The euro crisis is dire indeed—but Paul Krugman can’t help seeing the gallows humor in it. “As one rescue plan after another falls flat, Europe’s Very Serious People just keep looking more and more ridiculous,” he writes in the New York Times . The core of the problem is reminiscent…
Continue reading …When the Joplin tornado hit, social worker Mark Lindquist was working for Community Support Services at a group home where three men with Down syndrome lived. “I loved them almost as much as I love my own kid,” Lindquist recalls. They couldn’t move quickly enough to relocate, and the home…
Continue reading …Dublin city council declares emergency as flooded rivers and canals cut off rail and road routes after incessant rains A young Irish police officer is missing after reports he was swept away in floods in County Wicklow on Monday night. A joint Garda, the Irish police force, and coastguard search has been launched with the police force’s helicopter and several mountain rescue teams involved in the operation. The garda, in his 20s, was off-duty but had gone out to help divert traffic away from a dangerous bridge, which was under water at Ballysmuttan at around 7pm. Dublin city council has declared an emergency in the Republic’s capital with the rivers Liffey, Dodder and Tolka bursting their banks. The Belfast to Dublin rail link had to be shut after flooding in the Clontarf area of north Dublin while all the internal rail services within Greater Dublin were shut down. Dublin Bus reported several buses were affected by floods and got stranded along routes close to the city’s canals. One of Dublin’s major shopping centres at Dundrum had to be evacuated after the first floor of the mall was flooded. Ireland Europe Flooding Natural disasters and extreme weather Dublin Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Dublin city council declares emergency as flooded rivers and canals cut off rail and road routes after incessant rains A young Irish police officer is missing after reports he was swept away in floods in County Wicklow on Monday night. A joint Garda, the Irish police force, and coastguard search has been launched with the police force’s helicopter and several mountain rescue teams involved in the operation. The garda, in his 20s, was off-duty but had gone out to help divert traffic away from a dangerous bridge, which was under water at Ballysmuttan at around 7pm. Dublin city council has declared an emergency in the Republic’s capital with the rivers Liffey, Dodder and Tolka bursting their banks. The Belfast to Dublin rail link had to be shut after flooding in the Clontarf area of north Dublin while all the internal rail services within Greater Dublin were shut down. Dublin Bus reported several buses were affected by floods and got stranded along routes close to the city’s canals. One of Dublin’s major shopping centres at Dundrum had to be evacuated after the first floor of the mall was flooded. Ireland Europe Flooding Natural disasters and extreme weather Dublin Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Under-fives, 16 to 19-year-olds and building programmes will suffer as spending is slashed by 14.4% over next four years Education spending is being slashed by more than 14% – the largest cut since the 1950s, Britain’s leading tax and spending experts have warned. Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a highly respected thinktank, have calculated that public spending on UK education will fall by 14.4% between 2010-11 and 2014-15. They said this represented the largest cut in education spending over any four-year period since at least the 1950s. Their study – Trends in Education and Schools Spending – found school and college building projects will suffer the most from cuts to funding. The budgets for these projects will be more than halved. Universities will fare the next worst with a 40% cut, although this will be offset by higher tuition fees of up to £9,000. The education of 16 to 19-year-olds and the under-fives will each suffer a 20% funding fall in real terms, the study found. The majority of schools will see a real-term budget reduction over the next four years, the researchers said, although those with the most deprived pupils will see a real-term increase in state funds. The IFS study found that, since the late 1990s, education spending had risen “substantially”. While Labour was in power, public spending on education moved from universities towards schools, the under-fives and further education, the study shows. The number of teachers grew by 12% while the number of teaching assistants more than tripled. Luke Sibieta, senior research economist at the IFS and co-author of the study, said the UK’s education budget was set for a “historically large fall over the next few years”. “The biggest challenges lie ahead for the early years, youth services and 16-19 education, where spending is set to fall by around 20% in real terms,” he said. “The key question is what these cuts in financial resources will mean for the outputs of the education system, such as young people’s exam results or earnings potential.” But a spokesman for the Department for Education said the government was increasing the budget for schools and said that funds for building works were now higher than they were on average between 1997-98 and 2004-05. He said the schools budget was increasing by £3.6bn over the next four years and the pupil premium – the £488 given to schools for each pupil eligible for free school meals – would rise over the next three years. On the provision of free early learning, he said: “We’ve increased the free entitlement to 15 hours per week for all three and four-year-olds from last September – and are now extending this to all disadvantaged two-year olds.” He said government was “right to look at the amount of money spent on school buildings. An independent review showed taxpayers money was being wasted on red tape and consultants, not on building schools. Our new plans will build schools cheaper and quicker than before.” Public finance Schools Colleges Further education Higher education Liberal-Conservative coalition Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Under-fives, 16 to 19-year-olds and building programmes will suffer as spending is slashed by 14.4% over next four years Education spending is being slashed by more than 14% – the largest cut since the 1950s, Britain’s leading tax and spending experts have warned. Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a highly respected thinktank, have calculated that public spending on UK education will fall by 14.4% between 2010-11 and 2014-15. They said this represented the largest cut in education spending over any four-year period since at least the 1950s. Their study – Trends in Education and Schools Spending – found school and college building projects will suffer the most from cuts to funding. The budgets for these projects will be more than halved. Universities will fare the next worst with a 40% cut, although this will be offset by higher tuition fees of up to £9,000. The education of 16 to 19-year-olds and the under-fives will each suffer a 20% funding fall in real terms, the study found. The majority of schools will see a real-term budget reduction over the next four years, the researchers said, although those with the most deprived pupils will see a real-term increase in state funds. The IFS study found that, since the late 1990s, education spending had risen “substantially”. While Labour was in power, public spending on education moved from universities towards schools, the under-fives and further education, the study shows. The number of teachers grew by 12% while the number of teaching assistants more than tripled. Luke Sibieta, senior research economist at the IFS and co-author of the study, said the UK’s education budget was set for a “historically large fall over the next few years”. “The biggest challenges lie ahead for the early years, youth services and 16-19 education, where spending is set to fall by around 20% in real terms,” he said. “The key question is what these cuts in financial resources will mean for the outputs of the education system, such as young people’s exam results or earnings potential.” But a spokesman for the Department for Education said the government was increasing the budget for schools and said that funds for building works were now higher than they were on average between 1997-98 and 2004-05. He said the schools budget was increasing by £3.6bn over the next four years and the pupil premium – the £488 given to schools for each pupil eligible for free school meals – would rise over the next three years. On the provision of free early learning, he said: “We’ve increased the free entitlement to 15 hours per week for all three and four-year-olds from last September – and are now extending this to all disadvantaged two-year olds.” He said government was “right to look at the amount of money spent on school buildings. An independent review showed taxpayers money was being wasted on red tape and consultants, not on building schools. Our new plans will build schools cheaper and quicker than before.” Public finance Schools Colleges Further education Higher education Liberal-Conservative coalition Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …At least 12 people were injured early today when someone hurled a grenade into a small bar in Nairobi. Speculation is rampant that the attack might be the work of Somali militants retaliating against Kenya’s incursion into the country last week, but so far officials are not publicly blaming al-Shabab…
Continue reading …David Brooks: To Hell With the Polls! President Obama Should Not Campaign on Raising Taxes on the Rich
October 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media As our own Driftglass rightfully pointed out this week , apparently David Brooks has got his panties in a bunch because heaven forbid anyone is paying attention to what the dirty, filthy, hippies in the Occupy Wall Street movement are complaining about, as opposed to those lovely “adult” “centrists” he loves to carry water for that are calling for austerity measures, despite the fact that, as Driftie noted in his post, there is overwhelming support for taxing ultra wealthy Americans. Here’s Brooks doing his best to spin his way around those inconvenient facts on this weekend’s Meet the Press : GREGORY: But, but, David, David Brooks, this is an interesting poll that shows whom the American people blame for economic problems in the country; 78 percent blame Wall Street, 87 percent blame the federal government. One of the big questions that you’ve posed about President Obama is, can he run a conventionally liberal campaign, a populist campaign, tax the rich more, and prevail? BROOKS: No. You know, the most important polling statistic in our lifetime is they ask people, “Do you trust government to do the right thing most of the time?” Through the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, it was like 80 percent trusted government. Then that drops–Vietnam, Watergate–gets down to like 20 percent under Bush. Well, now it’s down at an historic low point of 15 percent. So if you’re a Democrat, the party of government, you can’t run “I’m the–I’m government, he’s the market,” you cannot run that campaign. You have to confuse that debate the way Bill Clinton did, the way Obama did in ’08, by being post-partisan. What I see Obama doing is being the liberal fighter over the last couple of months, and that may help with the fundraising, but I do not see that winning. Brooks also ignores the fact that a good part of the reason most Americans don’t have any faith in our government working is because that is exactly what Republicans want them to think. They run the government like a personal piggy-bank for their campaign contributors when they’re in charge and then they muck up the works and make sure government is incapable of doing anything for working class people while they’re in the minority, and with sadly enough help from enough Conserva-Dems aiding and abetting them get away with it. This country and the voters are not fed up because there isn’t enough bipartisanship in our Congress. They’re fed up because what bipartisanship there is has meant that conservative legislation has been passed that’s doing real harm to the working class and that there aren’t enough people in our halls of Congress looking out for their interests. If David Brooks thinks Americans are fed up with government, he needs to take a look in the mirror with the type of snake oil he’s been helping to sell them since he’s unfortunately been given a national spotlight to try to gloss over how damaging conservative policies have been to the working class. And if he thinks an earnest attempt to level the playing field a bit and raise taxes on the rich is going to be harmful to Democrats in the upcoming election, I think he should be sharing a bit of what he’s been smoking with the rest of us.
Continue reading …David Brooks: To Hell With the Polls! President Obama Should Not Campaign on Raising Taxes on the Rich
October 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media As our own Driftglass rightfully pointed out this week , apparently David Brooks has got his panties in a bunch because heaven forbid anyone is paying attention to what the dirty, filthy, hippies in the Occupy Wall Street movement are complaining about, as opposed to those lovely “adult” “centrists” he loves to carry water for that are calling for austerity measures, despite the fact that, as Driftie noted in his post, there is overwhelming support for taxing ultra wealthy Americans. Here’s Brooks doing his best to spin his way around those inconvenient facts on this weekend’s Meet the Press : GREGORY: But, but, David, David Brooks, this is an interesting poll that shows whom the American people blame for economic problems in the country; 78 percent blame Wall Street, 87 percent blame the federal government. One of the big questions that you’ve posed about President Obama is, can he run a conventionally liberal campaign, a populist campaign, tax the rich more, and prevail? BROOKS: No. You know, the most important polling statistic in our lifetime is they ask people, “Do you trust government to do the right thing most of the time?” Through the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, it was like 80 percent trusted government. Then that drops–Vietnam, Watergate–gets down to like 20 percent under Bush. Well, now it’s down at an historic low point of 15 percent. So if you’re a Democrat, the party of government, you can’t run “I’m the–I’m government, he’s the market,” you cannot run that campaign. You have to confuse that debate the way Bill Clinton did, the way Obama did in ’08, by being post-partisan. What I see Obama doing is being the liberal fighter over the last couple of months, and that may help with the fundraising, but I do not see that winning. Brooks also ignores the fact that a good part of the reason most Americans don’t have any faith in our government working is because that is exactly what Republicans want them to think. They run the government like a personal piggy-bank for their campaign contributors when they’re in charge and then they muck up the works and make sure government is incapable of doing anything for working class people while they’re in the minority, and with sadly enough help from enough Conserva-Dems aiding and abetting them get away with it. This country and the voters are not fed up because there isn’t enough bipartisanship in our Congress. They’re fed up because what bipartisanship there is has meant that conservative legislation has been passed that’s doing real harm to the working class and that there aren’t enough people in our halls of Congress looking out for their interests. If David Brooks thinks Americans are fed up with government, he needs to take a look in the mirror with the type of snake oil he’s been helping to sell them since he’s unfortunately been given a national spotlight to try to gloss over how damaging conservative policies have been to the working class. And if he thinks an earnest attempt to level the playing field a bit and raise taxes on the rich is going to be harmful to Democrats in the upcoming election, I think he should be sharing a bit of what he’s been smoking with the rest of us.
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SEOUL — North Koreans, especially children, urgently need outside aid to fight “terrible levels of malnutrition,” the United Nations’ humanitarian chief said Monday, in an appeal that came amid criticism that both Washington and Seoul were withholding aid for political reasons. Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters Valerie Amos, the United Nations’ humanitarian chief, said the situation in North Korea has been getting worse. Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. “Six million North Koreans urgently need food aid, but the outside world is not giving enough,” the official, Valerie Amos, said in a press conference after a…
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