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Massachusetts Executive Orders
Massachusetts Executive Orders 300-399
No. 383: Revoking Unnecessary Executive Orders
This is a part of: Massachusetts Executive Orders 300-399
Governor William F. Weld, 1991-1997
No. 300: Commission on Public Higher Education
No. 301: Establishing a special commission to make recommendations to the Gover…
No. 302: Consideration for employees called to active military service for paym…
No. 303: Public safety and the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station
No. 304: Judicial Nominating Council
No. 305: Establishing a harbor residuals landfill sitting advisory commission
No. 306: Implementation of the Developmental Disabilities Act of 1984, P.L. 98-…
No. 307: Establishing the Massachusetts Advisory Commission to commemorate the …
No. 308: Governor's advisory committee on the implementation of the recently en…
No. 309: Public Education Nominating Council
No. 310: Establishes a Commission on the Future of the State College and Commun…
No. 311: Establishing a joint commission on the future of the beaches of Boston…
No. 312: Establishing a Fort Devens redevelopment board
No. 313: Governor's advisory committee on women's issues
No. 314: Community Service Commission
No. 315: Implementation of the Developmental Disabilities Act of 1990, P.L. 101…
No. 316: Establishing a joint state and county advisory committee regarding the…
No. 317: Establishing a special commission to make recommendations relative to …
No. 318: Revoking and superseding Executive Order no. 134
No. 320: Establishing the Massachusetts 2000 Commission (public education)
No. 321: Assistance for minority human service providers
No. 322: Governor's Commission on Computer Crime
No. 323: Industrial Accident Board nominating panel
No. 324: Establishing Commission on Computer Technology and Law
No. 325: Governor's commission on gay and lesbian youth
No. 326: Governor's advisory committee on information technology
No. 327: Establishing an advisory committee on the coordination of economic dev…
No. 328: Asian-American Commission
No. 329: Governor's special commission on off-track betting
No. 330: Establishing a special commission on foster care in Massachusetts
No. 331: Establishing a blue ribbon commission to study and oversee the renovat…
No. 334: Reestablishing a commission to advise the Governor and the Secretary o…
No. 335: Establishing a catastrophic illness sick leave policy for the Commonwe…
No. 336: Establishing further regulations for aides-de-camp to the Commander-in…
No. 337: Commission on Computer Technology and the Law
No. 339: Alternative facilities for pretrial detention of juveniles
No. 340: Providing for non-discriminatory benefit policies for employees of the…
No. 341: Providing for non-discriminatory visitation privileges of inmates, pat…
No. 342: Massachusetts Neighborhood Crime Watch Commission
No. 343: Establishing a policy for state employees to provide voluntary service…
No. 344: Establishing the state policy for providing access to electronic equip…
No. 345: Establishing a green ribbon commission to oversee the centennial of th…
No. 346: Establishing a policy governing the hiring of state employees by state…
No. 347: Governor's special commission on regulation of horse drawn carriages
No. 350: Massachusetts Statewide Environmental Coordinating Council
No. 351: Establishing the Governor's special advisory commission on disability …
No. 352: Establishing an inter-agency disability services coordinating council
No. 353: Hispanic-American Advisory Commission
No. 354: Commonwealth Of Massachusetts Employees Campaign (COMEC)
No. 356: Establishment of the Governor's Commission on Mental Retardation
No. 357: Reestablishing a commission to advise the Governor relative to further…
No. 359: Encouraging a healthy economy in a multi-racial democracy in South Afr…
No. 360: Establishing a clean water act advisory task force
No. 361: Revoking Executive Orders 257 and 265
No. 362: African-American Advisory Commission
No. 363: Establishing a Governor's advisory council on veterans' affairs
No. 364: Designating the Massjobs Council as the Commonwealth's human resource …
No. 365: Massachusetts National and Community Service Commission
No. 366: Declaring a state of emergency resulting from unprecedented snowfall i…
No. 367: Nomination of federal empowerment zones and enterprise communities
No. 368: Establishing a rehabilitation advisory council
No. 369: Revoking Executive Order 359
No. 370: Requiring state agencies to purchase underutilized fish
No. 371: Commission on Mental Retardation and reduction of quorum number
No. 372: Commission on Commonwealth Port Development
No. 373: Establishing a statewide independent living council
No. 374: Establishing a rehabilitation advisory council for the Massachusetts C…
No. 376: Establishing a seaport advisory council
No. 377: Amendment to Executive Order No. 355 (Judicial Nominating Council)
No. 378: Establishing a planning advisory committee for converting the South We…
No. 379: Amendment to Executive Order no. 376 (Seaport Advisory Council)
No. 380: Providing for the protection and preservation of the Westfield River
No. 381: Malden Mills fire - state of emergency for cities of Methuen and Lawre…
No. 382: Amendment to Executive Order no. 328 (Asian American Commission)
No. 384: To reduce unnecessary regulatory burden
No. 385: Planning for growth
No. 387: Mount Greylock scenic byway designation
No. 388: Clean alternative fuel for the Massachusetts fleet
No. 389: Establishing a commission to advise the Governor relative to further m…
No. 390: Establishing an affirmative market program in public contracting
No. 391: Implementation of presidential initiative on rural economic development
No. 392: To establish a Massachusetts Municipal Police Accreditation Program
No. 393: Establishing an educational management accountability board
No. 395: Establishing the Governor's special advisory commission on managed hea…
No. 396: Governor's Commission on Mental Retardation
No. 397: Implementation of the Developmental Disabilities Act of 1996
Governor Argeo Paul Cellucci, 1997-2001
No. 398: Establishing a policy of zero tolerance for domestic violence
No. 399: Prohibiting prisoners from raising money for political purposes
Executive Order No. 383: Revoking Unnecessary Executive Orders
William F. Weld
Mass Register:
Revoking:
Executive Order 102
(Revoking Executive Orders Nos. 102, 137, 139, 146, 159, 176, 182, 186, 194, 197, 199, 206, 211, 217, 234, 254, 256, 259, 267, 268, 275, 276, 294, 307, 312, 322, 324, 326, 332, 333, 337, 347, and 372)
WHEREAS, in the past many Boards and Commissions have been established by Executive Orders to assist the citizens of the Commonwealth, to serve in advisory capacities and to perform certain governmental functions;
WHEREAS, many of the Boards and Commissions created by past Executive Orders are no longer necessary because they have either been replaced by certain statutory bodies or have served the particular purpose for which they were created;
WHEREAS, the Weld-Cellucci Administration is committed to reducing waste, duplication and bureaucracy, and to eliminating unnecessary boards and commissions;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM F. WELD, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Supreme Executive Magistrate, do hereby revoke, effective January 23, 1996, the following Executive Orders: Executive Order No. 102, Massachusetts Organized Crime Control Council; Executive Order No. 137, Governor's Advisory Council on Puerto Rican and Hispanic Affairs; Executive Order No. 139, Governor's Local Educational Advisory Council; Executive Order No. 146, Governor's Advisory Council on Puerto Rican and Hispanic Affairs (amending Executive Order No. 137); Executive Order No. 159, Governor's Advisory Committee on Children and the Family; Executive Order No. 176, Establishing a Special Commission on Laws and Regulations Governing the Alcoholic Beverage Industry; Executive Order No. 182, Increasing the Membership of the Governor's Commission on property Tax Relief; Executive Order No. 186, Governor's Task Force on Juvenile Crime; Executive Order No. .194, Governor's Purchasing Advisory Committee; Executive Order No. 197, Taunton State Hospital Advisory Committee; Executive Order No. 199, Block Grant Task Force; Executive Order No. 206, Block Grant Task Force (amending Executive Order No. 199); Executive Order No. 211, Governor's Emergency Task Force on the Economic Revitalization of the City of Lynn; Executive Order No. 217, Advisory Committee to Study Cable Television Programming Relative to the Showing of Obscene Material; Executive Order No. 234, Creating a New Massachusetts Statewide Health Coordinating Council; Executive Order No. 254, Advisory Committee on the Impact of the Nuclear Arms Race on Massachusetts; Executive Order No. 256, Governor's Business Advisory Council; Executive Order No. 259, Human Resource Center Advisory Council; Executive Order No. 267, Governor's Statewide Anti-Crime Council (revoking and superseding Executive Order No. 226); Executive Order No. 268, Office of Quality Assurance for the Mental Retardation Consent Decrees; Executive Order No. 275, Governor's Commission on Fire Safety, Combustion Toxicity and Combustibility; Executive Order No. 276, Establishing the Massachusetts Emergency Response Commission; Executive Order No. 294, Governor's Commission on the Benjamin Franklin Trust Fund; Executive Order No.307, Establishing the Massachusetts Advisory Commission to Commemorate the Bicentennial of the Bill of Rights; Executive Order No. 312, Establishing a Fort Devens Redevelopment Board; Executive Order No. 322, Commission on Computer Crime; Executive Order No. 324, Governor's Commission on Computer Crime (amending Executive Order No. 322); Executive Order No. 326, Governor's Advisory Committee on Information Technology Executive Order No. 332, Establishing a Special Commission on Foster Care in Massachusetts (superseding Executive Order No. 330); Executive Order No. 333, Establishing a Special Commission on Foster Care in Massachusetts (amending Executive Order No. 332); Executive Order No. 337, Governor's Commission on Computer Crime (amending Executive Order No. 324); Executive Order No. 347, Governor's Special Commission on Regulation of Horse Drawn Carriages; Executive Order No. 372, Commission on Commonwealth Port Development.
Given at the Executive Chamber in Boston
this 23rd day of January, one thousand nine
hundred and ninety-six.
William F. Weld, Governor
William Francis Galvin
Contact for No. 383: Revoking Unnecessary Executive Orders
Related to No. 383: Revoking Unnecessary Executive Orders
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This is part of: Massachusetts Executive Orders 300-399
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Q: Primefaces Dataexporter and get method With a simple class wich contains only a list of list of String, I can view all its elements in a p:dataTable with the get(int) method of class List but it fails when I try to export this with the p:dataExporter component.
Here's the Java source code :
@ManagedBean
@SessionScoped
public class MainClass {

private List<ArrayList<String>> listOfListOfString;

public List<ArrayList<String>> getListOfListOfString() {
    return listOfListOfString;
}

public void setListOfListOfString(List<ArrayList<String>> listOfListOfString) {
    this.listOfListOfString = listOfListOfString;
}

public MainClass() {
    listOfListOfString = new ArrayList<ArrayList<String>>();
    ArrayList<String> firstList = new ArrayList<String>();
    firstList.add("a");
    firstList.add("b");
    listOfListOfString.add(firstList);
    ArrayList<String> secondList = new ArrayList<String>();
    secondList.add("1");
    secondList.add("2");
    listOfListOfString.add(secondList);
}
}

And the XTHML code :
    <h:body>
    Hello from Facelets
    <h:form prependId="false">
        <p:dataTable id="tbl" var="myList" value="#{mainClass.listOfListOfString}" paginator="true" rows="10" >
            <p:column headerText="First column">
                <h:outputText value="#{myList.get(0)}"/>
            </p:column>
            <p:column headerText="Second column">
                <h:outputText value="#{myList.get(1)}"/>
            </p:column>
        </p:dataTable>

        <h:commandLink  value=" csv">
            <p:dataExporter type="csv" target="tbl" fileName="userList" />
        </h:commandLink>
    </h:form>
</h:body>

And the error stack when I click on the csv link:
For input string: "get"
- Stack Trace

 java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "get"
at java.lang.NumberFormatException.forInputString(NumberFormatException.java:48)
at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:449)
at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:499)
at javax.el.ListELResolver.coerce(ListELResolver.java:173)
at javax.el.ListELResolver.getType(ListELResolver.java:72)

Do you have an idea why p:dataTable can use the get(int) method and p:dataExporter can't?
Thanks,
Philippe

A: Probably both components are implemented differently.
But you can access list elements this way:
#{myList[n]}

where n is the list index.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


We talk step parenting and parenting, why mothers (and single moms) make outstanding employees, and how women can deliberately design a career that enables the life they want to have, and the parent they want to be.
I've been a fan of Sarah's for quite some time, so I was honored to be included among the badass. For more, please listen to our podcast and read her outstanding article.
I have two impressive clients, one a lawyer and one a doctor. They are highly accomplished in their fields.
I do know. The girl thing.
In fact, yesterday I was sharing this very story with a friend. She just received a big promotion at work, and closed a new deal faster than any one ever has in the history of the 30-year company.
But the unspoken "girl thing" that too many of us understand is no longer working for me. And, as the mother of a daughter, it's really not working for me. I want the same opportunities and possibilities for all my children, no matter the gender. Not 79 cents on the dollar for my "less valuable" daughter. I don't want to see the world teach limitations into her core, as it has for me and my clients.
I want my 2-year-old daughter, who is pretty badass already, to not recognize "doing the girl thing" as what my doctor, lawyer, and business friend and I recognize too easily. Putting yourself down. Making excuses for your success. Apologizing for your creative ideas. Hearing yourself "you can't" before you say "I can".
That's the 2016 version of doing the girl thing. Just finding that thing you're great at and doing it. Being honestly and authentically you.
What would thriving look like?
As a coach, I listen and ask questions (in that order).
Here's how I know I've asked the right question: you stop your flow. You'll look up or down; you look away. If we're talking on the phone, there's a longer than normal pause.
And that's my goal – to help you step away from, and get perspective with your own thoughts. You're here, talking to me, because there's a question that's tugging at you. Making your brain circle, get fatigued, and not focus on answering the problem, but focusing on the problem itself. We want to move toward the solution, not sit in the problem.
There is one question that is incredibly effective, and I know this from being on the receiving end. This is the question my coach asked me in our first session that made me stop and re-frame my focus.
That's it. Five words. And it probably doesn't read like much on the screen, so say it out loud.
"…thriving…". You know what thriving means. It's a plant in full bloom. A kid who loves to play sports running on the field. A dog chasing a ball. Thriving. You have an image of this, and there's momentum to it. We're not talking about "success", "doing well" or "happiness" – these words are loaded and complex. Thriving. It's an active straightforward word.
"What would…" This question invites a possibility. Woulds and coulds are possibility words. Nothing committal. And nothing judgmental like their arch-nemesis, "should". (More on that damaging word later.) It's the ultimate set up for a hypothetical question, inviting you to brainstorm, allowing you to imagine the possibility of something. No commitment. Just dream.
"…look like?" Instead of asking that thriving "is" – is is a static word, (just ask Bill Clinton), I'm asking you to literally describe what it might look like. You want to lose weight? Tell me what you want to wear, and where you want to go when you hit your goal. Now let's make that happen.
Or, you want to love motherhood?
OK. Are you lying on a hammock with your baby? Or are you reading a book while the baby is napping and you get a break? You want a happy marriage? What does thriving look like? Is that snuggling in bed watching Steven Colbert or is it climbing Kiliminjaro together?
When I ask you to picture the end state, that helps you to imagine it. And a picture of your future is worth a lot more than 1,000 words. Once you have that delicious image in your mind; you've got a great motivation for creating, and implementing a plan to make it happen.
That, my friend, is the essence of coaching: listening to you and asking really good questions that help you answer your own questions.
Then have a good look at the picture that is painted for you.


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text:
Q: Python fetch MySQLdb results in chunks with generator - error I have the following code:
def executeQuery(conn, query):
    cur = conn.cursor()
    cur.execute(query)
    return cur

def trackTagsGenerator(chunkSize, baseCondition):
    """ Returns a dict of trackId:tag limited to chunkSize. """

    sql = """
        SELECT track_id, tag
        FROM tags
        WHERE {baseCondition}
    """.format(baseCondition=baseCondition)

    limit = chunkSize
    offset = 0
    while True:
        trackTags = {}

        # fetch the track ids with the coresponding tag
        limitPhrase = " LIMIT %d OFFSET %d" % (limit, offset)
        query = sql + limitPhrase
        offset += limit
        cur = executeQuery(smacConn, query)
        rows = cur.fetchall()

        if not rows:
            break

        for row in rows:
            trackTags[row['track_id']] = row['tag']

        yield trackTags

I want to use it like this:
for trackTags in list(trackTagsGenerator(DATA_CHUNK_SIZE, baseCondition)):
    print trackTags
    break

This code produces the following error without even fetching one chunk of track tags:
Exception _mysql_exceptions.ProgrammingError: (2014, "Commands out of sync; you can't run this command now") in <bound method SSDictCursor.__del__ of <MySQLdb.cursors.SSDictCursor object at 0x10b067b90>> ignored

I suspect it's because I have the query execute logic in the body of loop in the generator function.
Is someone able to tell me how to fetch chunks of data using mysqldb in such way?

A: I'm pretty sure this is because it can run into situations where you've got two queries
running simultaniously because of the yield. Depending on how you call the function (threads, async, etc..) I'm pretty sure your cursor might get clobbered too?
As well, you're opening yourself up to (sorry, but I can't sugar coat this part) horrific SQL injection holes by inserting baseConditional using essentially a printf. Take a look at the  DB-API's parameter substitution docs for help.
Yield isn't going to save you time or energy here at all, the full sql command will always need to run before you'll get a single result. (Hence you're using LIMIT and OFFSET to make it more friendly, kudos)
i.e. someone updates the table while you're yielding out some data, in this particular case - not the end of the world. In many others, it gets ugly.
If you're just goofing around and you want this to work 'right-now-dammit', it'd probably work to modify executeQuery as such:
 def executeQuery(conn, query):
     cur = conn.cursor()
     cur.execute(query)
     cur = executeQuery(smacConn, query)
     rows = cur.fetchall()
     cur.close()
     return rows

One thing that also kinda jumps out at me - you define trackTags = {}, but then you update tagTrackIds, and yield trackTags.. Which will always be empty dict.
My suggestion would be to not bother yourself with the headache of hand writing SQL if you're just trying to get a hobby project working. Take a look at Elixir which is built on top of SQLAlchemy.
Using an ORM (object-relational-mapper) can be a much more friendly introduction to databases. Defining what your objects look like in Python, and having it automatically generate your schema for you - and being able to add/modify/delete things in a Pythonic manner is really nifty.
If you really need to be async, check out ultramysql python module.

A: You use a SSDictCursor, something that maps to mysql_use_result() on MySQL-API-side. This requires that you read out the complete result before you can issue a new command.
As this happens before you receive the first chunk of data after all: are yu sure that this doesn't happen in the context of the query before this part of code is executed? The results of that last query might be still in the line, and executing the next one (i. e., the fist one in this context) might break things...


Good news from Bay City! The preliminary hearing for White Stallion Energy Center was this morning, and the No Coal Coalition, Sierra Club, and Environmental Defense Fund ALL GOT STANDING. That means that when the real contested case hearing happens, in six months or so, we'll all be legal parties to the process.
Anyone looking for more information on White Stallion or interested in getting involved in this fight is encouraged to visit the No Coal Coalition's website. There you can find articles about the plant, sign up for e-mail updates, and get protest stickers and yard signs. You should also, of course, check out Coal Block and join the community to get in contact with other organizers and activists.
Definitely check out the slide show from this protest. Inspiring stuff… anybody want to do it here? Go link up on Coal Block Community. Its like Facebook for anti-coal activists.


Performing a clean installation of SQL Server 2012 SP1 on the (new) production servers seems to have resolved a number of issues relating to MDS.
My upgrade to SQL Server 2012 SP1 from CU4 went well except for one glitch. After the upgrade was complete, MDS showed no models!
SQL Server 2012 SP1 Is Now Available! – Microsoft SQL Server Release Services – Site Home – MSDN Blogs.


What is the salary of Dy Manager at Ashok Leyland?
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LIGHTHIZER TAKES NAFTA BREAK TO DISCUSS U.S-EU TRADE: U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer may be smack in the middle of talks with Canada on a revised North American trade agreement, but that's not stopping him from making a one-day trip to Brussels today to talk about a potential trans-Atlantic trade deal.
The short visit with European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström is the first high-level meeting since President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reached a temporary trade truce in July.
Malmström and Lighthizer are co-chairs of an Executive Working Group tasked with setting the parameters of a future trade negotiations aimed at reducing tariffs to zero on all industrial goods, except autos.
Tough talk on agriculture: Our POLITICO Europe colleagues tell us the EU expects a difficult meeting because of the U.S. desire to include agriculture in any deal. However, the EU will hold firm and reject such ideas, Malmström said ahead of the talks.
At an EU trade attachés meeting on Friday, France demanded there should be no regulatory cooperation in the agricultural sector, which it fears could be used as a backdoor to opening up ag markets into the trade talks. Paris also received backing from the Netherlands in urging the Commission not to link the planned renegotiation of a hormone-free beef quota to the broader EU-U.S. trade talks, one person at the meeting said.
Other sticky issues: EU officials also have little hope the meeting will deliver progress on cars, which Brussels believes will have to be included in any EU-U.S. trade agreement to make it WTO-compatible.
Jean-Luc Demarty, head of the Commission's trade department, told senior EU trade attachés on Friday that it was very difficult to foresee where the U.S. stands and whether something concrete could be achieved on Monday, according to people at the meeting. Trump put autos squarely at the heart of U.S.-EU trade relations earlier this year by threatening to impose a 20 or 25 percent on all imported autos.
He has put that threat on hold in the case of the EU, as long as the two sides are making progress in talks on a bilateral trade agreement. But he's also emphasized his desire not to eliminate a 2.5 percent on autos and a 25 percent on trucks as part of the deal, even after the EU offered to eliminate its 10 percent auto duty.
IT'S MONDAY, SEPT. 10! Welcome to Morning Trade, where one of your hosts now looks at weather forecasts and immediately thinks about how that will affect potential NAFTA stakeouts. Is it possible to think about NAFTA too much? Got any news or tips (on NAFTA or other just about anything non-NAFTA)? Let me know: srodriguez@politico.com or @sabrod123.
MALMSTRÖM HINTS AT REGULATORY 'EARLY HARVEST': Amid the difficulties for finding a common ground on a trade deal, EU officials have expressed hope that planned regulatory cooperation in areas like services, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and medical products can deliver quicker results.
Malmström recently hinted that such issues could be wrapped up early when she told the European Parliament that "regulators made a lot of progress during the TTIP talks," referring to negotiations on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership during the last three years of the Obama administration.
Climate conundrum: France has already cast doubts over the feasibility of trans-Atlantic trade talks when President Emmanuel Macron said at the end of last week that there should be no negotiations as long as the U.S. abstains from the Paris Climate Agreement. EU countries will have to issue a mandate to the Commission before any actual trade talks can begin.
Color Kudlow 'mildly optimistic': Chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said he saw growing goodwill between the two sides. He also raised the possibility of another meeting between Juncker and Trump at the United Nations General Assembly meeting later this month in New York.
In an interview Friday on CNBC, Kudlow said he believed there a was a good opportunity for the European Union to increase purchases of a number of U.S. goods as result of the bilateral talks just getting started. "Things like soybeans, things like LNG, things like beef, perhaps things like military sales… It's moving steadily. It's an early process, and color me mildly optimistic about that," he said.
U.S.-CANADA NAFTA DEAL STILL BEING WORKED OUT: Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland headed back to Canada on Friday evening without a breakthrough on NAFTA, Sabrina Rodriguez reported. But Freeland said that high-level talks between Washington and Ottawa have moved into a "continuous negotiation phase" where officials will keep working until a three-way deal is reached.
Two big hold-ups: The U.S. and Canada have been going back on forth on a compromise regarding U.S. farmers' access to Canada's dairy market as well as the language on a dispute process that allows Canada to challenge U.S. tariffs. Trump and administration officials – including Kudlow and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue – have spotlighted dairy as an area where the U.S. demands more market access.
"The word that continues to block the deal is M-I-L-K," Kudlow said Fox Business on Friday.
But sources close to the negotiations have said that the biggest sticking point continues to be the dispute settlement process housed in Chapter 19 of the existing deal. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week that the mechanism was necessary, as it "ensures that the rules are actually followed, and we know that we have a president that doesn't always follow the rules as they're laid out." That dispute process was also a major demand from Canada in the original NAFTA negotiation.
What's next: Lighthizer will return to Washington on Tuesday, leaving a window of a couple days for him to continue high-level U.S.-Canada talks before the G-20 trade ministers meeting in Argentina on Friday.
A LOOK AHEAD ON G-20: It remains unclear if Lighthizer will attend or send another USTR official in his place. Lighthizer traveled to Paris earlier this year for a ministerial on the sidelines of the annual OECD meeting. But he missed both the APEC and ASEAN trade minister gatherings this year, sending Deputy USTR Jeffrey Gerrish instead.
TRUMP RE-UPS PRESSURE ON APPLE: Trump renewed his call for Apple to build electronics in the United States, after the company warned the president's proposed new tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods from China will raise prices for some of its popular products.
"Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China - but there is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive," Trump tweeted on Saturday. "Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now. Exciting!"
In a Sept. 5 filing to the USTR, Apple said the proposed tariffs would hit products such as the Apple Watch and AirPods as well as a variety of adapters, chargers, cables and component parts.
"Tariffs increase the cost of our U.S. operations, divert our resources, and disadvantage Apple compared to foreign competitors," the company said. "More broadly, tariffs will lead to higher U.S. consumer prices, lower overall U.S. economic growth, and other unintended economic consequences."
Most of Apple's manufacturing is China, but the company said in January that it would open a new campus and create 20,000 jobs in the U.S., shortly after Congress passed the tax overhaul that gave the company a huge windfall.
TRUMP THREATS TO HIT ALL CHINESE GOODS WITH NEW EXTRA DUTIES: One of this month's big questions is how quickly Trump will move to impose tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods now that the public comment period on the proposal ended last Thursday.
The administration isn't saying, but it took more than three weeks from the end of an earlier public comment period on May 22 to announce their decision on initial $50 billion worth of goods on June 15. Then, it was three more weeks before a 25 percent duty was imposed on the first tranche of $34 billion in goods on July 6.
In comments on Air Force One on Friday, Trump indicated he could move quickly on the next big batch of $200 billion of Chinese if there isn't more progress soon from Beijing, Megan Cassella and Doug Palmer reported. He then upped the ante by saying his administration also has tariffs ready to go on another $267 billion worth of Chinese goods.
That would apparently expand his tariff action to cover all $505 billion worth of U.S. imports from the Asian nation, including cellphones, the single biggest item at around $70 billion.
Trump's latest threat "is irresponsible, not to mention legally questionable," Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, said in a statement. "By slapping more punitive taxes on goods that Americans depend on, he is hurting our businesses, workers, innovation and the global standing of our nation. A 25 percent tariff on a total of $517 billion worth in goods would be, by far, the biggest tax increase U.S. consumers have faced during his presidency."
HOW MUCH WOULD A LONG TRADE WAR HURT CHINA — AND THE U.S? The economic research staff at S&P Global examined that question. "An escalation of the tariff war could start to sever or disrupt supply chains, bringing about diminished production efficiency, higher costs, and lost competitiveness — ultimately leading to a lower potential growth rate for both countries," the analytics firm said in a report released last week.
GDP impact: An all-out trade war could shave roughly one percentage point off U.S. GDP by 2021 and about six-tenths of one percent off Chinese GDP, S&P Global said. The damage could be two-tenths of percentage point higher for the United States and four-tenths higher for China if the trade war produced a big enough shock to shave one percentage point off global economic growth.
Currency impact: Meanwhile, the ongoing U.S.-China trade war is actually helping increase the use of China's currency, the yuan, in international commerce and financial transactions – a long-term financial goal for Beijing. South China Morning Post has more.
TRUMP GETS FACTS WRONG ON OBAMA AND JAPAN: Trump falsely asserted on Friday that Japan was unwilling to negotiate a trade deal with the United States in the Obama administration.
That seemed to forget or ignore that Japan was one of the 11 other countries that signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the United States when Obama was in office.
Still, Trump said he didn't want to start talks with Japan yet, "because we're in China," apparently referring to current trade tensions with Beijing. Despite that, he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed earlier this year to negotiate a set of "free, fair and reciprocal" trade deals.
The two leaders are expected to talk on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting later this month, although no specific meeting has been announced. Lighthizer and Japanese Economic Revitalization Minister Toshimitsu Motegi are also expected to meet again in September, but there is also no date for that.
COMMERCE MODIFIES STEEL EXCLUSION REQUEST PROCESS: After months of complaints about its slow and cumbersome process for reviewing requests for certain steel and aluminum products to be excluded from Trump's new tariffs, the Commerce Department is making some changes, according to a Federal Register notice to be published Tuesday.
"The department understands the importance of having a transparent, fair and efficient exclusion and objection process. The publication of today's rule should make significant improvements in all three respects," the agency said in the notice, which lists many of the questions and complaints companies have about the reviews, as well as the Commerce Department's responses.
As of Aug. 30, the department had received more than 38,000 exclusion requests and more than 17,000 objections from domestic firms saying they could supply the products in question. The Federal Register notice did not say how many exclusion requests had been resolved. However, a recent letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) put the number at 2,900 as of Aug. 23.
— USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue is "pleasantly surprised" by farmers' support for Trump amid trade tensions, POLITICO Pro reports.
— Report shows steel tariffs squeezing manufacturers in states Trump won in 2016, POLITICO Pro reports.
— NAFTA has changed the way people in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. eat, The Walrus reports.
— China invites Wall Street's top bankers in an effort to break Trump trade impasse, Financial Times reports.


Countries in the Central and Eastern Europe region enjoyed favourable economic conditions last year. This led to an improved situation for CEE businesses. The number of insolvencies decreased over the course of 2015 in 9 out of 13 countries, while the GDP-weighted regional insolvency average was -14%. The region showed a varied picture, with double-digit deterioration recorded in Ukraine and Lithuania, whereas Romania and Hungary enjoyed significant improvements. Coface forecasts that businesses will continue to take advantage of supportive conditions and that company insolvencies will drop by -5.3% in 2016.
"Business conditions will remain supportive but less so than last year" said Grzegorz Sielewicz, Region Economist Coface Central Eastern Europe. "We forecast that insolvencies will decline by -5.3% for the full year of 2016." Further improvements in the labour market, along with growing confidence, will reinforce household consumption as the main growth driver for CEE economies. The contribution of investments will not be as high as last year, due to a slow start to new EU co-financed projects. This is weakening the expansion of the construction sector and various other industries associated with it.
On the external side, CEE countries will remain active exporters, although the slowdown of global trade could hamper their ambitions. Global turbulence, including the steeper Chinese slowdown - which particular affects Germany, the CEE's main partner - could diminish export dynamics.


We're getting close to the start of the new decade, so why not create a decade-wide prediction thread?
In this case, the only specific year you should focus on is 2029— and only as the end of the decade. Basically, if you have a prediction for what might happen in 2025, a decent recommendation is to run with it to the decade's end.
The first general-purpose utility humanoid robot will be released for commercial sale by 2025.
That's good, but not perfectly ideal since there's still some ambiguity. Does it sell well by 2030? Is it still an overpriced, niche product by the end of the decade? Don't meticulously go year by year unless you're willing to put in the time and effort.
I'm waiting to see how much can a BCI capture and how much of this can be decipher , in the next 5 years.
Spearheaded by the European Space Agency after the successes of the Heavy Falcon and Starship launches, a permanent colony on the moon will be settled in 2025 at the earliest.
2025 is about 6 years away. If you count late 2025, it's closer to 7.
I wrote that before Google Home, and just after Alexa was released, back when it was barely functional. Since then, it has improved "exponentially". And remember, we now have Google Duplex, and Alibaba's version, which is even better (by a mile, according to reports).
Use of Home and Alexa, and also virtual assistants via voice has been increasing exponentially, particularly among young people. Most of my Assistant interactions are by voice.
Some of what I predicted has already come to pass, such as the news summary feature, which is now possible, though maybe not yet deployed (Salesforce had some research on this that made a splash a year or two ago; Facebook, too).
Machine reading has also greatly improved. It's not yet good enough to read documents to check complicated numerical logic; but it can now answer factoid -- and even more sophisticated -- questions with good accuracy. This is how Google Home is able to answer so many questions -- it can read Wikipedia and find answers, saying, "Here's what I found... [quotes Wikipedia or gives direct answer]."
Probably the tech is good enough now to translate domain-restricted documents to formal representations with good accuracy; and formal reasoning engines can check the logic. So, the machine-reading part of my prediction is also possible, given that restriction. But you would need somebody to actually write the domain-specific reading and reasoning system.
This is probably a dead-end, though. The future will be to use a unified reading-reasoning system with a giant neural net. They will probably either be built by infusing brain data, and/or pretraining on large amounts of text + fine-tuning of some kind. I don't see a future in external, hard-coded symbolic reasoning systems.
The self-driving cars will be here by 2025. Level 4, not level 5. And some small percent of the population will be using them -- next-gen TESLAs.
The construction robots will be here, too. They are starting to take over brick-laying, surveying, and other jobs. Many more will be done by robot by 2025. They're not general-purpose, though.
Digital driver's licenses are starting to appear. I don't know how many states use them, probably about 10 to 15 right now. In the past year or two many more have been looking into it. Maybe most states will allow it in 5 years. Many now allow you to use digital car insurance cards; and some don't even ask you for it, if you get pulled over -- they have it in their computers, already.
China is far ahead of the U.S. in terms of biometric identification. You really can buy stuff in some stores there, just using your face. Some European countries, like Sweden, are going cashless. And more and more restaurants and stores in the U.S. are going cashless, too. A few of the restaurants I eat at are cashless. Occasionally, I pull money to pay, and they remind me they are cashless.
We now have Apple's FaceID. The tech will get better and better, and harder and harder to hack or defeat.
We also have cashierless stores starting to appear, such as Amazon Go. Who could have predicted it would arrive so soon?
Farmbots are getting better, too. There are experimental farms managed entirely by robot. Maybe by 2025 we will see this expand. Maybe I was too optimistic there.
As to people moving out of cities and using VR, I was probably too optimistic. I was probably also too optimistic about AI prescribing medicine; but I think diagnosis will be pretty good by 2025. Babylon Health is working on it; and maybe Deepmind will make a big splash on this -- not really the kind of project they tend to focus on, but they have signalled an interest in helping advance automated diagnosis.
I was probably too pessimistic about tech unemployment, though it depends on whether there is an economic downturn around 2025, as these tend to cause high unemployment and rapid automation.
One thing I didn't predict at all was the coming BCI revolution. I only first became aware of what is coming late in 2015, early 2016.
I'll get back to this with some predictions about 2029.
The main things to keep in mind are: don't focus on a specific company, as companies are fickle; and be mindful of the difference between what's possible in theory, and what will actually be deployed.
Addendum: one thing to keep in mind is that when this future arrives, it won't feel futuristic. It will seem as though nothing has really changed. That's just how the mind works. "We were promised a glorious future. Sure, we've got supercomputer smartphones thay can talk to us and answer our questions, but that's not really very futuristic."
Some of the things might be here already, that people aren't even aware of. Digital driver's licenses is one example. How many know whether their states allow them?
Brexit is a catastrophe in every sense of the word. It's a No-Deal Brexit with nowhere near enough preparation. An initial period of calm (and gloating by the Leavers over the world not immediately ending) descends into panic as food becomes scarcer and scarcer, military police have to patrol the streets, and previously controversial anti-privacy measures are forced through with gusto by the Conservatives as a means of "protecting national security." Scandals rage over news that the wealthy/aristocrats are hoarding or importing food while the common people starve and both sides try to own the rage. It triggers far too much stress for the UK to handle, and the nation enters an economic depression and either turns into an authoritarian socialist soviet-style republic under Jeremy Corbyn or breaks apart altogether. This frames much of the 2020s in Europe as they have to deal with a brand new "white migrant crisis" coming from the UK and Ireland (because there's no chance Ireland escapes this mess). The Troubles flare up again in Northern Ireland, but with renewed ferocity due to economic hardships. The spectacular failure of Brexit casts an extremely negative shadow over other populist/rightist movements in Europe and Euroscepticism changes into a policy of reforming the EU from within.
Germany lurches to the left with the rise of the Green Party and collapse of Alternative fur Deutschland.
Trump wins re-election in 2020 against either Beto O'Rourke or Kamala Harris, but has to deal with the Democratic House and Senate. The Dems have a majority in the House as well as a majority of governorships on top of grassroots momentum from the progressives and socialists. If Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders emerge victorious in the primary, however, they will have a much better shot against Trump.
The USA starts the decade in the middle of a strong economic recession. It would have been mild had it not been for the trade war, which has been prolonged by Trump.
China has averted recession at the start of the decade, but their growth remains relatively lethargic.
Hong Kong is absorbed into the mainland by 2029.
Underneath China's surface of stability and harmony, there is increasing tension out west in Xinjiang. It is likely that it will be proven China is running Holocaust-style concentration camps for Muslims.
India undergoes its first economic contraction in the post-GFC era, casting doubt on its ability to overtake China.
The Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam become the new Asian Tigers, with Vietnam reaching the level of "high income country" by the end of the decade.
Africa continues to industrialize, and this leads to the rise of nationalist sentiments that may transform into home-grown fascism in various countries. However, in others, democratic republicanism will spread and the first place that begins seeing extremely high levels of development is sub-Saharan Africa, particular Namibia.
Chinese investment into Africa will also continue, and some nations will be further caught in debt traps as China slowly buys them out.
China will also create military bases in Africa.
There will likely be another major war in the Congo region, but it won't concern the major Western and Eastern powers at first until either one party gets its hands on WMDs or a fascistic faction emerges victorious and vows to create an expansionist Pan-African superstate.
A US-Venezuela war is unlikely, but there will be a civil war that will double as a proxy war of the US vs Russia and China. It will resolve itself with Maduro remaining in power and taking an even more hardline stance against the USA and Brazil, likely coming with the total expropriation of all capitalist assets to end the financial crisis.
Brazil survives Bolsonaro relatively unchanged due to a stream of corruption scandals that eviscerates his popularity.
Vladimir Putin dies before finishing his term, leading to a new election. Though the West plays up fears of an ultranationalist or communist coming to power (as well as pipe dreams of a pro-Western liberal in the Kremlin), the United Russia party shores up a victorious replacement who lacks Putin's charisma but otherwise will keep the status quo going.
Efforts to crush the Kurds early in the decade come to a screeching halt when Erdogan dies while ISIS re-emerges to counter Assad's attempt at restoring rule. An anarcho-socialist Kurdistan eventually takes shape.
The death of Erdogan has catastrophic effects in Turkey, where the political climate is polarized between the liberal opponents and conservative supporters, resulting constant strife going forward.
The House of Saud collapses sometime this decade. Much of the family escapes overseas, and those left behind are butchered by radicals not unlike the events of the Russian Revolution. What rises in its place is a shaky republic filled with radical liberals and radical traditionalists vying for power. Saudi Arabia will likely descend into a balkanized mess of states where warlords vie for power, with only a few pockets of stability.
The war in Yemen, thus, comes to a satisfyingly schadenfreudistic end, though violence continues due to pre-existing issues of water scarcity.
The UAE manages to avoid much of the chaos in Saudi Arabia.
New Zealand is eventually declared "completely compromised" by the CCP.
Australia turns very hard to the left early in the decade and has to play catch up for renewable energy tech.
A major world leader will be assassinated.
A radical, new tech-centric political philosophy takes root in colleges and online and becomes the most explosively controversial ideology since the publication of the Communist Manifesto.
Over the course of 100 days of social strife, the CCP falls and China is either partitioned or becomes a secular republic.
Following the collapse of Deutsche Bank and other institutions, Europe suffers a massive economic depression.
ISIS returns and takes Syria or Iraq.
Radical Islam begins to fade.
Another nuclear arms race begins, this time with China joining in. By 2029, at least four nations (USA, Russia, China, and France) have more than 1,000 nuclear weapons.
Brain-computer interface technology matures this decade, and BCIs accelerate the development of artificial intelligence as well as powered cybernetics.
The first proto-artificial general intelligence will be created by 2024. It will constantly be an item in pop-science news articles claiming that it has achieved human-level general intelligence for the rest of the decade whenever it gets upgraded or does something incredible. It will almost certainly be a product of Google DeepMind.
DeepMind will be sold to SoftBank.
Media synthesis technology will mature early in the decade and rapidly improve, leading to "bedroom multimedia franchises" beginning to become a thing later in the decade.
Sometime before 2025, a 20+ minute animated short will be uploaded to YouTube and will go viral due to the fact it was at least mostly generated by an AI, with a human team having very little involvement in its creation. It will be a coherent, fully voice-acted endeavor with music pieces and won't be surreal, and each aspect except the narrative structure will be the result of algorithm-generation.
Also due to media synthesis, it will be a popular trend to take your own face and/or body and put it into a movie or video game as the decade goes on thanks to deepfake technology. The first major example might be someone replacing Keanu Reeves' face with their own and essentially 'starring' in the Matrix. It will also be possible to do this with voice.
A decentralized alternative web will take root early in the decade and become a sizable alternative later in the decade. However, due to the major search engines having superior capabilities, it will never become dominant at least this decade.
Global internet population surpasses 7 billion, and the remainder will theoretically have access via global internet schemes, meaning the only way they'll lack access is due to a lack of terminals (e.g. computers, smartphones, etc.) rather than a lack of availability.
The James Webb Space Telescope will detect some exoplanet into which scientists put serious credence the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
Autonomous weapons systems (the "formal" name for killer/combat robots) spread despite a UN ban.
Scientists achieve the creation of a room-temperature superconductor. What's more, they can even push the temperatures at which it can superconduct up to boiling temperatures. However, it will still require high pressure to create, leading to a new rush to create ambient-pressure RTSCs.
AI acceleration of scientific progress begins soon, and most likely is used to achieve ambient-pressure RTSCs as well as stable fusion reactors.
A manned lunar landing occurs by 2029.
Global solar capacity reaches 4 terawatts by 2029.
If the Middle East recovers from its strife by then, it will become a major hub of solar power. Baghdad in particular may become a "solar city."
Marijuana, hallucinogens, and empathogens will be decriminalized/legalized in most major Western countries by 2029 and used for medical research, especially to assist with he aforementioned BCIs.
5G will bring the Internet of Things into the mainstream, especially if a global internet scheme comes about that will be able to provide 24/7 internet service without data caps.
Automation begins visibly stinging the job market in Western countries. This may begin leading to a Luddite backlash.
Electromagnetic orbs similar to Project MARAUDER are proven as possible to be created from high electric fields, but they seem to have little use.
Next generation beyond CRISPR used to create genetically-enhanced animals.
The first artificial intelligence "person" is created, though it's extremely controversial and seen as not different from the spectacle of Sophia the Robot's Saudi citizenship.
The Turing Test is passed before 2025. This will likely lead to a revised/modified Turing Test that will be passed by 2029.
The spread of BCIs makes augmented reality commercially viable as "texting by thinking" becomes possible.
Huh? Is this real? A social democrat is going to turn the UK into an "authoritarian socialist soviet style republic"? What even is this?
Welcome to forum. Yuli is known for some outlandish predictions. If his trend holds a good third of the things up in that thread might actually happen.
Lol, I guess I got hit by Poe's Law. And the rest of them were super interesting and thought provoking, too, so that first one really threw me for a loop!
The terrifying thing is, I can't think of a good argument to say how that prediction definitely wont happen.


text:
Home Freedom of speech: What does it mean and why is it important?
Published on June 9th, 2021
by FutureLearn
Category: Current Issues, General
Freedom of speech: What does it mean and why is it important?
In this article, we discuss what freedom of speech really means, why it matters and how it relates to censorship and cancel culture.
By Rhiannon Wardle
It is pretty widely accepted that free speech is an essential part of a democratic society, and should be upheld to some degree. But the real question lies in how far we take it. While some people believe that freedom of speech should be upheld at all costs, others believe that it can be an excuse for saying harmful things without reprimand.
In order to clarify the arguments surrounding free speech, we've written this article about where it originates from, how it differs around the world, how it benefits society, and what some of its limitations are. This is by no means a formal guide to the laws surrounding free speech, but rather an exploration of different perspectives around free speech.
What is the definition of free speech?
There are a number of varying definitions of free speech, but at its core, it's about the legal right to express or seek out ideas and opinions freely without fear of censorship or legal action. Freedom of speech is a part of freedom of expression, which means that individuals have the right to express themselves in whatever way they wish.
Is free speech a human right?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created in 1948 by representatives of 50 states from the United Nations. They were created in response to the Second World War, as a way of trying to prevent such a wide-scale conflict from ever happening again.
Thirty human rights were created, and they were designed to belong to everyone in the world so that no human being would be without rights. Article 18 and 19 are the rights most closely related to freedom of speech. While article 18 states that everyone has the freedom to believe whatever they want, and practice their beliefs (including religion), article 19 states that everyone has the right to express their opinions freely, in whichever way they want.
These human rights then formed the basis for different human rights laws across the world, including article 10 of the human rights act in the UK. This article grants individuals freedom of expression without interference, but also states that there are some conditions that may mean this freedom will be interrogated, such as in the event of a national security risk.
Does freedom of speech mean you can say anything?
The short answer is no. The longer answer is that the specific law will depend on the country you're in, but generally, there will always be exceptions to the rule. For example, in the UK's article 10, the law states that public authorities can restrict the right to free speech if:
They are worried about national security or public safety
They want to prevent disorder or crime
They feel it will protect health or morals
They want to protect the rights and reputations of others
They are protecting confidential information
They need to maintain the authority and impartiality of judges.
What free speech means around the world
As we previously explained, freedom of speech is a universal human right, but different countries interpret it differently in their laws. We can get an idea about different attitudes to free speech by looking at the citizens of different countries, in studies such as the one done by Pew Research Centre in 2015.
In this study, the researchers surveyed respondents from 38 different countries about their attitudes towards freedom of expression. While the U.S. unsurprisingly came out as the most supportive of free speech, other countries with a high level of support included Mexico, Venezuela, Canada and Australia.
Some examples of countries with low levels of support for freedom of expression included Senegal, Burkina Faso, Jordan, Pakistan, and Ukraine. This research demonstrates that the principle of free speech is not a 'one size fits all' concept, and depends a lot on the constitution and culture of the country in question.
What are first amendment rights in the U.S.?
You've probably heard people refer to their first amendment rights in America, since freedom of speech is often considered a fundamental part of being an American. This law guarantees freedoms related to religion, expression, assembly and petitioning, and allows individuals to assemble and speak freely. The amendment actually states:
The study we discussed earlier by Pew Research Centre demonstrated just how much Americans care about their first amendment rights. They found that Americans were some of the most supportive citizens of free speech, freedom of the press, and the right to use the internet without government censorship. In addition, they discovered that Americans were more tolerant of offensive language than other nationalities.
However, it is interesting to consider that the U.S. is ranked at 44 out of 180 countries when ranked in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
UCL (University College London) Why We Post: the Anthropology of Social Media
The University of Kent How Politics Works: From the Individual to an International Scale
Why is freedom of speech important?
There are so many reasons why freedom of speech is important. Of course, the biggest reason is that freedom is paramount in a democracy. If we cannot speak freely, it often means that our liberties are being restricted in some way. However, it's a little more complicated than that, so we took a look at our open step about freedom of expression by Humanists UK.
One thing that's highlighted in our open step is that all humans make mistakes, and somehow we learn to correct them. The way that we enrich or change our beliefs and opinions is through listening to contradictory arguments. Critical discussion is a fundamental part of the human learning experience, and critical discussions would not exist without people being able to express opposing beliefs.
In this way, disagreements can be extremely productive. Also, Humanists UK point out that causing offence is not always a bad thing. Many ideas from history caused offence at the time, but now they are considered important and revolutionary – take Mary Wollstonecraft and Charles Darwin, for example.
In addition, even if false arguments and bad attitudes are pushed down, they don't necessarily go away. Instead, they can evolve into something more sinister, as people may only seek out those with a similar opinion to themselves. This kind of behaviour creates an echo chamber, where you only hear opinions that support your own, and there is no critical discourse. Alternatively, free expression allows for ideas to be challenged, changed, and also better understood.
What are the limits of freedom of speech?
We already discussed some of the reasons why a government might restrict the right to freedom of expression, so we already know that it has some limitations. Our open step from the University of Bristol explores the slightly different limitations stated in South Africa, which restricts 'advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion'.
However, it is also worth mentioning that freedom of speech and expression has limitations depending on the specific context you're in. For example, even though it is your human right to express yourself freely, doing so at work in a way that insults or negatively affects your boss or colleagues could impact your career. Essentially, it's often inappropriate to speak freely if it infringes on someone else's freedoms.
In a similar vein, experts from the University of Oslo and the Scholars at Risk Network explore the challenges and curbs to academic free speech which can occur in academic environments, including those where human rights or legal violations may not be a factor. You can find out more about this in our Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters course.
Does freedom of speech apply to digital platforms?
A lot of the time, we hear about controversial opinions and statements that people have made via the internet. This is why it's important to evaluate the role of digital platforms and social media in the debate on freedom of speech.
In our open step on freedom of speech and the internet, experts from the University of Bristol discuss how the internet has been blamed by some for enabling terrorism and extremism. This is because they are accused of providing a platform for people to promote their damaging views, and even plan attacks.
In this way, digital platforms very much have a part to play in the free speech debate, as ultimately they must try to ensure that dangerous activity is not taking place on their platforms. However, as Pier Luigi Parcu explains in our open step on fake news, digital platforms don't like to assume editorial responsibility for the dangerous content that exists on their sites.
There are rare exceptions to this, such as when Twitter banned Donald Trump recently, but a bill was approved soon after that now prevents social media companies from "deplatforming" politicians this way.
This general lack of assumption of responsibility means that digital platforms don't filter information like other media do, leaving a lot of room for fake news, unsubstantiated opinions, and even dangerous ideas. The problem is that filtering out this information would be an issue of freedom of expression, so it becomes very difficult for digital platforms to find middle ground.
Lately, however, Facebook and Twitter have been trying to screen for fake news, which is explained in more detail in this Forbes article. The writer, Bernard Marr, states "Facebook unveiled a raft of measures designed to help keep users safe from misinformation, as well as exploitative practices. It deployed algorithms to look for false or sensationalist claims made in advertising".
Is the Internet a public forum?
One of the reasons it's so difficult to police the internet is because it's a kind of public forum. As described by professors at the University of Bristol in our open step about free speech and the internet, the internet provides a platform for those otherwise denied a voice.
Rather than just media companies and journalists being the information providers, we are offered perspectives from ordinary citizens. This can be incredibly powerful in certain instances, such as when people are experiencing abuses of power by their government, police, or authorities. The power of storytelling online cannot be underestimated.
However, the internet also encourages the free sharing of information and opinions in more ordinary circumstances – take Wikipedia, for example, which is written, edited and checked by anyone who wants to contribute. This is an example of moderation being carried out by ordinary people instead of the state. The same can be said for forums such as Reddit.
University of Oslo Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters
The University of Newcastle Australia Understanding Media: Introduction to Critical Media Literacy
Amnesty International UK Defending Dignity: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Freedom of speech vs. hate speech
One of the most widely discussed critiques of unlimited free speech is that it can condone and amplify hate speech. Hate speech can be defined as speech that is abusive and threatening towards a certain group of people, generally based on prejudices related to race, gender, sexuality, religion, or disability.
Some might ask, since people should be allowed to speak their minds and voice all opinions, why can't they simply express their dislike for certain things? This is an argument often uttered by those in favour of complete freedom of speech, including hate speech. However, people may disagree with this, arguing that a clearer line should be drawn between stating dislike and inciting violence. If nothing is off-limits, where does it end?
Can free speech ever be an excuse for racism and other forms of discrimination?
In our open step about freedom of expression by Humanists UK, they discuss the difficulty in deciding what counts as offensive and what doesn't. They ask, 'if we ban all speech that anyone might consider offensive, how much conversation would be left?' While it is true that offence is subjective, and depends hugely on your individual perspective, it could be argued that we have a duty to protect people against threats of harm and violence.
Even though a certain statement doesn't offend you, it might still be offensive. In an open step by the European University Institute, Pier Luigi Parcu talks about the issue of hate speech online, saying "hate speech has become a common pattern of political propaganda, even in established democracies, targeting minorities, women, migrants, weaker elements of society, or simply the diversity of opinions. The phenomenon has been exacerbated by the relative anonymity that is allowed to the haters by the Internet."
Does censorship violate freedom of speech?
Censorship is often talked about in relation to free speech because people feel that they are being unfairly censored online in violation of their rights. Censorship can be defined as the suppression of information, though it often relates to things like images, books, television, and other media.
It can be argued that some forms of censorship are necessary – for example, websites that children regularly access might censor inappropriate images. However, the rules around censorship can be very hazy online, and censorship can even become oppressive in many circumstances. We go into more detail below.
The dangers of censorship
In our open step about censorship from the University of York, experts suggest that internet censorship is a direct threat to our freedom to access information and express ourselves. They state that the key issue is that there is no clear code of conduct on many digital platforms, meaning we rarely even know what they are restricting and blocking, or why.
Take the case of model, Nyome Nicholas-Williams, on Instagram last year. A partially nude, non-explicit image of her that didn't break any Instagram guidelines was repeatedly taken down. However, it is extremely easy to stumble across explicit nude images on Instagram, so we have to ask – why was Nyome censored?
The problem is, that platforms like Instagram operate on a case-by-case basis when it comes to nudity, leaving a lot of room for bias, discrimination, and unfair censorship.
On a different note entirely, we all know that censorship of information by the government can be extremely dangerous and damaging. Extreme censorship is often a feature of dictatorship – citizens are not given access to news, books, certain information, and instead are fed propaganda. This is a direct violation of their human rights.
Is cancel culture a form of censorship?
A very common societal phenomenon right now is cancel culture. Placing limitations on free speech via social or digital ostracisation is not a direct attack like censorship by the government or social media platforms, but can be an effective way of deplatforming an individual, group or corporation.
Rather than actually stopping someone from expressing their views, cancel culture is a way for people to say that they're not going to listen. Usually, cancel culture is a response to someone saying or doing something objectionable. It normally involves members of the public withdrawing their support from the cancelled person, but it can also involve trying to negatively impact the person's career prospects.
For the reasons we've already discussed, it can be damaging to cancel people, because this means we are refusing to engage with them and create critical discourse. However, this really depends on the reasons why someone is being cancelled.
The important thing to remember is that asking someone to be accountable for their actions is not regarded as the same as cancel culture. A widely acknowledged view is that criticism of cancel culture should not be an excuse for not taking responsibility for damaging actions, just as the right to free speech should not be an excuse for spreading hatred.
Hopefully, this has provided you with an interesting and informative overview of free speech. If you're interested in learning more about political ideas surrounding democracy, you can try our Introduction to Politics ExpertTrack by the University of Kent.
While freedom of speech is an essential part of the world we live in and a fundamental human right, it can still be useful to think about its limitations. Being able to question society is a positive feature of democracy, and we believe that developing curiosity is an essential part of the human learning experience.
University of Padova Human Rights and International Criminal Law: An Introduction
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


My son and I were both watching a movie trailer from youtube when I caught a glimpse on one of the video's on the right side. I become curious and excited to watch it. The title was X-Factor Bulgaria - Philippine Boy. The boy's name is Alexander Aguilar. He's a Filipino - American working as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bulgaria. Below is a video from YouTube.
0:16 My name is Raphael.
0:17 Raphael, how old are you?
0:21 And where do you come from?
0:23 I come from California, San Francisco.
0:26 I was born in the Philippines.
0:31 What brought you in Bulgaria?
0:33 I'm a Peace Corps volunteer.
0:39 How long have you been in Bulgaria?
0:40 I've been here for two years.
0:43 you speak Bulgarian like that!
0:49 What does the Peace Corps do?
0:57 a small town near Vidin.
The title of the Bulgarian song is "Oblache le Bialo" (The little white cloud). It is an emotional song, I think. That's why the judges and audiences were teary-eyed when they heard it.
Tell me white cloud, Where did you came? Where did you fly? Do you not see my father's home? Do you not hear my mother talk?
What makes my sweet child, with foreign people, foreign bread shared.
You tell her white cloud, I'm alive and well here, and that you saw me.
Send many greetings from me, much time has passed, still little stay.
Soon the time will come in the village to return, to return and to hug my mother.


Comments, address, directions, e-mail contacts and more ..
Take the GA-211 exit, EXIT 126, toward Winder.
Turn left onto Union Church Rd.
5840 UNION CHURCH RD is on the left. Look for Break-Away Farm sign!
Copyright 2019. Break-Away Farm, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Evaperated.com's blog for updates, stories and SHINNANIGANS.
Hey guys! You know we love giving you deals! This one is pretty darn good if I do say so myself!
It's spring, FINALLY! And we are here with another month full of awesome deals!
The April special is pretty lit!
And don't forget to upload a photo to our Facebook, or to your instagram, and tag #EVAPERATEDLOVE for a chance to win $200 to spend in our store!
This sale stacks with our current special. Get a free 60ml for spending $50, OR get a free 120ml for spending $80 OR get TWO free 120mls for spending $140. ALL orders get a free 30ml and 15ml as well!
All orders over $40 (before shipping/tax) will get their free 30ml upgraded to a 60ml size! AND, if you order is over $100 (before shipping/tax) you will get an additional free 120ml of your choice!
We are still using mostly Purolator for shipping which means you will have your orders super quick once they ship!
And speaking of 120mls... we now offer 120ml sizes in all single bottles AND we have a new 120ml Variety Pack addition to the store!
Hello everyone! We have a few fun things cooking at Evaperated Labs this year!
Side Note: We have brought back our 'SPIN TO WIN' wheel to the website. Every spin is a winner, so why not save a bit of money?
First up is our new special!
And all 60ml and 200ml bottles will come in our new (and we think PRETTY) winter special edition labels!
IT'S ALMOST BLACK FRIDAY TIME!
Evaperated.com is having a BIG ol'sale! No codes needed!
Also in case you didn't know, we are NOT using Canada Post. We are using mainly Purolator (1-2 business day transit time across Canada on average) and sometimes UPS or Fedex. So! You will get your items quickly once we have processed them!
AND we have three new ICY flavors launching in December (descriptions in image below) and every order placed during the sale will get a 15ml sample of each flavor for free!
GET AHEAD OF IT AND GET SOME GOOD DEALS!
Things have been happening at Evaperated! I am an absolute Halloween (and October, in general) lover, so this is my favorite month to get festive and have some fun!
BUT BEFORE ALL OF THE HALLOWEEN GOODNESS!
Now on to the Halloween fun! CANDY FOR ALL! Your orders will all come with some edible body parts, zombies, bats... you name it. Who doesn't love eating eyeballs and toes at this time of year?!
We ALSO have limited edition labels for this month! All 60mls and 200mls will come with our spooktacular labels!
And on top of that, we are having a scavenger hunt! Some of you may find a bottle in your order that has a little extra image! If you are lucky to get one, refer to the legend below to see what you've won, and how to claim your treasure!
AND we are running a special for all of October!
ALSO (hence the title of OOF!) we are launching a new flavor very soon, and yes, it's festive as well!
We hope you enjoy these fun little things!
We have a nice little special running right now! Get a free 60ml for EVERY $50 you spend at www.evaperated.com! This wont last too long, so grab it while it's active!
We have TWO Fall flavors coming out in October... stay tuned for that launch!
Hope you are all staying Rad!
The super popular special is back for a limited time! Grab an extra bottle PER VARIETY PACK. No limits! If you order two variety packs, each will come with an extra bottle.
We are also giving 15% discounts for photo reviews (up from 5%) for a limited time!
I did some customer outreach last week asking if people found my old site easy to navigate. The feedback was pretty split, and enough people had a hard enough time that I decided to fix it for my customers so that being on our website was no longer painful.
• Hover descriptions on each section's products so you can see a brief description without having to actually click and enter the product's page.
• Quick View - You can now open a quick view from the product catalog pages and order your items without having to go in to their full pages, thus allowing you to quickly close the quick view once you have added it to your cart and you will still be in the catalog with all the products.
• Easier categorization - Thanks to your feedback we realized our menu system was a bit hectic. We have streamlined it down to one menu for our Liquids, divided by easier subcategories.
• Variety Packs and Mystery Packages are now in their own category and will no longer be cluttering up every single other category on the website.
• Shiny new product images depicting a mockup of what your actual bottles will look like. 60ml and 200ml bottles are visible on every liquid product, and soon we will have 30mls on them as well.
• Many other minor tweaks, fixes, adjustments and overall improvements!
I hope you guys like this, and find it easier to navigate and spend time on! As always, suggestions are always welcome, feedback is love, and if you find a bug feel free to show it to me so I can SQUISH IT!
Want updates? Sign up for updates via email or a feed reader.
Specials and Sales and Deals OH MY!


Our 2008 Acura RDX Interior Console Cooler Bag 08U06-STK-200 ships directly from an authorized Acura dealer. Since 2000 we have offered secure online ordering and fast affordable shipping. All our genuine Acura parts and Acura accessories are backed by Acura's warranty, which is covered by any Acura dealer in the US. Exactly like your local dealer only lower prices and shipped directly to your door. If you have questions about Acura accessories or Acura performance parts or need assistance, please don't hesitate to contact our friendly Acura parts and accessories experts online.


Come and celebrate the greatest moment in history! Easter promises hope, new life, forgiveness, and unending love; these promises are made for you! We hope you will join us for one of our Easter services, at 9 and 10:30AM. Children's programming through 5th grade will be available.
Serve on Easter! Easter is one of our most highly attended services of the year! In anticipation of our guests, we have many opportunities for you to serve. Come make a difference! To learn more, email Heidi Matson at heidim@rdf.org!
Friendship Baptist and Rose Drive Friends are at it again with our4th annual The Great Egg Hunt! We'll have more bouncers, bigger slides, RAD music, Chick-Fil-A, Kettle Corn, caricatures and a photo op with the Easter Bunny. To round out the morning, we'll also have face painters, Starbucks, and cotton candy! Plan to join the fun with egg hunts for kids through 5th grade!
Help us to make this event EPIC! Below are some examples of where we will need people to help!
Start time: 8:30 AM – We need 3 people to help with face painting, and even more people to help with crafts at the event!
***And yes, of course you can also purchase pre-filled eggs from anywhere else on the planet you desire!
We will be having a Good Friday service on April 19 at 7PM. We hope you will be able to join us, as this is always a rich and meaningful time of reflection on the sacrifice of Christ. Communion will be served.


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Tourist Attractions (Kalookan City)
Kalookan City is located at the northern part of the Greater Manila Area. The city is divided into two parts: an urban section and a rural section. The urban section is bounded on the north by Malabon, on the east by Quezon City, on the south by Manila and Navotas, and on the west by Manila Bay. The rural section is bounded on the north by San Jose del Monte in Bulacan, on the east and south by Quezon City, and on the west by Valenzuela. The urban section, also known as Kalookan I, has an area of 1,362.4916 hectares. The rural section, known as Kalookan II, is located approximately nine kilometers north of Kalookan I and has an area of 3,970.9048 hectares.
Geographic Profile:
Kalookan I is comprised mainly of flat lands; its highest point is the southernmost part of the Dagat-Dagatan Reclamation Area, which is only +0.0993 meters above sea level. kalookan Il is classified as hilly; its highest point is Tala, which rises approximately 100 meters above sea level.
Buses, jeepneys, taxis, and tricycles bound for Kalookan City are available in many parts of Metro Manila.
Tourist Attraction:
Bonifacio Monument (Bonifacio Circle, Monumento)
This monument marks the site of first encounter between Andres Bonifacio's Katipunan revolutionary group and the Spanish soldiers on August 13, 1896.
Buena Park (UE Sports Complex - London Tech, University Hills, UE Subdivision)
This park cum recreational center features a swimming pool, a pelota, tennis and basketball courts, and a restaurant serving Filipino dishes that is a popular eatery in the city.
Gotesco Grand Central (Rizal Avenue Extn., Monumento Circle)
This huge entertainment and shopping complex is located beside the LRT's major station.
Manila Central University (EDSA Monumento Circle)
This university, founded in 1904, was the first coeducational institution in Kalookan. Today it serves as a hospital as well.