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The 2012 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings
The Rankings of university based academics who are contributing "most substantially to public debates about school and schooling." My friend Curt Bonk is on the list.From Edweek. "The rubric reflects both a scholar's body of academic work--encompassing books, articles, and the degree to which these are cited--and their 2011 footprint on the public discourse."
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If your family has a heritage from Ireland, they've posted their entire military history online in a fascinating project.
Now is your chance to solve that old mystery – was your grandfather a hero of the 1916 Rising? Did your grandmother stand up to the Black and Tans? Did your family suffer a Civil War split? -
Duncan Quirk: A Brave New Fahrenheit 2012
Scroll down in this article to get a great overview of SOPA along with the convoluted ways that this could cause problems in education.
The fundamental flaw of SOPA is making the website solely responsible for its users' actions. Instead of allowing sites to act in good faith with the copyright holder, it will punish the site rather than the user. This is akin to issuing speeding tickets to GM for drivers going too fast. -
David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts » A Conversation Starter
So, you want to start conversations. Watch this 3 minute video by David Truss including such thinkers as Alan November, Diana Laufenberg, Adora Svitak, Chris Lehmann, Chris Kennedy, Tom Grant, Stephen Heppell, Mitchel Resnick. Nice work.
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Mobile Learning in the classroom. 80 page free ebook from Jackie Gerstein. (This is a compilation of blog posts written about mobile learning.)
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San Diego Prosecutors Charge 5 School Officials For Corruption, Bribery
Bribes in San Diegofor construction contracts. I think if some looked deeper, they may find technology has some things happening as well. Be honest and you don't have to lose sleep.
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/05/2012
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 12/05/2011
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The Internet Classics Archive: 441 searchable works of classical literature
MIT Has 441 works of classical literature available online that allow you to create powerful text queries.Also included are "reader's choice" websites related to the texts.
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If you wanted to examine the dead sea scrolls in the past, it would have been a challenge. These scrolls are being shared online now and allow scholars around the world to have access only afforded to exclusive scholars on a limited basis in the past.
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A wonderful list of educational Twitter hashtags by Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) - such a helpful person!
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Google Advanced Scholar Search
Perhaps the most powerful page in Google Scholar, you can limit your searches to certain fields of study, certain courts of law, certain years. This is a very powerful tool.
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Google Scholar Citations Open To All - Google Scholar Blog
Researchers should use Google Scholar Citations. This is like Google Analytics for your paper or article. You can create links to your work, update your profile, add links to coauthors, and then track how often your article is cited. The modern researcher should definitely set this up.
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Google scholar lets you search articles, patents, legal opinions and journals. It is time to take students into this took, especially now that you can use google scholar citations.
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Twitter Template - Resources - TES
This is a twitter template. Another tool for offline use for those schools who don't get a lot of access but would like to bring some fun social media style activities into the classroom. You do need to join the free TES site to access these, but it is a great site and I'm finding lots of things to use.
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Facebook template page - Resources - TES
Some of use the fakebook tool at classtools.net but if you need to be offline, this is a template to make a Facebook page for a famous character. It is a .doc (Microsoft Word) file and you can download it and use it for your activity. These are great for looking at famous characters and students enjoy them.
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TES collection World War II - Resources - TES
This is an excellent set of world war 2 resources from the UK including videos and lesson plans. For elementary school.
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Shelfster - The Best Research Tool for Writers
Shelfster is in beta and is a tool for writers to collect resources. It is interesting because of how it moves between desktop, mobile, and web. Research is evolving and students should be empowered with social bookmarking and research aggregation tools like this one.
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College Prep: Famous Authors Take The SAT!
Two well known authors subject themselves to the SAT essay and are graded.This would be an interesting case study for students from many perspectives: 1) for understanding the assessment and 2) for keeping perspective. ;-)
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Best individual tweeter2011 | The Edublog Awards
I love how this year's nominations for best individual tweeter include follow buttons. How cool! Thank you for those who nominated me, I appreciate it!
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Best individual blog 2011 | The Edublog Awards
Thanks for the nominations. My blog made one of the very many on the list for the best individual blog of 2011. Of course, I hope you'll vote. I'll share the other ones as well. Lots of great people on these polls. Yes, if you like me, I'd love to have your vote. ;-)
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ipl2: Information You Can Trust
The Internet public library has a great index of resources to help you find information, particularly deep web resources to use in research. This is a place you should refer student researchers.
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Here is the page showing how steve works. I've been digging through their website trying to see how active steve really is and it look as if perhaps this research project is not as active as it once was. However, I do think that letting students tag books and other works could be a powerful way of seeing meaning emerge and to create networks of learning
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Steve.Museum | Steve: The Museum Social Tagging Project
"Steve is a collaboration of museum professionals and others who believe that social tagging may provide profound new ways to describe and access cultural heritage collections and encourage visitor engagement with collection objects. Our activities include researching social tagging and museum collections; developing open source software tools for tagging collections and managing tags; and engaging in discussion and outreach with members of the community who are interested in implementing social tagging for their own collections."
This fascinating website is museum professionals looking into how social tagging can help museum communities and professionals. It uses a suite of open source tagging tools that can be downloaded. -
Here's my diigo tag cloud of resources I've bookmarked on Diigo.
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Social Bookmarking | Common Craft
If you don't understand social bookmarking, here is a common craft video called "Social Bookmarking in Plain English." It explains how social bookmarking works.
TX High School Students Made to Recite Mexican National Anthem?
Students in a Texas public high school were made to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance as part of a Spanish class assignment, but the school district maintains there was nothing wrong with the lesson.This sort of thing doesn't happen in a far away land of extremes- it happens in schools every day in little ways. Check out my posts on this subject- Watching a Liberal Teacher Indoctrinate Youth or Tear Down that Poster- It has Christianity on It or True Story: Liberal Teacher Told me to Stop Spreading 'Propaganda' of Liberty.
It happened last month in an intermediate Spanish class at Achieve Early College High School in McAllen, Texas — a city located about 10 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
(Related: Listen to Glenn Beck interview the father of the girl who refused to recite the pledge)
Wearing red, white and green, students had to memorize the Mexican anthem and pledge and stand up and recite them in individually in front of the class.
That didn’t go over well with sophomore Brenda Brinsdon. The 15-year-old sat down and refused to participate. She also caught it all on video.
“I just thought it was out of hand, I didn’t think it was right,” she told The Blaze. “Reciting pledges to Mexico and being loyal to it has nothing to do with learning Spanish.”
She said she was particularly offended because the presentations in teacher Reyna Santos’s class took place during “Freedom Week,” the week after the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and on U.S. Constitution Day — the same day as Mexico’s Independence Day.
“Why are we doing their independence when it‘s Freedom Week and it’s also Constitution Day?” Brinsdon said.
Brinsdon said she complained to the school principal, Yvette Cavazo, who told her it was part of the curriculum and that she should participate. Her father, William, also got involved, calling the school district superintendent to complain.
When Brenda made clear she would not stand up and recite the pledge, she was given an alternative assignment: an essay on the history of the Mexican revolution.
Meanwhile, other students continued with their presentations, which took place over the course of several days.
When Brinsdon talked to Santos — a first-year teacher at Achieve — about her new assignment, the teacher told her she grew up in Mexico.
“She told me that she loved Mexico,” Brinsdon said.
School district spokesman Mark May defended the presentations, saying it’s a state requirement for upper-level language classes to teach about foreign culture.
According to the state’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, students are expected to gain “knowledge and understanding” of other cultures and use the language to demonstrate understanding of different practices and perspectives. There are no specific requirements about learning to recite pledges or anthems.
May said it’s up to the teacher how to interpret and teach the standards.
“It wasn’t required to pledge loyalty and renounce the U.S., they were simply spreading the culture of another country,” May told The Blaze. “In my mind it’s no different from memorizing a poem or memorizing a passage from Shakespeare.”
William Brinsdon took issue with that notion, saying if that’s the case it cheapens the pledge.
“You‘re taking their allegiance and their oath from Mexico and cheapening it just as a grade or words don’t mean anything,” he said.
May reiterated that the lesson was all done within the context of meeting the state requirements, and that the school did its duty providing Brenda with an alternative assignment when she objected.
“The students came away with a better understanding of the culture, heritage and customs of a neighboring country where Spanish is the primary language,” he said.
May added that the lesson was “well received” by other students and parents.
“There’s always going to be people that always feel a little bit differently,” May said.
William Brinsdon is still having a hard time fathoming the idea of reciting foreign pledges and anthems in a U.S. public school in the first place.
“Our kids don’t even know the [American] national anthem and here we are…teaching them to memorize and perform the national anthem for Mexico,” he said. “I just think it’s so backwards.”
The Blaze’s Jonathon M. Seidl contributed to this report.
The Real Children of Orwell are Occupying Wall Street Today
Originally I was going to put together a post about how the Occupy Wall Street movement has been endorsed by the American Nazi Party. It was news-worthy- the ANP said in a statement that
The fact that its these “lefties” as you call them, who are picking up the ball and running with it – only shows how much more in tune THEY are with the fed up masses of White Workers, than the fossilized, reactionary “right-wing”. WHO holds the WEALTH and POWER in this country – the JUDEO-CAPITALISTS. WHO is therefore the #1 ENEMY who makes all this filth happen – the JUDEO-CAPITALISTS. WHO therefore do WN need to FIGHT? My heart is right there with these people, perhaps someday the “movement” will SHOW the same COURAGE and DEDICATION that these people OUT THERE FIGHTING are SHOWING!Yeah, so there is that out there, the fact that the fascists in the Nazi party clearly recognize that this movement fits into their goals and agenda. But really this isn't so much what I want to post about today, because when I was doing research for this post, I came across something more stunning, something that I had written about before after Obama's election as President and something that I think is relevant today.
In December 2008, I linked over to a piece at the American Thinker from Bruce Walker called Orwell's Children, and I think we should all take a minute to re-read it today, because it describes this Occupy Wall Street movement very well. Picture the people at these protests and rallies as you read the following (edited for brevity)...
It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984....Go back and look at the Occupy Wall Street movement with this lens- listen to the interviews from these people, look at the signs they hold up, and have conversations with them. They are inarticulate slogan-shouting, God-hating, lying children who endlessly talk about 'oppressors' that need to be overthrown by empowering an all powerful government to take property from those who they do not like, attack and kill those who they hate (like Jews), and control all of our choices through regulations and taxes. The people who go to these Occupy Wall Street rallies and support them and talk favorably of them are Orwell's Children, and are the enemies of the protection of life, liberty, and property, and deserve nothing but the full and complete opposition of all true patriots.
...We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described. Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause...
...There were specific elements necessary for nations with a heritage of freedom to slide into the most absolute and abject slavery. These elements existed in Nazi Germany, they existed in Soviet Russia, and they exist in our free democracies today. What are the characteristics of the Orwellian state?
Start with God. He must go.... A generation of Orwell's Children are growing up without thinking about God at all or thinking that God is a silly idea cherished by sillier old fogies.
Truth must go too. Nazis embraced the "Big Lie." Soviets denied that honesty, per se, mattered. In Orwell's Oceania, the Inner Party members learn to even lie to themselves and to hold utterly contradictory beliefs at the same time. Truth and honesty have little meaning to Orwell's Children in our world. All truth is relative, all honesty a sham.
Language must be brought to heel... Politically correct language is rampant.
Image and symbols replace words... We live in a word of symbols and images. Conservatives succeed in books and talk radio, media that deal in words- but Orwell's Children live in the realm of symbols and images...
..Immutable oppressors are the final nasty element in dystopia. Hitler blamed Jews for everything. Stalin blamed kulaks and his enemies in the party for everything. Subjects of Orwell's Oceania saw Emmanuel Goldstein as the eternal, immutable enemy of the party. Today there is a drearily predictable list of oppressors. Christians, men, white people, the "rich" (whatever that is supposed to mean), America, and Israel are oppressors and nothing can ever change that.
Orwell even told us, by name, the professionals who would lead us into the nightmare of 1984: "sociologists," "teachers," "bureaucrats," "journalists," "professional politicians," "scientists," "trade union organizers," "publicity experts," and "technicians." (The term "community organizer" was unknown to him.) Those who enslave were those who taught students, who created the news, who sat in the halls of government power, and who defined official "truth" (at least truth de jour.)
Orwell's Children live among us now, not in tiny numbers in weird Marxist cults like Jim Jones' People Temple, but as leaders of Congress, as the establishment of academia, as the producers of news and entertainment, as the administrators of public schools, as the "experts" in a thousand myriad and odd fields of putative "expertise." They infatuate our bored children with the only reality and the only diversion that many can find. They wait for the rest of us to grow older and to die....
Education, science, technological gadgetry, good medical care - all of this can not stop us from sliding into a massive Jonestown, a realized Oceania, a place marked by Dante's grim caution "Abandon hope, all you who enter here." We are all anchored in belief, but it is what we believe that matters. We can believe in the lies of Big Brother, which change each day with the needs of the party or we can believe in the truth of a living God. We can become the children of Orwell or the special creatures of God. Everything -- our nation, our world, our families, our communities -- flows from that choice.
Contemporary Art Inspired by Islamic Traditions of Craft and Design
From the Victoria & Albert Museum:
Algerian born Rachid Koraïchi has won the £25,000 Jameel Prize [international art prize awarded to a contemporary artist or designer inspired by traditions of Islamic craft and design] for a selection of embroidered cloth banners from a series entitled Les Maitres invisibles (The Invisible Masters), 2008. Martin Roth, Director of the V&A, Hasan Jameel and Ed Vaizey MP, presented Rachid Koraïchi with the prize at a ceremony at the V&A on Monday 12 September. The Judges felt that Rachid’s work matches the aims of the Jameel Prize through its qualities of design and reliance on traditional craft. They particularly admired how he has made his great spiritual and intellectual lineage accessible to all through the graphic language he has created out of his artistic heritage. Koraichi uses Arabic calligraphy, and symbols and ciphers from a range of other languages and cultures to explore the lives and legacies of the 14 great mystics of Islam...
Jameel Prize 2011 from Lima Charlie on Vimeo.
More here
Obama's Change to NCLB Policy: Violation of Nation's Principles?
In 2001, George W. Bush proposed a major change to education law called The No Child Left Behind Act. This piece of legislation was supported with extensive bipartisan support in Congress and leading up to its implementation and passage there was extensive debate regarding this bill- people were given an opportunity to discuss it, come to grips with it, and properly weight its merits and problems.
NCLB at its heart was a deal- education would be reformed by putting in place at the federal level higher standards and the establishment of measurable educational goals, and in return Congress would dramatically increase the amount of amount of federal funding for education, increasing it from $42.2 billion in 2001 to $54.4 billion in 2007. In return for states developing assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, the federal would expand funding for reading programs and Title I programs which benefit disadvantaged children, and would considerably expand funding for IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education) to support education. That was the bargain made, after considerable discussion and debate- money in exchange for accountability.
And now, with no debate and discussion, President Obama has decided without any support from either party in Congress to go ahead and change the deal, and we can only pray that he does not alter it further.
Via The Heritage Group:
“Congress hasn’t been able to do it, so I will.” With this bold statement, President Obama announced last Friday that he would unilaterally replace the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) with conditions-based waivers. Obama’s waiver strategy is an alarming misuse of executive power that undermines the separation of powers.President Obama is once again demonstrating his unfitness for office by changing the deal, and this is a bad thing- education will continue to receive funding, but now will no longer have to meet the deal that Congress put in place- rather, they will have to meet the deal that Obama puts in place, conditions that he will establish without legislative authority or approval. This sort of action should be causing libertarians and liberals and conservatives to howl, because it is a slap in the face to democracy, elected government, separation of powers, and our Constitution. His time in office can not come to an end quickly enough.
In and of itself, the use of waivers is not unconstitutional. Congress has the authority to create laws with provisions that allow the President to grant exceptions in certain circumstances. NCLB does, for instance, authorize the Secretary of Education to grant waivers to applicants that meet certain criteria. However, waivers are not written as blank checks of authority for the President to bypass Congress and enact new policy.
In this case, the President is using waivers to rewrite the law. The Obama waivers go far beyond the measures allowed by NCLB. To receive a waiver, states must agree to implement a new set of goals and programs determined not by Congress, but by the White House.
For months, President Obama and Congressional Republicans have disagreed on how to reform NCLB. There are major problems with the law’s intrusive regulations. But the Obama administration decided that the “do-nothing Congress” could not be trusted to act and so the President is acting without them.
But co-opting the waiver power to craft a new laws designed in and implemented by the White House is a departure from the constitutional separation of powers. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to craft the nation’s laws and to reform those laws when they do not work as planned. The executive is authorized to carry out the laws passed by Congress. But this can be quite bothersome for a President if Congress doesn’t see things his way.
The President does have a proper constitutional role to play in the legislative process. The President has the power to veto or sign a bill. Furthermore, as permitted by the recommendation clause of Article 1, Section 3, the President may recommend legislation to Congress. This is does not mean that the President can unilaterally create law as if by royal edict. To become law, legislation (even when recommended by the President) must first pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the President. This process ensures that any law will be subject to deliberation by both the nationally elected President and the Congressmen who are more attuned to the particular interests and concerns of the local communities they represent.
Both congressional Republicans and president Obama acknowledge that NCLB is a flawed law. While it may be tempting to seek a quick fix to this sprawling and unpopular program that avoids a partisan battle, misusing waivers to enact new policy without the consent of the elected representatives in Congress is not the way to address the issue.
How Africa Lost Libya
The revolution has moved Libya into the democratic wave of the Arab spring. There will be continued interactions between Libya and Africa; but culturally, ideologically and financially, Libya has moved towards a greater identification with its north African, Middle Eastern and south Mediterranean neighbours. Libya is embracing its Arab heritage.More here
In a way this should be no surprise: Gaddafi's embrace of pan-Africanism, while popular south of the Sahara, had little backing from Libyans. But the question of support for Libya's revolution has divided sub-Saharan Africa....The momentous changes of the Arab spring herald the emergence of a new African dynamic. Pan-Africanist ideals of solidarity and African empowerment continue to resonate; but we may also be moving towards a "post-Africanism" – an Africa which sees itself as part of an interlinked global community. In some ways, we are moving towards an Africa without borders – a globalised Africa. Thus Africa should not wallow in Afro-pessimism about "losing Libya". We never "had" Libya. The new Libya, warts and all, is an opportunity for Africa, not a threat to be punished. Africa should engage with the new Libya and, in so doing, with itself.
Africa through African Eyes-And Five Books
How do you tackle Africa’s problems?More hereAyittey: To move Africa forwards requires a new paradigm. At the centre of this model must be the African people and how they view and analyse their own situation and problems. Ultimately, it is they who must save their own continent, not Westerners or Easterners. The West sees Africa’s problems differently from how Africans themselves see them. It was for this reason that I coined the expression “African solutions for African problems” in 1994, after Somalia imploded in 1991 and the international rescue mission led by the US failed. “African solutions” does not mean solutions crafted by an African. Rather, it means solutions anchored in or in consonance with Africa’s heritage.
Obama: Circling Back on the Iceberg?
The title of this post isn't mine- Ralph R. Reiland came up with it in his post which I will talk about. But it's a great title- in my mind, I see the American economy hitting an iceberg around 2007 and start taking on some water, enough that it badly listed by 2008 and went into a recession. The iceberg was too much federal spending that soaked up savings and investments, too many federal government policies that encouraged bubbles in investing and housing, and increasing regulations that choked off economic growth, especially in small businesses, and signaled to business owners that now was the time to play it safe and not take risks and create jobs. The tip of this iceberg of federal policy ripped a large hole in the Titanic of the US economy, and soon the boat started to dangerously take on water.
Although I'm no expert of this, I imagine that once your boat hits an iceberg and takes on water, you have two options. Option one is to continue moving forward and patch the hole- in other words, keep America's booming private economy and remove the harmful regulations and policies that caused the damage. Option two is to stop moving and widen the hole, by which I mean to attack private business and those who are successful in it and put in place more harmful policies. Oh, I guess there was a double-secret third option too, and that is to turn the boat around and try to ram the boat on the iceberg again, this time with the intent on sinking the whole thing. For a while, I thought that Obama and the Democrats were just intent on going with option 2, but it looks like they are honestly considering circling back on that iceberg with the goal of sinking the economy of the United States for good.
President Barack Obama was once named by me as Captain of the US Titanic Spending (see my complete list of Obama nicknames)- and now he's going after that iceberg again!
Here are some parts of the article by Reiland called Obama: Circling back to the iceberg:
Only 26 percent of the public approve of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy in the latest Gallup poll, conducted Aug. 11-14, while a whopping 71 percent disapprove. That's down from Obama's previous low point of 35 percent approval on this top issue.For those who want to see which way the United States is going under President Obama and his progressive policies supported by the new progressive Democratic Party, watch this movie- Titanic (10th Anniversary Edition)
The public's growing dissatisfaction shouldn't be surprising. Going back to 1890, reports the National Bureau of Economic Research, the only U.S. president with a worse record than Obama in job creation in his first two-and-a-half years in office, measured in terms of percentage change, was Herbert Hoover, presiding over the emergence of the Great Depression.
"Official unemployment is 9.1 percent," stated a New York Times editorial on Aug. 15, decrying the nation's jobs picture, "but it would be 16.1 percent, or 25.1 million people, if it included those who can only find part-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work." "Keeping the economy going and making sure jobs are available is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning," Obama said back in March. "It's the last thing I think about when I go to bed each night."
Now, nearly six months later, the White House reports that Obama is working on a new strategy for job creation that will be unveiled after he returns from vacation. The task of coming up with a jobs plan that works shouldn't be all that terribly difficult. All Mr. Obama has to do is reverse what he's done and change what he thinks.
First, by the government's own numbers, small businesses have created 64 percent of the net new jobs in the U.S. economy over the past 15 years.
In fact, that understates the role of small business, since the vast majority of America's medium-sized and large businesses began as small businesses. The Heinz corporation began when 16-year-old Henry Heinz grated piles of horseradish at home, using his mother's recipe, and sold the bottled product door-to-door in Sharpsburg out of a wheelbarrow.
Yet since Obama took office, employment at federal regulatory agencies has jumped 13 percent while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6 percent. Second, 39 percent of small-business owners said in a Chamber of Commerce survey in July that ObamaCare was either their greatest or second-greatest obstacle to new hiring....
...Additionally, 84 percent of small business owners in the survey said the economy is on the wrong track, 79 percent view the current regulatory environment as unreasonable, and 79 percent believe Washington should get out of the way of small business, rather than offering a helping hand (14 percent).
In its first 26 months, reports The Heritage Foundation, the Obama administration imposed new regulatory rules that will cost the private sector $40 billion. In July alone, reports Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., federal regulators imposed a total of 379 new rules that will add some $9.5 billion in new costs.
Bottom line: What's required from Obama is a complete about-face, the shelving of his flawed economic philosophy and a reversal of his counterproductive policy prescriptions.
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Government Does Not Create Jobs; In July Alone It Added $9.5 Billion to the Cost of Doing Business
Pivoting away from other issues like the environment ("Bombshell" Experiment: Global Climate Change Caused by Cloud Cover) or education (More Than 200 D.C. Teachers Fired! Progress?), let's return back to jobs and the role that the government plays in job creation.
In my post Coming To Grips With a Political Economy I wrote about a class that I took in college called 'Political Economy.' The class was an attempt to indoctrinate students with the idea that government could create jobs through its actions and could create wealth through proper regulation and control over free markets. I struggled through this class, mostly because I rejected entirely the idea that government can create wealth and jobs through its actions, and today I still believe that.
Government does not create jobs. It takes wealth from those who are productive and creating wealth, cycles it through many layers of bureaucracy and 'management', and then gives that wealth to those people who are favored by the government. Some of those who are favored by the government should be- the Constitution identified those who the government can give 'jobs' to and states further have identified those who the government should give 'jobs' to. But many others who the government gives 'jobs' today in America are simply those who benefit from the kind of crony capitalism and banana republic policies that are more common to two-bit dictatorships and tyrannies.
And the 'jobs' that are created by government are inefficiently created- much wealth and property is squandered and lost and burned by having government provide these jobs because of the many layers of 'management' and bureaucracy that mark the government. This is an acceptable price to pay for fire, police, and military jobs, but for most other 'jobs' the government creates the cost to create these jobs far exceeds the useful good that these jobs provide to society.
For example, many liberals claim that Obamacare will 'create jobs'- agencies and regulatory bodies that will hire overlords and masters who supervise a once-free and vibrant economic sector and regulate, tax, and control it. But the cost of these jobs was demonstrated graphically by the reaction that businesses had to it- after the passage of this law businesses dramatically dropped their hiring of workers. The Heritage report explained why this happened:
Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty; Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.Yet President Obama and the modern-day Democratic Party continues to think that regulations, spending, taxes, and control over free people can 'create jobs'. They take wealth from those who have it- either through taxes or fees or by simply sucking up savings by selling debt- and give it to those who they favor and try to pretend that they have made society better. But they haven't- they have killed legitimate jobs that millions of people through their free actions wanted and needed (the unseen hand of the market) and made society less because of their actions that took away freedom and property.
In Latest EPA Rules to Cost 1.4 Million Jobs and a 12% Increase in Utility Bills I wrote about how the Washington Post reported that the new EPA rules that were recently published will cause electric bills will jump 12 percent nationally by 2016 to comply with these new policies, with residents in areas such as Kentucky and Tennessee seeing a 24 percent increase in their utility bills. These policies are project to eliminate 1.4 million jobs- real jobs that will be destroyed by the actions of government, creating people who will no longer be paying taxes any more and will now be sucking down government benefits, all thanks to these policies pushed by Democratic bureaucrats employed by a Democratic President supervised by Democrats in the House and the Senate and supported by Democratic unions and a Democratic media.
And now Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso has put together a report that showed that the executive actions of the Democrat President have put in place in July alone an additional $9.5 billion in new regulatory costs by proposing 229 new rules and finalizing 379 rules. Among those rules that are going to add to the cost of doing business, kill jobs, and make our society less productive and wealthy are rules regarding the fake issues of global warming, healthcare reform, and financial regulatory reform rules.
IN JULY ALONE A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT PUT IN PLACE $9.5 BILLION IN NEW COSTS! I don't care how many times Obama 'pivots' to talk about jobs, the heart of the matter is that he is wrong about the government being able to create jobs and wealth through its actions- government is best that governs least because when people are free and free to live their lives and free to make their own decisions and free to do with their wealth and labor as they see fit, then jobs are created and wealth is created.
Make the choice in 2012 to turn America away from tyranny and 'government-created jobs' and to freedom and 'people-created jobs'.
For more reading, try Productivity versus OSHA and EPA regulations (Research for business decisions)
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Picture: The Obamacare Effect on Employment
Tina Korbe at HotAir explains the picture perfectly:
A new report out yesterday from The Heritage Foundation shows private sector job creation dropped dramatically almost immediately after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) into law.From the recession’s low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month — a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate.
As the report states, correlation cannot prove causation — but the change in course is statistically measurable and testing reveals a structural break between April and May of 2010. Moreover, small-business owners have said Obamacare is a deterrent to hiring. Take Scott Womack, the owner of 12 IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio, as just one example. Before Obamacare became law, he had development plans in Ohio. Now, he’s worried he won’t be able to carry out his original plans unless Obamacare is repealed. Those restaurants he planned to open would provide jobs not only for his future employees, but also for everyone involved in the construction of the restaurant buildings themselves.
As the Heritage report explains, Obamacare discourages hiring in three important ways:
Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty; Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.
Democrats once touted that Obamacare would create jobs, but the data underscore the reality that that’s not true for the private sector. The only jobs Obamacare created were within the new agencies and layers of bureaucracy the law added to the federal government.
The Heritage report recommends repeal — and comes as a welcome reminder that the health care law can’t be ignored as the president and Congress attempt to address the debt and deficit or as the nation attempts to right the still-struggling economy. Nor can it be ignored in the upcoming presidential election. Likely U.S. voters have said jobs and the economy are their No. 1 issue. That means the repeal of Obamacare should be a top priority, too.
Rep. Peters (MI-9th) Invites Citizens to Meet with Him Regarding Budget- Tuesday, June 28, 7pm
On Congressman Gary Peters' (a liberal Democrat Congressman from Michigan's soon-to-be-eliminated 9th District) website, via RightMichigan:
On Tuesday, June 28, Representative Gary Peters will host a Federal Budget Workshop to discuss - and find solutions to - the fiscal challenges facing the United States. Teaming up with experts from the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan budget watchdog group, Representative Peters will give 9th District residents a hands-on chance to tackle America's budget crisis.If you live in Michigan's 9th Congressional District, please make an attempt to go to this event. Make sure you RSVP- Peters is legendary for only talking to constituents who have gone through the proper screening process, and his thugs will run you off if you are not on the guest list to talk to him.
Participation is free and open to residents of Michigan's 9th Congressional District. To RSVP (required) please complete the form (found on the website) or call 248-273-4227. If you have any questions, please call us at 248-273-4227.
What: Budget Workshop with the Concord Coalition
When: Tuesday, June 28 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Where: Berkley High School Collaborative Center
Address: 2325 Catalpa Drive, Berkley, MI
Although the Concord Coalition bills itself as 'non-partisan', it is the exact kind of non-partisan that Gary Peters loves- it is liberal poppycock that on its website accuses Republicans of sabotaging the budget process, encourages 'fiscal reform' (code for more taxes), characterizes conservative views of death panels as 'misguided', and in testimony to Congress argued to let the Bush tax cuts expire and increase revenue by eliminating deductions. So, although Peters might continue to pretend to be some sort of moderate, realize that he's the kind of slime that uses words to disguise his intentions rather than illuminate them, and so he is going to try to use what little time he spends in district to host this sham of a 'budget workshop' to try to convince constituents that we need to raise taxes. Although I do see that the Heritage Foundation is a partner with this group, so I could be wrong and it could be more balanced- someone please leave comments and let me know how it goes.
Learning About Life on the Athletic Field
For those of you who are administrators, headmasters or coaches and even teachers, you will love this conversation we recorded at our school for the 40 year anniversary of the school. We've been going back and recording for posterity things that will help students understand what our school means and who we are.
These three men have led our football team to 7 different state championships. They talk about their wins, their losses, their pains, their struggles both as teachers, headmasters, and coaches.
Ross Worsham, the man on the left is my current headmaster. Coach Graham Lowe is "my" headmaster. He was at Westwood for many of my years. I sat in his office the ONE time I skipped class (to read the book Sounder which I had forgotten to read the night before - I skipped PE and hid under the bus - thank goodness we got caught . He is also the principal I wrote about in my post about standing up to the class bully Be Hope-Full and Power-Full. I don't think Coach Lowe will ever understand what he means to me as a person and a teacher.) Coach Greene was there when my youngest sister was in school and my first or two at Westwood. He made a big difference for the boys.
I know sometimes teachers throw stones at coaches and vice versa but we are on the same team. I love when Coach Lowe talks about what he told his son to do when his son wanted to coach. He said something like "Son, be a teacher who coaches not a coach who tries to teach."
Coach Lowe teaches French at Deerfield Windsor High School today and coaches middle school boys. (His son is the head coach for the varsity team.)
Anyway, after this trip down memory lane, I just think it is great to hear and remember your heritage.
Have you thought about a history project like this for your school?
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Obama Cleverly Replaces Birther Conspiracy with Deather Conspiracy? A Theory on How the Release of the Birth Certificate connects to Attack on OBL
I keep coming back to the simple question "Why did Obama not release his birth certificate earlier?" It has been bothering me ever since he just released it last week- there was nothing controversial it in, nothing secret, nothing that would have violated any sort of laws, nothing illegal in it, nothing fishy in it, and it appears to be legitimate. Why then did he keep it secret and hidden for all of these years, knowing full well that when asked, he could have simply produced it? And why was that reason for keeping it secret suddenly removed, all of a sudden, a week ago, so that now there was no reason to hide it and laugh off questions about it without ever answering them?
When Obama released the birth certificate, we all assumed it was because of the pressure that Trump had been putting on the President- that when he demanded it be released, suddenly Obama jumped and released it- but I no longer think that is the case. Obama resisted other requests and denied others the birth certificate, so he could have done the same for Trump. So why release it last week- what did he know or what changed that enabled him to release it?
Of course today, looking back, we all know why Obama released his birth certificate last week- because he knew where Osama bin Laden was and was putting together a mission to go after him and knew that later that week he would score the biggest unqualified and unquestioned success of his Presidency.
So, how does Obama knowing that he is going to take out Osama bin Laden change anything at all regarding his previous positions on his birth certificate?
One theory is that the birth certificate was faked and phony, and that he released the fake one to bury the story and rumor of his non-citizenship knowing that the entire nation would focus instead on the successful killing of OBL. So he released his birth certificate on 4/27 (Wednesday) and plans on killing OBL on the 30th (Saturday), although because of weather they instead do it on 5/1 (Sunday), in the hopes that this will discredit those who continue to doubt his citizenship or at least bury their news and stories behind the news and stories of OBL's death. Personally, I think this theory is far-fetched, but I do offer it up to my more conspiracy minded readers as food for thought.
A second theory, and the one that I now feel is the most plausible, is that Obama is going to replace the 'birther' conspiracy with a new 'deather' conspiracy.
Obama is clever, much the same way that many tyrants are clever, and he knows that because his positions and beliefs and policies are bad for our nation and don't make any sense and are based purely on empowering him and his allies, he can't engage in a conversation with his opponents or get in a debate based on ideas and ideals and reality. Instead, he is clever to understand that the only way that he can get and keep more and more power for himself and his friends and allies is by discrediting his opponents and making them appear less intelligent, less sophisticated, less worldly, and less human, so that when his opponents make valid criticisms and critiques of him and his bad policies, he can simply laugh them off as nuts and fools.
If your goal is to make people look like fools and discredit them, then one way to do this is to tell them conflicting stories, tell them partial stories, give them suggestive statements, and hide things, and then when they run with these suspicions to laugh at them and discredit them as nuts and fools, whose very real and honest and accurate views and positions are now weakened by their being suckered into his discrediting game.
The birther conspiracy was a great one- he himself spun it, kept it going, laughed off questions about it without answering them, and fed the story, knowing that it would sucker his opponents into making personal attacks on him and insinuations about his heritage and birth, to which he could turn around and cry 'racist'. But this conspiracy was getting played out and losing its edge, so he now has a better one- the 'deather' conspiracy.
The story of Osama bin Laden's death is simply and clear and able to be communicated in a way that has no ambiguity or cloudiness or confusion, and yet, the story of his death as told by Obama is not being told this way at all. The interweb is all the rage with conspiracy theories, ranging from those who say that OBL isn't really dead to conflicting stories about how he died to confusion regarding what the SEAL's orders were to staged photo's. And Obama is feeding this, refusing to clarify the issue and actively muddying the waters, knowing that this will sucker in the nuts and fools and perhaps some legitimate challengers too and that the mud will splash up and hit other Republicans too.
Obama is clever- he is going to try to replace the 'birther' conspiracy with a 'deather' conspiracy. You watch- it is already happening, and the liberals on TV and radio and in the blogosphere are already laughing at it. Obama is going to take a non-fire, blow some smoke, and then laugh at the fools with get suckered in, because he knows that when the time comes next election, he can discredit these people as unAmerican because they don't take pride in the killing of OBL. This time around, he'll discredit his opponents who question what exactly happened on this mission, why photo's were staged, why stories were changed and modified, why questions were answered by him clearly, and what really went down by simply laughing at anyone who questions him and pointing out that he did something that Bush could never do and that he is more in touch with America and he got the guy who caused 9/11 and anyone asking questions is not really an American and not really patriotic and not really for the victims of 9/11.
Tell me- am I way off on this theory? Does it not explain why Obama finally decided to release his birth certificate on Wednesday, knowing that he had a better and more clever way to discredit his opponents in his back pocket to be pulled out on Saturday? How does the release of the birth certificate on Wednesday connect to attack on Osama bin Laden on Sunday?
EXCLUSIVE: Barack Obama's Fake Malaise Speech!
Good evening.
This is a special night for me. Three years ago, in 2008, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for President of the United States. I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you.
During the past 3 years I've spoken to you on many occasions about national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the Government, our Nation's economy, and issues of war and especially peace.
Ten days ago I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject -- hopechangetogetherness. For the uncountable time I would have lectured you on the urgency of the problem and laid out a series of legislative recommendations to the Congress. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?
It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper -- deeper than high gasoline prices, deeper than the madness of the NCAA tournament, deeper even than expected inflation or the continuing recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.
I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society, including labor union leaders, government union leaders, teachers, bureaucrats, university professors, donors to my campaign, Democrat Governors, the Mayor of Chicago, and foreign officials. It has been an extraordinary 10 days, and I want to share with you what I've heard.
These 10 days confirmed my belief in the decency and the strength and the wisdom of the American people, but it also bore out some of my longstanding concerns about our Nation's underlying problems.
I know, of course, being President, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That's why I've worked hard to pass legislation and conduct myself in a manner completely different from what I promised in my campaign -- and I have to admit, these have been met with little success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.
The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.
America, you are what is wrong with America, and we need to change you to make you better.
The confidence that we have always had as a people is simply some romantic dream from a slavery past or was a proverb in a dusty book that we once read. The real confidence of America and the reason it was founded is to elect me so that I can progress our Nation. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions, our own unions, and the very Government of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own, in spite of the massive debt and underfunded institutions we are pushing to them.
This loss of confidence did not happen overnight. They've come upon us because of Republicans and the resulting years of shocks and tragedy.
Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal Government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our Nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our Government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.
What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.
Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don't like, and neither do I. What can we do?
First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in the ability of Democrats to govern you, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.
We know the strength of America. We will be strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who forged a New Deal, a Fair Deal, a Square Deal, and who built a Great Society. Although my grandmother was a racist, my Muslim father from Kenya and my mother were strong, and believed that in me they had created someone who would carve out a new charter of peace for the world.
We ourselves and the same Americans just three years ago elected me, a man who represents hope and change We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the kinetic military actions against non-state actors and we are the generation that will cool the globe and stop the rise of the oceans and in doing so build a new confidence in America.
We are a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest, the path that Republicans want us to take. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others, the right to keep and own private property, and the right to choose life. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
All the traditions of our present, all the lessons of the failures of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to True Freedom for our Nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our confidence problem.
I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our Nation's problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. We know the Republicans, Tea Party activists, and conservatives will attempt to block us and prevent us from progressing as a society to True Freedom. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure openness and togetherness and hope. And above all, I will vote present on this issue and be the one we were waiting for.
Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources -- America's people, America's values, and America's confidence.
I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people, which I will spend and then some. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for a confident nation.
In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, and I will do it alone if need be. If you support me, then let your voice be heard- whenever you have a chance, say something good about me and my plan. With my help and for the sake of our Nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit, this one based on my vision of hope and change and togetherness and progress. Working together with this common faith we cannot fail. We are the ones we have been waiting for.
Thank you and good night.
UPDATE: This is a fake speech that I expect Obama to give soon. It is based on Jimmy Carter's "Malaise Speech" in 1979. What is surprising is how little I actually have changed from that speech- I'm honest, I only changed an occasional word or edited out an occasional section, and yet this speech sounds like something Obama would say. Does it sound like a speech Romney, or Palin, or Bush, or Reagan, or Lincoln, or Jefferson, or Washington would say? No, but it does sound like a speech for Obama, Carter, Hoover, or Buchanan. That says something.
Covering Revolutions-The African Egypt versus the Arab Egypt
"Egypt is in Africa. We should not fool about with the attempts of the North to segregate the countries of North Africa from the rest of the continent," says Firoze Manji, the editor of Pambazuka Online, an advocacy website for social justice in Africa. "Their histories have been intertwined for millennia. Some Egyptians may not feel they are Africans, but that is neither here nor there. They are part of the heritage of the continent."More here
And, just like much of the rest of the world, Africans watched events unfold in Cairo with great interest. "There is little doubt that people [in Africa] are watching with enthusiasm what is going on in the Middle East, and drawing inspiration from that for their own struggles," says Manji.
He argues that globalisation and the accompanying economic liberalisation has created circumstances in which the people of the global South share very similar experiences: "Increasing pauperisation, growing unemployment, declining power to hold their governments to account, declining income from agricultural production, increasing accumulation by dispossession - something that is growing on a vast scale - and increasing willingness of governments to comply with the political and economic wishes of the North.
The Quest for Architectural Excellence in non-Western Societies
More hereRepeatedly, in non-Western societies, successes and failures of designed environments go un-noticed. Opportunities for discussing lessons learned from intervening in natural or built environments are missed. Initiating change in the physical environment takes place in many cases as if there was no history or past to learn from. Frequently, gaps in knowledge transmission do exist because of the lack of rigorous documentation, especially give that assessment studies and critical writings have not matured in many parts of those societies. One way to bridge knowledge transmission gaps is to unveil merits of best practices through critical assessment of projects with the ultimate goal of creating a sharper public awareness of the role of architecture in enhancing and celebrating human activities, of its socio-cultural, environmental, and aesthetic qualities.
Revitalisation of the Recent Heritage of Tunis
Christopher Fomunyoh on the Cote d'Ivoire Crisis
A couple of years ago, another African leader, former President Ket Masire of Botswana told me that from his experience in office, many problems on our continent stem from our collective reluctance to call a spade a spade. We would rather use euphemisms and call a spade 'an agricultural tool', hoping some people would understand we are referring to a spade. In my professional life, I have seen people react to difficult problems in two ways: some people make the problems more complicated and intractable by piling on pre-existing grievances and other externalities; others break down the issues into easily solvable chunks or bits, and then aggregate the small solutions from each of the chunks into a comprehensive big solution. I belong to the second school of thought. Points about nationalism, sovereignty, the colonial heritage and neo-colonialism, the CFA franc and the stranglehold on our economies, the role of the French and the international community, are all legitimate, but should be debated on a separate track; because, in my view, these are externalities to the key question of who had the most legitimate votes and therefore won the second round of the Ivorian presidential election of November 28, 2010.More here
