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PER: Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad
versión On-line ISSN 1727-3781
PER vol.15 no.2 Potchefstroom ago. 2012
Decentralisation in Africa: a critical review of Uganda's experience
H Ojambo
S.J.D. & LLM, University of Toronto. Lecturer, Makerere University; Partner, M/s Ojambo & Ojambo Advocates, Kampala, Uganda, firstname.lastname@example.com. The author extends appreciation for research assistance to Ms. Barbra Nahone Ajambo. This paper immensely benefited from comments made at the conference organised by the Africa Law Association (ALA) in cooperation with the Max Plank Institute (MPI) on "Legal Transformation in North Africa and Decentralisation in Africa" at Heidelberg, Germany
Since the rise to power of the Movement government under the leadership of Yoweri Museveni in 1986, Uganda has largely been show-cased as an emerging democracy on the continent. Among other things, Museveni's regime has been acclaimed for the restoration of periodic national elections, the making of the Constitution and the overall promotion of democratic governance, most especially through the adoption of a decentralised system with a commendable institutional and legal framework. Decentralisation is believed to promote service delivery at the local level, accountability for government resources by local leaders, and the involvement of the masses in local planning and the implementation of government programmes. It is now over twenty years since decentralisation was adopted as a system of government but the quality of service delivery and the accountability for government resources at the local level remains just as deplorable as the extent to which the masses are involved in the planning and implementation of government programmes in their localities. This paper examines the challenges that inhibit the realisation of the noble objectives of decentralisation, notwithstanding the apparently impressive institutional and legal framework.
Keywords: Uganda, decentralisation, democratic governance, government resources, planning
1 Introduction
Uganda's experience with decentralisation is as highly acclaimed as it is criticised. Though regarded by some commentators as one of the most ambitious forms of devolution of power among the developing countries, it is also greatly criticised for its failure to deliver on its promises. According to Steiner, the scale and scope of the transfer of powers and responsibilities to the local level in Uganda's decentralisation reform is exceptional among developing countries.1On their part, James and Francis have described it as "one of the most far-reaching local government reform programmes in the developing world."2Mitchinson, in the same vein, contends that Uganda's decentralisation programme "is one of the most radical devolution initiatives of any country at this time."3
But the quest for the fruits of decentralisation appears to be only increasing. As Tumushabe et al have lamentably observed:4
Almost two decades later, the quality of public service delivery is less than desirable; district local governments with no financial resources of their own have become mere agents of the centre while the accountability mechanisms for good governance and public service delivery are either non-existent or malfunctional.
Other commentators view Uganda's decentralisation programme as more of a political gimmick than a genuine effort to promote democracy and good governance:5
...the creation of the districts did not follow any established parameters, neither was the process informed by administrative necessity or economic rationale. Instead the president announced their creation via presidential decrees, often to reward politicians threatening to withdraw support for the NRM, or punish those who had.
The principal objectives of decentralisation have historically included the promotion of accountability, transparency, efficiency in governance and service delivery, and the empowerment of the masses from grass-root levels through the promotion of the participation of individuals and communities in their governance. Decentralisation is therefore generally viewed as an effective mechanism of extending and deepening the democratisation process to the grass-roots in order to promote people's-based development in the context of a high regard for human rights.
Uganda's scenario presents a near-perfect fundamental contradiction between form and content. The great promise of improved accountability, efficiency in governance and the empowerment of the masses remains elusive in the country, notwithstanding the apparent commitment to the implementation of the decentralisation programme, at least at the formal level of the institutional and legal framework. According to a study6commissioned by the World Bank, Uganda is ranked second to South Africa in almost all aspects of decentralisation in Africa. Ironically though, the same country is ranked among the most corrupt in the world with deplorable service delivery systems.7This paper thus seeks to examine Uganda's experimentation with decentralisation with a view to unearthing the subterranean constraints that continue to inhibit the delivery of the great promises of the system. The paper traces the historical background to Uganda's decentralisation process, outlines the current structure of Uganda's decentralisation and closely examines the challenges to the realisation of the promises of decentralisation.
2. The rationale and historical background of decentralisation in Uganda
Defined as the devolution of powers in terms of public authority, resources, and personnel from the central government to sub-national levels, decentralisation can take different forms. In some cases, decentralisation may denote the transfer of such power from the central government to a province or state, as in the case of federal systems, or could refer to the transfer of such powers to lower levels of government within a unitary system. For the rather obvious reason that Uganda has a unitary system of government, this paper will focus on decentralisation in a unitary system and particularly where powers are devolved from the central government to the lower-level local government. In Uganda's case, the analysis focuses on the devolution of powers from the central government to the district and the lower-level local governments, which include the sub-county, municipality, division and parish.
2.1 The historical background of decentralisation in Uganda
The history of decentralisation in Uganda can be traced way back to the colonial days. However, it was not until the rise of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government to power under the leadership of Yoweri Kaguta Museveni8that decentralisation was accorded the prominence it enjoys in the country today. It will be recalled that the British, in the execution of their indirect rule policy, established a hybrid system of administration in most of their colonies including Uganda, where some powers were granted to the native leaders while the colonial government reserved overriding powers through the representatives of the colonial government. In Uganda's case, this system of administration was exemplified by the African Native Authority Ordinance of 1919,9which provided for the powers and duties of African chiefs in the colonial administration. Under the Ordinance, chiefs were appointed at the village, sub-county and county levels with powers to collect taxes, preside over native courts, and maintain law and order. These chiefs were, however, accountable to the District Commissioner, the executive head of the district and the principal representative of the central government.
The Local Government Ordinance of 194910ushered in new changes by establishing the district as a local government unit with a fairly autonomous administration. Among the different organs of the district were the District Councils, which were comprised of elected members and were responsible for district administration. Notably, though, the central government still retained overriding powers over District Council decisions. Chiefs remained salaried local government officials who were responsible to the central government through the District Commissioner.
During the colonial times other administrative units were kingdoms which more or less operated as federal states within the system. By the time of independence in 1962 Uganda had 11 districts and four kingdoms. The independent Constitution of 1962 established a decentralised system with elements of both federalism and decentralisation in the governance system. While the kingdom of Buganda was granted federal status, others such as Ankole, Bunyoro, Toro and the territory of Busoga were accorded semi-federal status. The rest of the country, comprised of the districts of Acholi, Bugisu, Bukedi, Karamoja, Kigezi, Lango, Madi, Sebei and West Nile, was administered through Councils.11
The independence Constitution was abrogated in 1966. The successor Constitution of 1967 centralised powers. The overthrow of the post-independence Obote government by Idi Amin through a military coup led to the establishment of a military regime between 1971-1979 during which districts were dissolved and regional/provincial administrations led by Governors who were high-ranking military officers were established. The second Obote government (1980-1985) did not make any significant efforts to change the system.12Thus Uganda gradually but steadily witnessed increased centralisation of powers through the various political regimes from independence until 1986, when the nascent NRM government initiated fundamental changes in local government which culminated in the enactment of the Local Government Statute of 1993 and the subsequent Local Government Act of 1997. Under the same regime, the 1995 Constitution, which adopted and further articulated the local government system of government, was promulgated. The current system of local government is by far more robust and elaborate than any other that was ever attempted in the country's history.
2.2 Rationale
The reasons for the adoption of the current system of decentralisation under Museveni were largely internal. Unlike the previous efforts, many of which took the form of the deconcentration13of powers from the centre to lower levels of government through representatives of the central government, the current system of local government grants by far the widest and most robust devolution of powers.14The adoption of such an ambitious system of local government is partly, and indeed largely, explained by Uganda's post-independence turbulent political history and the peculiar challenges that affected the NRM government in its early days.
Prior to the rise of the NRM government in 1986, Uganda's history had been characterised by recurrent political turbulence. Beginning with the overthrow of the first Obote regime by Idi Amin Dada through a military coupin 1971 and the subsequent military overthrow of Idi Amini's regime in 1979, through the successive short-lived governments that were established and overthrown in a matter of months between the end of Amin's government in 1979 and the second Obote government in 1981, Uganda largely experienced military leadership. Expectations of the restoration of democratic governance after the election of the second Obote government into power in 1980 were thwarted by the 1985 coupchampioned by Tito Okello Lutwa. The Tito Okello government lasted only a few months before it too was overthrown by the NRM rebel forces under the leadership of Museveni in 1986.
Throughout this post-independence period of political turmoil, Uganda experienced various socio-economic challenges ranging from endemic gross violations of human rights through economic plunder and decadence to outright lack of democratic governance. Upon its rise to power through an armed rebellion partly prompted by the then socio-economically decadent situation, the NRM government quite understandably made democratisation one of its major goals. This was vividly captured in one of Museveni's inaugural speeches when he asserted:15
The first point in our programme is the restoration of democracy. The people of Africa - the people of Uganda - are entitled to a democratic government. It is not a favour from any government. It is the right of the people of Africa to have democratic government; the sovereign power in the land must be the population, not the government. In our liberated zones, the first thing we started was the election of Village Resistance Committees. My mother, for instance cannot go to parliament but she can surely become a member of a Committee so that she too, can make her views heard. We have, therefore set up village, muluka (parish),gombolola (sub-county)and district committees ... but right now I want to emphasize that our first point in our political programme is democracy for the people of Uganda.
But it should be noted that the creation of local councils (committees) was not originally informed by the desire to create democratic institutions. As Steiner observes, "the local councils were originally established for political reasons and not with the aim of improving service delivery or reducing poverty."16In fact, according to Mugabi, the explanation lay in considerations of political expediency. The long protracted war that brought the NRM government to power greatly weakened state organs in the entire country. In areas where war was directly waged government systems were literally non-existent, as the rebel forces had in some cases taken control of parts of such areas. This created an administrative vacuum especially in local governance, which the rebel forces addressed by appointing members of the local communities in the areas they controlled to fill the gaps in local administration. Resistance Councils comprised of members were accordingly created with both administrative and security mandates in their areas of jurisdiction. Thus:17
During the "bush war" of the early 1980s, the organs of the state were destroyed, thus creating a vacuum in local governance. The NRM had no spare manpower to utilize as local administrators. Accordingly, local communities were requested to elect from amongst themselves, councils to perform the duties of the defunct agents and organs of the old state. However, the primary role of these councils was to resist infiltration - through a network of information gathering on the operations of the enemy and liaising with the NRM intelligence organs - hence the name "resistance councils".
Once in power, the NRM government embarked on steps aimed at improving and legally entrenching the resistance council system of administration for the reasons already stated - democratic governance, filling the gaps in administration created by the destruction of state organs during the war, and the promotion of security. Indeed, shortly after taking over power the Museveni government established a commission of inquiry into local government under the leadership of Mahmood Mamdani. A white paper was prepared and presented to government and henceforth the government vigorously embarked on decentralisation based on the resistance council system. By 1987 the government had enacted the Resistance Council's and Committees Statute (the RC Statute), which repealed part 1 of the Local Administration Act of 1967 and the Urban Authorities Act of 1964. The RC Statute marked the very beginning of the formal decentralisation process under the Movement government by transferring such powers as planning, decision making and the administration of justice to the community-based Resistance Council system.
Thus, the adoption of the system of democratisation through the devolution of powers can fairly largely be attributed to local factors. Nonetheless, the role of external factors cannot be underestimated. Undoubtedly, Uganda is part of the Third World that has been subjected to some pressure from the donor community to embrace decentralisation as a pathway to democratic governance. Quite compelling assumptions have always been made about the great potential of decentralisation in deepening democracy and these have rendered it a near-universal prescription for addressing the governance challenges faced in the developing world.
2.3 Objectives of decentralisation
If well implemented, decentralisation promises efficient and accountable governance through the increased involvement of the people in the way they are governed. That is, decentralisation promotes people's participation in important government functions such as decision making, the identification of problems, priority setting, planning and monitoring the implementation of any programmes, which in effect promotes and ensures the better allocation and utilisation of resources. It is also generally believed that when people are involved in their own governance through decentralisation, accountability on the part of office bearers is enhanced, hence leading to more efficient utilisation of public resources, which in turn promotes development. Decentralisation also promises greater respect for human rights through the involvement of people in the design, planning and implementation of government programmes/policies. Over all, decentralisation enhances the process of governance.
However, the extent to which any decentralised system will deliver these noble objectives depends on more than the mere adoption of the system. While the formal legal framework/structure of any given decentralised system is important in the determination of its success, other extraneous factors such as the level of people's awareness, the availability of the necessary resources and the commitment of the central government are usually critical in determining the degree of success. Uganda's experience with decentralisation is particularly intriguing given the manifest contradictions between the rather admirable formal legal framework, on the one hand, and the continued deplorable plunder of public resources, impunity, poor service delivery and the continued high rate of violation of human rights, on the other. Before a critical discussion of the challenges faced in the decentralisation process in Uganda is undertaken, the country's highly acclaimed decentralised structure deserves to be briefly discussed.
3 The structure and functions of local government in Uganda
Local government in Uganda is based on the district as the basic unit. Various local governments and administrative units resort within the district. The district council, which is comprised of elected members, is the highest political authority having legislative and executive powers within the district, and other councils in lower-level local government are also the highest political authorities in their jurisdictions.18
The structure of local government in Uganda takes different forms depending on whether the administrative area in question is rural or urban. Other than Kampala City, which has a special local government administrative structure19, the local government system is comprised of a five-tier structure where, in rural areas, the village council (LC1) forms the lowest level, followed by the parish council (LC2), then the sub-county council (LC3), the county council (LC4), and at the top (the district) the district council (LC5).20On the other hand, in urban districts the structure begins with the village council (LC1), then the ward or parish council (LC2), the municipal or town division (LC3), the municipality (LC4) and the district council (LC5/mayor).21
The district council is the basic local government unit while the municipal council, city division council, the municipal division council, and the town council are lower-level local governments. Both the district council and the lower-level local government units have corporate status with perpetual succession and a common seal, and they have independent legal personality in the sense that they can sue and be sued in their corporate name. On the other hand, the county council, the parish/ward council and the village council are merely administrative unit councils without corporate status and thus enjoy less autonomy in the local government system than the local government units. The functions of these administrative units are limited to dispute resolution, monitoring of the delivery of services, and assisting in the maintenance of law, order and security.
In their areas of jurisdiction, local government councils are mandated to perform a variety of state functions ranging from making development plans based on locally determined priorities, raising revenue, budgeting (on condition that all of their budgets are balanced), and appointing statutory commissions, boards and committees for personnel (District Service Commission), land (District Land Boards), procurement (District and Urban Tender Boards) and accountability (Local Government Public Account Committees), to establish or abolish offices in the public service of the district, as well as to hire and manage personnel in addition to managing their own payroll and pension. Local governments are also vested with powers to provide such services as education (except tertiary education), health services (except referral hospitals), the construction of roads (except those under the central government), and ambulance services.
While the central government retains jurisdiction with respect to such areas as security - defence, law and order, mines, minerals, water resources, banks, citizenship, national parks, foreign relations, national elections and national plans - it also oversees the performance of local governments through the office of the Resident District Commissioner (RDC). Under section 71 of the Local Government Act, the RDC is mandated to represent the President and the Government in the district, coordinate the administration of government services in the district, advise the district chairperson on matters of national interest, monitor and inspect the activities of local government, sensitise the populace on government policies, draw the attention of the Auditor General to the need for special investigations where necessary, and advise the district chairperson to instruct the district internal auditor to carry out a special audit and submit the report to council. The RDC is also mandated to draw the attention of the Inspector General of government to a need to investigate any cases of mismanagement or the abuse of office, just as he could draw the attention of any relevant line ministry to the divergence from or noncompliance with the Government policy by any council in his jurisdiction.
The Local Government Act also provides for the office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), who is appointed by the public service commission and serves as the head of the public service in the district, the head of the administration of the district council and also as the accounting officer of the district. The CAO is thus responsible for the implementation of all lawful decisions by the council; giving guidance to the local government councils and their departments; and supervising, monitoring and coordinating the activities of the district and lower council employees; and he acts as the liaison officer between the district and the Government. Both the office of the RDC and the CAO are represented at all lower levels of government.
Financially, local governments are entitled to levy, charge and collect local taxes and fees as locally generated revenue. But they also receive grants of different kinds from the central government to supplement their meager revenue collections not only for local programmes but also for the purpose of enabling them to implement government plans at the local level. The different grants given to local government include conditional22, unconditional23and equalisation grants.24
All in all, therefore, Uganda's framework of local government entails three different forms of devolution of power, namely: 1) political decentralisation (as evidenced by the election of council members), 2) administrative decentralisation (as evidenced by the appointment of local administration personnel by council), and 3) fiscal decentralisation (as evidenced by the powers granted to local councils to raise local revenue and receive funds from the central government for the implementation of agreed-upon national programmes).
4 The performance of the decentralised system in Uganda
It is now over two decades since Uganda adopted decentralisation, a system of government considered as a pathway to improving governance in terms of democratisation and service delivery. Yet, as earlier noted, Uganda's level of accountability for public resources and service delivery remains deplorable. This rather ironic situation naturally raises questions about the performance of decentralisation in the country. According to Ndegwa's stocktaking analysis of Uganda's performance in the different aspects of decentralisation, the country appears to be in the best category on the continent. On political decentralisation, the main indicators of which include the number of elected sub-national tiers, the existence of direct elections for local governments, and the turn-out and fairness of such elections, Uganda scores above 3 on a scale of 4.25
Quite similarly, the country also scored quite an impressive 3 on a scale of 4 in terms of its administrative decentralisation, the indicators of which include the role of local administrative staff in the formulation of the development agenda and the delivery of services, the existence of a clear legal framework demarcating the roles of local and central government, and the institutionalisation of the principle of subsidiarity, where actual service delivery is delegated to and performed by localities and civil servants responsible to local authorities.26Uganda also performed quite well in terms of its fiscal decentralisation, which was assessed on the basis of the amount of the fiscal transfers made from the central government to the localities as well as the proportion of public expenditure controlled by the localities. Uganda emerge the third out of the 30 countries analysed in the study with a 3.5 on a scale of 5 in this category.
If these findings are indeed anything to go by, how then does one account for the rather obvious state of decay of local administration, the poor service delivery, and wholesale plunder of public resources that continues to dog the country? It is indeed ironic, and quite baffling, that a country that seems to have even exceeded its expectations in the decentralisation process should also be among the worst performing in terms of accountability and service delivery in its governance system.
While it is certainly difficult to make a claim to having a perfect explanation for the current rather contradictory situation obtaining in the country, a look into the historical background to the adoption of decentralisation could possibly offer some insight. As earlier noted, and quite unlike the experience in other countries where the adoption of decentralisation has been externally driven27, Uganda's adoption of a system of devolution of power was partly and largely necessitated by considerations of political expediency. The days when security was a major concern for the NRM regime are long gone. Concerns about resources, be they fiscal or human, may still apply but they no longer pose a threat to the government. The effect of this has been the reversal of the commitment to the system of local government by the central government, which now appears to espouse a desire to run the government more from the centre than through local governments, many of which are now proving problematic in the new multiparty political dispensation.
The introduction of multiparty politics in Uganda in the early 2000s engendered a new threat to the NRM government. Unlike the prior "enemy," who could be effectively checked through the Resistance council system, the multiparty system created a different type of "enemy" that could no longer be effectively combated/checked through a system of local council networks. With time, the new "enemy" in the form of the opposition has spread out and taken root in most of the districts, a fact that has shaken the trust once enjoyed between districts (when their councils were predominantly NRMS supporters) and the NRM government at the centre. In fact the discomfort between the NRM government and the local government system started to manifest itself in the early 1990s when opposition groups started to agitate for the restoration of multiparty politics. As Oloka-Onyango aptly notes:28
The claim that RCs were a system of "popular" selection based on the "individual merit" of the candidates who stood for office was severely undermined by the fact that the state (which was controlled by the NRM) intervened heavily in support of some candidates, while it actively decampaigned, intimidated and blackmailed others. The peak of hypocrisy was reached when President Museveni declared "We have won!" following the 1993 elections for the Constituent Assembly which were originally supposed to be run on an "no party" basis. Who was the "we" in such a situation?
With the restoration of multiparty politics and the steadily waning popularity of the NRM government amidst the rising popularity of the opposition, whose members dominate local councils in some districts, the NRM now finds itself at war for its own survival with the very system it created to bolster its political hegemony. With council members from different political parties comprising the local government councils at all levels, the NRM government finds itself in an unusual position where it can no longer effectively ensure control over local politics. In effect, the councils no longer enjoy the trust they once wielded from government, and as a result it is hardly surprising that the forces of recentralisation have intensified over time. As the central government strives to ensure stricter control over the affairs of local governments, especially through fiscal and political interference, the concept of decentralisation is steadily losing meaning and giving way to the reconcentration of power in the central government.
Closely related to the loss of trust is the politicisation of the decentralisation process, which is another factor that could explain Uganda's rather paradoxical situation. The original purpose for the creation of resistance (local) councils having been rendered obsolete, the NRM government has skillfully but successfully been able to use the decentralised system for quite another purpose which has only served to weaken local governance further. Under the Constitution, new districts could be created on the basis of the necessity for effective administration and the need to bring services closer to people. Other considerations that ought to be taken into account in the creation of new districts include the means of communication, geographical features, the density of the population, economic viability, and the wishes of the people concerned. Evidently, all of the grounds required for the creation of new districts lack specificity and can quite easily be exploited, as indeed has been the case. The NRM government has tended to use the creation of districts both as a reward for its supporters and as a condition for support in areas where it has historically not enjoyed popular support. This politicisation of the decentralisation process has greatly undermined its performance. From only 38 districts in 1986 when NRM rose to power, Uganda now boasts over 100 districts. As Oloka-Onyango rightly observes:29
... the strategy of district proliferation has ... been adopted by President Museveni as a means of dispensing patronage, and ultimately of splintering challenges to central government hegemony and control.
By using the creation of districts as a reward for political support, the government has been steadily increasing its expenditure portfolio without necessarily balancing it with increased GDP, which has naturally affected the local governments' ability to improve on service delivery due to their limited funding. The local government system envisages a financial partnership with the central government in the sense that while the central government remains duty bound to fund national programmes through the local government, the local government too was expected to raise local revenue for the purpose of funding its budget. With limited funding and no reliable source of local revenue, the local governments have been reduced to mere agents of the centre. It is important to note that the government has been notorious in undermining the fiscal autonomy of local governments. For instance, originally the major source of revenue for local governments was graduated tax, which, for clearly political reasons, was abolished just before the 2006 elections. This created increased dependence of local governments on the central government, with the obvious effect of undermining the local governments' capacity to plan and perform effectively. As Steiner observes:30
... the principal problem with regard to local finance is that collection of local taxes and fees is extremely low... Reasons for this are manifold and include the politicisation of local taxes ...
She adds:31
... the problem of low tax collection is far from being resolved. Instead of improving local governments' capacity to collect taxes and fees, the central government recently abolished graduated personal tax ...
The lack of awareness of the masses and the incompetence of the local administrative staff and local politicians are yet other factors that have continued to undermine the performance of the local government system in Uganda. The claim that decentralisation promotes people's participation in the way they are governed is premised on the assumption that people understand their roles in the decentralised programme. One of the challenges evident in Uganda's decentralised programme is, however, that the government appears to operate under the illusion that people know their roles in the decentralised system, an assumption which is absurdly wrong, especially in a country where the illiteracy level is still quite high. Under the said illusion, districts have been created all over the country without conducting civic education to empower the masses for the purpose of meaningfully getting involved in local administration. The effect of this rather sporadic, radical approach to decentralisation, which entails a total shift in the manner in which governance is conducted,32has led to a clear lack of consistency and compliance with the requirements under the decentralisation legal framework. As Steiner observes, "people have not fully understood what decentralisation is about and what their rights and duties are."33The lack of awareness among the masses has rendered the notion of decentralisation more of a myth than a reality since the envisaged people's participation in their governance remains too sketchy and almost meaningless. This is moreover compounded by the general lack of competent staff in local government: "both politicians and civil servants are often inadequately trained..."34
Perhaps the most revealing effect of the lack of awareness of the masses and the incompetence of local government staff is found in the planning process. Under the local government legal framework,35
... the planning cycle provides for a consecutive elaboration of plans starting at the lowest level so that the plan of each level can be integrated into the plan of the next higher level.
But this is rarely complied with. In a study conducted in Tororo district, it was found in the three sub-counties that were visited that none had submitted "their plan to the district even though the new fiscal year had already started."36The ignorance and incompetence of the people and the local government staff are some of the reasons for the failure of compliance with the principles and procedures of decentralised governance:37
Ignorance of procedures among the officials in charge can represent the source of the problem... Many officials simply do not understand the rules of the game, and nobody at the local level is informed about what is going on, who has which plans, and whether plans have been written at all.
Government inefficiency has combined with the old problem of corruption to exacerbate matters. I have been told by many people who work in local government that government usually delays sending grants to local governments. By the time the money is received, the time for some of the planned activities would have passed. In such situations, the local governments have to choose between fabricating records to justify the expenditure of the money or sending the unutilised funds back to central government. While the latter would seem the right option to take, the reality is different: sending money back to the central government is usually construed as a failure on the part of the affected local government and could easily adversely affect future funding. The effect of this government inefficiency has not only been the undermining of service delivery by local governments but also the promotion of corruption.
5 Conclusion
The ironic outcome of Uganda's policy of decentralisation speaks to the challenges faced generally in the developing world. Decentralisation as a concept is not just about form, in the sense of developing a good legal and institutional framework, as has taken place in Uganda; it is also about content and process. The contradictions that characterise the Ugandan system of decentralisation are explained by factors that require effective mechanisms to address them. The challenges that continue to inhibit the performance of Uganda's decentralised system of governance are peculiar to Uganda's political history and facing up to them will certainly require a change of heart among the government leadership at the very least, or a change of regime. A true commitment to democratic values, where the leadership believes in the genuine empowerment of the masses, is critical to the effective performance of Uganda's decentralised system.
Francis P and James R "Balancing Rural Poverty Reduction and Citizen Participation: The Contradictions of Uganda's Decentralisation Program"2003World Development325-337 [ Links ]
Mitchinson R "Devolution in Uganda: An Experiment in Local Service Delivery" 2003Public Administration andDevelopment241-248 [ Links ]
Ndegwa SN Decentralization in Africa: A Stocktaking Survey(World Bank Washington DC 2002) [ Links ]
Oloka-Onyango J Decentralisation Without Human Rights? Local Governance and Access to Justice in Post-Movement Uganda(Huripec Kampala 2007) [ Links ]
Steiner S Decentralisation in Uganda: Exploring the Constraints for Poverty Reduction(GIGA Hamburg2006) [ Links ]
TumushabeGW et al Monitoring and Assessing the Performance of Local Government Councils in Uganda: Background, Methodology and Score Card(ACODE Kampala 2010) [ Links ]
Register of legislation
African Native Authority Ordinanceof 1919
Kampala Capital City Authority Actof 2010
Local Government Actof 1997
Uganda Constitutionof 1995
Register of internet sources
Mugabi 2004unpan1.un.org
Mugabi E2004Uganda's Decentralisation Policy, Legal Framework, Local Government Structure and Service Delivery unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN029080.pdf (date of use 12Jan 2011)
List of abbreviations
1 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 1.
2 Francis and James 2003 World Development 325 (also cited in Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 1).
3 Mitchinson 2003 Public Administration and Development 241 (also cited in Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 1).
4 Tumushabe et al Monitoring and Assessing the Performance vi.
5 Oloka-Onyango Decentralisation Without Human Rights? 6.
6 Ndegwa Decentralization in Africa.
7 According to the 2011 corruption perception report produced by a global graft watchdog, Transparency International, Uganda is ranked number 143 of the 183 countries considered. For a more detailed analysis of the poor service delivery system in Uganda's decentralisation system, see Tumushabe et al Monitoring and Assessing the Performance vi and Oloka-Onyango Decentralisation Without Human Rights? 6.
8 Museveni (the president of Uganda from 1986 to date) fought a guerilla war that brought him to power under a system of government known as the National Resistance Movement (NRM), commonly referred to as the Movement Government, which formed the first government under his leadership until 2001, when the country adopted a multiparty system of government. The name Movement was then adopted as the name of his political party, which continues to dominate Uganda's politics.
9 Entebbe, Government Priner 1919.
10 The African Local Government Ordinance and District Council Proclamations and Regulations, 1949; Entebbe, Government Printer, 1949.
11 Tumushabe et al Monitoring and Assessing the Performance vi and Oloka-Onyango Decentralisation Without Human Rights? 6.
12 Oloka-Onyango Decentralisation Without Human Rights? 4-9.
13 Deconcentration "involves the transfer of some powers and responsibilities to lower administrative units operated by officials appointed by the central authority, who implement defined functions under tight control." See Oloka-Onyango Decentralisation Without Human Rights? 6-7.
14 The structure of the current system of local government is discussed later in the paper.
15 Mugabi 2004 unpan1.un.org 1-2.
16 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 9.
17 Mugabi 2004 unpan1.un.org 1-2.
18 Section 3 Local Government Act of 1997 (LGA).
19 Kampala, as the capital city, is governed under a special legislation, Kampala Capital City Authority Act of 2010 (KCCA). Though the City Council is the highest authority under KCCA, the executive functions are discharged by the Chief Executive Officer, who is appointed by the central government, while the Lord Mayor is the chief political officer and is elected, just like his counterparts in other districts, the LC5.
20 Section 3(2) LGA.
21 Section 3(4) LGA.
22 Article 193(3) Uganda Constitution of 1995 defines conditional grants as consisting of monies given to local governments to finance programmes agreed upon between the government and the local governments, which monies are expended only for the purposes for which the grant was made and in accordance with the conditions agreed upon.
23 Article 193(2) Uganda Constitution of 1995 defines the unconditional grant as the minimum grant that shall be paid to local government to run decentralised services.
24 Article 193(4) Uganda Constitution of 1995 defines the equalisation grant as the money to be paid to local government for giving subsidies or making special provisions for the least developed districts, and provides that it shall be based on the degree to which the local government unit is lagging behind the national average standard for a particular service.
25 Ndegwa Decentralization in Africa 3.
26 Ndegwa Decentralization in Africa 4.
27 Steiner acknowledges this fact when she notes: "... Uganda is different from many other countries where decentralisation was motivated by a fiscal crisis of the central government or by external conditionality." (Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 9).
28 Oloka-Onyango Decentralisation Without Human Rights? 10-11.
29 Oloka-Onyango (n 28 above) 6.
30 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 12.
31 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 12.
32 Decentralisation entails a drastic shift in the nature of governance in the sense that it marks a shift from the government's deciding what is best for the people to the people's telling government what is best for them. See Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 16.
33 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 16.
34 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 13.
35 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 15.
36 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 15.
37 Steiner Decentralisation in Uganda 15. Other reasons for the poor compliance with local government procedures include mistrust of the capacity of lower-level local government levels and hence disrespect for their identified priorities; delays in the submission of their plans, and logistical constraints.


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Steve Teixeira is the Product Unit Manager for Parallel Developer Tools at Microsoft.
Parallel computing is not a new problem. For well over 40 years, academia, government, and industry have relied on parallel computing to solve the day's most computation- and data-intensive problems. At the same time, software developers have been struggling to harness this computing power while managing the complexity inherent in writing parallel programs. Despite this, the task of making parallel development easy is by no means a solved problem. Skeptics may ask, "why is so much energy being expended today to mitigate such an old and well-trodden problem?"
While parallel machines of yesteryear may have been constructed of enchanted metals and powered by unicorn tears, today's parallel machines are as common -- and nearly as inexpensive -- as hamburgers. Blame science for the commoditization of parallel computing hardware. The physics of modern CPU architectures is such that heat generation and power consumption become increasingly untenable problems as clock frequencies rise. As clock frequencies and sequential execution performance have reached a near-plateau, CPU manufacturers are increasing core counts to ensure the computational throughput of CPUs continues to increase at a steady clip. But, ay, there's the rub: Software developers must enthusiastically embrace parallelism in order to realize the performance benefits that modern, multicore hardware has to offer.
In other words, parallel hardware has gone mainstream and so, too, must developer tools. To this end, Visual Studio 2010 contains a raft of new innovations in the parallel computing space intended to enable developers to cope with the complexities of writing, retrofitting, and diagnosing parallel applications. These technologies occupy several levels in the programming tools stack, from core execution platform to programming models and libraries to debugging and profiling tools.
Task-based Parallelism
Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 introduce task-based parallel programming models for both native- and managed-code developers. While the Win32 and .NET thread-based programming models have served us well for many years, threads require developers to think in terms of execution flow, to essentially adapt their code to fit the execution models of the underlying OS and hardware. Tasks, on the other hand, let developers think in terms of the logical chunks of work within their program, which tends to more closely approximate how we naturally think about our programs already. Learning to effectively use the task-based programming models is often less about learning a new kind of abstraction and more about unlearning old, less effective patterns.
The managed parallel programming model library in Visual Studio 2010 is referred as the Task Parallel Library (TPL), and the Visual C++ library is called the Parallel Pattern Library (PPL). From a conceptual standpoint, TPL and PPL are more alike than different, so I describe them together, calling out differences where appropriate.
Tasks are abstracted by .NET's Task class in TPL and by the task_handle class in PPL. Creating a new task to perform some operation in parallel in C# looks something like this:
Task t = new Task(() => DoWork()); t.Start();
or, equivalently:
Task t1 = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => DoWork() );
Note the use of the lambda expression to express the parallel work to be done, which helps make the Task-based programming models feel like an integrated part of the language. The C++ analog to the above concept would look something like this:
task_group tg; tg.run([&]{DoWork();});
Here, too, lambda expressions are employed to express the parallel work. Visual C++'s lambda syntax is modeled after the proposed syntax for the upcoming C++0x language standard.
One difference between native and managed code revealed by the above examples is the task_group class used in PPL. task_group is a sort of container class to manage one or more logically related task_handle instances, enabling the tasks to be dealt with as a group. TPL, on the other hand, does not have this level of abstraction, and favors static methods of the Task and TaskFactory classes for managing tasks.
In each of the above cases, the parallel work to be executed is the contents of the DoWork() function. A slightly more real-world use of this pattern is to implement a quick sort routine using divide-and-conquer parallelism instead of the typical single stack recursion method:
void quicksort(int * a, int n) { if (n <= 1) return; int s = partition(a,n); task_group tg; tg.run([&]{quicksort(a,s);}); tg.run([&]{quicksort(a+s,n-s);}); tg.wait(); }
The call to task_group::wait() method in the above example waits for the tasks in the group to complete, joining them with the caller. Tasks have several advantages over thread-centric programming models, including the ability to wait for completion of a task, cancel tasks in-flight, and leverage the benefits of exception handling in parallel code. TPL further has the ability to compose multiple tasks together using continuations and to establish parent-child relationships between tasks.
TPL's continuations are a particularly powerful concept, enabling tasks to be wired together such that one task can begin as soon as another finishes. The following code sample shows how one task can be launched to do some parallel work with another task automatically launched after its completion:
Task tsk = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => {DoWork();}).ContinueWith((t) => MoreWork()));
If you're in the market for a simpler abstraction, it's also possible to fork off parallel work without dealing directly with tasks. Pass a few lambda functions to the Parallel.Invoke() method in TPL or the parallel_invoke() function in PPL, and you have the ability to "fire and forget" parallel work items:
Parallel.Invoke(() => DoWork1(), () => DoWork2()); // C# parallel_invoke([](){DoWork1();}, [](){DoWork2();}); // C++
Parallel loop constructs represent an even simpler way to enjoy the benefits of parallelism. The pattern is simply to replace a for or foreach loop with a parallel version of the same. The parallel versions will divide loop iterations into tasks and execute them as with any other TPL or PPL parallel tasks, as in the C# code below:
// sequential for (int i = 0; i < max; i++) DoSomething(); // parallel Parallel.For(0, max, (i) => { DoSomething();});
Table 1 provides an overview of how various parallel programming concepts are modeled in TPL and PPL.

subset: commoncrawl


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MIAMI— The LA Galaxy bolstered their goalkeeping depth on Monday with the signing of Panamanian goalkeeper Jaime Penedo, but where he fits into the squad still remains to be seen.
Penedo will be available for Wednesday's Guinness International Championship Cup match against AC Milan at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, but will be added to the LA's roster pending the receipt of his P1 Visa and International Transfer Certificate. The 31-year-old goalkeeper spent the last six years of his career with CSD Municipal in Guatemala while becoming firmly entrenched as the starter for the Panamanian National Team.
Fresh off a successful run at the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup that saw him lead Panama to the tournament final while winning the Golden Gloves award for the competition's top 'keeper, Penedo is eager to get to work with LA.
"I'm very happy in all honesty. It's a privilege to be part of such a great club in MLS. I hope to succeed at this level," Penedo told reporters following the club's training session at Florida International University that he turned down offers in Mexico and Europe to join LA. "I expect good things. I'm a big fan of hard work and doing things the right way. I hope to integrate myself well into the team."
Penedo becomes the Galaxy's fourth goalkeeper on the roster and will look to battle Carlo Cudicini and Brian Rowe for minutes in net as Brian Perk is still recovering from a concussion suffered in a reserve match against the Portland Timbers on July 14.
Cudicini has started 20 of LA's 22 MLS regular season games this year with Rowe earning the nod in the other two matches. However, the Italian has dealt with a back issue over the past two weeks that has caused him to miss both of LA's ICC matches.
Earning the start from day one will be no lock for Penedo, but he's excited about the chance to carve out a role with the Galaxy.
"I always think that competition is good. When someone doesn't have to compete for anything, they tend to relax too much," said Penedo. "I think that I can learn from the other guys like Cudicini as well. I always go with the attitude of wanting to learn, but always staying true to myself."
Just who gets the start for LA in net will ultimately be the decision of head coach Bruce Arena, who admits that he has kept tabs on Penedo for some time.
"He's a good goalkeeper," said Arena. "I followed him for years for Panama. He's got a lot of experience; he probably has between 85 and 90 international caps. We think that he'll help strengthen the goal position for us."
Not only will he have to earn his way onto the field for LA, but Penedo must deal with a language barrier as just two of the Galaxy's defenders [Omar Gonzalez and Leonardo] are Spanish-speakers. Just one training session into his Galaxy career, Penedo has already had to deal with the language issue, but he is optimistic that he can adapt quickly.
"Today in training, I was speaking and they didn't understand me. I learned a few words in English and I think the idea is to not be ashamed to express myself as far as things that are concise," he said. "I'm sure that we will understand one another."
As he looks to settle into a new club in a new country and deal with a new language, Penedo is upbeat about his future.
"I don't have a single complaint of anything," said Penedo. "It's been spectacular. I feel very comfortable, I feel good, and I'm happy."
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog at LAGalaxy.com/Insider and contact him at email@example.com


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Footbag Overview
From Footbag Reference
Footbag is a growing sport, originating in North America, though the sport is now played all over the world. Frequently referred to as "Hacky Sack®" (a product manufactured by Wham-O, Inc.), footbag has existed as a competitive sport in several forms since 1972. There are a substantial number of footbag tournaments and festivals each year.
Competitive footbag is governed by the International Footbag Committee (IFC), which publishes the official Rules of Footbag Sports.
The most popular competitive footbag sports are Footbag Net and Freestyle.
Footbag Net
Footbag Net is a singles or doubles court game, like tennis or volleyball, where players use only their feet to kick the footbag over a five-foot-high net. The rules for doubles net are a lot like volleyball: players are allowed three kicks per side, and must alternate kicks. In singles, however, players are only allowed two kicks per side.
The footbag (which is usually a 32-panel vinyl and/or leather ball) may not contact a player's body except below the knee.
Footbag Net combines the court strategy of tennis with the set-and-spike strategy of volleyball. Players frequently spike the footbag over the net, using either the sole of the foot, a sweeping inside kick, or an outside push. Even more remarkable than the spikes are the "digs" players use to defend against the spikes. Players also block spikes in the air with amazing foot-to-foot battles over the net.
The playing court is 20' x 44', divided into 4 equal serving quadrants, similar to a badminton court. Serves are cross-court, similar to tennis. Scoring is similar to volleyball; you must be serving to score. Some competitions use a pool format, where the competitors are divided into pools of four or five teams. Each pool plays "round-robin", with the top two teams from each pool advancing to a single-elimination play-off. Games can be played to 11 or 15 points, where players must win by 2 points. Matches are usually best 2 out of 3. Most competitions use a double-elimination format, where players advance through the winner's or loser's bracket to quarter- and semi-finals before the final match.
Footbag Freestyle
Footbag Freestyle is the artistic form of the sport. It can be a flurry of difficult moves the eye can hardly follow, or it can be smooth and flowing, as if in slow motion. This variety makes freestyle competitions very difficult to judge. To simplify the task, competitors are judged along four dimensions: choreography, difficulty, variety, and execution.
Players choreograph routines to music, and are judged on how well their style of play matches their choice of music. They are also judged on their originality and creativity.
Each move or trick has a determinable difficulty rating. The average difficulty of each move and the total difficulty of all the moves in the routine are added to determine a player's difficulty rating. Difficulty is measured in "adds", which represent additional levels of difficulty beyond the basic moves. (A toe delay is one "add.")
For variety, players must perform moves that contain elements from five general categories: (1) leg dexterity (circling the bag with the foot), (2) delays (catching the footbag), (3) spins, fliers, and blind moves, (4) unusual surfaces (i.e., sole, shin, or head), and (5) cross-body moves (made by crossing the foot to the other side of the body).
Execution is judged by smoothness, confidence, and, most of all, the ability of the player to keep the footbag off the ground.


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Mr Dunday I posted the answer to this on the other thread sorry. So I've just copied it over. For the research on origins of life - go look for yourself. There is too much for anyone here to go through it all with you. But it is incredibly easy to find yet you don't seem to have bothered. Anyway here was my original answer to your points.Start with why you think life could just happen as the scientists say. I say it was creation.A cell needs to be complete to function, and the scientists say there was no 'evolution' in the origins of life.
Cathy wrote:Mr Dunday you are looking at this the wrong way, in a way that does show a lack of understanding of science.
On several ocassions you were asked to define what you meant by life. When you were saying life comes from life and the same question is pertinent now you are talking about the cell.
The reason you were asked to define life is that life has many different features. For example reproduction, excretion some kind of metabolism. Children here learn that very early on in a simplified from using the mneumonic MRS GREN to help them. Obviously learning a more sophisticated version later on should they consider taking biology further.
Now no scientist thinks living cells just appeared. Because that would be highly improbable. What they look at is the many features that make up the simplest living things and look to see which are most likely to have appeared first (current research is most interested in metabolism or SIMPLE replication - not of cells). Some scientists look at that. Now in this search for the first features of early life, there are many interesting hypothesis.
They are not 'designing' life in that research as you've suggested earlier when trying unsuccessfully to defend the religious view that is ID. They are trying instead to repllicate the early conditions of life and the chemicals that would be present. I suggest you read some of that research.
Others scientists look at how a new feature could have arisen once some features are in place or how very simple things could have evolved - adding to the features that would eventually lead to life. Others look at how single cells could become groups of cells or how smaller simpler cells could join together to form more complex eukaryotic cells via something called endosymbiosis. I'm trying to simplify this as much as possible for you cos if you've been on creationist sites your understanding of biology will have been warped and mangled.
Do you understand the point I'm trying to make? For all stages to happen simultaneously to give a cell is unlikely. But each step is far more likely and did happen as we do have life. It is a slow building bit by bit process not a magic wand shove it all together and there you go one. It does not preclude a God, merely makes him clever enough to understand chemistry. Though creationists on the websites you frequent do preclude a God by making him dependent on their simplistic understanding of the world and too stupid to understand chemistry.
And not knowing is not an issue. 200 years ago we didn't know how the blood circulated or what the pancreas did. That wasn't a reason to stop looking and say blood must towed around by magic fairies. We kept looking till we found it. And 300 years ago we didn't even know the cell existed let alone what it did. That doesn't mean it didn't.
Not knowing is what science thrives on. That is science. If creationists had been around 300 years ago they'd have been saying 'cells - impossible and cos you don't know they exist yet thats a real problem for evolution'. That is the argument you are using now. Sounds stupid doesn't it.
Secondly your Harley example is not very good. Firstly cos machines are very different to living things. However leaving that aside, I understand the analogy you are trying to make. But it doesn't work I'm afraid.
For it to work as you want it to ie to support the notion that only a designer can come up with something complex like life, someone at the very start of human innovation, hundreds of thousands of years ago should have designed and built the Harley or something equally technically complex from scratch without calling on prior technologies, science and inventions. That did not happen.
The Harley is the culmination of years of innovation, invention, scientific discovery, earlier models and so on. The Harley in its current form couldn't be built till someone had developed ways of extracting and working metals, refining and improving them. That process has been 'evolving' for thousands of years.
It couldn't be built till someone had understood how to use power to turn wheels and then developed that power from steam to petrol - again over hundreds of years. The steam engine is just someone co opting a kettle to turn wheels rather than make tea after all.
In short the Harley is something that slowly evolved over time from tiny improvements to simpler things like carts and from using simpler pieces of knowledge like steam to petrol that gradually came together stretching back to the wheel. The Harley is just an improvement or change or adaptation (or not) on something, which was in itself an improvement. A little bit like the bacterial flagellum which can be traced back to a simple pore or blood clotting or a myriad other things that desperate IDers lie about.
Now sorry if this has sounded over simplistic and patronising, but spending any time at all on creationist sites (and your arguments are straight from them Mr Dunday - including the Harley one) does rot critical faculties so I've gone back to very, very basic
Not really if you're looking for origins of life - it doesn't have to be as it is now! That is an argument ripped straight from the ID websites and is stupid.I say it was creation.A cell needs to be complete to function, and the scientists say there was no 'evolution' in the origins of life. Then there is a problem because, RNA is required to make proteins, yet proteins are involved in the production of RNA. This is a catch 22 situation.


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Time to Tweet? Then You Have Time to Eat!
Photo courtesy of Devin Alexander
In-a-Pinch Pizza
BBQ Chicken Pizza under 500 calories: Wheat lavash bread, BBQ sauce, grilled chicken, red onion, goat cheese, cilantro.
— Devin Alexander, The Biggest Loser chef and New York Times bestselling author (@chefdevin)
*Some recipes edited longer than a 140-character tweet for clarity.
Photo courtesy of Cynthia Sass
Really Fast Rice Bowl
Top spinach with brown rice, oven-roasted mushrooms, onion, tomatoes, white beans seasoned with olive oil and herbs. Drizzle with balsamic.
— Cynthia Sass, MPH, MA, RD, author of S.A.S.S.! Yourself Slim (@cynthiasass)
Photo courtesy of Amie Valpone
Pasta Pronto
1 cup whole grain pasta, 2 tablespoons flax oil, 1 can white beans, 1 chopped red bell pepper, 1 chopped zucchini, 1/4 cup corn, 1/2 cup arugula, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper.
— Amie Valpone, editor-in-chief of TheHealthyApple.com (@TheHealthyApple)
Photo courtesy of Bob Harper
Speedy Spa Lunch
Oven at 450°F. Toss 1 cut zucchini, 5 asparagus, and 4 ounces cubed chicken breast with 1 tablespoon balsamic, 1 teaspoon olive oil, pinch red pepper. Roast 25 minutes.
— Bob Harper, fitness expert (@mytrainerbob)
Photo courtesy of Kajal Desai
Indian in a Hurry
Chop greens, red onion, orange and green bell peppers. Mix sprouted, steamed mung beans. Sprinkle salt, pepper, lemon, cumin.
— Kajal Desai, fitness expert and founder of Doonya, The Bollywood Workout (@Doonya)
Fusion Tacos in a Flash
Hungry Girl Greek Chicken Tacos: 2 hard tacos stuffed with Tyson Grilled & Ready Chicken, feta, lettuce, roasted red peppers, onion, olives.
— Lisa Lillien, creator of the Hungry Girl brand (@HungryGirl)
Photo courtesy of Michelle Dudash
Expedited Egg Salad
Hard-boiled egg, diced avocado, diced red bell pepper, olive oil, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper. Serve with toast or crackers.
— Michelle Dudash, RD, registered dietitian and chef, author of Clean Eating for Busy Families (@michelledudash)
Chop Chop Chocolate Pudding
Blend 1 avocado, 2 teaspoons chia seeds, 2 teaspoons almond milk, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, 2 teaspoons agave, 1 teaspoon raw cacao. Top with strawberries.
— Alexis Wolfer, beauty expert and founder of The Beauty Bean (@alexiswolfer, @thebeautybean)
Originally published on FitnessMagazine.com, June 2013.


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As much as this pains me to say, the Mets looked powerless against the Yankees in Round 3 of the Subway Series. We simply had no answer... 15-0.
Ace Johan Santana, without a doubt, ptiched his worst game of the season. Allowing NINE runs in his start in just four innings. Santana had an off day, it happens. However, this performance might of cost him his third Cy-Young Award...
Yankees had their bat today, their FIFTEEN RUNS had to show for it. They also had a couple more homeruns to add to the new Yankee Stadium.
Mets' offense on the other hand forgot theirs, leaving a big zero on the scoreboard.
Yankees won this series convincingly with this lopsided victory. Congratulations Yanks, you beat a torn-down team with players up and down the roster hurt. Claps sarcastically*
No worries, once these two weeks come around, Mets will be waiting for revenge at CitiField.


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After the Second World War, Frankfurt Opera required new premises so it took up residence in the Schauspielhaus, the playhouse on Theaterplatz square. In 1960 the theatre company moved out into the next door building and in 1962 the two were linked by a glass frontage. The opera house and the theatre share the same foyer, which is adorned by a painting by Marc Chagall. Frankfurt Opera is one of the leading opera houses in Europe.
The Richard Wagner Festival Theatre in Bayreuth is one of Germany's most famous opera houses. Only 30 performances are staged here each year, during the Wagner Festival in high summer. The festival theatre stands on the Green Hill and opened in 1876. In keeping with Richard Wagner's ideas, its architecture combines classical Greek and medieval German elements.
Dresden's legendary Semper Opera House has not had an easy life – it was burnt down in 1869, destroyed by bombers in 1945 and badly damaged by floods in 2002. The building with its rich Renaissance stucco was designed originally by Gottfried Semper and took 40 years to reopen after the Second World War. Today it is home to the Dresden State Orchestra of Saxony.
As early as 1687 Hamburg had an opera house at Gänsemarkt that soon began staging works by Telemann and Handel. In 1827 the company transferred to the municipal theatre on Dammtorstrasse, which was designed by architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the neo-classical style. Paganini, Liszt, Wagner and Mahler all performed there before the theatre was renamed Hamburg State Opera in 1934. It is today one of Europe's leading opera houses.
The German Opera House in Berlin opened in 1912 and was destroyed in an air-raid in 1943. A more functional and modern building, which is still the city's biggest opera house, was christened Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1961. Audiences here love the great operas (by Wagner, Verdi, Puccini) but also premieres of works by Henze, Kagel and Rihm. The orchestra and chorus of Deutsche Oper Berlin are both highly renowned.
In 1818 Munich finally gained an 'opera house for all' in the form of the Royal and National Theatre at Max-Joseph-Platz. By 1825, however, Klenze's neo-classical structure had to be rebuilt because of a fire, this time with a pillared portico. Since 1875 it has been the venue for the Munich Opera Festival. The National Theatre is home to Bavaria's state orchestra, state opera and state ballet. At 2,500 square metres, this is the third-largest opera stage in the world.
The Gasteig arts and education centre has been a landmark above the river Isar in Munich since 1985. This red brick complex, which is freely accessible and attracts 6,000 visitors per day, is not only the Munich Philharmonic's home, it's also the central library and the adult education centre. There are three concert halls in addition to the main Philharmonie auditorium, as well as numerous lecture rooms and multi-purpose spaces.
In 1781 a Leipzig concert society moved into an old trading house of the city's textile merchants. It has been known ever since as the Gewandhaus Orchestra. The present-day Gewandhaus at Augustusplatz, the third building to bear this name, boasts Europe's biggest ceiling fresco. It was opened in 1981 after a campaign by conductor Kurt Masur and became a focal point for the peaceful demonstrations by Leipzig citizens in 1989.
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Mathematical Statistics Lesson of the Day – The Glivenko-Cantelli Theorem
September 8, 2014 2 Comments
In 2 earlier tutorials that focused on exploratory data analysis in statistics, I introduced
- the conceptual background behind empirical cumulative distribution functions (empirical CDFs)
- how to plot empirical cumulative distribution functions in 2 different ways in R
There is actually an elegant theorem that provides a rigorous basis for using empirical CDFs to estimate the true CDF – and this is true for any probability distribution. It is called the Glivenko-Cantelli theorem, and here is what it states:
Given a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables, ,
In other words, the empirical CDF of converges uniformly to the true CDF.
My mathematical statistics professor at the University of Toronto, Keith Knight, told my class that this is often referred to as "The First Theorem of Statistics" or the "The Fundamental Theorem of Statistics". I think that this is a rather subjective title – the central limit theorem is likely more useful and important – but Page 261 of John Taylor's An introduction to measure and probability (Springer, 1997) recognizes this attribution to the Glivenko-Cantelli theorem, too.


text: Recorded in 1962, Hub-Tones stands as one of the most significant artistic statements of Freddie Hubbard's formidable career, and also features one of Reid Miles' most iconic album cover designs. Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard teams up on record with James Spaulding (who doubles on alto and flute) for the first time on this excellent set, with the assistance of pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Clifford Jarvis. The quintet performs four of the trumpeter's originals (including "Lament for Booker" and the title cut) plus an advanced version of the standard "You're My Everything." John Coltrane's modal music was starting to influence Hubbard's conception and his own playing was pushing the modern mainstream ahead without really entering the avant-garde.


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|Phyllium (Phyllium) fallorum Cumming, 2017
A new species of leaf insect, Phyllium (Phyllium) fallorum n. sp. is described and illustrated. In addition a key to the current known species of Phyllium Illiger, 1798 from the Philippines is provided. This species is currently only known from the single unique holotype, which will be deposited in the San Diego Natural History Museum. Measurements of anatomical figures were made to the nearest 0.1 mm. Photos were taken using a Canon 5D Mark II and a MP-E 65mm macro lens and stacked using Zerene photo stacking software, version 1.04, 64-bit. Currently, ten species of Phyllium Illiger, 1798 have been described from the Philippines, with Phyllium (Phyllium) fallorum n. sp. the eleventh. Of the eleven known species from the Philippines, five are only known from female specimens.
Keywords: Orthoptera, Phasmida, Phylliidae
Phyllium (Phyllium) fallorum n. sp.
Holotype: ♀: Philippines, Mindanao, Davao Del Sur, Kapatagan X-2015 [Coll. RC 16-121].
Etymology: This new species is a patronym named to honor the Fall family of BioQuip Products, California, United States. BioQuip Products was born in 1947 when Richard Fall began manufacturing entomology drawers in the family's garage. Wife Louise Fall and sons, Ken and Chris, continue to run the family work today.
Royce T. Cumming. 2017. A New Species of Phyllium (Phyllium) Illiger, 1798 from Mindanao, Philippines (Phasmida, Phylliidae).
Zootaxa. 4303(2); 297–300. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4303.2.10


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Ariana Grande Rocks Rugrats on the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards Orange Carpet [PHOTOS]
Ariana Grande totally embraced the playful theme of the 2014 Kids Choice Awards. We love so, so many elements of her look. Let's break them all down.
First, her dress is amazing. Although it may look like just a well-tailored sheath dress, both the cut and the color are different for the singer. She normally sticks in the pastel hues and loves a flouncy skirt. This sleek silhouette is so fabulous and makes her look like the mature, classy star she is!
Next: the hair. Ariana is a major fan of big curls and voluminous waves, but her locks also look amazing when they are pin-straight. The simplicity of her hair complements the sophistication of the dress. LOVE.
However, the highlight of her ensemble is definitely the Nickelodeon-themed Chanel bag Ariana carried. Rugrats! Hey Arnold! Catdog! The purse is amazing and so perfect for the event. Drop the mic, Ariana. You got this.
Check out her full look below -- including a close-up of that incredible bag!


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About 100 jars of human brains went missing from The University of Texas at Austin years ago, and the school kicked off an investigation this week as to their whereabouts.
The brains were originally transferred from the Austin State Hospital and were collected from various autopsies dating back to the 1950s. The jars are each labeled with a date and a diagnosis.
The collection includes schizophrenics and one even belongs to Charles Whitman, the sniper who killed 16 people on campus in 1966.
A renewed interest in the mystery was sparked by the recent release of a new book called "Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital." After news of the the missing brains spread online, it was reported that the brains ended up at University of Texas in San Antonio, but this turned out to be incorrect, according to the New York Times.
Have you seen these brains?


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Mitigating memory corruption does not strike me as a particularly interesting use case for CSP. It is interesting to think about attackers injecting and styling fake login forms, however. On Tuesday, April 5, 2011, Devdatta Akhawe <email@example.com> wrote: > I don't have much experience of how browsers internally work, but > Daniel's reply made me think that there is some attack surface for all > `external loads,' which is why CSP default-denies all external loads, > including CSS style files. > > =devdatta > > On 5 April 2011 17:51, Adam Barth <email@example.com> wrote: >> Even if I buy that, it seems like the memory corruption attack surface >> from external style is almost exactly the same as with inline style. >> You'd need to block both to get that benefit. >> >> Adam >> >> >> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Devdatta Akhawe <email@example.com> wrote: >>> I think the external style file could be used for attacking the >>> browser with some sort of memory corruption. It has nothing to do with >>> XSS. >>> >>> Replace style with font in the above line and I think the possibility >>> becomes more acute. >>> >>> -devdatta >>> >>> On 5 April 2011 17:33, Adam Barth <email@example.com> wrote: >>>> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 5:07 PM, Daniel Veditz <firstname.lastname@example.com> wrote: >>>>> On 4/5/11 11:03 AM, Adam Barth wrote: >>>>>> Why doesn't style-src block inline style? What's the point of >>>>>> blocking external style sheets if the attacker can just open a <style> >>>>>> tag and add whatever styles he or she wants? >>>>> >>>>> currently style-src blocks external loads simply because they are >>>>> external loads (like 'font-src', which arguably could be merged with >>>>> style-src). In-line style isn't an XSS risk--in current browsers, >>>>> anyway--so we left that alone. Is messing with an element's style >>>>> much different from injecting other non-script HTML elements? >>>>> >>>>> The decision was somewhat arbitrary. What tipped it for me was that >>>>> XSS is such a scourge and our main target with CSP that I felt >>>>> justified in being a dictatorial jerk and blocking in-line script by >>>>> default; I couldn't quite argue that for style-src. >>>> >>>> I guess I don't understand the use case for blocking external style >>>> sheets but not inline style. Why would an author want to do that? >>>> >>>> Adam >>>> >>>> >>> >> > >Received on Wednesday, 6 April 2011 01:31:54 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Friday, 17 January 2020 18:09:26 UTC


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HONG KONG (Reuters) – The Chinese corporate bond market has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest and is set to soak up a third of global company debt needs over the next five years, according to rating agency Standard & Poor's, underscoring the growing risk China's debt market is imposing on the global financial system.
Chinese corporate borrowers owed $14.2 trillion at the end of 2013 versus $13.1 trillion owed by U.S. corporations with the switch in rankings taking place a year earlier than it had expected, S&P said on Monday.
The Asia-Pacific region, led by China, is seen accounting for half of global corporate debt financing needs of $60 trillion over the five-year period to 2018 when the region will account for more than half the projected total debt outstanding of $72 trillion.
China, the world's second-largest economy is currently financing a quarter to a third of its corporate debt through its shadow banking sector and this had global implications, S&P said.
"This means that as much as 10 percent of global corporate debt is exposed to the risk of a contraction in China's informal banking sector," the agency said, estimating this at $4 trillion to $5 trillion. "With China's economy likely to grow at a nominal 10 percent per year over the next five years, this amount can only increase."
Cash flows and leverage at Chinese corporations are the worst among global peers, having deteriorated from being the best in 2009, according to a corporate financial risk trend measure used by Standard & Poor's.
"China's property and steel sectors remain of particular concern," it said, adding that higher land bank and property inventory had led to the sluggish trend in property prices contributing to the decline in steel demand.
Growth in average new home prices in China slowed to a near one-year low in April, a month in which new home prices fell in eight of 70 cities, up from four cities in March.
S&P expects more defaults in the steel sector, with strains already manifesting in falling iron ore prices this year.
The benchmark iron ore price dropped to a 21-month low of $91.50 a metric ton late last week as a supply glut smothered a market faced with slower steel demand. The price has plunged a third so far this year.
"China's large and still-expanding contribution to global corporate debt, the higher financial risk is causing overall corporate risk to increase globally," the agency said.
"As the world's second-largest national economy, any significant reverse for China's corporate sector could quickly spread to other countries."
Reflecting growing investor jitters over credit risks, some Chinese companies in the stretched sectors have recently dropped plans to issue bonds in the onshore market as investors have demanded higher interest rates for the declining margins and refinancing risks.
Earlier this month, online gaming company Shenzhen Zqgame scrapped plans for a bond offering saying it would not help in reducing financing costs.
Bond yields on weaker credits have risen faster than those rated AAA. In the past year the Thomson Reuters onshore benchmark for AA-rated companies for onshore China debt has risen 120 basis points to 6.70 percent. The AAA-rated curve has moved up 80 basis points to 5.50 percent in the same period.
(Reporting by Umesh Desai; Editing by Matt Driskill)


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"In today's environment, a program manager is
rewarded if his program comes in on schedule and under
budget," Benedict said. "The old construct is: in order to
do that, the program manager can control everything if
he's going to be held accountable to deliver that.
"In OA initiative, where you have common software
and common components, [it] takes a little bit of trust
that the components that may be developed by someone else are going to be ready on time [and] within
budget," he said. "We need to ensure that program
managers recognize they're going to be rewarded for
moving toward this larger Navy initiative."
Benedict cautions that leadership needs to pay close
attention to managing development in a more demanding contracting environment
"Do we have the capability, the capacity and the
competency within the government to manage that increased involvement?" he said. "I think we do, but we
have to be careful not to swing that pendulum too far
and become too prescriptive from the government. I
think what we want out of industry is innovation and
technical solutions."
Program managers face the decisions of making the
business case of which systems — particularly legacy
systems — to include in an OA. Some systems will be
phased out before they can be included. Others will
not provide a sufficient increase in warfighting benefit
to warrant investment in modification to fit in OA,
Oliver said.
One of the obstacles to implementing OA in the
Navy is an aging civilian work force and shortage of
systems engineers and contract specialists, problems
the Navy has recognized and is shifting resources to
address. Benedict is drawing on the competencies and
talent that reside in the Naval Surface Warfare Center
and other field activities.
"We lost a lot of contract specialists," Oliver said.
"Instead of issuing a few large contracts, we're [now]
asking them to issue many smaller contracts. You have
to have people that understand some of the uniqueness
about issuing contracts for Open Architecture systems."
OA implementation has been helped by the concept of
communities of interest (COIs) within the Department
of Defense.
"COIs are another important mechanism for
advancing OA implementation because they are typically organized by warfighting mission areas and facilitate enhanced collaboration and sharing of information among disparate organizations," Benedict said.
"That idea was to develop a common language and
a common set of standards that would be across the
area of systems that were similar," Oliver said.
The Navy has embraced the anti-submarine warfare
COI as particularly beneficial of OA implementation
because it includes a wide array of surface, subsurface
and air platforms that share mission systems and algorithms, Oliver said.
"You didn't find that out and start to optimize things
until those folks started talking to each other," he said.
"Similar things can be done in the radar community or
the electronic surveillance community. Right now, I
don't see the conversations taking place to figure out
how to have a common language and to identify commonality that would allow you to save money by using
similar technologies across programs."
"We need to do a better job of sharing the design
work in areas of common interest across the broader
community," Benedict said. "Ideally, this sharing would
begin earlier in the acquisition cycle — perhaps as early
as during the requirements setting process."
OA commonality is applicable across programs as well
as within programs. The PEO for Command, Control,
Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) is
running the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise
Services effort to standardize and reduce the number of
networks that perform similar functions on ships and submarines. The three mission packages designed for the
Littoral Combat Ship have several subsystems in common
that were developed by other program offices.
"Despite this progress, the naval acquisition community can gain even greater cost and performance advantages by pursuing a strategy to leverage off of each other's
work in a more purposeful way," Benedict said.
Although the current OA emphasis is on warfighting
and C4I systems, Benedict sees the OA construct extending to "hull, mechanical, electrical and damage control
systems [as] a means to maintain the currency of capability of each of our ships while providing the opportunity to effect reduction of life-cycle costs."
The future scope and level of OA across the Navy
and Marine Corps is open-ended, but will be determined more by the business case more than technical
limitations, Oliver said.
"It's all about how can competition drive the prices?"
he said. "The technology comes easy once you figure out
how to do the business part. The engineers can engineer
things all day long, but making the tough decisions
about the business impact of that [is paramount].
"There are all kinds of neat technology solutions, but
[it's bringing] it to the discussion, 'What's the impact
going to be for the business case across the Navy budget?'
That hasn't got enough of the light of day," Oliver said.
"Success breeds more success," Benedict said. "As
more examples of effective OA implementation are
shared across the acquisition community, momentum
will build." ■


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Taking care of your health
With a pregnant partner to support and a new baby on the way, your health is more important than ever. If you're fit and healthy now, keep up the great work. If you're not, it's time to get on a healthier path — for yourself, and for your little one.
5 steps to better health
1. Get serious about prevention
You can reduce your risk of many health problems by taking care of the basics, like preventive tests and exams and making healthy lifestyle changes.
2. Take steps to keep yourself healthy
With a partner who needs you and a baby on the way, it's time to break bad habits for good. We can help you make healthy changes, like quitting smoking.
3. Hit the gym or the sidewalk
Play basketball instead of watching it on TV. Take the dog for a brisk walk. We recommend getting 150 minutes of activity per week. Start small if you need to — even 10 minutes of exercise a day is enough to make a difference — and work your way up. Boosting your fitness has many health benefits, and can help you set a healthy example for your child.
4. Keep your weight in check
If you're overweight, a little weight loss can make a big difference. Don't know your healthy weight? Use our body mass index (BMI) calculator.
5. Relax
If you're feeling under pressure, try our online stress-reduction program and get an action plan that can help you manage stress.


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The mountains of Southwest Colorado have a rich history of mining. One of the legacies of this mining past is water pollution. When some types of rock are exposed to air and water they oxidize, just like a shovel left wet will rust. Unfortunately, most of the rock in the mining-rich area in the region are of such a type. The result is a lot of acid mine drainage.
There is also lot of naturally exposed rock that bleeds acid and metals. However, when people dig tunnels, drain the water out of mountains and pull out tons of rock, this process is accelerated tremendously.
After more than a century of mining in the area, a lot of valuable metals have moved on and one of the legacies we are left with is polluted water. We now get to decide how to handle this legacy.
There are two good examples locally of the complexities of this issue, actually three.
I will start with the last: Summitville. The very name will start an argument. The mine, in the mountains above Pagosa Springs, was in an old mining area that reopened in the 1980s and became one of the poster children for the problems with mining regulation. It was poorly designed and managed, and the owners ran when disaster struck. The cyanide heap leak facility failed, the Alamosa River was poisoned and the site sucked untold millions of taxpayer dollars into a massive Superfund cleanup. From start to finish it is a lesson in what no one wants in any manner at all.
The two other examples are hopefully different.
The Rico Argentine mine, just outside Rico, is currently discharging illegal levels of metals into the Dolores River. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety are both working with the owner of the site, Atlantic Richfield Co. (a subsidiary of BP yes, that BP). It is not Superfund there are good attempts at outreach to the community and work is progressing.
The third example is much more complex, in every which way. The area around Silverton had many mines, and only a few still have identifiable and wealthy enough owners to contribute significant resources. The Animas River is polluted with metals from the mines, as well as natural sources. For 18 years the Animas River Stakeholders Group has worked to find long-term and cost-effective options for dealing with the pollution.
The agencies EPA, Bureau of Land Management and Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety are fully involved, assisting and yet not leading. The companies that could be on the hook are also assisting. The path forward is complex and uncertain. What is clear is that we need to find a solution, and that the preferred model is one of cooperation and community engagement.
We must protect and restore our invaluable waterways we all depend on them. Those responsible for the pollution must be held accountable. And when we can do this together, it will likely be cheaper, more effective and less socially destructive than if we just sic the lawyers and engineers at each other.
email@example.com. Dan Randolph is executive director of the San Juan Citizens Alliance.


text:
To The Editor:
I don't know just exactly when out of the four times I was not at home but in the hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock to have my two knees totally replaced (twice), when someone came on to my property and helped themselves to six lengths of 20-foot galvanized 1 1/2-inch steel water pipe.
Each length of pipe is about 80 pounds and must have taken a great deal of effort to pick up, move, and load on and tie down to be able to transport away to some unknown place.
It took me a lot more effort to get that pipe for myself. I had set it aside for some future project which would need the pipe. To replace this pipe would cost me $1,200.
Life for me these past three years has been hard. Due to damage and deterioration of my knees, I have had to have repeated surgeries ending in total knee replacements of both knees. In addition, I have had to deal with the loss of my horse in February 2005 and then the loss of my mother a year later in March.
For a very long time I have been barely able to do anything for myself due to the fact that it was taking me a long time to recover from each of the surgeries.
Sunday, December 2, while I was watching my older brother, Fred Viens, do excavation work around the property, I discovered that the pipe was missing from where it had been kept.
I would greatly like to have my pipe back and in the same condition as it was when taken. I don't know if you realized that you were taking the pipe from someone who is disabled.
I am not going to hate you for it. I can live without the borrowed pipe whoever you are. Merry Christmas.
Gregory Viens, North Fayston Road


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Moody's Microblog Daily Digest 150129 - http://moodysmdd.blogspot.de/2015/01/150129.html yesterday's tweets as a single page
Drug Dealers Swapping Down To Old Cellphones To Stay One Step Ahead In The 'Tech Arms Race' - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150123/11184929793/drug-dealers-swapping-down-to-old-cellphones-to-stay-one-step-ahead-tech-arms-race.shtml will become common
Open Knowledge Foundation Germany H2020 project to improve transparency in public spending & support whistleblowing - http://okfn.de/2015/01/okfde-awarded-h2020-project-to-improve-transparency-in-public-spending-and-support-whistleblowing/
Chinese Newspaper And Citizens Find Spyware Purchase Orders On Dozens Of Police And Local Government Web Sites - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150113/09580629683/chinese-newspaper-citizens-find-spyware-purchase-orders-dozens-police-local-government-web-sites.shtml
Cameron said: "TV crime dramas illustrated the value of monitoring mobile data" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25969918 this man is a dangerous fool
Police told to review nearly 2,000 cases of alleged #corruption - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/30/police-forces-ordered-review-2000-cases-alleged-corruption & they want to give police access to our #metadata?
How #transparency can monitor scandals in #TTIP - http://www.beuc.eu/blog/how-transparency-can-help-monitor-potential-scandals-in-the-ttip-negotiations/ "Letting industry experts join negotiations would be a scandal"
#DE privacy leaders to discuss suspending US Safe Harbor - http://www.zdnet.com/article/germanys-privacy-leaders-gather-to-discuss-suspending-us-safe-harbor/ "NSA's data monitoring "aggressive" & "disproportionate"
#Alibaba Health Reaches Cloud Deal With Winning Software - http://www.chinatechnews.com/2015/01/30/21375-alibaba-health-reaches-cloud-deal-with-winning-software up to interesting stuff again (v @swardley)
Police Union: You Can Have Safe Neighborhoods Or Be Free Of Flashbang-Burned Toddlers, But Not Both - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150123/06242629789/police-union-you-can-have-safe-neighborhoods-be-free-flashbang-burned-toddlers-not-both.shtml huh?
MT @areichardt "support for #TTIP: overall Europeans support it" - https://twitter.com/areichardt/status/561084765231923200/photo/1 meaningless: they/we don't know what "it" is
figures in last tweet just show that most Europeans support a trade agreement with US - no surprise; doesn't mean #TTIP acceptable as is
Obama administration's illusionary job gains from #TPP - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/01/30/the-obama-administrations-illusionary-job-gains-from-the-trans-pacific-partnership/ good debunking from @washingtonpost
#TPP: "pretty lame to use such huge numbers to tout, in context of US economy, amounts to minuscule changes in income - 10 years from now."
that comment from @washingtonpost refers to 0.4% GDP increase predicted from TPP; for #TTIP it's 0.5% in 10 years time - equally miniscule
Open Addresses: Location, Location, Location - http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/open-addresses-3596274/ great new open project - don't forget to check/add your address
@EU_Commission pushes for full #transparency for ISDS in existing treaties - http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1247 great; still don't need #ISDS in #TTIP
Gun Owners of America are against Fast Track - http://gunowners.org/alert1142015.htm this could be fun to watch (v @vtg2 @snlester)#TPP #TTIP
Anti-Piracy Group So Desperate To Go After Popcorn Time That It Threatens A Blog Software Maker - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150129/06555929849/anti-piracy-group-so-desperate-to-go-after-popcorn-time-that-it-threatens-blog-software-maker.shtml just deranged
Give frontline police Tasers to help fight terror threat, says federation leader - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/30/frontline-police-tasers-terror-threat-federation-leader oh, look, here we go; next: #guns
Give frontline UK police #Tasers - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/30/frontline-police-tasers-terror-threat-federation-leader "We have to do something"; this is something, so we have to do it... #policestate
Research shows that the tide of #water privatisation has now turned - http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/30/water-privatisation-worldwide-failure-lagos-world-bank UK badly out of step (v @michelreimon)
Fast Track: The sneak attack on democracy - http://www.iatp.org/blog/201501/fast-track-the-sneak-attack-on-democracy seems a pretty blatant attack to me... #TPP #TAFTA #TTIP
European #UnitaryPatent and Court System in Trouble - http://techrights.org/2015/01/30/eu-patent/ let's hope so: it will be a disaster... #EPO
#Green party candidate: "top of her political wishlist is defeating the EU-US trade deal called #TTIP" - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/30/green-party-norwich-natalie-bennett