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The dataset generation failed
Error code: DatasetGenerationError
Exception: ArrowInvalid
Message: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 94
Traceback: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
return json_reader.read()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
self._parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
ValueError: Trailing data
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
for _, table in generator:
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
raise e
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
pa_table = paj.read_json(
File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 94
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
builder.download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
self._download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the datasetNeed help to make the dataset viewer work? Make sure to review how to configure the dataset viewer, and open a discussion for direct support.
pred_label
string | pred_label_prob
float64 | wiki_prob
float64 | text
string | source
string |
|---|---|---|---|---|
__label__wiki
| 0.698884
| 0.698884
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House Divided
July 26, 2019 Al Blanton AlBlanton, Uncategorized 0
Words by Al Blanton | Images by Blakeney Clouse
Sometimes, a gas station can be the site of a budding romance. Such was the case with Wade and Linda Clark.
“He chased me for months in DeFuniak,” Linda says, describing how the couple first met.
DeFuniak meaning DeFuniak Springs, Florida, of course, where Wade had just been transferred for work with Great Northern Paper Company. As the story goes, the man who worked at the gas station where Linda traded kept suggesting that she meet Wade.
“I’m not interested,” Linda would say.
The man was undeterred. Every time Linda would show up at the gas station, he would call Wade immediately and say, “Wade, get here. She’s here!” But by the time Wade could get there, Linda would be gone.
This went on for a while and eventually it took a little ingenuity for the man to bring the couple together. Let’s let Linda tell it: “So one day I had been to the beauty shop, and my hair was in rollers, and I had my ol’ green polka dotted shorts on and the guy started tinkering under the hood of my car so [Wade] could get there. That was our first date.”
That evening the couple drove over to nearby Freeport because there was little to do in DeFuniak. “I went with my hair in rollers and green polka dotted shorts on because I wasn’t interested in him,” Linda recalls.
“Three months later, we were married. And Thursday will be 49 years.”
The couple tied the knot on January 17, 1970, at Eastside Baptist Church in DeFuniak Springs. They moved into a little bitty 12’x45’ trailer but would eventually graduate to more comfortable housing as the years went by and they welcomed two boys, Doug and Wesley.
For the next few years, Wade and Linda made several moves with Wade’s work. First they lived in Richland, Georgia, before moving to Albany, Georgia, and then to Jacksonville, Florida. While in Jacksonville, Wade, a Georgia fan, and Linda, a Florida fan, would enjoy attending the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party”—the annual Georgia-Florida game. It was something they looked forward to every year, and although they were fans of different teams, the ribbing was always in good fun.
At the time, never would they have guessed that life would take them to a small Alabama community nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians. But by 1978, Wade’s company, Great Northern Paper, had acquired Brilliant Coal, which had an office on Walston Bridge Road in, of all places, the town of Jasper, Alabama.
During the interview process, moving to Jasper seemed to be hunky-dory for Wade and Linda. But by the time the couple arrived, there was a bit of a culture shock. They had been used to living in the big city of Jacksonville, where businesses stayed open all night; they were taken aback when they discovered Jasper businesses rolled up the shades early. “Once we moved here, my comment to Wade was ‘you have moved me to the end of the world,’” Linda said, “because you couldn’t buy a gallon of milk after 5:30 at night.”
Eventually the couple settled in and got used to living in Jasper. Later, they put down roots.
Living in Jasper meant that they could no longer go to the football games. It wasn’t that Jacksonville was too far, necessarily. Since Georgia was winning at the time, Linda didn’t want to have to listen to Wade gloat the entire car ride home.
So instead they set up shop in their living room and transformed the space into a Florida-Georgia shrine. Wade decked out his side with red and black, and Linda dressed up hers with blue and orange. Across the years, the couple has accumulated paraphernalia from each school. Normally, these are not items that they have bought personally, but rather items that have been given to them by friends and family (if someone buys a Florida item, they must find its Georgia twin).
Game days at the Clark residence, they’ll admit, can get a little testy—especially the week of the Florida-Georgia game—but remember it’s all in good fun. At least, that’s how Linda feels.
“A lot of times we have people over,” Linda says.
“They come over to referee,” Wade quips.
“We don’t get violently fighting or ugly,” Linda adds. “It’s just a ballgame.”
“Sometimes,” Wade says.
“See, I don’t get ill about any of them,” Linda says. “He’s like the typical Alabama fan. They get all riled up.”
“You better watch out!” Wade interjects.
“It’s just a ballgame.”
“No it ain’t,” says Wade. “It’s blood and guts when you go tee to tee.”
Linda says that during the game, neighbors will often call to check on them. “Y’all OK over there?” they’ll say.
And things always are. Every year, they survive. And every year, one of them gets bragging rights over the other. It’s just one of the things that makes Wade and Linda’s life together a little more unique.
Linda says the key to a successful marriage is to just keep going. “You have your ups and downs, but you don’t throw your hands up and walk away. That’s the way we were raised. I was raised that you worked through your problems. That’s just the way we were taught. You work it out,” Linda says.
Wade admits that when he gets irritated probably the best thing he can do is head to his “office”—a detached shed out back with a refrigerator, recliner, cable TV, and phone. But that doesn’t always work. Sometimes, Linda follows him out there. “She comes out right behind me,” he jokes.
Wade has had some vascular problems recently and Linda worries about him. But after 49 years, there’s no reason to throw in the towel now. “We’re going to hang in there [with each other]. We’re going to hang in there until then end,” Linda says.
People can’t understand why Wade and Linda don’t move away from Jasper and enjoy someplace more luxurious in the twilight of their lives. But for them, this is home. “We are not leaving Jasper. We’re not going anyplace—we’ve discussed that,” Linda says. “We’ve got our plots out at Walker Memory. Everything is taken care of. We are staying right here. We’re not going anywhere. Nope. Mmm-hmm.” 78
Al Blanton
Soul of 78: Chad Hayes
A Testament To God
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cc/2020-05/en_head_0007.json.gz/line1
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__label__wiki
| 0.512035
| 0.512035
|
Author of several books
Most people know her face from the TV newspaper and Deadline. But journalist Lene Johansen also writes books about children, parents, strong women and actresses.
She is known as host on the TV Newspaper, Profile, Sunday Magazine and Deadline. In addition, she is the author of several books, mom, lecturer, moderator and teacher of journalism.
Today, Lene Johansen is 50 years old.
With a mother who hosted the TV newspaper, and a father who was a news journalist at Ritzaus Bureau, she grew up with journalism as an integral part of everyday life.
She also chose to walk in the parents' footsteps, and in 1988 she became a journalist. The same year as his boyfriend, Jørgen Ramskov, who is the CEO of Radio24syv.
After passing Politiken in practice and later Copenhagen Radio, Lene Johansen worked for DR for almost 30 years, but in 2010 he chose a voluntary resignation in connection with a major savings team at DR.
She has told Kristeligt Dagblad that the decision to go was inspired by Christine Antorini's account in Lene Johansen's book, My mother is dead !. It taught her that you do not have to postpone anything tomorrow.
In 2011, Lene Johansen wrote the book: The Art to Release When the Children Move From Home. Here she interviews author Fay Weldon and film producer Peter Aalbæk about saying goodbye to home-grown children.
She has also made the interview series and the accompanying book Brave women who are about women who put their lives at stake in the fight for human rights and democratic conditions.
Now she is doing another interview series. This time about actresses in Europe, and among the contributors is the Danish actress Ghita Nørby. Next to the series she works on a biography.
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cc/2020-05/en_head_0007.json.gz/line4
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__label__cc
| 0.741619
| 0.258381
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Remove North Terrace filter North Terrace
Holy Trinity Church is the earliest surviving Anglican Church building in South Australia, and one of Adelaide’s oldest standing structures.
Historical Place | By James Hunter, History Trust of South Australia | North Terrace | 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900-1910, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000-2010, 2010s
Institute Building
The oldest of North Terrace’s cultural buildings
Historical Place | By Jude Elton, History Trust of South Australia | North Terrace | 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900-1910, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000-2010, 2010s
North Terrace East
North Terrace east is Adelaide’s premier cultural boulevard
North Terrace West
Stretching from Adelaide’s first survey point to Parliament House, the character of this part of North Terrace continues to evolve
Historical Place | By Jude Elton, History Trust of South Australia | North Terrace | 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900-1910, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, early twenty–first century
Old Parliament House
The site of countless debates, Old Parliament House dates from 1855
The scene of pomp and ceremony, debates and demonstrations
Historical Place | By Jude Elton, History Trust of South Australia | North Terrace | 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900-1910, 1910s, 1930s, 1950s
parliamentary building [ 2 ] Apply parliamentary building filter
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cc/2020-05/en_head_0007.json.gz/line8
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__label__wiki
| 0.728094
| 0.728094
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Braving New Waves Together: Safety First
Key Thrust
Safety is and always has been a key priority in the marine industry, and a key thrust in the association‘s agenda. The implementation of comprehensive safety and health management programmes to promote safety has brought about a change in the safety landscape in the industry, resulting in a reduction in the number of accidents from its height in the early 1990s.
“A lot of effort has been put into safety initiatives and programmes by industry players. In 2007, in spite of an increased workforce, the absolute number of workplace injuries actually drop,” said Mr Chia.
In 2007, 490 accidents were recorded, as against 829 at their peak in 1994. The accident severity rate (ASR) and accident frequency rate (AFR), which take into account the increased workload, painted an even better picture. The ASR which measures the number of man-days lost per million man hours worked, dropped from 2,174 in 1994 to a low of 180 in 2007 while the AFR, which shows the number of accidents per million man hours worked, eased from 9.6 in 1994 to 1.3 in 2007.
Industry’s Approach to Safety
The industry has always adopted a common and holistic approach to safety. In fact, the drive towards a common safety standard began in the 1970s following the major expansion of the industry. A safety orientation centre was set up by the association at the National Stadium for small yards and sub-contractors located in the Kallang/Tanjung Rhu area. An association-certified safety permit was subsequently introduced in 1983, for contract workers’ entry into the shipyards.
“Standardisation makes sense as an industry, especially with our on-going efforts to optimise and rationalise our workforce deployment. Today, I can have this worker with me; tomorrow he could be working in another shipyard. This mobility of our workforce gives us the flexibility; hence, it is good to have a standard system across the industry. Through ASMI, we streamline a lot. Safety is about culture and culture is about size. You must have a critical mass to effect any mindset change,” said Mr Abu Bakar Mohd Nor, Chairman, ASMI’s Safety Committee, 2005-2009, and Senior General Manager (Operations) of Keppel Shipyard.
Under the government regulations, shipyards are required to establish a safety management system. To assist the industry, ASMI drew up a Safety Management Code in 1995 to provide a framework for shipyards to implement a safety management system. This was followed a few years later with the development of a Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Manual to provide guidelines and references to help industry members improve their SHE standards.
Over the years, seminars, workshops and training programmes have been conducted, and safety checklists, guidelines, handbooks and video programmes produced to drive home the safety message. Training materials focussing on accident case studies was also developed in 2005 to enable the industry to learn from past accidents. Safe work practices and safety innovations are also shared openly through the association in the collective desire to make the shipyard a safe workplace for all.
Mr Bakar shared, “People need to be involved and engaged in safety. One of the efforts that the industry continuously did, to cultivate this, is through our safety innovation programmes.” A Safety Improvement Team Convention was launched in 1998 to provide a platform for workers to share their ideas and experiences on safety and productivity, with awards handed out for the best ideas. The annual convention, renamed as Workplace Safety and Health Innovation Convention, is now in its 11th year.
“When it comes to safety, the shipyards copy shamelessly. We share,” Mr Bakar quipped. This openness and close co-operation in safety within the industry has managed to provide a positive environment and creates the necessary momentum towards safety excellence.
In 2002, the industry extended its safety focus from regulations and management systems to embrace behavioural management in order to achieve a higher level of safety consciousness and ownership amongst the workforce. By changing attitudes and behaviour through the Behavioural-based Safety Programme, the industry aimed to build up a safety culture.
“Cultural difference of the workforce is not an issue. In safety, you are talking about skills and mindset. You have to work at it,” said Mr Wong Peng Kin. Workers were encouraged not to take unnecessary risks or shortcuts at work and to ensure that team members do likewise. Supervisors were also developed to lead by example and be role-models for fellow workers to follow.
In 2006, ASMI promulgated six key values in its safety thrusts for the industry – safety mindset, beyond regulations, zero tolerance of safety infringements, eliminating at-risk behaviour, safety ownership and risk management.
Top of the list was to inculcate a mindset with safety as top priority in the workforce. Employers were encouraged to take ownership and go beyond compliance with regulations in implementing safety standards. Supervisors were told not to tolerate safety malpractices. Eliminating at-risk behaviour involves developing observation and intervention skills across the entire workforce.
Training and consultancy efforts were stepped up in 2007 to help shipyards and marine companies build in-house capabilities in identifying hazards and at-risk behaviours including incorporating risk assessment in their work processes. Managers and supervisors were trained to identify potential risks and to remove them at source. Companies were also encouraged to participate in the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council’s bizSAFE programmes, introduced to assist SMEs to improve the management of WSH in their workplace.
As safety is a journey, ASMI continues to fine-tune its safety programmes to ensure that they remain relevant and develop new initiatives to bring enhance safety in the industry. “The whole issue of safety is dynamic. We are able to adapt systems, bring the rules up to date. We must continue to monitor when the situation changes or methods change,” said Mr Wong Peng Kin.
“Safety is a journey and there are always challenges ahead. The key is for everyone to take personal and collective responsibility to enhance safety. ASMI will continue to work with members and industry partners including government bodies to explore ways and means to enhance safety,” said Mr Chia.
This unending quest towards making the workplace safer for every one will remain a key collective goal in ASMI’s safety agenda for the industry.
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cc/2020-05/en_head_0007.json.gz/line15
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__label__wiki
| 0.526976
| 0.526976
|
BMW Motorrad achieved a strong start to the year with first quarter sales up +7.7% (38,606). In March, a total of 18,931 (+9.9%) motorcycles and maxi scooters were delivered to customers around the world.
Matt Chambers' Confederate Motorcycle replacement venture, an all-electric comeback for the legendary Curtiss brand, has gone public with target pricing. The company showed the 140 kw/190 hp/200 Nm torque Zeus Cafe and Zeus Bobber as pre-production prototypes at the Milan Show in November last year. Entry level pricing is slated to be around $60,000.00. Production is planned to start in 2020, and a $6,000.00 deposit is required to get on to the wait list.
Tucker Powersports has partnered with TEAM Arizona Motorcyclist Training Centers to become its newest 3rd Gear Level Sponsor. Tucker will provide specific TEAM Arizona training sites with riding gear and equipment, highlighting brands such as Arai Helmets, First Gear, Speed and Strength and Answer Racing.
Motorcycle registrations were +8.35% in Germany for March at 20,934 units; for Q1 the German market was +23.23% at 44,227 units. BMW is the inevitable market leader in its home market, selling 9,462 units in Germany in Q1 - up substantially (over 30%) on its 2018 Q1 performance and giving them a Q1 2019 market share of around 28.5 percent.
A study in Europe suggests that a substantial proportion of car commuters would switch to an E-bike, specifically to a Pedelec. Over 15,000 commuters were interviewed in 10 countries, with an average of 24% of commuters suggesting that they would be prepared to consider such a switch. Some 45% of Dutch commuters were positive about using a Pedelec, 39% in Spain, 21% in Germany, with British drivers least interested at 15%.
No stranger to the unique challenges of the Pike's Peak International Hill Climb, on June 30th, 2019 Aprilia will compete in the Heavyweight Motorcycle class with the widely acclaimed race-spec RSV4 derived Tuono V4 1100 naked bike, with Australian racer and Cycle News Road Test Editor Rennie Scaysbrook as the rider. Since making his debut in the 'Race To The Clouds' in 2016, Scaysbrook has achieved a podium position each year in the Heavyweight category and is one of only five riders in the history of the PPIC to go under the magic 10-minute barrier. First sanctioned in 1916, the track measures 12.42 miles (19.99 km) and has over 156 turns, climbing 4,720 ft (1,440 m) to the finish at 14,110 ft (4,300 m), on grades averaging 7.2%. As of August 2011, the highway is fully paved.
There are boardroom changes at Canadian headquartered BRP with Laurent Beaudoin to step down as Chairman of the Board, becoming Chairman Emeritus, and being replaced by José Boisjoli (in addition to his existing roles as President, CEO and Director), with Michael Hanley (an independent director since 2012) appointed Lead Director. Mr. Beaudoin has been Chairman for the past 16 years and "has played a critical role in the development of BRP's business since its creation in 1963."
'Republic of Texas' Rally
Ultima Motorworks/Midwest Motorcycle Supply
Buffalo Chip
AIMExpo
Dock66 Motorcycle Parts
Two Brothers Racing (TBR)
Barnett Clutches and Cables
Rick's Motorcycles
Custom Bike Show, Twin Club, Norrtälje
Darkhorse Crankworks
Tucker V-Twin
DC V-Twin
Barnett Tool & Engineering
AMD 2019/2020 'Big Book' & 'Builder Book'
AFT Twins presented by Vance & Hines
Barnett Clutches & Cables
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cc/2020-05/en_head_0007.json.gz/line22
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__label__wiki
| 0.764652
| 0.764652
|
Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) Getting Somewhat Favorable Media Coverage, Study Shows
The stock decreased 0.77% or $0.095 during the last trading session, reaching $12.235. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 5,210 shares of the company's stock worth $259,000 after purchasing an additional 1,102 shares during the period. Deutsche Bank reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Novo Nordisk in a report on Monday, January 8th. The stock of Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE: NVO ) has "Outperform" rating given on Tuesday, September 13 by BNP Paribas. (more...)
Matt Ryan's Monster, $150 Million Deal Could Have Ripple Effect
During Monday's presser, Ryan acknowledged a large group of people who made his first 10 years with the Falcons a successful venture. Ryan was pleased with the timing of the deal. Ryan says earning a Super Bowl victory is why he's here, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . "I feel like I'm a part of this community and have been embraced by the community". (more...)
Lightning knock out Bruins
The NHL issued a warning to Marchand ordering him to stop licking opponents. After a 6-2 loss to the Capitals on Saturday, the Penguins face elimination tonight. He leads all starting goalies with a 1.53 GAA and a.951 save percentage. Next up for Fleury and Vegas will be the Western Conference Final against either Winnipeg or Nashville. (more...)
49ers Release Zane Beadles
The move saves the Niners $3.5 million against the cap in 2018. Beadles' release may be related to the emergence of Erik Magnuson, an undrafted free agent a year ago who like Beadles is capable of lining up at guard, tackle and center. "He is an unselfish guy who stepped up in a big way for our team previous year and we can't thank him enough for all his contributions to the organization and our community". (more...)
South Africa says country ready to host 2018 Africa Investment Forum
The African Development Bank is committed is working with other multi-lateral development partners, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance funds, private sector and stakeholders to ensure that the Africa Investment Forum becomes Africa's key springboard for African investment and for meeting the continent's massive infrastructure and development needs. (more...)
Rockets finish off Jazz, clinch Chris Paul's first Conference Finals trip
He was seen on the game broadcast walking in the tunnel near the Jazz locker room with his left shoe off. Paul, Trevor Ariza, P.J. Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute ran the Jazz shooters off the three-point line, forcing them to find their offense in the paint and deal with Clint Capela, who finished with five blocks on the night. (more...)
Paxton pitches sixth no-hitter in Mariners' history
Wade LeBlanc (0-0) pitches for Seattle opposite Jaime Garcia (2-2). Paxton walked two batters in the third inning but worked out of the jam by inducing a groundout from Josh Donaldson. The Blue Jays placed shortstop Aledmys Diaz on the 10-day disabled list (retroactive to Monday) with a left ankle sprain. To fill Osuna's vacancy in the lineup, the Blue Jays recalled right-hander Jake Petricka from Triple-A Buffalo. (more...)
Woman's attire not reason behind rape: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
The Union minister said law agencies need to be more proactive in providing safety to women. "That is a big change". "Projects worth Rs 760 crore for construction of yard crafts are also being targeted for early conclusion through private and small shipyards, to bolster the 'Make in India" initiative and provide the necessary impetus to the Indian shipbuilding industry, Sitharaman said. (more...)
Mookie Betts and Duchess-to-be Meghan Markle are distant relatives
Betts and Markle have ancestors from the same part of Alabama, an amateur genealogist told The Boston Globe . In house No. 107, 14-year-old Jacob Betts lived with his family. Certainly an interesting connection for the Sox outfielder, and he wouldn't turn down a meeting with his newfound relative. "I wonder if she's a baseball fan?" He left Boston's 6-1 win against the Texas Rangers on Sunday after being hit with a throw in the shoulder while running the bases. (more...)
PSG end Les Herbiers' resistance to win French Cup, claim treble
Edinson Cavani scores on a penalty kick. They sold roughly 15,000 tickets for the final - which is approximately the population of Les Herbiers - and those supporters nearly had a dream start. Despite spoiling the neutrals' hopes of one of football's great shocks, Unai Emery's side were deserved winners. The Ligue 1 and Coupe de la Ligue champions took control from the onset and they went close to taking the lead after eight minutes, with Kylian Mbappe rattling the woodwork. (more...)
UEFA announces referee for Champions League final
Czech official, Jana Adamkova, has been selected as the referee for the Women's Champions League final between Wolfsburg and Lyon, to be played in Kiev on May 24. A draw meanwhile would leave Villarreal needing one point from their last two games to secure their European spot. "The ankle is stable". He was in charge of the 2013 Europa League final between Chelsea and Benfica, as well as the 2014 Champions League final involving Real and Atletico. (more...)
Doctor expects Danny Farquhar to be able to pitch again
Dr. Demetrius Lopes, Fraquhar's neurologist, was optimistic that Farquhar will make his way back to the mound eventually, but it won't happen this season. "The White Sox organization continues to wish Danny a speedy and full recovery". Farquhar is in his seventh major-league season and second with the Sox. (more...)
Arsenal injury updates: Latest on Cazorla, Koscielny, Ozil and Elneny
I have a huge experience of management and people management. So overall I will work. I don't know why."The recovery will be full because the advantage of surgery is that it heals the inflammation". Nigeria forward Alex Iwobi has been named in the Premier League Team of the Week for the latest round of matches ending May 6, 2018 . He gave a foreign manager a chance when no-one knew me. (more...)
Timberwolves assistant Rick Brunson resigns after allegations of improper conduct
Minnesota Timberwolves assistant coach Rick Brunson resigned on Tuesday, and the decision reportedly came after he was accused of workplace misconduct. "We work to maintain high standards of conduct and expect our staff to lead by example". In 2014 , Brunson was set to join Fran Dunphy's staff at Temple before he was arrested and charged with aggravated battery and criminal sexual assault . (more...)
Antoine Griezmann to Barcelona: Ernesto Valverde breaks silence over transfer rumours
The Brazilian was sued for €8.5m for failing to fulfil his contract, and with the bridges all but burnt Bartomeu was adamant that Barcelona would not be entertaining any battle to bring him back to Spain. "We're fed up with Barcelona's attitude", said Atletico CEO Miguel Angel Gil Marin in a statement on the club's website. "We will try to reach an agreement because he has had a good season". (more...)
Eric Dier ruled out of Tottenham's clash with Newcastle after falling ill
Pochettino's side could finish third with two victories but could drop out of the Champions League places altogether after Chelsea closed the gap to two points last weekend. "I think that is the progression of the club and the team". Now, this is where things get interesting, as Presse Océan then claim that "according to their information", Ranieri is in talks with Spurs, whom Pochettino is set to leave at the end of the season after three years of "loyal service". (more...)
Mesoraco traded to Mets
Punxsutawney native and Major League Baseball player Devin Mesoraco , who has been a member of the Cincinnati Reds organization since being drafted with the 15th overall pick in 2007. In four games in relief, he allowed seven runs in six innings; the Braves scored five runs in two innings against Harvey on Thursday. Opposing batters had a.303/.355/.550 slash line against him this season. (more...)
Alex Neil has warning for Gerrard after he is hired by Rangers
The Liverpool legend was previously in charge of the Reds' Under-18 side and had an interview with MK Dons back in November 2016. A lot of talk has been over how much money the 37-year-old will get to spend as Rangers look to close the gap on fierce rivals Celtic . (more...)
Moore wins April Barclays Manager of the Month
Moore replaced Alan Pardew at the start of April, taking over with the club seven points adrift at the bottom of the table and 10 short of safety with six matches to play. "I am really delighted", he told the Premier League's official website. He stated: 'I am delighted, it has been a lovely joint effort by everybody right here. (more...)
NBA Insiders Reportedly Think Thunder Should Consider Trading Russell Westbrook
There is an increasing number of people around the league who think the Thunder should look at trading Westbrook. To be clear, not a report. Just in spitballing ideas with teams around the League , there's a number of people who have heard, 'It's time for something to change here'. (more...)
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Charles “Charlie” & Coralea “Corky” Bowerman, both raised in Alamo, Indiana were wed on June 12, 1960. After attending Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Charlie was introduced to Phillips Petroleum Company and invited to Bartlesville to work for the company and play basketball for the Phillips 66ers. During his time playing professional basketball from 1961 to 1964, Charlie traveled the world visiting various countries in the Middle East, South America and Eastern Europe. His basketball success earned him induction in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995.
In 1964, Charlie started his marketing career. From 1964 to 1980 the family moved several before settling in Bartlesville, and they have resided here since then. Charlie held several marketing and managerial positions with Phillips Petroleum Company before being elected to the Board of Directors in 1988 and retiring in 1999.
Both Charlie and Corky have always been active in the Bartlesville community. Charlie served on the boards of the local Boy Scouts, Boys & Girls Club and Jane Phillips Hospital, as well as being a member of the local Masonic Lodge. Corky has been instrumental to many causes throughout Bartlesville beginning with involvement in the Principal’s council and Booster Club while their three daughters attended school. She has served as president of the Service League and PEO Chapter AW. The YWCA, Little Theater, Ballet Guild and Symphony Society have all benefitted from her service. She is currently a board member for the Boys & Girls Club of Bartlesville and serves on their Capital Campaign Committee with Charlie. Both Corky and Charlie are active members of First United Methodist Church and have served on several committees.
Charlie and Corky played key roles in founding the Bartlesville Community Foundation, volunteering many hours to help with everything from establishing funds to securing office furniture. They have also generously donated to the Foundation through its formative years. “I can’t imagine the Foundation would have continued to exist without Charlie and Corky’s commitment of time, talent, and treasure,” notes Executive Director Shawn Crawford. Charlie continues to serve on the Board of Directors for the Foundation.
Charlie and Corky have three daughters and sons-in-law, Cynthia and Paul Dean, Cristina and Darren Lister, and Candace and Jeff Morris, as well eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. Their families all reside in the Bartlesville/Tulsa area.
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BEINGWOMAN
What did women do in the "olden days" and why don't we know about it?
Women, this blog is a celebration of our collective history through the ages and throughout the world. Amazing stories that have been buried in dusty corners away from the light. Help us to shed light on all these amazing stories. Read our blog and then visit us at the Women's Mercury to learn about our ongoing projects.
BEINGWOMAN AND THE WOMEN'S MERCURY OUR MISSION
To challenge women in the local, national and international communities to find their voices, share their stories, and pass them to the next generation of women through participation in the arts.
THE WOMEN'S MERCURY WEBSITE
Click here to visit us!
http://www.womensmercury.com/
"Someone, I say will remember us in the future."
Born this day in 1895,Dorothea Lange,photo journalist. Lange captured the Great Depression in one photograph, Migrant Mother
Lange's life was not without pain and suffering. As a child she contracted polio at the age of seven and she had limp in her right side her whole life. She also grew up in a family whose father abandoned them when she 12. Both experiences formed who she was to become.
Lange studied photography in New York City classes taught by Clarence H. White and she apprenticed with other studios including the famous Arnold Genthe. A move in 1918to San Francisco, there she opened a portrait studio and married artist Maynard Dixon, the marriage did not last but they did have two sons.
But, when the Great Depression hit, Lange hit the streets, turning her camera to real life instead a posed life. Her photographs of people who were unemployed and homeless caught the attention of the Farm Security Administration FSA. It is also at this time she met and married her second husband, Paul Schuster Taylor a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Together they documented rural poverty and exploitation of sharecroppers and migrant workers.
1935 to 1939, Lange's work captured the plight of the poor and forgotten sharecroppers, farm families and migrant workers. For free, Lange and Taylor distributed their stories and photographs to newspapers throughout the country. Educating a Nation to the pain and suffering of the section of Americans.
Posted by beingwoman at 3:54 PM No comments: Links to this post
Born this day in 1680,Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh, founder of Haddonfield, New Jersey.
Born in England to a wealthy Quaker family. To be free of religious persecution, Haddon's father bought 500 acres of property in the New World. Due to illness he was unable to claim his land. Instead of loosing the land he sent his daughter Elizabeth to take his place. So in 1701, at the of age 21, Elizabeth set sail for the New World. Landing in Philadelphia she made her way to her father's land which she named in his honor, Haddonfield.
Elizabeth relationship with the local Unalachtico Lenape tribe was one of respect and she welcomed the opportunity of learning their ways and customs. Especially when it came to learning how to use native plants for medical use. Which Elizabeth described as sophisticated used a board range of plants. And one must understand that when Elizabeth first landed in the New World it was a wilderness. People were living in caves along the river.
Another piece of business Elizabeth took care was marriage. After meeting John Estaugh, a Quaker minister, Elizabeth made a marriage proposal which he accepted and they were married in 1702. And their courtship inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, Elizabeth, from the collection Tales of a Wayside Inn
In 1713, Elizabeth and John built a three story brick mansion, called New Haddonfield Plantation Behind their home Elizabeth built The Brew House, this is where Elizabeth dried herbs and made salve for healing. Both John and Elizabeth held the position helping the sick. This information the Native Unalachtico Tribe taught her went to good use.
In 1721, Elizabeth's father gifted an acre of land to the building of the Friend Quaker Meetinghouse and burial ground. This assured a growing community. Elizabeth was also the Women's Quaker clerk for fifty years.
For fifty years Elizabeth was doctor, clerk and a woman who took her position as founder of a township as one of yes nurturer, but so much more as it seems she held out her hand to all peoples living Native and immigrant like herself.
One of Elizabeth's deepest concerns was that of the relationship with the Unalachtico Tribe, whom were forced to leave their homeland. But, not by the Quaker Friends.
Born this day in 1870, Ynes Mexia, botanist. Mexia was an Mexican-American who spent the first part of her career as a social work and then in 1921, Mexia enrolled in botany classes at University of California in Berkeley. She was 51 years old. By the age of 55, Mexia began the work of collecting plants throughout North and South Americas. Mexia's research took her deepest, isolated parts of South America. One of these trips lead to a very dangerous event. Massive flooding trapped her research party in deep jungle with no safe way to get out. After waiting three weeks and with starvation setting in- Mexia organized the building of a raft to ride down the river toward civilization. They were successful in finding their out and safely.
Mexia collected over 150,000 species. She is credited with discovering between two to five hundred new species.
Her specimen collections can be viewed at the Academy. Portions are duplicated at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; Catholic University, Washington, D.C.; the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Gray Herbarium, Harvard University; the University of California, Berkeley; and important museums and botanical gardens in London, Copenhagen, Geneva, Paris, Stockholm, and Zurich. Her personal papers are at the Academy and at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.
Posted by beingwoman at 12:20 PM 1 comment: Links to this post
History is Her story; Her story is history.
Who is the Feminist? A human being who believes in equal rights for all human beings.
Women's Museum
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http://greigleach.com
http://human-electricity.blogspot.com
http://makesomething365.blogspot.com
http://marydipasquale.com
http://nakedheartart.blogspot.com
http://sunshinetheartkitty.blogspt.com
http://theartoftheseed.blogspot.com
www.beingwoman.blogspot.com
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Stellar Occultations of Minerva and its satellites – prediction of the paths
Galilean Night at UC-Berkeley
Undergraduate students, our research needs you!
Published by Franck Marchis at October 21, 2009
I mentioned in my previous post that (93) Minerva will occult several stars in October and November. These observations could be interesting because they will give us the opportunity to estimate directly the size and shape of the primary (hence its density) and, if detected, of the satellites as well.
I am happy to announce that thanks to the collaborative effort from several groups of observers who had telescopes time at Keck observatory led by J. Melbourne, California Institute of California, A. N. Stockton, University of Hawaii, C. D. Fassnacht, University of California at Davis, and T. J. Dupuy, University of Hawaii, and my colleagues, P. Descamps, J. Berthier, and F. Colas, Institut de Mecanique Celeste et de Calcul des Ephemerides at the Observatoire de Paris, we managed to determine the orbital parameters of the satellites of (93) Minerva. We can therefore predict their positions at the time of the occultations and determine the path of the secondary occultations.
Two stellar occultations are particularly interesting because they involve a bright star and are located in a relatively densely populated area (maximizing the chance of finding courageous observers). The first one is scheduled tomorrow (!!) on October 21 at 21:40 UT (V=12.8 star, visible from the northern part of Europe Ireland, UK, Scandinavian and Baltic countries and Russia). The second one is scheduled on on Oct 25 at 05:20 UT (V=14.0 star, visible from South America at the border between Brazil and Venezuela and Colombia). A complete description of these events can be found on Jerome Berthier occultation web page. I am attaching the maps of the stellar occultation events below. The red path corresponds to the occultation by the primary (which will last 10-15 s), the green and cyan lines are the paths of the secondary events which is estimated to be a blink of 1-2s.
Information about how to observe these events can be found on the IOTA web site.
Clear skies wherever you are!
[Update on Oct 21]: Our CBET announcement was released during the night
Electronic Telegram No. 1986
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
M.S. 18, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
IAUSUBS@CFA.HARVARD.EDU or FAX 617-495-7231 (subscriptions)
CBAT@CFA.HARVARD.EDU (science)
URL http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/cbat.html
OCCULTATIONS OF THE (93) MINERVA SYSTEM
F. Marchis, Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute and University of
California at Berkeley; and P. Descamps, J. Berthier, and F. Colas, Institut
de Mecanique Celeste et de Calcul des Ephemerides, Observatoire de Paris,
report on analysis of images of (93) Minerva, a recently discovered triple-
minor-planet system (see IAUC 9069), that were collected with the 10-m Keck
II telescope, its adaptive-optics system, and its near-infrared camera (NIRC2).
Astrometric positions of the two satellites collected by several groups led by
Marchis on Aug. 16.068 UT (IAUC 9069), by J. Melbourne (California Institute of
California) on Sept. 6.146, by A. N. Stockton (University of Hawaii) on Sept.
12.132, by C. D. Fassnacht (University of California at Davis) on Sept. 15.133,
and by T. J. Dupuy (University of Hawaii) on Sept 28.065, allow estimation of
the parameters of the mutual orbits of the satellites. They predicted the
positions of the primary and the satellites for stellar occultations predicted
on Oct. 21.905 (star of V = 12.8; event visible from the northern part of
Europe), on Oct. 22.569 (V = 16.1; visible from Australia), and on Oct. 25.219
(V = 14.0; visible from South America). These observations could help to
refine the size and shape of the components of the system and are strongly
encouraged. Details about the stellar occultations (maps, timing, and
duration) are available at website URL http://www.imcce.fr/page.php?nav=en/
ephemerides/phenomenes/occult/stellarocc.php?query=predoc.
NOTE: These ‘Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams’ are sometimes
superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.
(C) Copyright 2009 CBAT
2009 October 21 (CBET 1986) Daniel W. E. Green
Close-up on the path of the occultation scheduled on Oct 21 at 21:40
Close-up on the path of the occultation scheduled on October 25 at 05:20 UT
Dr. Franck Marchis is a Senior Scientist and Science Outreach Manager at the SETI Institute and Chief Scientific Officer at Unistellar. Marchis earned his PhD in Astrophysics at the Université Paul Sabatier, France, in 2000. He is a planetary astronomer with 22 years of experience in academic, international and non-profit scientific institutions and has conducted multiple research projects in a wide range of areas. He is best known for his discovery and characterization of multiple asteroids, his study of Io volcanism and imaging of exoplanets, planets around other stars. In April 2007, the asteroid numbered 1989SO8 was named “(6639) Marchis” in honor of his work in the field of multiple asteroids. More recently, he has been also involved in the definition of new generation of AOs for 8 -10 m class telescopes and future Extremely Large Telescopes. He has developed algorithms to process and enhance the quality of images, both astronomical and biological. His currently involved in the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey, which consists in imaging exoplanets using an extreme AO system for the Gemini South telescope. This new instrument is capable of imaging and recording spectra of young Jupiter-like exoplanets orbiting around nearby stars.
Our station at Lake Henshaw Overlook with an eVscope prototype and a large C14. From left to right: Martin Costa, Franck Marchis, Joana Oliveira Marques and Mat Kaplan (credit: Chris Hendren)
Capturing a Snapshot of Pluto’s Atmosphere. The Story of an Occultation
Co-founders Arnaud Malvache operating the eVscope prototype at Marseille
Seeing the Sombrero Galaxy Seen From Cities
Analysis of one of the frame of the EVscope using Aladin software.
Intriguing pair of satellites caught with the eVscope
ELTs
Exo-Planets
Galileoscope
Keck
Multiple Exoplanet Systems
© 2020 Franck Marchis Blog. All Rights Reserved. SETI Institute
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Jen Yoder – Team 91 Carolina Flight Girls Field Director
Coach Yoder grew up playing lacrosse in Connecticut before moving to North Carolina in 2000. In high school she played club for TALL and Carolina Fever, as well as being a 4 year varsity start for her high school soccer team. She attended North Carolina State University where she played club lacrosse.
Coach Yoder was the club president for two years, and helped with coaching in 2009. She graduated with a BS in Animal Science. In 2010 she became the assistant coach at Broughton High School in Raleigh. When they added a JV program in 2011 she was named the head JV coach and assistant Varsity coach. In 2015 she was named the Head Coach at Broughton and has been there since.
Coach Yoder, as a head coach, has had a 54-14 record; reaching the state playoffs every year and being Regional Runner Up in 2017. In addition to coaching at Broughton, she also has been coaching travel lacrosse with Carolina Flight since the fall of 2011. With Flight she has coached middle school, high school, and future(3rd & 4th grade) teams.
Coach Yoder has extensive experience working with area club lacrosse teams at all levels and age groups. She not only brings a passion for growing the game but a vision for how to best develop our area’s most committed players so they can achieve their academic and athletic goals.
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OtherOpinion
A Critique of the Hypothesis, and a Defense of the Question, as a Framework for Experimentation
David J. Glass
DOI: 10.1373/clinchem.2010.144477 Published June 2010
Scientists are often steered by common convention, funding agencies, and journal guidelines into a hypothesis-driven experimental framework, despite Isaac Newton’s dictum that hypotheses have no place in experimental science. Some may think that Newton’s cautionary note, which was in keeping with an experimental approach espoused by Francis Bacon, is inapplicable to current experimental method since, in accord with the philosopher Karl Popper, modern-day hypotheses are framed to serve as instruments of falsification, as opposed to verification. But Popper’s “critical rationalist” framework too is problematic. It has been accused of being: inconsistent on philosophical grounds; unworkable for modern “large science,” such as systems biology; inconsistent with the actual goals of experimental science, which is verification and not falsification; and harmful to the process of discovery as a practical matter. A criticism of the hypothesis as a framework for experimentation is offered. Presented is an alternative framework—the query/model approach—which many scientists may discover is the framework they are actually using, despite being required to give lip service to the hypothesis.
In the early 1600s, Francis Bacon, the Lord Chancellor to King James I of England, was arrested for accepting bribes, briefly imprisoned, and forbidden thenceforth to hold office. He thus found himself with ample time to write his promised treatise on scientific method. Bacon’s Novum Organum, or New Method, was so titled to draw a distinction between his work and Aristotle’s Organon, which he criticized for its nonempirical approach to scientific exploration (1).
Bacon’s greatest contributions to scientific method can be boiled down to 2 main facets: (a) a call for an inductive, rather than a deductive, approach to science and (b) an advocacy for a reliance on experiments rather than dogma for induction.
“Induction” refers to 2 distinct types of reasoning, both of which are germane to the scientist. First, induction means that what happened can be said to be predictive of what will happen, so that one can induce from the experience that a released apple falls toward the ground that the next time one releases the apple it will fall again. Second, induction refers to the ability to generalize a result, which is based on a principle uncovered by experiments on a specific case, so the fact that an apple fell might allow the scientist to induce that an orange would fall toward the earth as well, even though one did the original experiments on an apple, not an orange (2).
As for then-current practice, Bacon further pointed out the problem with starting with an unproven premise and deducing rules from that premise. If the premise is unfounded, then the resulting deductions from that premise will be equally unfounded. Although he did not explicitly use the term “hypothesis,” it was the thing he was criticizing, hypothesis being defined as “whatever is not derived from phenomena, an unproven premise, advanced without evidence, as a tentative explanation” (3). The hypothesis as a framework was in turn explicitly rejected by Isaac Newton, a Baconian, despite the fact that the first edition of Newton’s Principia had been organized around hypotheses (4). It has been argued that Newton’s evolution from an alchemist to a scientist forced him to move away from the hypothesis construct in later editions of his great work and then in his Opticks to eschew the hypothesis in favor of rules he could prove, rules derived inductively from experiments. Newton wrote in the Principia (4) (translated from Latin):
I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not frame hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction.
Furthermore, when Newton was writing the Opticks, he started out Part I as follows: “My design in this book is not to explain the properties of light by hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by reason and experiments” (5).
Bacon explained the problem with starting with an unproven explanation before one did actual experiments (6) (translated from Latin):
Once a man’s understanding has settled on something, …it draws everything else also to support and agree with it. And if it encounters a large number of more powerful countervailing examples, it either fails to notice them, or disregards them, or makes fine distinctions to dismiss and reject them, and all this with much dangerous prejudice, to preserve the authority of its first conceptions…. And even apart from the pleasure and vanity we mentioned, it is an innate and constant mistake in the human understanding to be much more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives, when rightly and properly it should make itself equally open to both….
It is worth taking some time to unpack Bacon’s aphorism into a series of arguments and apply them to present-day science.
1. It Is a Mistake to Frame an Experimental Project with a Hypothesis Because the Experimentalist Will Filter Data through the Lens of That Hypothesis, Rejecting Contradicting Evidence in Favor of Validating Evidence.
Such an action may not happen because of malfeasance, but rather because the existence of a hypothesis drives a particular type of experimental methodology, including a filter for data interpretation. It creates the expectation of a particular result and thus implicitly rejects other possibilities before the actual experiment is performed.
For an illustration of the issue, consider the hypothesis that caffeine increases blood pressure (7). It should be clear that this hypothesis creates the expectation of a particular result, an increase in blood pressure, as opposed to a decrease or no change. Therefore, it should not be controversial to point out, first, that a scientist starting out with such a framework may be relatively more likely to search for a setting in which the premise is found than if the framework was simply the question, “What is the effect of caffeine on blood pressure?” Second, this hypothesis actually inculcates a bias in favor of discovering an increase in blood pressure upon treatment with caffeine by forcing the scientist to look for an increase, as opposed to a decrease. In other words, this hypothesis establishes a data filter that asks the scientist to determine whether an increase in particular happened and therefore forces methodology to determine an increase in particular.
What might a scientist do to “confirm” the hypothesis that caffeine increases blood pressure? One might keep increasing the caffeine dosage until a “positive” result is seen, rejecting the finding that lower doses of caffeine do not significantly increase blood pressure as “negative” and therefore not germane. Next, a scientist with a requirement to validate this particular hypothesis might accept even very small increases in blood pressure as positive evidence, even if such increases are not physiologically relevant. Third, any discounting evidence, such as the lack of a dose response, might be ignored in light of single “positive” points. All of these actions seem more likely if an investigator has put in place a preexisting requirement to arrive at a particular result, which a hypothesis as a framework seems to establish more than does a question.
2. The Hypothesis Establishes a Dysfunctional Positive/Negative Binary, in Which the Scientist Is Often Forced to State That the Experiment’s Goal Is Negation, When the True Goal Is Affirmation. Furthermore, the Hypothesis As Currently Used Rejects As Untenable Inductive Reasoning, a Rejection That Is Itself Untenable.
The first claim, that the true goal of the scientist is affirmation, is straightforward to demonstrate. Consider the entire set of clinical trials. Can anyone doubt that hypothesis verification and not falsification is the goal of these trials? Why would anyone spend hundreds of millions of dollars on such an experiment if the goal were to disprove the framing hypothesis? In addition, what would be the point of doing a clinical trial if it were unacceptable to induce from the results, if it were unacceptable to claim that the trial predicts future outcomes? This issue does not apply just to medical trials. Consider any scientist publishing in one of the top journals. What is the percentage of reports that claim premise falsification, as opposed to a new finding that demonstrates a rule or principle thought to stably explain how things work?
Given this simple reality, that scientists do experiments usually because they want to derive an experimental model that has inductive, or predictive, power—that scientists use their data inductively—why are we often made to frame our experiments within a philosophical paradigm that explicitly rejects inductive reasoning?
How did this situation develop? This question is complicated and probably requires a book rather than an essay to answer in detail. But here is the bare-bones tale. Shortly after Newton died, David Hume, in A Treatise of Human Nature, rejected inductive reasoning by declaring that the fact that something behaved in a certain way in the past is no guarantee that it will do so in the future, rejecting even probability as a rationale for engaging in inductive reasoning (8)(9). For the reader to appreciate how extreme Hume was in this claim, it is worth quoting several lines in full.
Your appeal to past experience decides nothing in the present case; and at the utmost can only prove, that that very object, which produced any other, was at that very instant endowed with such a power; but can never prove, that the same power must continue in the same object or collection of sensible qualities; much less, that a like power is always conjoined with like sensible qualities. Should it be said, that we have experience, that the same power continues united with the same object, and that like objects are endowed with like powers, I would renew my question, why from this experience we form any conclusion beyond those past instances, of which we have had experience. (9)
This point was debated frequently for the next 150 years, the most frequent rejoinder being that probability was rational and allowed one to make predictive statements within appropriate constraints (10)(11)(12). Yet, to be consistent with Hume’s proscription against induction, the philosopher Karl Popper in the 1930s espoused an experimental method that reinvigorated the hypothesis but advocated its use as a pure instrument of falsification, because even if one cannot say something will happen, at least one can say with certainty whether a thing did or did not happen (13). This approach placed Popper in a philosophical school known as critical rationalism.
Critical rationalism has obvious attractions, not the least of which is the pure mathematical ability to disprove something definitively, as opposed to the relative inability to absolutely prove a thing. Only a single negative example is required to disprove a hypothesis, whereas an infinite number of confirming trials still leaves open what might happen the next time the experiment is performed and thus leaves the scientist with no more than an extremely strong statistic. Therefore, although it is easy to see why the hypothesis-falsification terminology gained currency—because of its rigor and its utility at framing an issue so that it can be tested via experimentation and apparently shown at least to be false—it is this very attractiveness as a model of pure falsification that can be said to be deceptive, if that is not how the paradigm is actually being used.
What is more, Popper’s approach has been shown to be unworkable, for many reasons but not the least of which is that it is not possible to avoid inductive reasoning (14)(15). In addition, falsificationalism can be subjected to the same semantic maneuvers as verification and thus does not offer the scientist any relative safety (16).
Because scientific experimentation as a rational endeavor must rely on the predictability of prior experience to proceed and because it can be demonstrated that sufficient experience is in fact reproducibly predictive of the future, within certain probabilities, and within certain logical limits and parameters, one is left with inductive reasoning as the only alternative for science. Even if one cannot say with mathematical certainty that reality is stable, the repetition of results (such that statistics and probabilities can be determined) does in fact constitute control experiments for the time variable. The scientist demonstrates through repetition that a model is predictive by actually using it to predict an outcome and finding that the prediction is verified (again, one can continue to object that the repetition still does not predict the next iteration, which is why one must always proscribe one’s claim of verification within certain probabilities). Lest you still decry this approach as irrational in absolute terms, stop and ask, when you get up in the morning, how you base the decision to steel yourself against gravity. How do you justify the expectation that a car will move when you insert a key into its ignition? How do you justify the expectation when you get on board an airplane that it will take off and land safely? All of these actions are acts of induction. Induction is the reasoning by which one derives the simple expectation that the sun will rise and then set within a set time each day. It is a particular predictive model of reality that is verified on a daily basis. Induction can thus be shown to be more than a matter of necessity or of pure convenience but actually to be workable for conclusions as to what reality is, and its stability, within accepted constraints.
3. The Insistence on a Preexisting Hypothesis That Can Be Held Up for Verification Stifles Innovation.
The US NIH requires hypotheses for most of its grant applications (17)(18)(19). Although hypotheses are constructs that need not be derived from phenomena, put forth as a tentative explanation, to justify funding for experiments that might derive the relevant phenomena, NIH review committees often require that sufficient preliminary evidence be shown to demonstrate the hypothesis is probably correct (3)(18)(19).
This situation establishes a couple of things. First, the term “hypothesis” is not being used correctly because prior experimental evidence of the premise is demanded. Second, because the hypothesis is often being used as it was in the 1500s, as a premise to frame an exercise in verification, the concept again becomes vulnerable to all of the charges originally posed against it, that it is an instrument of bias.
It might be to avoid this last problem, that the hypothesis could lead the scientist astray, that granting organizations shield themselves from the potential hazard of an ill-founded premise by insisting that the scientist know in advance that almost the entirety of what he or she proposes has already been demonstrated, that, in fact, the experiments have already been performed. This situation is not only backwards, it is stifling, as Gina Kolata pointed out in the New York Times last year (19):
The institute’s reviewers choose such projects because, with too little money to finance most proposals, they are timid about taking chances on ones that might not succeed. The problem, Dr. Young and others say, is that projects that could make a major difference in cancer prevention and treatment are all too often crowded out because they are too uncertain. In fact, it has become lore among cancer researchers that some game-changing discoveries involved projects deemed too unlikely to succeed and were therefore denied federal grants, forcing researchers to struggle mightily to continue.
The current granting system can be criticized as being worse than contradictory—as being actually incoherent—if on the one hand a preexisting hypothesis is mandated as an experimental framework for a grant application and then on the other hand grant applications that are less than absolutely certain to verify what is already believed to be true are rejected. What are the chances that something novel will be found and recognized, with all these layers of inculcated preexisting bias?
4. Big Science Cannot Be Framed with Hypotheses.
One development over the last dozen years has been the creation of the field of systems biology, in which scientists seek to interrogate systems more comprehensively. One example of a systems biology experiment is a set of gene expression studies in which changes to every gene in an organism can be examined in response to a series of perturbations. Another type of systems biology project could revolve around proteomic experiments, in which, for example, scientists investigate how the phosphorylation states of all proteins are altered after a stimulus. A third example is simple gene or mRNA sequencing, in which “deep sequencing” can be done to determine subtle epigenetic changes.
Such systems biology experiments cannot be usefully framed with a hypothesis aimed at falsification. The requirement to do so can be comical and is certainly unhelpful to experimental design.
The NIH deals with this “problem” by labeling such experiments as “hypothesis generating” experiments (20); however, if a large systems biology experiment is not governed by a hypothesis but is performed so that someone downstream might create hypotheses, this is proof that hypotheses are not required for big science. Furthermore, if one does not need a hypothesis to sequence a genome, why does one require a hypothesis to enter into an inquiry concerning a particular gene?
5. Hypotheses Appeal to the Ego, or to Vanity, and Are Therefore Dangerous.
One need not dwell on this point too long, but it should be mentioned because it was one of Bacon’s more incisive arguments. The notion that the scientist does not actually need to do the experiment to derive the answer—that the scientist is so clever as to figure out the answer in advance so that the experiment is simply an act of confirmation—is quite seductive. After all, one might fear that if all the scientist is doing is posing a question and therefore is requiring nature to deliver the answer, then what is the scientist other than a specialized kind of accountant? Compare the role of a pure observer and recorder (and, in some special instances, one who is especially insightful in deriving a principle from recordings that can be shown to be predictive—even if this last instance is noteworthy) with that of the diviner, who can intuit the truth without the help of nature to point the way. This is the seductive appeal of the hypothesis.
One does not need to go further than the sixteenth century literature to see the folly of such an approach. Hypotheses made without the help of nature are doomed to failure, and the desire to prove such a construct true places an individual so inclined more in sync with a preacher than a scientist.
Indeed, some might argue that one does not need to go back to the sixteenth century. The scientific literature of the twenty-first century has no shortage of hypotheses claimed to be true that turn out to be false due to the variety of problems listed, not the least of which is vanity.
If these criticisms have merit, if hypotheses are unhelpful, disadvantageous, inconsistent, or unworkable as instruments of either falsification or verification, what should the scientist use as an alternative?
The way that science seems to be actually done productively is to first conduct an experiment in response to a question, rather than a hypothesis (Fig. 1⇓ ). Why else would a scientist seek to experiment and determine how nature works unless the scientist had a question about how it works? A question functions as an adequate framework for an experiment if it is posed so that it can be answered with an experiment (2).
Schematic representation of the question/model method.
An experimental project is first framed with a question. This question forces the design of an experiment to produce an answer, which is a particular data set. The stability of the answer is determined by repetition. If the answer is stable, a model of reality can be induced. This model is then tested for its predictive power. Any inaccuracy in the model can be corrected by perturbing the model and then subjecting it to retesting.
The answer to a question might be a set of data, and from these data the scientist can build a model. A model differs from a hypothesis in several fundamental ways. First, it is data derived. Second, it can be explicitly tested for its predictive, or inductive, power. Third, it exists in a framework that accepts inductive reasoning. Fourth, it can be modified on the basis of new data and not just falsified/rejected or affirmed/accepted in a purely binary manner. Finally, a model can be said to be correct within a probability range. It does not have to be absolutely correct, as long as the stated probability is verifiable.
A query/model approach is also appropriate for big science. For example, one can simply frame a proteomic experiment with a question, such as “How does the proteome change in response to X?” The resulting data set can then be tested for its predictive power as a model by asking whether the proteome changes the same way in subsequent experiments (Fig. 1⇑ ). From that model of proteomic changes, one can determine the model’s inductive power, or generalizability, to other perturbations or settings by asking further questions, all without ever putting a hypothesis in place (Fig. 1⇑ ).
The query/model approach seems to be how much of science is actually done, which begs the question, Why aren’t scientists more explicit about this?
It is time scientists embrace their role as inductive agents. An exploration of the appropriate limits and weaknesses of such a framework will afford the scientist an appropriate way both to frame experiments and to analyze data. A question as an initial framework admits the scientist into new areas where little is known, whereas the requirement for a preproven hypothesis explicitly closes the door to exploring the unknown.
Having a question as the initial framework for a project in advance of any experimentation also seems to have a useful humbling effect on the scientist. The act of posing a question forces the scientist to admit that the answer is not yet known and that the question therefore requires an experiment. From the act of doing the experiment, one accumulates data that can be used to build a model (Fig. 1⇑ ). The model seems to be the more appropriate framework for basing predictions, because it is explicitly derived from experiential data, and that experience can then be queried for its inductive power. This approach seems an accurate description of how science today is actually done and how one can use large unknowns to pose big questions, which demand novel and exciting experimentation. For example, there should be no shame in posing a question like, What is the cure to cancer? The greater shame is the requirement that we claim to know the answer in advance of engaging in such an exploration, a requirement that will limit us to what we already think we know. In contrast, the question will demand that we search for an answer we do not yet have, freeing us to see what we might discover.
Some might object that such a huge question does not point to an experimental design, but it does frame a large project and alerts the scientist to a great unknown. Subsequent to such a large framework question, the scientist can ask a more focused question, such as, What genetic markers coassociate with sensitivity and with resistance to a particular treatment? The answers to these questions first would help in tailoring medical care and, second, would point scientists to the potential mediators of treatment resistance that still require their attention. Once these mediators are discovered, new mechanistic questions can be asked—all in a particular focused program directed toward discovery and innovation. This approach seems to be the actual process of science, a process that for good reason is called “scientific inquiry” and that at no stage requires a hypothesis.
Authors’ Disclosures of Potential Conflicts of Interest: No authors declared any potential conflicts of interest.
Role of Sponsor: The funding organizations played no role in the design of study, choice of enrolled patients, review and interpretation of data, or preparation or approval of manuscript.
Acknowledgments: I thank my colleagues at Novartis for their support, especially M. Fishman and B. Richardson, and the entire Muscle Group. Thanks also to S. Hall, E. Anders, D. Perkins, and A. Smart for their critical reading and suggestions. Thanks to A. Abrams for artwork.
© 2010 The American Association for Clinical Chemistry
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Bacon F. The Novum Organon, or a true guide to the interpretation of nature 2005 Cambridge University Press Cambridge (UK). .
Glass D. Experimental design for biologists 2006 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Cold Spring Harbor (NY). .
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Nozick R. Invariances: the structure of the objective world 2001 Belknap Press Cambridge (MA). .
Kuhn TS. The essential tension; selected studies in scientific tradition and change 1977 University of Chicago Press Chicago. .
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Part 2. Game Plan. http://funding.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/cycle/part02.htm (Accessed May 2010)..
Loscalzo J. The NIH budget and the future of biomedical research. N Engl J Med 2006;354:1665-1667.
Kolata G. Grant system leads cancer researchers to play it safe. New York Times 2009 Jun 27..
NIH. Systems Biology, HIV/AIDS, and Substance Abuse (R01). http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DA-10-014.html (Accessed June 2010). See “Part I overview information.”.
Clinical Chemistry Jul 2010, 56 (7) 1080-1085; DOI: 10.1373/clinchem.2010.144477
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Blogs Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD)
Dr Stuart Fox, EU Referendum, Europe, Politics, Wales, YouGov, Young People
The Campaigns are having an Effect – and it’s Bad News for Bremainers
WISERD
The campaigns to keep the UK in the EU – Britain Stronger in Europe – and their Eurosceptic opponents – Vote Leave – have now had almost a month since the launch of the official referendum campaign to outline and hammer home their key arguments for why we should vote to stay in or leave the EU in six weeks’ time. This research project has spelt out some of the challenges they face, particularly in their efforts to win over the youth vote, including: the need to overcome both the lack of interest many young people have in the referendum itself and their lack of trust in the campaign messages; the need for the Remain campaign to make sure their sizeable chunk of young supporters actually turn out on polling day; and the need for Vote Leave to convince more young people – who tend not to share the hostility towards immigration of most Leave supporters – that there are other reasons besides restricting the number of immigrants to leave the EU. As polling day draws nearer we can assess the success of the campaigns in overcoming these various challenges, and this will be the focus of several blogs over the coming weeks.
We can begin with the overall support for staying in or leaving the EU. The headline figures of recent opinion polls repeatedly suggest that they are almost neck and neck, with perhaps a slight lead for the Remain campaign, and that the overwhelming majority of young people continue to back Britain remaining in the EU. If we look a little deeper, however, at how certain people are of how they will vote in June, the picture is a quite different. The graphs below show support for staying in and leaving the EU, broken down by how certain survey respondents are that they know how they will vote, for the 18-24 year olds and the over 25s between August of last year and early May 2016. Respondents were asked how they intend to vote in the referendum, and could respond with one of the following choices: definitely vote to stay, probably vote to stay, might vote to stay but not certain, don’t know, might vote to leave, probably will vote to leave, definitely will vote to leave.
Looking first at the under-25s, we can see from the first graph that their support for EU membership is becoming firmer. In August, 35% of 18-24 year olds were certain that they would vote to remain in the EU, while 29% probably would or might vote to remain. By May this year, the figures had shifted to 47% and 23% respectively. Taking the ups and downs in these figures over the nine month period into account, there was an average increase of 1.3% a month in the proportion of under-25 year olds certain to vote to remain, and a decrease of 0.7% in those who probably would or may vote to remain. There was also a slight decline in support for leaving the EU: 11% were certain they would vote to leave the EU in August, and 12% probably or may have voted to leave; by May, these figures had fallen by an average of 0.2% and 0.1% a month to 10% each. The proportion of those who had no idea how they would vote has also fallen, from 13% in August to 11% in May, at an average rate of 0.2% a month.
These shifts suggest that the 18-24 year olds are becoming, albeit gradually, more supportive of Britain’s membership of the EU. That is not the limit of the good news for the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign (or of the bad news for Vote Leave), however, because the more confident someone is in how they will vote, the more likely they are to actually vote on polling day. Our data shows, for example, that of those 18-24 year olds who are certain to vote to either leave or remain in the EU, 70% report being certain to vote on polling day, compared with 48% who will probably vote to stay or leave, 20% who might vote to stay or leave, and just 18% who do not know how they will vote.[1] 18-24 year olds are not only becoming more likely to support staying in the EU as the campaign runs on, therefore, but also more likely to express that support in the polling station in June.
Source: YouGov
The picture for the rest of the British electorate is quite different. While young people are becoming more supportive of EU membership, the over-25s are becoming more hostile towards it. In August 2015, 24% of over-25s were certain that they would vote to leave the EU; over the following nine months this increased by an average of 1.3% a month to 35% by May 2016. At the same time, the proportion who probably or might vote to leave the EU fell by an average of 0.2% a month from 17% to 13%. In addition, the proportion who were certain they would vote to stay in the EU fell from 30% in August to 28% in May, and the proportion who probably or might vote to remain fell from 18% to 13%. Alongside a gradual shift towards supporting withdrawal from the EU, there has also been a growth in the proportion of over-25 year olds who are ‘certain’ of how they will vote in June, from 54% in August to 63% in May. That means that not only are the over 25s becoming more Eurosceptic as the referendum campaign wages, but they are becoming more likely to vote to express that Euroscepticism.
The efforts of the Remain and Leave campaigns are being met, therefore, with mixed success. Britain Stronger in Europe and its supporters are successfully exploiting their advantage among the pro-EU young generation, and managing to persuade more of them that they should vote on polling day. At the same time, however, its support among the over-25s is being slowly eroded as more and more older people back Vote Leave and become more likely to express that support on polling day as well. While the campaign battle might look like a score draw so far, these results do not bode well for those who wish to see Britain remain in the EU. As this research has shown, despite their strong support for EU membership the under-25s are typically far less likely to vote than their elders in the referendum, even despite the growth of those certain of how they want to vote. The shifts highlighted above show that the support base of those who wish to remain in the EU is becoming (albeit slightly) more dominated by those who are less likely to vote in the referendum than their Eurosceptic elders.
[1] Data from the Young People and the EU survey, conducted in early March 2016
The ‘Should we stay or should we go: Young People and the EU Referendum’ project is a study of young people’s attitudes towards and engagement with the EU referendum campaign. Using data from a dedicated UK-wide survey of under 30s and a wide range of publicly available data and academic research we will address four key themes.
For more information go to: www.wiserd.ac.uk/eureferendum/
Jack Williams 15 August 2019
Brilliant article and something that was overlooked in the national press. Do you think if a vote was to happen again it would be the same result?
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Rediscovering passion: how my placement at WISERD has helped my future
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Jack Williams on The Campaigns are having an Effect – and it’s Bad News for Bremainers
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More If a dragon catches a cold, who gets the flu?
Is China's strength more fragile than we think?
Are we estimating the future of China's growth too much on its recent past?
What if our assumptions are wrong?
A little economic pondering over at USNIBlog.
Come on by and ponder with me.
Labels: China, Economics
Another Round of the AFG RW Argument
Some days it seems like 2007 all over again when a regular discussion topic at CENTCOM was the variety of rotary wing problems in Afghanistan.
There was the short term crisis of the Aviation Bridging Force that summer; would NATO ever do what it promised it would do – or will Uncle Sam have to once again patch together a last minute fix? (of course, NATO failed to fill what they promised in the CJSOR, so we covered it).
Then there was the long term question; what kind of helicopter force would be best for the re-constituted Afghan Air Force?
In a great short outline of the 2018 challenge over at Small Wars Journal, Abdul Rahman Rahmani, Major Afghanistan Airforce and his co-author Jack McCain, LT USN – the authors put the choice in clear terms; keep trying to make Mi-17 happen, or go Blackhawk.
First, the facts on the ground.
By April 2017, despite money and training from the United States, “The AAF had 46 Mi-17s in total, of which 18 were not flyable either due to scheduled overhauls or major repairs,” noted the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan in its recent report. The report stressed that the Mi-17s are "in a state of steady decline due to higher-than-anticipated utilization rates and accelerating attrition."
Why are there so many problems with the Mi-17?
…Mi-17 parts (are) exceedingly expensive (and) also required more time and negotiations to be made with the Russian government, an unreliable broker, at best. The result placed Mi-17s in the “…state of steady decline,” situation. For example, according to SIGAR, “Out of unavailable Mi-17s, six of them are in overhaul, four are in heavy repair, and six have expired.” If this situation remains, by the middle of 2018, AAF would be out of Mi-17 helicopters. Unlike Mi-17s which steadily ‘decline’ this plan will provide overhaul inspections to the American aircraft quicker than the past because the Afghan government had to send the Russian aircraft to countries like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia for overhaul inspections, while Blackhawks can be inspected inside Afghanistan, by American and Afghan trained maintenance personnel. Also, a less apparent disadvantage, translating Russian publications to English and then to Dari or Pashtu was time and energy intensive, which negatively affected maintenance efforts, and leads to misunderstanding.
Amazingly, the argument for keeping the Mi_17 is exactly the same one made over a decade ago.
AAF pilots and maintainers are already familiar with and used to the Mi-17, and re-training would require significant time and effort, two limited components in this war. This is a case that can be made, albeit a flimsy and shortsighted one
Time has shown that we should have taken another path to US equipment, training, and maintenance.
Here’s the argument;
From the combat and operational perspectives, when comparing the capabilities of Blackhawks and Mi-17s, among several different factors, three key elements should be considered: speed, maneuver, and lethality. First, Blackhawks are faster than Mi-17s … Second, Blackhawks are lighter and smaller than Mi-17s, and therefore, more maneuverable … Taliban were, in fact, scared of American Blackhawks because they were more maneuverable and acted more aggressively when operating against insurgents. While very few Mi-17 helicopters have been designated gunships, out of 159 Blackhawks 60 would be designated gunships which will bring maneuver, firepower, and enable more and aggressive tactics allowing the AAF to destroy the Taliban elements on the battlefield, limiting their operational and tactical space.
From the maintenance perspective, the US would provide the majority of aircraft parts to the AAF faster from Bagram and Kadahar, as opposed to Mi-17 parts which were not only exceedingly expensive but also required more time and negotiations to be made with the Russian government, an unreliable broker, at best. The result placed Mi-17s in the “…state of steady decline,” situation. For example, according to SIGAR, “Out of unavailable Mi-17s, six of them are in overhaul, four are in heavy repair, and six have expired.” … this plan will provide overhaul inspections to the American aircraft quicker than the past because the Afghan government had to send the Russian aircraft to countries like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia for overhaul inspections, while Blackhawks can be inspected inside Afghanistan, by American and Afghan trained maintenance personnel.
This is the best selling point from Team-Blackhawk;
the AAF needs a plan that will guarantee sustainability of its rotary-wing fleet and; therefore, it cannot rely on an aging Russian aircraft forever. Moreover, Afghanistan needs a new, elite corps of military officers, divorced from legacy Russian equipment and doctrine, to lead its military in the future, because victory in this war depends on the young generation of Afghans. The US and Afghan government can train this new generation inside Afghanistan, at bases like Shindand, Kandahar, and Kabul International Airport, without having to send them to the US and Europe, where many of them flee or seek asylum, which further delays the training cycle and disrupts the military education system. Training pilots and maintainers on Mi-17s did not previously have the flexibility of using Afghan military bases. Also, future training of Blackhawk crews can be conducted easier than Mi-17s, because most American rotary wing pilots, from the U.S. Navy, Army, and Air Force, are familiar with Blackhawks and do not need to be sent to Ukraine or Czech Republic for specific aircraft familiarization training. Unlike the Mi-17 helicopters translated publications, this plan will facilitate availability of original English publications to the pilots and maintainers without having to rely on third-hand translated versions.
It’s almost 2019, BTW. Let’s do this right this time.
PS: fun side-note to this article;
So, the President reads mine & @McCainJack article: https://t.co/BN0x4Yv27G & asks MoD minister about me & he decides to promote me without knowing me personally. Afghanistan has a scholar in office, after nearly a century, who reads & acts based on his readings!@smallwars
— Abdul Rahman Rahmani (@rahmanrahmanee) October 30, 2018
Labels: Afghanistan, Helicopters
From Berlin, Beijing, to Brasilia – a New Era is Setting Up
Though human nature and geography are generally constants through history, there are pivot points where the needs, wants, and desires of people and the leaders of the nations they inhabit cause a change in the course of history.
We are clearly in one of those pivot points of how our world works.
Whatever the “Post Cold War Period” was, it’s long over. When did it end? Somewhere between the attacks of 2001 and the election of Barak Obama in 2008.
As I’ll outline below, much of what some called a new-era in the recent past were not quite right, they just saw the ending chapters of the age of their lifetime.
Though the press is obsessed with President Trump defining a change we are seeing, that is a classic case of mal-educated Amerocentrism. The shift started before him. He is just a symptom, not a cause. It isn’t even an American phenomenon. If anything we are lagging the global trend.
What period started to come to an end at the start of this century? The end of the post-Cold War as a period by itself? I don't quite buy it. There is a lot of talk of an end to the post-WWII, “Liberal World Order” (LWO). I think that might be right.
The LWO began at the end of WWII. The period after the fall of the Soviet Union that people call as the Post-Cold War Era wasn't really an era. It was either the final or the penultimate chapter of the long running LWO that the Cold War was just a longer chapter of. Even while the Soviet Union was on its death bed we saw the next chapter, AKA Bush41’s “New World Order” (NWO).
One could argue the NWO was the penultimate chapter, and 2001-2008 the final chapter of the LWO.
Hard to say right now, but if forced, I’d put my chips on that argument.
The NWO lasted less than a decade, if that. It was a period of unchallenged American dominance, but that rode on the back of the “The Liberal World Order” built in the post-WWII period.
What I would call the final chapter, somewhere from the attacks of September 2001 and the newly elected President Obama's apology tour and welcoming of a rising China, I'm not sure - but it marked a shift to something new. The pivot is not yet complete - it is a slow turn that took awhile to get here.
The last two chapters of the LWO saw the falling apart of those structures – the EU, ascendency of Western culture, extra-national international legal bodies, American dominance of the high seas - that defined the success of the old age. The vacuum left behind by them, and the fragility of remaining ones like NATO, is feeding change.
This new era is a movement of returns, reckoning, and realization. Strangely, end of the LWO can probably can be traced back to the Muslim world. They were an the early adopter or canary in the coal mine of the structural culmination of the LWO. There you find the first place where the assumptions of the ruling Western elite began to fail.
Just look at the pictures of Cairo and Kabul in the 1960s and 1970s. Western dress, cultural norms, secularism, and political systems (socialist, capitalist, or a mixture of both) dominated. At the end of the 1970s the wave crested first there when you saw decades of progress for women in the public space begin to retreat from Islamabad to Alexandria.
Those were indications that the West had lost its confidence and its appeal. Once that support goes soft, everything it underpins weakens. Much of the weakening started with the anti-Western efforts in our own universities and popular culture. Jesse Jackson’s “Hey, hey, ho, ho; Western Civ has got to go” was just one of a long series of notes to the outside world that things were well along the way to being not quite right.
If you value Western values of tolerance and progress, how do you expect them to grow and expand abroad when you cannot support them at home? In their absence, something will fill the void.
What will it be? I think too much is in flux, too many assumptions false to really know – but whatever it is, it is forming right in front of us. Some aspects and characteristics of our new era are revealing themselves bit by bit.
Here are three items in the mix.
Berlin - Enough Self-loathing:
It is difficult for Americans to understand the German national mindset. From the end of the Franco-Prussian War to the end of WWII, the national record was a horror show for a people who for centuries contributed so much to Western culture, industry, and advancement.
For obvious reasons, the German establishment's political body remains sensitive to a wide variety of triggers, and they over-compensate. Even though they had already festering crime and internal security problems imported mostly from Asia Minor and North Africa over decades, the former East German Merkel took over from the SDP’s Russian toy Schröder, ruled well, and then decided to take Germany somewhere she didn't want to go.
Though her CDU/CSU was right of center for their politics, Merkel was more in line with center-left American Democrat – but with less patriotism to the point of refusing to wave the national flag.
As a by-product of working out her generation's German's national self-loathing, she invited millions of military age economic migrants from mostly Muslim nations who had little desire or history to assimilate – much less have skills needed in the modern German state. She even accepted the eventual forced change of their national character.
Along with the rest of her internationalist peers, she scoffed at the concerns of the German people – or at best was willfully blind to them. It was bad enough that – being that there was no place for their concerns to be addressed to the left – an ever growing percentage of the German people moved right to the AfD outside established parties, and inside the CDU/CSU moved to undermine Merkel.
As Germany was part of the EU, Merkel’s call for millions of migrants all of a sudden became an EU wide problem. All around Germany, this helped accelerate and already growing populist movement in Poland, Hungary, Italy, France, UK, and elsewhere.
The internationalist elite of Europe’s contempt for their own people and self-loathing of their culture was too much for their own indigenous populations. Merkel, who could have ruled for the rest of her natural life, is now in the process of a long goodbye. She says she will leave in 2021, but I don’t think time will be that patient with her.
The center throughout Europe is under stress. In some nations, established parties are trying to fill the void by moving in the direction of the people, but so much damage has already been done.
This story is not even close to playing out.
Beijing – those are your rules, not ours:
After centuries of humiliation from near and far abroad, China is returning to her place in the world. Few see how huge this move will be. The scale is hard to grasp for many. You could remove the equivalent of the entire population of the USA, and China would still have almost a billion people.
Unlike her fellow mega-nation India, China is not content with making things best inside her borders.
She wants a global stage, and she is buying as much of it as she wants to.
She was not party to this “Liberal World Order” others keep telling her about, and she is not bound to it. She reserves the right to approach international law cafeteria style; she’ll take what she wants and slide by the rest.
She has scores to settle and strategic depth to secure.
President Xi Jinping has told his military commanders to “concentrate preparations for fighting a war” as tensions continue to grow over the future of the South China Sea and Taiwan.
“We need to take all complex situations into consideration and make emergency plans accordingly,” President Xi told the officers of the Southern Theatre Command.
This is bluster, but it also is Direction and Guidance. We are close to this point already, but by the end of the next decade, American policy leaders need to have a realistic view on what they are or are not willing to go to war over. The Chinese will test where they find weakness first.
When they do, they will pull us in close and then they will make a point.
If I were Chinese, I would already have three COA to the east for leaders to consider. All I would ask for is a few more POMs and a bit more ripening.
This new China is growing, and not going anywhere.
Brasilia – Forever Tomorrowland:
Remember just a few short years ago when Brazil, again, was to be the vanguard of a new surge of leftist governance? I do.
And so, where does that leave us? After over a decade in experimentation of a new post-Cold War leftist governance in Central and South America, they find themselves where we Chicago School folks warned them they would be.
Of use, the basket cases of full socialism, Venezuela & Nicaragua, are right there for people to point to and say, “Let’s not do that.” Argentina, an nation a century ago that had a per-capita GDP on par with the USA, continues to struggle with decades of bad governance, corruption, and leftist economic policies.
Uruguay and Chile are doing quite well, with the other nations in South America somewhere in between – but the superpower of South America should be Brazil. With a population 2/3 that of the USA and almost the same landmass, she only has a GDP about 1/6th the USA.
The Brazilian people are flooded with crime and corruption. Their leftist governments, the darlings of the internationalist BRIC fetishists, only built on that record of crime and corruption.
The people of Brazil were left with what option then?
All the correct people with all the correct opinions are tut-tut’n the election of Jair Bolsonaro, but what did they expect? The center-right and the center-left, again, failed to properly respond to the demands and concerns of the people who brought them to power. The left did what it always does; what it did not steal, it destroyed. The Brazilian people reacted accordingly after they saw what the left did; personal enrichment, the acquisition of power, and as President Obama once said – reward their friends and punish their enemies.
They wanted the correct friends, the press to write nice things about them, and invitations to the good conferences and ceremonies – with a nice picture next to Bono for the effort. They were willing to sell their nation's future for it.
We see this pattern throughout the West. As I pointed out this weekend over on twitter, the turn to populism is due to the failure of the center-left & center-right to do the basics of governing, and instead choosing either corruption or concern for extra-national internationalism over the concerns of their own people.
I don't know what it will take for this T-Paw/Walker/Rubio/voted-for-Jeb!-3-times (R) to see a return to the center - but many of the people yelping about the tide of nationalist-populism are responsible for its birth towards the fringes.
Make no mistake, populism is not sustainable. When you hollow out the center, all you will have are wild swings from one extreme to another – and with each swing, a wider gulf develops between the sides – the center cannot hold. Once that happens, violence follows.
If the West is to meet the challenge of this new era we need better leaders, braver leaders, and a people who demand good governance and individual liberty, instead of a call to tribal sectarianism and an ever more powerful state waiting for the next populist.
The correct path is the more difficult path in the short term, but the most rewarding in the long term.
Especially in Europe where so many of their leaders don’t even have children, asking for a long term focus in the West may be too much to ask.
Labels: America, Brazil, China, Europe
Patience & Resilience of the Long War at 17, with Craig Whiteside - on Midrats
While off the front page, ISIS is not gone, the Taliban remain a strong force, and throughout the globe, the Long War continues.
A war unique in living memory in the West, it isn't going anywhere.
Returning to the show Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern for a broad ranging discussion of the war - however you want to call it - that we have been waging before we even knew it for sure in September 2001, will be Craig Whiteside.
Craig is an associate professor at the Naval War College Monterey and an associate fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)-The Hague.
Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher.
If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.
Labels: Long War, Midrats
Most who have served are familiar with the feeling that, in your youth and at war, you peaked early. Everything after those events seem, well, like an afterthought.
The best you can do from there is to just live the best life you can.
Speaking of doing great things in your youth and then doing the best to live a good life from there, I hand you Joachim Rønneberg;
The plan was audacious, requiring a midnight parachute jump onto a snow-covered mountain plateau, cross-country skiing in subzero temperatures, and an assault on an isolated, heavily guarded power plant in southern Norway.
And the stakes, though no one in the five-man commando team knew it at the time, were spectacular: Destroy the Nazis’ sole source of heavy water, a recently discovered substance that Hitler’s scientists were using to try to develop an atomic bomb, or risk the creation of a superweapon that could secure a German victory in World War II.
“We didn’t think about whether it was dangerous or not,” Joachim Ronneberg, the 23-year-old Norwegian resistance fighter charged with leading the mission, later told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper. “We didn’t think about our retreat. The most important decision you made during the whole war was the day you decided to leave Norway to report for duty. You concentrated on the job and not on the risks.”
Mr. Ronneberg went on to land a crippling blow against Nazi Germany’s atomic ambitions, blowing up much of the plant and destroying its heavy-water stockpile without firing a shot or losing a man. Mr. Ronneberg was 99 and the last of Norway’s celebrated heavy-water saboteurs when he died Oct. 21, according to the state-owned broadcaster NRK, which confirmed the death but did not provide additional details.
Remember, he was 23 at the time and escaped from Norway after the German invasion in a fishing boat.
By the time Mr. Ronneberg was enlisted to lead Operation Gunnerside, the mission to destroy the plant, 41 men had already died in a November 1942 raid dubbed Operation Freshman, in which a pair of gliders crashed in bad weather in Norway. The survivors were executed by the Nazis.
Rather than risk another glider mishap, Mr. Ronneberg and the four commandos he selected for the mission parachuted into Norway in February 1943. They landed in the wrong location but waited out a snowstorm inside a cabin and met up with four local fighters in Hardangervidda, a desolate plateau northwest of the plant.
The group reached Vemork the night of Feb. 27, after scrambling down a steep gorge, crossing a frozen river and climbing up the far side to avoid a bridge guarded by the Nazis. Timing his infiltration of the plant to match a changing of the guard, Mr. Ronneberg said he was able to gain entry undetected, quickly and quietly breaking through a chain on the gate, only with help from a pair of heavy-duty metal cutters. He had purchased them in Britain “entirely by chance,” he said, after walking by a hardware store during a trip to the movies.
Drawing on intelligence from a Norwegian escapee who had worked at the plant, Mr. Ronneberg crawled through a ventilation duct and found his target — a row of pipes — without understanding its significance as a source for a mysterious new weapon in Germany.
The charges, he later said, “fitted like a hand in a glove,” and in a last-minute change he trimmed the fuse, causing the explosion to go off in about 30 seconds, rather than two minutes, so that he and his team could ensure it went off — and, he hoped, escape the facility without being caught in the explosion.
“It was a mackerel sky. It was a marvelous sunrise,” Mr. Ronneberg later told the Telegraph, recalling the moment hours later when he and his team had returned to the mountains, safely out of reach of Nazi guards. “We sat there very tired, very happy. Nobody said anything. That was a very special moment.”
Mr. Ronneberg and his fellow commandos skied 200 miles across southern Norway, escaping into neutral Sweden before returning to Britain.
Yep, I'd call that a peak.
After the war he he went in to broadcasting, being hired NRK Ålesund in 1948. He retired in 1988.
Just a normal dude, doing a normal, ordinary job.
Fullbore.
Labels: Fullbore, Norway, WWII
Keeping an Eye on the Long Game: Part LXXVIII
What is significant about 2033, 15 years from now?
Well:
- we will have just exited the "Terrible 20s" that we've warned about for the last decade.
- as Kristina Wong reported this summer, the Chinese Navy may be double its present size at about 550 ships+/-.
I wonder what comforting words the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, USA has for us;
...it’s likely the United States will be at war with China in 15 years.
Hodges said: "I think in 15 years — it's not inevitable, but it is a very strong likelihood — that we will be at war with China. The United States does not have the capacity to do everything it has to do in Europe and in the Pacific to deal with the Chinese threat."
That is an unalloyed fact - and one of the top reasons European NATO needs to up its game to 2%+ GDP on defense.
If coming out of the Terrible 20s we find ourselves engaged in WESTPAC, it will require every deployable air and sea asset we have. If we are smart, perhaps not as an exceptional percentage of our land forces ... but they will be shifted west anyway. That would leave Europe pretty much on their own against threats south and east.
Oh, I've wargamed this as have others. It is bad enough in 2025 (you need two separate teams due to different macro-assumptions), 2033 needs at least 3 or 4 team to do right, but I don't think it will be much better.
Unless you're paying my bill, I won't give you the full brief here but, besides praying for peace you better:
- pray for the effectiveness of the Vietnamese Army.
- pray for civil unrest in western China.
- pray for a re-militarized Japan.
- pray for a decade of political and financial stability in the USA to mitigate the Terrible 20s.
So, yeah, we've got that going for us. The four above are low probability assumptions. When you wargame without any of them against Best/Most Likely/Most Dangerous Red COA - well ... interesting.
Labels: China, Long Game, NATO
US Army on discussing the Iraq War: "Can't this wait until I PCS?"
Do you get the feeling that the US Army does not really want to talk about its performance in Iraq?
Well, judging by how they've slow rolled their own report - you might be right.
I'm pondering over at USNIBlog.
Come by and help me rend clothes and gnash teeth.
Labels: Army, Iraq, USNI
Even Lockheed Goes Salamander on LCS
At some point in the last few months, I've shifted from, "I told you so." to simple schadenfreudic joy at the LCS news.
For the better part of a decade and a half, one of the critiques we've had - and proven correct - was the "exquisite" design of the Little Crappy Ship that left little room for anything a warship would need to do in actual combat.
Sure, we've received a lot of pushback - but time and time again we've seen our critiques acknowledged by the pro-LCS camp. You can only fake things so much; even the best spin wears thin with time.
The exquisite nature of the China-doll engineering plant is well documented. As team-LCS is pushing hard to get validation of their years of suffering by winning the FFG(X) program, there are some things even they are willing to throw in the towel on.
Again, turn to David Larter for the good-scoop;
Lockheed Martin is planning to shift from Littoral Combat Ship’s water-jet propulsion to a propulsion system that the U.S. Navy is more familiar with for its future frigate offering, Lockheed’s vice president for small combatants and ship systems told reporters at the 2018 Euronaval show.
As it works through the Navy’s requirements for it’s FFG(X) program, Lockheed is hoping that a more traditional twin-screw design with independent drive trains will entice the service towards its offering.
“We felt the more traditional approach to the suite, going with more of the ... port and starboard side, redundant type of propulsion trains, that familiarity would be well received by the Navy. Going to more of a common system sized for the FFG(X),” said Joe DePietro.
Yes, let the joy of your opponent making your point wash over you.
There is also an admission of one of the tactical shortcomings of the entire CONOPS/design interface.
"Littoral" implies that you are going to take this not-small-ship in close, with very few weapons, and so tightly designed for speed, it lacks the ability to sustain even a couple of rounds from a ZU-23-2 bolted on the back of a Toyota, and keep on fighting.
One of the major hang-ups with the design requirements for all the competitors has been requirement that the engineering spaces be separated by a certain number of meters so that if the ship takes damage in one area, the other space should be online to drive the ship. If the design can’t meet the spacing requirement, an alternative propulsion unit has to be installed.
Only a fool would take the LCS in close - well, no - correction.
Sailors and professionals will follow orders to take the ship their Navy provided them in close regardless of the odds; only a fool would allow such a sub-optimal platform to make up such a large portion of his surface force that he and his Sailors don't have a choice.
What is this magical concept we are talking about? A warship that is designed to fight hurt? Well, good luck with that.
Of course, this means that we will wind up picking these for FFG(X), but oh well.
Pray for peace.
No Nukes! (at least deployed USN tactical nukes)
I'm no spring chicken, yet my cohort was the last group of junior officers to live with tactical nukes. They were on the FF I did my MIDN cruise on, they were part of my first sea duty tour. By the time I was a senior LT, they were gone.
They were an administrative and training nightmare that was only really justified by the M.A.D. Cold War calculus. The OPLANS where they were used were laughable. Their tactical use only marginally better than conventional weapons, and the theory of "limited nuclear war" a pipe dream.
Let's be clear, if nuclear weapons are used again against any peer to near-peer conflict, there will be nothing limited about their use. Everyone will use them or lose them. Any possible use of a nuke in a future war can be well met by ICBM, SLBM and yes - strategic air or lighter strike aircraft.
We do not need them again.
Over at Proceedings, FCCM (SW) Thomas Lohn, USN (Ret.), tries to make the sale, but I'm not buying.
Rearming destroyers, cruisers, and the future frigate with non-strategic nuclear weapons could be accomplished in three phases:
Phase One : Reintroduce the nuclear TLAM-N as part of normal deployment loadout.
Phase Two : Manufacture a nuclear version of the RUM-139 Vertical-Launch ASRoc (VL-ASRoc).
Phase Three : Produce a nuclear capable SM-2/6 Standard Missile.
1. TLAM-N was highly vulnerable and iffy when it was young - it is even more so now. With the fail-to-launch/transition with conventional TLAM in addition to their habit of not making it to their target and winding up on some hill in the middle of some goat herd, no. By the time it got to its target, the war would be over anyway.
2. Nuclear depth bombs are not as useful as some think they are. I would much rather have all that money spent on a LWT that can actually ________ in ______ and not ________ when faced with _______ and at least has a chance to ______ when _____ is _______ than _______. Not to mention ______ can only _____ when ______ it ______ in an estimated ______ of the expected _______ we will most likely ______ the ______. Oh, and buy _____ more than we already have - because I did the math a decade ago and I don't think it is any better now.
3. Just ... no. Invest that money in better terminal defenses, a fleet defense fighter, and more hulls in the water. If we are in the middle of a nuclear war, any base enemy long range strike aircraft are flying from would have been taken care of by our strategic forces anyway.
Labels: Nukes
Crimes of Command with Michael Junge - on Midrats
Since WWII, how has the Navy's understanding of responsibility, accountability, and culpability changed?
Returning to Midrats for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be Michael Junge, author of the book, Crimes of Command, which looks at this question through 14 officers who were removed from command.
Michael Junge is a Captain in the United States Navy and career Surface Warfare Officer who served afloat in destroyers, frigates, and amphibious assault ships before becoming the 14th Commanding Officer of USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41). Ashore he served with Navy Recruiting; Assault Craft Unit 4; Headquarters, Marine Corps; the Chief of Naval Operations staff; and with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy (B.S., 1990), The George Washington University (M.A., 2002), the United States Naval War College (M.A., 2004), and Salve Regina University (Ph.D., 2015) and is currently a member of the faculty in the College of Leadership and Ethics at the
United States Naval War College. He has written extensively with articles appearing in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings magazine, and on the blogs “Information Dissemination,” "War on the Rocks," and "Commander Salamander."
Labels: Leadership, Midrats
May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my country and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious Victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature of the British Fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may His blessing light upon my endeavors for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.
- Horatio, Lord Nelson
This Sunday is Trafalgar Day, and you don't have to be British to celebrate the greatest battle of a great naval leader.
Outnumbered, but bold.
A hidebound enemy.
An opportunity.
Two videos tell the story better than I do.
Labels: Britain, Fullbore
I've been holding off on you for months on this topic, but your favorite living SECNAV forced my hand.
On of the most important legal cases this century for civil rights is working its way to a ruling at the Supreme Court. Of course, I am talking about the lawsuit against Harvard for their anti-Asian discrimination policies.
Regular readers on Thursdays here know that we have well documented over almost a decade and a half that our institutions of higher learning are worm-eaten with discrimination based on race, creed, color, and national origin in order to meet desired racial goals. In a zero-sum game that is college admissions, it gets worse the more competitive the institution is, if it wants certain racial goals.
The history is clear, and like Jews early in the previous century, today East Asians are the worst impacted by the bean counters of the diversity industry. When you combine an average culture that emphasizes education and hard work, along with the growing science of DNA and IQ that demonstrates that, after Sephardic Jews, East Asians have the highest mean IQ - it only stands to reason that for highly competitive admissions where objective criteria are used, they will be overly represented.
For fair minded people who wish to judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, this should not be a problem. While individuals can hold bias and should be dealt with as they come up, institutions in 2018 should not discriminate for or against any group.
Who cares if most of your doctors are of South Asian extraction, your fighter pilots Scots-Irish, your farmers of Germanic heritage, your Surface officers of Philippine extraction, and your basketball team mostly of West African extraction? As long as they are there because they want to be and are objectively the best, who cares?
Well, there are some people who do care, and they are willing to discriminate against a child born in 2000 because they remember something bad that happened to someone else born in 1945.
They are obsessed with race and their desire to be liked by the "right people" for all the "right reasons."
Sadly, former SECNAV Mabus has shown his cards.
Questions about the value of diversity will be very visibly on the line this week in a case against Harvard’s admissions policy brought by legal activist Edward Blum, who has frequently challenged civil rights measures and race-conscious admissions. It would be bad for students and the nation if this lawsuit succeeded. It would strip the freedom and flexibility that Harvard — and other universities — need to create the diverse learning environment that benefits all students, and it would leave these students less equipped to make a difference in the world.
In the end, for me, the answer is always the same: More diversity equals greater strength.
He is not interested in geographic diversity, nor diversity of opinion, nor diversity of experience ... because those things have nothing to do with the Harvard case.
Mabus is interested in only one thing; race.
We are a better country than that. We are a better Navy than that. This is 2018, not 1973.
It is time for our nation to move past this divisiveness and to throw this kind of discrimination in to the dustbin of history along with Jim Crow.
Mabus grew up in Mississippi during Jim Crow. He knows what that is like.
When you boil this down it begs the question; if you are not from one of his approved minority groups - during his tenure, were you treated equally?
It is a fair question, because what he is calling for here is to give things and take things away from people simply because of their self-identified race or ethnicity.
We know what that is; and there he is.
Targeting Problems and Fleet Defense Challenges? Welcome to Varsity Football.
The Chinese are making WESTPAC more and more interesting day after day.
They are so inside our acquisition loop, it's embarrassing.
Details over at USNIBlog.
Come by and ponder with me.
Labels: ASBM, ASCM, Bomber, China
The Dark and Costly Underside of Unmanned Systems
Don't buy all the hype about drones that you hear. Yes, they are good and useful, but they are not the secret sauce many are selling.
They have downsides. One is that they are actually very expensive to maintain and operate - especially for extended periods.
I know, you hear they save money in manning ... but for the set of missions they do, you have to look at the overall costs. They Germans have, and are throwing in the towel;
Germany is looking to sell a secondhand surveillance drone that has cost the country more than 700 million euros ($823 million) to Canada — without many core components it needs to fly.
A defense ministry reply to lawmakers from the opposition Left Party states that Germany has decided to "begin concrete negotiations with Canada for the sale of the Euro Hawk aircraft, two ground stations and possibly certain spare parts."
Germany ordered the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk variant in 2000 to use for long-distance reconnaissance, but later canceled the order because of skyrocketing costs and revelations that the prototype wouldn't be certified to fly in Europe. Then-Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere acknowledged in 2013 that the drone was a write-off, telling lawmakers it was better to have a "horrible end than a horror without end."
Hey ... we could have used that attitude early on in the LCS program, we might have a useful frigate in production by now ... but I digress;
"The question is what a buyer would do with such a gutted aircraft," said Thomas Wiegold, a German journalist who runs the defense website Augen Geradeaus . "Without GPS navigation and in particular without flight control systems, the drone would hardly be able to fly."
Andrej Hunko, one of the Left Party lawmakers who submitted questions to the government, said the drone now only has "scrap value."
"The sale will therefore recoup at best a small portion of the tax money spent," he said. "I expect the loss will amount to several hundred million euros (dollars)."
At least the Germans understand the concept of sunk cost - they now know that not all trendy fashions are actually useful for what you really need to invest your funds in.
Of note, the Euro Hawk is just a variant of the Global Hawk which is what the Navy's BAMS is based off of.
Labels: Germany, UAS
Shock Early ... but not Often
This was a bit of a surprise, and a welcome one.
Let's do it now and get it out of the was as others in the Class are being built;
It was reported earlier this year that the Navy requested to delay shock trials by up to 6 years. The request sought to designate the next ship in the new class, the USS John F. Kennedy, to go through shock trials. The test was previously scheduled for the Ford for late 2019, but officials requested a delay to make sure that the program was ready for the testing. This request comes with the Navy’s stated intention to get the Ford ready for deployment as soon as possible.
This falls in line with a change we've seen in the last year. There is a new focus on readiness and the long term vice the now.
Very welcome. The world today will be OK with a little less presence of the USN. The war tomorrow will demand combat ready and effective forces.
Labels: Carrier
Maritime Insurgency and Counterinsurgency with Hunter Stires - on Midrats
The outlaw and lawless ocean, non-state actors, intimidation, and hostile acts short of war - security on the high seas involves a lot more than fleet actions.
From the South China Sea as government policy, to land conflicts and economic stress moving to adjacent seas - what exactly is the concept of insurgency and counterinsurgency at sea?
Returning to Midrats to discuss this and more Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be Hunter Stires.
Hunter is a Fellow with the John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research at the U.S. Naval War College and works in a non-resident capacity with the Center for a New American Security. His work focuses on maritime strategy and logistics for forward deployed naval forces in the Western Pacific in history and today. He is a freelance contributor to The National Interest and is recently the co-author with Dr. Patrick Cronin of "China is Waging a Maritime Insurgency in the South China Sea. It's Time for the United States to Counter It."
Labels: Midrats
Time to revisit the Battle of Westerplatte - as a final chapter has closed.
For a heroes obit, I hope they don't mind if I steal 90% - it is too good to chop up.
At the end of August 1939, trouble entered the harbour in the form of the 14,000-ton German battleship the Schleswig-Holstein (a ship predating the First World War). Although sailing under the pretext of a courtesy visit, she contained a company of marines. In the early hours of September 1, Skowron was looking through his telescope and saw a flash emanating from the ship. Within seconds, a shell had landed on a gate near the railway, and a whole wall collapsed. What Skowron had witnessed was, in all possibility, the first shot fired during the Second World War.
After the salvo had ended, the peninsula was stormed by the German marines. Taking one of only two machineguns, Skowron ran down to a guardhouse and helped to repulse the first German assault on the main gate. The attackers were expecting an easy victory, but the Poles fought back ferociously, and managed to catch the Germans in a murderous crossfire. In addition, well-placed mortar rounds also fell on the attackers, and by around 10 o’clock that morning they retreated, having suffered 50 casualties to the eight of the Poles. The German losses would have been far higher had the Polish commander not wished to conserve mortar rounds.
On the following day, the Germans stepped up their attack. “There were three attacks in the morning,” Skowron recalled, “which got worse and worse. Aircraft, reportedly 50 of them, dropped nearly 200 bombs.” The air raid not only destroyed a guardhouse, but also the Polish mortars. Supplemented by a naval barrage, those aboard theSchleswig-Holstein reckoned — with good reason — that nobody could have survived the bombardment. Despite the intensity, the Poles sat firm. “Our men were calm,” said Skowron, “nearly indifferent, because the cycle was so repetitive — aircraft, bombs, missiles, again and again.” The entire peninsula soon resembled a First World War battlefield, with huge craters, bombed-out buildings and raging fires.
Nevertheless, the Poles would not be moved. Their morale was boosted by an announcement made by the Polish Commander-in-Chief, Edward Rydz-Smigly, that all the defenders of Westerplatte would be promoted to officer rank, and would be awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland’s highest military decoration.
With the battle for the peninsula now becoming more symbolic than tactical, the Germans threw everything they had at the defenders. Burning trains were rammed into fortifications, and a torpedo boat even launched an attack. Although the Poles stood firm, the attacks certainly took their toll. “The worst part was the lack of sleep,” said Skowron, “because we couldn’t change troops, and we had to keep watch non-stop. The Germans could change their attackers, we could not.”
Eventually, on the morning of September 7, the Poles knew that any further resistance was fruitless. With a lack of food and medical supplies, the Polish commander decided to surrender. Skowron and his fellow survivors, of whom there were some 180, were ordered to cross the canal and throw down their tunics and caps. A German motorboat appeared, and the Poles were taken prisoner. The Germans were impressed by the Polish defence, not least because it had cost them an estimated 200 to 300 casualties, and had tied up more than 3,000 troops.
Skowron was imprisoned at Stalag IA near Königsberg, after which he was made to work on a German estate. “The Germans treated us decently,” Skowron recalled, “because they knew we were from Westerplatte. They said with admiration, ‘Polish soldiers good’.” The working conditions were nonetheless tough, and Skowron ended up in hospital, and was then discharged back home in February 1941.
He soon found work as a labourer on the railways, but he continued his own war against the occupiers. He joined the underground ZWZ — the Union of Armed Struggle — for whom he reported on German troop movements and shipments.
After the war Skowron worked on the railways until his retirement in 1975.
A modest man, he did not speak much of his participation at Westerplatte, but he soon found himself being lionised by a country that was keen to show the world that Poland had not rolled over for its aggressors. Skowron took part in many anniversary celebrations of Westerplatte, and was the recipient of numerous orders, medals and decorations, as well as being promoted to major.
Skowron was married to Anna Lisek in 1937. The couple had six children. Anna died in 2000. Skowron is survived by his children.
Major Ignacy Skowron, soldier and railway worker, was born on July 24, 1915. He died on August 5, 2012, aged 97
Hat tip AB.
First posted SEP2012.
Labels: Fullbore, Poland
So, you want to fight a peer there and not over here?
Exactly how and with what?
It's a hard question I'm reviewing over at USNIBlog.
Come join the discussion.
Labels: Auxiliaries, Merchants
American aircraft on Royal Navy carriers, it's a thing
If you think that having American aircraft and aircrew fly off of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier is something new with today's F-35B and the HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH (R08), then let me introduce you to the HMS VICTORIOUS when the US Navy ebb tide in the fall of 1942.
Via Carsten Fries at NHHC;
In autumn 1942, Adm. Ernest J. King, the Chief of Naval Operations, faced a dilemma: The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, and the still-ongoing Guadalcanal campaign had severely weakened the U.S. Navy’s fleet carrier presence in the Pacific. USS Lexington (CV 2) had been lost at Coral Sea, USS Yorktown (CV 5) at Midway, and Hornet (CV 8) during the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. USS Wasp (CV 7) had been torpedoed and sunk south of the Solomons in September. Although she remained operational, USS Enterprise (CV 6) had been repeatedly damaged during the naval engagements around Guadalcanal and would eventually require repairs at a U.S. shipyard. USS Saratoga (CV 3), which had also been damaged in the Solomons, was undergoing repairs at Pearl Harbor. USS Ranger (CV 4), despite taking part in the Allied landings in North Africa in November (Operation Torch), was not deemed suitable for combat in the Pacific. The first new Essex-class carriers were not expected to join the fleet until late 1943.
Immediately following the Battle of Midway, King had requested assistance from the British Admiralty for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, but the Royal Navy’s flattops were heavily engaged against the Germans in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean at the time. Now, he again approached the British with a similar request, one that quickly made its way into communications between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Despite its continuing heavy operational commitments, the Royal Navy detached the carrier HMS Victorious from the Home Fleet for service with the U.S. Navy. After a hasty replenishment at Greenoch, Scotland, Victorious departed British waters on Dec. 20, making a brief stop in Bermuda, and arriving in port at Norfolk, Va., on the last day of 1942.
At Norfolk, Victorious was dry-docked from Jan. 1-31, 1943.
Victorious departed Norfolk on Feb. 3 en route to the Panama Canal—and assigned the U.S. Navy two-syllable call sign “Robin.” Intensive flight operations utilizing U.S. Navy procedures, both with Martlet IV (Wildcat F4F-4) fighters and the still-unfamiliar TBMs,
On May 17, Victorious reached Noumea, New Caledonia, and joined Saratoga in Rear Adm. DeWitt Ramsey’s Carrier Division 1.
As part of Rear Adm. Forrest P. Sherman’s Task Group 36.3, the carriers left Noumea on June 27 to take part in Operation Toenails, the invasion of New Georgia. The Task Group was not involved in the amphibious landings themselves, but instead remained on station for 28 days to provide air cover for the transports and landing force. Victorious’s crew’s extensive training in U.S. procedures and the mutual exchange of practical experience paid off as U.S. and British sailors kept patrol aircraft in the air for nearly 12 hours per day.
On July 31, “Robin” detached to rejoin the British Home Fleet by way of Pearl Harbor and Norfolk, where her U.S. Navy communications, radar, and flight operations gear were removed.
She returned, with style.
Victorious returned to the Pacific in early 1945. As a component of the British Pacific Fleet, she took part in Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa, where, on May 9, she was struck by two kamikaze aircraft. Her armored flight deck absorbed the blows and, despite fire damage, she resumed flight operations within hours of the strikes. In contrast, the unarmored Essex-class carriers USS Franklin (CV 13), severely damaged by a kamikaze in March 1945, and USS Hancock (CV 19), hit by a kamikaze during Iceberg, had to withdraw completely from combat operations.
Of note: All U.S. Navy carriers in use since World War II have had armored flight decks.
Labels: Britain, Carrier, WWII
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Worms May Be The Key To Solving Obesity
Andy Peloquin
Obesity is one of the most serious health problems we face in the U.S. today. The NIH estimates that roughly 68% of American adults are overweight or obese. That’s more than 200 million people carrying around extra weight in the form of excess body fat. With obesity being one of the primary risk factors for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease, we are facing an insidious killer, one that slowly kills us through the extra food we eat every day.
But perhaps there's hope. According to a new Danish study, worms may be the secret to our beating obesity once and for all. A team of Danish researchers discovered a gene in worms that is able to trigger a feeling of satiety and fullness. The same gene can also make us feel sleepy after we eat, and may increase our desire for exercise. If this gene could be turned into a drug or supplement, it could be an effective way to combat obesity.
The gene is called ETS-5, and it's responsible for controlling the signals sent to your intestines by your brain. When the worm's brains released ETS-5, it signaled that their intestines were full, and thus it was time for the worm to stop moving (sleep). The gene basically shut down the worm's appetite and encouraged them to rest.
But here's the really interesting fact: the gene also responded to a poor diet. When the worms were fed a diet high in sugar and fats, the worms ended up roaming around to find more food. This is an instinct built into every animal on the planet, including humans. Malnourished animals tend to roam more to seek out higher quality food. In the case of humans, this means exercise.
Not only will this gene help to shut down our appetite, but it can also subtly work to improve our diets. When our bodies realize they're not getting the high-quality food they need, the desire to move around will be triggered. We may end up doing more exercise as a result of the poor diet the average American consumes.
Let's be clear: worms have about 302 neurons and 8,000 synapses, while humans have billions of neurons and 100 trillion synapses. Clearly, the human brain is far more complex than that of a worm, so what works for the worm may not work as well for humans.
But the discovery of this gene is the first step toward finding a way to engage the brain in the appetite-suppressing process. This is the first gene discovered that can regulate obesity. With further research, scientists may very well be able to find a cure for the overeating and lack of exercise that leads to obesity.
1. Roger Pocock et al., "The ETS-5 transcription factor regulates activity states in Caenorhabditis elegans by controlling satiety," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1610673114, published online 13 February 2017.
See more about: Trending, healthy eating, appetite, weight loss, Exercise, balanced diet
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The Relationship Between Training and Hypoglycemia
'How To' Is Pointless Without 'Why'
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Turkey’s Erdogan cryptic over hostage release details
The hostages - 46 Turks and three Iraqis - were returned to Turkey on Saturday after more than three months in the hands of ISIS. (AFP)
The Associated Press, Ankara Sunday, 21 September 2014
The Turkish government won't reveal details of a covert operation that ensured the release of 49 people held hostage by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday.
The hostages - 46 Turks and three Iraqis - were returned to Turkey on Saturday after more than three months in the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, which captured them when it overran the Iraqi city of Mosul in June.
"There are things we cannot talk about," Erdogan told a group consisting of some of the hostages and their families. "To run the state is not like running a grocery store. We have to protect sensitive issues. If you don't, there would be a price to pay."
What Turkey did or did not promise to the Islamic State group has been a subject of speculation since even before the hostages were released. Many observers expressed disbelief that the ruthless militant group would have relinquished such a big bargaining chip without getting something in return.
In comments to journalists made later in the day, Erdogan denied having paid a ransom, although he was far less categorical when asked whether the government had swapped prisoners with the terror group.
"Whether there was or wasn't a swap - 49 personnel were returned to Turkey," Erdogan said. "I would not exchange that for anything."
Serhat Guvenc, a professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, warned against reading too much into that particular hint.
"There's a thick fog around this issue," he said.
Last Update: Sunday, 21 September 2014 KSA 19:46 - GMT 16:46
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'Whether there was or wasn't a swap - 49 personnel were returned to Turkey,' Erdogan says
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010 0
The Green Hornet Movie Trailer shows promising remake of classic
The Black Beauty
As a kid in the 1960s, The Green Hornet was one of this bloggers favorite television shows. The reason wasn't the character of Britt Reid / The Green Hornet, or Kato, played by Bruce Lee. It was because of the car: The Black Beauty. A cool, lethal vehicle that plays a starring role in the 2011 big screen remake The Green Hornet.
If the recently released trailer is a decent representation of what to expect from the film, it's going to be a hit, and The Black Beauty will be its star.
The Green Hornet stars Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz, Jay Chao, Tom Wilkinson, and Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz in what can be described as an "origin" picture which will explain how The Green Hornet came to be. Here's the video trailer:
While the movie is obviously set in modern America, what remains as the connection to its 1960s TV past is the Chrysler Imperial that is converted to become The Black Beauty. It's a car that Chrysler should make for purchase today (without the machine guns, of course); it would turn around that car maker's fortunes overnight.
As was the case when a kid, I'll see The Green Hornet for the car first, then for Cameron Diaz.
Rock the Casbah!
The Green Hornet Movie Trailer shows promising rem...
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Your present position： Home → News → Company Dynamics
A Steel Bridge from China: The Beautiful "Rainbow" across the Five Continents
Times of browsing: 8
International Business Daily, January 24, Page 6 (Excerpt): In 2012, the arrival of an order from the USA attracted the attentions of the world to steel bridge in China, and made it famous in the international market. Constructed in 1964, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the landmark between two large districts in New York, had been put into service for a long time. The reinforced concrete structure of the upper road could not bear the burden of heavy traffic. The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) that was responsible for the management decided to refit the bridge. The main tasks were to replace the upper bridge road with orthotropic steel boards. The budget for just this item reached USD 34 million. When China Railway Shanhaiguan Bridge Group was listed on the public announcement showing bid winners of material suppliers, the media in New York made the event of "made in China" into a heated topic. The Americans were so angry about it. The senior officials of MTA made the explain to the media: "We have no other options. We cannot find an experienced American company that can produce so many steel parts to repair the suspension bridge while keep the construction period on schedule."
A featured report from the Wall Street Journal changed the suspicious attitude which it had been taken previously, and quoted an MTA official's statement: price was not the only consideration. Chinese companies had become "specialists" in making parts for bridges. Bill McEleney from the National Steel Bridge Alliance said, "The Chinese are building many more of these kinds of bridges, so they have more fabricators."
From unknown in international market to leap-forward expansion in overseas business, in the 30 years that CRHIC develops its international business for steel bridges, the main line in scientific development can be identified clearly: market-oriented, professional and high-end. Our footsteps show a state-owned enterprise's innovative path in the international competition.
上一篇：CRHIC's Path to Internationalization - U下一篇：Peoplerail.com - World’s First Horse-Sho
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Army. Navy
Military Administration
Military Academies
Military Ceremonies, Life, and Service
Quarters, Arsenals, Riding-halls, Guardhouses, etc.
Blokade
Literature. Book Publishing
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Science. Education
Press. Mass Media
Religion. Church
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hidden Personalities
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hidden Maps
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Entries / Museum of the Academy of Arts
Museum of the Academy of Arts
Categories / Science. Education/Museums
MUSEUM OF THE ACADEMY OF ARTS, a science and research museum (17 University Embankment), Russia's oldest art museum, founded by I. I. Shuvalov in 1757 as a collection of samples for the students of drawing and sculpture classes at the Academy of Arts. The initial museum collections included West-European paintings, casts, works made by graduates of the Academy of Arts who earned medals and later became Academy members or professors. In 1862 the museum enlarged its collection by acquiring the collection of Count N. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko. In 1898 a part of its collection was handed over to the Russian Museum. After 1917 a large number of exhibits were transferred to the Hermitage and other museums. The museum occupies the halls of the central building of the Academy of Arts. The exposition features works by А. P. Losenko, I. P. Prokofyev, F. G. Gordeev, F. F. Shchedrin, K. Bryullov, G. I. Skorodumov, А. А. Ivanov, V. D. Polenov, I. E. Repin, V. V. Mate, А. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva and others, European masters are represented by the works of L. Giordano, F. Algardi, G. Ladzarini and others. The Architecture Department contains designs and drawings of architects and author models of Smolny Convent (made under the guidance of F. B. Rastrelli), the Academy of Arts, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Stock Exchange Building and other buildings. Shevchenko memorial workshop operates as an independent division of the museum (from 1858 Shevchenko lived and worked in the Academy of Arts where he died in 1861). The museum maintains a number of branches: Repin Penates Mansion and Museum, P. P. Chistyakov House Museum, I. I. Brodsky Apartment Museum, and A. I. Kuindzhi Apartment Museum. The collection numbers over 100,000 items. Annually the museum is visited by up to 35,000 people.
References: Гришина Е. В. Музей художественной школы // Из творческого опыта русского искусства XVII-XX вв.: Сб. науч. тр. СПб., 1994. С. 68-75; Музеи Санкт-Петербурга и Ленинградской области: Справ. СПб., 2002. С. 17-21.
A. D. Margolis.
Brodsky Isaak Izrailevich
Bryullov Karl Pavlovich
Chistyakov Pavel Petrovich
Gordeev Fedor Gordeevich
Ivanov Andrey Ivanovich
Kokorinov Alexander Filippovich
Kuindzhi Arkhip Ivanovich
Kushelev-Bezborodko Nikolay Alexandrovich, Count
Losenko Anton Pavlovich
Margolis Alexander Davidovich
Mate Vasily Vasilievich
Ostroumova-Lebedeva Anna Peterovna
Polenov Vasily Dmitrievich
Prokofiev Ivan Prokofievich
Rastrelli Francesco de
Repin Ilya Efimovich
Shchedrin Feodosy Fedorovich
Shevchenko Taras Grigorievich
Shuvalov Ivan Ivanovich, Count
Skorodumov Gavriil Ivanovich
Vallin de la Mothe Jean Baptiste Michel
Universitetskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 17
Музеи Санкт-Петербурга и Ленинградской области: Справ. СПб., 2002
Смирнов П. Т. Неск. дней в музеях Петербурга: Путеводитель-справочник. СПб., 2002
Гришина Е. В. Музей художественной школы // Из творческого опыта русского искусства XVII-XX вв.: Сб. науч. тр. СПб. , 1994
The subject Index
Russian Museum, State
Penaty, Museum Estate
A. I. Kuindzhi memorial apartment
Brodsky's Memorial Flat
St. Isaac's Cathedral
Academy of Arts
Mentioned in articles (7)
BRODSKY'S MEMORIAL FLAT situated at 3 Iskusstv Square, branch of the Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, monument to the Russian art heritage, and artist I. I. Brodsky's memorial flat
Bryullov B.P. (1882-1939?), Regional Ethnographer
BRYULLOV Boris Pavlovich (1882, Pavlovsk - 1939), art historian, regional ethnographer, organizer of excursions around Leningrad. Grandson of A. P. Bryullov. Graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the St
Denisov Y.M. (1925-2001), Historian of Architecture, Regional Ethnographer
DENISOV Yury Mikhailovich (1925, Leningrad - 2001, St. Petersburg), art historian. Graduated from the Faculty of Art Theory and Art History of the I. E. Repin Institute (1950)
Kalaushin Boris Matveevich (1929-1999), artist
KALAUSHIN Boris Matveevich (1929, Leningrad - 1999, St. Petersburg), book artist, painter. He studied in the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Mikhail Taranov (1950-56). He illustrated over 100 children's books, including V
Museums (general article)
MUSEUMS. Russia's first public museums appeared in St. Petersburg. In 1702 Peter the Great issued first orders on collecting and exhibiting high-quality models and various rarities
Utkin N.I., (1780-1863), printmaker
UTKIN Nikolay Ivanovich (1780-1863, St. Petersburg), printmaker and teacher. He attended the workshops of A.Y. Radig and I.S. Klauber at the Academy of Arts from 1785 to 1800; in 1803-14 he held an Academy scholarship in Paris
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Margaret C. Moore (d. 1975)
Posted on September 11, 2015 , updated on September 22, 2015 by Erin Lawrimore
Margaret C. Moore, c. 1960
Margaret Catherine Moore of Baltimore, Maryland, attended the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in physical education and biology in 1935. While in school, Margaret was a member of the Adelphian Literary Society, the Athletic Association Cabinet, College Chorus, Playlikers, and the Student Government Association Judicial Board.
After graduating from WC, Margaret attended New York University where she received her Master of Arts degree in guidance and counseling. She then went on to receive a diploma in nursing from Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing in New York, and then a second graduate degree, a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Margaret served on the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill for six years, then returned to UNCG in 1967 as one of the first ten faculty for the newly formed School of Nursing. The Search Committee was pleased to hire one of UNCG’s own graduates as one of the members of the original faculty to teach
nursing.
Margaret made significant contributions to UNCG’s School of Nursing, particularly the School of Nursing building. She served as Chairman of the Building Committee, contributing her creativity and knowledge of learning needs to develop plans for the building. The School of Nursing building was dedicated on Founder’s Day (October 5th) 1969.
Professor Moore passed away in 1975 at the age of 62. The School of Nursing building was name in her honor during the tenth anniversary observance of the founding of the School of Nursing, held on October 5, 1976
This entry was tagged alumni, building namesakes, faculty, School of Nursing. Bookmark the permalink.
← Food Service Workers’ Strike (1969)
Alpha Phi Omega →
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The journey of a lifetime, every time
NEPAL | INDIA
WHY DTS
REGIONS OF BHUTAN
• WESTERN
• CENTRAL
• EASTERN
• SOUTHERN
DTS Brochure
Thimphu, as the political and economic centre of Bhutan, has a dominant agricultural and livestock base, which contributes to 45% of the country's GNP. Thimphu has the country’s most of the important political buildings that including the National Assembly of the newly formed parliamentary democracy and Dechencholing Palace and the official residence of the King.
The culture of Bhutan is fully reflected in Thimphu in respect of literature, religion, customs, and national dress code, the monastic practices of the monasteries, music, dance, literature and in the media.
PLACES OF TOURIST INTEREST
MEMORIAL CHORTEN
This Stupa was built in 1974 in the memory of Bhutan‘s third King, His Late Majesty, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk, who is popularly regarded as Father of modern Bhutan. The paintings and statues inside the monument provide a deep insight into the Buddhist philosophy.
SIMTOKHA DZONG
This Dzong was built in 1627 by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal. The Institute for Language and Cultural Studies is located here. The most noteworthy artistic feature of this dzong is the series of over 300 finely worked slate carvings behind the prayer wheels in the courtyard.
The history of Bhutan lies imprinted in archaic texts, which are preserved at the National Library. Besides thousands of manuscripts and ancient texts, the library also has modern academic books and printing blocks for prayer flags.
INSTITUTE FOR ZORIG CHUSUM
Commonly known as Arts & Crafts School or Painting School, this Institute offers a six-year course on the 13 traditional arts and crafts of Bhutan. On a visit, one can see students learning the various skills taught at the school.
THE FOLK HERITAGE MUSEUM (PHELCHEY TOENKHYIM)
This Museum showcases the Bhutan’s rural past through its various exhibits and educational programmes and documentation of rural life. The main exhibit in the museum is a restored three storey traditional rammed mud and timber house, which dates back to the mid 19th century. The museum also houses interesting articles from the history like household objects, typical domestic tools and equipments used in the ancient times. The museum is also developing some of the native trees and plants that were used for various domestic purposes in the rural households.
NATIONAL TEXTILE MUSEUM
The Textile Museum was opened under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen Ashi Sangay Choden. It has today been able to make Bhutanese textile one of the most visible distinct art form. The textile museum exhibits six major themes - warp pattern weaves, weft pattern weaves, role of textiles in religion, achievements in textile arts, textiles from indigenous fibers and the royal collection that includes crowns of Bhutan’s Kings, Namzas (dresses) and accessories . The goal of the museum is to gradually become a center for textile studies that will carry out documentation, research and studies on Bhutanese textiles.
The valley of Paro has a rich culture, scenic beauty and hundreds of myths and legends. It is home to many of Bhutan’s oldest temples and monasteries, National Museum and country’s only airport. Mt. Chomolhari (7,314m) at the northern end of the valley and its glacial water plunge through deep gorges to form Pa Chhu (Paro River) offers a picturesque landscape. Paro is also one of the most fertile valleys in the Kingdom producing a bulk of the locally famous red rice from its terraced fields.
RINPUNG DZONG
Built in 1646 by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal , the first spiritual and temporal ruler of Bhutan, the Dzong houses the monastic body of Paro, the office of the Dzongda (district administrative head) and Thrimpon (judge) of Paro district. The approach to the Dzong is through a traditional covered bridge called Nemi Zam. This Dzong is also the venue of Paro Tshechu, held once a year in the spring.
TA DZONG
Once a watch-tower, built to defend Rinpung Dozng during inter-valley wars of the 17th century, the Ta Dzong is now a National Museum of the country since 1967. It houses a fascinating collection of art, relics, religious thangkha paintings and the exquisite postage stamps of Bhutan. The museum circular shape augments its varied collection displayed over several floors.
DRUKGYEL
This Dzong was built in 1646 by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal to commemorate his victory over the Tibetan invaders. On a clear day, a clear view of Mt. Chomolhari from the village below the Dzong is worth a look!.
KYICHU
It is one of the oldest and most sacred shrines of the Kingdom dating back to 7th century with the exception of Jambey Lhakahng in Bumthang. The lhakhang complex is composed of two temples. The first temple was built by Tibetan King, Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century and in 1968, H.M. Ashi Kesang, the Queen Mother of Bhutan, built the second temple in original pattern.
FARMER’S HOUSE
The beauty of Paro valley is embellished by cluster of quaint houses. Bhutanese farmer houses are very colorful, decorative and traditionally built without the use of single nail. All houses follow the same architectural pattern. A visit to a house is a rather interesting option, as it offers the opportunity to get a close glimpse into their daily lifestyles.
DUNGTSE LHAKHANG
Dungtse Lhakhang, a chorten-like temple is an unusual building that was built in 1433 by the iron bridge builder Thangtong Gyalpo. It has three floors representing hell, earth and heaven and the paintings inside are said to be some of the best in Bhutan.
UGYEN PELRI PALACE
Ugyen Pelri Palace was built by the Paro Penlop, Tsering Penjor, in the early 1900s. It is designed after Guru Rinpoche’s celestial paradise, Zangto Pelri, and is one of the most beautiful examples of Bhutanese architecture.
JANGSARBU LHAKHANG
Located behind Paro Dzong, this small temple is home to a magnificent statue of Sakyamuni Buddha that was carried all the way from Lhasa and also houses the protector deity of Paro. Legend has it that the statue of Sakyamuni was destined for Paro Dzong and merely placed in the temple for overnight safe keeping. However, when the time came to move the statue, it proved impossible to lift. As a result, it became a permanent feature of the lhakhang.
TAKTSHANG LHAKHANG
Popularly referred to as Tiger’s Nest, it is one of the most famous of Bhutan’s monasteries, perched on the side of a cliff 900m above the Paro Valley. The monastery gets its names from the legend that Guru Rinpoche arrived here on the back of a tigress and meditated at this monastery. This site has been recognized as a most sacred place and visited by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal in 1646 and now visited by all Bhutanese at least once in their lifetime.
Punakha is the administrative centre of Punakha dzongkhag, one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Punakha was the capital of Bhutan and the seat of government until 1955, when the capital was moved to Thimphu.
Located at an elevation of 1,200 metres above sea level and rice is grown as the main crop along the river valleys of two main rivers of Bhutan, the Pho Chu and Mo Chu. Dzongkha is widely spoken in this district.
PUNAKHA DZONG
Strategically built at the junction of Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu rivers in 1637, by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal it is the religious and administrative centre of the region. Having played an important role in Bhutan’s history, the the Dzong has been fully restored by the present King to its full gloey. The Dzong is open for visitors during Punakha festival and in summer months when the monk body moves to Thimphu.
CHIMI LHAKHANG
The Chimi Lhakhang, situated on a hillock in the centre of the valley, is dedicated to Lama Drukpa Kuenley, who in the late 15th century used humour, songs and outrageous behavior to dramatise his teachings and due to this also known as ‘Divine Madman’. This temple is also known as the ‘temple of fertility’.
WANGDUE PHODRANG
Wangdue Phodrang is more like an enlarged village, located in the south of Punakha. Famous for its fine bamboo products, slate and stone carvings, this quaint town offers breathtaking views of the surrounding region.
WANGDUEPHODRANG DZONG
At the confluence of Punakha Chhu and Tang Chhu rivers, Wangduephodrang Dzong is a very grand structure. The Dzong is open for visitors during Wangduephodrang Tsechu celebrated in autumn.
GANGTEY
The Valley of Gangtey is one of the most beautiful places in Bhutan. It is a flat valley without any trees that aguments the impression of vast spaces especially after the hard climb through dense forests, an extremely rare experience in Bhutan where most of the valleys are tightly enclosed.
PHOBJIKHA
A few kilometers beyond the Gangtey Monastery, on the valley floor lies the village of Phobjikha. The winter home of black necked cranes that migrate from the arid plains of the in the north. It lies on the periphery of the Black Mountain National Park. The valley boasts two beautiful meandering rivers, Nakay Chhu (Chhu Naap-black water) and Gay Chhu (Chhu Karp-white water).
According to a local legend, the two rivers actually represent a snake and a boar. The two animals once raced each other with an agreement that if the snake (Nakay Chhu) won, Phobjikha valley would be able to grow rice, but if the boar won, then rice could never be cultivated in the area. The snake lost since it had to meander all the way during its journey. Rice cannot be cultivated in the valley even today.
GANGTEY GOEMPA
The Gangtey Monastery is the only Nyingmapa monastery on the western side of the Black Mountain’s and also the biggest Nyingmapa monastery in Bhutan. The Monastery is surrounded by a large village inhabited mainly by the families of the 140 Gomchens who take care of the Monastery.
Gangtey was founded by Pema Trinley, the grand son of Pema Lingpa, the famous Nyingmapa saint of Bhutan. In 1613, Pema Trinley established the monastery and became the first Gangtey Tulku. The religious traditions of Pema Lingpa are still taught there. The second Tulku, Tenzin Legpa Dondrup (1645 to 1726), enhanced the size of Gangtey while keeping up good relations with Drukpas, and rebuilt the monastery in the form of a Dzong.
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“Israel and the United States stand together in their fight against Islamo-fascist terrorism. These shared values will bind Israel and the United States forever.”
Israel and the United States
Is Israel an asset or a burden to our country?
The United States is without question Israel’s most important ally. Also, without question, Israel is the staunchest and most reliable friend of the United States. But there are some who believe and vigorously advocate that Israel is a burden to the United States and that, were it not for Israel, peace would prevail in the Middle East.
The “Israel lobby.” There are indeed those who claim that Israel is a liability, a burden to our country. Professors from prestigious universities write essays in which they aver that the United States is in thrall to the “Israel lobby.” This lobby is said to pull the strings of American policy. Its supposed main promoters are AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the so-called “neo-cons,” some of whom are indeed Jewish. They are said to exert an almost magical spell over policy makers, including the leaders of Congress and the President. Some even say that the Iraq war was promoted by this omnipotent “Israel lobby,” that the President was flummoxed into declaring war on Saddam Hussein, not in order to defend the United States or to promote its interests, but in order to further the interests of Israel.
Israel is indeed a major recipient of U.S. aid. Israel receives yearly $3.0 billion, all of it in military aid – nothing in economic aid. 75% of this military aid must be spent with U.S. military contractors, making Israel a very large customer of those companies.
America’s staunchest ally. A good case can be made that aid to Israel, all of it military, should be part of the United States defense budget, rather than of the aid budget because Israel is, next only perhaps to Britain, by far the most important ally of the United States. Virtually without exception, Israel’s government and its people agree with and support the foreign policy objectives of the United States. In the United Nations, Israel’s votes coincide with those of the United States over 90% of the time. The Arabs and other Moslem countries, virtually all of them recipients of American largess, almost reflexively vote against the United States in most instances.
Israel is the major strategic asset of the United States in an area of the world that is the cradle of Islamo-fascism, which is dominated by tyrants and permeated by religious obscurantism and shows almost total disregard for human rights. During the decades-long Cold War, Israel was America’s indispensable rampart against the inroads of the Soviet Union. It is now the bulwark against the aggressive intentions of Iran. During Desert Storm, Israel provided invaluable intelligence, an umbrella of air cover for military cargo, and had personnel planted in the Iraqi deserts to pick up downed American pilots.
Gen. George Keagan, former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, stated publicly that “Israel is worth five CIAs,” with regard to intelligence passed to our country. He also stated that the yearly $3.0 billion that Israel received in military assistance was worth $50 to $60 billion in intelligence, R&D savings, and Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the Pentagon. In contrast to our commitments in Korea, Japan, Germany, and other parts, not a single American serviceperson needs to be stationed in Israel. Considering that the cost of one serviceperson per year – including backup and infrastructure – is estimated to be about $200,000, and assuming a minimum contingent of 25,000 troops, the cost savings to the United States on that score alone is on the order of $5 billion a year.
Israel effectively secures NATO’s southeastern flank. Its superb harbor, its outstanding military installations, the air and sea lift capabilities, and the trained manpower to maintain sophisticated equipment are readily at hand in Israel. It is the only country that makes itself available to the United States in any contingency. Yes, Israel is not a burden, but a tremendous asset to the United States.
Israel is indeed America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East and the indispensable defender of America’s interests in that area of the world. The people of the United States, individually and through their Congressional representatives, overwhelmingly support Israel in its seemingly unending fight against Arab aggression and Muslim terror. But that support is not only based on the great strategic value that Israel represents to the United States. It is and always has been based on shared values of liberty, democracy, and human rights. America and Israel are aligned by their shared love of peace and democracy. Israel and the United States stand together in their fight against Islamo-fascist terrorism. These shared values, these common ideals, will bind Israel and the United States forever.
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