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Clean energy innovation in the Covid-19 crisis
Investing today to ensure a sustainable tomorrow
Report — 07 July 2020
Lead authors
Simon Bennett
Nick Johnstone
Domenico Lattanzio
Jean-Baptiste Le Marois
Roberta Quadrelli
Araceli Fernandez Pales
Timur Gül
Leonardo Paoli
Countries and regions that successfully and repeatedly produce new energy technologies have adopted different approaches to innovation, but they all have at least one thing in common: governments fulfill vital roles in spurring and nurturing inventions and incentivising their progress.
Among the most important of these roles is funding basic research and major applied research and development (R&D) projects. However, the latest data on the scale and focus of public budgets for energy R&D around the world indicate that they are not in line with ambitious international climate and sustainable energy goals – even though innovation is essential for meeting those targets.
The world has seen a proliferating number of pledges by numerous governments and companies to reach net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the coming decades as part of global efforts to meet long-term sustainability goals, such as the Paris Agreement on climate change. But there is a stark disconnect between these high-profile pledges and the current state of clean energy technology development and diffusion. While the technologies in use today can deliver a large amount of the emissions reductions called for by these goals, they are insufficient on their own to bring the world to net zero while ensuring that energy systems remain resilient – even with much stronger policies supporting them.
Innovation involves a wide range of participants, but governments have a pivotal role, especially in the wake of the challenges created by the Covid-19 crisis. Through measures such as countercyclical spending on energy R&D and technology demonstration, governments can accelerate clean energy innovation and ensure that the human capital embodied in the approximately 750 000 jobs in energy research and development is preserved and further nurtured. Governments' economic recovery plans provide a strategic opportunity to ensure that key industries come out of the Covid-19 crisis stronger and ready to supply future domestic and international growth markets.
This is why the IEA will be recommending a strong focus on clean energy innovation to the energy ministers and business leaders participating this week in the IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit on 9 July. In particular, five key innovation principles for reaching net-zero emissions will be presented, drawing on the recent ETP Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation, as well as an interactive guide to the market readiness of over 400 clean energy technologies. This builds on the IEA's work identifying more than 100 innovation gaps in efforts to advance clean energy progress.
Despite widespread agreement on the importance of innovation for tackling energy challenges, public R&D on clean energy is not growing fast enough
Between 1995 and 2012, IEA member countries doubled their R&D spending on low-carbon energy, including demonstration projects. Improvements to clean energy technologies over this period helped renewable energy sources to outcompete fossil fuels in a growing number of situations today.
Solar PV and wind power have each received more investment than any other electricity generation technology over the last decade. This was preceded by several decades of improvements in which R&D, business development and policy moved hand-in-hand. Technology improvements enabled more robust policy support – and vice versa. In particular, publicly funded R&D in countries such as the United States, Denmark, Australia, Japan, Germany and China played an important role in pushing forward technological frontiers at each stage of development.
Lithium-ion batteries have followed a similar pattern of development. The costs of both solar PV and lithium-ion batteries have fallen by nearly 95% since 1995. An estimated 60% of the cost reductions for solar PV resulted from R&D, both public and privately funded, rather than from "market pull" measures like preferential tariffs or requirements to include a certain amount of renewables in electricity supplies.
The IEA's latest collection of data on public funding for energy R&D shows that, between 2012 and 2016, low-carbon energy R&D spending in IEA member countries was broadly stable.1 Annual growth, at 6% in 2019, was stronger than in 2016-18. But average growth since since 2016 has been lower than over the three-year period preceding the 2008 financial crisis.
Today, energy R&D spending faces pressures as government budgets come under strain from global economic turmoil, just as they did in 2008 and 2009. If annual growth remained at 2019's rate of 6%, it would take 12 years for low-carbon energy R&D spending to double – just a few years fewer than it took for the doubling of spending to occur between 1995 and 2012.
The IEA's unique database of public energy R&D funding shows modest progress – and cause for concern
IEA public energy technology R&D and demonstration spending by technology, 1977-2019
Openexpand
Globally low-carbon energy technologies represent around 80% of total public spending on energy R&D, which grew by 3% in 2019 to USD 30 billion. However, the share of GDP represented by overall public spending on energy R&D has remained fairly constant over the last decade. Other public research objectives, such as health and defence, receive around five times more R&D funding than energy.
Public energy R&D as a share of GDP in selected countries, 2012-2019
Public energy R&D as a share of all public R&D by sector, 1985-2019
Public energy R&D as a share of all public R&D in selected countries, 1985-2019
Public energy R&D replenishes the innovation pipeline, ensuring a stream of new ideas. Given the serendipitous nature of innovation, not all of those ideas will make it to the mass market, but it is important to ensure that the pipeline does not dry up. The essential justification for public intervention in innovation is that new ideas and technologies are undersupplied by the market, which leads companies to prioritise expenditures from which profits are more certain.
In particular, on the basis of past experience, we cannot assume that incumbent companies will provide a sufficient supply of radical new concepts or disruptive technologies, which often arise from basic scientific research. Many incumbent companies instead focus on incremental improvements to their existing technology portfolio. This makes the emergence of new companies in the energy sector one of the key sources of innovation. But markets are not necessarily supportive of these new players. Disruptive technologies can be of particular importance to achieving social or environmental outcomes that are desired by governments but have been ascribed a low value by markets.
Additionally, public spending sends a signal to researchers and businesses about social objectives for technology development, and it attracts private money that would not otherwise have been spent. While there is legitimate concern that public sector R&D might "crowd out" corporate investments, the evidence suggests that the productivity of corporate research is increasingly dependent on ideas arising from publicly funded R&D. If well targeted, public funding for energy R&D may well stimulate more private sector spending, not less.
Clean energy innovation can generate good value for taxpayers. Reviews of six public clean energy R&D programmes in the United States found a return on investment of 27% since 1975, and a benefit-to-cost ratio of 33:1 . Governments can also take on the high risks of certain first-of-a-kind projects that are hard for the private sector to shoulder before technology and revenue certainty is in place. They can even fund this from levies on corporate activities, such as pricing CO2 emissions, as is planned for the European Union's Innovation Fund, which is currently in development. A rationale for EU intervention is that such projects are often large and complex, and it is inefficient and too risky for one country to support them alone. The energy system relies particularly heavily on these types of large-scale technologies and clean energy transitions anticipate major contributions from large installations like floating wind turbines, nuclear reactors, concentrating solar power, and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). Large-scale technology projects will also be needed to tackle emissions from key energy-intensive sectors like steel and cement.
Given the shared benefits associated with the development of new clean energy technologies, R&D in this area is more often conducted internationally, with positive implications for the quality of innovation and knowledge diffusion. Evidence indicates that this is particularly valuable for emerging economies. Significantly, multilateral institutional initiatives can facilitate this process, including the IEA Technology Collaboration Programme.
The pivotal role of governments goes far beyond simply funding research and development. They set overall national objectives and priorities, and are vital in determining market expectations, ensuring the flow of knowledge, investing in essential infrastructure, and enabling major demonstration projects to go ahead. They can coordinate multiple actors across sectors or across competitive divides in order to advance the public interest. They have in the past used their initiative to set incentives for, and work with, the private sector to deliver desirable outcomes. Examples of this include space exploration, vaccines and nuclear power. It is increasingly recognised that many of the biggest clean energy technology challenges could benefit from a "mission-oriented" approach. Support for industrial clusters, strategic use of public procurement, and investment in enabling infrastructure can all play a part in such a coordinated approach, increasing the probability of innovation success.
Why public spending on clean energy R&D matters
The Covid-19 pandemic doesn't change the urgency of tackling the world's climate challenge. While near-term responses to the Covid-19 crisis have understandably focused on mitigating health, employment and liquidity risks, attention is now turning to the speed of the recovery, the creation of new jobs and the future shape of the economy. New players with new ideas aiming to displace high-carbon producers and to scale up quickly may find a supportive environment if they are able to enter the market at the right moment. Economic stimulus plans now being proposed in countries around the world offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to boost clean energy innovation. Many of the sectors that are critical to achieving net-zero emissions have investment cycles of many decades, so there is no time to lose.
A survey by the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment in mid-2020 found broad agreement – among 231 finance ministry officials, central bank officials, and other economists from 53 countries including all G20 nations – that "clean energy R&D" and "clean energy infrastructure investment" score highest among various stimulus spending options for both positive impact and long-run multipliers.
The evidence suggests that clean energy technology innovation brings particular economic benefits, as well as being essential for the shift to more sustainable energy systems. One study of the automotive sector finds that clean energy innovation is more productive in terms of its ability to stimulate knock-on inventions than innovation activity directed to incumbent technologies. While the macro relationship between jobs and R&D expenditures is complicated, other studies suggest that R&D that supports new high-tech products is correlated with increased employment.
In the immediate future, the world's capacity to bring new technologies to market will be weaker as a result of the disruptions caused by the pandemic. Market and policy uncertainties threaten to reduce the funds available to entrepreneurs, including via sales revenue. An IEA survey reveals that companies that are developing net-zero emissions technologies consider it likely that not only public R&D budgets but also their own corporate R&D budgets will be reduced. It should be noted, though, that there is little sign of companies that have made commitments to reduce their emissions intensity and test new energy technologies seeking to back away from those commitments. The latest data on early-stage venture capital funding, which supplies valuable resources to high-risk emerging technologies, shows a 30% drop in activity for clean energy technology deals in the first half of 2020 compared with the same period in the two previous years.
Clean energy R&D is critical in the current context
Value and number of global energy-related venture capital deals (early and late-stage) by year and by semester, 2008-2020
It is important not to lose momentum. With reduced corporate capital expenditure and R&D budgets, major demonstration projects could run aground or face delays. Emerging economies like Brazil and India, which have recently been raising their ambitions to develop indigenous clean energy technologies, may suffer setbacks unless they can tap into additional budget resources. These countries are identifying specific technology needs for their societies and climates that are not being addressed by companies and researchers in other countries. A prolonged downturn in any country would also carry the risk of the loss of highly skilled and highly mobile staff. More generally, human capital investments in the clean energy space could depreciate.
Governments around the world, faced with the predicted severe negative impacts of the 2008 global financial crisis, introduced wide-ranging economic stimulus packages by 2009. Among these, several major governments with sufficient economic resources chose to channel money into clean energy innovation. The rationale was generally to pair short-term stimulus measures with longer-term investments in increased productivity and technologies that could reduce CO2 emissions once the economy recovered.
Between them, nine countries doubled their clean energy R&D and demonstration spending between 2009 and 2011, compared with between 2006 and 2008.2 This added over USD 6 billion per year to their aggregate spending over the three-year period from 2009. The Covid-19 pandemic is more global than the 2008-09 financial crisis, with China's economy harder hit than it was a decade ago. If all countries doubled their clean energy R&D and demonstration spending today, it would add USD 25 billion per year.
In 2009, governments launched stimulus packages that doubled clean energy R&D and demonstration spending, which would be equivalent to adding USD 25 billion per year today
Public energy R&D and demonstration funding in selected countries by technology area, 2000-2019
The largest and most wide-ranging example of this approach during the 2008-09 crisis was the 2009 US American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allocated USD 7.5 billion to energy R&D and major demonstration projects. The Recovery Act made a notable contribution to the development of lithium-ion battery technology. The funding it provided for US battery R&D funding represented a significant increase in global R&D at a time when electric vehicles were primed for market entry but needed better batteries, and when the United States produced less than 2% of the world's batteries for hybrid vehicles.
With new battery designs, the cost of electric vehicle batteries fell by 70%, and the number of electric cars sold in the United States rose from 1 500 to 114 000 between 2008 and 2015. By no means can all of this be attributed to the Recovery Act, but there is no doubt that the sector benefited from the timely allocation of resources to different parts of the value chain, not just R&D. As the IEA has noted elsewhere novel electric vehicle battery designs and electrolysers for hydrogen may present a similar opportunity today.
However, the funding increases introduced in 2009 were not all long-lasting. In the four key technology areas of CCUS, bioenergy, hydrogen and electrification (via power storage and smart grids), which are critical for achieving net-zero emissions, funding dropped off sharply. Sustainable funding that allows research programmes to ramp up and keep innovators engaged in multi-year projects should be an important legacy of a clean energy innovation stimulus today.
The composition of energy R&D is at least as important as its scale. Unfortunately, public energy R&D spending is not well-aligned with the technology areas that are key priorities for achieving net-zero emissions. Of the government funding that goes to applied research in specific technology areas, crucial areas such as electrification, CCUS, bioenergy and hydrogen receive three times less than low-carbon power generation and energy efficiency. Technology innovation in those less-funded areas is still desperately needed, since they are critical for decarbonising sectors such as long-distance transport and heavy industry where achieving net-zero emissions will be most challenging.
Global public low-carbon energy R&D allocated to specific technology areas, 2019
More than 120 governments around the world have formally discussed implementing net-zero emissions targets by 2050, of which around 20% have formalised these ambitions in policy documents, legislation or laws. Many companies across the energy sector and beyond made similar pledges. For those governments aiming to achieve net-zero emissions goals, and others seeking to boost clean energy technology development in general, the IEA proposes five key innovation principles.
Prioritise, track and adjust. Review the processes for selecting technology portfolios for public support to ensure that they are rigorous, collective, flexible and aligned with local advantages.
Raise public R&D and market-led private innovation. Use a range of tools – from public research and development to market incentives – to expand funding according to the different technologies.
Address all links in the value chain. Look at the bigger picture to ensure that all components of key value chains are advancing evenly towards the next market application and exploiting spillovers.
Build enabling infrastructure. Mobilise private finance to help bridge the "valley of death" by sharing the investment risks of network enhancements and commercial-scale demonstrators.
Work globally for regional success. Co-operate to share best practices, experiences and resources to tackle urgent and global technology challenges, including via existing multilateral platforms.
These principles primarily address national policy challenges in the context of global needs, but are relevant to all policy makers and strategists concerned with energy technologies, transitions and resilience. Maintaining and increasing clean energy R&D spending as a response to the Covid-19 crisis is a key element of this approach. We recommend that this be coordinated with improved priority-setting to select stragic technologies and ensure efficient uses of funds by mobilising the private sector and working internationally.
The IEA's recent Energy Technology Perspectives Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation provides insights into the types of technologies that might help accelerate innovation timescales as well as quantifying the market opportunity for successful innovators. It complements the World Energy Outlook Special Report on Sustainable Recovery, which provides a plan for the next three years enabling governments around the world to boost their economies, create millions of jobs and put global greenhouse gas emissions into structural decline.
Five key principles for energy innovation policies in reponse to the current situation
This article has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union as part of the Clean Energy Transitions in Emerging Economies programme. This commentary reflects the views of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Secretariat but does not necessarily reflect those of individual IEA member countries or the European Union (EU). Neither the IEA nor the EU make any representation or warranty, express or implied, in respect to the commentary's contents (including its completeness or accuracy) and shall not be responsible for any use of, or reliance on, the publication.
The Clean Energy Transitions in Emerging Economies programme has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 952363.
Members of the IEA and the European Union undertake to report data on energy R&D and demonstration budgets annually and the IEA compilation represents a uniquely long statistical time series. Participation is also open to all countries wishing to strengthen the dataset and benchmark their programmes.
Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Consistent data for the European Commission is not available for the whole time period, and is not included here.


text:
"It's really exciting when a new range you've planned hits the stores and it beats its sales plan!"
Demonstrating a natural affinity for products, trends and an insight into the way consumers are shopping - aspiring merchandisers need to possess the ability to understand what appeals to customers.
Tom, who works with M&S as a Merchandising Admin Assistant knows that these skills are key to a successful career in merchandising - a role that he decided to explore following a number of years working in our stores.
"I think what's really interesting in merchandising is seeing the full process, from the design of a product all the way through to it getting into stores. There really is an excitement when a new range you've planned hits the stores and it beats its sales plan!" he says.
"I think you would really enjoy a career in merchandising if you're someone who likes working with numbers and if you're good at analysing and noticing patterns and trends. I also think coming into the office you have to have good people skills, especially where you work with all of the different business functions like buying, tech and design. You have to build those relationships."
If you're great at multi-tasking, have good numeracy and excel skills and a strong sense of commercial awareness like Tom, perhaps a career in merchandising could be for you? Take a look at the current opportunities.
Clothing & HomeRemove

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
  Semallé est
       un village
       situé dans le département de l'Orne en Basse-Normandie. Elle totalisait 380 habitants en 2008.

À proximité de Semallé sont localisées les communes de
Hauterive située à 4 km, 457 habitants,
Radon située à 4 km, 1 013 habitants,
Montigny située à 3 km, 45 habitants,
Forges localisée à 3 km, 238 habitants,
Le Chevain à 4 km, 661 habitants,
Ménil-Erreux localisée à 4 km, 232 habitants,
 entre autres. De plus, Semallé est située à seulement six km de Alençon.

Le nombre de logements, à Semallé, se décomposait en 2011 en trois appartements et 167 maisons soit
 un marché relativement équilibré.

La commune compte quelques  équipements sportifs, elle dispose, entre autres, de un centre d'équitation et un terrain de sport.

Si vous envisagez de venir habiter à Semallé, vous pourrez facilement trouver une maison à vendre.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


From April 2013 employers will be legally required to report PAYE online in real time. Real Time Information is a reform being introduced by HMRC, which requires all employers to make regular submissions (weekly or monthly), rather than once a year.These submissions contain a range of information about the payments made to employees, including how much PAYE and NIC has been deducted.
Our payroll departement is now RTI ready and offers a comprehensive payroll service.
Please contact Gillian Woodruff, Jayne Hogg or Phoebe Prince for further details.


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Supergirl Producer Says Jon Cryer Will Kill It As Lex Luthor
Christian Bone Jan 18, 2019 8:47 pm 2019-01-18T21:02:43-05:00
After four seasons of name-checks and nods, Lex Luthor is finally making his Arrowverse debut later this season on Supergirl. Superman's nemesis will be played by Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer, whose DC pedigree goes back to 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace in which he played Lex's dim-witted nephew Lenny.
Due to his most famous role being on a hit comedy, fans were initially surprised when it was announced that Cryer was playing the iconic bald-headed bad guy last December, with some lamenting that Smallville star Michael Rosenbaum wasn't asked back. Supergirl exec producers Robert Rovner and Jessica Queller, however, are promising that Cryer's the perfect performer to bring Lex to life in this incarnation.
While Rovner admitted that his previous DC turn is "quite different" from Lex, Queller teased that the actor will "kill it" in the role.
"But Jon Cryer is just a phenomenal actor, and he's got that twinkle in his eye. He's masterful, he's got humor. He's just gonna kill it."
Supergirl: 4x10 - "Suspicious Minds" Gallery
But how will Kara Danvers deal with having to face her cousin's nemesis? After all, we know she'll be going against Lex alone, as Clark revealed that he was going off-world back in "Elseworlds" so that Lois could have their child on Argo, the last surviving part of Krypton. Rovner explained that this will only make Kara more determined to bring Lex down.
"I think she feels the challenge. I think with Lex around, it's her cousin's big foil, and I think she feels the responsibility to bring a character like that to justice in probably a bigger way than she would've if Clark were around. She doesn't want to mess it up."
Somehow, Lex's arrival will tie into the various plot threads that've built up over the first half of Supergirl season 4 – so Manchester Black and The Elite, the Red Daughter and Ben Lockwood and the Children of Liberty. This was promised by Rovner, who was hopeful that the season will be able to weave all of these storylines together to create an awesome conclusion.
"I think what's great about the second half of the season is that we've laid a lot of different stories at the beginning half of the season. We create some more, but all our stories dovetail by the end of the season, so that everything's been done by design and they're all on a collision course into what we hope will be a very exciting and a resolution."
Be sure to watch Supergirl Sundays on The CW to find out when Lex Luthor makes his debut.


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Ralph Lewis M.D.
What to Tell Our Kids About the State of the World
How to instill perspective, realistic optimism and critical thinking.
Source: Our World in Data
"The world is too much with us," wrote the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth in the early 1800s. His sonnet expressed concern that the rapid technological changes of the Industrial Revolution and the frenetic focus on "getting and spending" were alienating people from nature, rendering people "out of tune" and "forlorn."
Two centuries later, the world feels too much with us in new ways. Torrents of information are washing over us, some of it unsolicited and unwelcome. As we approach the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, much of the information we are receiving about the state of the world is negative.
The first generation of children to grow up in the Information Revolution is coming of age.1 iGen have lived their entire lives in the internet era and all of their adolescence in the smartphone era. All of the world's knowledge is in these kids' pockets.
I'm a parent of three children of this generation, and I've worked as a psychiatrist for over two decades with teens and young adults. I've worked very closely with a great many young people all the way from their early teens to their late twenties. In the process, I've listened to many anxious concerns and fielded many questions, especially from the smarter kids—concerns about the state of the world in which they're growing up. Now more than ever, with so much information constantly arriving at their fingertips, the world can seem like a scary and depressing mess.
What can we, as adults, tell these kids to help them maintain perspective, to help them remain motivated and reasonably positive about the world and the future?
It depends of course on the age of the child or teenager. It depends also on their level of maturity for their age, their worldliness, and of course their intellectual capacity. For purpose of this discussion, let's assume that the kid we're talking with is in their teens, and that they're reasonably intelligent. Naturally, the points being made here will need to be tailored differently to kids of different ages and intellectual capacity.
The first thing to do is to find an opportune time to have a focused undistracted conversation, and find a useful segue—perhaps something currently in the news. Listen carefully. Hear their concerns and respond accordingly. Ask questions before you attempt to provide answers. Ask open-ended questions about what they think about the state of the world. What do their friends think? Ask them if they're worried, and what they're most worried about. Get a sense of their level of knowledge and awareness. Listen for themes. Listen for important misconceptions and be alert to misinformation. Ask them where they are getting their information from.
The world is getting very much better
Help them to understand that to really assess the state of the world, we need to follow the trend lines, not the headlines. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has rigorously applied this principle in his two highly influential, extensively researched books The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018). As Pinker says, if you really want to know the state of the world, what you should do is count. That is, analyze the important indices statistically. He has done so with mountains of data, demonstrating that just about all of the important global trends have been in the direction of higher quality of life and lower levels of violence. And not just a little, but dramatically.2
For a visual illustration of these kinds of optimistic yet solid facts, show and explain to your child these graphs.
Explain to your child that media headlines do not accurately convey real trends in the world. They serve a different and necessary purpose. It's not just that bad news captures our attention and sells more effectively than good news. It's that journalists serve an important function by alerting us to the bad things happening in the world so that we can collectively take action to improve the situation. It's also that as the world improves, we become less tolerant of the bad things that are still taking place in the world, and they are more newsworthy. Explain all this to your child.
There is reason to be cautiously optimistic about human history and the future of humanity, though it may be a case of 'two steps forward, one step backwards' toward gradually greater cooperativeness, compassion, and rationality. There is obviously no guarantee that violence will continue to decline or that human rights and quality of life will continue to increase, and the twentieth century demonstrated that there can be calamitous reversals of this trend. But the longer trend of history has been toward a more peaceful, caring world. There is a fairly good chance of this trend continuing into the future, though there are bound to be temporary reversals of the overall trend.
We are probably in one such regressive phase presently, in certain respects, with the rise of right-wing populist movements in the United States, Britain (Brexit), and several other democracies in recent years. Pinker describes this phenomenon as "a pushback of elements of human nature—tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, zero-sum thinking".3 But as he points out: "(Populism) is on a demographic road to nowhere. Headlines notwithstanding, the numbers show that democracy and liberal values are riding a long-term escalator that is unlikely to go into reverse overnight."4
It is easy to lose sight of the big picture and the long trend. Indeed, many have noted that President Trump won the election by persuading voters that America and the world are worse now than in the past, appealing to intuition over data. He tapped into people's wishful thinking that he would be the one to make it all better and that he would get the country back to a mythical past when all was well. One could not point to a more compelling contemporary example illustrating the importance of improving critical thinking skills in the general public, teaching people to be skeptical of their intuitions, and disenthralling them from faith in all forms—the wishful thinking Trump tapped into was a form of unrealistically optimistic faith.
Scientific critical thinking
All this highlights the importance of teaching your child to think critically. Critical thinking involves, among other things, the ability to bypass one's intuitions, emotions, biases and faith, and the ability to rigorously appraise evidence. It involves applying a good deal of scientific skepticism, i.e. applying the scientific method.
Instilling in your child a scientific worldview will help both to inoculate them against irrationality and inspire them about the world. Science won't be a career for most people, but it should be a worldview for anyone interested in understanding the true nature of reality. Science is a candle in the dark, dispelling irrationality and superstition.5 Science is the opposite of faith. The story science tells about the origin of our world and of ourselves is less comforting but far more compelling than the soothing myths told by the multitude of human faiths.
While science is certainly susceptible to misuse toward destructive technologies, science coupled with secular democracy deserves most of the credit for the dramatic societal progress attested to above. Help your child to understand this.
If you want your child to be consumed with curiosity and fired up with motivation—the kind of curiosity and motivation that makes them stay up past their bedtime because they're so captivated by their reading, help them to grasp the magic of reality.6
The society of the future looks set to be increasingly grounded in science and critical thinking. Don't let your child get left behind.7
1. often referred to as iGen, also known as Gen Z.
2. See Pinker, Steven. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Viking, 2011 and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York: Viking, 2018. See also Rosling, Hans. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. New York: Flatiron Books, 2018. And for a visual depiction of how the world is getting much better, see Roser, Max. "The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it." Our World in Data, 2018. https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts/. Or https://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7272929/global-poverty-health-crime-literacy-good-news
3. Pinker, Enlightenment Now, p. 333. [CLICK 'MORE' TO VIEW FOOTNOTES 4-7]
4. Pinker, Enlightenment Now, p. 451.
5. Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: Random House, 1995.
6. To instill an appreciation for how the scientific understanding of reality can be 'magically' inspiring, without believing in magic, your child would do very well to start with Richard Dawkins' superb book for children (suitable for teens and for smart pre-teens) The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True.
7. Parts of this article were adapted from: Ralph Lewis, Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even If The Universe Doesn't (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2018).
Submitted by Trump is the President for 6 more on December 28, 2018 - 6:57am
President Trump won the election by persuading voters that America and the world are worse now than in the past, appealing to intuition over data.
Trump appealed to common sense. Smart trade deals and border security are basic stuff any nation needs to survive. 2016 was Globalist Me-first vs. America First and for once the good guys won.
Reply to Trump is the President for 6 more
Quote Trump is the President for 6 more
You're a great example for
Submitted by Anonymous on December 28, 2018 - 6:09pm
You're a great example for better people (than you) to use to talk with their children. People like you are one of many problems facing the world today. Why? You've been brainwashed into believing things that are not true and doing things that are not good for you or 99% of humanity - but you are somehow convinced that it's everyone ELSE who's been brainwashed. Am I right? Am I also right that your only comeback to my claim will be something like "I know you are but what am I?" ? Am I right again? (Hint: yes)
Reply to Anonymous
Quote Anonymous
Your point?
Submitted by Trump is the President for 5 more on January 6, 2019 - 3:09pm
Far from being brainwashed (except at college-level and below) I think lefties know their socialist BS doesn't work and never has, but that's their nature, short-term gain culled from long-term failure.
Trump's goals are not a secret, unlike crooked hillary who told bankers in a speech we were never meant to hear, she wants open borders.
Submitted by Franz on December 29, 2018 - 4:31am
"Smart trade deals"
Such as complicated new requirements for auto rules of origin, which could potentially backfire. That is, they may end up being so costly to adhere to that they'll encourage manufacturers to move more of their operations and jobs outside of North America. A "sunset" provision requiring members to regularly reaffirm their desire to continue the three-party deal, is probably also not an improvement. There are better ways to encourage ongoing modernization of the deal that would involve less policy uncertainty for businesses. Trump also won some modest concessions in tiny industries he's weirdly obsessed with, such as Canadian dairy. He has conveniently played down the concessions he made in exchange: In return for greater American access to the Canadian dairy, poultry and egg markets, we gave Canada greater access to U.S. markets for dairy, peanuts, processed peanut products, sugar and sugar-containing products.
But for the most part, despite Trump's assertion that "it's not NAFTA redone, it's a brand-new deal," the president mostly kept NAFTA intact.
In fact, a bunch of NAFTA 2.0 language appears squarely aimed at returning to Obama's alliance strategy for isolating China — which, to reiterate, only requires rebuilding because Trump destroyed it.
Tariffs:
From the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 to the Carter grain embargo after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. Agriculture suffered greatly from both. The Soviet embargo in particular crippled the ag economy and led to farm foreclosures and bankruptcies across the country throughout the decade.
The president often says that farmers haven't had it good for the last 15 years — but that's not right. While we have seen farm incomes fall since 2014, the years from 2007 through 2013 saw record farm incomes. Since the tariff saber rattling began, prices for the corn and soybeans that I produce have dropped by 15 to 20 percent. The good markets I had for biofuel production, animal feed, and exports have been diminished.
We are also seeing potential markets for renewable energy produced in rural America harmed by the United States walking away from the Paris Climate Agreement, by EPA granting renewable fuel waivers, and by the administration's favoritism toward coal and fossil fuels. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 contributed to those high-profit years for American agriculture, and yet we continue to backslide on its objectives.
Tariffs are a tax on imports. As taxes go up, so do the prices of foreign goods. Consider the metal tariffs. Foreign imports of steel and aluminum became more expensive overnight – to the tune of 25 and 10 percent, respectively. Higher prices drive down consumption of foreign goods while bolstering demand for domestic equivalents.
Unfortunately, protecting a few narrow industries can generate much broader costs. Not least, consumers now have to pay more for everyday goods (raising the cost of living).
That's not a problem for higher earners who can absorb the extra costs. But, for those with more limited incomes, who are especially vulnerable to tariff increases, price hikes can quickly gobble up take-home pay.
Basic necessities such as food and clothing make up a larger share of working-class household expenditures when compared to higher-income families. And most of those products are imported. Foreign producers make up an overwhelming percentage of sales of many basic goods, such as shoes. In fact, one manufacturing industry group reports that 80 percent of Walmart's suppliers are housed across the Pacific.
One 2017 paper estimated that a 10 percent across-the-board increase in tariffs on imported goods would cost the poorest 20 percent of earners $300 a year.
That's a meaningful chunk of the less than $13,000 earned by the poorest U.S. households in 2015. Moreover, Trump's first round of tariffs weren't the 10 percent used in the study. They are 25 percent.
Tariffs also have negative consequences for American producers that rely on foreign inputs.
The metals tariffs, for example, mean that manufacturers of cars, aircraft and tractors all have to pay more to produce their goods. Hence the vocal opposition to Trump from companies such as Ford and Boeing. Their costs are now going up, endangering their competitiveness.
Trump's recent steel and aluminum tariffs were said to benefit as many as 400,000 workers. But 10 times as many workers – 4.6 million – are employed in industries that rely on metals as a core input.
The comparison is even starker for solar panels. About 2,000 workers directly manufacture solar panels in the United States. However, 260,000 work in related industries such as installation and maintenance. Those workers depend on a thriving solar market – a market that has stagnated since the tariffs.
If one wants to count jobs, the numbers simply don't add up to a net benefit for the U.S. economy.
Beijing wasted no time in responding to Trump's tariffs, announcing duties of 15 percent to 25 percent on nearly $45 billion of U.S. exports to China, mostly agricultural products. And more will be coming if the war escalates, with some of the highest tariffs being put on food products.
Of course, targeting agrarian goods is a strategic decision. Agriculture is one of the United States' few remaining export-oriented sectors. And, since China is the second-largest buyer of U.S. agricultural exports, farmers are particularly vulnerable to retaliation. If a country wants to hit the U.S. economy where it hurts, target agriculture.
China did exactly that, hitting U.S. producers of soybeans, corn, poultry and beef particularly hard. As a result, agricultural workers will find it more difficult to make a living in a sector where incomes have historically lagged behind the national average of all industries.
And poorer areas of the country will be harder hit than others. Three of the states that are the most vulnerable to retaliation – Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina – all have per capita incomes far below the national average.
That means that poorer households, in poorer states, face the greatest threat if export-dependent agricultural companies can't do business with one of their most important trade partners.
Border:
Noncitizens accounted for 4 percent of the total prison population in the states, according to reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2013 to 2016. At the federal level, noncitizens made up 11 percent to 12 percent of the total prison population from 2013 to 2015. A comparison of these figures shows that noncitizens are far underrepresented in the prison population at the state level (4 percent), overrepresented at the federal level and far below their share of the population when combining both state and federal prisons (6 percent). The majority of the research available on this question continues to show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born and that overall crime rates decline in areas where immigrants settle. Analyzing Census data from the 2014 American Community Survey, authors Michelangelo Landgrave and Alex Nowrasteh found that 2,194,435 individuals were incarcerated in 2014. The imprisonment rate for unauthorized immigrants was 0.85 percent, and 0.47 percent for legal immigrants, they found. Subtracting immigration-related offenses, the rate was lower for unauthorized immigrants: 0.5 percent.
In 2015 Texas police made 815,689 arrests of native-born Americans, 37,776 arrests of immigrants in the country illegally and 20,323 arrests of legal immigrants. Given the relative populations for each group, the arrest rate for illegal immigrants was 40 percent below that of native-born Americans. In addition, the homicide arrest rate for native-born Americans was about 46 percent higher than the illegal immigrant homicide arrest rate.
There were 12.1 million immigrants living in the country illegally as of January 2014, according to the most recent estimate from the Department of Homeland Security. The estimates from two independent groups are similar: The Pew Research Center estimates the number at 11.1 million in 2014, and the Center for Migration Studies says there were 11 million people in 2015 living in the U.S. illegally (see Table 1 in the full report).
That would be about 3.5 percent to 3.8 percent of the total U.S. population in 2014.
Apprehensions on the Southwest border peaked in 2000 at 1.64 million and have generally declined since, totaling 303,916 in 2017.
Those numbers, which come from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, are for fiscal years and date back to 1960.
That's an 81.5 percent decline in the number of apprehensions between the peak in 2000 and 2017.
Trump claimed that there are "over 500 people that are serious criminals and gang members" among the migrants in the caravan. Similarly, Nielsen said in her statement: "[A]t this point we have confirmed that there are over 600 convicted criminals traveling with the caravan flow. This includes individuals known to law enforcement for assault, battery, drug crimes, burglary, rape, child abuse and more."
But there is no evidence to support either claim.
CLAIM: MY WALL STOPPED THE MIGRANTS
"The wall has started very, very substantially and in fact you saw the other day the wall stopped everybody and it was only the section that's now under construction. They've breached it but only momentarily, it didn't take long. Momentarily. That was called a very momentary breach," Trump said in the Biloxi rally.
This is misleading. Trump is currently repairing and replacing old border fence sections — just as previous administrations did — but he's not building any new sections yet.
CLAIM: 'FAKE NEWS' IGNORES CRIMES COMMITTED BY IMMIGRANTS
"In the state of Texas alone, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, between 2011 and 2018, more than 663,000 crimes were committed by illegal immigrants. You know you hear these stories about 'oh they don't commit crimes, we commit crimes, they don't commit crimes. Oh, it's just us.' No, no, it doesn't work that way, it's fake news. It's fake news," Trump said in the Biloxi rally.
Trump is inflating the numbers here, according to statistics from the Texas Department of Public Safety. During that period, Texas data says there were 284,000 criminal offenses committed by people in the state that authorities knew were undocumented at the time.
Texas authorities estimate that about 270,000 undocumented immigrants were charged with crimes during this period. That's about 16 percent of the undocumented population in Texas.
Overall, there's no evidence foreign nationals or immigrants commit more crimes than Americans, which Texas' data specifically notes.
It's called research, try it.
Reply to Franz
Quote Franz
'Research'
All your 'research' shows is there are no solutions, only trade-offs. I would not expect you to 'research' why President Trump altered this or that deal, because the status quo was not provided for comparison. You said it yourself: trade from Smoot onward has always been a rough ride, were you expecting Trump to 'fix' everything overnight?
Downplaying the harm caused by illegals does no one any favors. An invader is an invader, they're still costing us 140 billion every year.
Try having a optimistic
Submitted by Greg on December 28, 2018 - 11:31am
Try having a optimistic discussion about climate change and mass migration that threatens national governments. Good luck!
Reply to Greg
Quote Greg
Heaven forbid you should just
Submitted by kyren on December 28, 2018 - 3:29pm
Heaven forbid you should just be honest with your kids and admit you don't know what the hell is going on, that you are just floundering around in a sea of doubt. Trying to instill things in your kids that you don't actually believe yourself is bound to fail. Trying to stop being a hypocrite might be the best thing you can do for your kids.
Reply to kyren
Quote kyren
Our Kids
Submitted by mike pink on January 1, 2019 - 2:17pm
I am not so optimistic abut the future. Half the people in the world are less than average in intelligence. And half are above. For people in the bottom half, life is likely to get worse. Their lack of intelligence makes them unfit to survive in a technological world.
Also, the uprising in Europe is mostly due to immigration. We will continue to see culture clash when one group has norms and values that are so much different from the others. The values of Arab Muslims are incompatible with the values of Western Democracies.
Denmark is one of six Schengen-area countries that earlier this year undertook efforts to tighten up their border controls, against the advice of the European Union's commissioner for migrants. Denmark is at the moment very busy deporting a number of rejected asylum-seekers and other "unwanted" would-be immigrants
Reply to mike pink
Quote mike pink
Ralph Lewis, M.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and a consultant at the Odette Cancer Centre in Toronto.
Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even If the Universe Doesn't
Purposewithoutgod.com: website for the book, articles, videos, podcasts
What Makes Some People So Motivated and Self-Controlled?
Focus is key to conscientiousness—shaped by nature, nurture, culture and habit.
Finding Purpose Without God
Will society lose purpose, meaning, and morality as religion declines?
Does the Universe Have a Purpose?
Why do we insist it does? And why it's okay that it most probably doesn't.
What Can We Tell Our Children About the Bully Who Won?
What the Joshua Trump Saga Can Teach Us About Antibullyism
What Qualities Do You Want in Our Next President?
Trump's "S–hole" Remark: What to Say to Our Kids?
What Is Peace in a World of Information Warfare?


There are many ways to extend the dynamic fields. The following sections will try to cover the most common scenarios.
Create a dynamic field driver. This is the main module of the new field.
Create or use an existing admin dialog to have a management interface and set its configuration options.
Create a configuration file to register the new field in the back end (or new admin dialogs in the framework if needed) and be able to create instances or it.
Create an object type delegate. This is necessary, even if the other object does not require any specific data handling in its functions (e.g. after a value is set). All object type delegates must implement the functions that the back end requires.
Take a look in the current object type delegates to implement the same functions, even if they just return a successful value for the other object.
Implement dynamic fields in the front end modules to be able to use the dynamic fields.
And make the needed settings to show, hide or show the dynamic fields as mandatory in the new screens.
Create a configuration file to give the end user the possibility to show, hide or show the dynamic fields as mandatory in the new screens.
It might be possible that the back end object does not have a needed function for custom developments, or could also be possible that it has the function needed, but the return format does not match the needs of the custom development, or that a new behavior is needed to execute the new or the old functions.
The easiest way to do this, is to extend the current field files. For this it is necessary to create a new back end extension file that defines the new functions and create also drivers extensions that implement these new functions for each field. These new drivers will only need to implement the new functions since the original drivers takes care of the standard functions. All these new files do not need a constructor as they will be loaded as a base for the back end object and the drivers.
The only restrictions are that the functions should be named different than the ones on the back end and drivers, otherwise they will be overwritten with current objects.
Put the new back end extension into the DynamicField directory (e.g. /$OTRS_HOME/Kernel/System/DynamicField/NewPackageBackend.pm and its drivers in /$OTRS_HOME/Kernel/System/DynamicField/Driver/NewPackage*.pm).
New behaviors only need a small setting in the extensions configuration file.
Create a new back end extension module to define only the new functions.
Create the dynamic fields driver extensions to implement only the new functions.
Implement new dynamic fields functions in the front end modules to be able to use the new dynamic fields functions.
Create a configuration file to register the new back end and drivers extensions and behaviors.
Other extensions could be a combination of the above examples.


Hemorrhoids are extremely difficult to deal with. They can impede your ability to do normal daily tasks, pare agonizing and, not to mention, nerveracking. One of the most common causes of hemorrhoids is constipation. If one often strains to move bar stool from the body, the pressure can irritate the rectal veins, thus leading to hemorrhoids. Fortunately, aside from surgical and painless procedures, there are simple hemorrhoids cures you can do at home.
Since hemorrhoids are likely to be caused by constipation, eating a high-fiber diet can help loosen your stool. Try and incorporate the maximum amount of fruits and vegetables as you can with your daily eating routine. Also, don't forget to consumer grains, oats and other fiber enriched foods. In many instances, hemorrhoids go their own, without the drastichemorrhoids cure. But you're going to help yourself cope with the symptom by eating healthily.
Likewise, it's also important to drink plenty of fluids. Ensure you take in at least eight glasses of water daily. Stay away from caffeinated drinks and alcohol, as these can worsen the condition. Fruit juices will also be considered as effective hemorrhoids cure, so consider drinking all of them to help alleviate the results.
There are several ways to help you eventually get rid of the problem, and one of them is a good topical product. Herbal treatments in the form of creams are great alternatives. Hydrocortisone, in addition, is an excellent solution to help battle the condition. Moreover, hydrocortisone can alleviate pruritus, which is commonly associated with the condition.
Which Hemorrhoids Hurt. Calmovil Hemorrhoid Relief Set includes calming topical cream, homeopathic drops, and herbal supplement, created to help target the source of hemorrhoids. Calmovil's active ingredients have been used for hundreds of years to support healthy blood circulation, helping in reducing swelling and support healthy hemorrhoid veins. Now they are all combined into this special Hemorrhoid formula. Improving blood circulation, lowering inflammation and supporting healthy veins has been proven to eliminate the symptoms associated with piles.
When you're cleaning the affected area, instead of using rough or rough towels and tissues, use baby baby wipes. Sleek and softer potty documents are helpful in decreasing the risk of irritation. Moreover, when wiping the area, use gentle, patting strokes. Try not to scrub it even softly as this can worsen the condition.
Laxatives are helpful if you're having troubles eliminating stool. Make sure, though, that you consult your doctor first about the use of such helpers because there's the risk of irritation and allergic reaction common in some patients.
Another helpful hemorrhoids cure is to keep moving around, even when inside the house. If you're sitting for too long, you're running the risk of aggravating the situation. One helpful tip is to move around every hour and try not to remain seated for too long a period.


They'll blow your socks off!
1. This dog who rocked thigh highs like a true queen.
2. This spotty and fabulous dog.
4. This business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back dog.
5. This dog who double-cuffed.
8. This dog who colour-coordinated with his owner.
9. This dog in watermelon-themed socks.
10. This dog who fears tile flooring.
11. This dog who checker-ed himself before he wrecker-ed himself.
12. This classy dog with a cravat.
13. This dog with the droopiest eyes and socks you've ever seen.
14. This sleeping dog that was let to lie in socks.
15. And this dog who woke up in socks, too!
18. This dog who played coy.
19. This dog who channelled his inner superhero.
20. And this dog who decided to take a day off.
23. This dog who blew a raspberry.
26. This dog who made the best "Huh?" face.
27. And last but not least... this dog who rocked Argyle prints like a boss.
Yep. #DogInSocks do it better than us humans.


According to frontman Jason Rabinowitz, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On is "a modern prom playlist." Of course, prom is not without its awkward, painful moments. Written during a time of personal difficulty for band members, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On is about remembering that there is always something to celebrate, even in the face of major adversity. With their combination of thoughtful lyricism and kinetic beats, the album's ten new tracks reflect a refreshing optimism and sweetness. Imagine a house designed by Paul Simon, built by Prince, and decorated by The Flaming Lips and you'll have some idea of where The Bloodsugars live.
The album features a host of indie luminaries, including trumpet player Kyle Resnick (The National), cellist Colette Alexander (Rilo Kiley, Jens Lekman, Rachel Yamagata) and indie darling Bell. Additionally, Philadelphia-based recording wiz Bill Moriarty""the man behind albums by Dr. Dog and Man Man""produced and engineered the record.
If you missed them live at CMJ, you can catch them on tour right now, or for those of you in NYC, they'll be at The Studio @ Webster Hall on November 21 with Project Jenny, Project Jan and Savoir Adore (Buy Tickets). More of The Bloodsugars tour dates and CMJ pics after the jump.
Next Post Free Pixies Live EP!
I got the album early from amiestreet.com and have been listening nonstop to it ever since. I'd never heard of them before but was attracted by the title from Beckett and the minimalist/retro cover design. I am now a confirmed fan. I hope they tour the west coast before long.


text:
Isabel de Aragón fue el nombre de pila que recibieron una serie de reinas, princesas e infantas provenientes de este reino ibérico, como por ejemplo:

 Isabel de Aragón (1248-1271), reina consorte de Francia.
 Isabel de Aragón (1271-1336), santa de la Iglesia católica y reina consorte de Portugal.
 Isabel de Aragón (1302-1330), reina de Romanos consorte por su matrimonio con Federico de Habsburgo.
 Isabel de Aragón (1380–1424), hija de Pedro IV el Ceremonioso y Sibila de Fortiá.
 Isabel de Aragón (1470–1524), princesa de Nápoles.
 Isabel de Aragón (1470-1498), primogénita de los Reyes Católicos y reina de Portugal.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


ANKARA - 4 detained suspects, in respect of the incidents during 6-7 October where Yasin Boru and his friends were murdered were released today.
The incidents on 6-7 October began when the HDP/PKK members were out on the streets murdering Yasin Boru and his friends. 4 detained suspects of this case were freed today.
The trial was held in Ankara High Court where suspects Hasan Okcu, Huseyin Okcu, Yildiz Doganay and Ahmet Bicici were freed.
The first hearing is due to take place on 5 October with 22 detained suspects of the case.


text:
Q: mysqli show "no results found" I would like to show "no results found" if there are no rows matching the query.
i I have tried:
if(!$result) {echo"no results found";}

and
if($stmt->num_rows < 1) {echo"no results found"}

but none of them work. What is a correct procedure?
 $stmt = $mydb->prepare("SELECT * FROM messages where from_user = ? and deleted = 'yes' or to_user  = ? and deleted = 'yes'");
 $stmt->bind_param('ss', $username->username, $username->username);
 $stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->get_result();

while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
echo $row['message'];}

A: Try this
if($result->num_rows < 1)
Instead of
if($stmt->num_rows < 1)
You get num_rows at result object

A: <?php if($stmt->num_rows != 0) {
while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
echo $row['message'];}
} else {echo"no results found";} ?>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Taiwan in Central America: A Story of Continued Rejection
Tags:Central AmericaPolitics
The story of Taiwan in Central America isn't a happy one. As Nicaragua renounces its recognition of Taiwan, it's important to note it's not the only Central American country to do this. Here's a quick recap.
It might come as a surprise that Nicaragua hadn't declared it no longer recognized Taiwan earlier. After all, the practice of denouncing Taiwan in favor of China is well established in Central America.
Plus, you'd think a country like Nicaragua would have jumped onto the China train a long time ago. After all, they're both one-party, authoritarian dictatorships. And one-party, authoritarian dictatorships like sticking together.
Indeed, back in 2005, Ortega said he would switch Nicaragua's allegiances from Taiwan to China. When he came into power in 2007, though, he never followed up on it.
EXPLAINER: Nicaragua's decision to sever diplomatic links with Taiwan and recognize China leaves the self-governing island democracy with just 14 diplomatic allies. What's behind Nicaragua's decision to switch ties? https://t.co/89lXou07si
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 10, 2021
It was only yesterday that undemocratic Nicaragua finally abandoned democratic Taiwan.
In a declaration, Nicaragua's Minister of Foreign Affairs Denis Moncada said his country only recognized one single China, and that the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing all of China, and that Taiwan is "an inalienable part of the Chinese territory".
He went on to state that Nicaragua is breaking diplomatic relations with Taiwan and that it would no longer maintain any contact or official relationship.
This to a country that has all but propped up the Ortega dictatorship for years, with millions of dollars worth of aid and donations. Talk about gratitude.
In a way, Nicaragua's abandonment is a good thing for Taiwan.
Taiwan had no business supporting Nicaragua for so long. It has a cynical policy of getting into bed with anyone who agrees they exist, no matter how evil they are.
They've thrown money, aid, and donations to despots all the developing world over the years, without a thought to the human rights abuses said despots carry out.
Yesterday, President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan lamented Nicaragua's decision on Twitter, while at the same time talking about her country's commitment to freedom, human rights, and the rule of law. You couldn't make up a more confused and contradictory tweet if you tried.
Perhaps in the future Taiwan will try to buy off a better class of friend than the Ortega/Murillo regime. They were always going to throw them under the bus at some point. It's surprising it took this long for them to do so.
Earlier today, #Nicaragua ended diplomatic ties with #Taiwan. I would like to stress that no amount of external pressure can shake our commitment to freedom, human rights, the rule of law & to partnering with the international democratic community as a force for good.
— 蔡英文 Tsai Ing-wen (@iingwen) December 10, 2021
So why do countries like Nicaragua stop recognizing Taiwan after so much aid and assistance?
The answer is simple. Pressure and promises from China. For years, as Taiwan has been throwing money around the developing world trying to buy recognition for itself, China has been doing the exact same thing to make the reverse happen.
China has made a policy of promising the world to countries in the form of aid as long as they renounce recognition of Taiwan. That's one of it's conditions.
And so, poor, small countries comply. China's far more powerful than Taiwan and they don't want their wrath. They tell Taiwan "thanks for everything but now you can eff off."
So what has China promised Nicaragua? The world, I suppose. The Ortega regime has finally found a more suitable bedfellow in the Xi regime.
There's been talk for years about a Chinese-built Nicaragua canal to rival the Panama Canal. This canal was widely-ridiculed, and went nowhere when a private consortium, HKND, partnered up with Ortega to build it.
But when the businessman behind HKND lost a lot of his money in the Chinese stock market crash of 2015, the whole thing fizzled out. The Ortegas stole a bunch of land, made a few more million, and that was that.
Now though, perhaps this thing could be back on, with the full power of the Chinese state behind it. Who knows?
In the short term, Ortega will receive the funds he needs to keep his regime alive in the face of U.S. sanctions. Survival is Ortega's only aim right now.
However, it's important to note that Nicaragua is not the only country in Central America to renounce Taiwan like this.
Ortega may be a vile, corrupt dictator, but he's no way the first to treat Taiwan like this. As much as it's easy to criticize his regime for this move, it's no different from any of the more democratic countries in Central America.
What if the Panama Canal had gone through Nicaragua like originally planned? So many questions about how that would have changed Central America. https://t.co/rCRvQummFK #Nicaragua #PanamaCanal #NicaraguaCanal #Panama #CentralAmericanTwitter pic.twitter.com/2zl7aTAieZ
— CentralAmericaLiving (@VidaAmerica) November 17, 2017
Countries like Costa Rica, for example.
In June 2007, Costa Rica became the first Central American country to cut ties with Taiwan. At the time, President Oscar Arias said it was for pure pragmatic reasons, given how China was the second most powerful country in the world, after the United States.
"This decision is not the consequence of an ideological turnaround, or of geopolitical reasons or short term interests," said Arias at the time. "It is an act of elemental realism, an awakening to the global context we are forced to deal with."
Arias went on to thank Taiwan for its generosity and support over the previous 60 years. Thanks but no thanks.
Part of that generosity was the construction of the Taiwan-Costa Rica Friendship Bridge across the River Tempisque. Completed in 2003, with Taiwanese funding and design, using Costa Rican workers, this bridge cut short by hours the journey to the northern Nicoya Peninsula from the mainland.
It must have been pretty sickening to Taiwan when four years later, Costa Rica said sayonara and changed the name of the bridge to simply "the Friendship Bridge". Those in the know call it the "Backstab Bridge".
"This is not something that a country which stands for peace and democracy should do, cut ties with its partner of 60 years," said Taiwanese Foreign Minister James Huang, who ended up resigning over the affair.
For its part, China gave Costa Rica a new national stadium (built far smaller than promised, and using no Costa Rican workers at all) in exchange for dumping Taiwan.
Costa Rica's Tempisque Bridge.
Fun fact: Donated by Taiwan, this used to be called the CR-Taiwan Friendship Bridge. Then CR withdrew its recognition of Taiwan under Chinese pressure, and got a new stadium as part of the deal. #geopolitics pic.twitter.com/yW8Ar4a65g
— CentralAmericaLiving (@VidaAmerica) May 1, 2021
Panama dumped Taiwan in June 2017, ten years after Costa Rica.
Then-President Juan Carlos Verala of Panama, who had hosted Taiwan's president the previous year, called Panama's relationship with Taiwan "a situation that a responsible president could not continue to perpetuate."
Panama's official break up note read pretty much word for word the same as Nicaragua's did yesterday:
"The government of the republic of Panama recognizes that there is but one China in the world, that the government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China, and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory."
You'd think there was a template or something.
In justifying his renouncement of Taiwan, Verala spoke of China being the second most important user of the Panama Canal, and the main supplier of goods sold in the Colón Free Trade Zone.
China would have threatened to withhold both ships and goods if Panama hadn't renounced Taiwan.
After renouncing Taiwan, Panama and China went into overdrive together, announcing a string of infrastructure projects. U.S. pressure upon Verala's successor, Nito Cortizo, meant many of these ended up getting cancelled or scaled back.
One of these projects was a Chinese idea to put its embassy on Ancon Hill at the Pacific entrance to the canal, where ships would see the Chinese flag before the Panamanian flag. Audacious much?
But still, although Chinese influence has diminished somewhat, it's still a major player in the Canal, and it won't let Panama forget it. Ever.
Another one bites the dust.
Three years ago when the Chinese thought they could spend their way into Panamanian hearts the crazy Nica canal project was put on the back burner.
Now Washington has clamped down in Panama, I bet that crazy canal gets built https://t.co/W9s52Gw9Ms
— Mat Youkee (@matyoukee) December 9, 2021
And then there's El Salvador.
In what's looking like a repetition of the same old story, El Salvador cut ties with Taiwan in August 2018. Then-president Salvador Sanchez went on TV to tell Salvadorans the Taiwanese were no longer their friends.
The Taiwanese, for their part, were a little more prepared this time than they were with Costa Rica and Panama.
They hit back by severing relations with El Salvador before it signed its friendship deal with China. Then they accused El Salvador of badgering Taiwan for money to build a port that wasn't feasible.
President Nayib Bukele, who came into power after Sanchez has talked of reopening relations with Taiwan, and he's accused China in the past of meddling too much in Latin American politics.
But since then, like Costa Rica and Panama before it, El Salvador signed an infrastructure deal with China. In return for ditching Taiwan, El Salvador is set to receive a new stadium (like Costa Rica did) and other "goodies".
El Salvador's president on China in March: "China does not play by the rules… They are not a democracy, but they intervene in your democracy."
Today he's touting a new stadium, water plant & one of the "best libraries in Latin America." https://t.co/xqhdnjK6oI
— Julia Love (@byJuliaLove) December 3, 2019
At the turn of the millennium, all seven countries in Central America recognized Taiwan and shared diplomatic relations with it.
Now, only three remain.
So far, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras still maintain relations with Taiwan, but how long will that last?
The new president-elect of Honduras, Xiamara Castro, has already spoken about ditching Taiwan when she takes office next month. Whether that happens immediately or not, is unknown.
She's walked back some of her anti-Taiwan sentiment in recent days, and even thanked President Tsai Ing-wen for congratulating her on her victory.
That might not mean much, but recognizing that Taiwan has a president means recognizing that it's an independent country. This is an anathema to China, who demands countries renounce that recognition.
Taiwan has already warned Honduras to not fall for Beijing's "flashy promises".
Muchas gracias Presidenta Tsai ing-wen. https://t.co/yNszHTv3fb
— Xiomara Castro de Zelaya (@XiomaraCastroZ) December 1, 2021
And as for Guatemala and Belize, who knows? Chinese pressure and promises are a lot for small, poor countries to bear.
But last month, Belize reaffirmed its commitment to Taiwan.
"Belize remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan and we stand in solidarity with you," said Belize's House of Representatives Speaker Valerie Woods on a visit to Tapei.
And this week, Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei used Taiwan to bolster his country's position in the eyes of the United States.
"We consider ourselves an ally and friend (of the United States), although some officials in this government don't understand this in its true dimension," he said.
"I'll mention a couple of things that prove it: First, diplomatic relations with Taiwan, not China. We're the last ones left in the region."
Indeed they are, but for how long?
James Dyde is the editor of centralamerica.com. He lives in Escazu, Costa Rica.
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O&F Boxwood Wreaths ~ Wedding Décor For All Seasons!
Home › Interior Chatter › O&F Boxwood Wreaths ~ Wedding Décor For All Seasons!
If you love Boxwood wreaths as much as we do, then you're already in on the secret – they're not just for the holiday season. Our O&F evergreen leaves are preserved to last up to one year and are easily incorporated into any seasonal décor.
With the warmer months on the horizon, and traditional wedding season not far behind, we've been exploring all the ways we can incorporate our custom made boxwood wreaths into spring and summer wedding party design.
From romantic and whimsical chandeliers to alternative bouquets, the wreaths add outdoor charm and unique style to any wedding party, and are an endless source of inspiration.
Smaller boxwood wreaths create a simple and classic place setting feature, and are one of our favourite rustic wedding table inspirations. Adding ribbon and name tags are perfect for assigned seating receptions. And you can even use them as a gift for your guests to enjoy all year long.
Our larger boxwood wreaths can be used as centrepieces as well. It's a great way to bring a touch of the outdoors to a indoor reception, and a simple and chic way to create rustic appeal. Light some candles, incorporate some wild flowers and quickly transform any table into an imaginative fairytale.
From chairs and benches to church pews and barns, boxwood wreaths make the perfect seating accessory. It's a fun way to dazzle up your space, and once again – a simple and stunning way to add rustic romance to your design.
We just love the idea of using boxwood wreaths as chandeliers. Easily hung with ribbon from just about any foundation, they will convert any farmhouse barn into a fairytale of your dreams.
As an alternative to the traditional flower bouquets for the bridal party, boxwood wreaths make a stunning, chic and creative choice. Simply tie with a ribbon and voila! You've got gorgeous "bouquets" that the girls can take home as a keepsake gift.
Last but not least, you can even add a boxwood wreath to your wedding exit! Large wreaths with your new initials or a wedding message make for fun transportation décor. Whether you're traveling by car, limo or golf cart (we hope not for the sake of your dress!) – our boxwood wreaths create a touch of rustic romance along the way.
Don't forget to head to our Etsy Shop now (Oscar French Linen) to view all boxwood wreaths for 10% OFF ~ through March 1st. Just in time for wedding season!


text:
package org.apache.kafka.streams.state;

import org.apache.kafka.common.annotation.InterfaceStability;
import org.apache.kafka.streams.errors.InvalidStateStoreException;

/**
 * A key value store that only supports read operations.
 * Implementations should be thread-safe as concurrent reads and writes
 * are expected.
 *
 * @param <K> the key type
 * @param <V> the value type
 */
@InterfaceStability.Unstable
public interface ReadOnlyKeyValueStore<K, V> {

    /**
     * Get the value corresponding to this key.
     *
     * @param key The key to fetch
     * @return The value or null if no value is found.
     * @throws NullPointerException If null is used for key.
     * @throws InvalidStateStoreException if the store is not initialized
     */
    V get(K key);

    /**
     * Get an iterator over a given range of keys. This iterator MUST be closed after use.
     * The returned iterator must be safe from {@link java.util.ConcurrentModificationException}s
     * and must not return null values. No ordering guarantees are provided.
     * @param from The first key that could be in the range
     * @param to The last key that could be in the range
     * @return The iterator for this range.
     * @throws NullPointerException If null is used for from or to.
     * @throws InvalidStateStoreException if the store is not initialized
     */
    KeyValueIterator<K, V> range(K from, K to);

    /**
     * Return an iterator over all keys in this store. This iterator MUST be closed after use.
     * The returned iterator must be safe from {@link java.util.ConcurrentModificationException}s
     * and must not return null values. No ordering guarantees are provided.
     * @return An iterator of all key/value pairs in the store.
     * @throws InvalidStateStoreException if the store is not initialized
     */
    KeyValueIterator<K, V> all();

    /**
     * Return an approximate count of key-value mappings in this store.
     *
     * The count is not guaranteed to be exact in order to accommodate stores
     * where an exact count is expensive to calculate.
     *
     * @return an approximate count of key-value mappings in the store.
     * @throws InvalidStateStoreException if the store is not initialized
     */
    long approximateNumEntries();
}


text:
Also by Barry J. Schieber:
Moments of Wonder: Life with Moritz
An Open Heart: A Story about Moritz
A Peaceful Mind: Travels with Moritz
A Gift to Share: The Story of Moritz
by Barry J. Schieber, illustrated by Mary Garbe
Grades PreK-3 24 pages Silent Moon Books October 2005 Hardcover
If the cover of A Gift to Share: The Story of Moritz doesn't draw you in, this story may not be for you. But the adorable, chubby Bernese mountain dog puppy, surrounded by a border of colorful wildflowers, and the red background of the book made it oh-so-inviting to this reader. I was not disappointed. By the way, this is a true story.
Author Barry Schieber found Moritz, his dog, in Switzerland, where Schieber was recovering from an illness. This is the first in a series of three children's picture books about that special canine, who has become a successful pet therapy dog. The book is inscribed "to the generosity in us all," as Moritz is obviously a loving, generous dog with a placid, playful temperament. If you know these gentle giants, you will also know that they are among the most beautiful of the dog breeds.
The story is told in the first person by Moritz, who was born in the Swiss Alps to a mother named Deika. Early on, Deika whispered to him, "You have a gift to share. You can help to heal people and make them happy." Moritz at a young age realizes that he does, indeed. When a middle-aged American man from Montana comes to look at the pups, Moritz feels that he looks gentle: "Right away I felt at home in his arms." It is hard to leave his family and harder still to fly in an airplane to his new home. But he sleeps through the trying time and loves his new home "with forests, lakes and snow everywhere." They walk, and "I grew and grew and grew," reflects Moritz.
They attend obedience classes, and when Moritz is about one year old, his human companion asks him it he'd like to try visiting people in the local hospital. Moritz takes to the work like a lab takes to the water, and he becomes certified to do this work. This book provides a good introduction to the breed and to some of the healing work therapy that animals can do.
A Gift to Share is a charming book with beautiful, vivid illustrations and tender words. The only possible danger to this book is that many kids who like dogs and read it may start asking for a Bernese mountain dog of their own. Warning: These dogs have a thick, double coat and weigh in at 75 pounds and up.
Check out Moritz's website at www.nose-to-nose.com. He has become something of a celebrity and receives fan mail.
Deborah Straw/2008 for curled up with a good kid's book


text:
How to Give General Chemistry Students Confidence
Professor Franklin Ow was determined to remove barriers to success in his general chemistry course. Here's how authoring a digital textbook helped improve equity and comprehension.
■ February 23, 2021
Franklin Ow's mission is to make chemistry more appealing to students. Ow has been a professor in the Department of Chemistry at East Los Angeles College since 2007, plus he serves as an Adjunct Professor at UCLA. If professors are the most important factor in the student experience, Ow decided to harness that power to improve their learning. He knew that the financial strain of chemistry labs, textbooks and manuals took a toll on students. Add to it Ow's concern about his students' lack of confidence, and he decided to author his own digital textbook with Top Hat: General Chemistry.
We sat down with Ow to better understand why digital—over print—is a more effective way of teaching general chemistry, and how an interactive textbook can mitigate the financial and comprehension challenges students once faced.
There's a more active and cost-effective way to teach general chemistry. Learn more here.
Giving students confidence in their learning is essential to keeping them motivated
Student perceptions of chemistry vary greatly. Some learners have had exceptional experiences with chemistry in high school, while others have struggled. Depending on your connection with students, some learners might not feel comfortable reaching out for help. Ow aims to level the playing field for all students, no matter what their prior experiences with chemistry look like. "I think students feel intimidated by comparing themselves with others," Ow says. "I really try to get them over that hurdle and make them feel like they can fit in. That's what drives me in my profession every day." By authoring his own digital text, Ow has made great strides in prioritizing student equity. He's reduced costs and is giving learners ample opportunities to test their understanding of chemistry in advance of tests or exams.
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Saving students money while doubling down on impact keeps course enrollment numbers up
Lab manuals, textbooks and supplementary material costs can quickly pile up. For students learning during a pandemic, the last thing they want to do is pay for unnecessary supplies or a book where only six to seven of the ten chapters will be assigned. "If a student is going to fork over money for a book, it should be to their advantage. I want to make chemistry accessible to them financially," Ow says.
Ow deliberately turned to a digital textbook solution that would allow students to skip buying both a text and the book's solution manual—often sold separately. "A student's wallet should not be a hindrance to their ability to succeed in class," he says. By writing his own digital book, Ow aims to serve up course content, discussions and practice questions in one place—plus provide students with instant access to solutions. Students can read multimedia-rich chapters at their own pace and then rely on immersive question types like click-on-target to gauge their own understanding of concepts.
A click-on-target question in Ow's textbook.
Testing students through regular checkpoints helps them become active learners
It's not enough to passively read a textbook. Students must apply what they've read through questions, discussions or polls to showcase their understanding. Traditional textbooks often reserve the end of each chapter for comprehension checks. But in Ow's textbook, each chapter is interspersed with 50-70 practice questions, meaning students have plenty of opportunities to build upon their confidence in a particular unit of study. "Chemistry is a problem-solving based class. We incorporate a step-by-step problem-solving approach in the chapters, which students find to be incredibly effective," Ow shares.
Regular checkpoints will translate into increased confidence in chemistry topics over time—one of Ow's goals as a chemistry educator. Instant feedback on correctness also lets students refresh themselves on certain pieces of information before proceeding. "A digital book makes the most passive readers engaged and active. Embedded questions are designed such that they're almost gatekeepers and students shouldn't read on until they fully answer and comprehend questions," Ow tells us.
Using an interactive textbook makes subject matter more approachable
General Chemistry offers chapter summaries, interactive problem-solving exercises and multimedia to engage Generation Z learners—even those who lack confidence in chemistry. Not all instructors have used, or are considering using, a digital textbook in their courses. But Ow believes that this is a more user-friendly, comprehensive mechanism to learn chemistry—one that will allow students to thrive in and out of class. "Generally, the way chemistry is presented is where the difference can come into play. I think the book is excellent for instructors in terms of flexibility and ease of use," he shares. "When you have the relatively lower costs, in addition to the efficacy that Top Hat has shown for students, it's definitely a win-win situation."
Make sure your general chemistry students are engaged, active and confident—in and out of class. Learn how Franklin Ow's General Chemistry can help.
Active Learning, Online Teaching and Learning, Student Engagement


This year I am teaching grades 2, 3 & 4. I am a huge believer in the push-in model of instruction for ESOL students, so "my classroom" is typically whichever classroom my students are in. On occasion though, I may need to pull-out a small group, so I thought we'd take a peek inside my classroom. This is my 3rd year at this particular school, and the third space I've called home. I'm not complaining, my space has gotten larger each year; and for the first time in 10 years, I am not sharing it with other teachers!!
My reading table...where the magic happens!! In the classrooms, where I usually support students, my space is typically sitting on the carpet, so this table is a welcomed change for the times that I do use it. Whether the focus is word study, guided reading, vocabulary building activities, or writing, my students find it to be a comfortable place to learn and practice their English language skills.
native country's flag to the world map.
They love seeing their flag up there!
Keeping my daily plans organized. Staying organized is half the battle, right?!?!
This wall is fabric, so I've used T-pins to hang up my displays.
I LOVE using these magazines for non-fiction text!
They are also great for differentiating!
guided reading book sets, games, and student files.
I just LOVE looking around other teachers' classrooms.
I always see so many great ideas.
Hi Kristen! My name is Susan and I love your new Blog Design! Megan created mine as well! I've been a push-in resource teacher as well, so I understand how good it feels to finally have a space of your own! Your students are very fortunate to have you! I would love for you to stop by my blog and join my new linky party!


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