text:
Piers Akerman
Gillard wins gold in lethal competition
Piers Akerman –, Tuesday, July, 31, 2012, (4:00am)
Our swimmers may have been disappointing in the Olympic pool but it's been gold, gold, gold for Julia Gillard on the high seas.
In the past 24-hours she eclipsed the previous record she shared with Kevin Rudd for the highest number of people arriving on illegal boats in a year.
Not that she is wearing the medal or even made a gracious acceptance speech.
No, she was apparently on vacation in Queensland when the record-breaking cargo of 49 people arrived courtesy of the people traffickers her government cannot catch.
In a joint statement yesterday, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan, said that in an unprecedented year of policy failure on our borders, 6,899 people have arrived on illegal boats just seven months into this year, compared with 6,889 who arrived under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard as Prime Minister in 2010.
Wow! That's impressive, Julia. Please take a bow.
You and senior members of your Labor-Green-minority government boasted about your softer border protection policy and now you're reaping the results.
Morrison said that when Gillard knifed Rudd she claimed his government had lost its way and nominated border protection as his worst crime and yet over 15,000 people have now arrived on boats on her watch.
"Since Julia Gillard took office she has given us the East Timor farce, the failed and immoral Malaysian people swap, unwound the last bricks in the wall of the Howard Government's strong measures by giving boat arrivals bridging visas, works rights and access to endless appeals in the courts and all the while has refused to reinstate the Coalition's proven policies to stop the boats," he said.
"Only stubborn pride has stood in the way of the Prime Minister's refusal to reinstate those policies and Australians are paying the price.
"Julia Gillard has the worst record in our history on border protection, which combined with her other failures makes her a strong candidate for our worst Prime Minister on record," he added.
Keenan said: "This latest boat arrival has made 2012 the biggest year for people arriving illegally by boat ever – and it is only July.
"We have another shameful record broken by this incompetent Labor Government who have now allowed over 1,600 people to cross our borders illegally this month alone.
"These unprecedented numbers have exposed the gaping holes that Labor have created in our border protection system and have made the job of our Border Protection Command all the more difficult.
"Until there is a change in Canberra and an end to the Labor-Greens governing alliance, the boats will keep coming and the records will keep breaking," he said.
Absolutely correct.
But not only will the lucky ones keep breaking the record, the unlucky ones will die horrible deaths at sea.
Each death can and should be directly attributed to the siren song that Gillard and her crew have been singing since they cobbled together their dysfunctional government.
Come on, Julia, accept the gold medal. It's the one with the death's head embossed on both faces.
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Sri Lanka gives Gillard a lesson
Piers Akerman –, Monday, July, 30, 2012, (1:02am)
TINY Sri Lanka has again highlighted the failure of the Gillard government to handle border protection.
The Sri Lankan navy yesterday halted a trawler as it collected would-be illegal immigrants heading to Australia.
The boat, carrying 31 people, was intercepted off the island's western coast on Saturday and another 20 people were arrested on shore ready to board the vessel, a navy official said.
The arrests brought the total number of detained would-be illegal immigrants to 700 since May and the number detained this month to a record 500.
"We stopped eight trawlers off the eastern coast and three off the western coast as they set off for Australia," the official said.
As the Sri Lankans acted to halt the illegal people trafficking, the Australian navy rendezvoused with another illegal boat load of so-called asylum seekers north-west of the Cocos Keeling islands.
Forty-nine people were taken to Broome and then Christmas Island.
Sri Lankan naval operations director Commodore N. Attygalle has called on Australia to send large numbers of the so-called asylum seekers back to act as a deterrent.
"If Australia turns the boats around then these guys (the traffickers) will just pull the plug, the boat will start sinking and you will have to assist them because its in your waters.
"The best way is deportation," Commodore Attygalle told The Australian.
He suggested the RAN lend Sri Lanka a suitable ocean going vessel to conduct patrols.
Sounds like a good way to prevent Sri Lankans trying to jump the queue of asylum seekers and sounds as if it would save lives.
Its commonsense means that the Greens and Labor will rule it out.
Another opportunity lost and more lives placed at risk through political stupidity.
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Gillard plays politics with the vulnerable
Piers Akerman –, Saturday, July, 28, 2012, (10:12pm)
Julia Gillard has now shown she has no qualms in misleading and deceiving the most vulnerable Australians - the disabled.
Her entire stance on the National Disability Insurance Scheme has been one of the cruellest, most cynical and hypocritical displays of political opportunism.
That view is shared by Mary Lou Carter, secretary of the Carers Alliance, a political party whose goal is to promote a better life for, and advance the full inclusion of, people with disabilities and their families.
She says the Gillard government has managed to turn a "silk purse into a sow's ear" with its handling of the NDIS.
"At the end of April Ms Gillard told thousands of people with disabilities, family carers and disability support workers rallying in Homebush: 'You've waited long enough'. She led us to believe that the NDIS would become a reality," she told me.
"It looks like we've all been seriously conned by a government playing wedge politics against cash-strapped states who don't toe the party line. What is it about fooling some of the people some of the time? Well, we're not fooled," Carter, a NSW senate candidate, said defiantly.
"The NDIS is a fair-go scheme, it would benefit all Australians and put us in the vanguard of disability service provision. But it has now been twisted and pummeled into a political football.
"It is simply unconscionable to play mean and tricky politics with the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who are severely disabled, and who depend on help and support each and every day.
"The Gillard government made the promise to introduce the NDIS, then, without any collaboration or consultation, set about watering it down to be barely recognisable, then demanded that the states pay for it and deliver it."
Carter is not the only person to rightly feel dudded by the prime minister's political dishonesty.
Craig Kelly, the federal Liberal MP for Hughes, is another. He doesn't make a big thing of it, but he has a 16-year-old son with autism and Down Syndrome.
Kelly's involvement with the disabled is real. When he visits special schools, he is not playing lip service to a worthy cause or trawling for political kudos. He's there as a parent and anxious to help.
Over the past year he has watched as fellow parents have been filled with hope by promises specifically directed at them by Gillard and he has watched those hopes dashed - as he knew they must, because Gillard's promises were never backed by sound policy.
They were unsustainable lies from start to finish.
Let me quote here from Chapter 14 of the Productivity Commission's report into a NDIS: "People with disability need much more certainty about getting reasonable supports over their lifetime and governments need a sustainable revenue source to achieve that".
And: "The Commission has ruled out all state and territory government taxes for this purpose. At the Australian government level, only personal income tax or consumption taxes would be suitable. . . given the necessity for certainty of future funding for both people with disabilities and to underpin appropriate governance arrangements, the Commission proposes that the Australian government would be responsible for financing all of the costs of the NDIS."
There is nothing in there about the Commonwealth putting the muscle on states like Queensland, Victoria or NSW, suffering under debt burdens left by wasteful Labor governments, to pay for Gillard's fantasy.
As Kelly points out, the federal government would have been able to afford the estimated cost of the NDIS if it hadn't recklessly blown its own budget pursuing nonsensical ideological programs for its own narrow political ends.
It is blindingly apparent that last week's COAG conference was nothing more than a time-wasting set-up to provide Gillard with a prop to ramp up the blame game.
I believe it indicates her eventual response to the Gonski report on education will see an even greater ramping up of the blame game: this is going to be a gold medal event for Gillard in coming weeks.
Where Rudd thought bringing everyone together was a goal worth pursuing (as did his predecessor John Howard), Gillard believes it is in her personal political interest to be as divisive as she can be. Watch for more announcements from Canberra that she will attempt to use to paint the conservative states as recalcitrant in a desperate bid to claw back some support from Labor's former base.
It is now the only strategy left in her arsenal because she heads an ineffective government and she lacks all authority. In using the disabled as cannon fodder in her struggle she has taken politics to the depths of a previously unimaginable abyss.
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Standards caught in a Crossfire
Piers Akerman –, Friday, July, 27, 2012, (7:16am)
KINGS Cross is a geographical location, not a cause for criminal behaviour.
The problem is not the Cross, it's the culture of those who flock there at two critical periods each week between 9pm Friday and 3am Saturday, and again from 9pm Saturday to 3am Sunday.
I've known the Cross for more than 40 years. In that time the sex-and-strip joints have become tawdrier, the hookers tottering in the side streets appear to have fewer obvious needle tracks and fewer bruises but their eyes are just as soulless and the mobs of young toughs have more tatts, which at least makes it easier to identify the offenders in police line-ups.
By day, the Cross is a pleasant enough place of coffee shops and cafes. At nightfall the parasites begin to emerge like maggots on a rotting corpse.
It used to be that the bars and clubs had some pretensions to standards, but no more.
This is now Lord Mayor Clover Moore's "anything goes" country. When you embrace all-inclusive diversity and oppose discrimination you give the green light to a lower base line of behaviour.
Those who come to gawk at the hookers or engage in ritual drunkenness are products of an education system that was debased by the Whitlam era libertarianism and is now firmly in the hands of ideologues who were taught by the Whitlamesque purveyors of hollow philosophies like moral relativism. Good manners and civility are sneered at. Empty-headed clothes horses and knuckle-headed sports figures are paraded as role models and fashions aren't based on the aspirational, they are derived from the institutional.
Pour a morally rootless crowd into a 300m sliver of real estate bounded roughly by Bayswater Rd, Kellett St and Darlinghurst Rd, let them mass around the El Alamein fountain when they're as full as state school buses and violence becomes a certainty.
In this hollow culture the added ingredients of booze and pyscho-stimulants are as volatile as nitro-glycerine. A glance is enough to spark an explosive outburst with lethal consequences.
New chemicals have added a particularly dangerous element.
Drunks don't necessarily take psycho-stimulant drugs, but those using amphetamines do drink alcohol as well.
Ironically, the data collected by Don Wedderburn's excellent NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and research shows there is now less robbery around the
Cross, once a huge problem, and that, statistically, the level of assaults has stabilised over the past two years. The public perception is different.
You might blame YouTube and Facebook and the ubiquity of camera-equipped mobile phones for that. Wedderburn says there is a certain "wow, did you see that" factor possibly in play.
If the public can accept that the problems are crowds and alcohol, then the public should accept that solutions should be based on changing these factors.
The Lord Mayor suggested there should be more public transport to take drunks home when they are tossed out or the bars close. That is about as muddle-headed as the bulk of her ideas. Police Association president Scott Webber has his boots placed more firmly on the ground. He points to Newcastle where the local community supported a number of changes to the trading hours of pubs and clubs which have resulted in a 35 per cent reduction of assaults after dark.
The reaction to the recent slayings of Thomas Kelly and Kelvin Kane would suggest the public has had enough and might be willing to accept some similar changes to trading hours and a more responsible attitude to the serving of alcohol.
No need to go cold turkey. Just start by restricting the sale of shots of booze after a certain hour, or cutting back trading hours. Thin the crowds out at high-density venues. The changes introduced in Newcastle aren't punitive. They are designed to protect those most at risk and those at risk are both victims and offenders.
Whether Premier Barry O'Farrell gets around to providing his trial drunk tanks is immaterial. Drunks should not be permitted to stagger around endangering themselves and others.
Elements of the old Summary Offences Act (repealed to so much applause by the late Left-wing Attorney General Frank Walker in the early days of the Wran government) may need to be reintroduced. Civilised behaviour should be rewarded. Uncivilised behaviour must be punished.
The latte set might think they should be permitted to sip their pinot noir around the clock in funky bars but they are a minority.
If they want to play a meaningful part in genuine harm minimisation (as opposed to instructing junkies how to inject smack) they might have to socialise at home until less hip carousers learn to handle their alcohol in a civilised fashion.
Restore the Cross as a tourist destination not a routine stop on the coroner's round.
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Heiner commissioner chokes inquiry - thwarts Newman
Piers Akerman –, Wednesday, July, 25, 2012, (3:11am)
Queensland justice has not changed under Premier Campbell Newman, if a ruling by former Queensland Crime Commissioner Tim Carmody is any indication.
Yesterday afternoon Carmody refused to step aside from presiding over an inquiry into child protection, which includes the notorious Heiner Affair, after ruling that the Crime Commission he headed was not "government".
Under Section 3E of the terms of reference of the inquiry, Carmody's commission is instructed to look into the government's response to the alleged sexual assault of children at detention centres in Queensland.
The Heiner Affair involves the pack rape of a 14-year-old Aboriginal girl while she was a ward of the state juvenile system and an inmate at the John Oxley youth detention centre, and the subsequent shredding of documents relating to the rape that had been provided to former magistrate Noel Heiner as part of an inquiry he was conducting.
His ability to effectively examine his own role in the Heiner Affair was called into question by legal counsel Michael Bosscher, acting for former union official and chief whistleblower Kevin Lindeberg and respected former journalist Bruce Grundy.
When Carmody was head of the Crime Commission between 1997 and 2001, the Heiner allegations were referred to him directly but no action was taken.
Bosscher submitted that Carmody could end up judging his own response to the affair if he was allowed to preside over the 3E part of the inquiry.
In his ruling on the recusal application, Carmody said he interpreted the term government to refer to the political executive or the premier and his cabinet.
"Recusal is not a step to be taken lightly," he said.
He had earlier told the hearing that some previous inquiry commissioners were too quick to remove themselves.
"All you had to do once was use the word bias and everyone threw up their hands and ran away," he said.
"If you did that enough you end up with the judge you want. It's more a process of exclusion.
"We've got a duty to sit if it's appropriate rather than be too quick to disqualify ourselves because obviously the state has got an investment."
Grundy said the crime commission should be considered part of the government and should be investigated for its response to allegations of sexual abuse.
"You are not in a position in my estimation to consider your response; someone else should consider your response if we are to have faith in the inquiry," he said.
Premier Campbell Newman and Attorney General Jarrod Bleijie should read Carmody's ruling and weep unless it was always their intention to continue the cover-up of the Heiner Affair.
Taken on face value, Carmody's ruling means that the police are not government, the courts are not government, the welfare department is not government – government is a handful of people.
Tell that to the people and see what they say when they stop laughing.
They will justifiably claim that the government exists in every arm and organ that is funded by the taxpayer – not just at the highest executive level.
Carmody's ruling duds the taxpayers and thwarts the intent of the premier who made the Heiner investigation an election promise - unless Newman never intended justice to prevail.
For it to be shut down by process now is a joke on Queenslanders and Australians who want to see an end to this 22-year-old scandal.
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Temby finds health union dodgy - OK?
Piers Akerman –, Tuesday, July, 24, 2012, (4:48am)
Sydney QC Ian Temby has uncovered a raft of dodgy practises at the Health Services Union - is anyone surprised.
The report found the union's funds had been spent building a rehearsal studio for Chris Williamson's commercial use. ''This was stark favouritism,'' it said.
Advertisement United Edge, a company of which Michael Williamson was a third owner, received $4.7 million in the four years to September 2011. United Edge, which provided IT services without having to tender, operated rent free from the HSUeast headquarters.
Then there was the $384,625 Julieanne Williamson received for allegedly doing the union's archiving from 2005 to 2009.
Mr Temby is particularly critical of this transaction. ''Assuming that the work was actually done, and done by Mrs Williamson alone, and she worked a 37.5-hour week throughout the 50-month period - collecting folders, dismantling and collating them for scanning, week after tedious week for 52 weeks of the year - then she was being paid at a rate close to $34 per hour plus GST … a high hourly rate for what appears to be basic clerical work.''
Mr and Mrs Williamson declined to be interviewed by Mr Temby, but she wrote to Mr Temby saying: ''I felt I should have been charging $200ph, as the work was downright disgustingly filthy.''
The acting general secretary of HSUeast, Peter Mylan, told the investigators Mr Williamson told him it had been decided to scan the union's records and his wife was doing it. Mr Mylan ''had never seen her actually doing the work, but he knew she had done it,'' the report said.
Mr Mylan said the union's librarian had done the scanning but when the librarian told Mr Temby ''she did not know what he was talking about'', Mr Mylan was asked ''to consider his position''. By the next week the story had changed somewhat. Mr Mylan told investigators he had made some ''assumptions and presumptions'' and had not seen the files brought in for scanning but he still believed Mrs Williamson had done the work.
''The truth of the matter, we think, is that there was a system set up which saw regular and large sums paid to Williamson's wife, that Mylan became aware of the system later on and went along with it … He does not know what work, if any, Mrs Williamson did in any given two-month period. Nor do we.''
The Williamsons received a discount when they hired the union's architect to plan their holiday home. For the four years until last year, Ron Mah-Chut was paid a total of $3.4 million by the union. Mr Mah-Chut told investigators Mr Williamson entered into a verbal agreement for an annual retainer of $88,000.
This entailed spending one day a week scouting for sites suitable for the union to develop into retirement villages or holiday destinations. None was bought, the report noted.
On top of his retainer, Mr Mah-Chut reaped 2 per cent of the purchase price of any property the union bought. Over three years, he was paid $255,000 on top of his retainer.
''When asked if he charged Williamson less for the work at Lake Macquarie by reason of the large amount of work he did for the union, after initial hesitation, Mah-Chut replied in the affirmative,'' the report said.
Mr Temby and Mr Robertson noted that nepotism was rife in the union. Mr Williamson's brother Darren, his sister-in-law Monique Irvine, his close friend Cheryl McMillan and her sister-in-law Julie Astill were among the dozen highest-paid people in the union.
Mr Williamson was revealed to be receiving a salary of $394,675 as of last September, when Mr Temby and Mr Robertson were appointed to conduct an internal review of the union, after the Herald raised allegations of corruption. The report revealed that Mr Williamson's salary increased 25 per cent after a consultant was appointed to review salaries. The wage review was conducted by Beth Jensen, the partner of the HSU's Victorian barrister David Langmead.
Among Mr Temby's and Mr Robertson's recommendations were that the recruitment of family members be prohibited, the union should adopt proper accounting practices and conduct tenders for services exceeding $200,000.
The report said: ''We express the hope that the administrator will take forceful steps, in a timely fashion, to fix the more grave defects in the union, and hand it back to the members in a better state than it is now.''
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No joy for Gillard
Piers Akerman –, Monday, July, 23, 2012, (5:38am)
Julia Gillard's supporters are claiming Labor's apparent victory in the Victorian by-election for the state seat of Melbourne vindicates her poisoned leadership.
Last night, Labor was leading with a two-party preferred vote of 51.4 per cent to the Greens' 48.6 per cent, and had claimed the seat.
But the Greens beat Labor with 36.4 per cent of the primary votes to Labor's 33.3 per cent.
The Liberals did not run, Labor owes its victory to minor party preferences, the Sex Party and Family First.
Only the serially unsuccessful political clown, Steven Mayne, the founder of the unreliable website Crikey, gave his preferences to the Greens and he received too few votes to make a difference.
The best take Labor can present from the weekend is the fact that it did not lose a seat it has held for 104 years.
But it held it without assistance from Julia Gillard – she was effectively barred from appearing in her home state or any involvement with the campaign for its duration.
The hard fact is that two-thirds of the inner-city voters elected to vote for a party other than Labor – and with 16 candidates to play with, they had plenty of choices.
Labor cannot take heart in the increased Green vote, particularly after its heavy guns had spent the previous fortnight bagging the political opportunists.
The Greens can claim with some justification that they are as popular as Labor – but let's not forget the Liberals were not in the field.
Had they fielded a candidate and directed preferences, they may well have been the kingmakers but choosing between Labor and the Greens is akin to stating a preference for arsenic or cyanide as a poison.
The by-election has brought the struggle between Labor and the Greens for the traditional Left vote sharply into focus and it doesn't look good for Labor, despite this victory.
Labor will not have to fight the Greens as vigorously as it fights the Liberals in its traditional seats or risk losing them to more Adam Bandts in the Lower House.
Labor will have to rely on the Liberals' preferences if it is to win in its traditional seats.
This is not a victory for Labor, except in the narrowest sense and it is almost impossible to paint it as a victory for Gillard – other than that her party did not lose as many votes as it anticipated.
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Defence cuts are blowing apart our nation's credibility
Piers Akerman –, Sunday, July, 22, 2012, (1:22am)
You know the advertisement - "even his closest friends won't tell him" - about the deeply personal problem of body odour?
Well, Australia's closest friend, the United States, is publicly telling us that we stink.
In an unprecedented display of candour, the US is saying bluntly that Australia is not pulling its weight on Defence and that the implications of letting down the side in this manner are enormous and long-ranging.
Department of Defence secretary Duncan Lewis was formally told of official US concerns at a painful meeting at the Pentagon on Tuesday.
He assured the Americans that the Gillard government was committed to building major defence capabilities, such as air warfare destroyers, joint strike fighters and amphibious ships but the US is voicing its doubts.
It believes the Gillard government has a serious credibility problem. It has a history of making worthy promises _ and breaking them _ and the US is just as aware of this history as the Australian voters who consistently reject Gillard Labor.
The former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage _ a great friend of Australia who was made a Companion of Australia, our highest honour, just two years ago _ issued the same warning earlier last week but there is no indication the Gillard government is listening.
The human face of the deceitful slashing of the defence budget is to be seen in the Gillard government's withdrawal in the last federal budget of the program under which single servicemen were provided with free flights home at Christmas.
In budgetary terms it's a small saving of $15 million in a budget of approximately $24 billion but 22,000 single men and women will no longer be given the opportunity to be with their loved ones during the holidays.
In its usual shift-the-blame manner, Labor argues that the cut was suggested by the secretary of Defence and that the benefit was no longer relevant. But Labor must take responsibility for the travel ban as it was Labor that slashed $5.5 billion from Defence spending in its vain attempt to produce Treasurer Wayne Swan's mythical budget surplus.
Liberal MP Stuart Robert, the Opposition shadow minister for Defence science, technology and personnel and Liberal Senator David Johnson, the shadow minister for Defence, have been dogged in their fight to have this benefit restored.
On Tuesday, June 26, Robert tabled a disallowance motion in the House of Representatives which seeks to disallow or block Labor's policy.
Under the house rules, Labor has 15 sitting days from the date of tabling to respond. Four sitting days have passed with no movement from the government side.
Labor has a choice: do nothing and effectively permit the disallowance motion or stand up and defend its policy of cutting recreation leave travel.
So Labor has failed to address an issue that has created uncertainty and a loss of morale in the ranks.
The bigger picture demonstrates a problem of a far greater magnitude. Put simply, crucial forward spending has been postponed. The machine that produces the equipment and technology used by our fighting men and women has been mothballed.
There is no money to buy fuel for our ships and sailors need to be at sea.
There is no money for ammunition, and troops need ordnance to train to survive.
There is no money to develop the systems needed to combat the next generation of IEDs, the roadside bombs that smash our forward troops.
There is no none to replace barracks.
Then there is the impact on industry.
There is only one customer for the sort of sophisticated weaponry that has given our troops a critical edge in their work and the Labor government presented a big shopping list in its 2009 White Paper.
Companies were told to tool up and ramp up production to meet the needs of the armed forces.
Now Gillard and Swan have told the same firms to forget it.
The procurement plan has been slashed by 34 per cent.
The companies which invested can write off 34 per cent of their money, lose 34 per cent of their operations, staff and plant, or close.
As the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Defence budget brief tells it, the Defence budget will fall in real terms by 10.5 per cent next year, the largest year-on-year reductions since the end of the Korean conflict in 1953.
As a result, Defence spending as a share of GDP will fall to 1.56 per cent, the smallest figure recorded since the eve of World War II in 1938.
Stop and think of the lack of preparedness for conflict then and the nations that took advantage of that wilful negligence.
To date, $10.6 billion worth of promised funding from the first five years of white paper has been deferred, $10 billion in savings has been cut from funding promised between 2011 and 2021 and another $2.5 billion of initiatives over the decade have been imposed upon Defence without funding or offsets.
No wonder the US is worried. The nation cannot turn on the Defence machine when its motor is rusted through lack of use.
Our men and women don't get the gear or the equipment they need and they don't get home.
There is always a price for these cuts but Labor is blindly slashing to protect a phony budget surplus for now meaningless political ends.
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Navy capable of winning sea battle of wills
Piers Akerman –, Friday, July, 20, 2012, (8:15am)
CLAIMS the Australian navy cannot turn back the boats are ridiculous.
Yet the ABC persists in trotting out retired defence brass hats to claim such work is dangerous or it is not the sort of work navy people like.
Well, boo hoo to retired Admiral Chris Barrie and former defence secretary Paul Barratt, who have ventured into these politically charged waters with a series of interviews in which they have given a clear indication why the Defence department has been such an easy target for gutting by the Labor-Green-independent government.
Barrie, who did not distinguish himself with his confused thinking during the children overboard affair, now asks: "Are we still playing a game where nobody's prepared to give anything on this issue and that leaves asylum seekers still in jeopardy?"
Barratt doesn't pretend to take a detached view. He takes the position that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has no wish to solve this problem: "He wants to maintain it as a problem because he sees it as an election winner."But Abbott has said he wants to solve this problem and has proposed the reintroduction of measures that ended the lethal business of human trafficking under the Howard government. Those measures included turning back boats when possible and issuing illegal boat arrivals with temporary protection visas.
The US Coast Guard turns boats back to Cuba and the Dominican Republic on an almost daily basis. The Sri Lankan navy turns boats back. Our navy is more than up to the task, as distasteful as it may be.
In May 2004, I was aboard HMAS Stuart in the Persian Gulf when Captain Phil Spedding was routinely sending heavily armed boarding parties to inspect suspicious dhows posing a threat to shipping and offshore oil facilities. A week earlier, on the eve of Anzac Day, a flotilla of suicide craft had launched attacks on the crew of the USS Firebolt, killing three.
As I watched, the Stuart's two boarding craft William and Wallace swept off to a large dhow.
The boarding party was led by the Stuart's executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Michelle Miller, now Captain Miller.
Was the job dangerous? Yes. Was Lt-Cdr Miller capable of performing her duty as an RAN officer? You bet.
Only yesterday, a former human rights commissioner warned that hundreds, if not thousands, of asylum seekers will almost certainly drown on their way to Australia unless something is done to stop people-smuggling boats. In his submission to the federal government's expert panel on asylum seekers, Dr Sev Ozdowski said Labor's decision to wind back the Howard government's Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas created an undeniable pull factor for people trying to flee Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq.
"If the current trend continues, boat arrivals for 2012 will be well over 10,000," he wrote.
"The increased boat people arrivals will almost certainly result in hundreds or thousands of people drowning on the way to Australia. This statement is not alarmist - it will happen."
On Wednesday, the sixth illegal boat with some 65 people aboard arrived in just three days - taking the total number of undocumented arrivals since Labor wound back the Coalition's border protection policies in 2007 to nearly 21,000.
The government's panel is due to report before parliament resumes next month but the government's alliance partners, the Greens, have already sent in a submission at odds with Labor's proposed Malaysian Solution and Labor has warned it will not necessarily support the panel's recommendations.
As opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said: "Not only have Labor sought to distance themselves from their own expert panel by reserving their position on its recommendations, they remain at war with their alliance partners on the committee they set up to solve the problem."
More than 131 boats carrying nearly 9500 undocumented people have arrived since the Malaysian Solution was announced on May 7, 2011. Under the swap-and-release proposal, Australia would have sent 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia and received 4000 in return.
The High Court killed the plan stone dead because the government could not guarantee the security of those sent to Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN Convention on Human Rights - a basic requirement once insisted upon by Labor. The plan was meant to be a one-off and act as a deterrent but there is no indication it would have succeeded.
On the other hand, if Labor had not dismantled the Howard government's border protection regime, people would not have died at sea, more than $1 billion would have been saved, the Christmas Island detention centre would be mothballed and naval and customs officers would have been freed to get on with other duties.
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Gillard: dumb, dumber, dumbest
Piers Akerman –, Thursday, July, 19, 2012, (4:49am)
AFTER careful consideration, it must be concluded that Julia Gillard is stupid.
Describing a prime minister as dumb is not easy but there is no other explanation for a string of her recent decisions.
Take just three – her decision to lie about the introduction of a carbon dioxide tax which penalises the national economy for no environmental benefit; her decision to hand-out cash as compensation for that tax though warned that the bulk of it would be wasted; and her denial that her leadership is under siege.
Beyond the handful of "Labor-at-all-costs" characters who nod like circus ponies no matter what rubbish their leaders serve up, and the Green enviro-extremists, no-one sees any merit in the CO2 tax strangling the remnants of the manufacturing sector or pricing domestic energy out of the home budget.
The second issue, the surge in gaming revenues following the cash hand-outs was predicted by almost everyone except Gillard and her inner team of economic fools.
That the figures from around the nation now demonstrate that the hand-outs led to a huge splurge on poker machine gambling, particularly in low income areas, show how out-of-touch Gillard and her Canberra crew are.
In Queensland, pokie revenues jumped more than 7 per cent in May when the first so-called Clean Energy handouts were sent out to almost 12 per cent in June, year-on-year.
In Victoria, spending in local government areas like Bendigo rose by up to 8.6 per cent in May.
In NSW, pokie machine profits in Western Sydney recorded double digit rises profits in areas such as Mt Druitt, Cabramatta-Fairfield, Campbelltown and Penrith.
The Daily Telegraph reports today that hotel sources reported gambling profits in Mt Druitt and Cabramatta-Fairfield were up 11 per cent in May and June while in Campbelltown and Penrith they were up 10 per cent.
At The Star casino, revenue was up 20 per cent in May and June.
Pensioners began receiving the payouts in May and were then rolled out to other households. The $820 schoolkids bonus also arrived at the end of June.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott warned in May that Labor's Schoolkids bonus would be largely wasted.
"You can go and blow it on the pokies," he said, because it was not tied to any educational spending requirement.
Prime Minister Gillard attacked Mr Abbott over his comments at the time: "That's Mr Abbott's way of saying he doesn't trust working families to look after their kids. What an insult."
No, Julia, not an insult, a reminder that Abbott understands Australian families far better than you do.
Now she is denying the shouting about her leadership though the latest round of speculation was sparked by the chief government whip Joel Fitzgibbon who pointed out the obvious – "populism matters in politics".
Parliament resumes next month.
It is not a question of can Julia last, it is for how long will she pretend she is in control?
|426 comments | Permalink
Piers has been one of The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph's best-read columnists since 1993. One of the nation's most respected journalists he has worked in New York, London, Washington and Los Angeles.
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text:
To contact me email: an XML/RSS feed.
I don't know what the developers were thinking, but the last, impossible to find, memory chip is in fact hidden in the blackness of an area you normally wouldn't want to fall into (or you die).
It's in "Down in the Dumps".
Get to here:
Take the catapult, you'll land over here:
Walk to the left:
And just walk off the end. If you go the right speed you'll hit the memory chip on your way down just before you die.
I wonder if the chip can be got without dying?
[Edit] The very day after I posted this, IUGO updated the app, and fixed this issue. Now there is a brick to stop the memory chip falling in the soup, and it can be easily retrieved without and danger.
That's better
My all new blog: New blog software from Wordpress, and a new domain name pennysmalls.com.
I gave the blog a new domain all of its own as it's focus is mostly rails and associated tech, and not much to do with my family and personal stuff.
The RSS feed is here.
Yes, the layout is dull, I'll get to it.
Most of the recent posts are already there, I'll keep this blog around as an archive of the older stuff.
We have a problem - we really do. Each time a user requests a page they have to make 50 http requests just to get back a "Not modified" message from the web server. Their browser is asking about every little image and css file and so on. Every one on the page. Those messages are small, but they add up. And as we know, "make fewer HTTP requests" is Steve Souder's number one rule for speeding up your website.
What we need to do is to add an Expires header to our static content - one that gives a time a long way in the future so that the browser knows that the content should stays in the cache -and not be fetched again, or even checked (if it has been updated) from the server. But what if we want to change a css file or a js file? The user will get the old one from their own cache. No good.
So it's simple right? Just turn on mod_expires in Apache? Not so fast. What about those images and items that do not have the query string? We don't want to send an expires header for those. Definitely not. (And you will likely have some - for instance images that are referenced from your css files.) If you do, the user is stuck with their cached version even if you change the file on the server.
So we need some way of selectively turning on the expires header in apache.
One way [Danny Burkes] (look at the update at the bottom) is to segregate by directory what you want to expire and what not. But this seems a bit clumsy to manage. (Also, side issue, I am not totally convinced that the munging of the urls provided by the plugin is needed - at least section 13.9 of the HTTP 1.1 spec seems to suggest that content with query strings will be cached fine if an explicit expires header is given.)
Actually you can do what you need with one symbolic link and some apache magic. The obvious magic won't work - you can't detect what's in a query string using a LocationMatch or FilesMatch container. But we can get around this with a rewrite rule, and a directory container.
This is from my apache httpd.conf file:
# add something we can do a directory match on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^[0-9]{10}$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /add_expires_header%{REQUEST_URI} [QSA]
# the add_expires_header directory is just a symlink to public
<Directory "/path/to/rails_app/public/add_expires_header">
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 years"
We use this as something we can detect in a Directory container. And in there we turn on the expires header.
We need one more thing:
cd /path/to/rails_app/public
ln -s . add_expires_header
It's a big benefit - we have literally gone from 50 HTTP requests per page to about 16. And with some tweaking we'll get it down more - some of those are from references to images in css, but a few are due to us not using urls generated by rails for static content. And we can fix those.
We have a reasonably complicated set of logic inside our controllers that is able to take an incoming url and serve the right content depending on 3 different parts of the url in various combinations and permutations. There are quite many DB queries required, and sometimes it goes slow.
I wanted to find where the system was spending its time, and the DB query logging provided by ActiveRecord was not enough to show me where the performance needed tuning.
The rails benchmark method to the rescue. And a little meta-programming. I added this to application.rb:
if ENV['EXTRA_BENCHMARKING']
@@added_methods = []
def self.method_added(id) # wrap a benchmark around all controller method calls
name = id.id2name
if name =~ /^old_(.*)$/
return if @@added_methods.include?($1)
return if @@added_methods.include?(name)
@@added_methods << name
alias_method "old_#{name}".intern, name.intern
eval %{
def #{name}(*args, &block)
logger.info("*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* #{name} START")
self.class.benchmark("*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* #{name}", Logger::DEBUG, false) do
send("old_#{name}", *args, &block)
It's important to add this pretty much at the top of application.rb, or at least before all the methods you want to time.
Method_added gets called every time a method is added to the class. As each method is added we make a note of it in our array @@added_methods, and then alias it with the prefix "old_". Then we define a new method adding the logger calls and the benchmark call.
The output looks like this:
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* save_url_history START
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* save_url_history (0.00004)
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* missing_page_catcher START
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* get_categories START
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* get_categories (0.00028)
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* get_continents START
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* get_continents (0.00004)
Also you will get all your regular debug level logging in between these new lines in your log.
Note that the @@added_methods array is important because both alias_method and the eval'd def result in a call to method_added - so we use the array to prevent infinite recursion.
Just run rails up with the EXTRA_BENCHMARKING environment variable set, and you are away:
EXTRA_BENCHMARKING=1 script/server -e production
Curiously adding config.log_level = :debug to environment.rb appears to have no effect on the logging performed by ActiveRecord. To get to see the detailed logging and benchmarking of your database queries in production mode you need to place this after the Rails::Initializer.run block in environment.rb:
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.level = Logger::DEBUG
Gotcha 1
Failing tests. We'd like them to pass of course. But there is something strange going on - the error is not a test error, it seems to come from rails itself:
1) Error:
NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
You might have expected an instance of Array.
The error occurred while evaluating nil.[]
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.4/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:498:in `orders'
./test/unit/order_mailer_test.rb:22:in `test_searcher_email'
1 tests, 0 assertions, 0 failures, 1 errors
What does it mean? The clue here is that the error comes from fixtures.rb. The other thing to note is that I have a setup in my test:
def setup
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :test
ActionMailer::Base.perform_deliveries = true
ActionMailer::Base.deliveries = []
def setup
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :test
ActionMailer::Base.perform_deliveries = true
ActionMailer::Base.deliveries = []
Finished in 0.160284 seconds.
1 tests, 1 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors
alias_method :setup, :setup_with_fixtures
Gotcha 2
Ever tried to test your routes? You should. But if you have routes that depend on what's in your database you've got a problem. Why? Because the routing is initialised before any fixtures are loaded. In fact none of the test related code is loaded at that point. So your tests just won't work.
I don't know a good way to fix this. In the end I opted for a fudge at the beginning of routes.rb:
if ENV['RAILS_ENV'] == "test" && Category.count == 0
Category.create!(:name=>"Families and Friends", :alternative_name=>"Family")
But at least the tests run ok now.
I needed to install X on a remote fedora machine, and then use my local machine as the X server over ssh. Compiling & installing X went smoothly, but I got the following error when running ssh -X (with -v for debug output) to the remote machine:
debug1: Remote: No xauth program; cannot forward with spoofing
It turns out that sshd has a hard wired idea of where xauth is supposed to be:
$ strings /usr/sbin/sshd|grep xauth
No xauth program; cannot forward with spoofing.
# ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/xauth /usr/bin/xauth
Actually it is my favourite. But the title comes from this article (which itself was inspired and copied from the famous paper about pascal by Brian Kernighan).
On with business though - Ruby has some serious wrinkles that produce counter-intuative and plain strange behaviour. One might say that they violate the Principle of Least Surprise. But POLS is somewhat personal - surprising to whom? (just me maybe!)
Surprising result #1
=> 1
a if a=b
NameError: undefined local variable or method `a' for main:Object
from (irb):2
This is odd indeed. It seems that the Ruby parser thinks that a is a method at the beginning of the line. But when it parses a=b it will know (and remember) that it is a variable. However, when the condition passes and it comes to execute 'a', it does not apply its new found knowledge about the nature of a - it still goes for the method. And hence the error.
Surprising result #2
c=1 unless defined? c
=> nil
=> nil
This is a bit easier to explain. Once the parser has seen c=1 it enters c in the symbol table, it knows that c exists as a variable. Hence it is defined (as nil). So c=1 is never executed.
Surprising result #3
class A
attr_accessor :a
def b
puts("a is #{a}")
puts("@a is #{@a}")
=> nil
c = A.new
=> #<A:0x32fb7c>
a is 1
@a is 0
No mystery here really - it's a nice gotcha though - a= does not call self.a=, it just assigns a local variable. It is just a little confusing unless you think carefully.
Surprising result #4
[0.0, 1/0.0].sort
=> [0.0, Infinity]
[0.0, 0/0.0].sort
ArgumentError: comparison of Float with Float failed
Thanks to Evan Weaver for pointing this out to me. This is due to 0/0.0 returning the value NaN (as opposed to 1/0.0 which returns Infinity). And the comparison with NaN by sort gives the strange error message.
Let me know if you spot any more oddities.
This is with a brand new installation of ruby (./configure, make, make install) and of rubygems (ruby setup.rb). Odd error message to get really, rails is certainly there .
This helps, but actually all I needed to do was to simply say
gem update
gem install rails --include-dependencies
A quick survey of the available open source systems for text search
Just a quick pointer - I had some correspondence resulting in some updates to my by now ancient obfuscated ETA interpreter.
The idea is to write the shortest interpreter for the ETA programming language possible. Previously I had got the program down to 227 chars of tight and obfuscated Ruby.
With these updates, either 4 or 16 chars have been knocked off the old best effort, depending on whether you want warnings or not. And both the newer versions are compatible with Ruby 1.8.6, which is a good thing seeing as the older versions were failing to run.
Although obfuscated programming is on the whole a fairly useless pastime, one certainly learns all the strange little creepy corners of a language. And Ruby has a few. (And not just this). I'll explain more in a later post.
I am delighted to say that both my entries for the 19th IOCCC qualified for a prize.
The first was a solver for the Bedlam cube.
Here are the remarks, the makefile and the program itself.
The second was a one liner digital clock program.
Here are the remarks, the makefile, the program itself, and finally the script for running it.
You can check out my previous entries here (2004) and here (2005).
This year the winners are being presented again at the Vintage Computer Festival on the 3rd and 4th November 2007 in Mountain View, California. It was a great event last year, and I'll go there again if I can this time. I recommend it if you are nearby.
Now then, there is this very nice torrent client for the mac called xtorrent (well, it's more than just a client). And there happens to be a new version of it that you can read all about over here.
Go have a look. And see if you can guess why I wrote about it :)
Truly, all Dave Watanabe's stuff is good though, & I have been using Newsfire as my main newsreader for a long time.
The form_tag method in ActionView uses a nice trick to wrap a block of content in form tags, and you can wrap content the same way yourself.
You want to write something like:
<% yellow_boxed do %>
some text and html and stuff
it's probably only worth doing it this way
if this bit is longer than a line or two
<% end %>
def yellow_boxed(&block)
concat(render(:partial=>"yellow_boxtop"), block.binding)
content = capture(&block)
concat(content, block.binding)
concat(render(:partial=>"yellow_boxbottom"), block.binding)
Note that I render a partial for the top and the bottom of my yellow box. The partials just contain table, tr and td tags and so on, but I wanted to keep the html strings out of my helper. But for short lengths of html it's not a problem, you can put text strings there instead of the much more expensive calls to render.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Which Solaris Files Are Stripped?
By Ali Bahrami-Oracle on Feb 09, 2007
It used to be common practice for system binaries to be stripped in order to save space. However, observability is a central tenet of the Solaris philosophy. Solaris objects and executables are therefore shipped in unstripped form, and have been for many years, in order to support such symbol lookups.
It turns out that this is is only partially true...
Brian Utterback posted a comment and pointed out that 490 of the 719 ELF binaries in /usr/bin on his Solaris 10 system are stripped. This shows that Solaris binaries have not been unstripped "for many years". I looked at /usr/bin on my desktop system, which is running a fairily recent Nevada build, and found that only 51 of the 815 files there are stripped. It appears that binaries are (mostly) stripped now. What changed between Solaris 10 and today? And, why "mostly"?
As I usually do in such situations, I sent mail to my fellow Linker Alien Rod Evans. I asked him for his recollection of what policies were used for stripping Solaris files in the past. Here is a summary of what he told me:
- For a very long time, the rule was that executables are stripped, and sharable libraries are not. The underlying idea was that people would not care to debug our executables, but certainly would debug their own programs that are linked to our libraries. We're not sure when this started, but are pretty sure that it covers most, if not all, of the Solaris 2.x era (we've no idea about the SunOS 4.x days).
- In the early years, enforcement of this rule was rather incomplete, and exceptions occured. Starting with Solaris 9, automated checks in the nightly builds tightened things up significantly.
- The policy was changed in September 2005 (2 months before I joined Sun)
to not strip any files.
The change took effect with Nevada build 24, with
5072038 binaries shouldn't be strippedI imagine that the introduction of DTrace made complete symbol information in binaries more important than before.
- Solaris is built by combining various "consolidations". The above comments only apply to the core ON consolidation, which consists of the OS and Networking parts of Solaris. The other consolidations are built according to their own rules, which can and do differ. So, you should not be surprised to find some stripped files, even on a current development build of Solaris, like the 51 files I found in /usr/bin on my system.
The new .SUNW_ldynsym sections reduce the need for everything to be unstripped, so we may end up relaxing our ON rule if there is a reason to do so. And if the other consolidations continue to strip their files, .SUNW_ldynsym will provide better observability for them.
Brian is absolutely right we have not been shipping "Solaris objects and executables" in unstripped form for many years, only sharable libraries! I knew that libraries were unstripped, and that current builds don't strip either binaries, and those two facts misled me.
On the plus side, I have a better understanding of the issue now... :-)
Technorati Tag: OpenSolaris
Technorati Tag: Solaris


text:
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The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.
For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for 21 Jump Street can be found here.
21 Jump Street is based on the television series 21 Jump Street with the screenplay written by Michael Bacall.
If anything, the film is a continuation of the series and works as a reboot of the franchise. Captain Hardy states that 21 Jump Street was a project in the 80's, the time of the series, and is being revived. Also, several actors reprise their characters.
'Rescue Song' by Mr. Little Jeans. The complete list of songs can be found here with scene descriptions.
Yes. Judy Hoffs (Holly Robinson Peete) gives Greg and Morton their new car. Stock footage of Harry Truman Ioki (Dustin Nguyen) appears on a television set in the hotel room. Tom Hanson (Johnny Depp) and Doug Penhall (Peter DeLuise) appear as DEA agents. Additionally, Greg shares the same last name as Captain Richard Jenko (Frederic Forrest).
Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet!


text:
For Seniors: How to Run a PowerPoint Presentation
The whole point of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation is to deliver a show to an audience. If that audience is in the same room with you, you can display your slide show onscreen.
Slide Show view is the view that you use when showing the presentation to others. One slide appears onscreen at a time, completely filling the screen. You may have used this view already — to check your work — while you were creating the presentation.
You can start Slide Show view from the first slide or from the current slide. The following table summarizes the methods of doing each.
|From First Slide
|From Current Slide
|Shortcut key(s)
|Press F5
|Press Shift+F5
|View tab
|Slide Show→From Beginning
|Slide Show→From Current Slide
|View buttons (bottom right of screen)
|Slide Show View button
Then, after you're in Slide Show view, you can show your presentation. Here's how:
Move to the next slide (in any of these ways):
Click the mouse.
Press any key on the keyboard (except Backspace or the left arrow).
Right-click to display a shortcut menu and then choose Next.
Move to the previous slide (in any of these ways):
Press Backspace or the left arrow on the keyboard.
Right-click to display a shortcut menu and choose Previous.
Jump to a specific slide:
a.Right-click to display a shortcut menu.
b.Point to Go to Slide.
c.Click the slide you want to display.
End the show (in any of these ways):
Click through to the end of the slide show (black screen) and then click one more time.
Press the Esc key.
Right-click to display a shortcut menu and then choose End Show.


text:
In article <email@example.com. com>,
> In following code when I catching SIGCHLD, it is not returning to
> parent. it keeps on running child process. In follwing it will not
> display menu again but if I don't catch SIGCHLD it works properly.
You asked the same question yesterday in comp.unix.programmer. Why do
you think a non-programming group would be a better place to ask the
question now?
Barry Margolin, firstname.lastname@example.com
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***


text:
This is a beautiful Indian Head design that features no raised edge and the main devices and legends are in a sunken relief.
Coin Highlights:
- Contains .12094 oz of Gold.
- Multiples of 50 are packaged in plastic tubes. All other coins will be in protective plastic flips.
- Obverse: Liberty in full headdress encircled by 13 stars with the word "Liberty" above and the date below.
- Reverse: Features a majestic bald eagle. Surrounding the eagle is "United States of America", "E Pluribus Unum", "In God We Trust" and the denomination.
- Designed by Bela Lyon Pratt and minted from 1908-1929.
- U.S. Mint issue from the following mints: Philadelphia or Denver.
The beautiful incuse (sunken relief) design of this coin retains the majority of its original features with only a small amount of wear adding to the collectibility of this series. Enhance your collection by adding this $2.50 Indian Gold Quarter Eagle to your cart today!
Dates on these random year coins will be of our choosing and may or may not vary, determined by stock on hand.
As you continue to browse APMEX, you will find our multi-million dollar rare coin and bullion inventory contains Pre-1933 US gold, rare coins, numismatic rarities, and silver dollars for both the novice and the expert.
Reviewed by 3 customers
Sort by
Love the product; handling needs improvement; I don;t trust the mail carrier or other delivery and accidentally found boxes of coins hastily delivered without signature; there was too much opportunity for me to hastily miss a package or someone else to find it before me. Partly this is my fault. Love the ease of ordering but there needs to be more security
- Value (low premium over spot)
- Attractive Design
- Collectible (lower mintage)
- Recognized Brand
love the design and great price
- Value (low premium over spot)
- Attractive Design
The design and incused date & lettering intrigued me. I purchased it to go along with my other pre-1933 gold coins. I have modern gold eagles which are beautiful but lack that special something associated with early American coinage. American craftsmanship at it's best, the coin I received is a 1928 and I would say is in XF+ condition.
- Value (low premium over spot)
- Attractive Design
- Collectible (lower mintage)
- Easy to Sell
- Mint Condition
- Recognized Brand
We provide all of our customers with a refund, return and / or exchange on everything we sell including all bullion and certified coins. If for any reason, you have a problem, please feel free to call us. We will always do our best to accommodate you.


text:
Kangol boasts some of the most recognizable hat shapes in the world, like the timeless 504 and 507. While Kangol remains committed to their most popular styles, they also offer phenomenal shape options like trilbies, baseball caps, buckets, army caps, and pull-ons. Kangol doesn't have a narrow focus, anybody can find something that will flatter their face and match their fashion tastes. Here, hats are conveniently separated by their shape. Once you figure out what shape suits you best, check out the different color and design details to find the hat that's perfect for you!
3 Item(s)
per page
Kids Twill Stitch Plaid Flexfit Army Cap
Kids Medium/Large, Kids Small/Medium$28.00
Kids Cotton Twill Army
Kids Medium/Large, Kids Small/Medium$26.00
Kids Hop Stitch Flex Fit Baseball
Kids Small/Medium, Kids Medium/Large$29.00
3 Item(s)
per page


text:
The idea is to have an extra tab in the social-window, where players can propose their trade. Similar to the trade-channel, but with less spam.
Some players are already starting to create fake parties, and only using the party name for trade-propositions. If this prevail, we're going to get disorganized LFG-List, half filled with trade-fake-parties (like in Diablo 2).
That made me think, maybe the developers could implement an extra social-tab for trade-posts, so that those "parties" does not mess with the Public-Party list.
This Trade-Post tab can be used as a third way to trade items beside trade-channel and trade-forum:
If you open the tab, the proposing player would be shown, so you can message him. (optional including some text and items)
What's the difference to an auctionhouse, many player don't want:
- Trading is still personal, not automated. The social aspect is not lost.
- Offers are not sorted by price. You also cannot see all trade-posts at the same time. The barter aspect of different offers remains.
What's the advantage of having that extra tab for trade-posts:
- Player don't need to create fake-parties for trade-propositions. The "public-party" list stays cleaner.
- A second way to find ingame trades besides spamming the trade-channel.
- Players can leave a trade-post and then continue to play normally.
Photoshopped some images to visualize. Opinions are welcome.
Additional infos, how i would imagine it. The extra-tab would only show a few trading-posts, similar to the list for public parties. You need to be online and can have only one trade-post. More convenient than now, but not too easy.


text:
Jul 11, 2013
Insight: spring warming threatens continental semi-arid forests
Ongoing and dramatic spring warming is leading to slower tree growth in continental semi-arid forests, according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters (ERL).
Previous analyses showed that tree growth in continental semi-arid forests is generally limited by the amount of soil water available during the growing season. However, researchers were unsure as to how tree growth was changing over time in response to climate change in these forests.
A recent study published in ERL by Xiuchen Wu and colleagues from Peking University, China has now addressed this issue by analysing a tree-ring network in north-western China together with associated climate and remote-sensing data.
The team found that the semi-arid forests in this area have been suffering since the early 1970s from limited growth mainly because of early (March–April) spring warming, which has led to reduced amounts of water in soil. The new study also showed that it is the long-lasting stress caused by these droughts that has greatly contributed to reducing regional tree growth in recent decades, and that it has led to a much slower growth rate in young trees.
"The dramatic early spring warming, without concurrent increases in precipitation, has reduced soil water content in continental semi-arid regions in north-western China," said Wu, "possibly because of more water evaporating from the soil or the degradation of snow and seasonal frozen soil."
These results have been obtained as part of the FASTER project (Forest And Steppe Ecotone Research) in Inner Asia conducted by an international team led by Hongyan Liu from Peking University. The researchers previously showed that a large number of semi-arid forests in Inner Asia have been experiencing growth decline and that many trees have even died in the eastern part of this region. These results were published in a recent issue of Global Change Biology.
Semi-arid forests are expected to become more vulnerable to changing climate in the future – especially if temperatures rise, if there are more frequent heat waves or if there are other climate-associated changes, such as increased forest fires.
"Our results could have important implications for forest management in the on-going and massive afforestation project in China – the Sanbei Forest Shelter Project," said Wu. "But different tree species might respond to seasonal warming in quite different ways as indicated in another of our recent papers published in PLoS ONE. Therefore, it is still fairly difficult for us to provide reliable predictions for the future fate of these forests."
Regional forest monitoring is urgently needed to improve our understanding of the mechanisms behind the decline in tree growth, and indeed forest die-off, which appears to be emerging as a global phenomenon.
Related links
About the author
Xiuchen Wu is now a postdoc at Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), France. He is interested in terrestrial-atmosphere interactions from multiple perspectives including remote sensing, ground observations and land surface models.


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2 – $3off coupons for diapers and 3 – $1 off coupons for Huggies Products from
Dept. QMB
Neenah, WI 54957-2020
Free bottle of ocean spray juice (a $4.99 value) from
Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc
Consumer Affairs Dept.
1 Ocean Spray Drive
Lakeville-Middleborough, MA 02349
4 FREE Jars of baby food from
Nature's Goodness
c/o Bay Valley Foods
PO Box 763
Horsham, PA 19044-0763
2 FREE "I'm a Gerber Baby" onesies, a coupon for a free 12.9oz can of Good Start Formula (a $13.50 value) and a coupon for a free 8-3oz bottles of liquid Good Start formula (a $9.25 value) from
Start Healthy/Stay Healthy Resource Center
445 State Street
Freemont, MI 49413-0001
Enfamil/Similac – have your pediatrician's purchasing agent contact Enfamil/Similac to verify that you have multiples, and they should send you a one time gift of free formula. Margaret received 2 cases (12 – 12.9oz cans total) of free Enfamil ($180 value.)!
2 free products valued at up to $12.99 each from
Totally Toddler
PO Box 227215
Dallas, TX 75222-7215
2 Disney snuggle friend blankets (Pooh & Eeyore), and 2 sets of disposable sippie cups from
Learning Curve Brands
Attn: Multiple Birth Program
2021 9th Street SE
Dyersville, IA 52040
2 Boudreaux bibs and 2 samples of diaper rash ointment, dry skin ointment, body wash and lip/cheek moisturizer.
Boudreaux's Butt Paste
c/o Blairex Laboratories
1600 Brian Drive
PO Box 2127
Columbus, IN 47202-2127
FREE box of LUVS (no maximum value!)
Proctor and Gamble Distributing, LLC
Luvs Multiple Birth Offer
PO Box 599
Cincinnati, OH 45011
You can read more about what Margaret purchased with her coupons, plus more information at her blog Double the Giggles!


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FEB 10, 2014 - Philadelphia Inquirer
A Must Read - Share
PHILADELPHIA Claudette Boyd and her teenage daughter, Tamika, took the 17 bus from South Philadelphia early enough Sunday morning to seize an excellent position outside Kmart in the Gallery mall. Shoulder to affectionate shoulder, the two women leaned against a railing, watching the Kmart staff prepare for the onslaught.
Editor's Picks
Hey you have no friends!!! Get to work and start inviting friends to help build your Comunitee. Click Here to invite friends.
© 2011 Comunitee, Inc.


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Project Holiday Volunteers Needed
Tuesday, December 17 - Friday, December 20
One of the best parts of the holiday season is the opportunity to give. 2013 marks the 26th year The Crisis Center has hosted Project Holiday, our annual food distribution to brighten the holidays for families in need in Johnson County.
More than 1,400 families are expected to register to receive special entrees, fresh produce, baking supplies, and more. Financial support to purchase these items and volunteer hours to help distribute them are critical.
More Than 200 Volunteer Opportunities
The Project Holiday food distribution is an enormous undertaking. Greet clients, distribute and bag food items, help families to their cars . . . even direct traffic in our parking lot!
Grab your family, co-workers, and friends to volunteer with you or sign-up for a shift and meet new people. Children volunteering must be in 7th grade or above and we require one adult per two children. Distribution dates and times are listed below, along with links to our simple, online volunteer sign-up sites.
Shifts At The Crisis Center
Located at 1121 Gilbert Court in Iowa City, distribution at The Crisis Center's Food Bank will be take place all four days of the event. Sign up to volunteer here.
- Tuesday, December 17 from 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm
- Wednesday, December 18 from 12:00 pm - 4:30 pm
- Thursday, December 19 from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
- Friday, December 20 from 12:00 pm - 4:30 pm
At The Coralville Recreation Center
For the second year, The Crisis Center will be hosting a Project Holiday distribution at the Coralville Recreation Center, located at 1506 8th St in Coralville. Sign up to volunteer here.
- Wednesday, December 18 from 2:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Can't Volunteer? Buy a Holiday Meal for a Family
It's a busy time of year. If these dates don't work for you to volunteer, there is still a great way to help with Project Holiday. Just $20 can help a family in need celebrate the holidays with their favorite recipes and traditions. Donate now online and help one, two or many families with your contribution!
For More Information
Visit our Project Holiday 2013 page for general information about the event.
If you have special needs in order to participate as a Project Holiday volunteer or would simply like more information before signing up, please contact William Batten, Food Bank Coordinator, via email at email@example.com.


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Cheers — to "Batkid" Miles Scott, who has turned his moment of fame into long-term help for Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, where pediatricians have been treating his leukemia since he was 18 months old. After the Make-A-Wish Foundation arranged for 5-year-old Miles to tour San Francisco in costume alongside a full-size Batman, solving crimes and rescuing a damsel in distress, donations poured in to a fund set up by the San Francisco 49ers Foundation. Miles' parents, Natalie and Nick Scott of Tulelake, Calif., decided to make Asante one of the beneficiaries of the donations, in thanks for the care he received there. Miles' leukemia has been in remission since June.
Jeers — to the Oregon Duck football players who had the bad form to dismiss the Rose Bowl as less than desirable while they were still in the hunt, however tenuously, for the national championship game. Wide receiver Josh Huff said he wasn't interested in playing in a Rose Bowl "unless I'm playing for a national championship." Running back De'Anthony Thomas said the Tournament of Roses was "not a big deal at all."
That, of course, was before the swaggering Ducks were dismantled by the unranked Arizona Wildcats on Saturday, knocking them out of the national title race, the Rose Bowl and potentially any of the more prestigious bowl games now that they are ranked No. 13. Not well-played, gentlemen.
Cheers — to the Southern Oregon wine industry, which showed growth in the number of wineries, acres planted and acres harvested in 2012. While the yield per acre and tons of grapes produced dipped from 2011 to 2012, the total tons crushed increased, as did the gallons of wine bottled here. The region's vineyards produce quality grapes, which become quality wines whether made here in local wineries or send upstate to Willamette Valley vintners. And vintners who blend local grapes with those purchased elsewhere in the state continue to turn out excellent vintages.
Cheers — to orthopedic surgeon Dr. Rich Owens and Our Hearts to Your Soles, a local group he founded to provide quality footwear to the area's neediest people, the homeless who spend a lot of time on their feet. The local group operates under the auspices of Soles4Souls, an international organization. During a special event at the Medford Gospel Mission, Owens examined sore feet and treated those he could, referring others for further treatment. Volunteers helped those who attended find well-fitting shoes from the 250 donated pairs on hand.
Location, ST | website.com


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ESMG provides environmental consulting services and green management programs in four categories. Click each to learn more.
Simple...We are an experienced green building solutions provider. Our green management services have proven to reduce waste output, maintain healthy indoor environments and manage sustainable construction practices.
Green...Our trained staff of environmental management professionals are experienced in each of the new high performance green building standards, providing cost effective green management assistance from project inception, through facility construction, to building life cycle operations.
Cost Effective...Our shared savings "pure performance" programs reduce monthly cost by 40% to 60% in most cases. Unlike many green technologies that cost more up front, our management programs actually reduce first costs, lower operating expenses and produce real cost savings from day one.
"For an environmental solution to be a truly sustainable, it must be simple, green, and cost effective."
simple. green. cost effective.
Environmental Service Management Group, Inc.
Copyright ©2008 All Rights Reserved


text: The Bug-Sucker Backpack vacuum from Atrix is the perfect tool for the removal of bed bugs, bees, ants, cockroaches and other pests. It is powerful enough to remove insect eggs to prevent reinfestation. This safe and powerful vacuum is lightweight at only 10 lbs, and the built-in backpack harness provides hands-free operation. Vacuum includes a HEPA filter that provides 4-stage high-efficiency filtration. The telescoping metal wand and ergonomic handle make this a favorite of pest control technicians.


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Watch out blogosphere….I'm coming with daily updates, video links to stupid shit, and whatever else I bloggin' feel like. I will give updates on SFR stuff as well as non-SFR stuff. Just stuff in general type stuff pretty much. Just bloggin' in it up. Bloggin' with the homeboys.
For right now, how about you enjoy the features of this new website. Read about the new artists, check out the podcast, download the free music or purchase something if you want us to live and for us not to die. Actually, we're currently transferring store items from the old website into this new website, so not everything is up and available just yet. If you purchased something before the switch was made DON'T WORRY…we got it all under control. Orders will be going out as usual.
There's a "comment section" on my blog so you can post suggestions on what you'd like to see on the website. Until then, it's time for daddy to go sleepy. I'll be back to blog something new and fresh later on.
Blog out,
Sage Francis


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Untitled presents its new video, Who We Are. Peep the intro.
Upload your Thursday Theater clips to skateboarding.com! Just register on the homepage and load 'em up in the YOUR STUFF section. Be sure to tag them Thursday Theater. We'll be picking a new one each week to feature on the homepage.
UNTITLED skateboards presents our first full length video available soon for free online download! All the parts will soon be uploaded to www.untitledskateboads.com. Stay tuned!
View the vimeo version here> http://vimeo.com/2344470


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BIIF volleyball: Kohala moves on
April 22, 2014 - 6:02am
Seniors Pono Giron-Arellano and Mark Edwards posted 13 and 12 kills, respectively, as Kohala swept its way into the playoffs, beating Pahoa25-17, 26-24, 25-12 on Monday night in Kapaau in a Big Island Interscholastic Federation volleyball play-in game.
Senior Trenton Lorenzo-Akamu added 35 assists for the Cowboys (5-7), who will face top-seeded Honokaa at 2:30 p.m. Friday in the Division II semifinals at Kealakehe High.
The Daggers (4-8) lost their third straight match, the last two to Kohala. The Cowboys won in five sets Saturday in Pahoa to force the winner-take-all, and they had an easier time two days later.


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Home > Strategy Games > Exploration >
Galaxy's Edge
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Product Description
In Galaxy's Edge, you are a flagship commander of one of the great galactic superpowers, navigating the fringe of the known galaxy in an effort to claim and colonize the many bountiful star systems in the region. Expansion can be achieved through a combination of peaceful occupation and use of military resources to seize enemy outposts and to protect your own. A variety of alien species are native to the newly-charted sectors; earning their loyalty will go a long way towards claiming a victory. Diverse Events can be used to further your goals in a number of ways.
Your overall objective in the game is to score the most points at the game's end. Points are mainly earned for building colonies in the many star systems of varying value. Bonus points can be won by earning the loyalty of various alien species while satisfying their specific requirements.
Throughout the game you will need to support your colonization efforts with military strategy, which in turn will allow you to conquer valuable opposing colonies and thus score more points. Obtaining-and keeping-alien loyalties will be an important factor in determining a winner, and the diverse Event cards can be used to further your goals in a number of ways.
Product Information
Andrei Burago
Assa Games Corporation
Year: 2009
Players: 3 - 4
Time: 60 minutes
Ages: 10 and up
Weight: 1,239 grams
Language Requirements: This is a domestic item.
- 30 Sector Tiles
- 80 Military Bases
- 4 Ban Markers
- 4 Flagships
- 80 Colonies
- 5 Loyalty Pledges
- 28 Event Cards
- 1 Event Die
- 1 12-page Rulebook


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Kier's new housing division to deliver 4,000 units
Published by Anonymous for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Development
Kier's new housing division to deliver 4,000 units
Kier Group has announced the launch of a new unified housing division.
Kier Living will bring together three of Kier's existing businesses that have been "incubated" over the last few years to provide the group with specialist housing skills, from contracting, to affordable housing partnerships to private market housing.
The new division plans to deliver 4,000 units over the next five years, targeting its growth in the north and South East of England.
Kier Living intends to expand its geographical footprint to meet nationwide demand for new homes, to be better able to respond to the volume of public land emerging through the Homes and Communities Agency's developer partner panel framework and the affordable homes programme.
John Anderson, Kier Living's executive managing director, said: "The model of balancing activity across the public and private housing markets will protect the business against market fluctuation and enables Kier Living to really leverage the potential of its mixed tenure model.
"The cross subsidy effect of this model enables our local authority and housing association clients to generate the necessary funding to deliver a wide range of housing solutions limiting the impact on the public purse."
Modular Build to Rent scheme underway
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Copyright Universal Uclick.
Ohio has taken to the local ballot initiative process to propose "Community Bill of Rights" ordinances to ban fracking.
Less than eight months after the Paris Agreement, pledges from around the world are nowhere near as ambitious as they need to be to slow down warming.
Copyright Universal Uclick.
Matt Bors relentlessly skewers the latest absurdities of American politics and culture. From war to religion to obsessive lawn care, Bors' cartoons dissect and expose the news, "avoiding the Donkeys and Elephants of many of his peers," to make readers think and laugh about real issues. Bors' unique cartoons feature a vivid style and biting humor that have earned him a great deal of praise. Drawn! Magazine editor John Martz says that Bors is "one of few in his field whose work redefines what an editorial cartoon should look like."