It's an emotional time of year for local hockey fans as the Washington Capitals embark on their Stanley Cup defense, which starts Thursday at 7:30 with Game 1 of their first-round series at home against the Carolina Hurricanes.
But forget, for a moment, the intangibles the Capitals might carry into the Stanley Cup Playoffs like team chemistry, so-called momentum or playoff experience. What does the cold, hard math say about their chances to repeat as Cup champions?
It's questions like that which Micah Blake McCurdy sets out to answer each year with his NHL predictive models.
McCurdy, who has a doctorate in mathematics, runs the website Hockey Viz, where he uses his own tailor-made model and millions of computer simulations to forecast NHL games in the regular season and playoffs.
Capitals fans will want to heed McCurdy, whose model last postseason gave Washington the second-best chance in the league to win the Cup. That's just not the case this time around.
McCurdy improves upon his model year after year he calls this year's version "Magnus," while last year's was "Edgar" but generally they are based on team's shot rates, penalty rates and goaltender performance, for starters. He simulates every game 10,000 times to calculate each team's probability.
With Magnus, McCurdy said, his goal was to isolate a player's individual talent from the teammates he skates with. He wants to add coaching effects to next year's system.
By Wednesday morning when McCurdy published his first "Stanley Cup chances" graphic of the postseason, Washington's number had rounded down to 6 percent. The Dallas Stars, a wild card team in the West, surprisingly came out with the Magnus model's best chances at 12 percent, owing much to the strength of goaltender Ben Bishop.
Behind them, the Presidents' Trophy-winning Tampa Bay Lightning were assigned an 11 percent chance to hoist the Cup.
"It's one of those things where every approach to hockey, if you're just watching teams play and making your guesses or if you're writing down analytics no matter how complicated, you're going to get the same answer which is that Tampa's a lot better than the other teams," McCurdy said.
The Capitals could find themselves fighting Tampa Bay in a rematch of last year's Eastern Conference Finals, but don't expect Washington to breeze through the first round, either. McCurdy's model spat out matching 50 percent probabilities for both Washington and Carolina to win their first-round series.
McCurdy finds the Washington-Carolina matchup fascinating the Hurricanes' offensive style is to put a high quantity of shots on goal from pretty much anywhere on the ice, continuously regaining the puck off rebounds and shooting again. He sees the Capitals as the opposite, generating fewer shots but relying on Alex Ovechkin and a stable of talented shooters to find the right spots.
According to the website Natural Stat Trick, the Hurricanes led the league with 900 high-danger scoring chances at even strength, while the Capitals allowed the second-most high-danger chances this season. That strength-versus-weakness could spell trouble for Washington, which is also missing top-four defenseman Michal Kempny.
Elsewhere around the landscape, other analysts are lukewarm about Washington as well. TSN hockey analytics writer Travis Yost picked the Capitals to win the first-round series in seven games, but warned not to count Carolina out.
"One of the most effective ways of neutralizing teams with (Washington's) talent is to keep the puck off of their sticks, and no team has been better at doing that than Rod Brind'Amour's club," he wrote.


text:
Kurt Russell Supports 'Guardians Of The Galaxy' Director James Gunn, Dave Bautista Calls Disney's Actions "Nauseating" [Updated]
By Hoai-Tran Bui/Aug. 6, 2018 11:00 am EST
Update: Dave Bautista has doubled down on his stance in a new interview. You can read his quotes below.
Following the abrupt firing of writer/director James Gunn from the third Guardians of the Galaxy film, the series cast banded together in support of the filmmaker with an open letter addressed to the Walt Disney Company. And while several cast members have already issued individual statements supporting the director following the resurfacing of his controversial old tweets, a few more members of the Guardians of the Galaxy cast are coming out in support of Gunn and to voice their displeasure with Disney.
Last month, Gunn became the target of a "controversy" spearheaded by alt-right bloggers who co-opted the outrage over Gunn's offensive jokes, many of which were about pedophilia. It was part of a concerted effort by the alt-right to target celebrity who are critical of President Trump, using bad faith arguments to get celebrities like Gunn, Dan Harmon, and Trevor Noah fired from their jobs.
Because of the manner in which Gunn's tweets (all of which were posted before he was hired to direct Guardians of the Galaxy) resurfaced, many have been criticizing Disney for kowtowing to a bad faith argument, which in some corners of the internet has spiraled into a full-blown conspiracy theory. Dave Bautista, who signed the letter that the Guardians of the Galaxy cast penned to Disney, is adding his voice to those lambasting Disney for their decision to "empower a smear campaign by fascists."
I will do what Im legally obligated to do but @Guardians without @JamesGunn is not what I signed up for. GOTG w/o @JamesGunn just isn't GOTG. Its also pretty nauseating to work for someone who'd empower a smear campaign by fascists #cybernazis . That's just how I feel https://t.co/Ym4FwruVDu
— Vaxxed AF! #TeamPfizer Poor Kid Chasing Dreams. (@DaveBautista) August 5, 2018
Bautista said in his tweet that he's still legally obligated to star in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which is still without a director following Gunn's firing. Many are taking Disney's silence on the matter as evidence that they could re-hired Gunn, but as the weeks following his firing stretch on, that seems more unlikely. However, Bautista is the first cast member to explicitly mention the alt-right roots in the Gunn controversy, which is encouraging.
Update: Bautista has now gone a step further. In an interview with Shortlist, the man behind Drax the Destroyer said he will walk if Marvel doesn't use James Gunn's script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: "Where I'm at right now is that if [Marvel] don't use that script, then I'm going to ask them to release me from my contract, cut me out or recast me. I'd be doing James a disservice if I didn't."
Bautista's aggressive stance stands in sharp contrast to some of his co-stars: "I spoke to Chris Pratt the day after it happened and he's a bit religious so he wanted time to pray and figure it out, but I was more like: fuck this. This is bullshit. James is one of the kindest, most decent people I've met."
The rest of our original article continues below.
On the other hand, Kurt Russell, who starred in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, puts the blame (perhaps naively) on the current "sensitive" climate in Hollywood that has seen the comeuppance for filmmakers and executives accused of sexual misconduct. "It's sad. But it's a part of our fabric now, and I get it," Kurt Russell said to Variety at Netflix's Wild, Wild Country Emmy celebration on Saturday night. "But I do think we're getting a little too sensitive on maybe some of the wrong people."
But Russell reiterates his support of Gunn, who again, has been accused of no actual sexual misconduct and has issued several apologies for his old tweets, which he said "don't reflect the person I am today or have been for some time." Russell said:
"You have to realize that when you are in that world as a comedian, a writer, whatever you're always stretching the boundaries and trying to find something which lead him to something that the world loves, which is Guardians of the Galaxy. He has a wonderful heart and a wonderful mind. I hope he is forgiven."
Guardians of the Galaxy was previously set to begin shooting in Atlanta in the fall.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Se-Jong is named after the greatest Korean King, Se-Jong, who invented the Korean alphabet in 1443, and was also a noted meteorologist. The diagram represents the king, while the 24 movements refer to the 24 letters of the Korean alphabet.
Move the left foot to B, forming a left walking stance toward B at the same time executing a low block to B with the left forearm.
Bring the left foot to the right foot, and then move the right foot to A to form a left L-stance toward A while executing a twin forearm block.
Execute a middle side piercing kick to D with the right foot.
Lower the right foot to D, and then move the left foot to F to form a left walking stance toward F while executing a rising block with the left forearm.
Bring the left foot to the right foot, and then move the right foot to E to form a sitting stance toward D while executing a middle strike to E with the right knife-hand.
Bring the right foot to the left foot, forming a closed ready stance B toward D.
Jump to D to form a left X-stance toward DG while executing a high side strike to D with the left back fist, bringing the right finger belly to the left side fist.
Move the right foot to G, forming a right walking stance toward G while executing a high punch to G with the right fist.
Move the right foot on line GH to form a left fixed stance toward H while executing a high guarding block to H with the forearm.
Move the right foot to H, forming a right walking stance toward H while executing a middle thrust to H with the right straight finger tip.
Bring the right foot to the left foot, and then move the left foot to G to form a left walking stance toward G while executing a high side strike to G with the left back fist.
Move the left foot on line GH to form a sitting stance toward C while executing a scooping block with the left palm.
Execute a middle turning kick to C with the left foot.
Lower the left foot to C in a jumping motion, forming a left X-stance toward CF while executing a high block to C with the left double forearm.
Move the right foot to F to form a sitting stance toward C while extending the right fist horizontally to C. Perform in a slow motion.
Execute a front strike to C with the left back fist while maintaining a sitting stance toward C.
Bring the right foot behind the left foot, and then move the left foot to E, forming a left diagonal stance toward C while executing a pressing block with a twin palm.
Execute a middle block to C with a double arc-hand while forming a left walking stance toward CE.
Pull the left reverse footsword to the right knee joint to form a right one-leg stance toward C at the same time executing a high side block to F with the right outer forearm and a low side block to E with the left forearm.
Lower the left foot to D forming a right walking stance toward C while executing a pressing block with the right palm. Perform in a slow motion.
Pull the left instep to the hollow of the right leg to form a right one-leg stance toward C while striking the left palm with the right back forearm.
Lower the left foot to C, turning clockwise to form a right fixed stance toward D while thrusting to C with the left side elbow.
Move the right foot to A, forming a left L-stance toward A while executing a high guarding block to A with a knife-hand.
Bring the right foot to the left foot, and then move the left foot to B to form a right L-stance toward B while executing a middle punch to B with the right fist.


text:
Q: $\lim_{x\to0}\frac{\sqrt{5x+3}-\sqrt 3}{5^{\sin(7x)}-1}$ find without using l'Hôpital's rule. I have to find this limit without using l'Hôpital's rule:
$$\lim_{x\to0}\frac{\sqrt{5x+3}-\sqrt 3}{5^{\sin(7x)}-1}$$
I have no idea how to do it. L'Hôpital's rule makes it easy, but how should I go about calculating this without using the rule?
I should add that I'm not supposed to use anything but the most basic methods and facts. I was thinking I should use the squeeze theorem, but I'm not seeing any estimates that work.

A: You will need to use the following identities: $$\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{e^x-1}{x}=1,\hspace{10pt} \lim_{x\to 0}\frac{\sin x}{x}=1$$
Then $5^{\sin(7x)}=e^{\sin(7x)\ln5}$, so $$\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{5^{\sin(7x)}-1}{\sin(7x)\ln5}=\lim_{t\to 0}\frac{e^{t}-1}{t}=1$$
Using change of variable $t=\sin(7x)\ln5$.
Hence:
$$\begin{align*}\lim_{x\to0}\frac{\sqrt{5x+3}-\sqrt 3}{5^{\sin(7x)}-1}&=\lim_{x\to0}\frac{\sqrt{5x+3}-\sqrt 3}{5^{\sin(7x)}-1}\frac{\sqrt{5x+3}+\sqrt 3}{\sqrt{5x+3}+\sqrt 3}\frac{\sin(7x)\ln5}{\sin(7x)\ln5}\\
&=\lim_{x\to0}\frac{\sin(7x)\ln5}{5^{\sin(7x)}-1}\frac{1}{\sqrt{5x+3}+\sqrt 3}\frac{7x}{\sin(7x)}\frac{5}{7\ln5}\end{align*}$$
Can you continue?

A: Multiply top and bottom by $x$.
We first deal with
$$\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{\sqrt{5x+3}-\sqrt{3}}{x}.$$
If the $x$ were an $h$, we would recognize that the limit is by definition the derivative of $f(t)=\sqrt{5t+3}$ at $t=0$. So calculate the derivative, using differentiation formulas. Evaluate the derivative at $t=0$, and call the result $A$.
It remains to find
$$\lim_{x\to 0}\frac{5^{\sin 7x}-1}{x}.$$
Again, by definition, this is the derivative of the function $5^{\sin 7t}$ at $t=0$. Calculate the derivative at $0$, using $5^y=e^{y\log 5}$. Let $B$ be the value of the derivative at $t=0$.
Then the answer to our limit problem is $\dfrac{A}{B}$.

A: Hint: As for the nominator, standard $(a+b)(a-b) = a^2-b^2$ trick should do the job. As for the denominator, you can expand $5^{\sin 7x}$ into its Taylor series (the linear term should be enough) and bound it from both sides and use this lemma.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


According to WBR chairman Tom Corson, "anything that shows promise is being snatched up. We're definitely in the middle of a very competitive and expensive moment here with hip-hop acts."
Connor Lawrence woke up on Feb. 15 to a text from his friend, Jacob Moore, founder of the popular hip-hop blog Pigeons & Planes: "Have you heard of this Juice WRLDguy?" Lawrence, chief marketing officer of music-data company indify, had not. He scrolled through indify's rankings and realized the 19-year-old suburban Chicago rapper was at No. 60 and rising. Ten days later, video blog Lyrical Lemonade posted the rapper's animated, childlike "All Girls Are the Same," directed by the site's founder, Cole Bennett. That, says Lawrence, was all Juice WRLD needed to "explode."
"All Girls Are the Same" racked up over 4.7 million YouTube views within a month, and Juice WRLD was quickly at the center of a bidding war. "Every label tried to get in -- you rarely come across an artist and songwriter that has that much potential," says one major-label source, though an executive at another label that met Juice weeks before the video posted wasn't convinced. By March 12, Interscope had signed him to a deal that sources tell Billboard amounts to $3 million.
Juice WRLD is one of a slew of new rappers in recent months who have jumped from pop obscurity to seven-figure major-label contracts -- Los Angeles' 03 Greedo told Billboard that his December deal with Alamo/Interscope was for $1.7 million, and Lil Pump re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in early March for $8 million, say sources. Also landing deals worth over $1 million during the past year have been Lil Xan (Columbia), City Morgue's ZillaKami and Sos Mula (Republic), Shoreline Mafia (Atlantic) and SahBabii, who Warner Bros. Records signed for about $2 million, according to other sources. It's a bidding-war frenzy reminiscent of the 1990s, fueled by the streaming-revenue growth in the record business and suddenly potent marketing outlets like Pigeons & Planes and Lyrical Lemonade, which have helped break Lil Pump, Ski Mask the Slump God, Lil Xan and Lil Skies.
"Everyone's competing because urban music is dominating," says a label source. "You can get rich quick, so if you sign the right urban artist, that has the potential to have massive numbers on Apple and Spotify. Some labels don't want to miss any piece of gold in the river."
But with few of these acts household names yet, some industry executives fear the gold rush will lead to a bubble, even though for now, "the labels are seeing real money from it," says Todd Rubenstein, attorney for Lil Pump's management company, Tha Lights Global. "This is all kinds of new and crazy to them. There's some kid over there who's 16, and literally the manager is 16 -- he's his friend. How can you deal with that? You can't have any meetings until after 3:30."
Tom Corson, Warner Bros. Records' new co-chairman, agrees that "anything that shows promise is being snatched up. We're definitely in the middle of a very competitive and expensive moment here with hip-hop acts."
Laurie Soriano, an attorney for acts including Travis Scott, Frank Ocean and M.I.A., cautions that "a lot of times people will have one big single, but that's not enough to sustain a recording career and to justify the big-money deals we're talking about." Fueling the price inflation is young artists' tendency -- in an era of social media and a genre that rewards braggadocio -- to talk publicly about their potential deal terms, a trend Soriano calls "somewhat new."
"Clients are saying, 'So-and-so had a $10 million deal!' " she says. "You don't know what the $10 million means, though. You don't know if they're combining all the advances under the deal or if that includes recording funds that are paid to other artists. Some of it is a bit of a game of hype."
Loosening the labels' checkbooks is streaming revenue, which jumped from $1.8 billion in 2014 to $5.7 billion in 2017 in the United States, according to the RIAA, as well as Spotify's public listing, which could lead to a windfall of billions more, should labels sell their stakes. Major labels are growing their A&R staffs and rosters, and young, aggressive label chiefs, such as Interscope's John Janick, 39, and Columbia's Ron Perry, 39, are anxious to make a splash with hot new stars -- Aaron Bay-Schuck, 36, will start as co-chairman/CEO of Warner Bros. later this year.
Though some labels remain relatively cautious, "executives, presidents and chairmen are willing to jump into a bidding war earlier than they have in the past," says Josh Binder, a partner at Rothenberg Mohr & Binder whose clients include Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Daddy Yankee. "It's relatively low-risk if they're signing the right artists."
Prices also reflect the increasing leverage today's artists have, with the ability to earn enough from -streaming, touring and marketing to hold out for better offers. Before Lyrical Lemonade picked up his video, Juice WRLD had spent nearly three years posting his music on SoundCloud, landing 1 million streams of "Lucid Dreams (Forget Me)" in 2017.
Jake Millan, manager of rising Atlanta rapper Yung Bans, is concerned that inexperienced stars don't understand that a label's $1 million offer usually means an advance that has to be paid back. Bans is independent for now, but "the A&R [reps] are doing their best to persuade us -- taking us out to eat, flying us to hotels, stuff like that," he says, adding that Bans is on house arrest and requires approval for out-of-town trips. "It's super insane how fast artists are coming up right now."


The component of the Quebec Task Force Classification System that subgroups patients based on the extent of their radiating pain and neurological signs has been demonstrated to have prognostic implications for patients with low back pain but has not been tested on patients with neck pain (NP).
The main aim of this study was to examine the association between these subgroups, their baseline characteristics and outcome in chronic NP patients referred to an outpatient hospital department.
This was an observational study of longitudinal data extracted from systematically collected, routine clinical data. Patients were classified into Local NP only, NP + arm pain above the elbow, NP + arm pain below the elbow, and NP with signs of nerve root involvement (NP + NRI). Outcome was pain intensity and activity limitation. Associations were tested in longitudinal linear mixed models.
A total of 1,852 people were classified into subgroups (64 % females, mean age 49 years). Follow ups after 3, 6 and 12 months were available for 45 %, 32 % and 40 % of those invited to participate at each time point.
A small improvement in pain was observed over time in all subgroups. There was a significant interaction between subgroups and time, but effect sizes were small. The local NP subgroup improved slightly less after 3 months as compared with all other groups, but continued to have the lowest level of pain. After 6 and 12 months, those with NP + pain above the elbow had improved the least and patients with NP + NRI had experienced the largest improvements in pain intensity. Similar results were obtained for activity limitation.
This study found baseline and outcome differences between neck pain subgroups classified using the Quebec Task Force Classification System. However, differences in outcome were typically small in size and mostly differentiated the local NP subgroup from the other subgroups. A caveat to these results is that they were obtained in a cohort of chronic neck pain patients who only displayed small improvements over time and the results may not apply to other cohorts, such as people at earlier stages of their clinical course and in other clinical settings.
Neck pain is common, with a one-year prevalence of approximately 40 % in the adult population , and it contributes substantially to years lived with disability . Neck pain has the potential to cause considerable impact on function and quality of life and thereby, also have large social and financial consequences for individuals as well as society [3, 2, 4].
Clinical definitions and treatment approaches to neck pain vary widely, especially for non-specific neck pain [5, 6]. Even for cervical radiculopathy, a diagnostic sub-category of specific neck pain, there is limited consensus about its diagnostic criteria [7–9]. This lack of diagnostic consensus within the heterogeneity of cervical spine pain disorders, might partially explain why there is such limited knowledge about prognosis and the most effective interventions for neck pain and cervical radiculopathy [10, 3, 11, 12].
The need for identifying subgroups that could improve prediction of outcome and allow better targeting of care has been repeatedly raised as a research priority in spinal pain [13, 14]. The underlying notion is that the heterogeneity of clinical presentations in spinal pain might be better managed and the effect sizes seen in comparative treatment studies might be improved, if valid clinical subgroups were identified that improved treatment selection, afforded greater prognostic precision and better defined appropriate patient selection for clinical trials. In this context, the potential usefulness of subgrouping neck pain was flagged more than 20 years ago when the Quebec Task Force proposed a classification system for spinal pain  Since then, a number of other classification systems have also been suggested [16, 17, 6], but none of these have yet matured to the stage of providing strong empirical evidence that they provide better prognostic estimates or treatment outcomes for neck pain patients.
The Quebec Task Force Classification System was proposed as a diagnostic tool for both lumbar and cervical spinal disorders and included 11 categories that are based on pain duration, extent of radiating pain, presence of neurological signs, supplementary examinations and treatment response . The component of this classification that subgroups patients based on the extent of their radiating pain and the presence of neurological signs  has been demonstrated to have prognostic implications for patients with low back pain [18–20], but has not been tested on patients with neck pain. It would be helpful to quantify that prognostic value, as currently, there is limited information about the clinical course of patients with cervical pain [21, 22]. Since the Quebec Task Force Classification System is simple and easy to apply in clinical practice, it might have potential for identifying patients at risk of developing chronic pain and disability. Furthermore, the identification of prognostic factors could be a preliminary step to guide research in treatment effect moderators and stratified care .
Therefore, the main objective of this study was to examine the association between Quebec Task Force classified subgroups, baseline characteristics and outcome in patients referred to an outpatient hospital department because of their neck pain. Outcome was described by the clinical course of pain intensity, activity limitation and global perceived effect measured at 3, 6 and 12 months after the baseline consultation. A secondary objective was to compare the prognostic capacity of the Quebec Task Force Classification System with that of a more detailed predictive model that included the individual variables that make up the Quebec Task Force Classification system (pain location, pain intensity and number of neurological signs).
This study was a longitudinal observational study of baseline, 3, 6 and 12-month measurements extracted from systematically collected, routine clinical data.
These data were collected at the Medical Department of the Spine Centre of Southern Denmark, which is an outpatient secondary care facility that performs multidisciplinary assessments of patients with back pain referred from either general practitioners or chiropractors in primary care. The main function of the Department is to provide comprehensive patient evaluations via patient history, clinical examination, MRI and other special tests, together with management plans for use by their referring primary care clinician. Short courses of treatment are sometimes offered to clarify treatment response. Data were collected from the Spine Centre's electronic registry, SpineData. Each patient completed a comprehensive self-reported baseline questionnaire on a touch screen prior to his/her first consultation. The clinician received a summary of the patient's self-reported data before the clinical examination. Following the clinical examination, the clinician entered the results of a core set of examination procedures into the registry. Patients were also invited to complete two internet-based or postal follow-up questionnaires. Before 1 January 2012, the first follow-up questionnaire occurred 3 months after the date of the initial consultation. After that date, the first follow-up was collected at 6 months, as this was believed to be a more suitable outcome time point in the clinical course of people with chronic pain. The second follow-up questionnaire has always occurred at 12 months.
All patients aged 18 years or more referred with neck pain as their main complaint and seen at the Spine Centre between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012 were selected for the analysis. This main complaint was self-selected by the patient via a body chart on a touch screen. Patients were excluded if data on pain intensity, or pain location (based on a pain drawing completed as part of the electronic questionnaire), or from the neurological clinical examination were missing.
Data collection in the SpineData database and its analysis in scientific projects has been approved by the Scientific Ethics Committee of the Region of Southern Denmark (Project ID S-200112000-29). Under Danish law, the secondary analysis of such de-identified data does not require separate ethics approval (The Act on Processing of Personal Data, December 2012, Section 5.2; Act on Research Ethics Review of Health Research Projects, October 2013, Section 14.2).
Patients were classified into four subgroups adapted from the Quebec Task Force Classification System .
The pain drawing included only local neck pain and their mean arm pain intensity was zero (mean of the worst pain, the current pain and pain in the preceding 14 days on a 0–10 scale).
The pain drawing indicated pain in the anterior or posterior aspects of the shoulder and/or upper arm, but no pain in the forearm or hand, and mean arm pain intensity was above zero.
The pain drawing indicated pain in the anterior or posterior aspect of the forearm or hand, and mean arm pain intensity was above zero.
The pain drawing indicated any pain in the arm and /or hand, and at least one of the following findings were present on the painful side during clinical examination: muscle weakness, impaired tendon reflexes, altered sensation to touch or pinprick, or a positive Spurling's test.
To describe the four subgroups in the cohort, self-reported variables from the patient questionnaire and clinical examination findings recorded in the clinician's questionnaire were chosen from the health domains of pain, activity limitation, psychological factors and social factors.
The pain variables included: duration of the current episode of pain (0–3 months, 3–12 months and >12 months), previous neck pain episodes (yes/no), neck pain related to whiplash injury (yes/no) as judged by the clinician based on a clinical interview with the patient, pain irritability (yes to both 'my pain is easily aggravated by physical activity' and 'my pain takes a long time before it settles again' ), neck pain intensity (the 0–10 average of three 0–10 Numerical Rating Scales for each of the following items: 'current neck pain', 'worst neck pain in the last 14 days', 'typical neck pain in the last 14 days' ) and arm pain intensity (measured in the same way as neck pain). Dominating arm pain was defined as average arm pain intensity higher than average neck pain intensity.
Activity limitation was measured with a sum score of the Neck Disability Index (0–50 scale, where 0 indicates no activity limitation and 50 indicates severe activity limitation) .
Psychological factors were depression, pain-related fear of movement and self-reported general health. Depression was assessed using two PRIME-MD 1000 screening questions  (0–10 scales), where patients with a score above 6 on both questions were classified as having depressive symptoms. This cut-point has been validated in this care setting  relative to the classification thresholds of the Major Depression Inventory . Pain-related fear of movement was assessed using two screening questions from the Fear Avoidance Belief Questionnaire (0–10 scales). Patients with a sum score ≥14 were classified as expressing fear of movement , with the concurrent validity of that cut-point established in this care setting , using a threshold (mean plus 1 standard deviation) on the physical activity subscale of the Fear Avoidance Belief Questionnaire derived from the average group scores in five primary care studies. Self-reported general health was assessed using the EuroQOL Health Thermometer (0 = worst imaginable health state and 100 = best imaginable) .
Social factors were sick listing, repetitive work, and time spent in static forward head position.
Sick listing was neck pain-related to time off work within the previous 3 months in people in regular employment. Repetitive work was assessed by asking 'Does your work involve monotonous repetitive movements?' (0 = 'not at all' and 10 = 'extremely'), and arbitrarily, patients scoring 6 or more were classified as having a high degree of repetitive work. Time spent in a static forward head position was assessed by asking 'How much of your working time is spent with your neck in forward flexion?' (0 = 'no time at all' and 10 = 'all the time'), and arbitrarily, a score of 6 or above was used to classify patients as reporting a high degree of working time in neck flexion.
Three, 6 and 12-month outcomes were measured using three variables: pain intensity, activity limitation and global perceived effect. Pain intensity was measured as the higher of either neck pain intensity or arm pain intensity. Activity limitation was measured by the Neck Disability Index. Global perceived effect was assessed using a 7-point Global Perceived Effect Scale , for the question 'How is your neck pain or arm pain now compared with when you started attending the Spine Centre?' ('much better, somewhat better, little better, unchanged, little worse, somewhat worse, much worse'). Patients scoring 'somewhat better' or 'much better' were classified as improved and all other responses as not improved.
No information on diagnosis, treatment prescription or treatment adherence was collected in these data. Therefore, none of those factors were taken into account within this subgrouping, nor in the calculation of outcomes.
Baseline characteristics were presented as proportions with 95 % confidence intervals (CI), means with standard deviations (SD) or medians with interquartile ranges (IQR). Subgroup differences and outcome responder/non-responder differences were tested using chi-squared, ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis' test depending on the type and distribution of the variable.
Associations between the predefined subgroups and outcome measures were tested in longitudinal linear mixed models to account for outcomes having been repeatedly measured over time. Models allowed for random intercept and random slope. The subgroup variable was introduced as a categorical variable in the analysis with dummy variables that had local NP only as the reference category. Models with pain and activity limitation were fitted using maximum likelihood estimations and unstructured covariance. The association with the outcome of 'improved' global perceived effect was tested in a logistic model. Associations were presented as unadjusted β-values/Odds ratios with 95 % CI. As subgroup differences in episode duration may be a consequence of referral patterns, we first tested if adjustment for duration affected the results, and this was not the case.
The predictive value of the Quebec Task Force subgroups was then compared to the prediction of a more detailed model that consisted of the separate factors of the Quebec Task Force classification: arm pain intensity, dominating arm pain, arm pain location and neurological signs. This comparison was based on linear regression with 12 months of pain and activity limitation outcomes as the dependent variables. To simplify this comparison, it used a single-time outcome rather than a longitudinal model. Variables with associations displaying p-values <0.2 were retained in the model. Predictive capacity was quantified in terms of adjusted R-squared and root mean squared errors (RMSE).
No data imputations were made since only patients with complete baseline variables required for classification into the Quebec Task Force subgroups were included and longitudinal linear mixed models cope with missing outcome values. All analyses were performed using STATA/IC 13.1.
A total of 2,446 patients with neck pain, with or without arm pain, and above 18 years of age were registered within the inclusion period of the study. Of those, 2,330 fulfilled the inclusion criteria, 478 patients were excluded due to missing or conflicting data that were required for the classification process, and therefore 1,852 could be classified into the pre-defined subgroups (64 % females, mean age 49 years) (Fig. 1). As the time period for the initial follow-up changed from 3 to 6 months during the inclusion period, there were only 930 potential responders to the 3-month follow-up and 1,400 to the 6-month follow-up.
Follow ups after 3, 6 and 12 months were completed by 45 %, 32 % and 40 % of those invited to participate at each time point. The proportion of non-responders did not differ across subgroups. There were some statistically significant differences between responders and non-responders. Non-responders were younger (by 3 years at the first follow-up and 5 years at the second), had slightly more activity limitation at baseline (1 and 2 points higher Neck Disability Index scores in non-responders at the first and second follow up respectively), and had a larger proportion of females (62 %) than males (56 %) who did not respond at the 12-month follow-up. Baseline neck pain intensity and arm pain intensity did not differ between responders and non-responders.
Patient self-reported baseline characteristics are summarised in Table 1 and statistically significant differences across subgroups were observed for many factors. Generally, those with Local NP were the least severely affected and those with NP + NRI had the most severe profile. These subgroups did not differ significantly on workload factors or sick leave. The differences observed in duration indicated that patients with NP + NRI were referred to the outpatient hospital department earlier than other patients, but nonetheless, a large proportion of all subgroups had long-lasting pain, as less than 25 % of patients in all subgroups had an episode duration of 3 months or less and most had a duration of 6 months or more.
A small improvement in pain was observed over time in all subgroups (Fig. 2). There was an overall statistically significant interaction between subgroups and time, but effect sizes were small (Table 2) and below reported thresholds for clinical importance . The local NP subgroup improved slightly less after 3 months as compared with all other groups, but remained with the lowest level of pain. After 6 and 12 months, those with NP + pain above the elbow had improved the least (0.6 points improvement after 12 months) and patients with NP + NRI had experienced the largest improvement in pain intensity (1.3 points after 12 months) (Table 2).
Similar results were obtained for activity limitation (Fig. 3). Improvements were small, and although the overall interaction between subgroups and time was statistically significant, the differences between the trajectories of the subgroups were minor (Table 2) and below reported thresholds for clinical importance . The local NP group had the least activity limitation at all the time points, whereas the other groups did not differ significantly from each other at any follow up (Fig. 3).
The proportion of the total cohort reporting improvement (dichotomised global perceived effect) after 3, 6 and 12 months, were 24 % (19 to 30 %), 33 % (28 to 38 %) and 35 % (31 to 39 %) respectively. There was no statistically significant association between subgroups and improvement (Fig. 4.). The estimated odds ratio, as compared with local NP, was 1.1 (95%CI 0.6 – 2.1) for NP + pain above the elbow; 1.2 (0.7 – 2.2), for NP + pain below the elbow and 1.7 (1.0 – 2.8) for NP+ NRI. As there was no significant interaction between time and subgroups, these odds ratios apply to all three time points.
The model including only the predefined Quebec Task Force Classification System subgroups as the predictor variable explained 1.0 % of the variance in the 12-month pain intensity outcome (RMSE 2.41) and 1.4 % in activity limitation (RMSE 10.15). In the more detailed predictive model, arm pain intensity, arm pain location, dominating arm pain and having more than one neurological sign were significantly associated with 12-month pain and explained 13 % of the variance in the pain intensity outcome (RMSE 2.26). Arm pain intensity and dominating arm pain were the only significant factors in the more detailed predictive model with activity limitation as the outcome, and this model explained 11 % of the variance (RMSE 9.66).
This study investigated baseline and outcome differences between neck pain subgroups classified using the Quebec Task Force Classification System. The results showed differences between subgroups at both baseline and in outcome but differences in outcome were small in size and mostly differentiated the local NP subgroup from the other subgroups. A secondary objective of this study was to compare the prognostic capacity of these subgroups with that of a more detailed predictive model comprised of variables describing pain location, pain intensity and number of neurological signs. The results showed that the more detailed predictive model had somewhat greater prognostic capacity, explaining between 10.6 % and 13.1 % of the variance in outcome, compared with 1.0 % and 1.4 % for the Quebec Task Force Classification System. These results were obtained in a secondary care cohort of chronic neck pain patients who, on average, only displayed small improvements in pain and activity limitation over time and the results may not apply to other cohorts, such as people at earlier stages in their clinical course.
The strengths of this study are that the large sample size increased the precision of the estimates, and as these data were collected as part of routine clinical procedures, the results may have generalizability to similar secondary care settings. However, that the spectrum of neck pain patients within sample was predominantly those with more severe and chronic neck pain, might weaken the generalizability of the results. The routine data collection may also weaken the internal validity of the study, as these data may have been of varying quality and more subject to bias than those collected in more rigorous research situations. An additional potential weakness of the study is some uncertainty in the definition of the nerve root involvement, as the reliability and validity of the clinicians' neurological examinations are unknown and may have resulted in some misclassification of patients. In addition, the Upper Limb Tension Test, recommended to rule out cervical radiculopathy by Rubinstein et al. , was not part of the standard neurological examination used in the collection of these data. Also, clinicians were not blinded to their patient's questionnaire when they completed the clinician questionnaire, although this does pragmatically mirror usual practice. We also did not record or control for the type or amount of treatment received over the follow-up period and this could have affected patient outcomes.
It should be recognised that some of the aims of clinical subgrouping are to better target treatment and to stratify care pathways, but information on diagnosis or treatment could be taken into account within the subgrouping or outcome measurement in this study. Hypothetically, if it were possible to systematically and effectively target treatment to the Quebec Task Force classifications, the predictive ability of the subgroups in this study could have been different due to effective treatment differentially improving patient outcomes.
An additional caveat is that the loss to follow up in this study ranged from 58 % to 66 % across the three follow-up points and we have no data quantifying any potential outcome bias between responders and non-responders. In an unpublished study in this same clinical setting, data were available from 200 consecutive LBP patients who had not completed the 12-month follow-up questionnaire but subsequently did so when contacted by a research assistant, and their responses were compared with those of 300 randomly selected patients who had completed the questionnaire in the same time period. Non-compliers showed no difference to responders on a wide range of baseline and outcome measures, with the only differences being that non-compliers had (i) more pain intensity at 12 months (5.2 (SD2.6) compared with 4.5 (SD2.7) on a 0–10 scale, p = 0.004), and (ii) had less change in pain intensity from baseline to 12 months (0.8 (SD2.5) compared with 1.3 (SD2.7) on a 0–10 scale, p = 0.048). Although the administrative procedures in this setting are identical for both neck pain and low back pain patients, it is unknown whether this degree of outcome bias would be similar in these neck pain patients.
At baseline, those with Local NP were generally the least severely affected and those with NP + NRI the most affected. This reflects the findings of another cross-sectional study that found combined neck and arm pain was associated with a lower overall health status compared with either local neck pain or radicular symptoms alone . It is also similar to the findings of a low back pain study that described cross-sectional differences in patients subgrouped using the Quebec Task Force Classification System .
On the outcomes of pain and activity limitation, very little improvement was observed over time in all subgroups with small and mostly non-significant differences between groups, although the Local NP subgroup had slightly less severe pain at all time points. Similarly, for the outcome of global perceived effect, there were no significant differences between the subgroups at any time point, although the NP + NRI group did have slightly higher odds for improvement that was borderline significant. The above findings are in contrast to a recent study of low back pain in the same setting, where the presence of neurological signs and leg pain had prognostic implications for pain and activity limitation, but not for global perceived effect  . It could be that the presence of neurological signs actually is less important for prognosis in patients with neck pain, or an alternative explanation might be that in this particular sample of neck pain patients, the neurological examination or recording of its results were less precise than in the low back pain study.
There was a trend towards people in the NP + NRI subgroup reporting a higher self-rated improvement despite minimal improvement in pain and activity limitation. It is possible that this reflects patient self-rated global improvement being based on the improvement of symptoms broader than pain intensity and activity limitation, such as those specific to nerve root involvement (improvement in muscle strength, normalisation of sensation and changed quality of pain). This notion might be supported by the more predictive model that points to factors that are related to nerve root involvement as being more associated with a decrease in pain.
The results in this study indicate that simple subgrouping based on the Quebec Task Force Classification System explained very little about the prognosis of individual patients in this chronic neck pain cohort. This suggests that if prognostic models for this setting are to be created that have precision at an individual patient level, they are likely to require more and different factors. It also may be that precision in prognostic estimates at an individual patient level requires predictor variables to remain in their original metrics, as 'dumbing them down' into a simple four-category classification loses too much information, no matter how useful the classification might be for other purposes.
Hayden et al.  suggested that prognostic research should occur within a stepwise framework where identifying and testing prognostic factors is an important initial step towards subsequently understanding prognostic pathways. So, an additional contribution from our results is the indication that individual variables such as pain location, arm pain intensity and number of neurological signs should be considered as candidate variables for prognostic models of neck pain. Although the individual variables that make up the Quebec Task Force Classification System had greater prognostic strength than the Quebec Task Force subgroups, it still did not have sufficient predictive accuracy for us to consider it clinically useful in this setting. However, the Quebec Task Force subgrouping may still usefully reinforce diagnostic categories. Again, a caveat is that this Quebec Task Force Classification may have more prognostic value in less severe and less persistent neck pain populations, especially where treatment is subgroup-targeted. A recent study found that baseline characteristics in patients with nerve-related neck and arm pain predict the likely response to neural tissue management , and identifying and matching prognostic factors with relevant treatment pathways has been found to be effective in a large trial of patients with low back pain .
The identification of clinically important and validated subgroups of neck pain patients remains a challenge. There is a lack of consistent evidence for prognostic factors, other than baseline pain intensity and baseline disability . To our best knowledge the only externally validated rule for prediction of neck pain outcomes is a rule suggested by Shellingerhout and colleagues which performed well in an external validation sample of chronic neck pain patients . While that model in that rule did include radiating arm pain, it also included other factors that are not contained in the Quebec Task Force Classification. Our finding that the simple Quebec Task Force Classification was not useful for prediction of outcome in a very severely affected group of neck pain patients, suggests a need to also test this more comprehensive Shellingerhout model in populations similar to ours.
This study found baseline and outcome differences between neck pain subgroups classified using the Quebec Task Force Classification System. However, differences in outcome were small in size and mostly differentiated the local NP subgroup from the other subgroups. It also found that, compared with these Quebec Task Force classified subgroups, a more detailed predictive model with variables describing pain location, pain intensity and number of neurological signs, had somewhat greater prognostic capacity, although that more detailed model still did not have sufficient prognostic accuracy for us to consider it clinically useful in this setting. On average, this chronic neck pain cohort only minimally improved in pain and activity limitation over the 12-month follow-up period. A caveat to these results is that this Quebec Task Force Classification System may have more prognostic value in less severe and less persistent neck pain populations, especially where treatment is subgroup-targeted.
Under Danish law, the publication of anonymized clinical data does not require patients' consent. However as an additional ethical consideration, 97.7 % of patients in the SpineData registry provide written informed consent for their data to be used for quality assurance and research purposes, including in publications of group-level data.
Thanks to the patients and clinicians at the Spine Centre of Southern Denmark who participated in the study.
Hanne Rasmussen and Peter Kent were employed at the Spine Center of Southern Denmark while conducting the study. Alice Kongsted's position at the Nordic Institute of Chiropractic and Clinical Biomechanics was financially supported by the Danish Chiropractors' Research Foundation. Peter Kent was partially supported by the Danish Chiropractors' Research Foundation. The authors declared no other financial or non-financial competing interests.
HR and AK formed the study idea. HR, AK, PKj and PKe were involved in the design of the study, the interpretation of the data, the revision of the manuscript and gave final approval of the manuscript. AK performed the data analysis and HR wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Kongsted A, Kent P, Albert H, Jensen TS, Manniche C. Patients with low back pain differ from those who also have leg pain or signs of nerve root involvement - a cross-sectional study. BMC musculoskeletal disorders. 2012;13(236). doi:Artn 236 doi:10.1186/1471-2474-13-236.


Someone asked me how my family keeps Lent–well, Lenten. How do you keep the kids focused on the season, with almost no support from the surrounding culture? How do you make it feel like a real season of the year? I don't think that our family customs are anything to write a book about, but it seems like a good idea to share whatever crumbs we have picked up on along the road. This page will be under construction throughout Lent of 2015. To skip down to Holy Week, click here.
Joseph Susanka, whose musical taste I trust and admire, offers a musical selection for every day of Lent.
For me, Bach's St. Matthew Passion is essential Lenten listening.
Although it suits every season, I find Lent an especially good time for Gregorian Chant. This collection has a CD for each liturgical season, including Lent.
The Benedictine Sisters at Ephesus made a big splash with their Advent CD, and now they are back with Lent at Ephesus.
Catherine Fournier has put together a nice collection of things to do in her book Lent and Easter in the Domestic Church: Activities to Celebrate the Liturgical Season. Like all such books, not every idea will appeal to every person, but most people can find something they like.
For some years now we have used a Lenten calendar to help the youngest ones track where we are in the season. This year we're using the one from Catholic Icing: check out their complete list of Lenten activities.
Especially for the little ones, we have a Lenten bean jar. Good deeds earn a bean, and on Easter Sunday the beans are transformed into jelly beans. More good deeds = more sugar treats may be crude, but it gets at something real.
On Fridays we try to do the Stations of the Cross, whether at the parish or at home. There are too many good versions out there to choose a link.
For the older people in the family, Dom Gueranger's introduction to Lent is worth a re-read every year. Some serious history can be found in Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, and in James Monti's A Sense of the Sacred: Roman Catholic Worship in the Middle Ages.
The Tale of Three Trees. It's really sentimental, but a nice story–and Lent-appropriate books are really hard to find!
The Easter Story, by Brian Wildsmith. I find the artwork beautiful and the text contemplative. This is one that I get out and volunteer to read, because I enjoy it so much.
The Easter Story, by Gennady Spirin. The text is from the King James Bible, which I don't mind but might bug someone else. The artwork is nice.
A fantastic reference on the history of Holy Week and its traditions is James Monti's The Week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week.
For some historical background on Passiontide and Holy Week, drawn from various sources, see my blog post, The Key to Passiontide and Holy Week.
For the beginning of Holy Week, see my blog post, Palm Sunday: History, Mystery, Practice.
For Holy Thursday morning, see this reflection. For the afternoon, our family tradition is a Passover re-enactment and reflection. I describe how we do that here. For a lengthy reflection on the Last Supper mystery, see this article, which I published some time ago in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review. For more on the evening liturgy, see my blog post, Holy Thursday: History.
For the Good Friday liturgy, see my blog post, Good Friday: History, Mystery, Practice.
For a cool screensaver that follows Alphonsus Liguori's "Passion Clock" through the Triduum, click here.
This post offers a quick thought on Holy Saturday, while this post presents an ancient and striking account of Christ's descent into hell. For thoughts on Christ's body during Holy Saturday, see God in the Tomb.
Thanks for this. Some of these I wasn't familiar with. Also, your link to Vinegar Boy leads to A Tale of Three Trees.
Thanks for catching that, Christina! I fixed the link.


text:
Scandalous Witness
A Little Political Manifesto for Christians
Lee C. Camp
Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans
, March
Lee C. Camp views Christianity's relationship with the United States as characterized by the nation's manipulation, co-optation, and abuse of a religion that has lost its prophetic edge and is subjugated to the nation, if not headed toward obsolescence altogether. In response to this relationship, Camp argues that American Christianity is being redefined in one of three ways: first, as a "cult of greatness and imperialist power" (of which the evangelical fandom of Donald Trump is sufficient evidence); second, as an ahistorical spiritualizing of Christianity concerned only with the afterlife (which, Camp reminds the reader, for the early Christians was a "grave heresy"); or third, a reduction of Christianity to social action (5–8, 11). But in Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christianity, Camp is unwilling to accept these options. Denying the faith's apparent impotence, Camp begins with a bold claim: "The faith of the Christian is the last great hope of earth" (1). Yet, he offers evidence that such hope can only be realized if Christians get out of their own way. To do so, Camp's book advocates for a fourth option: Jesus' "socio-spiritual-political option" (8).
Camp draws broadly from a diverse set of evidence to assemble a cumulative and comprehensive argument that culminates in a concise and compelling rationale for Christians to reclaim the "scandalous" identity Paul considered intrinsic to Christianity (3). While some might balk at Camp's proposed end goal (after all, the majority of Christian denominations have assimilated quite well to American culture), Camp earnestly denies any attempt at originality. He claims only to be stating "noncontroversial assertions, simple restatements of orthodox Christianity" (9)—arguably one of Camp's most effective assertions.
Camp's propositions—among them that history is not merely time passing but has a telos, an end, that the substance of Christian hope is not the US but Jesus Christ, that the corruption of Christianity largely comes from within itself—are intended as a "syllabus" for Christians to "reconfigure their faith" and wrest it from the US empire's grasp (9). Contrary to the more typical apologetic argument for Christianity's congruence with one particular party, Camp states that the tradition is "neither right, nor left, nor religious," but a "politic" (4–5; see also proposition 11). After all, Jesus was not crucified because of spirituality (18, 134). Central among Camp's propositions is the view that Christianity is an interpretation of history, a perspective from which Christians can see and understand history in its context. For Camp, that context is the coming of the Kingdom of God already inaugurated by Christ and the expectation of God's ultimate victory. In light of this, Christians should live proleptically (23).
However, Christian assimilation to US culture has gutted Christianity's own claims (30–31). In spicy language, Camp asserts that acts evidencing this assimilation, such as the mechanical blessing of US policies, are the faith prostituting itself out to the nation (48ff). Further, Camp reminds us, assimilation ignores that, as all empires before it, the US will also someday fall (90ff). The politics of recent years seem to indicate that the end may be approaching more rapidly than initially thought. To continue to treat faith as a private, spiritualized, and ahistorical aspect of Christian life that makes no demands upon the faithful to work for positive change in history will only serve to hasten the United States' demise.
But Camp's critique is not advocacy for anarchism. While he warns that praising the state too much can lead inevitably to a violence-provoking idolatry of the state (66-67) or the temptation to affirm the US as a "Christian nation"—a myth he handily debunks (69–72)—Camp affirms that the state can be an agent of good. The institutions of power (or the "powers") work to "stave off chaos" and "keep wickedness in check" (113). In this relative peace, Christians must, first, "show to the powers the wisdom of God . . . [and] bear witness to the powers the public goods and sociopolitical relevance of the way of Christ" (114). Second, Christians are called to "percipient cultural discernment"—contextualizing cultural phenomena to discern for society "a path forward that bears witness to the good news of the kingdom of God in our midst" (160). In an age of an insatiable hunger for power, the erosion of truth, and the growth of anti-intellectualism—not to mention the increasing reliance on short-form, nuance-lacking social media posts for reality's interpretation—Camp's Christianity is an important antidote (169).
In light of these identities, risks, and responsibilities, Christian participation in the nation ought to be ad hoc (164ff), sometimes focused internally on the church's own need for conversion and sometimes focused externally on the nation's, but always willing to work with those acting consistent with the more authentic—and critically distant—mission with which Christ tasked his disciples.
If there are any weaknesses to Camp's argument, it is that he raises two important concepts that could have been developed further: fear and imagination (78 and 104ff, respectively). While he acknowledges the role both play, he leaves the reader without much discussion of them. Fear has been explored significantly in recent years, especially as it relates to politicians who peddle it. Contributing to this fear, however, is the deeper impact of imagination, which frames our capacity to see, interpret, and understand the world around us. It seems that the imagination is the source from which flows our political predilections and is the element that would most need reformed to facilitate any change toward the Christian politic for which Camp advocates. Without more, the propositions remain solidly informative, but their capacity to effect the desired change may be insufficient.
Despite these negligible shortcomings, Camp's volume is important, a pleasure to read, and written in such an accessible manner—though not at the expense of being intelligent, illuminating, and challenging—that it would serve as an excellent text in graduate or undergraduate courses, church book groups, and even upper-level high school classes. And not only could it be used in those settings, given the state of Christianity in our current political environment, it ought to be.
R. Zachary Karanovich is a PhD candidate in systematic theology at Boston College.
Lee C. Camp is professor of Theology & Ethics at Lipscomb University in Nashville. He is the author of Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World and Who Is My Enemy: Questions American Christians Must Face About Islam, and Themselves.


text:
La population taïwanaise était estimée à  habitants en 2018, faisant de Taïwan le quatorzième pays le plus densément peuplé (650,3 h/km en 2016).
Elle est composée de 98 % de chinois Han et de 2 % d'Aborigènes ; 26 % de la population Han de l'île aurait des ancêtres aborigènes.

La natalité de Taïwan est en diminution, le taux de fécondité était tombé à 0,9 enfant par femme en 2011, en 2017 il reste l'un des plus bas du monde à 1,13.

La population de Taïwan est en diminution depuis 2020.

Évolution de la population
Lorsque les Hollandais s'installent à Taïwan en 1624, l'île est majoritairement peuplée d'Aborigènes, mais il y a déjà des Chinois Han dont certains sont mariés à des Aborigènes. Les Hollandais font eux-mêmes venir des Chinois du continent pour travailler la terre.

En 1661, après la chute des Ming, Koxinga se réfugie à Taïwan avec environ  soldats et en chasse les Hollandais. Malgré l'interdiction de traverser le détroit décrétée par le gouvernement Qing pour éviter de nourrir sur l'île un foyer de sédition, la migration vers Taïwan continue : la population chinoise est estimé à  personnes à cette époque.
Par la suite, le gouvernement Qing autorise de nouveau l'émigration vers Taïwan et on estime la population chinoise sur l'île à près de 2 millions en 1810, et à près de 3 millions en 1860. Lors du recensement fait par les Japonais en 1906, on compte 3,12 millions de personnes, dont  Aborigènes, soit 3,58 % de la population. Durant l'occupation japonaise, la population double. À l'arrivée des réfugiés continentaux en 1950 après la défaite des nationalistes face aux communistes, Taïwan compte environ 6,5 millions de personnes. À partir de ce moment, la population va croître rapidement du fait de la migration des continentaux (2 millions de personnes) et d'un taux de fécondité élevé. En 1979, on compte 17 millions d'habitants dont  aborigènes. La population taïwanaise est estimée à  d'habitants en 2018.

Distribution démographique

Les Taïwanais se concentrent principalement sur l'étroit cordon littoral de la côte ouest, le tiers de la population dans le bassin de Taipei.

Les différents groupes ethniques

La population de Taïwan est composée de 98 % de Chinois Han et de 2 % d'Aborigènes. Les Chinois Han sont eux-mêmes souvent divisés en 84 % de « Taïwanais de souche », c'est-à-dire les Chinois Han qui étaient présents lors de la colonisation japonaise (composé de 70 % de Hokkiens et de 30 % Hakkas) et de 15 % de Chinois Han venu du continent après la défaite des nationalistes face aux communistes.

Aborigènes
Les premiers habitants se seraient installés, il y a environ  ans.

Les 14 groupes sont : les Amis, les Atayal, les Bunun, Les Kavalan, les Paiwan, les Puyuma, les Rukai, les Saisiyat, les Sakizaya, les Da'o (Yami), les Thao, les Truku, les Tsou et les Seedeq.

Ils représentent environ 2 % de la population de Taïwan : d'après le Council of Indeginous peoples, il y avait  aborigènes fin , dont  hommes (49,9 %) et  femmes (50,1 %).

Aborigènes de Taïwan par groupe ethnique  :

Chinois Hans

Environ 84 % des habitants chinois de l'île sont les lointains descendants d'immigrés de Chine continentale, venus surtout de la province du Fujian à la fin du  lorsque l'île devint une terre d'immigration importante pour les paysans des régions côtières du sud. La majorité (70 %) sont des Hoklo, locuteurs de dialectes minnan, 30 % des Hakka.

14 % sont venus s'installer sur l'île après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, suivant le gouvernement nationaliste chassé par les communistes. Ils sont originaires de toutes les provinces et régions autonomes de Chine continentale. Ce furent les premiers locuteurs mandarins de l'île, langue qu'ils pratiquaient seule ou en plus du dialecte de leur région d'origine.

Les trois principales langues parlées sur l'île sont le minnan (langue maternelle de 68,2 % de la population), le hakka (langue maternelle de 11,2 % de la population) et le mandarin, langue officielle parlée en 2007 par la quasi-totalité des habitants et langue maternelle (souvent en association avec un autre dialecte) d'une forte proportion de la population.

Conjoints étrangers

Le terme de « conjoint étranger » (外籍配偶 wàijí pèioǔ) désigne principalement à Taïwan les épouses originaires de Chine continentale ou d'Asie du Sud-Est (en majorité vietnamiennes), familièrement appelées « épouses étrangères » (外籍新娘 wàijí xīnniáng). Elles constituent en effet plus de 70 % de l'ensemble des conjoints étrangers de Taïwanais. Il s'agit d'une composante de la population apparue assez récemment. Au cours des années 1980, les hommes des couches défavorisées et les ruraux ont éprouvé de plus en plus de difficulté à se marier, un nombre accru de femmes préférant vivre en salariées célibataires plutôt que d'assumer la tâche lourde et peu valorisée d'épouse, mère et belle-fille dans des foyers difficiles. Des réseaux se sont créés, mettant en contact des célibataires avec des femmes de milieu modeste en provenance tout d'abord d'Asie du Sud-Est, puis de Chine populaire. L'assouplissement des restrictions concernant la venue à Taïwan des citoyens de Chine populaire a aussi permis à d'anciens soldats des troupes nationalistes venus en 1950 et laissés pour compte de se marier sur le tard. Au début du , le nombre des épouses étrangères était devenu suffisant pour que l'administration se préoccupe de leur situation : formation linguistique, difficultés scolaires des enfants, difficultés liées au niveau socio-économique bas, risque élevé de maltraitance.

Selon les statistiques du ministère de l'Intérieur le nombre des conjoints étrangers ou d'origine étrangère s'élevait à  en 2006, soit plus de 1,6 % de la population et dépassait celui des Aborigènes. Les conjoints asiatiques, qui constituent l'immense majorité de l'ensemble, viennent en grande partie de Chine populaire (près de 65 %). Les autres nationalités sont vietnamienne (~24,5 %), indonésienne (~4 %), thaïlandaise (~3,5 %), philippine (~1,5 %).

Dix pour cent des  mariages célébrés en 2006 impliquaient un conjoint issu de Chine populaire et 7 % un conjoint issu d'un autre pays asiatique. Quarante pour cent de ces mariages ont eu lieu dans la zone urbaine du grand Taipei (ville et comté de Taipei, comté de Taoyuan), mais les régions où la proportion de mariages mixtes est la plus importante sont Jinmen (37,42 %) et Mazu (34.67 %)  suivis du comté de Miaoli (20,19 %). En 2007, le taux de fécondité des épouses étrangères est de 1,5 environ, un peu plus que le taux moyen de 1,21.

Bibliographie
 Nicole Sztokmann, « La population taiwanaise : aspects démographiques », Espace, populations, sociétés, 1995-2, Les populations d'Asie orientale,  Consulter sur Persée

Notes et références

Liens externes
  Statistiques nationales de la République de Chine
  Council of Indegenous peoples, executive yuan
  http://oliverweb.apc.gov.tw/index.asp

  Statistique de la CIA
 Statistique de l'ONU

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


If your parents are deceased or otherwise have not been in contact with the bank for a long time, the FDIC advises that savings accounts and other unclaimed property are sometimes transferred to the state where the bank is located.... 13/10/2008 · My bank (the Cooperative Bank) were willing to do this after some friendly persuasion on my part. It meant them going back through old records, but it is possible and, in my view, the best option. It meant them going back through old records, but it is possible and, in my view, the best option.
3/01/2019 · Exchange Old Money. How to . Contact Bank of America you can find your bank account number listed as the second series of numbers, usually 10-12 digits, on the bottom of the check. If you can access your bank statements online or have paper copies, look for your account number printed at the top of each statement. If you use your bank's website or mobile app, check the "Account …... Where can I find my PAN? Your Personal Access Number (PAN) can be found in the letter or email we sent you after you opened your account, and on your paper or electronic statements. If you've thrown away the letter or deleted the email, don't worry.
What is my BSB and account number? BSB stands for bank, state and branch number. It identifies the bank, branch and state that you opened your account in. Your account number is the identification number associated with your account. Every account has one. For credit cards your account number is your 16 digit card number shown on the front of your card. You can find your BSB and account number... Where can I find my PAN? Your Personal Access Number (PAN) can be found in the letter or email we sent you after you opened your account, and on your paper or electronic statements. If you've thrown away the letter or deleted the email, don't worry.
13/10/2008 · My bank (the Cooperative Bank) were willing to do this after some friendly persuasion on my part. It meant them going back through old records, but it is possible and, in my view, the best option. It meant them going back through old records, but it is possible and, in my view, the best option.


text:
SEO • Mar 6, 2015
Is Google's Panda Algorithm Creating An Endangered Species?
Chad Gingrich
Occasionally, I find myself connecting with random memories from my childhood that have no reason standing out in my brain. Coincidentally, I remember a movie I saw at age 9 titled The Amazing Panda Adventure. It was a terribly acted family movie where a young American boy visits China and winds up helping his father (who is a zoologist) rescue a panda cub from (and I'm quoting IMDB here) "unscrupulous poachers and saves a panda reserve from officious bureaucrats." It seems almost fitting that Google would choose "Panda" as a naming convention for an algorithm through which I've found some well-intentioned websites get caught in the bear trap of Google's algorithmic penalty box.
Full disclaimer: I totally get it. Approximately 99% of the time, Google gets it right. The amount of low-quality, spammy, worthless content Google has been able to weed out over the past four years as a result of Panda is amazing. I've had plenty of clients who had been "doing content right" get successfully rewarded following a Panda update. This article, if anything, is more to bring to light that maybe Google isn't 100% there in getting it right every single time.
At Seer, we've always been supported to share everything on our blog, we don't keep things to ourselves — whether it's wins, new tactics, failures, you name it. We're hoping that the years of helping the SEO community will get us some karma back, as I share how we're tackling a problem and what we might be missing.
What is Panda?
I suppose the main problem I have is that Google is ever-so-vague on what the specific problem might be. Sure, I've seen the best practices and the leaked reviewer checklists. But at the end of the day, without clear communication on what issues they have with a site's content, there is no way to remedy a problem that cannot be clearly defined. Google has always been very secretive about ranking factors (and rightfully so). However, when an algorithm that can make or break your organic traffic includes on-site factors such as "writing quality content" — a very subjective and non-quantifiable measurement, I'm hoping they throw us a bone.
Getting Caught in the Dragnet
We've all seen those sites that have unintentional duplicate content because their pagination isn't setup correctly. This isn't a spammy, malicious, or purposeful thing the site owner did. Instead, it's a function of site architecture. At the very least, give us a Webmaster Tool messaging system so we can identify if we may have missed something. Google sent webmasters messages after the Penguin update and, in my opinion, more often than not, that's an intentional penalty where the actions of the site owner cause the issue. You're telling them what they already know, they built spammy links – but can you tell us whether you found duplication on our site, too many thin pages, etc.?
If Google's end goal is to make the web experience better, it seems Google should offer up these types of suggestions for websites not living up to their standards. At the very least a barometer between "your parameters are causing duplication" and "your content is all bad, rewrite your entire site" would be helpful.
I know what you're thinking, "read the leaked manual reviewer checklists/guidelines for site content." We did just that and went as far as to create a checklist of our own to go through. And there is yet another strong case for a messaging system when it's not even clear if your site was manually flagged by a reviewer or caught in an automatic algorithm.
When is Enough, Enough?
For the last nine months, the Seer team and I have been helping a client, Auto Accessories Garage, who was hit by the Panda 4.0 update. We're at the point where we've tried everything in the book and we're stumped. Do we keep tweaking? Do we just need to wait for an update? Without communication from Google, it's difficult to understand next steps. Especially when they aren't even clear on if Panda is continuously running or not.
The client gave their full blessing on publishing this article because they have nothing to hide. Some of the issues I'll talk about were put in place for the explicit reason that they were trying to appease Google and not display duplicate content on their site. Everything is well intentioned: they've gone above and beyond most of the eCommerce sites I've seen and they were penalized with a loss of roughly half of their organic traffic overnight. We've implemented many changes to help improve their standing, reached out to several third party consultants, including a response from someone at Google's web spam team who responded with:
"I don't see anything obvious at first glance – this is probably something where you'd get some useful feedback from user-studies. From trying a handful of queries (…) it's hard to point at anything specific that you'd need to do. I think you're on the right track, but keep in mind that quality is more than just tweaking content blocks and noindexing types of pages."
Ok, I get it – yes quality is more than that but again, that's a subjective opinion. Seer totally pushes this philosophy to our clients: Do what's best for the user, provide value, and Google rewards you. The problem here is that I believe all of the features and experiences this site has put in place for their users just isn't being processed appropriately by the computerized calculation that is inflicting these penalties.
Duplicate Content Conundrum
The site in question Auto Accessories Garage, is a family-owned car & truck accessory eCommerce retailer. I've found this vertical to be really interesting & challenging. Where a typical eCommerce site might have one or two configurations per product, in this case, one SKU may have hundreds or thousands of different configurations based on a vehicle. It's the exact same floor mat but it's shaped a bit differently to fit in an F-150 vs an F-250. You can see how the duplicate content here could get out of control.
So, what are your options? You can't change the product specifications because you want to communicate actual valuable information to customers. And you also can't feasibly write unique descriptions for a thousand different SKUs of the same exact product. You also want to rank for potentially all of these different configurations as you want to capture people searching for their specific vehicles. Most competitors in the space face the same problem and most of them deal with the duplication. But most of them haven't been hit by Panda, so that's where the problem lies.
To combat this issue, AAG took a unique approach. First, they wrote unique product descriptions separate from manufacturer descriptions. Ecomm 101, this ensured they were producing unique content, something Google has said is important. Then there's the issue of duplication across multiple SKUs. Creatively, the team at AAG loaded this content dynamically via AJAX into their pages save for the main general product page. This way they're not duplicating content across hundreds or potentially thousands of pages. They also blocked Googlebot from crawling these content "injection" pages in robots.txt
Major fix #1: When AAG came on board right after Panda 4.0 hit, there was a lot of chatter about blocking AJAX, JS, & CSS in robots.txt. We thought we had it cracked: unblock this because Google will not be able to load these pages and see all that unique content you have. This is creating pages that look very thin and it's easy to see how the crawler wouldn't understand. Not only did we unblock this content to allow Googlebot to crawl it, but we also no-indexed about 1.7 million pages that just weren't getting much traffic or were deemed "less valuable."
Panda 4.1 came and went with a small temporary improvement but fell back to normal lows a week or two later.
U/X vs. Googlebot/X
Another unique aspect of the vehicle accessory vertical that I've only ever previously seen on sites like Crutchfield is that the products available to you depend entirely on the type of car or truck you have. You can imagine how a site with products you couldn't buy would be an extremely frustrating and confusing user experience (good U/X is also something Google encourages). Most sites in this industry have implemented a vehicle selector where you input the year, make, and model of your vehicle and results are filtered accordingly.
In early December, we saw something weird occurring in the "Fetch & Render" tool from Webmaster Tools. The category page would occasionally render with the vehicle "filtered" view. It seemed to be entirely at random and sporadic and we did multiple tests to make sure it wasn't just a view our machines were showing based on previously visited pages. This became a huge problem when we saw that often, a vehicle was being selected where no products existed for that category. For example, tonneau covers (a truck bed accessory) do not exist for a Kia Optima, but Fetch & Render would show the tonneau covers category page as if an Optima was selected, thus showing a category page with no results. That's a problem. Even further compounding this conundrum was that the Google cache would always display the page correctly without the "filtered" view.
Major fix #2: We weren't quite sure if this was just a function of Fetch & Render or if this was indeed an issue with the way Googlebot was crawling the site. For U/X, once you select your vehicle, it's cookied and carries across the entire site. To combat this, we introduced a mechanism that would prevent bots from carrying cookies across pages that resulted in improper rendering, while still allowing the bot to interact with the javascript on that page. We couldn't find any compelling evidence or proof that Googlebot does indeed store cookies (it seems to have been a highly debated topic), however this view in Fetch & Render made it important enough for us to take a look at.
Another very interesting development occurred a few months prior to Auto Accessories Garage's Panda hit in late May with the loss of their review star snippets in the SERPs. The team at AAG checked, rechecked, and triple checked their review markup and made sure it was implemented correctly. We even took a pass to make sure there was nothing they were missing. Even more supportive of correct implementation is Google's testing tool, which properly displays the review stars as intended. Google is also still selectively displaying these stars when you do a "site:autoaccessoriesgarage.com" search, but not in general queries.
Google has stated they can selectively display stars and other rich snippets based on site quality with a large amount of sites losing this privilege in the past. Given that these still haven't returned along with Google not awarding us with a sitelink search box seem to indicate that we're still not back in Google's good graces.
I've highlighted what we believed to be the "big" issues that were tripping us up in the algorithm, but we've also implemented MANY small, incremental changes in the past nine months to move Auto Accessories Garage in the right direction. For pure transparency, I've outlined these changes below. This was sent to our Google contact who made the statement above. Again, we realize it's more than no-indexing and tweaking content, but I think it's fair to say we've done a great deal more than that (including creating this pretty hilarious content piece). At this point, I think the only thing we haven't done is to completely rewrite every piece of content on the site (though we did do a bit of that, as well). I'm not saying we didn't miss anything, but we've exerted so much effort trying to course correct since Panda 4.0 that when Google directly tells us "there is nothing apparent, go ask some users," it makes me throw my hands up a little.
We've also dug pretty deeply into competitor sites and have seen many similarities and in some cases, even less SEO-friendly approaches to some of the unique challenges I mentioned above. I know that's not to say they just haven't been caught yet, but it also leads me to believe that this is more of an algorithmic miscalculation than anything else.
Date Action Notes
3/31/2014 Review Rich Snippets Disappeared from SERPs Review Star Snippets were lost however later the snippets saw a return in site: searches
May 2014 Panda 4.0 Site was hit by Panda 4.0 and lost roughly 40% of organic traffic
6/17/2014 No-indexed 1,733,992 /_Item/ pages that contain very similar content Pages for vehicle variations of a product that received little to no traffic and/or revenue
6/19/2014 Unblocked Javascript & CSS previously blocked in robots.txt Various Content, Reviews, & CSS was being pulled onto item pages (roughly 3 million) with Ajax that was blocked via robots.txt
6/19/2014 Added Vary: User Agent header in for mobile To properly serve mobile pages
7/21/2014 Internal Search Pages Marked as noindex Removes index bloat
7/21/2014 301 redirects being used (instead of 302) On non-www and https URLs to their respective www URL
7/23/2014 Removed Overly Optimized Year Internal links on VLP pages Ex: "2014 Toyota Tundra Car Covers" to "2014" – Reverted change after unfavorable results to year-specific head terms.
August 2014 Project began to rewrite the top 25-35 landing pages in each category to read more natural and be less "stuffed with keywords" Content blocks were previously being "smartly" generated by pulling together different blocks of text and then manually/edited approved by writers. Top pages rewritten and then checked to make sure main keywords weren't being over optimized by appearing too many times on the page.
8/30/2014 Database tweaks to drastically reduce loading/query time when pulling records Followed by a drastic reduction in "time spent downloading a page" in WMT
9/15/2014 No indexed /Order-Status subfolder Identified in Google Index
9/15/2014 Added nofollow to shopping cart internal links and no index on cart subfolder Identified in Google Index
9/25/2014 Multi-day rollout of Panda Update Traffic up slightly, not a complete rebound however levels returned to normal lows a few weeks later
9/30/2014 Added recent customer review block to roughly 500 vehicle landing pages. More unique content added to differential each page
10/7/2014 Change instituted where customer review snippets pull in more content from the review before "read more." Adding more unique content
11/12/2014 Updated Internal Footer Links to be less "overly optimized" Changed from "Recent Sitewide Searches" to "More Like This" and lowered the amount of links appearing on product pages and made sure that they are only relevant to the product category and/or family
11/12/2014 Updated homepage to remove overly optimized anchor text and made full-width
11/24/2014 Rolled out a consistent site-wide top horizontal navigation bar Previous navigation was blocked by Ajax and located in different divs depending on page type. New navigation was instituted to ensure a more consistent user experience and hierarchy.
12/3/2014 Rolled out New Parameter structure for Vehicle Selector
Previously, selecting a vehicle make/model/year would reload the same URL with filtered results. Since this was a global parameter (vehicle carries across) we added a parameter so when the vehicle is selected, the URL appends a ?year= parameter to the filtered results.
** We have yet to see Googlebot identify any of these parameters in WMT however we believe this could have been negated by the project below.
12/3/2014 Rolled out changes to Googlebot
Similar to above we saw via fetch and render that occasionally a vehicle would be selected for a page globally that had no products for a category (thus appearing blank). We instituted a change that would prevent Googlebot from storing any cookie or global vehicle when navigating to a new page. This was something that we felt would address a number of issues including Panda (pages with no content) and the loss of review snippets.
** This user experience enhancement is somewhat unique to the auto industry. We store the customer vehicle in the session to dynamically serve results relevant to their vehicle when they visit different category pages.
January 2015 Bounce Rate Analysis Rewrites We identified a number of content pages that have a high bounce rate, we'll be auditing each piece of content to remove overly optimized anchor links and ensure content is valuable.
Upcoming Remove Remaining Hidden AJAX from robots.txt 2 more AJAX calls remain disallowed that are on click events (not on load) pulling in return policy information and reviews.
Upcoming URL Structure Capitalization Fix Currently certain URLs are dependent upon specific capitalization structure that won't redirect to the correct page if mistyped. There is no duplication currently being indexed but this rewrite fix will ensure mistyped URLs can still be accessed.
So, we come to you the community for a fresh set of eyes, a new perspective. The team at Auto Accessories Garage, myself, and many many team members at Seer have been combing the site for months and have exhausted everything we can think of short of rewriting every page. Are we missing something huge here? Or did Google just plain get it wrong?


text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <declare-styleable name="BRLinearLayoutWithCaret">
        <attr name="strokeColor" format="color"/>
        <attr name="backgroundColor" format="color"/>
        <attr name="withStroke" format="boolean"/>
    </declare-styleable>

    <declare-styleable name="BRButton">
        <attr name="isBreadButton" format="boolean"/>
        <attr name="buttonType" format="integer"/>
    </declare-styleable>

    <declare-styleable name="BRKeyboard">
        <attr name="showAlphabet" format="boolean"/>
    </declare-styleable>

    <declare-styleable name="BRNotificationBar">
        <attr name="breadText" format="string"/>
    </declare-styleable>
</resources>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Get Local Product Information for Your Area.
Maximize your investment with Pioneer® brand sunflower hybrids. Our lineup offers you the yield potential and agronomic traits to put the right product on the right acre of your operation.
Here are 3 Sunflower diseases that can cause significant damage.


text:
Q: Why pushing undefined to an empty array give 1? If I do

var a = [].push(undefined);
console.log(a);

it gives output as 1 even though undefined was pushed to the array. Any idea why?

A: You're testing it the wrong way. a is not defined as the array, as I think you suppose it to be. Try this:

var a = []
a.push(undefined);
console.log(a);

You are assigning the return value of push function to variable a. push returns the length of the array after pushing the current element in context. So, it returns 1 after pushing undefined in the array.

A: its pushing the length of array inside not the elements
example
var a = [].push(5,6,7,8);
  console.log(a); //gives 4

A: Push returns the new length of the array, and thats what is stored in a

A: There was no explicit check has been done when assigning a new property to array object. Assigning a new property in the sense, setting 0,1,2..n properties with values, based on the length of the array.

*Repeat, while items is not empty

*

*Remove the first element from items and let E be the value of the element.

*Let setStatus be Set(O, ToString(len), E, true).

*ReturnIfAbrupt(setStatus).

*Let len be len+1.

You can see it here. Step 8.


HENRY ATKIN, LONDON, 28 bore, BLE, 2 3/4", 27" choked IC/Mod. 14 3/4" highly figured wood to Silvers pad. This signed action has gone grey and has modest border engraving. Easy to carry with elegant lines this will make the quintessential Quail or Hun gun. 5lbs 4oz.


www.newworker.org | We're being robbed!
We all know that the current budget deficit is overwhelmingly caused by the bail-out of banks, which gambled with working people's hard-earned money, and not, as Cameron and Clegg would have us to believe, by the Labour government's "over-spending".
But now research shows that three-quarters of the current budget deficit could be wiped out if big businesses and the rich paid their share of taxes just like everybody else, and both New Labour and the Con-Dem coalition share the blame.
According to a recent article by George Monbiot in The Guardian, over £120 billion a year in taxes is being lost through avoidance, evasion and debts as business and the wealthy employ accountants to run rings around the system.
This is equal to 80 per cent of total income taxes, and three-quarters of the budget deficit, which the government is using to justify slashing spending and cutting tens of thousands of public sector jobs.
Twenty-five billion pounds is being lost through tax avoidance, £70 billion through tax evasion, and uncollected debts amount to £28 billion a year, according to Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK. In comparison losses due to benefit fraud — estimates range from £1.1 billion a year to £5 billion (Ian Duncan-Smith's figure) — pale into insignificance.
But the real class politics behind the government's plans are exposed in that far from trying to recoup these losses — as they are loudly proclaiming to do with benefit fraud — staff and funding to close these loopholes are being slashed.
Since the merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise in 2005 (to create HM Revenue and Customs), staff number have fallen from 99,000 to 68,000 and will fall another 12,000 in the next four years, while spending on tax avoidance been cut by half since 2006 (£3.6 billion to £1.9 billion).
This is no accident — it is a deliberate policy. Dave Hartnett, Permanent Secretary, has told the Financial Times that the tax service plans to "adopt a less combative approach to resolving tax disputes with businesses in order to chime with the coalition's 'open for business' message".
While the wealthy and big business employ top accountants and use every scam in the book to avoid paying their share to the society that they are part of, small businesses and individuals are still being chased for every penny of tax, and the minority of corrupt benefit claimants are hounded by the tabloids.
Britain is already the most unequal society in Western Europe: it has the lowest Corporation tax of any major industrialised country, and since 1979 taxes on the rich have been slashed. Yet these very groups, much of whose wealth comes from Britain itself, are managing to escape their legal tax obligations and in many cases paying less than the basic rate of income tax.
Just two examples are Vodafone, which according to Private Eye has saved a cool £6 billion by using a Luxembourg subsidiary, and Boots, which avoided paying £86 million by relocating to a post office box in Switzerland. In Vodafone's case the HMRC agreed to let this scam go unchallenged.
Meanwhile thousands of small businesses that cannot afford specialist accountants still have to pay their full share in taxes. These are the very companies which David Cameron expects to generate the jobs to fill the huge hole that will be created by his government's cuts.
Monbiot describes the Con-Dem coalition's actions as "another application of the shock doctrine... to free corporations and the very rich from their obligations to society," and says "we are living in a country where the poor bail out the banks, while the rich keep their billions intact".
This is the real political battle in Britain today — to expose the Con-Dem coalition's all-out class offensive against working people and to take forward the fight to make the rich and big business pay their fair share. It affects the lives of every working person in Britain — in other words everyone not wealthy enough to live without a job or benefits.


Adore this video. Nicely done @TheAcademy for @opengovpart.
Like other great leaders, Hans Rosling is able to creatively communicate a complex idea concisely and with impact. This is one of our top five favorite examples not of experts teaching leadership skills, but of insightful people who have something important to say about leaderhip.
Derek Redmond shows us that being a strong leader does not always mean coming in first. This is one of our top five favorite examples not of experts teaching leadership skills, but of insightful people who have something important to say or show about leaderhip.
Steve Ressler discusses next-generation government leadership. This is one of our top five favorite examples not of experts teaching leadership skills, but of insightful people who have something important to say about leaderhip.
In under three minutes, Derek Sivers explains how to start a movement with the help of some surprising video footage. This is one of our top five favorite examples not of experts teaching leadership skills, but of insightful people who have something important to say about leaderhip.


Description: This beginner level session is designed for new Data Coordinators at an LEA or for staff that would need a review of ADM Integrity errors. The workshop will cover which reports to use to Integrity errors and tools that can be used for how to resolve errors. The workshop will answer your AzEDS questions such as: What is an Integrity error? How do I know which Integrity errors I have? I need help on my Integrity errors; who do I ask for guidance?
Prerequisite: Attendees must have access within ADE Connect to view Base Repots and ADM Reports. The roles for these are AzEDS Data Coordinator – Base Reports and AzEDS Data Coordinator – ADM Reports. If you do not have access to AzEDS reports, please contact your Entity Administrator within your school to grant you access. If you do not know how to add a role in ADE Connect, please see this link for additional guidance: Entity Admin Training Manual or http://www.azed.gov/aelas/adeconnect/.
Join us at our Jefferson office on Wednesday, March 27th from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Please email [email protected] to sign up!
You can catch up on what you missed on our Training Videos Page.