Denis Sheshko

Find out how many universities have stopped offering French, German, Italian and Spanish since 1998

Обычно (местные) налогоплательщики финансируют (местную) полицию и имеют основания гордо говорить, что платят зарплату полицейским. В принципе, отделение полиции может открыть свой арбузный ларек, но конкуренты мешают получать нетривиальные доходы.

Но вот полицейские обнаруживают, что могут самофинансироваться и более увлекательными способами -- например, предлагать купить наркотики, а потом отбирать деньги у покупателей (см. #1). Или просто отбирать наличные деньги (как правило у представителей underclass, которые более склонны к крупным покупкам за нал) и предлагать жертвам доказать, что эти деньги предназначались для законных целей (см. #2). Плюс некоторое количество наличных порой падает на землю, прилипает ко дну мерки и т. п.

Уголовное преследование в таких обстоятельствах становится все более вторичной задачей (а в случае #2 -- даже является некоторой помехой, учитывая возможное возникновение у жертвы бесплатного лоера).

Необходимость лебезить перед налогоплательщиками пропадает -- чай сами можем деньги добывать, нечего унижаться и клянчить. Да и налогоплательщики довольны. А long term опасность -- в уходе полиции в автономное самостоятельное плаванье.

#1 http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/wellington/fl-sunrise-cops-money-selling-drugs-1006,0,7669964.htmlpage
Лишь одна успешная симпатичная внештатная сотрудница помогла полиции за 5 лет сшибить 5 мил. дол. -- ну и сама заработала 807 тыщ дол.

#2 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman

The front page of the Sun on Monday carried an 'exclusive' about a dangerous crisis in Britain's mental health system, apparently resulting in hundreds of killings

The phrase "mental patients" used in the Sun's headline conjures up images of Asda's "mental patient fancy dress costume" which was withdrawn last month. It's one of a few problems with the newspaper's splash.

People with mental health issues are already stigmatised in the UK. The last time the NHS surveyed 1,741 adults to ask them what they thought about mental health:

• 1 in 5 said "anyone with a history of mental problems should be excluded from taking public office".
• 1 in 10 said "it is frightening to think of people with mental problems living in residential neighbourhoods".
• 1 in 10 said "A woman would be foolish to marry a man who has suffered from mental illness, even though he seems fully recovered".

Linking mental illness to violence, as the headline does, could therefore be seen as irresponsible. But have 1,200 people really been killed by people receiving treatment for mental illness? That is the claim we are seeking to check.

As the sub-heading states, the supposed death toll is over the space of a decade. In a double-page spread featuring the faces of dead victims and the words "broken people … broken system" more detail is given on how "the Sun's probe … discovered 1,216 people were killed by patients with mental illnesses from 2001-2010 – an average of 122 deaths a year".

What is the source of the data?

The figures come from an annual report, published by the University of Manchester in July 2013. It contains no data since 2010. You can read the report here.

Two elements of the Sun's article could be misleading:

1. It has added together "mental patients" (people who have "been in contact with mental health services in the 12 months prior to the offence") and "individuals who had symptoms of mental illness". As the researchers make clear, with this group, "although symptoms were present, we do not know if these symptoms led directly to the homicide". In addition, "most of these people were not under mental health care; therefore most [homicides] were not preventable by mental health services".

2. If you look only at murders committed by "patients", the total for the decade is slashed from 1,216 to 738.

Examining the figures year by year also changes the picture, showing that the number of such deaths has declined since 2006. 2010 was the lowest year for murders by patients with mental health issues – there were 40 across the UK, compared with 92 in 2005, as shown on this chart:

The bigger picture

Here are some other facts that put the Sun's figure into perspective.

• In 2010-11 635 homicides were recorded in England and Wales. That means 95% of murders were committed by individuals who had not been diagnosed with a mental health problem.

• When you compare the total number of homicides and the thousands of discharges of mental health patients, where data is available, there is no correlation.

• The mental health charity Time to Change says "people with mental health problems are more dangerous to themselves than they are to others: 90% of people who die through suicide in the UK are experiencing mental distress".

How would you want to see us reporting on mental health? What do you think the data says? If you are worried about a mental health issue, contact the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or your GP.

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Третью неделю в прокате идет «Околофутбола», за первые выходные собравший в кинотеатрах порядка 50 миллионов рублей. «Афиша» поговорила с небезразличными к футболу людьми о фильме, хулиганской культуре и национализме... Читать дальше

Джуд Лоу принял участие в сегодняшней гринписовской акции протеста в Лондоне:



(Скриншот из интервью с ним, если кому интересно, как он говорит в реальной жизни; меня, например, удивил его плебейский акцент.)

То есть какая-то движуха есть всё же. Но пока государства, чьи граждане сидят на мордорских нарах, не вмешаются, толку не будет. А они что-то не спешат вмешиваться, кроме Голландии, сделавшей это с явной неохотой. (Но это их судно, так что не сделать этого они не могли.)

Do the British eat more bread than the French? How much bread ends up in the bin? Every baking fact you've ever wanted to know has been sliced up in numbers here.

1. Almost 2kg per person per week
The average person in the UK eats 1,829 grams of 'bread, rice, potatoes, pasta & other starchy foods' every single week. It looks like bread still makes up a big chunk of that carb consumption - according to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, men consume about 113 grams of bread a day, and for women it's 76 grams.

2. We eat less than we should
So it might come as a surprise that we aren't actually eat enough. The NHS uses the 'eatwell plate' to better educate people about which types of food should make up what fraction of our diets. They reckon that starchy foods should make up 33% of our diets - but the latest government figures show those foods makes up barely 20% of our plates.

3. One in three slices goes in the bin
Of all the edible food we buy, bread suffers to worst fate when it comes to waste. 32% of it ends up being thrown away - that's despite the fact that 85% of us check how much we have before buying some more. The average for all food and drink being wasted is 15%, although that's slightly lower for meat and fish (13%) and our most precious item is alcohol - we throw away just 6% of it. You can find out which areas of England waste the most in the map below.

4. 34% more expensive than in 2007
Food price inflation is one of the biggest issues facing low-income families; since 2007, the average price of food and drink has risen by 33%. Bread is no exception, having gone up by 34% while butter has seen the largest price rise, up 55%.

5. High street bakeries are 7% of the market
About 80% of the bread eaten in the UK is of the mega-bakery, sliced, wrapped variety. Bakeries that are in supermarkets or chain stores account for 13% and the tiny remainder is the portion of the market that are small local businesses.

6. Baguetting more
Our annual release of food statistics includes a specific price comparison to France. For most groups (except alcoholic beverages, which cost 61% more in the UK) British food is cheaper. Bread is no exception; it costs 15% less in the UK than in France.

7. 60% of flour in the UK is used to make bread
According to the Bakers Federation, there are 32 flour mills in the UK that produce about 5 million tonnes a year. The rest of the wheat we use comes from Canada, the USA, France and Germany.

8. E481: the industrial loaf

Campaigning for "the rise of real bread", a UK food campaign group has provided a list of just some of the ingredients commonly found in mass-produced loaves:

E481 (sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate), E472e (mono- and diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), E920 (l-cysteine), E282 (calcium propionate), E220 (potassium sorbate), E300 (ascorbic acid), E260 (acetic acid) soya flour

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Кори Робин приводит в своем блоге две занимательные цитаты.

Цитата 1

В огромном кампусе Фейсбука в Менло Парк, Калифорния настолько удобно, что некоторые работники не хотят уходить домой. Скоро у них будет такая возможность.

Компания сообщила на этой неделе, что работает с местной строительной фирмой над 394-квартирным городком стоимостью в $120 миллионов на пешеходном расстоянии от ее офисов. Этот городок будет называться Антон Менло, включать в себя 630 тысяч квадратных футов сдающейся в наем площади, а также все на свете от спортбара до дневной гостиницы для собак.

...

Одной из целей компании Фейсбук является забота о как можно большей части жизни ее работников. Им не нужно заботиться о транспорте: ходит фирменный автобус. Стирка и химчистка? Есть. Визажисты, художественные классы, ремонт велосипедов? Есть.

The Wall Street Journal

Цитата 2

Город Пульман, Иллинойс, был построен на четырех с лишним акрах земли вдоль озера Калумет к югу от Чикаго... Город был основан в 1880 году и закончен, в соответствии с единым планом, за два года. [Джордж] Пульман... не просто строил фабрики и общежития, как это делалось за пятьдесят лет до него в Лоуэлле, Массачусетс. Он строил отдельные дома, блоки, квартиры для семи-восьми тысяч человек, магазины и конторы, школы, конюшни, парки, рынок, гостиницу, библиотеку, театр, даже церковь - короче, модельный город по заданному плану.

И все до последнего кирпича в этом городе принадлежало ему.

Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice

Entrepreneurship differs wildly among countries

AMERICA is an engine of innovation, as attested by the upcoming public listing of Twitter, which aims to fetch a cool $1 billion. How do other countries rank in terms of entrepreneurship? Sadly, not so well. Around one in 13 people in America are entrepreneurs. That is three times more than in Germany, which is vying to become a startup haven, as we explain this week (see article). To fund those innovators, when the level of venture capital as a share of the overall economy is considered, the differences are even starker. Sweden and France have the same share of entrepreneurs but Sweden's cash spigot is more open. And even though the Netherlands has twice as many entrepreneurs as a share of its population, as either of those countries, its venture capital is as paltry as France's. As for Germany, it may face difficulties in fostering a startup culture: its venture capital investment is around ten times less than in America.

Big data reveals Republican policies in America's healthcare law

ON THE surface, it looks totally partisan. Not a single Republican voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare". But the law is filled with concessions to them. A new computer analysis counts the GOP policy ideas that overlap with other bills that made it into the law: 3% from the House and 8% from the Senate. In fact, when "mark-up" bills are excluded—basically, amendments and legislative re-writes—11% and 28% of policy ideas from Congressional and Senate Republicans, respectively, align. John Wilkerson of the University of Washington and his colleagues studied the legislative history using big data. They ran the PPACA through a text-analysis system that could spot similar wording in previous legislation with a better than 90% accuracy. That let them identify the date and sponsor of earlier bills that ended up in the law, indicated as circles in the chart. Hence, proposals by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa on nursing home transparency in March 2009 were incorporated by Democratic lawmakers in later bills, before appearing in the law. So was it really necessary to shut down the government?

How many people in the UK are gay, lesbian or bisexual? The Office for National Statistics reckons it's 1.5% while the Kinsey report says it's 10%. Who's right?

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For every 100 people in Britain, just 1 will identify themselves as gay or lesbian according to the latest government statistics. The numbers (which include gender, location and age) may come as a surprise - but why?

1.5% of the UK?

In its 'Integrated Household Survey', the Office for National Statistics asks 178,197 people about their sexual identity - and the vast majority of them choose to answer.

93.5% of people said they were 'heterosexual' or 'straight', just 1.1% said they were 'gay' or 'lesbian' and 0.4% said they were bisexual. The small fraction that was left either refused to answer or said they didn't know. Altogether, amounts to about 545,000 homosexual and 220,000 bisexual adults in the UK.

The claim that just 1.5% of people in Britain are gay, lesbian or bisexual will come as a surprise to some - even perhaps those in government. When they were analysing the financial implications of the new Civil Partnerships Act, the Treasury estimated it was 6%. Stonewall, a gay rights charity reckon that 5-7% "is a reasonable estimate".

10% of the US?

Do those figures seem low? One reason they might is that the number one in ten has long-persisted in popular culture as a reliable guesstimate of homosexuality rates. That number made its way into public assumptions and poor press reporting through the Kinsey Reports, two books written by a zoologist at Indiana University - Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (written in 1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).

Though the reports broke long-held taboos on reporting about sexual orientation, the methodology used by Kinsey quickly came under strong criticism for being extremely unreliable. Soon after it was published, statisticians from the American Statistical Association claimed "a random selection of three people would have been better than a group of 300 chosen by Mr. Kinsey".

And yet, many people estimate even higher numbers than Kinsey himself did. In 2011, a Gallup poll asked over 1,000 adults across the US "what % of Americans today would you say are gay or lesbian?". On average, respondents guessed that 1 in 4 Americans were.

Fascinatingly, Democrats guessed a higher % of Americans were gay than Republicans did (28% compared to 20%) and higher estimates were also given by lower-income Americans, less educated individuals, young people and women. So we know lots of people get it wrong, what do the latest statistics say?

Gay men outnumber gay women?

While 1.5% of men in the UK say they're gay, only 0.7% of women say the same. But that trend is reversed when it comes to the identity 'bisexual' - 0.3% of men select this, compared to 0.5% of women. Slightly more women than men say 'don't know' or refuse to answer the question - 3.8% compared to 3.5% of men.

Gay capital?

The percentage of Britons saying they're gay, lesbian or bisexual is far higher in London than anywhere else in the UK - 2.5% compared to just 1.1% in Northern Ireland and 1% in the East of England.

Age?

Those aged between 16 and 24 were by far the most likely to say they were gay, lesbian or bisexual - 2.7% of them did - a proportion that steadily declines as you inch up the age scale.

One possible explanation

The more detailed breakdown of responses is revealing - it points to a potential problem with the survey. Maybe the huge differences between people's estimates about the size of the gay population and their responses about their own sexual identification is about more than just bad guesses. Maybe it reveals the extent to which taboos persist (particularly for older people and those living in more conservative parts of the country) so individuals remain reluctant to tell the truth - a reluctance that manifests itself in under-estimates about personal sexual identity and over-estimates about other people's.

What do you think? Tell us below

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Oxford University researchers have visualised each country's most viewed website in the form of a colonial map

Who made these visualisations? The Oxford Internet Institute

We have reached the age of internet empires with just a handful of websites dominating internet traffic across the globe.

Stefano De Sabbata and Dr Mark Graham from the Oxford Internet Institute have tried to show this with a map visualising each country's most popular website using a design that pays homage to the Age of Empires video game series.

You can click on the map below to zoom in and see the countries in detail. There is a key showing the websites featured at the bottom left of the map.

The researchers explain their methodology on their Information Geographies blog:

The map uses freely available data retrieved from Alexa on August 12th, 2013. The company has provided website analytics since 1996. Alexa collects data from millions of internet users using one of over 25,000 different browser extensions, and the data used for this visualization were calculated "using a combination of the estimated average daily unique visitors to a site and the estimated number of pageviews on that site from users in that country over the past month".

The data are visualised as a choropleth map, where the colour indicates each country's most visited website. Starting from the evident dominance of two companies (Google and Facebook), whose colours (red and blue, respectively) cover most of the map, we styled the illustration as an old colonial map, and named it after the computer game series Age of Empires.

The age of internet empires

So Google and Facebook rule most of the world except Asia where local providers have managed to maintain their domination of the market.

The researchers point out that Google is the most visited website in the majority of European, North American and Oceanian countries while Facebook dominates in the Middle East, North Africa and most Spanish-speaking countries in South America.

The once dominant Yahoo! maintains a stronghold in Japan, where it is branded Yahoo Japan! (as a joint venture with Japanese company SoftBank) and also in Taiwan.

Unfortunately there are some countries missing from the map, as the researchers explain:

Alexa does not provide much information about countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, most countries that have a significant Internet population are covered. Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, and South Africa fall within the sphere of Google's empire, whereas Ghana, Senegal, and Sudan have been subsumed within Facebook's dominion.

Size is not everything

The countries where Google is dominant contain half of the internet's whole population, with over one billion users.

Although the locations it dominates contain more landmass, Facebook loses out to Chinese search engine Baidu when it comes to total internet population.

To illustrate this discrepancy De Sabbata and Graham have also displayed the data on a map where countries are sized by internet population.

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Setting aside part of a welfare benefit for staples such as food has existed in the NT since 2007, and the program has affected some positively, some negatively

The Coalition has said it is evaluating welfare quarantine trials, which limit the types of goods and services welfare payments can be spent on.

Quarantining is the approach used in the Northern Territory Emergency Response (known colloquially as the NT intervention) under the Howard, and then Rudd/Gillard governments.

Given it has existed in the NT since 2007, we should have an idea by now whether it is effective.

The most recent and comprehensive report I've found is Evaluating New Income Management in the Northern Territory: First Evaluation Report (PDF), compiled by academics from two universities and the Australian Institute of Family Studies and published by the Social Policy Research Centre.

The study examines the effect of "income management" introduced under the NT intervention, and "new income management", which replaced income management in 2010 and consisted of four streams: compulsory income management; vulnerable welfare payment recipients measure; child protection income management; and voluntary income management.

All except child protection income management involve 50% of a person's income support payment being placed onto a "BasicsCard", which can then only be used at specific shops on specific goods, excluding things such as cigarettes and alcohol. For the child protection stream the amount is 70%.

The new income management program expanded the area of effect to all of the NT, rather than just the Indigenous communities included under the NT intervention, but made it compulsory only for people who had been on specific types of welfare for a longer time.

Overall, the study found there was no strong, consistent outcome of income management. It affected different groups of people in different ways, some positively, some negatively.

For example, only 36% of Indigenous people thought compulsory income management had made things better for them, but this increased to 59% for those on voluntary income management.

Most people on income management felt, at some time or another, that they were being discriminated against because they were income-managed. Many found the experience of income management embarrassing and humiliating, and felt as if they had less control over their money.

The authors surveyed Indigenous and non-Indigenous people on income management programs to determine their perception of various social issues, such as alcohol, drugs and gambling, and then also surveyed people not on the income management program.

The majority of people reported that none of these issues was a problem for their family, with some differences between people on voluntary and compulsory programs, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Use the dropdown menu on the graphs to compare results:

Click here for the graph on mobile

Click here for the graph on mobile

Click here for the graph on mobile

Also surveyed were measurements of financial difficulty, such as running out of money to buy food or medicine, inability to pay rent on time, and a number of others. When the results were analysed statistically, there was no difference in financial stress between those on income management and those not.

Another interesting result was the difference between the perceived benefits of income management and the results of the financial stress survey. There was a tendency for Indigenous people on income management to perceive a far larger positive change in their ability to have enough money to afford food than was borne out by their answering questions on how often they had been able to afford food or not.

A big caveat from the authors for all the surveys in this study:

Attribution of the cause of any changes in outcomes to specific policies: the NTER involved a wide range of often intensive interventions which may also directly and indirectly impact on a number of the outcomes for individuals, their families and their communities. There have also been a number of other policy changes which are not part of the NTER. This means that it is very difficult to isolate the extent to which any changes are due to NIM or are due to other policy changes.

Selection effects: people who choose to go onto Voluntary Income Management may have different characteristics and motivations from those on Compulsory Income Management; these pre-existing differences may have an impact on their outcomes relative to those who have income management compulsorily imposed on them.

Separating the impacts of NIM from NTER IM: the prior experience of people, including being income managed under the NTER, may influence the outcomes which might otherwise be attributed to NIM.

A new ranking of the "most social" media publishers on the web puts BuzzFeed and the BBC at the top. See which sites performed best in August for Facebook interactions and sharing on Twitter
• Get the data

BuzzFeed has been named the "most social" publisher on Facebook in a ranking of August's most shared online content, with the BBC boasting the best performance on Twitter.

BuzzFeed had almost 16m combined Facebook interactions on content published in the month, recording the highest number of any of the media sites on the list. The social news and entertainment site produced near to 7,500 pieces of content in August and recorded 7.8m likes, 4.3 comments and almost 3.8m shares on Facebook.

According to NewsWhip, the news aggregator and analysis company that compiled the ranking using data from their content analysis platform Spike, only 2.4m combined Facebook interactions were recorded for BuzzFeed back in September 2012.

But BuzzFeed aren't the only ones to have seen a big rise in social interactions since last year; NewsWhip measured a 165% increase in under 12 months in the total number of Facebook interactions recorded by the top 50 online publishers.

The Huffington Post followed BuzzFeed in second place with more than 3m Facebook shares and almost 6m likes in August. Although the number of likes, shares and comments on Huffington Post content has more than doubled since September last year, it still wasn't enough to beat BuzzFeed.

But despite not hitting the top spot, the Huffington Post did produce the most 'social' piece of content in August; their '23 Signs You're Secretly an Introvert' article was the most shared and commented article on Facebook.

Upworthy, a social news aggregator that launched in March 2012 with the aim to "make things that matter" go viral, has recorded "phenomenal" growth according to NewsWhip. Publishing only 216 pieces of content between the 1 and 31 August 2013, the site still managed to harness 5.3m combined Facebook interactions (placing it fifth above the likes of the New York Times and Fox).

Of the top five most social publishers on Facebook in August, three are online-only publishers with a focus on "share-friendly" content: BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post and Upworthy.

Twitter shares shift the media hierarchy again with traditional news outlets and tech sites dominating the top 20 with the strongest performance on the social networking site. The BBC had more than 2m tweets for the 8,016 articles it produced in August - putting them far ahead of Mashable, the New York Times, The Guardian, CNN and even BuzzFeed.

NewsWhip plan to publish the top social publishers ranking monthly. "What will be very interesting for us is comparing September 2012 and September 2013 for a real "apples and apples" benchmarking of how much social distribution of news has grown over the past year," says Paul Quigley, co-founder of NewsWhip. "Given that comparing last September with a slow news month like August still showed such a strong growth, we're expecting impressive numbers."

You can explore the data in the tables below and in the downloadable spreadsheet. We'd love to hear your views.

• Large sites with various sub-domains have been grouped together to give an overall figure for the publisher. For instance, figures for the New York Times include stats for nytimes.com, along with various blogs.nytimes.com subdomains (These are in red in the table below).

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• DATA: download the full spreadsheet

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Напомним, в мае 2012 года президент РФ Владимир Путин поручил правительству добиться того, чтобы к 2020 году пять российских вузов вошли в первую сотню престижных рейтингов. В 2013 году на это выделили 9 миллиардов рублей. Деньги распределили по 15 вузам, причем МГУ среди них не оказалось.

В этой новости всё прекрасно, на самом деле. (Включая URL!)

С одной стороны, правительство просто берет 300 миллионов баксов и выбрасывает их в пропасть. Че там, не свои - не жалко.

С другой - если поделить эту сумму на 15, выйдет 20 миллионов. А если еще потом поделить на 8 лет, то 2.5 миллиона. 2.5 миллиона долларов для университета в год - это ничто. У нас в Манчестере учатся в настоящий момент чуть более 1000 андеградов-математиков. 75% из них платят по 9К фунтов в год, оставшиеся (иностранцы) - по 15. В общей сложности получается более 16 миллионов долларов в год дохода только от платы за обучение, и только младшекурсников, и только математиков. Есть еще гранты, постграды и пр. И это математика, далеко не самая доходная наука. У биологов гранты исчисляются десятками миллионов в год.

И вот на эти ничтожные 2.5 миллиона баксов какой-нибудь Кобылозадовский университет должен подскочить на >9000 позиций в рейтинге. Ага, щаз. Скорее уж его ректор купит себе бимер с подогревом сидений и кондо в Майями, не будь дурак. Поддержит Флориду российским рублем, а заодно и Германию.

Раз:

После того как нескольких из нас вызвали, нам сообщили, что мы были под арестом и нас посадят на два месяца в тюрьму. Алекс стала рыдать. Я начала терять спокойствие и самообладание. Два месяца в клетке — это одно дело, но ведь неясно, что будет потом? Что будет после этого? Наказание в виде лишения свободы на несколько месяцев или на несколько лет? При этом все факты основаны на лжи!

Абсолютно все происходит незаконно. Обвинения, которые предъявляет нам ФСБ, полны неточностей и ошибок, и эти ошибки — только их вина. Нет ни одного определенного свидетельства против нас.

За всех думает кто-то «сверху», а нас пока рассадили по клеткам. Мартин, наш консул, сказал мне, что я должна оставаться спокойной, потому что у голландцев хорошие отношения с Россией. Хорошие отношения?.. Голландское правительство требует нашего освобождения? Немедленно? Россия не имела права даже нас арестовать, но она сделала это. Они делают только то, что хотят.

И два:

Стало известно, что власти Финляндии не намерены вступаться за задержанную финскую активистку Сини Саарелу, сообщила финская служба новостей Yle со ссылкой на заявление президента страны Саули Ниинисте. По словам президента, ей будет оказываться лишь консульская поддержка. Президент подчеркнул, что в аналогичных обстоятельствах Финляндия бы также не одобрила иностранного вмешательства.

Повторюсь: меня в этой истории интересует исключительна реакция Запада касательно своих граждан, оказавшихся в гулаге. Финский президент вот, к примеру, высказался: "Девочка, мы тебя сдали русским. Будь здорова!"

Прощения этому нет. Надеюсь, этот ублюдок будет гореть в аду.

Are the poor better or worse off than they used to be? It's a divisive question for the public and an even clearer fault line for British politicians. We take a look at three sets of numbers to find out

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Get the numbers

Whether they're saying the economy is coming out of recession or going into recovery, British politicians know how important it is to show that the benefits are getting spread around. That's why 'the poor' often come up in policy, finger pointing and the press.

There are basically two camps. In the (metaphorical) red corner, are those that claim the poor are getting poorer either because income is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few or because standards of living are getting worse for those with the least money - or both.

In total contradiction, there are those that say the poor are getting richer because we live in a country where income doesn't just go to the richest. One reader, Ed Woods, got in touch with Reality Check and asked "can you tell us who is telling fibs?"

Is there a right or wrong answer here or is the data just open to interpretation? We look at three different indicators of poverty to see what we find.

Chart 1: Real incomes

Most people have seen their incomes rise. But not everyone - some of the poorest people have seen them fall. This chart is a bit tricky to understand at first but use these quick tips and you should be able to see the trends for yourself.

First, imagine taking everyone in the UK, finding out how much they earn and then splitting them up into one hundred different groups. The group with the lowest income would be but in the first 'percentile', the group with the second lowest incomes would be in the second percentile and so on all the way up to the 99^th percentile - they're the group that earns the most.

This chart shows how income for each of those 100 groups changed between 1980 and 2012. So, at the far left, you can see what has happened to incomes for the poorest 1% of the UK population (their incomes have fallen by about 1%) and at the far right, you can see that incomes for the richest 1% of the UK population have risen by about 3%.

But you can also see how circumstances matter. Even the poorest pensioners have seen their real incomes rise since 1978 - but the same isn't true for others who have seen the biggest drop in their incomes. Since pensioners as a group make up a far smaller fraction of the population than families or childless individuals, that drop in income for the poor is particularly important.

Conclusion 1: The poorest have got poorer

Chart 2: Standards of living

There is more to poverty than just income. But the UK is a developed country so it doesn't make sense to use things like hunger as a measure of how the lives of the poorest are changing.

The UK government (along with most others in the EU) monitors something called 'severe material deprivation' which is when someone can't afford at least four of the basics shown in the chart below - and as the chart shows, more people are unable to afford things like heating and mortgage payments.

Conclusion 2: Fewer poor people can afford the basics

Chart 3: Policy change

If this article is supposed to say anything about the impact of the coalition, it doesn't say much since some of the data stretches far back and it ends around 2011. So how are the changes to tax and benefit reforms likely to affect the poor?

Remember those one hundred groups mentioned above? Now put them back together again and split up the population into ten groups instead. Now you'll see that the poorest 10% of the UK stand to lose around 4.3% of their income as a direct consequence of the direct tax and benefit reforms either already introduced or planned between April 2012 and April 2015. The richest 20% of the UK will see their incomes rise by 1%.

Conclusion 3: The poor are likely to get poorer

An inconvenient truth?

When Charlie Elphicke MP wrote a passionate article in the Telegraph titled 'An inconvenient truth for Ed: the poor are getting richer' he used data too. And his evidence does point to the poorest individuals in society receiving the largest boost in income. Does that mean that our conclusions so far are wrong?

From our economics correspondent

Robert Joyce, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says the claim that the bottom fifth of UK households saw a rise in their disposable income between 2008 and 2012 is upheld by data from the Office for National Statistics. But almost all the gain can be attritbuted to the Labour government's boost to child tax credits and other benefits before the coalition arrived in May 2010.

"Retail prices inflation (RPI) was negative in 2009 when the calculation was made for the following year's benefits. The government decided not to reduce benefits in line with inflation, but maintain an increase," he said.

The claim can also only be upheld in the period up to 2012 addressed by the ONS in its July analysis of households incomes. A more recent look at the trend will find that the situation has reversed and poverty is on the rise again.

A report by the IFS in June found that the bottom 10th of earners were 1.2% better off in real terms during the 2008 to 2012 period.

Yet forecasts from the Office for Budget responsibility concerning the impact of tax and benefit changes shows that in the period 2007/8 and 2015/16 the bottom 10% will be 3.4% worse off.

In response to the report, Joyce said: "If the OBR's macroeconomic forecasts are correct, then most of the falls in real incomes associated with the recession have now happened for middle- and higher-income groups. But much of the pain for lower-income groups is occurring now or is still to come, because these groups are the most affected by the ongoing cuts to benefits and tax credits. Overall, we expect the period of recession followed by austerity to leave income inequality in 2015– 16 about the same, or slightly lower, than in 2007–08."

What about the rise in the personal tax threshold? Surely this a boon for lower income groups. Joyce says not.

"The increase in the personal tax allowance is not going to affect lower income households because so many of them don't pay tax. The people who benefit from this policy the most are people on median incomes and especially households where both parents work because they get double the benefit."

How do you think poverty should be measured? Do you think it's on the rise? Tell us what you think below.

Sources: check Reality Check

Here's where we try to stay transparent about where we got our facts and give you the resources you need to carry on checking them:
• 'Living Standards, Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2013', IFS, June 2013
• 'Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK and EU, 2005-2011', ONS, January 2013
• Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion, JRF, 2012
• An inconvenient truth for Ed: the poor are getting richer, Charlie Elphicke MP, 19 September 2013
• The Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household Income, 2011/12, ONS, 2013
• Households Below Average Income, DWP, 2013
• % of pop. living in a dwelling with a leaking roof, damp walls etc., EUROSTAT, 2013
• Child and Working-Age Poverty from 2010 to 2020, IFS, 2011

Contribute to this blog

Are we asking the right questions? Do you have alternative sources that could improve this piece? We're ready to listen to your views and suggestions - here's how to make them heard:

• Post a comment below
• Email us at data@theguardian.com
• Send us a message via Twitter
• Download the full spreadsheet

Пришел e-mail от рекрутера (по русски -- хедхантера), где без малейшего стеба, иронии или гыгы излагается встреча с двумя бывшими выпускниками, один из которых слушался рекрутера и всячески процветает, а неслух, при прочих равных:

The other man had been bouncing between jobs for years. He also dreaded work and was quite unhappy when working. He was not a pleasant person to be around most of the time, and even his wife did not care for him too much anymore.

Я уже ждал стандартного продолжения, типа, собаки на него рычали, дети кидали в него камнями, голуби со всего города прилетали какать на его машину, etc. etc. Но нет, дальше все совершенно серьезно про пользу рекрутеров.

Про гринписовцев, похоже, все забыли. Новости про них какие-то сугубо периферийные, никто из серьезных западных политиков на эту тему не высказался.

Меж тем, из 30 задержанных только четверо россиян. Остальные - граждане США, Великобритании, Швеции, Финляндии, Австралии. Почему дипломаты из всех этих расчудесных стран молчат, как в рот воды набрав?! Ведь обвинение в пиратстве, которое российское гестапо собирается им предъявить, - полная белиберда. И все это понимают.

В общем, путинский режим можно поздравить - им взят еще один рубеж. До данного момента в гулаг можно было без проблем закатывать российских граждан; теперь - и иностранцев тоже. То есть какой-нибудь турист, снимающий видео на Красной площади, может запросто оказаться в Бутырке по обвинению в шпионаже. И никто, надо думать, ему теперь не поможет.

Сидят они, кстати, в жутких условиях. Эта несчастная финка, у которой вырезана щитовидная железа, вообще может до суда не дожить.

Я серьезно не понимаю, как люди не боятся туда ездить. Дико страшно же.

The chancellor has supported a rise but do you know what the national minimum wage is now? Do you know what it was when it was first introduced? Get all the numbers here

George Osborne backs minimum wage rise to £7 an hour

In October 2014, the minimum wage could rise to £7 if the chancellor's plans announced today are enacted.

The national minimum wage was last increased in October 2013 but the rise wasn't consistent for everyone. This is what it currently looks like:

• adult rate ↑12p to £6.31 an hour
• rate for 18-20 year olds ↑5p to £5.03 an hour
• rate for 16-17 year olds ↑4p to £3.72 an hour
• apprentice rate ↑3p to £2.68 an hour

But is that keeping up with inflation? And how does the UK compare to other countries?

Historic data

A key policy for Labour in the 1997 election and a key piece of legislation in 1998, the national minimum wage finally came into force on 1^st April 1999. Back then, it was just £3.60 per hour for adult workers over the age of 22 and £3.00 for those aged 18-22.

Although it's true that the minimum wage goes up each year, groups like the Resolution Foundation claim that is misleading because it doesn't take into account changes in the cost of living.

When you take into account inflation (there are two slightly different measures - RPI and CPI) what first appears to be a steady climb in the minimum wage now looks different.

The Resolution Foundation calculate that this leaves the minimum wage £1,010 lower a year than it was in 2008. That matters because around 1 million adult workers in Britain are paid the minimum wage, while twice that number earn within 50 pence of the minimum wage.

Whichever value you use, the national minimum wage has fallen steadily since 2008 and wasn't set to recover to its former levels until 2017 at the earliest.

The proposed new £7 national minimum wage would bring that date forward by three years at least.

Below minimum wage

Each year, the government also looks at average hourly wages for all groups - including those that are paid below the minimum. Figures from February 2013 show that 0.9% of people working full-time and 1.7% of those working part-time are paid less than the minimum wage.

Country comparison

Australia's minimum wage appears extremely generous at £10.29, and Portugal's seems extremely frugal at just £2.24 per hour. Although when you take into account the cost of living in different countries, Australia slips down to £8.58 per hour and Portugal creeps up to £3.07. Whichever way you look at it though, the UK comes 8th out of 13 countries that were looked at.

Age also makes a difference though. In places like Spain, Canada and New Zealand, workers as young as 16 are entitled to the basic rate - while in the Netherlands they have to wait until they're 23 and in Greece it's 25.

Get the numbers

• Download the full spreadsheet

America’s path from fiscal improbity to political impasse 

ONCE a stalwart of good governance, America looks like a rodeo clown. If the House and Senate cannot agree to continue funding for discretionary spending by midnight on September 30th, the federal government will experience one of its periodic shutdowns. There have been 10 such episodes since 1981, the date of the first one under the current budget-making rules, so a brief hiatus in government functions need not be frightening. Some non-essential services would be suspended and inconvenience caused—in addition to sending the US Treasury market into mild gyrations. Far worse is the idea that Congress might fail to authorise the raising of the debt ceiling in mid-October. Republicans in Congress have a shopping list of demands in exchange for allowing this; the president has said he will not negotiate. If America were in real danger of missing a debt payment it is likely that President Obama would find some constitutional justification for ignoring Congress rather than set off a financial meltdown.

Ever wondered where in the world it's best to be old? Where your psychological well-being and life expectancy would be maximised? Where you'd be at the lowest risk of poverty? Have the best access to public transport? Find out with this interactive map

Одна из интересных перемен, которые я заметил в Одессе после многих лет отсутствия, - новый статус украинского языка.

В мое время Одесса была практически полностью русскоязычной. Помимо веселого суржика Привоза украинская речь звучала исключительно в ситуациях официальных: начальство определенного уровня произносило речи на (плохом) украинском языке и с облегчением переходило на русский, покинув трибуну.

В сегодняшней Одессе русский язык остался основным, но украинского гораздо больше, чем раньше. Не только в рекламе и на вывесках: оператор мобильного телефона начинает разговор на украинском (но с легкостью переходит на русский), официант в кафе принимает заказ за одним столиком по-русски, а за другим по-украински, то же в магазине. Стайки молодежи на улице и в университете щебечут на обоих языках; да, русского больше, но встречается и украинский - ситуация невероятная в Одессе моего детства.

Это произошло именно за счет молодежи. Люди моего возраста изменились мало. А вот новое поколение - другое. Как сказал один мой друг: "Меня всегда раздражала политика дублирования иностранных фильмов на украинском языке. Хочешь посмотреть французское или американское кино - смотри на украинском. Но моему сыну это уже неважно". Мне кажется, что дело тут в школе: украинский язык на уроках привел к появлению поколения, для которого двуязычие - норма.

Это ещё раз доказывает, что на самом деле одни из самых влиятельных людей в обществе - плохо оплачиваемые (по крайней мере в США, Украине и России) учителя. Хочешь знать, что будет считаться само собой разумеющимся в обществе будущего? Зайди в соседнюю школу.

The chancellor's speech at the Conservative party conference delivered a pledge to freeze fuel duties. What will happen to petrol prices?

When the chancellor George Osborne delivered his speech to the Conservative conference in Manchester, one announcement is likely to have been met with particular enthusiasm from many motorists (though maybe not the most environmentally minded): a pledge to freeze fuel duties until 2015.

We wanted to check out the data and ask some key questions here:

1. When was the last time a government made a pledge on fuel duties?
2. Can the government afford to freeze fuel duties?

Question 1: A new promise?

The short answer is no. George Osborne announced in the Budget 2012 that fuel duties would rise by 3.02 pence per litre (ppl). But by the August Statement 2012, he announced he would freeze them.

Then fuel duties were supposed to rise this month by 1.89 ppl. But they didn't because the chancellor announced he would freeze them in the March 2013 budget.

Fuel duty at the moment is 57.95 ppl - which is where it's been since March 2011 when it was unveiled in the Budget that it would be reduced by one pence.

Question 2: Is it a concession?

Motoring groups and backbench Conservative MPs often welcome these fuel duty freezes as a big win. Although they point to the fact that duty and VAT make up a larger proportion of the price at the pump than they used to (now 57%) - that's only true if you go back three decades (in 1980, it was 46%). But if you look at the last ten years, the proportion of the price at the pump which is duty and VAT has actually fallen (in 1998 it was 82%).

But there's another trend that's important - falling petrol consumption. And it's a trend that energy forecasters like Wood MacKenzie think will continue. Since 2000, government has seen its revenue from fuel duties on petrol fall and fall - from £13.7bn to £10.9bn last year.

If you look at the trade-off between government revenue lost and votes won, it's not the right place to quibble over a couple of pence. It can't afford not to freeze them.

Contribute to this blog

Are we asking the right questions? Do you have alternative sources that could improve this piece? We're ready to listen to your views and suggestions - here's how to make them heard:

• Get the data
• Post a comment below
• Email us at data@theguardian.com
• Send us a message via Twitter>

В Манчестере тем временем прошли шествие и митинг аж на 50,000 человек. Лозунгом было недопущение сокращений в сфере государственного здравоохранения, если выражаться казенным языком.

В отличие от российских аналогов, подобные мероприятия в Англии проходят очень шумно, с барабанами и свистками, по типу гей-парада. Я всё это слышал сидя дома, и выходить что-то не хотелось, потому как там было много явной шизы.

Одного такого я увидел прямо на выходе из моего дома, когда шествие уже прошло. Он выглядел, как Иванушка-дурачок, а занимался тем, что отдавал честь висевшему в небе вертолету. Еще один тип напомнил мне бессмертное "я 7 недель не брился, 8 суток ел грибы, я стал похож на человека героической судьбы". В общем, паноптикум.

Всё это действо, кстати, приурочено к началу ежегодной партконференции консерваторов. Опять под окнами гогочут полицейские, трещат их рации, а спецназовцы с биноклями стоят на крыше напротив.



Есть ли у них оружие? Ответы по почте.

Занятная статья на ВВС про то, как итальянцы стали экономить на всем с начала кризиса. Рассказывают про обычную женщину, муж которой (электрик) находит всё меньше и меньше заказов, так что они решили экономить на еде.

Сами пекут хлеб, делают пиццу (но без моццареллы, которая уже не по карману), а ее соус болонезе теперь содержит в 2.5 раза меньше мяса, чем раньше. Сыну ее домашняя пицца не нравится, он скучает по ресторанной.

По современным понятиям, это уже нищета, я считаю.

То есть всё это где-то даже было бы мило, быть может, если бы так жить год-другой, но света в конце тоннеля что-то не видно. Если же в какой-то момент человек осознает, что хорошей жизни уже не будет, то это может привести к разнообразным тяжелым последствиям - как для него, так и для окружающих.

У англичан, кстати, дела обстоят немногим лучше (если вообще лучше). 29% британцев говорят, что им трудно прокормить себя и семью - буквально.

Цены на еду действительно растут, как на дрожжах, это заметно и без графиков. Ну что - смотришь что распродается из того, что и так бы купил, покупаешь. А что делать? Кто-то тут на кайенах рассекает, а нам вот зарплату уже года три не повышают. Профсоюзы наши, кстати, вообще заткнулись, не видно их и не слышно. Меня это не удивляет.

Прошло уже почти четыре месяца, как Максика не стало с нами. В мае мы ещё всеми силами надеялись, что сможем встретить его второй день рождения вместе с ним, но судьба распорядилась иначе. Эти четыре месяца дались нам очень и очень трудно, очень сложно забыть то, что было и я теперь никогда не смогу спокойно вспоминать тот день - 31 мая. Когда я прохожу по улице, я не могу смотреть как продаются те игрушки, которыми он играл. За это время несколько раз Максик приходил к нам во снах и там он был жив и вместе с нами. Этот маленький, но уже такой сильный человечек, наш любимый сыночек навсегда останется в нашей памяти и в нашем сердце. Пусть сегодня, в день его рождения, мы все вспомним о том, как он мужественно боролся, как старался выжить и не унывать, как он любил нас до самого последнего дня его жизни. С днём рождения, Максик, мы будем всегда любить тебя и никогда не забудем.

Lionel Messi is in court over allegations of fraud totalling over £3.4m. What's the bigger picture on tax evasion? How much does the Spanish government lose each year and how do other countries compare?

The trial of Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi on charges of tax fraud has come at a time when Spanish government coffers are running particularly low. Which makes it all the more contentious that tax evasion cost Spain €80bn (£67bn) in a single year. But that seems small fry compared to the estimated $337bn the US treasury lost out on.

The numbers, taken from World Bank estimates on the size of each country's shadow economy, are fascinating – even if not perfectly reliable. Counting any type of illicit behaviour is always prone to error and black market activity is no exception.

Europe has the world's biggest black market

When different regions are compared, Europe comes out the worst in terms of the size of its black market and the total amount of tax it loses as a result.

As a region though, Europe also has the highest tax rates in the world. Out of 36 countries looked at, Europeans averaged a tax rate that was 39% of their GDP, compared to a world average of 28%. The lowest rates were found among 39 African countries which had taxes that represented around 17% of their GDP.

Ten biggest countries

In 2010, the latest year that data was available, ten governments in the world lost out on $100bn each (£62bn). Unfortunately, using the total amount of tax lost as the basis for comparison means that interesting case studies like Greece are left out - even if their shadow markets would represent a big chunk of their GDP.

We ranked the biggest ten according to three different measures:
1. Total size of the shadow economy
2. Tax lost as a result of the shadow economy
3. Tax lost as a % of GDP

The US has the world's biggest shadow economy and loses the most tax as a result. But, when looked at as a % of GDP, Russia suffers most as a result of tax evasion - the lost money represents 15% of the country's economic output. You can see how each country compares by clicking on the different options in the chart below.

Switching your view to 'tax lost as a % of GDP' means that the allegations against Messi take on a different dimension - Spain rockets up from 9^th to 4^th place.

Sick sums

The Tax Justice Network have estimates for every country in the world in a report they published in November 2011. The research specifically focuses on the way that tax evasion affects health care spending. In Bolivia, they found that tax evasion represents 419% of the government's spend on healthcare while in Russia it was 311% making them the top 2 'tax evasion losers'.

What is a shadow economy?

Is a black market really a good reflection of the black hole tax evasion creates? Here's the definition that the World Bank's researchers used so you can decide for yourself:

All market-based legal production of goods and services that are deliberately concealed from public authorities for any of the following reasons:
1. to avoid payment of income. value added or other taxes,
2. to avoid payment of social security contributions,
3. to avoid having to meet certain legal labour market standards, such as minimum wages, minimum working hours, safety standards, etc and
4. to avoid complying with certain administrative procedures, such as completing statistical questionnaires or other administrative forms

Does any of this data surprise you? Do you think tax evasion is unavoidable? Share you views here...

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A while back we saw a size comparison of random spaceships. That one pales in comparison to this extensive version by Dirk Loechel. It's got ships from Star Wars, Star Trek, EVE, Babylon 5, Starship Troopers, Titan A.E., and oh so much more.

Be sure to see the full-sized version here. [via Kotaku]

Are women who want to stay at home being 'forced' to go to work? Is the result that men are being 'squeezed out'? We look at the numbers to see if the claims are true

When we first looked at the new government numbers on women in work, we wrote an article and titled it

Men more likely to work if they have children, opposite true for women"

But other analysts have taken a different view on the numbers. John Bingham at the Telegraph went with

"Surge in stay-at-home mothers forced into workplace"

While Becky Barrow at the Daily Mail chose:

"Half of women are still working at the age of 60... and men are squeezed out by rise of the working mum"

How can one set of numbers lead to such very different conclusions?

It's true that female employment is rising while male employment is falling - we just didn't think that one was causing the other. So when we produced this graph below - (a graph that covered 40 years of data including economic downturns) we thought it showed broader changes in gender roles. And not necessarily the breakdown of "what family friendly means" as other analysts have noted.

We didn't think women were squeezing men out of jobs at all - or that "stay-at-home mothers" were being forced to go to work. Why? Because when we looked at statistics on women in work, we didn't see numbers on mothers and men. We saw employment numbers about mothers and fathers and compared them to those for women and men without children. This is what we found...

Men with children 1.4x more likely to work than those without

The Labour Force Survey looked at the percentage of men and women in employment and saw how those rates changed if those individuals were parents. The gaps are striking.

Whether men are 22 or 42, having children means that they are more likely to be in employment - whereas the exact reverse is true for women. That doesn't mean that the gaps are consistent across age groups though. The difference is most visible for men aged 16-24 where not having a child makes it more likely they'll be in education. For women, the differences in employment are clearest between mothers and non-mothers aged 25-34.

Lone mothers are less likely to work than those in couples

Those averages also conceal another important trend - the difference between lone parents and those in couples. There aren't any statistics on lone fathers but for lone mothers, it's clear that the chances of being in employment are lowest when children are younger. The gap closes as children get older, but even when they're at a secondary school age, there's still 5.5 percentage points between women in couples who are working and those who are lone parents.

1 in 2 women in Birmingham are in work

Another caveat here: it's not the same picture across the country. In Northern Ireland, 62% of women are in employment but that figure climbs to 70% in the East of England.

When you drill down to even smaller areas than those regions, the gaps get bigger. The Orkney Islands have the highest proportion of women in work - 79% compared to just 50% of women in Birmingham. With a female employment rate of 61%, inner London is behind the UK average of 66%.

How do we compare to other EU countries?

On average, 1 in 3 senior management roles in the EU is held by a woman. Latvia tops the women power list though, with 45% of employees in the highest jobs being female. Just ahead of the EU average, 34.8% of senior managers in the UK are women - while at the bottom of the list, it's just 18% in Luxembourg and 16% in Cyprus.

Picture so far

It's worth taking a look at the full data release to see just how the employment gap is changing. Here are some other numbers:

SKILLS GAP?
• In 2013, 37% of men were employed in 'upper middle skilled' roles compared with 18% of women. 46% of women were employed in lower middle skilled roles compared with 24% of men.
NO.
• Those gaps persisted, even when the ONS compared male and female graduates with similar qualifications.
TOP EARNERS
• When the ONS looked at the people receiving the highest 10% of salaries, it found that 69% of them were men. But the gap is highest for the older generation - 73% of those getting the best pay who are aged over 40 are men but that figure falls to 55% for those aged 16-24.
A SHRINKING GAP
• In 1971, 92% of men were in work compared to just 53% of women. Over the past 42 years, men's employment has fallen while women's has risen - so today, 76% of men and 67% of women are in work.

Do you read the numbers differently? Take a look and let us know what you think below.

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