@acnningstunt Well spotted. 50 points to Gryffindor.
I think they used the jump to hyperspace gif deliberately to troll Star Trek fans, then trolled Potter fans. Beautiful.
We this week released Elisabeth Prasad's report running some of the numbers on whether compensating live kidney donors makes sense. She finds that the typical kidney transplant saves the Ministry of Health on net about $125,000 over the longer term: dialysis is expensive.
Chris Bishop's Member's bill passed first reading and is off to committee. It increases compensation to live donors for lost wages from the current amounts offered by Work & Income (which range to $350 per week for up to 12 weeks) to 80% of the donor's wage. The average wage in New Zealand is about $1000.
Compensating donors so that more can afford to make that gift makes sense, on a straight fiscal analysis, if it brings enough new organs into the system. If new nobody becomes a donor because of the increased payment, then we've likely still done the right thing in helping donors, but it won't save the government money.
So here's the very simple maths on it.
Suppose each new transplant saves the government $125,000 less the compensation paid to the donor. Suppose that, currently, compensation averages $300/week for donors and lasts 8 weeks. The government then is currently $122,600 better off with each transplant.
Suppose that we move to full compensation. On average, donors earn the average wage. If they also take 8 weeks at $1000/week, the government is then $117,000 better off with each transplant.
If the live donation rate doesn't change, the government is out $5600 per transplant as compared to the status quo. If there is at least one new transplant for every 21.9 existing transplants, then the move is fiscally neutral. There were 72 kidney transplants from living donors in 2014. So if three more people are able to donate a kidney thanks to the increase in compensation, the move saves lives and is fiscally neutral. If four more people are able to donate a kidney thanks to the increase in compensation, the move saves lives and saves money.
Suppose we only get one new donor. One. In that case the government pays $403,200 to donors who would have donated anyway and $8000 to a donor who wouldn't have for a total of $411,200 in compensation. The net cost to MoH is then $288,600 for that single kidney - because they've had to compensate all the other donors at a higher rate. The recipient gets, in the indicative case of a 50 year old male, an additional 7.6 quality-adjusted life-years. The cost to MoH is then just under $38,000 per QALY.
In the worst-case scenario, where zero new transplants happen, the government is out just over $400,000 and a pile of live organ donors who have helped to save others' lives enjoy better compensation for their time out of work. In the break-even scenario, for the government, three more lives are saved when three donors are able to make the gift. And each donation after that saves the government rather a bit of money - while saving lives and doing right by the donors.
And note that all of this is predicated on my preferred 100% compensation regime. The break-even point using Bishop's 80% figure will be lower. The break-even point will also be lower if people take only 4 weeks in recuperation rather than 8.
Elisabeth's report, and her Masters thesis on the topic, are here. I was on Radio NZ's Nights this week on the topic; you can listen here. And pick up a copy of this week's NBR for my article on it (a pre-pub here).
There's a new PWC report on NZ's place in the global insurance industry.
It notes that new product development and worries about insurer reputation are bigger issues here than elsewhere.
I note that I've still been unable to find an insurer who will sell me a fairly simple sounding product: in the event of a big Wellington earthquake (we work out a satisfactory definition), I get a big cheque, no questions asked. I'd pay an annual premium based on the risk of that event occurring. This shouldn't be hard. It's even easier than my earlier proposal. I'm guessing that the transactions costs of setting up a first contract in anything weigh heavily where the expected market isn't big.
Neilson said the NZIER report found the evidence for Treasury's argument was too narrow because it used data only from the global financial crisis years.
He said it did not consider that KiwiSaver attracted young and low-income people who would not usually have been involved in formal savings schemes.
"The analysis simply compared the results for the people in KiwiSaver with those who were not, as opposed to those in the target audience who joined KiwiSaver compared with those in the target audience who did not."
"We need to compare apples with apples. People on a benefit can't afford to save and are likely to receive a higher income from New Zealand superannuation than they received during their adult lives on a benefit anyway.
"At the other end of the scale, people who were saving for retirement by investing in rental property or a farm would be unlikely to use KiwiSaver other than to just pick up the KiwiSaver incentives.
"For this group KiwiSaver would probably not increase their savings, it would only change the composition of their savings. Neither of these categories were in the target group for KiwiSaver and should not have been used for comparison," Neilson said.
I haven't read the NZIER piece yet. But I'm familiar with Treasury's work in the area.
While the Treasury's 2011 work was based on a 2010 sample, their more recent 2014 work was based on SoFIE and IRD data covering 2002-2010. They have a panel of 10,000 individuals from 2002 through 2010.
The 2014 paper uses a difference-in-difference analysis looking at those who joined Kiwisaver as compared to those who didn't; they also ran diff-in-diff after sorting by age, gender and the like.
The point of difference-in-difference is to let you compare those who joined with those who didn't in a way that's meaningful. The differences in the savings rates for the two groups in the period before Kiwisaver forms your baseline; the differences in the savings rate afterwards forms your treatment effect. Sure, there can be plenty of differences between the two groups. But those underlying differences are caught in the first differencing in the difference-in-difference. It somewhat odd to critique a difference-in-difference analysis for just comparing two groups.
They found that KiwiSaver members accumulated less wealth than non-KiwiSaver members, correcting for other stuff. This is in the difference-in-difference: those joining KiwiSaver accumulated less wealth than those not joining, as compared to how both were doing before KiwiSaver.
If you want to restrict analysis to the ones that are really targeted by Kiwisaver and evaluate it on that basis, that's way different from a standard "was this programme a good idea" analysis. Think of it this way. Suppose that there's some terrible disease. One person in a million gets it. The only cure is getting a vaccine at birth. The vaccine costs $100,000. A cost-benefit assessment looking at the programme as a whole will say it's a colossal waste of money: you don't spend a hundred billion dollars ($100,000 * 1 million people treated) to prevent one instance of a terrible disease. But if you looked at it only on a target audience perspective - the one guy who'd have gotten the disease, then it's worthwhile: $100,000 to save that life was worthwhile. It's still a pretty bad programme on the whole though.
I will have to look up the NZIER report; it has to be better than what's here reported.
Update: the NZIER report is here. On first cut, it seems very odd to hang a lot on the behavioural economics literature around people screwing up savings when recommending a programme the default products of which are often entirely wrong for the person directed into them.
So, what's the deal with special licences then?
The Greens' minority view on legislation enabling extended bar hours during the Rugby World Cup noted that special licences can do the job that the legislation is meant to do, and that the committee heard no evidence of special licence applications being refused and no submissions from licensees dissatisfied with the process.
Hospitality Association of New Zealand Otago branch president Mark Scully said it was a ''positive move''.
''It's a great move - it's good for the community,'' he said.
Under existing legislation, bars could apply for a special licence to open for world cup games, but the process was ''very daunting'' and expensive, Mr Scully said.
The Dunedin City Council had received two applications by yesterday for licences to screen world cup games.
Both bids were opposed by police and a hearing was set down for a fortnight's time, council liquor licensing co-ordinator Kevin Mechen said.
Whether that hearing proceeded would depend on the nature of the legislation passed by parliament, he said.
He expected further applications for special licences to come in as the tournament advanced if Mr Seymour's Bill was unsuccessful.
The Otago Daily Times understands police had sought to impose further conditions on those wanting to open for world cup games such as ticket sale entry, bunting and that bars be forced to close before reopening for the games.
Mr Scully said measures such as those proposed and the cost of a special licence meant many bars would not bother to apply.
The Greens went on to note that while they didn't get submissions from bar owners during the short notice period for written submissions, they had a pile of submissions on that short notice from the NZ Med Association, the DHBs, Public Health folks and the Health Promotion Agency.
I suppose that an alternative explanation is that small bars can't make time to provide quick turnaround written submissions while public health lobbyists employed by the government to write on the evils of alcohol are able to, on short notice, provide written submissions on the evils of alcohol.
I agree with the Greens in one respect though. They recommend that a better approach would have Parliament encourage the District Licencing Committees that conditions on special licences be reasonable. That is the more general problem and the more general solution. But it requires having a chat with those veto players who use the power to object to impose rather onerous conditions, including ones that Parliament has already rejected.
The power to say no is also the power to make the rules, or at least in part.
Parliament legislates. But it also makes rules giving other people a bit of legislative power too. Parliament does this whenever it sets policies letting someone hold up or block someone else's otherwise lawful activities. These "veto players" can demand concessions in exchange for not vetoing.
Suppose your house has heritage features. A heritage society could threaten to make it hard for you to get consent for an addition onto the back of the house - unless you incorporate features that make them happy. Maybe they do not have the explicit right to do that, but because RMA processes let them make things hard for you, their veto power lets them extract concessions.
The Dominion Post this week reported on the police's use of veto power around alcohol policy. The police recently have seemed to be trying to establish regulatory powers that they were never granted through the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act. Because police and medical officers of health can hold up publicans' and bottle shops' liquor licences, they can demand concessions. In Wellington, they are only supporting new bottle stores downtown if the shops run restricted trading hours and only sell expensive products.
Bar and bottle shop owners who do not want trouble with the police play along because that is the safer route. The costs to them of licence objections or of heavy handed police enforcement are too high. While the government explicitly rejected alcohol minimum pricing last year; the police are implementing it anyway, store by store.
Parliament last week had to legislate around some of these veto players. The 2012 Sale and Supply of Liquor Act provided special permits to let bars open at non-standard hours during international sporting events. The Committee Report was explicit that this was one of the points of special permits. But, the veto players have said that international rugby matches on their own do not justify a special licence. And police have objected to World Cup special license applications.
David Seymour's bill allowing extended hours during the Rugby World Cup is great. But there is a bigger issue at play: the government needs to rein in the police lest Parliament again have to legislate around the veto player it created.
How many divisions does 'intent' have?
I wonder whether the government oughtn't pull its health and safety legislation and try again.
Radio New Zealand reports on school principals' worries that they'll be subject to potentially large fines if kids are injured on school trips or on the playground.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse said schools would need to ensure 'so far as is reasonably practicable' the health and safety of staff, and that its work did not endanger other people such as students and visitors.
"Schools only need to do what is reasonably practicable and what is under their control. So if something goes wrong that is beyond the school's control, or if it has taken reasonably practicable steps to reduce the risk, it will not be held accountable."
Mr Woodhouse said the maximum fines were only imposed in extreme circumstances for the most serious offences where the duty holder had been reckless.
Principals Federation president Denise Torrey agrees teachers should be safe from punishment if they follow good procedures.
But she said the mere possibility of stiff penalties could have a chilling effect.
There can be a vast gulf between legislative intent and what winds up happening in practice: just look at the idiocy around Worksafe's implementation of procedures around scaffolding.
If a Worksafe pedant thinks you, the principal, haven't been quite diligent enough in setting and documenting procedures, you could be in the hook for unspecified bad stuff. The monetary fines would be part of it, but the damning of the school's management in the Worksafe report would be at least as bad.
Maybe if you fight it through the courts, you could get back to that you were compliant with the intent of the legislation and that it's Worksafe that's proven overzealous. But the damage would already be done. And so the natural risk-averse outcome among principals is to limit the risk by wrecking much of what makes New Zealand great: a generally free-range approach to kids.
I don't know why National imagines that this won't happen.
Well, maybe it's the long-game. If Labour wins in 2017, they'll get to fulminate in 2020 against the horrible Worksafe bureaucrats who, under Labour, wrecked the playgrounds and pushed us towards a nanny-state. And pretend that none of it was their own fault.
Also, any legislation resulting in secret evidence preventing defendants from seeing the evidence against them is absolutely absurd.
Isn't it better to hold things off for a few months and get this right?
Jason Brennan says Singer's standard requires too much.
Recall that, in Singer's thought experiment, if you'd be willing to ruin your $500 iPhone by jumping into a pool to save a drowning child, you should also be willing to spend $500 to save a child's life. Since there are plenty of charities in the third world that can save lives at fairly low cost, people are not consistent if they would do the former but do not do the latter.
But the central problem with Singer's thought experiment is that it is *not* analogous to the situation we find ourselves in. In Singer's drowning child thought experiment, I save one life at some personal expense, and then move on with my life. I don't remain in perpetual service to others.
You're walking alone one day, when you come across millions of drowning children. The children you save will for the most part remain saved, though some might fall back in. However, no matter how many you save, there will always be more about to drown. You can spend your entire waking life pulling children out of pools.
Singer's entire argument rests upon people's moral intuitions in the One Drowning Child. But One Drowning Child doesn't do the work he needs it to do, because One Drowning Child isn't analogous to the situation Singer thinks we actually find ourselves in. Instead, what Singer needs to do is determine what people's moral intuitions are in Many Drowning Children. Even if you judge you must save the one child in One Drowning Child, you might not judge that you must dedicate your life to, or even spend a huge amount of time on, saving children in Many Drowning Children.
Note that I am not claiming that Singer's conclusions are wrong, just that his argument for those conclusions doesn't succeed.
I'm reminded of a time I was walking our then four year old to daycare. We came upon an earthworm on the sidewalk. The rain had ended and the worm would likely die without intervention. We picked up the worm and put it onto the lawn. Then we turned the corner and saw several hundred worms on the sidewalk. She prepared to start picking them all up, and I instead brought her on to daycare. There are only so many hours in a day.
Peter Singer argues that not only do we have a moral duty to be organ donors, we should also consider incentives for donation.
One of the key contributors to low donation rates is the fact up to 50 per cent of families, when asked, say "no" to a donation request. In our view, despite the difficult emotional circumstances, this is a gross ethical failing. When the cost to a person of performing some moral action is small, and the benefit to others is great, there is a duty of easy rescue to provide that benefit. When you can save a life with a unit of blood, you have a moral obligation to give that unit. Donating organs after death is the easiest rescue of all, because there is no cost to giving organs in these circumstances. We don't need them, and they will otherwise be buried or cremated. Because a single donor can provide organs and tissue that benefit up to 10 other people, to choose not to donate is to allow those individuals to unnecessarily die or continue to suffer.
He recommends shifting to an opt-out system and allowing binding registries blocking family over-ride. But unless doctors also shift to then either not consulting with families or ignoring family objections, or unless doctors combine opt-out with fairly rigorous exhortation of donors' families to allow donation (as is the case in Spain), it won't do as much good as Singer and I might hope. There's also the risk that binding registries might do as much to block families from opting somebody in as they would to prevent families from opting you out.
Third, we should consider providing incentives to individuals and families to encourage them to donate. Last year, a group of leading medical specialists, bioethicists, religious leaders, economists and others sent an open letter to United States President Barack Obama suggesting that pilot programs should test whether regulated benefits to living donors – including financial incentives such as payments into their superannuation funds – would increase the supply of kidneys in ways that safeguard the rights and health of donors. For deceased donors, incentives could include financial contributions to funeral expenses – just as many universities offer free ceremonies and cremation for those who donate their bodies to medical research.
Incentive policies could also be non-financial. One promising idea is offering prioritisation in the receipt of organs for those who sign up as donors without the possibility of family veto. Israel adopted such an approach in 2012, but it also exists in Singapore and the US (for living donors). Such an approach can operate on a points-based system – awarding additional points to willing donors, while still taking account of other factors, such as time on the waiting list and medical need. If this approach worked to increase supply, then everyone who needs an organ – even those who choose not to sign up – may benefit. A rising tide can lift all boats.
Becker and Elias found that about $15,000 in compensation would provide the United States with as many live kidney donors as would be required to solve the shortage. And while results on Israel's priority system for cadaveric donation have been less than conclusive, giving live donors priority while providing them compensation seems to have increased donation rates.
Around the world, accidental entrepreneurs create hundreds of thousands of jobs and the necessary prosperity that fuels government coffers to pay for public health care and public education. But politicians of all stripes appear to love a different kind of entrepreneur – let's call them co-created entrepreneurs.
An accidental entrepreneur is someone who brings to bear a vision to change the world and possesses a rare combination of risk tolerance, charisma, empathy and demonstrable skills. My own anecdotal experience puts the average age of this special subset of entrepreneur at about 40, meaning that they have real-world experience and are motivated to solve real-world problems.
A "co-created" entrepreneur is someone, perhaps a taxpayer-funded post-doctoral student or academic, who is seduced into entrepreneurship by a government program, by a "centre of excellence funding grant" or by something entirely different – such as being unemployed. The great rolling global recession, about to hit Canada like a boxer's uppercut, will be a boon for start-ups. Some in the co-created group can enjoy great success, but any sober seed investor with experience would put all their chips on the accidental entrepreneur.
And yet, we are often told that risk must be underwritten by government or debt. A recent taxpayer-funded lottery commercial features a young gambler dreaming that she would start her own business if she won. Seriously? In Silicon Valley or Haifa or St. Louis (which is on overdrive with bootstrapped startups), that logic would seem bizarre.
Apple, Facebook, LinkedIn and Huffington Post – such companies always had the ambition to win market dominance in every region of the world, not just in Silicon Valley. By contrast, taxpayer-support programs for co-created entrepreneurs often have as one of their major goals an overtly political agenda – irrelevant to shareholders' interests – of "showcasing" the innovation brand of the host city or region.
Entrepreneurialism is about failure; ask any early-stage investor. But it's better to fail fast and, if you succeed, to scale quickly. And you are vastly more likely to succeed without top-down government support. It's not just me saying this – it's every objective economic analysis from every part of the world. If you asked entrepreneurs, they would tell you the same thing. Yet in Canada, few soi-disant taxpayer-funded experts talk to real entrepreneurs.
Josh Lerner, author of Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed – and What to Do About It, has decimated the idea that there is any evidence to suggest direct government aid can help entrepreneurs. From Dubai to Jamaica to Taiwan to Singapore to the United States, the co-created entrepreneur model has flopped. You just don't find accidental entrepreneurs in government-funded policy slush.
Many reports on entrepreneurialism are stacked with insights from professional executives, academics and venture capitalists – entrepreneurs themselves are conspicuously not leading the discussion. Publicly funded academics figure prominently.
All of this white-papering is well intentioned. But it cartoons innovation and assumes, wrongly, that entrepreneurialism needs to be "nurtured" with the help of public money and policy advisers. For the taxpayer's sake, let us please rid ourselves of this cognitive bias.
I keep being reminded of one difference between Canada and New Zealand: the culture of permissionless innovation. In New Zealand, a whole ton of microbreweries and some distilleries started in somebody's garage. After the brewer found that there was a market for the product, he or she could scale up. Canada's state monopoly buyers and licencing regimes, at least in some provinces, make that awfully hard (though it has gotten a bit better in Manitoba).
Let's hope New Zealand doesn't get too far down the track of incubators and accelerators and instead keeps a sharp eye on the system of permissionless innovation that lets entrepreneurs get ahead. It's too easy for the tangle of regulations to stymie it.
Well before all the recent controversies over replicability, DeLong and Lang wondered whether file-drawer effects mightn't mean that all economic hypotheses were, in fact, false. If statistically insignificant empirical results get filed away rather than published, it's hard to tell which hypotheses really are supported in the literature. Meta-analyses have gotten better since then, and funnel plots can help indicate whether file drawer effects have been important.
All previous times the Hare beat the Tortoise, nobody wrote a fable about it.
In order to hold a show ballet schools are supposed to get a licence. Many schools fail to do this. In my bid to get a licence for Frozen I had to apply to Disney. I am very disappointed that they denied access to the music for this event. For this reason I have had to seek alternative ideas and music choices (quite disappointing given this is non-profit and promotes their works).
Young Eleanor will be very disappointed. For unfathomable 5-year-old-girl reasons, she is a fan of Elsa.
But there is hope: when she was a bit bored at the barre a couple of lessons ago, she unscrewed the fastener holding the barre to the wall and handed her mother a handful of liberated screws.
If income inequality is bad, in part, because those on lower incomes feel bad about their absolute levels of income when others are doing better, what is appropriate policy on this one?
As always, which inequalities matter for policy is at least as interesting as the stats on any particular margin.
Economic Management was the work of many. It was the pooled work of many divisions, only two of which were economic divisions. My input related to areas that involved Economics I division, which was where I was the time. The central figure was Dr Graham Scott. He led and coordinated its production, oversaw its contents and structure and wrote some of the major sections himself. Murray Horn helped Graham pull it together. Graham reported to Jas McKenzie who was also a major intellectual force. Roger Kerr's role was seminal as head of Economics II division. But his team contained very impressive people pulling their weight. All in all it was an incredible team effort, having to be written in a few weeks because of the snap election, when public policy settings were unsustainable.
Economics II at the time was staffed by some excellent young economists, but the only one that I can think of who had a recent US university education at the time was Rob Cameron. He studied at Harvard's Kennedy School as I recall. (He was on a Harkness Fellowship). The Kennedy School was not Milton Friedman's Chicago.
Rod Deane was never a member of Treasury's "Think Tank". He was in the Reserve Bank.
There was no special adviser called Doug "Anthony". Perhaps you meant Doug Andrew.
Economic Management was not a monetarist document. If anything it reflected a Harvard/Yale view rather than a Chicago view. For example, it did not advocate target growth rates for M2, or any other monetary or credit aggregate.
The foreign exchange crisis in 1984 was real. The outflow of cash in that last few months of Sir Robert Muldoon's administration was such that the Reserve Bank did not have the reserves left to defend the currency on the Monday after the election on any prudent projection of the likely demand. This was no figment of anyone's imagination. The notion you try to convey through double quotes of a contrived conspiracy theory is spin that is detached from this reality.
Where am I reported as saying that "racist attitudes and red tape were making New Zealand one of the most restrictive regimes in the world"? New Zealand does have one of the most restrictive regimes (involving red tape) on the OECD's measure. (See chapter 3 of The New Zealand Initiative's 2013 report Capital Doldrums summarises international rankings of NZ's FDI regime, in particular chart 7 on page 25.) Fear of foreign influence does not have to be primarily racist. I made this clear in some of my interviews, but I don't know to what extent those components were broadcast. For the record, I don't think racism is a major factor behind NZ's regime. I doubt if it is even a material factor. Who in NZ would feel racist towards Australians, for example?
No changes to ISP liability on copyright infringement.
Ending parallel import would have been close to a deal-breaker for me, so glad to see that's off the table.
Imagine campaigning, in New Zealand, for the adoption of Finnish regulations on foreign direct investment into New Zealand. Everybody loves Finland - especially on the left. Or for regulations matching those in the Netherlands. Or Denmark. Heck, or even France. Stay away from any specifics about what the changes would mean - just point to how nice the Scandanavian countries are and let mood affiliation take care of the rest.
It would be a massive deregulation and liberalisation, but you wouldn't have to say that part too loudly. Via IRPP, here's how a few countries compare. New Zealand is 7th most restrictive on this measure. Only China, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Jordan, and India are worse.
I'm rather sure that Bryce was Canterbury trained: one of the Gnomes.
I cannot imagine having been willing to move to New Zealand had Bryce and his 80s colleagues not achieved the changes they then made. I'm very proud to have him as a colleague.
NZ First MP Tracey Martin has claimed Curwen Rolinson is in breach of the Harmful Digital Communications Act, passed in July. In a blog post, Rolinson, former leader of the NZ First youth wing, accused Martin of undermining party MP Andrew Williams.
Speaking at the University of Otago last week, Martin suggested that Rolinson was in breach of the law as a result of a blog post written on 6 July, four days after the Act was officially made into law.
"I've been working on the Harmful Digital Communications bill and what Curwen [Rolinson] did, what Whaleoil [blogger Cameron Slater] does, that's harmful digital communications," said Martin.
Rolinson made accusations last month in a post written on blogging site The Daily Blog. The former youth leader claimed that Martin spread rumours about NZ First MP Andrew Williams in an attempt marginalise him. According to Rolinson, Williams had been flagged as a likely candidate for the deputy leadership role following the 2011 election.
"Martin was lobbying hard for the position of deputy. It was not so much about what she could offer. It was about Williams' alleged unsuitability for the role. He was called a sexist. A bully. An alcoholic. Rumours were spread throughout the party that Williams had attempted to initiate a physical altercation with Winston [Peters]," wrote Rolinson.
Martin was appointed the deputy leader of NZ First in 2011.
The blog goes on to suggest that Martin colluded with her mother, Anne Martin, when she was the party president in order to remove Andrew Williams from the party list.
I am not a lawyer, but if the allegations are not truthful, and they were published, then it would seem that defamation would have applied.
One wonders whether the point of the Bill, in the view of some MPs, was to silence critics.
The discussion documents on GST on services seem far less crazy than they could have. But there is one huge potential fishhook.
On the good side, the government at least is indicating a bit of realism about the likelihood of getting foreign suppliers to act as tax collection agents for the New Zealand government. That's why they're soliciting comments about a threshold: suppliers doing less than some amount of trade in services with New Zealand customers wouldn't need to collect tax. It looks like they're intending on hitting the larger ones that might find the fixed costs to be manageable.
But there's one huge potential fishhook. Paragraphs 7.14-7.16 lay out what can happen for consumers who try to pretend that they're business customers to get an ex-GST price. Businesses buying intermediate services from abroad would just claim the GST back anyway when charging it on the final sale here. People pretending to be GST-registered businesses are engaging in tax evasion and should have the usual tax-evasion stuff happen.
It's the other category that could pose the problem. Customers could pretend to be resident elsewhere to avoid GST. When I'd first read this, I thought about, say, somebody hiring a kitchen design expert from abroad for some expensive home renovation while pretending to be based elsewhere. That would pretty clearly be tax evasion. Paragraph 7.15 talks about people supplying incorrect information to avoid being charged GST; this seemed the natural kind of read.
But Ben Craven points out that IRD could choose to interpret this as also including folks using VPNs to access foreign content. If IRD thinks you're doing that to avoid GST, rather than to get three times the content, then the tax people could shut down parallel importation of digital content in ways that rights-holders here have thus far mostly been unable to do.
And if that's the case, it might time for pitchforks and torches.
Salient's Emma Hurley asked me for comment on the economics of prison labour. Victoria University contracts with one of the prisons for laundry services, and the prisoners are not there paid very much. She asked me whether that's acceptable and whether it has negative effects on the rest of the economy.
Her story is here. She didn't wind up having room for my comments, but here's what I'd told her.
I'm afraid I don't have any clear-cut answers for you, only trade-offs.
Working while in prison can be an important part of prisoner rehabilitation. Getting work experience, having to meet set hours, and getting a supervisor's attestation of the worker's ability are all really important in helping somebody make the transition into work from criminal activity – and that's not an easy ask, where a lot of employers are really scared of hiring a former criminal.
The problem then is whether the prisoner's labour is really worth the minimum wage. A lot of criminals were not in paid employment prior to incarceration. I do not have New Zealand data to hand, but I know that when I'd looked at some Australian statistics a few years ago, at least in one state, somewhere around 90% of those in prison were not in paid employment in the month before they were tried. Those coming from a criminal background tend not to have characteristics that employers find desirable. You would have a very difficult time in getting anyone to hire prisoners at the minimum wage, and you would then lose out all of the rehabilitation benefits that come from being in employment.
Finally, you never ever want prisoner labour to be a profit centre for prisons. There's a really bad history with that kind of thing in some parts of the US: under the convict lease system in American post-civil-war reconstruction, prisons would lease out convict labour and pocket the gains; they then had very strong incentive to have a lot of people in prison. If a low wage paid to prisoners is a way of providing profits to either public or privately run prisons, rather than a way of ensuring the broadest range of prisoners are able to benefit from employment, then that can be pretty undesirable.
So we're then firmly into trade-off territory. The higher the wage that prisoners make, the fewer of them that will gain benefits from work experience. Worse, the ones most in need of it will be the first ones shut-out. If the wage is very low and that results in prisons being able to earn strong profits from leasing out prison labour, that provides pretty bad incentives for the government: keeping people in jail should not be a profit-centre for the government. But if the wage is low because prison labour is not particularly productive and because the proceeds from the contracts run by the prisons are used for job training and skills enhancement for those in prison-based employment, that's entirely different. I just do not know enough about the prisons' financial statements to be able to make any calls there.
Where prison labour makes up only a small fraction of the overall labour market, I do not expect it could have any large negative effects elsewhere in the economy. If prison contractors are the most effective way of providing things like laundry services, that could have less to do with labour costs and more to do with that they would already have huge boilers and wash facilities for their own needs that they could also put to contract work – again, I do not know, but it is likely to matter and oughtn't be ignored. Private laundries would then be a bit smaller than otherwise and people who would have been employed in private laundry services would be employed elsewhere instead.
It's probably best to think of the problem in two parts. The first part of it is sorting out the best rehabilitation set-up for prisoners, which can involve prison labour. Set the wage rates in prison to make sure that the prisons provide rehabilitation most effectively – and while watching that prisons are not using prison labour as strong profit centre. If that is all set correctly, then we can come to the second part. You can really think of prison labour in that case as being little different from trade with a foreign country with different cost structures. It will affect what work is done in the non-prison-sector in New Zealand, but should not affect the total quantity of work. When Vic can save a bit of money on laundry, they'll spend it elsewhere, or students will be charged a bit less than otherwise, or the government will have to give a bit less money to Vic. All of those have positive employment consequences elsewhere in the economy that are not as visible as whatever effects obtain on the laundry industry, but are every bit as real.
I did a bit of consulting work for the Hospitality Association last year around bar closing times and attended some of the hearings in Nelson about the Tasman closing hours. A lot of publicans there made the case that while they very rarely used the long hours they were allowed, it was really valuable to them. Why? Because when an important sporting match is on half-way around the world, they want to be able to air it for their patrons.
There is provision in local alcohol policies for seeking special licences for special events. But, the cops there, if I recall correctly, in their evidence were pretty clear that they did not consider airing a rugby game to be a special event. There'd have to be more to it than that. And, on the publicans' side, the impression was that the police were ridiculously heavy handed around granting permits and enforcing them. Further, the local licensing officer admitted that he'd never had any problems with the bars' existing closing times.
And so Parliament has had to legislate around the cops. We now have national legislation in the works specifying, at a national level, when local alcohol policies' bar closing times are suspended for major sporting events. National wants it only to be for All Blacks' events; Labour wants it to be for all sporting events.
But none of it would be necessary if the police and medical officers of health were less obstreperous about bar licencing. From the chats I've since had with publicans, and from the news stories about police imposing conditions on new off-licences, the cops and medical officers of health are using their power to object to licences to enact, through regulation, the stuff they couldn't achieve when they lobbied to have it included in local alcohol policies or national level legislation: things like minimum alcohol pricing and restrictive hours.
Terry Moe pointed out in the American public choice literature that the President's veto power grants him some legislative power: if he can threaten to veto legislation that's too far from his preference, he can shift the nature of the legislation that faces him. The same thing seems to be going on with the police, medical officers of health, and alcohol policy.
National legislation around bar closing times for special events treats a symptom of a bigger problem. More substantial fixes may be needed. Either somebody has to challenge the cops on this stuff through the courts, which is really expensive for a small bar or bottleshop, or Parliament needs to make a bigger shift.
I wonder what would happen if District Councils received, say, 10% of the alcohol excise from alcohol sold in their districts. Excise is meant to internalise the external costs imposed from harmful alcohol use. Some of that will be the costs of heavy drinking on the public health system; some of it will be policing costs. But some of it is just nuisance that local councils have to deal with and for which they are not at all compensated. That councils then are a bit ambivalent about local nightlife and pretty happy to let the cops dictate alcohol policy is not all that surprising. Shift the incentives, change the game.
Congrats to David Seymour for getting the current fix up to Parliament. But we might need something a bit bigger yet.
In response to concerns around champagne breakfasts and international sporting events outside the maximum hours, we recommend amending the Bill to permit special licences outside the maximum hours. Special licences may only be issued for a particular event or series of events, and should therefore permit such occasions without creating a way for licensees to remain open outside maximum hours on a business-as-usual basis.
Hat-tip to Graeme Edgeler, over in the NBR's comments section.
If there's any low-hanging fruit in quake-strengthening, it's unreinforced masonry facades, parapets, and chimneys. They tend to fall outwards from buildings onto passers by. Tieing them back can be pretty cheap relative to other earthquake strengthening. And, there's a much stronger market failure case for addressing parts of buildings that will fall on top of passers-by than those that will fall onto the building's owner or tenants.
The owner of the building next to the one that fell on her bus had strapped its façade and parapet: "His building hurt no one," Ms Brower says.
But the owner of the three adjoining addresses hadn't been required to do the same after the September 2010 quake and so hadn't done so.
It's worth making sure that our heritage regulations are not making this kind of strengthening work impracticable.


The 5th guest speaker of the seminar and discussion series is Dr. Jarrett Byrnes, Assistant Professor of Biology at UMass Boston. Dr. Byrnes will present "Diversity is the Spice of Life in Coastal Ecosystems".
Dr. Jarrett Byrnes is an Assistant Professor of Biology at UMass Boston. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of the richness of life in the oceans. Jarrett has a long history in marine ecology in New England, having started his career working at marine labs in Nahant and the Isles of Shoals as an undergraduate. He went on to complete a PhD at the University of California, Davis, in Population Biology studying the communities of organisms that foul boat hulls and live on docks and pier pilling throughout the world. He then worked in Santa Barbara studying giant kelp forests and working in science crowd funding. He has been back in Boston for two years, and has a growing research program examine how the diversity of life shapes the function of New England Salt Marshes.


A compendium of Barbara Hale magazine articles, photographs and memorabilia.
For many years, I resisted the siren call of eBay. Then, in 2003, my desire to learn more about Barbara Hale overcame that resistance. I am now a certified eBay fanatic. This site was created to share some of the material I found on eBay with other fans. I hope you enjoy it! If you wish to use any of this material in your own website, please feel free to do so. Attribution and a link here would be appreciated.
Visit the Barbara Hale Home Page for more information about Ms. Hale.


Inhalants are solvents, aerosol sprays, gases and nitrates that people inhale through their mouth or nose to get high. These deadly substances are found in almost every home in the world. There are over 1,000 household and other common products that people inhale to get high. Some of the more popular inhalants are gasoline, spray paint, shoe polish, glue, nail polish remover, lighter fluid, white out, toluene, nitrous oxide, amyl nitrite, lacquer thinner, cleaning fluid or paint solvents. "Whippets" and "poppers" are popular inhalants that are sold at dance clubs.
Users inhale the fumes from rags that are soaked in chemicals which is known as "huffing" or they inhale the vapors directly from an open container which is known as "sniffing". Some users even spray some of these substances directly into their nose or mouth. "Bagging" is another way that users breath in the fumes. This is when chemicals are inhaled from inside a paper or plastic bag. This is known to increase the chances of suffocation. Users have also been known to put inhalants on their sleeves or collar and sniff them during a period of time.
These toxic chemicals are absorbed through the lungs and into the bloodstream which quickly reach the brain and produce effects that are similar to anesthetics. They slow down the body's functions and can cause irreversible physical and mental damage.
A user experiences intoxication just seconds after inhaling these toxic vapors. They produce a variety of effects that may only last a few minutes, leading users to repeatedly inhale these substances. Some of the desired effects that users may be trying to achieve are hallucinations, euphoria, excitement, exhilaration, a head rush or a loss of inhibitions.
Some of the unwanted effects that users may experience are coma, blackouts, slurred speech, bloody nose, convulsions, vomiting, depression or suicidal thoughts.
Extended use of inhalants may cause a person to experience weight loss, memory loss, hostility, brain degeneration, heart damage or addiction and a progression to use other addictive substances.
Using inhalants even just one time can cause serious health consequences or even death. Inhalant abuse can cause many different health problems and irreparable damage to the brain, nervous system, eyes, heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, bone marrow and other organs.
Prolonged use can damage parts of the brain that are involved in controlling movement, cognition, vision and hearing. Users can experience blindness or loss of hearing. Muscles can also waste away making a person weak.
There are several ways that death can occur from inhalant abuse. Death can occur from asphyxiation, suffocation, convulsions or seizures, coma, choking or fatal injury.
Asphyxiation occurs from fumes depriving the lungs from oxygen.
Suffocation occurs when air is blocked from entering the lungs because a plastic bag is placed over the head.
Convulsions or seizures are from abnormal electrical discharges in the brain.
Coma is when the brain shuts down.
Choking can occur from inhaling vomit.
Fatal injury can happen from an accident brought on by intoxication.
Users can become psychologically and physically addicted to inhalants. The effects only last minutes which can lead users to use over and over again over the course of several hours to stay high. This can create a psychological dependence which can then lead to a physical dependence. A person may experience cravings and withdrawal symptoms when trying to quit. This can drive a person to start using again.
Some of the signs and symptoms of inhalant abuse can be obvious especially if they're leaving behind empty cans or bags and rags that smell of solvents. You may even see paint or other stains on their face or smell chemical odors on their breath. Their clothes may even reek of toxic fumes.
The appearance of a person who has been using inhalants will have a drunken look and his or her speech will be slurred. They may appear drunk or disoriented.
If you suspect that a loved one has been using inhalants or any other drugs, seek help immediately. Addictions to any drugs never get better without the proper help. It only gets worse and can lead to many problems and heartache for the addict and the people around him or her. It can also put the addict's health at risk and other people's lives in danger.
If you're not sure about how to approach the situation, call a Narconon Fresh Start counselor today at 855-734-2223. We offer free consultation services that can help save your loved one's life.
Ask about our drug detoxification and life skills portion of the program. Our drug detoxification program helps to remove drug residuals from the body that drive cravings. The life skills portion of the program teaches individuals how to take control of their life and stay drug-free. These are both very important factors in helping individuals to succeed and get on on with their life without turning back to drugs. Call and get help today.


text:
Q: Django - ajax_select widget I'm trying to replace a SelectMultiple default widget by the ajax_select one.
I followed the installation guide, here are my files:
settings.py
AJAX_LOOKUP_CHANNELS = {
    'dubberword' : dict(model='content.DubberWord', search_field='name'),
}

INSTALLED_APPS = (
# ...
    'ajax_select',
# ...
)

urls.py
urlpatterns = patterns('',
# ...
  (r'^ajax_select/', include('ajax_select.urls')),
# ...
)

models.py
class DubberWord(models.Model):
  name = models.CharField(max_length=50, unique=True)
  image = models.ImageField(upload_to='images/', blank=True, null=True)

  def __unicode__(self):
    return self.name

class Dubber(models.Model):
  name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
  words = models.ManyToManyField(DubberWord, verbose_name='Items')

  def __unicode__(self):
    return self.name

admin.py
from ajax_select import make_ajax_form

class DubberAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    form = make_ajax_form(Dubber, dict(words='dubberword'))

admin.site.register(Dubber,DubberAdmin)

And trying to load the admin page for a Dubber object, I get this message

Caught TemplateDoesNotExist while rendering:
  autocompleteselectmultiple_dubberword.html,
  autocompleteselectmultiple.html

A: I used grappelli for the admin interface.
It supplies Autocomplete Lookups.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
V.Varen Nagasaki
Prefecture Nagasaki
Stadium/Arena Transcosmos Stadium Nagasaki
V.Varen Nagasaki competes in the J-League, J2 division.
V. Farren Nagasaki fought in the J1 promotion playoffs in 2013 and 2015, but failed to win. Their long-held dream of promotion to J1 came true in 2017, when they finished second in the J2 season, within the automatic promotion zone, and were promoted to J1 for the 2018 season. However, they were relegated again after one year. In 2020, they were in the promotion zone at one point, but in the end, they could only finish third and could not be promoted.
A new stadium is currently under construction and is scheduled for completion in 2024.
Team: V.Varen Nagasaki
City: Nagasaki City, Nagasaki
The "V" in "V. Varen" stands for VITORIA, which means victory in Portuguese, and VREDE, which means peace in Dutch, and "VAREN" means "voyage" in Dutch.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Kitguru is giving away two Intel Ivy Bridge based systems, you can participate over here.
OK. This is getting serious! When we first announced that KitGuru was working with Asus and its partners to deliver a stunning overclocking competition – we had yet to confirm the prizes. All that has changed. Prepare yourself for a strong dose of Wowzer, plenty of Bonza and a few mega LOLs!


The community powered SheepIt renderfarm just reached a milestone. Have you tried it yet?
SheepIt renderfarm is proud to celebrate its 5,000,000th rendered frame!
SheepIt renderfarm is a community based render farm for Blender, where users help each other to render projects. It started 12 years ago as a personal project with 5 computers. Today, 150 machines, in average, are rendering, with spikes to 240.
Everything is FREE. You will never pay to get the end result.
Everyone can take part in the farm. You don't even need to have Blender installed to help other users.
The more you compute, the more credits you get. The more credits you have, the faster your frames are rendered.
You can render either a single picture or a full animation.
Every frame can be split into up to 64 tiles to be rendered simultaneously on 64 computers.
Every Blender version since 2.65 are supported. Blender 2.75 support has been added the same day as official release day.
SheepIt is growing fast. It recently took less than 2 months to render 1,000,000 frames. It took 4 months last year to render the same amount of frames. From the beginning, users have rendered the equivalent of more than 61 years of computing time altogether.
A substantial part of SheepIt's users are coming from BlenderNation ; that's why SheepIt wants to thank you all. Also, new users from the BlenderNation community will be given 1.000 credits that can be used directly to render their jobs.
Bart, the second link, which is suppose to point to the 5 millions frames, actually link to the 4 million frames.
Thank you. And congratulations to sheepit for over 5 millions rendered frames. Another great community.
Let's support this vvvery collaborative initiative.


I've been reading College Fashion for years now and loving it. I am a woman [with] a disability, which means I cannot wear heels or shoes with little support, like ballet flats. Which was easy in college when I rocked my sneakers and casual boots. Now, however, I'm starting a job in government administration and I need to dress formally. I don't wanna look like an old lady, but also don't wanna make my illness worse by wearing bad shoes for me.
Shopping for cute shoes that are also work-appropriate can be really difficult, especially when it seems like many, if not most, comfort shoe brands make shoes that are clunky, and, let's face it, often downright hideous to look at.
This becomes even more apparent if you're on a budget, as I learned while putting together the outfits for this article. Presumably, making shoes that are good for your feet costs more than making pretty but not-that-comfortable shoes, which therefore causes the overall cost of the shoes for the consumer to go up.
However, the good news is that I was able to find quite a few pairs of fashion-forward and (relatively) reasonably priced shoes online by brands such as Clarks, A2 by Aerosoles, Softwalk, and Naturalizer, all of which are featured in the outfits below; other good brands to check out include Dr. Scholls, CC Corso Como, and Söfft.
So, without further ado, let's get to the outfits, all of which feature a pair of fashionable and functional shoes, along with advice on what to wear them with for work!
This easy-to-copy look is perfect if your style is feminine and a little bit quirky, and you want to look professional without going for "typical" workwear attire.
First, put on a super-cute printed dress with a fun Peter Pan collar. Next, add a cardigan in a bright color to create contrast; personally, I think that this punchy bright red looks amazing when paired with darker blue tones, but other colors, such as fuchsia, yellow, or kelly green would also work well.
Small gold hoops with dangling hearts make for a sweet touch, while a beautiful cuff bracelet with various colored stones is a great way to add even more pops of color to your look without going overboard.
As for bags, you can't go wrong with a classic cross-body saddle style, while a pair of stylish silver penny loafers by comfort brand Clarks not only provides more support than your typical ballet flats, but also acts as a sort of "pseudo-neutral" that ties the whole look together.
In your letter, you mention that you like wearing boots on casual occasions, so I decided to find a pair that could either be dressed up or down, depending on how they are styled.
These cool ankle boots by A2 by Aerosoles fit the bill perfectly; I especially like the diagonal gold zipper, which subtly adds a bit of edge to any look.
Here, I've chosen to pair them with a simple, girly outfit; to get it, tuck a classy blue tie-neck blouse into a black wool skirt with a pretty ruffle detail.
A pair of opaque black tights streamlines the look (and keeps you warm in colder temperatures!), while a pale pink chain-strap bag is a timeless way to carry your essentials for work.
Finally, pink cluster stud earrings and an oversized heart ring with multi-colored stones are both great ways to add an element of fun to this understated ensemble.
This menswear-inspired ensemble features subtle details–including three separate prints–that make it stand out from the crowd–most notably these awesome SoftWalk oxfords, which feature a platform–a much more comfortable option than a heel!
Since the color of the shoes is so bright, I've decided to go with a more subtle neutral color palette for the rest of the outfit.
To get it, begin by pairing a gray-and-white polka dot sweater with herringbone pants that have an ultra-modern uneven waist detail; be sure to tuck in the sweater to show it off!
Next, accessorize with a simple black satchel, as well as a pair of trendy tortoise-pattern resin hoop earrings, a dainty open pavé ring, and a delicate bracelet.
Finally, lace up the oxfords to finish off this chic, work-ready look!
For the final outfit, I decided to put a twist on the classic "blazer + blouse + black pants" work look by making some subtle changes, as well as by adding some modern accessories into the mix.
The first change I made to this outfit formula was swapping a typical button-up blouse for a more feminine denim puff-sleeve top, as well as pairing the black pants with a blazer in a different color–in this case, beige–to create a bit more visual interest.
An of-the-moment leopard-patterned belt breaks up the neutral tones of the outfit, while these loafers by comfort brand Naturalizer–which feature a gorgeous floral pattern–also make this look pop.
As for accessories, I decided to go with some delicate pearl open huggie hoop earrings, as well as an adorable heart cuff bracelet, and a yellow statement necklace for extra sparkle.
Finally, I added a cool croc-embossed circular bag to round out (ha) this classy ensemble.
I hope that these looks have provided you with inspiration for picking out and styling comfortable-yet-fashionable shoes. Thanks for your question!
Do you have any more advice for styling comfortable shoes in a stylish, work-appropriate way? Do you have any more brand recommendations for comfortable shoes? Which of these outfits do you like best?


Boston apartments are highly regarded for the comfort and convenience they offer. With the prestige enjoyed by the city, the apartments are created to match this in every regard. Being home to numerous industries the apartments offer home to millions of residents. The city also boasts of a rich culture that has enhanced among other modern developments in housing.
One key consideration in seeking for an apartment is safety and this is well catered for in Boston apartments. Measures to ensure this is well catered for include observation of strict building guidelines in the construction process as per the requirements of the authorities. Safety of the residents is further enhanced by having security features installed in every apartment and this makes surveillance and security management much easier.
There is a huge population living in the city of Boston. Authorities have ensured there is an effective transport network to cater for the population with convenience. Apartments in the city are planned with the consideration for convenience and offer an environment that is easy to navigate at all times. This is intended to ensure the residents get to their desired locations such as jobs or learning institutions with ease. Adequate access roads are available to ensure there is access to the available apartments and therefore ease movement among the residents.
Comfort is a requirement in every home. Boston apartments are available in varying sizes and designs to cater for the wide interests of residents in matters of comfort. Further to this, the construction process ensures adequate space is created to fit the applications required to make the residents comfortable. By having adequate space residents get an opportunity to make installations and arrangements that enhance the comfort of the people living within. Agents offering assistance in search of apartments ensure there is a wide variety of choices from which potential residents can make a reliable choice n this respect.
A home is considered among the basic requirement for human beings. Individual means and preferences however dictate the choice of the home to live in and apartments offer a wide choice to choose from to meet these considerations. To have the fitting choice in this regard, there is need to seek for assistance in the process. Assistance I this regard may be sourced from numerous sources with Boston real estate agents leading in the list.


The High Court has summoned all the investigating officers (IOs) of 56 graft cases filed over BASIC Bank's Tk 35 billion loan scam as they failed to complete the investigation in two and a half years. It asked IOs to appear in court on June 30 with investigation documents.
Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Shahidul Karim summoned the investigators on Wednesday when it was hearing the bail appeals from some of the accused, reports bdnews24.
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told newsmen that the court was hearing the bail appeals of BASIC Bank ex-DMD Fazlus Sobhan, former DGM Shipar Ahmed and others.
The court ordered the investigation officers of all the cases, including ACC director Syed Iqbal Hossain, to appear in court.
The ACC filed 56 cases with three police stations in the capital accusing more than 100 individuals, including 26 bank officials, in September of 2015 while the commission filed another five cases last year, according to a UNB report.
On July 14, 2014, the central bank sent a report to the ACC about the detail of embezzlement and found the bank's former chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu's illegal influence in all the activities of the bank.


Graphics just click save button to save the pics to your laptop. These are available for save, if you'd rather and wish to take it, just click save symbol on the web page, and it'll be instantly downloaded to your laptop computer.
Graphics I hope you might want it. This specific impression previously mentioned is actually classed with.


Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is one the most common hormone problems in women of reproductive age as well as one of the most common causes for female infertility. While infertility caused by PCOS is often amenable to treatment, women with PCOS often have more complicated pregnancies, including problems such as gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. One of the common threads with these issues is their association with inflammation. It turns out there may now be a link explaining why PCOS patients have more complications. A recent study shows that markers of inflammation are higher in PCOS women and become even worse when these women get pregnant. It could be that inflammation is the common link between in PCOS and a number of pregnancy complications.


One day a beggar went to see a Sufi fakir and found him seated on velvet cushion inside a beautiful tent with it's ropes tied to golden pegs in the ground. Seeing all this the beggar cried:What is all this! I have heard so much about you and your spirituality and non-attachment but I am completely disillusioned by all this ostentation around you. The fakir laughed and immediately jumped up and said Let's go and walked off with the beggar not even waiting to put on his sandals. After a while the beggar was distressed. "I left my begging bowl in your tent. What shall I do without it? Please wait while I go back and fetch it." The Sufi roared in laughter. My friend said he," the gold pegs of my tent were stuck in the earth, not in my heart; but your begging bowl is still chasing you."
There is no way to push him here and there, you cannot manipulate him; he remains there, utterly himself, so centred is he, so rooted is he, in his being. When one has known the fourth, turiya, then there is no distraction then one can live anywhere.
Once it happened in the days of Buddha that a beautiful prostitute fell in deep love with a Buddhist monk who had gone to beg. The woman had seen many beautiful people � she was one of the most famous prostitutes of those days � even kings used to queue at her door, and she fell in love with a monk, with a bikku, a beggar.
Sannyasins have a beauty that only Sannyasins can have; that a beauty when one walks by himself that grace � the grace of the centred one � dignity, the elegance. Just visualize the monk walking. And Buddhist monks their whole teaching consists of one thing; Be alert; be watchful. Not even a single breath has to pass your nostrils without your being aware of it.
So, absolutely watchful, meditative, he must have passed by the woman. She had seen many beautiful people, but never a man who walked by himself like this � and in the market-place, and in the whole noise, so silently as if the market did not exist. She immediately fell in love with the man. She touched his feet and asked him to come to her home and stay for this rainy season, for four months. Buddhist monks stop moving for four months. Buddhist monks stop moving for four months in the rainy season. The rains were just about to come, and the clouds were gathering, and it was time for them to stay and find shelter for four months.
Now, this was too much; never had it been done before, there was no precedent. All were angry, and for four months thousands of gossips went around exaggerating what was happening there. Everybody was interested, and many rumours were coming that the monk was no more a monk, that he had fallen.
She became a disciple of Buddha. She became a nun.


Heading to university is exciting. Finding the right place to live will get you off to a good start. There are lots of options for you, both on and off campus so you can find a place that's ideal for every stage of your studies.
In halls you'll meet your fellow students, make friends and get into university life. There's a variety of accommodation available to suit a range of preferences and budgets - from the historic Founder's Building, to our newest accommodation, the George Eliot townhouses.
Enjoy freshly-prepared meals from your dining hall. Every halls also has a fridge and microwave for snacks and drinks.
Prefer to cook for yourself? These halls have shared kitchens where you can make your own meals.
Staying in halls will keep you connected to wider university life, while helping you make friends with students at a similar stage of study.
There's a variety of accommodation available, depending on your budget and preference.
Click on the links below to find out more information about our accommodation.
Find out about the contract dates and fees for each Hall band.
Royal Holloway has access to small number of rooms in intercollegiate halls of residence in central London that is available to postgraduate students only.
accommodation or arrange your own rental accommodation.
book your room at the Royal Holloway International Study Centre.


Are you looking for a fresh perspective and strategy that will advance the optimization of your current website? Would you like to capture untapped potential through your practice's social media efforts? Is there opportunity to elevate your practice brand? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you're in luck! By leveraging analytical data collected from our member's websites over the years, our team of digital experts will enhance your website presence and user experience.
Our team will develop an online search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that is effective and results-driven to increase your practice's patient flow and improve conversion.
There is no doubt that once we get patients into your dental practice, you provide them with a patient experience and care above and beyond market competition. How are you showcasing your exceptional level of patient care to prospective patients before they reach your parking lot?


text:
Currawong Creek by Bestseller @JenScoullar is a Snuggle Up Readathon Pick #romance #womensfiction #g
Title: Currawong Creek
Author: Jennifer Scoullar
Genre: Contemporary Romance/Women's Fiction
Finalist in the RWA Romantic Book of the Year Award.
Call it intuition, call it magic – call it love. Something is calling Clare home.
Brisbane lawyer Clare Mitchell leads a structured, orderly life. That is, until she finds herself the unlikely guardian of a small, troubled boy. In desperation, Clare takes Jack to stay at Currawong Creek, her grandfather's horse stud in the foothills of the beautiful Bunya Mountains.
Here life moves at a different pace, and for Clare it feels like coming home. Her granddad adores having them there, Jack loves the animals, and Clare finds herself falling hard for the handsome local vet.
But trouble is coming. The Pyramid Mining Company threatens to destroy the land Clare loves – and with it, her newfound happiness.
Friday morning. Clare finished the interview and sized up her client. Too thin, junky thin. Red eyes, more than a hint of the shakes and she couldn't stop sniffing.
'I advise you to plead guilty,' said Clare. 'We'll present a plea in mitigation and ask for a bond or a community-based order. It will be better all round.' This week she'd seen too many cases just like this one. The young woman was going to make a bad impression on the court without even opening her mouth.
'Can we nick out for a smoke?'
The boyfriend was already out the door, and the girl wasn't far behind. Clare started making notes on the file, then looked up. The little boy was still sitting there. Clare walked to the door and called after the two figures retreating down the hall. 'Haven't you forgotten something?'
The boy regarded her with solemn eyes, peeking from beneath cartoon-perfect lashes. An uncommonly pretty child despite his snotty nose and soiled, shabby clothes.
'Mummy and Daddy will be back soon.' Clare's voice was bright and encouraging, but the boy's expression didn't change.
'Daddy's dead,' he said in a small voice. His bottom lip began to quiver.
Oh. Tiredness and guilt washed over her, along with a feeling that she couldn't name. A vague dissatisfaction that had troubled her all week, each time she'd looked out of her narrow window to the view of the stunted coolabah tree, and beyond it, the barren car park. A missing. Or perhaps a wishing for something indefinable Clare averted her gaze both from the tree and the boy and rifled through the files on the desk. What on earth was his name? It was hard to concentrate with him looking at her like that. She glanced down at the interview sheet. The mother was Taylor Brown. But that was it, no mention of the child at all.
'What's your name?' she asked.
He didn't answer. He just maintained that unsettling stare. It didn't matter. How long could it take to smoke a cigarette? Clare turned back to her work, reviewing her record of the interview so far. It was clear that the plea in mitigation would be simple. Taylor had a depressingly familiar tale: growing up in a series of broken homes, women's refuges and foster care placements. She ticked all the boxes for a history of domestic and sexual abuse – and she was a heroin addict, although currently on methadone replacement. Clare reread the charge sheet. Theft of a bull terrier puppy. Cute, really. The rest wasn't so cute. Around three o'clock in the morning of May the second, police had stopped and searched her vehicle on Wickham Street in the Valley. They'd found cannabis, money and various stolen items. The boy had been unrestrained in the front seat. Clare looked up and surprised herself by imagining him with a puppy on his lap. Would the puppy have made him laugh? Put a smile on his serious face? Had Taylor wanted to see that smile?
Time ticked by … her next appointment would be here soon. Clare day-dreamed out the grimy window. A bird sat in her poor excuse for a tree. She'd never seen a bird there before. A currawong, big and black, with bright yellow eyes and startling white crescents on its wings. It looked straight at her and uttered a wild, ringing cry. The call sounded disturbingly out of place in a city carpark. With a wrench Clare returned her attention to the boy. What was Taylor's mobile number? The digits on the legal aid form were a series of uncertain scratches. A quick glance over the rest of the largely incomplete application, revealed her to be barely literate. Under date-of-birth Taylor had laboriously written twenty. Only twenty years old. Jesus, how old could she have been when she had the kid? Clare began to key the numbers into her phone. There were only seven of them. Oh god. Taylor had listed only seven numbers.
'Hey, come back here,' said Clare, as the little boy got down from the too-big chair and went to the door. 'Where do you think you're going?'
The child turned to face her. Pale blue eyes. A tangled lock of golden hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it aside with a thin hand and said, 'Mummy.' He tugged at the doorknob.
The phone rang. Clare automatically reached for it, then let her hand fall and hurried for the door instead. She guided him back to the chair, impulsively putting her hands around his waist and lifting him into the seat. He was light as a feather. She kneeled in front of him on the old blue carpet. 'What's your name?'
His mouth moved to shape a word, ever so slowly. 'Jack,' he said at last.
The word was no more than a sigh. If her face hadn't been so close to his, her green eyes so close to his wide blue ones, she would have missed it. Clare loved the name Jack. It was her father's name, a father that she'd recently lost, way too early, to cancer.
'Stay,' she said, and reached once more for the phone. It stopped ringing. A knock came at the door. Thank goodness. 'Here's Mummy now,' said Clare.
But it wasn't Taylor. It was Debbie, the legal aid centre's one and only secretary. 'Just letting you know, Clare, your ten-thirty's here.'
'Could you have a look outside please?' said Clare. 'For a young woman, tall and thin, with long brown hair.' She nodded towards the boy. 'His mother, and a man. They went for a cigarette.'
Debbie retreated from the room, looking doubtful. She returned a few minutes later, shaking her head. 'Sorry. No sign.'
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
Universal link: https://books2read.com/CurrawongCreek
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41223550-currawong-creek
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/currawong-creek-by-jennifer-scoullar-2019-04-16
November is a time to be thankful. What are you most thankful for this year?
I'm most thankful for my happy, healthy family and the privilege of being able to write stories for a living.
Why is your featured book worth snuggling up to?
Currawong Creek is a heart-warming story of hope, sacrifice and the ultimate triumph of love. It's a perfect book to lose yourself in, while snuggling up on cold day.
Enter to win a $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/92db775040
Open internationally.
Runs November 1 – 30.
Drawing will be held on December 1.
Jennifer Scoullar writes page-turning fiction about the land, people and wildlife that she loves. She has always harboured a deep appreciation and respect for the natural world. Jennifer lives with her family in on a beautiful farm in the mountains that was left to her by her father. Horses have always been her passion. Read her books now to discover why Jennifer Scoullar is one of Australia's favourite storytellers!
Social Media Links:
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/JenScoullar


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eimlich has signed with the Dos Laredos Tecolotes of Liga Mexicana de Beisbol Sandy Koufax Jersey , according to ESPN's Jeff Passan.Heimlich went undrafted in 2018 after he pled guilty as a teenager tomolesting his six-year-old niece when he was 15.He later denied any misconduct when the molestation charge wasfirst reported, tellingKurt Streeterof theNew York Timesin May 2018 that "nothing ever happened" and that he only pled guilty for the sake of his family.After prior crimes surfaced, Heimlich continued to pitch for Oregon Stateand did so at a high level. The left-hander went 16-3 with a 2.92 ERA in 21 appearances (20 games) as a senior last year, striking out 159 batters in 129.2 innings.He was the Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year twice (2017 and 2018) and was alsonamedthe 2018 National Pitcher of the Year.Heimlich's arm had him the conversation to be a first-round pick. However, 1 http://www.dodgersfanproshop.com/authentic-max-muncy-jersey ,214 players were drafted in a total of 40 rounds, and Heimlich's name was not called. That does not mean teams did not consider him, though.Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore made it known that his organization was doing its due diligence on the prospect."The truth of the matter is, I was hoping, as the general manager Hyun-Jin Ryu Jersey , that somebody else would draft and sign him," Moore said in a televised interview with Fox Sports Kansas City in June 2018, (h/t The Athletic'sRustin Dodd). "Maybe I don't have enough courage."Moore added that he believed Heimlich had "earned" a second chance.Kansas City did not wind up signing the southpaw, though.Heimlichsignedwith theLamigo Monkeys of theChinese Professional Baseball League last summer, but the league quickly ordered the team toterminatethe contract because of his criminal history.While no MLB team has taken a chance on Heimlich http://www.dodgersfanproshop.com/authentic-max-muncy-jersey ,Passannoted two scouts who saw the 23-year-old on the mound recently believe he would be ready to pitch in the majors this season if given the opportunity. Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesWashington Nationals shortstop Trea Turner is the latest professional athlete to have old tweets resurface that cast him in a negative light.Ryan Young of Yahoo Sports reported Sunday that Turner had racist and homophobic tweets dating back to 2011-2012, when he was 17-18 years old. Twitter user BBBortles5 provided a sampling of the tweets (warning: NSFW content):Blake Bortles is Elite BBBortles5chelsea_janes I got you Chelsea yWYVsktDDzNationals general manager Mike Rizzo provided a statement on the 25-year-old player, via Mark Zuckerman of MASN:Mark Zuckerman MarkZuckermanMike Rizzo issues statement on Trea Turner ... 4mNru6HanKTurner apologized for his past words in a statement, via Dan Kolko of MASN:Dan Kolko masnKolkoTrea Turner has released the following statement: Ea65q1IDWnAtlanta Braves pitcher Sean Newcomb had similar tweets surface Sunday.Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Josh Hader also apologized after old offensive tweets were found during the All-Star break. He received boos in his first road appearance since he made headlines.Turner is in his fourth season with the Nationals but the first where he has been able to stay moderately healthy. After failing to play more than 100 games in a season entering 2018, he has appeared in all 105 Nationals games this year.He also entered the day with a league-leading 466 plate appearances to go with a .267 batting average Mike Piazza Jersey , 13 home runs and 24 stolen bases.


Running a batch file from winbatch - UAC issues?
The batch file will start running but then report that it can't find dsquery. I even tried copying dsquery to the folder in which the batch file runs.
I even tried every option in the UAC settings [No UAC info, askinvoker, highest available, requireAdministrator] during compiling.
What am I doing wrong. My gut feeling is that UAC is unable to run these commands as an administrator privileges.
How can I run this batch file from winbatch?
Re: Running a batch file from winbatch - UAC issues?
No suggestions but a few observations. You didn't mention a version of Windows but generally, dwquery.exe is available as in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions so file redirection is not likely the problem. I have no problems executing cmd.exe with your batch file as a parameter from a WinBatch script as long as the WinBatch script is running as an elevated admin using the "Run" function. In other words, Dsquery executes in the cmd.exe window as expected.
Microsoft does document someplace that dsquery must be executed from an elevated admin command prompt.
Also note that Dsquery.exe requires Dsquery.dll before it can execute.
I'm running win10. I tried a 32bit and 64 bit version. If I run the same batch file manually, it works great. If I run it through winbatch it will not run. I complied it with every available option.
I'll keep testing, but I would greatly appreciate any help.
On Windows 10 "dsquery.exe" is only available as a 64-bit executable. So you definitely need to start 64-bit cmd.exe from WinBatch by turning off file redirection or using "sysnative", or use 64-bit WinBatch when attempting to run the "dsquery.exe" executable via "cmd.exe" on Windows 10 using WinBatch.
That said, I have no problems running dsquery.exe from a WinBatch script on Windows 10 so I can't provide any additional assistance.
Neglected to mention that it is easier to change UAC settings for testing by simply changing the file extension of your WinBatch script as opposed to recompiling with different UAC setting in the compiler. Some UAC settings may require a code signing certificate depending on your systems settings but you don't have to worry about that when simply changing the script's file extension.
I'm running win10. I tried a 32bit and 64 bit version. If I run the same batch file manually, it works great. If I run it through winbatch it will not run.
I had an issue where I could run a command manually but couldn't get it to run in Winbatch. I know my issue isn't exactly the same as yours but the assistance Tony (td) provided in mine might provide some some insight into the differences between running from a command prompt and running the same commands from Winbatch??
From the Consolidated WIL Help file, "NOTE: It is important to minimize the code run when the File System Redirection is disabled, especially when loading WIL Extenders, using COM, or doing anything that asks Windows to load any new DLLs. The problem is that while File System Redirection is disabled, your code will be looking at the wrong version of windows and will attempt to load wrong (64 instead of 32 bit) versions of modules, and usually fail, GPF, or otherwise not function properly."
There is no need at all to be shelling out to CMD.EXE to execute a .BAT file that runs DSQUERY.EXE. WinBatch is fully capable of directly performing all of the ADSI/LDAP calls via the ADIS Extender, via COM interfaces or via the .NET CLR & the .NET Framework.
The .Net CLR ADSI classes are a bit of a bear to use in WinBatch and produce less than desirable results because of issues I will not go into here. The extender is the best choice with COM Automation being a very close second. However, it was deemed better to give the OP an opportunity to expand some basic Windows 10 scripting knowledge without also dumping a whole lot of new stuff to learn on the OP.


Elegant prose and imaginative ironies bring these compelling short stories to life in this first English-language collection from Mexican author Roberto Ransom. Each of the ten stories is filled with fascinating, yet enigmatic and sometimes elusive characters: an alligator in a bathtub, an invisible toad who appears only to a young boy, the beautiful redheaded daughter of a mushroom collector, a deceased journalist who communicates in code, and even Leonardo Da Vinci himself, meditating on The Last Supper. One of Mexico's most original writers, Ransom explores these characters' emotional depths as they move through their fantastical worlds that, while at times unfamiliar, offer brave and profound insights into our own.
Missing Persons, Animals, and Artists is the follow-up to Ransom's highly acclaimed A Tale of Two Lions, praised by Ignacio Padilla as "the best Mexican literary work I have read in recent years. . . . [It] heralds a pen capable of that rarest of privileges in our letters: attaining the comic and profoundly human through a perfect simplicity." This collection of short stories has been translated with great care by Daniel Shapiro.
Vasari, Do You Hear Me?
"Shapiro has accomplished a very difficult task: he has created a clear, pellucid language in English for Ransom's stories, which are dark and tortuous. The contrast is devastating. The same tension between substance and style exists in Spanish, and Shapiro has been able to duplicate that with finesse, sophistication, and an excellent ear. His translations are a gift to English-speaking readers."
"Roberto Ransom's collection of short stories, Missing Persons, Animals, and Artists, is a trip to fear, to the uncanny, to the limit where we give up our defenses and just relate."


I always practice machine quilting by doodling with pen and paper. It really is true that if you can draw it you can quilt it out. The more you practice your doodles the better your brain will be at telling your hands or machine which way it needs to go.
The flower in this doodle is a place holder. It could be a star block, some applique, anything really. I was watching a Linda Taylor video and wanted to try out some of the techniques she was demonstrating. I love the Dr. Seussy feeling of the main back ground fill. I also like the inner border and how easy it was to draw it out.
I really need to learn how to think upside down. I've noticed that my designs are wonky anytime I have to do them upside down or from right to left. I guess it all comes down to practice and it's definitely easier to practice on paper than it is to practice on the machine. I can practice on paper anywhere, anytime. Like at the Dr's office, waiting in the car pick up line, at church (he he), in bed etc.
You really ought to try doodling too. I find that a 9"x12" pad works best because it's big enough to let you practice drawing bigger. When I first started doodling my doodles were always tiny, but you will get better results if your doodles are closer to the size you would put on a quilt.
I love this doodle! It's fun and whimsical.
I doodle all the time, but I generally draw teeny tiny quilt blocks. From now on, it's FMQ with a pen. Thanks!


Alla considers herself very lucky as she's never had to work a day in her life because she chose a job that she's extremely passionate about and that has become her hobby. She thrives in helping people find their dream job and her approach is always ethical and honest.
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