text:
• Michael Medved
• Jewish Glasnost
• Glasnost: A Response
• Brothers in Arms
• Ann Coulter
• Moran Down
• Ruth Damsker
• Eli Wiesel
• National Council of Jewish Women
• Blessing to One Another
• JSPAN Justice Award
Teen Voice
• Machaneh Bonim b'Israel
• Pets and Kids
• Nutrilicious
Elie Wiesel.
Interview with Elie Wiesel
-- Charles Smolover
Elie Wiesel is a Romanian-born French-Jewish novelist, political activist, Nobel Laureate, Holocaust survivor and outspoken advocate for justice. He is the author of over 40 books, the best known of which is Night, a memoir that describes his experiences during the Holocaust. He is attending the AIPAC Summit in Philadelphia at the end of October and spoke recently with the Philadelphia Jewish Voice.
PJV: You will be in Philadelphia next week for the AIPAC Summit and you are no doubt aware of The Israel Lobby, the critical book about AIPAC by Walt and Mearsheimer. Setting aside the many factual errors in the book, is it possible that there is a kernel of truth to their argument, that AIPAC's power hinders United States politicians from offering legitimate criticisms of Israeli policies?
I have not read the book, but I have read about it and read some excepts. The people who have criticized it are responsible people and I have confidence in their judgment. Nevertheless, I cannot really comment having not read it myself. As to the general question you ask, as to AIPAC itself, I think AIPAC is a useful, important and vocal organization. I think the Jewish community needs it and I think Israel needs it. Does it mean that because of AIPAC some statesmen or politicians feel threatened? I don't believe that. We live in a democracy. Nobody is afraid to speak up. This is not Stalinist Russia. AIPAC is good be cause it mobilizes all those Jews who love the Jewish state and the Jewish people, but I don't think it represents a threat to those who disagree with the policies of the Israeli government.
PJV: The subject of the Armenian Genocide has been in the news. The U.S. Congress has been debating whether to officially recognize the events in question as genocide, and the Turks, to no one's surprise, are not pleased. Some in the Jewish community are reluctant to touch this issue for fear of damaging Turkey's relationship with Israel. What is your take on this issue?
I have been fighting for the right of the Armenian people to remember for years and years. How could I, who has fought all my life for Jewish remembrance, tell the Armenians they have no right to remember? But I understand the administration's view. Fortunately, as a private citizen I don't have to worry about Turkey's response. But I do feel that had there been the word "genocide" in those days, what happened to the Armenians would have been called genocide. Everyone agrees there was mass murder, but the word came later. I believe the Armenians are the victims and, as a Jew, I should be on their side.
PJV: If the Armenians have a right to remember, don't the Turks have an obligation to take some responsibility?
No one is asking for the Turks to take responsibility. All the Armenians want is the right to remember. Seven generations separate us from the events that happened in World War I and nobody in his right mind would say that today's Turks are responsible for what happened. The Armenians don't want reparations, they don't even want an apology. They want the right to remember. The Turks would gain a lot if they simply acknowledged the reality of what happened. I have spoke with Turkish leaders at the highest level and their attitude about this issue is totally irrational except for one thing which I do understand. They don't want to be compared to Hitler. But of course, nobody does.
PJV: Is anti-Semitism on the rise in Europe?
I am not sure I would characterize the situation in Europe in terms of whether there is a rise in anti-Semitism there. Europe clearly has an anti-Semitic past and there are clearly anti-Semites in Europe today. The question is whether they are part of a growing movement. I don't think they are. But there is a trend, a trend of being anti-Israel, which you also see in American in certain circles. This anti-Israel feeling, when taken to an extreme, becomes anti-Semitic.
PJV: What about in France? And what is the impact of the election of Nicolas Sarkozy?
This anti-Israel trend is certainly true in France. But I have a feeling that Sarkozy and his government will take steps to contain it, to mute it.
PJV: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will soon convene yet another U.S.- sponsored conference to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Absent some fundamental change in the status quo, do you expect this conference to have a different result than the many that have preceded it?
You now how dangerous prophesy is. As a French poet once said, the future isn't what it used to be. But I can tell you that the current situation in the Middle East cannot go on indefinitely. People are tired. I organized the first meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert. They fell into each other's arms. It was quite moving. They sat around the table, they ate breakfast and they discussed a range of issues – scientific cooperation, economics, education. Everything looked great. Three weeks later, Hamas and Hezbollah ignite new violence and the process ground to a halt. But we cannot stop trying to make peace. We cannot stop. Are we justified in feeling more hopeful about these new talks? I don't know. There is no telling how terrorism can effect the situation. That is the evil power of terror.
PJV: Much has been written lately about Israel entering a so called post-Zionist period that is marked by some disturbing trends, including a rise in draft dodging, increased tension between secular and religious Israelis and a growing disparity between the wealthiest and poorest levels of Israeli society. As a frequent visitor to Israel, what is your sense of the zeitgeist?
I go to Israel at least three or four times a year. I hear about these trends and it is depressing. But I believe it is a passing phase and that Israel's citizenry has the resources to overcome it.
PJV: One last little question: What is the single greatest challenge facing the Jewish people today?
Years ago when I was a journalist, David Ben-Gurion asked me to go to America and meet with various leaders and explore the question of who is a Jew. That was a big concern of his. Today I think the challenge is understanding what it means to be a Jew in today's world. Of course, various communities of Jews have answers. Zionists will say that being a Jew is about making aliyah. Orthodox Jews may tell you it's about performing mitzvot. But I think we need a deeper understanding, especially today when we are threatened around the world by the rise of fanaticism. It would like to see a high level conference of intellectuals, thinkers, moralists and philosophers convened to address this question.
Previous Interviews
November 2007: Ruth Damsker, Montgomery County Commissioner and Elie Wiesel, author and Nobel Laureat.
October 2007: Rep. Duncan Hunter (CA) Presidential Candidate
August 2007: Sen. Mike Gravel (AK), Democratic Presidential Candidate
June and July 2007: Democratic Presidential Candidates Sen. John Edwards (NC), Sen. Joe Biden (DE), Sen. Chris Dodd (CT), Sen. Barack Obama (IL), Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY) and Gov. Bill Richardson (NM) speaking at the NJDC Policy Conference.
May 2007: Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA 7) speaking at CAIR, and interviews with Marc Stier and Andy Toy, Philadelphia City Council candidates.
April 2007: Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA 13)
March 2007: Judge Anne E. Lazarus candidate for the PA Superior Court.
February 2007: Rep. Mark Cohen, Democratic Caucus Chairman
January 2007: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN 5), first Muslim elected to Congress
November 2006: Candidates Lois Murphy and Jim Gerlach, Pennsylvania's 6th district.
October 2006: Patrick Murphy, candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's 8th district.
September 2006: Alan Schlesinger, Republican Senate candidate in Connecticut.
August 2006: Peter Edelman, President of the New Israel Fund
July 2006: Joe Sestak, candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's 7th district.
June 2006: Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY 2).
May 2006: Charles Smolover, Vice-President of the Philadelphia Jewish Voice
April 2006: Ira Forman, Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Committee
March 2006: Alan Sandals, candidate in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate
February 2006: Matthew Brooks, Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition
January 2006: Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA 2).
December 2005: Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA 6).
November 2005: Gov. Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
October 2005: Bob Casey candidate in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate.
September 2005: Pennsylvania State Representative Daylin Leach.
August 2005: Lois Murphy candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's 6th district.
July 2005: Chuck Pennacchio candidate in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate.


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President Trump and I condemn the terrorist attack in Syria that claimed American lives and our hearts are with the loved ones of the fallen. We honor their memory and we will never forget their service and sacrifice.
Thanks to the courage of our Armed Forces, we have crushed the ISIS caliphate and devastated its capabilities. As we begin to bring our troops home, the American people can be assured, for the sake of our soldiers, their families, and our nation, we will never allow the remnants of ISIS to reestablish their evil and murderous caliphate – not now, not ever.


text:
Q: InvalidTypeIdException during deserialization with com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper I am trying to deserialize object using com.fasterxml.jackson.databind doing this way:
val restoredProject = validationSessionHelperImpl.objectMapper2.readValue<com.fmetric.validation.api.Project>(validationData.projectJSON!!)

detailed code here https://gist.github.com/iva-nova-e-katerina/f09cce0ade8a9b9a69ab9b52cbb1b0ea
and got following error:
   com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.InvalidTypeIdException: Could not resolve type id 'java.util.ArrayList' as a subtype of `java.util.List<com.fmetric.regulation.api.data.property.PropertyType>`: Configured `PolymorphicTypeValidator` (of type `com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.jsontype.BasicPolymorphicTypeValidator`) denied resolution
 at [Source: (StringReader); line: 1, column: 237] (through reference chain: com.fmetric.validation.api.Project["rootBrick"]->com.fmetric.validation.api.Brick["type"]->com.fmetric.regulation.api.data.brick.BrickTypeFull["propertyTypes"])

    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.InvalidTypeIdException.from(InvalidTypeIdException.java:43)
    at

The source JSON string is here https://gist.github.com/iva-nova-e-katerina/fa5ce8ddb03fb9db2b0dde930a6dbd5d
I must tell you something about classes hierarchy
data class Brick(
    val id: UUID?,
    val name: String,
    val type: BrickType,
    val propertyValues: List<ProjectBrickPropertyValue<*>>,
)

open class BrickType(
    open val id: UUID?,
    open val name: String?
)

class BrickTypeFull(
     id: UUID?,
     name: String?,
     val propertyTypes: List<PropertyType>?
) : BrickType (id,name){

This issue is related to another my question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71339282/unrecognizedpropertyexception-during-deserialization-with-com-fasterxml-jackson
Could you help me to serialize/deserialize an object aggregated with the object of inherited type BrickTypeFull ?

A: Here is a complete example
package com.example

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonIgnoreProperties
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonDeserialize
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.jsontype.BasicPolymorphicTypeValidator
import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.kotlin.KotlinModule
import java.util.*

const val payload: String = """
{
    "id":"f0156c1d-238b-4cfa-a5ba-17a3e2c9dc55",
    "name":"Здание",
    "type":["com.example.BrickTypeFull",{
        "id":"24073daa-4193-4f16-bed2-d8ef226a8715",
        "name":"Здание",
        "propertyTypes":["java.util.ArrayList",[
            {"id":"ed4e58f5-722e-4752-bf24-1b34dc5fdcd5","category":"BOOLEAN","name":"Cтатус архитектурного памятника","description":"Статус архитектурного памятника","brickTypeId":"24073daa-4193-4f16-bed2-d8ef226a8715","regulationId":null,"dictionaryValueId":null,"options":null},
            {"id":"ed4e58f5-722e-4752-bf24-1b34dc5fdcd5","category":"BOOLEAN","name":"Cтатус архитектурного памятника","description":"Статус архитектурного памятника","brickTypeId":"24073daa-4193-4f16-bed2-d8ef226a8715","regulationId":null,"dictionaryValueId":null,"options":null}
        ]]
    }]
}
"""

data class Brick(
    val id: UUID?,
    val name: String,
    val type: BrickType,
)

open class BrickType(
    open val id: UUID?,
    open val name: String?
)

class BrickTypeFull(
    id: UUID?,
    name: String?,
    val propertyTypes: List<PropertyType>?
) : BrickType(id, name)

@JsonIgnoreProperties(ignoreUnknown = true)
data class PropertyType(
    val id: UUID,
    val category: String,
    val name: String,
    val description: String,
    val brickTypeId: UUID,
    val regulationId: UUID?,
    val dictionaryValueId: UUID?,
)

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    ObjectMapper().apply {
        registerModule(KotlinModule.Builder().build())
        activateDefaultTyping(
            BasicPolymorphicTypeValidator.builder()
                .allowIfSubType("com.example")
                .allowIfSubType("java.util.ArrayList")
                .build(),
            ObjectMapper.DefaultTyping.NON_FINAL
        )
    }.also {
        val result = it.readerFor(Brick::class.java).readValue<Brick>(payload)
        println((result.type as BrickTypeFull).propertyTypes?.get(0))
    }
}

Probably you forgot to add .allowIfSubType("java.util.ArrayList") to your deserialiser.

A: Deserialization works with following Validator
   val ptv: PolymorphicTypeValidator = BasicPolymorphicTypeValidator.builder()
        .allowIfSubType("com.fmetric.regulation.api.data.brick")
        .allowIfSubType("java.util.ArrayList")
        .build()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Where does the path to NATO lead?
5 December, 09:24
For many years, since the 1990s, our country has been on the path to NATO. This path was not as fast and easy as it seemed then. by VICTOR ZHYKH, YEVHEN ZHYKH
For many years, since the 1990s, our country has been on the path to NATO. This path was not as fast and easy as it seemed then. Over the years, society has changed, the country has changed, not to mention the country's leadership. NATO and its view of Ukraine have changed during this time. The road to NATO has been a long and difficult process. So where does this path lead our country and society?
CHANGES IN PUBLIC MOOD
According to the Law of Ukraine № 2680-VIII of February 7, 2019 , the Constitution of Ukraine sets a strategic course for full membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, better known as NATO. These changes in the Constitution became another milestone of our country's long path towards integration with NATO and became especially important after the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014.
It was Russia's military aggression that became the powerful catalyst that critically influenced public opinion regarding the need to join NATO. Thus, in 2002, the number of Ukrainians who, according to opinion polls, supported joining NATO was almost the same as those who opposed it, at around 32% to 32%. In the following years, support for the idea of NATO membership among Ukrainians decreased significantly to 15 -18% of respondents "for" with 64-67% "against". But since 2014, the situation has changed dramatically and almost 48% of respondents support the need for Ukraine's accession to NATO with 32% "against" (for comparison, in 2013 these figures were 18% and 67%, respectively).
Title: How attitude to joining NATO changed in Ukraine after the Independence
According to the analytical portal "Word and Deed"
However, starting in 2015, the positive attitude of Ukrainian citizens to joining NATO again begins to gradually decline to 40-42%, and only in the summer of 2021 this level rises again to almost 48%, resuming the results of 2014. While the level of "no support" reached its lowest level since 2021 since 2002 and amounted to only 24% of respondents (in 2014 this figure was 32%), according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) of 8 until June 9, 2021 . And according to the latest poll by the sociological group "Rating" , in November 2021, 58% of Ukrainians were ready to support joining NATO.
Commenting on the situation, Volodymyr Horbach, a political analyst at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and an expert on Ukraine's foreign and domestic policy, noted that Ukrainian citizens see NATO primarily as a tool for protection against external aggression. If since 2015, when the probability of a major offensive by Russian troops has decreased significantly, at least in the opinion of most Ukrainian citizens, the trend of "finding a defender" has become less relevant, the popularity of Ukraine's accession to NATO has declined somewhat. But when Russia began threatening a military invasion in 2021, sending troops to the border and in occupied Crimea, the desire to be protected by NATO from external aggression grew again. "Few people remember this now," Volodymyr said. - "but the idea of Ukraine's membership in NATO enjoyed great support in the 1990s, at time of the so-called "Chechen wars". At that time, Ukrainian society wanted to defend itself with some external barrier. The wars are over - support has fallen. "In addition, public sentiment is affected by frustration with NATO's support for Ukraine. "Expectations from NATO on this issue have been significantly inflated both among the population and among politicians and high-ranking officials," the analyst said.
REGIONAL DIMENSION
But if the general attitude of the population towards the prospect of joining NATO is quite optimistic, then in the regional dimension it all looks a little different. Thus, according to the KIIS survey in June 2021, if in the west and in the central regions in the case of a referendum on Ukraine's accession to NATO the positive answer significantly outweighed the negative (66% vs. 9.4% and 53.2% vs. 18.7% respectively), in the south this ratio is already almost equal to the share (33.6% "for accession", 35.2% "against"). But the worst situation in this sense is in the east - only a quarter of respondents is ready to support the idea of joining NATO, despite the fact that almost half was against. And this without the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea!
The Seventh Ukrainian Municipal Survey , conducted in 2021 by the sociological group "Rating" in 24 regional centers of Ukraine, shows not the best results . The worst results were obtained in Mariupol, Severodonetsk.
Title: Attitude to Eurointegration in cities
At the same time, this trend is very constant, despite the fact that the eastern regions of the country are the most affected by Russian military aggression.
Volodymyr Horbach commented on the situation as follows: "Unfortunately, a large part of the inhabitants of the eastern regions, although the most affected by Russian aggression, still do not perceive this war as Russia's war against Ukraine. They perceive this difficult situation in which they find themselves as a kind of "space" or "world" war between Russia and the United States, which fell on their heads from somewhere outside. "
According to the expert, psychologically, many of these people are not ready to blame Russia, so they shift the responsibility to something else, distant, incomprehensible and hostile, which is perceived as NATO. "And of course, the influence of Russian propaganda, which, unfortunately, is very powerful, especially in these regions. Moreover, it is conducted by the most modern methods, using both classical television and radio broadcasting, as well as social networks and the Internet," Volodymyr Horbach said.
Andreas Umland, a well-known German political scientist and expert on Russian ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, European neo-fascism and comparative democratization, agrees that modern Russian propaganda greatly influences the sentiment of the people of the eastern and southern regions: "Russian propaganda is very powerful and effective. Russia is spending a lot of money on the information component of its hybrid war. Unfortunately, Ukraine loses very much in this field."
INFORMATION ACTIVITY AS THE MAIN TOOL
According to Andreas Umland, the fact that Ukraine hardly uses the opportunity to conduct information work in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, significantly weakens the impact on the minds of the population of eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, where Russian is widely used in everyday life. There is no interaction with those Russian-language information resources and bloggers who are in opposition to the current government in Russia and its policies, especially in relation to Ukraine.
"Yes, this is not an easy job, but only bans on Russian information resources and social platforms, such as Vkontakte or Odnoklassniki, will not solve the problem. We need to respond actively," said Andreas Umland.
In addition, according to the expert, the disconnection of analog television broadcasting in these regions negatively affected spreading of pro-Ukrainian comntent. "Not everyone, especially in small towns, gladly ran to buy T2 devices, when you can safely watch Russian analog television, which is well received even by old indoor TV antennas. The signal of Russian television is very strong, especially in the east and south. And now in the north of Ukraine as well," he says.
Volodymyr Horbach does not completely agree with his colleague on this issue: "Unfortunately, neither Ukraine nor the Russian opposition forces do not have sufficient resources to fight Russian propaganda on social networks such as Vkontakte." This field is completely controlled by Russian propagandists and the authorities, and if any particular blogger even thinks that he is winning this information confrontation, he is unfortunately wrong.
Therefore, to play on this field, according to V olodymyr Horbach, will be a clear loss, because resources and opportunities are disproportionate. "But the information component is, of course, extremely important in the hybrid war that Russia is waging against our country. Against our country and, as we see, against the whole democratic world" he said.
In an interview with Ukrinform on 15 November this year, Acting Head of the NATO Office in Ukraine, Director of the NATO Documentation and Information Center in Ukraine Vineta Kleine, answered a journalist's question about the impact of Russian propaganda aimed at preventing accession of Ukraine in NATO, noted:
"Misinformation, malicious information attacks and propaganda are phenomena that all countries have faced. Therefore, one of the rules that everyone must follow is that society as a whole must realize that every day each of us is faced with misinformation, manipulation and fakes.
It is very important to think critically. That is why, as part of the NATO-Ukraine Hybrid War Platform, we are helping to organize media literacy courses for civil servants and the media. This is one of the platforms within which we work closely with Ukraine "
In addition, as V olodymyr Horbach noted, the mood of the population of the east and south is greatly influenced by the activities of pro-Russian political forces, which, unfortunately, continue to be active in our country and are especially popular in these regions. Opposing the formation of a positive attitude of the people of Ukraine to the idea of joining NATO and to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization itself is one of the key narratives of these political forces. "However, time is working against them. The younger generation is more modern, so the impact of this propaganda will gradually diminish, as we already see in the dynamics. The change of generations leads to a change of political views, but not as fast as we would like. This is a long way," the expert concluded.
So where does the path to NATO lead? What conclusions can be drawn?
First, it is obvious that we should not expect a rapid positive decision on this issue. What the Baltic states did relatively easily and quickly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and finally Romania and Bulgaria will not be in Ukraine. There will be a long and rather contradictory path with ups and downs. And this is due not only to public opinion and politics of Ukraine itself, but also to many external factors, especially the factor of Russian aggression and uncertainty about the prospects of Ukraine's accession to some NATO countries. And the decision to admit a new member to the Alliance is based solely on the consent of all member countries. And no matter how much our politicians shout "When will we finally be admitted to NATO?, it will not speed up the process. You have to be prepared for a long and thorny path with many obstacles and problems.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the path to NATO must be a path to unity in society. Only when unity on this issue is achieved, when there are no regions where the vast majority of the population will oppose our country's accession to NATO, and the level of support/disapproval of this paradigm will become dominant in society not only as "average room temperature", but in all regions of the country, we can talk about reaching a public consensus on this issue. Russia's information war, pro-Russian political forces, errors and weaknesses in Ukraine's information policy, insufficient NATO information activity in Ukraine (largely due to the Alliance's uncertainty about Ukraine's prospects) are factors that oppose the formation of such a consensus. At the same time, we should not dismiss those who now oppose Ukraine's accession to NATO, saying: "And there are more of us who are in favor of accession." This path does not lead to constructiveness and does not accelerate a positive decision. It is necessary to conduct active, audience-oriented, even targeted, informational work, primarily aimed at those regions and those people who are "against" or have not decided on this issue. Only when the path to NATO becomes a path to understanding and unity will it really lead us to the goal.
This article is funded by the NATO is People project, funded by the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth Affairs ("FCDO").

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In this year Mr. Marsden spent about nine months in New Zealand, and some of the information to be gleaned from his journal is interesting, and bears on this history. He sailed from Sydney in H.M.S. "Dromedary," on the 13th February, and reached the Bay on the 27th.
On the 2nd March Hongi-Hika left for England in the whaler "New Zealander" to procure arms with which to overcome his enemies.
On the 5th March Marsden started for his second visit to Hokianga with some of the ship's officers and Mr. W. Hall, but no particulars of his visit are given. He was away a fortnight, and, after his return, the "Dromedary" went to Hokianga, Mr. Marsden, going with her, and returned in her back to the Bay, as it was deemed unsafe for the ship to enter the river.
This was the gathering for Tareha's expedition to Kaipara, which will be referred to later on.
Taraia Nga-Kuti, chief of Ngati-Paoa of the Thames, in the early decades of the nineteenth century.
two tribes, which are fully described in J. White's "Ancient History of the Maori," vol. v., chap. vii. Marsden describes a battlefield, somewhere near Kauaeranga, which is the same alluded to in the above work at page 102. And when at Te Awha's pa, near the junction of the page 137 Ohinemuri, which I take from the description to be Te Puke, the bullet holes in the pa were pointed out to him which were made by the muskets of Ngati-Paoa and Waikato a year or so previously, and where Te Puhi said his father (? a matua) had been killed. This is also referred to on p. 102 of the above work. After this was the joint attack on Te Totara pa by Waikato, Ngati-Paoa and Nga-Puhi, which failed, and the taua returned home in disgust. This Nga-Puhi taua was, I think, that of Korokoro, who left the Bay about November, 1819, and must not be confused with Hongi's attack in 1821, when Te Totara pa was taken, as will be described later on.
* This was Apihai Te Kawau, the principal chief of Ngati-Whatua at the time Auckland was founded in 1841.


The Commercial International Bank in Egypt (CIB) is taking part in the media campaign the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) started to bring electronic payments to the country as part of the move toward cashless transactions.
The CBE is informing the public of the ease of mobile payments and the superiority of e-wallets in comparison to cash. In line with the CBE's mission, CIB is providing e-banking services and products to give customers an easy way into the streamlined future.
The CIB Smart Wallet was launched in January 2016 and has a mobile app for making payments, which can also be loaded with funds from personal accounts which can be used to pay bills, or to send funds to another mobile user. The app can be used for any vendor who has the MasterCard Mobile Misr Logo, or with online purchases.
The app, which allows for withdrawals to be made at CIB ATMs or agents, is being offered by CIB-Egypt for 50 percent off for the next six months with free sign-up.
CIB hopes to give individuals with smart phones the ability to handle their own monetary transactions with ease and flexibility.


Notes: The work will be accomplished through a contract with Bottineau County with Comstock ConstructionInc.
For purposes of assigning Association loans in the Minot market, all of McHenry County and one-third of Bottineau County were included in the market.
These non-core assets were located in Moffat County, Colorado; Bienville Parish, Louisiana; and Bottineau County, North Dakota.
It will then extend to the northeast to a new interconnect with Alliance Pipeline in Bottineau County, ND.
North Dakota: Bottineau County [county record only], 1 [?
Located in Moffat County, Colorado, Bienville Parish, Louisiana and Bottineau County, North Dakota, the three non-core assets produce about 48 net barrels of oil equivalent per day that is equivalent to around 1% of its daily net production for the quarter ended 30 September 2009.
It will originate at an interconnect with Williston Basin's existing pipeline system in Mountrail County, ND and run northeasterly to a new pipeline interconnect with Alliance Pipeline in Bottineau County, ND.
As previously announced, the Company has unitized certain shallow oil fields in Bottineau County, North Dakota, for secondary water flood operations and is continuing these activities.
As previously announced, the Company has unitized certain producing shallow oil fields in Bottineau County, ND for water-flood operations and is continuing these activities.
GeoResources has completed drilling two shallow horizontal oil wells in its Wayne Field, Bottineau County, North Dakota.


text:
Tag Archives: same-sex marriage
It's Called the Rule of Law….
January 14, 2016 Gay Rights, Religious LibertyRoy Moore, same-sex marriage, Supreme CourtSheila
Indiana's Governor isn't the only government official living in an alternate universe. Look, for example, at Alabama's "Judge" Roy Moore, who has also been in the news of late.
It's one thing when students who don't understand the difference between a statute and a constitution complain that their preferred policies should be the law of the land. It's regrettable–albeit humorous–when Y'all Qaida cowboys communicate their grievances (and inadvertently, their ignorance) by taking over a bird sanctuary. But we expect lawyers— and especially Judges—to understand how the American legal system works.
They don't have to agree with every Supreme Court decision. They can stamp their feet and insist—as Governor Pence did when he was Congressman Pence—that Marbury versus Madison was wrongly decided, and that every statute struck down by the Supreme Court since 1803 was an act of judicial usurpation.
But we do expect them to obey the decisions of the highest court in the land.
For those of you who've been vacationing on the moon, Moore—who has long been a religious zealot with delusions of grandeur—is the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, a position he regained after being removed for defying federal law and several court orders by erecting a five-ton replica of the Ten Commandments at the door to the Alabama courthouse. Most recently,
Judge Moore issued an administrative order declaring that "Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage licenses" to same-sex couples. The Supreme Court's June Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage involved a case from a different federal circuit, so it does not apply in Alabama, Moore argues. Legal experts say that is a patently wrong interpretation of American law.
Patently wrong indeed! Law students who took such a position would never pass a bar exam.
Read my lips, "Judge." If you don't like gay people, fine. Don't invite them over for dinner. If you disapprove of same-sex marriage, don't have one. If your version of God hates homosexuals, feel free to pray for their descent into the fiery pits (or whatever hell you people believe in).
But no matter how fervent your belief, no matter how wedded you are to your animus, you don't get to overrule the Supreme Court. If you are incapable of following and applying the law, you need to be impeached or otherwise removed from a position that allows you to affect other people.
I think it was Andy Warhol who said everyone was entitled to 15 minutes of fame. Don't look now, Judge, but your 15 minutes are up—and it won't be long, in historical terms, until those who agree with you join you in that great dustbin of history.
I Don't Think You Understand How This Works….
September 4, 2015 Constitution, Gay RightsKentucky clerk, same-sex marriageSheila
Okay…I wasn't going to weigh in on the ridiculous clerk who has been refusing to comply with the law and numerous court decisions requiring her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but these paragraphs in a recent story got me:
Davis, an elected official and Democrat, has argued that she should be exempt from following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges because she objects to same-sex marriage for religious beliefs.
She had asked the judge to delay his ruling until the Kentucky state legislature, which won't be in session again until January, can pass legislation that would exempt her and other clerks who don't wish to follow the law.
Does this woman really believe that the state legislature can pass a bill that–in effect–overrules the U.S. Constitution?
It's depressing enough when ordinary citizens don't understand the most basic structure of American government, but how in the world does someone who has spent decades working in a government office remain so appallingly ignorant of the Constitution, the Supremacy Clause, and the operation of the First Amendment?
It's hard to escape the suspicion that this is intentional ignorance, grandstanding–that no one is really that stupid.
It's bad enough that she seems embarrassingly ignorant of the nature of religious liberty. As many observers have pointed out, she is entitled to believe anything she wants, but she is not entitled to a government job or paycheck. If her beliefs prevent her from doing what the job requires, she needs to quit.
If I told the University that my religious beliefs "exempted" me from having to teach certain students, believe me, I wouldn't be on the faculty very long!
A Facebook friend put it this way: if a Quaker public official refused to issue a gun permit, citing "sincerely held" pacifist religious beliefs, would Davis' "religious liberty" defenders insist that those sincerely held religious beliefs should be accommodated? Or are her defenders more likely to be a bit selective about their demands for accommodation?
It is difficult to identify the most offensive element of this sordid effort to blame discrimination against LGBT folks on God, but I think the winner may be a statement issued yesterday by Davis' attorney, Matt Staver of the Liberty Counsel. Stare had the chutzpah (google it) to compare Davis to the Jews under the Nazis.
According to Staver, sanctioning a government employee for refusal do the job she is being paid to do is just like sending millions of people to the gas chambers.
I want to pity these people. I really do. But they seem so unworthy of human compassion.
Asking the Wrong Question
February 14, 2015 Constitution, Gay RightsConstitutional right, same-sex marriageSheila
Yesterday, I posted about Roy Moore and Alabama's resistance to same-sex marriage, and a commenter took the federal courts to task, asserting that they'd exceeded their authority by invalidating "the will of the people."
The evidence of over-reach? Nowhere does the Constitution talk about same-sex marriage.
This is an argument that makes my head explode, because it betrays one of the most fundamental misunderstandings of our legal system.
Of course there's nothing in the Constitution about same-sex marriage. There's nothing in it about any kind of marriage. Or about the right to travel, or practice a profession, or numerous other rights it protects. That's because the Constitution is not the source of our rights.
The Founders were persuaded by Enlightenment philosophers like Hobbes and Locke that humans are born with "natural rights." We have those rights by virtue of being human (or, if you are religious, because we were "endowed" with them by a creator). The job of government, according to Hobbes, was to protect those natural rights and our individual liberty; Locke agreed, writing that government needed to be limited so that state power would not be used to infringe our natural rights and liberties.
The Bill of Rights doesn't grant rights; it limits government. Even when that government is expressing "the will of the people"–or as the Founder's might have put it, the "passions of the majority."
If someone wants to argue that there is no "natural right" to choose your own marriage partner–that the right to live your life in accordance with your own conception of morality and with fidelity to your deepest identity is not a human right–I'll disagree strongly, but that would be the appropriate argument.
Triumphant declarations that you read the text of the Constitution and didn't find a "right" to same-sex marriage simply tells the world that you are profoundly ignorant of the purpose of our Constitution and the theory of government upon which it was based.
Alabama: Why Judges Shouldn't Be Elected
February 13, 2015 ConstitutionAlabama, Roy Moore, same-sex marriageSheila
He's baaack!
Roy Moore, the infamous "Ten Commandments" theocrat, is serving a second stint as Alabama's chief justice. Moore was first elected to that position in 2000, but was removed after refusing to move a Ten Commandments monument he had installed at the entrance to the courthouse. Carved into a five ton boulder. In a July 2003 ruling, the appeals court compared Moore's actions to the
"position taken by those southern governors who attempted to defy federal court orders during an earlier era," citing the actions of former governors Ross Barnett of Mississippi and George C. Wallace of Alabama in trying to block campus integration and protest marches during the height of the civil rights movement.
"Any notion of high government officials being above the law did not save those governors from having to obey federal court orders, and it will not save this chief justice from having to comply with the court order in this case," the appeals court wrote.
In November 2003, the state ethics panel unanimously voted to remove Moore from the bench. He was reelected in 2012, narrowly defeating a candidate who didn't join the race until August after Democrats disqualified their original candidate. (What was that old saying?–you can't beat something with nothing.) When it became apparent that he'd won, he told supporters
"Go home with the knowledge that we are going to stand for the acknowledgment of God."
Now, Moore has told the state's probate judges–who evidently issue marriage licenses in Alabama– to ignore a federal judge's ruling that same-sex marriages could proceed, and a majority of them have been complying.
Interestingly, Alabama does not require probate judges to have any sort of legal education. It's also one of thirteen states where probate judges are elected in partisan primaries and general elections.
The U.S. Constitution made federal judges independent precisely in order to avoid this sort of assault on the rule of law. Congress and the Executive Branch are supposed to answer to the voters; courts of law are supposed to answer to the Constitution.
In best-case scenarios, judicial elections give rise to the appearance of impropriety– did campaign contributions influence the administration of justice? In the worst-case scenarios, judicial elections give you a Roy Moore.
I Haven't a Clue
November 1, 2014 Gay Rightsinclusion, same-sex marriageSheila
During a discussion with a friend the other day, he asked me a question I couldn't answer. Why, he wondered, did so many other Western democratic countries accept same-sex marriage before the United States? We still have states fighting tooth and nail against the tide of recognition, while in other parts of the modern world, the fight has been over for more than a decade.
I actually asked myself the same question back in 2005, when Spain recognized same-sex marriages. How did it happen that the country best known for the Inquisition recognized same-sex marriage before we did?
The Netherlands was first, recognizing same-sex unions in 2001. In addition to Spain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal and Sweden have all followed suit. Last year, Britain joined the growing list.
It isn't just Europe, either–last year, New Zealand became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize gay marriage. South Africa did so back in 2006.
We Americans pride ourselves on our devotion to individual liberty and human rights, but we haven't exactly been pioneers on this issue. (Or, come to think of it, on other issues involving acceptance–let alone celebration–of diversity.) Of course, there's that durable Puritan heritage that continues to fight–often successfully– with the Enlightenment roots of our governing philosophy.
The U.S. is an outlier among western democratic societies when it comes to religion. (Ironically, given Puritans' constant efforts to pass laws privileging religion, sociologists tell us it is our lack of a state-endorsed religion–our Enlightenment freedom to choose–that is largely responsible for Americans' persistent religiosity). Since most opposition to same-sex marriage is based on religious doctrine, that's my best guess at an answer.
Any other theories about why we lag the rest of the west?


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text:
Team Pelfrey is built upon a strong platform that is geared towards achieving success. Rather than focusing on results, it is important to focus on factors that contribute towards success and work cohesively towards maximizing them. Driver development and engineering are treated with equal importance when it comes to the on-track aspect. Away from the on-track action, the team works hard to brand themselves and, therefore their drivers, in a fashion that provides value towards current and prospective partners. Team Pelfrey drivers will be suitably prepared and educated as they look to further their careers towards becoming a professional in the top echelon of the sport.
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Q1) How many integers between 1000 and 9999 have exactly one pair of equal digits, such as 4049 or 9902, but not 4449 or 4040?
Q2) Pipes A and B can completely fill a water tank independently in 4 hrs and 5 hrs respectively. A pipe Ccan empty the tank filled completely with water in 3 hrs. Initially the tank is empty and all the pipes areclosed. Pipe A is opened first at time t = 0 hrs and pipe C is opened at the instant when the tank is exactlyhalf filled with water. Pipe B is opened after pipe C and at the instant when the tank is exactly one-fourth filled with water. Find the total time taken to fill the tank completely counting from t = 0 hrs.
Q3) Half of a class of 200 students enrolled for exactly one of the three activities swimming, skating and dancing. Total enrollments were 80 in swimming, 75 in skating and 60 in dancing from the class. Number of students who enrolled for skating and swimming only was 10 more than the number of students who enrolled for skating and dancing only.
Find the minimum possible number of students who enrolled for at least one of the three activities.
Find the maximum possible number of students who enrolled for exactly 2 activities?
Q4) A set of 7 pens, 9 erasers and 11 sharpeners cost Rs. 79 and 2 pens, 5 erasers and 8 sharpeners cost Rs. 42. Find the total cost of one sharpener, one eraser and one pen.
Q5) Given that w, x, y and z are natural numbers such that 4w = xyz, 4x = wyz and 4z = wxy. Which of thefollowing is a possible value of (w + x + y – z)^2 ?
Q7) In a school committee comprising 12 members, there are, exactly two students from each of the class from class 7 to class 12. In how many ways can a sub-commitiee of four students be formed, such that no two students in the sub committee belong to the same class.
Q8) How many ordered pairs (P, Q) are there such that the unit's digits of P^P and Q^Q are the same?
Q9) lf the length and breadth of a rectangle are increased by 4 units each, then the area of the rectangle increases by 100%. lf the breadth is Decreased by 6 units and the length is increased by 2 units, then the area decreased by 75%. Find the ratio of the length of the diagonal of the rectangle and the length of the rectangle.
Q10) P is a group of four numbers 1, 2, 3 and 1. In every step, 1 is added to any two numbers in group P. In how many such steps is it possible to make all the four numbers in group P equal?
Q11) A triangle has its longest side as 38 cm. lf one of the other two sides is 10 cm and the area of the triangle is 152 sq cm, find the length of the third side.


text:
Neco Shay Williams, född 13 april 2001 i Wrexham, Wales, är en walesisk fotbollsspelare som spelar för Nottingham Forest i Premier League. Han spelar även för Wales landslag.

Klubbkarriär
Den 10 juli 2022 värvades Williams av nyuppflyttade Premier League-klubben Nottingham Forest, där han skrev på ett fyraårskontrakt.

Landslagskarriär
Williams debuterade för Wales landslag den 3 september 2020 i en 1–0-vinst över Finland.

Källor

Noter

Walesiska fotbollsspelare
Walesiska landslagsspelare i fotboll
Spelare i Liverpool FC
Spelare i Fulham FC
Spelare i Nottingham Forest FC
Spelare i Premier League
Spelare i English Football League
Spelare i Europamästerskapet i fotboll för herrar 2020
Spelare i VM i fotboll 2022
Födda 2001
Levande personer
Män
Personer från Wrexham
Brittiska idrottare under 2000-talet

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
Q: Joined elements should *all* match some criteria I have a setup like:
conversations(id)

notifications(id, conversation_id, user_id)

users(id)

If a conversation concerns someone, the user is linked to the conversation through one notification.
GOAL: I'm looking for conversations which concern exclusively users with given ids.

The obvious:
SELECT DISTINCT conversations.*
FROM "conversations"
INNER JOIN "notifications" ON "notifications"."conversation_id" = "conversations"."id"
WHERE notifications.user_id IN (1, 2)

doesn't work because it would also retrieve a conversation concerning:

*

*users with id 1, 2 and 3

*users with id 1 and 4

*users with id 2 and 4

and this is not desired.

A: This is assuming that each user can only be joined once to a conversation:
SELECT c.*
FROM   conversations c
JOIN   notifications n1 ON n1.conversation_id = c.id
JOIN   notifications n2 ON n2.conversation_id = c.id
WHERE  n1.user_id = 1
AND    n2.user_id = 2
AND    NOT EXISTS (
   SELECT 1
   FROM   notifications n3
   WHERE  n3.conversation_id = c.id
   AND    n3.user_id <> ALL ('{1,2}')
  )

This is a special case of relational division. We have assembled a whole arsenal of techniques under this this related question:
How to filter SQL results in a has-many-through relation
The special requirement is to exclude additional matches. I use NOT EXISTS for this end. You could also use LEFT JOIN / IS NULL or NOT IN. More details here:
Select rows which are not present in other table
There could be several notifications for the same user
To avoid duplicate conversations in the result you can use DISTINCT or GROUP BY in addition to the above. Or you suppress duplicates to begin with (probably faster):
SELECT c.*
FROM   conversations c
WHERE  EXISTS (
   SELECT 1
   FROM   notifications n1
   JOIN   notifications n2 USING (conversation_id)
   WHERE  n1.conversation_id = c.id
   AND    n1.user_id = 1
   AND    n2.user_id = 2
  )
AND    NOT EXISTS (
   SELECT 1
   FROM   notifications n3
   WHERE  n3.conversation_id = c.id
   AND    n3.user_id <> ALL ('{1,2}')
  )

A: SELECT DISTINCT conversations.*
FROM conversations c
    JOIN notifications n1 ON n1.conversation_id = c.id
    JOIN notifications n2 ON n2.conversation_id = n1.conversation_id AND n1.id <> n2.id
WHERE n1.user_id = 1 AND n2.User_Id =2

I think the question asks for conversations between User_Id = 1 and User_Id = 2...
If nobody other than 1 and 2 should be part of the conversation, then Eric's answer is what you need.


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text:
Community Organizing Citizen Participation vs Class Power: On Community Organizing
Citizen Participation vs Class Power: On Community Organizing
Organizing Work
Ray Valentine on Organizing Work talks about the limitations of the community organizing model.
About five years ago, after a friend told me about a flyer he had seen taped to a tree near my block, I got involved in a "neighbors committee" in the gentrifying Washington, DC neighborhood I was living in. We started helping the tenant association in a run-down apartment building. Tenants wanted the landlord to fix up the building and let them remain there for the long-term, while the owner, a despicable absentee investor type with a thuggish property manager, wanted to push them out by any means necessary.
A few of us had been through community organizing trainings, and we put what we had learned to work. We mapped out secondary targets who could help pressure the landlord: we could oppose the landlord's application for permission to add new market-rate units in the basement; we could get neighbors to write letters to the city inspection agency demanding they fine the owner; we could even try to get in touch with the pastor of his church to try and apply some moral suasion.
Tenants were united, determined, and well-organized. The tenant association leaders testified in front of the city council, addressed big rallies, and picketed the property manager in rat costumes on Halloween. We got the zoning commission to deny the landlord permits he needed to add his new units. Politicians and clergy passed through the building regularly to gladhand us, we got glowing coverage from the press, and eventually, the city sued the landlord to force him to bring the property up to code.
Then we sat and waited for years as the case crawled through the courts. Conditions were miserable: kids got asthma from the mold, elders got bitten by rats, the heat stopped working completely. In the last few months, people have finally been relocated to other buildings so repairs can begin. Spirits are still low though, and now that tenants are out, more and more say they never want to go back and are trying to negotiate buy-out agreements with the landlord. Things might turn out okay in the end, but it seems increasingly likely that tenants will be permanently displaced and the landlord will get to redevelop the place into luxury condos like he always wanted.
Last year, a DSA-affiliated project I'm part of started organizing in a much larger apartment complex in another part of the city (we documented it here). Going through landlord-tenant court records, we discovered a staggering volume of evictions for the property, and started canvassing with know-your-rights materials. We discovered that tenants were aggrieved about poor maintenance, lax security, and abusive management.
The landlord is a well-capitalized corporate developer with lots of political connections, not a small-scale slumlord. We, on the other hand, didn't know the community very well and didn't have many allies we could bring to the fight. We never got support from the press, politicians, or other activists. We made a lot of mistakes, and the group we helped tenants build was fractious and disorganized.
But we did one thing right: we proposed a rent strike, and the idea proved surprisingly popular among the people who lived in the building. When we delivered the threat of a rent strike to the owner, we got concessions immediately. Now, after seeing how effective collective action was, tenants want to negotiate a kind of collective bargaining agreement with the owner.
In the second case, the organizers weren't smarter or more experienced. The tenants weren't braver or more committed. The landlord certainly wasn't more vulnerable. The difference was that we recognized the leverage tenants had.
It seems unfortunately rare for organizers doing this type of work to have a good understanding of tenants' leverage, and the "community organizing" trainings I got in my misspent youth did little to clarify things. I don't think this is an accident.
Alinksy organizing and its critics
Chino from Unity and Struggle has written a useful critique of the dominant model of "community organizing" practiced in the US. He charts the history of this political tradition: Saul Alinksy's work uniting various local institutions in Chicago to support unionization drives and battle "social disintegration," his followers' success in building new local organizations across the country in the wake of the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s, and the development of national networks and institutes in the 1970s that codified the tradition, often with the help of federal funding.
The practical achievements of this tradition have been limited, at best. Rather than building independent bases of power, community organizations have often been drawn into deeper dependence on private foundations and closer alliances with Democratic Party politicians. As organizers are integrated into a "non-profit industrial complex," they lose the capacity to put independent pressure on the state and other powerful institutions, and they are disconnected from, or even act consciously to suppress, outbreaks of popular insurgency.
Consequently, community organizations have been too weak to do much about the rightward drift of national politics. The eclipse of the power of these organizations was demonstrated poignantly when, in 2010, the Democrat-controlled Senate voted to defund ACORN, the most significant national organizing network, at the behest of right-wing provocateurs.
These good points have mostly been made before, but Chino adds some provocative insights. He looks at the experience of a new wave of organizations that grew out of local struggles in the 1980s and 1990s and cohered into an alternative set of networks and training institutes. These new groups were led by people with more radical politics, who rejected much of Alinksy's theory and attempted to go beyond the limits of traditional "community organizing." These groups made more "transformative" demands and made use of nonviolent direct action instead of using purely rhetorical pressure. While the most prominent community organizers of the 1960s were white men, these new groups prioritized the leadership of women and people of color.
Despite some advances, Chino concludes that for the most part "the new groups used standard organizing methods, but borrowed radical language," and reproduced many of the failures of the old model. He worries that a new generation of leftists developing an interest in a strategy of "base-building" will repeat the same mistakes and fail to "derive new tools that can serve revolutionary goals, far different from the goals the playbook was designed for decades ago."
So far so good: I agree with most of this analysis and share these concerns. But I disagree with Chino's view that the main problem with community organizations is their focus on short-term, winnable goals. He argues that community organizers' fixation on immediate, "winnable demands" gets in the way of developing a strategy for "broader social transformation," and that this absence of a broader political horizon has limited organizers' effectiveness. I disagree because that second wave of community organizers in the 1980s and 1990s had plenty of big goals, but they didn't get much further than their predecessors because they didn't depart much strategically.
When it comes down to it, the "new tools" Chino presents aren't much of a departure from the community organizing tradition. He critiques community organizations' dependence on "influence in the state through collaborative relationships with politicians and legal reforms" and says an alternative approach to building power focuses on the "growing solidarity and combativeness among the proletariat," without saying what this combativeness looks like in practice (is it a rally with more extreme slogans?). He proposes that organizers "identify a goal that is currently considered impossible by existing political actors, and identify ways to make them possible given the balance of forces," but he doesn't have concrete suggestions about how to make the impossible possible.
The radicalism here is mostly rhetorical, emphasizing how we should think and talk about issues. What's missing is an understanding of how working class people can effectively exert pressure and win that differs substantively from Alinsky's outlook.
We can't just think differently from the community organizers, we need to act differently. We can talk about revolution all we like, but we won't get anywhere without a firm understanding of the nature of class power and how this can be wielded — which differs from what community organizers usually try to wield.
Citizen participation vs class power
Let's think about where a community organization's leverage comes from. To oversimplify, the basic cycle of a community organizing campaign is to come up with a demand, identify an individual (usually some sort of public official) who can deliver on the group's demand, assemble a big group of people, and confront the individual with that demand until they give in. The power of this crowd of people is supposed to come from their numbers (or through the numbers of people they represent through other networks and institutions). Numbers are presumed to automatically translate into influence. The implicit threat backing up the demand is "there are more of us than there are of you, and you had better give us what we want or we're going to vote you out." More "radical" organizers may use more militant approaches to make the same basic threat: "give us what we want or we will interrupt a speech by the mayor or deliberately get arrested at City Hall and that will get on TV and then the people will know you're a sell-out and vote you out." Ultimately, "community power" as imagined by the organizer depends on citizens' power to participate in ordinary politics, albeit it in an organized and conscientious way.
There's a problem with this strategic premise, though: normally community organizations cannot actually vote the bastards out. Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, internal critics of the community organizing tradition, have noted that virtually no community organizing groups have ever organized a large enough voting bloc to have real power to swing elections. Poor people tend not to vote, and when they do vote, they're more likely to vote on the basis of patronage networks, ethnic solidarity, or partisan identity than whether an incumbent gave into a demand of a community organization. Even when a significant voting bloc can be organized, it might lack good alternatives and get stuck in a client relationship with the Democratic Party. "The incumbent might not be giving you what you want, but have you seen these other jokers who are running? Better to just support the devil you know, who will at least answer your phone calls and show up at your annual fundraising gala."
The example of the community organizing tradition is not particularly inspiring, but luckily we have a model of how ordinary people can effectively wield power: unions. Unions also get stuck in the morass of political lobbying, but they do not simply rely on the same kind of "power in numbers" as community organizing. Even when unions are weak and bureaucratized, their leverage ultimately depends on their ability to withhold labor, interrupt production, and challenge the boss's control (union leaders might not want to use this leverage, but that's where their leverage comes from whether they like it or not). Workers' power as a class comes from their ability to disrupt the exploitation that powers capitalist society. Shutting down production and interrupting the business of daily life, even in brief and limited ways, has always been workers' best tool for extracting concessions from the state as well as from any particular boss.
Chino mentions unions in his essay, but he emphasizes their similarities with non-profits, arguing that both conceal class relations and incorporate workers as capitalist subjects with narrow interest-group consciousness. I'm not a stranger to left-wing criticisms of unions, but there are important differences between the strategic premises of community organizations and unions. Obviously it's true that most of the time, unions try to head off the naked expression of class power and instead channel workers' grievances into individualistic (and often ineffectual) bureaucratic mediation processes, but those channels wouldn't exist without the implicit threat of strikes and other forms of shop floor unrest.
Unions' leverage comes from latent power workers have by virtue of their class position. If workers recognize their ability to withdraw their cooperation and disrupt production, profits stop getting made, bosses lose control, and the normal business of daily life gets interrupted in costly ways. Even when it's used to pursue modest, immediate ends, this kind of power has a radical potential: it makes thinking about bigger goals more meaningful, and it provides tools to pursue them. Asserting class power requires people learn the courage and determination to defy authority and reject their own day-to-day subordination, rather than going through the socially-validated "proper channels" of citizen participation. Class power depends on solidarity and cooperation, not just the aggregation of individuals; it forces people to overcome differences and be accountable to one another in concrete ways, rather than allowing like-minded activists to network together and say they represent the community.
Using disruption as leverage
I am not arguing that only struggles in the workplace are relevant to organizing the class (come to think of it, I've never actually met anyone who argues this, just people disavowing it). I'm arguing that to win struggles over housing or healthcare or transportation or policing, working class people need to learn how to be disrupt business as usual, to threaten real economic and social costs if their demands aren't met. I think unions — and the form of class power they depend on — provide a better model for approaching these struggles than the political activity of traditional community organizing groups.
It's possible to generalize from the radical potential of unionism. Unions exercise power within a specific context: a workplace where people are brought together to produce value or carry out some some vital but unprofitable function that the state or some organization subsidizes. The productivity, profitability, and orderly function of that space depends on people's compliance with a set of rules. The leverage a union comes from being able to bend, break, or change the rules and inflict a cost on a an individual or institution that can make concessions. I don't think workplaces are uniquely vulnerable to this kind of leverage. Organizers who are interested in "base-building" need to look for other contexts where masses of exploited people are brought together and have the capacity to assert themselves collectively. To avoid getting trapped in the political labyrinth most community organizing is stuck in, we should be looking for forms of struggle that can unlock latent class power that exist in various spheres of capitalist society.
Tenant unionism is an obvious example of what I'm talking about, and one that I'm familiar with. I don't think it's a coincidence that many radicals across North America trying to build durable class-based organizations have gravitated towards organizing tenants. Like workers, tenants are organized by capital into economic units where they have common experiences, common interests, and common antagonists. Tenants can cause economically significant disruption in all sorts of ways: rent strikes are the most obvious, but they can also resist eviction, and in doing so prevent an owner from cashing in on the land they're sitting on. I've seen other creative ways for inflicting pain on a landlord, like intercepting potential tenants touring the building and telling them about all the problems they'll experience if they move in.
Tenants need to challenge the landlord's authority by organizing themselves. The rules of the house, like whether they can meet in the courtyard, or whether the landlord can enter an apartment without notice to do an "inspection," become political struggles. As these struggles start to effect small changes, tenants develop a sense of solidarity and collective identity. Organizations built on the basis of these struggles can flex real power, and I think this is the source of recent successes.
Other constituencies can act in similar ways. Besides tenants, I'm familiar with models of students, debtors, welfare benefit claimants, prisoners, and transit riders using coordinated non-compliance to deliberately inflict costs on a target in a variety of contexts and winning.
Insofar as leftists are committed to "base-building" and developing class organization, we would do well to look for existing social spaces where people have some latent social power to cause meaningful disruption, rather than assembling large crowds and appealing to the authorities. Based on my own experiences with tenant organizing and the direction of groups I've been in touch with, I'm actually pretty optimistic that organizers have made real progress in figuring out where our power really lies.
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The delivery services industry is evolving rapidly. Only in the US, it comprises about 7,500 companies both large and small. Companies are trying to optimize and improve the delivery process.
As an example, UPS's new VR training program that will simulate some of the uncertainties and challenges of delivering packages on crowded city streets. Trainees will interact with the content using voice commands to identify obstacles while wearing headsets.
But still, two-thirds of shoppers suffer from bad delivery service. Below are the top 7 worst delivery problems.
Keeping track of the schedule.
38% of people come across parcels that arrive late. As an example, the customer was informed of the date and time of the delivery.
"...After waiting all afternoon I called Estes Express and was told the shipment, 1149017638, is still awaiting departure from Memphis TN.I am not only unhappy that the Shipment was not Delivered but also that Estes Express did not have the courtesy or the customer service to call me and advise of the delay..."
The person was disappointed not only that the shipment was not delivered but also that the customer service didn`t call to report about the delay. Under the Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise, goods should be delivered within 30 days unless a different time period is agreed.
If you paid for express delivery, or your package didn't arrive within 30 day, you should get a refund on the charge for the bad delivery service. You can also cancel your order and ask to return your payment.
"Damaged package delivered to my customer.it was broken and a piece was missing.So somebody opened the box and resealed it or something. But they delivered it anyway. I started a case with UPS they picked up the box from my customer after the second attempt. Then they delivered it back to him the next day resealed again..."
The person is disappointed with "unprofessional shipping service" and unwillingness of the company to do any record of damage inspection. To solve such problem, send a written notification (it can be an email or a completed form on the company's website) to the Customer Services department within 7 days after delivery.
Stolen and lost items.This is one of the worst delivery problems.
In this review a customer received the package. After opening it, this person discovered that "someone working at the delivery company had torn into the package and stolen everything but the speaker cable".
include the invoice to the consignee as an appendix.
You can also file a police report with your local city or county. Protect yourself from the worst courier by purchasing parcel insurance. It will cover the costs of shipping, the package value, up to the amount specified.
No plans in case of emergencies (hurricanes).
The worst delivery company doesn't have any procedure for emergencies. In this review customers were left with no access to their storage units, no delivery of their PODS, no access to the website, and no communication via phone.
"...My POD is stored in Seattle, nearly 3,000 miles away from Irma. PODS failed to have a contingency plan in place for emergencies such as hurricanes and customers are left with no access to their storage, no delivery of their PODS, no access to the website, and no communication via phone..."
In such a case you should file a claim and request a refund.
Too high prices, hidden payments.
You should pay attention to the charge for delivery services. In this uShip online review, a company wanted extra money for staying in and food for the puppy not mentioned before.
"...they told me I had to pay 900.00 to rent a crate seenig it was summer and they needed better vent for the puppy they said it was 100% refundable when the puppy got here sound ok cause it was warm weather out.
then they tried to tell me it didn't have all its shots and it was at the half way point 500.00 so the the puppy was sittin and allready left his house, I didn't want to pay my heart went out to the puppy so I said ok.(dummy me) later said he missed his flight so he would have to stay over night and cost for food and being takin care of $700.00..."
Check pricing and take a closer look at the fee structures before signing up. To determine the right price for the shipment, visit the website of chosen delivery company. Open Shipping rates section and download rate information.
Some companies provide calculators on their sites where you complete information about your shipment (destination, origin, shipment date, and weight) and see the price. You can also contact Help Center of a chosen company (by email, phone, or chat).
Bad customer service (irresponsible vehicle drivers, delivery men, poor organization of the delivery process).
Vehicle drivers and worst courier deliver packages to the wrong address, leave them outside of the home, under the rain or at the end of the driveway, addresses.This video shows how the Lasership delivery guy throws the item on the porch breaking it.
If you come across bad delivery service, address to customer service managers with the complaint. It should include the parcel number, the shipping date, the address information of the receiver/consignee, a description of the contents and your contact information.
In case of delivery to the wrong address, include the invoice to the consignee, a signed declaration of the person to whom the parcel was addressed. This must show that the consignee has not received the parcel.
In case of damage caused by irresponsible vehicle drivers, delivery men,(leaving under the rain, throwing the package), attach a detailed picture / close-up of the specific damage to the item.
Amazon left a stack of boxes (some marked "heavy") completely blocking in the main door to the house putting the person at risk from fire or other emergency. The customer filed a complaint with the local Fire Marshal asking them to issue a warning about this bad delivery service.
In this case, write a complaint letter to customer service managers, attach the video with inappropriate courier's behavior and ask the worst delivery company for the refund.
Delivery services aimed to make our life easier and more convenient. People want to get a quick, simple and safe procedure of delivering. However, they face lots of delivery problems, especially around holidays. Consumers have to take many actions to resolve holiday shipping issues with the worst delivery companies.


Be careful Mr. Moose, you will shake those antlers loose. Use the magnetic discs to balance the antlers on Mr. Moose's head. An engaging game to teach the little ones their first lesson in balance and mathematics.


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text:
Assistant City Manager Announces New Public Health Director
Contact: Communications and Public Information Office Email
Adrienne Sturrup will begin her new position on January 18, 2022.
Assistant City Manager Stephanie Hayden-Howard has selected Adrienne Sturrup (pictured above) as the City's next Director of Austin Public Health (APH). Sturrup, who has served as interim APH director since May 2021, will begin her new position on January 18, 2022.
APH provides Austin and Travis County residents with services to address infectious diseases and environmental threats. The Department educates the community on the benefits of healthy behaviors to avoid chronic illnesses. It has also played a leading role in the City's fight against COVID-19.
The department also offers:
Services to help people meet needs across the lifespan, such as immunizations, shelter, food,clothing, and job assistance.
Screenings for blood pressure, diabetes, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and
Nutritional support through the Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC).
Birth and death certificates.
Inspection and permitting of restaurants and food establishments.
Outreach and education on topics such as diabetes, tobacco cessation, mother-friendly workplaces, and injury prevention.
Emergency preparedness programs to help people in need during and after natural and man-made disasters.
"Adrienne and I worked together while I was the Director, and I have the utmost confidence she will continue to lead the Department through the multitude of public health challenges we face as we continue through this pandemic," said Stephanie Hayden-Howard, Assistant City Manager for Health and Environment and Culture and Lifelong Learning.
"I am humbled and honored to be afforded the opportunity to serve this community in the role of Director of Public Health," said Sturrup. "APH is a dedicated, mission-driven team that continues to go over and above to protect the health and safety of our residents."
Sturrup spent the last 27 years working to promote health and wellness in community settings and has a long history of working in leadership roles with many non-profit agencies. She began working for the City of Austin in 2014 as a program manager in Austin Public Health and then served as an Assistant Director. Sturrup has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication from Boston University and several certifications in Youth Development, Facilitation, and Group Work. She has also received training in restorative practices.
The Austin Public Health Director search began in October 2021 after Stephanie Hayden-Howard was named Assistant City Manager in May 2021. As interim director, Sturrup managed the public health emergency response, collaborating with other City departments, local government entities, and community-based organizations on COVID 19 response efforts, and driving work on APH's Equity Action Plan.


In this issue, Steiner (1) discusses the impact on the patient of presenting risk reduction estimates in two ways: as a statement of the patient's relative risk reduction and as the number needed to treat. Steiner calls the relative risk reduction the "language of individuals" and the number needed to treat the "language of populations." This distinction is part of an ongoing discussion in the literature of problems with bringing evidence-based medicine to the bedside (2-6). What is less appreciated is that it is also part of a centuries-old, unresolved philosophical debate about the meaning of an individual patient's risk. The relevance of this debate today is manifest in the difficulty that many physicians have in discussing probabilities with patients.
Published: Ann Intern Med. 1999;130(7):604-606.