Krishna's birthday, called Janmashtami, is one of Hinduism's most popular holidays and is celebrated throughout the Hindu world. During the festival, the faithful engage in prayer, song, fasting, and feasting to honor Krishna's birth. We're going to ensure the kids are busier this year, with our list of Krishna Janmashtami Activities and Crafts!
Use Clay, Colored Sand, Clay dolls, animals etc to make your own unique scenes.
A diorama that depicts the 4 scenes from Krishna's Life.
Hope you like these Janmashtami celebration ideas.


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Wednesday. June 14, 2017
Foreword: this is the first part of a 4 parts series. Here are parts 2, 3 and 4. This series is an extended version of a talk I gave at PyParis 17.
About ten years ago, Netflix launched the Netflix Prize: an open contest where the goal was to design state-of-the-art algorithms for predicting movie ratings. During 3 years, research teams developed many different prediction algorithms, among which matrix factorization techniques stood out by their efficiency.
The goal of this series of posts is twofold:
Give some insights on how matrix factorization models the ratings. To this end, we will illustrate how PCA and SVD work, using concrete examples. You may have already read explanations like users and items are represented as vectors in a latent factors vector space, and ratings are defined as a dot product between two vectors. If it makes no sense to you, I hope that you will understand what it means by the end of this article.
Derive and implement an algorithm for predicting ratings, based on matrix factorization. In its simplest form, this algorithm fits in 10 lines of Python. We will use this algorithm and evaluate its performances on real datasets.
I tried to keep the math level of the article as accessible as possible, but without trying to over-simplify things, and avoiding dull statements. My hope is that this article is accessible to ML beginners, while still being insightful to the more experienced.
This article is divided into 4 parts: in this first part, we will clearly define the problem we plan to address, and provide some insights about PCA. In the second part, we will review SVD and see how it models the ratings. In the third part, we will see how to apply our knowledge of SVD to the rating prediction task, and derive an implementation of a matrix-factorization-based algorithm. In the last part, we will implement a matrix factorization algorithm in Python using the Surprise library.
The problem we propose to address here is that of rating prediction. The data we have is a rating history: ratings of users for items in the interval $[1, 5]$. We can put all this data into a sparse matrix called $R$:
Each row of the matrix corresponds to a given user, and each column corresponds to a given item. For instance here, Alice has rated the first item with a rating of $1$, and Charlie has rated the third item with a rating of $4$. In our case, we will consider that the items are movies and we will use the terms item and movie interchangeably.
The matrix $R$ is sparse (more than 99% of the entries are missing), and our goal is to predict the missing entries, i.e. predict the $\color{#e74c3c}{?}$.
There are many different techniques for rating prediction, and in our case we will factorize the matrix $R$. This matrix factorization is fundamentally linked to SVD, which stands for Singular Value Decomposition. SVD is one of the highlights of linear algebra. It's a beautiful result. When people tell you that math sucks, show them what SVD can do.
The aim of this article is to explain how SVD can be used for rating prediction purposes. But before we can dive into SVD in the second part, we need to review what PCA is. PCA is only slightly less awesome than SVD, but it is still really cool.
A little bit of PCA
Let's forget the recommendation problem for 2 minutes. We'll play around with the Olivetti dataset. It's a set of greyscale images of faces from 40 people, making up a total of 400 images. Here are the first 10 people:
Friendly, right? Well, just wait a little bit…
Each image size is 64 x 64 pixels. We will flatten each of these images (we thus get 400 vectors, each with 64 x 64 = 4096 elements). We can represent our dataset in a 400 x 4096 matrix:
PCA, which stands for Principal Component Analysis, is an algorithm that will reveal 400 of these guys:
Creepy, right ;)?
We call these guys the principal components (hence the name of the technique), and when they represent faces such as here we call them the eigenfaces. Some really cool stuff can be done with eigenfaces such as face recognition, or optimizing your tinder matches! The reason why they're called eigenfaces is because they are in fact the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix of $X$ (but we will not detail this, see the references if you want to dive further into it).
We obtain here 400 principal components because the original matrix $X$ has 400 rows (or more precisely, because the rank of $X$ is 400). As you may have guessed, each of the principal component is in fact a vector that has the same dimension as the original faces, i.e. it has 64 x 64 = 4096 pixels.
As far as we're concerned, we will call these guys the creepy guys. Now, one amazing thing about them is that they can build back all of the original faces. Take a look at this (these are animated gifs, about 10s long):
Here is what's going on. Each of the 400 original faces (i.e. each of the 400 original rows of the matrix) can be expressed as a (linear) combination of the creepy guys. That is, we can express the first original face (i.e. its pixel values) as a little bit of the first creepy guy, plus a little bit of the second creepy guy, plus a little bit of third, etc. until the last creepy guy. The same goes for all of the other original faces: they can all be expressed as a little bit of each creepy guy. Mathematically, we write it this way:
The gifs you saw above are the very translation of these math equations: the first frame of a gif is the contribution of the first creepy guy, the second frame is the contribution of the first two creepy guys, etc. until the last creepy guy.
If you want to play around a bit with the creepy guys and reproduce the cool gifs, I made a small notebook for you.
Note: there is nothing really special about the fact that the creepy guys can express all the original faces. We could have randomly chosen 400 independent vectors of 64 x 64 = 4096 pixels and still be able to reconstruct any face. What makes the creepy guys from PCA special is a very important result about dimensionality reduction, which we will discuss in part 3.
Latent factors
We've actually been kind of harsh towards the creepy guys. They're not creepy, they're typical. The goal of PCA is to reveal typical vectors: each of the creepy/typical guy represents one specific aspect underlying the data. In an ideal world, the first typical guy would represent (e.g.) a typical elder person, the second typical guy would represent a typical glasses wearer, and some other typical guys would represent concepts such as smiley, sad looking, big nose, stuff like that. And with these concepts, we could define a face as more or less elder, more or less glassy, more or less smiling, etc. In practice, the concepts that PCA reveals are really not that clear: there is no clear semantic that we could associate with any of the creepy/typical guys that we obtained here. But the important fact remains: each of the typical guys captures a specific aspect of the data. We call these aspects the latent factors (latent, because they were there all the time, we just needed PCA to reveal them). Using barbaric terms, we say that each principal component (the creepy/typical guys) captures a specific latent factor.
Now, this is all good and fun, but we're interested in matrix factorization for recommendation purposes, right? So where is our matrix factorization, and what does it have to do with recommendation? PCA is actually a plug-and-play method: it works for any matrix. If your matrix contains images, it will reveal some typical images that can build back all of your initial images, such as here. If your matrix contains potatoes, PCA will reveal some typical potatoes that can build back all of your original potatoes. If your matrix contains ratings, well… Here we come.
PCA on a (dense) rating matrix
Until stated otherwise, we will consider for now that our rating matrix $R$ is completely dense, i.e. there are no missing entries. All the ratings are known. This is of course not the case in real recommendation problems, but bear with me.
PCA on the users
Here is our rating matrix, where rows are users and columns are movies:
Looks familiar? Instead of having faces in the rows represented by pixel values, we now have users represented by their ratings. Just like PCA gave us some typical guys before, it will now give us some typical users, or rather some typical raters.
Here again, in an ideal world, the concepts associated with the typical users would have a clear semantic meaning: we would obtain a typical action movie fan, a typical romance movie fan, a typical comedy fan, etc. In practice, the semantic behind the typical users is not clearly defined, but for the sake of simplicity we will assume that they are (it doesn't change anything, this is just for intuition/explanation purposes).
So here we are: each of our initial users (Alice, Bob…) can be expressed as a combination of the typical users. For instance, Alice could be defined as a little bit of an action fan, a little bit of a comedy fan, a lot of a romance fan, etc. As for Bob, he could be more keen on action movies:
And the same goes for all of the users, you get the idea. (In practice the coefficients are not necessarily percentages, but it's convenient for us to think of it this way).
PCA on the movies
What would happen if we transposed our rating matrix? Instead of having users in the rows, we would now have movies, defined as their ratings:
In this case, PCA will not reveal typical faces nor typical users, but of course typical movies. And here again, we will associate a semantic meaning behind each of the typical movies, and these typical movies can build back all of our original movies:
And the same goes for all the other movies.
We are now ready to dive into SVD in the next part.
Understanding matrix factorization for recommendation (part 2) - the model behind SVD »

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Fire Services Youth Training Association (FSYTA) announced it will run The Duke of Edinburgh's Award (DofE) as part of its National Fire Cadets scheme to further develop its young Cadets. John Cartwright, Chair of the FSYTA, was presented with the licence by DofE Trustee, HRH The Earl of Wessex, during a presentation at St. James's Palace, London.
The new partnership will enable Fire Cadets aged 13 – 18 to take up the DofE challenge through the National Fire Cadets scheme, giving each the opportunity to meet new people, develop valuable life skills and try a wide range of different activities.
Fire Cadets who start their DofE will volunteer in their communities, learn a skill, get fit and plan and undertake an expedition over six to 18 months of challenging activity. Widely acknowledged as the world's leading achievement award for young people, the DofE programme encourages the development of key life and employability skills, such as confidence, commitment and team working.
The collaboration derives from a natural synergy between the two charities, as both organisations focus on supporting young people in their development for life and work.
There are currently over 300,000 young people taking part in a DofE programme across the UK through a variety of centres including both state and independent schools, special schools, businesses, prisons, Young Offender Institutions and youth groups.


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← Staff
Derek Gianino, National Engagement Director
Derek Gianino serves as National Engagement Director, having recently rejoined the organization after serving USGLC for four years first as National Outreach Director and later as Director of Strategic Initiatives. In between his tenure at USGLC, Derek was Director of International Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In his role, he was responsible for promoting the Chamber's international trade agenda, working with and managing grassroots supporters, third party stakeholders, strategic alliances, state and local chambers of commerce, and a wide array of businesses, including small and medium-sized exporters. In the 2012 election cycle, Derek was Deputy National Coalitions Director on the Romney for President campaign, overseeing national outreach efforts to veterans, sportsmen, and farmers. In this capacity, he directed efforts to recruit and mobilize activists in more than 15 targeted states and liaised with prominent veteran, business, and civic leaders. Derek was previously a public affairs consultant with firms including DDC Advocacy and Howard Consulting Group, working on a variety of federal and state public policy issues. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Kalamazoo College and earned his Master of Public Policy from The American University. He also studied at the University of Aberdeen.
Posts by Derek Gianino
Crossing Party Lines to Agree on Something
Derek Gianino | June 2, 2014
Bipartisanship at its best in Miami.


….aka Article V, aka Con Con, aka COS, aka Amendment Convention, aka Convention of States, …I'm going with ConCon.
Tyranny treading softly throughout Our Rule of Law land is rearing it's very ugly head once again, this time in the covert coup on our Rights that calls itself the Convention of States, with only four states left to go.
Stop insulting our intelligence, it is an amendatory process that cannot be limited or controlled. It is a Con-Con of the highest order.
Now before you get in a big huff about how smart you are and what you think about COS right now, consider this fact; like anything potentially good, it's been hijacked.
Schools became Indoctrination Centers. Wellness Vaccines devolved to malaise fomenting. Natural Food was engineered to be poison . Water is Fluoridated to calcify pineal glands and blood vessels. Air is Chemtrailed. Congress has been throwing IOU's into SS since the 1970's.Taxation escalated to theft. Administrative Government for Civil Services by Public Servants….
The Alphabet Agencies comprising Shadow Government morphed into becoming the Shadow Government and Deep State(Intel Agencies), but began as a sound principle. Governments should run the post office, deploy a standing military, build bridges. Should all 50 states test food, research every disease and every vaccine for that disease, working with states to line up a highway crossing a state line. No, that would create wasteful redundancy. Our shared Republic resources perform services for Our Benefit. I have a crappy neighbor with unrelenting desire to move his yard boundary fence onto my property, yes we need administration! But Our Government of We The People is For Us and By Us. We cannot tolerate any drive into totalitarianism. Trump and his mighty sword of Truth and Budget is making fast work of the cabal that sought to completely corrupt our American Rule of Law Government.
And He needs our help more than ever. Trump needs our full support in putting the brakes on Convention of States, among other pressing needs. By performing our vigilant citizen civil duty and getting the right candidates elected in mid-terms, we can give him the Congress he needs to permanently clean up D.C..
When Progressives were threatened in 2012, from mainly conservatives backing COS, they were as loud mouthed about the "dangers of COS" as anyone could be, and they were correct, for once. COS, with ill intended delegation from either party, could wreak havoc by using little known mechanics such as Clarification Clauses to "adjust the amendments". The early adopter Conservatives saw what we saw, a train wreck of Government pre-Trump, but now we are moving in the right direction.
Even The Framers had their doubts as to the inclusion of a Con-Con. The vagueness of this method led Madison to oppose the proposal at the Constitutional Convention: "difficulties might arise as to the form, the quorum etc. which in constitutional regulations ought to be as much as possible avoided." Combine that with the fact that no such amending convention has ever occurred, and too many serious questions are left open and unanswered.
Framers doubt was so deep we could keep our Republic and the nature of Government in check, they also included Common Law Grand Jury. Jury Nullification to make sure if we had any bad apple oath takers including all Congressman, Judges, Sheriffs, State electorate . We have Term Limits Now with Nullification! We could dispense with their public service by a jury of people so we wouldn't need to hang them for Treason, we could try them for treason instead by Notice of Liability with Nullification. (See KrisAnneHall liberty Tree and NationalLibertyAlliance.org for more info).
Consider this: What if COS was totally uncorrupt, and it did acheive Term Limits? Well, if I am a 6 yr Senator and I am exposed for corruption in the first quarter of my term; with Nullification and Prima Facie evidence, I can be held responsible, and within 90 days, after being served Notice in an Article III court, I will be nullified. Game Over! Therefore, I can no longer commit fraud, as I will be nullified. THIS IS ALREADY IN THE CONSTITUTION!!!! However, COS can remove nullification, and therefore We The People will lose the only Constitutional mechanism we have, nullification, to remove the fraudster. Further, if we have Term Limits, Fraudster Lawmaker can still serve out their other 5 3/4 term, but would be limited to new terms. So how have we gained anything from COS?
After a quick round of calls to four states, the directors have mostly changed, not totally unusual. Staunch Conservative early adopters like Michelle Malkin, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz all gone from the movement. Tomi Lahren walked in one strong direction, away from Beck, so did Loesch. Who slotted in recently at CON CON instead? Dennis Prager, Glenn Beck and Young Turks, WolfPAC.
American Constitution Society (ACS). ACS is the main organization behind the Con-Con movement to ensure a more "progressive" constitution, having received more than $2,201,500 from Soros' Open Society since 2002. The funders for ACS are the Barbra Steisand Foundation, the Sandler Foundation, and George Soros' Open Society Foundations.
If you have been following Prager/Beck, you would see their move away from Conservatism leaning to Centrist positions. So who is funding Young Turks and WolfPAC? Foe of Freedom George Soros at the bottom of the pile!
In fact if you look at Mark Meckler, we find under it all he was ousted from Tea Party for what? Some would call it corruption, others radicalism. Are his strong ties to Move On, another Soros entity, revealing of his true nature? Jim Demint, booted from Heritage Foundation early 2017, but still going strong with Con-Con? A.B West hanging on because he has nothing else, POTUS give that man a job will ya(Nope! Because he is a social liberatarian!) Prager started out good, but in late 2017 what appears to be a sell to Google to keep his stuff on you tube, then extended a weak apology to Trump supporters 2/2018, game over! You are either with us or against us. Prager now promoting ConCon. The only support clinging to CON CON feels like annoying armit pilings on a cheapie tourist tshirt after the 3rd wearing, looked good when I bought it.
Just like ConCon, looked good when I bought into it! I wa a petiton signer in 2012, but once began asking the hard questions in 2016 post election, I was blocked…..hhhhmmmm.
By the Way, the leaders of the movement forbid fans to use the term con-Con, instead they insist on the name Amendment Convention. Hannity, did you get so busy rescuing Truth from surefire Death by lamestream media you forgot to say goodbye? Nope! We see Hannity surfacing in a number of questionable areas, is nothing sacred?
In 2010-2016, Conservatives were all gung ho on COS Article V, why? They saw what we saw: Corruption, Bad Actors and runaway government. Progressives of that timeline were calling the Con-Con for what it was, a promise for specific changes that weren't necessarily in Progressive best interests. BINGO!** At that time, they wanted what all Progressives want, gun control, entitlement protection, open borders. Both parties want term limits, the Conservatives understand to stay free we need to enforce the Constitution we have, as it is written.
So isn't that the essence of a federal convention? Essence or not, the organizers are quick to deny they are hosting a constitutional convention, or even laying the groundwork for one. They even give people the exact words to say, excerpted from below:.
…" petitioning for a call (for the States) to hold an Amendment Convention.
In our discussions with the public it is important to use the wording "Amendment Convention" because of some confusing it with a Constitutional Convention. The Article V Convention of States process consists of two parts. First is an Amendment convention to propose amendments to the constitution. Second is the ratification procedure, which—at the discretion of Congress—can be either by the State legislatures, or by a ratification convention held by each State.
That said, advocating an Article V convention as part of a state-based strategy to press Congress to pass a constitutional amendment is not unreasonable, you could even say it worked! Anyone desirous of an outcome for our country as such we were blessed with, you have arrived! Destiny fulfilled, unless you are a Progressive who still doesn't get you have no freewill choices anywhere but America.
In a video of Meckler rallying the ConConned Troops in 2016, he convinces CONCON fans are modern day Hancocks, Madisons, The Washingtons, The Jeffersons…. The 1775 Jefferson, or the moving on up to the eastside variety? Stop Right There! Are you kidding? The people "adjusting" your Constitution at the 2018 COS are eating Tide Pods, demanding gratification from their single point of view video games and are most likely collecting on at least one entitlement with their pants at their knees. Further yet, if they are under 50, there is a good chance they couldn't even recite 3 of the 10 Bill of Rights. Our History was rewritten or removed from the History books!!! The Constitution may have been read, but it was never taught in classes after 1969 when Civics class was rolled into Social Studies.
Now you have the facts on the Rule of Law Government that Globalists made sure faded into a distant memory, do us all a favor. Prevent a takeover of zombified Amendment Adjusters. Enforce the Constitution as is!
Elected President Trump who has DHS cleaning up Voter Fraud, rendering Term Limits with elections.
Stopped 4 states left to gather a majority, contact your friends and tell them no CON CON as of 2/16/2018. ACTIVATE!
When they are marching us to the Liberty ovens, it will be too late to say we do not consent!
Not convinced? Show them this, the Globalists behind CON CON have framed their gun control as "regulating dusty muskets". Nevermind the 2nd Amendment was really to insure a well armed militia to shoot anyone taking Our guns. It's ManKind's right to have any guns we want. Just HuMan? Nope, not a right! If people need a cause, tell them they are free to direct their efforts to change the rampant Godlessness and the Deviant Nature of Man(Color of Law codes). Bad Guys never get the memo when it comes to laws, especially Rule of Law.
***Called "a radical right proposition" by Huffington Post in 2013.
**** All the same bad actors we know backing it from near and afar since 2013: Eric Holder, Janet Reno, Council on Foreign Relations, Koch Brothers, Trilateral Commission, Grover Norquist, unless you have lived under a rock, you can't beleive anything good can come of this!
•(1) They may exercise all sovereign powers that are vested in the people of the state.
•(2) They derive their powers not from the legislature, but from the people.
•(3) Their power may not in any respect be limited or restrained by the legislature.
Need more info to not pass Go? JBS.org has some good articles and explainer videos.
We have seen what a Muslim president (who take an oath to taqqiya, see janepublicproject.org JPP26) did for Our Christian Nation, where Truth is coveted…..
Patriots, I'm calling you home from CON CON. Tidy up loose ends then Activate! Let everyone know this is a scamming of our rights! Take up your new post on mid-term elections, let nothing distract you. Soros just poured $18B into Get The Vote Out, and they are paying $15-20/hr to get registered Democrats to register more democrats. they'll never stop.
I'll leave you with this. When Our Congressman arrive in Washington as a newly minted electorate, they have training to become legislators. All this indoctrination is done by the Cato Institute. Cato Institute George Soros Open Society Foundations is a funder of Cato Institute and both are members of the State Policy Network.
Read the Constitution. Read it to your kids, to your grandchildren, take an online liberty course at Liberty Tree by KrisAnne Hall. Recite it on the bus going to work. Ask representatives the last time they read the Constitution. Then read janepublicproject.org jpp24, get yourself strong on Rule of Law. To take back our country, we must cut through the lies with real truth.
We were Con Conned, all we ever needed was right here all along.
The Convention of the States (COS) is an Article V Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) supported and funded by the elitists.
The Constitutional Convention, or Con-Con, that's being sold to the legislators is a lie and has to be stopped. At least three White House advisers and officials, including President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, have ties to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new "progressive" U.S. Constitution by the year 2020. Don't fall for the lies of the elitists. Say NO to a Con-Con or whatever label they call it.
Under Article V (five) of the Constitution, our founding fathers established two methods for future generations to add amendments to the Constitution.
Method 2: Two-thirds (34) of the states call for a federal constitutional convention, and then three-fourths of the states ratify whatever amendments are proposed by the convention. (This method must be avoided at all costs. This method could lead to a runaway convention in which our original Constitution would be scrapped and a new Constitution would be substituted consequently stripping us from our bill of rights.) There is a proposed Constitution already waiting for the New States of America.
Many grassroots, Tea Party, and Christian groups are being infiltrated with progressive ideas by people presenting themselves as Conservatives, Christians, or Patriots. We must all be truth seekers. Don't accept any information without checking out both the message AND the person. That includes everything. Just because someone claims to be something, that doesn't mean they are. Everyone and everything needs to be vetted. Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow, but it is the truth.
10) Citizens for Self-Governance (CSG)- Michael P. Farris, Senior Fellow for Constitutional Studies, Head of Convention of the States (COS) Project (connected to Grover G.Norquist, a CFR member. This is the latest organization that came on line to destroy our U.S. Constitution via a Con-Con.
11) American Constitution Society (ACS). ACS is the main organization behind the Con-Con movement to ensure a more "progressive" constitution, having received more than $2,201,500 from Soros' Open Society since 2002. The funders for ACS are the Barbra Steisand Foundation, the Sandler Foundation, and George Soros' Open Society Foundations.
The Convention of States (COS) Project, along with many other Con-Con groups, has connections to various elitist organizations. Some of the connections are shown below. Click on all the hot links below to see the connections.
Mark Meckler is the President of Citizens for Self Governance and was the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots but has since left that group.
Michael P. Farris is Head of Convention of the States Project or better known as a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) and President of Parentalrights.org in which Council on Foreign Relation (CFR) member Grover G. Norquist is the Director. Mr. Farris is also the advisory board member of Christian Freedom International. George Soros is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations with Grover P. Norquist.
Grover P. Norquist is the director for Council for National Policy, Founder and President of Americans for Tax Reform, Executive Director of National Taxpayers Union, Director of American Conservative Union, President of American Society of Competitiveness, advisory board member of America's Future Foundation, co-founder of Janus-Merritt Strategies, advisory council member of GOProud, Field Director of Citizens for America, lobbyist for Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc., contribution editor of American Spectator, member of Council on Foreign Relations, and political ally of Jack Abramoff.
(shows some of the current and former members) This is a very exclusive "men's only" club.
Donald L. Nickles is a member of the Burning Tree Club. The Burning Tree Club is a private, all-male golf club in Bethesda, Maryland. The initiation fee is $75,000 while membership fees are $500 per month.
Richard H. Fink is the Director of Americans for Prosperity, co-founder and Director of Americans for Prosperity foundations, Executive VP of Koch Industries, former co-founder & Director of Koch Industries, member of Freedom Partners which is the funder for Tea Party Patriots.
Timothy R. Phillips is the President of both Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
David H. Koch is the Chairman of Americans for Prosperity Foundation and a Donor for Americans for Prosperity.
Mr. Koch is also the EVP of Koch Industries.
Many of the organizations listed below are connected through think tanks and the State Policy Network all pushing for a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con).
American Constitution Society (ACS) Eric H Holder Jr. is a board member, Janet Reno is a Board of Advisor member, and ACS is funded by George Soros Open Society Foundations, Barbra Streisand Foundation, and Sandler Foundation).
Cato Institute George Soros Open Society Foundations is a funder of Cato Institute and both are members of the State Policy Network.
3) With George Washington as chairman, they were able to deliberate in total secrecy, with no press coverage and no leaks. A Constitutional Convention today would be a free-for-all for special interest groups, television coverage, and press speculation.
There is no provision in Article V empowering state legislators to choose the delegates to a Constitutional Convention or to "limit" the scope of a Con-Con. There are no rules, no regulations or instructions, and once a Convention is underway, the delegates answer to NOBODY!
they may exercise all sovereign powers that are vested in the people of the state.
Once 34 states pass a bill asking for an Amendment Convention in which they are requesting a Constitutional Convention, we will have the possibility of a runaway convention.
About 26 states have a current resolution calling for some sort of a Constitutional Convention.
There is no way to control a Constitutional Convention or the outcome.
Ford and Rockefeller Foundation spent $25 million and 10 years writing a constitution called "The New States Constitution".
1) With a Constitutional Convention, the whole constitution can be thrown out and a new one substituted in its place.
2) With a Constitution Convention, it is the delegates that control the outcome.
3) You can NEVER trust the delegates with the Constitution. The outcome of a Constitutional Convention is always worse and not what you would expect.
1) The Hegelian Principle is being used against the people to push for a Constitutional Convention. The technique is as old as politics itself. The Hegelian principle brings about change in a three-step process: Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis.
1) There has been only one Constitutional Convention in the history of the nation – that was in 1787. At the time, the nation was held together by the Articles of Confederation. The states were having a difficult time performing commerce among themselves. So it was decided to hold a Constitutional Convention to simply discuss how interstate commerce might be better organized. As the delegates were selected, delegations from a majority of states were given specific orders by their states to discuss nothing else beyond the commerce issue.
2) However, some delegates including James Madison had a very specific agenda planned for the convention and as soon as the delegates arrived at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, they closed and locked the door, pulled down the shades and met in secret for a month. When they were finished, they had created an entirely new nation. We were very lucky that the convention was attended by men like Ben Franklin and George Washington and Madison. They produced the most magnificent document ever devised for the governance of man.
Today, we have entrenched power forces led by the likes of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. And we have notoriously weak leaders like current House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who rarely miss a good compromise to keep the peace. These are the people who will decide the rules for the convention, including delegate selection. Do you trust them to follow the rules dictated by state legislatures? Do you think Pelosi and Reid would pass up an opportunity to set their own rules to guarantee a Constitution to their liking?
And there's more. Concerning the argument that no matter what the delegates produce, the states still must ratify it – thus serving as a safeguard to foolish behavior, consider this fact: the Articles of Confederation required that any changes be ratified by 100% of the states. That was the document that was the law of the land – until something else was put into place. But, when the new Constitution was put to the states for a vote of ratification, suddenly they needed only two thirds to approve it. Why? The fact is, Article V of the new Constitution was used – even before the Constitution which contained it was approved. Now, what do you think Reid and Obama and company would do with that precedent? What if the new document produced by the Con-Con said ratification only required a vote of Congress – or of some special commission? The precedent of 1787 says that could happen. So much for protection by the states.
1) States Must Enforce, Not Revise, the Constitution!
2) Find and support candidates who understand the Constitution, obey it, and agree to work to dismantle the unconstitutional federal apparatus.
3) The states must rein in our out-of-control federal government by enforcing the Constitution through nullification of unconstitutional federal laws, rather than by revising the Constitution through an inherently risky constitutional convention process.
4) States must enforce the 10th Amendment State Nullification.
5) We must be forceful and vigilant in demanding our legislators obey their oath of office to the Constitution. The legislators cannot be allowed to rewrite the very document that is our last protection against total destruction of our God-given unalienable rights.
3) Only an Amendments or Article V Convention ITSELF CAN LEGALLY MAKE ITS OWN RULES – not an Interstate Compact, per U.S. Constitution Article V.
4) If Congress willfully ignores the authority of the U.S. Constitution now, why would we expect it to obey the Constitution when amended?
5) A NEW CONSTITUTION was already devised in 1970 by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions and funded by the Ford Foundation!
6) Billionaire George Soros has VOWED to replace the U.S. Constitution by year 2020 and is in a position to take advantage of a convention to do so.
8) Say NO to all Con-Cons!
So to put it bluntly, Coburn is walking hand in hand with such intellectual giants as Sarah Palin, who took to Facebook in February to support the movement, and the man who put stupid back into the Republican Party, Bobby Jindal, who offered his own endorsement back in November of 2014. You can add Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to the list of supporters.
By now, you probably already realize nothing good can come out of this scheme, because there are no good intentions behind it. Republicans are supporting using Article V of the Constitution not to propose amendments to the Constitution, but to destroy the government.
Which is why the GOP wants to sell the federal government to the Koch brothers? We have yet to see any evidence at all that the GOP is concerned with anyone's liberty unless that person is one of them. And we call that tyranny, in point of fact.
Our Founders anticipated the federal government might get out of control at some point, and they gave us a constitutional mechanism to rein it in. It's called a Convention of the States, outlined in Article V of the Constitution.
and they gave us a constitutional mechanism to rein it in. It's called a Convention of the States, outlined in Article V of the Constitution.
Coburn claimed that, "Although I am a proud conservative, this is not a partisan issue." It is, however. The Founding Fathers distrusted government, but they came to realize that the absence of a strong central government was the greater threat to the new nation, and as a result, they gave us the United States Constitution.
And a strong central government. With the ability to tax. And to regulate. And to raise the standing army they had always feared. As Coburn said, the Founding Fathers were brilliant. They learned from their mistakes.
Coburn, being far less brilliant, seems to want to go back to the Articles of Confederation. These did not work in the immensely less complex 18th century. How they are expected to work better now amid the complexities of the modern, interconnected global marketplace, are anybody's guess. Wishful thinking won't get it done.
Though Coburn is no doubt right in saying that "Politicians and bureaucracies in Washington, D.C. will never voluntarily relinquish meaningful power — no matter who is elected," that doesn't mean a weak federal government is the answer. That fight ended in 1789 with the ratification of the Constitution.
This is an interesting claim, given that what Republicans seem to want to offer us in place of a strong federal government that we control through elections, is a privatized corporate government that does not answer to us but to a board of electors we do not and cannot elect.
This is a movement whose time has come. In 26 states, citizens are working through their state legislatures to file applications to convene a Convention of States, and three others — Florida, Georgia and Alaska — have already passed the legislation necessary to move the process forward.
Coburn appeared as a guest on Focal Point yesterday and advanced the argument to the American Family Association's official ambassador of hate, Bryan Fischer. After giving Coburn the opportunity to say nobody in Washington is interested in getting "serious about deficit reduction and control of the federal budget," Fischer moved on to Coburn's support for a Convention of States.
Fischer: Let's talk about what this convention of states would look like, what is it, what it would look like and how far along are we to seeing that happen?
Coburn: There is a constitutional way to fix our – Article V of the Constitution gives a way for the states to call a Convention of States. It's in the constitutional convention. It's not about a runway, its about what do you need to change to rebalance the liberty, freedom and authority the states were intended to have when the states created the federal government…They put in Article V that says 34 states or three-quarters…I mean two-thirds, decide they want to have a convention of states and they pass identical requests, then they can, nobody can stop that, and there will be a Convention of States with each state sending a delegation of whatever that state decides they want to send. And nothing comes out of that that that isn't in the original request for the Convention of States. And the one that's been filed in fourteen states says we request a convention of states to limit the scope, power and jurisdiction of the federal government, to create a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and to put term limits on members of congress. And anything outside of that cannot be considered.
Coburn: It would introduce things that would limit the power of the federal government, which would mean, does the FDA and the EPA now have the ability to tell you how long of a shower you will take in a hotel. No. We all know that, but that's what they're getting ready to do with their proposed ruling that came out this week. So the whole idea is the limit the scope, limit the jurisdiction, and limit the sovereignty of the federal government and restore it to what it was.
So let's put this in perspective: Coburn is saying it's wrong to tell people how long a shower they can take, but it's okay to take away their health insurance and let them die. It's okay to poison their water, air, and food, but it's not okay to limit showers.
Coburn ended his February op-ed with the cry that, "This battle is just beginning. It's time to rein in Washington and return power to where it rightfully belongs — with the people," but there is no evidence that it is to the people the GOP wants to return power. They can't, when they've sold their souls to the Kochs.
Rather, they want to give the power currently held by the federal government to corporations, over which, as I have pointed out, the people have no control. The people do have some control over the federal government through elections, but no American outside of a member of a board of directors, has any control over a corporation. Unless it's the federal government through its power to regulate. A power the Convention of States Project wants to eliminate.
Then we can celebrate our new found freedom from our own power (now handed over to corporations) by drinking poisonous water, breathing poisonous air, eating contaminated food, and a complete lack of healthcare to keep us alive. Those lucky enough to die will have earned a well-deserved freedom of the grave. The survivors will be condemned to corporate serfdom under the not-so benign ownership of the Kochs and their minions.
At least three states are seeking to force a constitutional convention to consider changes to the founding document.
Indiana, Georgia and Kansas have proposed a convention under the Constitution's Article V, which allows two-thirds of the states to call a convention. The states' reasons range from balancing the federal budget to overhauling federal powers. A constitutional convention has not been convened since the original one in 1787.
Forty-nine of the 50 states have filed at least one resolution with Congress calling for a constitutional convention. In order for a convention to be held, at least 34 states must pass a resolution on the same subject.
Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas who backs an Article V convention, said the process is designed to be hard. "People who don't like the idea of a convention, which is most people, want to make it impossible," Levinson said.
Resolutions in Kansas and Indiana call for a constitutional convention to balance powers of states and the federal government. Georgia's calls for the inclusion of a balanced budget amendment. The Indiana resolution — passed by the state Senate — gives broad outlines, while the Kansas resolution specifies that education, guns, health care, insurance and elections are strictly state powers with no role for the federal government.
Some backers of a constitutional convention said they worry conventioneers could range beyond resolutions to amend any part of the Constitition. Hildabrand said he had such concerns, but was assured by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), that constitutional safeguards prevent a so-called runaway convention, requiring changes be approved by three-fourths of the states. Similar reasoning was used in the Indiana Senate debate.
Hildabrand said that he and other Kansas backers of a convention plan a national campaign to get other states to join the effort. He said they plan pressure conservative states, including Texas and Wyoming, to pass resolutions similar to the one in Kansas.
Levinson said he doesn't see states rushing to join the Kansas plan. "There is no way two-thirds of the states will get behind such a radical-right proposition," he said.
The idea that there might be a simple fix to all our problems has seduced many thoughtful and well-intentioned men and women over the ages. If only we could do this, then all would be well.
We stand with our persevering friends and allies. But let's not be fooled. By the very nature of man and the imperfection of politics, there are no silver bullets.
Such is the case with the proposal to hold an Article V constitutional amendments convention. A perennial question in American history, it seems on its face to be a simple suggestion to deploy a forgotten option to bring about the changes we seek.
In the course of our work advising state and federal lawmakers and conservative allies across the country, we have been giving this issue close attention and study. Along with Trent England, the director of constitutional studies at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, I've written our assessment of the meaning and status of Article V as part of our Constitution Guidance for Lawmakers series. Stemming from that analysis, and taking into consideration the circumstances under which we are now operating, we have come to the conclusion that an Article V convention is not the answer to our problems. The lack of precedent, extensive unknowns, and considerable risks of an Article V amendments convention should bring sober pause to advocates of legitimate constitutional reform contemplating this avenue. We are not prepared to encourage state governments at this time to apply to Congress to call an amendments convention.
This should come as no surprise. While the congressional method of proposing amendments is unambiguous—Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses deem it necessary, may propose specific amendments—things get murkier with an Article V convention. The vagueness of this method led Madison to oppose the proposal at the Constitutional Convention: "difficulties might arise as to the form, the quorum etc. which in constitutional regulations ought to be as much as possible avoided." Combine that with the fact that no such amending convention has ever occurred, and too many serious questions are left open and unanswered.
That said, advocating an Article V convention as part of a state-based strategy to press Congress to pass a constitutional amendment is not unreasonable. Precisely because of the potential chaos of the process, the very threat of an amendments convention will pressure Congress to act rather than risk having one proceed. That's what happened in the 1980s with the unsuccessful push for a balanced budget amendment (good example) but also during the progressive era with the successful push for the direct election of senators (bad example).
Serious scholars will undoubtedly continue to debate the historical record and speculate about the possibility of an amendments convention under Article V. But the argument that, as a matter of course, we should spend considerable time, money and effort right now to design, plan and implement a convention—despite the unknowns and risks involved—is both imprudent and potentially dangerous. It is a distraction that inevitably gets bogged down in a debate over technical details, taking valuable attention and focus away from the substance of the constitutional reforms themselves. Claims of the ease and efficacy of an Article V convention are also misleading to the many committed and well-meaning reformers and activists who are serious about constitutional change in the United States.
There may be a time in extremis when an Article V convention is our last option to try to preserve the Constitution. That's how Madison at the height of the Nullification Crisis and later Lincoln in the midst of secession and the Civil War looked at it. But just when there seems to be a national awakening to reestablish constitutional principles, American politics at the state and national level is moving in the right direction and a decisive election is on the horizon—that dark time is not now.
The COS Project has recently formed the Convention of States Caucus, a group of state legislators from across the country that will unite and write the suggested rules for the convention. It's a great tool that will help grease the skids for the convention process. Several hundred have signed up including a number from AZ.
Jonah Nelson, LD 11: Jonah was a deputy to Dudley Bourne who has to spend more time with his sick wife. He'll continue to write op-eds and video/audio scripts.
Rick McMullen, LD 15: SIA (IT) and NationBuilder helper taking over for Kevin who's tackling a new job.
A little over a year ago there were just a handful of us. Today there are more than I can list here. Let me explain who is unselfishly working for you. They're ordinary folks from every walk of life. They're working on COS part-time, after their jobs and families, to return your government to you, the rightful owners. Folks who are just like you and me that can best be described as "we the people".
They are volunteers who believe that the current path of our government is wrong for themselves and their progeny. They toil at work every day, take the kids to the doctor, the dog or cat to the vet at lunch time, and then come home and after homework, work on their COS project.
We have a little over five months before the COS legislative sponsor submits our application to the 2016 Arizona legislative session. We have a lot of work to do between now and then. We're attempting to accomplish a number of projects and our "we the people" need your help. They need help with radio and TV promotions, writing, website content, training, speaking, and scripting video and audio clips, IT, working with legislators, recruiting, youth mentoring, and more. All of these require knowledge of the field but more importantly a passion for employing your skills and talents toward passing the application.
To minimize the sacrifice, reduce incomplete work or burnout, we're trying to spread the workload over more part-time volunteers. We can't do this alone. Please reach out to help us help you.
Stand Up! Speak Up! And Show Up!
One of the great things about the Convention of States movement is the readily available information and documentation regarding the history, legality, procedures, etc. of the Article V process. Unfortunately though, the sheer volume of available material can sometimes seem overwhelming, causing confusion and making it difficult to know where to begin.
The Arizona Convention of States has remedied that situation, announcing a brand new training opportunity to acquaint citizens with the high-level information that they seek when first showing an interest in the concept of an Article V amending convention.
The training module, which will soon be available at azconventionofstates.com/education/, will consist of a recorded voiceover presentation playable on all devices. This brief yet informative presentation will explain the reasons, history and procedure of an amending convention, while also offering frequently asked questions and other resources regarding the Article V Convention of States process.
A short quiz will complete the presentation with the option of printing a certificate of completion. All those receiving this newsletter are asked to take few minutes and complete this module, which will be available on the website by August 10. Once completed, please consider sharing the presentation with interested family and friends to help spread the word about this important tool in restoring our nation.
The first goal of the Article V Convention of States project is to have at least 34 States submit resolutions to Congress petitioning for a call (for the States) to hold an Amendment Convention.
We are NOT going to change or rewrite the Constitution; we are simply going to amend it, as has been done many times before!
Positions are available for a youth leader, speakers, DCs and deputy DCs, a media leader, and writers. Contact us for more information on how you can help.
For the past 200 years, efforts to call a federal convention have been firmly opposed by legal scholars and citizens alike. Although a con-con is a legal mechanism established by the Constitution, it is an amendatory process that cannot be limited or controlled.
On Thursday, the governor unveiled a proposal to gather support for an amendment to the U.S, Constitution giving states authority equal to the federal government's. He took his plan for an informal states' conference and a possible constitutional convention to the Western States Summit in Phoenix. The proposal is a manifesto that urges states to organize against their "subordinate status" under the current federal system.
Although Mike Leavitt has toned down his speeches, his carefully written plan still comprises every ingredient needed to harness the powers of a federal convention. The choice of language makes the Conference seem harmless to many state legislators who have been quick to pass "Resolutions of Participation" that are being introduced in one state after another.
A Conference of the States would enable State representatives to consider, refine and adopt proposals for structural change in our federal system.
"That statutes which would deprive a citizen of the rights of person or property without a regular trial, according to the course and usage of common law, would not be the law of the land". Hoke vs. Henderson,15, N.C.15,25 AM Dec 677.


What is long-lasting and what is recycle friendly was one of the key questions we were able to follow in the project for a metal recycle plant, where they first accumulate and then separate different waste metals and prepare them for reuse. The project consists of an immense production plateau and two small buildings on the edge of it.
We clearly divided the generic concrete volume, flexible for multiple-use; and the very specific, non-flexible metal volume, therefore ephemeral and recycle friendly by its activity. In these terms the huge concrete plateau with a definition wall and attached concrete service building define the core of the current production area, however they easily allow for a change of program within the industrial zone. This huge part of the project required careful placing of the plateau in an environment which ensures the least earth works and the lowest concrete wall possible.
On the other hand, the small 100% metal office building works as a very specific control deck, supervising the weighing of incoming waste and out-going metals. Since this specificity means non-adaptability we had to allow for easy and clear on-site recycling when this building is not needed anymore. In contrast to the very rough production that goes on at the site, we have embedded some abstract or we like to think "poetic" content in the project. The two buildings are of the same volume, but materially very different: one is made entirely out of concrete, whereas the other is all steel – from structure to cladding. Thus the two buildings speak about the context of the material separation process at the metal recycle plant.


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So for all your domestic or commercial plumbing solutions, make a call to Wefixnow today.


It is the summer of 2011. I have been battling the war for 11 years now. I've been off antidepressants fairly regularly for two years as I try to get to the root of this. I am on a really good vitamin supplement plan. But the darkness still rears its ugly head off and on. I wonder, really wonder, if I'm ever going to beat this. There are times that are really hopeful. Other times are far from hopeful as I battle the voices in my head.
Those voices keep telling me there is no other way; that this is just part of my mortal experience; that it could be so much worse–at least I get out of bed every day; that feeling so much sadness is just how it is…Some days I think I will go crazy if I have to fight this the rest of my life.
I did a lot of silent suffering. As I've mentioned before, I didn't open up to very many people. It was a weakness. And this weakness kept help from coming more quickly. I can see that now. I subconsciously believed that I needed to just trudge through the daily challenge on my own. Somehow I believed that reaching out for help would make me less than who I wanted to be. This one belief was poison. Poison.
Depression and any other mental illness is laced with poison–poison that swirls around in the brain. Locating that poison with a counter attack is vital. The counter attack may sound too simple. It may sound like there is no way it will make a difference.
I learned this counter attack in August 2011. It came unexpectedly. I was attending a class on personal development and the teacher taught the why and the how. Something stirred inside me when I heard it. I decided to begin trying it out. After all, I certainly didn't have anything to loose! What happened showed me that I had everything to gain because I decided to give it a try.
The counter attack is this: write down every negative message you hear in your head. This is the poison. Then counter it with its exact opposite. When the thought pops into your head again, say its opposite again. It may take a fair amount of time to reprogram your brain with the truth. That's okay. Just keep at it!
I've written about this before. I write about it again today because of a recent experience where a person shared with me how critical it was to her healing that she launch this counter attack. Her therapist had recommended it to her. It took time and tremendous effort but it enabled her to move into complete healing. My personal experience with counter attacking also moved me into healing.
So, counter attack! Remove the poison. You're worth it and it matters!
It is May 30, 2018 and my husband and I just sent the final check for the completion of our backyard creation! I have learned a ton about being a creator in the past several years. When I began the journey to figure out the depression I was deeply rooted in, I had no idea creation had anything to do with it.
Unknowingly, I was creating a perfect storm of patterns of belief from my life's experiences and physical health challenges that I had no idea were going on. That perfect storm was raining down fear and withdrawal and emptiness as dark clouds of hopelessness encompassed me on a regular basis.
I will forever be grateful for the small desire to create a different reality that began to grow within me around year 10. I decided to harness the storm and reclaim my power which has led me to a life of freedom from depression and anxiety; I have created a life of abundance; I have learned to turn lemons into lemonade; and my mess has become my message!
I really wanted to have the final yard details completed this spring. I figured it would take a few thousand dollars to make it happen. I checked in with my Higher Power to see about the timing. I got the okay and so I put it on my vision board. I included words about my gratitude for the people and resources that would show up to help us finish the project. I also wrote "Awh! Hill completed! Garden Pathways done! Beauty! Estatic!" on the pictures of the completed yard. I put all of this in my 2018 story as well. I listened to it, I looked at it, I pondered it, and I paid attention to the next steps I should take.
In February the idea came that I should begin contacting landscapers and get on the schedule. And so I began to make calls. One company told me flat out that it couldn't be done with the budget I was proposing. But another company stuck with me. They suggested having their architect design a plan and then go from there. We agreed. When the plan came back, my husband and I were stunned! It was absolutely incredible! It was everything and more than I ever imagined!!
The next step was a giant leap of faith as we met with the contractor to get a bid. It was WAY over budget!! We could have stopped there. We could have said, "This doesn't match up with our plan. Thanks anyway." I'm pretty persistent though and so we began to whittle the plan down and make adjustments so we could move forward with it.
We reached a compromise after much negotiation…between us and the contractor and me and my husband. We still had to do some real "searching" to make sure we were willing to spend extra money that could have gone towards something else. I'll never forget the day we needed to make the final decision. My husband and I seemed to be at an impasse…we took a break from it for awhile. And then I had the unmistakable knowledge that it was ok to move forward. Thankfully my husband trusted me with this and we gave the ok to the landscapers.
It took 3 weeks for the landscapers to work a miracle in our back yard. It was incredible to watch our back hill transform into a creation that surpassed my dreams! My husband and I literally thanked God every day for miracles of transformation and creation.
What does any of this have to do with depression and reclaiming your power? Everything!! I know beyond a doubt that had I not been persistent in uncovering the physical and emotional roots to the depression I battled, I would not have been in a state to create a beautiful home and yard with my husband. It would not have happened. My life would be so very, very different in every single area had I not decided to reclaim my power and figure the puzzle out.
Today I invite you to do one thing outdoors to MOVE…take another walk around your block, sit under a tree, sit by running water. It matters!


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The Unanticipated Consequences of MERS
March 8, 2011 8:30am by
Bill Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is a white-collar criminologist who has spent years working on regulatory policy and fraud prevention as Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, Litigation Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and Deputy Director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement, among other positions.
By William K. Black
New Economic Perspectives
One of the defining motifs of theoclassical economics textbooks is the provision of examples of the unintended consequences of government action. Those consequences are invariably negative. The narrative is the government intended to achieve some goal, e.g., help the poor, and ended up harming the poor. Four counter narratives virtually never appear in these tracts. Theoclassical economists rarely mention: 1. Any governmental program that succeeds in its aims 2. Any governmental program that has unanticipated, positive consequences 3. Any private action that has negative unanticipated consequences 4. Any private action that has negative, intended consequences
A fifth counter narrative sometimes appears in theoclassical accounts – governmental actions that are intended to be harmful by the private parties that corruptly convince public sector actors to aid the private parties at the expense of the public interest. The fifth example reflects poorly on both the public and private sector actors and suggests that the private sector is a source of corruption of the public sector – which fits poorly with theoclassical dogma.
This column focuses on MERS as an example of the first and third types of counter narrative. It will be the first in a series of columns about MERS. A conservative, but not theoclassical economist, Hernando de Soto, is famous for his work on private property. I highly recommend his book: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. De Soto's primary point is that private ownership of real property allows even poorer people to mobilize their limited wealth by pledging the real estate as security for loans. The individuals can use those loans as a source of capital to become entrepreneurs. De Soto uses the United States as an exemplar of his thesis, explaining that the colonies that become the U.S. began a system of public recordation of land titles and a system of surveying land. The developing U.S. made these systems a major priority. De Soto argues that these public sector programs were spectacularly successful and helped produce America's economic success by encouraging entrepreneurial activity.
These two successful government programs (public recordation of land titles and transfers and public land surveys) achieved their intended goals. They made it far easier to pledge real property, which made real property more valuable. Public recordation greatly reduced the risk of fraudulent pledges. Reducing the risk of fraudulent pledges makes lenders more willing to lend and reduces the interest rates on secured lending. Reduced interest rates mean a lower "hurdle" rate for investment, which means that more productive investments will occur and economic growth will increase.
Public recordation in the U.S. became even more effective in spurring growth and efficiency with the development of Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Article 9 set out to make it far easier for lenders to access public records of liens by dramatically increasing the degree of uniformity in how and where such records would be kept. Article 9 was not only a governmental program that achieved its aim – it was the brainchild of an academic (Yale Law School's Professor Grant Gilmore). Article 9 further reduced the risk of fraudulent pledges and greatly increased efficiency. Business, particularly lenders, strongly supported its adoption.
MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) sought to privatize key aspects of the public title system. The primary purpose was to avoid recordation fees when interests in real property were assigned or transferred. MERS' founders read like a who's who of the entities who caused the recent financial crisis, so some scholars view its creation as an example of a private sector action intended to harm the public. This column assumes that MERS' harms were, originally, unintended. It focuses on the insanity – from the standpoint of honest lenders and investors – of MERS' devastation of a public system of recordation that had served business, particularly lenders and investors, brilliantly.
MERS' problems are legion, but they are also inherent in its structure. This column addresses only one aspect of its "agency" problem. MERS is set up in a bizarre fashion designed to minimize costs. It has only a trivial number of real employees. It has no ability to check its members' initial or continuing quality or integrity. MERS appoints its members' personnel as MERS officers and exercises no meaningful oversight over their actions.
As I have explained in prior articles, MERS' members have endemic, severe problems with mortgage documentation. They originated, purchased, or agreed to service loans and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) without the underlying mortgage note. Fraud begets fraud. The exceptional incidence of underlying mortgage origination fraud led to widespread failure to prepare and maintain proper documentation – and that was before the mortgage originators failed. When the mortgage originators failed, as they did by the hundreds, mortgage documents were frequently thrown away. Mortgage documentation became particularly defective because originators could sell mortgages without the purchaser even checking whether the seller was delivering the original note.
The secondary market in nonprime mortgages operated under the financial version of "don't ask; don't tell." The incidence of fraud and defective documentation in nonprime loans was so large that the purchaser faced an inescapable dilemma. If it did competent underwriting it would detect widespread fraud and missing notes and document that it knew that the nonprime loan portfolio it was purchasing (and then reselling them as the collateral for CDOs) was fraudulent. Documenting that one is selling CDOs one knows to be backed by fraudulent loans that often lacked the underlying note is an excellent strategy for going to prison and being sued by every CDO purchaser. The alternative was not to do any meaningful underwriting when purchasing nonprime loans. The no meaningful underwriting alternative, however, maximized the already perverse incentives to originate and sell fraudulent loans lacking essential documentation.
MERS' members, therefore, had overwhelming incentives to engage in foreclosure fraud. The loans they were seeking to foreclose on often lacked essential documentation and were induced by defrauding the borrower. They had no legal right to foreclose, but that result was unacceptable to the senior officers controlling the loan servicers. They insisted on results, and did not monitor compliance with the law. The result was tens of thousands of felonies – monthly – by some of the largest financial institutions in the world. Filing false affidavits became business as usual. No one senior in the Justice Department or administration appears to be seriously upset about this. These felonies were committed by, or at the direction of, MERS "officers" – and MERS does not appear to be seriously upset about fraudulently foreclosing on the homes of tens of thousands of Americans. I study fraud by elites, and even I am stunned by the frequency and nature of the frauds and felonies and the lack of prosecutions and the overall blasé attitude by CEOs to the fraud and felonies.
November 14, 2012 Japanese General Election in December
March 19, 2006 Who do you trust?
October 20, 2008 Chris Whalen on the Banking Crisis
There Ain't No Employment "Whisper" Numbers
Greek default inevitable/NFIB/Saudi stocks


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Video: Sea lion drags young girl into harbor
This video shows a sea lion dragging a young girl into the harbor. - photo by Herb Scribner
A young girl in Canada got yanked into Steveston Harbour in Richmond, British Columbia, over the weekend, and the moment made national news after it was captured on YouTube.
The girl, who was spending time with her family, was feeding the sea lion. It rose up from the water close to her face.
The girl later sat back down on the dock and thats when the sea lion jumped up and pulled her into the water, ABC News reported.
Student Michael Fujiwara captured the moment and posted the video on YouTube.
"Thank goodness the young lady wasn't hurt, but let it be a warning to everybody: Do not do this," Bob Baziuk, a spokesman for the Steveston Harbour Authority, told ABC News.
Baziuk said the sea lion weighed close to 1,200 pounds.
A man jumped into the water to save the girl. Fujiwara told CBC he didnt know who the man was. He also said hes happy to hear that no one was injured in the incident.
"They were pretty shaken up," Fujiwara told CBC. "Her family were just in shock."
Andrew Trites, the director of UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit, said the sea lion is not to blame for the event.
"My first reaction to the video is just how stupid some people can be to not treat wildlife with proper respect," he said. "This was a male California sea lion. They are huge animals. They are not circus performers. They're not trained to be next to people."
Baziuk told CNN that those who visit the harbor put themselves at risk.
Right now, he said, male sea lions swim through the area looking for food.
"It's not Sea World, it's a place where you buy fish," Baziuk said, according to CNN. "If you feed the animals like this you're asking for trouble.


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Biografia

Esercitò le sue diverse arti alla corte di tre re polacchi del casato di Vasa: Sigismondo III di Svezia, Ladislao IV di Polonia e Giovanni II Casimiro di Polonia. Rimase in Polonia tra 1630 il 1668. Artista poliedrico, fu architetto, scenografo, cantante e musicista presso la corte polacca.

Il monumento funebre a Santa Maria del Popolo
La sua famosa tomba si trova nella basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo a Roma. L'opera rappresenta uno dei contributi più singolari del Seicento romano, segno sia dell'eclettismo di Gisleni, sia del suo contatto con un ambiente europeo meno ricettivo delle istanze artistiche italiane. Essa presenta, agli estremi del testo commemorativo, una sorta di stravagante memento mori, in parte sotto il ritratto dell'artista -nella parte superiore- e in parte sotto lo scheletro della parte inferiore.

Nel 2015 è stato pubblicato un contributo scientifico dedicato alla sua sepoltura, con la trascrizione di un opuscolo in sedici pagine, recentemente scoperto, stampato a Roma e noto in meno di una decina di copie al mondo. Si tratta di un libello, probabilmente destinato ai contatti polacchi di Gisleni, che illustra minuziosamente le parti della sua sepoltura e i loro riferimenti, ivi compreso il lungo e allegorico epitaffio. È l'unico caso mai registrato dalla critica di sepoltura d'artista corredata di un "libretto d'istruzioni", un doppio a stampa, assai diverso da una comune orazione o ragguaglio funebre, che di fatto suggerisce anche un genere letterario seicentesco inedito.

Opere principali

 Monastero di Biaroza, dell'Ordine certosino (1648);
 Chiesa delle suore carmelitane a Leopoli (1642);
 Chiesa delle suore carmelitane a Varsavia (1652);
 Altare barocca nella cattedrale del Wawel (1650);
 Decorazione funebre di Carlo Ferdinando Vasa, chiesa dei gesuiti a Varsavia (1655);
 Obelisco commemorativo nel luogo della morte di Carlo Ferdinando Vasa;
 Palazzo di Carlo Ferdinando Vasa (distrutto).

Note

Bibliografia
 Mossakowski, Stanisław. "Gli anni romani di Giovanni Battista Gisleni." Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 71.1-2 (2009): 35-56.

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni

Sepolti nella basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Formation Process of Lithium Battery – Semco University
Leave a Comment / Cell Manufacturing / By Semco University
During the formation process of lithium battery:
The SEI film on the graphite surface of the negative electrode is mainly composed of inorganic lithium salts {Li 2 O, LiX (X=F, Cl, etc.)} in the early stage of formation.
The layer structure is relatively dense. And it is more stable to electrolyte and high temperature performance, while the outer layer of SEI film is mainly composed of organic lithium salts (ROCO 2 Li, ROLi, etc.), the structure is loose, and the performance is not stable enough.
1. Analyze of the Influence of Chemical Charge Cut-off Voltage on Battery Performance
1.1 Influence of formation cut-off voltage of lithium cobalt oxide battery on battery performance
For lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO 2) as the positive active material and graphite as the negative active material to form a battery system, by adjusting the formation charge cut-off voltage, the influence of the formation process on the battery performance was investigated. The comparative experiment process is as follows:
1. Through slurry mixing, the 683064 soft pack lithium-ion battery is assembled through the steps of coating, drying, assembling, liquid injection, standing, forming, and dividing.
2. The battery is divided into two groups, A/B. The cut-off voltage of group A is 3.8V, and the cut-off voltage of group B is 3.7V.
3. Comparative analysis of battery capacity, initial efficiency, energy density, internal resistance, rate, impedance, high temperature storage and cycle performance.
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Basic Performance Comparison
The performance comparison results are shown in the following table. The capacity, specific capacity, initial efficiency, energy density, and battery gas production deformation rate of the battery formed by the low cut-off voltage are better than those of the high cut-off voltage, because the positive electrode specific capacity of the two schemes A/B is the same. the difference of the whole battery mainly comes from the change of the negative electrode. The active lithium ion consumed by the B scheme is less than that of the A scheme, which makes the first efficiency and capacity higher, and the overall thickness is smaller.
mAh mAH.g-1 % mm Wh. L-1
A 1947.6 160.7 89.6% 5.29 574.9
B 1947.9 162.1 90.8% 5.21 509.2
Comparison of battery performance with two chemical cut-off voltages.
EIS Comparison
The difference in the internal resistance properties of the cells mainly comes from the membrane impedance and ion transfer impedance. Because the thickness of the SEI film under the B process condition is relatively thin, the membrane impedance and ion transfer impedance are both lower than those of the A process condition. The specific test results are shown in the figure below. :
EIS Comparison of Two Processes
1.2 Influence of Formation Depth of Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery on Battery Performance
Take olivine-type LiFePO 4 as the positive electrode material, graphite as the negative electrode material, ternary electrolyte ethylene carbonate (EC), diethyl carbonate (DEC), and methyl ethyl carbonate (EMC) in a volume ratio of 1:1: A 1865140 square power battery with a rated capacity of 10Ah was assembled with LiPF 6 with a supporting electrolyte of 1 mol/L in a ratio of 1 . The formation depth is controlled by adjusting the formation time, and the electrical properties of the battery are tracked and tested, and the influence of different formation depths on the electrical performance of the battery is analyzed.
By adjusting the formation charging time, the formation depths of the batteries of Groups I to IV are controlled to be 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of the rated capacity, respectively.
Influence of battery internal resistance
The change of the internal resistance of the battery is shown in the figure below. With the deepening of the formation depth, the internal resistance of each battery group shows a decreasing trend after the formation of the battery. The electrode activation of the battery with a shallow formation depth is incomplete, and the reaction between the electrolyte and the electrode material is not sufficient. , a complete and dense SEI film has not been formed on the electrode surface, and
SEI film has a large impedance.
Changes in the average internal resistance of each group of batteries.
The effect of high temperature cycle life of batteries.
The cycle life curve of each group of batteries at 1 C in a constant temperature environment of 45 °C is shown in the figure below. The cycle life of batteries in groups II to IV is basically the same as the change rate of the number of charges and discharges. After 100 cycles, the capacity of the batteries in group IV remained unchanged. The capacity of the battery of group I is relatively fast, especially after the 30th cycle, the capacity of the battery of group I has dropped significantly, and the capacity retention rate after 100 cycles is only 97.51%. It shows that when the formation depth reaches more than 60% of the rated capacity, continuing to deepen the formation depth has little effect on the high temperature cycle performance of the battery.
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2. The Effect of Pressure on the Formation Process
The pressurization mentioned here refers to soft-packed cells, and other types of cells are not discussed. Since the soft-packed battery adopts an aluminium-plastic packaging structure, its external structure determines that the pole pieces cannot be closely arranged, and the pole pieces are easy to be arranged. There are voids, and the gas generated during the battery formation process is also easy to remain between the pole pieces. In the subsequent Degas sealing, the gas cannot be completely discharged, thus affecting the battery performance. Therefore, it is considered to adopt the rolling process between the two charges. Remove the gas between the pole pieces.
The comparison system is a lithium iron phosphate soft-packed cell, the separator of the battery is a 25 μm polypropylene porous single-layer separator, and the electrolyte is 1 mol/L LiPF 6 /(EC+EMC+DMC) (volume ratio 1:1:1), divided into There are two groups of A/B, in which the cells of group A are not pressurized and exhausted during the formation process, and the cells of group B are added to the process of pressurization and exhaust during the two charging processes of formation, and the pressure of group B is B1 ( The pressure value is 4~6N), B2 (the pressure value is 20~30N), and B3 (the pressure value is 50~60N), and the performance of the cells after the formation of the two groups of A/B is compared.
The capacity of the cells after formation is compared, and the comparison results are shown in the following table. The capacity of group A (without pressurization process) is smaller than that of group B (with pressurization process), and the capacity of group B cells increases with the increase of pressure. Increase.
Capacity comparison results of pressurized and unpressurized cells.
The main reason for this is that a large amount of gas will be generated during the formation of lithium-ion batteries, and due to the structure of the pouch cell itself, the gas generated during the formation process will increase the distance between the positive electrode, the separator, and the negative electrode, hindering lithium The transmission of ions from the positive electrode sheet to the negative electrode sheet, in addition, the presence of gas will also hinder the contact of the electrolyte with the positive electrode and the negative electrode, which makes the local wetting performance of the negative electrode worse, and finally leads to a large number of unreacted dead zones on the negative electrode sheet. The presence of dead will increase the possibility of lithium deposition in the battery, and will seriously affect the performance of the battery itself.
Dismantling diagram of the battery cell when the formation process is not pressurized or the pressure is less than the process requirements
3. The Effect of Temperature on the Formation Results of Lithium-ion Batteries
In the process of formation, applying high temperature can reduce the viscosity of the electrolyte, accelerate the diffusion of ions, and ensure that electrons and ions are rapidly combined under high current; formation at high temperature can not only make the SEI film on the surface of the electrode react more fully, but also It can enhance the liquid absorption of the separator, which is beneficial to reduce the inflation of the battery.
However, high temperature formation will reduce the stability of the SEI film, resulting in poor battery cycle performance, because high temperature will aggravate the dissolution of the SEI film and the co-insertion of solvent molecules, while the SEI film tends to be stable at low temperatures. Studies have shown that the formation at low temperature is mainly based on solvent reduction, the reduction speed of lithium salts is slow, and the formation speed of SEI film is slow, so the deposition of solvent products is more orderly and denser, which is more conducive to prolonging the service life of batteries.
In this paper, the flexible packaging lithium-ion battery of lithium cobalt oxide graphite system is taken as the research object, and the effect of temperature on the formation effect in the high temperature pressure formation process is studied. The chemical composition process is divided into 4 cases, the temperature is 50℃, 60℃, 80℃ and the temperature change, the temperature change means that the temperature of the two charging processes is different, the first charge stage is 40℃, the second charge The temperature during the charging phase was 70°C.
The performance of the first 350 cycles is similar, and the initial capacity can reach 3000 mA h, but after 400 cycles, the capacity retention rate begins to differ. The retention rates are 90.57%, 90.63%, 93.44%, and 92.02%, respectively, indicating that the cycle performance of the 80°C high-temperature formation battery is better than that of the other solutions. It may be because the 80°C formation has greater activity of the battery and a thicker SEI film, which is beneficial to the cycle stability of the battery.
For the comparison of high-temperature formation or low-temperature formation, there is no definite result to show that it can be said that high-temperature formation is definitely good, or low-temperature formation is certain. Experiments verify that the formation process parameters suitable for the battery itself are selected.
4. Optimization of the Formation Process of NMC811 High–Nickel Lithium–Ion Battery
Chengyu Mao (first author), Rose E. Ruther (corresponding author), David L. Wood III (corresponding author) and others from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States investigated the formation time of high specific energy battery (NCM811/graphite) (10 The relationship between Li-ion battery performance and lithium-ion battery performance was studied, and it was found that too short formation time would lead to the precipitation of anode metal Li and deterioration of electrochemical performance, while moderate formation time (30h and 26h) would help It is used to reduce the increase in internal resistance of lithium-ion batteries, improve the capacity retention rate, and effectively avoid the precipitation of metal Li.
All batteries in the experiment were first charged to 1.5V (to avoid the corrosion of the negative electrode copper foil), and then left at 30 or 40°C for 6 hours to allow the electrolyte to fully infiltrate, and then formed according to the system shown in the table above (among which, 30h formation is C/2 charge and discharge for the first time, and C/10 charge and discharge for the second time, the label in the table is wrong). The figure below shows the first and subsequent charge-discharge curves of the battery with different formation times. From Figure F below, it can be seen that the first coulombic efficiency of the battery with C/10 rate in the first charge is significantly higher than that with C/2 for the first charge. discharged battery. However, from the perspective of the average Coulomb efficiency, the batteries formed by 30h (2 times of C/2 charge and discharge) and 26h (1 time of C/10 charge and discharge) have the best average Coulomb efficiency, indicating that these two batteries occur in the first charge and discharge. fewer side reactions. However, the average coulombic efficiency of the 86h battery with the longest formation time (4 times of C/10 charge and discharge) is not the highest. This is mainly because at this smaller rate, the negative electrode has a relatively long time at low potential, causing More side reactions and SEI growth, thus reducing the overall coulombic efficiency of the cell.
After the formation, Chengyu Mao immediately dissected the battery and analyzed the changes of the negative electrode (as shown in the figure below). From the figure below, it can be seen that there is no metal Li precipitation in the negative electrode of the battery formed by C/10 small current (86h and 26h formation). However, in the batteries with larger C/2 ratios (30h, 10h and 10h@40°C), obvious metal Li precipitation can be observed on the surface of the negative electrode, while the batteries with 30h formation are in the second the C/10 cycle is used in the second cycle, so the Li deposition is lighter than the two batteries with 10h cycle, which indicates that part of the metallic Li formed during the first charging process is still active and can participate in the electrochemical reaction. This experiment shows that during the first charging process of chemical formation, since the negative electrode has not formed a stable SEI film, the kinetic conditions are poor, so a small current must be used for the first charging to avoid the precipitation of metal Li on the surface of the negative electrode. At the same time, we also found that although the battery at 10h@40 ℃ was soaked at high temperature, it did not alleviate the problem of Li precipitation in the negative electrode. Therefore, this also shows that soaking at 30℃ for 6h can fully ensure that the electrode is fully wetted. For batteries with many or winding structures, the infiltration time should be appropriately extended to ensure sufficient infiltration of the electrodes and separators by the electrolyte.
The following figure shows the electrical performance test results of the batteries after different chemical formation systems. It can be seen from figure a below that although the negative electrode of the battery charged and discharged at a high rate during the formation process has obvious Li precipitation phenomenon, but in the rate test several The performance of these batteries is highly similar, with a capacity of 194mAh/g at low rates, which indicates that the metal Li precipitated during the first charge and discharge is still active and can still be re-inserted into the positive and negative electrodes in subsequent cycles. . Although the rate performance is very close, several batteries have opened a clear gap in cycle performance (Figures B and C below). g, the capacity retention rate is 91.2%. On the contrary, the battery with low current formation (86h formation) has poor cycle performance, and the battery with the shortest formation time (10h formation) has the worst cycle performance, and the capacity retention rate after 300 cycles Only 89.6% (10h) and 88.1% (10h@40℃), the results show that the formation system has a significant impact on the long-term cycle performance of lithium-ion batteries, not that the longer the formation time, the better, the medium time (30h and 26h) ) is more conducive to the improvement of long-term cycle performance of lithium-ion batteries.
Figure C below shows the trend of internal resistance (tested by pulse method) of the 30h and 86h formation batteries during the cycle. It can be seen from the figure that the two batteries have similar internal resistances at the beginning of the cycle, but the formation time is longer in the cycle. The internal resistance of the battery (86h formation) increased significantly faster than that of the 30h formation, resulting in a faster decline in the capacity of the 86h formation, which indicates that the SEI film formed during the long-term formation at a small current cannot effectively passivate the negative electrode surface, which leads to the continuous growth of the negative SEI, causing the loss of active Li and the increase of internal resistance. After the effect of the increase in internal resistance is minimized by low-rate charge and discharge (the results of low-rate charge and discharge are shown in Figure D below), the decrease in battery capacity is mainly due to the loss of active Li and active materials. The batteries of 86h, 30h and 26h the discharge capacity at low current is relatively close, both around 176mAh/g, while the reversible capacity of 10h and 10h@40 ℃ batteries is lower at low current (170 and 166mAh/g, respectively), indicating that the battery formed by high current More active Li and active species will be lost during cycling.
Dissect the battery after the cycle and observe the change of the negative pole piece (as shown in the figure below). It can be seen that no Li precipitation is observed on the surface of the negative electrode of the battery formed at 86h and 26h, indicating that the formation of small current can effectively avoid the formation of metal Li. Precipitation, and 30h chemical formation (C/2 charge and discharge once, C/10 charge and discharge once), there is no obvious Li precipitation phenomenon on the surface of the negative electrode (this is mainly because the second C/10 small current charge and discharge reduces the negative electrode precipitation phenomenon). Li), while the two batteries formed after 10 h had obvious Li precipitation on the surface of the negative electrode.
The SEM test shows that the SEI film formed on the negative electrode surface after 86h formation is thicker than that of the batteries after 30h and 26h formation, which also verifies the previous impedance test results. For the batteries formed at 10h and 10h@40℃, obvious traces of Li precipitation can be observed on the surface of the negative electrode.
Introduction to Cell Balancing System,
Intercontinental Battery Circle,
Application of Isolation testing Technology,
Battery separator material,
History of Lithium Battery Development,
Aging Mechanisms of Li-ion Batteries.,
Principles of Power Battery System Design,
Battery Pole Piece Coating Process,
Point Defects in Pole Piece Coating,


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M1A2 tanks to serve as last line of defense: scholar
Comments Off on M1A2 tanks to serve as last line of defense: scholar
Taipei-The addition of U.S-made M1A2 Abrams battle tanks will serve as the last line of defense should enemy forces land on Taiwan, a military expert said Sunday.
Taiwan's military announced a day earlier that it has officially sealed a deal to buy 108 M1A2 tanks from the U.S. after the two sides signed a letter of offer and acceptance (LOA) for the procurement Dec. 13.
The new M1A2s will replace some of the 1,000-plus battle tanks, mostly aging M60A3 and CM-11 tanks, that the armed forces has been using for more than 20 years.
Commenting on the acquisition, Su Tzu-yun (???), a research fellow at the military-affiliated Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told CNA Sunday that the tanks will serve as the main backbone of the armed forces' defenses should invading forces land on the country's coastline.
Su said the invaders could transfer into smaller amphibious landing craft, hovercraft and iron-hulled fishing vessels upon arriving around eight kilometers away from Taiwan's shores on larger military vessels.
To fend off such invading forces, Taiwan's armored vehicles, including M60A3 and CM-11 tanks, along with other weapons systems, such as the Thunderbolt-2000 -- an artillery multiple launch rocket system -- would be positioned in beach areas to eliminate enemies.
The tanks would use their cannons, while infantry soldiers would use portable anti-tank missiles, the professor said.
The Army's AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters and AH-64E Apache choppers, meanwhile, would be deployed as further deterrence from the sky, Su noted.
According to Su, the indigenous Clouded Leopard eight-wheeled armored vehicle is seen as the last line of defense and is estimated, along with the infantry, to be able to eliminate about 90 percent of all invading forces coming from the landing vessels.
With the new M1A2, which comes with more advanced and powerful 120 mm cannons, Su said the tank is expected to work alongside the Clouded Leopards as the country's last line of defense.
The presence of such advanced tanks will greatly boost the morale of Taiwanese infantry during wartime, he added.
To the general public, since Taiwan's army has not acquired any new weapons systems for decades, the tanks, described as the "most powerful armored vehicle to date" can also boost the confidence Taiwan has in its military, he added.
Approved for production in 1990, the M1A2 is currently the most modern battle tank in the world and has been widely used by U.S. military since the Gulf War.
The U.S. Department of State approved the sale of 108 M1A2 tanks to Taiwan, along with Stinger man-portable air defense systems, and other related equipment, for a total cost of over US$2.2 billion, in July.
The military has previously said it is scheduled to take delivery of its first of a series of batches of the tanks in 2022, with delivery of the last batch forecast for 2027.
The tanks will all be assigned to the Sixth Army Corps, which is responsible for the security of northern Taiwan, where most central government agencies are located, the military added.