1. Bear encounter recorded in Whistler Village prompts conservation officer warning  CTV News Vancouver
2. Tourists 'shocked' to see man approach black bear in Whistler  Pique Newsmagazine

(Belga) La multiplication des désastres météorologiques, qui pousse sur les routes des millions de personnes, est aujourd'hui l'une des "causes principales" du trafic d'êtres humains, selon un rapport onusien publié mardi, évoquant également les risques posés par la guerre en Ukraine.

"Le changement climatique accroît la vulnérabilité au trafic", souligne cette étude de l'Office des Nations unies contre la drogue et le crime (ONUDC), basée sur la collecte des données de 141 pays sur la période 2017-2020 et l'analyse de 800 affaires judiciaires. Au fil du temps, "des régions entières vont devenir inhabitables", ce qui "affecte de manière disproportionnée" les communautés pauvres vivant essentiellement de l'agriculture ou de la pêche. Elles se retrouvent "privées de leurs moyens de subsistance et contraintes de fuir leur communauté", devenant une proie facile pour les trafiquants, a expliqué à la presse en amont de la publication Fabrizio Sarrica, auteur principal du texte. Rien qu'en 2021, les catastrophes climatiques ont provoqué le déplacement interne de plus de 23,7 millions de personnes, tandis que de nombreux autres ont dû partir à l'étranger. Le rapport cite des typhons dévastateurs aux Philippines, ou encore le Bangladesh, particulièrement exposé aux cyclones et tempêtes. Dans les deux pays, une hausse des cas de trafic a été constatée, avec par exemple l'organisation de "larges campagnes de recrutement" pour piéger dans le travail forcé les plus démunis. Le Ghana, victime de sécheresses et d'inondations, et la région des Caraïbes, soumise aux ouragans et à la montée du niveau de la mer, sont aussi en première ligne. Autre terrain propice au trafic, les conflits armés. Si l'Afrique est de loin le continent le plus touché, l'instance onusienne pointe une situation potentiellement "dangereuse" en Ukraine, tout en saluant les mesures prises par les pays de l'Union européenne pour accueillir et protéger les millions de réfugiés. (Belga)

La nomination de Gabriel Attal était l’apothéose macroniste, l’acmé juvénile. La consécration des jeunes executives en costumes slim. Las, nos virtuoses de la finance laissent le pays dans un sale état et, pour tenter de réparer les dégâts, c'est au panache blanc du vieux Barnier qu'il a fallu faire appel... Dans le marasme actuel, le renversement est au moins savoureux.

In order to further improve the public health assurance system and the infectious diseases early warning system to give play to their positive roles and enhance their collaborative capacity, this paper, based on the big and thick data analytics technology, designs a 'rolling-type' data synergy model. This model covers districts and counties, municipalities, provinces, and the country. It forms a data blockchain for the public health assurance system and enables high sharing of data from existing system platforms such as the infectious diseases early warning system, the hospital medical record management system, the public health data management system, and the health big and thick data management system. Additionally, it realises prevention, control and early warning by utilising data mining and synergy technologies, and ideally solves problems of traditional public health assurance system platforms such as excessive pressure on the 'central node', poor data tamper-proofing capacity, low transmission efficiency of big and thick data, bad timeliness of emergency response, and so on. The realisation of this technology can greatly improve the application and analytics of big and thick data and further enhance the public health assurance capacity.

Teaching advanced programming can be a challenge, especially when the students are pursuing different majors with diverse analytical and problem-solving capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the efficacy of using a particular problem as a vehicle for imparting a broad set of programming concepts and problem-solving techniques. We present a classic brain teaser that is used to communicate and demonstrate advanced software development concepts and techniques. Our results show that students with varied academic experiences and goals, assuming at least one procedural/structured programming pre-requisite, can benefit from and also be challenged by such an exercise. Although this problem has been used by others in the classroom, we believe that our use of this problem in imparting such a broad range of topics to a diverse student population is unique.

Aim/Purpose: To identify positive and negative aspects for learning of interactive tablet technology learning activities that promote student engagement and learning. Background: Engaging students in mathematics classes is an on-going challenge for teachers. In 2008 we were offered the opportunity to run interactive activities with a class set of tablet PCs that had just been released on to the market. Since then, we have run these interactive activities continuously with mathematics classes for computing students, albeit with two changes in hardware. Methodology: In the interactive activities, students submit full worked solutions to various problem types (classified as table, text, open or multi-choice) which can then be displayed to the class anonymously, discussed and annotated by the teacher. We surveyed student and staff perceptions and monitored academic performance. Contribution: We have over 10 years of results, observations, and experience from 2008, when tablet technologies were new and expensive, to the current time, when modern tablets with styli are now affordable. Findings: There was a significant increase in higher grades although pass rates did not increase significantly. Over the ten year period of the study, perceptions of students and staff about how this technology impacted on student learning were consistently positive. The majority of students found all problem types useful for learning even those they rated “too hard” or “too easy”. Benefits included increased feedback, peer learning and engagement. Recommendations for Practitioners: We recommend using tablet learning activities to engage students and teachers and to contribute to learning. Impact on Society: This study shows how using tablet technologies for interactive classroom activities can enable and enhance known pedagogies of feedback, peer instruction, and student engagement for mathematics classes. Future Research: We recommend extending this study to include larger classes, and other technical subjects that use symbols and diagrams. In addition, we suggest considering control groups.

Aim/Purpose: During the education of future engineers and experts in the field of computer science and information communication technology, the achievement of learning outcomes related to different levels of cognitive ability and knowledge dimensions can be a challenge. Background: Teachers need to design an appropriate set of activities for students and combine theory-based knowledge acquisition with practical training in technical skills. Including various activities for formative assessment during the course can positively affect students’ motivation for learning and ensure appropriate and timely feedback that will guide students in further learning. Methodology: The aim of the research presented in this paper is to propose an approach for course delivery in the field of software engineering and to determine whether the use of the approach increases student’s academic achievement. Using the proposed approach, the course Process Modeling for undergraduate students was redesigned and experimental study was conducted. Course results of the students (N=82) who took the new version of the course (experimental group) were compared to the results of the students from the control group (N=66). Contribution: An approach for a blended learning course in the field of software engineering was developed. This approach is based on the formative assessment activities that promote collaboration and the use of digital tools. Newly designed activities are used to encourage a greater level of acquired theoretical content and enhance the acquisition of subject-specific skills needed for practical tasks. Findings: The results showed that students who participated in the formative assessment activities achieved significantly better results. They had significantly higher scores in the main components of assessment compared to the students from the control group. In addition, students from the experimental group expressed positive views about the effectiveness of the used approach. Recommendations for Practitioners: The proposed approach has potential to increase students’ motivation and academic achievements so practitioners should consider to apply it in their own context. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers are encouraged to conduct additional studies to explore the effectiveness of the approach with different courses and participants as well as to provide further insights regarding its applicability and acceptance by students. Impact on Society: The paper provides an approach and an example of good practice that may be beneficial for the university teachers in the field of computer science, information-communication technology, and engineering. Future Research: In the future, face-to-face activities will be adapted for performance in an online environment. Future work will also include a research on the possibilities of personalization of activities in accordance with the students’ characteristics.

This paper explores innovative ideas and strategies for promoting environmental sustainability within the hotel industry, with the goal of streamlining these concepts for practical application in the industry and facilitating future academic research. The research methodology encompassed extensive online desk research, yielding a collection of 87 articles that were subject to thorough analysis. Additionally, personal consultations were conducted with industry experts to align their insights with the identified innovative ideas. To facilitate comprehension, appropriate terminology was assigned to these concepts. Subsequently, a post-discussion phase was conducted, engaging in one-on-one sessions with five industry experts to distil these insights into four distinct directions. This paper holds potential value for both industry stakeholders and academics, serving as a structured compendium of ideas and innovations crucial for advancing sustainability in the hotel sector. Moreover, it provides a solid foundation for further academic research.

This article presents a case study that outlines the potential of DigiBot technology, an interactive automated response program, in mobile open learning (MOL) for business subjects. The study, which draws on a project implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa, demonstrates the applications of DigiBots delivered via WhatsApp to over 650,000 learners. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the article reports on live event tracking, qualitative observations from facilitators and learning technologists, and a learner survey (<i>N</i> = 304,000). The research offers practical recommendations and proposes a model for scalable DigiBot learning. Findings reveal that in this case, DigiBot MOL had the potential to effectively address two key obstacles in open learning: accessibility and scalability. Leveraging mobile platforms such as WhatsApp mitigates accessibility restrictions, particularly in resource-constrained contexts, while tailored micro-learning enhances scalability.

Using information criteria is a common method for making a decision about which model to use for forecasting. There are many different methods for evaluating forecasting models, such as MAE, RMSE, MAPE, and Theil-U, among others. After the creation of AIC, AICc, HQ, BIC, and BICc, the two criteria that have become the most popular and commonly utilised are Bayesian IC and Akaike's IC. In this investigation, we are innovative in our use of exponential weighting to get the log-likelihood of the information criteria for model selection, which means that we propose assigning greater weight to more recent data in order to reflect their increased precision. All research data is from the major stock markets' daily observations, which include the USA (GSPC, DJI), Europe (FTSE 100, AEX, and FCHI), and Asia (Nikkei).

Aim/Purpose. The most crucial aspects of teaching a foreign language to more advanced learners are building an awareness of discourse modes, how to regulate discourse, and the pragmatic properties of discourse components. However, in different languages, the connections and structure of discourse are ensured by different linguistic means which makes matters complicated for the learner. Background. By uncovering regularities in a foreign language and comparing them with patterns in one’s own tongue, the corpus research method offers the student unique opportunities to acquire linguistic knowledge about discourse markers. This paper reports on an investigation of the functions of multi-word discourse markers. Methodology. In our research, we combine the alignment model of the phrase-based statistical machine translation and manual treatment of the data in order to examine English multi-word discourse markers and their equivalents in Lithuanian and Hebrew translations by researching their changes in translation. After establishing the full list of multi-word discourse markers in our generated parallel corpus, we research how the multi-word discourse markers are treated in translation. Contribution. Creating a parallel research corpus to identify multi-word expressions used as discourse markers, analyzing how they are translated into Lithuanian and Hebrew, and attempting to determine why the translators made the choices add value to corpus-driven research and how to manage discourse. Findings. Our research proves that there is a possible context-based influence guiding the translation to choose a particle or other lexical item integration in Lithuanian or Hebrew translated discourse markers to express the rhetorical domain which could be related to the so-called phenomenon of “over-specification.” Recommendations for Practitioners. The comparative examination of discourse markers provides language instructors and translators with more specific information about the roles of discourse markers. Recommendations for Researchers. Understanding the multifunctionality of discourse markers provides new avenues for discourse marker application in translation research. Impact on Society. The current study may be a useful method to strengthen students’ language awareness and analytic skills and is particularly important for students specializing in English philology or translation. Beyond the empirical research, an extensive parallel data resource has been created to be openly used. Future Research. It should be noted that the observed phenomenon of “over-specification” could be analyzed further in future research.

Aim/Purpose: Mobile commerce adoption is low in developing countries; hence, public servants may not consider mobile commerce and mobile payments. Understanding the factors that influence mobile commerce and mobile payments in their context will aid in promoting those services. Background: The study investigates the factors that influence public servants’ mobile commerce and mobile payments in Ghana. Hence, it provides some understanding of the various aspects of mobile commerce and mobile payments adoption, such as acceptance, use, and eventual adoption into the user’s daily life, and how that affects their behaviour. Methodology: The research was conducted by surveying the factors influencing public servants’ adoption of mobile commerce and payments in Ghana. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken to put the research model to the test to measure the constructs and their relationships. Contribution: The study confirmed previous findings and created a new conceptual model for mobile commerce and mobile payment adoption and usage in the Ghanaian context. Findings: The variables of performance expectancy, trust, and facilitating conditions have a significant positive influence on behavioural intention. The factors of effort expectation and social influence have a significant negative impact. Price value and perceived reliability are latent variables that do not affect behavioural intention. Behavioural intention and facilitating conditions significantly influence the actual use behaviour of mobile commerce and mobile payment users. Recommendations for Practitioners: Mobile commerce is emerging as a new mode of transactions, with firms providing enabling platforms for users. Mobile commerce could become the most acceptable application for the next generation of mobile platform applications. This study offers insights into the fluidity of the mobile environment, with implications that spell out what will be effective mobile commerce services that will continue to be relevant. Mobile applications are attractive to people because they provide a better user experience. These mobile applications have been optimised to provide a fast, easy and delightful experience. Mobile commerce and mobile payment service providers can attract and retain more users if attention is paid to performance expectancy, trust, and facilitating conditions since they influence individuals’ decisions to adopt. Mobile technology is almost ubiquitous, influencing both online sales and in-store sales. With the right mobile commerce platform and features, businesses can expect to increase in-store and online sales, catering to a more extensive clientele. Mobile devices are the primary means that most customers use to look up information about products they see in stores, such as product reviews and pricing options. This study indicates that mobile commerce service providers can achieve a more extensive customer base by promoting performance expectancy, trust, and behavioural intentions. Recommendation for Researchers: Despite the numerous studies in the mobile commerce literature, few have used integrated models of perceived reliability, trust, and price value or methods to evaluate these factors in the emerging mobile commerce industry. Also, it combines mobile commerce and mobile payments, which very few that we know of have done. Impact on Society: Ghana is already in a cash-lite economy. Thus, the study is appropriate with the result of trust being a significant factor. It implies that people will begin using mobile commerce and mobile payments with a bit of drive to bring about this drive quickly. Future Research: Future research could further test the adapted model with moderating factors of age, gender, and education to delve deeper into the complexities of mobile commerce and mobile payments.

Aim/Purpose: The increasingly growing number of virtual high schools around the world has engendered new modes for teaching and learning and a promising area of re-search. While research in this emerging field has mostly taken a comparative lens that highlights differences between traditional modes of teaching and online teaching, research on high school students’ and teachers’ perspectives has remained dearth. Background: This study identifies students’ and teachers’ perceptions of their learning and teaching advanced level mathematics and/or physics in the first Israeli virtual high school (VHS), which was launched five years ago. Methodology: A survey of 41 questions was disseminated to the first graduating cohort of 86 Grade-12 students as well as to 22 VHS teachers. Additional data sources include students’ essays on what it means to be a student in a VHS and field notes from a pedagogical development day. Contribution: The purpose of this study is to highlight the workings of the Israeli VHS and in particular its important building blocks that include a teacher-tutor model, an ongoing gauging of students’ work through a Learning Management System (LMS), and a continual teacher-developer interaction for the purpose of developing cutting-edge, technology-based course content. Findings: Given the unique features of the Israeli VHS, both teachers and students report on feelings of unit pride, motivation, and investment in teaching and learning in the VHS. Recommendations for Practitioners: The Israeli VHS uses a combination of a teacher-tutor format, together with tools for gauging students’ work and ongoing interaction between the teachers and the course content designers. Such a context creates new, fertile ground for technology-based, fully online teaching and learning of school mathematics and physics that may contribute to alleviating the problem of decreasing numbers of learners who are interested in taking advanced-level courses. Recommendation for Researchers: Further exploration of aspects for improvement in the teaching model of the VHS, its design, and its support system and for finding out factors that impact attrition lay down important research trajectories that have not yet been trodden. Impact on Society: Issues of equity and the democratization of learning of advanced STEM subjects are now possible to be seriously considered in a principled manner within the context of the VHS. Future Research: Future research may focus on the affordances, possibilities, and limitations of learning within a VHS to ensure a more robust process that will allow more students to learn advanced mathematics and physics.

Aim/Purpose This paper aims to illustrate, through an exploratory ideographic case study, how a Complex Thinking framework can inform the design of scientific events and the facilitation of scientific Inter and Transdisciplinary groups towards positive emergent outcomes, both at the level of the functioning of the group and the collective complexity of their thinking. Moreover, it aims to show how the choice of facilitation strategies can contribute to positive emergent outcomes in the context of a fully online event, with its inherent constraints. Finally, this study aims to conduct an exploratory qualitative evaluation of the participants’ experiences during School, with a focus on the processes and how they relate to the aims of the School and the goals of the facilitation. Background Science needs to embrace modes of knowing capable of generating more complex (differentiated, integrated, recursively organized, emergent), ecologically fit, and creative responses, to meet the complexity of the world’s challenges. New formats and strategies are required that attend to the facilitation of Inter and Transdisciplinary scientific events and meetings, towards creative and complex outcomes. A Complex Thinking framework provides suggestions for the facilitation of Inter and Transdisciplinary meetings and events through targeting key properties which may lead to the emergence of complex and creative outcomes. Methodology We adopt an ideographic case study approach to illustrate how a complex systems approach, in particular a Complex Thinking framework, grounded in an enactive view of cognition, guided the design choices and the facilitation strategies of an online Inter and Transdisciplinary Advanced Training School (Winter School). We aim to illustrate how the facilitation strategies were selected and used to promote deep and creative interactions within the constraints of an online environment. We adopt an exploratory qualitative approach to investigate the participants’ reports of their experiences of the School, in light of the principles and goals that guided its design and facilitation. Contribution This paper opens a new area of theoretical and applied research, under the scope of a Complex Thinking framework, focused on the facilitation of Inter and Transdisciplinarity at scientific events, meetings, and discussions towards complex and creative outcomes. Findings The results of the exploratory qualitative analysis of the participants’ experiences regarding the event suggest a critical role of its methodology in fostering rich, deep, and constructive interactions, in leading to the emergence of a collective group experience, to the integration of ideas, and in facilitating transformative personal experiences, under the effects of the emergent group processes. It suggests that the strategies employed were successful, anticipating and overcoming the particular constraints of an online event. Recommendations for Practitioners This case study suggests that a Complex Thinking framework can fruitfully guide the design of facilitation strategies and activities for scientific events and meetings, activating a number of key relational processes that contribute to or boost the emergence of positive group experiences and the production and integration of novel ideas. Recommendations for Researchers This study calls for action-oriented and applied research focused on the developmental evaluation of innovations, regarding the facilitation of scientific creativity and integration, within the scope of a Complex Thinking approach. Impact on Society This paper calls for new modes of organization and formats of scientific activities, suggesting that Inter and Transdisciplinary events and meetings may benefit from intentional management and facilitation of interactions between participants to produce transformative impacts. It demonstrates the importance of the organizational principles used to plan and run events that engage multiple and various societal agents, from academics to practitioners and social activists, towards enhancing their richness and relevance to complex real-world challenges. Future Research This study highlights the need for process-focused systematic case study research using complex systems-informed designs to explore how and which facilitation strategies may promote which (interaction of) properties of Complex Thinking and associated processes and how, and under which conditions, these lead to more complex and creative outcomes.

In Italy, the reimbursement provided to healthcare organisations for medical and surgical procedures is based on the diagnosis related group weight (DRGW), which is an increasing function of the complexity of the procedures. This makes the reimbursement an upper unlimited function. This model does not include the relation of the volume with the complexity. The paper proposes a mathematical model for the optimisation of the reimbursement by determining the optimal mix of volume/procedure, considering the relation volume/complexity and DRGW/complexity. The decreasing, linear, and increasing returns to scale have been defined, and the optimal solution found. The comparison of the model with the traditional approach shows that the proposed model helps the healthcare system to discern the quantity of the reimbursement to provide to health organisations, while the traditional approach, neglecting the relation between the volume and the complexity, can result in an overestimation of the reimbursement.

Despite the proliferation of strategy process and practice research, we lack understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes and practices. In this paper, we present three historical approaches with the potential to remedy this deficiency. First, realist history can contribute to a better understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes; in particular, comparative historical analysis can explicate the historical conditions, mechanisms, and causality in strategic processes. Second, interpretative history can add to our knowledge of the historical embeddedness of strategic practices, and microhistory can specifically help to understand the construction and enactment of these practices in historical contexts. Third, poststructuralist history can elucidate the historical embeddedness of strategic discourses, and genealogy can in particular increase our understanding of the evolution and transformation of strategic discourses and their power effects. Thus, this paper demonstrates how in their specific ways historical approaches and methods can add to our understanding of different forms and variations of strategic processes and practices, the historical construction of organizational strategies, and historically constituted strategic agency.

For now, there are several good choices for gun owners that DeWine can make, a few problematic ones, and one that’s completely unacceptable, his previous pick Dolan.

MALAYSIAN consumer associations have been around since the 1960s. However, today we have few that are active and serve consumer interest.

They should continue to fight for consumer rights nationwide and address issues that require better consumer education, stronger laws and enhanced regulatory frameworks, especially in commerce.

Many of these associations face several challenges when it comes to consumer protection, despite existing legal frameworks such as the Consumer Protection Act 1999. The main issues stem from a combination of factors, including:

Limited awareness: Many consumers are not fully aware of their rights under consumer protection laws. This lack of awareness leads to consumers not filing complaints or pursuing justice when their rights are violated.

Weak enforcement: While there are laws in place, the enforcement of these laws can be inconsistent. Regulatory agencies sometimes lack the resources or the will to take effective action against businesses that violate consumer rights.

Online transactions: With the rise of e-commerce, there have been increasing complaints about fraud, counterfeit goods and scams. Consumer protection laws are still catching up to fully address issues arising from online transactions, leaving many consumers vulnerable.

Delayed resolutions: Consumers often face long wait-times when filing complaints or seeking compensation. Dispute resolution mechanisms can be slow, which discourages consumers from pursuing complaints.

Misleading advertisements: There have been cases of misleading or false advertising where consumers end up buying products or services that do not meet expectations. The penalties for businesses engaging in such practices are not always strong enough to act as a deterrent.

Price gouging: In certain industries, especially during times of crisis, for example, the Covid-19 pandemic, price gouging can be a significant issue, with some businesses exploiting consumers by drastically raising prices on essential goods.

The government also has a duty to see that consumer associations function as they should and continue to stay active, and that they are fully supported.

Consumers should take action to defend their rights and ensure they are not violated while pursuing consumer protection.

Bulbir is a former president of the Negeri Sembilan Consumers Association. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

PUTRAJAYA: Active collaboration from industry players is needed for the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institution to offer programmes that are of a higher quality and more relevant to market needs.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof said strong cooperation between the industry players and the TVET institution was crucial to ensure the comprehensive matching of demand and supply.

He said consistent input from the industry players on the workforce skills and needs was also needed by the TVET institution to develop suitable curricula and programmes.

“Forging close cooperation with industry players can create a new skilled workforce to master the latest technology, which will have a spillover effect on encouraging economic growth.

“I call for the active involvement of industry players in Malaysia to collaborate with the government in supporting the agenda to empower TVET,” he said at the 2024 Prime Minister’s Gold Hand Award and Skilled Person Award ceremony here today.

Meanwhile, Fadillah said the government is aware that the TVET stream in Malaysia needs to be improved for it to be more systematic and effective.

He said the organisation of skills competitions was one of the government’s efforts to promote and ensure the quality of delivery of TVET training in Malaysia is in line with international standards.

“I call on all TVET agencies to hold skills competitions at institutional levels so that we can pick the best talent for national and international-level competitions,” he said.

In his speech, Fadillah also thanked and congratulated the national contingent which made sure the Jalur Gemilang was hoisted proudly at the WorldSkills Competition Lyon 2024 at the Euroexpo Lyon in France from Sept 10-15.

In the competition, Malaysia, represented by 15 participants across 14 categories, captured five medals - one bronze medal in the Beauty Therapy category through Wong Hsun Wei and four Medallion for Excellence.

The four Medallion for Excellence recipients were Muhammad Nasran Ahmad in the Hairdressing category; Ahmad Muizuddin Mohd Razi in the Bricklaying category; Muhammad Hakimi Abu Bakar in Electrical Installations; and Stephen Sim Shan Siong in the IT Software Solutions for Business category.

[…] Se også Karen Blakeman’s Bloginnlegg. […]

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An undated image of Ivanka Trump. — Instagram/@ivankatrump

Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of former United States president Donald Trump, is often seen flaunting her flawless looks and she recently recently opened up about her fitness journey.

The 43-year-old...

Chris Evans 'excited' to start family with wife Alba Baptista

Chris Evans has expressed his desire to start a family with his wife, Alba Baptista.

During an interview with Access Hollywood, the 43-year-old actor was asked if he'll become a "superhero" dad one day, like his Red One...

Activism: As the Pirate Party slowly veered to the left in politics, I got to experience Sullivan’s Law, which states that organizations that don’t outright declare themselves otherwise will inevitably drift off to the political left. The law doesn’t explain this phenomenon, but I think I can.

The Pirate Party was unique in its composition of activists. Whereas most political organizations can plot the political attitudes of their activists to a bell curve on the political left-to-right scale, that is, the organization can identify a clear peak and center mass where they lie politically, the Pirate Party instead had a complete empty trough in the middle, with waves crashing into the left and right wall on the left-to-right spectrum plot.

We had the most fervent anarchocapitalists and the most fervent anarchocommunists. At the same time. Cooperating. That was probably something of a political first. It also allowed me to see differences between these two groups that weren’t clear from the outset, and which might explain why organizations drift left over time.

O’Sullivans Law states that any organization that is not expressly right-leaning in politics will change over time to become left-leaning. There are some hypotheses as to why, including the observation that right-wing people will tolerate and even welcome left-wing people in an otherwise unpolitical organization, but that left-wing people will generally not tolerate right-wing people. While this observation can be made, I believe it is not enough for an entire organization to shift politically.

The explanation is far simpler, and it’s been hiding in plain sight for everyone.

Left-wing people are collectivists. They believe that the greater good shall have precedence over the wishes and desires over the individual, and organize to achieve this. Conversely, they do not feel at home when somebody tells them to promote a cause in whatever way they themselves think is best in their individual situation.

Right-wing people are individualists. They believe that the greatest good, even for the worst-off people, is best achieved by giving individuals as free reign as possible so that innovation and creativity can take place. Conversely, they do not feel at home when somebody is trying to dictate to them what to do and not to do.

This is almost painfully clear when working with both groups at the same time in a political organization. Ah yes, that’s the magic word, right there. Organization. A Non-profit organization, specifically. Do you know how these are run?

Basically without exception, they are run as a general assembly, where people are elected to positions and decisions are taken with a majority vote.

…decisions are taken with a majority vote.

It became painfully clear to me, that the form of a neutral association — the form we have, or had, accepted as neutral — is actually nothing of the sort. It turns out, that an organization that takes collective decisions promotes people who like collective decision-making, and turns away people who prefer individual initiatives.

The association with its board, its general assembly, and its majority votes isn’t neutral. It is pushing its membership left, through its very nature, by selecting for those who enjoy collective decision-making and procedural trickery, and marginalizing those who prefer individual initiatives.

This is why, if I were to found a new political organization today, I would never use the traditional Non-profit Association format, for it is not neutral and it will ruin whatever original vision you had.

For this same reason, I have come to be sceptical of center-right political parties who are run by this majority vote. They’ll never be as powerful as they can be, had they instead organized by individual initiatives — because they are competing against left-wing political parties who feel right at home in this form of organization, which they usually mandated to be the norm for everyone.

WETHEPEOPLE X kunstform BMX Shop - Get in the Van Tour 2015

The WETHEPEOPLE crew which consisted of Ed Zunda, Dillon Llody, Pete Sawyer, Moritz Nussbaumer and Dima Pyrkhodko did a huge roadtrip trough Germany and visited every day a BMX Shop. At 9th of July the team stopped at kunstform BMX Shop in Stuttgart. First we did a little session in our warehouse. After that we all went to BOOST Skatehalle and spend some great ridin till deep in the night! It was a very awesome time to hang up with Pros of WETHEPEOPLE and we're very happy about that good session. Our friend Sebi Nitsche did a little videoclip just to share some impression. Thanks for WETHEPEOPLE, SPORT IMPORT to make this stop in our BMX Shop possibil and of course a very special thanks to all local riders and customers!

Cheers Daniel !!

This fall, the world’s most iconic signature skateboarding shoe, the Vans Half Cab, celebrates 25 years of legendary skateboarding heritage. Originally released in 1992, the Half Cab represents an era of true design innovation. Constructed by street skaters in the early 90s by cutting the collar off the original Vans Caballero pro model and spawning the “lighter, better, faster” version of its predecessor, the iconic signature shoe for Steve Caballero has stood the test of time as a Vans Pro Skate favorite. The Half Cab has indisputably revolutionized performance skate progression, and still to this day, represents the leading-edge modifications in skateboarding footwear for which Vans has come to be known.

An icon in his own right with more than 45 years of influential skateboarding under his belt, from his tenure as part of the original Bones Brigade crew to his decades-long career as a pioneer of skateboarding from vert and park, to street and bowl, Vans honors legend Steve Caballero with the release of two exclusive Half Cab colorways in the token silver anniversary hue and classic black.

Highlighting premium pig suede uppers, metallic silver details, and a tonal embroidered “XXV” on the back heel for a commemorative touch, the 25th Anniversary Vans Half Cab is equipped with Vans Pro Skate’s signature Pro Classics performance innovation, featuring supportive ULTRACUSH HD sockliners for resilient cushioning and advanced comfort, and DURACAP reinforced underlays in high abrasion areas for premium durability and consistent fit.

We wish you all the best!

Your kunstform BMX Shop Team!

The Vans BMX Pro Cup Series, the world’s leading platform for elite BMX park terrain competition, announces the official 2018 World Tour dates and locations for the upcoming season. The celebrated BMX competition series will take place in Australia, California, Mexico and Spain, welcoming a top-ranking competitive field of invited pro BMX riders and Wildcards for their chance to compete on the world stage for a piece of the grand $155,000USD prize.



The Vans BMX Pro Cup Series is also proud to expand the 2018 World Tour with the addition of two new Regional Qualifier events in the United States and Chile, encouraging more talented BMX riders from around the world to earn their way to the Vans BMX Pro Cup World Championships. The five confirmed Regional Qualifier events are open to registration by all professional men and women BMX riders beginning in Santiago, Chile on March 23. The top three podium winners from each Regional Qualifier will advance to the Vans BMX Pro Cup Pro Tour, and secure their invite to the Vans BMX Pro Cup World Championships.



2018 VANS BMX PRO CUP SERIES WORLD TOUR ZEITPLAN



Regional Qualifiers

Santiago, Chile
March 23 & 25

Sydney, Australia
April 27

Woodward East, Pennsylvania
June 28

Guadalajara, Mexico
August 24

Málaga, Spain
September 21



*registration information is available on vansbmxprocup.com



Pro Tour

Sydney, Australia
April 29

Huntington Beach, CA
August 3 & 5

Guadalajara, Mexico
August 25 - 26



World Championship

Málaga, Spain
September 22 - 23



@vansbmxprocup on Instagram
#vansbmxprocup



All the best

Your kunstform BMX Shop Team

On the 31st of March the Vans Invitational Contest took place again in Huntington beach. Huge Congrats to our bro Felix Prangenberg who visited California a few weeks earlier and ended up with the second place!

Enjoy the Video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!



Video: Vans



Music: France Camp. Song: C'est La Vie



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We got the new Vans collection in stock, like for example the new Vans X Cult "Sk8-Hi Pro" Shoe, which is an updated and upgraded silhouette to withstand the enhanced performance requirements of today's BMXers. The suede and heavy-duty canvas upper materials keep the design durable, while the reflective sidestripe keeps it flashy. Featuring tonal tongue and heel embroideries as well as custom screened logos on the removable UltraCush HD sockliner, the Vans X Cult "Sk8-Hi Pro" Shoes - (CULT) Black/White also includes Pro Vulc Lite construction, DURACAP reinforcement rubber underlays in high wear areas, and Vans original waffle outsoles made of a rubber that offers grip and support. Join the CULT.

Also now in stock, the Vans "Fend Roll Top" Backpack in the colorway Classic Camo, which is a 100% polyester backpack with a large main compartment with a roll top closure, ergonomically-designed shoulder straps for comfort, and a front pocket with azip. Measuring 44.5cm x 29cm x 14cm, it has a 21-liter capacity.


Check our online-shop for more new Vans products!
Have fun!



All the best,

Your kunstform BMX Shop Team