At the start of the week, the Welsh Assemby Government published its draft Legislative Competence Order on the Welsh language. I’ve already welcomed the publication of the LCO as the first step in the process of updating the 1993 Welsh Language Act, and extending its provisions.

Its no surprise that the anti-devolutionists and the anti-Welsh language lobby have been making a lot of noise. We all know what the say about empty vessels but it is important that rubbish they spout is challenged. Here is a classic example from David Davies, now using the recession as an excuse to oppose the Welsh language in the Western Mail this week:

Conservative MP for Monmouth, David Davies, said the legislation would lead to new responsibilities being placed on businesses when the economy was in crisis.

He and his cohorts are trying as hard as they can to cause confusion and frighten businesses about the contents of the LCO. We now even have businesses like BT (who already provide a Welsh service) worrying about its impact on them, and Paul Murphy asking them to comment on the LCO.

I fully support new Welsh language legislation, and I can understand the concerns that some businesses have about increased costs, especially in the current economic climate. However, the agreeing of an LCO will not put ANY cost on ANY business. It will simply transfer the power to legislate on certain defined areas of the Welsh language to Cardiff, and it is there they will have the chance to help shape legislation.

The anti-devolutionists have been making a great effort to confuse the public between the transferring of authority to legislate and the process of creating the legislation, and have attempted to make the scope of LCOs so narrow that the Assembly’s power to legislate is severely restricted. At the very least this is against the spirit of the current devolution settlement.

There may be controversial elements in the new law and it probably won’t go far enough, but Assembly Members should decide on its contents – not the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. If you, like me, feel that policy and legislation in the Welsh language should be made in Wales, tell you MP and sign this petition to show your support.

]]> http://robph.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/a-good-day-for-the-language/ Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:07:12 +0000 robph http://robph.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/a-good-day-for-the-language/

Alun Ffred Jones published the Legislative Competence Order requesting powers to legislate on the Welsh language yesterday. This is the first step in the process, and has taken a year to achieve, but at least discussions can now be in the open.

A Measure on the Welsh language was in both the Plaid Cymru and Labour manifestos in the Assembly election in 2007, so it cannot be argued that thay do not have the support of the electorate. The draft order requests power to legally enshrine the right to speak Welsh, establish a language commissioner and put a duty on a number of organisations to provide a service in Welsh including:

Housing Associations

Postal services

Education, Career guidance

Telephone, gas, electricity and water companies

Railway companies

Companies which receive £200,000 or more in public money each year

it’s important to reaslie that the LCO itself does not put any duty on these organisations, it simply requests the power for the Assembly to legislate. It is likley that the duty placed on the different sectors will vary, but as a number of them provide former public sector services, it will in effect, only update the 1993 act to the 21^st century.

So, in spite of what has has been claimed by some, there will be no compulsion on small shops and businesses to operate bilingually. We are talking about very large companies and if they were to be creative, they could co-operate to provide Welsh language services in a similar way the the bus companies in Traveline Cymru.

Unfortunately, because of the way some MPs (generally those opposed to devolution) have interpreted their role in the scrutiny process, it is likley that efforts will be made to weaken these reasonable proposals. This is not in the spirit of the Government of Wales Act, and in the case of policies which have been in election winning manifestos, its undemocratic.

Cyhoeddodd Alun Ffred Jones Gorchymun Cymhwysedd Deddfwriaethol ar gyfer pwerau deddfu dros yr Iaith Gymraeg ddoe. Hon yw’r cam cyntaf yn y broses, ac mae wedi cymryd blwyddyn hyd nawr, ond o leiaf mae’r peth yn yr awyr agored.

Roedd Mesur Iaith Gymraeg yn maniffesto Plaid Cymru a’r Blaid Lafur yn etholiad y Cynulliad yn 2007, felly mae’r achos dros y pwerau yn glir, ac wedi cael sel bendith yr etholwyr. Mae’n ceisio am bwerau er mwyn sicrhau yr hawl i bobl siarad Cymraeg, sefydlu comisiynydd iaith a rhoi dyletswydd i ddarparu gwasanaethau yn y Gymraeg ar nifer o gyrff gan gynnwys:

Cymdeithasau tai

Gwasanaethau post

Addysg, cyngor gyrfaoedd

Cwmniau nwy, trydan, dwr a ffonau

Cwmniau rheilffordd

Cwmniau sy’n derbyn mwy na £200,000 o arian cyhoeddus y flwyddyn

Mae’n bwysig i nodi, nid yw’r LCO yn rhoi unrhyw fath o ddyletswydd ar y cyrff hyn, ond mae’n rhoi’r hawl i Cynulliad rhoi dyletswyddau o wahanol fathau arnynt. Mae’n debygol fydd y dyletswydd ar y sectorau gwahanol yn amrywio, ond gan fod nifer ohonynt yn cyflawni dyletswyddau a oedd yn y sector cyhoeddus, dim ond diweddau deddf 1993 fydd y mesur mewn gwirionedd.

Felly, yn wahanol i beth mae rhai wedi dweud, ni fydd disgwyl i siopau neu busnesau bach gyflwyno gwasanaethu yn y Gymraeg. Cwmniau mawr ‘dyn ni’n son am gan amlaf, ac os bydden nhw’n creadigol, mae modd iddynt cyd-wethio i gynnal gwasanaethau ffon Cymraeg yn yr un modd a’r cwmniau bysys trwy Traveline Cymru.

Yn anffodus, oherwydd y ffordd mae rhai aelodau seneddol (y rhai gwrth-ddatganoli gan amlaf) wedi dehonglu eu swyddogaeth mae’n debygol fydd ymgais i torri elfennau allan o’r gorchymun. Nid yw hyn yn unol ag ysbryd y gyfraith, ac mae’n achos lle roedd y maes dan sylw ym maniffestos y pleidiau yn y llywodraeth, mae’n wrth ddemocrataidd.

I was intending to blog about the fact that there doesn’t appear to be any progress on the Legislative Competence Order (LCO) on affordable housing. Without this order neither the National Assembly or the Welsh Assembly Government ministers can implement plans to help those (normally young people) who are having difficulty buying a home.

As someone who managed to buy a house through the Welsh Assembly Government Homebuy Scheme this is an issue close to my heart. During the council elections in 2008 I was fortunate enough to meet with Jocelyn Davies AM, Deputy Minister for Housing to raise some issues. Since then house prices have fallen but due to insecurity in the job market and the banking crisis measures to help youg people buy a home are urgently needed.

The Assembly Government published the draft LCO over a year ago but as Westminster was not happy with one particular element the order was refused even though the matter was clearly devolved to Cardiff. Today’s Western Mail reports that at last the LCO is close to agreement. Good news!

Not quite. It’s only close to agreement on condition that the Secretary of State for Wales is permitted a veto on Assembly legislation eminating from the LCO.

Elin Jones, Jocelyn Davies & I discussing housing

My understanding of the Government of Wales Act 2006 is that London’s role is to consider whether applications for power to legislate are approprite – ie do they clearly fall within one or more of the fields of responsibility that are devolved. There is no role for London in blocking orders because they don’t like the policy. It certainly appears that Labour MPs who were opposed to the Labour/Plaid coalition are taking it upon themsleves to block or slow down LCOs as much as possible. Perhaps they need reminding that Labour held a conference in 2007 and voted to go into coalition in order to stay in power in Cardiff. While it’s fine to oppose the coalition if that’s how they feel, misusing the Government of Wales Act and their status as MPs to try to undermine a democratically elected government and its policy programme, agreed by both parties is as undemocratic as the formerly Conservative dominated House of Lords holding up the agendas of Labour goverments. It’s childish and a measure their contempt for the people they are supposed to represent that they are prepared to punish young and poor people in order to score a political point. Affordable housing is not just a rural issue. There are affordable housing problems in Ynys Mon and the Valleys.

Wales’ constitutional settlement is clearly defficient to say the least when the government can’t respond to people’s needs quickly. Cardiff depends on Westminster’s permission to legislate and going on the record of the last 18 months, Westminster isn’t keen to sign the slip. This means we are in the crazy position where Westminster doesn’t legislate for Wales in a number of important areas but won’t let Cardiff do so either.

Is there anywhere else in the world where this happens?

A recent drama storm around the OpenSim-based Legend City Online (LCO) reminded me that I haven’t tried one of the public OpenSim virtual worlds for awhile, so when SL was being weird the other night I headed over (using the Second Life viewer, rather than their recommended Hippo, because I didn’t want to download a Whole Nother Thing).

Turns out I already had an account over there; here I am as Dale Mullins (in a pretty radically unattractive shot, now that I look at it), helping one of the Legends (roughly the equivalent of Lindens in SL, I gather) adjust a sit-ball on a park bench at the default landing space:

(That’s me on the right, the Legend on the left: a very nice woman, with an adorable shape and skin, and a million-watt facelight.)

There are some very nice builds in the parts of LCO that I wandered through, and there are enough bits of free clothing and shapes and stuff that I was able to make myself more or less my familiar self without much trouble (although those glasses are Not Realy Me; I will have to make some myself).

The underlying server software, though, is pretty clearly still pre-beta. Things I noticed:

• Inter-sim teleports and sim boundary crossings were quite risky, relatively often resulting in disconnection, infinite uncontrollable flight into nowhere, and/or appearing at one’s destination but being unable to move,
• Even just standing around is somewhat risky; I got logged out a few times when I was doing nothing notable at all,
• Once one has crashed or been logged out, it typically takes two or three or more tries to get in again; lots of message about already being logged in, or having been disconnected from the region, or whatever,
• Scripted attachments are odd: I made myself a little invisible attachment with a hovertext title and some decorative particles just for fun, and found that if I went to a different sim it would be sort of half-off (the title would be in black, and I couldn’t see any particles although sometimes others could) until I detached it and re-attached it.

It’s possible of course that some of these problems were due to using an Unsupported Viewer; I ought to try Hippo next time if I’m not too lazy.

There weren’t a whole lot of people in the world, but the dozen or so that I saw seemed to be your typical early-adopter type and therefore above average conversationally; so that was nice. LaLa Legend herself, who I gather runs the place, was also hanging around at the entrypoint; something you don’t see in SL. I don’t know how positively she would have responded to challenging questions about the current drama of course. And the Legend in the picture up there (I apologize for not recalling her name; for some reason the viewer wasn’t logging chat while I was in LCO; I probably forgot to check the box) gave me 250 of the local currency so I could (for instance) upload the texture for my famous Noob Tee Shirt, which I then handed out randomly.

It’s fun to play around in such a young world, and to see how things are being worked out in them compared to mama Second Life. On the other hand the infrastructure is still wonky enough that I doubt I’ll be there regularly. It’s worse than my first week in SL (and that was pretty bad!). But it’s coming along…

Mae Betsan Powys yn adrodd fod cynnydd ar yr LCO sy’n mynd i drosglwyddo’r pwer i ddeddf am yr Iaith Gymraeg i’r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol. Anrheg Nadolig go-iawn. Roedd Mesur Iaith Gymraeg newydd ym maniffesto Plaid Cymru yn etholiad y Cynulliad ac er bod y newyddion bod pethau yn symud o’r diwedd i’w croeso, rhaid gofyn pam rydym dal i ddisgwyl am yr hawl i ddeddfi (heb son am greu’r ddeddf) mwy na 18 mis ar ol yr etholiad. Mae ‘na ddwy ateb hir ond yr ateb byr yw Aelodau Seneddol Llafur Cymru. Nhw sy’n gyfrifol am y system wirion o drosglwyddio pwerau pob yn dipyn a nhw sydd wedi gwneud hi’n glir nad ydyn nhw’n fodlon i’r Cynulliad pasio Mesur Iaith o sylwedd.

Mae angen mesur iaith newydd. Pam? Wel un rheswm yw bod y byd wedi newid ers pasio’r ddeddf yn 1993. Roedd cyrff sector cyhoeddus yn dod o dan y ddeddf ond erbyn hyn mae llawer ohonynt (Cwmniau trydan, nwy, trenau) ac ati wedi trosglwyddo i’r sector preifat. Mae’r polisi hwn yn fater arall ond y gwir amdani yw fod Deddf Iaith 1993 yn llai effeithiol nawr nag oedd hi 15 mlynedd yn ol.

Rheswm arall yw fod y ddeddf yno yn wan yn y lle cyntaf. Mae llawer o drafod wedi bod ar effaith Deddf iaith 1993 ar Gyngor Tref Aberdaugleddau a chostau polisi iaith Gymraeg. Mae’r carfan gwrth Gymraeg yn llaweni gyda’r stori ‘ma ond mae ffeithiau yn dweud stori hollol wahanol. £400 i cyfieithu un set o gofnodion? Rhaid eu bod nhw’n siarad gormod! Dw i ddim yn credu fod unrhywun eisiau dod a deddfrwiaeth i mewn sy’n mynd i roi baich ar gwmniau bach ond beth yw’r problem disgwyl cwmniau mawr ddarparu rhyw fath o wasanaeth yn y Gymraeg? Dw mesur o’r fath ddim yn debygol o yrru Tesco, Asda neu Starbucks i’r wal.

Ond beth yw’r tebygrwydd gewn ni’r fath fesur? Amser a ddegys, ond gobeithio fod y cynlyniad yn werth aros amdano.

27.04.2008 int. LCO -Coursing in Wismar

1. Platz CACC Benghazi`s California Dream Boy
2. Platz RCACC Chantal vom Vugelbeerbaam
3. Platz Benghazi`s Duke Of The Wind

If your background is electronics, you already know that analog cables bandwidth is limited and they can carry only so many channels.
So far that was not an issue at all, but with recent flood of news channels and several varieties of entertainment channels the analog cable which is still predominant has maxed out. Not knowing this or should i say ignoring this fact, new entrants are coming into broadcasting business and loosing money competing for the limited channel bandwidth.

CAS is not manadatory except in 4 metros and there are almost 75 million cable homes running on analog cable.

Who will be the winner in this slow digitisation pace from investment point of view?
Broadcasters or MSOs or Last Mile cable operators (aka LCO)?
So far LCOs under reported their subscribers to MSOs so that they pay less to MSOs and mint money for themselves causing losses to MSOs. This was possible because analog cable doesn’t give MSOs an advantage to accurately measure the subscriber numbers.
In turn MSOs get less carriage fee for channels and broadcasters get less pay channel fee.

However with intense competition for limited bandwidth broadcasters are bidding high for their channels and MSOs are seeing their green days. Now LCOs will be the loosers if they continue to under report, so to get their proper share they have to good job of reporting the subscriber strength and take a share of that carriage fee. This will also result in MSOs getting more money from LCOs resulting in broadcasters getting their fair share of pay channel fees.

Under this new emerging scenario MSOs like WWIL are true winners. If the present slow pace of digitisation contunue, they make more money in carriage fee or if the CAS becomes compulsory, MSOs will still continue to make more money from their value added services and subscription fees from LCOs.

Government should act fast or else the carriage fee will hit the bottomlines of broadcasters forcing them to cut costs and thus sacrifice quality.
In a year or two, this present situation can easily get out of hand.
I&B along with TRAI should hike FDI limit to 74% to help cable companies to invest in infrastructure for faster digitisation program.

In order to give level playing field for cable operators on par with telecom players, TRAI is all set to succumb to the longing demand from cable service providers for raising the FDI cap to 74% from current 49% limit.
WWIL formet siticable and a subsidiary of Zee, will be direct beneficiary of this recommendation and subsequent approval from I&B ministry.
WWIL being largest MSO with 6-7 million subscribers may attract private equity investors or foreign investors like Comcast.
WWIL is on its path to increase its subscriber base by offering several value added services.
Please read further on FDI cap related latest news at http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/02/10/stories/2008021051340300.htm

Sinds kort heb ik ook een Facebook en wie kom je daarop zoal tegen?! Mensen waarvan je dacht ze nooit meer te horen/zien. Yup: de ex-klasgenootjes van in het middelbaar! So far: Stef, Karlien, Anaïs, Magali, Veerle,… Bijna allemaal nog verdoken in een universitaire studie (chapeau!). Begrijp me niet verkeerd: ik ben blij terug iets van hen te horen hoor! Een écht hechte klas waren we jammer genoeg nooit, de Economie-Wiskunde en Wetenschappen-Wiskunde van het Lutgardiscollege Oudergem. Of, nu ik er beter over nadenk: ik heb er nooit echt bij gehoord, daar in Oudergem

Ik was wel hecht met andere vriendinnen, maar daar heb ik in het laatste jaar mee gebroken, om redenen die ik niet meer naar boven wil halen. Niet omdat ik weet dat ze ook weleens op deze blog terecht komen, maar omdat we intussen een viertal jaar verder zijn en we nu eenmaal als ‘volwassen’ beschouwd worden. Kortom: I’m over it. Al even hoor.

Anyway, als je geen verdoken angsten hebt om ex-klasgenoten online tegen ‘t lijf te lopen: maak uzelve een facebook aan, en snel een beetje! Voeg me gerust toe als friend Wie m’n volledige naam kent, vindt me wel…