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The Royal Apartments
The Royal Apartments at the Palace is a collective name for the magnificent state rooms that are used at The King and Queen's receptions.
In conjunction with His Majesty the King's receptions, an apartment can be completely or partially closed.
There is a banquet hall used at gala dinners, cabinet meetings, and parliamentary evenings. There is also a guest apartment used as a guest residence for foreign dignitaries on official state visits. The Bernadotte rooms are used at medal presentations and formal audiences.
The well-preserved interior provides historical insight from the 1700s and onwards, where each monarch has left traces of his time. Here you can see Gustav III's state bedchamber, Oskar II's writing room and the most recently decorated room - King Carl Gustaf's Jubilee Room.
The Royal Apartments also include the Hall of State with Queen Kristina's silver throne as well as the Apartments of the Orders of Chivalry, which houses a permanent collection of the regal orders.
The Bernadotte Apartments
The Bernadotte Apartments are situated in the north wing and consists of 14 rooms. Here you will learn about the palace's earliest history up to the time when the Bernadotte Apartments were ready for moving in and became home to King Adolf Fredrik and Queen Lovisa.
Originally the Pillared Hall, in the north-west corner of the apartments, was Adolf Fredrik's dining room. Today the room mainly reflects the 1780s, when it was modernized by Gustav III.
Leaving the Pillared Hall, you enter the Victoria Salon and the splendour of the 1800's. Both the chandelier and the carpet are impressive in size. The room is a fine example of Victorian style.
The Bernadotte Gallery contains pictures of almost all the older members of the Royal Family. The room provides the perfect opportunity to relate the story of Karl XIV Johan and the unsettled early 1800s.
The following room is used for formal audiences. Beside it lies the newly decorated Jubilee Room that represents the skilled craftsmanship of our times.
The last room in the Bernadotte Apartments is also a gallery containing a number of paintings of members of the Royal Family. Here you will see for instance Gustaf VI Adolf, Crown Princess Margareta, and our current King and Queen, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia.
The State Apartments
The State Apartments consist of nine state rooms. The original plans for this section were made during the Great Power era in Sweden by palace architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. Not all plans were finished, but despite this the rooms are unparalleled in northern Europe.
In the north west corner of this section lies the Cabinet Room. Still today the room is used during cabinet meetings between The King and the government. This room was originally Gustav III's dining room. During his reign many guests were invited to dinner, but only members of the Royal Family ate, watched by the other guests!
A few rooms further in you will find Gustav III's state bedchamber. It was in this room that Gustav III died in 1792 from a gunshot wound he received two weeks earlier.
The rooms that follow, known as Karl XI's Gallery, make up a smaller copy of the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. You will see an impressive ceiling painting portraying Karl XI's war in Skåne in the 1670s. However, the room is most renowned as the room where today's reception dinners are held. Once again this presents a good opportunity to both learn about the Great Power era and gain an insight into present-day receptions at the palace.
The last room that you will visit during the guided tour is the Palace's ballroom, better known as The White Sea Hall. Nowadays the room is not used so much for dancing but plays a special function during the annual reception dinners.
The Guest Apartments
The Grand Guest Apartments are largely used for state visits. Therefore the rooms are more profusely decorated than one would expect of a traditional 1700s milieu.
The apartments contain furniture from different epochs, most of which was made in Stockholm in either the 1700s or 1800s, and is therefore interesting from a style-history perspective.
The Hall of State
Carl Hårleman was the architect in charge of the room's interior design. Hårleman formed the room closely to plans drawn up by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger.
The room was ready for the Parliamentary Opening of 1755 and was where parliamentary meetings were held under the chairmanship of the King. Over the years, the room has seen many significant symbolic events. It was here that The King opened the Parliamentary Session according to ceremonial tradition every year until 1974. To this day, the Hall of State is still used for official ceremonies.
The silver throne was a gift to Queen Kristina from Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie for her coronation in 1650, and is one of the palace's highlights.
The Apartments of the Orders of Chivalry
A permanent exhibition of Royal Orders is on show in the Apartments of the Orders of Chivalry at the Royal Palace. Four rooms make up the apartments, one room for each order. Until 1949, these halls were home to the Swedish Supreme Court, established in 1789 by Gustav III.
The permanent exhibition features the Swedish Order of Knights, also displaying select objects used in Order related ceremonies.
The Order of the Seraphim, or the Order of His Majesty The King, is the most outstanding distinction in Sweden. The Order has only one Class with the dignity of Knight or Member and nowadays it is conferred exclusively on members of the Swedish Royal Family and on foreign heads of state or other persons of comparable rank. The Seraphim Medal also belongs to this order, and is controlled by His Majesty the King.
The Order of the Sword was originally presented for bravery in the field and at sea, and later also as a reward for long and distinguished service in the armed forces. Special degrees constituted the rank of the Knight, with the Order of the Sword's Maltese-type cross only conferred when Sweden is at war. (Dormant since the Order Reform of 1975.)
The Order of the Polar Star was earlier intended as a reward for Swedish and foreign civic merits, for devotion to duty, for science, literary, learned and useful works, and for new and beneficial institutions. The order also has a medal "the Polar Star Medal" introduced in 1986. Since 1975, the Order of the Polar Star is only presented to foreign nationals or stateless persons for services to Sweden or Swedish interests.
The Order of Vasa was intended as a reward for services in a number of fields, for presentation to persons not eligible for the "service orders" of the Sword and the Polar Star. The order was primarily awarded to those who had made excellent efforts within agriculture and mining, technical developments and commerce, or within the fine arts. The Order of Vasa was a free order, i.e. unrestricted by rules of birth and education. The cross of the order is composed on the same lines as the insignia of the more senior orders and is surmounted by a crowned sheaf, the emblem of the Vasa dynasty. (Dormant since the Order Reform of 1975.)
Top image: Karl XI's Gallery in the State Apartments was modelled on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Photo: Alexis Daflos/Royalpalaces.se


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Phage have also been great toolkits for molecular biology. First, various enzymes were purified, many still in use today. Later, whole phage machinery were borrowed to move DNA segments around.
Two of the best studied phage are T7 and lambda. Both have a lot of great history, and both have recently undergone very interesting makeovers.
T7 is a lytic phage; after infection it simply starts multiplying and soon lyses (breaks open) its host. T7 provided an interesting early computational conumdrum, one which I believe is still unsolved. Tom Schneider has an elegant theory about information and molecular biology, which can be summarized as locational codes contain only as much information as they need to be located uniquely in a genome, no more, no less. Testing on a number of promoters suggested the theory valid. However, a sore thumb stuck out: T7 promoters contain far more information than the theory called for, and a clever early artificial evolution approach showed that this information really wasn't needed by T7 RNA polymerase. So why is there more conservation than 'necessary'? It's still a mystery.
Phage lambda follows a very different lifestyle. After infection, most times it goes under deep cover, embedding itself at a single location in its E.coli host's genome, a state called lysogeny. But when the going gets tight, the phage get going and go through a lytic phase much like that of T7. The molecular circuitry responsible for this bistable system was one of the first complex genetic systems elucidated in detail. Mark Ptashne's book on this, A Genetic Switch, should be part of the Western canon -- if you haven't read it, go do so! (Amazon link)
With classical molecular biology techniques, only either modest tinkering or wholesale vandalism were the only really practical ways to play with a phage genome. You could rewrite a little or delete a lot. Despite that, it is possible to do a lot with these approaches. In today's PNAS preprint section (alas, you'll need a subscription to get beyond the abstract) is a paper which re-engineers the classic lambda switch machinery. The two key repressors, CI and Cro, are replaced with two other well-studied repressors whose activity can be controlled chemically, LacI and TetR. Appropriate operator sites for these repressors were installed in the correct places. In theory, the new circuit should perform the same lytic-lysogeny switch as lambdaphage 1.0, except now under the control of tetracycline (TetR, replacing CI) and lactose (LacI, replacing Cro). Of course, things don't always turn out as planned.
These variants grew lytically and formed stable lysogens. Lysogens underwent prophage induction upon addition of a ligand that weakens binding by the Tet repressor. Strikingly, however, addition of a ligand that weakens binding by Lac repressor also induced lysogens. This finding indicates that Lac repressor was present in the lysogens and was necessary for stable lysogeny. Therefore, these isolates had an altered wiring diagram from that of lambda.. When theory fails to predict, new science lies ahead!
Even better, with the advent of cheap synthesis of short DNA fragments ("oligos") and new methods of putting those together, the possibility of becoming the "all the phage that's fit to print" is really here. This new field of "synthetic biology" offers all sorts of new experimental options, and of course a new set of potential misuses. Disclosure: my next posting might be with one such company.
Such rewrites are starting to show up. Last year one team reported rewriting T7. Why rewrite? A key challenge in trying to dissect the functions of viral genes is that many viral genes overlap. Such genetic compression is common in small genomes, and gets more impressive the smaller the genome. But, if tinkering with one gene also tweaks one or more of its neighbors, interpreting the results becomes very hard. So by rewriting the whole genome to eliminate overlaps, cleaner functional analysis should be possible.
With genome editing becoming a reality, perhaps it's time to start writing a genetic version of Strunk & White :-)

subset: commoncrawl


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The success story is a staple of business books and magazines: the faces of top investors and executives smile at us from the covers, and inside their words invite us to emulate their actions. But research suggests we should be cautious in modeling ourselves after extraordinary performers or adopting their much-praised methods; these paragons may offer less wisdom than they promise. Greater value can be found, studies show, in less sexy but more substantial theories, and in the practices of those who are second best in the field.
In an article published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, Jerker Denrell of the University of Oxford and Chengwei Liu of the University of Warwick reported on experiments that modeled the results of a game played in many rounds. Over time, the most skilled players came to inhabit a second tier of reliable competence. Those who succeeded spectacularly — who took their places in the first tier — were often not the most skilled, but rather were those who got some lucky breaks early on or took big risks that happened to pay off. Emulating these top performers would probably lead to disappointment, since imitators would be unlikely to replicate their good fortune. Because luck and risk play a dominant role in extraordinary outcomes, Denrell and Liu write, "extreme success or failure are, at best, only weak signals of skill," and top performers "should not be imitated or praised." Better, they advise, to learn from individuals "with high, but not exceptional, performance" — those whose success can be attributed to solid skill and not to a rare lightning strike.
(MORE: Can You Learn Everything "On the Job"?)
Focusing on "the best" can even lead entire industries astray. In an article in The American Journal of Sociology, researchers David Strang and Michael Macy contend that "the centrality of the 'success story'" helps generate business-world fads, in which innovations are rapidly adopted and just as quickly discarded (think "total quality management," "matrix management," "quality circles"). The problem is that while we're told frequently and at great length about successes, we hear almost nothing about failures — a bias that skews our judgment about what's likely to work. For example, the authors note, during the seven years when quality circles (a practice that American companies borrowed from Japanese industry) were most popular, there were plenty of articles published in the business media about the increases in savings and employee satisfaction they produced — but no stories about quality circle failures. Companies had to discover through their own experiences that quality circles just didn't work. In order to make balanced decisions about which practices to adopt, Strang and Macy advise people to look "not only among the Intels and Microsofts, but also among the Wangs and Digitals."
(MORE: Why Floundering Is Good)
Tellingly, the most genuinely useful innovations tend to emerge from companies' on-the-ground responses to economic and social challenges — not from business advice books. So concluded researchers Danny Miller and Jon Hartwick in an article in the Harvard Business Review, for which they tracked the coverage of business trends in academic, professional, business and trade publications over a 17-year period. Evanescent fads, they found, are usually simple, one-size-fits-all solutions promoted by charismatic "gurus." Approaches with real staying power are more complex and multifaceted, and demand deep organizational changes.
By analyzing the characteristics of theories currently in fashion, we may even be able to tell in advance which ones will turn out to be permanently useful additions, and which ones are here-today-gone-tomorrow trends. A paper published earlier this year in the journal Information and Organization applied just such an analysis, and concluded that "service-oriented architecture" — a buzzword in the information systems industry right now — is destined to be no more than a fad. Armed with critical thinking skills and a healthy dose of skepticism, we can learn to distinguish leaders and theories with the shiny look of success from those that offer the real thing.


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At the division, we investigate a range of different aspects of chemical physics with a combination of experimental and theoretical techniques. You can read more about the on-going activities under the "Research groups" page and follow the links to the different research projects.
Investigating the role of water in the protein dynamic transition - Master project
Maddalena Bin joined the chemical physics division as an exchange Erasmus student for doing her master thesis project. She studied the structure and dynamics of protein aqueous solutions, with particular focus on the interaction of proteins with their surrounding thin layer of water, termed hydration water. She built a humidity chamber to prepare hydrated protein samples and measured them employing techniques such as infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction from ambient to supercooled temperatures. After finishing her master thesis, Maddalena continued with PhD studies at the chemical physics division of Stockholm University at the group of structural dynamics of aqueous solutions.
Investigating the influence of water in lysozyme structure and dynamics using FT-IR and XRD - Bachelor project
Rafat Yousif joined the chemical physics department for his bachelor thesis due his interested in the role of water in biophysical processes. He did experiments with different state of the art techniques, such as Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and performed high-level data analysis using Python packages. The main focus of his investigations was to study the spectrum and structure of lysozyme in aqueous solution from ambient conditions to supercooled regime, as well as the influence of crystallization on the protein activity. After his bachelor thesis, he continued working in the group as a research assistant and his results were the starting point of several further investigations in the group using x-ray synchrotrons and free-electron lasers.
Bachelor's thesis of Rafat Yousif
Hydration models for thione-, thiol- and deprotonised 2-Mercaptopyridine, from molecular dynamics simulations - Bachelor project (2016)
As a student in the Bachelor's programme at Fysikum, Anton Ljungdahl performed molecular dynamics simulations as his thesis project. He simulated three variations of the small organic molecule 2-Mercaptopyridine in aqueous solution, with the aim to study the first solvation shell near sulphur and nitrogen sites. The results will to be used by the research group as a basis for quantum chemical calculations of excited state proton dynamics. After finishing the Bachelor's programme Anton continued to study at the master's programme in theoretical physics at Stockholm University.
Bachelor's thesis of Anton Ljungdahl (3538 Kb)
Adsorption of carboxyl groups and phosphate groups on the surface of titanium dioxide - Bachelor project (2016)
Mathias Poline, while studying at the Bachelor's program at Fysikum, made his thesis project on the adsorption on anatase(TiO2) of anchoring groups using in solar cell applications. The project will be further developed by the research group for the interpretation of ultra-high vacuum experiments on well-prepared single crystal surfaces and in-situ experiments on solar cell materials. After finishing the Bachelor's programme Mathias continued to study at the master's programme in physics, at Stockholm University.
Bachelor Thesis of Mathias Poline (1590 Kb)
Time-dependent study on direct dissociative excitation - Master project (2013)
Direct dissociative excitation is a reaction where an inelastic collision between a molecular ion and an electron leads to dissociation of the molecular ion. The process is usually studied time-independently. Emelie Ertan did a master in computational physics and as Master project, she developed a time-dependent method to study this process, where the nuclear dissociation is described using propagation of wave packets. Emelie continued with PhD studies at the chemical physics division at Fysikum, SU.
Master Project of Emelie Ertan (855 Kb)
Reorientation Dynamics of nitrate in water - Master project (2011)
Being a well trained programmer, Thomas Ogden was attracted to Stockholm University by the Master programme in computational chemistry at Fysikum. In his Master project, he studied the solvation dynamics of nitrate ions in aqueous solution. The work was subsequently forming the theoretical basis for a study of ultra-fast hydrogen bond dynamics in relation to 2D-infrared spectroscopy. Thomas continued to Durham University for his Ph.D. studies.
Master thesis by Thomas Ogden (6306 Kb)
Molecular dynamics in the vicinity of a conical intersection - Master project (2011)
A common approximation in molecular physics is to separate the motions of electrons and nuclei. This approximation is not valid when electronic states are close in energy. In 2011, Elham Nour Ghassemi performed theoretical studies of Li3. This is a system where the lowest two states are not only close in energy, but degenerate - a conical intersection. This will cause anomalous effect in the molecular dynamics in the vicinity of the intersection. Elham obtained a Master in Physics, and she is continued to work as a PhD student at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Master thesis by Elham Nour Ghassemi (2108 Kb)
Simulations of a Ruthenium Complex and the Iodide/Triiodide Redox Couple in Aqueous Solution: Solvation and Electronic Structure - Magister project (2010)
After starting her university studies with the intention to become a teacher, Ida Josefsson was fascinated by the physics subject and she switched instead to the physics programme. Ida performed a Magister project in Stockholm, while affiliated with Uppsala University, about theoretical simulations of processes in dye-sensitized solar cells. After the Magister project, Ida continued as a Ph.D. student at the Division of chemical physics at Stockholm University working with quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics simulations.
Magister project by Ida Josefsson
Ultrafast Dynamics in Condensed Matter related projects:
[T] indicates a more theoretical project, [E] an experimental one. Those are tentative project titles, you are always welcome to discuss possible changes or to suggest new ideas.
Master Thesis
- Implementation of Data Acquisition software for pump probe measurements [T/E]
- Simulation of ultrafast lattice dynamics combined with experiments using visible light or femtoslicing at synchrotron x-ray sources [T/E]
- Implementation of a ferromagnetic resonance spectrometer based on femtosecond pump-probe measurements [T/E]
- Implementation of a frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) setup for characterization of femtosecond optical pulses [E]
Bachelor Thesis
- Simulations of ultrafast lattice dynamics in Matlab using the package udkm1Dsim [T]
- Build up of a magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) magnetometer based on continuous wave laser source and analog detection [E]
- Implementation of digital detection for a magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) magnetometer based on continuous wave laser source [T/E]
- Simulation of x-ray diffraction traces from thin film multilayers using the package xrayutilities, combined with measurements from an x-ray diffractometer [T/E]
For Ultrafast Dynamics in Condensed Matter projects, contact Stefano Bonetti.


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- SAS Kunden und Referenzen
- Crouse Hospital
Providing the best medical care via analytics
Crouse Hospital
Advanced analytics from SAS enables better quality of care.
60% reduction
in post-operative infections
Crouse Hospital achieved this using • SAS® Analytics
Crouse Hospital improves patient outcomes with data-driven approach
Taking a data-driven approach to managing quality is expected, but how do you do it without hiring a team of programmers? Crouse Hospital uses SAS point-and-click health analytics solutions to manage multiple quality initiatives that reduce post-surgical infections, improve the discharge process and decrease readmission rates.
Crouse serves patients in a 15-county radius in upstate New York with 500 beds and room for 57 newborns. The hospital partners with DNV Healthcare to monitor and improve the quality and safety of patient care, and is a member of Partnership for Patients, a public-private partnership focused on quality, safety and affordability issues. Crouse has earned numerous accreditations and awards for its work.
"Our mission is to provide the best care," says Derrick Suehs, Chief Quality Officer. "To do that, you must be able to measure what you do and the outcomes you achieve. Over time, I've learned that what you pay attention to in an organization is what's important. At Crouse, we believe the best care requires attention. Our metrics are part of our daily conversation, which is why we know how quality impacts the bottom line. SAS helps us know the facts about our performance and outcomes, and gives us confidence to know if our efforts are working."
When you can show data to the medical staff, we gain a lot of credibility. We can test notions and theories because we have the tools. Jennifer Watkins Director of Quality Improvement Crouse Hospital
Going beyond chart audits
"A lot of hospitals are stuck in the quality assurance model of doing chart audits and trying to find the bad apple," explains Jennifer Watkins, Director of Quality Improvement.
Some institutions can analyze data, but it's an annual effort, with a program specifically written to look at one issue, or data sent to a consultant for a report.
Crouse wanted to take a broader approach, giving administrators, doctors and nurses a continual view of metrics on everything from post-surgical infections to length of stay. It also sought to help healthcare providers dig further into data to make improvements, sometimes using Six Sigma quality performance methods.
"Instead of just being able to do something one time, we're able to provide physicians with feedback monthly or quarterly," Watkins says.
Using data to improve patient outcomes
The hospital uses analytics to easily track quality initiatives and create models to help the most vulnerable patients receive the services they need to stay healthy. It also works with medical providers to create queries to address complex problems, such as why length of stay has crept up in certain units.
One example involves post-surgical infections. Studies suggest that one way to reduce post-surgical infections is to find out which patients have staph colonization before undergoing surgery. After Crouse began screening and treating patients for existing staph colonization prior to hip procedures, post-surgical site infections fell 60 percent. Seeing the results achieved by the orthopedic service has encouraged surgeons in other areas to adapt a similar protocol – and test its effectiveness.
On the ob-gyn floor, administrators noticed the length of stay for deliveries creeping up. The analysts initially expected to find this tied to one or two physician practices, but that wasn't the case.
As the ob-gyn chief began distributing the reports, the physicians started asking for different types of data analysis to pinpoint the problem. "We looked at length of stay by gender, thinking perhaps scheduling baby boys for circumcisions was delaying discharge. We concluded that wasn't an issue," says Crouse Quality Improvement Analyst Rachel Carey. Now analysts are looking at whether they are seeing a higher percentage of pregnant patients with pre-existing conditions that lead to complications.
Underpinning these efforts is access to quality data. With SAS, Crouse can work with all the data – not just samples pulled randomly from charts. This data-driven approach is critical to achieving physician and staff buy-in.
Crouse Hospital – Facts & Figures
operations began
No. 1
provider of maternity care in New York
Pulling data together quickly and easily
Data is often located in multiple locations, so the first job for analysts like Rachel Carey and Lyn Johnson is to pull it all together.
"We have information that comes from several different databases," explains Watkins.
For a Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services report on complications in colon procedures and NYS Department of Health report on hip procedures, the analysts needed data on how long the patient was in the operating room, the patient's anesthesia complication rating, details about the surgeon, information on whether it was an emergency procedure and several other data points.
"We had to combine information from several different databases and run calculations," explains Watkins. "We know other sites are trying to do this by hand, but we're able to use SAS to automate the job."
The hospital also created a database to track clinical quality improvement issues, such as readmission and complaints by physician. This is not only to help individual physicians improve, but also for accreditation purposes. "It's another project we would not have been able to do without SAS," Johnson says.
Interactive visual reporting and analysis without programming
Johnson used SAS in graduate school and at a previous employer. She was intrigued when she learned that SAS Analytics solutions now include SAS® Enterprise Guide®, a menu-and-wizard-driven tool enabling data analysis and results publishing with no programming required.
To explore these results even further, the hospital also uses SAS Visual Data Discovery, a point-and-click solution, that enhances advanced analytics and exploratory data analysis with interactive data visualization.
"We couldn't do our jobs and learn to code simultaneously," explains Carey, who learned to use SAS Enterprise Guide after one online class. "SAS is point-and-click and the results are automatic," says Johnson.
Die in diesem Artikel dargestellten Ergebnisse sind auf die hier beschriebenen besonderen Situationen, Geschäftsmodelle, Dateneingaben und Computerumgebungen zugeschnitten. Die Erfahrung jedes SAS-Kunden ist aufgrund geschäftlicher und technischer Variablen einzigartig, und alle Aussagen sind als untypisch anzusehen. Die tatsächlichen Einsparungen, Ergebnisse und Leistungsmerkmale hängen von den individuellen Kundenkonfigurationen und -bedingungen ab. SAS übernimmt keine Garantie oder Zusicherung, dass jeder Kunde ähnliche Ergebnisse erzielt. Die einzigen Garantien für SAS-Produkte und -Dienstleistungen sind diejenigen, die in den ausdrücklichen Garantieerklärungen in der schriftlichen Vereinbarung für solche Produkte und Dienstleistungen aufgeführt sind. Nichts von dem hier Veröffentlichten ist als zusätzliche Garantie auszulegen. Kunden haben ihre Erfolgsgeschichten mit SAS im Rahmen eines vertraglich vereinbarten Austauschs oder einer Zusammenfassung zum Projekterfolg im Anschluss an einen erfolgreichen Abschluss einer Implementierung von SAS-Software kommuniziert. Marken- und Produktnamen sind Markenzeichen der jeweiligen Unternehmen.


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Reflections by Comrade Fidel: The Unjustifiable Destruction of the Environment
By Fidel Castro Ruz / December 15, 2008
Can the capitalist society avoid it? News about this issue are far from encouraging. The project to be submitted for approval on December next year in Copenhagen, where the new Convention that will replace Kyoto's will be discussed and approved, is being currently analyzed at Poznan.
The Commission in charge of the drafting of this project is presided over by Al Gore, ex presidential candidate of the United States, who was fraudulently defeated by Bush in the elections of 2001. Those who are drafting the project are pinning all their hopes on Barack Obama as if he could change the course of history.
An enlightening example comes from Canada.
An article published by BBC World entitled "Canada's Black Gold Oil Rush" points out that "the total area currently being mined is 420 Km2 , while the overall area that the Alberta government has leased to oil companies is 64 919 Km2. The area of exploitable reserves is 140 200 Km2 – about the size of Florida.
"From the air, the strip mines have transformed the forest into a moonscape of craters and lakes, with smoke stacks pumping out billowing clouds. All this in a remote part of northern Alberta."
Further on, the article continues: "…There are three major players at the moment – Suncor, Syncrude and a consortium led by Shell – but more foreign investors and consortiums have piled in.
"…the lack of government action means not enough is being done about the cumulative effects on the environment.
"…an investigation by the Alberta Cancer Board is due to be published soon.
"Earlier this year, 500 ducks died after landing on a tailings pond run by Syncrude…A government investigation is ongoing. Whatever the results, it seems the pace of opposition to the oil sands is quickening."
According to the Spanish daily "El País", "… the estimates made by the dependent agency of the OECD (Organization for Economic and Cooperation and Development) are based on the predictions made by the IMF which point to a steady recovery of the global economy as from the second semester of the year 2009, when the world's oil production will reach 86.3 million barrels per day."
That same Spanish newspaper announces that "the director of the Department on Climate Change of China wants to state very clearly that Beijing would only limit its emissions in exchange for lots of investments and patents for clean technologies. His signature is indispensable so that all 187 countries gathered at the Polish city could move on to the adoption of a protocol that could replace that of 1997. Obama is causing a twenty years delay in the struggle against climate change."
Another wire service from the agency NOTIMEX, dated on December 13, explains that "…the colossal fraud in Wall Street carried out by Bernard L. Madoff, ex chief of the firm Nasdaq, is causing losses in Spain amounting to millions", according to an article published today by the newspaper "Expansión", specialized in economic issues.
"…This Friday, one of the biggest scandals in Wall Street" –continues the wire service- "has been exposed after the ex chief of Nasdaq, Bernard L. Madoff, was arrested for having taken part in a fraud with an investment fund that could amount to 50 billion dollars."
"…Madoff, ex founding president of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested on Thursday evening after his own son reported to the federal authorities that his father was part of what he called 'a huge pyramidal fraud'."
"…Based on this scheme, only the first investors would obtain dividends from their investments, leaving all of the rest with losses that, according to the Federal Prosecutor's Office in New York, could amount to the aforementioned figure."
Another news published by Reuters on the same date stated that: "…President-elect Barack Obama is considering a plan to boost the recession-hit US economy that could be far larger than previous estimates", the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
"…Obama aides, who were considering a half-trillion dollar package two weeks ago, now consider $600 billion –a year- over two years "a very low-end estimate," the newspaper said,
"…The final size of the stimulus is expected to be $1 trillion over that period, given the deteriorating state of the US economy.
"…Officials with Obama's camp have declined to comment on media reports about the size of the boost that the Democrat will launch once he takes office as President of the United States on January 20."
The picture appears to be even gloomier after the news by several press agencies reporting all sorts of problems, ranging from the bankruptcy of the automotive industry as a result of the crisis, up to the natural disasters, including the increasing cost of foodstuffs, starvation, war, and many other facts.
The problem is that there is no more habitable space on our planet. The only one left was Australia, and the United Kingdom took hold of it on January 19, 1788. There's been a long time since the environment is compromised.
¿Could our species surmount that barrier?
Source / Gobierno de Cuba
Thanks to Karen Lee Wald / The Rag Blog


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Fans Roast Cardi B for Wanting to Spend $88K on a Purse That Looks Like an Ugg Boot
We're going to need a bucket and a mop to clean up the mess Cardi B just sparked on Twitter.
On Sunday (December 6), nearly nine months into a deadly pandemic that has left millions of Americans unemployed, the "WAP" rapper hopped on the social media platform to pose a question to her fans: "Should I spend 88K for this damn purse? Omggg it's tempting."
The tweet immediately garnered backlash from fans who felt it was "insensitive" of Cardi to publicly contemplate spending such a large amount of money on a purse considering the financial hardships so many people are facing right now.
"It just speaks to your privilege that you could spend that much on a handbag," one Twitter user wrote. "That's more than most people make in a year."
Fans also responded to the tweet by suggesting that Cardi should instead donate $88,000 to charity, to which the rapper clapped back with a slew of receipts detailing the charitable donations she's made as of late.
Cardi then proposed a challenge for her fans to donate their own money to charity and send her the receipt, promising to match the donations herself. After publicly committing to match multiple fans' donations ranging from $20 to $100, the rapper quoted a tweet from journalist Yashar Ali that described her original tweet about the purse as "deeply insensitive and unnecessary." Cardi issued a stark response, telling Ali to "go cry about it" and saying that she's "not going to apologize" because she "didn't do nothing illegal."
She then issued a seemingly reluctant apology: "Ok guys I apologize. There, you happy?! I don't see ya askin' Trump for an apology when he out here missing Covid meetings to play golf, but ok."
The next day (December 7), Cardi B got back on Twitter and asked her followers if they want to see the purse, to which one user responded, "Show us the damn purse." She then posted a screenshot of what appeared to be a series of Instagram messages detailing the bag, including photos that reveal its soft, brown, fur-lined material that fans immediately likened to an UGG boot.
Cardi then received a second round of backlash from fans who didn't think the purse was worth the steep price tag. "You was better off not showing us," wrote one fan. "I wasn't mad before, now I'm pissed." Other followers pointed out that the brand Telfar recently produced a line of similar purses in collaboration with the UGG brand that cost less than $1,000.
In response to a fan who said the $88,000 purse "ain't even that cute," the rapper issued a final statement (for now): "It's not about being cute, it's about the value. In three years I can auction it for double." Touché, Cardi.


text:
Mahabharata Bk 15–Asramavasika Parva-Asramavasa – (Sec XVI)
Aug 13, 2018 9:41:36 GMT 1
Post by Anne Terri on Aug 13, 2018 9:41:36 GMT 1
The Mahabharata
Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text
Kisari Mohan Ganguli
The Mahabharata Book 15:
Book 15: Asramavasika Parva (Sections I-XXXIX)
Book 15: Asramavasika Parva (Sections I-XXXIX)
"Vaisampayana said, 'Great was the uproar, at that time, O king, of both men and women standing on the terraces of mansions or on the Earth. Possessed of great intelligence, the old king, with joined hands, and trembling with weakness, proceeded with difficulty along the principal street which was crowded with persons of both sexes. He left the city called after the elephant by the principal gate and then repeatedly bade that crowd of people to return to their homes. Vidura had set his heart on going to the forest along with the king. The Suta Sanjaya also, the son of Gavalgani, the chief minister of Dhritarashtra, was of the same heart. King Dhritarashtra however, caused Kripa and the mighty car-warrior Yuyutsu to refrain from following him. He made them over into Yudhishthira's hands. After the citizens had ceased following the monarch, king Yudhishthira, with the ladies of his house-hold, prepared to stop, at the command of Dhritarashtra. seeing that his mother Kunti was desirous of retiring into the woods, the king said unto her, 'I shall follow the old monarch. Do thou desist.' It behoveth thee, O queen, to return to the city, accompanied by these thy daughters-in-law. This monarch proceeds to the woods, firmly resolved to practise penances. Though king Yudhishthira said these words unto her, with his eyes bathed in tears, Kunti, however, without answering him, continued to proceed, catching hold of Gandhari.
"Kunti said, 'O king, never show any disregard for Sahadeva. He is very much attached to me, O monarch, and to thee also always. Thou shouldst always bear in mind Karna who never retreated from battle. Through my folly that hero has been slain in the field of battle. Surely, my son, this heart of mine is made of steel, since it does not break into a hundred pieces at not seeing that child born of Surya. When such has been the case, O chastiser of foes, what can I now do? I am very much to blame for not having proclaimed the truth about the birth of Surya's child. O crusher of foes, I hope thou wilt, with all thy brothers, make excellent gifts for the sake of that son of Surya. O mower of foes, thou shouldst always do what is agreeable to Draupadi. Thou shouldst look after Bhimasena and Arjuna and Nakula and Sahadeva. The burthens
p. 27
of the Kuru race have now fallen on thee, O king. I shall live in the woods with Gandhari, besmearing my body with filth, engaged in the performance of penances, and devoted to the service of my father-in-law and mother-in-law.' 1
'Vaisampayana continued, 'Thus addressed by her, the righteous-souled Yudhishthira, with passions under complete control, became, with all his brothers, plunged into great distress. Endued with great intelligence, the king said not a word. Having reflected for a little while, king Yudhishthira the Just, cheerless and plunged in anxiety and sorrow, addressed his mother, saying,--'Strange, indeed, is this purpose of thine? It behoves thee not to accomplish it. I can never grant thee permission. It behoves thee to show us compassion. 'Formerly, when we were about to set out of Hastinapore for the woods, O thou of agreeable features, it was thou who, reciting to us the story of Vidula's instructions to her son, excited us to exertion. It behoves thee not to abandon us now. Having slain the kings of Earth, I have won sovereignty, guided by thy words of wisdom communicated through Vasudeva. Where now is that understanding of thine about which I had heard from Vasudeva? Dost thou wish now to fall away from those Kshatriya practices about which thou hadst instructed us? Abandoning ourselves, this kingdom, and this daughter-in-law of thine who is possessed of great fame, how wilt thou live in the inaccessible woods? Do thou relent! Kunti, with tears in her eyes, heard these words of her son, but continued to proceed on her way. Then Bhima addressed her, saying,--'When, O Kunti, sovereignty has been won, and when the time has come for thee to enjoy that sovereignty thus acquired by thy children, when the duties of royalty await discharge by thee, whence has this desire got hold of thy mind? Why then didst thou cause us to exterminate the Earth? For what reason wouldst thou leave all and wish to take up thy abode in the woods? We were born in the woods. Why then didst thou bring us from the woods while we were children? Behold, the two sons of Madri are overwhelmed with sorrow and grief. Relent, O mother, O thou of great fame, do not go into the woods now. Do thou enjoy that prosperity which acquired by might, has become Yudhishthira's today.' Firmly resolved to retire into the woods, Kunti disregarded these lamentations of her sons. Then Draupadi with a cheerless face, accompanied by Subhadra, followed her weeping mother-in-law who was journeying on from desire of going into the woods. Possessed of great wisdom and firmly resolved on retirement from the world, the blessed dame walked on, frequently looking at her weeping children. The Pandavas, with all their wives and servitors, continued to follow her. Restraining then her tears, she addressed her children in these words.'"
27:1 Nilakantha explains that as Dhritarashtra is Pandu's elder brother, therefore, Kunti regards him as Pandu's father. Queen Gandhari therefore is Kunti's mother-in-law. The eldest brother is looked upon as a father.
Contents of The Mahabharata Book 14
Ashvamedhika Parva (The Book of the Horse Sacrifice)
The royal ceremony of the Ashvamedha (Horse sacrifice) conducted by Yudhishthira. The world conquest by Arjuna. The Anugita is told by Krishna to Arjuna.
THE MAHABHARATA of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
Chapter 15 contains:
the eventual deaths of Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and Kunti in a forest fire when they are living in a hermitage in the Himalayas. Vidura predeceases them and Sanjaya on Dhritarashtra's bidding goes to live in the higher Himalayas.
"God / Brahman Speaking To Anne Terri Through The Holy Spirit: This will be an ongoing endeavor, which will take many hours to build. I Begin this new section within The Third Testament - Research Library, to Bring forward one of the most important ancient texts of Hinduism, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa as translated into English from Sanskrit. by Kisari Mohan Ganguli [1883-1896] In doing so, I have Asked of Anne to begin advanced studies on this, for the purposes of future links with other Hindu Study Guides currently in process. It is important to note that .... The Mahabharata was written between 540 and 300 B.C. Most credit has been given to Vyasa. The Bhagavad Gita appears in Book 6. .... Juliet Sutherland, Project Manager. at sacred-texts.com, 2003, has asked that the Attribution appear with this public domain work as it is written below. AMEN"
Scanned at sacred-texts.com, 2003. Proofed at Distributed Proofing, Juliet Sutherland, Project Manager. Additional proofing and formatting at sacred-texts.com, by J. B. Hare. This text is in the public domain. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose, provided this notice of attribution is left intact.
Scanned at sacred-texts.com, 2003. Proofed at Distributed Proofing, Juliet Sutherland, Project Manager. Additional proofing and formatting at sacred-texts.com, by J. B. Hare. This text is in the public domain. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose, provided this notice of attribution is left intact.


text:
When smokers walk by a certain billboard in Stockholm, something strange happens: The billboard coughs at them.
The innovative advertisement is paid for by a Swedish pharmacy chain that wants to encourage smokers to kick their smelly habit.
At first glance, the digital screen positioned outside a metro station shows only a simple photo of a model. But walk by with a lit cigarette and the man in the picture starts coughing, clearly bothered by the smoke.
The screen then changes again, offering various products sold by pharmacy chain Apotek Hjartat that can help smokers quit.
Akestam Holst, the agency behind the campaign, created the effect by attaching smoke detectors to the digital advertising screen. They chose a location where people often smoke -- Stockholm's Odenplan square -- and let the coughing begin.
The agency filmed the reactions of smokers -- some express surprise, others react with laughter. The resulting video has been posted online and is being shared widely.
"The purpose was to drive the conversation about this topic, documenting the reactions, encouraging people to live a healthy lifestyle," said Fredrik Kullberg, marketing director at Apotek Hjartat. "The reaction has been mostly really positive."
The timing of the campaign was deliberate. "We released this initiative that aims to help people with one of the most common New Year's resolutions -- quit smoking," said Ida Persson, spokeswoman for the agency.
Related: Scary cigarette labels won't stop Indians smoking
According to the World Health Organization, over 20% of Swedes aged 15 and over smoke. Chewing tobacco is very popular.
This is the second time in just over a month that Akestam Holst has caught the attention of the advertising world.
In December, it released a campaign for Ikea that renamed the company's furniture pieces after people's most common anxieties.


text:
Although ankle sprains may not be as serious as a broken ankle, they should be given immediate attention and care. An ankle sprain can lead to a significant amount of pain, as well as limited mobility. They are often characterized by the swelling and discoloration of the skin. This occurs when the ligaments are stretched beyond their limits.
The simple act of walking can sometimes cause a sprain, which makes ankle sprains a very common injury that can happen to anyone. They occur when the ankle twists in an awkward way or rolls over itself, causing a pop or snap in the tendons around the ankle. Some people are more at risk than others. These include athletes who continually push their bodies to the limits and also people who have previously suffered accidents to the feet, ankles, or lower legs.
Most of the time, an ankle sprain is not severe enough for hospital attention. There are many at-home treatment options available, including propping the leg up above your head to reduce blood flow and inflammation, applying ice packs to the affected area as needed, taking over the counter pain relievers and anti-inflammatory medication, using an ACE bandage to wrap and support the injured ankle, and most importantly, remaining off your feet until the ankle has fully healed.
Despite this, an ankle sprain can turn into a severe injury that might require hospitalization. If the ankle ligaments or muscles are damaged from a tear or rip, that is one sign that the sprain is severe enough for hospital attention and possibly for surgery. Even after the surgery, the recovery process can be long. You may need to have rehabilitation sessions administered by your podiatrist to get your ankle back to full health.
The severity of your sprain might become apparent if you are unable to stand or walk, consistent pain is occurring over a prolonged period of time, swelling is much more severe than initially present, or if you start to experience tingling or numbness. These signs may indicate that your ankle sprain might actually be a broken ankle, an injury that requires immediate medical attention.
Although they are not completely avoidable, ankle sprains can be curbed with some preventative treatment measures. These include wearing appropriate fitting shoes that not only provide a comfortable fit, but also ankle support. It is also recommended to stretch before doing any kind of physical activity, as this will help lower your body's chance for an injury.


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Virtually every government action changes the personal distribution of income, but some government programs, which give money, goods, or services to individuals who give nothing in exchange, represent income redistribution in its starkest form.
Until the twentieth century, American governments steered pretty clear of such transfer payments. The national government gave pensions and land grants to veterans, and local governments provided food and shelter to the destitute. But the transfers to veterans can be viewed as deferred payments for military services, and local relief never amounted to much.
Since the creation of the Social Security system in 1935, especially during the past 30 years, the amount of income overtly transferred by governments has risen dramatically. In 1960 government transfer payments to persons amounted to $29 billion, or 7 percent of personal income. In 1993 the total came to $912 billion, or nearly 17 percent of personal income.[1] In other words, one dollar out of every six received as personal income now takes the form of old-age, survivors, disability, and health insurance benefits ($438 billion), unemployment insurance benefits ($34 billion), veterans benefits ($20 billion), government employees retirement benefits ($115 billion), aid to families with dependent children ($24 billion), and miscellaneous other government transfer payments ($280 billion) such as federal subsidies to farmers and state and local public assistance to poor people.
Myth versus Reality
It is tempting to think about government transfers in a simple way: one person, taxpayer T, loses a certain amount of money; another person, recipient R, gains the same amount; and everything else remains the same. When people look at income redistribution in this way, they tend to make a judgment about the desirability of the transfer simply by considering whether T or R is the more deserving. Commonly, especially when the issue is discussed in the news media or by left-liberal politicians, R is portrayed as a representative of the poor and downtrodden and T as a wealthy person or a big corporation. Opponents of the transfers then appear callous and lacking in compassion for the less fortunate.
In fact, the overwhelming portionmore than 85 percentof all government transfer payments is not means-tested, that is, not reserved for low-income recipients.[2] The biggest share goes to the elderly as pensions and Medicare benefits, and anyone over 65 years old, rich and poor alike, can receive these benefits. Today people over 65 have the highest income per person and the highest wealth per person of any age group in the United States. Federal transfer payments to farmers present an even more extreme case of giving to those who are already relatively well off. In 1989, for example, the federal government paid about $15 billion to farmers in direct crop subsidies, and 67 percent of the money went to the owners of the largest 17 percent of the farmsin many cases payments to farmers are literally welfare for millionaires.[3] It is simply a hoax that, as a rule, government is taking from the rich for the benefit of the poor. Even people who believe in the rectitude of redistribution à la Robin Hood ought to be troubled by the true character of the redistribution being effected by governments in America today.
But apart from the troubling moral questions raised by redistribution, the issue is far more complicated than ordinarily considered. Beyond the naked fact that T pays taxes to the government and the government gives goods, services, or money to R, at least 19 other consequences occur when the government redistributes income.
Neglected Consequences
1. Taxes for the purpose of income redistribution discourage the taxpayers from earning taxable income or raising the value of taxable property through investment. People who stand to lose part of their earnings respond to the altered personal payoff. As a result, they produce fewer goods and services and accumulate less wealth than they otherwise would. Hence the society is poorer, both now and later.
2. Transfer payments discourage the recipients from earning income now and from investing in their potential to earn future income. People respond to a reduced cost of idleness by choosing to be idle more often. When they can get current income without earning it, they exert less effort to earn income. When they expect to get future income without earning it, they invest less in education, training, job experience, personal health, migration, and other forms of human capital that enhance their potential to earn income in the future. Hence the society is even poorer, both now and later, than it would have been merely because taxes discourage current production and investment by the taxpayers who fund the transfers.
3. Recipients of transfers tend to become less self-reliant and more dependent on government payments. When people can get support without exercising their own abilities to discover and respond to opportunities for earning income, those abilities atrophy. People forgetor never learn in the first placehow to help themselves, and eventually some of them simply accept their helplessness. It is no accident that both material privation and lassitude distinguish individuals accustomed to living on payments such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).
4. Recipients of transfers set a bad example for others, including their children, other relatives, and friends, who see that one can receive goods, services, or money from the government without earning them. The onlookers easily adopt an attitude that they, too, are entitled to such transfers. They have fewer examples of hardworking, self-reliant people in their families or neighborhoods. Hence a culture of dependency on government transfers can become pervasive when many people in a neighborhood rely on such transfers for lifes essentials orwhere the recipients are better offits comforts.
5. Because some transfers are more generous than others, some classes of recipients come to resent the injustice of the distribution of the largess. Hence arise political conflicts. Representatives of discontented groups politicize the determination of the amounts to be transferred and engage in continual jockeying to increase certain kinds of transfers, at the expense of others if necessary. Note, for example, the ceaseless activities of the American Association of Retired Persons, perhaps the most powerful lobby in Washington, striving to increase old-age pensions and Medicare benefits, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, seeking to increase transfers that benefit blacks in particular. Such political maneuvering creates or exacerbates conflicts among groups defined by their eligibility to receive particular kinds of transfers: old against young, black against white, rural against urban, female against male, Northern against Southern, homeowner against renter, and so forth without visible limit. Society becomes more contentious.
6. Just as recipients engage in internecine warfare, so do taxpayers, who resent disproportionate burdens in funding the transfers. For instance, young people now learn that their Social Security taxes are going straight into the pockets of retired people who as a group are better off. Young taxpayers also learn that they probably will never recoup their own contributions, unlike the present-day elderly, who have realized an extraordinarily high effective rate of return on their contributions. (Currently the average married couple gets back everything ever paid in, with interest, in just over four years. )[4] Black Social Security taxpayers learn that, because of their lower life expectancy, they cannot expect to receive as much retirement income as the average white person can expect. Taxpayers who consider themselves disproportionately burdened grow to resent their exploitation by the tax-and-transfer system. Therefore they give more support to politicians who promise to defend their pocketbooks against legislative marauders, and they strive harder to avoid or evade taxes.
7. As a result of the preceding two consequences, the entire society grows more divided and pugnacious. Less and less does the society constitute a genuine community. Rather, it becomes balkanized into bellicose subgroups regarding one another as oppressors and oppressed. People lose their sense of belonging to a common political community with collective interests and joint responsibilities. Instead, fellow citizens regard each other as either patsies or moochers and feel personal hostility toward those who appear to be net gainers from the system. Some actually come to hate the perceived moochers. Witness the palpable hostility when shoppers paying cash wait in the check-out line at the grocery store while someone uses food stamps to make purchases.
8. Among the recipients of transfers, self-help institutions languish. In olden days the burden of caring for the less fortunate outside the family was borne mainly by friends and neighbors acting jointly through churches, lodges, unions, clubs, and other voluntary associations. When individuals can receive assistance directly from the government, competing private associations tend to wither and eventually dieat least their functions as helping institutions disappear. When they are gone, people who need help have nowhere to turn except to the government, which is unfortunate in many ways, because what the government does is not really the same. Nor is it as effective, especially in the long run, when private associations have much greater success in making sure that people who recover their capacities then resume taking care of themselves.
An observer noted that in the aftermath of the big Los Angeles earthquake, Thousands of forlorn, atomized individuals did nothing but wait for a centralized savior, the federal government. America has been diminished by a system of compulsory compassion that simply wants true communities out of the way so that altruism can be left to the experts.[5]
9. Just as self-help institutions wither among the needy, so do charitable institutions among those who are better off. When government agencies stand ready to attend to every conceivable problem in society, people whose sensibilities incline them toward helping the less fortunate have less incentive to organize themselves for doing so. It is easy to say, I pay my taxes, and plenty of them. Let the government take care of the problem. If one contributes charitably, it is as if one were paying twice to accomplish the same objective. Hence, government transfers crowd out private transfers. Coercion, in the form of the tax system, displaces the voluntary provision of assistance, and private charitable institutions wane.
10. As citizens drop out of their involvement in charitable and helping institutions, letting the government take over, they become less self-directing and more accepting of all kinds of government activity. So when someone proposes that the government undertake a function previously carried out exclusively within the private sphere, people are not shocked; they are not even very suspicious of the governments ability to carry out the task. After all, governments now do all sorts of things, from socializing preschoolers to feeding the poor to insuring the medical expenses of the elderly. So what if the government takes on still another responsibility? What was once a prevailing suspicion of the enlargement of government becomes a resignation to or an acceptance of its continuing expansion into new areas.
In the nineteenth century, opponents of proposed new government programs would commonly protest: The government has no business doing that. Nowadays we rarely hear anyone oppose a government initiative on these grounds. That there is a private sphere into which government ought never to intrude has become a nearly extinct species of thought as governments have spread their programs and activities, not to mention their regulations of private life, into almost every cranny of society.
11. Hence people do not mobilize political opposition so readily when new government programs are proposed. Facing less opposition, those who support the new programs are more likely to triumph politically. New government programs proliferate quicker, restrained somewhat by budgetary limitations but not much by fundamental ideological objections. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, when Americans were asked whether entitlements should be cut to reduce the deficit, 61% said yes. But when they were asked whether programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and farm subsidies should be cut, 66% said no.[6] Evidently most people resent paying for the programs, but they have no objection to the programs themselves.
12. Redistribution involves more than T who pays and R who receives. In between stands B, the bureaucracy that determines eligibility, writes the checks, keeps the records, and often does much more, sometimes intruding into the personal lives of the clients. The mediating bureaucracies consume vast resources of labor and capital, accounting for much of the gross expense of the transfer system. For the government to transfer a dollar to R, it is never sufficient to take just a dollar from T. In addition a hefty commission must be paid to support B. From a societal perspective, one must recognize that labor and capital employed by the bureaucracies cannot be used to produce goods and services valued by consumers. Again, society is poorer.
13. Once a bureau is created, its personnel become a tenacious political interest group, well placed to defend its budget and make a case for expanding its activities. After all, who knows more about the urgent necessity of increasing a bureaus budget and staff than those who carry out its activities? The bureaucrats have a close hold on the relevant data and the ostensible expertise with respect to whatever problem they treat. Therefore they have potent advantages in the political process when they seek to augment the resources placed at their command. Agency experts will testify that outsiders just dont know how serious the problem is.
A bureau often constitutes one side of a political iron triangle, joined with the organized client groups that form the second side and the congressional committees with legislative jurisdiction or oversight responsibility that form the third side. When the bureau becomes politically embedded in this way, as most do, its impoverishment of society can continue indefinitely without serious political challenge.
14. Taxpayers do not simply cough up money to fund the transfers without resistance. Many of them devote time, effort, and money to minimizing their legal tax liability or evading taxes. They buy books and computer software. They employ financial advisers, lawyers, and accountants. From time to time they organize political movements to campaign for tax relief à la Californias Proposition 13. All the labor and capital employed in connection with tax resistance are unavailable to produce goods and services valued by consumers. Society is poorer, and will remain poorer as long as people continue to devote resources to tax resistance. (However, to the extent that tax resistance succeeds in making tax rates lower than they otherwise would have been, it promotes greater wealth creation in the longer run.)
15. In the end many citizens will pay taxes to finance the transfers. Even if no one tries to resist the taxes or alters his behavior in supplying labor and capital, the cost to taxpayers will be more than one dollar for each dollar taken by the government, because it is costly just to comply with the tax laws. Taxpayers must keep records, research the tax rules, fill out forms, and all the rest. These activities require time and effort withdrawn from valuable alternative uses. Many people, even though they intend nothing more than full compliance with the law, hire the expert assistance of accountants and tax preparersthe tax rules are so complicated that mere mortals cannot cope. Use of resources to comply with tax laws makes the society poorer.
According to a study by James L. Payne, just the private compliance expense of taxpayers plus the budgetary and enforcement expense of the IRS add $270,000,000 to the tab for each billion dollars of spending by the federal government.[7]
16. Just as taxpayers do not passively submit to being taxed, recipients and potential recipients of transfers do not just sit quietly waiting for their ship to come in. They also act politically. They form organizations, attend meetings, employ publicists and lobbyists, and campaign for political candidates who support their objectives. All the labor and capital employed in transfer-seeking activities are unavailable to produce goods and services valued by consumers. Society is poorer and will remain poorer as long as people continue to devote resources to seeking transfers.
17. Just as taxpayers must employ resources to comply with the tax laws, so recipients of transfers must employ resources to establish and maintain their eligibility to receive the transfers. For example, recipients of unemployment insurance benefits must visit the department of employment security and wait in long lines to certify that they are indeed unemployed. Sometimes they must go from place to place applying for jobs, which they may have no intention of accepting, in order to demonstrate that they are seeking employment. Recipients of disability insurance benefits must visit doctors and other health professionals to acquire certification that they are indeed disabled. In each case, more resources are squandered, and society is that much poorer.
18. By adopting programs to redistribute substantial amounts of income, a nation guarantees that its government will become more powerful and invasive in other ways. Because government itself is the most menacing interest group in society, nothing good can come of this development, and much evil may come of it. As James Madison remarked more than two centuries ago, one legislative interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding.[8] When the government created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, for example, it set in motion a train of events that led inexorably to the subsequent crisis of escalating health-care costs and thence to the bigger government now being wrought by congressional efforts to deal with this artificial crisis.
19. Creating a more powerful and invasive government means that the liberties of citizens will be diminished. Rights previously enjoyed will be set aside. For a long time American citizens enjoyed extensive rights in the negative senserights to be left alone by governments or other people as they went about their lives. All individuals could enjoy such rights simultaneously. With the growth of the transfer society, American citizens have gravitated away from negative rights and toward positive rights, also known as welfare rights, which are in effect claims on the resources of other people. One persons welfare right entails a corresponding duty of other people to provide the resources necessary to satisfy the claim. As such entitlements have grown, therefore, liberties in the sense of negative rights have necessarily diminished.
Ironically, in the full-fledged transfer society, where governments busy themselves redistributing income by means of hundreds of distinct programs, hardly anyone is better off as a result. Those who get something of value from the system frequently give up even more in taxes. Further, because many of the consequences of government income redistribution share the common aspect of impoverishing the society, even those who get a bigger slice than they surrender are cutting into a smaller pie. Only the ruling classthose who constitute the governmentcan confidently expect to gain, as each new program enlarges the number of official jobs and the bureaucracys budget.
In the transfer society the general public is not only poorer but less contented, less autonomous, more rancorous, and more politicized. Individuals take part less often in voluntary community activities and more often in belligerent political contests. Genuine communities cannot breathe in the poisonous atmosphere of redistributional politics. Most importantly, the society that allows its government to redistribute income on a wide scale necessarily sacrifices much of its liberty.
Finally, one must recognize that, notwithstanding what some regard as the institutionalization of compassion, the transfer society quashes genuine virtue. Redistribution of income by government coercion is a form of theft. Its supporters attempt to disguise its essential character by claiming that democratic procedures give it legitimacy, but this justification is specious. Theft is theft whether it be carried out by one thief or by 100 million thieves acting in concert. And it is impossible to found a good society on the institutionalization of theft.
[1] U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, Annual Report 1994, p. 299.
[2] James D. Gwartncy and Richard L. Stroup, Microeconomics: Private and Public Choice, 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Dryden Press, 1992), pp. 409410.
[3] Ibid., pp. 488489.
[4] Paulette Thomas, BiPartisan Panel Outlines Evils of Entitlements, But Hint of Benefit Cuts Spurs Stiff Opposition, Wall Street Journal, August 8, 1994.
[5] Arianna Huffington as quoted by John H. Fund, A Spiritual Manifesto for a New Political Age, Wall Street Journal, July 13, 1994.
[6] Thomas, Bipartisan Panel.
[7] James L. Payne, Inside the Federal Hurting Machine, The Freeman, March 1994, p. 127.
[8] The Federalist No. 44, in The Federalist (New York: Modem Library, n.d.), p. 291.


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Kelsea Ballerini is taking over iHeartLand in Fortnite and on Roblox with a special show on August 18th, and you won't want to miss it.
The country singer/songwriter has released a lot of new music over the last few years, including 2022's Subject To Change and her latest EP Rolling Up The Welcome Mat. The latter was shared with fans, along with a corresponding short film, back in February.
Most recently, Kelsea shared her Rolling Up The Welcome Mat (For Good) re-release album along with a deeply personal message for fans. She explained, "'It's kinda scary opening a wound that time has mended.'...but this unexplainably transformative welcome mat had one last bit of rolling up to do. It's most important that I articulate that this re-release is for you and you only. The added outro's that we ended up screamsinging nightly on tour, the lyric changes along a healing journey, hearing you very loudly explain that the INTERLUDE NEEDS TO BE A FULL SONG KELSEA COME ON. Plus, a new song to bring the story more up to date." Later in the message, she concluded with, "My real hope is for us to continue growing, healing, and evolving together with acceptance and kindness (even when we unleash our inner fire breathing dragon singing the new versions of these songs). Am i right?"
During Kelsea's exclusive show in iHeartLand, fans can see the country singer/songwriter will perform live, as well as open up about her music and more during a special Q&A hosted by iHeartRadio's Amy Brown. Fans can experience Kelsea Ballerini in iHeartLand in Fortnite and on Roblox for two days only, starting Friday, August 18th at 7pm ET/4pm PT.
If you're in Fortnite, keep the party going by showing off your best dance moves on State Farm Park's dance floor! Then, stick around and check out fun mini-games including obstacle courses, high speed races, and more.
And after catching the show in iHeartLand on Roblox, stick around for some exclusive interview with Niall backstage. Don't forget to check out the new and improved iHeartLand in Roblox, iHeartLand: Radio Star Simulator. Get started and gather all the sound energy you can from sound fields around iHeartLand, collect and upgrade radios, and complete quests to win rewards. You can also collect your very own radio pets.
Make sure to head over to iHeartLand in Fortnite and on Roblox on August 18th!


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PRINTCR3DIT - Process Intensification through Adaptable Catalytic Reactors made by 3D Printing
Catalytic reactors account for production of 90% of chemicals we use in everyday life. To achieve the decarbonisation of European economy and comply with the 20-20-20 target, resource utilization and energy efficiency will play a major role in all industrial processes.
The concept of PRINTCR3DIT is to employ 3D printing to boost process intensification in the chemical industries by adapting reactors and structured catalysts to the requirements of the reaction. This manufacturing technique is particularly useful in reactions where diffusion, mixing and/or heat transfer are limitations against reaching higher performance. The utilization of the concept of 3D printing will also reduce the resource utilization of reactor and catalyst manufacture, energy consumed (< 15%) and transportation.
The methodology will be applied to three markets of fine chemicals, specialty chemicals and fertilizers, ranging from few tons to millions of tons of production per year. This demonstrates the enormous versatility of 3D printing for reactor and catalyst designs that cannot be improved with traditional building and design tools. For all these processes, the challenges to be solved are thermal management, innovative reactor design and flow distribution. These examples will provide realistic data in different markets to delineate business case scenarios with the options of new integrated plants or retrofitting for large-scale applications.
Application of cutting-edge 3D printing to catalytic reactors will foster higher productivity, a more competitive industrial sector and higher value jobs in Europe - keeping leadership in such a challenging arena. PRINTCR3DIT is a joint effort between world-leading industries (4), innovative SMEs (4), R&D institutes (4) and a university that aim to accelerate deployment of a set of products to the market.
Project budget: 5493891 €
Project duration: 36 months
"The project is supported by the Horizon 2020 framework programme under grant agreement No: 680414. The project is part of the Public Private Partnership SPIRE Innitiative.
Useful links: http://www.spire2030.eu/


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Location: Cambridgeshire
Salary: £25 – £30 per hour
Deadline: 5 July 2024
EAL / ESOL Tutors for Young People who require support in learning English as an Additional Language required in your area.
Multiple positions are available and hiring is ongoing to meet the wide variety of needs we support.
We are looking for EAL / ESOL Tutors with a genuine passion for transforming the lives of disengaged, at-risk, and vulnerable learners.
At Targeted Provision our mission is to raise the standard of educational support offered to vulnerable young people in the UK. We keep the team around the child and you will be supported throughout every placement by our team of Support Specialists.
This role is perfect for EAL / ESOL teachers who are eager to work with children and young people with a variety of learning needs in a creative, flexible, holistic and trauma-informed manner to raise their engagement and drastically improve the outlook of their educational journey.
What we offer our EAL / ESOL Tutors:
- The gross pay for this role is between £25 p/h – £30 p/h (constituted of a base rate + 12.07% holiday pay)
- Flexible part-time hours to suit your schedule
- Occasional opportunities to take on remote jobs and online teaching assignments and work from home
- Extensive CPD and upskilling opportunities, including access to the full Tes CPD suite while working with us
- A Support Team dedicated to keeping a team around the child, and ensuring that every placement is a success for the young person and you
- We invite every active tutor to join our tutor community, where our tutors and ourselves share best practice, resources, and tips
- A place as part of a child-centred company committed to transforming the world of support for vulnerable young people for the better
The EAL / ESOL Tutor role:
- This role will involve providing tuition to young people referred to Targeted Provision
- These young people are referred to us by local authorities and schools and will require some level of support in their educational and social-emotional journey
- If selected, your role will be to provide this support via flexible and holistic trauma-informed tutoring and mentoring
EAL / ESOL Tutor tasks and responsibilities:
- Planning each session of tutoring / mentoring
- Providing the young person with holistic and engaging sessions which meet their needs and advance their educational and social-emotional journey
- Completing lesson reports and providing feedback on the young person's progress
EAL / ESOL Tutor requirements:
- Professional Teaching Qualifications (for e.g. CELTA, TEFL, TESOL)
- Minimum 2 years teaching experience
- Experience working with young people with EAL
- Experience, knowledge and understanding of safeguarding processes
- Enhanced DBS (we can help obtain this at cost if needed)
- Two professional references
- You must be based in the UK with the right to work in the UK, even for remote / online assignments
It is a strict requirement that you have the ability to work in a way that promotes the health, safety and wellbeing of children and young people and follow safeguarding policies and procedures at all times.
EAL / ESOL Tutor employment Status:
- This position involves engaging with us as a Worker, to provide short-term engagements as and when they arise
- You will work through a contract for service and will be paid via PAYE
- We do not offer any set amount of work nor expenses coverage
- Our insurance covers the work you do for us
- This is not a self-employed tutoring / self-employed teaching position
We look forward to receiving your CV, outlining your relevant skills and experience that can help make a difference.
Due to the number of applications we receive, we are unable to respond to every applicant. We aim to respond to all successful applicants within two weeks.
We are keen to hear from candidates from all backgrounds. The over 2 million vulnerable children in the UK are disproportionately constituted of minority and LGBTQIA+ communities, as well as people with disabilities, refugees and migrants, and people living with mental health conditions. It is integral to our mission of raising the standard of support for the UK's vulnerable learners that we engage tutors from all backgrounds so that our tutors can share/relate to the experiences of our students.
We take Safer Recruitment seriously. All candidates must pass through our strict processes to ensure their suitability to work with children and young people before being considered for work with us.
Interviews are being scheduled on a rolling basis.
Relevant Job Titles / Previous Experience:
Individuals with highly relevant experience from teaching background often have worked in the following roles:
- SENCo (Special Education Needs Coordinator)
- SLD / MLD Teacher
- Autism / ADHD Support Teacher
- Intervention Specialist
- Ex-Teacher
Other highly relevant roles from therapeutic and learning support background include
- Learning Support Assistant (LSA)
- Educational Therapist
- Speech and Language Therapist
- Educational Psychologist
- Inclusion Coordinator
If you hold one of these roles, meet our requirements, and are considering a career change please do consider applying with us.


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For Christmas 1984, my dad gave each of my siblings and me a scrapbook that he put together filled with family photos, copies of newspaper clippings and letters, playbills, cards we had given him and our mom, report cards (yikes), you-name-it. A lot of the photos in each scrapbook were geared toward the recipient but also included a few photos of the other siblings. He also put in photos of himself and our mom, our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and our children. At the end of each scrapbook was a card with a special note from our dad. It's one of the best presents I've ever received. Over the years, I would get my scrapbook out and pour over it, and I continued collecting memorabilia to add to mine.
Here we are Christmas day 1984 about to open our gifts—the wonderful scrapbooks that our dad made for us filled with family memorabilia. You can see how huge they were! From left to right: me, John, Helen, Missy, and Andy.
John, Helen, and Missy looking through their scrapbooks.
Helen looking through her scrapbook.
A page from Helen's scrapbook with photographs of our mom when she was a kid.
Another page from Helen's scrapbook. This has graduation photos of our parents and a newspaper article when they graduated from Valdosta State University in the early 1970s—our mom with a degree in nursing (she already had a degree in art) and our dad with a degree in English. Since Helen practiced ballet for 15 years, Dad also included photos of her and a playbill from her recitals.
When I moved to Alaska, I left my scrapbook behind with the intention of one day taking it back with me after one of my visits to Valdosta. Well, that never happened because it was too big to fit in my suitcase. I'm back in Valdosta now, and I look forward to getting my scrapbook out of storage to pour over again! What a wonderful way to preserve family history!


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There's a fortune to be made in just about everything
in this country, somebody's father had to invent
everything--baby food, tractors, rat poisoning.
My family's obviously done nothing since the beginning
of time. They invented poverty and bad taste
and getting by and taking it from the boss.
O my mother goes around chewing her nails and
spitting them in a jar: You shouldn't be ashamed
of yourself she says, think of your family.
My family I say what have they ever done but
paint by numbers the most absurd and disgusting scenes
of plastic squalor and human degradation.
Well then think of your great great etc. Uncle
Patrick Henry.
My Great Great Etc. Uncle Patrick Henry
written byJames Tate
© James Tate


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80*80mm Drywall Plaster Aluminum LED Channel Ceiling Wall Washer Trimless Recessed Alu Profile For Architectural Lighting (DK-DP8080)
LED Drywall Profile is designed to be completely seamless once installed into drywall/plastering and used for recessed linear lighting between tiles and wall to create architectural and interior lighting effects. with no aluminum frames showing. The range of plaster-in aluminum led profile comprises corner profiles, linear shapes and cove lighting options. The aluminum channels are simply screwed to the plasterboard, with plaster applied up to the diffuser. The effect is a clean beam of light that appears to come from a gap in the plaster.
These LED plaster profile are suitable for housing and protecting our LED strips. They allow a flush install into wall and ceiling pieces as well as prevent the much unwanted secondary refraction from reflective surfaces. They also act as a heat sink for them as well, which in turn will increase the LEDs lifetime as well as slowing down any brightness degradation over time.
Delkon aluminum channel systems are customizable to suit 1/2'' drywall/plaster/gypsum projects requirements. The recessed tile edge led profile can be installed in edge areas such as wall and ceiling for home hotel theaterl areas.
1. The aluminum track is designed for <10.3mm flexible or rigid LED strips.Note: Check the width size of your strips and strip-connector to be less than 10.3mm before buying this channel.
2. The aluminum channel gives a good heat dissipation produced by LED strips, but also the cover protects the LEDs from exposure to dust, hair and physical contact. Milky white cover diffuses LED strip lights, rending a softer, more uniform light, ideal for decorative and accent lighting
3. The aluminum led channel can be cut down to any length.and widely used as interior lighting.
4. Easy Installation with all needed accessories (cover, end caps, screws). Simply stick the LED strip light's adhesive backing inside the aluminum channel, snap on the diffuser cover.
Dimensions:80mm *80mm
Max. LED Strip Width:10.3mm
Aluminum Profile:T5-6063 Al
Diffuser:Milk Cover
Package includes:
6 x White Aluminum Channel
12 x Milky PC cover
12 x End caps


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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Organised by:
Goethe-Institut, Polish Institute, Raumlabor Berlin und Asociatia E-cart.ro.
Supported by:
European Commission -"Programme Culture 2007-2013", Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin, Romanian Cultural Institute in Berlin and Warsaw, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Goethe-Institut Bucharest, Polish Institute Bucharest, Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest
Co-operation partners:
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Fundacja Bęc Zmiana, Skulpturenpark Berlin/ KUNSTrePublik e.V., DISK e.V. & CTM.
Further information:
The Promised City, Knotland – The Knot Homepage, Social Network Photos by Joanna Erbel (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16), The Knot Social Network Group
THE KNOT is a mobile platform for artistic presentation and production, inhabiting different areas of public space, and offering itself as an open space of encounter, exchange and experimentation. In 2010 The Knot visited Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest, stopping in each city for a few weeks.
The physical core of the project consists in a specially designed structure, adaptable to different urban situations, easily expandable and transportable. This unit responds to the programmatic needs of the KNOT project, comprising different functions such as: production/manufacture workshop, kitchen, café, laboratory, classroom, stage, dormitory, disco, exhibition space, and archive.
Through its unexpected presence in the city, THE KNOT proposes a model for social interaction, thus being not so much a container as a transformer, creating new ways in which the public space could be used and produced. The participants invited by the curatorial collective to activate THE KNOT put forward not only their professional skills, but also their physical company, their desires and imaginative will. They became temporary members of a protean and nomad crew, acting both as hosts and guests in a shared and welcoming place.
At the intersection between the real and the imaginary, THE KNOT is an initial point where a thorough examination of the relationships between the individual, the group and the place of interaction is undertaken. The project responds to the increasingly normative way in which these relationships are defined in our current societies. Envisioning alternative behaviours in the city, based on cooperation and self-empowerment is one of the main tasks of THE KNOT. Also of actual relevance is to explore what is left of collective ideals or how one can overcome the current conditions of harsh economic competition and the tendency towards national or ethnic isolation. Temporary communities are the tool of creating another notion of a "promised city", apart from its capitalist vision.
The project takes its inspiration from and links back to the cities of Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest, always with references to other cities wherefrom the participants originate or live. Personal and institutional partnerships in each place make THE KNOT a living organism which is integrated in the life of the city. At the same time an obstacle disrupting the daily habits and rituals, and an autonomous zone of experiment, THE KNOT provokes and satisfies the public with every object, performance, installation, action, screening, party, discussion, meeting, workshop, dinner or other activity which takes place in and around it.
THE KNOT is part of the project "The Promised City", initiated by Goethe Institute Warsaw & Polish Institute Berlin, a cultural initiative between Berlin and Warsaw with cooperations in Mumbai and Bucharest: artists, curators, culturally engaged personalities and scientists from Germany, Poland, India and Romania develop numerous new artistic productions, which are interdisciplinarily debating dreams, illusions and the luck-promising modern metropolises.
THE KNOT gathered a quite significant group of artists, urbanists, architects, intellectuals, theoreticians and activists in every city. We chose to implement different styles of work with them, depending on the scale of involvement, type of contribution, time spent within the KNOT, the amount of resources available for conducting new commission.


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Available today; AWS Okta Keyman. This package is a fork of previous work by Nextdoor, Inc. that adds Duo Auth support and has other features already on the roadmap.
This package allows the user, who uses Okta with AWS today, to authenticate with Okta, use that to authenticate to AWS, and then pulls down temporary credentials (access key and secret key) for interacting with the AWS APIs. This allows for users to have access to AWS APIs without long-lived API keys stored on their dev systems. This helps protect the AWS resources as the keys are only valid for at most an hour so an unintended disclosure or leak has a very short window of risk before the keys become invalid. It also helps by enforcing the idea of continually rotating keys; not so different from what the on-box EC2 experience is like when using IAM Roles for EC2.
If you are using Okta to log in to AWS give it a try today; pip install aws-okta-keyman
The source is available under the Apache 2.0 license.
For more information: https://github.com/nathan-v/aws_okta_keyman