text:
Al-Qaeda versus ISIS: Competing Jihadist Brands in the Middle East
Understanding the long game in Syria
Lydia Sizer
Libya's Terrorism Challenge
Salafi-jihadis have maintained an active presence in Libya due to a mix of push and pull factors. This policy paper assesses the threat posed by radical Islamist movements in Libya.
Przemysław Osiewicz
Europe's Islamophobia and the Refugee Crisis
The connection between the Middle East's refugee crisis and Europe's rising Islamophobia is cyclical. As long as the refugee crisis persists, brought on by the various conflicts in the region, Europe will face an influx of migrants, thus spurring anti-Islamic sentiment on the continent.
Iran-backed Iraqi militia group threatens Israel after cross-border clashes in Syria
Bahrain says IRGC plotted pipeline bombing near Manama
Another Iran-backed militia group threatens US troops in Iraq
Iran-backed Iraqi militias step up threat of violence against US forces in Iraq
Hassan Hassan
Out of the desert: ISIS's strategy for a long war
David P. Stewart
Terrorism and human rights
This paper explores the relationship between terrorism and human rights from the international legal perspective, considering terrorism as both a cause and a product of human rights violations and what that means for counter-terrorism efforts.
Paul Salem
Violent transnational movements in the Middle East
The conditions that brought about the rise and spread of violent transnational movements in the Middle East are complex and have been long in the making.
Video Statement
The NYC Terror Attack and U.S. Counterterrorism
Charles Lister, director of MEI's Extremism and Counterterrorism program, discusses what the recent terror attack in lower Manhattan, and the suspect's claimed connection to ISIS, mean for U.S. security and counterterrorism policy.
Wall Street Journal - Oct 20
Donald Trump Garners Unlikely Muslim Cheerleaders
Washington Post - Oct 16
Obama administration debates the wisdom of rushing to retake Raqqa
New York Times - Oct 6
The Blot on Obama's Legacy
U.S. News & World Report - Oct 3
Al-Qaida on the Rise in Syria

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


That changed at halftime of Monday's national championship game, and his metamorphosis carried the top-seeded Cavaliers to their ever title, 85-77, over No. 3 Texas Tech at U.S. Bank Stadium.
The Cavaliers were the first No. 1 seed to fall in Round 1 after losing to 16-seed UMBC in 2018. They managed to right their wrong this season with wins over Gardner-Webb, Oklahoma, Oregon, Purdue, and Auburn before clinching the title against Texas Tech.
After going scoreless for the first 18 1/2 minutes, Hunter finished with a career-high 27 points, and if he leaves as a lottery pick - well, what a way to go. That, I think, has prepared you for this moment to be able to handle the pressure or the intensity of a national championship game.
Virginia won, 85-77, for a odd reason: Texas Tech blew a defensive gasket.
"With a 3-point lead. we're trying to play really sound defense with three objectives: No 3-point shots, no 'and-ones, ' and we've got to secure the defensive rebounds, " Texas Tech coach Chris Beard said.
The only truly satisfying answer to "Why?" came Monday night - and with the confetti falling and the nets dangling around their necks, it all seemed so clear.
At one point, a fan threw a tortilla - a Texas Tech school tradition - that landed on the elevated court, causing play to stop temporarily. "But if you're willing, we'll take a chance.' That's why I mentioned the Rocky poster, I said I want guys who want a chance at a title fight".
"I just tried to be aggressive", said Hunter.
Jerome found Guy on a no-look pass for a three to get Virginia's lead to ten, 53-43 with 10:22 to go, but two consecutive layups from Moretti made it a six-point game. He added seven rebounds and one assist. "So I just knew we needed each other". And coach Tony Bennett has told his team that everyone would watch to see how they responded.
Then Virginia almost got knocked out of the tournament in the Elite 8 against Purdue on March 30, but a late comeback gave Virginia an overtime win.
A spokesperson for the Parwan governor said a suicide bomber had targeted a convoy of coalition forces at Bagram. He said Afghans want peace, but "they don't want to live the way that the Taliban want them to live".


text:
The Costs of Voting Rule Chevron: A Comment on Gersen and Vermeules Proposal
Matthew C. Stephenson
Professors Gersen and Vermeule argue that we should replace "doctrinal Chevron," which instructs courts to defer to an agency's reasonable interpretation of a statute the agency administers, with "voting rule Chevron." Under voting rule Chevron, judges would not defer to agency views. Instead, voting rule Chevron would induce deference at the aggregate level by requiring a supermajority vote to reverse an agency. Gersen and Vermuele's argument is novel, provocative, and ingeniously developed. It also has a certain aesthetic appeal: the elusive, imprecise, "soft" Chevron standard is supplanted by a clear, rigorous, "hard" voting rule. Nonetheless, I am not (yet) persuaded of the practical wisdom of the proposal.
A key feature of Gersen and Vermeule's argument is their claim that a switch from doctrinal Chevron to voting rule Chevron could maintain all the benefits of Chevron deference with respect to case outcomes. The reason, they explain, is that voting rule Chevron can induce approximately the same aggregate amount of deference as doctrinal Chevron (even though, as Gersen and Vermeule acknowledge, the outcomes of some individual cases would change). If Gersen and Vermeule successfully establish that claim, the conversation is no longer about the optimal level of deference, but only about how that optimal level can best be achieved.
Gersen and Vermeule argue that the main advantage of voting rule Chevron (holding the total level of deference constant) is that it avoids the conceptual problems and psychological burdens inherent in doctrinal Chevron. (Gersen and Vermeule claim other benefits as well, which in the interests of space I will not address in this response.) I am skeptical of Gersen and Vermeule's claim that voting rule Chevron has the advantage of substantially lowering conceptual and psychological costs to judges. It is entirely plausible that doctrinal Chevron, as currently practiced by most judges, places equal or lesser burdens on judges, for the simple reason that deciding whether a legal question is hard, and that an agency's resolution is within the realm of plausibility, is usually no more difficult—and may often be easier—than deciding whether the agency's interpretation is, in fact, the single best reading of the statute.
I also take issue with Gersen and Vermeule's claim that voting rule Chevron and doctrinal Chevron can achieve normatively equivalent outcomes with respect to the level of judicial deference. The nub of my argument, which Gersen and Vermeule acknowledge in passing, is that even if doctrinal Chevron and voting rule Chevron can achieve equivalent aggregate levels of deference, these regimes distribute deference differently across case types. This distributional difference may be normatively significant, even when the aggregate level of deference is held constant. Therefore Gersen and Vermeule cannot, in my view, presume that voting rule Chevron can ever be calibrated so that it produces deference outcomes that are normatively equivalent to those produced by doctrinal Chevron.
I. Conceptual and Psychological Costs
Gersen and Vermeule assert that doctrinal Chevron imposes conceptual and psychological burdens because it requires a judge to make not only a first-order decision about whether the agency's interpretation or the challenger's interpretation is more persuasive, but also a second-order judgment about whether the agency's interpretation is "reasonable" (or "reasonable enough"), even if it is not as good as the challenger's interpretation. Gersen and Vermeule's fundamental claim is that deciding which of two options is better is logically prior to, and psychologically easier than, deciding whether the choice itself is hard or easy.
While I am no expert in cognitive psychology, I find this claim dubious. It seems quite common for a decision-maker to find it easier to decide that the answer to a question is not clear—and therefore governed by a background presumption—than to evaluate what the correct decision would be if the presumption did not apply. A batter behind in the count 0-2 knows he should swing at anything close to the strike zone, while a batter ahead in the count knows that he should let a borderline pitch go by. Is it cognitively harder for the batter to evaluate whether a pitch is close enough to the strike zone for him to swing than it is for him to evaluate whether the pitch actually is a strike? Or, consider Gersen and Vermeule's example, in which a referee is asked to assess whether a scientific study's conclusions are plausible given the data. The referee may find it easier to decide that the results are plausible than to evaluate whether the results are actually correct. As a final, meta-example, it may be much harder for a reader to decide whether doctrinal Chevron or voting rule Chevron is superior than to conclude that the question is complicated, with reasonable arguments on both sides.
This observation is closely related to the claim that decision-makers often act as "satisficers" rather than optimizers. A satisficer stops when she finds an option that is good enough, rather than trying to figure out which option is the best one. One could conceptualize doctrinal Chevron as an instruction to courts that they should satisfice, and that they should consider the agency's interpretation first (that is, courts should accept the agency's view if it passes the satisficing threshold). That conceptualization may not be perfect, but I think it is a workable first-order approximation of judicial review of agency action. Gersen and Vermeule, as I understand their argument, claim that it is conceptually and psychologically more difficult for judges to satisfice than to optimize. That assertion is not self-evidently true and stands in considerable tension with much of the literature on choice under uncertainty.
Gersen and Vermeule do acknowledge the possibility that assessing plausibility may be easier than assessing optimality. Their response to this possibility, however, is puzzling. They assert that they merely seek to compare voting rule Chevron to the version of doctrinal Chevron that currently exists, rather than to other possible versions of doctrinal Chevron. Under current Chevron doctrine, according to Gersen and Vermeule, judges consult "the full panoply of sources to derive statutory meaning at Step One." Gersen and Vermeule admit the possibility of "a parallel world in which judges quickly glance at the statute to make sure an agency's interpretation is not implausible," but they insist that "that is not our world."
There are two problems here. First, the case for replacing doctrinal Chevron with voting rule Chevron is much less compelling if a straightforward modification to doctrinal Chevron would capture the lion's share of the benefits associated with voting rule Chevron. If, under current doctrine, judges have to do all the work that they would do even if there were no agency interpretation or no deference principle, but these judges then have to ignore the products of that labor in order to defer to the agency, then this indeed seems like a silly doctrine. But this does not establish the need for replacing a "soft" doctrinal approach with a "hard" voting rule. It only establishes the need to replace a foolish doctrine with a more sensible one.
Second, while I have not done any systematic empirical research on the question, I suspect that most judges inhabit something pretty close to Gersen and Vermeule's "parallel world." I think (though I cannot prove) that in a typical Chevron case, the judge looks at a statute, considers the arguments made by the agency and the challenger, and gets a sense of whether the agency's view is plausible. If the judge concludes the agency's view is clearly reasonable, she votes to uphold the agency. If the judge concludes that, even on this initial pass, the agency's view is obviously inconsistent with the statute, she votes to reverse. If the agency's interpretation is somewhere in the middle—on the outer margins of plausibility, but not obviously lunatic—the judge might devote a bit more effort to thinking about the case. She stops not when she has determined that the agency's interpretation is the best one, but when she has decided that it falls into the realm of plausibility (that is, when she is satisfied, or "satisficed"). This approach economizes on decision costs. While it does require the judge to make a second-order decision—when to stop thinking—that second-order decision would also arise under voting rule Chevron because the optimizing judge needs to figure out when she has enough information to cast her vote.
Descriptions of Chevron doctrine, including Gersen and Vermeule's, often make it sound as if judges applying Chevron first determine the single best reading of the statute and only then, as a second step, consider whether the agency's interpretation strayed too far from that reading. Judges may write their opinions as if this is how they went about reaching their conclusions. But I suspect that it is not the way judges actually decide cases, if for no other reason than that it would be irrationally expensive in light of the costs that Gersen and Vermeule identify. Again, I cannot provide any authoritative evidence that this is how judges decide cases under doctrinal Chevron, so I will leave it to the reader to assess which characterization of the judicial decision-making process is more plausible. If what I have suggested rings true, though, it implies that the shift to voting rule Chevron may not achieve the primary advantage that Gersen and Vermeule ascribe to it, and might even be counterproductive.
Gersen and Vermeule do have another line of response to this concern. They suggest that even if it is easier for an individual judge in an individual case to determine whether an interpretation is reasonable than whether it is best, the aggregate decision costs may still be higher under doctrinal Chevron. Gersen and Vermeule suggest two reasons why this might be so. First, they assert that under current doctrine, courts will eventually have to decide whether an agency's interpretation is the best possible interpretation; avoiding that question in the first case merely postpones the inevitable. Second, they argue that even if doctrinal Chevron reduces decision costs for judges, it may increase decision costs for other actors, primarily because of the unpredictability of doctrinal Chevron relative to voting rule Chevron.
The first point is, in my view, doctrinally and empirically incorrect. In some cases, it might be clear that the first judicial decision determined that there is only one possible interpretation of the statute. But in other cases, probably most cases, it will be clear that the previous judicial decision held only that the agency's interpretation was reasonable. In such circumstances, an agency could alter its interpretation from X to Y to X again, and the court applying doctrinal Chevron would never have to decide which interpretation was better as long as both appear reasonable.
Gersen and Vermeule's second point, about increasing the decision costs of other actors, raises the question whether doctrinal Chevron causes much more legal unpredictability than voting rule Chevron. Space constraints prevent me from addressing this issue in any depth, but my main response to Gersen and Vermeule's predictability argument is this: just as it may be easier for judges to conclude that an issue is difficult than to determine the right answer, it may also be easier for parties to conclude that an issue is close—and therefore to predict that the agency will win—than for parties to predict whether a supermajority will think the agency's interpretation is (perhaps only slightly) worse than some alternative. Gersen and Vermeule acknowledge this possibility, but argue that this loss of predictability is not that great. The central question, however, is a comparative one, and neither they nor I have any idea whether the net expected change in predictability caused by a shift from doctrinal Chevron to voting rule Chevron would be positive or negative. We both acknowledge that either is possible, depending on the conditions.
Gersen and Vermeule's final rejoinder to the suggestion that voting rule Chevron may make life harder for judges is to suggest that if "these matters are unclear . . . the fair-minded conclusion is that the issue of aggregate decision costs probably does not cut strongly in one direction or the other," and that such concerns are likely trivial in light of the "definite advantages" of voting rule Chevron. But I understood Gersen and Vermeule to be claiming that the "principal advantage" of voting rule Chevron is that it avoids the conceptual and psychological difficulties associated with forcing judges to internalize a deference norm. Unless they are drawing fine distinctions between "conceptual and psychological burdens" (presumably weighty) and judicial decision costs (allegedly trivial), then the argument that the latter ought to be treated as "second decimal" considerations would seem to undermine much (though certainly not all) of the case they advance for switching to voting rule Chevron.
II. The Distribution of Deference
Most normative debates about Chevron doctrine focus on the appropriate level of judicial deference to agency decisions. Gersen and Vermeule cleverly try to sidestep this debate by arguing that the aggregate level of deference achieved by voting rule Chevron can be calibrated so that it is the same as whatever would be achieved by their reader's favorite version of doctrinal Chevron. I do not think the move is completely successful, however, because the distribution of deference across case types may be normatively significant, even if aggregate deference is held constant.
The distributional consequences of a shift from doctrinal Chevron to voting rule Chevron can be expressed in stylized form as follows. Consider a three-judge panel. Each judge may reach one of three conclusions about an administrative agency's interpretation of a statute. First, a judge might believe that the agency's interpretation is correct. Second, the judge might think the agency's interpretation is obviously wrong. Cases in this second category are "easy reverses." Finally, the judge might think that though the agency's interpretation is less persuasive than some alternative, there are reasonable, perhaps powerful, arguments on the other side. Call these cases "close reverses." (Though it would also be possible to sub-divide the "upholds" into "easy upholds" and "close upholds," this distinction is not relevant for comparing the two Chevron regimes.)
Under voting rule Chevron, whether the question is easy or close is irrelevant: a judge votes to reverse in both "easy reverse" and "close reverse" cases. The supermajority rule, however, means that the agency wins unless all three judges vote to reverse. Under doctrinal Chevron, the judge votes to uphold the agency in "close reverse" cases, but the ultimate decision is made according to simple majority rule: the agency wins only if at least two judges vote to uphold its interpretation.
The shift from doctrinal Chevron to voting rule Chevron will make a difference in the final outcome in two circumstances. First, when two judges think a case is an easy reverse, but the third would vote to uphold, agency interpretations that would be reversed under doctrinal Chevron are upheld under voting rule Chevron. Second, when all three judges are inclined to reverse, but at least two of the three judges think the case is close, the agency would prevail under doctrinal Chevron but lose under voting rule Chevron. In all other cases, the switch from doctrinal Chevron to voting rule Chevron has no effect on outcomes.
Gersen and Vermeule acknowledge that under voting rule Chevron, agencies will get less deference in "[l]ow-intensity cases" where a supermajority thinks "the case is close, but that the agency's reading is worse," but will succeed more often in "high-intensity cases," where the judges are closely divided and the judges who think the agency is wrong hold this view very strongly. But Gersen and Vermeule conclude that the different pattern of deference associated with voting rule Chevron "seems perfectly consistent with the rationales for Chevron," whether one looks to the expertise rationale, the democratic accountability rationale, or both. Thus Gersen and Vermeule conclude that this distributional effect is either normatively irrelevant or supportive of voting rule Chevron.
Though Gersen and Vermeule claim that this conclusion is intuitive, I did not find it to be so, and I think one can construct quite plausible arguments for the opposite conclusion. Consider the expertise rationale for Chevron: agencies better understand the practical effects of different interpretations, and Congress thought (or a legal fiction stipulates that Congress thought) agencies should take these effects into account when implementing statutory directives. Expertise does not, however, authorize an agency to disobey congressional commands. A case in which all three judges acknowledge that a case is close—that is, the agency's interpretation does not clearly contravene the statute—seems like precisely the sort of case in which the expertise rationale supports deference. After all, the expertise rationale presupposes that generalist judges, relying on the traditional judicial tools of statutory interpretation, are likely to get the wrong answer in close cases much of the time, precisely because they lack the expertise that Congress, by hypothesis, thought should be taken into account when determining the statute's meaning.
In contrast, if a majority of judges think that the agency's interpretation is clearly inconsistent with the statute—so that reversing is an easy call—then the expertise argument for Chevron deference is much weaker. Congress may have wanted agencies to use their expertise to implement the statute, but agencies' expertise does not give them a license to ignore the statute. The fact that a majority of judges concluded that the agency is not only wrong but obviously wrong is powerful evidence the agency's choice cannot be justified by a claim to specialized expertise. This is true even if a minority of judges finds the agency's interpretation convincing (perhaps just barely).
The claim that the democracy rationale supports the shift in the incidence of deference caused by voting rule Chevron is somewhat more plausible: if judges are closely divided, then perhaps the decision should be made by the politically accountable agency. But this claim is still problematic. A conclusion by a majority of judges that an agency's legal interpretation is not just wrong, but obviously wrong, suggests that the agency has disobeyed the constraints that Congress meant to impose. The judicial constraint on agency decision-making is undemocratic in one sense, but in another sense it is pro-democratic insofar as it enforces congressional directives. Furthermore, reducing deference in cases in which a judicial supermajority disagrees with the agency but thinks the issue is close seems problematic from a democratic decision-making perspective. If the judges are uncertain whether the statute forbids the agency's action, then shouldn't the more democratically accountable agency have a stronger claim to choose?
It is therefore questionable whether it is wise to decrease deference in cases in which a supermajority thinks the agency's interpretation is wrong but reasonable in order to increase deference in those cases in which a simple majority thinks the agency's interpretation is obviously wrong. Deference may be most appropriate if a supermajority of judges would agree that the interpretive issue is hard, especially if generalist judges are prone to deciding that hard issue incorrectly. The case for deference may be much weaker if a majority of judges believe that an agency's interpretation clearly contravenes an unambiguous statutory provision because in such cases the agency's expertise may be irrelevant from a legal or normative point of view.
For these reasons, I do not understand why Gersen and Vermeule assert so confidently that the "change in the incidence of deference [induced by a switch to voting rule Chevron] is either an improvement or neutral" and that voting rule Chevron performs "equally well" as doctrinal Chevron. Gersen and Vermeule justify this claim by asserting that, under voting rule Chevron, "[r]ather than individual judges setting aside their own views in favor of more expert or more democratic judgments, the voting mechanism enforces respect for agency views at the aggregate level." But the whole point of this critique is that one cannot look only at aggregate deference. A shift in the incidence of deference from those cases in which the argument for deference is strongest to those cases in which the argument for deference is weakest cannot be counted as an improvement, even if aggregate deference is held constant.
Therefore, in my view, Gersen and Vermeule cannot avoid consideration of the effect of voting rule Chevron on outcomes by asserting that they will select whatever voting rule achieves the same outcomes as existing (or optimal) doctrinal Chevron. If the distribution of deference is taken into account, it will generally not be possible to achieve normatively identical deference outcomes. I hasten to add that Gersen and Vermeule may ultimately be right that voting rule Chevron achieves a normatively superior distribution of deference across cases. I have suggested why I am skeptical of that conclusion, but it is certainly a claim worthy of study and debate.
Gersen and Vermeule's innovative proposal is most valuable, in my view, because it focuses attention on aspects of Chevron doctrine that are often overlooked. What are the types of cases in which the argument for deference is strongest? How do judges apply the Chevron doctrine in practice? How much effort do they invest in assessing the merits of the various legal arguments? When and how do they decide when they are confident enough in their conclusion to cast a vote? These are vital questions, not just for assessing proposals like Gersen and Vermeule's, but for the study of administrative law more generally.
Whatever the merits of Gersen and Vermeule's Chevron voting rule idea as a practical proposal—a question on which we disagree (at least for now)—the proposal is fascinating as an intellectual provocation. The more general question the proposal raises, which I hope the authors explore in future work, is the purpose of legal doctrine more generally. If Gersen and Vermeule are right that many of the results that the legal system generates through doctrinal solutions can be achieved through voting rules or other "hard" institutional solutions, then what is the purpose of legal doctrine, and what explains its stubborn persistence as a means of allocating decision-making power? I suspect that more inquiry along these lines may uncover advantages to doctrinal strategies of power control and allocation that have not yet been fully appreciated.
Matthew C. Stephenson is Assistant Professor at Harvard Law School. He wishes to thank Jacob Gersen, Daryl Levinson, John Manning, and Adrian Vermeule for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this reply.
Preferred Citation: Matthew C. Stephenson, The Costs of Voting Rule Chevron: A Comment on Gersen and Vermeule's Proposal, 116 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 238 (2007), http://yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-costs-of-voting-rule-chevron-a-comment-on-gersen-and-vermeulea8217s-proposal.
Article: Jacob E. Gersen & Adrian Vermeule, Chevron as a Voting Rule, 116 Yale L.J. 676 (2007).
Response: Richard J. Pierce, Jr., Chevron Should Not Be Converted into a Voting Rule: A Response to Gersen and Vermeule's Proposal, 116 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 248 (2007), http://thepocketpart.org/2007/01/25/pierce.html.
Response: Matthew C. Stephenson, The Costs of Voting Rule Chevron: A Comment on Gersen and Vermeule's Proposal, 116 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 238 (2007), http://thepocketpart.org/2007/01/25/stephenson.html.


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34+35 Ariana Grande Download '34+35' on iTunes
Adele Home
Adele's Success Is An "Incredible Story", Says Simon Cowell
The 'Rolling In The Deep' star has received high words of praise from the music mogul.
Adele's huge global success has been described as an "incredible story" by Simon Cowell.
The talent show mastermind has called the 'Someone Like You' singer one of the "most down to earth" people he has met and claims she has made an impact in the industry by going back to basics.
He told The Sun: "Adele is an incredible story. You wouldn't have predicted this years ago when we were such an image-infatuated business.
"Here is somebody who has done everything her own way, gone back to basics and achieved this incredible success. She's one of the most down-to-earth people you'll meet — and she hasn't changed a bit."
The singer has already had an amazing 2012 after scooping six awards at the Grammys as well as two BRIT Awards last month.
Meanwhile, the singer is rumorued to have recruited security staff at her new mansion after suggesting the property is haunted.
Adele News
See more Adele News
Adele Subtly Responds To Claims She's Dating Skepta
Hot On Capital
RuPaul's Drag Race Queens: Meet Asttina Mandella, The 'Streetwear Fashion Queen'
'Drag Race UK' Contestant Lawrence Chaney's Age, Instagram & Glaswegian Origins
What Prize Does The RuPaul's Drag Race UK Winner Get?
Denise Van Outen And Boyfriend Eddie Boxshall: Are They Married And How Long Have They Been Together?
Olivia Rodrigo's Enviable Link to One Direction's Niall Horan And Harry Styles
Who Is Sonny Jay? Capital DJ's Girlfriend, Instagram And Age Revealed


Today, I googled through some issues I want to get enlightenment about and I found myself wanting to see if the un-dated articles are current or dated. I wanted to determine when the posts were written because I wish to read only the current ideas related to the issues I am after, not the ones written years ago.
The post's date distracts the readers because, whether the post is a news item (e.g. the latest tidbits on the Kardashians) or a timeless idea (e.g. 'appreciating sunsets'), psychologically the reader wants the newest write-up about it.
They think Google will relegate old posts away from the top serps.
They intentionally want the readers to not think a post is old or dated. In other words, they want to fool the readers into thinking that their article is current.
There are probably a lot more reasons for omitting the dates on blog posts/articles. In fact, this blog also omits the dates in some way.
any specific post doesn't have a date reflected on its usual place – the line right after the title. However, to not run the risk of fooling the reader into thinking it's the latest (if it's not), the date is still there – at the bottom part of the article.
the home page has the current date on the upper right area, and the list of posts with excerpts have the dates displayed the right way.
So, if you find that an article or blog post has no date anywhere on the page, are there some ways to somehow get an idea as to when it was posted/written?
I have found a few tricks to guess the post date. I said 'guess' because the date I find may not really be the exact date when the post was written but may at least be within its immediate time frame.
The content or body of the article sometimes gives a hint about the date of writing. An event which happened at a particular date might be implied there and if the author says "a few days before" or "last week" or "last year" in relation to that event, it should give you an idea about the post's date of writing.
If the article is about good SEO methods and it mentions the name of the latest Google Algorithm change, then it's an indication that the methods the author writes about may presently apply.
This is usually effective if the article page has a picture or image embedded within the article body.
Thus, the image, according to the above url, was uploaded on June 2012. More often than not, an author would upload an image he uses in his article the same day he publishes the article online.
Sometimes though, the format may not be like this, especially with non-wordpress sites. Wikipedia's images, for example, do not show this format in its html source. But then wikipedia tells you when their posts were last modified anyway at the bottom left area of their pages.
The above url shows that the post was written back in 2010. This particular post happens to elaborate on how to rank on page 1 in Google. But considering the hundreds of algorithm changes since then, you might think it is dated and thus won't necessarily apply today. But check again, that page is actually in the top 5 on the first page in google for the term "how to rank in google" just this week. Makes you reconsider about the theory of older posts being relegated to history in the serps. Or, also makes you think that Google's latest algorithm might just have a lot more room for improvement in returning more accurate returns.
While the bloggers may have removed the dates on their posts, more often than not, they forgot to remove the codes that automatically put dates on the comments made by readers.
So, especially in sites with a large readership, you'll often find the latest comments made yesterday, but when you (depending on the format) go down or up the other comments, you may find that the first comments were written several years ago.
As usual, I would say that there might be some other more clever methods to determine the dates when online posts or articles were written, but the above tricks worked so far for most of my needs. If you have some tricks related to this issue, post it in the comment section.


Paperbacks for a summer, a selection of ten novels.
For some people, Chinese novels are too long, too complex with a very large number of characters, also it is felt that a deep knowledge of Chinese civilization is needed. Moreover how to choose between writers of whom you know nothing and between books that are sometimes difficult to find !!!


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Disk defragmentation software
Raxco PerfectDisk Pro 14
This website is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Raxco PerfectDisk Pro 14 Review
Reviewer: Stephen Qualtrough
Developer: Raxco Software, Inc
Ranked: 2nd
Speeds up day-to-day computing tasks
Maximizes hard-drive performance and increases reliability
Optimizes and defragments hard drives automatically
Comes with a license that covers up to 4 different PCs
Some settings are overcomplicated
Raxco Software's PerfectDisk Pro 14 is an excellent disk utility. Not only does it easily defragment and optimize hard drives, it gives users a great deal of control over its features. Users of all experience levels will appreciate what this software can do
With more than 30 years of experience developing defragmentation utilities for personal hard drives and servers, Raxco Software has a solid reputation in this line of software. PerfectDisk, one of Raxco Software's most successful products, has already seen several releases. PerfectDisk , the latest version, offers plenty of new features that we were quite excited to try.
Installing PerfectDisk Pro is a pretty straightforward process. Since this software supports all versions of Windows from XP on, most users will be more than capable of meeting its system requirements. Also, since PerfectDisk Pro supports a wide range of hard drives, including SSD and USB drives, this disk-defragmentation tool should be more than capable of meeting most users' needs.
On our system, which runs a 64-bit version of Windows 10, this software installed in just a few minutes, and we encountered no issues throughout the installation process. Following installation, we launched PerfectDisk Pro and were greeted with its clean, easy-to-use interface.
Defragmentation
PerfectDisk Pro contains a whole host of defragmentation features. Combined, these powerful features make PerfectDisk Pro one of the most comprehensive disk-defragmentation products available.
Thanks to PerfectDisk Pros OptiWrite feature, disk fragmentation is actively prevented. This feature stops Windows from fragmenting data by redirecting the I/O. Not only does this automatically prevent hard-drive slowdowns, it saves time and energy. By actively preventing fragmentation from occurring, this feature makes it unnecessary to perform the disk-defragmentation process as often, a process that can easily take a significant amount of time on larger hard drives.
In addition to active fragmentation prevention, PerfectDisk Pro also optimizes users' systems during idle periods. This handy feature allows this software to perform many of the more resource-intensive tasks while users are away from their systems. It can even be configured to refrain from running during certain time periods or when certain applications are open. We were quite impressed by how easy it was to configure this feature in a manner that suited our computer-usage habits.
PerfectDisk Pro also has the ability to perform disk-defragmentation during the Windows startup. Thanks to this feature, PerfectDisk Pro can defragment several files that are typically locked by Windows once the startup process is complete.
Following several days of usage and a few defrags, our system ran noticeably better. In fact, thanks to PerfectDisk Pro , nearly everything on our system ran faster and more reliably. Our high-resolution videos, for instance, opened quickly and played without stuttering. Also, while browsing the web with Chrome, we noticed less lagging and far fewer crashes.
While PerfectDisk Pro does not feature any particularly detailed reports, it does present users with plenty of useful information. It has charts that display each drive's fragmentation levels, and it even lets users know how hot each drive is running. Finally, on the upper portion of the dashboard window, PerfectDrive Pro displays the number of fragments prevented and eliminated, and it also displays the total number of files defragmented.
Boot-file optimization – PerfectDisk Pro's proprietary boot-file optimization reduces the time required for systems to startup. It is not uncommon for users to experience startup-speed increases of 20% or more when using this feature.
Scheduling calendar – This interactive calendar makes it easy for users to create and edit defragmentation tasks.
For the most part, PerfectDisk Pro is an easy-to-use utility. The majority of its interface is intuitive, and the process of setting up and running optimization tasks is pretty straightforward. In some areas, however, mainly in some of the software's deeper settings, an excess amount of options and information will probably confuse some users.
Raxco Software provides customers of PerfectDisk Pro with a number of support options. Not only does their website feature an FAQ and an online community, user guides and updates are available to download. Also, for users with specific technical inquiries, the Raxco Software website has a section where users can submit their questions directly to support staff.
PerfectDisk Pro 14 has all of the tools needed to boost the performance of hard drives and increase their reliability. It is capable of performing most of its major functions automatically, but this software is still extremely customizable. PC users of all experience levels, from novices to experts, will appreciate the capabilities of PerfectDisk Pro.
Looking for more disk defragmentation software reviews?
See our side-by-side comparisons and in-depth reviews
1. O&O Defrag 26
2. Raxco PerfectDisk Pro 14
3. DymaxIO
4. Systweak Advanced Disk SpeedUp
5. Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro
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Love this … the narrow sashing disappears in places but frames the colour changes made to the applique backgrounds. I rather like this one too.
With sashing … … without sashing. I like the version without sashing. I would like the last one more without sashing … sashing breaks up the overall design too much. Something to think about … do you support quilt designers?
Black and white, with a touch of red … I like it.


Salesforce Communities - Kloudrac Softwares Pvt. Ltd.
We Develop innovative, mobile ready and engaging customer portals using Salesforce community Platform.
Salesforce Communities is a Salesforce.com product that can be used to connect thousands of customers, partners, and other stakeholders without investing in expensive licenses.
We can help you accelerate channel sales, provide easy information sharing between employees and partners or give a better proactive customer service to you end customers through custom application depends upon salesforce communities.


An online Bakery shop that allows users to check for various bakery products available at the online store and purchase online. The project consists of list of bakery products displayed in various categories. The user may browse through these items as per categories. If the user likes a product he may add it to his shopping cart. Once user wishes to checkout he must register on the site first. He can then login using same id password next time. Now he may pay through a credit card or cash on delivery. Once the user makes a successful transaction he gets a copy of the shopping receipt on his email id. Here we use user friendly interface to make the entire frontend. The middle tier or code behind model is designed for fast processing. And SQL serves as a backend to store bakery products lists data. Thus, the online Bakery shopping project brings an entire bakery shop online and makes it easy for both buyer and seller.


text:
Founders & Partners
en / it Donate now!
Eco-empathy
The OASI project aims to redevelop the public green area of Bir Ouna in Palestine, through participatory and inclusive processes of local families, young people and schools.
Reusemed
REUSEMED was developed with the aim of supporting the culture of reuse, promoting the creation of a network for the reuse of waste materials in four Mediterranean countries: Italy, Spain, Tunisia and Jordan.
Pause – Atelier dei Sapori
Pause is the research lab of Fondazione Reggio Children dedicated to taste and wellbeing, where the relationship with food, starting from the experience of the kitchens in the Preschools and Infant-toddler Centres of Reggio Emilia, becomes multisensory and creative. The core of the project is the relationship generated between people, knowledge, taste and experience.
Remida – The Creative Recycling Centre
The Remida Centre in Reggio Emilia is a project and a place where research is conducted on sustainability and creativity starting from industrial waste materials. The Centre is visited every year by more than 6,000 people like teachers, artists, students, administrators and interested people coming from all over the world.
via Bligny 1/A - 42124 Reggio Emilia - Italy
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Next time you buy tangerines, devote more attention to the origin of the fruit. As you will from now on use their peel, the fruit should not be sprayed. So buy organic.
Due to the huge amount of vitamin C the tangerine is very suitable as an additive for the treatment of flu and colds. A growing number of studies also pointed to the many medicinal properties of tangerine peel.
Tangerine peel also contributes to balancing the blood sugar levels, detoxifies the liver and releases the stress.
How to dry the tangerine peel?
The procedure is very simple. Take the tangerine peels and arrange them on a paper towel. Allow to air dry, preferably overnight. Store the completely dried pieces in a sealed container in a cool, dark place. You can maintain the tangerine peels in this manner for several weeks.
How to prepare tangerine peel tea?
Take some of the dried peel. Pour with boiling water and leave it for 2-3 minutes. If desired, add a little honey.
Dried tangerine peel can be mixed with other teas and is best matched with black tea. The study, published by the BioMed Central Dermatology, showed that a combination of black tea and citrus peel reduce the risk of squamous cell skin carcinoma by 70 percent.


text:
layout: post
title: The ARI announces Swifter-Lang
tags: Swifter SwifterLang
hidden: true
---

In a bold move the Always Right Institute today announced
[Swifter](http://swifter-lang.org/).
*Swifter* is a programming language in active development
(not),
which is wicked fast. It compiles swiftly and executes even
swifter. *Swifter* promises to be the Objective-Z without the Z,
but with a C.

[![Swifter Intro]({{ site.baseurl }}/images/swifter.png)](http://swifter-lang.org/)

Get all the details on [swifter-lang.org](http://swifter-lang.org/).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Doctors at a San Jose hospital have treated and released 3 people taken off an American Airlines flight from Tokyo. The 3 were thought to have symptoms of the flu-like illness spreading through Asia. But, doctors determined none had the disease.
Doctors had boarded the flight after it was detained today at San Jose International Airport, over fears that as many as 5 people aboard were showing symptoms. But what at first threatened to be a public health emergency quickly turned into a testament to fears surrounding the disease.
More than 1,600 cases of the illness have been reported so far worldwide. Its symptoms include high fever, cough and shortness of breath.


Yes! All MyTime businesses can create packages to sell to their customers.
A Package is a bundle of appointments for a particular service (or group of services) at a reduced price. When a client purchases a package, MyTime stores the package in the client's profile and automatically applies the package to appointments with eligible services.
To create a package, go to your Services Menu and select + Add package beneath the desired service category.
Can Be Used For: Place a checkmark by services the package can be used for. A package can apply to a single service or to multiple services within the same service category. A single package cannot apply to services from different service categories.
Discount: The percent discount customers receive by purchasing the package. This will auto-fill based upon the price and eligible services you select.
Select save. The package will appear in your Services Menu.
Clients can purchase packages online from your booking page (if you allow online payment) or in-store if you're using MyTime's POS.
When a client purchases a package, it is stored in the client profile in the Packages Purchased section.
When a client makes an appointment with an applicable service, the package is automatically applied to the appointment. The appointment window will read In Package beneath the price field (see example below).
You can remove the appointment from the package by clicking the "x" next to In Package.
When the appointment is complete, select Take Payment at the bottom.
A new ticket will open. In Package will appear in the price field. At the bottom, select Take Payment.
The package will be taken as payment. You may then close the ticket.
Is there a way to show MyTime reviews on my website?
How can reviews help me track the performance of my employees?


text:
Contact Turkish
HOME PAGE COMMANDER
KOMUTANGeri
General Ümit DÜNDAR
Commander of the Turkish Land Forces
General Ümit DÜNDAR was born in Manisa in 1955. He graduated from the Military Academy in 1975 and from the Engineering School and Training Center Command in 1976.
General DÜNDAR graduated from the Army War College in 1985, from Royal Army Staff College (United Kingdom) in 1991, and from the Armed Forces College in 1994
General Ümit DÜNDAR was promoted to the rank of General in 2013. He served as the Commander of the 3rd Army for two years and subsequently he served as the Commander of the 1st Army. He served as the Acting Chief of the General Staff from 16 to 18 July 2016.
General Ümit DÜNDAR served as the Deputy Chief of the General Staff from 2016 to 2018. He was appointed as the Commander of the Turkish Land Forces with the Presidential Decree approved on 09 July 2018.
Ateş Serbest 2020 Faaliyeti
Yayım Tarihi: 22.10.2020
Millî Savunma Bakanı Hulusi Akar ve TSK Komuta Kademesi'nin de izlediği Ateş Serbest-2020 faaliyetinde; millî imkanlarla üretilen harp araç ve gereçlerimiz de kullanıldı. Belirlenen hedefler tam isabetle vuruldu.
Haberin Fotoğrafları:
Ministry of National Defence
Land Forces Command
Yücetepe / ANKARA 06100
© 2021 Turkish Land Forces Command


text:
Fundamental experimental studies of laminar and turbulent combustion relating to engines and hazards
Speaker : Dr Malcolm Lawes, University of Leeds
Date : 12-09-2017 2:30 PM
Concerns about energy conservation, global warming from emissions of CO2 and atmospheric pollution by oxides of nitrogen, hydrocarbons and particulates have prompted far-reaching remedial measures. In the short to medium term, the spark ignition engine, burning hydrocarbon fuels, will remain a dominant propulsion device for private transport. Energy generation in this engine is usually by deflagration burning in which the flame front propagates through homogeneous reactants. However, recent attempts to improve SI engine efficiency have included concepts such as gasoline direct injection (GDI) which raises the prospect of droplet combustion being relevant to these engines as well as to gas turbines and diesel engines. In all engines, it is necessary to avoid severe auto-ignition, or knock, which will ultimately, damage the engine. Many of the combustion related issues of burning rate, flammability limits, emissions and overpressures also have relevance to hazards and their mitigation. Hence, studies of combustion should not be confined to those relating to engines. Fundamental studies in 'real' engines are difficult due to the multiplicity of variable which are difficult to control and because of the limited access for diagnostic tools. The sparse data that does exit has often been obtained from pressure records without detailed photographic observations. Work at Leeds, and elsewhere, has shown that this can lead to incorrect interpretation because flame instabilities can develop that are not evident from pressure records but that significantly affect analysis. The present presentation describes some of the experimental apparatus developed at Leeds to elucidate the problem at realistic pressures and temperatures. These include two fan stirred combustion vessels, a rapid compression machine and several novel research engines. A recently developed time resolved 3D imaging technique also will be discussed. Widely used laser diagnostics that include high speed PIV, LDV and PLIF also are used at Leeds. Important experimental data include laminar and turbulent burning velocities, ignition delay times, effects of flame stretch and flame instabilities. Data for homogeneous mixtures, aerosols and sprays are required. The presentation includes descriptions and photographic/movie examples of equipment and combustion experiments together with some important recent findings.


text:
Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/n/nep-hap/2012-02-27.html
Report NEP-HAP-2012-02-27
This is the archive for NEP-HAP, a report on new working papers in the area of Economics of Happiness. Viviana Di Giovinazzo issued this report. It is usually issued weekly.
Subscribe to this report: email, RSS or Twitter.
Other reports in NEP-HAP
The following items were announced in this report:
Lasse Steiner & Lucian Schneider, 2012. "The Happy Artist?: An Empirical Application of the Work-Preference Model," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 430, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
Milo Bianchi, 2012. "Financial Development, Entrepreneurship, and Job Satisfaction," Post-Print halshs-00670031, HAL.
Rachel Margolis & Mikko Myrskylä, 2012. "Family, money, and health: regional differences in the determinants of life cycle life satisfaction," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2012-012, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter, 2012. "Positional Concerns through the Life Cycle: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data and Survey Experiments," IZA Discussion Papers 6342, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
Hsee, Christopher K. & Rottenstreich, Yuval & Stutzer, Alois, 2012. "Suboptimal Choices and the Need for Experienced Individual Well-Being in Economic Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 6346, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
Rudd, Melanie & Vohs, Kathleen D. & Aaker, Jennifer, 2012. "Awe Expands People's Perception of Time, Alters Decision Making, and Enhances Well-Being," Research Papers 2095, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
Daniel M. Haybron & Valerie Tiberius, 2012. "Normative Foundations for Well-Being Policy," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2012-02, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
Schurer, S. & Yong, J., 2012. "Personality, well-being and the marginal utility of income: What can we learn from random coefficient models?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 12/01, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
Becchetti, Leonardo & Pisani, Fabio, 2012. "Family money, relational life and (class) relative wealth: an empirical analysis on life satisfaction of secondary school students," AICCON Working Papers 101-2012, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
Leonardo Becchetti & Fabio Pisani, 2012. "Family Money, Relational Life and (Class) Relative Wealth: an Empirical Analysis on Life Satisfaction of Secondary School Students," CEIS Research Paper 223, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 21 Feb 2012.


text:
Det Anarkistiske Bibliotek (da)
Anarchistische Bibliothek (de)
Biblioteca anarquista (es)
Anarkistinen kirjasto (fi)
Bibliothèque Anarchiste (fr)
Anarhistička biblioteka (sr/hr)
Biblioteca anarchica (it)
Анархистичка библиотека (mk)
Anarchistische bibliotheek (nl)
Anarcho-Biblioteka (pl)
Biblioteca Anarquista Lusófona (pt)
Библиотека Анархизма (ru)
Det Anarkistiska Biblioteket (sv)
Anarşist Kütüphane (tr)
Library.Anarhija.Net
AnarchistLibraries.Net
Title: Roger Noël Released
Subtitle: Polish Gov't. Frees Belgian Anarchist
Author: Fifth Estate Collective
Topics: anarchist movement, Fifth Estate, Fifth Estate #311, Poland, political repression, State Capitalism
Source: Scanned from Fifth Estate #311, Winter 1983, vol. 17, no. 4, page 3
plain PDF A4 imposed PDF Letter imposed PDF EPUB (for mobile devices) Standalone HTML (printer-friendly) XeLaTeX source plain text source Source files with attachments View history Add this text to the bookbuilder Select individual parts for the bookbuilder
Fifth Estate Collective
Roger Noël Released
Polish Gov't. Frees Belgian Anarchist
Roger Noël, a Belgian anarchist imprisoned in Warsaw since July 5, was set free on November 26th by the Polish authorities after paying a fine of 900,000 Zlotys ($900 U.S. currency). He was accused of smuggling radio material into Poland and was sentenced to three years in jail or the fine which was paid through the intermediary of the Belgian Embassy in Warsaw, after having been raised in Belgium by the "Free Roger Noël Committee."
As a result of having sent telegrams of protest concerning Noël's imprisonment to the Polish and Belgian Embassies, the Fifth Estate received a telegram in return from the Belgian Embassy notifying us of Noël's release.
Noël came to international attention after being arrested July 5 by the Warsaw militia and charged with assisting Radio Solidarnosc to make illegal broadcasts. He was transmitting at the time of his seizure by police. Noël was confined in a cell in Rakowieck Prison in Warsaw, and faced a sentence of between 3 and 10 years, depending on the precise nature of the charges that were to be brought against him. Only the Belgian Ambassador in Warsaw was allowed to visit him and it was known that Noël had been undergoing repeated interrogations and harassments by the Polish dictatorship.
The Fifth Estate's attempt to have a telegram of support delivered to Noël in prison was rebuffed by the prison authorities (who stated they needed Roger's number before it could be delivered) making it clear the Polish government was attempting to keep him isolated.
On the night of his arrest, Noël was seized along with two Radio Solidarnosc workers while they were broadcasting "illegally" to the Polish people. Though other members making broadcasts were able to escape and continue Radio Solidarnosc, this second "pirate" radio station was seized by the Polish police on August 31st.
Six years ago, disappointed with the inertia of the traditional Belgian Anarchist movement, Noël, along with a number of others, pooled their resources and skills and began the self-managed ASBL 22 March printery in Brussels. Among other things, the collective produces a monthly anti-authoritarian newspaper and has managed to involve itself in a variety of struggles in Belgium. Roger Noël and the collective were involved in printing material for Solidarity which was smuggled into Poland. Having traveled clandestinely into Poland on several food convoys, Noël was able to make contact with various anarcho-syndicalists and brought out valuable information about the situation there. As a moving spirit of the Association for the Freedom of the Air Waves, Noël was a great asset to the Solidarity underground and had delivered a transmitter clandestinely to Radio Solidarnosc hidden in medical equipment.
A "Free Roger Noël" Committee was established in Brussels to coordinate efforts to put pressure on the Polish authorities to release him. Noël's comrades at the 22 March printing works called for an international campaign of solidarity to secure his release, asking that it be set within a framework of demands for the end of repression in Poland, and the release of all Solidarnosc prisoners.
Roger Noël is free! Now free all Polish political prisoners.
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text:
Cancel the Leaving Cert: Fight for a real alternative to the points system
By Keishia Taylor, Shane Finnan & Conor Tormey
In 2020, as the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic raged, students campaigned using coordinated social media actions, petitions and huge online rallies, to cancel the Leaving Cert and won. Now in early 2021, student action has put the cancellation of the Leaving Cert on the agenda, pressured opposition parties to somewhat support students' demands, and cornered the government into making a decision . With sustained coordinated action, we can fight not only to win cancellation of the traditional leaving cert this year, but point towards what kind of education system is needed.
Mick Barry, TD for Solidarity, and Socialist Party member, has become a renowned figure among Leaving Cert students after championing the students' concerns in the Dáil and speaking multiple times on this issue. Mick Barry and young Socialist Party members facilitated an online rally streamed to 17,000 people across multiple platforms, and have hosted regular online student meetings, the largest of which had 500 in attendance, to assist students getting organised.
Out of these meetings, students agreed to launch social media storms targeting Minister for Education Norma Foley, and government party leaders, Micheal Martin, Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan, and as a result the hashtag #CancelTheLeavingCert2021 has trended several times. The brilliant student actions, as well as the reality of high Covid cases, has played an important role in pressuring the government to make concessions to students' demands.
No COVID Leaving Cert
The treatment of students during the pandemic is just one example of the Irish Government's detachment from the needs and experiences of ordinary people, and particularly young people. On all measures – the risk of infection in the classroom, the huge amount of school time missed, months of prolonged stress and anxiety, the accumulated inequalities of studying at home – conditions for students and teachers are arguably worse off this year compared to any other year.
One of the most obvious effects of Covid-19 on education is the severe disruption to teaching, with periods of school closures over the last two academic years, as well as self-isolation and illness of students and teachers. When students have been able to attend school, many have reported that physical distancing is impossible in overcrowded classrooms and it is too cold to concentrate as windows need to be kept open for ventilation.
Many of the inequalities at the core of the Leaving Cert have been catapulted into plain sight during the pandemic. Students from working-class and marginalised backgrounds face additional difficulties when trying to study at home. Students in digital poverty, without access to a laptop or broadband, and students living in overcrowded conditions without a quiet place to study are obviously disadvantaged. Home learning without the support of a school environment is also harder for people with mental health difficulties, disabilities, or special learning needs. Practically, it also means that coursework in languages or hand-based projects are impossible. No previous year has had to deal with the barriers that the year of 2021 is enduring now.
Worried sick
Anxiety and distress are widespread and worsening with the continuing uncertainty over whether the exams will go ahead and in what circumstances. Many students are rightly anxious about catching the virus themselves or spreading the virus to others, including vulnerable family members, and some are even suffering the bereavement of loved ones. The impact of prolonged isolation and background anxiety about the pandemic itself should not be underestimated.
Over the last few months, parents and doctors have reported a worrying increase in both anti-anxiety and antidepressant medication being prescribed to students due to the stress of the Leaving Cert. A 2019 survey conducted by revision website Studyclix reported that 75% of Leaving Cert students experienced "extreme stress" as a direct result of the exams, with 28% suffering from depression. State policy is cruel and detrimental to the mental well-being of young people!
Mental health problems are an epidemic and the government has not given the necessary funds to youth mental health facilities. In a normal year, one in two young people will develop mental health problems by the age of 24, with one in five experiencing suicidal ideation. Along with the pandemic restricting face to face appointments, this means youth mental health is at an all-time low. In the midst of a global pandemic and widespread mental health crisis, why compound the distress for the sake of these outdated exams?
The only solution to alleviate the mental distress and need for antidepressants would be to cancel the Leaving Cert and guarantee a place at third level so all those who wish to attend can do so. The government has a responsibility to safeguard students' wellbeing and are instead defending an archaic institution. The government needs to be forced to back down from their hazardous and reckless Leaving Cert policy.
Perpetuating inequality
When students sit their Leaving Cert, most feel that these are life-defining exams. The whole education system promotes the Leaving Cert as the definitive finale of second-level education, putting unnecessary pressure on young people as the results determine whether students can access higher education. The Leaving Cert is seen as allowing students to continue with their education, but in reality, it is a barrier dividing students and refusing some opportunities for higher education.
While students from more affluent backgrounds can pay for grinds, students from working-class or underprivileged backgrounds simply do not have the same opportunities. Working parents, single parents, or parents who must focus on making ends meet may not be able to offer as much assistance with studying at home. Students from immigrant backgrounds whose parents did not experience the Irish education system or may not speak English are also at a disadvantage. Resources such as money and a quiet study space at home really do make a difference in both preparing and performing for the Leaving Cert exams. Middle-class students are often better equipped than their working-class counterparts. Students may also choose their Leaving Cert subjects based on how to maximise their total points, rather than pursue their interests, picking subjects that are seen as easier to do well in.
The government recently discussed the possibility of vaccinating Leaving Cert students early so they can sit the exams. Obviously, everyone should have access to vaccinations, but the government's motivation for bumping Leaving Cert students up the list would have been to keep the traditional system in place and relinquish responsibility for finding an alternative. Cancelling the exams this year, on top of the changes to the process last year, would be a serious blow to this institution and indicate that change is possible – something the government would like to avoid. The political establishment benefits from maintaining class division and elitist ideas.
Predictive grades not enough
One possible alternative to written exams is predicted or calculated grades, which were used last year. But what will these calculations be based on? The amount of class time missed, the drastically changed mode of teaching and huge variation between schools means that calculating grades fairly would be impossible. Calculated grades would be based on averaging previous test or homework scores, which would place students who have long term pressures, other responsibilities or part-time jobs at a disadvantage, as they would not be able to cram for exams. An alternative would be to base the grades on a mock exam, which would make the mocks as pressurised as the real Leaving Cert itself!
The previous grades achieved in each school are incorporated in a predicted grades system, meaning that the inequalities between fee-paying and DEIS schools are explicitly reproduced in the results given to students. Last year, the government hired a private company to oversee the grades, which were found to have negatively affected 6100 students' results. Even in the UK, where predicted A levels have been used for many years, a 2016 study found that only 16% of applicants achieved the A-level grade points that they were predicted.
Predictive grades would not resolve anxiety and uncertainty felt by many students, and the only solution that serves students is the cancellation of the exams, allowing students to graduate and guaranteeing a place in Third Level to every Sixth Year student who wishes to attend, along with investment in apprenticeships and training.
Many teachers are understandably opposed to a predictive grades system, as it transforms teachers from advocates and mentors into judges. Teachers do not want the power to decide whether their students get into college. And making them play this role could also be a source of conflict with parents who are dissatisfied with the grade results, particularly in tightly-knit rural communities or where parents have extremely high expectations for their children. Teachers and students should not be pitted against each other. Cancelling the Leaving Cert entirely and allowing all students to progress to their choice of further and higher education is the only solution in the best interests of both students and teachers. We are calling on the teachers' unions ASTI and TUI to come out firmly in support of their students, their members and the programme outlined in this article – cancel the Leaving Cert and open access to Third Level.
Universal third level education
The question that gets to the heart of the Leaving Cert campaign is why students must take exams to get into college in the first place. Education is a right, not a commodity. It should be free and accessible for all who want it irrespective of class background or family advantages. The idea that only certain people deserve higher education and that the deserving ones can be identified by an exam riddled with class bias are extremely archaic and reproduce inequalities through the generations.
Secondary, and even primary, education was not always the norm and when secondary school was extended to the general population, working class people benefited. Why would third level education be any different? A massively expanded third level education system with more places, free access, and better student financial support to help students with rent, living costs, special education needs, childcare and any other support they might need.
This would also require the hiring of more staff. Huge numbers of education workers and tutors are currently unemployed, under-employed or precariously employed, and should be offered secure, full-time and well-paid contracts, to reduce the number of students per class and increase the time teachers can dedicate to each student.
This alternative to stressful exams might be criticised for being expensive. But the government budgeted €95 million for the greyhound and horse racing industries (which should never be subsidised by the tax-payer to begin with) and spent tens of millions in legal fees to avoid receiving €14 billion in taxes from Apple. Paying hefty subsidies to multinational corporations, giving generous tax breaks and keeping corporate tax low is business as usual for the Irish state. Ireland has the highest per capita rates of the super-rich globally, with 3,000 new millionaires in 2018 and 17 billionaires in 2020. The resources to establish a universal third level education system already exist but are hoarded by elites instead of being put to work for the benefit of the majority. The obscene wealth that exists in society should be invested in public services, including universal third-level education for all who want it, without the need for gruelling exams.
In Ireland, the Catholic Church has had a stranglehold on education since the beginning of the state and was responsible for decades of institutional abuse. Having a religious school system means discrimination against all other religious backgrounds and those with no religion at all. To this day, the Church strongly influences the curriculum and particularly how sex education is taught – in a way that discriminates against LGBTQ people, and promotes backward and moralistic attitudes to sex. Any overhaul of the education system should have the separation of Church and state at its foundation.
A capitalist curriculum
Education is a right and has countless benefits for people to develop skills and explore ideas. But alongside the many benefits, education is also an arena in which the establishment can propagate their ideas. Education in the capitalist system promotes following instructions, and focusing on ranking, grades and scores. The capitalist ideals of productivity and competition are instilled as the main source of a person's value.
The Leaving Cert exams and points system exemplify this. Students spend years preparing for a set of exams that require learning by rote and regurgitating information in pursuit of a single number that will determine access to third level education. This narrow and superficial approach is a wildly inaccurate measure of intelligence, potential, and even aptitude for particular third level courses or occupations. Far from fostering curiosity and enthusiasm, this system of education actually represses exploration, turns understanding into memorising, and promotes "teaching to the test".
Education in a capitalist system seeks to entrench bias by neglecting the history of marginalised people; Traveller history is completely missing, for example. The role of women, LGBTQ people and people of colour in historical events and fighting for their own liberation is understated, and in fact, working class people are not presented as active agents at all. Education in a capitalist system promotes a "Great Man" theory of history that focuses on leaders and wealthy individuals as the drivers of history instead of the collective struggles of working-class people. Even revolutionaries, trade unionists and activists are turned into heroic individuals, rather than part of the powerful movements that are the real forces creating change. The dominant assumption is that capitalism is the only viable way to organise society, and radical ideas are neutralised or channelled towards dead ends. Without access to working class history, ideas that support the capitalist system are difficult to combat.
When education is controlled by the political establishment, they will influence the syllabus, the way it is taught, and the relationships between education and employers, to maintain a system that prioritises profit and the defence of the profit-system above all else. It will therefore not be possible to implement the far-reaching changes needed until the power is taken out of their hands. The education system should instead be organised by education workers (primary and secondary teachers, special needs assistants, lecturers, researchers, support staff), with the involvement of parents and students, who have the experience, knowledge and understanding to run schools and colleges for the benefit of society.
In a capitalist system, third level education can be a commodity – something to be bought and profited from. Third level institutions are run as businesses, who extort increasingly unreasonable fees from students and their families, putting many into long-term debt, or blocking many working-class students from attending. Similarly, education workers face increasingly precarious conditions, with declining pay, higher workloads, and an erosion of pensions and other benefits that previous generations would have taken for granted.
The purpose of education under capitalism is to prepare us for the workplace and provide the type of education that allows us to perform the types of jobs needed by the system. But at the same time, it can provide skills and opportunities that we can use to change society and further the interests of the majority, instead of the status quo.
Fight for an alternative
The education system should facilitate people to develop new skills, explore ideas and pursue their talents, as well as literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking. School is an important time for developing maturity and life skills such as cooking, exercising and driving a car. A more rounded education would nurture curiosity, creativity, expression, and enthusiasm that could help people thrive and contribute to innovation, as well as establishing approaches for lifelong learning. Education can empower us to fight for justice and equality, and challenge the capitalist system that exploits and oppresses us..
Cancelling the Leaving Cert this year could deal a real blow to the cruel and outdated points system and open the door to widespread education reforms if students continue to organise. The campaigns against the Leaving Cert this year and last year, as well as the widespread protests against climate change, racism and macho culture in recent years, have demonstrated that young people will fight for change and will be central for pointing the way forward for a transformation of society in the interests of young and working-class people.
We stand for:
Immediate cancellation of the Leaving Cert – sixth year students should be issued with a graduation certificate and continue to third level if they wish
No school reopening before it is safe to do so, and social distancing and other protective health measures firmly in place. Delivery of vaccinations to staff and students in a timely way.
Free and accessible education for all from pre-primary to third level and advanced degrees
A democratically controlled education system by committees of education workers, with input from parents and students
Democratic planning to provide for the education that young people want and to train and retain for jobs and skills that are needed and useful for society
A quality education system based on the development of curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, skills, initiative and enthusiasm
A massive increase in secure, well-paid jobs in the education sector
Full separation of Church and State, and secular, consent-based, LGBTQ-inclusive sex education
Fianna Fáil
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PICTURE: Woman hit by train at Doncaster Railway Station 'treated for injuries'
A woman hit by a train at Doncaster Railway Station earlier this evening sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Emergency services at the scene earlier.
A spokesperson for British Transport Police said officers and paramedics were called out at about 3pm today and the woman was treated at the scene.
BREAKING NEWS: Person hit by train at Doncaster railway station
"Officers and paramedics are at the scene where a woman is being treated for her injuries which are not believed to be life threatening.
"She will be taken to hospital in due course."
The incident caused major disruption through the station earlier today.
A picture sent in by a commuter appeared to show emergency services dealing with the incident at one of the station's platforms.