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In Praise of Lazinessby Jason Godesky
A word that comes up often in European descriptions of "savages" is "lazy," as in, "The bushmen hunt too much, they are lazy and dirty and their dogs must be shot,"1 or "The redskinned Indians are naturally lazy and vicious, melancholic, cowardly, and in general a lying, shiftless, people,"2 or that Africans are "leud and lazy to excess,"3 or Bowes' characterization of Australian Aborigines as "too stupid and indolent a set of people" to hunt kangaroo. Of course, such characterizations today often draw ire, and rightly so, as racist stereotypes. But the common theme of "laziness" attributed to hunter-gatherers does reflect an important point: the greater liesure enjoyed by hunter-gatherers, and the perverse cult of labor enshrined by European civilization.
A common theme in the stereotype is that of the savage too lazy, and often equally compelled by stupidity, to embrace the wonders of agriculture. The Bushman fascination with the mongongo nut led Richard Lee to conclude that foragers everywhere lived primarily on vegetable food sources, a notion Loren Cordain later overturned. But the place of the mongongo nut in Bushman life is easy to understand. European observers frequently justified their identification of the Bushmen as lazy with the evidence of all the mongongo nuts they left simply to rot on the ground, even after they'd eaten all they'd wanted. Why not store the excess away? And why not begin farming, like their neighbors? One Dobe Bushman famously replied to that question, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"
In Missionary in Sonora: Travel Reports of Joseph Och, S.J., 1755-1767, Joseph Och also justified his racist stereotypes by referencing Native Americans' disdain for agriculture.
By nature Indians are very lazy and sworn enemies of work. They prefer to suffer hunger than to fatigue themselves with agriculture. Therefore, they must be forced to do this by their superiors. With six industrious Europeans one can do more in one day than fifty Indians.
On the island of Tahiti, J.M. Orsmond, "believing that 'a too bountiful nature on Moorea diminishes men's natural desire to work', ordered all breadfruit trees to be cut down."
By this time the population of Tahiti had been reduced by syphilis, tuberculosis, smallpox and influenza from the 200,000 estimated by Cook to 18,000. After thirty years of missionary rule, only 6,000 remained. Otto Von Kotzebue, leader of a Russian expedition into the Pacific in 1823, long before the decline had reached its terminal phase, wrote: "A religion like this which forbids every innocent pleasure and cramps or annihilates every mental power is a libel on the divine founder of Christianity."4
Of course, as Richard Manning wrote in Against the Grain, "Gamboling about plain and forest, hunting and living off the land is fun. Farming is not." To gather everything they needed, foragers worked much less than we do today. Richard Lee's initial assessment of the !Kung work week is neatly summarized by Sahlins:
Despite a low annual rainfall (6 to 10 inches), Lee found in the Dobe area a "surprising abundance of vegetation". Food resources were "both varied and abundant", particularly the energy rich mangetti [a.k.a. mongongo] nut—"so abundant that millions of the nuts rotted on the ground each year for want of picking." The Bushman figures imply that one man's labour in hunting and gathering will support four or five people. Taken at face value, Bushman food collecting is more efficient than French farming in the period up to World War II, when more than 20 per cent of the population were engaged in feeding the rest. Confessedly, the comparison is misleading, but not as misleading as it is astonishing. In the total population of free-ranging Bushmen contacted by Lee, 61.3 per cent (152 of 248) were effective food producers; the remainder were too young or too old to contribute importantly In the particular camp under scrutiny, 65 per cent were "effectives". Thus the ratio of food producers to the general population is actually 3 :5 or 2:3. But, these 65 per cent of the people "worked 36 per cent of the time, and 35 per cent of the people did not work at all"!
For each adult worker, this comes to about two and one—half days labour per week. (In other words, each productive individual supported herself or himself and dependents and still had 3 to 5 days available for other activities.) A "day's work" was about six hours; hence the Dobe work week is approximately 15 hours, or an average of 2 hours 9 minutes per day.5
This is the oft-quoted "two hours a day" statistic, but it has come under fire from critics who point out that Lee did not add in other necessary activities, such as creating tools, and food preparation. So, Lee returned to do further study with these revised definitions of "work," and came up with a figure of 40-45 hours per week. This might seem to prove that hunter-gatherers enjoy no more liesure than industrial workers, but the same criticisms laid against Lee's figures also apply against our "40 hour work week." It, too, does not include shopping, basic daily chores, or food preparation, which would likewise swell our own tally. Finally, the distinction between "work" and "play" is nowhere nearly as clear-cut in forager societies as it is in our own. Foragers mix the two liberally, breaking up their work haphazardly, and often playing while they work (or working while they play). The definition of work which inflates the total to 40-45 hours per week includes every activity that might be considered, regardless of its nature. Even the most unambiguous "work" of foragers is often the stuff of our own vacations: hunting, fishing, or a hike through the wilds. Sitting Bull expressed it quite well:
White men like to dig in the ground for their food. My people prefer to hunt the buffalo as their fathers did. White men like to stay in one place. My people want to move their tepees here and there to the different hunting grounds. The life of white men is slavery. They are prisoners in towns or farms. The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion. … The white men had many things that we wanted, but we could see that they did not have the one thing we liked best—freedom. I would rather live in a tepee and go without meat when game is scarce, than give up my privileges as a free Indian, even though I could have all that white men have.
Rather than laziness, the choice of hunting and gathering over agriculture was simply good sense. But what of the notion of "laziness" itself—that the avoidance of labor is a question of moral standing? Rationally, we would think of work as an investment to obtain what we want, so that if it had any moral value at all, it would have to be as a function of what that thing is we're working for. By the same logic, it should be virtuous to pay $100 for a stick of gum. Our deification of labor is fundamentally irrational—the Protestant work ethic the logical result only from the assumptions of a cruel and capricious god ruling over a clockwork universe. Calvinism removed grace from anything a human being could secure, so emphasis shifted to evidence that one was among the elect. The Protestant work ethic emerged from the view that constant activity in building up the kingdom of G-d reflected the fact that one had recieved grace; idleness, evidence that one had not. The result was nothing short of asceticism, and the glorification of work for its own sake as evidence of G-d's grace.6
Such an approach is obviously at odds with the basic nature of the world, but similar themes were nonetheless picked up by Darwin, who set the tone for our view of nature "red in tooth and claw." Darwin saw his theory of natural selection arising from the incredible lethality and ruthlessness of the natural world. This narrative has remained in place, even while the evidence to support it has eroded completely away.
This war of nature was perhaps Darwin's most enduring contribution to the theory of evolution. What had been seen, until then, as a harmonious natural order, became a bloodbath. And in the rest of Origin, Darwin rams home the image of struggle, war, murder, extermination.
It is not particularly hard to see where this idea comes from. Given more mouths to feed than the limited amount of food available, the image is easily conjured of hungry, jostling, struggling animals, wedged together, biting and tugging and trampling over each other to reach that food. And, given this image, it is clear that the strongest, fastest, and most aggressive are likely to come out the winners. And, indeed, that an animal would increase its chances of survival if it took to actively exterminating its competitors.
But hidden in this vision of competition is an unstated supposition that the natural world provides its bounty in a concentrated and localized form—as if Nature, like a farmer, feeds the creatures by unloading its produce in one great pile, in a particular place and a particular time, before the hungry livestock. In this artificial circumstance, as they all rush in, direct competition is inevitable.7
Darwin, growing up among the farms of Shropshire, projected the dynamics of agriculture onto the natural world, and conjured up the image of nature as an eternal war, the Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes that we still hear echoed in the language of nature documentaries. Idleness could have little place in the daily struggle for survival in such a situation—but this model is a question of projection, of domestication onto the undomesticated world. In the real world, resources are not hoarded in a single location, and so competition is rarely an issue. Instead, resources are spread out, and individuals likewise spread out to gather them. The Darwinian "survival of the fittest" speaks as much to the mythical daily struggle for survival as to the process of natural selection itself; in contrast, "Idle Theory" presents "Survival of the Idlest." It provides little challenge to the basic notion of evolution or even natural selection, but it does overturn the Darwinian model of life as a constant war. Instead, animals that spend the least energy providing for their survival are the most likely to survive.
We've all seen the relative idleness of wild animals, and their proclivity for long naps, sleeping any time they're not eating or looking for food. Biologists have often seen in this evidence of a constant, and somewhat desperate, search for food. Of course, much the same could (and has) been said of hunter-gatherers, as well, because they also take long naps and sleep for very long periods of time. But if we instead take the view of Idle Theory, we can see that hunter-gatherers had actually done quite well—the mystery of how humans survived into the Neolithic disappears. In fact, what becomes most astonishing is how much civilization has lost in terms of evolutionary fitness.
The development of technology has had an effect on liesure time typified by Jevons Paradox. Agriculture was meant to increase liesure by providing a constant, steady food supply, but the complete reliance on a few, fickle, closely-related cereal grains grown in a completely unsustainable context meant that farmers traded in the relative ease and security of hunting and gathering for back-breaking labor to get disease, malnutrition, regular famine and an early grave. More recently, computer technology has accelerated the trend: a piece of software meant to cut your work time in half will simply raise your boss's expectations that you accomplish three times as much. No one in the industrialized world works as long as people in the United States, with work-weeks now regularly stretching into 60 or 70 hours or longer.
So, why are American workers becoming workaholics? The culprit is technology, according to Peg Buchenroth, vice president of human resources, Hudson North America. "Modern technology makes staying connected to work while on vacation easier than ever and helps to blur the line between work and personal time," she says.8
Workers in the United States recieve some of the least vacation time in the Western world, yet they increasingly don't even take that. The perverse Protestant work ethic has a good deal to do with this kind of masochistic behavior, but so does fear—a kind of Prisoner's Dilemna where each worker fears that if they take time off and the others around them do not, that they will miss a promotion, a key opportunity, or worse, their very job. Such fears are regularly fanned, from stories about declining job security to the trumped-up "issues" of immigration by barely-closeted racists like Lou Dobbs, who cultivate that fear by reminding workers how absolute commitment is the only way to avoid being replaced.
Fear and a strong cultural focus on work are largely responsible for behavior in regard to their job and leisure time, says Helen Friedman, PhD, a clinical psychologist in private practice in St. Louis. "Fear is the motivator—fear of falling behind in work, fear of being replaced if you don't give 110%," she says. "As a culture, we've evolved to value doing rather than being."
In this country, just being means being lazy as there's no time to just be, Friedman adds. The emphasis is less on character and personality, but more on the job at hand. As an example, upon meeting, one of the first things people ask each other is: "What do you do?"
Halcyone Bohen, PhD, a psychologist in independent practice in Washington, D.C., echoes Friedman's view. "In our culture, work is so highly valued that people are rewarded for it from preschool on, for doing 'a good job,'" she says. "Less value is often put on play and relaxation."9
In Europe, mandated minimum vacations eliminate that Prisoner's Dilemna, and the increased efficiency of happier, less-stressed workers keeps European production comparable to that of the United States—and puts U.S. workers in the position of working still longer, and becoming even less efficient, to keep pace.10, 11 One could hardly ask for a clearer example of the Prisoner's Dilemna pushing a system beyond the point of diminishing marginal returns. Were the psychological toll not enough, there is an environmental cost to such mindless devotion to labor, as well.
The report, written by researcher David Rosnick and economist Mark Weisbrot, warns that if Europeans worked the long hours that Americans do, it would boost their energy consumption rates by 30 percent. This would boost the international demand for fuel, as well as Europe's overall carbon dioxide emissions.
"There is an important political debate in Europe over whether Europeans would be better off economically if they moved towards a U.S.-style economic model, most importantly in their labor markets," the authors write. "But aside from the economic and political implications, there are some potentially large costs to the environment if European countries were to move to a U.S.-style economic model."12
Even those who seek out a more primitive way of life often bring the cultural baggage of the cult of work with them.
Today many of us westerners find ourselves fascinated with these simple cultures, and a few of us really dive into it to reproduce or recreate the primitive lifestyle. In our typical western zeal we get right into it and produce, produce, produce. We work ambitiously to learn each primitive craft, and we produce all kinds of primitive clothing, tools, containers, and art, and just plain stuff. True hunter-gatherer cultures carried all their possessions on their backs, but us modern primitives soon find that we need a pickup truck just to move camp! In our effort to recreate the primitive lifestyle we find that we have ironically missed our mark completely—that we have made many primitive things, but that we have not begun to grasp the true nature of a primitive culture. To truly grasp that essence requires that we let go, and begin to understand the art of doing nothing.13
The key to hunter-gatherer success was their willingness to live in the world, to get by and be happy, more than the material ambition to have a lot of things. Today, we recognize the "type A personality" as one destined to high stress and, in all likelihood, an early grave. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States—beyond the automobiles that claim a Vietnam War's worth of dead every year, or the cancers that overwhelm us from poisoned air, water and food. Beyond even these causes, the stress of our own cultish devotion to slavishness is killing us in droves.
But if we can let that go, and live with the world rather than trying to remake it in our own image, we might find some time for liesure, some time to be idle, and we might even find a healthy, happy way to live. Of course, calls to such a life are not new in our culture; while the "Protestant work ethic" emerged from Calvinism, the Savior they ostensibly worshipped took a different view:
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? (Matthew 6:25-30)
As the sagacious title character of Ishmael asked of this passage, "Did you think your god was joking?"
Or consider a more recent story of unknown provenance, often cited online:
An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, "only a little while."
The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.
The American then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"
The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life."
The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise."
The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"
To which the American replied, "15 - 20 years."
"But what then?" Asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!"
"Millions—then what?"
The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."


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Buzz: Ryan Callahan Leaves Ice Hunched Over (Isn't Returning)
10:25PM: Dave Lozo spoke with Max Talbot after the game and Talbot said:
- "We decided to go and we were holding each other up and his shoulder popped out or something. Unfortunate."
- "I let him go. I kind of felt it, but then I saw his face as well."
10:09PM: On MSG, John Tortorella had no update on the status of Ryan Callahan.
Torts said he had "no idea" if Cally would miss time.
9:13PM: The Rangers have announced that Ryan Callahan will not return tonight.
9:05PM: After dropping the gloves with Max Talbot, Ryan Callahan looked to be in pain and pointing to his left shoulder.
Callahan skated directly to the Rangers locker room.

subset: commoncrawl


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Our campaign demands
Rights From the Start is seeking a combination of commitments from donor and developing countries in order to realise the rights of children to early childhood care and education.
Teacher and curriculum development
- Governments must ensure higher standards for teacher education in early childhood and ensure that the qualifications of early childhood and childcare professionals are on a par with those of primary school teachers and beyond.
- Improve curricula and pedagogy in tune with childhood, valuing play, affection, cooperation, talent and creativity as well as fostering self-esteem and active methods that take into account children's view points.
- Encourage education ministries to ensure that adult education as well as all formal school curricula contains messages important to future parents on health and nutrition and the essential need for children to receive stronger cognitive and psycho-social support and stimulation from birth.
Removal of discrimination
- Take measures to overcome all forms of discrimination and guarantee quality early childhood care and education provision to boys and girls, children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, children with disabilities and those in emergency situations and marginalized communities.
- Reducing inequalities with integrated interventions that target the many risks to which vulnerable children are exposed.
Increased investment in early childhood care and education
- Governments must promote investment in ECCE and set up the framework for delivery of early childhood programmes that include civil society.
- Ensure governments set up an ECCE policy-coordinating mechanism to ensure that the programmes, activities and budgets of the various sectors involved in ECCE work together
- Call for a target of a minimum of 8% of education budgets to be allocated to ECCE (prior to school) and for significant increases in resources for early primary.
Donor governments:
- Donors must honour commitments to support all countries to achieve Education for All, especially Goal One.
- Raise awareness of the long-term national development gains in terms of poverty reduction of investment in ECCE.
- Align funding with national needs ensuring that those who lag behind the most get the most help.
- Ensure focused attention on early primary is incorporated as a critical piece of education reform to address the equity and learning crisis.
- Increase funding to the relevant sectors involved with ECCE to promote comprehensive ECCE programming.
The 4 Cornerstones


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UPCAT Dental BDS 2012
The UPCAT Dental Entrance Test named as Uttar Pradesh Common Admission Test (UPCAT DENTAL) is held at 24 cities across the country and is open to all eligible candidates including foreign nationals. There are 24 colleges participating in the Entrance Test for admitting students under management category seats.
UPCAT Dental BDS 2012 Exam DateUPCAT Dental BDS Entrance Exam held after administration on class 12th examination.
- Date of Exam: May 19, 2012 (Saturday)
UPCAT Dental BDS 2012 Important Dates
- Sale of Brochure: April 02, 2012
- Last date of submission of form: May 05, 2012
UPCAT Dental BDS 2012 Application Form
Two modes are available for the applicant to collect the application form i.e. through post or from specified centers.
Through Post: For this candidate need to draw DD of Rs.1100 payable at Bareilly in the name of Association of Private Medical & Dental Colleges of U.P. Then he/she has to send letter mentioning name, address and phone number along with this DD to the address given below:
Oriental Bank of Commerce, Springdell Branch, Bichpuri Road, Pilibhit Bypass Road, Bareilly 243006, Uttar Pradesh, India
From specified centers: For this applicant need to pay Rs.1000 personally at any member institute or any branch of Oriental Bank of Commerce. They will give form to the applicants on paying cash.
UPCAT Dental BDS Application Form can be submitted online or offline. For Detailed UPCAT Dental BDS 2012 Application Form Click Here.
Eligibility Criteria For UPCAT Dental BDS 2012Candidates should have minimum of 17 years of age to attain eligibility to apply for the test. Also candidate should pass higher secondary examination or Indian School Certificate Examination. In their qualifying examination candidate should have studied Physics, Chemistry, Biology and mathematics as subjects. If not so then he/she should have secured minimum 50% marks, when the subjects Physics, Chemistry and Biology are taken together in the qualifying examination. SC/ST candidates need to possess only 40% in this case.
BDS is under graduate program in dental sciences. School pass out students are eligible to apply. For Detailed UPCAT Dental BDS 2012 Eligibility Criteria Click Here.
UPCAT Dental BDS 2012 Exam PatternUPCAT Dental BDS Exam Pattern follows the school level syllabus in physics, chemistry and biology. For Detailed UPCAT Dental BDS 2012 Exam Pattern Click Here.
UPCAT Dental BDS Participating Colleges
Different colleges accepting this score are given below.
- Career Institute of Dental Sciences & Hospital
- Harsarn Dass Dental College
- Hindustan Institute of Dental Sciences
- Chandra Dental College & Hospital
- D.J. College of Dental Science & Research
- I.T.S Dental College Hospital and Research Centre
- Institute of Dental Studies & Technologies
- Inderprastha Dental College & Hospital
- Institute of Dental Science
- ITS Centre for Dental Studies & Research
- Kothiwal Dental College & Research Centre
- Kalka Dental College
- Kanti Devi Dental College & Hospital
- Maharana Pratap Dental College & Hospital
- Saraswati Dental College
- Purvanchal Institute of Dental Sciences
- Rama Dental College Hospital & Research Centre
- Sardar Patel Institute of Dental & Medical Science
- U.P Dental College & Research Center
- Shree Bankey Bihari Dental College & Research Centre
- Subharti Dental College
- Teerthanker Mahaveer Dental College and Research Centre
- Reference Books for UPCAT Dental for BDS
For Detailed List of Participating Dental Colleges in UPCAT BDS Entrance Exam 2012 Click Here.
UPCAT Dental BDS Reference Books
Different reference books for this test are given below.
- Pradeeps Biology
- Biology by SC Verma
- Physics NCERT
- Physics: CBSE PMT set of 3 Volumes by Anil Aggarwal
- Dinesh Biology
- Biology NCERT
- Truemans Biology
- HC Verma for Physics
- AC Dutta for Botany
- Concept of Competition Physics for CBSE PMT by Aggarwals
- ABC Chemistry
- Peter Atkins and Julio de Paula for Physical Chemistry
- Arihant Organic Chemistry
- Dinesh Chemistry
- Chemistry NCERT
- Morrision Boyd for Organic Chemistry


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Steps for Selecting Seeds
- Peruse catalogs as they come arrive.
- Mark anything and everything I see that I might like.
- Write a master list of all the seeds I want.
- Eliminate anything similar to what I already have or can get through trades and fellow gardeners.
- Make the final list.
I spend several weeks examining the catalogs and seeing all the options. I think it's necessary so that I can look impassively at the plants and objectively pick what I need. The truth is there are very few things I need but there are plants that will suit various purposes and projects like my self-sowing garden.
Nasturtium, sweet peas, and zinnias all made my list so I mark them in the catalog along with anything else I might want. I do the same with the vegetables and even any perennials, shrubs and trees that may be present. I mark everything that I have any interest in to put on my master list. I won't purchase from every catalog but looking at all of them helps me to make a list for future purchases, trades, or propagation.
Once I've marked everything I make a list with the plant names, catalog company name, and price. Then I compare prices, quantity of seed, and varieties. In the past I've even checked the per seed cost of each packet and compared them company to company. I eliminate everything that I already have from other sources like seed trades, seed that I've collected or been given. Then what's left on the list is my seed order. This year's order will be small since I have many of the seeds I need already and have picked some new one's from various places.
It may sound complicated but once the information is written down it is very simple to make choices. I hope this helps you to maximize your seed purchases!


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The vineyard, with an average age of 35 years, is characterised by its soil diversity: rather loamy soil around the château itself and more gravelly and clayey on the best blocks near the church.
Farming the property since 1962, Ets. Jean-Pierre MOUEIX brings the usual care and expertise to the vineyard - entirely replanted after the 1956 frost - and to the cellar. After a gentle fermentation in concrete tanks, the young wine is aged in 33% new oak barrels.


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Perseid Meteor Shower To Pass Over LA At Midnight Friday
August 12, 2011 8:23 PM
Links & NumbersInformation & Resources On Dangers Of Marijuana Use Covered California Enrollment Methods Hire LA Youth Hospital Ratings Stradivarius Fest Tell Us Who's Hiring!
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — One of the best meteor showers of the year is happening Friday night.
The annual Perseid meteor shower will pass over Los Angeles around midnight Friday, but it could be masked by a near perfect full moon.
The Perseids, associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle, produces fast-moving shooting stars throughout July and August, according to the International Meteor Organization. Scientists expect the shower to peak at roughly 100 meteors an hour Friday night.
The Perseid gets is name from the constellation Perseus, which appears to be the point in the sky where the shower originates.
To see a link to NASA's look-live at the shower, click here.


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It's a sad day at MOO HQ today, as we say goodbye to Will, our intern who's been working with the Dev team. He joined us for two months while on a summer break from Cambridge University – and we've kept him busy since the second he set foot through the door! A perfect member of the MOO crew, Will fit right in with everyone, working on new parts of the site, and experimenting with the API. We wish him well as he heads off back to university, and thought we'd let him take centre stage one last time while he tells you what he's been up to…
Having just spent two months working at the moo.com offices in London I feel as though intern doesn't fully describe what I've just been through. I prefer the term 'embedded student' which seems to better hint at the exciting and challenging process I've just been through. Having just finished my first year at university the opportunity to experience and work in a London start-up has been eye opening as to the way the 'real-world', as our lecturers love to put it, works.
MOO has a great sense of community and when I arrived it was great to get to meet everyone, from dev team to marketing. I also got to visit the warehouse and the printers where the magic happens. Having first purchased MiniCards when I was 17 it was really interesting to see the specially designed MiniCard cutter which splits a big sheet of designs into a holder where it is all divided up by pack as if by magic.
I can also verify that your cards truly are hand packed as claimed, having (in a tradition followed by all new MOO recruits) spent a morning working in the warehouse myself. In terms of what's been going on there's all sorts of exciting stuff I'm not allowed to talk about but one of the main things I've been working on is the new API which has been a great opportunity for floating big ideas in the office.
A series of brainstorming sessions with people working in all parts of the business were held, and there have been all sorts of ideas as to what could be done with it. I've taken a few of these and built some of what will be, the first ever apps to use the API – which has been fascinating and offered a lot of creative freedom providing variety to the core engineering work.
For my time here I have been working as a developer in one of the three teams of programmers in the office. I've had experiences of working with existing code-bases, developing new core code and also making some mini-apps of my very own. Coming from a background of never having coded 'professionally' before it has been fascinating to get to grips with Subversion and working with the mysteries of other peoples' code. Many of the languages I've worked in have been new or only briefly touched on and I now have a huge appreciation of the breadth of languages and stages to getting a fully fledged website going. PHP, JavaScript, JQuery, Smarty, DQL (not to mention HTML and CSS) have become a part of my psyche and a very stand out moment was waking up one morning having dreamt a dream that involved traversing a landscape base on Smarty (if it sounds bizarre that's probably because it is).
There has been plenty going on over the some and some pretty memorable events have included the MOO Summer Party and the launch of the redesign. At the MOO Summer Party I appreciated – in ways only a student can – the drinks vouchers on offer (although not quite enough to indulge in the karaoke on offer) and the cooked breakfast the following morning in the office certainly provided a bonding experience.
As my time here draws to a close I can look ahead to seeing exciting new developments I've worked on being released. I hope I'll be around to see them but I'm heading down to the very tip of the UK (a small cornish village called Paul) to rehearse for a show which should provide extremely effective internet detox.
No more shall I have the commute every morning but neither will I have the fun of lunch in the office on a Friday – or dev team planning poker (something which managed to remain novel and interesting throughout my whole time here). This year one of the pieces of work that forms part of my course is a group project and, at the risk of sounding akin to someone returning from a gap year having discovered their inner team programmer, hopefully I can take away what I've learnt here and use it to do something awesome. To stay updated on the API sign up to newsletter or follow us on Twitter; you can also follow me as I head back to university.
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The Perth Mint Bullion Blog
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Georg Gänswein
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This file picture taken on October 5, 2012 shows Pope Benedict XVI's... Foto di attualitàCerimonia,Città del Vaticano,Composizione verticale,Georg Gänswein,Luogo d'interesse internazionale,Ospite,Papa,Papa Benedetto XVI,Parlare,Religioni e filosofie,Stato del VaticanoPhotographer FILIPPO MONTEFORTECollection: AFP 2013 AFPThis file picture taken on October 5, 2012 shows Pope Benedict XVI's secretary Georg Gaenswein talking to guests during a ceremony at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI's dashing personal secretary Georg Gaenswein has made the front page of the Italian edition of Vanity Fair, under the headline 'being beautiful is not a sin.' 'The George Clooney of St. Peter's is the Vatican's number two, following his ordination as bishop,' says the magazine, which goes on sale on January 16, 2013 and charts Gaenswein's rise up the Holy See hierarchy. AFP PHOTO / FILIPPO MONTEFORTE (Photo credit should read FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)


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Document Number: 10713Redefining the School District in Tennessee - Relatively new, statewide recovery school districts represent another effort to turnaround bad schools. This paper from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute looks at Tennessee's Achievement School District (ASD). Created with Race to the Top funds won in 2010, ASD runs some school directly and uses charters for others. The goal is to take schools at the bottom 5% and turn them to top 25% in five years. (Nelson Smith, Thomas B. Fordham Institute, April 2013)...
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Follow me @liamlaguerre
A 49-year-old man was discovered dead in a Flushing karaoke bar on Saturday, cops said.
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text: Pity the artist who works in celluloid. If compelled towards story-telling and the budgets typically commensurate with such, one must first bed down with tycoons and their retainers, then run a gauntlet of various ideological hit-squads in order to promulgate the work. Film has a diabolic power which sits uneasily on the collective psyche of this i... More


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" I think the disappointment is that they didn't say anything "
From today's NR:
On December 14 2012, the Shafter mine in Texas started commercial production. The mine is now in the ramp up phase. The Shafter Mine currently employs 162 personnel allowing for a continuous operation. As part of the ramp up plan at Shafter, the installation of additional filter presses will be completed in Q2 2013. Initial production results from the Shafter mine are expected to be included in Aurcana's Q1 2013 financial results.


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Crime Beat
Three arrested for selling meth
by WES MAYER
Three men were arrested Thursday for selling methamphetamine after two successful busts by Coweta County Sheriff's Office Crime Suppression Unit.
The first arrest took place at 7:30 p.m. on 333 West Highway 16. William "Billy" Calvin Cain, 40, unknowingly set up a deal over his cell phone with one of the CSU's confidential informants. Shortly after the transaction, Cain was stopped and arrested. His vehicle was searched, and investigators found four grams of meth and a digital scale.
Cain, who was recently out of jail on bond for doing this exact thing, was charged with possession of meth with intent, sale of meth and use of a communications facility in a drug transaction.
The second arrest took place an hour later at the Dollar General on 245 Temple Ave. in Newnan. Steven Howard Goodman, 51, and Jeremy Lee Dutton, 25, made a deal by cell phone with another one of the CSU's confidential informants. After the transaction, the two men were promptly stopped and arrested. A fourth of an ounce of meth was found to be in their possession.
Dutton, who was on bond for a theft by taking arrest and was supposed to be in rehab, and Goodman, who was on parole for murder, were both charged with possession of meth with intent and use of a communications facility in a drug transaction.


text:
The Science of Voting
Are democratic elections actually as free and fair as we think they are?
by Brian Dunning
Filed under General Science, Logic & Persuasion
|Skeptoid #281
October 25, 2011
Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe
Also available in Russian
By Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast
Episode 281, October 25, 2011
In the 1969 film Putney Swope, members of the board of executives were prohibited from voting for themselves, so they all voted for the one board member they were sure nobody else would vote for. Ergo, this free, democratic election produced a chairman that no voter wanted.
In a perfect democracy, everyone gets an equal opportunity to vote, and equal representation. Therefore, we hold elections to let everyone have their say, to either vote representatives into office, or to enact certain laws. It's a fine idea, and most countries do their level best to implement such systems. Some voters take advantage of it, and some choose apathy and don't vote. Some try to anticipate what other voters might do, and cast a vote in an unexpected direction not to vote for a candidate, but to affect another candidate's chances. This is what went wrong in Putney Swope: each voter cast a throwaway vote hoping to improve his own chances. In most elections, everyone has the right to do any of these things; the election is theirs, and theirs to decide. But what many of them might not know is that virtually any electoral process is flawed. Some outcomes are surprising. There are a number of different circumstances in which the candidate most desired does not win.
Democratic voting is only simple if there are just two candidates, or if it's a Yes or No vote. In those cases, any attempt to vote tactically or to create a voting block — casting votes that don't represent your preference — work against you. What we're talking about today are elections where there are three or more candidates. And the idea that all the various systems for running such elections are flawed (subject to results that do not represent the group's preference) is not just a whim or a crazy opinion of mine. It's proven by Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, named for the economist Kenneth Arrow, winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in economics and the 2004 National Medal of Science. He proved it in 1951 with his Ph.D. thesis at Columbia University.
Arrow's theorem can be simplified into one clear statement: that no fair voting system exists when there are three or more candidates. To this I ask: What do you mean by fair? That's the key to Arrow's theorem. It holds true, depending on a rigid definition of fair that must satisfy three criteria:
1. If every individual prefers X to Y, then the group prefers X to Y.
2. If every voter's preference of X over Y stays the same, then the group's preference of X to Y stays the same, even if other preferences change: such as Y to Z, or Z to X.
3. There can be no dictator, as Arrow called him; a single voter with the power to dictate the group's preference.
Arrow's theorem applies to election systems that require voters to rank the candidates. This is the case with most voting systems worldwide. Typically, when you vote, you mark an X in the box for one candidate. That's a ranking; you've ranked that candidate first. Arrow's theorem applies to these simple ranking systems, but its richest mathematical complexities come from systems with three or more candidates and the voters rank all candidates in order of preference. This isn't used in many real-world elections, but it's the theoretical basis for social choice theory.
The ideal outcome in any election is to choose what's called the Condorcet winner. A Condorcet winner, named after the French mathematician and political scientist, is the candidate who would beat all other candidates in a simple two-man majority race. There isn't always a Condorcet winner in every election, but there usually is. The most common voting system is plurality voting, where the candidate with the largest number of votes wins. However, there are numerous situations in which the winner of a plurality vote is not the Condorcet winner who should have been elected. This is most often seen in a vote-splitting situation, where there are two similar candidates and one oddball candidate. One of the similar candidates is often the Condorcet winner; but because of their similarity, party votes are often split between them, and the oddball candidate wins. This is the most obvious failure of election systems, and it's exactly what Kenneth Arrows was talking about.
Experiments conducted by Don Saari, professor of mathematics and economics at the University of California Irvine, highlighted these failures of existing plurality systems. In one test, he had voters rank beer, wine, and milk in their order of preference. They all did so. But then there are different things you can do with those results. Saari made it a simple plurality election, giving a vote to each first-ranked item, and milk won; but he found that a majority of the voters would have preferred either beer or wine to it. The net result was that Saari proved that some system could be designed to select any desired outcome you want, given the same set of votes to work from.
This inherent tendency for voting to fail is called the voting paradox, also described by Condorcet. Yet, it's the system that virtually all nations rely upon for most or all of their elections. Something's broken somewhere.
Perhaps the most interesting solution to the election problem is called lottery voting, or the random ballot. In this type of election, every voter would cast his vote; but the winner would be determined not by a count, but by a single ballot selected at random from the total. Although at first it sounds outrageous, it actually has serious benefits. First, it renders irrelevant all attempts at strategic voting. Each voter knows that if his ballot is selected, the candidate he wrote will be the winner. There is no upside at all to trying to split the vote, or to vote for your second choice knowing he has a better chance of winning. Lottery voting is one of the only systems in which the voter's best strategy is always to vote for his most preferred candidate.
In conventional election systems, oddball candidates that may only have 5% of the vote do not have any realistic chance of winning the election, particularly in an electoral college system like United States Presidential elections where they will always receive 0 electoral votes. But in lottery voting, these candidates would actually have a 5% chance of winning.
Another interesting alternative is range voting. The best example of range voting is the scoring at athletic events where each judge holds up a scorecard. Every voter gives a number to each candidate, say 0 to 10, and each candidate's total scores are averaged. Range voting has a lot of benefits that are attractive to voters. You can give everyone a 0, or you can give everyone a 10. You can express your thoughts about one or more candidates without wasting your vote, and still be able to give a high score to your preferred candidate. If there's a candidate you're not familiar with, you don't have to give any number to them, and you will not affect their average.
Significantly, every candidate has a realistic chance of winning in range voting. Voters don't need to vote for a potentially less-favored candidate simply because he has a better chance to win than their favorite candidate. For this reason, range voting is often touted by supporters of minority political parties. In fact, range voting often confers upon minority candidates a benefit called the nursery effect. In experiments, it turns out that people will give either an honest or a median vote to candidates who are relatively unknown; while at the same time being more likely to give the lowest votes to an opposing-party candidate that they don't like, but who may be far more experienced than the unknown candidate. Thus range voting can give bestow unearned support onto minority candidates.
But some in the major political parties advocate for it as well. A favorite example of US Democrats is the 2000 Presidential election, won by the Republicans after recounts of the Florida vote. Had range voting been in effect, Florida Democrats could have expressed their support for both Al Gore and Ralph Nader, giving Nader the Florida support he'd earned but without taking any crucial support away from Gore, that many say cost him the election. On the flip side, Republicans who gave their vote to Ross Perot in 1992 need not have been forced to choose between he and George H.W. Bush: They could have given both high scores, and Bush probably would have beaten Bill Clinton. Range voting eliminates both strategic voting and vote splitting, and in simulations, always elects the Condorcet winner.
But going back to Arrow's theorem, this should be an impossibility. Range voting appears to be fair to all the voters and to all the candidates. Therefore, it would seem to be a violation of Arrow's theorem. But it turns out that it's not. The reason is because range voting is a numerical rating system, whereas Arrow's theorem applies to rank orderings. When range voting, you can give the same score to multiple candidates; you do not have to rank them in order. There is no requirement to always prefer one candidate over the other, so it's a different type of system than those to which Arrow's theorem applies.
A variant of range voting is called approval voting, where you vote either for or against each candidate, but you can vote for as many as you like; even all or none. It's basically range voting with only two choices, 0 or 1. Approval voting also avoids the pitfalls of Arrow's theorem because it does not require ranking. It's simpler than range voting; and in both real-world and simulation examples, it selects the Condorcet winner virtually every time that one exists, in contrast to plurality voting which fails frequently.
Repairing our election methodology is, undoubtedly, a process fraught with political pitfalls, but I'll leave those to the political bloggers to hash out. The science says to listen a little more closely to Kenneth Arrow, and abandon rank-based voting systems. Change to any system that allows voters to express their preferences without requiring them to force-rank one candidate as the best, and the winner most approved of by the group as a whole will be elected far more often than not.
© 2011 Skeptoid Media
References & Further Reading
Amar, A. "Choosing Representatives by Lottery Voting." Yale Law Journal. 1 Jun. 1984, Volume 93, Number 1283: 1-34.
Aron, J. "Mathematicians Weigh In on UK Voting Debate." New Scientist. Reed Business Information Ltd., 27 Apr. 2011. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. <http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/mathematicians-weigh-in-on-uk.html>
de Caritat, N., marquis de Condorcet. Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions. Paris: Institut de France, 1785.
Saari, D. Chaotic Elections! A Mathematician Looks at Voting. Providence: American Mathematical Society, 2001.
Smith, W., Kok, J. "Range Voting." RangeVoting.org. The Center for Range Voting, 1 Aug. 2005. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://rangevoting.org>
Stewart, I. "Electoral Dysfunction: Why Democracy Is Always Unfair." New Scientist. 28 Apr. 2010, Issue 2758: 28-31.
Reference this article:
Dunning, B. "The Science of Voting." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, 25 Oct 2011. Web. 9 Oct 2015. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4281>
10 most recent comments | Show all 50 comments
I am familar with some of the issues around voting system as New Zealand has national elections tomorrow, using the MMP system as has been the case for the last 15 years. Tomorrow we are also voting on a referendum to decide whether to keep MMP or move to something else.
Couple of points that NZ's example shows.
1) Voting systems can and do change despite resistance from established parties. We had a largely 2-party First Past the Post system like the US, but it was changed.
2) Its not actually that complicated. Average person here seems to understand the system and tactics.
3) Despite a parliment having a much more wider range of parties with a range of interests represented (such as having an increasingly strong Green party) and ruling parties having to compromise, we seem to have a reasonably stable government - seems no worse that FPP.
I take issue with Arrow's first criteria for what is a "fair" election:
"1. If every individual prefers X to Y, then the group prefers X to Y."
Imagine a scenario in which there are 100 voters. Let's say within those 100 voters their political ideology falls into 10 distinct groupings. We can call those Ideological groups 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Each group has exactly 10 people And let's that the farther a group is away from another group numerically, the farther away they are ideologically (i.e group 1 is completely ideologically opposed to group 10).
Let's say that Candidate X pulls together a electoral coalition of groups 1,2,3 and 4 while Candidate Y's coalition consists of groups 4, 5, and 6.
It seems like Candidate X should win having 40 voters agree with them to Y's 30. However, what is likely to happen in this scenario is that voters in group 7,8,9 or 10 -lacking adequate ideological representation in the candidates - are likely to vote for Y, even if they don't agree (or prefer) him to keep X from winning.
By having only two candidates you are forcing voters to choose which candidates to vote for not based on who they agree with on the issues, but on which candidate they prefer in relation to the other candidates. This changes the idea of "prefer" in Arrow's first criteria for determining what is a "fair" election.
This was a fascinating episode and different from the usual Skeptoid approach of "de-bunking" a commonly held myth (which I also enjoy). This seems to be playing out as we speak in the Republican primaries in the U.S. Keep up the great work Brian!
If only the elected officials who are roundly blamed for / take credit for situations actually had the authority to create the situations, the U.S. would be a very different place.
The quickest and simplest change for most elections in the USA would be to move from plurality to approval voting. It's a very simple change but a very powerful one.
I'm sure some would scream about "one man one vote," even though that's primarily about each vote counting equally (e.g. each district having the same number of voters). Approval voting absolutely does count each ballot equally - it allows every voter to vote "yes" or "no" for each and every candidate, not just "yes" for one and "no" for everyone else.
A method that most often gets the Condorcet winner is definitely preferred. As Clay mentioned, Instant Runoff Voting is actually one of the worst methods - possibly worse than plurality.
There are ranking methods that allow ties, and this could help in some cases (although it's more complex to introduce to an electorate than approval voting is).
Approval voting would be a fantastic first step to a better system. A legislature that includes some proportional representation would be good too, although I don't know of any legislatures (in the USA) that have any PR.
Has there been an episode that addresses use of computers in voting, such as some of the issues described here, by Richard Spoonamore?
Hi all,
An experiment in range voting has been done with 11.500 votings during the french presidential elections, and compared to the traditionnel 2 turns system.
The (interesting) result is described here (in french, but Google Translate is your friend):
Of course, this experiment is not without biases, but the details are very interesting.
I have said for decades that the United States has the most un-democratic election system imaginable.
Thank you for bolstering that opinion.
I doubt we will get anything better, however, because people who have achieved power through our present system of elections have little incentive to institute a system that would not favor themselves.
Of course, this was only about the voting itself, which was fine. But most places have various restrictions and obstacles for third party and independent candidates to get on the ballot, decreasing their already minimal chances of winning. Obviously, you can't vote for someone who isn't even on the ballot!
> The ideal outcome in any election is to choose what's called the Condorcet winner
This is incorrect. The ideal outcome is to elect the social utility maximizer, which isn't necessarily the Condorcet winner.
Arrow's Theorem actually proves that the Condorcet winner may not be the best candidate.
Clay Shentrup
Co-founder, The Center for Election Science
Make a comment about this episode of Skeptoid (please try to keep it brief & to the point).
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Blood Orange
Photography by Al Richardson
Photography by Ben Dearnley
In this month's issue
Versatile and nutritious, blood oranges are now ripe for the tasting. They're only in season for a short time, so make the most of them now with the essential guide in our September 2013 issue.
Blood oranges are now in season - but they won't be around for long, so make the most of them while they're here. Blood oranges are great in everything from dressings and salads to sweet and savoury dishes.
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A similar thread was started but got taken over by mac users with a slightly different problem and this issue was never addressed.
Thread: http://www.quakelive.com/forum/showt...too-new)/page7
On a fresh system with no previous QuakeLive install, windows vista 64 home prem, internet explore 8 32-bit
Go to http://www.quakelive.com/ and Logged in
I get the no cookies error so
-added http://www.quakelive.com/ to trusted sites
-added http://www.quakelive.com/ to allow list for cookies
-added http://www.quakelive.com/ to allow list for pop-up blocker
-Server verification for trusted sites is not checked
Still get the no cookies error so
-added https://secure.quakelive.com/ to trusted sites
-added https://secure.quakelive.com/ to allow list for cookies
-added https://secure.quakelive.com/ to allow list for pop-up blocker
-Server verification for trusted sites is not checked
This fixed the no cookies error
Now after logging into http://www.quakelive.com/ I get the EULA page and I click Agree.
The plugin download page comes up and the top download bar pops up.
I click Download and the page goes back to the EULA page where if I click agree it takes me back to the download page and over cycles over and over without ever actually downloading the plugin.
-Tried clearing out all temp files, cache cookies etc several times
-Tried downloading from safemode (make sure it wasn't an application interfering)
-Tried using the Google public DNS instead of the one automatically obtained from my ISP
-Tried using my laptop thats running a different operating system and settings and got the exact same issue
None of that helped so went to cnet downloads and found the quakelive plugin and tried to manually download the plugin from there. It downloaded and installed then I got the following error message:
"Module C:\ProgramData\id Software\QuakeLive\QuakeZeroIEHelper.ocx failed to register. HRESULT -2147010895. Contact your support personnel."
Clicking 'Try again' did not work so I clicked 'Continue' and it completed.
I tried going back to the http://www.quakelive.com/ and after loggin on it put me right back in the plugin EULA loop!!!!!
This link http://www.quakelive.com/forum/showt...gin-start-play refers to this issue but where exactly can you find a download link that you can right click to save as for the plugin?
I applied the MS fix for the .ocx error http://www.quakelive.com/forum/showt...ed-to-register
Can someone please help with this problem?


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High Recognition
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text: It seems humans aren't the only species getting FAT. A veterinary study from 2012 shows that on average, most varieties of household pets are also gaining weight. While general diet and exercise both play important roles, some scientists are blaming the ever-increasing number of hormones found within our (and our pets') food as a leading cause of the problem. Hormones have the ability to directly change our body chemistry by disabling or heightening the effects of various chemical processes. With processed and genetically altered foods playing an enormous role (on average) in our diets, the trend shows no real sign of slowing either.


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Location: Sustainable Perennial Crops
2013 Annual Report
Phenotyping will be carried out in the International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad. Within plot (intra-clone) mislabeling will be identified using 40-50 SNPs. Phenotypic traits related to yield components and diseases resistance, including number of pods, pod index, bean number, bean size, bean weight, butter fat content, field resistance to witches' broom disease (Moniliophthora perniciosa) and black pod (Phytophthora) will be evaluated. Previously recorded data on morphological variations, (Bekele et al., 2006); will be combined with new observations. In case duplicated trees in different environment (e.g. in the UWI campus) and Marper Farm) are available, phenotypic data will be recorded from different environments. Based on the multi-year field observations, resistance to witches' broom disease will be further evaluated using the agar-drop inoculation method (Surujdeo-Maharaj et al., 2003).
Genotyping will be done with the Illumina Golden Gate's Bead Array platform and a total of 3000-4000 SNP markers will be genotyped. Part of these SNP have been developed through an agreement (SCA: 1275-21000-264-04S; CIRAD). These SNP markers were developed based on forty-five cDNA libraries constructed from a wide range of cacao organs and tissues, including flowers, cherels, pod cortex, shoot, root, germinated seeds and embryos from diverse genotypes (Lanaud et al., 2009). The first panel of 1536 SNPs has been tested. In addition, two to three hundreds candidate gene SNPs for disease resistance will be developed based on the expression studies of ARS Project (Project number: 1275-21220-225-00D). More SNPs will be available from the ARS cacao genome project in Miami, FL.
Population structure patterns will be investigated using the Bayesian clustering method implemented in the STRUCTURE program (Pritchard et al. 2000). Both single-marker models and hyplotype-based tests will be applied for all SNP–trait combinations. Normality of traits and variance homogeneity will be tested using the UNIVARIATE and GLM Procedure of SAS, respectively (SAS Institute Inc., 1998). Marker data will be compared with trait values by three methods: a one-way ANOVA using SAS, a non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test and a likelihood of the odds (LOD) score test both performed by MapQTL 4 (Van Ooijen and Maliepaard, 1996). Patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD) among SNPs that are significantly associated with the same trait will be assessed using the maximum-likelihood approach implanted in GENETICS (WARNES and LEISCH 2006; http://cran.r-project.org).


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Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, public companies holding their annual meetings on or after January 21 will be required to include in their proxy statements a non-binding proposal soliciting shareholders' views on whether "say-on-pay" proposals should be submitted to shareholders on an annual, biennial or triennial basis. Proxy cards for such annual meeting will be required to provide shareholders with these three choices plus the ability to abstain.
Many companies have yet to decide whether to recommend one of these choices to shareholders and, if so, which choice to recommend. There have been conflicting reports with respect to the favored choice of public companies. On the one hand, Compensia News published a listing of 87 companies that filed proxy materials through January 8 containing "say-on-frequency" proposals, with a majority (45) favoring triennial "say-on-pay" votes. Twenty-five companies recommended annual votes, nine recommended biennial votes, and eight companies provided no recommendation. The listing of companies in each category does not provide any clear trend as between larger and smaller companies.
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In other words, they are putting college off for a year or more and doing things that thrill them and will leave them with everlasting memories.
I think that is an excellent idea, especially for students who are not exactly sure of which career to pursue.
If one is in high school and knows what he or she will be doing for a living, and one knows what hard work and tribulations are in store (i.e., one wishes to become an orthodontist, an engineer or a physician and realizes that it is 5-9 years away; closer to the latter), then by all means enter college immediately — for time is a wasting.
However, most students aren't so absolute in their convictions. Some think that they want to become an engineer, for example, but must take remedial courses in order to prepare for it, become frustrated, quit and end up doing something that they really dislike. Others are not sure what it is they are good at or want, and end up spending six years as an undergraduate wandering around, hoping they find the American dream.
It is my experience with students (and I have had a few) who have no ambitions or mistaken ambitions, or talent for the discipline they think they want, tend to be lazy and have no work ethic — and are probably doomed to mediocrity or even failure. For such students (there tends to be a lot of them), it might be better to take a year or two to "find" themselves. Go kayaking through the fjords (especially if you don't know what a fjord is), or hike through the Alps (especially if you don't know where the Alps are). Go bicycling from coast to coast or get a job helping out with African safaris.
Can't afford to go to Norway, the Alps, Africa, Russia or Japan? Well, if you have guts, do it anyway. Or else you can always join the Peace Corps.
As a last resort, you can always join the military. The problem with that is, you can't choose your destination and you might end up fighting a war that you want no part of. But that can be avoided by choosing your service carefully — making sure that unwanted duties are not likely to occur.
The important thing is to get away from mom and pop, find out how people of other locales live and think, what their customs are and what sort of things they celebrate. You will be surprised and amazed. You will get homesick, but resist the urge to come home.
When you finally do return home (you probably will), you will be ready to make the decisions you need to make. Moreover, you will be determined to do the things that are necessary to obtain your goals in life. It is then that you will be ready for college.
That sort of thing happened to me. Now, I don't want to set myself up as a role model, for I haven't been particularly successful, but I have been happy in my career and wouldn't change anything in my life, and I'm happy in my retirement. But I think I would have been miserable without two years in the Army.
I was drafted. I griped about being in the Army all the time — but the minute I was discharged, I realized that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. My best buddy was from Rockford, Ill. Other buddies were from Doylestown, Pa.; Portland, Ore.; Boise, Idaho; and the Bronx, N.Y. The diversity of those friendships in themselves was worth a lot to me and taught me much.
In addition, I saw much of Europe — an experience I'll never forget.
Upon graduating from high school, I had no intention of going to college. Somehow, it taught me to appreciate life and instilled in me a wish to do something better than running a machine in a General Motors factory.
In this era of poor job markets and high student loans, it might be better for students to take a sojourn of a year or two in order to find themselves and build their character. I personally think that there ought to be a mandatory service of some sort of patriotic service (not necessarily military) for all young people — if only to build character, patriotism and a sense of work ethic.
— By Ralph Wiltse, Tribune community columnist


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The Standard are claiming that (to no-one's surprise) Nigel Havers and Natalie Gumede are leaving Coronation Street.
Quite honestly, both of their characters - Lewis Archer and Kirsty Soames - have been painted in corners and so their exits would come as no surprise. The Standard, though, have a couple of slightly weird quotes from a supposed 'source' and an 'insider'.
First up, the 'source' says: "There have already been rumours the new boss will want to put his stamp on things, but these two big changes are certain." If they are certain we'd have had a statement from ITV, they are actually very likely.
The 'insider' continued: "Talks on how Kirsty will leave are ongoing, but producers know the audience want her to get her deserts. One way or another, she will." We may be wrong but we think they may mean desserts, not deserts. Unless Kirsty is to be buried up to her neck in sand. Which might happen.
Finally, the insider says: "This could herald the start of a major new era for Corrie." We have no idea whatsoever what this could mean. None. Two relatively short-term, minor characters are leaving the show, it's not like the producers have decided to demolish the street and replace it with a shopping centre, is it?
Thanks anyway, the Standard, for those hopeless titbits.
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West Seattle Junction Harvest Festival returns October 27thSeptember 5, 2013 at 1:49 pm | In West Seattle festivals, West Seattle news | 3 Comments
(WSB photo from first West Seattle Junction Harvest Festival, October 2012)
Last year, the annual West Seattle Junction Association-presented trick-or-treating event expanded into something new – and wildly popular from the very start: The WS Junction Harvest Festival, closing the street in the heart of The Junction for fun, games, a temporarily relocated Farmers' Market, *and* trick-or-treating. And WSJA executive director Susan Melrose has just announced they'll do it again for a second year!
Sunday, October 27th – 10 am – 2 pm
The West Seattle Junction Association is pleased to announce our second annual Harvest Festival. Last year was awesome! This event brought together our community in so many ways. Our weekly farmers market took to the streets with color and flair, our local non-profits and business brought free kids activities and games, the West Seattle High School marching band led hundreds in a costume parade, and Junction brick-and-mortar businesses hosted their long standing Trick-or-Treat event. The costumes were incredible… kudos West Seattle! Let's do it again!
If you'd like to help make it great:
1. Host a Booth: Have your non-profit, school, business or club host an activity booth.
2. Volunteer: The first shift helps close the streets at 6 am and second shifts helps direct booth hosts at 8 am.
3. Sponsor: While we're running a low budget and free event with volunteer staff, closing the street is still expensive, and sponsors will help make this event possible.
Details on these ways to get involved are at wsjunction.org. See you there!
3 Comments
Yay! We took some out-of-towners last year and it was a big success. Will be there again this year for sure.
Comment by Mike — 2:53 pm September 5, 2013 #
I followed the link and there doesn't seem to be any info about this event or ways to get involved on the wsjunction blog.
Comment by Kirsten — 12:37 pm September 6, 2013 #
It's on the specific Harvest Festival page (click the logo on their home page) – I'll amend this to the direct link:
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