Whether rules of engagement have been ordained for all coalition forces in Iraq concerning the opening of fire other than in self-defence, when death or injury may be occasioned, on refusal to stop a vehicle at a road block; and, if so, whether compliance with such rules affords any immunity from legal process.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): My Lords, it has been the practice of successive United Kingdom governments not to comment on certain aspects of operational policy, including rules of engagement. Any such information could potentially be of use to the enemy and put the lives of our servicemen and women deployed on operations at risk. I am, therefore, withholding this information under exemption one of the code of practice on access to government information. The United Kingdom's rules of engagement do not strictly in law provide UK service personnel with immunity from the UK legal process. However, they are robust and are drawn up in accordance with international and domestic law. Therefore, acting within the rules is very likely in practice to provide protection from prosecution.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that somewhat enigmatic reply. May I ask what is the actual position of our Armed Forces in these lethal hostile conditions—some 20 attacks a day, no civil power—when they, in the course of duty, open fire to enforce a road block, to search for weapons, or to guard essential facilities from sabotage? What is the position?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Lord thought that my reply was enigmatic. I hoped that it was clear. The noble Lord asks a good second question but it is one that he knows, as he asks it, that I am not able to answer in any detail at all. He himself has had distinguished careers both in the Armed Forces and in the law and he will know that it is the combination of those two things that make it difficult for me to say any more than I did in my original Answer, save to repeat that the rules of engagement are indeed robust.
Lord Campbell of Alloway, will he consider an off-the-record briefing for both opposition defence spokesmen and those in the House who need to know about the matter?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord who was good enough to advise me beforehand of the question that he might ask. That question is currently being considered by the Ministry of Defence. I shall, of course, write to the noble Lord, to his colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches and to noble Lords on the Cross Benches as soon as a decision is reached. We shall try to be as sympathetic as we can.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I believe the Minister said in his first Answer that if troops kept within the rules that was very likely to afford protection. Why is it not certain to afford protection?
Lord Bach: My Lords, the reason it cannot be certain in law is because rules of engagement are for guidance only and do not constitute law, which is for the courts to determine. I shall try to assist by making the distinction between immunity from legal process—which is the subject of the Question—where there can be no guarantee that legal process may be instituted, and practical consequences. Where a member of the Armed Forces acts within the rules of engagement—that could, of course, be a matter for the court eventually to have to decide—the matter is unlikely to go to court and almost certainly would not result in a finding of liability or guilt.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, will the noble Lord be so kind as to explain what in the circumstances of the Iraq of today constitutes the enemy?
Lord Bach: My Lords, the potential enemy are all those, wherever and whoever they are, who seek to engage British forces in a hostile manner.
Whether they will publish the full text of the advice given to them by the Attorney-General on the legal basis for the use of force against Iraq; and the instructions for the giving of that advice.
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): My Lords, there is a long-standing convention adhered to by successive governments, and reflected in paragraph 24 of the Ministerial Code, that legal advice from the Law Officers is not publicly disclosed. This is consistent with paragraphs 2 and 4d of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.
The Law Officers advise the Government in confidence. It is very important that both the legal adviser and the client should be able to give and receive advice candidly and freely on the understanding that it will not be disclosed.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, on 17th March we were given a one-page summary of the views of the Attorney-General. The Government have now given an enormous amount of information—which no doubt they were not legally obliged to give—to the Hutton inquiry. Why will not the Government now produce the full legal advice on the basis of which we went to war, which is surely an even more important question that that being considered by the Hutton inquiry? Are the people of this country really going to have to wait for another 30 years before we find the answer to that question?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I hope that in my opening Answer I made the position clear. The Attorney-General's advice on international relations, security and defence is confidential and we never disclose or comment on advice given by the Attorney-General. So far as we are concerned, the Government's policies on Iraq are legal and they comply with our international obligations.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, legal professional privilege can properly be claimed by the Government as by any other client on behalf of their legal adviser, the Law Officer. However, is the Minister aware that legal professional privilege can always be waived? Would she not agree that, as my noble friend said, by relying in part on 17th March on a snippet or gobbet of advice from the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, the Government have waived their privilege? If not, will she explain why?
If the rule is so inflexible, will the Minister also explain why in cases such as Factortame the opinion of the Law Officers was fully disclosed to courts? In that case, their opinion was that the Merchant Shipping Act would be unlawful under Community law. The rule is not inflexible and rigid, as has been suggested.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I am not a lawyer and cannot go into the details of the noble Lord's final point. I am not aware of the case to which he referred. If it has bearing on the matter, I shall be happy to respond to it. On his specific point on breaching the convention, I shall repeat what I said before. My noble and learned friend the Attorney-General made a statement on 17th March setting out his views on the legality of the use of armed force against Iraq, but his advice was not disclosed. I repeat: the actual advice that he gave to the Government was not disclosed. We are confident that our policies and actions in Iraq are right and consistent with our international obligations.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, we would like to have a say. Although in our view there was and is a robust case, under Articles 39 and 41 of Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, for getting rid of that madman and mass murderer—the world will be a better place still when he is dead—does the noble Baroness agree that much ambiguity remains, as the questions that she is receiving indicate? Would it not be better not only to publish a summary of the Law Officers' advice, despite it breaking precedent, but to have a thoroughgoing judicial inquiry—much wider than Hutton—so as to reassure the public and, even more importantly, the troops in Iraq of the rightness of our cause?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, the Government are absolutely convinced of the rightness of our cause. We have made that position clear time and again and will continue to do so. I said that in this House last week. The basis on which we went to war was that Iraq and Saddam Hussein flouted 17 UN Security Council resolutions with respect to weapons of mass destruction. That remains the case.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that one of the significant differences between a democracy and a dictatorship is that a government's point of view alone should not be considered when a decision of such magnitude is taken?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I totally agree. That is why we had debates in this House, a number of debates in another place, and a significant debate in the other place with a vote. It is the first time that we have had that.


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Let's say you really do have low iron. The next step is to fix it, which is another complex topic. (Photo: Santi Nunez/Stocksy)
Health Training & Performance
Sweat Science
The Athlete's Guide to Boosting Iron
Three new studies explore iron patches, injections, and dose frequency
The endurance athlete's equivalent of "the dog ate my homework" is "I think my iron levels are low." We've all been there, after a bad race or a streak of crummy workouts, searching for an objective and an easily fixed explanation for our troubles. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not—the only way to know for sure, as I wrote last year, is to get your hemoglobin, ferritin, and perhaps transferrin saturation tested.
Let's say you really do have low iron. The next step is to fix it, which is another complex topic. You can eat liver, take pills, get injections, and so on. But your absorption will depend on when you take it, what else you're eating, and even whether you've just done a hard workout. That complexity makes it an area of ongoing research, which is why it's worth taking a look at three recent studies on iron supplementation for athletes, all from the laboratory of Peter Peeling of the University of Western Australia and the Western Australian Institute of Sport.
Patch It
The biggest problem with oral iron supplements is that they're associated with gastrointestinal problems such as nausea, cramps, and constipation. One way of avoiding all that is to bypass the gut by using injections (more on that below), but a relatively recent alternative is to absorb iron from a patch on the skin. There's an iron patch advertised by PatchMD, but according to Peeling and his colleagues, there hasn't been any independent testing to ascertain whether it really works.
So, in a recent study in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, they recruited 29 trained runners (nine men and 20 women) with suboptimal iron levels. Fourteen of them wore the iron patch on one shoulder for eight hours per night for eight weeks; the other 15 took an iron pill upon waking every morning. The outcome of interest was ferritin, a measure of iron storage.
Unfortunately, the results were pretty clear. The iron pill, with a dose of 325 milligrams of ferrous sulphate (equivalent to 105 milligrams of elemental iron), which has been shown to be effective in previous studies, increased ferritin stores by about 60 percent. The patch, which was supposed to provide 45 milligrams of iron every night, didn't move the needle. Here's what the ferritin data looked like:
(International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism)
It's worth noting that six of the 15 subjects in the pill group reported ongoing GI problems during the study, and one couldn't even finish the study. For that reason, the researchers still like the idea of an iron patch, and they describe some research identifying the challenges and working toward solutions. But the bottom line is that, in its current commercial formulation, it doesn't seem to get through the skin.
Skip a Day
If you're stuck with iron pills, you might wonder whether you really have to take them every day. In fact, there's a possible rationale for skipping every second day, because your ability to absorb iron is suppressed for about 24 hours following a high dose. So, in a companion study to the patch one, the same researchers had a third group of 16 runners take the same 325-milligram dose of ferrous sulphate every second day and compared their results to the pill-every-day group from the patch study.
In this case, the results in the two groups were nearly identical, even though the alternate-day group only took half as much iron. Both groups increased their ferritin levels by about 60 percent:
And if saving money on your iron supplements isn't incentive enough, the alternate-day group only had one report of GI symptoms. That makes it more likely that athletes will stick with their supplementation plan in the real world.
Get a Shot
In the third study, published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, Peeling and his colleagues examine the nuclear option. For athletes with iron problems, you typically start by trying to fix it with dietary changes, then you progress to oral supplements. But in particularly serious or recalcitrant cases, you can directly inject iron either intravenously or into the muscle.
The new study is a retrospective analysis of 16 athletes from the Western Australian Institute of Sport, who received a total of 22 intravenous injections of 1,000 milligrams of iron (in the form of ferric carboxymaltose) in recent years. What the researchers were interested in was how well the injections worked and how long their effects lasted. Since the athletes at the sports institute received regular blood testing, the researchers were able to track the effects for as long as two and a half years after the injection.
The basic finding is that your mileage may vary. Ferritin levels rose sharply in some athletes and modestly in others, and they dropped quickly in some and slowly in others. Those who received more than one injection seemed to have similar results each time, which suggests that individual differences, rather than mere random variation, explain the divergent results.
Here's what the overall data looked like, showing the decay of ferritin levels for up to 1,000 days following the initial injection. Each thin line represents a different athlete:
The main advice that Peeling and his colleagues extracted from this data is that athletes who receive an intravenous iron injection should get their iron levels tested one month after the injection to see how much their iron stores increased, and then they should get tested again six months after the injection to see how fast their levels are decaying. That time frame should be sufficient to catch even the poorest responders before they slip back into serious deficiency.
In practice, very, very few of us will ever get an iron injection, and those who do will (hopefully) get it under the close supervision of an experienced sports-medicine physician. Until patches prove themselves, the rest of us will have to make do with oral supplements—if we need anything at all, that is. Sometimes, much as we hate to admit it, a bad race is simply a bad race.
For more Sweat Science, join me on Twitter and Facebook, sign up for the email newsletter, and check out my book Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.
Lead Photo: Santi Nunez/Stocksy
These Will Be the Biggest Health and Fitness Trends of 2023
By: Martin Fritz Huber
What a Nutcracker Ballet Dancer Eats in a Day
By: Mallory Arnold
These Are the Key Differences Between Road and Trail Runners
By: Alex Hutchinson

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Danilin je priimek več oseb:
 Sergej Aleksejevič Danilin, sovjetski general
 Sergej Danilin, ruski luger

Ruski priimki

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


We started 2017 with a prediction that it would be the year that smart home gadgets moved away from us geeks and early adopters to the wider public. Christmas should be enough to seal the deal.
By the time Santa Claus has been and gone there will be considerably more households with a smart home device in their property.
Many of those will be the popular Amazon Echo virtual assistant and its smaller version Amazon Dot, or the Google equivalent, Google Home, which is based on Google Assistant technology. Both these devices can also serve as hubs for various other gadgets and apps.
These include security devices, such as connected cameras and doorbells; heating and lighting gadgets; tools for automated cooking and baking; and an array of other miscellaneous smart home bits-and-bobs.
This is exciting for the people who will be unwrapping and using products that would have seemed like science fiction not so long ago, but smart home devices do present some new challenges, too.
Who has developed the device?
What data are you passing to the developers?
Who is hosting your data and how are they hosting it?
The answers to these questions are important for your privacy, but also for your comfort, happiness and safety (depending on the nature of the smart home product you're using). A while ago, we blogged about the automatic pet feeder with smart home functionality that had suffered technical problems, which resulted in its remote feeding system failing to feed animals. A pampered pet that usually gets its food dispensed automatically probably isn't going to suffer any lasting effects from skipping a meal, but it does illustrate the potential pitfalls of smart home technology.
If it was setting a burglar alarm, monitoring the temperature in your baby's bedroom or turning off an oven at the right time, the consequences are potentially much more serious.
Recent history is littered with examples of companies failing to take what you might have thought would be considered fairly basic cybersecurity precautions, so it is worthwhile to invest some time in due diligence to check to whom you are handing over control of some aspects of your house.
In the web hosting industry, we have something called disaster recovery: the plan, contingencies and timings of the process to get a website or application up and running again if disaster strikes. It is probably worth investing a similar approach to any smart home device that is responsible for a critical aspect of your home life.
What happens if you go on holiday and your smart home heating system or app stops working? Planning ahead and ensuring a relative has a spare key and some knowledge of a manual override for the system might be the best disaster recovery plan in that case.
"Alexa, did I order this unicorn?"
We're focusing on our specialist subject of hosting, so we haven't even touched upon the pitfalls of children having access to control these smart home apps either because they have borrowed your phone or by using voice commands. We just wanted to throw in a mention before the 5ft tall cuddly toy unicorns start arriving from Amazon Prime.


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Front row, from the left: Joe Wietlispach, Phil McEntee '77 and Chris Coder '77; back row, from the left, Pat Harkins '77, Don Duncan, Lance Niemann '78, Jack Pace '77 and Jeff Ebbesen '79 (Colorado River trip, 2006)
Grads take trips together every year — for 40-plus years
Alumni: Do you and your classmates get together every year for an adventure or simply to re-connect? Email your story to sharenews@augustana.edu.
It's no secret that students often make lifelong friends at Augustana. 1977 graduates Chris Coder and Jack Pace are no strangers to that idea.
For the past 40-plus years, Coder, Pace and Augustana friends have embarked on at least one trip a year to geologically significant destinations, including Bluff, Utah; the Florida Keys; Everglades National Park; and Big Bend National Park.
What sparked these annual get-togethers? "Definitely that trip I did as a freshman to the Grand Canyon," said Coder, a geology major. "I'd never been west of Des Moines, Iowa, before."
On Coder's trip to Big Bend National Park the following year, Pace tagged along. Pace was a biology major, and Augustana's geology department trips were open to all related majors. In the following years, more of Coder and Pace's classmates, including Pat Harkins '77, Phil McEntee '77, Lance Niemann'78, Jeff Ebbeson '79 and Peter Simshauser '79, joined the excursions and, according to Coder, "got hooked."
Chris Coder and Pat Harkins (trailhead of Hermit Trail, Grand Canyon, 1978)
"I just couldn't believe it when we got out there," said Pace of his first trip out West as an Augustana student. "I was just amazed; you know, we're on the Rio Grande River...with boulders the size of houses. I was just mesmerized by it all. It was a whole new world."
'To be close to the Grand Canyon'
Coder's fascination with the West and its geological wonders was so strong that after graduating from Augustana, he moved to Arizona to earn his master's in anthropology, "simply to be close to the Grand Canyon."
Today Coder is the tribal archaeologist for the Yavapai-Apache Nation in the Verde Valley of Arizona, while Pace and others in the group are lawyers, chemical engineers and bankers in different states. At least once every year, however, that core crew of friends packs up for another adventure together.
"What really enamored me about the West and what Chris instilled in us is that you can die out here fairly quickly if you're not prepared," Pace said. "It's not like Chicago. You're confronted with nature out here."
Coder recounted a near miss in 2017 when he was caught in a rock avalanche on a trail he'd hiked down 12 or 15 times since 1980.
"The whole thing went, and I thought I was done...but I rode on top [of the rockslide], and it threw me out into the air," he said.
And yet, "after 40 years, no severe or life-threatening injuries," Pace added.
The most incredible part of these trips, according to Coder, is that "we all still like each other."
'Take advantage of all the travel'
Although Coder and Pace went to graduate school, started families and made career changes, their admiration for and connection with the country's landscapes never wavered through the years.
It is this connection that Pace has instilled in his children. "This country is so beautiful —so get out there," he likes to tell them. "You can always come back. It's the unexpected that is usually the most rewarding."
Coder has his own advice for high school students thinking about attending Augustana: "Take advantage of all the travel that Augustana offers. Because to me, that ended up being formative. You can sit in a class in Rock Island...or you can be in southern Utah, Wyoming or West Texas and just see it."
And what better way to "see it" than with friends from Augustana?
Despite wildfires and heat waves, Coder and Pace and others in the circle already are planning their next trip — one of many more to come.
By Jack Harris '20
From the left, Chris Coder, Lance Niemann, Jeff Ebbesen, Joe Polino, Pat Harkins, Peter Simshauser and Jack Pace (Canyonlands, SE Utah, 2018)
If you have news, send it to sharenews@augustana.edu! We love hearing about the achievements of our alumni, students and faculty.


Some people worry about slow deployment of high-speed broadband to U.S. consumers. Some people do something about it.
Levin, the one-time chief of staff for former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, returned to the agency to serve as principal author of the agency's 2010 National Broadband Plan. The plan laid out a compelling vision of how universal broadband access could jump-start the stalled economy, catalyzing new on-line services in education, employment, health care, public safety and energy.
The plan's principal goal was simple if audacious. By 2020, it called for new and affordable high-speed networks to provide broadband access to 100 million U.S. homes, at speeds roughly ten times current offerings from cable-based providers. Instead of today's 10 Mbps download speeds, the plan called for 100 Mbps, enough for multiple feeds of high definition video to each home.
The $350 billion cost of that new infrastructure is expected to be paid not by taxpayers but by private investors. But the plan included dozens of recommendations for policymakers to help make that investment more likely to come sooner or even at all.
This included simplifying and eliminating unnecessary deployment and operating regulations at the federal, state and local level, freeing up another 500 Mhz. of radio frequencies for mobile broadband, and working with providers to identify the most compelling new applications that would only be possible if near-universal access to broadband became a reality.
But Levin was not content simply to encourage regulators, lawmakers and the White House to take action on the plan's specific and general recommendations.
Now a Fellow at the Aspen Institute, last year Levin launched Gig.U, a consortium of university communities hoping to attract investment in next generation infrastructure that would deliver ultra high speed IP services to its residents—not ten but a hundred times faster than current broadband speeds. Using fiber optic technology run directly to the home, Gig.U is pushing for broadband speeds of 1 Gbps. The consortium has nearly forty members.
Why the leap beyond even the NBP's impressive goals?
The answer starts with Google's announcement, shortly before the publication of the NBP, to create a gigabit testbed in one lucky U.S. community. The goal of Google's "think big with a gig" was to experiment with new ways of delivering broadband, largely to see what kinds of applications consumers would use if they only had the capacity.
After drawing an astounding 1,100 applications from cities across the U.S., the company settled on Kansas City in 2011. A little over a year later, the brand-new Google Fiber network was unveiled last week, offering fully symmetrical gigabit Internet for $70/month or $120/month with TV service. The service is expected to be available by the end of next year.
The enthusiastic response to Google's proposed testbed got Levin's attention. What, he wondered, could be done for the other 1,099 communities who had applied? Clearly there was interest in next-generation networks, if not the kind of actual demand that would make it profitable for network providers. At least not given prevailing costs for build-out and operation.
Levin recognized there were significant market and regulatory impediments that were slowing or even stalling the deployment of fiber-based solutions. The "math," Levin told me last year, just didn't work.
We need orders of magnitude more network capacity, in other words, and a mindset among network operators, application developers, device manufacturers and consumers that there's always enough bandwidth to try something new. That's the only way to continue the information revolution and maintain U.S. leadership in an increasingly global economy.
So Levin set out, quite simply, to change the equation. After reviewing many of the applications for Google Fiber, one key insight he uncovered was that consumers were unlikely to see the value of a gigabit Internet until there were more testbeds that demonstrated both the obvious and surprising benefits such services could bring.
To get more gigabit Internets built meant lowering the costs and risks for private network operators. One way to do that was to start with communities where demand was already high and populations were relatively dense.
The best candidates, Levin realized, were university towns. Their high levels of education combined with the research needs of the anchor institution offered the most attractive demographics. And universities compete with each other on infrastructure, providing additional incentives. Gig.U was born.
Last week, Gig.U celebrated its first anniversary. The results have been nothing short of spectacular. Already, several members are in the process of building new fiber networks. In addition to an initial build-out in Orono, Maine, Gig.U members are also working with providers to deploy gigabit networks near the University of Florida and Case Western Reserve. Seattle, working with the University of Washington, is looking to lease its extensive but still-dark fiber network.
In response to Gig.U's initial request for information, Gigabit Squared, a private development firm, was formed, with over $200 million in committed funding for projects in as many as a half-dozen communities.
And a recent spin-off project, Air.U, aims to create high-speed networks in rural university towns where fiber deployment is not economical. Air.U participants hope instead to make use of newly-accessible spectrum in the unused "white spaces" between television channels to build high-speed wireless networks. (The FCC first approved experiments in white space spectrum in 2010.) According to Levin, the equipment and chips to begin testing white spaces networks will be generally available starting next year.
Defying skeptics, Levin has made great strides in his efforts to foster a "psychology of bandwidth abundance." Clearly, working with highly-motivated university communities was a key insight.
And so has focusing on the kind of visionary applications of the future—smart electrical grids, advanced telemedicine, classroom-free education and teleworking—that don't exist today but could with ultra high-speed IP networks. To increase demand for such services, communities need to see what kinds of competitive advantages they can achieve. So the more networks Gig.U members and their providers can light up, the easier it will be to make the case for additional networks.
The other key take-away from Levin's work is learning to "change the math" for network developers. In addition to working with its members to help raise demand among motivated consumers, Gig.U has also worked hard to identify unnecessary costs that make fiber deployments unprofitable.
That's putting it mildly! Consider Verizon and the now-stalled deployment of FiOS, its leading-edge fiber-based network. Cherry-picking university towns or holding Google-style competitions is simply not an option for Verizon, either politically or from a regulatory standpoint. Unlike high-visibility special projects such as Google Fiber, FiOS deployments languish under a crushing regulatory overload of federal, state, and local rules originally designed for early cable networks.
Verizon and other existing wireline providers continue to operate as closely-regulated carriers, navigating through an inscrutable maze of agencies large and small. Expensive delays and redundant or often unnecessary micromanagement through multiple zoning boards, departments, and regulatory bodies are a fact of life. In cities where Verizon has deployed fiber to the home, local governments treated the projects as just another utility upgrade and a chance to impose more (and often unrelated) franchise requirements on the company.
FiOS is already available in 15 million homes. According to Sanford C. Bernstein's Craig Moffett, Verizon spends $4,000 per household to deploy FiOS, with an expected return of only $3,200. It's hard to get Wall Street excited about those kind of numbers.
It allowed Google to build trenches to lay its fiber, run cabling up buildings and aerial structures, and install fiber within existing city conduit and sewer systems.
It provided space in city offices for Google equipment to be installed without charge.
It granted encroachment permits and rights of way, and agreed not to impose any permit or inspection fees.
It helped the company gain access to utility poles and private rights of way.
It provided an executive sponsor and a single point of contact to coordinate across city departments.
It created a city "team dedicated to the Project" and gave work space to Google in city offices.
It promised "quick, diligent review of all applications for permits," allowed Google to "manage all traffic control for the Project," and worked with the company to develop a joint marketing and education program.
It helped the company "obtain settlement-free interconnections with anchor institutions" that already had fiber and other network connections.
Levin doesn't find the concessions so much breathtaking as they are "the essence of smart." In an email, Levin writes, "In a lot of economic development deals the local government has to pay direct incremental dollars to make it work. Here, the value creation occurs because for the most part the city is allowing access to preexisting (and underutilized) assets."
"Think of it from a budget perspective," he says. "The real cost to the local governments is small; the real benefit to lowering the cost of the project is high. That is the most important point."
This kind of common sense cooperation is, in large part, what Blair Levin means by changing the math for next generation networks. Though copies of similar agreements between Gig.U communities and its partners aren't yet public, Levin guesses "most of the Gig.U communities would be willing to allow similar trade-offs. And based on what I have heard since Google announced its deal, so would almost any other city."
Cutting red tape, waiving special taxes, fees and other forms of nickel-and-diming, and actually collaborating with privately-funded providers of new infrastructure—these are essential elements to getting any significant infrastructure project done quickly and economically.
And, it seems, these simple fixes to badly broken local governments might be just enough to tip the balance in favor of the kind of large-scale investments that will give U.S. communities a "strategic bandwidth advantage" that could last for decades.
As fellow Forbes contributor Elise Ackerman points out, Google Fiber still had to contend with considerable regulatory delays in Kansas City, many of them unproductive. But unlike California, where I live, there was at least a chance of getting a project approved and executed before the technology employed becomes obsolete.
Following the successful completion of its initial efforts, Gig.U is now moving on to Phase Two. The goal going forward is to develop tools that will help more consortium members "change the math," making next generation network deployment attractive to private investors in communities where traditional financial analysis doesn't pan out.
This includes, notably, a guide to help communities "understand which of their current assets and resources could be used" to lower capital and operating costs for a potential provider, and otherwise lower the risk of such a large-scale initial investment.
But regulatory reform, it seems clear, will continue to play a make-or-break role in lowering both costs and risk for all future Internet investments. Building off the success of Gig.U, the White House recently issued an Executive Order aimed at speeding up deployment of more gigabit testbeds. It included the creation of the US Ignite Partnership, a public-private coalition to speed deployments by demonstrating the kinds of applications and services ultra high-speed Internet will make possible.
Policymakers are finally listening to Blair Levin. Let's hope next time it doesn't take two years to get their attention.
Larry Downes, who is old enough to remember 300 bps dial-up at work, now enjoys 10 Mbps broadband at home, but only because he doesn't know what 1 Gbps would look like. Let him know on Twitter at @LarryDownes.


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Roscidotoga lamingtonia is a moth of the family Nepticulidae. It is found in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales (the McPherson Range).

The wingspan is 5–5.1 mm for males. The forewings are dark fuscous. The basal third is bluish metallic. There are silver metallic scales with bluish reflections scattered in the distal two thirds. The hindwings are grey brown.

The larvae feed on Sloanea woollsii. They mine the leaves of their host plant. The mine has the form of a more or less contorted linear gallery with linear frass throughout. Later, it is slightly dispersed, but still leaves broad margins. The exit-hole is located on the upperside. Pupation takes place in a brown cocoon.

Etymology
The species name is derived from the type locality, Lamington National Park.

References

Moths of Australia
Moths described in 2011
Nepticulidae


text:
Year 2014/
Chief Executives' review/
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Chief Executive's review
The year 2014 was twofold for Raisio. Weak performance at the beginning of the year was exceptional but we were able to correct the situation quickly during the second half of 2014. We solved problems in the businesses with the biggest challenges and, on the other hand, moved further with the businesses that were already doing well. In the last two quarters, Raisio reached higher EBIT than in the comparison periods, which shows that we are back on improving trend.
Our Benecol business acquisition from the affiliates of Johnson & Johnson completed in November 2014 was a good and important deal for Raisio. Through the acquisition, the UK, Ireland and Belgium are now Raisio's new, interesting home markets for Benecol products. The deal also included an amendment of the US-related agreement. The deal perfectly met all the criteria Raisio has set on its acquisitions and strongly supports the growth strategy of the Brands Division. Through the arrangement completed, we now have an opportunity to develop the Benecol business on our own terms, for the first time since 1997.
Brands Division aims for growth and better use of synergies
In December 2014, Raisio renewed the Brands Division's organisation to better meet the objectives set for the Group's growth phase concerning, for example, improvement of profitability and enhancement of organic growth. We aim to make clearly better use of the synergies between our branded operations and to enable business growth. Cereals and Snacks businesses in the UK and Northern Europe have been combined into a single entity, which allows us to use the best expertise available to tackle the challenges related to the UK's cereal business. In addition, all Benecol businesses have been combined into one entity, which enhances innovation and enables growth.
Raisio's EBIT weakened by some EUR 5 million from the comparison year and the same amount also affected the Brands Division's result. The Division's net sales, however, increased and for some businesses, the growth was so strong that it compensated for the losses of the UK's Cereals and Snacks unit. The fourth quarter already showed clearly the strong performance potential of the Brands Division.
Raisioagro's focus on innovations and expertise
Raisioagro carried out an extensive reorganisation of activities focusing on its cattle feeds, with Benecol as the global flagship, on its fish feeds, now called Raisioaqua, and on its grain trade and online store. Raisio terminated the productions of pig and poultry feeds and vegetable oils as we no longer see the market outlook strong enough. Raisioagro is now smaller but much more effective. In fact, the situation of the company is much better than many expected it to be. For example, return on investment was more than 10 per cent.
Raisioagro aims to be the leading operator in the agricultural sectors where success is based on innovations and expertise in feeding and plant cultivation. Innovations improving the effectiveness and profitability in agriculture and fish farming are at the core of Raisioagro's new strategy.
Benemilk –great opportunities
The international commercialisation of Benemilk is proceeding as planned. The year 2014 was really good: a commercial organisation was established for Benemilk, activity level was high and strong R&D efforts continued. We continue our commercial negotiations with several partner candidates in Asia, Europe, Oceania and North America.
Some of the partners have conducted their own production tests and commissioned feeding trials from external research institutes, which has extended negotiations as the analysis of results of each test easily takes several months. Further development of the Benemilk innovation has resulted in many new innovations that support our patent portfolio.
Continuous dividend growth since 2007
The Board of Directors' dividend proposal to the Annual General Meeting is EUR 0.14 per share. In 2015, Raisio expects its EBIT to return on its long-term upward trend.
Matti Rihko