2, 4.
[5] UNGA res. 194 (III), Dec. 11, 1948, paras 2, 11.
[6] UNGA res. 393 (V), para. 5.
[7] "Preliminary note concerning the financial relationship between compensation and resettlement," U.N. Conciliation Committee for Palestine (UNCCP), A/AC.25/W/64, Apr. 30, 1951.
[8] "Memorandum by the Secretary-General to the Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems," U.N. doc. E/AC, Jan. 3, 1950, pp. 6-7.
[9] "Summary Record, a Meeting between the Conciliation Commission and the Relief and Works Agency," UNCCP, Feb. 6, 1951, A/AC.25/SR.204.
[10] Alexander Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky, "A Tale of Two Galloways: Notes on the Early History of UNRWA and Zionist Historiography," Middle Eastern Studies, Sept. 2010, p. 661-2.
[11] "Historical Survey of Efforts of the UNCCP to Secure the Implementation of Paragraph 11 of G-A Resolution 194(III)," A/AC.25/W.82/Rev.1, Oct. 2, 1961, p. 5; "Third Progress Report," U.N. Conciliation Commission for Palestine, June 21, 1949, A927.
[12] David Ben-Gurion, Medinat Israel Hamehudeshet (Tel Aviv: Am Over Press, 1969), pp. 292-312.
[13] "Historical Survey of Efforts of the UNCCP," Oct. 2, 1961, p. 5.
[14] John B. Blandford, Jr., "Confidential Memorandum," no. 18, Jan. 30, 1951.
[15] Report of the director, UNRWA, Jan. 26, 1952, UNGA res. A/Res/513 (VI), para. 2.
[16] Quoted in Joffe and Romirowsky, "A Tale of Two Galloways," p. 661.
[17] Jordanian constitution, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Jan. 1, 1952, art. 5.
[18] Jordanian Nationality Law, 1954, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Jan. 1, 1954.
[19] Mohamed Y. Olwan, "Migration Trends and Patterns in Jordan: The Human Rights Context," American University in Cairo, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, Oct. 10, 2011, pp. 2-3.
[20] Report of the director, UNRWA, Jan. 26, 1952, para. 4.
[21] "Political and Security Questions: J. The Palestine Question: Communications and Reports Received by the Security Council: a. Report of UNRWA," Yearbook of the United Nations 1953, Dec. 31, 1953.
[22] International Development Advisory Board Report, Mar. 7, 1951, cited in "Palestinian refugees were denied resettlement opportunities," Eretz Yisrael.org, excerpted from Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine (Chicago: JKAP Publications, 2001).
[23] Report of the director, UNRWA, July 1, 1951 to June 30, 1952, UNGA A/2171, part IV.
[24] Peter L. Hahn, Crisis and Crossfire: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005), p. 29.
[25] Jeffrey Sosland, Cooperating Rivals: The Riparian Politics of the Jordan River Basin (New York: SUNY Press, 2007), p. 70.
[26] Memorandum by the U.S. charge d'affairs in Jordan, quoted in Ghada Hashem Talhami. Palestinian Refugees: Pawns to Political Actors. (New York: Nova Science Publishing, 2003), p. 62.
[27] Report of the director, UNRWA, July 1, 1952 to June 30, 1953, UNGA A2470, para. 11.
[28] UNCCP report to the General Assembly, Dec. 11, 1949 to Oct. 23, 1950, UNGA A/1367/Rev.1.
[29] Report of the director, UNRWA, July 1, 1951 to June 30, 1952, para. 62.
[30] Report of the director, UNRWA, Sept. 28, 1951, UNGA A/1905, para. 79.
[31] David Meir-Levi, "Syria and the Palestinian Refugee Problem," InFocus Quarterly, Spring 2009.
[32] Jalal al-Husseini, "The Arab States and the Refugee Issue: A Retrospective View," Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht, vol. 189, part 8, 2007, p. 4.
[33] Report of the director, UNRWA, Sept. 28, 1951.
[34] Report of the director, UNRWA, July 1, 1951 to June 30, 1952, para 67-8.
[35] Quoted in Mohammad Khaled al-Aza'r, "Arab Protection for Palestinian Refugees," BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Bethlehem, Nov. 2004, p. 5.
[36] Mitchell Bard, "The Palestinian Refugees," The Jewish Virtual Library, accessed June 13, 2012.
[37] Aza'r, "Arab Protection for Palestinian Refugees," p. 4.
[38] "The Question of Reintegration by Repatriation or Resettlement," UNGA A/AC.25/W.82/Rev.1, Oct. 2, 1961, para. 8.
[40] Aza'r, "Arab Protection for Palestinian Refugees," p. 14.
[41] "Proposals for the Continuation of the United Nations Assistance to the Palestine refugees," UNGA A/4121, June 15, 1959, part II, para. 4.
[42] "Working Group on the Financing of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East: I. Special identification cards to all Palestine refugees," UNGA A/RES/37/120, Dec. 16, 1982.
[43] F.M. Gottheil, "UNRWA and Moral Hazard," Middle Eastern Studies, May 2006, pp. 411-2.
[44] "The Question of Reintegration by Repatriation or Resettlement," UNGA A/AC.25/W.82/Rev.1, Oct. 2, 1961, para. 118.
[45] UNRWA Statistics 2010, Programme Coordination and Support Unit (Amman), UNRWA, Nov. 2011, p. 4.
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Last week we were in Mallorca with a tick list of some places that would be new and others that we wanted another look at. The forecast for the week was good apart from the Monday when it looked as though we might see the first of the autumn storms of 2010. Daylight revealed a dark, threatening sky and heavy weather rolling in from the west. Thinking the north east of the island might fare less badly we headed off beyond Lluc to see what we could find. At Cala De Sant Vicenc it seemed we had made a good decision when we could see what appeared to be end of the very dark clouds.
Thunder crashed overhead and lightening flashed all around as the storm passed right over the top of us. The rain was so heavy and driven so hard it found a way through the door seal and into the car. Fifteen minutes later we drove through flooded streets, axle deep in rain water to have a look at the adjoining Cala Molins.
The worst of the storm had passed by early afternoon but it was too unsettled and too windy to venture into the hills so we went to Sa Colabra confident of finding more spectacular seas.
The mouth of the Torrent de Pareis is a large pool of water separated from the sea by a shingle beach at the mouth of the gorge. The three brave souls above wanted a closer look at the breaking waves and so waded the pool to reach the shingle beach, where they got a much closer look at the breaking waves.
The following morning the sky was much brighter but the wind and the huge seas remained. The high wind ruled out venturing into the hills but the low level path to Deia would be below the worst of the wind. The very narrow beach at Cala de Deia is at the end of a narrow, funnel shaped bay which would still be exposed to the big swell.
Between the waves the water level is pretty low and the cafe of the left, above the metal roof of an outbuilding seemed well away from the worst of the breakers.
The rock in the centre of the above picture is on the extreme right of the two preceding photos. From the cafe, about 30 feet above the water, I watched the swell grow and grow and wondered just how high the spray could reach. Then I found out just how much higher the spray could reach – well above my head!


Veeam Data Center Availability Report 2014 proves that enterprises cannot meet the requirements of an Always-On Business, with application failure occurring more than once per month.
Veeam Software, the innovative provider of solutions that deliver Availability for the Modern Data Center™, today announced the results of the Veeam Data Center Availability Report 2014, its fourth annual report about how organizations succeed in guaranteeing access to IT services. In the global survey, 82 percent of CIOs admit that they are unable to meet their business's need for immediate, always-on access to IT services. This availability gap has immediate costs: application failure costs enterprises more than $2 million a year in lost revenue, productivity, opportunities and data irretrievably lost through backups failing to recover.
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AutoMazar is a remarkably heavy-yielding autoflowering hybrid between Dutch Passion's legendary Mazar and a Ruderalis/Indica. Mazar is a triple prize winner, a best seller praised for its potency, high yields and soft taste. AutoMazar produces sticky, generously proportioned buds and grows to a height of 70 to 80 cm. AutoMazar is a typical Indica, a strong-growing dense plant with big leaves and yields of 50 to 125 grams per plant. Best result so far is a plant that produced 205 grams outdoor in Southern Europe.


Personality tests with deep-sounding questions provide shallow answers about the 'true' you | ALEXANDER B. SWAN, PH.D.
A quirky quiz probably isn't going to tell you much about your innermost essence.
Have you ever clicked on a link like "What does your favorite animal say about you?" wondering what your love of hedgehogs reveals about your psyche? Or filled out a personality assessment to gain new understanding into whether you're an introverted or extroverted "type"? People love turning to these kinds of personality quizzes and tests on the hunt for deep insights into themselves. People tend to believe they have a "true" and revealing self hidden somewhere deep within, so it's natural that assessments claiming to unveil it will be appealing.
As psychologists, we noticed something striking about assessments that claim to uncover people's "true type." Many of the questions are poorly constructed – their wording can be ambiguous and they often contain forced choices between options that are not opposites. This can be true of BuzzFeed-type quizzes as well as more seemingly sober assessments.
On the other hand, assessments created by trained personality psychologists use questions that are more straightforward to interpret. The most notable example is probably the well-respected Big Five Inventory. Rather than sorting people into "types," it scores people on the established psychological dimensions of openness to new experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. This simplicity is by design; psychology researchers know that the more respondents struggle to understand the question, the worse the question is.
But the lack of rigor in "type" assessments turns out to be a feature, not a bug, for the general public. What makes tests less valid can ironically make them more interesting. Since most people aren't trained to think about psychology in a scientifically rigorous way, it stands to reason they also won't be great at evaluating those assessments. We recently conducted series of studies to investigate how consumers view these tests. When people try to answer these harder questions, do they think to themselves "This question is poorly written"? Or instead do they focus on its difficulty and think "This question's deep"? Our results suggest that a desire for deep insight can lead to deep confusion.
In our first study, we showed people items from both the Big Five and from the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS), a popular "type" assessment that contains many questions we suspected people find comparatively difficult. Our participants rated each item in two ways. First, they rated difficulty. That is, how confusing and ambiguous did they find it? Second, what was its perceived "depth"? In other words, to what extent did they feel the item seemed to be getting at something hidden deep in the unconscious?
We also noticed that some personality assessments seem to derive their intrigue from having seemingly nothing to do with personality at all. Take one BuzzFeed quiz, for example, that asks about which colors people associate with abstract concepts like letters and days of the week and then outputs "the true age of your soul." Even if people trust BuzzFeed more for entertainment than psychological truths, perhaps they are actually on board with the idea that these difficult, abstract decisions do reveal some deep insights. In fact, that is the entire idea behind classically problematic measures such as the Rorschach, or "ink blot," test.
In two studies inspired by that BuzzFeed quiz, we found exactly that. We gave people items from purported "personality assessment" checklists. In one study, we assigned half the participants to the "difficult" condition, wherein the assessment items required them to choose which of two colors they associated with abstract concepts, like the letter "M." In the "easier" condition, respondents were still required to rate colors on how much they associated them with those abstract concepts, but they more simply rated one color at a time instead of choosing between two.
Again, participants rated the difficult version as deeper. Seemingly, the sillier the assessment, the better people think it can read the hidden self.
Complicated or hard-to-parse questions about yourself aren't going to spring open a shortcut to the true you.
People's intuitions do them no favors here. Intuitions often undermine scientific thinking on topics like physics and biology. Psychology is no different. People arbitrarily divide parts of themselves into "true" and superficial components and seem all too willing to believe in tests that claim to definitively make those distinctions. But the idea of a "true self" doesn't really work as a scientific concept.
Some people might be stuck in a self-reinforcing yet unproductive line of thought: Personality assessments can cause confusion. That confusion in turn overlaps with intuitions of how they think their deep psychology works, and then they tell themselves the confusion is profound. So intuitions about psychology might be especially pernicious. Following them too closely could lead you to know less about yourself, not more.


Sweetness of watermelon meets the subtle chill of menthol. This mouthwatering fusion of succulent fruit with refreshing mint is the perfect antidote to keep you cool and beat the heat. Refreshing watermelon with brisk menthol undertones.


text:
Home→Worldbuilding→New Worlds: Buying and Selling Spouses
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New Worlds: Buying and Selling Spouses
Posted on February 16, 2018 by Marie Brennan
When marriage is more of an economic transaction between families than a union of two people for reasons of personal attachment, it isn't at all surprising that money gets involved.
There's good reason for this. Taking a new person into your household entails new expenses; conversely, the household losing that person loses the benefits of their labor. How that ledger gets balanced — who ends up being seen as needing compensation for the shift — varies depending on place and time.
The version most of you have probably heard of is the dowry: wealth given by the bride's family to the groom or the groom's family as part of the marriage deal. It provides endless fodder for romance novelists writing historical tales, because much like college in the United States nowadays, it was a big expense, and one families had to plan for early if they wanted to handle it right.
One of the ways to view a dowry's function is that it "purchases" a husband for the daughter, and as with anything else, the more money you have, the better a product you can buy. You can also cast dowry in modern terms as the startup fund for a household — especially when you consider the different forms it might take. Money is one possibility, but household goods like linens or furniture are another; assembling your trousseau was a very practical thing once upon a time (and still is in some places), and a girl who could show off excellent needlework skills was more attractive than one who couldn't sew to save her life. And then, of course, there's land: the dowry of a royal bride might include entire cities or provinces.
Dowry might also be a form of inheritance for the bride, and therefore of financial insurance — but how well that works out depends on the situation. If the bride retains control of her dowry, that's one thing, but if the groom or his family controls it, then it's all too easy for a feckless husband to fritter it all away. In theory a husband is often liable for returning the dowry to the bride's family if he sets her aside or their marriage is otherwise ended, but historical records are full of lawsuits over the failure to do so.
But that's only one approach to the marriage transaction. The inverse of dowry is bride price or bridewealth: the groom or his family transferring property or wealth to the bride's family. Sometimes this is again a form of financial security for the bride, but in other situations it's very much not, depending on whether her family is expected to return the bride price in the event of the marriage failing. It also theoretically demonstrates the husband's ability to support a wife.
Then there's dower — which, despite the similarity of sound, is not the same thing as dowry. It's more akin to bride price, in that it's a payment made by the groom, but in this case it goes directly to the bride herself, rather than to her family (though it may be held in trust in some fashion). This takes a bunch of different forms, and the legal intricacies are too much to get into here, but it's generally based on the idea that the wife depends on her husband for financial support, and if he dies or divorces her, she'll need something to keep her afloat.
You might think that pre-nuptial agreements are a modern thing, and the province of rich people who expect to have ugly divorces a few years down the road. In fact they're quite old and often quite necessary, even for people who don't have much in the way of property. As with any type of legal transaction, it's better for all involved if the terms of the deal are laid out unambiguously, and documented for future reference. In Judaism there is the ketubah; Islam also has marriage contracts. Other societies may have written documents specifying the dowry, bride price, dower, or other financial arrangements, especially in the event of one spouse's decease — at which point they intersect with the broader category of wills.
How these things fit into their respective societies is a complex question, and the details are a matter of debate among anthropologists. Are dowries more common in cultures where capital is the primary source of wealth, and bride prices in cultures where that honor goes to labor? Are one or both of these demeaning to women, or a way of providing for them and their future? What significance can you read into the form the gift takes, be it money or land or goods? What factors cause the expected gift to rise or fall in value?
It's a little easier to talk about the effects of such things. Being required to pay money up front before you can get married means that people without much (relative to their social class) are going to have a harder time getting married. (And don't think that shipping your spare daughters off to become nuns will solve the problem: some convents required a dowry, too, before they would take in a new novice.) This leads to people marrying later, or borrowing from their relatives to raise the necessary sum, or even engaging in crime — stealing cattle, for example, if you're expected to pay bride price in the form of a herd. In Europe, one of the pious and charitable things you could do was to fund dowries for girls with none. And the dower-style terms of a ketubah were in part a workaround for the problem of an up-front sum, letting a husband essentially promise money later, when he's more likely to have financial security, rather than having to deliver it at the outset.
Such things have mostly fallen by the wayside in the United States and other Western countries, but that doesn't mean they're entirely gone. Remember me saying that a bride's trousseau was material she brought into the marriage, for the setting up of a new household? Now think about wedding registries, which can fill the same practical function. And think about the custom, still widespread today, of the bride's family paying for the wedding and reception. There's expense associated with marriage — quite a lot of it, if you let the wedding-industrial complex talk you into all the optional bells and whistles — and we still have to answer the question of how to pay for it today. It's just the priorities and details that have changed.
New Worlds: Buying and Selling Spouses — 23 Comments
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Brenda Clough on February 16, 2018 at 10:05 am said:
There's an entire thing in China these days about how a girl won't even date you unless you have a car. Marriage is not to be contemplated unless the man can afford a condo or house. There's a significant gender imbalance which means dearth of marriageable women in China at the moment, and so the female gets to do the picking. What this means is that poor men go unwed, or are forced to import a bride from some less-fortunate polity like Vietnam.
Marie Brennan on February 16, 2018 at 12:34 pm said:
I would say "unforeseen consequences," but in fact these are very foreseeable. Take a patriarchal, patrilineal, patrilocal society. Tell them they can have only one kid each, or in some cases two if the first was a girl. Of course people will take steps to make sure they wind up with the type of kid who will stay around and take care of them in their old age, rather than the type who will grow up and leave and take care of their in-laws in their old age. Run that for long enough, and you end up with a sex gap, as you said, which means that when it comes to acquiring a husband, it's a buyer's market. And since it's still in many cases true, even here in the U.S., that marriage is more beneficial to men than it is to women . . . then yeah, you wind up with the women having the chance to be very choosy. And then you get knock-on effects from there, whether that's foreign-born brides or an uptick in crime or what have you.
You had real fun in China earlier when you had an unbalanced sex ratio, bride prices, and government heavily pushing the ideal of the chaste widow who never remarried after her husband's death, even if she had been a child bride. In real life, unless she had a son, she was almost certain to be sold enough to a third family.
Marie Brennan on February 19, 2018 at 1:07 am said:
"You can never remarry" under those conditions is a recipe for utter disaster, yeah. To the point where polyandry starts to look like the only feasible solution. 😛
Phyllis Irene Radford on February 16, 2018 at 10:56 am said:
There are _unverified_ reports coming out of India that a groom's family is in the business of collecting dowries. They find a suitable girl for their son to marry. They collect the dowry. Then 2 years down the road, bride has a fatal "accident". Time to find a new bride. Lather rinse repeat.
Two years is about long enough for the girl to produce a son.
How they get away with it I do not know. How a family can sell their daughter to a family that has already gone through 2 or 3 wives I do not know.
It isn't impossible for something like that to happen . . . but I'll admit I'm skeptical about anyone getting away with doing so repeatedly. The "Bluebeard" folktale notwithstanding, serial wife murder on a predictable schedule would attract a lot of suspicion.
On the other hand, the general idea that a man might kill his wife in order to keep her dowry and marry again? As a one-off thing, that is all too possible.
Hanneke on February 17, 2018 at 4:36 am said:
It's more than a one-off, with more than 10.000 women per year dying from this type of violence (dowry death, wife burning) in the India, Pakistan and Bangladesh area. It's often (thinly) disguised as a suicide (the wife {supposedly} hanging herself after threats and torture from her husband and/or inlaws) or as a kitchen accident resulting from cooking over open flame in easily-flammable saris (hence the prevalence of wife-burning).
According to the documentary I saw it was done to one of the interviewees who survived such an attack when the kitchen appliances which the wife brought in as her dowry needed to be replaced – they said that was a fairly common reason for such attacks.
It was, from what I remember, more common when the wife had married "up", into a family with a (slightly) better socio-economic status than her birth family. That way the wife's birth family would be powerless to protest her death from an "accident" and make it stick against the more powerful family, especially in more isolated rural areas and small towns.
Then the next poor father of daughters would get an opportunity to buy his daughter a step up on the socio-economic ladder for the maximum he could afford… after all, the poor widower would be nearly inconsolable about the tragic accident, but when women are careless cooking on open flame such things happen; or when a poor woman can't handle the pressure from her newly elevated status and commits suicide you can't really blame her husband, and of course your daughter wouldn't be that weak or careless, and just look at the opportunity she'd be given to rise in status….
After two dead young wives people would certainly start to doubt and whisper, but a more powerful family could still pressure a poor family into giving up a daughter and trying to safeguard her as best they can by paying more for a dowry than they can really afford (which would also help to keep a rising poor family both poor and powerless).
"One-off" in the sense that any given husband might kill his wife, but is increasingly unlikely to get away with doing so repeatedly — not in the sense that it only happens once across the whole population. Even with suicide or accidental death as the ostensible cause, serial murder of that sort tends to attract attention. Again, I'm not saying that it can't happen: it can and probably has. But I tend to view with a dose of skepticism anything that says it happens frequently, because such tales are often tinged with an overtone of "look at how barbaric things are in this foreign country where wives get murdered all the time and nobody really cares."
Clause #7 of the Magna Carta provides that a widow shall have the return of her marriage portion and inheritance without delay upon the death of her husband.
This presumes that the dowry has been used to purchase land or other valuables, or is in the form of land and grist mills and livestock etc. and remains intact.
Yeah . . . if the dowry is not intact, sometimes the widow is just up a creek.
AND — her getting it takes precedence over all other debts.
Under later English law a widower got all of his wife's estate. A widow got a third of the assets of her husband's estate. Which one worked out better was a matter of circumstance.
ganna ise on February 16, 2018 at 1:28 pm said:
Soviet Union had Eastern Europeans with pretty much modern Western ideas on marriage, and feudal Muslims ready to pay a hundred sheep for the blonde girl (they also paid a hundred sheep to get an university degree for their barely literate son). Intermarriages were rare, however, officially it was all a big happy family.
Oh, and several of my grandaunts worked hard on their trousseaus but never married (WWII plus Stalin meant a serious case of where have all the young men gone). Guess who inherited all that slightly yellowed linen. At least they taught me to sew, too.
Marie Brennan on February 16, 2018 at 1:38 pm said:
WWII plus Stalin meant a serious case of where have all the young men gone
I was just looking at sex ratios worldwide, and populations in many places skew quite female-heavy as you get to that top age group. Women's life expectancy in general tends to be a bit longer than men's, but when you add in a massive globe-spanning war that took out more young men than any other demographic group . . . and then, in the case of the Soviet Union, add Stalin. I'm pretty sure Russia leads the pack for having a ratio tilted toward women.
Sherwood Smith on February 16, 2018 at 6:47 pm said:
This also extends to widows having to make shift to live. When I was a student in Austria in 1972, everywhere you turned there were widows of the war earning meager livings cleaning public restrooms, running tiny Tabacs, cleaning streets, tending the front doors of apartment buildings, and of course in the regular service industries.
ganna ise on February 17, 2018 at 6:01 am said:
In the USSR the widows of Soviet Army heroes had plenty of state funding and status.
The widows of all the wrong armies were lucky to get a cleaning job.
And then there were women waiting for their husbands or boyfriends to get released from Siberia. Many did actually return, it just happened after their best reproductive years were over or with a Siberian wife and three kids in tow.
In my generation, born 1965 to 1975, a real live grandpa was a curiosity while grandmas and aunties abounded. I never knew my grandfathers. Bombs dropped from planes are not about to ask whether you have chosen a side in this war or just want to get home.
The fun thing is some cultures practiced both bride price and dowry. In classical Greece, for instance, the groom paid up front at the betrothal; the more substantial dowry was paid when they were actually married.
In Europe, the dower was called the morning gift, because the bridegroom would formally settle it on the bride the morning after the wedding night. That's where we get morgantic marriages — unions where the bride and her children can't inherit from the bridegroom and father, particularly his noble or royal title — the name coming from the way their inheritance consisted solely of the dower.
In Britain, the common custom was the daughters of the very poor went into service to earn their own dowries. At that level, of course, a good dowry could easily mean the difference between life and death for her, her husband, and their children.
True, I should have said that bride price and dowry are not mutually exclusive. Especially when you figure that they may take the form of goods or assets other than money, it isn't just a case of "I'll give you $200 now and you give me $400 in a few months;" both families might walk away having gained something valuable.
Cat Kimbriel on February 16, 2018 at 8:28 pm said:
In some Asian cultures, the man joined the woman's family. Was a dower of some kind paid to the family losing the work of the son? Anyone know? Was he adopted?
I don't know how many, if any, of those traditions/matriarchal cultures survive in the 21st century.
I know adoption was common in Japan when the marriage was being arranged specifically to provide the family with an heir: he'd marry their daughter and be adopted as a son. In those instances he inherited the estate of the family he was marrying into, because the setup wasn't matriarchal, or even matrilineal — this was just a way of carrying on the patriline. I don't think any kind of gift was given to his family in that case.
Anthony Docimo on February 17, 2018 at 3:39 am said:
I would imagine that, unless they eloped and ran off to a place where neither family had connections, any newly-wed couple who wanted to be neolocal would be setting up a new home on land owned by one of the two sides of the family. (is that still neolocal?)
In many cases the family didn't own land: they were just renting as tenants, whether that was a farm or a few rooms in a city. But when the families did own property, some of it might be given to the son as an inheritance or the daughter as a dowry. There's no clear cutoff for "you must be geographically this close to one side of the family for it to count as patrilocal/matrilocal" — it's more of a gradient.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Solr boost query with additive boost with edismax Is it possible to specify an additive boost for a set of documents (given a set of document ids) at query time for the extended dismax handler?
I was planning to use bq with an OR'ed list of ids but apparently bq's boost is not additive.

A: I think query elevation may help :http://wiki.apache.org/solr/QueryElevationComponent
Look into :
forceElevation
By default, this component respects the requested 'sort' parameter -- that is, if the request asks to sort by date, it will order the results by date. If forceElevation=true, results will first return the boosted docs, then order by date.
Have elevate.xml
<elevate>

 <query text="AAA">
  <doc id="A" />
  <doc id="B" />
 </query>

 <query text="ipod">
  <doc id="A" />

  <!-- you can optionally exclude documents from a query result -->
  <doc id="B" exclude="true" />
 </query>

</elevate>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
440.327.3077 | 34555 Mills Road, North Ridgeville
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Holiday Special: Fireplace Surrounds
As the first day of winter approaches and the weather turns colder, the fireplace becomes a gathering place for friends and family. Often a focal point of the room, the design of the fireplace anchors the look and feel of the rest of the space. Stone is a versatile and durable material to use as a surround for your fireplace. Depending on the look of the stone and where you put it, a stone fireplace can achieve many different styles, from a classic and cozy look to a minimalist and modern pièce de résistance in your space.
Parts of a Fireplace
From the front, the basic parts of a fireplace are the mantle, surround, hearth, and firebox. Beyond that, designs may include other ornamental features such as pillars, corbels, plinths, wall cladding, an apron, and a hearth extension. While the firebox is typically made from brick or cement, every other feature of the front of the fireplace may be made from granite, marble, quartz, quartzite, precious stone, and similar products.
Flush Hearth
These fireplaces show a stone surround with a hearth flush with the floor. Surrounds and flush hearths may be made from tile or slab stone, or a mix of both. Suitable for a room of any size, a flush hearth is particularly useful in a smaller area as it doesn't take up floor space and can allow for easy passage around the furniture near the hearth.
Raised Hearth
The hearth can be raised just a few inches like a step, or over a foot, like a piece of furniture. Just don't sit too close to the fire! You can also see some examples of wood and stone ornamental pieces in these photos. Stone is easily paired with other materials to make an interesting fireplace façade.
Sleek and Modern
Even without ornamentation, these minimalist fireplace designs are luxurious. There is great opportunity to show off a beautiful stone slab by extending the surround into a full wall cladding. The ability for a stone surround to enhance a more ornamented and classic design, and also to be the singularly prominent but inherently opulent design element in a more contemporary look is a testament to its versatility.
Popular Materials for Fireplace Surrounds
Granite is the most popular choice of stone for a fireplace surround because it is virtually maintenance-free. It is one of the hardest materials on Earth, and can withstand extreme heat without cracking. It is scratch and stain resistant, and can be cleaned with a mixture of mild dish soap, water, and alcohol. Quartzite is even harder than granite, and is also a beautiful, durable, and easy-to-care-for stone to use around a fireplace.
Marble may also be used to surround a fireplace as it can also withstand extreme heat. Marble's elegant beauty makes it a desirable stone to have anywhere in the house. While not as hard as granite or quartzite, when cared for properly, it may resist chips or scratches. Marble is typically lighter in color and will need to be cleaned often. As marble ages, it does sometimes take on the story of the things that happen to it. This is part of the beauty of marble--it gains character over time and use.
The fireplace is a source of light and warmth in a home. It is a place to gather, to tell stories, to have a quiet moment on a cold night. Whatever you are celebrating this December--a miracle of light, a return home, a jolly old elf, the beginning of winter, heritage and unity, the days becoming longer, the birth of a precious child, peace on Earth and goodwill towards all--we wish you joy and togetherness.
Happy Holidays from New Stone Age! We will be on break beginning December 20th until January 3rd, 2022.
Fam Feature: New Stone Age Thanksgiving LEFTOVERS Menu
Design Guide: Using Browns, Golds, and Other Warm Tones
Glammed Up Ghosts
©2020 by www.nsanaturalstone.com. Proudly created with Wix.com


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Months prior to the 2016 elections, surveys pointed to the following issues as most urgent and pressing for the Filipino people: controlling inflation, increasing workers' pay, fighting graft and corruption, creating more jobs, and reducing poverty. When Duterte was elected, there was an expectation, especially from the 16 million Filipinos who voted for him, that a "strongman" could finally fix the problems and deliver on these urgent demands. That was the great gamble of 2016. People took the risk with Duterte, hoping that he would deliver.
In 2017, Focus came out with a Policy Review on Dutertismo , looking at how Duterte's campaign promises and pronouncements have been translated into policies. The initial signs did not point to a substantive shift towards a more pro-poor development agenda.
Duterte also said in his SONA, "Our improved relationship with China does not mean that we will waver in our commitment to defend our interests in the West Philippine Sea." But Duterte's pivot to China has made the Philippines strategically and politically vulnerable to the Chinese agenda and debt-trap diplomacy. Falling into overdependence on Chinese investments and loans would not only cripple the Philippines' attainment of a self-reliant and independent national economy, but also destroy communities with their encroachment into critical areas, such as what is happening in the Cordillera in Luzon, Boracay in the Visayas, and Marawi in Mindanao.
Public institutions like the Commission on Human Rights, and the office of the Ombudsman, have been criticized and maligned publicly; judicial independence has been compromised with the removal of Chief Justice Sereno via quo warranto.
Divisive. Duterte has been a divisive rather a unifying leader. Duterte's reckless rhetoric has further widened the divisions and sown hatred and animosity among Filipinos. We have witnessed his incessant attacks against anyone expressing dissent. Those not supporting the deadly War on Drugs are labeled drug-coddlers; anyone criticizing the government is labeled a terrorist. Duterte's tirades against the Catholic Church and his "God is stupid" remarks have not only alienated the Catholic faithful and raised broader concerns over religious intolerance, but have also encouraged violent attacks against the clergy. Three priests have been killed in broad daylight in the last 6 months.
His flip-flopping on foreign policy issues is also causing confusion and division. Rather than taking advantage of the nascent interest created by his campaign promise of charting an independent foreign policy, Duterte has instead dabbled in sly hedging games, boldly announcing an economic and military "separation" from the country's erstwhile colonizer yet kowtowing to an emerging global power, further fueling geopolitical rivalry in the region. His administration's "two-track and quiet diplomacy" with China has further undermined Philippines' sovereignty; his cavalier approach to the simmering territorial and maritime disputes in the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea has also divided the nation. These divisive stances are reflected even in domestic policy. Duterte's "wars" – against drugs, against vagrants, against Moros, against Lumad – are not leading to long term solutions the country so desperately needs.
We are now beginning to see cracks within the administration. The tussle for the House leadership; talks of splits within and exodus of members from the administration's PDP-Laban party; members jostling for position in preparation for the 2019 elections; and the disagreements within the administration and its allies over the No Election scenario and positions on term extension are all fodder for a more tense and potentially explosive political environment.


text:
Meredith (Molly) Schoemann McCann
I Heard Tell
Humor and Satire– Shmatire!
The Tour de France is Hard?
Chris Pummer and I took on the Armstrong v. Contador Tour de France controversy in this week's Perpetual Post.
My side is here:
Is it too much to ask for heroic and world-class athletes to spend three weeks participating in one of the most grueling races in the world without behaving as though they are appearing in an episode of Dynasty? One almost expects Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador to scratch each other's eyes out, throw drinks in each other's faces, and tumble down a spiral staircase in silken dressing gowns as the finale. (Actually, I would totally love that).
But really, Contador. Do you want to go down in history as "The Man Who Won The 2009 Tour de France"? Because the way you talk, you're fast becoming "The Man Who Won The 2009 Tour de France, No Thanks To That Jerk Lance Armstrong, Seriously What Is With That Guy Anyway?" If that's the way you'd like it to go down, so be it. But I would think you'd want to keep a little more of that sweet, sweet Tour-Winning publicity to yourself. Every time interviewers ask you about your experiences and you bring Armstrong into the picture, it takes the focus off of you.
Why not talk about how it felt to finally win? Mention your adoring fans and how their support meant everything to you. Discuss the steamy naked SmartWater billboard you're in talks to shoot or the amusing cooking segment you just did on Good Morning America. Talk about anything but your overblown rivalry with Lance Armstrong. You know he's just going to retort with a scathing Tweet!
Granted, both of you have great super-villain names. When you talk about each other, I picture each of you standing on a mountaintop in a thunderstorm shaking a fist skyward and howling:
"Arrrrrmstroooooong!"
"Contadooooorrr!"
But even that image is not amusing enough to stop me from losing patience with your childish antics. I may be a layman, but even I grasp that the Tour de France is a race in which each team of riders are supposed to work together toward the common goal of helping one of their own win. In this most recent race, Armstrong and Contador, on the same team, fought neck in neck for much of the time, jostling each other for the winning position and trying to take control of the race. How confusing this must have been for everyone involved; how frustrating for the other team members. That bad energy, coupled with the alleged sniping between the two champion riders throughout the race, must have made this Tour de France really, really, extra…hard.
See, that's the thing. The Tour de France is HARD. Even when all of the teammates are working in tandem like a well-oiled, leg-muscled machine, they're still biking umpteen miles through France, Spain and Italy, day after day for 3 weeks straight. This race is already one of the hardest competitions in the world. As someone who is winded and calls it a day after twenty minutes on a stationary bike, I am mentally incapable of imagining how hard the Tour de France has got to be even on a good day. So if you're starting with an impossibly hard race, which everyone knows is impossibly hard to begin with, and you complain to the media that there was something going on that made it even HARDER this time, do you look like a hero? No. You look like a whiner.
So it was hard? Harder than you expected? A little more competitive than you'd bargained for? Of course it was hard! Of course it was competitive! It's a competition! It's not the Tour de Friendship and Holding Hands!
But suck it up! You won! Do a little dance! Loosen up, pull the bike seat out of your ass! Go hang out with Michael Phelps, if you know what I mean. The very notion of winning the Tour de France—for most people, it's impossible to do. For Alberto Contador, it was just impossible to do gracefully.
Posted by guyincognito42 in Humor, Perpetual Post Tags: Alberto Contador, bicycling, Lance Armstrong, sore winners, sportsmanship, Tour de France
theswordsman
Here's the BBC translation of the most important part of the Contador video:
"Well, my relationship with Lance is zero. My relationship with him is zero. I think that independently of what his character is, he's still a great champion. He's won seven Tours and played a big part in this one, too. But it's different to speak at a personal level. I have never really admired him that much, or will ever, but of course as a cyclist, he is a great champion."
A promise from Bruyneel at the Astana Camp in Tenerife: "If Lance is not the best, he will become the best teammate Alberto could ever have dreamed of," he said."
Welcome to I Heard Tell. Email the author at molly(dot)schoemann(at)gmail(dot)com. She's lonely.
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05.04.2018 Coinsilium Group Limited (NEX:COIN), the blockchain venture builder, advisor and investor that finances and manages the development of early-stage blockchain technology companies, is pleased to announce its engagement with Gibraltar registered TDH Limited ('TrustedHealth') to provide advisory services in relation to their Token Generation Event ('TGE').
The TrustedHealth platform aims to create a decentralised global network of doctors, specialists and other healthcare service providers, connecting patients around the world with the right expertise and services for their specific condition. Patients will engage via virtual consultations and payments will be executed in TDH tokens ('TDH Tokens') operating on the Ethereum blockchain. Blockchain technology provides the added benefit of secure data storage and data standardisation which is an ongoing concern for healthcare providers.
The public crowdsale of TDH Tokens is currently live, having begun on March 27th and is due to end on April 27th 2018.
Coinsilium will provide TrustedHealth with strategic advice and access to its network in the blockchain community. CEO Eddy Travia will represent Coinsilium on the advisory team of TrustedHealth.
Coinsilium and TrustedHealth are aligned in their belief that medical consultations will change dramatically in the coming years, with global connectivity and ubiquitous communication devices allowing patients and doctors to engage with greater ease and convenience.
Coinsilium is blockchain venture builder, advisor and investor that finances and manages the development of early-stage blockchain technology companies. It does this through its consortium of top-tier investors, industry thought leaders and executive managers. Based in London, Coinsilium's focus is on driving innovation in fintech and blockchain technologies, enabling businesses to take advantage of growth opportunities. Coinsilium also provides advisory services to companies planning token generation events.


"Hangouts" our online list and google map that displays popular Gay Hangouts for the 60's 2000. A brief description of important GAY places in our community both past and present. These places have had a significant impact on the lives of everyone within our community and have helped to shape our history.


The Ring Deutscher Pfadfinderinnenverbände (RDP; German Guide Federation) is the German national Guiding organization within the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). It serves 47,688 members (as of 2008).
Pfadfinderinnenschaft Sankt Georg (PSG, Roman Catholic).
It became an associate member of WAGGGS in 1950 and a full member in 1954.
Verband Christlicher Pfadfinderinnen und Pfadfinder (VCP, Protestant, coeducational).
Two of these, the BdP and the VCP, are also members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, via the Ring deutscher Pfadfinderverbände. Both federations work strongly together in the main fields of Scouting and Guiding.
↑ "33rd World Conference Document No. 11". World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. http://www.wagggsworldconference.org/en/grab/2398/1/33rdWorldConfernce-QuotaDoc11Agenda13-ENGLISHFinal.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
This page was last edited on 10 October 2015, at 12:12.


It's impossible to begin any discussion of Derby County's accounts from last season without mentioning that.
A £30.9million operating loss for 2017/18 – a result of the club vastly overspending in order to challenge for promotion – was reversed to a £14.6million pre-tax profit, by virtue of the club selling Pride Park to owner Mel Morris and leasing the stadium back.
That means the Rams have been able to comply with the EFL's profitability and sustainability (P&S) regulations.
The club are confident that the deal, valuing the stadium at £81.1million, is "within the financial rules" of the league.
"The company and its board of directors took the difficult decision to fully realise the market value of the stadium from its balance sheet after consideration of the club's P&S position for forthcoming years," Derby account's, signed off by chief executive Stephen Pearce on March 29, state.
Derby underlined that the decision had been made to "remain competitive".
Given that the club was not in receipt of parachute payments, Derby said, "and the level of wages and transfer fees paid in the division, the club wished to remain competitive to achieve its desires of Premier League football".
Derby, to their credit, were transparent about their struggles to remain compliant with the EFL's rules on spending, having seen recently rivals Birmingham City punished for losing more than the permitted £13million a season over a three-year period.
And with historical losses behind the club, Derby were under pressure to do whatever it could to avoid being hauled before an independent commission and threatened with a points deduction – or worse.
"Profit and sustainability regulations, governed by the EFL, continues to provide a significant challenge and the club endeavours to balance success on the field together with the financial imperatives of this regulatory framework," the Rams commented.
To this end, the club said it would "continue to research any commercial opportunities that will create additional revenue for the club in order to improve its long term position and prospects".
Meanwhile, Derby also acknowledged that the financial support of Morris was "critical to remaining a going concern", i.e, a functioning business for the foreseeable future.


text:
package kivik

import (
	"context"
	"net/http"

	"github.com/go-kivik/kivik/v3/driver"
)

// Rows is an iterator over a a multi-value query.
type Rows struct {
	*iter
	rowsi driver.Rows
}

// Next prepares the next result value for reading. It returns true on success
// or false if there are no more results or an error  occurs while preparing it.
// Err should be consulted to distinguish between the two.
func (r *Rows) Next() bool {
	return r.iter.Next()
}

// Err returns the error, if any, that was encountered during iteration. Err may
// be called after an explicit or implicit Close.
func (r *Rows) Err() error {
	return r.iter.Err()
}

// Close closes the Rows, preventing further enumeration, and freeing any
// resources (such as the http request body) of the underlying query. If Next is
// called and there are no further results, Rows is closed automatically and it
// will suffice to check the result of Err. Close is idempotent and does not
// affect the result of Err.
func (r *Rows) Close() error {
	return r.iter.Close()
}

type rowsIterator struct{ driver.Rows }

var _ iterator = &rowsIterator{}

func (r *rowsIterator) Next(i interface{}) error { return r.Rows.Next(i.(*driver.Row)) }

func newRows(ctx context.Context, rowsi driver.Rows) *Rows {
	return &Rows{
		iter:  newIterator(ctx, &rowsIterator{rowsi}, &driver.Row{}),
		rowsi: rowsi,
	}
}

var (
	errNilPtr = &Error{HTTPStatus: http.StatusBadRequest, Message: "kivik: destination pointer is nil"}
	errNonPtr = &Error{HTTPStatus: http.StatusBadRequest, Message: "kivik: destination is not a pointer"}
)

// ScanValue copies the data from the result value into the value pointed at by
// dest. Think of this as a json.Unmarshal into dest.
//
// If the dest argument has type *[]byte, Scan stores a copy of the input data.
// The copy is owned by the caller and can be modified and held indefinitely.
//
// The copy can be avoided by using an argument of type *json.RawMessage
// instead. After a ScanValue into a json.RawMessage, the slice is only valid
// until the next call to Next or Close.
//
// For all other types, refer to the documentation for json.Unmarshal for type
// conversion rules.
func (r *Rows) ScanValue(dest interface{}) error {
	runlock, err := r.rlock()
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	defer runlock()
	if err := r.curVal.(*driver.Row).Error; err != nil {
		return err
	}
	return scan(dest, r.curVal.(*driver.Row).Value)
}

// ScanDoc works the same as ScanValue, but on the doc field of the result. It
// will panic if the query does not include documents.
func (r *Rows) ScanDoc(dest interface{}) error {
	runlock, err := r.rlock()
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	defer runlock()
	if err := r.curVal.(*driver.Row).Error; err != nil {
		return err
	}
	doc := r.curVal.(*driver.Row).Doc
	if doc == nil {
		return &Error{HTTPStatus: http.StatusBadRequest, Message: "kivik: doc is nil; does the query include docs?"}
	}
	return scan(dest, doc)
}

// ScanKey works the same as ScanValue, but on the key field of the result. For
// simple keys, which are just strings, the Key() method may be easier to use.
func (r *Rows) ScanKey(dest interface{}) error {
	runlock, err := r.rlock()
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	if err := r.curVal.(*driver.Row).Error; err != nil {
		return err
	}
	defer runlock()
	return scan(dest, r.curVal.(*driver.Row).Key)
}

// ID returns the ID of the current result.
func (r *Rows) ID() string {
	runlock, err := r.rlock()
	if err != nil {
		return ""
	}
	defer runlock()
	return r.curVal.(*driver.Row).ID
}

// Key returns the Key of the current result as a raw JSON string. For
// compound keys, the ScanKey() method may be more convenient.
func (r *Rows) Key() string {
	runlock, err := r.rlock()
	if err != nil {
		return ""
	}
	defer runlock()
	return string(r.curVal.(*driver.Row).Key)
}

// Offset returns the starting offset where the result set started. It is
// only guaranteed to be set after all result rows have been enumerated through
// by Next, and thus should only be read after processing all rows in a result
// set. Calling Close before enumerating will render this value unreliable.
func (r *Rows) Offset() int64 {
	return r.rowsi.Offset()
}

// TotalRows returns the total number of rows in the view which would have been
// returned if no limiting were used. This value is only guaranteed to be set
// after all result rows have been enumerated through by Next, and thus should
// only be read after processing all rows in a result set. Calling Close before
// enumerating will render this value unreliable.
func (r *Rows) TotalRows() int64 {
	return r.rowsi.TotalRows()
}

// UpdateSeq returns the sequence id of the underlying database the view
// reflects, if requested in the query. This value is only guaranteed to be set
// after all result rows have been enumerated through by Next, and thus should
// only be read after processing all rows in a result set. Calling Close before
// enumerating will render this value unreliable.
func (r *Rows) UpdateSeq() string {
	return r.rowsi.UpdateSeq()
}

// Warning returns a warning generated by the query, if any. This value is only
// guaranteed to be set after all result rows have been enumeratd through by
// Next.
func (r *Rows) Warning() string {
	if w, ok := r.rowsi.(driver.RowsWarner); ok {
		return w.Warning()
	}
	return ""
}

// Bookmark returns the paging bookmark, if one was provided with the result
// set. This is intended for use with the Mango /_find interface, with CouchDB
// 2.1.1 and later. Consult the official CouchDB documentation for detailed
// usage instructions. http://docs.couchdb.org/en/2.1.1/api/database/find.html#pagination
func (r *Rows) Bookmark() string {
	if b, ok := r.rowsi.(driver.Bookmarker); ok {
		return b.Bookmark()
	}
	return ""
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


This carryall has two pictures of babies: baby human and baby duck, one picture on each side of the tote. This baby bag can be used to carry all of baby's needs! It measures 13 x 11. It's waterproof and the inside can be cleaned using household disinfectant.


As dogs are omnivores just like humans, dogs are capable of eating some human foods which are just as beneficial for them as it is for their human counterparts. Like fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats, cooked rice, and flaxseeds.
Depending on what they are eating, these food items can help with your dog's energy level, skin and coat health, eye vision, digestive problems, weight maintenance, and more.
Keep in mind that these extra people foods added to your dog's daily diet should make up no more than 25% of its regular diet, and every new food item should be introduced one at a time in small quantities to make sure that particular food item doesn't give your dog an upset stomach.
Also, when you're feeding your dog non-dog food, you should always keep in mind the food items you should never feed your dog.


Join us for a fun day of Golf & BBQ to benefit a local charity!
Dinner Buffet immediately following play outside on the South Patio – Everyone welcomed + guests!
Silent Auction item tables will be open at registration.
Golfing to network and to assist a local charity, the 2017 golf tourney focused on the corporate, entertainment and high tough leisure travel clients in the industry for a day of golf and networking. We donated funds for the lion cages for the Wild Life Way Station, a 501-c located in the Angeles National Forest just north of Los Angeles, California (home to over 400 wild and exotic animals comprising over 100 different species). The mix of golfers and attendees were from the corporate and consortia travel segment plus volunteers and donors from the Wildlife Way Station. All in one had a wonderful day of golf and dinner in the 18-hole golf tourney. Thank you to everyone that played and stayed for the cocktails, live music entertainment, the auctions for the fun and sun in Pasadena for a day of "Golfing for Animals".


text:
Kids in cancer trials need clearer communication
A small study of children with cancer enrolled in therapeutic clinical research trials shows that they don't fully understand what physicians and parents tell them about their participation, nor do they feel they are genuinely involved in the choice of whether to take part.
The study, led by Yoram Unguru, an associate faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, is published online today, March 29, in the journal Pediatrics.
While an estimated 70 percent of young cancer patients participate in clinical trials during their treatment, more than half of the 37 children who were interviewed for the study did not know or recall that their treatment was considered experimental or part of research, the investigators report.
And out of a subset of 22 children, 19 of them did not understand their doctors' explanation at the time they agreed to take part in the clinical trial.
In addition, irrespective of age, every child interviewed with a 69-part questionnaire said he wanted to be involved in decision making about his care and participation in research. Permission to participate in Unguru's study was sought first from the parents and adult caretakers, and then from the children.
"It was very enlightening to listen to the kids themselves talk," said Unguru, who is a pediatric hematologist and oncologist at Baltimore's Herman and Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai. "For the vast majority, their parents were the ones who made decisions and decided what was going to happen."
Long-standing doctrines are in place to ensure that human subjects understand and consent in advance to participating in research. Furthermore, federal law explicitly requires that children must "provide their affirmative agreement" to participate in research "whenever possible."
Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics states that doctors should ascertain that children comprehend information they are given about their treatments. In conjunction with the Belmont Report—a core historical document that lays out ethical principles and guidelines—Unguru says that the onus is on physician-investigators to verify that childhood patients understand.
However, it turns out that little rigorous research has been done to determine just how much minors with cancer actually understand about the treatment trials, Unguru says.
When doctors diagnose a child with cancer, he says, they often know about clinical research projects that hold promise for treatment and ask their patients and parents if they would like to participate. Typically, physician-investigators first ask the adult decision-maker, then turn to the child. Unguru says that some doctors are very thorough in this process, while others aren't.
"Rather than going through the assent process as it was meant to be done, oftentimes the child signs a piece of paper, and all it represents is an empty signature," Unguru said. "The child may not know what he or she is signing because the parents often just say, 'Sign here.'"
The study is the result of face-to-face interviews with cancer patients ages 7 to 18 years and is believed to be the first examination of children's understanding of—and preference for—involvement in research. Unguru says that past studies on children's comprehension of research participation have relied largely on hypothetical cases based on surveys of healthy, older adolescents.
Unguru acknowledged that age—or perhaps even the young patients' health, or state of shock and confusion in the face of a cancer diagnosis—might have made it impossible for some of them to fully grasp the concepts of clinical research. But, he insists, that doesn't mean doctors shouldn't at least try to do better.
"I argue that we have to do better because if we do agree that assent is an important process and an important ideal, then we have no other choice," Unguru said. "The notion of assent is that you're respecting the child's developing sense of autonomy, dignity and future decision-making potential."
Given the relatively few number of children in the United States who are diagnosed with cancer every year (12,500), Unguru says that the results of the small sample size were consistent and useful as a pilot study and basis for further research.
The study's co-authors, both at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., are Anne Sill, in the Office of Biostatistics and Informatics, and Naynesh Kamani, medical director of the Office for the Protection of Human Subjects.


California Rep. Barbara Lee last week introduced legislation in the U.S. House that would protect marijuana states from federal enforcement.
New legislation introduced in the United States House proposes to prohibit the federal government from enforcing federal cannabis law in states where marijuana has been legalized.
The Restraining Excessive Federal Enforcement & Regulations of Cannabis (REFER) Act of 2018 (HR 4779) was introduced last week by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) in response to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' rescinding the Cole memo earlier this month.
The federal policy had protected state-legal marijuana from federal interference. Sessions' move to revoke the policy indicates the Trump administration could be planning a crackdown, prompting this new bill, which would nip funding for such a crackdown in the bud.
The REFER Act would ensure there's no federal interference in state-legal marijuana by prohibiting federal agencies from spending money to "detail, prosecute, sentence, or initiate civil proceedings against an individual, business or property, that is involved in the cultivation, distribution, possession, dispensation, or use of cannabis" when operations comply with state law and local regulations. The legislation would also protect banks that service state-legal cannabis businesses.
The REFER Act has four cosponsors, including Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Don Young (R-AK), Jared Polis (D-CO), and Dina Titus (D-NV).
If approved, the bill would not affect the status of marijuana under the federal Controlled Substances Act. This means that cannabis would remain illegal in states that have not passed their own marijuana legislation. However, states that do adopt their own cannabis laws would no longer face the threat of federal interference.
Existing now and protecting state-legal medical marijuana is the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, an annual appropriations rider that restricts the Department of Justice from going after patients and providers for violating federal marijuana prohibition. The medical cannabis rider only shields medical marijuana operations and must be renewed every year as part of the annual spending bill.
A government shutdown, which could be days away if Congress doesn't pass a spending bill before this weekend, would mean the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment expires and Sessions could use federal resources to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana programs.
If approved by Congress, the REFER Act and its directives would not only be permanent, but they'd protect both adult use and medical marijuana that comply with state laws.
Sessions' change in federal policy did not slow the spread of marijuana legalization. Legislators on both sides harshly criticized his move, which may have in fact prompted cannabis-friendly lawmakers to act more swiftly.
Earlier this month, Vermont's legislature became the first to pass a recreational marijuana bill, which Gov. Phil Scott has said he intends to sign. In New Hampshire, members of House gave preliminary approval to an adult use proposal. Meanwhile, state lawmakers have introduced legalization measures in New Jersey and Kentucky.
As of now, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana, while 29 have passed laws legalizing medical marijuana.
You can learn more about marijuana industry trends to be aware of in 2018 HERE.
Regularly visit our news page for complete coverage of changes to marijuana laws and industry developments.


Organizations are able to integrate The Raiser's Edge fundraising software with The Financial Edge accounting software to streamline the process of gift entry and posting/gift reconciliation. Some users that have integrated The Raiser's Edge and The Financial Edge have noticed that the Pre-Posting report takes quite awhile to run, and that the posting process takes twice as long as it takes to run the Pre-Posting report. This occurs when the General Ledger Distributions on one or more of the Funds being posted exceeds 1,000 entries (e.g. debit and credit accounts).
This issue was resolved in version 7.91.5056.