text:
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Finally, NDP Begins To Question Jack Layton's Leadership
Manitoba NDP MP Jim Maloway said he was not consulted by Layton or anyone else on the proposed bill.
"I got a heads-up on Saturday that there would be announcement by the leader Monday morning on the gun registry," said Maloway.
Regardless, said Maloway, he still plans to vote with Hoeppner.
"Nothing there changes my view on the long-gun registry," said Maloway.
He also said Layton's proposal is too little too late.
"This bill just went through committee last spring," said Maloway. "Where were all these amendments at the committee?"
If you read closely here, it sounds as though Maloway is admitting that Layton's new bill will not derail the vote on C-391. Furthermore, read between the lines and it sounds like Maloway is saying that he will not co-operate in the bringing forward of Jack's new "compromise" bill. Looks like the NDP leader has lost control of the debate and his own caucus.
So, is his gun registry stance Jack Layton's worst political mistake in a career that hasn't seen too many of them?
Iggy's Been Working Out
And I'm proud to announce that it looks like Iggy's managed a classic Liberal compromise: nobody would dare call the man a scrawny elitist, but there's obviously a rowing machine at the back of that bus.
And he's been filing his fangs back a little, so as not to hurt anyone when he's baby-kissing. That too is good.
Victory will surely be ours.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Da Wymman O' Canada: We Supported Jack Layton
Pity when your legacy on gun control winds up being a half's penny worth of cheap fabric.
Jack's Latest Feint
But Mr. Layton, who represents a downtown Toronto riding, personally supports the registry, as do other members of his caucus from urban constituencies. So he is proposing to introduce his own legislation – possibly in the form of a private-member's bill – to address rural concerns.
You're kidding? A new bill wouldn't come up for a vote until the registry was dead and gone, so its useless. A private member's bill might never come up, so is less than useless. And, please, can we dispense with this silly argument about how Jack's being "brave" in allowing his back-benchers to "vote their conscience"? What a load of BS; the NDP knows how to march in lock step as well as any party in the Western word. Pretending that they've suddenly discovered the principle of local democracy is just too rich.
Update: Its to be a private member's bill. I've no idea how this is supposed to "stave off" a final vote on Bill C-391, and presumably neither does Jack or anyone else. Is the vote on C-391 supposed to be postponed until Jack's private member's bill slowly rises to the top of the parliamentary queue?
Update 2: Here's how:
Layton was pressed by reporters on how he expects this bill to become a reality, when Hoeppner's bill is lined up for a vote so soon after Parliament resumes. He suggested that if all parties come onside, they could use the bill as a basis to reach a solution — presumably meaning that Hoeppner's bill would either be amended or would die.
So Jack's compromise would require the Tories to *cough cough* dump bill C-391.
Monday Morning Quick Hits
NDP abandons cities: gun registry cowardice will hurt candidates in T.O. and Vancouver.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Victoria Park Bus Shooting, Update
Police Shooting On Victoria Park Bus (24)
1) Incident on Victoria Park Bus 24 going South. Fellow pulls knife on bus.
2) Apparently, bus driver calls police. Looks like the bus has been cleared of other passengers by the time they show (or at least by the time the shooting starts).
3) I am just coming out of Value Village at Vic Park and Eglinton, have purchased 0 books, and hear a pattern of three, silence, and then one, shots (as they turn out to be--or it might have been two shots and then two more, as one of the folks at the scene suggested).
4) I am jogging that way anyway, and when I arrive, about three more police cars have joined the four or five that already surrounded the pulled-over bus. More keep coming; I think nearly a dozen are involved by the time I've passed the area going North. As I noted earlier, it doesn;t look like anyone is left on the bus.
5) Several people there tell me the white (?) guy carrying the knife got off the bus, did NOT heed police calls to drop his weapon, and was shot. He's laying on the other side of the bus, apparently, though I didn't see him.
6) Police tape is right now going up around the scene, and vic Park has a police presence almost up to Lawrence.
All this happened at just around 3:00 PM.
Update: First MSM story here.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Some Investments Are Better Than Others
And starving artists are a pretty good economic investment in any event. It took the cost of a gestetner(*) to launch Margaret Atwood's career, and now she's a huge economic plus for the nation.
On the other hand, 10 mill for a flag-pole that reminds all the middle-aged men on council of a giant penis--that seems a waste of money.
PS. Guess which project mayoral candidate Rob Ford supports?
(*) That's what some of Canada's government supported, 60s era Lit Mags were printed with.
National Post Brings The Shame
The original piece is gone, but the folks at NP haven't bothered trying to remove the google cache version, which isn't as difficult as you might think.
As for corrections, looks like the rumour I noted yesterday--about Conservative talk-show ranter Lowell Green showing up for the INDU meeting on the long-form census--turned out to be incorrect. Fortunately, Lawrie McFarlane brought more than enough crazy to make up.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Why Did The Tamil Cross The Sea (Again)?
...the majority of successful Tamil refugees travel back to Sri Lanka, raising questions about the legitimacy of their refugee status.
Actually, it didn't really raise such questions, and Lilley only thought it did because he ain't too handy with numbers. His case relied on the assumption that the Tamils who went home both arrived in Canada and returned to Sri Lanka in 2009 (read through the link above for details).
However, from Weese' story we find out that this is almost certainly not what transpired:
The Canadian Tamil Congress said many of those trips were likely taken during the four-year ceasefire in the civil war from 2002 to 2006.
Booyah! Hack on hack violence.
OT: This guy is also tracking the decline and fall of FNN. Worth a read.
A Few Average Men, Redux
Update: Looks like the Tories have found another talk show guy; Lowell Green will be appearing.
Update: Tories also found James Henderson, whose bitches turned out to be with the still mandatory agricultural census, and Joseph Lam, the vice-president of the Canada First Community Organization, to speak on behalf of regular folk.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Dear Mr. Layton: Please Take Note
By SUN READERS
Ottawa Sun
Last Updated: August 25, 2010 2:00am
Layton under the gun
Jack Layton is trying to bury his head in the sand. He refuses to acknowledge the responsibility he and his party will bear if the gun registry is dismantled.
I am the mother of Polytechnique victim Anne-Marie Edward and have been involved in the gun control issue for 20 years now.
Layton is hiding behind the claim that the bill to repeal the registry is a private member's bill, in spite of the evidence that it is a government bill. Before the last vote, he instructed his caucus members to say: 'This' if you support the Conservatives ... and 'that' if you oppose the Conservatives. The result: 12 NDP and eight Liberals voted with the Tories.
The Liberals have come to their senses and will whip the vote. If the gun registry goes down the drain for lack of Jack Layton's leadership, the Canadian people will remember him, not as the founder of the White Ribbon Campaign, but as the man who let the victims of Polytechnique and the women of Canada down when we needed him most.
Of course, dismantling the gun registry is a Conservative initiative. Don't worry, women will remember that as well. But Layton is in a position to stop them. You cannot side with the devil and pretend you are an angel.
Suzanne Laplante Edward
Pierrefonds, Que.
He Ain't Got The Funk
More Math From Fox News North
A pretty ambitious claim, given that the next millennium is 990 years off.
PS. You don't need to read the editorial through the link. Believe me.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Brian Lilley: Innumerate Cad
...the majority of successful Tamil refugees travel back to Sri Lanka, raising questions about the legitimacy of their refugee status.
Of course, it turned out the number of people interviewed for the survey was a whopping 50. Furthermore, as CBC's Kady O'Malley soon discovered, the secret goverment survey was not a secret government survey at all,
...but a review of a sampling of files from Sri Lankan nationals, some of whom were formerly found to be Convention refugees, who now want to sponsor family members to come to Canada.
...and the government agency behind it, the The Canada Border Services Agency's (CBSA), was quick to point out that
...[we have] no ability to state that this sample is statistically representative of any pattern that may or may not exist beyond this sample. Rather, these numbers are solely indicative of an observed pattern within the small sample reviewed.
Ah , but while the actual stats people who conducted this "file review" cautioned against generalizing beyond their sample, this hasn't stopped Mr. Lilley from generalizing beyond their sample. Employing special math techniques taught to him by Kory Teneycke, he continues to cast aspersions upon Tamil immigrants:
While the government survey of files in their Colombo office was only 50, that same office approved only 611 visas last year. So 50 out of that (8% of the total) is indeed significant.
Last year only 392 people from Sri Lanka arrived at a Canadian port of entry and claimed refugee status. When dealing with numbers in the hundreds a sampling of 50 is significant number.
But, of course, Lilley has no way of knowing that any of the 50 Tamils in the sample were among the 611/392 that came over "last year". As the CBSA email suggests, many of them could have been in Canada for considerably longer. All of which makes Lilley's percentages in the above far less "significant" than advertised.
Worse than Lilley's foray into bullshit mathematics, however, is his totally gratuitous shot at Kady O'Malley for calling him out on the matter:
The left in Canada, it seems, would rather ignore the issue than take the government to task. Over at the CBC, blogger in residence Kady O'Malley took issue with our numbers for not being statistically valid.
But of course we know they weren't statisically valid and, as I pointed out above, they still aren't. So: two displays of innumeracy sandwiching a cheap shot. The nerve of this man.
Frankly, I would travel to Ottawa and box his ears myself, but its really a long drive, and I've had a bum knee since 'Nam. And there's my trick elbow. Luckily, Kady is more than able to protect her own honour. I've met her and, while really very tiny, she's got a nasty bite.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Yo Chris Selley! Raheel Raza is a CHICK!
Julian Fantino--Federal Tory Candidate In Vaughan?
Iggy Gives A Twitch
Monday, August 23, 2010
On Mongering In Fear
A pro-life stance requires a willingness to make sacrifices to create a home for a stranger. Making a place for an unexpected child can involve huge changes in one's life. The willingness to do so is choked off by an attitude which says that your only concern should be your own welfare and safety, that since no one is looking out for you, you had better look out for yourself.
Powerful forces are aligned behind the fear-mongering Media outlets, security companies, various politicians and police forces stand to benefit by the public being convinced that crime is out of control. The fear created has implications which extend far beyond the issue of crime. We need to think and discuss as a society what all those implications are. The evils which such fear breeds will in the end be far greater than any crime problem we presently have. The victims, I believe, will include the unborn.
CRU Hack: Sifting Through The Ashes
For me, the most interesting bit of information from the notes is:
JCF – hackers were in from Oct (we believe they offered info to BBC in early October) and again mid Nov. Not sure if they were continuously hacking in the meantime.
The BBC writer referenced above is almost certainly Paul Hudson; it seems likely that, after Hudson's piece --"Whatever Happened To Global Warming"-- generated a series of negative e-mail comments from CRU staff, the hackers shopped these emails to Hudson in hopes that he might take offense and write another story along the same lines as his original. When this did not occur, the hackers gathered further material and looked around for a place to dump it.
So it looks as though their plans evolved significantly over the course of the ongoing crime.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Guns In The GTA
Caddy In The News
The footage was obtained by a Washington state fishing boat captain (his name is known to myself and other cryptozoological investigators who have looked at the footage) who fishes in Alaskan waters in the summer. He and his two sons were on the deck of their boat when they noticed a herd of dark coloured creatures with serrated backs being chased down a channel by a pod of beluga whales. They were stunned to see these animals as they resembled no known animal they had ever seen in their years of fishing.
This is from an account by cryptozoologist John Kirk, who has seen the footage in question:
As the creatures pull level with the boat one is able to see two larger ones protecting what looks like a juvenile from the pursuing belugas. The serrated backs are clearly visible at times. Then one the creatures turns to look in the general direction of the camera and I must say I was stunned because it looked like a living breathing version of the famed Naden Harbour carcass obtained in 1937.
A picture of that carcass can be seen here.
So far, no footage of the animals has emerged, nor any stills. And I must say Mr. Kirk's conclusion comes of as more than a little bit lame:
If these are whales, moose, otters or other known creatures then they are subtypes that no one has ever seen before.
All this excitment over a swimming moose?
In any case, more information here.
And if that wasn't enough cryptozoology for one Sunday morning, here's Darren Naish's latest on the Ozenkadnook Tiger.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Wind 2.0
Jack Layton Doesn't Want The Responsibility
This is a watershed moment for the NDP. At the federal level, they've played the also rans for as long as I've been alive. And in some ways, its been a plus for them. They could say anything and take any stand knowing that it the end it meant nothing, because the final call was always in the hands of the big-boys. All that was left for them was to rake up the fruit of discontent--a seat here, a seat there.
Now they are getting a taste of what being a potential governing party is all about. You have to make choices; you have to take stands. And you have to accept the consequences.
If Jack lets the gun-registry die in the night while talking it up before the cameras, this will tell you something about him and the party he purports to lead. Specifically, that neither is ready to govern.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Fox News North Poll Is Piece Of Shit
The online survey of 1,500 Canadians over the age of 18 was conducted between Aug. 2 and Aug. 4 and is accurate to ±2.5%.
And released today, presumably on orders from the Vampire Teneycke, who has just risen from three weeks slumber. Notice how they haven't been able to poach any newsies from the other media outlets recently? Those folk recognize the stench of the grave.
Modelling An Arctic War
On the same day that the Tories make negotiating Arctic boundary disputes its top foreign-policy priority in the Far North, the government also put out a "notice of proposal" on Merx for a Synthetic Environment For Arctic.
What the hell is that, you ask?
Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) an agency of the Department of National Defence (DND) requires services related to developing state-of-the-art in modeling arctic phenomena for scenarios. The intent of the Work to be performed is to develop a real-time, immersive, interactive, three-dimensional synthetic environment for the Canadian North which enables exploration oft he common operating picture and course-of-action analysis.
Outside of the core project, there are several optional "work packages", one being:
Optional Work Package 2 (Task Authorized Support Option): Thiswill consist of one (1) option period of one (1) year for theprovision of task authorized support services to DRDC. Services may be used to perform additional user trials, training, furtherd evelopment of uncovered Modelling and Simulation (M&S)limitations and/or execute a series of virtual war-games.Support services will be provided on an as and when requested basis.
Synthetic environments are Internet simulations that represent activities at a high level of realism, from simulations of theaters of war to factories and manufacturing processes. Here's a bit from the wiki article on synthetic natural environments, which is what DRDC is looking for:
A Synthetic natural environment (SNE) is the representation in a synthetic environment of the physical world within which all models of military systems exist and interact (i.e. climate, weather, terrain, oceans, space, etc.). It includes both data and models representing the elements of the environment, their effects on military systems, and models of the impact of military systems on environmental variables (e.g. contrails, dust clouds from moving vehicles, spoil from combat engineering).
A honking big (price tag: up to $150,000) virtual Frozen North to play war games on. Because I guess negotiations sometimes fail!
Damn! I want one!
Tom Flanagan On The Census Long-Form
We need some rational debate, maybe even a government task force, on the proper shape of the census in the electronic age. Statistics Canada still relies on 20th-century technology (mailed questionnaires) as well as 19th-century technology (interviewers at the door) to gather information. How about some 21st-century technology? If we can create an electronic voters list, can we not carry out at least part of the census electronically?
Fine. We do need a rational debate. Even maybe a task force. But until we get all that, can we keep an unemasculated version of the long form? Oh, and lets have that task force look at the cost of census products. How come when I visit U.S. statistics sites I encounter data, but at Statscan I immediately start running into price lists?
Several European countries have abolished the traditional census. They have systems of compulsory registration and personal ID cards that can effectively substitute for the census but are politically unacceptable in North America. Yet, Britain's coalition government plans to abolish its registry and ID cards immediately, and the census in 2021; at the very least, we should be watching to learn from this experiment.
Yeah. Watch the British experiment closely. They were going to a European style system, but rejected a European style ID card. Plans for the new regime were to have been ratified almost a month ago. But so far...nothing. I'm speculating, but the U.K. coalition may be finding it a bit hard to square that circle.
Not The Response They Were Hoping For
Meanwhile Joe Comartin frets and worries but over the registry but misses the obvious solution: C-391 is really a government bill--PM Harper has admitted as much--so have Jack Layton whip the vote.
Or pay the price: you think people don't see through this silly charade?
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The Jaworskis: Definitely Neighbor Troubles
What's happened since could be a case study for libertarian scholars on the pernicious effects of regulation on society, its power to threaten the well-being of individuals in the name of collective rights, to curtail enterprise, and to turn neighbour against neighbour as locals accuse each other of siccing state authority on each other in envy.
The Jaworskis aren't sure why inspectors, after years of summer seminars, suddenly showed up on the property to itemize violations. There was a "complaint," they were told, though they insist neighbours always seemed fine with the event, which drew 72 people this year, each paying $125 each ($75 for students). They recently turned their home into a bed and breakfast to make ends meet, marketing their pastoral property as a perfect spot for wedding planners. They suspect another hospitality business in the municipality of Clarington turned them in. They have no proof, but they have grown suspicious others are exploiting government to hurt them.
Furthermore, the Jaworski's aren't the only B&B in Clarington who've been subject to this kind of treatment:
Nancy Mallette runs Bloom Field Garden Centre in Clarington. Her website advertises that her property "is legally zoned … to hold your wedding ceremony and tented reception" so, she says, planners know they won't have their events suddenly cancelled by regulators, as sometimes happens with unlicensed establishments. After trying to erect a tent on her picturesque property for her son's wedding, someone complained. She spent 15 months and more than $100,000 to get proper zoning, including digging a new well and building new bathrooms.
She's heard, too, that businesses have been reporting on each other to make trouble with regulators. Not her, she says. She thinks the region would prosper if everyone in the hospitality business were free to compete at their best.
In any case, I'm not sure I see the problem here as being the heavy hand of government. Neighbors using local by-law officers to diddle one another is an old story. I, for example, rented part of a house with a guy who was harassed by a neighbor via frivolous complaints made to the city (your lawn is unmowed, and so forth). This went on until the guy in my house figured out who was doing the complaining and began filing his own set of frivolous complaints (your tree hangs over my property). In this whole affair, the person with the best claim to "victimhood" was probably the by-law officer.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Jaworskis, By-Law Officers, And Asshole Neighbors
However, it does appear from Peter's emails that there have been several anonymous complaints levelled against the B&B in the last couple of months over wedding tents allegedly being up on the grounds, and these bogus complaints (there were no such tents) seem to have been what drove the municipal by-law officer to the property again and again. Since (I believe) by-law officers must respond to such complaints, I am more inclined to blame asshole neighbors for the Jaworski's troubles rather than over-zealous municipal officials, especially since the Js might have been out of compliance for a time under the old B&B name, which would give the officer a reason to be suspicious.
Save The Willow Pond Bed and Breakfast?
Orono, ON: Due to an anonymous zoning complaint filed with the local municipality, husband and wife bed-and-breakfast proprietors Marta & Lech Jaworski may be forced to pay as much as $50,000 in fines for permitting their son, Peter, to use his family's property to host the Liberty Summer Seminar, an annual seminar in support of liberty.
The Liberty Summer Seminar is a non-profit event for like-minded students and individuals hosted by the Institute for Liberal Studies, a registered charity in Canada.
Over the weekend of July 25, the LSS celebrated its tenth anniversary with a two-day event on the Orono property. On Sunday afternoon, as the event was wrapping up, a municipal law enforcement official arrived without notice in the car parking area. He quizzed a passing LSS participant about the event, asking him what had been served for lunch, as well as the cost of the registration fee, and the number of port-a-potties available. After a few minutes, the official left without attempting to speak to the Jaworski family
On August 12th, Marta and Lech Jaworski were each served with a summons to appear in court on the grounds that they had "allowed the use of land in an agricultural zone for a use other than a permitted residential use; namely for a commercial conference centre," which is contrary to Clarington by-laws.* A first offence carries a maximum penalty of $25,000 upon conviction.
"The municipality tells me that they work on a complaint basis," said Peter Jaworski, "although I don't believe any of our immediate neighbours complained, since we've been doing this for nine years without a single complaint or problem, and being very public about it."
A sad tale of bureaucracy gone mad and jack-booted thugs and etc. The Star gives the Jaworski's some sympathy. Dawg too thinks that something must be done.
OK, but I'm not there yet. For one thing, the Liberty Summer Seminar was not like a casual get-together of bloggers--it was, in particular, not a one off. Willow Pond offers to host events of a similar size on an on-going basis. Here's a screen-cap of the relevant page:
So, while the Liberty Summer Seminar may have triggered this particular complaint, it looks like you could make a good argument that, between April and October 15 of every year, the facility is indeed being operated as a "commercial conference center", contrary to local by-laws.
So, again, for the moment I am suspending my outrage.
Update: Here.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Fox News North: Tits And Analysis 2:0
1) Teneycke likes being thought of as Fox News North (but perhaps not the National Post of the Airwaves), will concentrate on covering Victoria's Secret events, swears just like a tough-guy newsie.
2) His Blackness...back?
Like children playing in the rubble, as far as I'm concerned.
A Few Average Men...
Actually, if you look at the latest polling data on the census--it tells you what a wonderful country this is: 50% of Canadians are in the elite!
Mark His Words
He believes another problem with the parliamentary system is that too much power lies in the hands of one individual who determines the fate of the country.
On his style of politics:
Mark has long been known as an independent thinker who wouldn't hesitate to vote against his own party if he felt it was in his riding's best interest. Most notably, he objected to the Harper government's plan to eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly. He spoke out against the move and voted against a private members' bill on the subject in 2006.
Mark said Monday he never believed he had to support his leader on everything. "My style of doing politics is putting the people first," he said.
He also thinks the only reason he was not disciplined is because of his popularity in the riding and the unlikely chance the Conservatives would have won the riding if he was running against them as an independent.
"If they didn't need this seat I would have gotten the boot from the party a long time ago," he said.
The government caucus' man to sheep ratio has markedly decreased with Marky's resignation
Monday, August 16, 2010
Your Daily Nazi: More Paul Fromm In The News
PS. ARC challenges the notion that Fromm and the term "genteel" should be used in the same sentence.
Because There Is Such A Thing As Truth
At least, that's the mantra. Self-selection skews data. No one explains why coercion doesn't skew data the other way, or why doesn't it bother statisticians if it does, or why data can't be adjusted for self-selection when it can for most other things.
The answer to the last bit, about adjusting for self-selection, is of course that data can be adjusted for self-selection where you have census data to correct it with.
But its the first part that's most interesting. Jonas is suggesting, obliquely, that there is nothing but skew--skew this way, skew that way, the further implication being that these directions are "left" and "right", politically, and that statisticians tend towards socialism.
But of course that's not accurate: to any question about the demographics of an area, there is a correct answer, and you get that answer when you have managed to extract (via the mandatory long-form) a truly random sample from within that area (ie a sample that is unskewed). Underlying Jonas' argument, then, is an appeal to truth relativism.
Which, you would think, is weird coming from a Conservative, but perhaps more common than you might think.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Your Daily Nazi: Shame On CTV
CTV has really screwed up on this one: at least some background on the man behind "Canada First" should have been provided; it isn't like he's an unknown quantity.
Tony Clement Denies
Saturday, August 14, 2010
As We Move To a Voluntary Short Form Census
The Short Form Is Next
Make of it what you will.
Greg Rickford Retracts And Retreats
Friday, August 13, 2010
More Doubts On Pollstra Poll
Its my birthday, by the way. 47 years old on Friday the 13th. Turned 13 on Friday the 13th, too. So I am being lazy. Luckily, I am more a dispenser of bad luck than a recipient. I'm surprised there hasn't been an earthquake or rain of frogs today, killing everyone around me but leaving me to go through their wallets.
If you're thinking of coming into T.O. this evening, don't. If you live here, go to your cottage.
Who Paid For It?
Some speculation Smitherman might have commissioned it, to scare a few center/leftish votes his way. He sure won't win 'em with charm. Even his friends don't like him.
Quicky Update: More on Prime Contact here: essentially, it's a company that sells campaign services.
And another: Whoopsie! Global story now says Hamilton address is just for a post office box.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
In Which My Suspicions Are Confirmed
Will it be enough to deflect the court challenge? Does the FCFA ( La Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne) need just the three new questions to feel comfortable it can serve its members? Dunno.
And today we get the answer: nope. Which seems to make sense, because if you are in the business of supporting Canada's francophone community it's not enough to know who they are, but how they're doing with respect to the ethnic groups around them. All of which requires the long-form remaining mandatory.
Meanwhile, David Olive attempts to rally the business community to the pro-mandatory long-form cause. Although, frankly, I think the business community is already on side. Tony Clement's already admitting he's passing costs onto them by ditching the mandatory long-form. Isn't that like a tax on Capitalists?
David Hull And The CRU Emails
Put bluntly: the debates in climate science are a slappy-fest compared to the epic displays of general assholishness taxonomists got up to a few decades back.
And yet the system worked! From a comment at biologos:
As for scientists being "advocates" in terms of lobbying for their pet theory, sometimes irrationally - sure, in some ways that's a problem—but in other ways, this very thing is what drives science forward! Other scientists say "that yahoo can't be right" and try to shoot him down. The emotions, the quest for fame, the desire to be right, etc., are all part of the process. The process is very competitive, and might well work better when it is metaphorically "red in tooth and claw" like this, than when everyone is completely circumspect about every last thing. Read David Hull's classic "Science as a Process," for goodness sake.
But, you might say (like Judith Curry, for example): there is too much at stake policy-wise for this kind of thing to go on within climatology. It must change! However, as noted above (in a more general context) to force this kind of change might actually impede the progress of the field. Science can, like many human endeavours, be crippled by an excess of civility. Best let the girls fight it out and let the weak fall by the road-side.
No Pressure, Mr Bruinooge
….there's a massively prophetic generation [of Christians] arising, that will prophesy in different forms. They will be prophets and prophetesses like Faytene [Kryskow], like Rod Bruinooge, that will, you know be prophets for justice like the Old Testament prophets were. They will be prophets that like, you know, the Apostle Paul, in the body, out of the body, just revelation and visitations {of the Holy Spirit] and those kind. There's gonna be all kinds of them. That's what we wanna see.
The next CPoC leader? Harper won't be around forever, after all. Faytene Kryskow, by the way, is the gal that compared revivalists to the Hitler Youth--but in a good way.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Not Sure It Helps
1) Will it be enough to deflect the court challenge? Does the FCFA need just the three new questions to feel comfortable it can serve its members? Dunno.
2) Sure looks like the Tories are admitting a) a voluntary long form won't collect accurate enough information to satisfy the needs of the Canadian Francophone community and, by extension, everyone else; and b) their original changes were illegal.
3) Sure, remove the jail provision for the short-form and etc., while keeping them mandatory with punishment for non-compliance via fines or some such thing presumably. At least I'm assuming that's what the change amounts to and they're not saying they'll make the short-form voluntary. But then, why not make this change across the board? Remove the jail provision for the long-form, but keep it mandatory. Hey presto! Compromise!
4) The only thing this move accomplishes for sure is to keep the issue on the front pages for a bunch more news cycles. From government perspective, that's bone-headed.
Anyway, that's all I can think of now. More later, for sure.
A Good Point
John Baird, you said, on TV that you will get to the facts, so why has no-one contacted me from your office?
That's from four days ago.
Is this another one of those issues where determining what the facts are is unimportant to the government?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Veiled Flyers = Veiled Voters Redux!
Oh, goodness. It seems that Volpe is here to do more than just fill us in on what *his* committee has been doing -- his staffer just handed out copies of the current federal identity screening regulations -- SOR/2007-82 -- which are available on the Justice website, and which appear to show that there *is* no requirement that the gate security match the face to the photo identification, but the name on the boarding pass to the name on the id -- one government-issued photo id, or two government-issued ids that include name, date of birth and gender. Yeah, this is veiled voting all over again. Someone alert Chris Selley so he can mentally prepare himself for the semantic distortions that lie ahead.
...which kind of makes you wonder about all the anonymous airport staffers that told Brian Lilley's they were forced to ignore regs out of political correctness, especially since the reg they were told to ignore appears to be imaginary.
Here's the real reg here.
PS. And any attempt to change the reg will run up against the problem of non-Muslim men/women who turn up at an airport with no photo ID.
Something I Approve Of
Sop says Bourque. And who am I to dispute him? I still wouldn't vote for the guy, but I might try to crash his BBQ.
IFPS Leader Faces Racism Charges
And, if you recall, it was the Canadian-wing of the IFPS that arranged the infamous "Ann Coulter in Canada" tour, which I have written about on numerous occasions.
In fact, the IFPS-Canada's Ezra Levant (he is on their Board of Advisers) was there with Ann during her disastrous appearance at the University of Ottawa, when organizers failed to secure an appropriately sized venue, bungled the process of registering and admitting attendees, and then blamed "The Left" when things got out of hand and they were forced to cancel the speech.
In any case, Mr. Hedegaard is, as they say, in dutch with Danish authorities:
The chairman of the Freedom of the Press Society, Lars Hedegaard, has been charged with making racist remarks by the Public Prosecutor for Copenhagen.
The charge comes after Hedegaard on the blog site Snaphanen in December 2009 described rape as common in Muslim families, especially girls by their uncles, cousins or fathers.
The Copenhagen Post notes that numerous prominent members have abandoned the IFPS in the wake of Hedegaard's remarks; we'll see if the Canadian contingent is up to a similar display of class.
Incidentally, also on the Board of Advisers for the IFPS are Mark Steyn, and our own Kathy Shaidle, whose attempts to organize Canadian tea-baggers in London was similarly unsuccessful.
C'mon folks: step up and denounce!
Monday, August 09, 2010
Canada Is BACK!!!
Update: Looks like the PM brought Senator Duffy along with him. Looks like Duff's lost weight.
A Metaphor For So Many Things
According to Bourque, one of the hearses in this derby is being driven by Tory MP Stephen Blaney--the winner, in fact (there's a second part to the clip viewable at Youtube). What's this tell us about our current government? That its best at driving around backwards in a death-car, smashing stuff?
Sunday, August 08, 2010
BBC Apologises To University Of East Anglia
Go Read Steve V
Harper's chief advantage is evaporating before our eyes. The Conservatives are voluntarily eroding their own fiscal image, while simultaneously providing the Liberals with a free pass, to check off a few big ticket items of their own. Then the question becomes, just what expenditures are most important to Canadians. Planes and prisons, hardly a compelling "kitchen table" consideration, allowing for an interesting contrast. Neutered on the "big spending" front, obscure and distant on the allocation front, I'd say thanks for the massive opening if I'm a Liberal strategist
Arguably, we need some new planes, but yeah I can see how 10 Billion for invisible criminals could easily be repurposed to a more useful end.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
David Warren: Even His Retractions Need Retracting
Ontario Land Owners (OLO) Threatening Local Politicians With "Force"
"There is not one piece of legislation, there is not one order in council that can overrule your contract with the Crown because it is based on contract law."
In any case, the OLO recently wrote to a number of Ottawa-region politicians extolling the virtues of these land patents, often delivering these letters to their private residences. The response has been negative:
Article from the Renfrew Mercury Thursday July 29-2010
'Scary' OLA letter received for information only
Ontario Landowners Association is distributing personal letters to local heads of council that have some councillors concerned.
At council's July 22 regular meeting, Admaston-Bromley Councillor Sandra Crozier described the letter – which was delivered to Mayor Raye-Anne Briscoe's home in an envelope labelled 'private and confidential' – as "just too scary."
The OLA held a meeting in Eganville recently on the patents issue. More meetings are expected to be held in other communities to inform the public about their property rights. The OLA letter advises council that any violation of the Crown Land Patent Act "will be met with as much force as necessary to affect our purpose of upholding and enforcing those laws, rights and privileges."
This is not, incidentally, the first time folks within the landowners movment have threatened violence.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Bjørn Lomborg, Jim Skea Quit E&E Over Global Warming
Not sceptical enough for E&E, though; it turns out both Lomborg and Skea have recanted their associations with the magazine. From Sonja A Boehmer-Christiansen of the Climatesceptics mailing-list:
Two of my editorial board have resigned over E&E taking too strong a position on the climate science debate (Lomborg and Skea, both with much public exposure...
That message was from back in July. It was confirmed by this slightly more cryptic message from yesterday:
Lomborg has resigned from his (inactive) role as an editorial board member of E&E and explained that he could be closely associated with the sceptics. As far as I know, remembering his old ideas, he represents no real challenge to anybody since his alternative policies neither threaten or encourage anybody..the money is just not forthcoming as there are few links from his policy suggestions to the profit motive, or technological innovation, or political power.
I think this should read "could NOT be closely associated", but the message is clear in any case. Lomborg (and, I suppose, Skea) don't want to be associated with the denialist crowd anymore.
So there you have it.
Galactus Guest Post: Mea Culpa
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Signs O' The Times
The text version includes the phrase "Local smoke", which usually has other connotations out here on the West Coast.
Hamlet On The Don
What's Behind The Liberal Rebound?
Is it the census debacle? Maybe a little, in that its provided the Tories nothing but a month of bad news. Is it Iggy's summer tour? Maybe a little, in that the tour has provided Iggy with probably the most positive media coverage he's had since he became leader, and its always nice to have a captive bus-load of reporters before which to denounce the government's stupidity of the day.
But I think this
...is the elephant in the room, especially the last couple of data points where the line stops pointing up. Economic growth has not only slowed since March, its done so quite a bit faster than the Bank of Canada predicted. Now, our job numbers have been pretty good, but these tend to lag other indicators. Probably a fair whack of them were added on the assumption that the U.S. economy would pick up and we'd need those bodies to build stuff to sell to them. That assumption has not panned out. So who knows how long before they start being reversed? Maybe as soon as the employment report tomorrow. If not, then eventually: a more or less flat economy does not generate full-time positions for very long.
Anyway, I suspect people have looked around and discovered that things haven't got much better in the past six months or so.
Latest EKOS result here.
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Some Anonymous E-Mailer Tells Brian Lilley Muslims Were Up To Something
Brian Lilley, I'm telling you straight out: your stories are bullshit, and you a blind bullshitter. When Fox News North fails and I see you frying burgers next to Jonathon Kay at a McD's, I'm going to hassle you mercilessly.
A Brief Note From The Climate Wars: Klaus Heiss Dies
Klass was a true believer in the cause of commercial space and had worked hard to create a commercial shuttle capability.
In recent years, Heiss also took up the cause of climate change denial, and wound up on Inhofe's list, although one of his pet projects was a lunar based solar power system that might serve as the "low emission generation technology of the future". He was also a director at the SEPP, a denialist group founded by Fred Singer.
Never Seen A Figure He Couldn't Misquote
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Stockwell Day On Unreported Crime Stats
Police reporting rates remain stable
Rates of reporting violent incidents to the police remained stable between 1999 and 2004. In 1999, 31% of violent incidents were reported to the police, compared with 33% of incidents in 2004. This difference was not statistically significant.
Mind you, when it comes to overall reporting, Stock isn't entirely off his nut:
The GSS reveals that a large proportion of Canadians never reported criminal incidents to police. In all, only about 34% of criminal incidents came to the attention of police in 2004, down from 37% in 1999. Household victimization incidents were most likely to be reported (37%), while thefts of personal property were the least likely (31%).
I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether or not a three per cent drop in reported criminal incidents is "alarming".
This Is Gibberish
"Some basic is data is need. We haven't run into people or groups or agencies who have a concern with some very basic data," [Mr. Day] said. "The mandatory nature of criminalizing Canadians for not wanting to give the more extensive data in the long form is simply not tenable and that's why we are doing away with it."
Apparently, the news conference did not go well.
More Pro-Census Communism
"As our society becomes more complex it is important that detailed questionnaires be maintained so that a range of comparative and trend analyses can be done," said Andy Manahan, executive director of RCCAO.
And Alex Carrick, chief economist for CanaData, puts his finger on the real Census scandal:
...Canadians still deserve freer and easier access to StatsCan and CANSIM information, especially as the world moves more to an information based economy. He did say that a lot of construction activity can take place based on the finer details collected through the census.
...which is that you have to pay through the nose for the information. You start looking around for data products on the StatsCan website and you keep tripping over price lists. Blame Mulroney for that. In any case, corresponding material the U.S. is much less expensive, and hence American web entrepreneurs have been able to do all sorts of interesting things with their census data that are us too damn expensive to attempt up here.


text:
Filter Conditions
Rsyslog offers four different types "filter conditions":
"traditional" severity and facility based selectors
property-based filters
expression-based filters
BSD-style blocks (not upward compatible)
Selectors are the traditional way of filtering syslog messages. They
have been kept in rsyslog with their original syntax, because it is
well-known, highly effective and also needed for compatibility with
stock syslogd configuration files. If you just need to filter based on
priority and facility, you should do this with selector lines. They are not second-class citizens in rsyslog and offer the simplest syntax
for this job. In versions of rsyslog prior to v7 there were significant
performance gains by using selector lines instead of the advanced
format. There is no longer any difference in performance between the two
The selector field itself again consists of two parts, a facility and a priority, separated by a period (".''). Both parts are case insensitive and can also be specified as decimal numbers, but don't do that, you have been warned. Both facilities and priorities are described in syslog(3). The names mentioned below correspond to the similar LOG_-values in /usr/include/syslog.h.
The facility is one of the following keywords: auth, authpriv, cron, daemon, kern, lpr, mail, mark, news, security (same as auth), syslog, user, uucp and local0 through local7. The keyword security should not be used anymore and mark is only for internal use and therefore should not be used in applications. Anyway, you may want to specify and redirect these messages here. The facility specifies the subsystem that produced the message, i.e. all mail programs log with the mail facility (LOG_MAIL) if they log using syslog.
The priority is one of the following keywords, in ascending order: debug, info, notice, warning, warn (same as warning), err, error (same as err), crit, alert, emerg, panic (same as emerg). The keywords error, warn and panic are deprecated and should not be used anymore. The priority defines the severity of the message.
The behavior of the original BSD syslogd is that all messages of the specified priority and higher are logged according to the given action. Rsyslogd behaves the same, but has some extensions.
In addition to the above mentioned names the rsyslogd(8) understands the following extensions: An asterisk ("*'') stands for all facilities or all priorities, depending on where it is used (before or after the period). The keyword none stands for no priority of the given facility. You can specify multiple facilities with the same priority pattern in one statement using the comma (",'') operator. You may specify as much facilities as you want. Remember that only the facility part from such a statement is taken, a priority part would be skipped.
Multiple selectors may be specified for a single action using the semicolon (";'') separator. Remember that each selector in the selector field is capable to overwrite the preceding ones. Using this behavior you can exclude some priorities from the pattern.
Rsyslogd has a syntax extension to the original BSD source, that makes the use of selectors use more intuitively. You may precede every priority with an equals sign ("='') to specify only this single priority and not any of the above. You may also (both is valid, too) precede the priority with an exclamation mark ("!'') to ignore all that priorities, either exact this one or this and any higher priority. If you use both extensions then the exclamation mark must occur before the equals sign, just use it intuitively.
However, please note that there are some restrictions over the traditional BSD syslog behaviour. These restrictions stem back to sysklogd, exist probably since at least the 1990's and as such have always been in rsyslog.
Namely, in BSD syslogd you can craft a selector like this:
The intent is to log all facilities at debug or higher, except for local6, which should only log at err or higher.
Unfortunately, local6.err will permit error severity and higher, but will not exclude lower sevrity messages from facility local6.
As an alternative, you can explicitely exclude all severities that you do not want to match. For the above case, this selector is equivalent to the BSD syslog selector:
An easier approach is probably to do if … then based matching in script.
Property-Based Filters
Property-based filters are unique to rsyslogd. They allow to filter on any property, like HOSTNAME, syslogtag and msg. A list of all currently-supported properties can be found in the rsyslog properties documentation. With this filter, each property can be checked against a specified value, using a specified compare operation.
A property-based filter must start with a colon in column 1. This tells rsyslogd that it is the new filter type. The colon must be followed by the property name, a comma, the name of the compare operation to carry out, another comma and then the value to compare against. This value must be quoted. There can be spaces and tabs between the commas. Property names and compare operations are case-sensitive, so "msg" works, while "MSG" is an invalid property name. In brief, the syntax is as follows:
:property, [!]compare-operation, "value"
The following compare-operations are currently supported:
- contains
Checks if the string provided in value is contained in the property. There must be an exact match, wildcards are not supported.
- isequal
Compares the "value" string provided and the property contents. These two values must be exactly equal to match. The difference to contains is that contains searches for the value anywhere inside the property value, whereas all characters must be identical for isequal. As such, isequal is most useful for fields like syslogtag or FROMHOST, where you probably know the exact contents.
- startswith
Checks if the value is found exactly at the beginning of the property value. For example, if you search for "val" with
:msg, startswith, "val"
it will be a match if msg contains "values are in this message" but it won't match if the msg contains "There are values in this message" (in the later case, "contains" would match). Please note that "startswith" is by far faster than regular expressions. So even once they are implemented, it can make very much sense (performance-wise) to use "startswith".
- regex
Compares the property against the provided POSIX BRE regular expression.
- ereregex
Compares the property against the provided POSIX ERE regular expression.
You can use the bang-character (!) immediately in front of a compare-operation, the outcome of this operation is negated. For example, if msg contains "This is an informative message", the following sample would not match:
:msg, contains, "error"
but this one matches:
:msg, !contains, "error"
Using negation can be useful if you would like to do some generic processing but exclude some specific events. You can use the discard action in conjunction with that. A sample would be:
*.* /var/log/allmsgs-including-informational.log
:msg, contains, "informational" ~
*.* /var/log/allmsgs-but-informational.log
Do not overlook the tilde in line 2! In this sample, all messages are written to the file allmsgs-including-informational.log. Then, all messages containing the string "informational" are discarded. That means the config file lines below the "discard line" (number 2 in our sample) will not be applied to this message. Then, all remaining lines will also be written to the file allmsgs-but-informational.log.
Value Part
Value is a quoted string. It supports some escape sequences:
- \" - the quote character (e.g. "String with \"Quotes\"")
\\ - the backslash character (e.g. "C:\\tmp")
Escape sequences always start with a backslash. Additional escape sequences might be added in the future. Backslash characters must be escaped. Any other sequence then those outlined above is invalid and may lead to unpredictable results.
Probably, "msg" is the most prominent use case of property based filters. It is the actual message text. If you would like to filter based on some message content (e.g. the presence of a specific code), this can be done easily by:
:msg, contains, "ID-4711"
This filter will match when the message contains the string "ID-4711". Please note that the comparison is case-sensitive, so it would not match if "id-4711" would be contained in the message.
:msg, regex, "fatal .* error"
This filter uses a POSIX regular expression. It matches when the string contains the words "fatal" and "error" with anything in between (e.g. "fatal net error" and "fatal lib error" but not "fatal error" as two spaces are required by the regular expression!).
Getting property-based filters right can sometimes be challenging. In order to help you do it with as minimal effort as possible, rsyslogd spits out debug information for all property-based filters during their evaluation. To enable this, run rsyslogd in foreground and specify the "-d" option.
Boolean operations inside property based filters (like 'message contains "ID17" or message contains "ID18"') are currently not supported (except for "not" as outlined above). Please note that while it is possible to query facility and severity via property-based filters, it is far more advisable to use classic selectors (see above) for those cases.
Expression-Based Filters
Expression based filters allow filtering on arbitrary complex expressions, which can include boolean, arithmetic and string operations. Expression filters will evolve into a full configuration scripting language. Unfortunately, their syntax will slightly change during that process. So if you use them now, you need to be prepared to change your configuration files some time later. However, we try to implement the scripting facility as soon as possible (also in respect to stage work needed). So the window of exposure is probably not too long.
Expression based filters are indicated by the keyword "if" in column 1 of a new line. They have this format:
if expr then action-part-of-selector-line
"if" and "then" are fixed keywords that must be present. "expr" is a (potentially quite complex) expression. So the expression documentation for details. "action-part-of-selector-line" is an action, just as you know it (e.g. "/var/log/logfile" to write to that file).
BSD-style Blocks
Note: rsyslog v7+ no longer supports BSD-style blocks for technical reasons. So it is strongly recommended not to use them.
Rsyslogd supports BSD-style blocks inside rsyslog.conf. Each block of lines is separated from the previous block by a program or hostname specification. A block will only log messages corresponding to the most recent program and hostname specifications given. Thus, a block which selects 'ppp' as the program, directly followed by a block that selects messages from the hostname 'dialhost', then the second block will only log messages from the ppp program on dialhost.
A program specification is a line beginning with '!prog' and the following blocks will be associated with calls to syslog from that specific program. A program specification for 'foo' will also match any message logged by the kernel with the prefix 'foo: '. Alternatively, a program specification '-foo' causes the following blocks to be applied to messages from any program but the one specified. A hostname specification of the form '+hostname' and the following blocks will be applied to messages received from the specified hostname. Alternatively, a hostname specification '-hostname' causes the following blocks to be applied to messages from any host but the one specified. If the hostname is given as '@', the local hostname will be used. (NOT YET IMPLEMENTED) A program or hostname specification may be reset by giving the program or hostname as '*'.
Please note that the "#!prog", "#+hostname" and "#-hostname" syntax available in BSD syslogd is not supported by rsyslogd. By default, no hostname or program is set.
*.* /var/log/file1 # the traditional way
if $msg contains 'error' then /var/log/errlog # the expression-based way
Right now, you need to specify numerical values if you would like to check for facilities and severity. These can be found in RFC 5424. If you don't like that, you can of course also use the textual property - just be sure to use the right one. As expression support is enhanced, this will change. For example, if you would like to filter on message that have facility local0, start with "DEVNAME" and have either "error1" or "error0" in their message content, you could use the following filter:
if $syslogfacility-text == 'local0' and $msg startswith 'DEVNAME' and ($msg contains 'error1' or $msg contains 'error0') then /var/log/somelog
Please note that the above must all be on one line! And if you would like to store all messages except those that contain "error1" or "error0", you just need to add a "not":
if $syslogfacility-text == 'local0' and $msg startswith 'DEVNAME' and not ($msg contains 'error1' or $msg contains 'error0') then /var/log/somelog
If you would like to do case-insensitive comparisons, use "contains_i" instead of "contains" and "startswith_i" instead of "startswith". Note that regular expressions are currently NOT supported in expression-based filters. These will be added later when function support is added to the expression engine (the reason is that regular expressions will be a separate loadable module, which requires some more prerequisites before it can be implemented).
See also
Help with configuring/using Rsyslog
Mailing list - best route for general questions
GitHub: rsyslog source project - detailed questions, reporting issues that are believed to be bugs with
See also
Contributing to Rsyslog
Source project: rsyslog project README.
Documentation: rsyslog-doc project README
Copyright 2008-2023 Rainer Gerhards (Großrinderfeld), and Others.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Friday 18 November 2011
New Higgs combination is out
Nevertheless, it's the chronicler's duty to report: the Standard Model Higgs is excluded at 95% confidence level for all masses between 141 GeV and 476 GeV.
Meanwhile, ATLAS and CMS have already had the first look at the full data set. Continuing the Soviet analogy, an uneasy rumor is starting among the working class and the lower-ranked party officials. Is the first secretary dead? Or on life support? Or, if he's all right, why he's not showing in public? We expect an official update for the 21st Congress of the Communist Party, sorry, the December CERN Council week. And wild speculations on Twitter well before that :-)
See the public note for more details about the combination.
9 comments:
at least a face could be seen in a Kremlin window that looked like the first secretary.
(there is a 2-sigma excess at 120GeV) - 18 November 2011 at 11:21
- Alejandro Rivero said...
The point of having all the line off by two sigma up to the top quark, can not be a hint of topcolor or some ETC? Or some special new role for the top.
- 18 November 2011 at 13:43
- Marco Frasca said...
Standard model Higgs is dead and buried. But if such a field exists and is strongly coupled, as seems to emerge from the high mass excess, then it is supersymmetric: We will kill two birds with a stone.
- 18 November 2011 at 15:35
- Jester said...
I don't think this plot shows much hint in any of these directions. If anything, that the background is not under perfect control.
- 18 November 2011 at 18:06
- Marco Frasca said...
Sorry for the imprudence but I happened to read in all official CERN reports and talks that ATLAS, and only ATLAS, sees an excess at high mass. I agree with your view about background and this matter on Higgs is becoming every day even more exciting. Speedy neutrinos are just hiding all this. - 19 November 2011 at 14:33
- Neil Bates said...
I don't think the Higgs will be found. I don't have a specific justification, but the case just doesn't seem convincing as I can gather, and negative results keep piling up.
- 19 November 2011 at 17:42
- David Brown said...
Consider 6 questions: Does the Higgs mechanism explain how mass occurs in nature? If the Higgs mechanism doesn't work, then what does explain how mass occurs in nature? If there is no Higgs mechanism in nature, then would that imply that supersymmetry might not occur in nature? Does SUSY occur in the form of particles? Does SUSY occur in nature in any form whatsoever? If the Higgs boson does not exist, then what are the best questions to ask?
- 21 November 2011 at 13:23
what you are saying is, scientifically speaking, absolutely wrong! Science isn't a matter of opinion (the Popes thought Galileo and Darwin were wrong, science proved otherwise).
We may not find a Higgs boson, it's in the cards, but so far all the indirect signs tell us something very much like it must be there. - 21 November 2011 at 14:49
could someone explain to me if this is found and confirmed what the future will hold or could, and how it will change life as we know it globally
joshua -canada - 5 December 2011 at 03:16


text:
Let's face it – this is what we're all striving for, right? We want to be acknowledged as an expert in our field. We want customers to recognize our expertise so they'll trust us with their dollars. We want bloggers and reporters to see us as an expert so they'll use as a source and send traffic our way. And, of course, we want Google to think we're an expert so it'll deliver new eyes and more conversions. We're all fighting the expert game. But how do we really become one?
I'm often asked how small business owners should go about building their expertise online. Below is an expanded version of the answer I often give.
1. Be different
The first step of being known as an expert is being known at all. And to do that, you need to stand out. Identify what is different or a little bit kooky about your business, and then bleed it from everything pore available. Now, before you go crazy, simply being weird isn't enough. You have to be weird in a way that serves your audience. What is weird about you that helps them achieve their goals? How does your uniqueness make you better suited to serve their needs? That's your point of difference.
If you don't know what your POD is, ask your audience. Why do they do business with you? What keeps them coming back? You may be surprised at what they tell you.
2. Tell stories
Consistently tell stories about your brand and your industry. This is how people will connect with you and how you'll become memorable. Share yourself, get personal, and tie it back to your customers' goals.
From a brand perspective – create content that shows your POD in action. Tell stories that demonstrate how you do business, post photos of your consumers interacting with your products. Make sure these items are easy to find and to share. Craft stories about your industry by creating characters out of the biggest players, highlighting issues, and setting your brand up as the solution. If you're not looking at how to incorporate storytelling into your marketing, you're making it harder for people to remember your name and what you're about.
3. Build relationships
Become an expert networker. If you know someone who should know someone else, connect them. If there's a blogger whose radar you want to get on, connect with them. Comment on their blog and offer a helpful tip, help them solve a problem they're dealing with, connect them to a person in your network you think they should know. Little by little these "acts of goodwill" will help you to create powerful relationships that you'll be able to leverage in the future. Be nice and helpful to everyone you meet. Partly because there will comes a time when your generosity will pay off and, also, because it's just a good way to be.
4. Talk about your industry, not yourself
Write more about your industry and the world around you than you do about your own products or services. If someone is interested in learning about your product offerings, they can find that information on their own. Instead, pique their interest by talking smartly about the things they're concerned about. If you sell green-related technology, focus on the issues your audience is passionate about and share your stance. Set yourself up as a thought leader and become part of the conversations that are happening around. The more you're seen talking about the key issues related to your industry, the more you'll be perceived as an expert by those around you.
5. Be seen
Once you identify what it is you want to be known for, be seen talking about it. Don't be a wallflower. Guest blog on other sites, participate in online conversations, attend conferences, and get your voice and your opinion out wherever you can. You'd be surprise how much of "becoming an expert" is really about "being seen talking about stuff". It's somewhat sad to point out but the more you're seen, the more apt people will be to put you on the pedestal.
6. Show results
Of course, you'll have to be able to do more than just talk. You'll also need to prove your salt by showing your results. Post case studies showing how you helped Client X increase their revenue by 200 percent in the year they worked with you. Post client testimonials that explain how your product made their life easier. Document your success and share it in the form of helpful tips and tactics that others can learn from. Collect information and share it with your entire industry so everyone can benefit from it.
7. Keep learning
Once you achieve a certain level of success it becomes pretty easy to keep talking about what you've done instead of doing new stuff. The trouble with that is eventually you'll run out of things to talk about or the topics you want to talk (ie the same old things) about won't be as valuable anymore. In your efforts to be seen as expert, don't forget to keep learning what you're trying to become an expert in. That's how you'll expand upon your thought leadership, it's how you'll keep getting invited back to the table, and it's how you'll, ultimately, be able to better serve your customers. You can be seen as an expert all you want – if you can't back it up, eventually you'll customers will realize and leave you.
8. Be humble
Resist the urge to drink your own Kool-aid by focusing on giving back to others. Instead of patting yourself on the back, lift others up instead. Not only will it make you a more attractive person to be around, you'll also be building valuable connections that you'll be able to use in the future. Because no one becomes an expert on their own. They do it with the help of everyone around them.
Above are tips I would give to anyone trying to increase their expertise online. What'd I miss?
Businessman Photo via Shutterstock


text:
Researchers in Delft University of Technology?s Kavli Institute of Nanoscience in The Netherlands have cast new light on the workings of the important cancer inhibitor topotecan. Little had been known about the underlying molecular mechanism, but the Delft scientists can now view the effects of the medicine live at the levelin of a single DNA molecule.
The research is being published this week in the journal Nature. The lead author of the article, Daniel Koster, will receive his PhD at TU Delft on Monday June 25, partly on the results described in the article.
The medicine investigated, topotecan, interacts with an important protein (TopoIB), causing a (cancer) cell to malfunction. The TopoIB protein is responsible for the removal of loops from DNA, which arise amongst other things during cell division. The TopoIB protein binds to the DNA molecule, clamps around it and cuts one of the two DNA strands, after which it allows it to unwind and finally joins the broken ends together. Until now it has been supposed that topotecan only causes the TopoIB protein to reside longer than normal on the DNA molecule, disturbing the cell division and damaging the (cancer) cell. But the Delft researchers have now discovered to their surprise that adding topotecan also dramatically impedes the unwinding and that DNA loops accumulate as a result. The accumulation of these DNA loops forms the basis for an alternative mechanism, and could help in the development of better cancer medicine.
PhD candidate Daniel Koster, Master?s student Elisa Bot and researcher Nynke Dekker of the Molecular Biophysics group of the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft have managed to unravel this mechanism in an extremely direct manner. In the laboratory they fixed a single DNA molecule between a glass plate and a magnetic sphere. With the help of two magnets they could both pull and twist the DNA molecule. When they added TopoIB to a twisted piece of DNA, they saw that the loops were slowly removed. What is exceptional is that the action of one TopoIB enzyme on one DNA molecule could be observed live. In collaboration with St. Jude Children?s Research Hospital Memphis (USA) the mechanism could also be observed in living yeast cells.


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Introducing GlycoJect™ – Evogen Nutrition's Elite Pre working- during workout - & Post-Workout Carbohydrate Loading Solution. This unique, pre- and post-workout carbohydrate loading and nutrient shuttling formula is the perfect performance-booster for virtually any athlete!
- Bodybuilders and physique athletes: GlycoJect is the perfect carb-loading formula to give your muscles that round, full, skin-splitting look. The nutrient-driving and volumizing properties of GlycoJect's elite formula will "pull" water into muscles for maximum fullness, pump and hardness.
- Cyclists, marathon runners, triathletes and other endurance athletes: Use GlycoJect to "carb-load" the night before the big race, to drive carbs and performance-boosting nutrients into muscle cells.
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Glycogen is the primary nutrient fuel source for working muscles. It is depleted quickly during intense training, causing a dramatic decline in ongoing optimal athletic performance. The hyper-volumizing, nutrient delivery complex in GlycoJect is specifically designed to accelerate the uptake of glycogen and muscle-building nutrients into muscle cells to enhance performance and fuel maximum growth and recovery.


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Understanding human exposure to tuberculosis and related diseases
Transmission and exposure are among the most poorly understood aspects of bacterial disease. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a globally important microbial pathogen, and related environmental mycobacteria are useful models for understanding how infectious diseases emerge and spread. Molecular and epidemiological methods are being used to characterize the host, pathogen, and environmental factors involved in the acquisition of mycobacterial infections.
Faculty Involved
Health Topics


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Cleaning Service Funding
Francis Weah Lending & Development Group help a variety of businesses of different sizes and types. We are committed to helping all of our customers find the funding and assistance in business that will result in success across the board. You may find yourself in sudden need of cleaning service business funding that banks won't be able to help with. This is where Francis Weah Lending & Development Group comes in. We can help you to connect you and your dreams by providing you the funding to get there.
Industrial Cleaning Service Funding from Francis Weah Lending & Development Group.
Cleaning service business funding may not always be easy to get from a traditional bank or lender. You'll have to go through many different kinds of hoops and meet multiple requirements before you'll even be considered. Your situation may be so unique that a bank may not be willing to grant you funding over a certain period of time.
If your business is focused on the industrial markets, we know that it can sometimes be difficult to find the necessary financing to purchase equipment and resources to give your clients the best possible results. You may be working in highly destructive or dangerous environments, such as in factories and industries or in the demolition and salvage of homes and structures, but we know that you are committed to providing the best possible results that you can.
If you are finding yourself in sudden need of financial funding to keep your business going, especially in off-season months, we can help you to get through to the next lucrative season. Industrial cleaning business funding can be difficult to find on your own if you go through traditional banking and lending systems. They have much stricter regulations and requirements that will often rule out many legitimate businesses trying to get funding.
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Increasingly sophisticated medical equipment requires an equally sophisticated approach to construction of medical facilities. A six-story expansion at the Danderyd Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, is a good example.
The new facility features stainless steel beams provided by Outokumpu – and that's critically important news to patients undergoing diagnostic testing. In this application, stainless steel beams are being used to strengthen an extension of a six-story building. Compared to ordinary carbon steel, says Anders Finnås, Segment Business Manager, Architecture, Building & Construction, stainless steel generates significantly fewer magnetic disturbances. Because of its low magnetism, stainless steel is a better match in applications like hospitals and clinics where magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment is used.
Delivering added value
Tailor-made plates of Outokumpu stainless steel were produced at Outokumpu's Quarto Plate Europe (QPE) mill in Degerfors, Sweden.
Specializing in quarto plate in high performance stainless grades, Degerfors is uniquely well equipped to produce beams like those used in the Danderyd project. From the QPE mill, the plates went to Outokumpu PSC Nordic, also in Degerfors, for final processing. "The close cooperation between QPE and PSC Nordic enabled us to secure this added value order," Finnås says, "where we offered a final, tailor-made product to our customer, instead of just plates."
Customized for efficiency
Seven nine-ton beams measuring 1 meter by 9 meters were tailored to precise requirements at PSC Nordic. After final cutting, the beams were assembled and welded into finished, construction-ready sections.
During construction, a tailor-made material delivers measurable cost savings. Welding and assembly progresses quickly and efficiently, creating a process as transparent as a sophisticated diagnostic exam.


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International projects
For the last 20 years BSI's International Projects team has been working in more than 50 developing countries and transition economies to deliver technical assistance projects. These projects improve their quality infrastructure systems and help them follow best practice. We work with their institutions responsible for standardization; certification and conformity assessment; testing laboratories; metrology; accreditation; market surveillance; consumer protection; technical regulation; and quality control, as well as SMEs, to help them do this.
Funded by donors, the technical assistance projects cover a wide range of sectors including manufacturing and processing, construction, food safety, medical devices, chemicals, environment, energy and low carbon technology, ICT, services, procurement and governance.
Our team is made up of experienced development specialists, project managers and international consultants, who carry out a range of activities including providing policy advice and recommendations, organizing specialized seminars and workshops, undertaking studies, and drafting updated legislation and regulations.
Ultimately our goal is to help countries introduce the standards that they need to compete and trade in global markets.


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cross process
June 25, 2007
The other week I had a roll of film from my old Russian box camera cross-processed, which essentially means 'deliberately processed in the wrong chemicals' (in this case, I asked the shop to process my normal negative film in slide film chemicals). Consequently, the colours are all wrong in a strangely pleasing way. A couple of my favourites are above.


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Nic Fanciulli
Thursday November 10, 2022
Friday Is A Holiday
at Fifty Eight
International DJ, Grammy-nominated producer, and owner of Saved Records.
Nic Fanciulli is a DJ, producer and label owner who has remained one of the UK's finest exports in electronic music throughout the last decade. One of the last DJs to break through to international acclaim on the strength of his DJ'ing alone, Nic has since gone on to establish his own imprint, Saved Records, a label that remains proudly at the forefront of electronic music today. An important purveyor of international, underground house and techno, Saved has become a global brand, renowned for cutting-edge releases and standout events around the globe. In early 2014 Saved celebrated their 100th release. No easy achievement in the modern climate, which was marked by a special release and tour, delivering a mixture of the biggest names in dance music alongside a selection of the hottest emerging talent around – highlighting the ethos that the label has always stayed true to throughout the years.
A Grammy-nominated producer in his own right, Nic has worked with artists as diverse as Underworld, Kylie Minogue, U.N.K.L.E, Loco Dice, Josh Wink Hot Natured, and Tracey Thorn. He's also produced a plethora of solo tracks that have received huge critical acclaim in addition to unleashing a heady collection of memorable remixes, including his recent rework of Hot Natured's 'Benediction'. Nic is responsible for a high output of a sleek, intelligent yet driving strain of house and techno, and is famed for his compilation CDs, having completed mixes for Renaissance, Global Underground, Balance, and most recently Defected's In The House series in 2014.
Despite becoming a household name in his early twenties, Nic has always maintained a humble and down to earth approach throughout his career. Bearing a strong connection to his hometown of Maidstone and its people, Nic has been staging stellar events there throughout his whole career, perhaps none so proudly as when unveiling his own bespoke festival, The Social in summer 2013. But it is his genuine and unreserved love for the scene and bringing through new talent that has given Nic the longevity to remain at the top for so long.
www.nicfanciulli.com ::: www.savedrecords.com ::: www.thesocialfestival.com
Local Dj TBA


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7 Tips to Improve Customer Satisfaction Through Technology
It's a computerized age, and innovation assumes a loves hidden policy significant part in regular human existence. Figure out how tech can assist organizations with further developing consumer loyalty and collaborate with individuals at a higher degree of personalization. One of the main brand values is consumer loyalty. It's the consequence of all connections the client has with an organization on the web. The best and ground breaking brands approach their web architecture, versatile experience, and online openness considering client centricity, as a matter of some importance. Luckily, present day innovation can assist with overhauling suppliers address client needs significantly more effectively. It can empower a brand to turn into a decent audience, know about all client needs, meet them on the right stages, and convey the best arrangements convenient. Continue to peruse to more deeply study innovations, devices, and significant practices that will assist your image with


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I am in the midst of writing an essay for Nature Chemistry - about why people are so curious about stereotypes of scientists, but seem less so about other fields. There is the DAST (draw a scientist test), but not as far as I can discover similar instruments to assess the images of other professions. Where are the DATTs (draw a teacher test) and DACTs (draw a chef test)? On the other end of the cultural spectrum there is the Big Bang Theory.
The earliest anthropological study I can find dates to the late 1950s and is by Margaret Mead (yes, that Margaret Mead) and Rhoda Metraux under the auspices of the AAAS. They analyzed thousands of essays, drawn from a set of 35,000 written by US high school students. The 1 page essays were written in response to one of three prompts. Prompt I read "When I think about a scientist, I think of..."
What took my breath away was Prompt II (italics are not mine, but as given in Mead's original paper - Science 126, 384-390 (1957)):
If you are a boy, complete the following statement in your own words.Math Man points out that I did both.
If I were going to be a scientist, I should like to be the kind of scientist who...
If you are a girl, you may complete either the sentence above or this one:
If I were going to marry a scientist, I should like to marry the kind of scientist who..."
UPDATE: So there is a draw-a-teacher test (DATt) (H/T to Neil who commented on drawing God - another area that has been explored by educators and psychologists)
Images are from K.D. Finson, J.B. Beaver, B.L. Cramond, "Development and Field Test of a Checklist for the Draw-A-Scientist Test" School Science and Mathematics 95, p. 195 (1995).


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Here are two equivalent definitions of P/poly.
- A language L is in P/poly if there is a language A in P and a set of advice strings {a0,a1,…} such that |an|≤nO(1) and x is in L if and only if (x,a|x|) is in A.
- There is a family of circuits {C0,C1,…} such that |Cn|≤nO(1) and for all n and all x=x1…xn, x is in L if and only if Cn(x1,…,xn) accepts.
Here are just a few areas where P/poly plays a crucial role.
- Combinatorial Approach to P versus NP: Karp and Lipton show that if NP is in P/poly then the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses. So one approach popular in the 80's to show P≠NP tried to show an NP problem did not have polynomial-size circuits. Razborov shows the clique problem did not have polynomial-size monotone circuits.
- Derandomization: Nisan and Wigderson show that hardness against nonuniform classes can give us pseudorandom-number generators. Building on their work, Babai, Fortnow, Nisan and Wigderson show that if EXP is not in P/poly then BPP can be simulated in subexponential time on infinitely many input lengths.
- Cryptography: Often security is defined against P/poly adversaries to capture extraneous information in the system.
- Learning Theory: Learning polynomial circuits would be the Mecca of learning theory. Can't be done in the usual models unless factoring is easy. Bshouty et. al. show we can learn circuits probabilistically with an NP-oracle and hypothesis queries.


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Prior to the first game played by each of the new teams, a draft was held the year before for the new teams to attempt to put together a roster of players for the next season. The rules for the availability of players changed slightly from 1962 to 1998, but what was common was the opportunity for the new teams to decide which players they could use from the existing teams in MLB. Over a series of 14 posts, I will review the expansion drafts of each of these newer 14 teams. Included are trades made following the draft and which players were taken first overall. Without further due, here is a recap of the 1968 expansion draft for the New York Mets.
After the American League expanded two teams for the 1961 season, the National League was prepared to do the same. A team was added to Houston and an NL team was returned to the New York area. The draft consisted of three phases, a regular phase consisting of 32 picks, from unprotected players on all National League teams. While no more than four players can be taken off of one team, there was no limit to how often you can select a player from any one team. Because of that the first two picks, SS Eddie Bressoud and C Hobie Landrith, came from the San Francisco Giants. Of course, that meant both the Colt 45s and Mets could only select two Giants for the remaining 30 picks of the first phase of the draft. Each player selected in the first regular phase cost the drafting team $75,000 a player. The second phase consisted of the next 5 picks, which cost the selecting team $50,000 per player.
Following that phase, the teams had a premium phase of the draft. Each selection on this level cost the selecting team $100,000. A total of 8 players went in this phase. Overall, the Colt 45s ended up with 23 new players while the Mets winded up with 22.
Like I already mentioned, the Colt 45s started off by taking SS Eddie Bressoud from the Giants. The Mets followed by selecting Landrith, also from the Giants. The Mets next selection was Cincinnati Reds infielder Elio Chacon (4th), followed by RHP Roger Craig from the Los Angeles Dodgers (6th), Reds OF Gus Bell (8th), Pittsburgh Pirates OF Joe Chistopher (10th) and Milwaukee Braves infielder Felix Mantilla (12th). The Mets next took Los Angeles Dodgers 1B Gil Hodges (14th). They selected pitchers in the next two picks, talking Craig Anderson from the St Louis Cardinals (16th) and Ray Daviault from the Giants (18th).
The Mets followed up those players by taking LHP Al Jackson from the Pirates (20th), Chicago Cubs infielder Sammy Drake (22nd) and Cardinals catcher Chris Cannizzaro (24th). The Mets finished up the first phase of the draft by taking Phillies catcher Choo Choo Coleman (26th), Cubs 1B Ed Bouchee (28th) and Phillies OF Bobby Gene Smith (30th).
The Colt 45s took both the first selection and the final selection of the regular phase 2nd round. During this round, the players selected would cost the drafting team $50,000 as opposed to $75,000. The Mets took pitcher Sherman Jones from the Reds (34th) and OF Jim Hickman from the Cardinals (36th).
The final round of the NL's first ever expansion draft allowed the teams to draft more players, but at a cost of $125,000 per player. This was called the premium phase. The Colt 45s had both the last pick of the 2nd regular phase and the first pick of the premium phase. The Mets next took RHP Jay Hook from the Reds (39th). In this round the Mets also added pitcher Bob Miller from Cardinals (41st) and infielders Don Zimmer from the Dodgers (43rd) and Lee Walls from the Phillies (45th). The following is the entire Mets expansion draft recap:
Regular Phase, $75,000 per player
PickPlayerPositionSelected byPrevious team
2Hobie LandrithCatcherNew York MetsSan Francisco Giants
4Elio ChacónInfielderNew York MetsCincinnati Reds
6Roger CraigPitcherNew York MetsLos Angeles Dodgers
8Gus BellOutfielderNew York MetsCincinnati Reds
10Joe ChristopherOutfielderNew York MetsPittsburgh Pirates
12Félix MantillaInfielderNew York MetsMilwaukee Braves
14Gil HodgesFirst basemanNew York MetsLos Angeles Dodgers
16Craig AndersonPitcherNew York MetsSt. Louis Cardinals
18Ray DaviaultPitcherNew York MetsSan Francisco Giants
20John DeMeritOutfielderNew York MetsMilwaukee Braves
22Al JacksonPitcherNew York MetsPittsburgh Pirates
24Sammy DrakeInfielderNew York MetsChicago Cubs
26Chris CannizzaroCatcherNew York MetsSt. Louis Cardinals
28Choo Choo ColemanCatcherNew York MetsPhiladelphia Phillies
30Ed BoucheeFirst basemanNew York MetsChicago Cubs
32Bobby Gene SmithOutfielderNew York MetsPhiladelphia Phillies
Regular Phase, $50,000 per player
PickPlayerPositionSelected byPrevious team
34Sherman JonesPitcherNew York MetsCincinnati Reds
36Jim HickmanOutfielderNew York MetsSt. Louis Cardinals
Premium Phase, $125,000 per player
PickPlayerPositionSelected byPrevious team
39Jay HookPitcherNew York MetsCincinnati Reds
41Bob MillerPitcherNew York MetsSt. Louis Cardinals
43Don ZimmerInfielderNew York MetsChicago Cubs
45Lee WallsInfielder/OutfielderNew York MetsPhiladelphia Phillies
The Mets purchased RHP Billy Loes from the Giants and signed free agent catcher Joe Ginsberg from the Chicago White Sox. Prior to the draft, the Mets acquired 3B/OF Frank Thomas from the Braves, with a player to be named later for a player to be named later. The Mets sent Gus Bell to the Braves for Rich Herrscher to complete the deal. They also purchased catcher Harry Chiti from the Cleveland Indians. New York then traded Bobby Gene Smith to the Cardinals for Sammy Taylor. After the season started, the Mets traded their first selection of the draft, Landrith, to the Orioles for 1B Marv Throneberry.
To finish off the opening day roster, the Mets purchased former Phillies star OF Richie Ashburn from the Cubs and traded Lee Walls to the Dodgers to get veteran 2B Charlie Neal. This was the first ever lineup assembled in a regular season game for the New York Mets.
Richie Ashburn CF
Felix Mantilla SS
Charlie Neal 2B
Frank Thomas LF
Gus Bell RF
Gil Hodges 1B
Don Zimmer 3B
Hobie Landrith C
Roger Craig P
Unfortunately, this was not 1959, Neal, Bell and Hodges last really good seasons. The talent in that starting lineup was a lot better than what showed during the 1962 season. Ashburn and Thomas were the team's best players. But Bell and Landrith would not be on the team for long and Hodges would only play in 54 games. Mantilla was still a couple years away from breaking out with his 30 HR for the Boston Red Sox and Craig, in spite of showing a lot of promise with the Dodgers, would lose 24 and 22 games, respectively, for the Mets in 1962 and 1963. The Mets became not only the worst example of an expansion team, but the worst team in the history of MLB (after 1900). They had hired former Yankees manager Casey Stengel, but even with his tutorage, the team finished with a 40-120 record, 10th place in the National League. The Mets finished 60 1/2 games out of first place.


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Spirituality of the Order
The Order of Malta has been a religious Order since 1113, the year it was recognised by Pope Paschal II. As a religious Order, it is linked to the Holy See, but at the same time it is independent as a sovereign subject of international law. In this respect the religious character of the Order coexists with its full sovereignty. The Grand Master is at the same time head of a sovereign State and head of a religious Order. In this second capacity the Holy Roman Church gives him the rank of Cardinal.
The Order of Malta is a lay religious Order according to Canon Law, where some of its members are religious - they have professed the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience - and others have taken a special vow of obedience, while the great majority of the knights and dames are lay members. The Grand Master of the Order is elected from among the Professed Knights of Perpetual Vows.
According to the Constitutional Charter, members of the Order are required to maintain exemplary Christian behaviour in their private and public life, contributing to the maintenance of the Order's traditions.
The eight-pointed Cross which symbolizes the Order represents the eight Beatitudes and is thus a visual memento of its spirituality.
According to Constitutional Charter rules, the Pope appoints a Cardinal as his representative to the Order, the Cardinalis Patronus, whose duty it is to promote the spiritual interests of the Order and of its members and to maintain relations with the Holy See. The Pope also appoints the Prelate of the Order from the three candidates proposed by the Grand Master. The Prelate is the ecclesiastic superior of the Order's clergy.
The Order remains true to its inspiring principles: defence of the Faith and service to the suffering. Its members share the same vocation and strive together for solidarity, justice and peace, based on the teaching of the Gospels and in the closest communion with the Holy See. They are involved in active and dynamic charity supported by prayer. No Knight or Dame is such by privilege of birth or merits acquired, but for having answered to the call to be where there is a material or moral need, where there is suffering.
Wherever they settled, the Knights Hospitallers always established first a Hospital and Hospice and then, if they needed to, built defence fortifications. What does being a Hospitaller mean in the Third Millennium? It means dedicating oneself to easing suffering and to bringing the balm of Christian charity to the sick, anywhere in the world, not only in hospitals but also in private homes and nursing homes in the shantytowns of destitute populations. The Order does not only dedicate itself to the sick, but to the socially isolated, the victims of persecution and the refugees of any race and religious faith as well.


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Product Description Pro X Series 2009-2012 Malibu Axis Research Plug and Play Ballast
This is the Plug and Play ballast system for your Axis wakeboard boat. The Plug and Play system is the system that will give you two rear sacs for an extra 800lbs in the rear and a bow sac for 950lbs in the front. Load up your Axis wakeboard boat with the plug and play system for the biggest wake possible in your Axis boat.
The Valmex material makes the Pro X Series sacs the strongest on the market. They can easily withstand walking on top of them, placing boards on top of them and are much less vulnerable to punctures and abrasions that so commonly happen with a boat load of people. Also, to help protect the seems, Fly High has them welded and seam-taped. These things are nearly bulletproof.