text:
Robert M. Gates on Civic Duty and U.S. National Security
Video Pause
Don Pollard
Robert M. Gates
Principal, RiceHadleyGates LLC; Former Secretary, U.S. Department of Defense (2006-2011); Former President, Texas A&M University; Former Director of Central Intelligence; Author, A Passion for Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform from Fifty Years of Public Service
Presider
Tom Brokaw
Special Correspondent, NBC News
Paul C. Warnke Lecture
Robert M. Gates, former U.S. secretary of defense, joins NBC News' Tom Brokaw to discuss civic duty and leadership, and address the future of U.S. national security and defense. Gates begins by describing his experience at the Department of Defense in the Obama administration, and the challenges of managing a complex bureaucracy. Over the course of the conversation, Gates addresses a range of challenges for U.S. national security and defense, including North Korea's nuclear program, China's growing military, and the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
The Paul C. Warnke Lecture on International Security, established in 2002, is dedicated to the memory of Paul Warnke (1920–2001), member and former director of the Council on Foreign Relations. The series commemorates his legacy of public service, his friendship to the Council, and his unique combination of eloquence, intellect, and pragmatism in the cause of peace and the values of the United States.
BROKAW: Thank you all very much. I'm Tom Brokaw, a member of the Council, recently excised from the Board of Directors—(laughter)—term-limited. I know you know our distinguished guest, Bob Gates. I'll talk about him a little more in a moment.
We welcome all of you. This is a session that is on the record. We have a teleconference under way as well. We'll be hearing from those folks when the Q&A session comes. And it is a Paul Warnke Lecture. Many of you are familiar, of course, with Paul Warnke's distinguished and long career in national-security issues. He was a member of what I call the greatest generation. He served in World War II, became a lawyer. And then in those days, as his generation did, he moved back and forth between his law practice and serving his country.
So it's very appropriate that we have Bob Gates here today, because he continued that tradition as a son of the Midwest. It turns out he was born in the same hospital as Jim Lehrer in Wichita, Kansas, I just discovered. (Laughter.) There was something about that hospital. He went to William & Mary. And when he joined the CIA at the very entry-level part of it, he was the first member of that agency to rise to the top of the CIA. We also know him, of course, as the secretary of defense.
It's been a long and distinguished career in public service. He's now in the private sector but moving back and forth in the public sector as well. He heads the Boy Scouts of America, among other things. And he has never stopped giving back to his country.
His latest book is called "A Passion for Leadership," about the lessons that he learned as a leader and as someone who was witness to the best of his generation.
So Mr. Gates, let me begin with a question that I've been thinking a lot about. We're roughly the same age. It seems to me that our generation was the last one that felt a real calling to have public service as a part of their life, whether they went into the private sector and then went to the public sector and then came back again. It was an extension of the memories of World War II and the kinds of people who were our mentors growing up. Is that an overstatement?
GATES: I think that's—I think that's right. And one of the concerns that I have is that I've seen, both in our military but also when I was president of A&M and now as national president of the Boy Scouts, young people are no less idealistic, I think, than we were, and in—even at the college level, no less and maybe even more committed to voluntarism and being engaged.
But once they graduate from college, a lot of that goes away. So we now—there was an article in The Wall Street Journal six or eight months ago that said that 30 years ago, 30 percent of the federal workforce was under the age of 30. And today it's 7 percent; so a quarter as many young people serving at the federal level.
And I worry. And one of the reasons that I wrote the book is that part of the reason for that is that this generation is less tolerant of bureaucracy than we might have been, less tolerant of hierarchical structure, of the rigidity of a government organization, the lack of opportunity to contribute significantly at a young age, as they can do in many areas of the private sector.
So I think one of the motivations in writing the book is how do we—how do we reform and change a lot of these institutions that we need but that have accumulated a lot of barnacles and no longer deliver the services to people they were created to serve? And how do you use that to get young people more interested?
You have a lot of—you have these schools of government and public service all over the country. You've got the LBJ School at the University of Texas, the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M. You've got the Maxwell program at Syracuse. Most universities, many universities, have these programs of people who are interested in public service. But the disconnect between when they leave those programs and when they—and getting into government is pretty significant. And a lot of young people, I think, get into government and then get frustrated and leave pretty early. And I think that's a problem too.
BROKAW: Well, with the new challenges before us domestically and internationally, obviously dealing with the upheaval in the Middle East, jihadism, and dealing with—in a war that's a clash of cultures as much as it is a clash of nation-states, the impact in our country domestically in every conceivable aspect of how we are governed and what we do in free enterprise, the digital impact just cannot be overstated, quite honestly.
This generation is a generation that's teaching their parents to drive when it comes to that kind of thing. So is that also a component of it that we're not—there's a calcification at the institutional level in government, military, and even in the private sector, that doesn't speak to the young people who are not going to go stand in line somewhere and wait their turn?
GATES: No, I think that's absolutely right. And, in fact, I was mentioning to you earlier one of the—in the last months that I was secretary I would talk to the chief of staff of the Army and the commandant of the Marine Corps in particular. You know, these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have really been small-unit wars, at least after the initial operation at least in Iraq, and in effect the captains' wars.
And I would tell these generals—you know, I would visit a forward operating base in Afghanistan, and here would be a U.S. Army captain commanding 100 U.S. troops, training 100 Afghan troops, bulldozing roads, building schools, negotiating with the tribal elders, and fighting the Taliban, and having the opportunity to be innovative, entrepreneurial, creative, making decisions.
And I would say to these guys, you bring those young people back and put them in a cubicle doing PowerPoints, you're going to lose them. And that's part—kind of is all a piece of the same problem. How do you keep these young people, who are accustomed to living at the pace of the digital age, and put them into these big organizations that move at glacial paces?
BROKAW: Let me switch now to the campaign and the issues before the country in the national-security area, where we look to you for guidance and wisdom. You've been hearing proclamations like we're going to carpet-bomb the Middle East and we're going to build the military to the greatest military that has ever been known. Whatever it takes, we're going to pour it into the military to make sure we get that job done. On the other side of the spectrum, the president gave the impression the other night in the State of the Union address that we're doing just fine against ISIS, it's not really a great threat to who we are or our national identity. As you look at all of that, how well is the country being served by the real challenges that are before us when it comes to jihadism, and now the upheaval and the cultural clash going on in the Middle East?
GATES: Well, I think the—I think middle school kids would be embarrassed by the level of dialogue going on in the national campaign—(laughter)—about how we deal with the problems that we're facing. I mean, I just—I think that these guys are making these—men and women are making these broad pronouncements. It's clear they don't know what they're talking about. (Laughter.) You know, you quoted them. We'll make the sand glow and carpet bombing, bombing the shit out of them and things like that that I think one of the—I think the leading candidate said. (Laughter.) This is not a particularly sophisticated level of analysis—(laughter)—of our—of the challenges that we face.
And the thing that I find disappointing, and I realize that politicians have to put spin on things and so on, but they do a disservice in not being honest with the American people that taking on a problem like ISIS and the extremism associated with ISIS is complex, it's going to be hard, and it's going to take a lot of time, and it's going to take some sacrifice. And there are no easy solutions, and there certainly are no quick solutions. Now, the worrying thing is they actually believe what they're saying. (Laughter.) And if that's the case, we really are in trouble. So we're in the situation where the optimistic interpretation is they're just being cynical and opportunistic.
I think that by the same token—I think that the president has all along underestimated ISIS, has underestimated the degree of fear that they have been able to provoke among a lot of Americans. And you know, I've talked to some people here in New York who are in the travel business. And they say that travel to Europe is off, and more New Yorkers are vacationing or going to New England because they're worried about their safety in Europe. Well, when you consider the statistics and the odds of being attacked, it's basically a psychological effect. And the president, I think, has completely misread the psychological impact of these lone wolf attacks or of these, quote-unquote, "small-scale attacks," that result in multiple casualties, that have been sponsored by ISIS or by people radicalized by ISIS and acting as lone wolves.
So I think at the same the administration has underestimated the impact of ISIS and what it's going to take to deal with ISIS, on the other side of the fence you're getting these simplistic and, frankly, ridiculous formulas on how they're going to take care of the problem. It's inconceivable to me that they really do believe that that will solve the problem.
BROKAW: Take us through our institutions, military and intelligence, and how effectively they have been able to adapt to this new kind of warfare that we're dealing with. It's asymmetrical, we all know that, but it's beyond that. It's not a nation-state war. We're talking about a cultural war. We're talking about a very nimble enemy in that part of the world, which is a lot more sophisticated than a lot of people want to give it credit for being in terms of how it finances itself, how it communicates with its potential members.
Do we have in the government—at the Pentagon and at the CIA—enough people who really grasp the nature of this enemy, have a real sense of the Arab culture and the various players that are out there, because it's not uniform? You know, when 9/11 happened, there was that startling statistic that we had just a handful of Arabic speakers, I think, in the CIA at that point.
GATES: I remember we—after the fall of the shah in the Carter administration we had something called the Political Intelligence Working Group that met at the White House. And it was to assess, how did we miss a development of such extraordinary consequence? And we went through the level of expertise in the government. And at that time, the Foreign Service—now, this is 35 years ago—the Foreign Service had 2 offices in Riyadh that spoke Arabic. And they spent 40 percent of their time squiring around congressional delegations. (Laughter.) And it hasn't gotten any better.
BROKAW: Really? Not at all?
GATES: I would say—I would say that in the military and in the intelligence community—and I see Mike here—Mike Hayden—I think we have the skills and the—and the knowledge and the insights. I mean, I think that the military—I've stayed away from Washington and really don't get involved in anything there. But I have the impression that the military has been pressing for many months to do the kinds of things that gradually, and I think reluctantly, the administration has begun to embrace about more help to Sunni tribes that are prepared to resist ISIS, to the Kurds, getting more trainers in and at a lower level in the Iraqi security services, forward spotters and things like that, more special operators.
I think the military's been recommending these kinds of things—which are an alternative to sort of a big massive ground force, that have the opportunity to enable those who are willing to resist ISIS. And I would say even providing weaponry directly to some of these tribes, Sunni tribes, and to the Kurds to help them because of the challenges of working through the Baghdad government. But I do think that we have the talent. I think that the problem more has been a political one in terms of a reluctance to—on the part of the administration—to realize that this is a major challenge and that it does have a big impact around the world.
I would say, though, Tom, that one of the problems that we have that is systemic and has been with us for a long time, really since the end of the Cold War, is that we have also, for many years, starved the civilian talent pool in the government, and particularly those involved in diplomacy, in AID, and in strategic communications. And I remember vividly, you know, in the Cold War, and some of you who are a little older in the audience remember, USIA under Edward R. Murrow and people like that. You had—you had USIA libraries in every major city in the world. You had Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty. And in addition to this panoply of things on the overt side, you had CIA covertly sending millions of copies of the "Gulag Archipelago" into the Soviet Union, and magazines, and things like that.
So you had this Wurlitzer of strategic communications that was a big part, I think, of success in the Cold War. That's all been basically dismantled. And that whole big operation now sits in a small corner of the State Department. Those are the people also that you need to rely on in terms of how do you come up with a—with a digital response to ISIS? How do you counter either directly or through other organizations the messaging that ISIS is sending to the West, to Europe and to the United States, that's radicalizing some of these people and so on? And we've basically disarmed that part of the national security toolkit.
BROKAW: I want to turn now to China, which is a national security issue as well. It's getting a much higher visibility. I remember the most unsettling thing that you said when you came back from one of your tours of China was the command and control protocol. You would go to these remote outposts and the people who were staffing those remote outposts, with a wide array of very lethal weapons including nuclear, they had control over command. It wasn't being done from Beijing. Now we hear that Xi is trying to rein that in. Is that what you hear as well?
GATES: No, I think that's absolutely right. I think—you know, I was very troubled when President Hu was in office because—or in power because we had a number of incidences where we believe the People's Liberation Army was acting independently of the political authorities in the country. We had pretty good information that the anti-satellite test that took place took place without the knowledge of the civilian leadership, that the interference with the U.S. Navy ship Impeccable took place without the civilian leadership being aware of it. And I know for a fact that when they rolled out the J-20 stealth fighter two hours before I was to meet with President Hu that he didn't know about it.
And so—but I think one of the big changes that Xi has made is there is no question in my mind at all that Xi is totally in control of the military in terms of they report to him and they don't do anything that he doesn't approve of. That's kind of a good news, bad news story. The good news is command and control's been tightened up. The bad news is, when bad things happen, it's not some rogue PLA guy acting, it's the leadership of the country that's involved.
BROKAW: How do we get North Korea under control?
GATES: (Laughs, laughter.) I like to say that we're now in our third generation of Kims, and with each successive generation we've been swimming in a shallower and shallower part of the gene pool. (Laughter.) My worry about Kim Jong-un is not only that he's dangerous, but that he's stupid. (Laughter.) I mean, we have—
BROKAW: But he's got a great haircut. I mean, you've got to get him that.
GATES: He has a hell of a haircut. (Laughter.)
We know—we know pretty well now that he was behind the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan; that he was a leading figure behind the artillery barrage on the South Korean islands, as he was basically trying to prove his mettle to the North Korean military leadership, that he was tough enough to take on the job. The challenge that we have is the reality that China has influence in North Korea, but it doesn't have control. And there was an episode during one of the previous famines in North Korea where the Chinese were sending gondolas—railcar gondolas full of food into North Korea and the North Koreans were stealing the railcars, wouldn't send them back to China.
And so I think—I think this is a very dangerous situation. This guy, he's developing a road-mobile ICBM. He clearly is on—he wants to develop a hydrogen weapon. I think—my guess is he doesn't have one yet. And so it's a very difficult situation. And I think the problem we face with regimes like Iran is that they see how easily Saddam was overthrown because he didn't have nuclear weapons, how easily Gadhafi was overthrown by a ragtag army with Western air support, but how carefully we deal with North Korea, which has maybe a half or dozen or so pretty crude nuclear weapons. But they keep working at this. They keep—they're working on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and that capability. And, you know, they have these successive failures, but eventually they're going to get it right. And that's going to be a very dangerous situation.
All of which is diagnosis without a prescription for how you solve the problem.
BROKAW: We know that President Putin of Russia has identified Donald Trump as his favorite presidential candidate in America, and Trump was very happy to receive that kind of an endorsement. If the president of the United States now or in the future called you and said, how do we deal with him and with Russia, especially now that its economic situation is getting every more perilous and that's a prescription at some point for something happening from the ground up, how would you deal with Putin?
GATES: Well, I—President Bush famously said that he had looked into Putin's eyes and seen his soul. After my first meeting with Putin in February of 2007, I reported to President Bush that I'd looked into Putin's eyes and I'd seen a stone-cold killer. Maybe that was just a CIA-KGB thing. (Laughter.) But I think the—I think the backdrop to understanding Putin is that we have—we gravely—at the time gravely misunderstood or underestimated the magnitude of Russia's humiliation with the collapse of the Soviet Union, because it wasn't just the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was the collapse of the Russian empire. And Russia's borders today are roughly what they were before the reign of Catherine the Great, without Central Asia, without Ukraine, and so on. And Putin feels that humiliation very much to the marrow of his bones, and it's his understanding of that that I think is at the core of his popularity in Russia and his determination to reassert Russia's role in the world, Russia's role as a great power, and to assert Russia's interests. He is determined that no problem will be solved without Russia being at the table, and I would say in Syria without Russia being in the chair, and as is evident also by the chemical weapons proposal that he made a couple of years ago.
So I think—I think the—and then the second piece for Putin is as old as the Russian empire itself, and that's creating a buffer of friendly states or at least frozen conflicts on the periphery of Russia as a buffer for Russia. And so the actions that he's taken with respect to Georgia and certainly with respect to Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and the pressures that he's put on—that he's put on other countries in that region.
So I think that—I think the thing to appreciate about Putin is his determination that Russia be involved in all of these problems. And of course, now the Europeans, seeing the role that Russia might be able to play in the Middle East, there is a growing sense in Europe maybe we ought to lift these sanctions that have been placed on Russia.
How long Putin can continue his policies with growing economic estrangement from the West, I don't know the answer to that question, but it's—those pressures have to be building. And so you have the pressures with—caused by those sanctions, but then Turkey had become a significant trading partner with Russia, and all of a sudden, after the shooting down of the Russian airplane, Putin say, OK, we're going to cut off these ties with Turkey. And it reminded me in the scene in that movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," where the knight gets an—loses an arm and he says, eh, "it's just a flesh wound." (Laughter.) You know, I mean, how many of these flesh wounds can Russia take economically before it really does begin to have an impact in terms of stability at home?
BROKAW: And before we go to questions, Europe, our old alliance. What's the future of that alliance and the reliability of it as we go forward with these very vexing problems—sanctions with Russia, what we're going to do about the Middle East?
GATES: Well, I think—I think Europe fits into a broader point that I'd make, that I think we face a multiplicity of challenges in terms of national security and international stability unlike any that I've seen in my—since I joined the government 50 years ago just in terms of the number of these problems that are all a-boil at the same time. I think—I think that Europe is facing some huge challenges. It faces significant economic problems. The EU itself is beginning to fray. The EU has, for the most part, always been an elite project in Europe. Most of the time when it's gone to popular votes it's lost. And so you have the problem brought on by the refugees. You have the problem brought on by the difference in economic performance between Southern Europe and Northern Europe, between Germany and virtually everybody else. And then—and then the—I think the very difficult question and the real possibility that Britain will exit the EU later this year. So I think the EU faces a lot of challenges, and particularly as a result of the immigration and refugee crisis, the potential that the borderless Europe may soon disappear as countries begin re-erecting border fences and guard posts and things like that. So I think Europe faces some pretty significant challenges, and they have real implications for us.
BROKAW: All right, let's go to questions. We have some from the teleconference crowd as well, but we'll begin in the room here. Remember there are microphones. Introduce yourself. And make it a question, if you will, not a proclamation. And try to do it as economically as possible.
Right here in the second row. We have a microphone coming, sir.
Q: Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, following up on your remarks about Iraq—
BROKAW: Can you tell us who you are?
Q: Oh. I'm Roland Paul, a lawyer; been in the government before.
As you know, General Odierno, and presumably other military leaders, wanted to keep 30,000 troops in Iraq in 2011. And I know you did your best to keep 10,000 there. To what extent today, facing ISIS, would the situation in Iraq be different if either one of those levels of troops had been maintained?
GATES: Well, first of all, I felt at the time—I mean, the proposals on the table, while I was still in the government, were 20,000 troops and 20,000 State Department. And I felt both were completely unrealistic; that the Iraqis would never agree to that and the Congress would never agree to pay the bill. So the proposal that we were working on and that General Austin had at the time was a proposal for about 8,000 to 10,000 U.S. troops.
I think that one of the things people underestimated, even as we drew down from the surge and the large numbers of troops that we had in Iraq, was the political influence our senior military leadership had there. And as long as there was a substantial troop presence, it gave weight to that political influence they had, so that when these different sectarian leaders, the Sunnis and the Shia and the Kurds, would get into one of these knots, as they often did, where they were making no progress on anything, the ability of our senior generals to bring them all together under U.S. auspices for a dinner or a meeting, and in essence force them to talk to each other, and I think helped moderate those conflicts and keep them from getting out of control.
Once we fully withdraw, there was no governor on those kinds of conflicts. And so they could just run unconstrained. And so I think having no troops there certainly had security implications. But I think the political implications in terms of harnessing to a degree, at least at the government level in Baghdad, some of the sectarian conflict is underestimated. And we lost that. And once we were out, Maliki in particular was allowed to essentially follow his own instincts, which were all bad.
And I think, for example, on the military side, we had trained and I think probably had some influence in the selection of a lot of the senior officers in the Iraqi security services. And they were pretty good. They were pretty competent. All those guys Maliki replaced, and they were all replaced by a bunch of political, incompetent, corrupt hacks. And so if you ask why the soldiers wouldn't fight in Mosul, they were not going to fight for these leaders in their own military.
So I think it's the—I think one of the big impacts of our having nobody there, very, very few people there and no really senior officer, was the moderating effect we were able to have on Iraqi politics.
BROKAW: We have a question from Kristina Wong of The Hill in Washington. Why has the president had such a difficult relationship with the Department of Defense? He's had three defense secretaries leave office—you, Leon Panetta, and Chuck Hagel—all of whom had fairly similar critiques of the administration, which they didn't hesitate to go public with.
GATES: Well, I will say, first of all, that I had my issues with the White House, but my decision to leave was—I mean, I stayed longer than I intended by a long shot. When he and I—when President Obama and I first talked, it was with—I put on the table, well, why don't we just say a year? And as I wrote in "Duty," I put a period on that sentence and he put a comma. (Laughter.) And I stayed for a year and a half after that.
And as recently—I mean, as close to my departure as maybe three or four weeks out, he said are you sure you won't change your mind and stay? I'd like to have you stay through at least the end of the first term, and for as long as I'm president if you're willing. And I would—by that time I'd done the job for four and a half years. That was longer than all but four of my predecessors. And I was exhausted. We'd been four and a half years at war, and I was ready to leave.
In the four and a half years since I left—so I was there four and a half years. In the four and a half years since I left, as you point out, there have been three secretaries. One of the problems that I faced and that I wrote about, as did Leon and Chuck Hagel talked about, is micromanagement from the White House. And I think that—you know, I think a good example—and I don't know this for a fact, but I'd be willing to wager that I'm pretty close to being right—I think the White House was very much involved in the delays and in the handling of the freedom-of-navigation exercise in the South China Sea.
We should have sent a ship into those waters long before we did. And I would bet anything that the White House said here are the rules of engagement that made it look more like innocent passage rather than a freedom-of-navigation exercise.
There was a direct line to a White House staffer when I visited a Special Operations command center in Afghanistan. There was a direct line to a White House staffer. And I stood there and I said you rip that out while I'm standing here and watching. And I told our commanders; I said if you get a call from a White House staffer or an NSC staffer, you tell them you're not authorized to take the call and refer them to my office and tell them I said to go to hell. (Laughter.)
I worked on the NSC under Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft. And I will tell you that had I called a four-star commander as an NSC staffer, I'd have been gone the next day. I'd have been fired instantly. So this micromanagement is a problem. And, I mean, my view—and frankly, one of the main lessons in the book—is you have to choose your subordinates carefully, but then you have to empower them, hold them accountable, and if they don't do the job, get rid of them. But above all, you can't micromanage them.
BROKAW: Question from the audience; right back here. Yes. Remember, tell us who you are.
Q: Joel Mentor from Barclays. Thank you.
My question is about the Russian-Iranian relationship. So we know in Syria their interests are aligned but not necessarily identical. And now with Iran coming back on the market, they're actually competitors for supplying energy to Europe, and also with Iran and possibly working greater economic cooperation with Turkey and so forth. So I just wanted your thoughts on what you think. Are there any fractions there, things that we can probably take advantage of?
GATES: I think that there are some long-term potential problems between Russia and Iran. But right now they seem to be cooperating pretty closely. The Russians have—you know, they had promised President Bush—Putin had promised President Bush not to sell this new air-defense system, the S-300 or 400, to the Iranians, because it obviously would have seriously complicated any military operation to try and take out their nuclear capabilities. And Putin agreed not to sell them and then subsequently broke the contract.
Well, they've now reversed that and are selling those systems, and probably other weapons, to Iran. And now that the sanctions are being lifted, my guess is that that flow will increase pretty dramatically, given how starved the Iranians have been for new military equipment for a very long time.
I think that—and so you have the Russians now aligned with the Shia-dominated Iran and the Shia-dominated government in Syria. And I think that, you know, the administration keeps talking about Putin getting himself into a quagmire. He's made a terrible mistake, and so on and so forth. I think in the short to medium term that totally underestimates the effectiveness of what Putin has done.
As Condi Rice and I wrote in an op-ed some months ago, diplomacy is determined by the facts on the ground, not vice versa. And the Russians are helping the Syrian government change the facts on the ground. Now, they're not—Putin is not at all a sentimentalist. If he finds another Syrian who will maintain the close relationship with Russia, who will continue to give Russia access to the naval base at Tartus, I think he'd dump Assad in a heartbeat. But the point is that I think—I think his collaboration with the Iranians, with the Syrian regime is working pretty well for him right now in terms of diplomacy, in terms of what I was saying earlier about Russia asserting its role and its influence.
But long term, I think he has made a mistake, in the respect that most of the Russian Muslims are Sunni and most of the Muslims in the world are Sunni. And he's aligned with a minority element of the Islamic world. So that may come back to bite him sometime in the future. But I believe in the near to medium term, the relationship with Iran will continue to grow. I don't think that the oil competition issue will be a major one between them. And I think that you will see Putin continue to play the kind of role he has, particularly in Syria.
BROKAW: A place where you once worked told me recently, someone there, that they have other issues in Russia as well, that the jihadist movement under the banner of ISIL is moving out of Central Asia up into Russia, and of course they're putting a lot of pressure on the Western border of China.
GATES: I do think that the Russians and the Chinese are both worried about ISIL and about Islamic terrorism. I don't think—I do think that Putin would like to see ISIL controlled and contained and destroyed. I think they do see ISIL as a—as a danger to them. I remember the Soviet defense—or, the Russian defense minister once told me, he said, you know, the Iranians don't need a missile to get a nuclear weapon into Russia. And the terrorists don't need—it's not as hard for the terrorists to get into Russia, as it is for them to get elsewhere—into other countries. So I think—I think Putin—I don't doubt Putin's desire to see ISIL destroyed. But he's pursuing a path where I think he thinks the way to do that is to empower Assad.
BROKAW: Edwin Smith from University of Southern California Gould School of Law wants to take our attention back to China.
The evolving conflict in the South China Sea bears serious attention because it reflects the conflicting national interests of at least seven states over the security of $5 trillion in international trade, plus the potential development of hundreds of millions of barrel-equivalents of oil and natural gas in that part of the world. How does that evolve?
GATES: Well, this is—and I will say, I think China's the one area where at least up until now the United States has had a pretty good strategy, and it has had substantial bipartisan support. So the linage, if you will, from Nixon's trip to the normalization of relations under President Carter, President Reagan embracing the relationship as it was handed to him, and then up to the present. It's difficult to tell what the current crop of candidates might do—(laughter)—but it seems to me that—I don't believe that China has any intention of engaging in a global arms race with the United States. I do believe that they intend to establish regional dominance and believe that that is—that comports with their history and their role in the world.
As I like to say, people talk about the emergence of China. I prefer to talk about the reemergence of China. It was a great civilization and a great power for a couple of thousand years. Granted, they had a couple of bad centuries, but—(laughter)—let's just say, they take the long view. And I do worry, on the military side, by 2020 the Chinese will have about 350 surface warships and submarines. And the United States will have about 70 in that region. And as someone once said, at a certain point quantity begins to take on a quality all of its own. And so I am concerned about that.
But I do believe that with careful management of the relationship, and given the Chinese interest in avoiding an out-and-out conflict, that we can assert our rights—if we're firm, and if we have enough military presence out there to be credible, that we can assert our rights at the same time that we acknowledge China's influence and role in the region and in the world.
BROKAW: A question from the audience. Let's go way to the back. Yes, sir. Yes, stand up. There you are. Tell us who you are, please.
Q: Jason Sherman, from Inside Defense.
Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask you a question about the Pentagon's modernization program. The next administration is going to face some major challenges, particularly with regard to recapitalizing the nuclear triad. The Pentagon's acquisition executive Frank Kendall earlier this spring estimated that DOD is going to need something on the order of $10 to $12 billion more in its base budget, beginning in 2021, to pay for that portfolio of capabilities. With the defense budget right now at about $525 billion in the base budget, I'm just wondering how you think the—that portfolio—or how do—you know, just how DOD is going to—what the way forward is, given that under the sequester DOD has—is on track to absorb about $800 billion in cuts over the 10-year period, and if you see any room for the defense budget increasing in the timeframe that DOD needs it?
GATES: Yeah, I think we need to actually see—the situation for defense is actually worse than you describe. (Laughter.) So I—in 2009, 2010, I cut about 3 dozen major procurement programs that had they been built out fully over time would have cost about $330 billion. We then launched what we called an efficiencies exercise in 2010 and identified about $180 billion in overhead that could be cut. Now, I agreed to give—I told the services: You identify overhead that can be cut, headquarters that can be consolidated and so on, and then if you can identify real military capabilities where you would like to invest the money, I'll give you the money back. But it's got to be for tooth, not tail.
The bottom line is, that in that—those two years, we cut the defense budget by about $400 billion over a 10-year period. President Obama in April of 2011, as part of the budget exercise, said: I want you to do that again. So that was another $400 billion. That ended up being more like, I think, $485 billion rather than 400. So before sequester, the defense budget had been cut by about $850 billion over a 10-yer period. Sequester then put another $500 to $600 billion worth of cuts on the table. So it's more like a trillion and a half dollars over a 10-year-or-so period.
The first thing that's wrong with the way we do defense budgeting is the lack of predictability. In the last 10 years, the Department of Defense has had a defense appropriations at the beginning of the fiscal year twice. And that was nine and 10 years ago. Every year they have begun with a continuing resolution and/or sequester. So one of the problems in figuring out how to fund long-range investments in defense, whether it's shipbuilding or whether its modernizing the triad, is predictability in the budget. And here, Congress is basically at fault.
And until they can provide some predictability in terms of not just getting appropriations in a timely way but on what the rate of growth will be looking out five or 10 years, it's going to be very difficult to manage these modernization programs. I think that there is still a lot of overhead in the department that can be cut. And one of the points that I make in the book is that actually times of austerity are great opportunities for the reformer because it provides an incentive to change the way you're doing business. So whether you are consolidating combatant commands or doing a lot of things differently, these kinds of budget circumstances provide an opportunity for somebody who's bent on changing and reforming the system.
But I think that you—the American people and the Congress has to realize, for example, on the Navy side, that the ships that were built in the Reagan era are aging out, and so there's a—there's a modernization process that has to take place in the Navy. The Air Force is operating with the oldest planes we've ever had in our inventory—our bombers, our tankers, our fighters, you name it. Now, we are building the F-35. We are building a new tanker. But we're just getting—really beginning to get those programs moving.
So I think, you know, you can debate how much the defense budget needs to grow. I think the Defense Department, if given the opportunity and the flexibility, could find money internally by cutting overhead to fund some of this modernization. But I also think there needs to be a predicable rate of growth, whether it's 2 percent or 3 percent a year. And if you gave the Defense Department that and you promised and delivered, that they could count on that for 10 years, I think they could manage these modernization programs.
BROKAW: Other questions? Yeah, right behind the pillar—or right in front of the pillar, I'm sorry, right there. You're walking up to him. Yeah.
Q: Thank you for your service in government, Secretary Gates. I'm Amit Sharma, Empowerment Capital and former U.S. Treasury Department.
I was intrigued by a statement you made earlier on the underinvestment or lack of investment in empowering agents, USAID and others. If you could comment on how do we reverse that trend—how do we look at strategic investments not only within the part of the U.S. government—USAID, Ex-Im Bank, OPIC, and other institutions—but also to enable commercial endeavors in areas of high risk, conflict, post-conflict, that can then complement our broader security and foreign policy objectives?
GATES: Well, it's fundamentally political. I mean, it's—there is no thought behind it. It's just, we don't want to fund those things. And everybody here knows that foreign aid has a dirty—is like a dirty word on Capitol Hill. And, you know, if you want to—if you characterize it as just shoveling money at foreign countries, then that's probably deserved, but I think we're a lot smarter than that.
I think it's a—I think it's a vicious circle. I think presidents and OMB don't agree to increases in the State Department budget because they're convinced the Congress won't approve it, so why put the—why take money away from something else to add to the State Department numbers when the—when the Congress will just take it away? It's a lot easier to put more money in a failing program in the Department of Defense than to give these guys anything. So I think what it requires is really some committed, visionary leadership in some key roles on Capitol Hill, and a president with the courage of his convictions.
Now, the State Department did get some significant budget increases, as I recall, during the Bush administration, and they were able to add some additional Foreign Service officers and so on. But, you know, as Condi Rice used to remind me, I have more people in military bands than she had in the Foreign Service. (Laughter.) Or, to put it another way, if you took every Foreign Service officer in the world, you wouldn't have enough people to crew one aircraft carrier. So, you know, the disproportion in what's spent on the military and what's spent on the civilian side of the toolkit is vast, and that's easy to explain. But the reality is marginal investments on the civilian side could yield, in my view, disproportionate benefits. But it's going to require somebody on the Hill being willing to take some leadership and understand the importance of that.
BROKAW: In our digital world, how confident are you that we're able to secure our most important secrets? Mike Hayden's sitting here in the front row.
GATES: Well, I—you know, Mike may disagree with this, but I think—I think we do a pretty good job of protecting the classified networks in the Defense Department. And we have—we started a program where we extended that umbrella to defense contractors on a voluntary basis because they had to give us some information so that we could help protect their networks. I think that—and I'm in dangerous ground here because Mike was not only director of CIA, but director of NSA—but I think that—I think we have the technical capabilities to protect ourselves, but the government and the privates sector are completely wrapped around the axel in terms of figuring out how to make it happen.
And it's not a partisan issue. It's one of the few issues that's not partisan. You've got Republicans that disagree with each other, Democrats that disagree with each other. You've got differences within the executive branch, both in the Bush administration and the Obama administration. You have major differences between private business or business and the government in terms of how much information business is willing to share. And the result is we're kind of nowhere.
Now, I cut a deal in July of 2010 with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in the—in the belief that, you know, a lot of puritans, civil liberties and privacy puritans, say, well, we'll wait for a civilian NSA to be created, and that'll protect our networks. And my attitude? It ain't ever going to happen. There isn't enough money, there isn't enough time, and there isn't enough human capital. So, how do we use NSA to protect our domestic networks?
So what Janet and I came up with was I allowed her to nominate and appoint a deputy director of NSA who would have his or her own general counsel and would have the authority to task NSA real-time if there were a threat to domestic networks. We got the president to agree to this. We did it all in about three weeks. We ignored the rest of the bureaucracy. It goes to a point in the book. By ignoring the rest of the bureaucracy, we probably guaranteed failure—(laughter)—because, even though the president had approved it, the bureaucratic forces came back and, as I like to say, we parted the bureaucratic waters momentarily. And it was only a few months before they closed back over again and were basically back where we started.
But we have to figure out a way to arrive at some consensus in the government, both the executive branch and the—and the Congress, and also the business community, before we're actually going to be able to use the tools that we have to protect our networks.
BROKAW: One last question, and if we can make it as economical as possible. Right here on this side. We haven't gotten to this section yet. No, right here.
Q: My name is Donald Shriver. I'm the former president of Union Theological Seminary, and I'm also a World War II draftee.
One of the great changes that has happened since my being drafted is that this country is now on a kind of permanent war footing, and I should think that the morale of both our troops and our civilians depends a great deal on the possibility that there can be an end to the war. It would seem that the conflicts we are now engaged in have no end. What would passionate leadership require, both toward us as civilians and toward the morale of our troops, in order to deal with this problem?
GATES: Well, I think part of the problem is the—is the nature of the—of the threat, the threats that we face. Most of our—most of our military activities today are not in combat. They are deterrence. They are presence. Where we are in combat today is in very limited numbers in dealing with the lingering extremist problem in Afghanistan and the problem of ISIS that is mainly located in Syria and in certain parts of Iraq. The numbers of our forces that will be engaged directly in those conflicts I think will, in the foreseeable future at least, be a—be a pretty limited number of people. But there is no denying the enduring threat that these extremists pose to the United States and to Europe and to others.
You know, one of the—one of the differences between post-World War II and pre-World War II is that war and no war were pretty much black and white. You were either at war or you weren't at war. But the kind of challenge that we face from terrorism and other extremists today is more like a public health problem or crime that we are going to have to battle on an enduring basis, and there won't be a moment when any of these groups say we surrender or we quit. And so we're going to have to deal with this, I believe, on a long-term basis.
I think we have to be very careful about drawing this line between exercising our leadership in the world, and leading from the front, and having a credible deterrent, and having our allies and friends know that we are a dependable ally; and drawing the line between accomplishing those objectives and, in effect, as the term goes, becoming the world policeman. And it was one of the reasons why I opposed the intervention in Libya. I did not see our interests directly engaged. And I said in the Situation Room—I said, can I just finish the two wars I'm already in before you go looking for another one? So I think—I think we can and we must draw that line. But we have to—we have to accomplish the mission of the first part of that that I described, and we do have to continue to fight these extremists that pose a very real threat to us.
BROKAW: I want to thank you, Mr. Gates, for this really enlightening hour. And I just want to conclude, if I can, with this one observation. I've long admired Secretary Gates' commitment to public service, the intelligence that he brings, the strength of his ideas. There was just one pause in this book that did give me a moment of second thoughts.
As the director of the CIA, he saw on his agenda that he was going to be speaking at Indiana University, which is one of his alma maters. So he invited Lee Hamilton, who was a congressman from Indiana and a highly regarded national security authority in the Congress of the United States, to join him on the CIA plane for this appointment. They got onto the plane together, the plane turned north: they were going to Indiana University in Pennsylvania, not in Indiana. (Laughter.) But I give him all kinds of credit for putting that in the book. (Laughter.)
GATES: (Laughs.)
BROKAW: Thank you all very much. (Applause.) That was really good, Bob. (Applause.)
This is an uncorrected transcript.
Explore More on United States
What Happens When Foreign Investment Becomes a Security Risk?
The United States and other Western countries are reevaluating their foreign investment regulations amid an uptick in Chinese interest in strategic sectors.
Backgrounder by Jonathan Masters, James McBride and Noah Berman January 3, 2023 Renewing America
G20 (Group of Twenty)
What Does the G20 Do?
The Group of Twenty, an informal gathering of many of the world's largest economies, is the premier global forum for discussing economic issues. But it has faced divisions over trade, climate change, and the war in Ukraine.
Backgrounder by James McBride, Anshu Siripurapu and Noah Berman December 15, 2022
Top Stories on CFR
We need to preserve American democracy. Here's how to do it.
The Violent Far-Right Terrorist Threat to the Republican Party and American Conservatism


The Health and Wellness Center is devoted to offering prime quality, confidential, major holistic care. As both care providers and lecturers, we want your lifestyle to be as healthy and balanced as attainable. This text is designed to present tips to readers about how they can improve or increase actions in their life to have a healthy lifestyle; it is not meant to be all inclusive however will include major parts which can be thought of to be elements of a lifestyle that lead to good health. In addition to the tips about what folks should do for healthy living, the article will mention among the tips about avoiding actions (the don'ts) that result in unhealthy living.
Humble greens are healthy meals superheroes thanks to their antioxidants and phytochemicals, which may decrease your danger of stroke, kind 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's illness, heart illness and much more. Accredited practising dietitian Sharon Natoli, of Food & Nutrition Australia, says: Once we look again at our first set of dietary tips from 1979, the advice to base a healthy food plan on greens , fruit, wholegrains, legumes, nuts and seeds has been a consistent recommendation." It's just that we now call it a 'plant-based mostly food regimen'.
Partners of the Runner's World Running Show Symposium will make their approach onto the Health and Fitness stage for the first time to talk about innovative manufacturing methods. That is your likelihood to search out out all the newest information from the running market that matters to you, including fascinating figures, model-new market data, present developments, and rising target groups.


text:
Q: Include source text from URI (e.g., Wikipedia) Background
Wikipedia content is reasonably current and free to use. Consider the tabular content at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks#Java
Problem
Copying & pasting the content from Wikipedia into a LaTeX document, converting the content from HTML to LaTeX, is wasteful for a few reasons:

*

*The Wikipedia content is subject to change over time.

*Duplication of content is error prone.

*It takes a lot of time to manually convert the HTML.

What would be ideal is to have a package that can import content (such as tabular data) from a given URI. In the case of tables, it would be especially useful to select the desired columns.
Question
What approaches would you recommend to dynamically include content into a LaTeX document that is sourced from a URI?
(In the Wikipedia case, the table id does not exist, making it technically challenging to find the correct table. Although the implementation could look for the first table found.)
Ideas
Something like:
\importuri{"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks#Java"}%
  {Project,Current Stable Version,License}{table_id}

Where table_id is optional.
The URI could be written in-line (or force an automatic bibtex entry).

A: With a bit of scripting, it is easy to load external content into a TeX format. For example, I have defined a command \issueTitle[N], which then loads a value of N like so:
\def\issueTitle[#1]{%
\ifthenelse{\equal{#1}{166}}{PHP implementation of set_property will likely corrupt properties file}{}%
\ifthenelse{\equal{#1}{167}}{Add documentation to all model elements for ModelDoc}{}%
\ifthenelse{\equal{#1}{130}}{Automatically mark containers of deleted generated elements as overridden}{}%
...
}

The code behind translating a URL (a Google API in my case) into TeX is probably outside the scope of this answer, but I use PHP, file_get_contents or CURL, and XML DOM. I then have a batch script to automatically update this file, which is called as part of my normal build.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Washington pot producers accused of 'spiking' samples to boost potency
Gary MasonNational affairs columnist
BELLEVUE, WASH.
Published April 11, 2015 Updated June 5, 2017
Devin Ergler, a laboratory technician at The Werc Shop, conducts tests on cannabis at the company's lab in Bellevue, Wash. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)
Less than a year after Washington began experimenting with selling legal pot, some producers are being accused of gaming the system by 'spiking' their plants to make them seem more potent than they really are. Gary Mason reports
What's in a strain?
Marijuana is a complex plant, with dozens of components contributing to the smell, taste and potency of the drug, though most users are concerned with two in particular:
Commonly known as THC, tetrahydrocannabinol produces the typical "high" associated with consuming marijuana. For many recreational users – and, consequently, growers – the higher the TCH content the better. The percentage of THC in marijuana typically ranges from the mid-teens to about 20 per cent, though the proportion of THC in some strains targeted at medical users is lower.
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is thought to be the source of some of marijuana's medicinal powers. It also tempers the psychoactive effects of THC. Early research has suggested CBD has anti-inflammatory effects, can ease nausea and even help with epilepsy, though Health Canada cautions those effects have not yet been demonstrated in clinical trials. Producers licensed under Canada's medical marijuana system typically grow strains that have only trace amounts of CBD, but strains as high as 9 per cent and even the mid-teens are becoming popular.
SOURCES: The Werc Shop laboratory; Health Canada
In a fresh white lab coat, his name embroidered atop a chest pocket, Cameron Miller looks and sounds every bit the chemist that he is. When he begins talking about the wonders of terpenes - the organic compounds that give plants their distinct odour - he could be a sommelier discussing the power and influence that tannins have on wine.
"Rosemary and oregano, for example, have some very unique terpene profiles," says Mr. Miller, lab manager at The Werc Shop. "Very, very pungent. You identify instantly with the scent. Terpenes can be very rich and powerful, in their presentation. Intricate, complex and beautiful too."
Among Mr. Miller's favourite terpene-producing plants is one he happens to handle every day: cannabis. It has an amazing variety of aromas, he insists, ones he's not particularly adept at describing but which nonetheless interest him far more than the element of pot that seizes the imagination of most users: potency.
While it has been two years since Washington State voters approved Initiative 502, which legalized marijuana, it has only been nine months since the first retail outlets opened. There have been some early growing pains. And one of the areas that has come under intense scrutiny is the system being used to measure the strength of the pot hitting the market.
There are state officials, lab technicians and state-approved sellers who suspect samples are being tampered with either before or during the sampling process. There's been the suggestion some growers are "spiking" their samples to give them higher levels of tetrahydrocannabinol – or THC – the chemical responsible for most of cannabis's psychological effects.
The higher the level of THC, the more the grower is able to charge for his crop, and the more retailers can charge at the counter. Some labs have reported THC levels in the 30 to 40 per cent range – a number that defies possibility in many people's minds. Most marijuana contains THC levels ranging in the mid-teens to the mid-to-high 20s.
Related: Canadians buying legal marijuana have a much slimmer selection than their American counterparts
Randy Simmons, marijuana project director for the state, believes some cannabis producers are manipulating their samples before handing them over to a lab for inspection. There is a broad suspicion this is being done by spraying the test product with hash oil or dipping it in 'kief' – a powder derived from the buds of the marijuana plant. Both actions will boost the traceable amounts of THC. There is also thinking that growers are cherry-picking the very best buds to send off for inspection, again helping to produce a THC number that doesn't reflect that of the overall crop.
"Part of the issue is right now we leave it up to the growers to produce the sample to the lab and I'm not sure that is what we want to do," said Mr. Simmons.
The state-approved marijuana testing labs depend on the growers for their business. If the producers don't like the results they're getting at Lab A they can take their business to Lab B – creating an essential struggle at the centre of the testing system.
Werc Shop lab technician Braden Doane. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)
Brad Douglass, the scientific director at The Werc Shop, agrees that there is a financial incentive for labs to game the system on behalf of their customers.
"We think it's just the way the market is currently set up where the product is currently being valued by percentage of THC," he said in an interview. "Anytime you have an incentive like that there's a good chance some people will act on the incentive."
The Werc Shop was formerly a cancer research laboratory that went out of business. But Werc was able to use much of the high-end equipment that came with the premises, including liquid and gas chromatographs. The shelves are lined with beakers and crucibles, droppers and graduated cylinders. A nearby white board contains words that are foreign to most of us: Spilanthol, Acitral, quassin. There are diagrams of chemical compounds. A sample of marijuana brownies sit in a sterile plastic bag waiting for testing.
When a cannabis sample arrives at the lab, it is first weighed and inspected for yeast, mould or other harmful substances. To test for potency, the cannabis is placed in a tube with a solvent that allows the chemical elements to detach as the tube spins in a centrifuge. After that, one part of the same goes in the liquid chromatograph, another in its gas counterpart. UV lamps are later used to distinguish what chemicals are present, including the marijuana's terpene and cannabinoid profile.
"We're seeing strengths here that you don't see anywhere else in the world which is impossible. It's a plant. It's going to do what a plant does."
Randy Simmons, marijuana project director for Washington state
There is believed to be nearly 500 natural components contained in a cannabis plant, of which nearly 70 are unique to marijuana. These are known as cannabinoids, the most famous being THC, which is primarily responsible for the plant's psychoactive effects on people. Even though a chemical found in marijuana known as cannabidiol (CBD) is believed to contain many of the plant's medicinal powers, it's still THC that the common user – and grower - is after.
The Washington State Liquor Board, which oversees the legalized marijuana market, is now exploring different means of eliminating the possibility of lab samples being "juiced" by growers prior to testing and ensuring the accuracy of the tests themselves.
"We have started a secret shopper program," marijuana project director Mr. Simmons said in an interview. "This is where we got out and buy something off the retail shelf and get it tested by an independent lab. If there is a discrepancy between that result and the information [THC levels] on the package that was sold to our secret shopper than we go back to the lab that did the testing for it and we go to the grower involved to see what's up."
Mr. Simmons says his department now has staff that is doing nothing but monitoring the content of the pot being sold.
"We're seeing strengths here that you don't see anywhere else in the world which is impossible. It's a plant. It's going to do what a plant does. We need to get control over what's happening that should not be happening."
The state is also considering new ways of obtaining the marijuana samples at the front end of the testing system, taking that part of the procedure out of the hands of growers and putting it into ones owned by an independent arbiter. As well, the liquor board is also cognizant that some of the discrepancies in testing results could be the fault of the lab and the result of faulty equipment or sloppy procedures.
Some lab leaders would like to see far more oversight of the lab work and have even suggested imposing a validated methodology on the companies. That would mean the labs would all have to abide by the same testing protocol, using the same equipment.
Back at the lab, Cameron Miller talks about where he hopes the marijuana industry heads. One day, he imagines people walking into cannabis outlets far more interested in strains that smell and taste good than stuff that renders you near paralyzed by high THC content.
"I'd like to see the market geared towards more of a wine crowd," he said. "One that has a more sophisticated palate for marijuana and is not just focused on potency. That's my eventual hope anyway."
Follow Gary Mason on Twitter @garymasonglobe
Protesters crowd Virginia's capital to protest gun-control measures 1:09
Meng Wanzhou's extradition hearing begins in Vancouver 0:35
Another Maltese minister resigns amid investigation of journalist's death 1:18
Manitoba snow maze sets Guinness World Record 1:33
Prince Harry 'sad' but sees no other option but to give up royal duties 1:59

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Have You Played... Cluedo Chronicles: Fatal Illusion?
Being set in the late 30s but featuring behaviours, clothing, set dressing etc. up to approximately 20 years either side of that.
I could not get decent screens of this, so the header picture is part of the back of the game case that I found scanned into a wikia. Everything in the first sentence of that blub is a lie.
You can, thank god, still buy physical copies of this from e.g. eBay.
Tagged with feature, Hasbro Interactive, Have You Played, Cluedo Chronicles: Fatal Illusion.


Each school has information about their performance publish on the Department for Education's website. This allows parents to view their performance, characteristics, workforce, finance and Ofsted inspection outcomes.
To view our school performance tables please click here.


Decorations for Parties and Events. We provide customized balloon decorating for all your special events!
Balloon arches, centerpieces, and decor.
We'll work with you to create the perfect event with balloon decorations. We create and set up your balloon decor on-site. We've created balloon decor for all types of events – weddings, parties and grand openings.
Call 416-224-2221 today for a free personal balloon decoration design consultation!


text:
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server
When things are going well, there is no need to be particularly conscious of what the transaction log does or how it works. You just need to be confident that every database has the correct backup regime in place. When things go wrong, an understanding of the transaction log is important for taking corrective action, particularly when a point-in-time restore of a database is required, urgently! Tony Davis gives just the right level of detail that every DBA should know.
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 1: Transaction Log Overview
The transaction log is used by SQL Server to maintain data consistency and integrity. If the database is not in Simple-recovery mode, it can also be used in an appropriate backup regime to restore the database to a point in time.
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 2: A Brief Overview of Transaction Log Architecture
In order to make it easier to understand truncation, space reuse and fragmentation in the log file, Tony gives a brief explanation of how the transaction log works.
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 3: Transaction Logs, Backup and Recovery
This article discusses the different types of backup and recovery models and gives the essential facts that will guide you to being able to achieve a recovery of a database to a point in time.
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 4: Managing the Log in Simple Recovery Mode
Tony describes in more detail the SIMPLE recovery model, and the way it works, its advantages and disadvantages.
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 5: Managing the Log in Full Recovery Mode
In FULL recovery mode it is possible to do a point-in-time restore of a database. It is thankfully a rare event. Tony explains what's involved
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 6: Managing the Log in BULK_LOGGED Recovery Model
A DBA may consider switching a database to the BULK_LOGGED recovery model in the short term during, for example, bulk load operations. When a database is operating in the BULK_LOGGED model these, and a few other operations such as index rebuilds, can be minimally logged and will therefore use much less space in the log
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 7: Dealing with Excessive Log Growth
This level will examine the most common problems and forms of mismanagement that lead to excessive growth of the transaction log.
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server Level, 8: Optimizing Log Throughput
This level takes a deeper look at how log fragmentation can affect the performance of operations that need to read the log, such as log backups, or the crash recovery process.
Stairway to Transaction Log Management in SQL Server, Level 9: Monitoring the Transaction Log
Our major goal in terms of log maintenance for all databases under our care is to optimize for write performance, in order to support all activities that require SQL Server to write to the log, including data modifications, data loads, index rebuilds, and so on. However, it's also important to keep an eye on possible log fragmentation, which, as described previously, can affect the performance of processes that need to read the log, such as log backups and the crash recovery process.


Olive oil has been commonly used since ancient times, as a food, in cooking, as an anointing medium, a nourishing lubricant for the skin and hair and as fuel for traditional oil lamps.
In more recent times, manufacturers of cosmetics, soaps and pharmaceuticals have also successfully developed and marketed products containing olive oil.
Olive oil has also become more popular among health conscious consumers. Since the health status today of the typical American consumer is seriously in jeopardy, there is more good news, through research, about olive oil.
First, let's delve into a few general facts about dietary fats.
Saturated fats are solid at room temperature and happen to be very resistant to rancidity. Animal foods like butter, lard, and hydrogenated oils, palm and coconut oils are all members of this group. (Although there has recently been more research done on the benefits of coconut oil, it is still a saturated fat.) Saturated fats contribute to heart disease by raising blood levels of fat and "bad," or LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol. However, some saturated fats like those found in avocados, are actually healthy.
Monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature and are fairly resistant to rancidity (oxidation). A type called oleic acid, concentrated in certain vegetable oils (olive, peanut, canola, and new hi-oleic hybrids of sunflower and safflower); helps prevent heart disease by reducing blood levels of overall fat and LDL cholesterol.
Polyunsaturated fats are also liquid at room temperature but are highly prone to rancidity. In moderation, they do not promote heart disease. Polyunsaturated fats are found in nuts, seeds, whole grains, and common cooking oils (corn, sesame, sunflower and safflower).
High oleic monounsaturated oils, like olive oil, are consumed by Mediterranean peoples, and although their diet is fairly high in fat, they enjoy low rates of heart disease. The fat in their diet is primarily olive oil. However, their American counterparts consume huge amounts of saturated and hydrogenated fats (margarine, Crisco) through eating fast food and highly processed food, and heart disease continues to be our number one killer.
Research now solidly backs up the health benefits of olive oil. Consuming more heart-healthy oils like olive oil in cooking, dipping and salad dressings is most certainly a wise thing to do.
So, not all fat is bad.
Until fairly recently, it was believed that blood levels of cholesterol, other fats like triglycerides and LDL cholesterol caused atherosclerosis. While overall fat intake is a critical factor, new research has shown that the immediate cause is oxidation of these fats in the blood. Olive oil is the only oil that has the unique property of being able to directly lower circulating fats and LDL cholesterol in the blood and to help prevent the oxidation of these fats.
Some of the other benefits of olive oil are that it contains no cholesterol, consists of approximately 82% monounsaturated fat, and can lower LDL cholesterol without affecting HDL (high-density lipoprotein), or good cholesterol levels. And since the ratio of these two levels (HDL should be higher and LDL lower) is considered more important than overall cholesterol levels, improving the ratio with the use of olive oil can directly lower the risk of atherosclerosis (fatty deposits in the arteries) and heart disease.
Do you recall Morgan Spurlock, the "Supersize Me" man? He went on a diet of nothing but fast food, and became so sick, his doctor demanded that he stop his experiment or risk possible imminent death. Within a very short period of time of eating these unhealthy fats, his blood lipids went completely haywire.
One of the serious problems with fast food is that the oil in which French fries are cooked is super heated over and over again and most probably does not get changed on a daily basis. Each time the oil is re-heated, it becomes altered and starts to break down. Decomposition of the oil results in the creation of hydroperoxids and aldehydes. Aldehydes are toxic compounds which create oxidative stress in cells, are generators of free radicals, and are known contributors to degenerative illnesses.
I recall a patient years ago who wanted to make some positive changes in his diet. He confessed to succumbing on a regular basis to fast food meals, burgers and French fries, junk food, etc. I drew his blood and put the tube in the centrifuge in order to separate the red blood cells from the plasma, which contains water, serum, and protein substances in solution. Normal plasma is clear, thin and colorless, or has a slight yellow tinge. After centrifuging, all the red blood cells drop to the bottom of the tube, and the upper half of the tube contains the clear plasma. A few minutes later when I went to retrieve the blood sample, I could not believe my eyes when I saw the plasma half of the tube filled with a substance that looked like the filling from a chocolate eclair. It was definitely not clear, but thick, yellow and creamy-looking. His analysis came back with an overall cholesterol level elevated at over 300mg/dL (optimal is less than 200mg/dL), high triglycerides, above 400mg/dL (optimal is less than 150mg/dL), high LDL cholesterol at 200mg/dL (optimal is less than 100mg/dL) and HDL was low at just under 40mg/dL, (optimal is higher, 60mg/dL or higher gives some protection against heart disease). What separated in that centrifuge visually and indisputably convinced me that it was fat, thick, sticky, oxidized fat that was circulating in this patient's arteries, laying down the groundwork for a heart attack or stroke in his future if he did not change his dietary ways.
Olive oil was definitely part of his treatment plan.
Extra virgin olive oil, the purest and best olive oil, because of its high levels of polyphenol antioxidants, also exerts anti-inflammatory, anti-clotting, and anti-hypertensive effects. In both animal and human studies, it brought about relaxing of the arteries, making them more elastic. It is theorized that, in the long term, increased elasticity of arterial walls reduces vascular stress and consequentially the risk of two common causes of death-heart attack and stroke. This could explain the lower incidence of both diseases in regions where olive oil and olives are consumed on a daily basis. Olive oil also aids in bone mineralization, liver and gall bladder function, and is even part of the famous liver flush regime that has saved many people from having their gallbladders removed. It also provides necessary fatty acids for normal growth and development in children and prevention of calcium loss in the elderly.
Incorporating about 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. But the olive oil should replace a similar amount of saturated fat and not increase the total number of calories eaten in a day.
It has been known for some time now, that women who eat a Mediterranean diet high in olive oil have a lowered breast cancer risk. A study published in 2005 in the Annals of Oncology determined that the oleic acid in olive oil suppressed the cancer-causing gene in breast cells grown in culture. It also verified that oleic acid worked synergistically with an anti-cancer antibody drug, killing cancer cells. This study confirmed the fact that the Mediterranean Diet, and more specifically, olive oil, can affect cancer cells. Olive oil is also accessible, safe, and inexpensive.
Commercial Grades of Olive Oil....What Kind is Best?
Maybe you have wondered, as I did, what the difference is between extra virgin, virgin, and just plain olive oil. The greatest health benefits of olive oil are found in extra virgin or virgin olive oil, and the price range can go from reasonable to astronomical. Organic oil is also available.
The basic guidelines for an olive oil to be called virgin olive oil are that the oil is extracted only by manual or mechanical means, and there are no alterations to the oil by any kind of chemical treatment. Extra virgin olive oil is a virgin olive oil with a free acidity of not greater than .8%, along with meeting the other requirements for virgin olive oil. This oil adds flavor to salad dressings, is delightful for dipping bread combined with balsamic vinegar and can be used to enhance the flavor of prepared foods.
Virgin olive oil has a free acidity of 2% and also meets the aforementioned requirements for a virgin olive oil. This is a good oil to brush on meat before cooking, or when stir-frying, or other high heat cooking methods. It is almost as good as extra virgin olive oil but less expensive.
Olive oil is a wonderful natural product that can enhance health in many ways, internally and externally. Try some today!


text:
Seppala, Contrael make history 4A QUALIFYING: First Byrnes swimmers to make state meet
ERIC BOYNTON
Kaylee Seppala could feel the buzz surrounding the pool begin to quicken her pulse as she stepped to the platform for a chance at Byrnes history.
A packed pool-side at the Middle Tyger YMCA for the Upper State 4A Qualifying Swim Meet could prove unnerving for an experienced senior much less a 13-year-old seventh-grader in her fourth competitive event. "I clear my mind and just kind of go deaf only to the sound of the (starting) buzzer," Seppala said. "I can hear kind of muffled noises, but pretty soon all the noises leave and it's like I'm all by myself almost." Once in the pool, the only sound that penetrates is the water splashing off her cap as she thinks to herself "I want to make State, I want to make State." There was no way Seppala could ignore the cheers of her happy coach and teammates after a time of 30.12 seconds in the girls' 50-yard freestyle. The finish was good enough to join 9th-grader Katlynd Contrael as the first Byrnes' swimmers ever to qualify individually for the State 4A Swimming Championships in Columbia on Saturday. Byrnes started its swim team last year competing in a few events while skipping the state qualifier. "I swam faster than I've ever gone before in meets. All I could think about was going to State and that really got me going," Seppala said. "I was surprised," Byrnes coach Nancy Bratys said. "I told her she'd have to dig in and swim like she'd never done in her lifetime and boy did she ever." Contrael, 15, shattered her seeding time in the 200-yard freestyle by nearly nine seconds. She also qualified in the 100-yard breaststroke. "I was hoping to qualify but really didn't expect it," Contrael said. "It's exciting because I can look back on this meet in a couple of years and know I was one of the first ones to get to State." Both girls also qualified with teammates Jennifer Rayner and Amber Wilson for the 200-yard free relay. "It's exciting to be a part of a new team and help build something," Contrael said. "It's really a team thing with us. We want to show the school how good we are because not many people know about us." Spartanburg saw 30 of 32 swimmers qualify for State with Hilary Gelders and Ben Pulskamp winning two events each. Gaffney had five of its seven swimmers qualify individually including two events each for Sara Hambright, Brittany Peterson, Drew Clary and Adam Simmons.


Reusable dishware is available at the Mt Vernon campus, and recycled content dishware is available campus-wide. All student dining is reusable, compostable, or recycled. By request only, plastic is available, and is used by 25% of catered events.


While there are no required courses at Williams, all students take at least three in arts and humanities, three in social sciences, and three in science and mathematics. All students also take at least two writing-intensive courses and one course to improve their ability to reason mathematically and abstractly. And while Williams has no formal language requirement, we do require that all students explore diversity by taking at least one course that examines how groups, cultures, and societies interact with, and challenge, one another.
Contract Major Qualified students with the talent and energy for working independently may undertake a contract major—a coherent study of an interdisciplinary subject not covered by a regularly offered major.
Independent Study When a particularly able student wishes to study a subject not covered by the normal offerings of the college, arrangements may be made to undertake courses of independent study under faculty supervision.
Interdisciplinary Studies Designed to facilitate and promote innovations in both to interdisciplinary conceptual focus and experimental pedagogical form, Interdisciplinary Studies offerings support faculty and student efforts to develop a curriculum that creatively responds to intellectual needs and modes of teaching/learning that currently fall outside the conventional pattern.


Leistra Associates are one of the Advertising Agencies located at 5 Lyon St NW Ste 850, in the Michigan city of Grand Rapids. Leistra Associates can be contacted on 616-451-2632.
Does this listing for Leistra Associates, Advertising Agencies & Services in Grand Rapids, MI need to be updated or deleted? Click here and tell us what needs to be changed.
Is Leistra Associates not what you're looking for? Use How ToCorp's B2B services to find more Advertising Agencies & Services in Grand Rapids	and throughout Michigan, as well as to find other Sales & Marketing related businesses and organizations nationwide.


text:
Jerry Sandusky Trial, Day Four: 'Was Mrs. Sandusky Home?'
In chilling testimony, a young accuser said he screamed for help in the basement of Jerry Sandusky.
Diane Dimond
Updated Jul. 13, 2017 7:29PM ET / Published Jun. 14, 2012 8:50PM ET
Jeff Swensen / Getty Images
After four days of intensely disturbing testimony, including unforgettable stories from eight accusers, the prosecution in the sex-abuse trial of Jerry Sandusky is poised to rest. But it will be the voice of the last alleged victim to testify—whose account has been by far the most chilling—that will likely ring in each juror's ears as the panel leaves for a three-day weekend.
He is an 18-year-old young man who looks years younger, his appearance marred by a flesh-colored eye patch on his right eye. (He cited a recent eye injury as the reason.) Speaking in barely audible tones at times, and answering with a childlike "yeee-ah" to most of the prosecutors' early questions, he told a harrowing story that seemed to hold the jury spellbound. (The Daily Beast has chosen not to reveal alleged victims' names, though they are announced in court.)
Theirs was a three-year-long relationship, the young man told the court, encouraged by his mother as a way for him to have a male figure in his life. Staring at the floor with his one good eye, the witness said that physical, sexually-charged contact with Sandusky started almost immediately. At the time he weighed just 67 pounds. "He made me suck his penis," he said with a big sigh.
"Did you want to do it?" Prosecutor Joe McGettigan asked in a gentle tone.
"No. [But] what was I gonna do? Look at him. He's a big guy, way bigger than me."
"How many times did this happen?" asked McGettigan.
"Every weekend," he replied. "About 100, maybe 150 times."
If gasping out loud in court were allowed, it likely would have happened in reaction to what the young man revealed next.
The prosecutor asked, "Did he do anything else to your body?"
"He put his penis in my butt," the witness said bluntly. "He got real aggressive and he forced me into it. There was no fighting against it," he said in a dejected tone. "Sometimes I'd scream, tell him to get off of me."
It happened again, he said, "A few times … until I grew a pair of balls. I had enough of it. I called my mom to come pick me up 'cause I had a cell phone, finally." He was 15 when he refused to return to the Sandusky household.
The cross-examination of this witness—like that of many of the accusers—revealed even more potentially damaging allegations. Just why defense attorney Joe Amendola decided to pursue it with this most sympathetic witness is unclear.
"So, you say Mr. Sandusky had anal sex with you?" Amendola asked.
"Yes," the young man replied.
"Did you ever need medical attention?" Amendola continued, as the hulking Sandusky sat just an arm's-length away.
"Did you ever bleed?" he pressed.
"Yes. But I just dealt with it. I have different ways of coping with things," the witness explained, keeping his eyes on the floor, reluctant to look in Sandusky's direction.
"You say you screamed?" the defense attorney asked. And the young man with the eye patch said,"Yeee-ah."
"Was Mrs. Sandusky home?"
"Yes," he answered. "But I think the basement is soundproof. It's a big basement."
Earlier in the day, the jury heard from an agent from the Pennsylvania attorney general's office. He explained how the investigation into the once untouchable coach evolved. Agent Anthony Sassano revealed that Sandusky's own autobiography—ironically called Touched—provided many photographic clues for detectives to follow. This last witness's picture, however, was not included in the book. Police only learned of him after the stunning news about Sandusky's arrest broke in November of 2011 and the boy's mother called the police.
The prosecution has employed an effective rapid-fire style, bringing to the stand as many as six witnesses in a day. Consequently, they are believed now to be on the verge of resting when court resumes on Monday—an amazing feat after only four days of testimony in a trial with 10 separate victims and a 52-count indictment.
The impact of hearing so much highly charged, sexually oriented testimony in such a short time seems to have grabbed this jury by the throat. Normally, a jury group relaxes with each other after a couple of days. There are smiles, idle chit chat, and small courtesies evident as they enter and depart the courtroom. But these 12 jurors and four alternates appear different—engaged in the process to be sure, but decidedly solemn in their duty. There are no smiles, and they rarely take their eyes off the witness box to look over at the defendant.
This was the case when the jury heard from a witness who had just graduated from Bible studies school—and whose story appears to be the first instance reported to and recorded by the local police. He was 12 years old, he told the jury, when Sandusky called to take him for a workout on the Penn State campus. When he came home with wet hair and explained to his mother that he had taken a shower with Sandusky, she called Penn State University police to complain. The witness told the court that in the shower a naked Sandusky suddenly "grabbed me up from behind, hugged me hard, and kinda growled. He said, 'I'm gonna squeeze your guts out!'" in a playful manner.
The handsome graduate paused a moment and grimaced. "I remember seeing his chest hair right next to my face. I thought, This is icky! But I didn't want to make him mad."
Each of the eight accusers at this trial has clearly struggled with their emotions when they reach the part of their story that involves sexual contact. This witness was no exception as he shifted his gaze to an invisible spot on the floor and kept it there as he spoke.
"He soaped up my body. It was escalating, the uncomfortableness of it." Sandusky shampooed the boy's hair, according to the witness, and then, "He put his hands on my waist and lifted me high up to the shower head to get the soap out of my hair. I closed my eyes so soap wouldn't get in—" Another pause and the 25-year-old looked up at the prosecutor and said almost apologetically, "After that it just goes black. I don't even remember being put down."
(His testimony brought to mind a similar incident, related to the jury yesterday by a former Penn State janitor who told his now incapacitated co-worker's story of seeing Sandusky in the fall of 2000 holding high a small boy in the shower and, to quote janitor Ron Petrosky, "sucking on his dick.")
The jury also heard today from a former university police detective, Ron Schreffler, who investigated the 1998 complaint. He told of having the boy's mother arrange two pretense meetings with Sandusky, luring him to her home to discuss what happened while officers hid in the bathroom and bedroom to listen in. When pressed to explain why her boy's behavior had changed so much after the day they showered together, Sandusky broke down, according to Schreffler, and said to the mother, "I wish I could ask for forgiveness. I know I won't get it from you. I wish I were dead."
At the defense table, Sandusky stared expressionless at the former cop. The jury seemed to pay close attention; several jurors were seen making a note of this testimony.
Like most of the other accusers, the 25-year-old sergeant in the Army National Guard who took the stand with a close-cropped military haircut had no father in his life. When Sandusky showed interest by taking him to football games and family functions, he told the jury, "It was awesome. I loved it. He was like a father to me." But when alleged sexual contact began in the Penn State showers and the Sandusky's basement bedroom, this witness said, he never said anything to anyone—not for three years. With his head hanging and in a whispered tone he said, "I was enjoying the other things I was getting too much. I loved him." The sergeant said that Sandusky would sexually rub him down in the Penn State showers and fondle him into an erection in the basement.
"I knew I wasn't supposed to have one from a man," he said in an embarrassed tone. "It wasn't natural for an older man to—" His voice trailed off. "He said I was like part of his extended family." But when this witness began to act out in antisocial ways, his mother sent him off to foster care. "I was mad, raged, and hurt that [Sandusky] could just forget about me. I prayed that he would find me, get me out of there. Adopt me or something."
After a three-year relationship, the witness said, he never heard from Sandusky again.


Get Tarot Reading with Tarot Reader Wilfredo. Pin number 344535. Over 19 years experience. With a Thougtful style, you can get your answers to love, career, finances and more. Wilfredo speaks Macedonian. Originally from Macedonia.


Amber Davis, a lifelong resident of Scioto County, graduated from Portsmouth West High School. She attended Shawnee State University and graduated from Ohio University – Athens Campus with a Bachelor's Degree in Art Education. Further, Amber obtained a Master's Degree in School Counseling at the University of Dayton and an Endorsement in School Library/Media Specialty from Ohio Dominican University. Before joining the Scioto County Prosecutor's Office as a Victim Advocate in May 2014, Amber worked with Pre-K – 12th grade Scioto County students in both public and private schools teaching Art, Preschool, and Library/Media. Currently, Amber is extremely proud of her completion of the 40 Hour Ohio Attorney General's ADVANCE Academy Basic Advocacy Skills in Crime Victim Services Training. Amber is devoted to serving all victims of crime of Scioto County.