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What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?
9/11
Jon Holmes
What's pink and wrinkly and hangs out your pyjamas?
Your mum
Jeremy Dyson, The League of Gentlemen
Why has Noddy got a hat with a bell on it?
Because he's a twat.
Ricky Gervais
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"negotiations are difficult and there are lots of competing interests. So we can't always get exactly what we want, but if we all try, we might just get what we need"Otherwise, I am paying approximately zero attention to Copenhagen. Aid and development are complicated enough for my little head. There is no space for the environment. Hopefully the Rolling Stones have this one covered (hey, Bono has aid...).
"If there is a heaven and if I am fortunate enough to make it there one day, I hope to take classes from him again. I am sure that, with his brilliant and precocious mind, he will have developed a beautiful heavenly model of it all, and will be able to say "God has it almost right, but..."")5. The entire Eritrean national football team disappear whilst at a tournament abroad so they don't have to go home to Eritrea. FOR THE THIRD TIME!
Government has supported the process of contracting out key services, but has had limited capacity to design and manage contracts without external support. Even with World Bank administered contracts, Government has had limited capacity to ensure that the contract design and performance meet its own needs.I'm not even so sure this is a problem of fragile states. I'm reminded of Private Eye, a British magazine usually full of stories about private sector contractors running rings around government.
The U.S. Government has in place export control and economic sanctions laws and regulations, which prohibit U.S. companies, like LinkedIn, from engaging in certain transactions with persons from several designated countries, including <<INSERT COUNTRY HERE>>.
"Why should we continue to condemn people to shoddy governments, bad climate, meager opportunities and endless experimentation at the hands of (us), the aid community? There's been a lot of talk recently about allowing the poor to have a greater say in the development agenda. Why not let them do the voting with their feet?"Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam indirectly sheds some light on the question of Oxfam campaign choices in one of his introductory development lectures (kudos for sharing).
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"Jacari is a student-run charity providing home teaching for children living in Oxford. These children, who are between 4 and 16 years old, do not speak English as their first language and often come from refugee families and those seeking asylum. University students volunteer to help improve their allotted child's English and performance in other subjects as required."I spent an hour a week for about 3 months reading with a kid and helping him with his maths homework. The improvement in his ability and enthusiasm for reading was noticeable every week.
"When you go and consult with the fortune-teller, you should always consult with yourself later."Have a word with yourself!
"Listen to the first word and the last word to get the meaning."From BBC Network Africa (Nod to TH)
"immigrants are not just mouths to feed: they have brains and hands as well. They take less from the state than natives do – being 60 per cent less likely to be on benefits or in social housing – and contribute tens of billions to the economy"From the Director of the UK's Adam Smith Institute, writing in the FT
"insurgents say they receive orders for attacks by text message ... One telecoms firm is also expanding its network to coastal ports used by pirates, who make thousands of dollars from ransom payments from ship-owners but have to rely on expensive satellite phones at the moment." (HT: Global Guerillas)4. Giovanni Peri, The effect of immigration on productivity: evidence from us states
"We find no evidence that immigrants crowded-out employment and hours worked by natives. At the same time we find robust evidence that they increased total factor productivity" (HT: trade diversion)5. An oldie but a goodie - Kafka for kids - "Why doesn't mommy answer me when I cry?"
"The flies and worms do not respect the province of the dead kings."From Uganda, via the BBC World Service Network Africa
"This paper has posed a central question in state formation: how can a civilian government exert control over the army? We have treated this as an incentive problem where the government optimizes relative to a coup constraint. Two potential strategies emerge which seem relevant in looking at the data. The government can maintain a very weak army which is not a threat. Or it can treat the army well, paying it an efficiency wage."
RachelStrohm: RT @ourmaninafrica A paper on the economic impact of UN peace-keeping missions - a boost to hospitality & sex industries http://bit.ly/hFt8T2. The East African Community moves towards a common educational curriculum (something for S Sudan to keep an eye on?)
UN to deliver food aid by text message
In a test project targeting 1,000 Iraqi refugee families, the United Nations agency will send a 22-dollar (15-euro) voucher every two months by SMS to each family, who will be provided with a special SIM card.
The beneficiary can then exchange the electronic voucher for rice, wheat flour, lentils, chickpeas, oil, canned fish, cheese and eggs at selected shops.
Addressing concerns about mobile phone ownership among the refugee population, WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said all the 130,000 Iraqi refugees currently receiving food aid from the agency in Syria have mobile phones.
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"We are grateful to Dan Altman, Ray Fisman, Matias Iaryczower, Abdul Nouri, Dani Rodrik, seminar participants at Stanford, UCSD, UCLA, IPES, and at the 4th Annual HiCN Workshop at Yale, and a host of anonymous bloggers for useful comments, and Dan Hartley, Teferi Mergo, Melanie Wasserman and Tom Zeitzoff for excellent research assistance. All errors remain our own."Proper academic acknowledgement of bloggers! Is this a first?
Does the Tory party care about aid?
In a recent green paper on international development, the Conservative party sought to establish its commitment to aid.Aid is not the same thing as development. They cannot be used interchangeably. They are not synonyms.
"little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things"I'm sticking to a "yes". Firstly, he does say "little else", so it isn't entirely these three things but primarily them.
"little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things"A few years ago I would probably have dismissed this neoliberal nonsense, but now I'm not so sure. I think I actually might agree.
"three of the English cricketers who defeated [the Australians] in the deciding match of this summer's Test series were born in South Africa. English fans however, weren't too troubled by the moans. Their lot had won...
These days, when the English football team is playing and the camera pans to the coaches' bench, it has a distinctly Mediterranean hue...Under the current boss, Fabio Capello, it is romping towards next year's World Cup.
It isn't only in sport. The boards of Britain's big companies routinely look beyond the country's shores, and the firms' own payrolls, for the best people to run them. Bagehot is wondering: if England's football team can be trained by an Italian, why shouldn't the health service be managed by a Frenchman? Or, to put it less facetiously, why does politics, the business of running the country, draw on so much shallower a recruitment pool than most other important enterprises in Britain?"
The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan has banned alcohol and assigned American personnel to watch over the embassy's security guards following allegations of lewd behavior and sexual misconduct at their living quarters.This is nearly as funny as the US needing to build a wall around their fence.
(AP) –
TIJUANA, Mexico — Police in the Mexican border city of Tijuana say they have arrested six men for stealing pieces of the U.S. border fence to sell as scrap metal.
"the Arab states did not use processions as a major part of their political legitimization; the assembly in the mosque courtyard was sufficient for that. The need for wide boulevards ended"
"...one enters the narrow streets typical of old Arab towns. I cannot say why these people built in such a cramped and crowded fashion, why they pressed together this way, practically one atop another. Was it so that they would never have far to walk? Or to be better able to defend the town? I don't know. But one thing is certain: this mass of piled stone, this accretion of walls, this layering of balconies, recesses, eaves, and rooftops, somehow secured, as though in an icy treasury, a corner of shade, a tiny breeze, and a bit of coolness during the most terrifying noontime heat."
"the pressure to pave over more and more countryside greatly increases flood risk."What?!!
"It is not that their leaders fail to realise the need to diversify; in fact, all oil countries have invested massively in other sectors. Unfortunately, few of these investments succeed largely because the exchange rate stunts the growth of agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and other sectors ... Unlocking the secret of [Chile and Botswana's] escape from the resource curse could spare millions from the devil's excrement. But nobody has done it yet."
WINEHOUSE DRUG-ATHON TO RAISE MONEY FOR UGANDAN SCHOOL
SINGER Amy Winehouse is launching an attempt on the world drug-bender record to raise money for a Ugandan primary school.
The children begin each day with a hearty rendition of 'Rehab'
During the mammoth session the 'Back to Black' star will be consuming crack, heroin, cheap speedy pills and a two gallon jug of paint stripper.
A spokesman said: "She's been in training with some of the country's top junkies, including the legendary 'Norwegian Dale'.
"The plan is that when she starts to glaze over from the brown, the Es and crack will perk her up again and give her the energy to stay on it. She really is an inspiration to everyone who wants to take drugs for charity."
Winehouse's record attempt will raise money for a school in the Ugandan village of Katosi, which desperately needs a new roof.
Head teacher Akiki Balunda said: "We are very grateful to Amy for this and have faith in her bison-like constitution.
"We wanted to help her out by sending some drugs, but all we could find was a few out-of-date malaria tablets."
The existing world drug-bender record is held by a 44-year-old from Manchester known simply as 'Cheb', who consumed nine times his own body weight in poor quality street opiates during a two month ming-up which ended when he jumped naked into a local zoo's Komodo dragon enclosure.
He wished Winehouse well in her record attempt, adding: "Mint. Bangin'. Mint. Mint. Totally fuckin' mint"
Cheb said he given up endurance drug taking so that he can focus on trying to kill an owl with a crossbow in the belief that if he eats it he will become Dolph Lundgren.
"detailed and real-time transaction data for over 2,200 tricks performed by about 160 prostitutes in three Chicago neighborhoods that the authors collected with the help of pimps and prostitutes."She suggests that Juba's "unmarried businesswomen" could learn from it how to reach a more realistic price per ejaculation / night. Well economics works in Juba too, according to the Khartoum Monitor. It's only $2 if you want to have "jigi jigi" with the ugly girls, but of you want a moderate girl it'll cost you $4, and for the beautiful ones it's a whole $8.
"The UNFG developed the Program for Capacity-Building in the Field of Language Transparency Impact. The program assists in dispensing with harmful idiomatic practices, and promotes the use of a standardized international framework for document authoring. Designed as a Public-Private-Sector Partnership within the Framework of the Global Compact, and supported through supplemental grants from individual donors, the program has made a significant contribution in this field."That would be the United Nations Fund for Gobbledygook, supported by the Plain English Campaign.
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