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As police chief of a small Mexican town caught up the country's drug wars, Marisol Valles García hoped that turning a blind eye on the criminals would keep her safe. But just five months after taking up the post she is in hiding in the US, where she has applied for asylum. "Her neutrality was not allowed," Gustavo De La Rosa, a local human rights ombudsman, said. "It sounds like this stemmed from some new capo taking over the territory and demanding absolute unconditionality." A 20-year-old criminology student with a small baby, Valles became an international media sensation last October when she was named police chief of Praxedis G Guerrero in the Juárez valley, just over the border from Texas. As a local police chief she had no legal obligation to deal with large-scale drugs crimes, which are primarily investigated by federal authorities. But she became a symbol of resistance to the view that community life was now impossible in much of Mexico. Rival drug trafficking organisations have been fighting to control towns in the Juárez valley since 2008, unleashing a wave of violence which is even more intense than in the infamously murderous city of Ciudad Juárez, just to the north-west. Valles' predecessor in Praxedis was kidnapped and decapitated in August 2009, and 15 of the 17 officers he commanded were also killed. The church was firebombed in April last year. Burnt out houses dotted around town provide permanent testament to the tragedy. When she took the job, Valles appeared remarkably unflustered by the potential danger. "Of course I am frightened, I am only human," she said. "But you have to learn to trust and to have hope that things can change." Her security plan focused on sending her eight unarmed female agents on door-to-door visits in an effort to persuade families to venture out of their houses again for community sports and cultural events. She also repeatedly insisted that the municipal police would be ignoring the organised criminals roaming the area. How much this strategy of non-confrontation helped is not clear, but Praxedis had been notably calm in the last few months, unlike other towns in the area. Then, at some point overnight between 2 and 3 March Valles and her immediate family disappeared, leaving a locked house with the lights still on. Initial reports that they had crossed the border could not be confirmed and some worried they had been kidnapped. The municipal authorities revealed that Valles had taken a few days off to attend to her sick baby, and insisted they knew nothing of any threats to her. When she did not return to work on Monday as arranged, the mayor fired her. "She lost her job because she abandoned it," Andrés Morales, a municipal spokesman, said. "Everything remains calm here and the rest of the police are working as normal." The US authorities finally confirmed on Tuesday that Valles had been held in a detention centre for migrants in El Paso, just across the Rio Bravo from Ciudad Juárez. She was released, pending asylum hearings after an interview established her "credible fear". Later that day, Valles called De la Rosa. "She said she was in a city far from the border and that we shouldn't worry any more," he said. "She asked me to tone things down." Valles' flight after receiving serious threats and her consequent failure to beat the odds underline the vulnerability of anyone who takes on a public role in the Juárez area. Last week, some 32 members of the a family of prominent human rights activist abandoned their homes in Guadalupe, also in the Juárez valley. In recent months a long family tradition of activism on a range of human rights issues had boiled down to the demand for justice in the cases of six members of the family who were murdered in several attacks over the last two years. Most of the family is now under police protection in Mexico City.
Hundreds of armed men in military fatigues without insignia blocked access to government buildings in Lugansk ADVERTISING Read more Lugansk (Ukraine) (AFP) The self-proclaimed leader of the Moscow-backed rebel stronghold of Lugansk on Wednesday accused an ex-minister of masterminding a coup attempt as infighting spiralled in eastern Ukraine. The so-called Lugansk People's Republic, one of two regions controlled by the rebels, has for years been blighted by leadership squabbles and several senior leaders have been assassinated. On Tuesday, hundreds of armed men in military fatigues without insignia blocked access to government buildings in what one of the soldiers described as military drills ordered by the Lugansk interior ministry. The blockade remained in place on Wednesday. An AFP correspondent saw about ten military trucks and a grenade launcher driving around the city. Four armoured personnel carriers were parked near the buildings housing the local government and the interior ministry. Patrols began after Lugansk leader Igor Plotnitsky earlier this week sacked his interior minister, Igor Kornet, in an apparent spike in infighting between rebel factions plaguing the war-scarred region. "Kornet was removed from his post but apparently the little man has great ambitions," Plotnitsky told journalists during a news conference on Wednesday. He accused Kornet of being behind an "armed attempt to seize power" in Lugansk and added that his supporters had detained several employees of the local prosecutor's office. Speaking in video footage released by his office earlier Wednesday, Plotnitsky said that "we underestimated the number and the nature of offences or, as we can now say, crimes that the former head of the interior ministry committed". "Together with the general prosecutor's office we'll discuss the situation that happened overnight," Plotnitsky added. "The police are starting to work, there will be no lawlessness." The sacked minister, who has refused to step down, released no immediate comment. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin was aware of the situation but declined immediate comment. Outside the cordoned-off area, Lugansk residents went about their daily lives as usual. A conflict between Russia-backed fighters and Ukrainian troops has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014, when pro-Russian forces declared parts of eastern Ukraine independent following Moscow's annexation of Crimea. © 2017 AFP
Senators Ask President to Halt Construction of Dakota Access Pipeline WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 – Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to President Barack Obama Thursday requesting the administration halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline until affected tribes are consulted and a full environmental review is conducted. “In light of the decision of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reject the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's request for a temporary halt to construction, the project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,” the senators wrote. Over the past several weeks, hundreds of Native American tribes have mobilized to draw attention to the pipeline’s encroachment on sacred lands, bringing about a groundswell of opposition to the project. “Until there has been full and meaningful tribal consultation, all pipeline permits and easements should be revoked or denied,” the members wrote. The Department of Justice, Department of the Interior and Army Corps of Engineers previously requested that the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, halt construction while an environmental and cultural impact review was conducted. The pipeline company declined to stop the project, and a federal circuit court gave a partial emergency injunction to halt construction. After hearing the full injunction argument, the court denied the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to halt the project, a ruling that was affirmed Saturday by a federal appeals court. The president can order the Army Corps to conduct a full review of the pipeline. “If there is one profound lesson that indigenous people have taught us, it is that all of us as human beings are part of nature,” the senators wrote. “We will not survive if we continue to destroy nature.” To read the letter, click here.
According to the popular cyber security experts an unknown nation state actor may be running tests for taking down the entire internet infrastructure. What happens if someone shuts down the Internet? Is it possible? Our society heavily depends on technology and the Internet is the privileged vector of the information today. Blocking the Internet could paralyze countless services in almost any industry, from finance to transportation. Early September the popular cyber security expert Bruce Schneier published an interesting post titled “Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet” that reveals an escalation of cyber attacks against service providers and companies responsible for the basic infrastructure of the Internet. We are referring to coordinated attacks that experts consider a sort of tests to evaluate the resilience of most critical nodes of the global Internet. The attacks experienced by the companies request a significant effort and huge resources, a circumstance that suggests the involvement of a persistent attacker like a government, and China is the first suspect. “Recently, some of the major companies that provide the basic infrastructure that makes the Internet work have seen an increase in DDoS attacks against them. Moreover, they have seen a certain profile of attacks. These attacks are significantly larger than the ones they’re used to seeing. They last longer. They’re more sophisticated. And they look like probing.” wrote Schneier. “I am unable to give details, because these companies spoke with me under a condition of anonymity. But this all is consistent with what Verisign is reporting. Verisign is the registrar for many popular top-level Internet domains, like .com and .net. If it goes down, there’s a global blackout of all websites and e-mail addresses in the most common top-level domains. Every quarter, Verisign publishes a DDoS trends report. While its publication doesn’t have the level of detail I heard from the companies I spoke with, the trends are the same: “in Q2 2016, attacks continued to become more frequent, persistent, and complex.” It is clear that attackers aim to cause a global blackout of the most common top-level domains paralyzing a large portion of the Internet. Schneier, who has spoken with companies that faced the attacks, pointed out powerful DDoS attacks that attacks that stand out of the ordinary for their methodically escalating nature. The attacks start with a certain power that increases as time goes by forcing the victims to deploy all its countermeasures to mitigate the threat. The report mentioned by Schneier, titled “VERISIGN-OBSERVED DDoS ATTACK TRENDS: Q2 2016” confirms that companies are experiencing a wave of DDoS attacks even more sophisticated. “DDoS Attacks Become More Sophisticated and Persistent DDoS attacks are a reality for today’s web-reliant organizations. In Q2 2016, DDoS attacks continued to become more frequent, persistent and complex.” states the report. Schneier also reported other types of attacks against the Internet infrastructure, such as numerous attempts to tamper with Internet addresses and routing. “One company told me about a variety of probing attacks in addition to the DDoS attacks: testing the ability to manipulate Internet addresses and routes, seeing how long it takes the defenders to respond, and so on. Someone is extensively testing the core defensive capabilities of the companies that provide critical Internet services.” continues Schneier. Who is behind the attacks? Schneier believes that the attacks are launched by someone with cyber capabilities of a government, and he seems to exclude the efforts of hacktivists or cyber criminals, and I agree. “It doesn’t seem like something an activist, criminal, or researcher would do. Profiling core infrastructure is common practice in espionage and intelligence gathering. It’s not normal for companies to do that. Furthermore, the size and scale of these probes — and especially their persistence — points to state actors.” explains Schneier. The attribution of the attacks is very difficult by data suggests that China is behind them, let me add also that Russia has similar cyber abilities and is able to hide its operations online. Both countries are largely investing in building infrastructures that would be resilient to such kind of mass attacks. “We don’t know where the attacks come from. The data I see suggests China, an assessment shared by the people I spoke with. On the other hand, it’s possible to disguise the country of origin for these sorts of attacks.” Pierluigi Paganini (Security Affairs – Internet, Hacking) Share this... Linkedin Reddit Pinterest Share On
Tessellations are the new trend in the origami world. Definitions, which, by definition, try to draw definite border lines, can only do injustice to this field. There are Corrugations, Molecules, Curved Tessellations, and so many other subcategories. Here is my humble addition to this field. First, let's define the types of tessellations. I am not familiar with any formal definition, even Wikipedia leaves this term unexplored. Types of Tessellations I like to divide the tessellation world into 4 categories: Classic Corrugation Recursive Back & Forth AKA Organic tessellation Classic "Red Flower" Tessellation designed and folded by Ilan Garibi, Tant The Classic is, well, classic. Since Fujimoto, a Japanese origami master who published books that included origami tessellations in the 1960s till nowadays, this is the most common type. It's based on two major grid types - the Hexagon and the Square. It is made of Molecules that can be spread in all four (or six) directions, covering a continuous surface. By nature, the surface of the final model will have an odd number of layers (one, three, five, or even more) throughout. This is because whenever the paper is first folded this way, it must be folded the other way, too, to allow continuity. This change of number of layers gives the most amazing effect when you backlight your model. One layer is a bit transparent while three layers and more are dark. For that reason one tessellation can give you four models: first side, the other side, and both sides backlit. Corrugation "Diamond Corrugation" Tessellation designed and folded by Ilan Garibi, 40gsm Kraft paper Borrowed from the English dictionary, a corrugation is: a wrinkle; fold; furrow; ridge. This type of tessellation has no triple or more layers. The entire original surface of the paper is visible to the eye, and the pattern is usually in the form of waves. There is no point in using backlighting on this type. Recursive "Hydrangea" designed by Shuzo Fujimoto, folded by Sara Adams, Dreamy paper Recursive tessellations are unique. The concept here is to make the same fold in a smaller scale on one square in a repetitive manner. A classic recursive model is the Hydrangea by Fujimoto. Back & Forth, or Organic tessellation "Wave" Tessellation designed and folded by Ilan Garibi, Elephant Hide Last in my list is the group of folds that are simply done this way: one row folded back and two rows are folded forth. Repeat. Taking it Further Of course, you can combine several types of tessellations in one project. For example, you may want to use a classic tessellation to form a border for a recursive central piece (left), or use a recursive tessellation as a molecule for a classic tessellation (right). "Windows" Tessellation designed and folded by Ilan Garibi, Elephant Hide High density tiling of the "Hydrangea" by Shuzo Fujimoto, folded by Sara Adams, Rainbow Kraft paper More examples This video shows further classic tessellations: Creating a Tessellation Tessellations are usually folded in three steps only: Grid, Precrease (all other folds than the grid) and collapse. Each step has some basic know-how and many tips, but before elaborating on that, we have to discuss the single molecule - the core of the model. When I try to create a new classic tessellation, I follow the Way of the Molecule. A molecule is one unit of the tessellation: the repetitive part. I try to find an interesting molecule that follows two very simple rules: Can I make a fold that has all of its sides (or, at least, every two opposite sides) to be totally the same? Can I make sure all the original edges of the paper will stay on the edges of the folded molecule? If this happens, you can tessellate this fold. To understand this concept let's take a look at the simplest fold - an unfolded square paper. All the original edges of the paper are on the edge of this molecule, and all four sides are identical. We can spread this molecule to all 4 directions, endlessly. Moving to real molecules, let's start with only two square molecules. A trick for checking whether they can be tessellated is to glue-tape the edges together. If you can spread the folded molecules to their original flat state, align them and put a cellotape to hold them together, and then collapse the combined units, why cut the paper in the first place? Now start with a 1×2 rectangle of a paper, crease all needed creases on both squares, and collapse without the need for a cellotape. For a better example, take the basic twist fold (the base of Kawasaki Rose). The pattern on all four sides is the same; hence you can put two molecules one by the other, unfold the common edges and tape them together. Now collapse both of them to get your first 1×2 molecules tessellation. Again, if we can tape two, why can't we start with two connected squares, in other words a rectangle of 1×2 proportions? Do all folds on both squares, and collapse. Note that the twist direction had to be changed on the second molecule, to allow continuity. These are simple rules, yet they are probably sufficient to make all classic tessellations. Creation To create a new molecule (for a Classic or a Recursive Tess) all that's needed is to follow two pieces of advice: Dare and Play. Dare to doodle with paper, grid it, mold it, and then try again. And again. It works for me. A tip for this section - having a molecule that applies to the rules may not be enough. There is a third request - it must be collapsible. To make sure it is so, first try to collapse your molecule on a 2×2 tessellation, and then on a 3×3, which have the center molecule bordered by other molecule from all 4 sides. If those two tessellations can be collapsed, you can go to larger numbers. Originality Do not feel bad if you came up with this marvelous model, just to get a remark on your Flickr page, saying: "Oh, I did that a year ago, see it here...". This field of creation is very mathematical and many people discovered the same model independently. Enjoy your power of creation, even if you are not the first! The Grid Tessellations are usually made from grids. Divide the paper to 32 equal parts on both directions to get a 32×32 Grid. 16 grids may be good for beginners, and 64 grids will bring an amazing effect and finger aches. Common grids are the Square and the Hexagon (which includes the Triangle grid, since we all fold our hexagon by making six triangles). More rare ones are the Rectangle, usually 1×2 proportion, and the Diamond: Making a grid may seem trivial, but the truth is far from that. My first tip is always doing your creases bi-directional. It is a double effort, but it is often very helpful in the collapse phase. Now, to get a 2×2 grid, you need one horizontal crease and one perpendicular to it. That's easy to do - just divide into half in both directions. To get a 4×4 - divide all halves into quarters. Still easy - this is a cupboard fold, actually. Going to 8×8 starts to be problematic - getting the first 1⁄ 8 line is easy - fold the edge to the 1⁄ 4 line. But how do you get the 3⁄ 8 line? One solution immediately pops up - fold the edge to the 3⁄ 4 line, which divides this length to 3⁄ 8 . This may be good for a 8×8 grid, but not that good for a 16×16, lousy for a 32×32, terrible for a 64×64 and disastrous for a 128×128 grid. The reason lies in the fact that every crease shrinks the paper a bit. When you fold the edge to the 46⁄ 64 line to get the 23⁄ 64 line, the distance of the 46th line is not 46⁄ 64 of the paper, but shorter than that. See this full sheet of Elephant Hide after folding a 128×128 grid on it. It's aligned on the bottom right corner with a full, virgin sheet (70×100cm): It may seem negligible, 2.6% of shrinkage, but believe me - it does make a major change - squares are no longer squares, and a diagonal creases does not fall on the corners. The right diagram shows how it should be done: in order to get the 3⁄ 8 , pinch the 1⁄ 4 line and fold it upon the 1⁄ 2 line. To get the 23⁄ 64 line, pinch the 22nd line upon the 24th line. And reverse that fold, so you will finish with all your horizontal creases as mountain folds. The next tip regards the rotation of the paper. Since it is quite difficult to make a perpendicular crease against 64 mountain fold lines, do not crease 64 horizontal creases and then rotate the paper to complete the perpendicular ones. Instead divide a side in half, and rotate. Divide the new side into quarters, and rotate. Back to the first side, divided it into 8ths, and rotate. Divide into 16ths, and rotate. You get it, I hope. The same logic applies to the Hexagon grid. Some grids demand the diagonals to be folded, too. This brings up another tip - for grids up to 8×8, you can use the "fold the corner of a square to the opposite one" to fold line AB in one movement of the hand. For denser grids a more careful approach is needed. You can use the corner as a general guide, but when you mark the fold, refer to each single square as one - fold from the corner of it to the opposite one, and move to the next square. This is much tedious way, but far more accurate! Precreasing Unlike traditional origami, tessellations are mostly based on precreases. Some have a step by step way to get there, but for most you have to prepare all the folds in advance, and then collapse the model. For most tessellations, this is the most time consuming phase. I think the most basic molecule needs at least 4 creases, and usually much more. Multiply your molecule number by that and understand how many short creases in all 4 directions you should fold. Luckily, there are short cuts for that. Many creases will align and can be folded in one stroke. Notice that molecules 1, 2 and 3 in the image all contribute to one straight line (in red): the top-left fold line of molecule 2 (AB); the bottom-right line of molecule 1 (BC); and again the top-left fold line of molecule 3 (CD). So folding in one movement line AD gives you a major short cut. Finding a shortcut is a bit harder with the inner squares that do not form a straight combined line. Here we move to another method: Counting. All 3 blue lines are aligned. Now start with the blue line of Molecule 1, and count 3 squares (marked in green) to get to the next square to which a diagonal fold needs to be added (in blue again). So this is the rhythm for that CP: crease 1, count 3, and repeat. There is a cosmic law, saying that in every 32×32 grid and up tessellation you fold, you will make a mistake: dislocating a crease, jumping over a fold line in the grid, whatever. Do not feel bad. It's a cosmic law. Collapse Can't do it! Can't do it! Oh, maybe I can. (Deep breath). Oh, yes I can! Yep, collapse is the stage that endangers your sanity. "It can't be done" comes to your mind again and again, and the cat jumps whenever a frustration cry is sounded. But, it really can be done. OK, enough with the psychology issues. Collapsing a model can be done from center to edge, or from the corner, row by row. The rule is simple - with square grids I start at the corner, completing one molecule, folding the rest of the paper all the way to the edges, as if this is the only molecule to be folded. Then I add another one and so on, till the end of the row. The first row is simple. The second row starts easily, but the second molecule is surrounded from two sides with folded molecules and the other two sides are flat paper. This is where the difficulties lay. If you can fold that molecule, all the rest are just the same. For some tessellations, it is good to partially collapse all molecules in a row, before collapsing them one by one. This saves a bit of work in unfolding creases that will be in your way for the next row. For a Hexagon tessellation, I always start from the center, (unless the center has no molecule, and then you start with the inner circle of 6 molecules). I do not really know why. This is how it is. Then you make the first circle around, with 6 molecules, when the last (the 6th in the first circle) can give you some troubles. This is mostly because you need to unfold some pleats you made to allow yourself to work on the paper. When opening the paper, you may have to be careful not to unfold the adjoining molecules - but it is necessary to complete that final molecule. If this proves too difficult, do try to fold the 5th and the 6th together instead! The only tip I can give here is "do not give up". The folder is stronger than the paper. When folding a tessellation, I sometimes found out that there is a rhythm, a repetitive method to do things correctly - write it down the moment you realize that sequence. It will help you tremendously the next time you try to fold it. Tools Paper
For years, Super Smash Brothers Melee has been touted as an esports anomaly. Its competitive community has managed to thrive despite being superseded by two sequels and, in its 15th year, Melee continues to grow in viewership and entrants for large events. Just as impressive is the fact that another game in a similar situation is quietly gathering momentum of its own: Super Smash Brothers for the original Nintendo 64 (Smash 64). Editor's Picks Team eLevate signs Shofu Team eLevate extends its influence in the Super Smash Bros. scene with the signing of Kunnu "Shofu" Shofu. Top players fall at Clutch City Clash Cloud9's Joseph "Mango" Marquez demotion to losers and ultimate elimination highlights slate of upsets at Clutch City Clash. M2K at Clutch City Clash - 'Momentum doesn't exist' Always a formidable force, Mew2King reigned supreme at the inaugural Houston event by taking first in Melee. 2 Related Unlike Melee, the Smash 64 community never had early bearings in the form of tournaments and official competitions. Once in a while the top players hosted small meetups at homes or on the side at larger Smash events. Primarily, the Smash 64 community congregated online via emulators. If you have loosely followed Smash 64, then you probably know of Joel "Isai" Alvarado, a legend in Melee in his own right for pioneering Captain Falcon; you have probably watched many of his mesmerizing Smash 64 videos full of zero-to-death combos that led into five or six-stock victories. He's rightfully garnered a reputation in outside circles as an "untouchable god" in Smash 64, but the competition in both population and overall skill has developed considerably over recent years. In the past, Isai sandbagged opponents at Smash 64 events, preferring to pick lower tier characters such as Link, Jigglypuff or Mario to test the competition. He won Apex 2014 as Jigglypuff over one of the best Japanese players at the time, and showed how far ahead of everyone else he was. Catching up to Isai Over the years, the game evolved. Advanced movement and combos once only accessible to Isai became much more commonplace among the current top players. Online resources and dedicated figureheads have promoted a larger interest into Smash 64. Now, several regions include the game in tournament rotation along with Melee and Smash 4. Earlier in the year, Genesis 3 brought in record-breaking numbers for Smash 64 with a total of 238 entrants. Isai himself returned after a significant hiatus, and the big question was whether he could still win a major despite the years of inactivity. General fans thought Isai was a considerable favorite, but Smash 64 enthusiasts viewed him as an underdog. Fans tuned into the Genesis 3 stream to see if Isai could repeat his Apex 2014 run to win another major, but his run fell quickly short as even his top-tier Fox and Pikachu were not enough to win. He landed in fourth place as Keisuke "Wangera" Satou double-eliminated him. The competition had progressed to surpass Isai. Even with the apparent increase in numbers and higher overall skill, there are questions that remain about the true nature of the Smash 64 scene. Peru and Japan are heralded as some of the best Smash 64 regions, but due to the cost of travel, they have never competed against each other. While Japan brings a small handful of players to Apex or Genesis, they have never come in full force. The only encounters with Peru are when top North American players such as Daniel "SuperBoomFan" Hoyt travel to play against them in their homeland. Smash 64 history in the making On August 12-14, Super Smash Con will assemble all of the Smash 64 community in arguably the most stacked event ever. At 314 entrants, it is now the biggest Smash 64 tournament in the history of the game, 76 entrants over Genesis 3. The numbers continue to show that the scene is growing at a sustained and unprecedented rate. Furthermore, this is the first competition that brings together the top Japanese and Peruvian players. To put this in perspective, this is hockey's equivalent of pitting Canada and Russia against each other for the first time. The talent pool is unbelievably deep, with 47 out of the top 50 North American players competing alongside the slew of international heavy-hitters. Making it out of bracket will be insanely difficult and predicting the top eight will be nigh impossible. Who will reach the top eight? How do each region's top players measure up? Will the international competition overrun North America like it does in other esports such as League of Legends? Can fabled legends such as SuperBoomFan or Isai defend North America? While the Smash 4 and Melee viewership numbers reign supreme in Smash, you will do yourself a disservice if you don't tune in to witness Smash 64 history at Super Smash Con.
Image copyright EPA Image caption French mountain rescuers said they found the remaining sixth missing climber at the bottom of a crevasse Six French climbers have been found dead in the Alps in south-eastern France. The five climbers and their guide, all aged between 27 and 45, went missing in bad weather late on Tuesday. The bodies were reportedly found after a rescue team was sent to Aiguille d'Argentiere, a 3,900m (12,800ft) peak in the Mont Blanc range. Evidence suggests the group died instantly after falling 250m, French mountain rescuers said. The climbers' identities have not yet been confirmed. Rising death toll Prosecutor Agnes Robine said the climbers had been on a two-week course, and none were novices. An investigation is under way into the possible cause of the tragedy, but Ms Robine said it is far too early to draw any conclusions. Image copyright AFP Image caption Several people have died in recent weeks in the Mont Blanc range of the Alps Every year thousands of mountaineers attempt the various peaks of the Mont Blanc range, which includes Europe's highest and best-known summit of the same name. An average of 59 people are killed each year in accidents on its slopes, according to the Chamoniarde, an association that provides safety information for the area. Although August is usually one of the better months for climbing, snowstorms can still strike quickly. Since mid-July, two Belgians, two Finns and two Irish have been killed, as well as climbers from Germany and France, Agence France-Presse news agency reports.
Children inside a classroom at Zaatri refugee camp, host to tens of thousands of Syrians displaced by conflict, near Mafraq (Photo courtesy of UN) AMMAN — Prime Minister Hani Mulki has approved a recommendation by concerned officials to allow Syrian refugees who do not possess the required documents to enrol in government schools, officials have announced. To be able to join formal education in the Kingdom, Syrians have to present a special ID card issued by the Interior Ministry indicating their status as refugees. In exclusive remarks to Al Rai and The Jordan Times, Education Minister Omar Razzaz said that the decision is consistent with the government’s policy not to leave any children without education “because we do not want anyone to lose their right to education”. In remarks to The Jordan Times, State Minister for Media Affairs and Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani said: “In line with our value system in Jordan, we do not accept that any child be left out without education.” “Education is among a string of services provided to Syrian refugees from the moment they are received on border,” the minister said, renewing a call on the international community to ensure proportionate assistance for Jordan to continue carrying out its humanitarian mission. Asked if the new numbers would add to the problem of crowding at schools, he said that the newcomers would join afternoon periods in double-shift schools, where there is no such a problem. In an exclusive statement to The Jordan Times, UNICEF Representative Robert Jenkins said: “We would like to congratulate the government of Jordan for this bold and positive step forwards towards ensuring that every vulnerable girl and boy in Jordan goes to school. “UNICEF stands by the Ministry of Education in doing everything we can for every child to access quality education and get a fair chance in preparing for a better future for themselves and their families.” In addition to expanding schools in Syrian refugee camps, the Ministry of Education has opened a total of 200 schools operating double shifts to offer formal education to young refugees, according to UNICEF. Catch-up education programmes are also being rolled out to reach children who have missed more than three years of schooling, for them to accelerate their learning, and enroll in the formal system, the agency has said in a report. In Jordan, according to official figures, more than 126,000 Syrian children were receiving education in public schools last year, while 80,000 were out of school, for different reasons, including the fact that they did not have the necessary identification documents. There is no official estimate of how many children would benefit from the new policy. According to a report by Save the Children, 35 per cent of the 4.8 million Syrian refugees in the region are of school age. Whereas before the conflict 94 per cent of Syrians attended primary or lower secondary school by June 2017, 43 per cent of Syrian refugees were out of school. “This is in fact an increase from 34 per cent in December 2016,” according to the organisation.
Unlike powder snow, fresh dirt doesn't fall from the sky. It's fun to skid, but the reality is that skids drag dirt off trails. Yes some trails (machine built flow) are designed to withstand some sliding around, but many trails aren't.So what's a rider supposed to do for fun and style around tight corners? The good news is that there is another way. Check out Red Bull pro rider and technical riding genius, Thomas Ohler in this next video. Thomas is the guest coach for my upcoming Tight Switchback and Stoppie online course and here he shows off why these super-cool, trail friendly skills are important for riders who like tech trails to learn.Thomas makes those nose pivot turns look easy, but as you can imagine they require some well-considered learning progressions to dial-them-in safely. So if you want to up your game beyond skids or powerslides, and you're looking for structured guidance, this course is launching in the New Year. Sign up here if you’d like to get notified. Remember, this isn’t just about flair and style, these techniques are incredibly practical. Cue visuals of stoppies and nose pivots in the wild...And if you can already ride stoppies and nose pivots, let others know what it feels like! Is it worth learning?-Ryan
President Obama is alleged to have stopped an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets, according to reports to emerge from the Middle East at the weekend The threat from the U.S. forced Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to abort a planned attack on Iraq, reported Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. Netanyahu will be in Washington for an address to Congress on Tuesday aimed squarely at derailing Obama's cherished bid for a diplomatic deal with Tehran. Scroll down for video President Obama is alleged to have thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets For six years, President Obama and Netanyahu have been on a collision course over how to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, a high-stakes endeavor both men see as a centerpiece of their legacies. The Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran last year after discovering that the U.S. and Iran were involved in secret talks over Iran's nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel's back. The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, and that Obama then threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran. According to the report, 'Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of deliberations to task the Israeli army's chief of staff, Benny Gantz, to prepare a qualitative operation against Iran's nuclear program. 'In addition, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to do whatever they could do to thwart a possible agreement between Iran and the White House because such an agreement is, allegedly, a threat to Israel's security.' For six years, President Obama and Netanyahu have been on a collision course over how to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, a high-stakes endeavor both men see as a centerpiece of their legacies The sources added that Gantz and his commanders prepared the requested plan and that Israeli fighter jets trained for several weeks in order to make sure the plans would work successfully. Israeli fighter jets reportedly even carried out experimental flights in Iran's airspace after they managed to break through radars. Stopping Iran from building a nuclear bomb has become a defining challenge for both Obama and Netanyahu, yet one they have approached far differently. For Obama, getting Iran to verifiably prove it is not pursuing nuclear weapons would be a bright spot in a foreign policy arena in which numerous outcomes are uncertain and would validate his early political promise to negotiate with Iran without conditions. Netanyahu considers unacceptable any deal with Iran that doesn't end its nuclear program entirely and opposes the diplomatic pursuit as one that minimizes what he considers an existential threat to Israel. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful and exists only to produce energy for civilian use. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was forced to abort a planned attack on Iraq after the U.S. threatened to shoot down Israeli jets 'Through scaremongering, falsification, propaganda and creating a false atmosphere even inside other countries, (Israel) is attempting to prevent peace,' Iran's top nuclear negotiator said on Saturday in Tehran. 'I believe that these attempts are in vain and should not impede reaching a (nuclear) agreement,' said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. U.S. and Iranian officials reported progress in the latest talks on a deal that would freeze Tehran's nuclear program for 10 years, but allow it to slowly ramp up in the final years of the accord. Obama has refused to meet Netanyahu during his visit, with the White House citing its policy of not meeting with foreign leaders soon before their elections. Vice President Joe Biden and Kerry will both be out of the country on trips announced only after Netanyahu accepted the GOP offer to speak on Capitol Hill. The prime minister is scheduled to speak on Monday at AIPAC's annual policy conference. The Obama administration will be represented at the event by U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and national security adviser Susan Rice, who criticized Netanyahu's plans to address Congress as 'destructive' to the U.S.-Israeli relationship. The Iran dispute has spotlighted rifts in a relationship that has been frosty from the start. Obama and Netanyahu lack any personal chemistry, leaving them with virtually no reservoir of goodwill to get them through their policy disagreements. Activists rally and protest outside Fox News Building on 6th Ave and 48th St to protest the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is scheduled to address Congress on Tuesday Within months of taking office, Obama irritated Israel when, in an address to the Arab world, he challenged the legitimacy of Jewish settlements on Palestinian-claimed land and cited the Holocaust as the justification for Israel's existence, not any historical Jewish tie to the land. The White House was furious when Netanyahu's government defied Obama and announced plans to construct new housing units in East Jerusalem while Biden was visiting Israel in 2010. Additional housing plans that year upended U.S. efforts to restart peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The tension between Obama and Netanyahu was laid bare in an unusually public manner during an Oval Office meeting in 2011. In front of a crowd of journalists, the prime minister lectured Obama at length on Israel's history and dismissed the president's conditions for restarting peace talks. Later that year, a microphone caught Obama telling his then-French counterpart in a private conversation that while he may be fed up with Netanyahu, 'You are sick of him, but I have to work with him every day.' Despite suspecting that Netanyahu was cheering for his rival in the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama tried to reset relations with the prime minister after his re-election. He made his first trip as president to Israel and the two leaders went to great lengths to put on a happy front, referring to each other by their first names and touring some of the region's holy sites together. An anti-Israel demonstrators wearing masks bearing the likeness of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and holding up 'bloody' hands in a protest outside the Washington Convention Center on Sunday The healing period was to be short-lived. Another attempt at Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed. Israeli officials were withering in their criticism of Kerry, who had shepherded the talks, with the country's defense minister calling him 'obsessive' and 'messianic.' The Obama administration returned the favor last summer with its own unusually unsparing criticism of Israel for causing civilian deaths when war broke out in Gaza. The U.S. and Israel have hit rocky patches before. The settlement issue has been a persistent thorn in relations, compounded by profound unhappiness in Washington over Israeli military operations in the Sinai, Iraq and Lebanon during the Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations that led those presidents to take or consider direct punitive measures. Yet through it all, the United States has remained Israel's prime benefactor, providing it with $3 billion a year in assistance and defending it from criticism at the United Nations and elsewhere. 'We have brought relations back in the past and we will do it again now because at the end of the day they are based on mutual interests,' said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and informal adviser to Netanyahu.
Video transcript (intro music) Hello! I'm David Wong, a professor of philosophy at Duke University, and I'm going to talk about Xunzi, an early Chinese philosopher who lived during the fourth and third century BCE. He was a follower of Confucius and is best known for his view that human nature is bad. He explicitly criticized another Confucian named Mengzi, or, as he came to be known in the West, "Mencius," for holding that human nature is good. I recommend, if you haven't seen it already, a very clear Wireless introduction to Mengzi by Matthew Walker. In saying that human nature is good, Mengzi means that human beings have inborn dispositions that can grow into full-blown goodness. He sometimes likened these dispositions to sprouts. Sprouts have a natural direction of growth, if nurtured by water, sun, fertile soil, and human effort. If we are raised in a secure environment where we do not have to constantly worry about our survival, if we are given ethical education, and if we make the personal effort to develop what is good in ourselves, we can grow our sprout-like compassion into healthy plants of goodness. Xunzi places himself in diametrical opposition to Mengzi. He believed that human beings are born with a fondness for profit, with hatred and dislike of others, and desires for sensual pleasure. If we follow our natures, Xunzi argued, we will engage in continued destructive conflict with each other. That is what he meant by saying "human nature is bad." Fortunately, we human beings also have the capacity to think and to approve or disapprove of where our natural feelings and desires leader us. Xunzi believed that through our intelligence, human beings could turn our naturally ugly tendencies towards chaos and conflict into lives of harmony and beauty. In the ancient past, Xunzi believed, the most farseeing of human beings, the sages, realized that acting naturally is the surest path to self-destruction. The sages created ideas of right and wrong to curb the unrestrained pursuit of satisfying our own desires, and to require consideration of others. The sages created customs called "rituals" that train us to respect others and to be grateful for what they give us. One ritual Xunzi discussed was the village drinking ceremony. Everyone gathers for a toast, but only one cup is used, from which everyone drinks in order of seniority. The order of drinking teaches the younger to defer to the older, and drinking from one cup teaches them that they are one village and that they depend on each other. Xunzi also placed special importance on the rituals of mourning and burial of deceased parents. Because parents have given us the gift of our lives and had nurtured us, we must express our deepest gratitudes and feelings of loss. Xunzi used a metaphor for the human path to goodness that is very different from Mengzi's sprouts going into healthy plants. He thought of human beings as craftsmen, who fashion themselves into something beautiful that we would never become naturally. We are like potters who take the lumpy clay of our natures and turn them into beautiful vessels. The sages gave us the instruments for crafting ourselves, ideas of right and wrong, and rituals. But this belief in the transforming power of ritual poses a problem for Xunzi. How can we become so good when we begin as bad creatures with a desire for profit, hate and dislike of others, and desires for sensual pleasure? Xunzi's answer is that there are some natural impulses that are strengthened when we express them through ritual. He says that all creatures of blood and breath, not just humans, love members have their own kind. They will grieve over the loss of their mates. His example was of the behavior of birds, but today we might think of the behavior of elephants, who seem to grieve for dead members of their family and who have been known to stay beside the bodies of their deceased friends for three days without moving from the spot. Thus, in the end, Xunzi might have recognized that, along with all the bad motivations that get us into trouble, we have impulses that tie us to each other and that can be strengthened by rituals, such as the village drinking ceremony and rituals of mourning and burial of those to whom we are grateful. We human animals are complicated and conflicted in our motivations, and Xunzi might be right in holding that we must craft ourselves to restrain the motivations that get us into trouble and to strengthen the motivations that allow us to harmonize with each other. Subtitles by the Amara.org community
Andrea Pirlo says MLS must scrap its salary cap and end its restrictions on foreign players if it wants to keep pace with the Chinese Super League’s riches. Pirlo, who helped his New York City FC team to a 4-0 win over DC United on Sunday, said that if it wants to compete, MLS has “got to get rid of any restrictions” on transfers and end the rule which allows only three so-called designated players to earn big money beyond each team’s set budget. Cold open: Minnesota United brutally exposed as ill-equipped for the task Read more The 37-year-old told the Gazzetta dello Sport: “I’ve seen improvements and from what I have seen in friendly games and the first two rounds of the regular season, the quality has risen a lot. “Certainly I would get rid of the restrictions on the transfer market, though. Enough with the three exceptions to the salary cap, which is too little to convince other stars to come here. They need to develop a liberal system where you can buy and sell players without restrictions. “Now there is even the competition from China. Especially if you want to compete with other leagues, at home and abroad, you have got to get rid of any restrictions.” The designated player rule attempts to offer clubs a moderate amount financial flexibility while maintaining the discipline of a league-wide salary cap. Pirlo is classed as a designated player at NYC FC, along with David Villa and Maxi Moralez. He earned $5.6m in basic salary last season, MLS players’ union figures showed. Pirlo also said he had not decided whether to stay for another year in America, but would go back home to Italy once he has finished playing. He said: “I’ve not decided yet. I’m just focused on my work and trying to do this without thinking of the future. When I do retire, I am going to go back to Italy.” Pirlo said he misses playing in the Champions League with Juventus, but insists he does not regret coming to New York. He said: “I do miss those games a lot. They are the most beautiful games to be involved in no matter what age you are, but in July 2015 I made a choice and I don’t regret it. As the years go by, you have to realise when it is the right time to do something different.” Pirlo was also asked how, as a migrant, he felt about President Trump’s immigration crackdown. “We have a new president who has proposed new laws,” he said. “Just or unjust, we have to adapt. I hope they can change things, but you just have to make the best of it.”
Hidden Play #1 - Reggie Walker's hustle saves a TD LeSean McCoy is a monster. A few plays after taking Reggie Walker's lunch money, throwing him in the dirt and telling him that his parents didn't love him, Shady did the same to Eric Weddle. Fortunately, McCoy's jaunt to the end zone was interrupted by Reggie, who chased him down from 30 yards away. This rundown changed the game. What looks like a guaranteed 80 yard TD reception was cut short by an extreme effort play by Walker, and ultimately saved the Chargers four points when the defense forced the Eagles to kick a field goal in the red zone. Huge, huge play by Reggie. Hidden Play #2 - Every time that DeSean Jackson didn't score when targeted The Chargers clearly game-planned their defense to force Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson to beat them deep. They almost did, as the wide receiver ended up with 193 yards and a TD. The Chargers are lucky Jackson didn't have about 350 receiving yards. Despite basically running a vert/streak on every single play, the Chargers were unable to provide safety help on DeSean. Fortunately, Vick is a pretty terrible quarterback who missed DeSean on LONG touchdown plays maybe 4-5 times throughout the game. Hidden Plays #3 and 4 - The dropsies Not all was rosy in Chargerville. Danny Woodhead's drop of a wide-open sure-to-be first down in the 2nd quarter forced the Chargers to kick a 40 yard plus field goal. Similarly, Gates dropped a touchdown with about 11:40 left in the 4th quarter. The Chargers again ended up kicking a field goal. Hidden Play #5 - The NFL vs. Chip Kelly Since his much ballyhooed hire, there have been consistent rumors that the NFL and its referee's would not play along with the warp-speed tempo that Chip Kelly prefers. Additional grumblings have stated that Kelly's shaking up formations has displeased several league officials, who are more stubborn than rocks suckers for tradition conservative when it comes to changes in the way the game is played. When the Eagles scored on a long touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson (what else is new), and it was called back for an unbelievably ticky-tacky formation flag, conspiracy theorists around the league shook their head. (The fact the Eagles open the season with Monday, Sunday, Thursday games doesn't help either...) Hidden Play #5 - Jarius Wynn is a MAN 1st and 10. Eagles had the ball on the Chargers 14 yard line and the San Diego defense looked absolutely gassed...until Jarius Wynn broke through the line to force a quick throw from Vick. In the process of getting the pass off, Jarius SLAMMED Vick down to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. Vick was so slow to get up that the referees assessed an injury stoppage, forcing Vick out for a play. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Unlike in college, Kelly could have used a timeout rather than having Vick come out for a play.] Nick Foles came in and promptly threw the ball out of the end zone. The Eagles eventually settled for a field goal to tie the game. No telling what Vick might have done with another down, or how gassed the defense may have been without the extra rest they got from the stoppage. Huge play by Wynn that doesn't show up in the stat sheet at all. Hidden Play #6 - Rivers throws the ball away (!!!) Late in the 4th quarter, on what would become the game-winning drive, Rivers is pressured around the right side. Rather than panicking or taking a sack, he steps up in the pocket, eluding the pressure, and throws the ball away. That's simply not a play Rivers has made in years past, and he avoids a -7 yard sack that may have pushed the Chargers out of field goal range. On the very next play, Rivers hit Woodhead for a first down that allowed the Chargers to run out the clock before attempting the eventual game-winning field goal. A simple play, yes, but one that truly helped the Chargers to win the game. More from Bolts From The Blue:
Read more: Irelands Census 2011 and Catholicism - the demise of organized religion in Ireland Ireland is losing its religion at a rapid rate according to American researchers – and a top Irish theologian agrees. University lecturers Daniel Abrams and Richard Wiener say that a study of the Irish census has damning revelations for the Catholic church and other religions. Their view is backed up by leading religious writer and academic David Quinn who claims it ‘cannot be absolutely ruled out’ that religion could disappear in Ireland. Northwestern University lecturer Abrams told the Irish edition of the Sunday Times that the churches need to heed the census findings. In Ireland, the numbers who defined themselves as having no religious affiliation grew from 1,000 in 1961 to 186,000 in 2006. The number defining themselves as Roman Catholics dropped from 95% in 1961 to 87% in 2006. “The fastest growing trend in Ireland is for people to state they are unaffiliated to any organized religion,” stated Abrams. “The findings were quite stark in Ireland particularly as it has gone from being a very religious country to a much less religious one in a short space of time. “Only 0.04% of the Irish population said they were not affiliated to a religion in the 1961 census compared to 4.2% in 2006. “Based on our model, 39% of the population in Ireland will describe themselves as unaffiliated by 2050.” Research unveiled by the duo at the American Physical Society in Dallas also concluded that nine countries are losing their religion – Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Holland and Switzerland. David Quinn, a director at the religious think-tank Iona Institute and a respected commentator on the subject, told the Sunday Times that the disappearance of religion in Ireland couldn’t be discounted. “But evidence from the even the most secular societies suggests there is an irreducible core of between five and 10 per cent who will keep the faith,” said Quinn. “Three factors will ensure the survival of religion in Ireland,” he added. First, immigration will play a role with more immigrants who have been raised with strong religious values. “Studies have also shown that religious people have more children, suggesting fewer are likely to be raised atheists. “Third, religious parents are also becoming better at protecting their children from the lure of secular society.” Quinn also told the paper that he believes there is a chance of a religious revival in Europe. “It is not unprecedented,” he said. “There was a revival in Britain in the 19th century, for example.” Read more: Irelands Census 2011 and Catholicism - the demise of organized religion in Ireland
Former Atheist Activist Patrick Greene Responds to Critics Email Print Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Patrick Greene was an outspoken atheist until recently, when the generosity of a few Christians caused him to reconsider his beliefs. He now says he is a Christian. But some people – atheists as well as Christians – aren't just taking him at his word, and are openly criticizing both Greene and his conversion. After The Christian Post published an article about Greene on Wednesday, many CP readers offered their thoughts on his transformation. Greene says he was "stunned" by the overwhelming reaction his story has generated. Some Christians are praising God for the 63-year-old, who once threatened to sue Henderson County, Texas, over a Nativity scene that was placed on public land outside the county's courthouse in Athens. He later withdrew his threats and was forced to quit his job as a self-employed taxi driver after learning that he was going blind. Shortly after his vision loss was reported in a local paper, a Christian woman from Athens, Jessica Crye, came up with the idea to round up donations for Greene, which has resulted in thousands of dollars that have helped him and his wife cover the cost of bills, taxes, groceries and more. That act of kindness led him to reconsider his beliefs, and now he says he believes in Jesus Christ. Some nonbelievers have been critical of Greene, saying that his conversion isn't legitimate because he was never really an atheist. Others have claimed that he only became a Christian because he likes both the attention he is getting and the money he has received from believers, though he told CP on Thursday that the money has nothing to do with it. "The financial help that my wife and I got is totally irrelevant," he said. He later added, "What's money got to do with religion or belief? Nothing...that's stupid." He says the "kindness, generosity and warmth" of the Christians who have helped him led him to reconsider his beliefs, but they did not convince him to suddenly believe in God. He also said that anyone who doubts he was indeed an atheist before only needs to speak with his wife, who he has been married to for over 33 years and is still an atheist, to find out that he really was. As an atheist activist, Greene previously filed or threatened to file lawsuits against multiple cities for their Christmas displays, and has hosted an "intro to atheism" themed show on a local television station in North Carolina. He also once threatened to sue "180" film creator and open-air preacher Ray Comfort for a bumper sticker produced by Comfort's ministry that suggested April Fool's Day should also be called "National Atheist's Day." Greene took heavy criticism from The Atheist Experience blog, however, for attacking the ministry's freedom of speech and not choosing a more worthwhile cause to battle over. After receiving some emails about his threats, Greene says he now agrees that he "jumped-the-gun" when he made the threats. Now that he's a Christian, Greene says he wants to become a Baptist minister. "It's not a new decision, because when I was in grammar school I had every intention of becoming a priest...that's not a new thing," said Greene, who grew up in a Roman Catholic family. He says he used to believe in God as a child too, but that ended one Christmas Eve when the members of his family became drunk. He went outside to play with the family dog, and afterward he looked up at the sky and began to wonder why nothing in nature – the dog, the trees – seemed to treat Christmas as a special day. "That's what got me...nothing in nature was acting any differently than any other day of the year," he said. He also became disillusioned with the Catholic Church when he discovered there were other viewpoints than the ones he had been taught by the church. He says the church taught him they held the only correct view of things, which he disagrees with. Greene says he now considers Erick Graham, the pastor of Sand Springs Baptist Church that helped collect donations for Greene, to be his mentor. Graham told CP that Greene sent him an email explaining that he now believes in Jesus Christ, although they haven't had the opportunity to discuss his conversion any further as of yet. "I think he's grabbing hold of some of the truth, but I don't know that there's been a true spiritual conversion in his life yet," said Graham, who plans to speak with Greene on Friday. He explained that a true spiritual conversion involves more than just a knowledge of Christ's Lordship, but a genuine submission to God and brokenness over one's own sin. "Yielding to the Lord, submission – that is salvation...and not just saying, 'I believe this, I believe that.'" Graham says occasionally people who have "a drastic conversion experience" almost immediately make plans to enter the ministry. The Apostle Paul, he says, is one such example. He also compared Paul's story to Greene's, because both men once persecuted the church, both underwent a drastic change and God used blindness to bring both of them to Himself. Greene, who still believes that homosexuality is an acceptable practice, says after he finishes his ministry studies he wants to lead a gay-affirming congregation. He claims that the verses that discuss homosexuality in the Bible are misinterpreted by many Christians today. One of the major factors in his changing his beliefs, Greene says, was his own self-study of the Bible. One thing that was convincing to him, he says, was the great number of people who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Christ. SEE VIDEO OF PATRICK GREENE'S CONVERSION STORY
Richard Spencer has transformed into a street activist: “WASHINGTON — In Washington, D.C., on Sunday, the so-called “alt-right” held two competing rallies led by different factions fighting over ownership of the movement and its message. At one rally were the media provocateurs and conspiracy theorists famous for interrupting Shakespeare plays and spreading anti-Democrat conspiracy theories, like Laura Loomer and Mike Cernovich. At the other were the hard-line nationalists like Richard Spencer who are sick of the fame-seeking, and want the group to get back to defending white identity and holding Trump accountable to his most far right base. At that second rally, held at the Lincoln Memorial, top white nationalist leaders proclaimed the difference between the alt-right and what they termed the “alt-light.” The first, they said, wants political change. The latter is just glomming onto the movement for fame. Calling anyone a member of the “alt-right” is a minefield. The movement contains many factional ideologies, along with individuals who only espouse such beliefs as a means of causing upset. But for Spencer, one of the most visible leaders of the white nationalist bent of the alt-right movement, defining the alt right is simple: It’s a movement that is building a home for white identity. …” Mic reports there were 300 Alt-Right supporters with Richard Spencer at the Lincoln Memorial and 150 Alt-Lite supporters – including the Oathcucks – with Cernovich at the White House. This is an impressive feat considering that the DC area is known to be such hostile terrain. I was preoccupied this weekend with the 2017 League of the South National Conference. I’m told by multiple people who were there though that the Alt-Lite rally was low energy. The headliner Roger Stone didn’t show up and phoned it in. Their event was capped by Jack Posobiec rapping in front of a “Free Speech Ain’t Hate Speech” sign with the Oathcucks and a Nigerian in a Trump hat. Gavin McInnes ordered the Proud Boys to boost the Alt-Lite event which will tarnish their brand. Sources tell me @JackPosobiec is trying to scrub this video off the internet. pic.twitter.com/cLvujtwT2X — The Current Year?? (@TheeCurrentYear) June 26, 2017 The Alt-Lite is dissolving back into mainstream conservatism pic.twitter.com/j5tN9kKAZu — Hunter Wallace (@occdissent) June 26, 2017 "Everyone has their kink." – Cernovich pic.twitter.com/osBJoQU4lq — Hunter Wallace (@occdissent) June 26, 2017 an actual photo from today's "Alt Light" #RallyForPeace "dude we'll just defeat the left by literally becoming the left, it's brilliant" pic.twitter.com/eMJ5kODaSg — The Swog Blog (@TheSwogBlog) June 25, 2017 this is what useless, controlled opposition looks like pic.twitter.com/H7KaFUnIpv — CRISPR-YM3812 (@Crisprtek) June 25, 2017 Leader of the Oath Keepers speaking at the #Pride2017 event. Very powerful speech on love is love even if it's between a man and a boy. pic.twitter.com/GD3WijnXN8 — Internet Gaming Hero (@GamerGate1488) June 25, 2017 Look at that dank black guy in a Trump hat, fucking based. Lol ? pic.twitter.com/xJQubJPEAf — T.R. (@TeddyR1899) June 25, 2017 This is how Roger Stone appeared at the alt-lite rally today…. Over a cell phone.#RallyForPeace pic.twitter.com/kt4i6s4r97 — The Current Year?? (@TheeCurrentYear) June 25, 2017 >tfw your rally turnout is not what you expected pic.twitter.com/N4anw6O1IO — Alt Right Report (@AltRight_Report) June 25, 2017 My impression : a toothless version of the Alt-Right gathering at the Lincoln memorial. This was an illuminating day–a clarifying day. https://t.co/23CrYC8n74 — c p walsh (@cpwlsh) June 25, 2017 Stewart Rhodes, founder of the anti-government Oath Keepers addresses the "Rally Against Political Violence." pic.twitter.com/JXWwaBs7O6 — Hatewatch (@Hatewatch) June 25, 2017 Know what I sayin' man. We're all Americans, man https://t.co/HvZChSLdr3 — Hunter Wallace (@occdissent) June 25, 2017 Thupplementh, people! Get your #FreeSpeech thupplementh! Before I took thethe, people thaid I talked like a goof! cc: @Cernovich pic.twitter.com/U4osFQYgER — ??Vendetta Vimiera? (@VendettaVimiera) June 25, 2017 Meanwhile, alt light rally has wrapped up. That's a lot of Proud Boys! pic.twitter.com/havsvKSRYg — Will Sommer (@willsommer) June 25, 2017 Meanwhile, the real Alt-Right rally at the Lincoln Memorial had all of the energy, greater numbers, better optics, messaging and none of the cucking: Speaker says alt-right is losing grounds to the communists every day pic.twitter.com/WPp5rcHftj — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 Nathan Damigo: "America was founded by white people for white people" pic.twitter.com/kLY4hiDfg4 — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 Baked Alaska says that his bodyguard who was stabbed 9 times last week is recovering pic.twitter.com/ikrkiFB370 — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 "Ironic to be speaking in front of the Lincoln Memorial," Augustus Invictus says at "free speech" rally pic.twitter.com/ugM570NJYt — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 "Racist isn't a real word," speaker says at alt-right "free speech" rally pic.twitter.com/7C58OCDduE — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 Speaker Jason Kessler says he brought a confederate flag when he found out he'd be speaking at the rally pic.twitter.com/TPICEq7LNp — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 White shirts are Richard Spencer's personal security pic.twitter.com/QvOYkEPDZR — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 White Nationalist group Identity Evropa at thr "free speech" rally at the Lincoln Memorial in DC pic.twitter.com/p0M41BPpK5 — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) June 25, 2017 Richard Spencer: "We aren't fighting for freedom. We are fighting to be strong beautiful powerful again in a sea of weakness" pic.twitter.com/mXW7mQ7XTj — Mark Gunnery (@MarkGunnery) June 25, 2017 Augustus Invictus is up. pic.twitter.com/y4qioJ8j6J — Richard ? Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) June 25, 2017 Before the rally, @RichardBSpencer made it clear: the Alt Right is "identity politics" meant to create a meaningful home for white identity: pic.twitter.com/WiMQVPFrG4 — Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) June 25, 2017 LOL look at the difference in message. One is powerful and inspiring – the other, not so much. pic.twitter.com/6NgbpdqWBD — Connor Mizer (@ConnorMizer) June 25, 2017
GO TO PART 35 Point: Doctor Cornelius Van Til, the father of Presuppositional apologetics, is famous for asking the following question to those who would attack the Christian faith: “On what foundation rest the guns which he directs against the Christian position?” Cornelius Van Til was insightful to note that the presuppositions one bring to the discussion about the truth of Christianity matters. In fact presuppositions are very crucial. Elsewhere Van Til said, The issue between believers and non-believers in Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to “facts” or “laws” whose nature and significance is already agreed upon by both parties to the debate. The question is rather as to what is the final reference-point required to make the “facts” and “laws” intelligible. The question is as to what the “facts” and “laws” really are. Are they what the non-Christian methodology assumes that they are? Are they what the Christian theistic methodology presupposes they are?” (Source) Thus “The Christian position seeks to make human experience intelligible in terms of the presupposition of God; the non-Christian position seeks to make human experience intelligible in terms of man who is conceived of as ultimate.” Often many anti-theists and proponents of non-Christian religions that reject the sovereignty of God would believe that chance is ultimate. Van Til believes a chance universe is self-defeating of knowlege in which chance makes everything unintelligible as he stated in a famous quote: So hopeless and senseless a picture must be drawn of the natural man’s methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or chance is ultimate. On his assumption his own rationality is a product of chance. On his assumption even the laws of logic which he employs are products of chance. The rationality and purpose that he may be searching for are still bound to be products of chance. So then the Christian apologist, whose position requires him to hold that Christian theism is really true and as such must be taken as the presupposition which alone makes the acquisition of knowledge in any field intelligible, must join his “friend” in his hopeless gyrations so as to point out to him that his efforts are always in vain. (Source: Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1972), p. 102.) Van Til’s own illustration in the famous quote was the following: Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended and bottomless ocean of water. Desiring to get out of water, he makes a ladder of water. He sets this ladder upon the water and against the water and then attempts to climb out of the water. (Source) But I think the following illustration below would be a helpful supplement to explain why a chance ultimate universe makes knowledge irrational and unintelligible. Picture: Imagine a middle school kid doing his class work in his math class. He has a lot of math problems. His method of finding out the solution? He uses some dice that he rolls out and whatever the number lands on is what he writes down as his answer. Would anyone think the child truly is learning? No, his answer is a product of chance. Now let’s say the child has an exercise that asks what is four multiplied by four. Of course we know the answer is sixteen. Remember the child is using his dice to find out the answer. He rolls two dice and the answer is sixteen. Would anyone say the child truly “know” that sixteen is the solution? No, again, his answer is a product of chance. It just happened to land on “sixteen.” Here we see that one of the important aspect of truly knowing something is that one came to the conclusion according to proper methods as oppose to mere chance. This is an illustration of how methods based upon chance destroys knowledge. How much more problematic is a worldview that assert that behind every aspect of attaining knowledge is the fury of chance. Chance melts away knowledge like a bright sun to an ice cube. Even if it so happen that the right conclusion was reached, chance has reduce every method of knowledge to a game of dice. POSSIBLE SCENARIO FOR EMPLOYING THIS ILLUSTRATION DURING APOLOGETIC EVANGELISM NON-CHRISTIAN: Can you explain to me why you keep on thinking an atheistic worldview destroys knowledge? CHRISTIAN: Let me try. You don’t believe the universe is the result of God creating it right? NON-CHRISTIAN: No. CHRISTIAN: So the universe therefore was not purposely created by a Person in your view. That is, the universe’ ultimate explanation is chance, in that it is unguided, and non-purposeful. Now let me mention a scenario. <INSERT ILLUSTRATION>. Do you think the child who uses dice to solve his math problem truly know the answer he writes down? NON-CHRISTIAN: No. CHRISTIAN: Why is that? NON-CHRISTIAN: The answer he got was arrived by chance. CHRISTIAN: Likewise with your worldview that believes in a chance universe reducing all attempts of knowledge as unintelligible. That is because chance in a chance universe reduces the methods and tools for knowledge as irrational. GO TO PART 37 Advertisements
As the Republican Party’s chance for a majority in the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) appears determined to stay in his race despite Tuesday’s withdrawal deadline, releasing an ad begging for forgiveness and calling rape “an evil act,” even has his prior words and acts come back to haunt fellow Republicans. “Rape is an evil act,” he said in Tuesday’s ad. “I used the wrong words in the wrong way, and for that I apologize. As the father of two daughters, I want tough justice for predators. I have a compassionate heart for the victims of sexual assault, and I pray for them.” He adds: “The fact is, rape can lead to pregnancy… The mistake I made was in the words I said, not in the heart I hold. I ask for your forgiveness.” Despite the national uproar over Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” and his apparent misunderstanding of how female reproductive organs work, a Public Policy Polling survey found that Missouri voters are largely unswayed by the remarks, leaving Akin statistically tied with his opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Public Policy Polling found that Akin’s comments significantly impacted the public’s perceptions of him and drove down his favorability rating to just 24 percent. However, his comments did not prove to be a boon to McCaskill, who’s still technically trailing Akin 43 percent to 44 percent. And despite 75 percent of voters disapproving of Akin’s remarks, just 51 percent of Republicans said they strongly disagree, and 43 percent even said they still like him. Those numbers seem to be in line with a SurveyUSA poll released late Monday, which found that 52 percent of Missouri Republicans think Akin should stay in the race. In combined totals representing both parties, 54 percent overall said he should drop out. Should Akin choose to remain in the race beyond Tuesday, he’s not likely to enjoy the support of the Republican Party establishment. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and former Bush political strategist Karl Rove, who runs the biggest Republican super PACs, have issued statements indicating some antipathy toward Akin, whose defeat could mean the party losing a chance to control the U.S. Senate. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also tried to distance himself from Akin, saying his administration would not oppose abortion in instances of pregnancy by rape. But even facing that kind of pressure, Akin still enjoys some support from the religious wing of the Republican Party, with groups like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association coming to his defense. Both organizations are key sponsors of the Values Voters Summit, planned for September in Washington, D.C., with featured speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Romney’s running mate. Akin’s website brags that the Family Research Council gave him a “100 percent lifetime rating.” They support him largely because of the congressman’s longstanding commitment to Republican anti-abortion causes, illustrated by a 2008 speech he gave on the House floor that was being widely recirculated on the Internet by Tuesday morning. “We have one of the most polarizing issues that has confronted our nation since the days of slavery,” he said. “And yet, just as slavery is fundamentally un-American, so even moreso, anything that violates the most fundamental right, the right to life, is contrary to everything that Americans have stood for and fought for.” He added later in the speech: “We have terrorists in our own culture called ‘abortionists.'” Even more troubling for Republicans: Akin was joined by Ryan in sponsoring two bills, the “Sanctity of Life Act” and the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” that would have banned all abortions and narrowed the definition of what “rape” is. The later passed the House by a vote of 251 to 175, but the Democratic-controlled Senate never took it up. Speaking to reporters on Monday, President Barack Obama said Akin’s comments are an example of “why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) chimed in as well, insisting that “Akin’s offensive comments are simply one more part of the Republican attack on women’s health.” Rep. Jackie Speir (D-CA) told Raw Story that if Republicans were put in charge of the courts and the presidency, “a woman’s right to choose would be the very first proposal that would be put before the Congress to overturn.” This video was published to YouTube by Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) on Tuesday, August 21, 2012. This video was broadcast by C-SPAN on January 28, 2008, republished to YouTube on August 20, 2012.
Last week a federal judge in Orlando ruled that Florida's Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention & Control Act violates the constitutional right to due process because it allows conviction without proof of mens rea, the "guilty mind" that is normally considered a crucial element of a criminal offense. The decision (PDF) could have a sweeping impact, casting doubt on convictions under the law since 2002, when the statute was enacted in its current form. "It has one of the largest potential effects on criminal law in the past decade," a local defense attorney told the St. Petersburg Times. "We're talking hundreds of thousands of drug cases." In 2002, responding to Florida Supreme Court rulings that said people can be convicted of possessing controlled substances only if they do so knowingly, the state legislature amended the drug law to explicitly remove that requirement. Under the new law, a prosecutor no longer had to prove a defendant knew the substance he possessed was illegal; instead lack of knowledge could be claimed as an affirmative defense, with the defendant required to overcome "a permissive presumption that the possessor knew of the illicit nature of the substance." In effect, the amendment changed the presumption of innocence into a presumption of guilt. Think of it as the drug exception to the Due Process Clause. In last week's decision, which she issued in response to a habeas corpus petition by a man convicted of delivering cocaine, U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven put a damper on Florida legislators' eagerness to throw out a fundamental principle of justice in the name of preventing people from getting high: Florida stands alone in its express elimination of mens rea as an element of a drug offense. Other states have rejected such a draconian and unreasonable construction of the law that would criminalize the "unknowing" possession of a controlled substance....Under Florida's statute, a person is guilty of a drug offense if he delivers a controlled substance without regard to whether he does so purposefully, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently. Thus, in the absence of a mens rea requirement, delivery of cocaine is a strict liability crime under Florida law. Scriven noted that "a strict liability offense has only been held constitutional if: (1) the penalty imposed is slight; (2) a conviction does not result in substantial stigma; and (3) the statute regulates inherently dangerous or deleterious conduct." She said none of those requirements is satisfied in the case of delivering cocaine, where the penalty and stigma are severe and the underlying conduct—transporting something—is entirely innocent but for knowledge that the item is contraband. Scriven offered a hypothetical to illustrate the implications of applying strict liability to drug offenses: Consider the student in whose book bag a classmate hastily stashes his drugs to avoid imminent detection. The bag is then given to another for safekeeping. Caught in the act, the hapless victim is guilty based upon the only two elements of the statute: delivery (actual, constructive, or attempted) and the illicit nature of the substance. The victim would be faced with the Hobson's choice of pleading guilty or going to trial where he is presumed guilty because he is in fact guilty of the two elements. He must then prove his innocence for lack of knowledge against the permissive presumption the statute imposes that he does in fact have guilty knowledge.... The Court declines to grant the State broad, sweeping authority to impose such an outcome in direct contravention of well-established principles of American criminal jurisprudence—that no individual should be subjected to condemnation and prolonged deprivation of liberty unless he acts with criminal intent—and binding Supreme Court precedent governing the constitutional analysis of strict liability offenses. Because [Florida's drug law] imposes harsh penalties, gravely besmirches an individual’s reputation, and regulates and punishes otherwise innocuous conduct without proof of knowledge or other criminal intent, the Court finds it violates the due process clause and that the statute is unconstitutional on its face. The challenge that led to Scriven's decision (PDF) was supported by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Drug Policy Alliance. The NACDL has more here. [via the Drug War Chronicle]
A Butler County grand jury declined in 2014 to bring criminal charges against then-Fairfield Officer Scott Conklin after he fatally shot 23-year-old Caleb Surface, who he believed had a gun when he found him in a subdivision the night of Jan. 18, 2014. Caleb had actually been holding a cordless phone he had taken from his father’s home. Jeffrey Surface, Caleb’s father, maintains that Conklin’s account of his son’s death doesn’t add up. MORE: Officer cleared of crime in Fairfield fatal shooting In Conklin’s account of the shooting, Caleb said multiple times that he had a gun. But witnesses said they never heard Caleb say anything to Conklin on the cold, winter night. A civil lawsuit was filed a year after the incident by Surface and Caleb’s mother, Laura Pavlech. And last week, a federal judge denied Conklin’s request to dismiss that civil lawsuit. “The court concludes that there remains a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendant Officer Scott Conklin acted reasonably … ” United States District Court Judge Timothy S. Black wrote in his decision. Conklin “asserts that prior to discharging his police firearm, Caleb twice stated he had a gun … Officer Conklin further asserts that after he directed Caleb to keep his hands visible, Caleb responded by stating ‘Are you not listening to me? I have a gun. I will kill you,’ ” Black wrote. But, the judge wrote, “there are three witnesses who observed interaction between Officer Conklin and Caleb and that these witnesses did not hear Caleb ever make any statements to Officer Conklin.” OFFICER’S RECORD: Fairfield officer was recommended for ‘separation from service’ Thus, the plaintiffs argue there was genuine issue of material fact that Caleb ever addressed Conklin and that the officer had probable cause to to believed he posed a threat of serious harm to the officer or others. “The statements of two of the three witnesses cited by plaintiffs … do not create a genuine issue of material fact,” Black wrote. “The witness affidavits merely fail to corroborate Officer Conklin’s account of Caleb’s statements regarding having a gun; they do not actually dispute Officer Conklin’s account … they simply indicate they did not hear Caleb state anything to Officer Conklin.” Conklin’s account of the events are “more genuinely disputed,” the judge wrote, by a 2016 affidavit of a witness who said she saw the moment Caleb was killed, less than one football field’s length from her home’s back window. According to that witness, Conklin followed Caleb until the two were about more than 50 feet apart. At that time, Conklin said, “Caleb, stop,” according to the witness. When Caleb turned around, Conklin immediately fired his gun twice, killing the young man, the witness said. “Thus, under this witness’s observations, Caleb did not speak, and there was no significant lapse of time between Officer Conklin’s warning and the shooting that would have allowed Caleb to threaten Officer Conklin,” Black wrote. But, the judge also points out, that same witness gave a different statement just after the shooting. In her first account, the witness said Caleb came to her door asking to use a phone and was “reaching into his pocket in his coat, a suspicious behavior that was excluded from her later affidavit.” When Caleb’s father called 911, he told police that he had almost shot his own son because Caleb was “getting out of control and is nuts and I need him removed from the house.” MORE: Different accounts of Fairfield officer-involved shooting “Judge Black recognized that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that Surface was a troubled person who set out that day to commit suicide by cop,” said Mark Landes, an attorney representing Conklin. “Surface caused a confrontation, claimed to have a gun, refused to raise his hands, and instead stabbed his hand into his coat.” Conklin, who was a 10-year veteran of the force at the time of the shooting, never returned to work. “He took a disability retirement and moved out of state,” Fairfield Police Chief Mike Dickey told the Journal-News. He said he could not comment further. Surface’s attorney, Edward Kathman, told the Journal-News that his client “is relieved that the truth regarding his son’s death will be revealed in court.” — — — WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT CALEB SURFACE DIED The incident began around 8 p.m. Jan. 18, 2014, when Caleb tried to break into his father’s home on Spyglass Hill Court by pushing out a screen. Caleb was confronted by his father, who called 911 stating his son was “getting out of control and is nuts and I need him removed from the house,” according to court documents “He’s in his room, he’s trying to open the door, grab a knife or something. I almost had to shoot him,” Jeffrey Surface told dispatchers. When an officer arrived at the residence, Caleb Surface had run out the back door. Scott Conklin was one of the Fairfield police officers called to set up a perimeter around the house to locate Caleb, who Jeffrey Surface told police might be suicidal. Within minutes of the incident Conklin located Caleb on St. Andrews Court, a few hundred feet away. According to Conklin, Caleb initially would not stop when ordered. When he did stop, Caleb told the officer he had a gun and would kill him. Conklin said he fired two shots after Caleb put his hand in his pocket and made a furtive movement, according to investigators.
The Bronx teenager who blared “Fuck Tha Police” during the funeral for an assassinated New York officer was kicked out of his apartment this week. The building’s superintendent, Danny Morales, told the tenant who was housing Julien Rodriguez and his older sister to boot them out, the New York Post reported Friday. “I called him and told him he needs to take care of this right away,” Morales told the New York Post. “I told him it’s disrespectful and they can’t be doing this. The police lost a family member. We all need to come together and respect that.” Rodriguez decided to play the NWA song from the third story apartment window during the funeral service for slain New York Police Department (NYPD) Officer Miosotis Familia. Familia, a mother of three, was shot in the head while sitting in her squad car July 5 by a man who reportedly expressed anti-police sentiments. (RELATED: Teen Plays ‘F**k Tha Police’ During Murdered Cop’s Funeral) Rodriguez played the song out of revenge for his brother and best friend who were reportedly shot by cops, something the New York Post could not confirm. The tenant housing Rodriguez and his sister said he wasn’t responsible for Rodriguez’s actions. “They’re gone. The case is closed. They’re no longer in my house. I don’t know where they went,” the man, identified as Jesus, said. Morales was also offended by Rodriguez’s actions because his nephew is a NYPD officer. “I wouldn’t want to see him lying in a box also. We need to respect the police,” he said. Follow Amber on Twitter Send tips to amber@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
B3 Coin More Than Just Masternodes Just wanted to write a quick synopsis of what is right around the corner for B3. I once saw this posted on The B3 website and someone also posted it on Youtube in the comments section. I think it kinda sums everything up well enough. "B3 is the worlds first Cryptocurrency that will combine the strength of Masternodes with the flexibiltiy and security of the lightning and Segwit network. Masternodes will be implemented by Q4 2017, and Segwit will be implemented on the 2nd Quarter of 2018. B3’s expertise lays in it’s developer team which is composed of a team of well known and accomplished cryptocurrency developers which are all passionate veterans in the field of advanced cryptographic development. A unique team of developers that believe decentralized exchanges will be the future of cryptocurrency. B3 is currently 12 times more secure and 12 times faster in processing transactions over Bitcoin or any other sha-256 based coin. This speed and security will create the foundation for our innovative decentralized exchange. We are currently the worlds most active and profitable POS coin with a 10,000% POS reward system until we reach our 80,000 block for stakers. We are well knows as a no Anti Instamine, Premine, and ICO coin. After 80,000 blocks B3 will implement several coin burning projects to lower B3’s circulating supply." I just wanted to make a few points about B3 I noticed in the B3 Discord chat that many community members are worried about the current B3 total supply. The total supply has been increasing because of the 10,000% block rewards we are currently lucky enough to be reaping until we hit the 80k block. As I write this article we are currently up to block 74214 which will probably change by the time I post this. This team has plans to reduce the total supply and if you trust in that as I do then there is really nothing to worry about. They will most likely do some kinda POB before the masternodes are upon us. If you have not checked or need something to get excited about. I would definitely recommend going over to This Site to take a look Just scroll down towards the bottom to see the beautiful site of B3 waiting in the mist. Waiting to begin the masternode launch. The other point that I would like to shine light upon Some community members already know this but this B3 Developer and Team is the same team that was responsible for Bitcore and Bitsend - Feel free to click on those links and research a bit. I am not a developer and I do not write code but I believe I understand quite a bit about psychology, theory and algorithms. I have also done research on B3 and many other cryptocurrencies. That being said, of course, making an investment in all crypto is a risk but I believe it is hard to go wrong in investing in B3 at this very moment. Lastly, I would also recommend heading over to the current website and reading up about the B3 Project Roadmap. Once you do that please click on this discord link to join our community. We would love to have you. We really enjoy talking about all thing B3 related. Thank you for reading my short article and by chance if you were supposed to find B3 and join our community. We will most likely be better by sharing your presence. Hope to see you soon.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Kurdish militia backed by U.S.-led air strikes are making rapid advances against Islamic State forces in rural areas around Kobani after driving the group from the Syrian border town last week, the Kurdish militia and a monitoring group said on Monday. A man walks in a street with abandoned vehicles and and damaged buildings in the northern Syrian town of Kobani January 30, 2015. REUTERS/Osman Orsal A spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said Islamic State forces were collapsing around Kobani. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the monitoring organization, said Islamic State fighters were putting up little resistance in the face of the Kurdish advance and may be pushed back even further. “The fighting organization of Daesh ... is in a state of complete collapse at present and cannot hold ground,” Redur Xelil, spokesman for the YPG, told Reuters by telephone, using a pejorative Arabic acronym for Islamic State. The battle for Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, became a focal point for the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State in Syria. The Syrian Kurds, who also received military support from Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, drove Islamic State from the town last week. Islamic State controls wide areas of northern and eastern Syria, including a strip of territory across the northern Aleppo countryside and a corridor stretching southeast from Raqqa province to the border with Iraq. Although the town has little strategic value, the battle for Kobani marked the first example of direct U.S. support for ground forces fighting Islamic State in Syria. As part of its strategy to roll back Islamic State in Syria, the United States is also planning to train and equip non-jihadist rebels, who account for only a modest part of the fighters battling President Bashar al-Assad. Active recruitment of Syrian trainees has yet to start. The United States has ruled out the idea of cooperating with Assad in the fight against Islamic State, describing him as part of the problem. The YPG says it has 50,000 fighters deployed in three predominantly Kurdish areas of northern Syria. It has said it is willing to be a partner in the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State. Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, said Islamic State fighters who were some 4 to 5 km (around 3 miles) from the town on Sunday, were now at least 10 km (6 miles) away. “There is no large-scale resistance,” he said. He said the Kurds were advancing with help from Syrian Arab armed groups from Raqqa. Xelil said Islamic State had withdrawn 10 km in the last day alone and was more than 25 km from Kobani. He said U.S.-led air strikes continued, as did support from the Iraqi peshmerga who entered the town via Turkey. But he warned Islamic State could open new fronts in Kurdish areas in northeast Syria. “There are daily clashes and perhaps these battles and clashes will increase, particularly in the Jazeera region, because Daesh will turn to other areas to recover what is left of its standing,” he said. The Jazeera region is the Kurdish name for northeastern Syria. Abdulrahman said that Islamic State, having lost 2,000 fighters battling for Kobani, was unable to open new fronts. “I expect a continued retreat in the Kobani rural area, after that there might be clashes in the outskirts of Raqqa,” he said.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Colombia’s largest ever drug seizure Police in Colombia say they have seized their largest ever domestic haul of illegal drugs - nearly eight tonnes of cocaine. The drugs had been hidden on a banana plantation near the north-western coastal town of Turbo. President Juan Manuel Santos congratulated officers on Twitter, saying: "Operation in Turbo seized the greatest amount in our history." Police say the drugs belonged to Clan Usuga, a criminal gang. Three suspects were arrested and another three escaped, a statement read. Image copyright EPA/Colombian Police Image caption Police put the haul on display in Turbo, capital of the Uraba region of Antioquia Image copyright EPA/Colombian Police Image caption Much of the haul was wrapped and ready for sale Image copyright AFP/Colombian Police Image caption The criminal gang Clan Usuga sends cocaine to Central America and on to the US Nearly 1.5 tonnes of the drugs had been wrapped and were "ready to go out to the export market", Defence Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said. It was the largest seizure of cocaine on Colombian territory although there may have been slightly larger cocaine seizures at sea, he added. Clan Usuga is mainly engaged in drug trafficking but has also been accused of extortion, illegal mining, forced disappearances and murder, correspondents say. Colombian police estimate the gang has about 2,000 active members. Over the past five years, the security forces have captured 6,700 members of the group. Earlier this month, the Colombian government said it would launch air raids against gangs involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining. The new strategy specifically targets three gangs - Clan Usuga, Los Pelusos and Los Puntilleros.
Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said on Sunday that House Republicans did not want to see the country default on its loans when it hits the debt limit in May, but emphasized they would not agree to "rubber stamp" an increase on the debt ceiling without significant concessions. Ryan, the chair of the House Budget Committee, also disputed a recent statement by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner implying that the Republican leadership had already agreed to approve such an increase under the justification that "We know that the risk [of not approving it] would be catastrophic." According to projections by the Treasury, the U.S. government is expected to hit its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by May 16, 2011. If Congress does not approve an increase to the limit, the federal government could default on its bonds for the first time in history, and Social Security and Medicare checks would likely see delays as a result of the government's inability to make payments to agencies. Ryan, in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, said Republicans did not want to "play around with the country's credit rating" - but he did not guarantee that they would vote to increase the debt limit without "cuts in controls and spending going forward." "Nobody wants to play around with the country's credit rating," Ryan told CBS' Bob Schieffer. "Nobody wants to see defaults happening - but we also think it's important to get a handle on future borrowing as we deal with raising the debt limit. "Nobody is saying we want to see default," he added. When asked by Schieffer what conditions Republicans would demand, Ryan said that they were "not really interested in negotiating through the media," but added that they wanted assurance of concessions, potentially including spending cuts and debt caps, in order to vote for the increase. "What we're saying here is spending cuts and controls in conjunction with raising the debt limit," he told Schieffer. "That's what we've been saying all along." When pressed as to whether or not Republicans would still vote for raising the debt limit if their demands were not met, Ryan said no. "I do not ... no, we won't raise it, just simply raise the debt limit," he said. "We will vote to have spending cuts and controls in conjunction with the debt limit increase." He added that he did not think May 16 was a "hard-fast deadline." "There are things Treasury can do to get more time," he said. "We shouldn't accept the premise that we just have to rubber stamp a debt increase without any spending controls." In a Sunday interview on ABC's "This Week," however, Geithner said Congress would "absolutely" raise the debt ceiling. "I want to make it perfectly clear that Congress will raise the debt ceiling," Geithner told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "I sat there with [congressional leaders], and they said, 'We recognize we have to do this. And we're not going to play around with it.' "This is just about the basic trust and confidence in the United States," Geithner continued. "It's about the basic recognition that we made commitments, we have to meet our commitments. There's no alternative, and they recognize that." Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, in an appearance on "Face the Nation," said it was "dangerous" to "roll the dice on the debt limit," and called for Congress to swiftly agree to an increase. "You get close to that debt limit and you could actually scare the bond markets," he warned. "They could end up raising interest rates which would dramatically cut back on the recovery, not just in terms of the government spending but somebody going out trying to get a loan, trying to close on a house, a company trying to hire a new employee." "This is literally, potentially, lighting the match that could burn down the house," Warner added. "I hope our colleagues on both sides will go ahead and raise the debt limit."
Woman drives car onto Brisbane Airport runway Updated An investigation is underway into a security incident that brought Brisbane's domestic airport to a standstill last night. Police were called to the airport just before 10:00pm to respond to the security breach after a woman drove a car through a perimeter fence and onto a runway. The incident prompted authorities to order an emergency halt to the landing of all planes. The 37-year-old woman was treated by paramedics and taken to Royal Brisbane Hospital. It is understood her injuries are not related to the incident. All flights were put on hold or diverted for more than an hour during the incident before the vehicle was removed from the tarmac. Commuter Celia O'Keeffe was caught up in the drama and says it was frustrating. "I've sat on a plane for approximately five hours with an infant on my lap and two other children," she said. "It's been a long flight. I'm angry. I don't know this lady's circumstances or why they've done that, but certainly it was a very silly act, it's just annoyed everybody." Several planes, including a Royal Flying Doctor Service aircraft, circled the area in a holding pattern, while other flights were diverted to the Gold Coast. About 11:30pm the Brisbane Airport Corporation issued a statement saying the "all clear" had been given and the runway had been re-opened. Topics: emergency-incidents, police, brisbane-airport-4007, brisbane-4000 First posted
Share this... At the site of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) Josef Kowatsch and Stefan Kämpfe look at the frosty spells that typically occur in mid May, the so-called “Ice Saints“, which are widely reported on by the German media each year. The German DWD national weather service, once a model for meteorology and climate, has over the years taken on a more activist global warming role, with some even claiming that it too has joined the propaganda army of the man-made global warming movement. Not surprisingly, the DWD management has been claiming in the press that the so-called Eisheilige (Ice Saints) have been getting less intense over the years and that they may wind up disappearing altogether. Because of global warming! Often typical in mid May, a weather pattern involving a high located over the North Atlantic near Iceland feeds blasts of polar air across Europe. This happened last year on May 14, 2016 – see following chart: Figure 1: A high over Iceland pumped polar air (blue arrow) across Europe, 2016. Unfortunately, the DWD has been spreading false information on Europe’s Ice Saints, the two authors at EIKE write, and that their article is to make German readers aware that the DWD top management has been “regularly telling complete falsehoods to the media over the past years in the week before may 11“. Kowatsch and Kämpfe add. The DWD Chairman has claimed that over all the previous years: 1) The “Ice saints” recently have been getting continuously warmer and that they will soon become the Hot Saints, which the press then gladly called the Sweating Saints, and 2) the Ice Saints have practically disappeared on account of climate warming.” These claims of course aroused the suspicions of Kowatsch and Kämpfe, who decided to go back and look at the DWD’s own data. What they found is that the DWD had been misleading the media and the public with statements of warmer Ice Saints periods, and that in fact the very opposite has been occurring: the Ice Saints have been getting colder! The following charts show the mean May 11-15 temperature for Potsdam, which is home of the notoriously alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), headed by global warming pope, Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber. Figure 1: The Ice Saints (May 11-15) for Potsdam, Germany since 1985 – going back more than 30 years. The mid-May frosty period has in fact been getting colder, not warmer as the DWD has claimed. Chart: Josef Kowatsch Kowatsch and Kämpfe also present the trend for Dresden-Klotzsche, an official station of the DWD. It too shows a cooling trend. So why would the media be reporting that the “Ice Saints” have been disappearing? Baffling, to say the least. Figure 2: DWD station Dresden Klotzsche. Blue curve shows the May 11-15 mean temperature with linear trend, 1985 – 2016. Brown shows the maximum high temperatures, gray shows the minimum temperatures and yellow shows the 5 cm surface temperature. Chart: Samuel Hochauf. For 2016 the mean temperature was 12.88°C, i.e. right on trend. Kowatsch and Kämpfe summarize: All four trend lines [in Figure 2] show that the Ice Saints have been getting colder since 1985, and not warmer. All four trend lines show that the statements from the DWD management are false. The Ice Saints in Germany are getting colder. Kowatsch and Kämpfe also look at another DWD weather station, which has been in operation since 1996: Goldbach bei Bischofswerda. Here as well the Ice Saints have been getting steeply colder: This makes it all the more puzzling that the DWD higher-ups would be using the terms “recently has been“, or “is currently” getting” when telling the public the Mid May frost periods are disappearing. Example here. Kowatsch and Kämpfe write that this year the DWD spoekespeople should make major changes in the next press releases on the subject of mid May cold spells, suggesting: “The month of May is getting colder and the Ice Saints are getting even colder” and that he should add the remark: “The Ice Saints soon will be as cold as they were in the mid 20th century, some 60 years ago when scientists worried about a new ice age.” Why are May cold snaps in Europe getting colder? Kowatsch and Kämpfe suspect that solar activity may be a major factor in the may cooling, as it is known that it has an impact on large weather patterns over Europe. Solar activity has been dwindling over the past 2 decades. Another factor maybe the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which now appears to be coming down from its warm peak. CO2 obviously is having no effect at all. Josef Kowatsch is an independent nature and climate researcher. Stefan Kämpfe is an agricultural engineer and also an independent nature and climate researcher. ============================ PS: This year it appears that the Ice Saints will be right on schedule, with even winter conditions (snow!) across Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.
After single-handedly beating Russia (sad face) in an Olympic shootout last year, the TJ Oshie #brand became more closely associated with the US National Team than the NHL team he played for, the St. Louis Blues. Now that he’s been traded to the Capitals, Oshie, much like this new RMNB T-shirt, is 1,776% more patriotic. Now excuse me while I go shout some things. FREEDOM! APPLE PIE! EAGLES! KEN GRIFFEY’S GROTESQUELY SWOLLEN JAW! Well thanks to @becauseNHL, we can now properly celebrate TJ Oshie’s arrival in Washington by having an Independence Day Photoshop Challenge featuring TJ Oshie’s face. Take this .PNG and go wild. Put Oshie’s head on an eagle. Have him signing the Declaration Of Independence. Turn TJ into a Broshie and have him surfing while holding sparklers. Upload your ‘shops in the comments and up-vote your favorites. Here are a few examples that have been already been submitted to us on Twitter. Advertisements Share this story: Facebook Twitter Reddit Tumblr Pinterest
Phil Jackson and the New York Knicks are expected to finalize a deal that will give the legendary coach control of the club's front office by the end of this week, according to a league source. "Everything is pretty much done," the source said. "There are just some little things here and there that need to be worked out, but the Knicks are very confident that this is essentially done." An official announcement might not come until next week, the source said. There has been speculation that Jackson is using the Knicks to get a top-flight job with another franchise, particularly the Los Angeles Lakers, but the source said the Knicks have no fear of Jackson leaving them at the altar for another team. Jackson will take over the Knicks' basketball operations department from president and general manager Steve Mills. Mills, however, will remain an integral part of the organization, according to the source.
The Trust Project is a collaboration among news organizations around the world. Its goal is to create strategies that fulfill journalism’s basic pledge: to serve society with a truthful, intelligent and comprehensive account of ideas and events. By signing up you agree to receive email about events, articles, offers, and the impact of The Walrus in your community. You can unsubscribe at any time. Just four years ago, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam troops patrolled and, on occasion, paraded through the dusty streets of Kilinochchi. The northern Sri Lankan town, with 61,000 inhabitants, served as the de facto capital of territory controlled by the Tamil Tigers, which for twenty-six years fought for independence and terrorized the predominantly Sinhalese country. Today Kilinochchi houses garrisons of the Sri Lankan government army, which in early 2009 vanquished the rebel forces and took control of the town, and some semblance of normality has since returned. On the surface, commerce, rather than the onus of civil war, is the primary occupation of locals. In the town centre, an immense concrete slab pierced and shattered by a large bullet, with a flower sprouting from its top, celebrates the end of the conflict. The message: government forces liberated the Tamils from the heavy burden of living under the Tigers and delivered them peace. To many Tamils, however, the monument stands as an insult, and a constant reminder of the bloodshed around the fall of the insurgent movement. Census Sensibilities An uptick in Tamil Canadians explained Mark Cabuena In April 2006, the Canadian government listed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, as a terrorist entity. A month later, census officials asked people across the country, “What [are] the ethnic or cultural origins of [your] ancestors?” Compared with the 2001 census, 41 percent more respondents identified as Sri Lankan, while 13 percent fewer called themselves Tamil. Although the data would suggest otherwise, the putative decrease in Tamils was a stark reflection of the discrimination and suspicion the community faced when CSIS targeted the Tigers for investigation, as scholars R. Cheran and Luxshi Vimalarajah observe in their analysis of the “dynamics of post-war transnational Tamil diaspora.” Five years later, as rhetoric in the House of Commons became more critical of the Sri Lankan government’s human rights abuses against Tamils, the 2011 census reported that the percentage of Canadians who identified as Tamil rose more quickly than the proportion of those who ticked the box beside Sri Lankan. —Crystal Sikma Two competing narratives surround the state military’s defeat of the insurgency and its subsequent role in governing Sri Lanka’s north, where Tamils are a majority. The government says it freed Tamil civilians, with minimal collateral damage, from the clutches of a terrorist movement, and converted the massive military presence in the north into a force for rebuilding and development. Human rights groups, among other independent observers, say the state army perpetrated war crimes between January and May 2009, and has since ruled punitively over the north. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration prefers the latter narrative, and has threatened to boycott the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November, because Sri Lanka is the host. Of the fifty-three countries in the club (composed mostly of former British colonies), Harper will be the only leader not attending the event if he makes good on his threat. His British counterparts say they can better apply pressure for reform by being present, while Canberra, intent on stopping the flow of asylum boats from Sri Lanka to Australia, has cynically avoided criticizing the government from which it seeks co-operation. Yet Canada’s position is shared by organizations of the Commonwealth body itself. The Commonwealth Lawyers’, Commonwealth Legal Education, and Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Associations wrote in a statement in April that the Commonwealth “is being tarnished by repressive actions in Sri Lanka.” Their condemnation stemmed from the Sri Lankan government’s recent politically motivated dismissal of its chief justice, as well as its “gross and persistent harassment” of legal and rights workers. The associations advised that this year’s CHOGM be relocated and the country’s status in the Commonwealth be severely downgraded. “Canada didn’t get involved in the Commonwealth to accommodate evil; we came to combat it,” foreign minister John Baird is quoted as saying by the British newspaper the Guardian. But whether, or to what extent, the Sri Lankan regime deserves to be so maligned depends on your vantage point. A United Nations panel found in 2011 that as many as 40,000 civilians, almost all of them Tamils caught in the midst of the retreating Tigers, were killed in the conflict’s final months, most from indiscriminate shelling by the Sri Lankan military. It also cited credible evidence of systematic rape, torture, and execution of surrendered Tamil fighters and civilians. For its part, the Sri Lankan government describes that bloodbath as a “Humanitarian Operation” carried out “in accordance with the ‘Zero Civilian Casualty directive.’ ” The UN panel found the Tigers guilty of war crimes as well, for preventing civilians from fleeing—and sometimes shooting those who tried—so they could use them as human shields. Many governments, including, belatedly, Canada’s in 2006, classified the Tigers as a terrorist group: they are widely blamed for pioneering suicide bombings; their attacks often targeted innocent bystanders; they murdered Tamil politicians and activists they disagreed with; and they conscripted large numbers of child soldiers. The attitude of many Sinhalese Sri Lankans, says Dayan Jayatilleka, formerly the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, is this: “You’re talking about the last month [of the war]. What about the past thirty years of terror? Where were you when the bombs were going off? ” Furthermore, he adds, the belief that Ottawa was spurred to act against the Sri Lankan government by Tamil Canadian protesters waving the Tiger flag “subtracts from the moral critique.” The Conservatives, meanwhile, accused the Liberals (who while in office did not classify the Tigers as an outlawed terrorist group) of turning a blind eye to the brutality of the Tamil independence movement. After repeated waves of Tamil emigration from Sri Lanka during the war years, Canada is now home to the largest Tamil population outside of South Asia. Observers point to the increasing electoral significance of the 300,000 or so Tamil Canadians, many of whom live in competitive Greater Toronto Area ridings, as the stimulus behind the Harper administration’s growing sensitivity toward rights abuses against Tamils. Whatever the true motivations for the boycott, arguments against judging the Sri Lankan government too harshly—largely based on the notion that war against insurgents who abide by no rules is covered with extra layers of fog, or that allegations of war crimes are exaggerated—start to fall apart in light of Sri Lanka’s bleak record since the end of the war. The military has remained in the north as a quasi occupation force, denying freedom of expression and association as well as using intimidation, rape, and murder to silence critics, according to human rights monitors. “The effective message to Tamils from all of these policies is, You have no hope of being anything other than second-class citizens in this country,” says Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka analyst for the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution organization. In 2011, a report published by the Commonwealth Secretariat warned that the body would soon become irrelevant unless it takes a more forceful and public stand against human rights violations in its member countries. Harper suggests that he is doing so by not attending CHOGM. Perhaps. The boycott may undermine the credibility Sri Lanka hopes to gain by hosting the Commonwealth meeting, but it will not likely accomplish any kind of real accountability. That will require dialogue, not long-distance barbs.
PEPIN, Wis. — A 44-year-old western Wisconsin man accused of beating an Asian hunter last year must perform community service to the Hmong community as part of a sentence issued earlier this month, but the sentence has infuriated a state legislator. Kevin J. Elberg of Pepin was sentenced in Pepin County Circuit Court after pleading no contest to one count of misdemeanor battery in the case. He was charged in December 2014 with aggravated battery and false imprisonment following a Nov. 5 incident on his father’s hunting land. According to the charges, Elberg was hunting on the land when he encountered 64-year-old Sao Lue Vang. Vang told investigators he apologized for the accidental intrusion, but was struck from behind by Elberg. Vang, who told authorities he was hunting on public land until wandering onto the private property, was repeatedly beaten and kicked by Elberg, according to the charges. According to a letter to Pepin County Circuit Judge James Duval from Hmong 18 Council of Wisconsin President Blia Yao, Vang sustained a lacerated liver in the incident and was hospitalized for three days. Elberg said Vang had pointed his gun at him — a claim Vang refuted. A news release from state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, D-Milwaukee, issued harsh criticism over Duvall’s sentence and described in greater detail what allegedly happened after the assault. Elberg called his parents — rather than emergency crews, Brostoff noted — and threw Vang in the back of a pickup to drive him from the scene. “They did so without taking Vang’s injuries into account, further endangering his physical well-being and without his consent,” Brostoff’s news release states. The incident touched off a rally by a Hmong group that claimed the assault was racially motivated. The Hmong 18 Council’s letter called on Duvall to impose the maximum penalty at sentencing. “Mr. Vang and the entire Hmong community now look to you Judge James Duvall, to ensure freedom and justice in this case,” Yao’s letter states, referring to “ghastly acts against a helpless senior citizen.” Duvall sentenced Elberg to two years on probation, 10 days in jail and 72 hours of community service to the Hmong community. His hunting privileges are suspended until community service is completed. Brostoff called the sentence “paltry.” “Sao Lue Vang and his family have been let down by our justice system,” Brostoff said in the news release. “This is the worst of insults to the Vang family after Sao Lue suffered life-threatening injuries.”
Nissan May Join Tesla & BMW To Push EV Revolution Using Tesla Patents June 17th, 2014 by Christopher DeMorro Just before Elon Musk gave away all of Tesla’s patents, the Silicon Valley automaker was in talks with BMW about sharing its Supercharger technology. Now Nissan wants in on the technology-sharing talks between Tesla and BMW, and could be on the short list to fast track Tesla technology to its own EVs. A Nissan-Tesla-BMW alliance would cover the Japanese, American, and German markets, with the three most serious EV contenders joining forces to promote a new method of mobility. The BMW i3 and i8 are the first serious Nissan Leaf contenders since the little electric car launched in late 2010, and Tesla’s choice to offer different battery sizes appears to have affected Nissan’s future plans for the Leaf EV. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that Nissan is also heavily involved in promoting the CHaDeMO fast chargers across Europe and Japan, where it recently joined an EV charging alliance with Toyota, Honda, and Mitsubishi. Nissan has long had its own plans, and I doubt they ever imagined Tesla would just open up its patents to the world. Nissan looks like it is stuck between a rock and a hard place at the moment. Could we end up with two, or perhaps even three different charging standards based on region? Or will Tesla’s technologically superior (and free) Superchargers be adapted for use in BMW, Nissan, and other vehicles? That is starting to look more and more certain.
Police say the actions of the vigilantes can be damaging to abuse victims as well as innocent people wrongly suspected In a motel room 100 miles from home, a middle-aged man using the name Peter counts the cost of one of the internet's latest trends: paedophile hunting. "I have lost everything apart from my life. I have lost my job, I've lost my home, I've lost family, friends. I am a shell of a man. I am completely broken," he told the Guardian. In May, this married former member of the armed forces was the target of a vigilante using the name Daemon Hunter, part of an online subculture in which members of the public pose as children to lure men to meetings where they accuse them of grooming children for sex. The filmed encounters are then posted on YouTube for all to see, and after one such encounter, Peter is in hiding. It is a form of rough justice that has the power to expose the guilty – but also to wreck the lives of the accused regardless of whether there is evidence of a crime. The "hunter" phenomenon has been fuelled by the ever increasing speed and reach of online social networks and an undercurrent of public concern that police are struggling to trap online sex offenders. Hunter groups have been active in the Midlands and some targets have been convicted, but police want it to stop. The Daemon Hunter vigilante who targeted Peter in Staffordshire used the slogan "Public against paedos". He pretended to be interested in his target on an adult dating site and they arranged to meet in a branch of Costa coffee. Peter thought he was meeting an 18-year-old, and insists he is not a paedophile or child groomer. Only when he was waiting in the cafe did a text come through saying "she" was 15 and that he immediately got up and left. It was then that Daemon Hunter accosted him in the street, accused him of trying to meet a 15-year-old for sex, and chased him through town filming him. Peter told the Guardian: "He said: 'I think we need to talk because you're a fucking paedophile.' I said: 'What do you mean mate? She's 18, that's what I was told. I've just had a text message up there saying she's 15 and that's why I've walked away.' Next thing I know he got his phone up filming me, calling me a paedophile, asking her age. I was shocked. He started shouting I was a paedophile in the middle of town. I thought 'I am going to get a kicking here' so I just legged it." Within hours, the vigilante uploaded footage of the sting on to the internet along with Peter's mobile number. That night his phone was jammed with abusive texts and voicemails, which he said included death threats. So he fled north in his car, only returning when he thought the worst was over. Later, he said his house was hit with bricks and that his wife tried to kill herself with an overdose of pills. He was so scared he was reduced to hiding in a cupboard when the doorbell rang. Staffordshire police reviewed the evidence and concluded there was no case for any prosecution, but the damage was done. More than 5,000 people viewed the film and Peter has now moved to the other side of the country, cut off from family, friends and work. Sam, from the West Midlands, said he was beaten to the ground near his home after a prolific Nuneaton-based vigilante known as Stinson Hunter posted a video that appeared to show him travelling to meet an 11-year-old girl. Stinson Hunter's real name is Kieren Parsons, a 32-year-old who has been working on stings for almost four years with a small group of friends. He has previously told how he was partly inspired by the American TV programme To Catch a Predator, in which reporters pose as children to entrap child groomers. Sam's story began when he was talking to a person on the dating site Badoo. After a while someone told him she was 11 and asked if it put him off. He said it did but he didn't mind chatting from time to time. "I knew she wasn't an 11-year-old because she sounded so mature and when her picture was up I said to her that's a picture of a 17- or 18-year-old, I think I am being fooled here. She said no, I'm 11." Later they had an adult exchange in which she asked about sex. "I discussed slowly what happens," he said. "After, I said: 'I don't think you are 11.' An 11-year-old would not respond to me in this nature." Video screengrab from the website of the Leicestershire anti-paedophile group Letzgo Hunting. Soon, "she" asked to come and meet him. He made excuses to avoid it, but shortly afterwards, Stinson posted Sam's picture and number online and accused him of grooming. Hate messages poured in. "Kill threats, you're a paedo, you're this you're that," he said. "I was panicking, I couldn't eat." Sam went to the police and said he had been talking to someone he didn't believe was a child. Then Stinson called. "He said if you think you are not a vile person, come and see us and we'll have a chat with you and leave it at that," Sam said. Stinson gave him a contact at Nuneaton police station who he said had previously handled his cases. According to Sam, the officer told him not to go because of the risk that a film shaming him would be broadcast. But it seemed a chance to clear his name and he went. "Straight away the camera was on my face," he said. "There were about four people in there. Straight away all the bad questions. I just started crying thinking what the hell have we come into. He has made the nation believe that me and my friend had actually come to meet the 11-year-old." Detective Inspector Chris Hanson, of the West Midlands police public protection unit, said Stinson's video sting on Sam had been thoroughly investigated by specialist child abuse investigation officers who also made their own extensive inquiries and found no evidence of any sexual offences. But Sam said that came too late to prevent social workers asking him to move away from his children temporarily and his life being threatened by strangers. When approached by the Guardian to comment about his activities and Sam's claims, Stinson Hunter declined to comment. Despite their belief that they have been unfairly pilloried in public, Peter and Sam feel they are lucky. The family of Gary Cleary can only grieve. The 28-year-old killed himself four days after he was arrested and was released on police bail following a sting by a Leicestershire group, Letzgo Hunting, in which they posed as a 14-year-old girl. They have denied any responsibility for his suicide. Gary Cleary, 28, who killed himself four days after being arrested and bailed following a sting by the anti-paedophile group Letzgo Hunting. Police admit they have been torn over whether to embrace or reject the morally fraught method that may secure useful evidence but also risks the destruction of vital evidence and the safety of children if genuine paedophiles are discovered before the police can intervene. There have been convictions. James Stone, 23, was jailed for child sex abuse after a girl's mother approached Letzgo Hunting worried about what he had done to her daughter. Nottinghamshire police, however, said the sting played no role in the conviction. Maurice Ingram, 66, pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted sexual grooming following a sting by Stinson Hunter in which he posed as 15-year-old girl and they arranged to meet at a park. Police say some hunters have exposed people whose potential child grooming behaviour was previously unknown, but that in the majority of cases examined the targets do not reflect any sexual interest in children. Stinson Hunter has even admitted as much."Guys that I catch generally aren't paedophiles," he told supporters in an online broadcast in August. "A massive percent of them are guys that have been lonely and someone has paid them attention and they've jumped on it." In an anonymous interview with the BBC in the Midlands last month, one of Letzgo Hunting's leaders insisted it always made clear early to targets that they were talking to someone underage, and never prompted meetings themselves. "The fact that we have caught 11 people trying to meet children for sex in one area of the country says the police aren't doing enough," he said. But Letzgo Hunting declined to comment further for this article, saying: "There are no more operations. The group's activities are over." A significant problem for police is that the tactic of posting the videos online before approaching the police allows genuine criminals time to destroy evidence. "We are spending lots of time and effort with these cases and finding lots of deleted material that we can't access or even a computer-shaped hole in the suspect's bedroom," one police source said. Now the targets of stings who have spoken to the Guardian say they are considering legal action. But police are cautious about the prospect of securing criminal convictions in the case of wrongly accused people. Peter Davies, the Association of Chief Police Officers' lead on child protection and the head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency, said that was only possible if it could be established there was "criminal causality between the actions of the vigilante groups and the harm that came to anybody" and that prosecutions could follow in extreme cases. Civil action may be an alternative. "I will be taking legal action against this person, because they just can't do that," said Peter. "I have consulted some people and I will be taking civil action against him. I have lost a £45,000-a-year job. I was a womaniser. That's what I've done wrong, but I have been accused of being a paedophile when I was completely innocent." Sam said he had already spoken to solicitors about the possibility of bringing a defamation case, but was worried about the cost. Davies said the vigilante tactics were "hugely inadvisable – to victims, to suspects and also to innocent people who may wrongly be suspected". "If someone is wrongly accused of this in a hugely public way that makes people who live with them, live near them, work with them assume they have committed the offence. The temptation to take themselves out of it [kill themselves] may be just as great even if they are innocent and that is an appalling consequence to contemplate," he said. "Vigilante groups like this should not continue because they are taking risks they don't understand." He said there were at least 5,000 police officers trained and accredited in child protection and urged parents who are concerned that their children are being targeted to contact the police and not vigilantes. "I can guarantee that if a parent thinks their child is being targeted on line they will get a far better response from the police or Ceop than from any other way," he said. "The risks of allowing this kind of vigilante behaviour to continue are immense. It is hugely risky for the child, and other children who may be being abused by the same person, to do anything else."
ARCHIVED - Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2013-559 This page has been archived on the Web Information identified as archived on the Web is for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. Archived Decisions, Notices and Orders (DNOs) remain in effect except to the extent they are amended or reversed by the Commission, a court, or the government. The text of archived information has not been altered or updated after the date of archiving. Changes to DNOs are published as “dashes” to the original DNO number. Web pages that are archived on the Web are not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards. As per the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, you can request alternate formats by contacting us. PDF version Route reference: 2013-195 Ottawa, 21 October 2013 Bathurst Radio Inc. Bathurst, New Brunswick Application 2012-1444-4, received 31 October 2012 Public hearing in the National Capital Region 26 June 2013 Low-power community radio station in Bathurst The Commission approves an application for a broadcasting licence to operate a low-power, English-language community FM radio station in Bathurst, New Brunswick. The application 1. The Commission received an application by Bathurst Radio Inc. (Bathurst Radio) for a broadcasting licence to operate a low-power, English-language community FM radio station in Bathurst, New Brunswick. The Commission received interventions in support of this application. 2. Bathurst Radio is a not-for-profit organization controlled by its board of directors. 3. The proposed station would operate on frequency 103.3 MHz (channel 277LP) with an average effective radiated power of 50 watts (non-directional antenna with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 32 metres). 4. The applicant indicated that, during each broadcast week, the station would broadcast 126 hours of programming, of which 116 hours would be station-produced programming and ten hours would be syndicated programming (Canadian and American). The syndicated programming would consist of sports, music history shows, storytelling and comedy shows with a national and international component intended to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the local population in the areas of culture, religion, sports and music. 5. Spoken word programming would consist of community events, local sports, charitable events and cultural events, as well as seven hours of pure local and regional news each broadcast week. 6. The station would also offer a variety of music formats, with 60% of the music programming to be in the “Pop, Rock and Dance” format. 7. In regard to local talent, Bathurst Radio stated that emerging local entertainers would be promoted by highlighting their performance on a weekly basis on station-produced shows. 8. In regard to the use and training of volunteers, the applicant indicated that they would be crucial to the success of the station and would be trained in various areas, including hosting and production, content creation, story development, and effective on-air delivery. Commission’s decision 9. The Commission expects community radio stations to provide programming differing in style and substance from that provided by other elements of the broadcasting system, particularly commercial radio stations and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Such programming should consist of music, especially Canadian music, not generally heard on commercial stations (including special interest music, as well as styles of popular music seldom broadcast), in-depth spoken word programming, and programming targeted to specific groups within the community. 10. Upon examination, the Commission is satisfied that the application complies with the provisions for community radio stations set out in Campus and community radio policy, Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-499, 22 July 2010, particularly in regard to the proposed programming. In the Commission’s view, the station would introduce a valuable local community service to Bathurst by adding diversity to this radio market. 11. However, Bathurst Radio stated in its application that there may be some uncertainty over the reliability of certain proposed funding sources, in particular, local fund raising activities and a partnership with another party. Nevertheless, due to the non-commercial nature of the proposed community service, the Commission considers that Bathurst Radio’s business plan could still be viable should the applicant not fully meet its financial goals. 12. Accordingly, the Commission approves the application by Bathurst Radio Inc. for a broadcasting licence to operate a low-power, English-language community FM radio programming undertaking in Bathurst, New Brunswick. The terms and conditions of licence are set out in the appendix to this decision. Secretary General * This decision is to be appended to the licence.
Since Nov. 8, because of our eternal optimism, we black people have kept our fingers crossed, whispered among ourselves that “maybe it won’t be so bad.” Now that our cheddar-covered, misogynist, dim-witted overlord is only days away from installing gold-plated toilets in the Oval Office, we have accepted that it will probably be that bad—if not worse. As the new-millennium Darth Vader’s Stormtroopers parade in front of the Senate for their confirmation hearings while his Cabinet picks out wallpaper, we are slowly coming to grips with one unavoidably frightening realization: We’re all fucked now. Instead of general, nail-biting proclamations, we decided to catalog 21 reasons to worry about Donald Trump’s upcoming reign: 1. You’re going to have to learn Russian. I don’t want to come off as a xenophobe, but every time I hear someone speak Russian, I have to clear my throat. It just sounds like there’s a lot of back-of-the-throat phlegm involved. Plus, “Slavic language” has the word “slave” right there in the name! Does this mean I’m going to have to learn to text with backward K’s and upside-down 3s? Look, just because wypipo wanted Vladimir Putin’s puppet as their leader doesn’t mean I should have to learn a whole new alphabet. Advertisement 2. The Affordable Care Act is going away. Republicans will probably repeal it, because conservatives hate Obamacare. They like the ability to carry their kids on their insurance until they’re 26. They love the fact that they can’t be turned away for pre-existing conditions. They appreciate having their insurance cover mental health and addiction counseling. They like preventative care for women. In fact, they like everything about Obamacare except the “Obama” part. You know why. 3. You’re going to throw up in your mouth. Sooner or later some diligent reporter is going to find and release the pictures of Trump’s Russian orgy, complete with the “golden shower” he reportedly paid Soviet prostitutes to perform. I know you say you don’t want to see it, but trust me—you’re going to click on the link anyway. Advertisement 4. Gas prices are going to rise. Trump is antagonistic toward Muslims. He has threatened to bomb every Middle Eastern country except Israel. The person who will be in charge of all foreign policy in the United States is the head of the largest oil company in the world. You better run out right now and buy a bike. 5. Black lives won’t matter. Jeff Sessions, the future head of federal law enforcement, called the NAACP “un-American” and once reportedly told a black attorney to “be careful how you talk to white folks.” He has also said that he thought the Ku Klux Klan were OK until he learned they smoked pot. Speaking of pot … 6. Even if your state legalized pot, you could still go to jail. Because it is still against federal law. Because conservatives hate it. Because Jeff Sessions. Advertisement 7. Racists will be empowered. The man who called his company “the voice of the alt-right,” who brought white supremacy out of the shadows and into the forefront of the conservative movement, Steve Bannon, will serve as Donald Trump’s “chief of strategy.” Racism is a strategy now. 8. The sea levels will rise. Not because of global warming (we’ll get to that). You should get your boating license so you won’t have to wade through the ocean of white tears from wypipo constantly trying to convince you they didn’t vote for Trump. I simply assume all Caucasians cast a ballot for him. I know that seems wrong, but trust me, the ones who didn’t will let you know within .001 milliseconds of meeting you. Advertisement Don’t believe them. 9. You might not be able to vote next time. Trump will get to nominate at least one Supreme Court justice and will inherit a federal judiciary with the most vacancies in history at a time when voting statutes are up for review all over the country. I’m not saying you won’t be able to vote. I’m just saying you might need ID, a registration card, your mother’s maiden name, a DNA test, a urine sample and your Council of White Citizens membership card. 10. You need to watch what you say. Between new National Security Council communications chief Monica Crowley (who has been accused of plagiarizing almost everything she ever wrote, said or even thought about) and Melania Trump, they will steal the words right out of your mouth. Advertisement 11. You need to watch where you pray. After he walked into a black church and killed nine people, Dylann Roof was found guilty of 33 counts of federal hate crimes. Obama repeatedly used federal hate crime legislation to investigate police brutality. Jeff Sessions is against hate crime laws. 12. The zombie apocalypse will be here soon. Between Trump’s dismantling of Obamacare and reported interest in putting anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr. in charge of a commission on vaccines, the Ebola virus will soon meet up with the Zika virus at the annual family reunion and start the reign of the undead. Before then, a lot of children will probably die from easily preventable diseases, but don’t worry—you probably will, too. 13. Everyone is going to laugh at you. There was a time when the American president was the rational voice of the free world and the most respected leader on the planet. Even if you didn’t agree with his policies, you weren’t ashamed of him. If you’re wondering why everyone is giggling at you on your next trip abroad, it is because they know you elected a Twitter troll for president. Advertisement Speaking of Twitter … 14. Petty is going to be strong. Trump can’t control himself from snapping back at anyone he feels may have slighted him, so expect the American democracy to devolve into congressional Twitter beefs and Supreme Court justices posting their dissenting arguments in the comments section on Facebook. 15. Trump will have control of your body. After they defund Planned Parenthood, have the right-wing Supreme Court revisit Roe v. Wade, outlaw abortion and stop your insurance from paying for birth control and preventive care, don’t worry; you probably won’t care that much about your body anyway. The men got this. Advertisement 16. World War III is going to be lit. And by “lit,” I mean with the radiation from nuclear fallout. Trump’s microfingers are on the trigger of the American nuclear arsenal. Yes, that should give you the bubble guts. 17. No one will know anything. Have you ever been at a business and wondered how the person got the job? It will be like that everywhere now. No one needs to be qualified to work in the Trump administration. The proposed head of the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t believe in climate change. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the pick to lead the Department of Energy, once said that the department was unnecessary. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—in charge of keeping secrets and distinguishing real intelligence from fake—spreads fake news and was prosecuted for giving away military secrets. 18. I hope you can swim. Because neither Trump nor his proposed Cabinet believes in global warming, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence. But at least you have that white-tears boat we talked about earlier. Advertisement 19. Bad-ass kids can say, “Why is it so bad to tell a lie, or make fun of disabled people, or cheat, or disregard the rules or bully people?” And you will want to tell them because it will make them a bad person who will get nowhere in life. But they will know you are a liar, because—Trump. 20. Women won’t be in the workplace. Unless they sign the form that consents to pussy-grabbing, and give up maternal leave and equal pay, after the Republican legislature—which notoriously hates anti-discrimination laws—deems it OK and the Trump judiciary seconds it. 21. Because you’re not a straight, white man. Or maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t one of the people he called rapists and criminals. You might not be one of the people he said were uneducated and out of work and will shoot you in the face. Perhaps you don’t care if someone chooses which bathroom you can use, or if you can marry the love of your life. Maybe you don’t need affirmative action to level your playing field, or care if the police kill your son or daughter. Maybe you’ll be OK. Advertisement But the rest of us are fucked.
An analysis of data compiled and released by The New York Times surmises that, despite the hopes and claims of groups like Battleground Texas, Texas is unlikely to become a Democratic stronghold, or even a consistent battleground, anytime soon. The reason? Unlike other southern states that have seen swings in voting patterns -- like North Carolina or Virginia -- Texas' population growth stems largely from a high in-state birth rate and migration from outside of the United States, rather than regional migration within the United States. Those factors mean the state has a low non-southern born population (14 percent of Texas residents) and a high foreign-born population (17 percent). Southern-born voters are far more likely to vote Republican. Immigrant residents are far less likely to be able to vote at all. In Virginia, by comparison, 27 percent of the population is non-southern born.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Dan Bailey didn't want to sound as if he was giving a cliché-type answer. The Dallas Cowboys kicker couldn't help it because this is how he thinks. After making 30 consecutive field goals, Bailey was wide left on a 53-yard try at the end of regulation in Sunday's game against Houston. The Cowboys maintain confidence in place-kicker Dan Bailey, who missed a field goal against the Texans but made the game-winning FG in overtime. Tim Sharp/AP Photo The Cowboys depend on Bailey, who has been just as important as running back DeMarco Murray during this 4-1 start to the season. Bailey got another chance to redeem himself in overtime and made a 49-yarder to give the Cowboys a 20-17 victory. "The guy's pretty damn good," coach Jason Garrett said. Yeah, Bailey is. He's missed just three field goals in his last 29 games. Sunday afternoon Bailey missed what most people wearing stars on their helmets thought was automatic. Holder Chris Jones thought Bailey's 53-yard try was going to be good, likewise for cornerback Brandon Carr. Bailey pushed it slightly left and he had to wait for another chance. Bailey said he wasn't happy with himself after missing the kick, his first since last season in a Week 4 game at San Diego, and had to forget about it quickly because that's all you can do. "I'm not trying to give you a cliche but honestly, you just have to put it behind you," Bailey said of his thoughts between kicks. "It makes it easier and when you have confidence in the guys in front of you, the whole operation." In overtime, Dez Bryant made this incredible leaping catch for 37 yards to push the Cowboys into Texans' territory. Two runs by Murray and the Cowboys were set for a third-down play. Bailey doesn't watch the proceedings late in games. He just focuses on his techniques and kicks a ball through the net while the offense drives down the field. If he follows the techniques with his steps toward the ball, twisting his hips and following through with his leg, all is good. He's not part of the discussion in terms of which hash-mark the ball should go on. Before the game, Bailey speaks with special teams coach Rich Bisaccia about which direction he's most comfortable kicking toward. It's a narrow-minded focus that's allowed Bailey to emerge as one of the best kickers in the NFL. After the two Murray runs, Garrett could have run another play on third down, but elected to let Bailey win the game. Bailey knew it was third down but didn't mind because if it's bobbled snap and a few yards are lost, he's got the confidence to make the kick again from a longer distance. "It's confidence in the whole unit," Bailey said. "During the week, we put a lot of work into it and work on doing the best that we can. We all try to take that one-for-one mentality so if you don't make one put it behind you and go and try to make the next one." It's kinda like a baseball player who gets four at bats or a shooting guard looking for his shot on 10-to-15 touches a night. If you miss the first shot, no big deal, wait for another chance. "Everyone is going to miss," Tony Romo said. "Dan is the best kicker in the league and as great as he is he's going to miss at some point. But the funny part is he's lucky enough and he's going to make the second one. I think we all felt comfortable with that. Most of the time when you miss and have those situations, you lose the game. So it's a great, great feeling to be able to have your miss be there and yet still win the game. Not everyone is afforded that opportunity from quarterbacks to kickers all over the place."
A few months ago, I made a YouTube video about the history of the Armenian Wheel of Eternity. Maybe the most iconic among many ancient Armenian symbols. As expected people started to ask questions and post comments. Among the commentators a keen observer noticed that in some cases Armenians depicted the Wheel of Eternity inside a six pointed star. Because of the many questions I received since, I’ve decided to finally grant this symbol attention in a manner of a blog post. Most people today associate the six pointed star (hexagram) with the Jewish Star of David (Magen David), as it is the modern symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism. In 1948 it was even adopted on the official flag of Israel. According to Wikipedia: “Its use as a symbol of the Jewish community dates to the 17th century.” However, like many other aspects of Armenian culture, not much has been written about the Armenian usage of the hexagram. Even though its usage in science, art, architecture, decorations and even for religious purposes has been extensive throughout the history. Historically Armenians are skilled mathematicians, architects and craftsman. As such geometry has always been very special to the Armenians. The ancient Armenians had a refined knowledge of astronomy and were able to predict astral events. The oldest known observatories are located in Armenia. Dated as early as 4200 BCE, Karahunj and the ca. 2800 BCE observatory at Metsamor allowed Ancestral Armenians to develop geometry to such a level they could measure distances, latitudes and longitudes, envision the world as round, and were predicting solar and lunar eclipses about 1000 years before the Egyptians began doing the same. Armenian architecture is often geometrically sound with straight lines connecting columns and mathematical precision. The geometry of the Armenian architecture has stood the test of time by preserving many ancient buildings in a region dominated by war, poverty and natural disasters. The fortress cities and temples that have been excavated in Armenia (some going back as far as 7000 years) show a remarkable awareness of using geometry in constructing sacred buildings, using a complex system of squares, rectangles, circles, polygons with intersecting patterns. Geometry emerges from the study of natural laws. With such knowledge one can build structures, create devices and predict astral events. As such geometrical shapes have been considered magical by the ancients. For without geometry, you cannot build anything, and its knowledge was the key to survival, and believed to be a key to unlocking the secrets of the universe. This love for creation/construction has enabled the early Armenians to value geometrical shapes and symbols giving them a prominent place in the Armenian Culture. Among many symbols Armenians used the six pointed star for architectural purposes. Early Armenians believed the symbol to hold magical powers and incorporated it in architecture, astronomy and sacred art. Attesting to that are the numerous Armenian churches that are constructed in the shape of a six pointed star, the usage of hexagrams to support the dome or simply as sacred decoration protecting the Church like magic charms. The first and the most important Armenian Cathedral of Etchmiadzin (303 AD, build by the founder of Christianity in Armenia) is in fact decorated with many types of ornamented hexagrams. Another example is seen on the tomb of an Armenian prince of the Hasan-Jalalyan dynasty of Khachen (1214 A.D.) in the Gandzasar Church of Artsakh (see above). Maybe the most famous example of architectural usage of a hexagram can be admired in the 12th century Armenian Church, the Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem. Where the hexagram shaped arches are supporting the dome. Similar dome arches in the shape of a six pointed star can be found throughout ancient Armenia. To name a few; the excellent craftsmanship of the Khorakert monastery dome, or the 13th c. Khoranashat monastery (see pictures bellow) That the Armenians are acquainted with this symbol from the times immemorial became once again clear when the oldest known depiction of a six pointed star (dating back to the 3rd millennium BC.) was excavated in the Ashtarak burial mound in “Nerkin Naver” (in Armenia). This was confirmed by a series of radiocarbon analysis of artifacts, conducted in laboratories in Germany and the USA. The handle of a dagger depicts the worlds earliest decoration of a six-pointed star buried in a burial mound containing over 500 graves. As people who love to build and create Armenians have always valued science. Geometry in particular has a long history in Armenian arts, religion as well as sciences. While the usage of hexagrams (as I have demonstrated) has been significant throughout the course of Armenian history, there exist many other geometrical shapes and symbols prominent in Armenian culture. Geometry is after all bound to Armenian culture. The (eight pointed) Armenian Star for example deserves it’s own entry and will be covered next time around. In closing the following are a few more examples of hexagram usage in ancient Armenia. Sources: http://www.yerkramas.org/2011/11/17/naver-xranyat-eshhe-mnogo-tajn/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_David http://www.armenianhighland.com/ http://www.astrologycom.com/geometry.html http://www.armenian-history.com/historical-news/armenia/49-swedish-traveller-fredrick-hasselquist-about-armenians Advertisements
Rock engravings located in Western Venezuela - including some of the largest recorded anywhere in the world - have been mapped in unprecedented detail by UCL researchers. The engravings (petroglyphs), some of which are thought to be up to 2,000 years old, include depictions of animals, humans and cultural rituals. One panel is 304m² containing at least 93 individual engravings, the largest of which measure several metres across. Another engraving of a horned snake measures more than 30 metres in length. All the rock art surveyed is located in the Atures Rapids (Raudales de Atures) area of Amazonas state in Venezuela, historically reported as the home of the native Adoles by Jesuit priests. Eight groups of engraved rock art were recorded on five islands within the Rapids. Drone technology was used to photograph the engravings, some of which are in highly inaccessible areas. Historically low water levels in the Orinoco River at the time the research was carried out also meant more of the engravings were exposed. The paper's author Dr Philip Riris (UCL Institute of Archaeology) said: "The Rapids are an ethnic, linguistic and cultural convergence zone. The motifs documented here display similarities to several other rock art sites in the locality, as well as in Brazil, Colombia, and much further afield. This is one of the first in-depth studies to show the extent and depth of cultural connections to other areas of northern South America in pre-Columbian and Colonial times. "While painted rock art is mainly associated with remote funerary sites, these engravings are embedded in the everyday - how people lived and travelled in the region, the importance of aquatic resources and the seasonal rhythmic rising and falling of the water. The size of some of the individual engravings is quite extraordinary." Pre-Columbian art has a long history of study by naturalists and scientists travelling the Orinoco, such as Alexander von Humboldt, and has been the subject of archaeological research in the region for over half a century. Rock engravings of the Middle Orinoco River have been studied before, but never in this level of detail. The research therefore offers the opportunity for new insights into the archaeological and ethnographic context of the engravings. Almost all of the engravings found in the Rapids are inundated and exposed to varying degrees by seasonally rising and falling water levels in the Orinoco. Depending on fluctuating upstream precipitation, the relative height of the river also varies annually by up to several metres during the extremes of both seasons. In one panel surveyed, a motif of a flautist surrounded by other human figures probably depicts part of an indigenous rite of renewal. Performances conceivably coincided with the seasonal emergence of the engravings from the river just before the onset of the wet season, when the islands are more accessible and the harvest would take place. The research is part of the Cotúa Island-Orinoco Reflexive Archaeology Project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Principal Investigator, Dr José Oliver (UCL Institute of Archaeology), said: "Our project focuses on the archaeology of Cotúa Island and its immediate vicinity of the Atures Rapids. Available archaeological evidence suggests that traders from diverse and distant regions interacted in this area over the course of two millennia before European colonization. The project's aim is to better understand these interactions." "Mapping the rock engravings represents a major step towards an enhanced understanding of the role of the Orinoco River in mediating the formation of pre-Conquest social networks throughout northern South America." ###
It’s unlikely there will ever be another game like Silent Hill 2. Between Akira Yamaoka’s sound work, psychological, adult subject matter and Masahiro Ito’s abstract monster designs (including his crowning achievement, Pyramid Head), it’s more than earned its status as a pioneer of the genre. Fans disagree the effectiveness of the voice work, however, with its strange pacing, pauses, and delivery, yet this is arguably just as integral to the experience. For whatever reason, when Konami decided to release the Silent Hill HD Collection in 2012, they chose to add new vocal performances for SH2, a measure that many found disrespectful to its original source material. As might be expected, the new acting took what felt like a more professional tone, reflecting how far games had come in the eleven years since SH2’s first release. But it doesn’t work. For starters, Konami cast Troy Baker, just on the cusp of becoming the most ubiquitous voice actor in gaming, to play James Sunderland, SH2’s tortured protagonist drawn to Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife, Mary. Like any great actor, Baker can and often does change his voice to fit a performance, yet the original recordings for James — and the entire cast — are so indelible to their respective characters that hearing anyone else’s pipes is immediately jarring. As James, Baker never really stood a chance at fan acceptance, and it seems cynical that Konami would be so seemingly callous with their own series. More to the point — especially for people who haven’t played SH2 before — the original vocals sync up with the town, and the themes of the series, remarkably well. It would make sense that a game about a cursed town known for summoning people to confront (and exorcise) their inner demons through horrific psychological manifestations would lean heavily on surrealism; whether it’s entirely intentional or not, every actor in SH2’s original cast plays off each other as if they’re in a dream, often with disconnected or exaggerated inflection and timing. Coupled with Yamaoka’s trip-hoppy machine work soundscapes, its makes for a bizarre atmosphere. SH2’s cast behave in erratic ways across its script, from the oddly childlike Angela, who you eventually learn is the victim of sexual assault by her father, to Eddie, an angry, obese man whose deep-seated insecurities belies a psychotic paranoid streak. Each performance has its own tic. The way Eddie earnestly swears up and down that he hasn’t done anything wrong – or that he’s not at fault – despite not being accused of any crime, for example. Or how Angela alternates from talking about her “Mama” the way a little girl would, to becoming a caustic woman, mistrustful of James both because of his sex and her ability to seemingly see his true nature. In one way or another, every character is something of a foil for James (especially Maria, a sexualized quasi-doppelgänger of Mary, whose shared scenes with him are some of SH2’s most otherworldly), even as they reflect various states of psychological trauma within themselves. Watching the story unfold whenever one of the characters is speaking is like trying to push against some dense, unseen force that hinders making sense of what’s happening. As with any weird dream, you can comprehend it, but even when you do, something is always just a little bit off, like dialogue in a David Lynch film. The most significant aspect to this is probably the fact the script itself seems detached from reality, figuratively and otherwise. James’s journey through the town is a purgatory; his progression from locales to locale is often non-linear, and he is tormented by hideous creatures, unsettling not because they follow horror archetypes, but in how their rough-hewn bodies are made up of a jumble of familiar parts — arms, mouths, torsos — melded together and twisted with things that don’t belong. Things like metal bars and straitjackets, somehow covered in viscous brown skin. In Silent Hill’s spaces and things, it’s never quite clear what’s real and what isn’t. By way of that example, what you often experience in SH2 is something that you can’t logically process. The voice work operates on that principal too; reactions to events or dialogue are usually not what you expect. Take when James first meets Eddie – he’s hunched over a toilet in a ramshackle apartment, puking over the discovery of a nearby corpse. “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it,” he sputters, retching. When James asks him what he’s talking about, Eddie continues, insisting his innocence in between spitting and continuing to throw up. The sound of his being sick continues throughout the cutscene, despite its narrative need to set up Eddie’s character and demeanor while both giving players James’s first impression of him and furthering the circumstances of the town itself. It’s a weird choice, especially as James introduces himself before calmly asking, “Who’s that dead guy in the kitchen?” Each character seems in their own world because, to some extent, they are — the way Silent Hill presents itself to any one person depends on their personal experiences. While you can take your pick from just about any cutscene in the game to get other examples of SH2’s unusual vocal work, the best may be at the end of the game, when James encounters Angela on a burning staircase, resigned to her own hell. It’s the only time SH2’s representational spaces appear to overlap between characters. INVERSE LOOT DEALS Meet the Pod The first bed that learns the perfect temperature for your sleep, and dynamically warms or cools according to your needs. Buy Now Initially mistaking James for her mother before coming to her senses and remembering everything she’s endured, Angela sneers at him for his expressed sympathy; she then asks James to return the kitchen knife he found her holding earlier. When he refuses, she scoffs. “Saving it for yourself?” she asks, coldly. “Me? No, I’d never kill myself,” James replies, taken aback. Without another word, Angela begins slowly climbing the stairs as James looks on, his inner thoughts unknown. A very long beat passes — so long you think the scene will end without more words from anyone. “It’s hot as hell in here,” James finally says, almost absently. “You see it too?” Angela turns, her voice hardly a question. “For me, it’s always like this.” She walks on; you don’t see her again. Without their dissociative performances, this scene — already laced with surreal uncertainty on paper – would never have worked. With them, it’s the embodiment of everything that makes Silent Hill 2’s acting brilliant in context. It wouldn’t be the same without it.
Edward Snowden is famous for one thing: blowing the whistle on the NSA. But really, he's just a normal guy. Before this all happened, for instance, he threw parties like all of us! Wait, maybe not quite: they were encryption parties. Advertisement Wired reports that, months before Snowden leaked classified NSA documents, he gathered friends at the back of a Hawaiian furniture store and showed them how to protect their online data. It was a crypto party! In fact, he organized it with activist Asher Wolf and former Tor developer Runa Sandvik; apparently neither really knew much about Snowden, and had no idea what he was about to do. So, quite secretive partying, then. Admittedly, it was quite a ballsy move to go organizing events like this at the time. Indeed, speaking to Wired, Wolf explained that it "was a huge risk for him to teach a crypto party while he was working for the NSA. I'm glad he did. What a fucking legend." Party hard, Edward. Party. Hard. [Wired]
Do you remember our blog post “5 modes of transport with 200 people each – FLOW of people” and the accompanying simulation video we published in April 2016? In that video we showed, how much time 200 people need to pass a stop line – using different modes. Following this widely discussed video, we produced a second simulation video in which we assumed that all vehicles are fully occupied. In this blog post we would like to present a third video. This time we asked ourselves how much space each mode of transport needs so that it takes equally long for all modes to have 200 people pass the stop line. Simulation animation of 200 people each passing the stop line of a traffic signal. The width of the links or the number of lanes are chosen, such that it takes nearly equally as long until the last vehicle or person passes the stop line. It is assumed that the vehicles are occupied with a typical number of passengers (contrary to the blog post “Why 200?” where a maximum occupancy was assumed). You can find the exact numbers in a table below. There is also a raw version of this video without fast forward. What is fair and reasonable? Since there are each 200 people passing by the traffic signal one may ask if it is fair that – as in the first video in April – all means of transport is given equal space or – as here – as much space that it takes them equally long. There is no generally correct answer. It is a societal and political question which citizens of different cities may answer differently. But no matter how it is answered, the answer can be modelled in PTV Vissim and PTV Viswalk and its consequences can be investigated and the computed consequences in turn may impact the societal and political decision. In this the simulation models can get far more complex than in our example here. If you have not done it before you might want to search youtube for “Vissim” and “Viswalk”. You will find numerous impressive examples of projects from Vissim and Viswalk users. How much space does a cyclist need? With regard to mobility the question “What is fair and reasonable?” probably no aspect is discussed so emotionally as for bike traffic. And there is indeed a lot to be discussed, since there are actually new developments, not only because of the rise of e-bikes. Some readers may have found it to be quite uncommon to see such a large crowd of cyclists in one of the two previous videos. Indeed, until recently – at least in Europe – large crowds of cyclists with a high density occurred only very rarely outside sport events. Plus: cyclists usually only occur(ed) mixed with other modes of transport: among cars or among pedestrians. This has led to a situation where – compared to car or pedestrian traffic – there was much less research interest and effort for the fundamental properties of bike traffic, like capacity at a cross section or the dependence of speed on density, which was true for empirical investigations as well as (microscopic) modelling and theory. New research concerning bike traffic Meanwhile, especially in the Netherlands and in Denmark, there are indeed situations which are similar to the one shown here and in the two previous simulation videos. This might be the reason for a growing research interest in bike traffic. For example, Seriani et al (2015) published a study in which the capacity of cycle tracks was empirically measured to be about 2000 per hour and meter cross sectional width. Within the framework of the research project Ur:ban, in which PTV Group also participates, the Technical University of Munich has investigated the tactical behaviour of cyclists at intersections empirically, classified and modelled it. The results were presented very recently at the TRB 2016 conference in Washington DC; see Amini et al. (2016) and Twaddle and Grigoropoulos (2016). A research project which considers car, pedestrian, and bike traffic fundamentally equal and by that implicitly accommodates the above mentioned developments, was recently published by Research Center Julich and the universities of Wuppertal and Cologne. The authors made a group of cyclists move single-file in a circle and measured the fundamental diagram or rather the dependence of speed on (line) density. They compared their results with the results of very similarly constructed experiments on car and pedestrian traffic. Interestingly, the three fundamental diagrams came out very similar if speeds and densities were scaled to the corresponding maxima; see Zhang et al. (2013). Some time ago, the international consulting company COWI conducted a large study on cycling behaviour in Copenhagen and has used the results to specifically calibrate parameters for the simulation of cyclists in PTV Vissim; see Tørslev and Albrink (2013). These parameters will be available in PTV Vissim 9. For the simulation of cyclists in the above and the two previous simulation videos, the parameters as obtained in the study were applied with two minor modifications. With these parameters– as can be seen in the videos and the tables – an average flow of about 1700 per hour and meter cross sectional width was recorded. Ignoring the initial and the ending period, a capacity of 2000/h/m is unveiled. Both values match the ones found in the experiment by Seriani et al. very well in said study. Thus, it looks like the research in and simulation of cycling traffic is gaining momentum, which is just in time for the 200th anniversary of the first trip of a – still pedal-less – bike by its inventor Karl Drais in June 1817. Numbers of the video Literature / Links This post is also available in: German
In Gregg Rosenthal's rundown of NFC minicamp storylines, our esteemed editor put A.J. Jenkins on full blast. He was right to do so. The San Francisco 49ers wide receiver suffered a disastrous rookie campaign that saw him appear in just three games, all without registering a statistic. The team could have used help at wideout, but Jenkins appeared cowed by the big stage. At least one teammate says that won't be a problem in year two. "I think A.J. will definitely surprise a lot of people this year," fellow pass-catcher Ricardo Lockette told The Sacramento Bee. "Last year, he took it as a building year. This year from what I've seen so far, it's night and day. I expect big things out of him. He expects big things out of himself, and (quarterback Colin Kaepernick) expects big things out of him. I think Niner nation and the Niner empire will be proud of what A.J. Jenkins brings to the field this year." An injury-riddled offseason limited Jenkins in the weightroom last summer, but he's coming off six weeks in Atlanta with Lockette and Kaepernick, where the trio focused on strength and speed training, according to the newspaper. The reports in May are positive, but the 49ers already have gone out of their way to brace for the possibility that Jenkins never materializes. Anquan Boldin was signed in the offseason to start across from Michael Crabtree. Mario Manningham took a pay cut and is expected to make an impact. San Francisco's Super Bowl window is still wide open, and it's too risky to count on Jenkins. Amid a roster full of smart draft picks, anything he brings this season is a bonus. Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.
Brooklyn power poppers Charly Bliss are here with a wet hot American music video for the hookiest song on their excellent debut album Guppy. The new "Westermarck" clip captures summer camp in all its nostalgic, carefree glory; if they look like they're having a genuine blast doing arts and crafts or rocking the mess hall, that's because there's some serious sentimental value here. "We shot this video at the summer camp in western Massachusetts I went to growing up," vocalist Eva Hendricks tells Billboard. “We didn't go in with any plan whatsoever, and everything just worked out weirdly well. Rowing Sam's drum set across the lake in a tiny row boat was definitely a highlight. Lyrically, the song is about betrayal and broken relationships, and it felt really incredible and cathartic to have the video be this super joyful account of our friendship as a band and how much fun we have together.” Adds Hendricks, “The other people in the video are three of my best friends who work year round at the summer camp.” Clearly Charly Bliss does not need the JoBros or Demi to make Camp Rock happen. Watch the Andrew Costa-directed video below, premiering today (June 13) on Billboard. Guppy dropped back on April 21 via Barsuk Records. For more, listen to Stereogum’s Michael Nelson guest on a recent episode of Billboard’s #AlternativeFacts podcast; discussion topics include Charly Bliss’ awesome ‘90s influences and what makes their songwriting so memorable. And subscribe to the show here since we've got an interview with the whole band coming later this month! Find Charly Bliss’ upcoming tour dates below. 6/13 - Pittsburgh, Penn. @ Spirit Hall * 6/14 - Lancaster, Penn. @ Chameleon Club * 6/15 - Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat ! 6/16 - New Haven, Conn. @ Cafe Nine ! 6/17 - Somerville, Mass. @ Lance Tobin ! 6/23 - Port Chester, N.Y. @ Garcia's at the Capitol Theatre ^ 9/8 - Phoenix, Ari. @ The Van Buren 9/9 - San Bernardino, Cali. @ High and Low East 9/9 - San Bernardino, Cali. @ NOS Events Center 9/28 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg ! with Yucky Duster * with Pup ^ with Kevin Devine
A few weeks ago CSS variables—more accurately known as CSS Custom Properties—shipped in Chrome Canary behind the Experimental Web Platform Features flag.[1] When Chrome engineer Addy Osmani first tweeted about the release, he was met with a surprising amount of negativity, hostility, and skepticism. At least, it was surprising to me, given how excited I am about this feature. After a quick scan of the responses, it was clear that 99% of the complaints focused on these two things: The syntax is “ugly” and “verbose”. Sass already has variables, so why should I care? While I admit I do get the dislike of the syntax, it’s important to understand it wasn’t just arbitrarily chosen. Members of the CSS working group discussed syntax at length, and they had to pick something that was compatible with the grammar of CSS and wouldn’t conflict with future additions to the language. In regards to CSS variables vs. Sass variables, this is where I think the biggest misunderstanding lies: Native CSS variables weren’t just an attempt to copy what CSS preprocessors could already do. In fact, if you read some of the initial design discussions, you’ll see that most of the motivation for native CSS variables was to make it possible to do things you can’t do with preprocessors! CSS preprocessors are fantastic tools, but their variables are static and lexically scoped. Native CSS variables, on the other hand, are an entirely different kind of variable: they’re dynamic, and they’re scoped to the DOM. In fact, I think it’s confusing to call them variables at all. They’re actually CSS properties, which gives them an entirely different set of capabilities and allows them to solve an entirely different set of problems. In this article I’m going to discuss some of the things you can do with CSS custom properties that you can’t do with preprocessor variables. I’ll also demo some of the new design patterns that custom properties enable. Finally, I’ll discuss why I think in the future we’ll most likely use preprocessor variables and custom properties together, to leverage the best of both worlds. Note: this article is not an introduction to CSS custom properties. If you’ve never heard of them or are unfamiliar with how they work, I’d recommend getting yourself acquainted first. The limitations of preprocessor variables Before continuing, I want to stress that I really do like CSS preprocessors, and I use them in all my projects. Preprocessors can do some pretty amazing things, and even if you know they ultimately just spit out raw CSS, they can still feel magical at times. That being said, like any tool, they have their limitations, and sometimes the appearance of dynamic power can make those limitations surprising, especially to new users. Preprocessor variables aren’t live Perhaps the most common example of a preprocessor limitation that surprises newcomers is Sass’s inability to define variables or use @extend inside a media query. Since this article is about variables, I’ll focus on the former: $gutter : 1em ; @ media (min-width: 30em) { $gutter : 2em ; } .Container { padding : $gutter ; } If you compile the above code, this is what you’ll get: .Container { padding : 1em ; } As you can see, the media query block simply gets discarded and the variable assignment ignored. While it may be theoretically possible for Sass to make conditional variable declarations work, doing so would be challenging and require enumerating all permutations—exponentially increasing the final size of your CSS. Since you can’t change a variable based on the matching @media rule, your only option is to assign a unique variable per media query, and code out each variation separately. More on this later. Preprocessor variables don’t cascade Whenever you use variables, the question of scope inevitably comes into play. Should this variable be global? Should it be scoped to the file/module? Should it be scoped to the block? Since CSS is ultimately going to style HTML, it turns out there’s another useful way to scope variables: to a DOM element. But since preprocessors don’t run in the browser and never see the markup, they can’t do this. Consider a site that tries to add the class user-setting-large-text to the <html> element for users who’ve indicated their preference for larger text sizes. When this class is set, the larger $font-size variable assignment should apply: $font-size : 1em ; .user-setting-large-text { $font-size : 1.5em ; } body { font-size : $font-size ; } But again, just like with the media block example above, Sass ignores this variable assignment altogether, meaning this kind of thing isn’t possible. Here’s the output: body { font-size : 1em ; } Preprocessor variables don’t inherit Though inheritance is technically part of the cascade, I want to call it out separately because of how many times I’ve wanted to use this feature but couldn’t. Consider a situation where you have DOM elements that you want to style based on whatever colors happen to be applied to their parent: .alert { background-color : lightyellow; } .alert .info { background-color : lightblue; } .alert .error { background-color : orangered; } .alert button { border-color : darken(background-color, 25% ); } The above code isn’t valid Sass (or CSS), but you should be able to understand what it’s trying to accomplish. The last declaration is trying to use Sass’s darken function on the background-color property that the <button> element could inherit from its parent .alert element. If the class info or error has been added to the alert (or if the background color has been arbitrarily set via JavaScript or a user style), the button element wants to be able to respond to that. Now, obviously this won’t work in Sass because preprocessors don’t know about the DOM structure, but hopefully it’s clear why this type of thing could be useful. To call out one particular use case: it would be extremely handy to be able to run color functions on inherited DOM properties for accessibility reasons. For example, to ensure text is always readable and sufficiently contrasts with the background color. With custom properties and new CSS color functions, this will soon be possible! Preprocessor variables aren’t interoperable This is a relatively obvious downside of preprocessors, but I mention it because I think it’s important. If you’re building a site with PostCSS and you want to use a third-party component that’s only themeable via Sass, you’re out of luck. It’s not possible (or at least not easy) to share preprocessor variables across different toolsets or with third-party stylesheets hosted on a CDN. Native CSS custom properties will work with any CSS preprocessor or plain CSS file. The reverse is not usually true. How custom properties are different As you’ve probably guessed, none of the limitations I listed above apply to CSS custom properties. But perhaps what’s more important than that they don’t apply is why they don’t apply. CSS custom properties are just like regular CSS properties, and they operate in exactly the same way (with the obvious exception that they don’t style anything). Like regular CSS properties, custom properties are dynamic. They can be modified at runtime, they can be updated inside a media query or by adding a new class to the DOM. They can be assigned inline (on an element) or in a regular CSS declaration with a selector. They can be updated or overridden using all the normal rules of the cascade or using JavaScript. And, perhaps most importantly, they’re inheritable, so when they’re applied to a DOM element, they get passed to that element’s children. To put that more succinctly, preprocessor variables are lexically scoped and static after compilation. Custom properties are scoped to the DOM. They’re live, and they’re dynamic. Real-life examples If you’re still not sure what custom properties can do that preprocessor variables can’t, I have some examples for you. For what it’s worth, there were a ton of really great examples I wanted to show, but in the interest of not letting this article get too long, I settled on two. I picked these examples because they’re not just theoretical, they’re actual challenges I’ve faced in the past. I can distinctly remember trying to make them work with preprocessors, but it just wasn’t possible. With custom properties, now it is. Responsive properties with media queries Many sites use a “gap” or “gutter” variable that defines the default spacing between items in the layout as well as the default padding for all the various sections on the page. Most of the time, you want the value of this gutter to be different depending on how big the browser window is. On large screens you want a lot of space between items (a lot of breathing room), but on smaller screens you can’t afford that much space, so the gutters need to be smaller. As I mentioned above, Sass variables don’t work in media queries, so you have to code out each variation separately. The following example defines the variables $gutterSm , $gutterMd , and $gutterLg , and then declares separate rules for each variation: $gutterSm : 1em ; $gutterMd : 2em ; $gutterLg : 3em ; .Container { margin : 0 auto; max-width : 60em ; padding : $gutterSm ; } .Grid { display : flex; margin : - $gutterSm 0 0 - $gutterSm ; } .Grid-cell { flex : 1 ; padding : $gutterSm 0 0 $gutterSm ; } @ media (min-width: 30em) { .Container { padding : $gutterMd ; } .Grid { margin : - $gutterMd 0 0 - $gutterMd ; } .Grid-cell { padding : $gutterMd 0 0 $gutterMd ; } } @ media (min-width: 48em) { .Container { padding : $gutterLg ; } .Grid { margin : - $gutterLg 0 0 - $gutterLg ; } .Grid-cell { padding : $gutterLg 0 0 $gutterLg ; } } To accomplish the exact same thing using custom properties, you only have to define the styles once. You can use a single --gutter property, and then, as the matched media changes, you update the value of --gutter and everything responds accordingly. :root { --gutter : 1.5em ; } @ media (min-width: 30em ) { :root { --gutter : 2em ; } } @ media (min-width: 48em ) { :root { --gutter : 3em ; } } .Container { margin : 0 auto; max-width : 60em ; padding : var (--gutter); } .Grid { --gutterNegative : calc (-1 * var(--gutter)); display : flex; margin-left : var (--gutterNegative); margin-top : var (--gutterNegative); } .Grid-cell { flex : 1 ; margin-left : var (--gutter); margin-top : var (--gutter); } Even with the extra verbosity of the custom property syntax, the amount of code needed to accomplish the same thing is substantially reduced. And this only takes into account three variations. The more variations you have, the more code this will save. The following demo uses the above code to build a basic site layout that automatically redefines the gutter value as the viewport width changes. Check it out in a browser that supports custom properties to see it in action! Contextual styling Contextual styling (styling an element based on where it appears in the DOM) is a contentious topic in CSS. On the one hand, it’s something most well-respected CSS developers warn against. But on the other hand, it’s something most people still do every day. Harry Roberts recently wrote this post with his thoughts on the matter: If you need to change the cosmetics of a UI component based on where it is placed, your design system is failing…Things should be designed to be ignorant; things should be designed so that we always just have “this component” and not "this component when inside… While I do side with Harry on this (and most things), I think the fact that so many people take shortcuts in these situations is perhaps indicative of a larger problem: that CSS is limited in its expressiveness, and most people aren’t satisfied with any of the current “best practices”. The following example shows how most people approach contextual styling in CSS, using the descendant combinator: .Button { } .Header .Button { } This approach has a lot of problems (which I explain in my article on CSS Architecture). One way to recognize this pattern as a code smell is it violates the open/closed principle of software development; it modifies the implementation details of a closed component. Software entities (classes, modules, functions, etc.) should be open for extension, but closed for modification. Custom properties change the paradigm of defining components in an interesting way. With custom properties, we can, for the first time, write components that are actually open for extension. Here’s an example: .Button { background : var (--Button-backgroundColor, #eee); border : 1px solid var (--Button-borderColor, #333); color : var (--Button-color, #333); } .Header { --Button-backgroundColor : purple; --Button-borderColor : transparent; --Button-color : white; } The difference between this and the descendant combinator example is subtle but important. When using descendant combinators we’re declaring that buttons inside the header will look this way, and that way is different from how the button component defines itself. Such a declaration is dictatorial (to borrow Harry’s word) and hard to undo in the case of an exception where a button in the header doesn’t need to look this way. With custom properties, on the other hand, the button component is still ignorant of its context and completely decoupled from the header component. Its declaration simply says: I’m going to style myself based on these custom properties, whatever they happen to be in my current situation. And the header component simply says: I’m going to set these property values; it’s up to my descendants to determine if and how to use them. The main difference is that the extension is opt-in by the button component, and it’s easily undone in the case of an exception. The following demo illustrates contextual styling of both links and buttons in the header of a site as well as the content area. Making exceptions To further illustrate how making exceptions is easier in this paradigm, imagine if a .Promo component were added to the header, and buttons inside the .Promo component needed to look like normal buttons, not header buttons. If you were using descendant combinators, you’d have to write a bunch of styles for the header buttons and then undo those styles for the promo buttons; which is messy and error prone, and easily gets out of hand as the number of combinations increases: .Button { } .Header .Button { } .Header .Promo .Button { } With custom properties, you can simply update the button properties to be whatever you want, or reset them to return to the default styling. And regardless of the number of exceptions, the way to alter the styles is always the same. .Promo { --Button-backgroundColor : initial; --Button-borderColor : initial; --Button-color : initial; } Learning from React When I was first exploring the idea of contextual styling via custom properties, I was skeptical. Like I said, my inclination is to prefer context-agnostic components that define their own variations rather than adapting to arbitrary data inherited from their parent. But one thing that helped sway my opinion was comparing custom properties in CSS to props in React. React props are also dynamic, DOM-scoped variables, and they’re inheritable, which allows components to be context-dependent. In React, parent components pass data to child components, and then child components define what props they’re willing to accept and how they’re going to use them. This architectural model is commonly known as one-way data flow. Even though custom properties are a new, untested domain, I think the success of the React model gives me confidence that a complex system can be built on top of property inheritance—and, moreover, that DOM-scoped variables are a useful design pattern. Minimizing side effects CSS custom properties all inherit by default. In some cases, this could lead to components being styled in ways they may not have intended. As I showed in the previous section, you can prevent this by resetting individual properties, which prevents unknown values from being applied to an element’s children: .MyComponent { --propertyName : initial; } Though not part of the specification yet, the -- property has been discussed,[2] which could be used to reset all custom properties. And if you wanted to whitelist just a few properties, you could set them individually to inherit , which would allow them to continue to operate normally: .MyComponent { -- : initial; --someProperty : inherit; --someOtherProperty : inherit; } Managing global names If you’ve been paying attention to how I name my custom properties, you’ve probably noticed that I prefix components-specific properties with the class name of the component itself, e.g. --Button-backgroundColor . Like most names in CSS, custom properties are global and there’s always the possibility that they’ll conflict with names being used by other developers on your team. An easy way to avoid this problem is to stick to a naming convention, like I’ve done here. For more complex projects, you’d probably want to consider something like CSS Modules which localifies all global names and has recently expressed interest in supporting custom properties. Wrapping up If you weren’t familiar with custom properties in CSS before reading this article, I hope I’ve convinced you to give them a shot. And if you were one of the people skeptical of their necessity, I hope I’ve changed your mind. Custom properties bring a new set of dynamic and powerful capabilities to CSS, and I’m sure many of their biggest strengths have yet to be discovered. Custom properties fill a gap that preprocessor variables simply can’t. Despite that, preprocessor variables remain the easier-to-use and more elegant choice in many cases. Because of this, I firmly believe that many sites will use a combination of both in the future. Custom properties for dynamic theming and preprocessor variables for static templating. I don’t think it has to be an either-or situation. And pitting them against each other as competitors does a disservice to everyone.
This is a narrative based AAR of the MEIOU and Taxes version 2.0 modification for Europa Universalis 4. All downloadable content is being used, save for 'Third Rome' and 'Mandate of Heaven'. Bear in mind that this is not a historical textbook. If you are inspired by any of the proceeding events, please conduct your own research into such topics, rather than going by the word of one unreliable user on the internet. Also note that occasionally, images may appear out of chronological order. This has been done to strengthen the narrative that the game provides. The game is being played in Ironman mode, because it is better than Batman mode. Now please, sit back, relax, put some music on, and enjoy the show. Also, I've now got a proper title card! -Yoper101 Karl IV, King of Bohemia and Emperor of Holy Rome applauded and smiled along with the rest of the church as Count Casimir of Swidnica and Maria von Luxembourg were proclaimed wed by the archbishop. To his one side sat Anna, for once without their son. Otakar had been left with a nanny to avoid disrupting the sacred occasion. On Karls' other side sat his brother Jan, proud father of the bride, smiling and clapping louder than any as the couple walked down the nave of the packed church. Karl himself was pleased, not by the marriage itself, but by the power it granted him. This union brought Casimir's small branch of the Piast house under Karl's direct authority. Now both the counties of Swidnica and Jawor could properly be integrated into the Bohemian crownlands; their nobility made subject to the King, rather than to their local counts. Josef Rosemberk, King Karls' foremost statesman, hurried into the great hall at Prague Castle. The royal court fussed around the King of Bohemia, plotting their own plots, ad wheedling their own deals, with the King occasionally drifting over to a different group of knights or lords or mayors, managing the whole affair with the grace and sagacity that a monarch should possess. Josef wasn't running, but his pace caught the attention of a few, and conversations rippled to a halt. He reached the King, and bowed, before saying in a raised voice: 'News has just arrived from France, your majesty.' 'Have they finally thrown the Plantagenets back into the sea?' the King asked, jokingly. 'No, majesty, the English have claimed victory.' 'So house Blois controls Brittany then. It is of little consequence to us.' 'Yes majesty, but the English also completed a great conquest. They have claimed the whole of the Aquitaine region for themselves.' A mutter went around the court at this news. 'So the French are weakened then,' concluded the King. 'Indeed, majesty.' 'Perhaps they will not erode the borders of the Empire any further,' suggested Count Casimir, who had been staying in Prague for several weeks since his wedding. 'That remains to be seen,' muttered Karl. 'Master Rosemberk, have this message sent to the princes of the empire: “Any encroachment on Holy Roman lands by French nobility will not be tolerated. The Emperor is willing to defend his empire against any foes.”' 'Yes majesty, right away,' Said Josef, who bowed again and then left. Karl read the letter over again. It was flowery, but undoubtedly firm. A small number of barons and knights in Bohemia were demanding promotions, and the land that would come with such an elevation. Karl wondered. Between them, these nobles could muster barely two-thousand soldiers; much less than the army that Karl himself controlled. If they wanted to create trouble, it would be through spreading rumours, and creating disruption in the provinces. But these knights and barons had little real sway, and whilst the counts remained loyal to him, Karl was fairly sure that he could control a little rebellion within the ranks of the nobility. Karl checked again the signatures and seals at the bottom of the parchment, before beginning to compose a letter of his own. It would be flowery, but also undoubtedly firm, and it would say “no”. When Josef reached the tavern, three miles out of Prague, he noted that three horses were already present. Josef hitched his own horse to the provided post outside, looked around furtively, and entered the smoky inn. 'We're closed!' shouted a fat man who was lazily sweeping the floor. 'I'm here to speak with the other three,' said Josef. 'What “other three?,”' the fat man asked, stopping his ineffective sweeping. Josef sighed and produced three silver thalers.* 'These three?' The fat man pocketed the coins. 'Right through that door,' he said, pointing. Josef followed his instructions, and soon found himself in a room lit only by a single pewter candle. It cast dark shadows around the three men present. Joachim von Luxembourg was a landed count from Brandenburg, just to the north of Bohemia, and a great opportunity was present for him. Also in that room was Jan, duke of Moravia. Finally, swathed in a shapeless black robe, was King Karl himself. Together, they had a plot to form. 'The von Wittlesbachs are completely uninterested in Brandenburg,' said Josef. 'My agents confirmed it only a few hours ago.' 'You are sure that their coffers are empty?' Karl asked Joachim. 'Oh yes; quite a run of bad luck they've had,' said the Count. 'And you've acquired the loan quietly?' Karl asked Jan this time. 'Of course. The Venetians were more than happy to provide for us.' 'Then it's settled. I'll ride like greased lightning back to Berlin, and make the Duke an offer he simply can't refuse,' said Joachim 'Hold on,' said the King, holding out his hand to prevent Joachim from getting up. 'you'll end up with an awful lot of land from a deal that we are setting up for you. I think we are owed a little something for our part in this.' 'The von Luxembourg family is gaining much with the control of an elector…' Karl cut Joachim off, saying: 'Bohemia is owed something for backing you with our money. We've already gone into debt for you.' Joachim was silent for a moment, and all that could be heard was the whistling of the wind through cracks in the wall, and the footsteps of the fat man in the next room. 'All right, how about I give you my holdings in the south. There's a couple of castles there, and the barons and mayors won't mind, exchanging one Luxembourg for another.' Karl thought for a moment, then barked 'Deal!' and stuck out his hand to shake on it. Wrong. The thaler was not minted until 1518. It was originally a Bohemian coin and it remained in use for approximately four-hundred years, which is why I am going to use it as the standard currency in Bohemia throughout this story. The thaller's name lives on today in the American 'dollar'. It came as a great surprise to the court of Bohemia, the princes of Holy Rome, and to all the kings of Europe, when in the summer of 1359, it was suddenly announced that house Luxembourg had acquired the throne of Brandenburg. The princes in particular were concerned; another elector controlled by the family of the Emperor? But Bohemia was powerful, and none dared openly protest the move. The great hall at Prague Castle was once again packed with people. This time, Karl was hosting a banquet, and only the most lavish of foods were on display. Plates of stuffed pheasants, pies filled with every sort of meat, vegetables sliced and cooked in honey; even a castle, carefully crafted from sugar, was present for dessert. A good while into the evening, when the wine was flowing free and inhibitions had degraded somewhat, Jan found Karl and boisterously slapped him on the shoulder. 'Karl, my brother and king, it has come into my head that you gained much land from the purchase of Brandenburg.' 'What of it?' Slurred the tipsy king. 'Well, by grace of our late father, do we not hold claim to east Pommerania? And do you not also owe me something for going so far out of my way to obtain a great loan of five-thousand ducats from the bankers of Venice?'' 'Fine, fine, I'll press a claim for you.' A spark went off in Karl's alcohol-addled brain, and he added 'But it'll be a county under Bohemia, not Moravia.' 'So long as I get to collect its taxes,' added Jan. 'Mmph,' said Karl, his attention drawn away by a particularly tasty looking blackberry tart. Ducats are somewhat over-valued in EU4. A gold ducat historically would have been worth about 50 modern dollars, which seems a lot, but I paid a hundred ducats to buy Brandenburg, which means I paid for an entire country with just 5,000 dollars, which seems a little on the cheap side. Karl held Otakar by both of his hands as he toddled around, learning to keep his balance. He wandered over to the Archbishop's leg, and Karl re-directed him before he could do something unholy. A sharp cry caused both prince and heir to snap their heads towards Anna, but the midwives were already there, making sure the Queen-consort was comfortable in her labours. The bedroom was packed with every loyal official Karl had been able to find. Just as with Otakar's birth, there needed to be witnesses to prove the legitimacy of the birth. Karl himself was not too concerned; a second heir would prove valuable, but could also cause trouble when Karl himself ultimately died. He hoped that Otakar would be up to the task of running both Bohemia and the Empire. Karl's hopes became more immediate, as Anna screamed again. Anna's labour lasted all evening, and into the early morning, but at last Karl was blessed with a second son. Before all gathered there, he named him Ludvik. *I can't remember where I read about this, so please correct me if I'm wrong about noble births needing to be witnessed by a lot of people to prove their legitimacy. A week after Ludvik's birth, and one day after Karl managed to get a full night of sleep, a large delegation arrived unannounced at Prague Castle. At the head of it, was a prominent banker from the city of Lucca. He claimed that he and his fellows were men of influence, and they desired an Imperial decree of independence from Pisa, for people were deserting Lucca, draining the city of it's wealth. Karl entertained the delegation for three days and nights, before making up his mind. He did need to repay his loan to the bank in Venice, and the great wealth that the banker had brought with him would help a good way towards that. On the fourth morning, Karl agreed to the banker's request, and it was declared across the empire that Lucca was a free city in the Holy Roman Empire. The patriarchs of Pisa grumbled, but were forced to agree also, least the wrath of the Emperor be brought down upon them. Karl himself was in a fine mood when the delegation left Prague for Italy. His bloodline was secure, he was almost out of debt, and his house held a secure grip on the Holy Roman Empire. How could life be better than this?
Epic Games has today launched their widely respected virtual reality (VR) experience, Showdown, on the Oculus Home store for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift. A technical demonstration originally revealed back in 2014, Showdown has seen acclaim for its polished visuals and use of the Oculus Rift’s impressive head-tracking technology. Built using Unreal Engine 4, Showdown takes the player on a journey through a downtown battle scene. A science-fiction setting sees futuristic military personal facing a large building-destroying enemy as they cruise down the street, taking losses while diving-and weaving to avoid incoming fire, eventually coming face-to-face with the mechanical beast itself. Hosted in the ‘Concepts’ section of Oculus Home, Showdown is free to download for all Oculus Rift owners. The technical demonstration weighs in at 3.38GB and is playable with either of the Oculus Rift’s bundled controllers: the Xbox One control pad or the Oculus Remote. Showdown became Epic Games third VR demo following the adaptation of the original Elemental Knight demonstration for the engine itself and the multiplayer Couch Knights for the second iteration of the Oculus Rift development kit (aka DK2). Since the reveal of Showdown Epic Games has shown another demonstration, the critically acclaimed Bullet Train, and their own VR Editor software for developers using Unreal Engine 4. The studio clearly has high hopes for VR as a medium, and VRFocus will of course keep you updated with all the latest releases from Epic Games.
We voice our concerns on Centrelink release of private information Media statement on release of private information by Centrelink Our Executive Director Civil Justice Access and Equity Dan Nicholson has voiced serious concerns on the issue of Centrelink releasing private personal information to the media. Mr Nicholson said, 'The disclosure of private information collected by Centrelink to the media in this way is a serious matter that should be of concern to all Australians. 'The starting point is that disclosure of this kind is a criminal offence, punishable by up to 2 years imprisonment unless a specific exception applies. 'In this case the government relies on an exception to the offence that allows disclosures because they are “for the purposes of social security law” – specifically because, they claim, “unfounded allegations necessarily undermine confidence and takes staff effort away from the dealing with other claims”. 'This is an extraordinarily broad interpretation of this exception. We can’t find any decided cases that support it, and we think there are real doubts about this interpretation of the law. 'By contrast another part of S208 of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 (Cth) allows for disclosures in the public interest. However, this section has much more rigorous safeguards in place, including the need to comply with guidelines. There is real doubt about whether those guidelines would allow release in this case. 'It seems that Centrelink is attempting to get around important safeguards in the Act by releasing the information in the way they have. 'Given this doubt and the public interest in the matter, it’s important that Centrelink provide further information about the basis for these releases. Failing that, releasing information in this way should be stopped immediately. 'It’s important to remember the real human consequence of this decision. We would now have to advise any person who thinks they have an incorrect Centrelink debt that, if they speak publicly about their situation, their confidential information is no longer safe with Centrelink. This is an unsatisfactory situation,' Mr Nicholson said. Media enquiries If you have a media enquiry, please contact Senior Communications Advisor Kerrie Soraghan (03) 9269 0660 or 0422 966 513 More information Get help with Centrelink's automated debts.
Former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow has been hired as a college football analyst for the SEC Network, which is set to launch in August 2014. The three-year deal announced by ESPN on Monday will position Tebow as the lead analyst on the SEC Network’s College GameDay spin-off show SEC Nation. The pregame program will travel across the country and air from a different Southeastern Conference venue each week starting Aug. 28, 2014. Tebow will essentially take Kirk Herbstreit’s chair on the program, which will be hosted by Joe Tessitore and have Paul Finebaum on board in the role Lee Corso made famous. The Heisman Trophy winner will also be a contributor across other ESPN platforms. His first assignments with the World Wide Leader in Sports come on Jan. 6, 2014, when he serves as an analyst during pregame coverage throughout the day ahead of the 2014 BCS National Championship featuring Florida State and Auburn. “I am so excited that ESPN has given me this incredible opportunity,” said Tebow in the press release. “When I was six years old I fell in love with the game of football, and while I continue to pursue my dream of playing quarterback in the NFL, this is an amazing opportunity to be part of the unparalleled passion of college football and the SEC.” According to the network, “Tebow’s role with ESPN will not preclude him from continuing to pursue playing opportunities in the NFL.” Should Tebow be signed by an NFL team, he would be able to opt out of his contract with ESPN and return to the gridiron. “Tim is a SEC icon with a national fan base and broad appeal. He will be a significant contributor to the compelling content we will deliver with the SEC Network,” said Justin Connolly, ESPN‘s de facto SEC Network head honcho in the release. “Tim brings a wealth of knowledge about the game, the conference and the passion among SEC fans.”
Chili heat is painful, yet enjoyable; fiery, with no rise in temperature. In 1953, T. S. Lee, a biologist at the National University of Singapore, tried to unravel the physiology behind this reaction. He asked a group of forty-six young men to eat chilies, and monitored their sweating. Perspiration is a physiological reaction to heat. Rising body temperature, whether from the surroundings or from muscles warming during exercise, triggers a reaction in the hypothalamus. Via a series of feedbacks between the brain and the body, sweat glands go to work. Sweat evaporating off the skin cools the body; when its temperature drops back to normal, it stops. Lee had the volunteers dress in cotton trousers only, then painted their faces, ears, necks, and upper bodies with a solution of iodine and dusted them with dry cornstarch—a combination that makes sweat turn blue. Lee used peppers common in Asian cuisine, from the species Capsicum annuum. Their tapered red fruits are about ten to twenty times hotter than jalapenos. For the sake of comparison, at a different time Lee’s subjects also taste-tested solutions of cane sugar, bitter quinine, acetic acid, potassium alum (an astringent that makes the lips pucker), ground black pepper, mustard paste, and hot oatmeal. Some also gargled with hot water, chewed rubber, or swallowed feeding tubes. Advertisement: In one experimental run, after eating chilies for five minutes straight, the subjects flushed red in the face, then all but one began to sweat. The areas around their noses and mouths turned blue, followed by their cheeks. Lee did another trial with seven participants, feeding them one pepper, then another: five continued to sweat, two profusely. Among the controls, only the acid and ground pepper made the volunteers sweat. Eating chilies doesn’t raise body temperature, so there is no physical need for cooling. Yet in Lee’s experiment, the subjects sweated as if they had run a mile on a hot afternoon. To verify that the reactions to chili heat and genuine heat were equivalent, Lee had some volunteers put their legs in hot water. As their temperatures rose, the patterns of sweating on their faces were identical to those produced by eating peppers. Lee had already deduced that chili heat could not be a taste, because people felt its burn on their lips, where there are no taste receptors. His experimental results indicated another body system was at work: the one that registers discomfort from burning. The chili burn was a form of pain. But it differs in one important respect: touch boiling water, and the pain intensifies until the hand is withdrawn. Start eating a Carolina Reaper, and the heat builds for several minutes, becoming overwhelming. But continue, and the heat recedes, leaving the mouth numb to chili’s effects. Capsaicin causes pain, then blocks it. Chili extracts have been used as painkillers for centuries or longer, stretching back into the pre-Columbian era. In 1552, a pair of Mexican natives, Martín de la Cruz, a healer, and Juan Badiano, a teacher, collaborated on a guide to Aztec herbal remedies now known as the Badiano Codex. It makes extensive use of the analgesic properties of chilies. One remedy for inflamed gums was to make a compress: boil the roots of several kinds of pepper plants along with a chili paste, wrap the resulting stew in cotton, and press it against the afflicted area. Elsewhere, native Americans rubbed hot peppers on their genitals to dull sensation and prolong their sexual pleasure—something early Spanish settlers also tried, to the dismay of prudish priests accompanying them. In nineteenth-century China, chili extracts were used as a local anesthetic for men about to be castrated to serve the emperor’s court as eunuchs. It was capsaicin’s painkilling potential that the chemist Wilbur Scoville was trying to exploit when he developed his eponymous heat scale a century ago. He worked at the laboratory of one of the world’s leading drug manufacturers, the Parke-Davis Company, outside Detroit. Parke-Davis and other pharmaceutical makers of the era were finding new ways to use plant alkaloids, including capsaicin and cocaine. (Parke-Davis once paid Sigmund Freud twenty-four dollars to rate its cocaine products, including a powder and an elixir, against those of its more established German rival, Merck. He noted only a small difference in taste, writing: “This is a beautiful white powder (available at a low price).” Capsaicin was the active ingredient in Heet Liniment, Parke-Davis’s topical painkiller cream. Scoville was assigned to measure the relative hotness of various pepper plants and concentrations of capsaicin, so that the correct dose could be more accurately gauged. Too much capsaicin burned unpleasantly; too little didn’t work. Capsaicin had been isolated in 1846 by John Clough Thresh, who named it, and also noted that it was chemically related to vanilla. Capsaicin and its relatives, the most pungent compounds in the world, are molecular cousins to one of the gentlest, smoothest flavors. In 1912, there was no simple chemical test to detect capsaicin—only the sense of taste. Scoville ground up dried peppers and prepared extracts of different strengths. He assembled a panel of five lab colleagues. If a sample tasted hot, he diluted it repeatedly until no heat could be detected. The more dilution required to eliminate the last trace of burn, the hotter the pepper was. Scoville had found a way to quantify a subjective sensation, an important achievement. He called it the Scoville Organoleptic Test, with heat measured in Scoville units. A rating of one million Scoville units meant that the extract had to be diluted to a concentration of one part per million before its heat disappeared. This approach was somewhat imprecise, because people have varying sensitivities to heat just as they do to other flavors, which is why today, the absolute concentration of capsaicin in a pepper is measured with a chromatograph and then converted to Scoville units. Parke-Davis never succeeded in making capsaicin into an effective, profitable product. Heet is still sold today and still contains capsaicin, but the primary active ingredient is now methyl salicylate, derived from wintergreen. Today, five centuries after the Badiano Codex and one century after Scoville, drug companies are still trying to exploit capsaicin’s numbing effect with dermal patches, injections, and other approaches, but success has largely eluded them. Manipulating the body’s heat-sensing system is a dangerous business; in tests of one of these pain blockers, animals developed persistent high fevers: their bodies literally overheated. Drug companies and biologists of Scoville’s era who studied capsaicin’s peculiar effects encountered the same obstacles that hampered the understanding of taste. They knew some kind of biological alchemy was occurring among capsaicin, body, and brain, but couldn’t pinpoint how it worked. Decades later, the key to this mystery was found in the milky sap of the resin spurge, a cactus-like plant that grows in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Moroccans slash open the plant, let the sap run out and dry, and harvest and sell the resulting resin, which contains the most powerful chemical irritant known: resiniferatoxin, or RTX for short, a form of supercapsaicin. Pure capsaicin rates at 16 million Scoville units; RTX rates at 16 billion, a thousand times hotter. Touching resin spurge sap causes severe chemical burns; swallowing more than an eyedropper full is fatal. Yet when greatly diluted, it has powerful medicinal qualities. In the first century AD, Juba, a North African king who was married to a daughter of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, had a terrible case of constipation, and his Greek physician Euphorbus prescribed some sap that had been dried, ground up, and cut with water. (The word “spurge” derives from the French word for “purge.”) This ancient laxative worked so well that Juba named the plant “Euphorbia,” after his doctor. Centuries later, Carl Linnaeus followed suit and named this genus of plants Euphorbia, and this particular one Euphorbia resinifera. Today, the resin is used to treat nasal blockages, snakebites, and poisons. Advertisement: In the 1980s, RTX caught the attention of scientists studying the chili burn. Since it was so much more powerful than capsaicin, even the tiniest amounts made tissues flare in response. Research accelerated. When applied to the skin or injected, scientists found that RTX tricked the brain and body into thinking that room temperature was hotter than brimstone; then it abruptly shut down the body’s ability to sense heat, or respond to any temperature changes. Rats treated with RTX developed hypothermia. But unlike a topical anesthetic, which numbs all feeling, RTX did not impair other kinds of touch; the rats could still feel a pinch or an electric shock. Only nerves that sensed heat were affected. In one experiment, scientists irradiated a bit of RTX to make it traceable by scanner, injected it into a cell, and observed as its molecules attached themselves to a previously unknown kind of receptor: a heat receptor. Lee’s sweat-while-you-eat experiment from forty years earlier had been vindicated. Both RTX and capsaicin molecules attached themselves to the body’s receptors for registering heat and pain. These are part of a larger family of sensors that detect grave threats: heat, cold, burns, blows, cuts, pinches, electrical shocks. Without them, humans would die rather quickly. Capsaicin receptors are embedded in the surface of nerve cells in the mouth, skin, eyes, ears, and nose. When these cells come in contact with anything hotter than 108 degrees Fahrenheit—the signal that the line between “toasty” and “too hot” has been crossed—the receptors’ shape changes in response. This opens a pore to the cell’s interior. The water in the human body is a salty soup of positively and negatively charged particles, diffusing in and out of cells. The pore is only one or two atoms wide, and allows only positively charged calcium ions through. The electrical charge makes the neuron fire, sending a signal to the brain. This process takes only milliseconds, a much faster reaction time than that of taste receptors. Thus the hand jerks away from a hot pan before awareness catches up. Chilies trick this system. Begin eating a hot pepper, and capsaicin molecules inundate these receptors. This lowers the mouth’s heat threshold, much as salt lowers the melting point of ice; suddenly 98.6 degrees feels like 150. This is why chili peppers taste hot. The heat alarm reaches the brain via the trigeminal nerve, one of the major neural pathways in the head, relaying signals from the face, the nose and mouth, and the eye. The chili burn is the strongest of a number of “tastes” sensed by receptors for heat or touch and carried by the trigeminal nerve that include the sharp pungency of horseradish and wasabi, the gentler tang of lemongrass, and the hot tingle produced by the Szechuan pepper (which is not related to chili or black pepper). Szechuan peppers are also used as an ingredient in lipsticks to inflame the skin and simulate the sensation of pouty lips. Advertisement: So, pain is a distinct part of flavor, with its own unusual properties. Heat receptors are present all over the body, which makes superhot chilies dangerous. An unpleasant taste can only be sensed by the tongue, but capsaicin envelops you, as my son and I found while watching Ed Currie prepare hot sauce. He poured a bottle of white Bhut Jolokia pepper mash—a beige-colored, six-to-one mix of pureed pepper and vinegar—into a pan, blended in additional spice, then put the mix on the stove. Capsaicin in the steam stung our eyes, then reached our noses, and we coughed and sneezed for ten minutes. Currie appeared immune. Pepper spray, usually made from cayenne chilies, works the same way. Police-grade pepper spray rates above 5 million Scoville units, more than enough to cause temporary blindness, constricted breathing, near-total incapacitation, and in rare cases, death. India has led the world in finding ways to exploit these properties. The Indian army has experimented with ghost-pepper grenades, and with a food supplement to help warm the bodies of soldiers in the Himalayas. Adopting a local practice of farmers, the environmental agency in Assam set up fences made with ropes dipped in ghost-pepper oil to keep roving elephants out of agricultural areas. Elephant hides are too tough for electric fences, but they yield to ghost peppers. Capsaicin affects the inside of the body, too. Like taste and smell receptors, heat receptors have been found in nerve cells nearly everywhere, including the brain, bladder, urethra, nasal membranes, and colon. Exactly what they all do isn’t clear, but it goes beyond regulating the temperature; some help keep metabolic systems running within certain limits. But they may also be a source of serious health problems. In 2014, researchers led by Andrew Dillin of the University of California, Berkeley, ran an experiment with mice that had been genetically engineered to lack capsaicin receptors. Predictably, the mice had impaired reactions to heat. But they also lived four months, or 14 percent, longer than did normal mice, and had more youthful metabolisms. As normal mice aged, Dillin found the capsaicin receptors in their bodies started to malfunction. In some mice, they stimulated the pancreas to release a protein that made blood sugar chronically higher—a common malady of old age, and a precursor to diabetes. Advertisement: Of course, people hoping to live longer can’t get rid of their capsaicin receptors. But eating chilies does the next best thing: it paralyzes them. The numbing from eating superhot peppers occurs as receptors become overwhelmed and nerve cells shut down. The neurons usually recover, but sometimes they die. Julia Child once claimed that eating too much spicy food destroyed the taste buds; this is not true, but she was onto something. Inside the body, this blocking action may shut down the malfunctioning receptors, mimicking the effects that helped those mice live so long. Many studies have shown that eating a chili-rich diet has small but measurable health benefits. Capsaicin raises metabolic rates, burning more calories. Mice without capsaicin receptors, with their active metabolisms, were also less likely to get fat. (Currie lost 180 pounds on a diet heavily spiced with superhot peppers, and says they helped him give up alcohol.) No health benefit explains the other great mystery of chili heat: why people enjoy the pain and irritation. Like the affection for a hint of bitterness in cuisine, it’s the result of conditioning. But there are no contests to brew the world’s bitterest coffee. The chili sensation mimics that of physical heat, which has been a constant element of flavor since the invention of the cooking fire a million or more years ago; we evolved liking hot food. The chili sensation also resembles that of cold, which is also unpleasant to the skin, but pleasurable in drinks and ice cream, probably because we’ve developed an association between cooling off and the slaking of thirst. But none of these examples explains why, when nature devised capsaicin to repel, humans embraced it in spite of itself. Paul Rozin became interested in this question in the 1970s, when his then wife Elisabeth Rozin wrote "The Flavor-Principle Cookbook." Its theme was that ethnic cuisines had certain common flavor signatures that home chefs could appropriate to enliven meals. He began to wonder why some cultures favored highly spicy foods, and others bland. He traveled to a village in the highlands of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, to investigate, focusing on the differences between humans and animals. The Zapotec residents there ate a diet heavy in chili-spiced food; Rozin wondered if their pigs and dogs had also picked up a taste for it. “I asked people in the village if they knew of any animals that liked hot pepper,” Rozin said. “They thought that was hilariously funny. They said: no animals like hot pepper!” He tested that observation, giving pigs and dogs there a choice between an unspicy cheese cracker and one laced with hot sauce. They’d eat both snacks, but always chose the mild cracker first. Next, Rozin tried to condition rats to like chilies. If he could get them to choose spicy snacks over bland, it would show that the presence of heat in cuisine was probably a straightforward matter of adaptation; animals—and humans—liked heat because chilies were nutritious and the imperatives of survival had overcome its bad taste. Humans might have gradually grown less sensitive to it, just as the Aymara of Bolivia became accustomed to high levels of bitterness in their potatoes. Advertisement: He fed one group of rats a peppery diet from birth; another had chili gradually added to their meals. Both groups continued to prefer nonspicy food. In another attempt, he spiked pepper-free food with a compound to make the rats sick, so that they would later find it disgusting. They still chose it over the chili-laced food. He induced a vitamin B deficiency in some rats, causing various heart, lung, and muscular problems, then nursed them back to health with chili-flavored food: this reduced but didn’t eliminate their aversion to heat. In all, Rozin thinks he may have made only a single one of these rats into a chili convert. Only rats whose capsaicin-sensing ability had been destroyed truly lost their aversion to it. Rozin’s only real success training animals as chili lovers came later, when he coaxed a pair of chimpanzees to develop a taste for chili-spiced crackers. Rozin came to believe that something unique to humanity, some hidden dynamic in culture or psychology, was responsible for our love of chili’s burn. For some reason apparently unrelated to survival, humans condition themselves to make an aversion gratifying. The Zapotec weren’t born liking chilies, but picked up a taste for them around the age of four to six years old. Not long after, Rozin compared the tolerances of a group of people in the United States with limited heat in their diets to the Mexican villagers’ tastes. He fed each group corn snacks flavored with differing amounts of chili pepper, asking them to rank when the taste became optimal and when it became unbearable. Predictably, the Mexicans tolerated heat better than the Americans. But one thing was consistent for both groups: the difference between “just right” and “ouch” was razor-thin. “The hotness level they liked the most was just below the level of unbearable pain,” Rozin said. “So that led me to think that the pain itself was involved: they were pushing the limits, and that was part of the phenomenon.” The chili culture is all about pushing limits. Ed Currie believed embracing it had helped him overcome his own weaknesses. He had organized his life around a single, powerful sensation, and it had worked: Guinness named Smokin’ Ed’s Carolina Reaper the world’s hottest pepper in 2013. But success depended on staying ahead of the competition; the race would eventually take chili heat higher and higher, past two million Scoville units, into realms of pungency never tasted before. How far could he go, and who would follow? Advertisement: Pleasure is never very far from aversion; this is a feature of our anatomy and behavior. In the brain, the two closely overlap. They both rely on nerves in the brainstem, indicating their ancient origins as reflexes. They both tap into the brain’s system of dopamine neurons, which shapes motivation. They activate similar higher-level cortical areas that influence perceptions and consciousness. Anatomy suggests these two systems interact closely: in several brain structures, neurons responding to pain and pleasure lie close together, forming gradients from positive to negative. A lot of this cross talk takes place in the vicinity of the hedonic hotspots—areas that bridge basic reflexes and consciousness. In behavior, pleasure and aversion also work in parallel. Each is a form of motivation forged by natural selection; each triggers actions to safeguard immediate survival and guide learning for the future. Pain alerts people to stop, to pull away, to avoid. Pleasure is a green light to continue, and to return. A little pleasure can reduce pain, and pain can temper pleasure; chronic pain can lead to depression and an inability to experience pleasure. Humans routinely endure pain to achieve a greater reward and the pleasures that accompany it; childbirth, for example. The opposite happens as well, when pleasure leads to pain, such as a hangover, or years of indulgence in drugs makes life seem meaningless and depressing. The love of heat was nothing more than these two systems working together, Rozin concluded. Superhot tasters court danger and pain without risk, then feel relief when it ends. “People also come to like the fear and arousal produced by rides on roller coasters, parachute jumping, or horror movies,” he wrote. “They enjoy crying at sad movies, and some come to enjoy the initial pain of stepping into a very hot bath or the shock of jumping into cold water. These ‘benignly masochistic’ activities, along with chili preference, seem to be uniquely human.” Eating hot peppers may literally be a form of masochism, a soliciting of dangers that civilization cocoons us against. Rozin’s theory suggests that flavor has an unexpected emotional component: relief. A study led by Siri Leknes, at Oxford University, looked at the relationship of pleasure and relief to see if they were, in essence, the same. Leknes gave eighteen volunteers two tasks while their brains were scanned: one pleasant, one unpleasant. In the first, they were asked to imagine a series of pleasurable experiences, including consuming their favorite meal, drink, or cup of coffee or tea; the smell of a fresh sea breeze or freshly baked bread; a warm bath or smiling faces. In the other, they were given a visual signal that pain was coming, followed by a five-second burst of 120-degree heat from a device attached to their left arms: enough to be quite painful, but not enough to cause a burn. The scans showed that relief and pleasure were intertwined, overlapping in one area of the frontal cortex where perceptions and judgments form, and in another near the hedonic hotspots. As emotions, their intensity depended on many factors, including one’s attitude toward life. Volunteers who scored higher on a pessimism scale got a stronger surge of relief than did optimists—perhaps because they weren’t expecting the pain to end. Ed Currie’s website features videos of people eating Carolina Reapers. They are studies in torture. As one man tries a bite, his eyes open with surprise, then his chair tips back and he falls on the floor. Another sweats up a storm and appears to be suffering terribly, but presses on until he has eaten the whole thing. Watching these, it suddenly seemed clear to my son and me that whatever enjoyment might be derived from savoring chili flavors, true satisfaction comes only in the aftermath: the relief at having endured, and survived. Advertisement: Excerpted from "Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat" by John McQuaid. Published by Scribner. Copyright 2015 by John McQuaid. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
For me, the journey to today's Save Our Schools March started when I wrote an open letter to President Obama raising serious questions about where we are headed with education reform in America. Those questions have still not been answered. Yesterday I had a chance to ask Arne Duncan a question, after his "Working Toward 'Wow'" speech. What I asked him was this: I worked in high poverty schools in Oakland for 24 years. The turnover rate for our interns is 75% after three years. Your proposal for the reauthorization of ESEA continues to label the bottom 10% of our schools as failures. Under these circumstances, who will choose to teach in these high poverty schools? Doesn't this contribute to the crisis in our profession? Though Secretary Duncan responded, I did not get an actual answer to my question, as to who will choose to teach in these schools. Here are some more questions we must ask. No Child Left Behind was a huge national experiment based on the so-called Texas Miracle, which turned out to be a hoax. When current policies are questioned we are told similar stories about schools that supposedly are "beating the odds," and thus prove what is possible. The National Academy of Science recently released a report that showed that nearly a decade of test-based reforms have shown no positive effect on real student learning. Study after study shows that paying teachers for test scores does not work - even to raise those scores. Evaluating people based on test scores has not worked. Closing schools and firing people to improve schools has not worked. When will the Department of Education begin basing its policies on sound research rather than exceptional cases, many of which turn out to be poor models in any case? Over a year ago, Secretary Duncan and President Obama praised the decision by the administration to fire the entire staff of teachers at Central Falls High School. Though there was a subsequent agreement that reversed this decision, morale plummeted, student disrespect for teachers increased and teacher turnover rose. How is this any sort of a strategy for school improvement? Many of the core elements of Race to the Top and the Blueprint are related to test scores. Department of Ed policy calls for the linking of teacher evaluations and pay to student test scores. The Blueprint calls for tracking of student test scores of teachers according to the place they were prepared. We still have the threat of reconstitution hanging over the bottom tier of schools, attended exclusively by children in poverty. All based on test scores. In March, President Obama described the tests that Sasha and Malia take as "low stakes." All these changes RAISE the stakes on the tests, for teachers and schools. How does this move us towards the "less pressure-packed environment" the President has advocated? Yesterday Secretary Duncan suggested that teachers be paid as much as $150,000 a year. Afterwards, some National Board certified teachers from Detroit told me that as a result of the latest crisis, they are about to LOSE $15,000 to $20,000 in pay and benefits. What fiscal planet is Secretary Duncan on? And since he has no capacity to actually impact teacher pay, what difference does it make in the real world when he says our pay should be increased? How about supporting processes that empower teachers to take leadership? How about real support for teacher action research? How about leveraging collaboration to reduce turnover and build stability? How about building teacher accountability on a foundation of real responsibility and agency, rather than bribes and threats? How about policies that reduce, rather than accelerate, racial and economic segregation? We have been asking questions like this for more than a year, and the answers we get are maddeningly devoid of insight. The answers to the challenges facing our schools will not be heard from Secretary Duncan. He has been given many chances to respond, and all we get is nonsense. We want answers and today, we are marching to the White House to demand them. Note: Blogger Alice Mercer will be providing streaming audio from today's events around the country, starting at 11 am. Find out more here. What questions would you like answers to? What must we do to get our concerns heard? image by Anthony Cody, used with permission [Editorial note: Education Week Teacher is not affiliated with the Save Our Schools event; the views expressed in this opinion blog do not reflect the endorsement of Education Week or Editorial Projects in Education, which take no editorial positions]
(Editor’s note: Colin Flaherty has done more reporting than any other journalist on what appears to be a nationwide trend of skyrocketing black-on-white crime, violence and abuse. WND features these reports to counterbalance the virtual blackout by the rest of the media due to their concerns that reporting such incidents would be inflammatory or even racist. WND considers it racist not to report racial abuse solely because of the skin color of the perpetrators or victims.) Videos linked or embedded may contain foul language and violence. I get a lot of tips on black mob violence from WND readers around the country. Some I know about. Some I do not. Some are true. Some are not. Many are from cops. Lots and lots of cops. Here’s a message this morning from a Texas cop, a 20-year veteran and a regular correspondent on the topic of black mob violence: “This is incredible, the rate at which things are escalating. On the streets, out here, the attitude is one of entitlement which i haven’t seen.” I get that from cops all over the country. Even Greensboro, N.C. This morning, my email and twitter streams were full of information about Greensboro. The conversations kind of went like this: “Did you hear about the black mob violence in Greensboro?” asked one reader. “You mean the Fourth of July where hundreds of black people filled the downtown both before and after the fireworks? Fighting. Destroying property. Defying police. Violating curfew? Where it got so bad they had to use pepper spray?” “No, not that one.” “Oh you mean the run up to the Fourth of July?” I asked. “When in the weeks prior to fireworks they had several incidents including one where 400 black people were in the streets fighting. On video. Destroying property. Defying police. Where it got so bad they had to use pepper spray and stun guns?” “No, not that one either.” Those were so bad the city council met in an emergency meeting the day before the Fourth of July to impose a curfew in the downtown. Maybe the WND readers were referring to last year. “Are you talking about the Fourth of July last year?” I asked. “Where 1,000 black people filled the downtown after the fireworks. Fighting. Destroying property. Assaulting people. Defying police. Where it got so bad they had to use pepper spray and stun guns?” “No, not that either.” I still had a lot of material to work with. Much of it from “White Girl Bleed a Lot: The return of racial violence and how the media ignore it.” (New and improved edition soon out on WND Books.) I use Greensboro as an example of a small, nice place with lots of black mob violence that few people know about. I pressed on: “You mean before that, where a local TV station reported that “every weekend” in June leading up the Fourth of July last year featured large-scale black mob violence downtown? Fighting. Destroying property. Assaulting people. Defying police. Where it got so bad they had to use pepper spray and stun guns?” “No. Not those either.” I wasn’t going to ask about the Greensboro concerts, parties and other public events that also feature large scale black mob violence. So much so that city council considered banning them. But the city council did not. Even the 11 p.m. curfew the city council imposed in a near panic for this year’s Fourth of July almost did not make it. At least one city council member said the curfew was not fair because it targeted black people. That council member ended up supporting the curfew. But no one knows what would have happened had she decided to make a bigger deal out of it. But she assured them she would not be playing “the race card.” Only one speaker belled the cat and identified the rioters as “black kids.” The other council members said the large scale violence was not really the fault of the people involved anyway. They placed the blame variously on jobs, housing, poverty, lack of recreation, lousy parents. All the usual. They did have a midnight basketball program, several council members said. And that seemed to be working just fine. But their idea to hold a free movie downtown, and invite all the disaffected youths, as they did a month ago? Let’s just say they won’t be doing that again. Finally I Googled it and looked it up on Twitter: “Large fight Greensboro.” There it was. Thursday night. More than 200 black people at a party. Fighting. Destroying property. Firing guns. Assaulting people. Fighting cops. All about half a mile outside of the downtown curfew zone. Six people were arrested. Some in Greensboro took to the message boards to register their disgust with the lawlessness and anarchy that flourishes in their town on a regular basis. “Keep up and Greensboro will be just another Detroit,” said one poster called OneLonesomeDove at the WXII TV news site. “Was this black mob violence?” asked another. “If it was, you need to say so, and not be afraid of the repercussions.” It was, said several people both in an out of the Greensboro police department. Whatever the repercussions may be of talking about black mob violence , Greensboro is seeing what happens when people do not talk about it. None of the comments was posted at the local daily paper, the News & Record. “Comments have been disabled,” is all the paper had to say about that. See the Big List of black mob violence.
Photo via AP Photo/MBARI via Discovery An enormous 502 lb web camera was launched into the sea, where it will dive 3,000 feet under the Pacific waves to monitor climate change on marine life. The Monterey Accelerated Research Station, or MARS, is an underwater observatory launched last November, and a whole range of innovative tools are used to gather information about how global climate change is impacting and shifting life under the sea. Watching seismic activity, acidity, and other aspects of ocean life will help scientists understand the health of the oceans. The $600,000 Web camera offers scientists, students and others the opportunity to watch life at 500 fathoms. The camera captures images illuminated with "far-red" lights, a spectrum of luminescence invisible to undersea animals. "The revolution in oceanography is to replace expeditionary science with a permanent presence in the ocean in the deep sea," said Widder, a senior scientist at the Ocean Research and Conservation Association, a nonprofit that develops high-tech equipment for ocean study. With Google Earth entering the underwater scene as well as MARS, which will be one of hopefully many underwater observatories around the world very soon, the ocean may not stay unexplored territory for long. Not only will the camera help with monitoring the health of the sea, but also with new species discovery. More details can be found at Discovery News Via Discovery News More on Monitoring Climate Change Japanese Satellite First to Monitor Greenhouse Gases British Scientists Launch Climate Change Monitoring Robot Gliders in Atlantic Ocean New Gravity-Mapping, Climate Predicting Satellite Set to Launch from Russia
A former child protection worker, once with the Ministry of Child and Family Development, says, in her experience, Indigenous children are largely being apprehended due to poverty, and their parents are being over policed when trying to reunite with them. Portia Larlee started her role in communities in north central B.C. in 2015 and said she lasted a year and a half before she quit out of frustration. She said most of her clients were Indigenous. "It was mostly neglect related to poverty that would put parents at risk of state intervention," she explained. According to a report from B.C.'s representative for children and youth, although Indigenous children are less than 10 per cent of the population, they account for 62 per cent of children in government care. In a statement, the Ministry of Children and Family Development said "legislation requires that social workers can only remove a child or youth if they are in immediate danger or no less disruptive measures are available or adequate to protect them." "Those principles apply regardless of a parent's socioeconomic status," the statement added. In an MCFD 2016 performance management report, the main reason (43%) listed for Indigenous children being apprehended is because their parents were "unable/unwilling to care." The lowest percentages of reasons include sexual abuse (0.7%) and deprived of health care (0.5%). 'If they can support foster parents, why not us' Larlee grew frustrated at a lack of support for the families whose children were taken, and for herself, a social worker, saying she was not provided proper training around issues like unresolved trauma related to residential school. She said she witnessed many Indigenous children removed from their homes because their parents were unable to provide basic resources like food and housing. Further, she said, asking for those supports could be used against them. "Say I got approval to get you 50 bucks for the grocery store — this would have to be documented under a support file, Larlee said. "The issue with this it that every time you come into contact with a family, you have to do a prior contact history [review], and if the family has a bunch of these support files with the ministry, this, in my opinion, gets used against them [when they are trying to reunite with their kids]." Former foster child Ronda Merrill-Parkin says parents need more supports if they are struggling with parenting, housing or poverty. (Angela Sterritt ) Former Cree foster child Ronda Merrill-Parkin was in the child-welfare system from six until 18 years of age. She had her own child apprehended as a young mother but now has two of her children in her care. "If they are willing to put these extra supports in for the foster families, then why are they not doing it for our people?" Merrill-Parkin said. Foster parents get a monthly allowance for caring for children they take into their care. Biological families that are struggling can also get access to relief or respite care paid for by the ministry. 'Major cultural shift needed' Child welfare advocate Cindy Blackstock says studies show that poverty, poor housing and substance abuse related to unresolved trauma are key reasons for removals. "The over-representation of First Nations children in the child welfare system is essentially a symptom of systemic discrimination and disadvantage," Blackstock said. Bernard Richard, the province's representative for children and youth, says there needs to be a cultural shift at MCFD in order to reduce the high numbers of Indigenous kids in care. (CBC) The province's representative for children and youth says if kids are in danger, not safe or subject to injury or violence, that should be addressed by the child protection system. "But taking a child away because they are poor is not an acceptable reason and clearly the system is failing children if they are doing that, and we know they are, and we know the issue is more prevalent for Indigenous people," Bernard Richard said. In a statement to CBC, MCFD said it doesn't deny there are problems. "We agree that, for too long, there have been system-wide assumptions and practices that have failed our Indigenous children and their families," the statement said. For Richard and Merrill-Parkin, more cultural and bias education and training is needed, for social workers, foster parents and decision makers. "[Change] requires a cultural shift with more supports going to family much sooner and kinship supports to the family are often down the list in terms of placement," Richard said. "The changes will require strong leadership and determination and more than good intentions," he added.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, is slated to become the first non-Israeli to light a torch during Israel’s main Independence Day ceremony in Jerusalem. Hier, who in January delivered a prayer during the inauguration of President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, is one of three individuals selected for the honor by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Calcalist financial supplement of the Yediot Acharonot daily reported Friday. Culture Minister Miri Regev decided last year to include non-Israeli Jews in the Independence Day torch lighting, saying their participation would symbolize the stake that Jewish people all over the world have in the Jewish state. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up This year’s theme for the ceremony is “Jerusalem: the Eternal Capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish People.” During his 2-minute prayer at the inauguration, Hier recited the Psalm 137 passage reading “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. The doer of all these shall never falter.” Hier founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 1977 as an organization devoted to fighting anti-Semitism, bringing Nazis to justice and promoting tolerance through the Los Angeles-based Museum of Tolerance. Longstanding plans to build another museum in Jerusalem have foundered, in part over objections that is to be located on land that includes part of a historic Muslim cemetery. Another honoree this year at the ceremony is said to be Amnon Shashua, a computer science professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and co-founder of the Mobileye and OrCam startups. Yehoram Gaon, a Jerusalem-born singer and actor, reportedly is the third honoree. The official list of torch lighters is scheduled to be published next week following its final approval by the selection committee, Calcalist reported.
Quote AlexModny Quote: Originally Posted by Howdy Flygirls and Flyboys! I’ll be blunt. Strike Fighters need lots of love. The original design is that they are the Jack-of-All and Master-of-None but they have filled out this role too well and because of it are rarely a compelling option. We want to talk about how Strike Fighters can be made into a good option to bring in any match, by any skill level. We have some ideas of what we want to do with them but because this community is always very impressive with communication and feedback we want to get your thoughts on what you think is the best course of action. We know there are some fantastic threads and posts aplenty that already covered this information but we want to consolidate and create a focused discussion. We want to set expectations though. This is just about gathering feedback and creating a focused discussion on which to possibly make changes based off of. Just a heads up and Musco made me say it So! What are your pet peeves about Strike Fighters? If you could only pick one section to buff would you choose to improve their Maneuverability, Secondary Weapons, Primary Weapons or Defense? Or something different? What would make them more effective in both game modes? Looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts! Way I see it, the type of ship classes are broken down like this: Scouts : Maneuverability and Speed. They are meant to cap satellites fast and be the first to spot the enemy. Their light armor is balanced by it's firepower in close quarters and its ability to be difficult to shoot down. Gunships: Range and Tactical. With its powerful cannon types, it can pick off enemies from afar as it guards a location or disable a ship for their allies to take out. It's like a moderate glass cannon, but with a bit more armor than the scout. Great when the enemy is hundreds of meters away, not so great in a dogfight. Bombers: Defense and Support. When a bomber starts fortifying a satellite or an area, that's a clear sign that you either take it down before it can finish setting up its mines and turrets or get the heck out of there. Personally, I think it's a bit OP, since the mines and turrets stay spawned even after we vape the bomber. Now, I don't know if you guys have changed that since last I played GSF, but if it still is that way, you might want to make where all mines and turrets spawned by the bomber are automatically destroyed upon the ships destruction or a shortened spawn period. You literally need a third of your squadron to take out all the mines from a afar and focus fire on the bomber. It's difficult to take out a bomber in a dogfight, since it can deploy turrets or mines to blow us up. I'm sure many would agree that Bombers are the heart of the problem in terms of balanced game play in GSF. Strikers: Balanced all around. Honestly, when I play on my striker on the Republic side, I think of it as an X-Wing. Meaning good shields, good armor, and impressive maneuverability (but not as good as an A-wing). Problem here is exactly what you said-- it's too well rounded. When I think of Strikers as a ratio of what ships players use in the squadron, I think of it as being close to a majority; with Scouts and Gunships tying second, while Bombers should come last. I say, increase it's weapon and engine power pool and decrease the lock on time on proton torpedoes for that particular starfighter. The problem is that the power pool for weapons and engines are consumed too quickly and makes the Striker become a dead duck in space/air. Scouts run circles around them and make it difficult to lock on to them; Gunships just pick them off unless you find good cover to get closer (Scouts are actually better at doing that, because of their speed); Bombers make a joke of them when in a dogfight. The bombers just lay a mine or turret and then blows the Striker out of the sky. Strikers need to be the bulk of a squadron. If anything, increasing the weapon and engine power pool, significantly, will help. Adding the decreased lock-on time on the proton torpedoes would be a plus. They should be the muscle that can take out a bomber and not the other way around. That's just my opinion. So you all know where I'm coming from, I play on my Scout (Flashfire) and Striker the most, but if I had to choose which of the two to go into a dogfight with, I'd choose my Scout, because it packs a decent punch and can duck out of a losing fight like no other. That and it's the only class that can have a shotgun-like laser cannon and fast lock-on cluster missiles. I use my Scout for taking out Gunships, but I completely avoid Bombers, because they're the hardest starfighters to take down unless you're using a Gunship from afar. Scouts and Strikers get owned unless it's a 2v1 against the Bomber. And I'm saying that because of those blasted mines and turrets that can be spawned in mid-fight. Maybe if there was a channeling for those deployables that you can interrupt by shooting at the bomber, that would make it an even fight. Otherwise, the Bomber has the tactical advantage for any average player in a 1v1 fight, unless you're a Gunship shooting from afar. Finally!Way I see it, the type of ship classes are broken down like this:Maneuverability and Speed. They are meant to cap satellites fast and be the first to spot the enemy. Their light armor is balanced by it's firepower in close quarters and its ability to be difficult to shoot down.Range and Tactical. With its powerful cannon types, it can pick off enemies from afar as it guards a location or disable a ship for their allies to take out. It's like a moderate glass cannon, but with a bit more armor than the scout. Great when the enemy is hundreds of meters away, not so great in a dogfight.Defense and Support. When a bomber starts fortifying a satellite or an area, that's a clear sign that you either take it down before it can finish setting up its mines and turrets or get the heck out of there. Personally, I think it's a bit OP, since the mines and turrets stay spawned even after we vape the bomber. Now, I don't know if you guys have changed that since last I played GSF, but if it still is that way, you might want to make where all mines and turrets spawned by the bomber are automatically destroyed upon the ships destruction or a shortened spawn period. You literally need a third of your squadron to take out all the mines from a afar and focus fire on the bomber. It's difficult to take out a bomber in a dogfight, since it can deploy turrets or mines to blow us up. I'm sure many would agree that Bombers are the heart of the problem in terms of balanced game play in GSF.Balanced all around. Honestly, when I play on my striker on the Republic side, I think of it as an X-Wing. Meaning good shields, good armor, and impressive maneuverability (but not as good as an A-wing). Problem here is exactly what you said-- it's too well rounded. When I think of Strikers as a ratio of what ships players use in the squadron, I think of it as being close to a majority; with Scouts and Gunships tying second, while Bombers should come last.I say, increase it's weapon and engine power pool and decrease the lock on time on proton torpedoes for that particular starfighter. The problem is that the power pool for weapons and engines are consumed too quickly and makes the Striker become a dead duck in space/air. Scouts run circles around them and make it difficult to lock on to them; Gunships just pick them off unless you find good cover to get closer (Scouts are actually better at doing that, because of their speed); Bombers make a joke of them when in a dogfight. The bombers just lay a mine or turret and then blows the Striker out of the sky.Strikers need to be the bulk of a squadron. If anything, increasing the weapon and engine power pool, significantly, will help. Adding the decreased lock-on time on the proton torpedoes would be a plus. They should be the muscle that can take out a bomber and not the other way around.That's just my opinion.So you all know where I'm coming from, I play on my Scout (Flashfire) and Striker the most, but if I had to choose which of the two to go into a dogfight with, I'd choose my Scout, because it packs a decent punch and can duck out of a losing fight like no other. That and it's the only class that can have a shotgun-like laser cannon and fast lock-on cluster missiles.I use my Scout for taking out Gunships, but I completely avoid Bombers, because they're the hardest starfighters to take down unless you're using a Gunship from afar. Scouts and Strikers get owned unless it's a 2v1 against the Bomber. And I'm saying that because of those blasted mines and turrets that can be spawned in mid-fight. Maybe if there was a channeling for those deployables that you can interrupt by shooting at the bomber, that would make it an even fight. Otherwise, the Bomber has the tactical advantage for any average player in a 1v1 fight, unless you're a Gunship shooting from afar. We hide in plain sight--behind every key figure and every battle. You will never see us coming when it is our time to strike. You stopped our leader, but not our movement. While you fall, we will rise.... Are you a new or returning player? Do you want free, cool stuff? Then help fund the Revanite movement use my code! Refer : http://www.swtor.com/r/WmtHFk Here's a link at what you get for using my refer code: Are you a new or returning player? Do you want free, cool stuff?Then help fund themovement use my code!Here's a link at what you get for using my refer code: http://www.swtor.com/info/friends
A post to SemiWiki.com by industry author and blogger Dan Nenni says that IBM and GlobalFoundries have a “handshake deal” in place to take over IBM’s chip manufacturing. The article, posted here, says that IBM will fork over more than $2 billion to GlobalFoundries. Talks had previously broken down after GlobalFoundries wouldn’t accept $1 billion for the unit. And yes, IBM would pay GlobalFoundries under the deal because of the expense associated with manufacturing computer chips. The article does not say what the fate will be of IBM’s East Fishkill chip fab, which went into production around 2001 with subsidies from New York state. As with most news that breaks in the semiconductor industry, there was no attribution as to the source of the news. In this case it was “on pretty good authority.” Nenni is well-known in the industry and an expert on “fabless” semiconductor manufacturing and is the founder of the SemiWiki site. He has also worked as a consultant with companies to help them develop relationships with foundry companies like GlobalFoundries. IBM is looking to become fabless by outsourcing its manufacturing to GlobalFoundries, which is known as a “foundry” that does contract manufacturing for others. Nenni says in the story that an official announcement won’t come until early October, however. Nenni says that the deal would have a ripple effect in the industry by providing an ample competitor to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest chip foundry, while offering what she says is a better alternative to companies like Intel and Samsung that have tried to get into the foundry businesses themselves. “We desperately need two leading edge pure-play foundries to keep our industry growing,” Nenni wrote. The IDM (stands for integrated devices manufacturer) foundries (Intel and Samsung) do not have our collective best interests at heart, believe me.”
DES MOINES First-grader Matthias Beattie this week joined the hundreds of U.S. children suspended each year under post-Columbine "zero tolerance" policies when he took a shotgun shell to his school. The difference is that Matthias is home-schooled. The 6-year-old Carlisle boy takes a class once a week through a Des Moines school district program that pairs public school teachers with home-schooled children. The boy's parents say his one-week suspension lacks common sense. "Matthias is a little kid from the farm, and he did not have intent to do any harm," his mother, Charlene Beattie, said. School officials also never made clear that the policy applies to home-schooled children, she said. Matthias isn't a public school student in the eyes of state law, and his class meets at a church. But district officials say Matthias and other home-schooled students are bound by discipline policies. "Even though you spend 95% of your week home schooling, you are enrolled in the public schools," Leslie Dahm, the district's home-schooling coordinator, said in an e-mail to Matthias' parents this week. Dahm called live ammunition a "serious threat" for which the school district could be sued. Leigh McGivern, a district spokeswoman, said Wednesday she wasn't familiar with the incident. But she said school policies are drawn up primarily to protect students. "Whether it's an empty shell or a loaded shell, it's considered part of a weapon and unsafe," McGivern said. "We have students who don't know the difference. The policy is, let's be unequivocal about it. Don't bring anything like that to school. And that way they don't have to use judgment as a child." Dan Beattie and his son found the shotgun shell as they cleared out a wall of their Carlisle farmhouse, which they are renovating. Beattie, a church pastor, said he used the encounter to teach Matthias about guns and safety. He then let Matthias add the shotgun shell to his collection of raccoon bones and other farm finds. "He thought it was cool," Dan Beattie said. The Beatties said they didn't know the shotgun shell was in Matthias' pants pocket when they dropped him off last week at his public school class. "It was an oversight on my part," Dan Beattie said. The shell fell out of Matthias' pocket as he jumped around in the gymnasium, his mother said. Odds that a dropped shotgun shell would explode are "one in a million," one weapons expert says. John Underwood, an agent in the Des Moines office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the odds escalate when the shotgun shell primer detonates — usually from being slammed against an object. "The danger is remote, but it's there," Underwood said. Dahm's e-mail shows school administrators considered more severe penalties before they settled on a one-week suspension for Matthias Beattie. The punishment stemmed from the Beatties' willingness to shoulder part of the blame, according to the e-mail. Dahm acknowledged in the e-mail that student discipline policies aren't distributed to families regularly because of printing costs. The e-mail said parents are expected to read the policy online. Dahm could not be reached for comment for this article. Charlene Beattie said the experience will be one of her son's biggest lessons. "I told him, 'Sometimes there are rules that are made that we are not aware of,' " she said. "We still have to abide by them." The incident marks the second time in four months that the Des Moines district's no-weapons policy has triggered controversy. In October, Brody Middle School officials suspended a sixth-grader who took empty shotgun shells to school to show a teacher. It also exemplifies a philosophical collision between home-school parents and public school policy. "Most of us in the home-school community know how to talk about things like that, and we move on," said Dan Beattie, Matthias' father. "The way our society has become, we're so scared of everything that could possibly go wrong and so we have such blind allegiance to policy that we obliterate common sense," he said. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more
Back at E3, Hideo Kojima showed off a video of Metal Gear Solid 5 that introduced the cast and showed off some of the game's new play mechanics. It was a bit of a surprise to a lot of gamers, especially when Kojima started talking about things like creating a "true open world experience." "I think the term 'open world' has taken on a life of its own and caused misunderstandings," the head of Kojima Productions said in an interview published in this week's Famitsu magazine. "Of course it's not going to be a game where Snake fishes all day or changes jobs and pursues a different life. The game map is an open world and you have freedom in that way, but in MGS5, it's clear what you're doing. That may be 'I have to help someone' or 'Destroy this thing' or 'Go gather intelligence at this spot'. Some missions will have time limits, too." Kojima explained to the interviewer, Famitsu publisher Hirokazu Hamamura, that going open-world with MGS5 is something that, if anything, was overdue for the type of games he creates. "With MGS up to now," he explained, "we could only build the interior of wherever you were infiltrating. How you got there was shown in a cutscene, and the player would just suddenly be in front of the entrance. Once you finished the mission, there'd be another cutscene, a helicopter or whatever would come by, and you'd escape. It's not that linear games are bad [...] but really, it'd be fun if you were the one thinking about how and where to infiltrate, what sort of equipment to bring, and how to get out of there." Hamamura asked Kojima how different having MGS5 be open world would really be — after all, you were free to either sneak past your foes or kill them all in past MGS games, too. "That's true," Kojima admitted. "I think the way that MGS is combined with an open world here is something that we haven't really communicated very well yet. In particular, with this game, we're building the control system and working the visual expressions for a global market to meet the needs of the North American market; that may have an impact on things too. But once you try it out, you should be able to feel like 'Yes, this is MGS.' I feel that games are interactive media, and the rush comes in being able to use what you're given freely to play. Open worlds create that for you, and I think the future of gaming lies in them." MGS5's E3 trailer concentrated on the main game and its characters, but Kojima's presentation at last month's Tokyo Game Show was primarily centered around Ground Zeroes, which serves as an extended prologue of sorts to the main MGS5 game. "The user interface is a bit different, but it's the same open world," Kojima told Famitsu. "There is a certain goal in separating the game like this, though — if we just threw you into the main open-world game, we figured that veteran MGS fans would get confused." As Kojima put it, GZ exists to help ease gamers into the full open-world experience. "The main section [of the game] is just really big," he said, "and you can have enemies attack you from 360 degrees around. As time passes, you reactions in-game will change depending on player actions. If you do a mission, you'll be tired out. You'd be exhausted after a round of airsoft, right? So let's take an hour-long break...something sort of like that. So to keep people from thinking 'This isn't MGS!', we'll limit the amount available to you at first and set a static time and weather pattern. So you'll get to play this open-world, highly free MGS in those conditions." There are story-related reasons for this split, too. "GZ takes place in 1975, a year after Peace Walker, and the main game takes place in 1984, nine years later," Kojima said. "Something bad happens at the end of GZ, and then you continue into the main game. Unless you play GZ, you won't understand why retaliation is one of MGS5's main themes. It really is the 'ground zero' of Snake's story." Kojima has also talked in the past about using cloud computing to create a "next generation social game world." Any news on that? "I can't talk about that yet," he laughed. "If I could give you a hint, for MGS5, we often talk in terms of 'removing the rules'. Instead of restricting players with the game design, we want to have it so players advance the way they want to. For example, in an infiltration mission, it's pretty rare that you go in without any support or intelligence. You have spies and advance forces; you have scouts set up a route for you." Sounds like the concept overlaps with Peace Walker's Mother Base a little. "The reason we're calling this game 'Tactical Espionage Operations' instead of 'Tactical Espionage Action,'" Kojima replied, "is because we're at the point where we're mixing the old MGS, Peace Walker, and this open world together. There's another world waiting within that mix, and it's one I hope you're looking forward to." MGS5, which has been announced for both PS and Xbox systems (current and next-gen), doesn't have a release date yet.
American mixed martial arts fighter Leonard Garcia (born July 14, 1979 in Plainview, Texas) is a retired American mixed martial artist who most recently competed in the Featherweight division of the Legacy Fighting Championship, and is the former Legacy FC Featherweight Champion. After making his professional debut in 1999, Garcia competed in WEC and in the UFC. Background [ edit ] Garcia was born and raised in Plainview, Texas. His mother gave birth to him when she was only 17 years old, and doctors had to inject steroids into Garcia's lungs because of a rare illness. Garcia was raised in his grandparent's home, who had a farm and, along with his uncles, helped raise the young Garcia. Garcia later attended Plainview High School, where he was a talented football player and had also been involved in martial arts and boxing. Garcia had been planning to walk-on to the Texas Tech football team, when he was involved in a physical altercation with a recently released felon at a local restaurant. The man had a knife and stabbed Garcia eight times, twice puncturing his lungs, causing them to collapse. Had it not been for the steroid injections when he was an infant, Garcia believes that he would have died. Not long after the incident Garcia, who would not be able to continue his football career because of his wounds, found a dojo and found his new passion in fighting.[1][2] Mixed martial arts career [ edit ] Early career [ edit ] Garcia began his career in 1999, competing on the regional circuit in the Western United States. Garcia competed in the first WEC event back in 2001 at WEC 1. After compiling an impressive 8–1 beginning to his professional career, Garcia took a three-year hiatus from competition. Returning to action in 2006, Garcia was tabbed as a short notice replacement against high ranking contender Roger Huerta at UFC 69 where he lost a very one-sided unanimous decision. Garcia then defeated Allen Berube by submission at The Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale. In his next bout Garcia lost via decision to Cole Miller at UFC Fight Night 11. After going 1–2 with the UFC, Garcia was released from his contract. World Extreme Cagefighting [ edit ] Garcia defeated Hiroyuki Takaya via first round knockout at WEC 32. In his next fight, Leonard knocked out former undisputed UFC Lightweight Champion, Jens Pulver 72 seconds into the first round at WEC 36. On March 1, 2009, Garcia lost the WEC Featherweight Championship match against champion Mike Brown. Brown landed a huge overhand right, knocking Garcia down in the first 30 seconds of the fight, landed some ground and pound, and then secured a fight-ending arm-triangle choke submission. Garcia defeated Jameel Massouh via a controversial split decision on August 9, 2009 at WEC 42. In his next fight, Garcia lost to Manvel Gamburyan on November 18, 2009 at WEC 44 via unanimous decision.[3] Garcia was expected to face Diego Nunes on March 6, 2010 at WEC 47,[4] but Nunes was forced from the card with an injury.[5] Garcia instead faced former UFC fighter George Roop[6] with the bout ending in a split draw. Garcia faced WEC newcomer Chan Sung Jung on April 24, 2010 at WEC 48. Garcia replaced Cub Swanson who was forced from the card with an injury.[7] The fight went the full three rounds and Garcia won in a controversial split decision. The fight won Fight of the Night honors, being hailed by UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and announcer Joe Rogan as "the best fight I've seen in my life." Garcia faced Mark Hominick on September 30, 2010 at WEC 51.[8] He lost the fight via split decision. Ultimate Fighting Championship [ edit ] In October 2010, World Extreme Cagefighting merged with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. As part of the merger, all WECfighters were transferred to the UFC.[9] Now managed by VFD Marketing,[10] Garcia was expected to face Tyler Toner at The Ultimate 12 Finale, but Garcia was pulled from the bout with Toner in favor of a bout with Nam Phan.[11] Garcia won the fight via a controversial split decision. Garcia and Phan received Fight of the Night honors for their performances.[12] This was the first televised featherweight bout in the UFC. A rematch with Phan was expected on March 26, 2011 at UFC Fight Night 24.[13] However, Phan was forced out of the bout with an injury and replaced by Chan Sung Jung.[14] Garcia lost to Jung in the second round, falling victim to the first twister submission in UFC history. Garcia was expected to face The Ultimate Fighter 12 alumni Alex Caceres on August 14, 2011 at UFC on Versus 5.[15] However, Garcia was forced out of the bout with an injury and replaced by Jimy Hettes.[16] Garcia fought Nam Phan in a rematch UFC 136.[17] Garcia lost via unanimous decision in a fight that earned Fight of the Night honors. Garcia was expected to face Zhang Tie Quan on February 26, 2012 at UFC 144. However, Garcia was forced out of the bout with an injury and replaced by promotional newcomer Issei Tamura.[18] Garcia fought Matt Grice on June 8, 2012 at UFC on FX 3.[19] Garcia lost the bout via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27). Garcia was expected to face Cody McKenzie on December 29, 2012 at UFC 155.[20] However, McKenzie was forced out of the bout with an injury and was replaced by Max Holloway.[21] Garcia lost the fight via a controversial split decision. While no official statement has been made by the UFC, Dana White said in his post fight interview after the UFC 155 press conference, that the UFC loves the fighters that lay it all out on the line.[22] The bout with Cody McKenzie was rescheduled for April 27, 2013 at UFC 159.[23] Garcia lost the bout via unanimous decision and was subsequently released from the promotion.[24] Legacy Fighting Championship [ edit ] After being released by the UFC Garcia left Jackson's Submission Fighting and joined Duane Ludwig's Team Alpha Male. On May 11, 2013, Garcia signed a three-fight deal with Legacy Fighting Championship, a promotion based out of Texas.[25] Garcia faced Rey Trujillo at Legacy FC 21 on July 19, 2013, He snapped his five fight losing streak winning via KO due to a head kick and punches in the third round. Garcia faced Nick Gonzalez at Legacy FC 23 on September 13, 2013.[26] He won the fight via rear-naked choke submission in the first round. On September 24, 2013 it was announced Garcia would face Kevin Aguilar for the Legacy FC Featherweight Championship on December 6, 2013 at Legacy FC 26.[27] He won the fight via knockout in the first round to win the Legacy FC Featherweight Championship. Garcia was expected to face Shane Howell for the Legacy FC Featherweight Championship at Legacy FC 29 on March 21, 2014, however, Howell fell ill hours before the event and the fight was pulled from the card.[28] In his first title defense, Garcia faced undefeated Damon Jackson at Legacy FC 33 on July 18, 2014.[29] He lost the fight via arm-triangle choke submission.[30] Garcia faced Daniel Pineda on November 14, 2014 at Legacy FC 37.[31] He lost the fight via submission in the first round and announced his retirement at the event after this loss.[32] Personal life [ edit ] In March 2008, Garcia was arrested as part of an alleged cocaine ring, which put his career on hold. According to Garcia, "I had a buddy, a really good friend of mine in Lubbock, and he was into things that weren't good," he said. "I knew about what the guy was up to but he was a friend of mine. The law says even if he's your friend, you are required to report on the guy. The other 11 guys, I didn't know any of them." Three months later, he was exonerated. In 1997, his sister Angelica, was killed in a car accident involving a drunk driver. Afterwards, Garcia limited his own drinking.[1][33] Garcia proposed to his girlfriend on March 21, 2014. Championships and accomplishments [ edit ] Mixed martial arts record [ edit ] Professional record breakdown 32 matches 18 wins 13 losses By knockout 5 0 By submission 10 4 By decision 3 9 Draws 1 Professional boxing record [ edit ] Professional record summary 1 fight 0 wins 1 loss By knockout 0 1 By decision 0 0 No. Result Record Opponent Method Round, time Date Location Notes 1 Loss 0–1 TKO 3 (4), 1:45 Nov 26, 2005 Music Hall, Austin, Texas Professional debut Bare knuckle record [ edit ] Professional record breakdown 1 match 1 win 0 losses By knockout 1 0 Res. Record Opponent Method Event Date Round Time Location Notes Win 1-0 Julian Lane TKO (punches) Bare Knuckle FC 4 February 2, 2019 2 N/A Cancun, Mexico See also [ edit ]
Buy Photo The Got Meds Lounge sits at the intersection of Holmes Road and Cedar Street in Lansing. (Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)Buy Photo LANSING – Steve Green, 37, is a medical marijuana patient with a particular distinction. Green has visited about 30 dispensaries currently open in Lansing and often jokes it only takes “two jars of pot and a lease” to get a local business started. “There are no guidelines; there’s no licensing procedure,” said Green, a Michigan medical marijuana cardholder since 2010. “It’s kind of great because it allows for true commerce to take place. But it also allows people from other areas to seek haven.” Lansing doesn’t have a licensing process for medical marijuana dispensaries, despite City Council’s passage of an ordinance in 2011 regulating the businesses. At least 30 businesses applied for licenses that year, according to the City Clerk’s Office, but the Court of Appeals struck down dispensaries as a violation of state law. Since dispensaries are technically illegal in Michigan, the City Attorney’s Office informed City Council in 2011 that any dispensaries open would operate at their own peril. Former City Attorney Brig Smith wrote in a letter after the Court of Appeals ruling that all Lansing dispensaries “refrain from engaging in any activities that do not comply” with the court ruling. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that dispensaries can be shut down using the state’s public nuisance law, a ruling that Attorney General Bill Schuette praised, saying it virtually prohibited retail marijuana sales. Yet dispensaries keep popping up in the Capital City, causing concern among some. Carol Wood, an at-large council member for 15 years, put it this way: “It’s as if Lansing passed an ordinance that if you run a red light you’re getting a ticket. But, you’re sitting at the light with a police officer watching everyone run a red light — and nothing happens.” Wood, chair of Lansing’s Public Safety Committee, helped craft the 2011 ordinance and said enforcement of dispensaries is out of City Council’s hands. Wood said she hasn’t heard from anyone at City Hall that the ordinance is unenforceable. If the ordinance is unenforceable, she’s willing to work on changes. Owners of dispensaries could have the best intentions and serve only medical marijuana cardholders, but the uncertainty gives the perception Lansing doesn’t care if laws are broken, Wood said. The ordinance included zoning restrictions for dispensaries, licensing requirements and hours of operation. Wood said city officials also are watching the Legislature, waiting to see if lawmakers will pass a bill clarifying the role of dispensaries. Mayor Virg Bernero believes Lansing dispensaries are following the law by serving only medical marijuana cardholders. He added that most law enforcement agencies would like much of the law to be clarified. The Lansing Police Department tries to work with prosecutors to make sure dispensaries comply with Michigan’s Medical Marihuana Act. “We’re trying to comply with the law,” Bernero said about dispensaries in an April interview, a few days before he spoke at Ann Arbor’s annual Hash Bash. “We continue to try and deal with the legal rubric that’s out there. I try to follow what’s out there (at state and federal levels), but right now it’s a bit of a hodgepodge.” Council member A’Lynne Boles, representing the 3d Ward, wants to push for a more balanced approach to dispensaries that prohibits owners from saturating specific areas of the city with the businesses. Boles, also a Public Safety Committee member, said the Police Department does the best it can to make sure dispensaries, their owners and customers don’t practice lawlessness. Local police, however, are challenged because of a gap between the city’s ordinance about dispensaries and state law, she said. “They have to decipher what is illegal and what is legal,” Boles said. Michigan’s Department of Licensing & Regulatory Affairs doesn’t track medical marijuana dispensaries, but confirmed this week there were 173,495 active registered medical marijuana patients in the state, and of those, 4,083 were in Ingham and Eaton counties. LARA spokesman Michael Loepp said there were also 33,004 registered caregivers for the drug. A dispensary isn’t considered by the state a “registered caregiver.” There were 1,963 caregivers in Ingham County and 864 in Eaton County who had cards issued during the 2014 fiscal year, Loepp said. Meanwhile, a ballot initiative proposed in April could make recreational marijuana in Michigan legal. The initiative could put the issue in the hands of the state Legislature or send it to a statewide vote in November 2016 if the Legislature rejects or takes no action on the bill. In Lansing, Bernero also has made it clear that low-level use of the drug is not a priority of the police department. Bernero said Lansing is going to “lead the way on marijuana sanity,” and the majority of residents appear open-minded. In fact, residents passed a City Charter amendment in 2013 that says nothing in city ordinances shall apply to the use, possession or transfer of less than one ounce of marijuana on private property by a person at least 21 years old. Residents who possess the drug, however, can still be charged with a crime under state or federal law. Green, the medical marijuana patient, uses the drug to treat his epilepsy. He describes Lansing as a friendly buyer’s market because of its relaxed possession restrictions and abundance of dispensaries. Green estimates the average price for marijuana at a Lansing dispensary is about $200 an ounce — much cheaper than practically anywhere else in the state, he said. The website PriceofWeed.com says the average national price of one ounce of “medium quality” marijuana ranges from $250 to more than $300. “There’s definitely sense of peace and security within the city limits,” Green said. “That’s not the same feeling you’re getting in several other places in Michigan.” A bill introduced in the state Legislature this year aims to address legal holes in state marijuana laws. State Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville, is one of 21 sponsors of a bill that would create legal medical marijuana “provisioning centers” — more commonly referred to as dispensaries — and safety compliance facilities to test marijuana sold to ensure patients receive safe products. Since caregivers aren’t allowed to pool marijuana for all their patients, and patients can’t get marijuana from other patients, the current law inadvertently created a delay, Callton said. “It might take months before your plant is medicine,” he said. “And if you have cancer, you might be dead by then. If your child is having seizures, are you going to wait months while you child is having seizures?” Callton said he’d prefer patients get the drug from pharmacies, but federal drug laws complicate that process. He added that medical marijuana can be safer than prescription pain killers, which have become a gateway to heroin use. Eric Lacy is a reporter for the Lansing State Journal. Contact him at 517-377-1206 or elacy@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @EricLacy. Staff writer Matt Mencarini contributed to this report. Read or Share this story: http://on.lsj.com/1Nfaz9n
During this week's episode of '', HaHa revealed that some lyrics in his song "" were lies. [SEEALSO]https://www.allkpop.com/article/2017/08/haha-shares-a-video-of-infinity-challenges-short-people-special-with-taeyang-taeil-ha-sung-woon-more[/SEEALSO] In the clip, HaHa and Yoo Byung Jae are seen planning the short special for the program. Yoo Byung Jae asked what kind of special HaHa was planning. HaHa answered, "There's no story/details yet, it's just going to be a gathering with the concept of 'Small but strong'." HaHa then asked Yoo Byung Jae if there were any times that he felt happy/blessed because he was short and in response, Yoo Byung Jae immediately said no while looking sad which made both of them burst out into a laughter. HaHa continued, "In the song 'Story of a Short Kid', I lied about a certain part. The lyric goes 'But I'm happy because I'm short because I can see all the things in the world'...that was a lie," this made everyone in the room laugh once again. The two comedians continued to express their hardships they've experienced over the years for being short.
More than three years have passed since the French military intervened in Mali to root out radical Islamists who had seized the northern half of the country. Operation Serval, which began in January 2013 as militants marched on the central Malian city of Mopti, marked a turning point in French President Francois Hollande's administration — in no small part by thawing the leader's chilly relationship with his Chadian counterpart, Idriss Deby. But the operation also underscored Chad's enduring importance to France, regardless of the figures leading the two countries. For more than a century, the African nation has served as a garrison protecting Paris' sway in the region — influence that France will be loath to give up. Given the advantages a friendship with France can offer Chad as well, little is likely to shake the tight bonds connecting the two in the years ahead. Guarding the Empire's Periphery Despite being landlocked and poor, Chad has long played a critical role in France's strategy on the African continent. In the late 19th century — a period that became known as "The Scramble for Africa" — France yearned to control the Sahara and any trade that crossed it. Paris also hoped to link its colonial possessions into a single swath of territory stretching from Senegal in the west to French Somaliland (today known as Djibouti) in the east. But the Fashoda Crisis of 1898, in which British troops halted a French colonial expedition as it moved toward the Sudan, brought a swift and decisive end to France's eastward expansion. Though Britain eventually succeeded in joining its African holdings from Alexandria to Cape Town, France never managed to conquer the Nile Valley — the final piece needed to merge the two halves of its African empire. Instead, the French push to the east ended at Chad. As the new terminus of French Equatorial Africa, Chad was tasked with protecting the empire's flank from numerous threats, including British troops in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Italian forces in Libya. After becoming a French protectorate in 1900, Chad was converted to a colony two decades later. During that time, French strategic planners conceptually split Chad in two: the "useless," desolate portion in the north and the "useful," fertile portion in the south. To them, the latter represented the colony's core, while the former simply provided strategic depth. But in August 1940, three months after France fell to Nazi Germany, the entirety of Chad became crucial to French war planners. The colony was the first to rally behind the Free French Forces of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, granting his troops a theater in which to keep fighting after Paris had capitulated. Moreover, several Central African colonies that were previously undecided between backing Vichy France or de Gaulle opted to follow Chad's lead. Stationed at the colony's capital, Fort Lamy, the Free French Forces were well-positioned to attack Axis troops in North Africa. With the help of the British Long-Range Desert Group, the French forces advanced northward and defeated Fascist Italy's troops at Kufra, Libya. From there, they joined additional British forces pushing eastward, playing a small role in the broader Allied effort to wipe the Axis powers from the African continent before taking aim at the heart of Italy. Navigating a Post-Colonial Africa France has maintained a somewhat peculiar relationship with its former African colonies since they gained independence in 1960. After all, they had long been intertwined with France's notions of grandeur and global prominence, in part because of the economic resources they provided. Though Chad itself — a country with few resources of its own — would normally be of little consequence to a foreign patron seeking economic wealth, its location proved invaluable. Nestled among neighbors plagued with threats to stability and security, Chad served during the Cold War as a vital component of France's defenses in its former African holdings — uranium-rich Niger, oil-producing Gabon and cocoa-growing Ivory Coast, to name a few. By maintaining a strong military presence in Chad, France was able to guard the abundant resources of its core from the reach of foreign rivals. In exchange for acting as the region's security guarantor, France also gained preferential access to its markets. Chad's position in the heart of the Sahel has given France the opportunity to take quick and decisive action in Africa, building the confidence of African leaders that Paris can and will make good on its security promises. This became especially important as competitors to French muscle began arising in the region. In 1983, for example, a joint force of Libyan soldiers and Chadian rebels attacked from Chad's remote north, hoping to reinstall the exiled former Chadian president and bring the country under Libya's domain. From there, the forces of Libyan Col. Moammar Gadhafi could spread deeper into Central Africa. In the absence of an African response to the invasion, French President Francois Mitterrand ordered his military to intervene. Soon 3,500 troops were deployed along the 15th parallel — the historical divider between Chad's "useless" north and "useful" south — to rebuff Libya's advances. Referring to his decision, Mitterand remarked, "In this complicated affair, it is necessary to have one simple idea. If Niger and [Cameroon] crack, it will be the end of French influence in Africa."
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. When President Barack Obama decided to allow undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to stay in the country and work, Republicans blew a gasket. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) raised the possibility of impeachment. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) vowed to sue the administration in court to block the move. And Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, accused Obama of putting “partisan politics and illegal immigrants ahead of the rule of law and the American people.” The GOP line: Obama went rogue and exceeded his constitutional powers. Yet Kadiatou Diallo and thousands of other undocumented immigrants like her are living proof that Kyl, King, and Smith are unjustifiably hyperventilating about Obama overstepping his authority. Diallo is in America because of George W. Bush. She came to the United States from Guinea in 1999, after her son died in a hail of 41 bullets, shot by New York City police officers who said they believed the wallet in his hand was a gun. Diallo—and her family—overstayed their visas. But rather than deport her, immigration authorities granted her deferred action (lawyer-speak for temporarily delayed deportation) and work authorization—and continued to do so every two years, for the entire time Bush was in office. “This is what my family uses to go to work, pay taxes,” Diallo says. “It’s the only thing we depend on now.” Diallo is a prime example of how presidents from both parties have long claimed the authority to grant temporary stays of deportation and work authorization to undocumented immigrants. In a series of memos issued after the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, a law that sought to curtail illegal immigration and prioritize removal of unauthorized immigrants, immigration officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations established guidelines and limits for when authorities could exercise leniency in dealing with unauthorized immigrants. “The [immigration] guidelines we issued in 2000 were not rescinded,” says Doris Meissner, a top immigration official in the Clinton administration who is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a nonpartisan think tank that studies migration. “They’re in place today; they were observed by the Bush administration.” Those guidelines were driven in part by complaints that, as a bipartisan group of members of Congress argued in a 1999 letter to the Clinton Justice Department, the deportation process was “unfair” and resulted in “unjustifiable hardships.” Smith signed that letter, which urged “discretion in removal proceedings.” But now the congressman says the president is undermining the rule of law. Bush officials didn’t just embrace the idea that the government can prioritize whom to deport—they expanded it. “The universe of opportunities to exercise prosecutorial discretion is large,” Bush immigration adviser William Howard wrote in a 2005 memo. Howard recommended letting people stay in the country when “compelling reasons exist,” such as an unauthorized immigrant being a relative of a US servicemember or for “sympathetic humanitarian factors.” Julie L. Myers, another Bush-era immigration official, issued another follow-up memo in 2007, advising immigration officials to consider letting people who had health problems or were taking care of sick relatives remain in the United States. The powers Obama exercised in June decision weren’t new. They don’t grant any of the unauthorized immigrants legal status or citizenship, and it would be a simple matter for a future president to change the rules again and deport the people Obama allowed to stay. And up until now, the Obama administration has been aggressive in pursuing deportations of unauthorized immigrants, removing more than a million since taking office. This chart shows how deportations have risen since Bush took office: Republicans are right about one thing in this controversy: The Obama administration is using the government’s immigration powers on a greater scale than they were previously used. A June analysis from the MPI estimates that 1.4 million unauthorized immigrants could benefit from the administration’s new policy. That’s a big change. As the chart below shows, until now Obama had actually granted fewer deferred actions than his predecessor—a little over 500 in 2010 compared to more than 1,000 in the last year of the Bush administration: If the MPI estimate is correct, the 2012 bar on a future version of this chart will be many times higher than the 2009 and 2010 bars. One of people who might be included in that 2012 number is Oleg Chashchukhin, a 22-year-old in Maryland whose father brought him here from Russia when he was seven. Chashchukhin has been getting by doing odd jobs like fixing cars. He has an associate degree in information services technology from a community college in Maryland, but he can’t afford to attend a four-year school in the state because of the out-of-state tuition rate. If he manages to acquire work authorization from DHS, he’ll be able to find regular work. Chashchukhin’s father was so excited that he actually taped Obama’s announcement of the new policy so his son could watch it. “I couldn’t believe that [Obama] even actually did it,” Chashchukhin says. “He’s the first one that actually even tried to do anything for people who are in the same boat I am.”
Men and women tweet differently, finds another groundbreaking study from the University of Duh. More interesting, according to a BuzzFeed report, is that the study of 9,212,118 tweets from more than 14,464 users reveals a set of markers that can predict a tweeter’s gender. Those markers might come in handy if, for some reason, you needed to convince your followers that you were female. Or, um, if your friend did. 1. Tweet your feelings. Emotion-related terms terms like sad, love, glad, sick, proud, happy, scared, annoyed, excited, and jealous are all female markers, says BuzzFeed. Try, “I’m sad that I’m going to die from Leukemia before my boyfriend can make me proud in the big game.” 2. Emote with punctuation. Yes, emoticons are a female marker. :/ But so are ellipses (a.k.a. textual side-eye), as well as exclamation marks and question marks, both at the same time (“?!” a.k.a. raised eyebrows) and repeated (!!!!!!). 3. Try to transcribe the sounds you’re making. Ah, ugh, hmm, and grrr are dead giveaways you’re a girl. 4. Especially your vocal fry sounds. By which we mean your decidedly feminine tic of draaaaagging words out in the back of your throaaauuttt. Typed out, it’s called “expressive lengthening.” And it worksssss, especially to emphasize words. Perhaps because it’s kind of like making it rain with characters. So wasteful. So decadent. 5. “Yes.” Or its variants, yessss and yessssss. “Yeah” and “yea” — and “jeah,” obviously — are for boys. 6. “No.” No means no, but “nah” means “bro.” 7. “Omg.” Easy. Also, “lol.” 8. No cursing! Or inventive cursing, anyway. All the boring, violent, or scatological swears (“Bullshit, damn, dick, fuck, fucked, fucking, hell, pussy, shit, shitty”) were male markers. Happy catfishing!
Anthony Martial celebrates scoring his second goal against Southampton last month Manchester United striker Anthony Martial has been named the PFA Fans' Player of the Month for August/September in the Premier League. Frenchman Martial, who joined United on Deadline Day from Monaco for £36m - a record fee for a teenager - scored three goals in his first two Premier League games, as well as putting in a man-of-the-match performance in the 3-0 win over Sunderland. The 19-year-old's performances led Manchester United back to the top of the Premier League for the first time in over two years at the end of September. Jamie Redknapp believes Anthony Martial is the best 19-year-old he's seen since Lionel Messi broke onto the scene over 10 years ago Jamie Redknapp believes Anthony Martial is the best 19-year-old he's seen since Lionel Messi broke onto the scene over 10 years ago Leicester's Riyad Mahrez and West Ham's new signing Dimitri Payet were alongside Martial on the final three-player shortlist for the Premier League, which was reduced from an initial shortlist that also included Bafetimbi Gomis (Swansea City), Odion Ighalo (Watford), Vincent Kompany (Manchester City), Graziano Pelle (Southampton), David Silva (Manchester City), Jamie Vardy (Leicester City), Callum Wilson (Bournemouth) and Ashley Williams (Swansea). Sheffield Wednesday's Ross Wallace takes the Sky Bet Championship award, Colchester midfielder George Moncur is the Sky Bet League One winner and Plymouth's Graham Carey is Player of the Month for Sky Bet League Two. Every month, throughout the English football season, fans will have the opportunity to vote on skysports.com for who they think has been the best player in each of the Barclays Premier League, Sky Bet Championship, Sky Bet League One and Sky Bet League Two, after Sky Sports teamed up with the PFA to be the digital platform for the Awards. Martial scored three goals in his first two games for Manchester United Before the vote opens each month, an expert panel will produce a shortlist of contenders. Fans will then be able to vote for the player they think deserves the award. The panel includes Sky Sports football pundits Paul Merson, Ian Holloway and Peter Beagrie. That trio will be joined by Mike Riley, general manager of the Professional Game Match Officials, and Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters Federation, as well as the winning fan from each month.
BERLIN (AP) — People crammed into boats and trekking across borders have become the dominant images of Europe’s migrant crisis. In the shadows, however, there are those who are profiting, for whom every migrant is a business opportunity. The business of migration extends far beyond the human traffickers, who often grab migrants’ money and send them on life-threatening journeys on rubber boats or in cramped trucks. It include bus companies and shelter operators that provide essential logistical help to authorities overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in need of housing and transportation. Telecoms companies that sell SIM cards with special contracts for cross-border calls. And petty food-and-drink vendors at train stations are even known to be price-gouging, charging migrants double or triple the amount they’d be charged in stores around the corner. There are no overall estimates for how much the business of migration rakes in — but there’s no doubting it’s a multi-million dollar industry. Authorities in Germany estimate the cost of housing and feeding migrants alone at about 12,000 euros ($13,400) per person, per year. Entrepreneur Bert Karlsson is among those profiting from the wave of migrants coming to Europe. The record company boss and founder of a now-defunct anti-immigrant party in Sweden raised eyebrows recently when Swedish media reported that his company, Jokarjo, had billed the government 132 million Swedish kronor ($16 million) to house asylum seekers. Sara Sundelius, a spokeswoman for the Swedish migration service, said the government would normally house asylum seekers in regular apartments. But due to the sharp rise in numbers, some 21,000 asylum seekers are being put up in cabins, small hotels and hostels at a cost of between 250-300 Swedish Kronor per day, per person. Sweden is one of the main destinations for many of the Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and others hoping to start a new life in Europe. Another is Germany, where the government has forecast between 800,000 and 1 million arrivals this year. German local authorities have long outsourced the management of refugee shelters to non-governmental organizations, particularly charitable groups such as Diakonie, AWO and the German Red Cross. But faced with an unprecedented influx of migrants, private companies have been able to offer cash-strapped mayors better deals. “We’re doing something some people consider dirty: we make money,” said Klaus Kocks, a spokesman for European Homecare, a housing company. The firm first began providing accommodation for migrants 25 years ago, when tens of thousands of ethnic Germans left the Soviet Union and Poland for Germany, following the collapse of communism. It expanded as a result of the Balkan wars, which again brought a wave of refugees to Germany. The latest surge has seen the number of shelters run by European Homecare double to 100 in the past year. The company’s 1,000 staff now care for 15,000 refugees in cities across the country. Refugee rights campaigners have criticized the company, claiming it cuts corners in order to be able to keep costs down and win contracts. Kocks denies this, saying European Homecare is simply better placed to keep costs low. The company buys in bulk to be able to provide full-board lodgings, with social and medical care, for as little as 11 euros per person, per night. “Where there’s price competition those who have lean overheads win,” Kocks told The Associated Press. European Homecare is currently in negotiations to buy modular containers left over from the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, to house new arrivals. The company also provides counseling to those asylum seekers facing deportation after their applications were rejected. Smaller companies, too, have been doing handsome business off migration. Far-flung hotels teetering on the brink of insolvency have received government contracts to provide all their rooms for refugees; one German firm has specialized in selling starter kits for refugees containing a bed, chair, table and kitchen utensils; security companies, meanwhile, are doing brisk business providing guards to keep the peace inside packed asylum centers and ensure they aren’t attacked by far-right extremists. The sums involved have attracted criminal enterprises too. In Rome, dozens of local politicians, businessmen and mobsters have been arrested or put under formal investigation in a huge corruption probe centered on allegedly tainted contracts to house and feed refugees. In one intercepted phone call, police overheard a suspect gleefully comparing the money to be made off services for asylum seekers to drug trafficking profits — without the risks. The greatest risks, but also biggest profits, are arguably taken by people traffickers who help migrants cross borders illegally. Many of those arriving in Germany say they paid traffickers to take them at least part-way into Europe. The cost of a short boat ride from Turkey to Greece, for example, can run to 2,000 euros per person. On both sides of the journey support industries have sprung up, with shops on the Turkish coast selling life-jackets and plastic pouches to keep cellphones dry, and those on the Greek side doing a brisk trade in tents and backpacks for the onward journey. Further north, in Hungary, smugglers were asking up to 250 euros a head to bring people from the border to Budapest a few weeks ago. In order to get to Munich, migrants had to pay another 600-650 euros. Security officials warn that the traffickers who are caught are inevitably small-time crooks, while the kingpins remain safely in the background. “Criminals who prey on the desperation of those fleeing conflict or poverty are making millions in profits, which can then be used to fuel corruption and fund other forms of serious transnational crime,” Juergen Stock, the head of Interpol, said recently. But word about the profits to be made off migration has also reached the upper echelons of the world’s financial industry. When European Homecare relinquished a contract to run the Traiskirchen refugee shelter in Austria three years ago, it was succeeded by ORS, a Swiss company. Its turnover in Switzerland, Austria and Germany amounted to almost $100 million last year, before the latest increase in migrants. ORS is part-owned by Equistone Partners Europe, a London-based fund manager. Equistone, in turn, counts among its investors Barclays Bank, as well as sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and insurance companies mainly based in Europe, North America, the Gulf and Asia. ___ Elena Becatoros in Athens, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Hamza Hendawi in Cairo and Frances D’Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.
Image caption Mesut Karakas was sacked from the Met in February A Metropolitan (Met) Police officer who led a plot to kidnap a bank manager for money has been jailed. Mesut Karakas, 25, of east London, was sentenced to 13 years after earlier admitting to conspiring to kidnap the manager of a London Lloyds TSB branch. Ijah Rowe, 24, Jamie Lowe, 25, and Gokhan Kuru, 24, admitted the same charge while Richmond Darko, 25, was convicted after a trial. The gang was arrested in October 2009 before the plan was carried out. Karakas, of Wragby Road, Leytonstone, was sacked from the Met in February and admitted all the charges against him. 'Callous' behaviour He was sentenced to 10 years for conspiracy to kidnap, two years for misconduct in a public office and one year for assault - to run consecutively. Sentencing at Blackfriars Crown Court, Judge Aidan Marron told him: "You were the principal in this conspiracy, about that no-one can have any doubt." Your collective activity was planned professionally and systematically Judge Aidan Marron Darko, of Prince Phillip Avenue, Grays, Essex, admitted assault but was found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap on 6 October and sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in prison. Rowe, of Chobham Road, Leyton, and Lowe, of Evering Road, Clapton, both east London, also admitted assault and were jailed for eight years and 11 years respectively. Kuru, of Birnam Road, Finsbury Park, north London, was jailed for seven years. Judge Marron said: "Your collective activity was planned professionally and systematically. "No-one listening to the probe material will forget the cold, callous way that you behaved." The court heard the men planned to set up a mock roadwork scene near the bank manager's home in order to carry out the kidnap. 'Motive was money' Police searches uncovered false number plates, industrial gaffer tape, dust masks, a balaclava, plastic handcuffs, industrial ear protectors and the van officers believed would have been used in the plot. Rosa Dean, prosecuting, said the mens' motive was money. The assault related to an incident in Chapel Market, north London, on 25 July last year when Darko, Karakas, Lowe and Rowe attacked a man with a baseball bat. Karakas then accessed the police incident report, printed it off four times and showed it to Lowe. Lowe pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice after an envelope containing £10,000 was posted through the letterbox of the assault victim asking him to drop the case against the four men. The court heard that the gang, joined by Kuru, started to plot the kidnap after the assault.
Story highlights Sheriff's sergeant says it's the worst attack he's ever seen The hostile bees drove off would-be rescuers (CNN) Alex Bestler and a friend were on a morning hike in Usery Mountain Park in Arizona when, without provocation, a large swarm of hostile bees attacked. Bestler, 23, was overtaken by the aggressive bees and stung more than 1,000 times, authorities said Thursday. Alex Bestler died after being swarmed by bees in an Arizona park. Rescue attempts Several people attempted to help Bestler as he lay on the ground, covered in bees, but the would-be rescuers were driven back by the angry swarm. Maricopa County Sheriff Sgt. Allen Romer finally used a utility vehicle to get close. He was "able to load Alex onto the UTV and remove him from the scene, still covered with bees, and a swarm pursuing," according to a statement from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Read More
Hundreds of migrants and refugees on the Greek island of Chios tore down part of the razor wire fence surrounding their holding centre on Friday and began walking to the port in protest, police officials said. Under a European Union deal with Turkey, migrants and refugees arriving after March 20 are to be held in centres set up on five Aegean islands, including Chios, and sent back if their asylum applications are not accepted. Returns are supposed to begin on April 4, though neither Greece nor Turkey are fully ready and uncertainty remains over how many will be sent back and how they will be processed. About 1,500 migrants and refugees who arrived on Chios since March 20 were being held at the facility as of Friday morning. Video clips on Greek websites showed dozens of migrants and refugees, many of them women and children, carrying their belongings and walking along the tree-lined road to the port. A police spokesman for the northern Aegean region to which Chios belongs said about 300 people had left the centre. Police were monitoring the situation, he said. Clashes broke out at the site late on Thursday, during which windows were smashed and 10 people were injured lightly, another police official said. “They say they don't want to go back to Turkey and that they are afraid for their safety after yesterday's clashes,” a police official on Chios said. “The police tried to persuade them to return back but they refused and now walking to the port of the island,” he said. Before the deal, arrivals on the islands were free to leave the camps and head for ferries to the Greek mainland, from where they would mostly head north via the Balkans in a bid to reach western Europe. Since March 20, however, they are meant to be held in the five centres set up on the Aegean islands of Samos, Chios, Lesvos, Kos and Leros. [Reuters]
Transcending speed and style the 1966 Shelby GT40 MK.II was peerless. Triumphing in the Le Mans 24, the GT40 dominated the racetrack and the motor industry. The enigmatic machine was born from the frustration of Henry Ford’s II failed attempt to purchase Ferrari and the subsequent desire to beat the ‘House of Enzo’. The Detroit based brand was determined to produce a vehicle capable of world racing success. Keen to replicate the team feats of the Shelby Cobra and Daytona Cobra coupes, all of which were powered by Ford engines, Henry Ford turned to the celebrated Carroll Shelby. Shelby was tasked with bringing a win on the grandest stage; Le Mans 24. Which he delivered with aplomb, as Shelby and Ford forged a formidable partnership – as they combined to win the tournament for 4 years straight between 1966-69. 50 years on from the GT40’s success, Shelby has decided to commemorate the occasion by creating an almost exact replica of the original vehicle. The new models are constructed around the first steel monocoque unibody chassis and fully independent suspension system. Staying faithful to the original, the replica includes over two thirds of the parts that are interchangeable with the 1966 iteration. Limited to only 20 models, in three distinct colours, the ageless race car shares many similarities with the original, such as the Smith-style gauges and silver riveted seat which help give the owner an authentic racing experience from times gone by. Boasting a rich racing pedigree with an iconic design to match, this GT40 MK.II is definitely one for the purists.
what proportion tens of millions of tax money have long gone to assist all of the various many archaeological/ fossil dig web content worldwide?!?! Then a similar tax money help the museums that homestead all of the previous bones and reflects of cave adult men and such. what proportion tens of millions of tax money are poured into The Smithsonian Institute?? what proportion tens of millions the place provide in those government Bail outs??They bailed out McDonalds!! despite for??? what proportion tens of millions of dollars are helping abortions? helping 5 million illegals? Evolution is a tax supported faith that makes use of compelled indoctrination by way of fact the only actuality attainable without different opinion allowed; and then to apply the separation of church and state to evade the different opinion!! Christians geared up the advent museum and now christians will build noah's ark. We pay taxes additionally. Non christians have Disney land, Dolly land, Las Vegas and Reno, by no skill-neverland, Hollywood,and so on. and so on. all styles of ingredient that have/use tax helps of one form or yet another. Why ought to taxpayer money be use to sell a various view? this is our money too?? To begrudge us Christians the excellent to construct our very own version with the tax money we positioned into the equipment is fairly being an smug bully. The scientology is a nasty sci-fi e book, we've celebrity wars and and different such reflects at Disney international. Allah's winged horse?? there are a number of winged horse on carousels and merry-pass-rounds in numerous leisure parks around the country. sabates · 2 years ago 0 Thumbs up 0 Thumbs down Report Abuse
CORAL GABLES, Fla. - The University of Miami released its 2016 football schedule on Tuesday in conjunction with the Atlantic Coast Conference. Miami's upcoming schedule will feature six away games and six home games at Sun Life Stadium, which will see the second phase of its renovation project completed for the Hurricanes' season opener. The schedule also features a challenging four game non-conference slate, which includes a trip to Notre Dame (Oct. 29). In total, eight of Miami's 2016 opponents played in a bowl game this past season and posted a combined record of 83-69. The Hurricanes kickoff the 2016 season under first-year head coach Mark Richt on Sept. 3 against Florida A&M. Miami's additional non-conference opponents include matchups against FAU (Sept. 10) and at Appalachian State (Sept. 17). Miami opens league play on Oct. 1 as it travels to Georgia Tech. The following week on Oct. 8, the Hurricanes welcome in-state rival Florida State to Sun Life Stadium. The Hurricanes' remaining conference slate includes matchups with North Carolina (Oct. 15), at Virginia Tech on a Thursday (Oct. 20), Pittsburgh (Nov. 5), at Virginia (Nov. 12), at NC State (Nov. 19) and Duke (Nov. 26). Miami concluded the 2015 season in the Hyundai Sun Bowl, falling to Washington State by a score of 20-14. The Hurricanes return 17 starters and six all-conference players from last year's squad that posted an 8-5 mark. In 2015, the Hurricanes logged a 5-1 record inside Sun Life Stadium. Miami has posted a 12-1 non-conference home record since 2011 and are an impressive 16-4 in its last 20 home games. For the latest information on the Miami Hurricanes, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, @CanesFootball, or visit our website at HurricaneSports.com. For the most accurate and up to date information delivered to your phone, download the official Miami Hurricanes app for your Droid or iPhone. Season tickets to the 2016 Miami Hurricanes football season are on sale now – visit CanesTix.com or call (305) 284-2263 for more information. 2016 MIAMI FOOTBALL SCHEDULE Sept. 3 FLORIDA A&MSept. 10 FLORIDA ATLANTICSept. 17 at Appalachian StateSept. 24 OPENOct. 1 at Georgia TechOct. 8 FLORIDA STATEOct. 15 NORTH CAROLINAOct. 20 at Virginia Tech, ESPN (Thu.)Oct. 29 at Notre DameNov. 5 PITTNov. 12 at VirginiaNov. 19 at NC StateNov. 26 DUKE
Sen. Al Franken Alan (Al) Stuart FrankenVirginia can be better than this Harris off to best start among Dems in race, say strategists, donors Virginia scandals pit Democrats against themselves and their message MORE (D-Minn.) said on Tuesday that he is focused on a lengthy career in the Senate in response to a question about whether he would set his sights on a presidential bid. "No, I see a future five-term senator," he said on "CBS This Morning." Franken declined to name which one of his Democratic colleagues he believes would be a good choice for the party's nomination, saying "it wouldn't help to single one out." Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and cast member, mounted his first bid for the Senate in early 2007 and won the election the next year. He was reelected to another six-year term in 2014. ADVERTISEMENT He has emerged as a rumored contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in recent months because of his vocal opposition to President Trump.
Story highlights The baby and her family were victims of an airstrike The White Helmets are nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize this year (CNN) Covered in dust and the remains of yet another airstrike in the Syrian city of Idlib, a young man clutches a small baby and cries. It's hard to tell what his tears are for as he softly weeps in the back of an ambulance. Are they out of relief? Disbelief? It's mostly silent as gloved hands dab at the baby's dirty face. There is some blood, but her eyes are open. She makes little baby sounds. As she reaches up to her rescuer, he utters a plea over and over. "Ya Allah." Dear God. She's not his daughter, but he later tells a reporter it felt like she was. The man, Abu-Kifah, is a Syrian Civil Defense volunteer. They call them White Helmets, and they are often the first on the scene for moments like this. Fortunately for Abu-Kifah and his charge, this is a moment of consolation amongst pain. The baby and her family survived the attack. He and three or four other people dug for hours to free the infant from the rubble. He estimates she is no more than 30 days old.
If you've never tried Firefox, Safari, Opera Google Chrome or other Internet Explorer alternatives, now might be a good time. Microsoft's flagship browser, the default choice on countless Windows machines, currently has a serious security flaw that affects all versions of the browser running on any version of Windows. The vulnerability allows hackers to gain access to any sensitive data on your PC. Even more worrying, the exploit is already in the wild and no there's no fix in sight, leading a number of security researchers to suggested that, in the interest of avoiding malicious software, users switch to another browser. If you're the pry-it-out-of-my-cold-dead hands sort of IE fan, there is one bright side to news that some 10,000 sites are ready to pwn your PC: so far the sites are mostly Chinese and the malicious software is mainly after passwords for computer games, which can be sold on the black market. But given the scope of the flaw and the fact that Microsoft has yet to release a patch, don't expect that to last. Eventually far more sophisticated trojans will likely emerge with far more dangerous goals. Obviously Microsoft isn't recommending you ditch IE (though the company didn't hesitate to suggest dumping Apple's Safari browser when it suffered from a far less serious vulnerability). Instead the company has released a security bulletin with possible workarounds, including running IE in Protected Mode and running Windows as an non-administrative user (to limit the damage an attacker can inflict). Microsoft also says it is investigating the flaw and may push out an emergency software patch, rather than wait for the next monthly patch cycle to roll around. See Also:
The crowds that stream into Kabul’s wedding halls each night have given rise to a subculture of “toi paal” — wedding crashers. They are uninvited men who hang around the stretch of the airport road that has been nicknamed “Las Vegas,” for the bright neon lights and mirrored glass of the wedding halls. They show up in droves to places with names like Crystal or Evening of Paris, complete with a miniature Eiffel Tower, and City Star, with a glowing crescent several stories high. Because weddings are generally segregated by gender, usually by huge partitions, the draw is not the opportunity to meet women so much as it is the banquet fare of lamb, chicken, kabuli pulao (a traditional lamb pilaf), yogurt, fruit and pudding. Most young men in Kabul seem to know the expression, “With a wedding every night, there is no need to go hungry.” People across Kabul still speak of the wedding several years ago of a vice president’s second youngest son. Two of the capital’s giant wedding halls, as well as two of its nicest hotels, were booked to accommodate the 4,000 to 7,000 guests, according to the lore among wedding hall owners. Young men whose fathers are not vice presidents are among the bill’s most ardent supporters. “I demand that the president sign this law,” said Jawed, 24, who sells fabric in a small stall in an underground shopping mall. “I beg him to sign this law as soon as possible so people like me can get married soon.”
The web is going HTTPS only. In theory. The idea is that unless we encrypt all the transport things, we can have no confidence in the confidentiality, integrity or authenticity of the traffic and services we’re talking to. There’s growing awareness of how essential secure transport comms are (thank you NSA for your part in helping us come to this realisation), and indeed we’re being continually pushed in this direction. For example, last year Google said they’d start using the presence of HTTPS as an SEO ranking signal. They’re also recommending that browsers begin changing their UX to display non-secure origins as affirmatively non-secure or in other words, flipping from the model from displaying nothing about the connection security when the resource is HTTP to instead explicitly saying it’s an insecure connection. This is all very good and it’s moving us in the right direction. Except there’s one big problem… Yesterday Scott Helme posted some stats on the results of him crawling the top 1M sites based on Alexa rankings. He was looking for response headers such as HSTS, HPKP and CSP, but he also took note of how many sites were enforcing HTTPS by redirecting any HTTP requests to it. The result? Less than 7% of the top 1M sites are doing HTTPS only. I can only assume it drops off as you go further down the order too as clearly those top 1M include a disproportionately large number of banks and other assets which are more predispositioned to being secure by default. So why is this? SSL is still a premium service. It’s either harder to get than just plain old HTTP services, more expensive or in some cases, just impossible. Let me give you some notable examples that I’ve come across in recent times because despite my best efforts, I continually face both financial and technical hurdles. Blogger First off, unless you’re reading this in the future, you’re reading it on my blog over an insecure connection. That wasn’t such a big deal in 2009 when I started it, but it is now and there’s nothing I can do about it without investing some serious effort and dollars. I run on Google’s Blogger service which ironically given their earlier mentioned push to SSL, does not support it. Whilst Google doesn’t give me a means of directly serving content over SSL, I could always follow my own advice and wrap CloudFlare’s free service around it, but that won’t work unless I update the source of every single image I’ve ever added to almost 400 existing blog posts… and there’s no find and replace feature. This is the joy of SaaS – it’s super easy to manage and good at what it’s specifically designed to do, but try and step outside of that and, well, you’re screwed. Unless… Hey @CloudFlare, how about a feature to rewrite embedded content to use the HTTPS scheme? Make it easy to drop SSL on without mixed content. — Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) August 10, 2015 One minute later I had a response from CloudFlare’s CEO (kudos to him!): @troyhunt we're thinking about how to do that. We want to make sure it works with even content loaded by JS onto a page (e.g. ad nets). — Matthew Prince (@eastdakota) August 10, 2015 Fair enough, it’s not an easy problem to solve, but there’s an opportunity for them to tap a market of people in precisely my predicament if they can get it right. Without the service (i.e. Blogger) natively supporting HTTPS and without a low-friction way of wrapping SSL around it, everything gets harder. Not just harder, but more expensive; Blogger is 100% free, even on the occasions where I’ve had hundreds of thousands of page views in a day and that’s the sort of volume which can cost some cash with commercial services. The bottom line is that I get put in this predicament: in order to support SSL on a 100% public blog site that doesn’t collect any information from anyone or represent things where integrity and authenticity are vital and likely to be at risk of an MitM attack, I must invest days of effort and pay money on an ongoing basis as well. You see how it’s difficult to justify the ROI? I want to do it and if it was easy and cheap or offered a tangible upside then I would do it, but unfortunately it’s none of those things so it’s not on the immediate term set of priorities. It will, however, eventually happen so perhaps I should just move to another blogging platform and just fix the image sources myself? For example, I recently created Kylie’s blog on hosted Ghost which is excellent. But ignoring for a moment the effort involved in moving the entire blog contents, template and all the other necessities that go with it, Ghost has their own problems. Ghost Pro I put Kylie’s blog on Ghost Pro which is effectively their hosted platform. Unfortunately though, when it comes to SSL there are a couple of problems with their pricing plan: The first problem is that there is no SSL. Yes, it’s “coming soon” and that’s great but this alone gives you a sense of how high a priority it is. Now I don’t just want to pick on Ghost because they’ve been excellent and this is more reflective as the industry as a whole, but it was obviously more important for them to get a service out there with no transport layer protection than it was to properly secure it. The other issue is the cost – it’ll triple in order to support SSL. Kylie is running on the $8/m plan which is just right for a brand new site, but she’ll have to go $24/m in order to support SSL. This is what I mean in the title about SSL being a “premium service”. Philosophically it should be a foundational component of every website but whilst services market it as a commercial offering, it will continue to be ignored by many sites. If you followed the link through to Kylie’s site, you may have noticed it’s actually https://kyliehunt.com because I’ve wrapped CloudFlare around it. Unfortunately though I can’t redirect all requests to the insecure scheme over to HTTPS. Why not? Because of this: <meta property="og:url" content="http://kyliehunt.com/"/> The Open Graph tag that Ghost adds to the source of their SaaS offering explicitly uses the HTTP scheme. If you’re 301’ing back to the secure scheme then as soon as you try and post an HTTPS link to Facebook and it goes and crawls the site, it finds the og:url tag and requests the URL in that instead because it’s using a different scheme. That then results in a 301 to the secure scheme which returns the tag above again with the insecure scheme and, well, things go in circles until it gives up. And you cannot change this on their SaaS platform. Ok, so maybe I should just host her blog directly on Azure instead and manage it in a PaaS style with their website offering? There are logistical reasons why I don’t really want to do this (mostly boiling down to me not wanting to now maintain a blogging platform), but let’s go and take a look at the Azure offering anyway. Azure Here’s the Azure website service tiers: The “Shared” model is an excellent resource for standing up a small website on a custom domain and it’s less than $10/m. Unfortunately though as you can see from the chart above, there’s no option for SSL so you have to move to the “Basic” offering. Now we’re looking at $56/m for that plus another $9/m for SSL which is almost seven times more expensive. Now you do get a lot of extra stuff with this service tier and as you may already know, I’m very supportive of the Azure platform as a whole but this just goes to support my premise for writing this post: SSL is a service that you frequently pay a premium for and as a result it is detrimental to the uptake of secure communications on the web. More and more of the same These are but a few examples that have directly impacted me in recent times, but the list goes on and on beyond those. Hosted WordPress on WP Engine charges you $50/y for a cert and won’t let you bring your own on their entry level plan: If you want to host Drupal on Rackspace then that’ll be another $20/m: Even the marketing around SSL is a mess and I recently lamented how Comodo were presenting non-EV certs in an unfavourable light: Holy crap, I never knew how sad people look when they're browsing a site without an EV cert! https://t.co/SHKJzV6IPm pic.twitter.com/OInFWf8YTo — Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) August 5, 2015 This is just ludicrous! It inevitably lead people to ask – “Is the encryption of an extended validation certificate really that much better?” – of course it’s not! It only adds to the confusion and complications that surround SSL. Can we all just get on with making this happen properly already?! As soon as someone is faced with the option of doing something cheaply and easily versus with more money and more effort, the former is going to be the default position unless they can readily justify the friction of the latter and that’s where SSL frequently is at the moment. CloudFlare is the notable exception here and kudos to them for helping fill the present gap by giving everyone SSL for free (even if it’s just from the browser to CloudFlare’s infrastructure) and allowing them to wrap it around their existing service but even that requires people to actively seek it out and configure it. The barriers above aren’t too much of a hurdle for sites of a scale and significance that benefit the most from SSL, they’ll jump through the necessary hoops required to get it. The real problem is the very long tail of smaller sites that don’t have an explicit requirement to serve traffic securely and in lieu of not having an option to do so, simply don’t. Like troyhunt.com, they then become more and more tied to insecure comms and the barrier to change at a later date gets higher and higher. The Let’s Encrypt initiative has a lot of promise but who knows when that will actually launch let alone be seamlessly integrated into the services mentioned above. I’ve been watching their homepage eagerly this year and paying particular attention to the launch date: Even when it hits, will the likes of Google, Microsoft, Ghost et al embrace the “free, automated, and open” nature of it and cannibalise revenue from both the direct SSL services they sell and the up-sell it forms as part of in their higher tier offering? It’s unlikely and unfortunately that means that for the foreseeable future, SSL will remain as a premium service and customers will overlook the benefits in favour of immediate term cost. Until there’s an “Add SSL for free” button, this whole thing is going to continue progressing at a very, very slow rate.
INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Mack paid the Cleveland Browns a visit last week. That is a sign of something as the date draws closer for Mack to decide if he is going to opt out of the final three years of his contact and become a free agent. Alex Mack is listening to the Browns' pitch before he could become a free agent. Ken Blaze/USA TODAY Sports Mack visited personally with coach Hue Jackson, director of football operations Sashi Brown and new offensive line coach Hal Hunter to see the direction of the Browns. Brown said talks were about Mack's role and the new leadership's "vision for winning," which is all well and good and will say something to Mack. But free agent contracts are a matter of dollars and cents, so rather than wait for the Pro Bowl center to hit the market after an opt out, the Browns are working to give him a restructured deal — and a raise. Mack has to make a decision on the opt-out by March 4, with unrestricted free agency beginning March 9. "My estimation would be if he's going to be in Cleveland, we'll get to a deal before we get to the opt-out," Brown said.
First Listen: Ray LaMontagne, 'God Willin' And The Creek Don't Rise' Audio for this feature is no longer available. Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist Ray LaMontagne may be dismissed as the kind of musician relegated to warm, fuzzy television dramas, but there's much more to the husky-voiced singer-songwriter. On his fourth studio album, God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise, he's joined by his terrific band The Pariah Dogs: Jay Bellarose on drums, Jennifer Condos on bass, Patrick Warren on keys, Eric Heywood on guitar and Greg Leisz on steel guitar. The album was recorded in LaMontagne's woodsy home in western Massachusetts, which helps lend that rural sound which runs through all of his records. Whereas 2008's Gossip in the Grain was a more expansive release, God Willin' exists in a more compact musical space. As the album's title suggests, it's a country-tinged record complete with slide guitar and the occasional banjo. The songs conjure images of a simple life of hammock naps and skillet-cooked breakfasts within a universe devoid of cell phones, laptops and televisions. The only interruption to his scene of melancholy serenity occurs in the first track, "Repo Man," which kicks off the album with an aggressive guitar riff and accusatory lyrics. The rest of the album operates at a much slower pace, though, wandering from regret to occasional contentment. With God Willin', LaMontagne continues to churn out soulful tunes that relentlessly tug at the heart strings. He isn't covering new territory, but his music is no less satisfying for its familiarity. For example, in "New York City's Killing Me," he laments the sterility of urban living, singing, "I was just kicking along the sidewalk / No one looks you in the eyes / No one asks you how you're doing / Don't seem to care if you live or if you die." LaMontagne reins in his characteristic raspiness on God Willin'. It's still very much present, but he rarely belts the notes as on previous records. Instead, he favors clarity and a smoother delivery, as evidenced by the contemplative "Old Before Your Time." God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise comes out August 17 and will stream here in its entirety until September 7. Please leave your thoughts on the album in the comments section below.
T-Mobile was quick to tout its own success with Wi-Fi calling after AT&T (NYSE: T) noted its customers' uptake of the technology earlier this week. Bill Smith, AT&T's president of technology operations, told attendees at an investors conference Tuesday that the carrier is routing more than 4 million calls a day over Wi-Fi. AT&T began to offer Wi-Fi calling on newer iPhones last fall, and last week it extended the service to Android users for the first time when it launched it on the LG G4. "We just recently started turning up Android-based operating systems, so I think that's going to go up tremendously, and we're doing that at extremely impressive performance levels," Smith said, as quoted in FierceWireless' report. T-Mobile reached out to FierceWireless soon after the story posted to offer its own statistics. More than 6.5 million T-Mobile customers use Wi-Fi calling on a monthly basis, the carrier said, and nearly 44 million devices on its network support the technology. T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray piled on, taking to Twitter to boast that the operator sees 22 million Wi-Fi calls per day. "@ATT so cute you do 4M WiFi calls," Ray tweeted. As Smith said earlier this week, increasing uptake of Wi-Fi calling bodes well as traffic continues to ramp up, forcing carriers to look to unlicensed spectrum as well as licensed airwaves. "Unlicensed has to come into the mix when you think about wireless solutions," Smith observed. "About 80 percent of the wireless traffic today is handled over Wi-Fi networks, so we're actually pretty bullish about how we take not only Wi-Fi but other unlicensed bands. And if you build a control plane that is sophisticated enough to manage that effectively, it can really help you…. So when you consider that this has been kind of an un-engineered asset that we've been taking advantage of, I think when you look going forward we will be sophisticated enough to use unlicensed bands more effectively and in a more sophisticated manner." Related articles: AT&T routing more than 4 million voice calls a day over Wi-Fi AT&T launches Wi-Fi calling on the LG G4 T-Mobile counts 7M customers using Wi-Fi calling The voice renaissance: VoLTE, HD Voice and Wi-Fi calling bring innovation to voice
Jonathan Bartley will tell his party’s conference that the foreign secretary is a ‘poison’ and a ‘human wrecking ball’ The Green party co-leader Jonathan Bartley will claim that Boris Johnson’s undiplomatic language about Libya, Barack Obama and people living in the Congo amounts to no more than old-fashioned bigotry. He will use a flagship speech to his party’s conference in Harrogate on Monday to claim the Conservative party is “led by a zombie prime minister” and “rotten to its core”. But Bartley, who runs the party alongside Caroline Lucas, will save his biggest attack for the foreign secretary, whom he will describe as a “poison” at the core of the Conservative movement. “In many ways he is a joke. But then you listen to what he’s actually saying. Let’s not pretend that Boris Johnson’s comments about dead bodies in Libya was an aberration. It wasn’t,” Bartley is expected to say. “This is the man who calls Barack Obama ‘part Kenyan’ with ‘ancestral dislike’ of the UK. Who describes people from the Congo as having ‘watermelon smiles’. Calls Commonwealth citizens ‘flag-waving piccaninnies’.” Theresa May suggests she is prepared to demote Boris Johnson Read more Bartley will also refer to Johnson using a column in the Telegraph to cast doubt on climate change, and controversial comments about “Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing”. Referring finally to the controversy when Johnson was editor of the Spectator and the magazine suggested Liverpudlians were wallowing in their “victim status” after the Hillsborough tragedy, Bartley will say: “This is not new bigotry. It’s old. It’s unacceptable. And it’s time the Conservative party took collective responsibility for this human wrecking ball and kicked him out of the cabinet.” Bartley will also use the speech to try to grasp back credit for the Greens for policies that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party has taken hold of, resulting in a successful boost with the electorate. “Where we lead, others follow. Our London assembly members forced a living wage. Our MEPs stood up for refugees when others stood back. And in parliament, we have consistently kept climate change on the agenda. “And you know what? I believe we will be the most influential party in 21st-century politics.” However, Bartley knows the Greens have a fight on their hands to re-establish their relevance after losing voters to Labour at the last election. The party slipped backwards in the June poll, gaining just 1.6% of the vote, compared with 3.8% in 2015. The Greens also made no inroads in target seats such as Bristol West and Norwich South, where the incumbent Labour MPs increased their majorities and the Green candidates lost vote share. An insurgent force for good – that’s our vision for the Green party \| Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley Read more Bartley will say that it was his party that was standing “against the establishment consensus that austerity was necessary” after the financial crash seven years ago, long before Corbyn placed the issue at the core of the Labour message. “We warned that the system was unsustainable. And then there was the financial crisis. In 2010 we were told by the Tories, by Labour, by the Lib Dems that austerity was the only answer. We said no. And we kept saying no. We joined UK Uncut on the streets. We marched to Downing Street. We bravely dared to be different. And seven years later, the agenda has changed.” He will also claim that the Green party changed minds on fracking and had triggered a debate on the universal basic income. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme before his speech, Bartley defended the Greens’ decision to stand aside in a series of seats in June’s election to assist Labour or Lib Dem candidates, saying it was “a very bold thing to do”. He said: “We’ve seen a profound change in British politics as a result of what happened. “Many commentators suggest that if we hadn’t stood aside, if local parties hadn’t made those decisions, we wouldn’t have the hung parliament now, we wouldn’t have seen the change of agenda that we’re seeing from the government. A profound impact – I think it was worth it.” But he stressed that there was “a whole lot of difference between us and Labour” on policy, citing the Greens’ opposition to new nuclear power stations, Trident, and support for free movement of people, a shorter working week and the universal basic income. “There is a huge agenda which Labour are not taking on board,” he said. The issue of Brexit is also likely to be widely discussed at the conference, after Molly Scott Cato MEP reaffirmed the party’s commitment to a “ratification referendum” as a means of reversing the referendum vote. She told delegates that promising such a vote could help “bring an end to this damaging and dangerous chapter in our country’s history”, as she called on the room to “stop Brexit!” The Greens argue that it is not undemocratic to ask for a further vote. “We are asking for more democracy, not less. We are asking for a democratic choice between two real, possible futures at the end of the Brexit negotiations: the deal, or remaining a member of the EU,” added Scott Cato.
Source: Spencer Platt / Getty NBC reports that a group of Yemeni business owners plan to shut down their delis, grocery stores and bodegas across New York City in protest of President Trump’s reports that a group of Yemeni business owners plan to shut down their delis, grocery stores and bodegas across New York City in protest of President Trump’s erroneous travel ban . Sources say the mass closing will take place from noon until 8 p.m. on Thursday. Several thousand of the neighborhood stores are reportedly owned by Yemenis and hundreds of the stores around the city are expected to take part in the protest to show how much they’re a part of the fabric of New York City. One Bronx store owner says all of his businesses will be closed on Thursday as his mother is currently stuck in Jordan, unable to move forward with her visa process. Following the shutdown, organizers also plan to hold a rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall Thursday evening.
Over the last couple of days I have been trying to implement the Sharing Problem (Ruby Quiz #65: Splitting the Loot) in Scala. So far I have implemented the greedy pick algorithim and still need to implement a recursive solution that will brute force the edge cases. However on the way I think I have picked up some important lessons. You can see the code for yourself in the GitHub project related to the problem and the solution (it’s in the Scala directory) but I will be highlighting some of the code in this post. This was the first set of Scala I’ve done that was actually an attempt to use some of the functional aspects of Scala rather than just porting Java code in a more or less literal and imperative way. After struggling a little bit with the implict return and list concatenation I implemented the greedy heuristic. This is what it looked like (link to the code file). import gems._ package splitter { class LootSplitter object LootSplitter { def splitLoot(gembag: GemBag, shares: Int): List[GemBag] = { if((gembag.totalValue % shares) != 0) { return List[GemBag]() } val individualShareValue = gembag.totalValue / shares var partShares: List[GemBag] = List.make(shares, new GemBag(List())) gembag.gems.sort(_.value > _.value).foreach((gem: Gem) => { partShares = partShares.sort(_.totalValue < _.totalValue) partShares = List(partShares(0) add gem) ::: (partShares drop 1) }) partShares } } } } I was struck initially by how compact this code was, you are looking at about 28 lines of code. However as I was looking at it I began to wonder whether it was concise or just terse. How is someone meant to interpret something like _.value > _.value? I showed it to a collegue and his first reaction was “I don’t know functional languages so I wouldn’t know what this means”. This was exactly the kind of reaction I was afraid of because I have been converted heavily to the principal of readable code. Someone should be able to scan code and understand, in principle, what is happening here. If they don’t then the cost of maintaining that code is going to be higher and we have actually lost something in the concise syntax. I decided to try and implement a readable version of the same file which added about 6 lines (only two according to GitHub!). You can read this version here but now I want to throw it open to the public. Is this version actually easier to read? Are things like the underscore variable actually part of the price of comprehending Scala? In my rewritten version I use some of the nice features of Scala such as first order functions but you still have lines like this: List(sortedBags(0) add gem) ::: (sortedBags drop 1) I hope you are reading this as “add a gem to the first sortedBag and make a List of it and then add all the other bags except the first one to the new list” but I am worried that this is far from obvious. Is that because I’ve done something that isn’t idiomatic or is it because actually the operators and the library API are too obscure? Scala represents a significant evolution of Java in terms of absorbing all the lessons learned during the evolution of the language. When porting Java code I feel far more comfortable with it than when I am trying to create new code that uses the core language libraries. I don’t want to evolve to a new set of problems and best practices that try to avoid them.
It may come as a surprise to some New Zealand rugby supporters but I'm a genuine northern hemisphere-raised rugby fan who doesn't despise the All Blacks. In fact, there are quite a few of us non-AB bashing, oval-ball obsessives from up north who firmly believe Richie McCaw is the greatest player of the professional era (sorry, BOD) and that the current All Blacks are deserving of every plaudit that comes their way. Not that the stories running in New Zealand over the past month would have you believe it. Apparently the All Blacks are still looking for a little R.E.S.P.E.C.T, or so we're told. I'll actually go out on a limb here and say we northern All Black admirers are in the majority, and by a sizeable margin too. Sure you'll get the odd nutjob who claims the All Blacks are nothing special, over rated and just holding the torch until the great decade of Scottish domination comes around – attention seekers in other words – but for any Kiwi to claim their national side is generally disrespected by a British, Irish or French audience is both wrong and wholly disingenuous. The All Blacks remain one of sport's greatest mythical entities – even for the Six Nations sides. There's still a bell that rings in European fans' imaginations when those fabled dark lords collectively grunt to their haunches and blister through a haka. They remain the major drawcard in world rugby. Take this for example. When the All Blacks rode into Dublin last year the local media proclaimed their coming as one the Irish sporting public should cherish. The national broadcaster RTE compared them to Pele, Jesse Owens and Babe Ruth. To be in their vicinity was to be in the presence of greatness. New Zealand were treated like kings and duly pulled off a regal play worthy of the occasion to break Irish resistance at the death. "Ah, son… tis the All Blacks," one Irish father said to console his little boy whose heart Ryan Crotty had broken. "It's what they do… they're just brilliant." It's a respect that's shared across all European nations; at games in Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Cardiff, Paris and Rome. The respect and adulation the All Blacks receive almost borders on the sycophantic at times. To be honest the northern nations would be better served by not having such fawning respect and focusing on themselves. "I don't think these guys [Ireland] know just how tough they are," Steve Hansen said the wake of his side's great escape at the Aviva. It's a pity then that the All Blacks are constantly let down by the media at home and elements of their own support. There's a xenophobia these days, driven by Kiwi media and a sizeable minority of rugby supporters, that's become a horrible characteristic of life in New Zealand, especially when the All Blacks travel north. Take the annual Twickenham disrespecting the haka story that does the rounds in New Zealand every November. Wow, fans singing and showing support for their team on their own patch – the cheek of it. Or ludicrously OTT reaction to one London journalist's World XV – which was only based on three rounds of November internationals, anyways. Instead of whipping up a shit-storm over the supposed slight against the people of New Zealand when Brodie Retallick was omitted from the Telegraph's selection, perhaps the Kiwi media and seething elements of the All Black fan base should have taken to task some of their own players (Retallick being one in this instance) for failing to remember their opponents' names on the eve of a test match. Not a massive issue but surely that's more of a slight than one man's selection in a paper virtually no Kiwi reads. It's this preciousness, however, that highlights the hypocrisy which so rife in some (and I stress some) elements of the New Zealand rugby public. They demand the All Blacks be lauded the world over - which they are – yet seem to think it's perfectly fine to treat all other teams (Springboks excluded) with utter disrespect – especially when they come to tour this beautiful country. Mostly it's local media, however, some alleged supporters of New Zealand rugby are guilty too. I was left saddened by the attitude to Ireland when they came down here for a three-match series in 2012 at the end of what was a 14-month season for them. In general the media mocked and jeered a tired side that still possessed a number of Six Nations and European Cup medal winners. They openly said to Ireland: "We don't rate you, but you might be good for a bit of craic." One advert carried in the New Zealand Herald even promoted an alcoholic beverage with the tag line: "Goes down faster than Irish pride". Yet the boo-boy brigade remained silent when Dan Carter had to land a drop goal (after two awful attempts) to get the All Blacks home in Christchurch. Were it Ronan O'Gara or Johnny Sexton who dropped a goal it would have been a disservice to rugby or 'typical old boring northern hemisphere'. Hypocrisy of Vatican levels. The attitude has been similarly dismissive of France and England who've also toured here since. The All Blacks are a champion team and deserve better than to be tainted by inaccurate portrayals of northern attitudes towards them and the arrogance of a few so-called rugby people. Pride comes before a fall. Surely those questionable Kiwi fans are more aware of this than anyone.
The latest developments in the diplomatic crisis over the use of chemical weapons on Aug. 21 in the Syrian conflict put France, arguably the most hawkish of the Western countries, in an embarrassing situation. Since the beginning of this new chapter in the Syrian crisis, French officials expressed by far the strongest resolve to retaliate against the [Bashar al-]Assad regime. While US President Barack Obama carefully weighed his options for several days and British Prime Minister David Cameron consulted the House of Commons, French President Francois Hollande and his Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had already pledged to “punish” the regime. The rhetoric used by the French mixed principles of “responsibility to protect” with the necessity to restore the “taboo” on the use of chemical weapons. Fabius even went as far as to suggest that the UN Security Council could be bypassed because of probable vetoes by Russia and China. But as soon as Obama showed signs that he may not be so forthcoming on the launching of punitive military strikes, French assertiveness turned out to be mere razzmatazz. Obama's decision to seek congressional authorization for military intervention in Syria put Hollande in a very delicate situation. For the Elysee Palace — Hollande's official residence and meeting place of his ministers — the days of waiting were excruciating. Jean-Francois Cope, leader of the right-wing opposition in Paris, mocked Hollande as the “US president’s trailer,” while French think tankers noticed “for the first time in history a French military intervention depends on a vote in US Congress." The second embarrassment for France came with the Russian proposal to push Assad to give up his chemical weapons. Consultations between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sidelined their French counterpart and put Paris’ tough position against the tide of the diplomatic game. As a response, the French then tried — less than 24 hours after the Russian proposal — to regain the lead by presenting a resolution to the UN Security Council. The French draft was immediately dismissed by Moscow, as it appeared that the document suggested the authorization of the use of force — under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter — if Assad failed to comply with the chemical weapons transfer. Lavrov called that condition "unacceptable." Now, as Kerry and a team of US experts meet their Russian counterparts in Geneva to reach an agreement, it seems likely that the conundrum over the dismantlement of Syria’s chemical arsenal will be solved through US-Russian talks. This diplomatic episode reveals the evolving power plays in the shadow of the Syrian crisis. The French assertiveness on the issue of chemical weapons was a logical continuation of French attempts to raise the international pressure on Assad. Over the last year, France grew as the fiercest Western opponent to the Syrian ruler. Hollande was the first Western head of state to recognize the Syrian National Coalition in November 2012 as “the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people." Soon, French boldness started shoving the diplomatic agendas of its EU partners. Last June, alongside Cameron, Hollande led the battle to block EU’s process of renewal of the arms embargo to Syria. The French-British obstructionism aimed to pave the way for the delivery of weaponry to the rebels. Such gambit irritated Germany, Sweden and Austria, which had expressed for months extreme caution on the policy of arming the rebels. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle emphasized the need for measures of assurance: “We are still reluctant on lifting the arms embargo. We have to help and support the Syrian people, but we have to avoid a conflagration and we have to prevent that aggressive offensive weapons fall into the wrong hands.” At the same time, the Elysee Palace modified France’s traditional policy regarding Hezbollah to back London’s plan to insert the Lebanese organization on the EU list of terrorist organizations. Although the British case built upon evidences of Hezbollah’s terrorist activities in Bulgaria and Cyprus, French rationale seemed to be mainly driven by the battleground in Syria. When Fabius confirmed French support for the British initiative, he did not mention the Bulgarian investigation first, but instead announced, “Given the decisions that Hezbollah has taken, and the fact that it has fought extremely hard against the Syrian population, I confirm that France will propose to place Hezbollah's military wing on the list of terrorist organizations.” Then came the latest report of the chemical attack in Syria on Aug. 21, and a week later, the pledge by Hollande to punish the regime. This French activism has been at odds with the restraint of its allies — the Europeans or the Americans. German and Italian officials feel uncomfortable with the sound of French drumbeats. In particular, the Italians expressed their irritation as they fear this last French escalatory step could have side effects on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) forces placed under their command in Lebanon. As Iranian officials and Hezbollah alluded potential retaliation on Lebanese soil in case of military strikes on Syria, the Italian military sees French bravado as an ill-advised move that would jeopardize the safety of European troops deployed there. In the end, the French discomfiture epitomizes — once again — the disarray among Europeans on the Syrian issue. All along, the Elysee Palace pretended it was leading forward the European position, when — in fact, for most of its EU partners — France was exacerbating their divergences. This matters for the credibility of the EU as a foreign policy actor, as it makes irrelevant any plan made in Washington to share the burden in the Middle East. In the long haul, it also has dramatic ramifications on the confidence among transatlantic allies. According to French daily Le Monde, Hollande was flabbergasted by Obama’s hesitation, and bitterly said to his close advisers, “If Obama does not strike, how can we believe he would help Israel in case of Iranian aggression?” Eventually, for the Syrians, it means that any diplomatic breakthrough is now likely, and only, to come through a bargain between the United States and Russia. Jean-Loup Samaan is a researcher in the Middle East department of the NATO Defense College. His current research projects include the Israel-Hezbollah standoff since their 2006 war, the Syrian civil war and its impact on the region and the evolution of the regional security system in the Gulf. On Twitter: @jlsamaan
The president and her supporters have piled doubt on Nisman's investigation, suggesting he didn't himself write the inquiry accusing Kirchner of a cover-up deal with Iran, and that he was influenced by foreign agents in his claims. Kirchner said this week that Nisman was manipulated and double-crossed by government spies plotting against her . The revelations are adding fodder to the entangled scandal over the AIMA center bombing, Nisman's mysterious death, and the reactions of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her government loyalists. "Embassy can now more logically approach the [government of Argentina] about [its] anticipated next steps and ways we might be able to coordinate outreach to other governments [...] to bring attention to the warrants and pressure to bear on Iran and Hezbollah," says one US cable dated November 1, 2006, after a meeting with Nisman. Nisman gave US officials advanced notice on his procedural moves and was apparently coached by the embassy in "improving" his requests for arrest warrants for Iranians that Nisman suspected of carrying out the deadly attack against the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association, or AIMA, according to cables published by Wikileaks . Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who accused Argentina's president of a cover-up plot over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center before being found shot to death , met repeatedly with the US embassy in Buenos Aires during his investigation, leaked diplomatic cables show. Read more Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who accused Argentina's president of a cover-up plot over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center before being found shot to death, met repeatedly with the US embassy in Buenos Aires during his investigation, leaked diplomatic cables show. Nisman gave US officials advanced notice on his procedural moves and was apparently coached by the embassy in "improving" his requests for arrest warrants for Iranians that Nisman suspected of carrying out the deadly attack against the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association, or AIMA, according to cables published by Wikileaks. "Embassy can now more logically approach the [government of Argentina] about [its] anticipated next steps and ways we might be able to coordinate outreach to other governments [...] to bring attention to the warrants and pressure to bear on Iran and Hezbollah," says one US cable dated November 1, 2006, after a meeting with Nisman. The revelations are adding fodder to the entangled scandal over the AIMA center bombing, Nisman's mysterious death, and the reactions of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her government loyalists. The president and her supporters have piled doubt on Nisman's investigation, suggesting he didn't himself write the inquiry accusing Kirchner of a cover-up deal with Iran, and that he was influenced by foreign agents in his claims. Kirchner said this week that Nisman was manipulated and double-crossed by government spies plotting against her. 'We know this was not your decision. We are sure that this was made by others.' Nisman on January 16 told VICE News he had proof that Kirchner sought a back-channel deal with Iran — swapping Iranian oil for Argentine grain — in exchange for abandoning efforts to prosecute former Iranian diplomats in connection to the Jewish center bombing. Eight-five people were killed in the terror attack, which remains unsolved. Survivors and opposition forces are now blaming Kirchner's government for Nisman's death. Nisman was buried at a Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires on Thursday. His ex-wife, the judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, directed herself to Nisman during the funeral, saying: "We know this was not your decision. We are sure that this was made by others." Days before dying, prosecutor accusing Argentina's president of cover-up told us his 'proof is strong.' Read more here. The prosecutor, who was found dead the night before making his blockbuster claim against Kirchner and her foreign minister in Argentina's Congress, is mentioned in 46 leaked US cables. In the cable from November 2006, Nisman informed US officials of the likelihood that a judge would follow his recommendations to seek charges against Iranian suspects for the bombing. American embassy officials discussed plans to inform "other governments" ahead of time, in an apparent push to make the case against the Iranians an international matter. Another cable, dated January 19, 2007, suggests the US embassy had a hand in shaping Nisman's warrant requests with Interpol, the international diplomatic police force. The cable shows US officials thought Nisman's work was shoddy and needed help. Before the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs intervened in the warrant applications, the cable says, Nisman's paperwork contained "statements that were presumptuous conclusions of guilt." Nisman took on the case of the AIMA center bombing in 2004, at the request of the then-President Nestor Kirchner, Cristina Fernandez's late husband. In his interview with VICE News — perhaps his last with a foreign news organization — Nisman denied connections with any foreign spy agencies. "You won't find reports from the CIA, Mossad, or the MI5 in my files. I have no doubt that there is a link between them and the Argentine intelligence agency, but I never dealt with any foreign intelligence agencies," Nisman said, two days before he was found dead. The US embassy in Buenos Aires declined to discuss its officers' interactions with Nisman. "We will not comment on the contents of these alleged cables that purport to include classified information," an embassy spokesman told VICE News. Argentina's president moves to dissolve intelligence agency in wake of prosecutor's death. Read more here. The relationship was apparently so involved that Nisman apologized for not letting then-ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne know that he would call for the arrest of former president Carlos Menem in relation to the case. "AMIA Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman called the Ambassador on May 23 to apologize for not giving the Embassy advance notice of his request for the arrest of former President Menem and other [government of Argentina] officials for their alleged roles in the cover up of the 'local connection' in the 1994 terrorist bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center," says a cable from May 2008. The prosecutor also apologized that the judicial order coincided with a visit to Argentina from the former deputy director of the FBI, John Pistole, adding it was "completely unintentional," the cable shows. "He noted that he was very sorry and that he sincerely appreciates all of the [US government's] help and support and in no way meant to undermine that," the cable continues. The cable also notes that US officials "have for the past two years recommended to Nisman that he focus on the perpetrators of the terrorist attack and not on the possible mishandling of the first investigation." Santiago O'Donnell, author of two books based on the cables released by Julian Assange, said in an interview that the leaked cables show the US influenced Nisman throughout his work on the AIMA bombing investigation. "The embassy gave instructions to the prosecutor Nisman for him to follow the Iranian lead, and not follow other leads, like the Syrian lead, or the local connection, because that would detract from the terrorist image that the US was trying to impose on Iran," O'Donnell said. President Kirchner this week proposed in a nationally televised address to disband and reform the government's intelligence agency. In doing so, she said rogue government spies were responsible for Nisman's death. Opposition voices, meanwhile, said the reform plan for the Secretaría de Inteligencia, or SI, would further politicize the work of the embattled spy agency and make it more responsive to the president's political whims. There is a tampon shortage plaguing the women of Argentina. Read more here. Follow Gaston Cavanagh on Twitter @gastoncavanagh.
An increasingly high number of parents will now face a problem getting rid of the lice off their child's head. According to the scientists, the head lice have evolved or “mutated” to become resistant to the common over-the-counter head lice treatment, and cannot be killed that easily anymore. In a recent research, a team of scientists from the Southern Illinois University has claimed that the head lice in nearly 25 states in the United States, including Texas, California and Florida, have become immune to the treatment commonly prescribed by the doctors and the schools. With the children returning to the schools soon, parents are worried about the infestation of the itch-producing pests. "We are the first group to collect lice samples from a large number of populations across the United States,” said Kyong Yoon of the university, in an interview with the Telegraph. "What we found was that 104 out of the 109 lice populations we tested had high levels of gene mutations, which have been linked to resistance to pyrethroids." Pyrethroids are a type of an insecticide used to control mosquitoes and insects. This family of insecticide constitutes permethrin, which is a chemical ingredient used in the anti-lice medication and treatment. During the study, the researchers found that the genetic mutation affected the nervous system of the lice. The change, in turn, has desensitized the lice against the common treatments. Some of the traditional methods used against the lice include the use of the specially designed lice comb and application of anti-lice lotions and sprays. The primary school-aged children are most commonly infested with lice through head-to-head transfer. The lice suck and feed on the blood from the scalp of the person, resulting in itchiness and inflammation. The study findings are scheduled to be presented at the 250th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee will lead a charge to try to block White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew’s prospective nomination to become Treasury secretary. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions said Mr. Lew blatantly misled Congress about administration plans to reduce the national debt and “must never be secretary of Treasury.” Two years ago, while serving as Mr. Obama’s budget director, Mr. Lew told Congress that the president’s budget, which he had crafted, would not add to the national debt. “Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we’re not adding to the debt anymore; we’re spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt,” Mr. Lew said in 2011. To Mr. Sessions, the claim is so “outrageous and false” that it alone should disqualify Mr. Lew from the key Cabinet post. “To look the American people in the eye and make such a statement remains the most direct and important false assertion during my entire time in Washington,” the Alabama Republican said. Mr. Obama is expected to nominate Mr. Lew to replace outgoing Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner this week. The Senate Finance Committee will hold the hearings, so Mr. Sessions will not have a chance to grill Mr. Lew directly. Instead, he plans to voice his deep concerns about the nomination, if and when it hits the floor, according to Senate GOP aides. The long-expected move would force Mr. Obama to find a new chief of staff, which would be the first part of a major reshuffling of the White House staff. Mr. Geithner has indicated he would like to leave Treasury before the end of this month — well before the expected showdown with Congress over a new increase in the federal borrowing limit. Mr. Lew twice headed the White House’s Office of Management and Budget — once under President Clinton and from 2010 to 2012 under Mr. Obama — and played a central role in the 2011 debt-ceiling negotiations. Despite a host of new fiscal deadlines early this year, the White House has yet to officially name a Geithner successor — and presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that he had no announcements to make on personnel matters. “I am sure that when the president nominates a successor to Secretary Geithner, he will look forward to speedy consideration by the Senate,” Mr. Carney said. “But I don’t have a timetable for that.” The timing of the Treasury nomination is important because Mr. Lew is expected to play a key role in several upcoming budget debates. Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling by late February or early March or face defaulting on its debts. The Treasury Department announced that the nation had hit the $16.4 trillion debt limit at the end of the year, prompting the department to begin taking measures to buy time and keep the government solvent. Brinksmanship over the last debt-ceiling debate in 2011 led to a downgrade in the U.S. credit rating. Earlier this week, Mr. Carney also argued that the downgrade led to a higher jobless rate for August 2011, when the showdown took place, and lower stock prices. That month, he said, was the highest jobless rate since the fiscal crisis of 2008. Undaunted, Republicans are gearing up for a major battle over the debt ceiling as a way to extract agreements on long-term spending cuts from Democrats. Congress and the Obama administration also face another deadline for budget cuts. The “fiscal cliff” deal only served to delay across-the-board spending cuts to defense and domestic programs by two months. Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Fast food giant McDonald’s is offering a glimpse of what the future of the brand may look like with the opening of “McDonald’s Next” in Hong Kong. (Photo: Screenshot) Fast food giant McDonald’s is offering a glimpse of what the future of the brand may look like with the opening of McDonald’s Next in Hong Kong. The “food bar” styled restaurant was recently opened to mark the 40th anniversary of McDonald’s in Hong Kong, the Brand Channel reported. McDonald’s Next is located in the shopping district of Admiralty in Hong Kong, and has a major emphasis on meal customization. Gone are the white countertops of McDonald’s and one-size fits all options. New maccas concept store HK #maccas #mcdonaldsnext #futuristic #industrialdesign @stacygomesz #mcdonalds A photo posted by vj (@vjeffz) on Dec 29, 2015 at 6:47pm PST It expands upon the chain's "Create Your Taste" platform by offering customers the option to customize salads in addition to sandwiches, Brand Channel reported. Customers create customized burgers and salads using touch screens to select items from the “Create Your Taste” menu. Similar to a Chipotle-style assembly line, McDonald's Next workers create customers' meals behind a sheet of glass, according to Brand Channel. The customized salad option allows customers to add ingredients like quinoa, grilled chicken and asparagus. The establishment offers free WiFi and encourages customers to share their creations with the hashtag #CreateYourTasteHK. #createyourtastehk A photo posted by Patrick Heung (@patrickheung2011) on Dec 19, 2015 at 9:49pm PST #createyourtastehk 我創作了呢個冇澱粉質即係冇包嘅超巨burger! 用刀义食㗎！ A photo posted by Yue Dik Wai (@dikwai) on Jul 6, 2015 at 5:18am PDT While the idea of customized salad from McDonald’s may seem farfetched, the move is actually in line with what the brand has already been testing in other locations. In January, McDonald’s opened The Corner by McCafe in Sydney, Australia. The restaurant serves healthy offerings, including tofu and vegetables. No Big Macs or fries to be seen. Instead, the menu includes salads along with Moroccan roast chicken breast, chipotle pulled pork, brown rice, pumpkin, lentil and eggplant salads and sandwiches. Contributing: Bruce Horowitz Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1OuGJwl
President says loss of life is devastating after flooding forces more than 137,000 people from their homes The death toll from three days of torrential rain and landslides in Sri Lanka has risen to 37, with more than 150 people missing and rescuers still pulling bodies from the mud. President Maithripala Sirisena flew to the remote slopes of the country’s Central Hills, where landslides buried villages in Kegalle district. “The loss is devastating,” he said on Twitter. The Disaster Management Centre’s updated toll came after bodies were recovered in Aranayake and neighbouring Bulathkohupitiya. “A total of 37 people have been killed, 28 wounded … in weather-related incidents in the past three days,” the DMC spokesman Pradeep Kodippili said. AG Kamala, 52, who had just returned to her house in Siripura village when the landslides hit, told Associated Press: “I heard a huge sound like a plane crashing into the Earth. I opened my door. I could not believe my eyes, as I saw something like a huge fireball rolling down the mountain and again a huge sound.” The Red Cross said rescue operations had been hampered because roads leading to the mountainous area north-east of the capital, Colombo, were treacherous. “Rescuers would have to get there by foot and start digging with their hands before we can get any heavy equipment in to the site,” Mahieash Johnney, senior manager of communications, said. There were 134 people were still unaccounted for in the worst-hit area while 155 people are still missing overall, the military said. The area had received more than 100mm of rain between 15 and 16 May and at least two nearby villages had been evacuated due to fears of a fresh landslide, Red Cross officials said. Johnney told AFP that there had earlier been confusion about the number of people missing. Initial Red Cross estimates said 225 families were missing, but Johnney said the latest updates from the scene suggested that “most of those families have moved to four relief camps in the area”. Rohan Dias, a deputy police inspector, said that about 800 people had left their villages and gathered in nearby temples for protection. Facebook Twitter Pinterest A view of the landslides in the central district of Kegalle. Photograph: Amantha Perera The DMC said dozens of houses were destroyed when mountain slopes collapsed, forcing hundreds of villagers to evacuate. The military said dozens of service personnel and eight army officers had been deployed to the rescue area near Aranayake. Troops also launched rescue operations in inundated areas of the Indian Ocean island, with boats and helicopters getting more than 200 people trapped in the north-western coastal district of Puttalam to safety, officials said. Torrential rains across Sri Lanka have forced more than 137,000 people from their homes. “This is the worst torrential rain we have seen since 2010,” said Kodippili. Nineteen of Sri Lanka’s 25 districts have been hit. Heavy rains also struck the neighbouring Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. More than 100 houses were damaged in coastal Kerala and about 50 families had been moved to a relief camp in the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram, a state official said. The forecast was for heavy rains across Tamil Nadu over the next two days and fishermen were warned not to go out to sea. Flooded roads and fallen trees led to traffic jams in Colombo. Trains were halted as water submerged railway tracks, officials said. Flooding and drought are cyclical in Sri Lanka, which is battered by a southern monsoon between May and September, while a north-eastern monsoon runs from December to February. More than 300,000 people were forced out of their homes due to heavy rains and flooding in December 2010 and January 2011. In October 2014, dozens of tea plantation workers were killed when landslides buried their hillside homes. Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
A British writer says he's flexing his rights by suing a London gym for its women-only hours. Peter Lloyd says Kentish Town Sports Centre's policy of barring males 442 hours a year is "sexist." Writing in the Daily Mail, Lloyd said he proposed that the gym either offer guys-only hours as well, end the exclusive female workout times or charge men a lesser price to reflect their diminished access. Lloyd says the gym pressed its case by pointing to a Women Sport and Fitness Foundation study that found many women are uncomfortable with their appearance when they exercise. Visit the Daily Mail to read Lloyd's full response and to find out who's lending him support. Other publications have also weighed in on the essay. "Lloyd’s write-up is compelling and thought-provoking, even for those who might find his opinions whiny and insensitive," AdWeek said. Anna Breslaw at Jezebel wrote that the sexual harassment of women at gyms over the decades didn't generate sympathy for his cause. "Give us our 442 hours a year and stop crying," she said. The Kentish Town Sports Centre recently underwent a renovation worth $38 million and now features a 125-station gym. A gym employee told HuffPost that he could not discuss gym membership prices on the phone. Tell us what you think. Is Lloyd's claim of "gender bias" just, or just silly?
In the past few weeks, and especially since Super Tuesday, there have been many calls for a Cruz-Rubio “unity ticket,” to unite the moderate and more conservative wings of the party against the rising candidacy of Donald Trump, who has corralled a 30 to 40 percent plurality. Jonah Goldberg compared the possibility of a unity ticket to conservative Ronald Reagan’s pick of his primary opponent George H. W. Bush in 1980, which similarly fused together establishment and Goldwater voters for a united Republican Party in the general election. However, there are several problems with the possibility of a Cruz/Rubio or Rubio/Cruz ticket: no one can agree on who gets the top slot, it’s far from clear that current Cruz voters would accept Rubio as their candidate, and – perhaps most implausibly – it requires one of the candidates to demonstrate almost Washingtonian political self-sacrifice in order to work. If we accept that a run for President today requires nearly delusional levels of self-confidence and that capitulation for the good of the conservative movement and the country is unlikely, is there any way to save the unity ticket? The answer is yes, but it requires us to reach back to the example of pre-Twelfth Amendment America, where who would be President and Vice President was not decided before ballots in the Electoral College were cast. Instead, each delegate was given two votes, and the man with the highest delegate vote count became President, while the runner-up took the Vice Presidential slot. This system nearly catapulted a man widely regarded as dishonest, unprincipled, and dangerous, Aaron Burr, to the Presidency (sound familiar?), and was rightly checked by the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804. However, the idea of deciding the President and Vice President by delegate winner and runner-up, if applied within the Republican Party convention, could save the idea of the unity ticket by making it more politically palatable to Senators Cruz and Rubio. Senators Cruz and Rubio should make a joint announcement that each will choose the other as Vice President, with the order of the ticket decided only in July by whoever ends up with the higher number of delegates at the convention. This pledge requires only a lesser sacrifice on each Senator’s part. Rather than abandon a bid for the highest office in the land, such a pact would only demand that each plays nice with the other on the campaign trail going forward, limiting attacks to substantive policy distinctions – a tactic they both seem to have embraced anyway starting with the last Republican debate. The most difficult aspect of the alliance will come in winner-take-all states, where each candidate’s supporters voting for their man virtually assures a Trump victory. The Cruz and Rubio campaigns should divvy these states by who has the better shot to win in each, and make a limited endorsement for the man most likely to win within each state. Alternatively, if this still involves too much political sacrifice, the presumptive third-place finisher in each winner-take-all state should pull out all advertising in that state other than ads hitting Donald Trump. The unity ticket pledge will calm the rancor between Cruz and Rubio voters. Each can keep their bid for President, but the American people can be assured that each candidate’s delegates at the convention will be effectively pledged for the winner between them. The nomination structure of the early Republic may be the best way to stop the coronation of Donald Trump and unite the anti-Trump majority of the Republic Party.
Geneva, 30 April 2013. The ALPHA collaboration at CERN has published a paper in Nature Communications describing the first direct analysis of how antimatter is affected by gravity. ALPHA was the first experiment to trap atoms of antihydrogen -- neutral antimatter atoms held in place with a strong magnetic field for up to 1,000 seconds. The original goal of the experiment was not to study gravity, but the researchers realised that the data they had already collected might be sensitive to gravitational effects. "The ALPHA apparatus can trap antihydrogen atoms, which we then intentionally release," said Jeffrey Hangst of Aarhus University, the ALPHA spokesperson. "We used our position-sensitive annihilation detector to see if we could observe the influence of gravity on the released atoms." Current theoretical arguments predict that hydrogen and antihydrogen atoms have the same mass and should interact with gravity in the same way. If an atom is released, it should experience a downward force whether it's made of matter or antimatter. The ALPHA scientists have retroactively analysed how their antihydrogen atoms moved when released; this has allowed them to put a limit on anomalous gravitational effects. "This is the first demonstrated experimental method to directly address the question of the gravitational nature of antimatter, and we look forward to refining it when we start up again in 2014. With more data, and perhaps atoms with even less thermal motion to compete with gravity, we hope to be able to test whether antimatter actually falls down," said Hangst. "In the unlikely event that antimatter falls upwards, we would have to revise our view of the way the universe works," said Joel Fajans, a member ALPHA at the University of California, Berkeley. "We've taken the first steps toward a direct experimental test of questions that physicists and non-physicists have been wondering about for more than 50 years." The experiment will come back on line in 2014 with an upgraded antimatter trap called ALPHA-2. Along with the advancement of ALPHA, the antimatter programme at CERN is expanding. AEgIS and GBAR, two more experiments currently under construction, will focus on measuring how gravity affects antihydrogen. Contact: press.office@cern.ch +41 (0)22 767 34 32 +41 (0)22 767 21 41 CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession. Cyprus, Israel and Serbia are associate members in the pre-stage to membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have observer status.
Yes, we've heard all sorts of tales of the Koch brothers' malfeasance -- donating huge sums to institutions that spread scientific disinformation, funding the organizing of anti-regulatory (and pro-freedom! Freedom!) grassroots events, and lobbying Congress hard to pass (or more often, stall) policies amenable to their heavily polluting industrial operations, and so on and so forth. Do they do all of these things? Yes. But do you ever consider why they go to such lengths? It's self interest, of course, pure and simple. Their subsidiaries generate an estimated 300 million tons of carbon emissions every year. Of course they don't want to pay for that:Here's the Wonk Room: ... each year, Koch Industries is likely responsible for about 300 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution every year. Flint Hills Resources, Koch's refining subsidiary, processes 300 million barrels of oil a year. This one company -- with its refining, pipeline, chemical, fertilizer, cattle, and forestry operations -- is involved in up to five percent of the entire United States 7-gigaton carbon footprint. So is it surprising that the brothers Koch don't want to take fiscal responsibility for that carbon pollution? Nope. Who would? If you were in the business of being a coal, oil, and manufacturing tycoon, chances are you'd be making the same moves -- using a tiny sliver of your vast wealth to protect the forces that would prevent that wealth from becoming even more vast. It's just what they do. And yes, the Koch brothers may be more activist than most billionaires who've made their fortunes in polluting industries, but at the heart of it, they're really just protecting their self-interest. Which is why I'm fond of saying that the Koch Brothers aren't really villains; they're just really good at doing their jobs. If they weren't lording over oil refining and coal producing industries, someone else would be. We can try to hatch plans and write blog posts aimed at shaming them into cleaning up their acts (fat chance) -- but even if it worked, another plutocrat or industrious business magnate would slip in to fill the vacant shoes. What we should be working to reform is not one billionaire's behavior, but the root of the problem -- an economic system that (gasp!) allows for such vast concentrations of economic power. Van Jones made this point in a recent speech -- for all the folks concerned about the excessive power of government these days, there sure seems to be a dearth of people concerned about the excessive power of corporations and the influence of a few very rich. More measures need to be put in place -- campaign finance laws among them -- to prevent a few very powerful interests from exerting an undue amount of interest in the democratic system. More on Koch Industries Koch Industries Sues Prankster For Saying It Cares About the Environment Oil Billionaires Fight Climate Legislation (Video News) 'Financial Kingpin' of Climate Change Denial Exposed: Koch
What can you do with a cardboard box, wooden skewers, marbles, and hot glue? You can make a pinball machine! Over the summer, our family took a trip to Las Vegas. While we were there, Kat and I went to check out the Pinball Hall of Fame! We had $18 in quarters and a lot of arcade ambition, we were ready to go play some pinball! While we were listening to all of the bells and whistles and watching the cool mechanics of the games, Kat and I thought about how great it would be if we had our very own pinball machine at home. We had become very fond of Caine and his arcade, why not try to make our own cardboard pinball machine? As soon as we got back, we grabbed some graph paper and got to work drafting designs for our pinball machine! We had a lot of things to think about! Some of our questions included: How big was our pinball machine going to be? Did we want ramps, bells, and buzzers? What did we have around the house that we could use in our pinball machine? How did we want to decorate it? This was a brainstorming session, so nothing was off limits! Whatever our creative minds could think up, we could probably find something around the house to use to make it happen! This planning stage was awesome! We were measuring, thinking about the spaces in between things, and we were making blueprints! We did a lot of research to see how others had made their pinball machines. Some of our favorite examples included Ezra’s pinball machine, Coolfolder’s pinball tutorial, and this Homemade pinball machine. We also browsed Instructables, where we found this fantastic tutorial for a DIY pinball machine, which inspired our flipper design. Finally, we were ready to get to work! We found a big box and painted it in bright, whimsical colors. Then it was time to prepare for construction.. Any flaps were glued down, and any gaps were taped over. This allowed the ball to keep rolling on the playing field without getting stuck. Now it was time to start constructing the parts of the pinball machine! The first thing we did was work on the flippers. Once we had these in, we were able to focus on fun and easy things like ramps, loops, bells, and adorable decorations. For us, the flippers involved a lot of trial and error. Because of this, I’m going to give a step by step tutorial on how we made ours. There are a lot of different versions available on the web (especially in the videos and tutorials I linked above), you can look around to find something that works for you. This is what we came up with and it worked beautifully! FLIPPERS Materials Needed: Cardboard Scissors Pen and a large index card (to make a template) Hot glue gun Wooden skewers Large Phillips screwdriver Picture frame wire 6 Popsicle sticks Instructions: 1. Figure out how big you want your flippers to be. Draw a flipper shape on your index card. When you’re happy with the size and shape, cut it out and use it as your template! 2. Trace the flipper shape on to your cardboard. To ensure flipper durability, we traced and cut six flippers, layering three cutouts for each side. 3. Glue your flipper pieces on top of each other. Make sure that they all line up and that there are no overlapping edges. 4. Paint your flippers! 5. Take your popsicle sticks and glue them on top of each other. You’ll want 2-3 layers of popsicle sticks for each flipper. Make sure they don’t overlap! 6. On the widest edge of the flipper, dig a little hole into the side of the flipper with your scissors. Fit your popsicle sticks into the side and use as much hot glue as necessary to hold it in! It will take a while for this to dry, make sure that they are held firm and fast until the glue is completely dry! 7. Cut your wooden skewers into 2.5″ pieces. You’ll need at least six (three for each flipper). Use your hot glue gun to attach three of them together, so that they make a sort of reinforced pillar. When they’re dry, paint them! 8. Take your pen and mark the center of the wide edge of the flipper. Take your screwdriver and start working it through the flipper until it comes out the other side. Wiggle it around to make the hole wide enough to fit your skewers. Then set the skewers aside. 9. Place your flippers where you want them to go on your playing field. Remember that you’ll want them to be evenly spaced apart. Look at other pinball machines to see how far apart their flippers are spaced. Ours are about 2.5″ apart, when placed into position on the board. 10. With your flippers on the board, take a pencil and mark a hole through the skewer hole. This will mark where you will place the skewers to hold the flipper in place on the board itself. Use your screwdriver to work it through until it reaches the other side and is wide enough to fit the skewers. 11. Take your scissors (or an exacto knife) and cut a slit along the outer edge of your pinball machine. This is where your flipper handles are going to stick out to allow you to use them! Our slit was .5″ wide and 3″ long. 12. Take your skewers and stick them through the hole on the pinball machine. Use a LOT of glue to secure those skewers on to the board! We glued them into the hole and then turned the pinball machine over to add reinforcement glue on the bottom. 13. Once the skewers are in place and the glue is completely dry, put your flippers on! You’ll have to maneuver them so that the popsicle sticks are sticking out the sides of the pinball machine. Once you’ve got them out, slide the flipper over the skewers and wiggle them down. Flip them back and forth a lot until they move with ease. 14. Wrap your wire over the skewer to prevent your flippers from flying off during play. You’ll want to make sure that they’re not too close to the flipper so that they restrict movement. 15. Cut out 2 1″x2″ pieces of cardboard. This will serve as a stopper for your flippers and a catcher for your ball. Glue those down and voila! You’re done! Alright! Now that we had finished with the flippers, it was time to reward ourselves with some of the fun bells and whistles! After all that work, we wanted something for our ball to interact with on the field! Bells, Ramps, Flaps, and Other Fun Things! These little flaps were really easy to make and they gave us something fun to play with on our machine! All we needed was a skewer, some cardboard, some paint, and some glue! We painted our wooden skewer, cut out some flaps of cardboard (keeping them the same size!), and got to decorating. We painted little forest critters on our flaps, and stuck the skewers through the top of each flap. We took a pencil to mark where the skewers would go on our board, poked holes through it, and we were done! Now it was time to put some ramps on our board! Since we already had our flippers, it was really easy for us to figure out where we should put them. We just hit the ball over and over again and lightly traced the trajectory of the ball with a pencil. Then we could figure out where we could place our ramps where the ball would actually go! The ramps were really easy to make. We used toilet paper rolls, paint, glue and 2 wooden skewers. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out just how high we should make the ramps. We found that for us, 1″ off the board was perfect! We took our pencil and lightly marked where the ramp would begin and end and set to work putting together the skewers. The skewer set up for the ramps are the same as for the flippers. This time, we cut the wooden skewers into 1″ pieces, painted them, and glued three of them together. Then we marked the spot on the board where we wanted them to go, and used the screwdriver to work the hole into the board. We stuck the skewers through the board where the ramp was going to be lifted up.We glued the skewer in place (just like we did with the flippers, use a LOT of glue!), and then glued the ramp on top of it. We found that our ball kept getting stuck under the ramp, so we glued these strips of cardboard down the side to prevent that from happening. It worked like a charm! Once we had our ramps in, it was time for some bells! Kat wanted a bell tower, and I wanted to make a bumper. We went to Walmart for a cheap bag of bells and set to work! For Kat’s bell tower, she painted a toilet paper roll and covered it with owls and kittens. Then she filled it with bells! She put this in front of one of the ramps, so the ball would hit her tower after launching into the air. Our bumper was made by sticking a bunch of bells inside half of a plastic Easter Egg. We glued it to the bottom of our pinball board and it worked beautifully! Every time the ball hit the bumper, the bells would ring! We used another egg to make a ricochet corner for the ball to land into after launching off the rocket ramp! You can see it in the above picture, in between the two trees. This was a great way to use something that had been taking up space in our craft cabinet, and they looked great on our pinball field! Now that we had all of the pieces on our playing field complete, it was time for our reward…. making adorable forest critter decorations! We knew that once we had finished these, we would feel like our pinball machine was complete, so we saved these for last. This was so much fun! Squirrels and Bunnies and Bears, Oh My! Oh my goodness, we had SO much fun making these little forest critters! I asked Kat what kind of animals she wanted and she immediately suggested bunnies and squirrels. This was absolutely fine by me, but how about we add some jumping gymnastics bears too? We could also make a lot of little bunnies and have them do adorable things like peek out of trees, or give each other little bunny kisses! There are so many adorable things you can do when you have cardboard, paint, and a little bit of imagination! We also made little rose trees to decorate our little ricochet pocket in the corner of our pinball field. These were made by cutting out little tree shapes, and then gluing tiny pieces of tissue paper to them to create little roses. We also made one last little bumper out of cardboard, in the form of little bunnies saying hello to each other by a little flower bush. We made sure that the bush was lined in the back with a triangle of cardboard, so that the ball wouldn’t get stuck during play. Speaking of the pinball… What kind of pinball should you use for a cardboard machine like this? We found that large marbles worked really well, as well as large wooden craft balls. We found 1″ balls to work the best for our machine, as they would be big enough to launch off the ramps and ricochet off the flippers with a decent speed. When we finished our pinball machine, we played with it constantly! It is such a cool thing to bring out when we have friends over, the kids all have a great time playing with it. Since we put so much work into making everything sturdy (so much glue, so many skewers!), everything has held up really well, despite hours of playtime with a ton of kids. This is easily my favorite project that we’ve made together this year. Our pinball machine became absolutely adorable as we added new decorations to it, and we were so proud of ourselves for constructing it! We learned so much while working on this and we really put our problem solving thinking caps to work! Now we just need to put together a video of our pinball machine in action….
On Wednesday, two race-based hate crimes stories broke. The first broke in Pennsylvania. The second broke in Chicago. The story in Pennsylvania came courtesy of a 14-year-old white idiot racist who allegedly posted a Snapchat directed at a 16-year-old black student in which the white kid recorded the black kid eating chicken wings, and then called him the n-word and joked that he was on government assistance. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli announced charges: cyber harassment of a child and ethnic intimidation. He stated, “Harassment, whether it’s based or otherwise, is a crime.” The Snapchat became an issue because the 16-year-old black student attacked the white kid during a football game, drawing charges in juvenile court. Then there’s the second story, from Chicago. In that story, four teenagers allegedly kidnapped and then tortured a developmentally disabled white man on tape, all the while shouting, “F* Donald Trump, n*! F* white people, boy! F* white people, boy!” Here was the Chicago Police Superintendant Eddie Johnson, explaining that the attack wasn’t politically motivated: “I think some of it is just stupidity, people just ranting about something that they think might make a headline. I don't think that at this point we have anything concrete to really point us in that direction, but we'll keep investigating and we'll let the facts guide us on how this concludes.” So when a 14-year-old white kid drops the n-word, that’s not just stupidity, that's racism. But when a black teenager screams “f* white people” and “f*** Donald Trump” while actually torturing a white man, that's not racism, that’s just stupidity. And then people wonder why racial politics is so polarized. The left has essentially declared that black people are incapable of racism, because racism requires power in order to be operative. But black-on-white crime is far more common than white-on-black crime, though media coverage would imply otherwise; in 2014, according to FBI data, blacks murdered whites 446 times, while whites killed blacks 187 times. And remember, black Americans represent approximately 13 percent of the population, while whites represent 62 percent of the population, which makes the statistics even more disproportionate. Not all these murders were motivated by race, of course, but that’s true for blacks and whites. And the media choose to focus only on white racism, making Dylan Roof the official representative of white, Confederate-flag-flying America, while treating black-on-white hate crimes as unicorns. If we’re truly going to stop racism, we have to fight it no matter the source. And that means that the media have an obligation to point out black-on-white racism with the same gusto with which they label whites racist.
President Trump has been treated better by Fox News since Rupert Murdoch took over for Roger Ailes -- and he knows it. The president has been heard on multiple occasions talking about how Fox's coverage of him has become more positive since Murdoch took the reins at the network, sources at both the White House and Fox News told CNNMoney. The president "talks about how the coverage under Murdoch is better than under Ailes," a White House source said. According to New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman, Trump was also heard on a hot mic this week telling Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, "Rupert's been a lot better to me than Roger ever was." The president's sentiments about Murdoch may explain why he repeatedly gives interviews to Fox outlets while ignoring other networks. Six of the eight sit-down television interviews Trump has given as president have gone to Fox News or Fox Business. (The other two went to ABC News and the Christian Broadcasting Network.) Trump's relationship with Fox was more fraught during the 2016 campaign, especially during the Republican primary, when there was still competition to be the GOP's standard-bearer. Adding to the tension, former primetime host Megyn Kelly challenged Trump's statements on her show and sparred with him during primary debates. Trump even skipped one of those debates, citing what he saw as unfair treatment by Kelly. Since Kelly's departure in January, Fox's primetime lineup has become notably pro-Trump, from Bill O'Reilly to Tucker Carlson to Sean Hannity. The network's morning show, "Fox & Friends," is also overwhelmingly supportive of the president, who used to be a regular guest on the program. Related: Latest sign of warming relationship between Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump: a tweet Trump and Murdoch's relationship was not always so friendly. Murdoch was a vocal critic of Trump early in his campaign. In early 2016, however, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner brought Trump and Murdoch together for several meetings and conversations, according to sources close to both men, and Murdoch came around to Trump. Shortly before his inauguration, Trump tweeted, "Rupert Murdoch is a great guy who likes me much better as a very successful candidate than he ever did as a very successful developer!"
Anthony is one of my heros. He will be missed by all members of the SCV. I had been watching this book for about a week or so. During that period, Anthony, a brother in the Sons Of Confederate Veterans, was killed by Panther's in Louisiana. When I realized the person that was killed wrote the book I was watching, I bought the book to offer a semblance of support for his family. I am currently reading the book and have found it to be VERY truthful, enlightening, extraordinarily brave of him to write, and hopeful that I, too can be as strong when the thugs come for me. I reccomend this book to ANYONE interested in the truth regarding our history of war, general life in our country, and the truth about slavery in the United States. Anthony is now a national hero. He will be remembered as an extraordinary man in modern society. He is now our strength. We will fight on for our cause. Bill Rose, Adjutant of a Maryland Camp and proud member of the Sons Of Confederate VeteransRead full review
Over the years, Spy Blog has, unfortunately, had to criticise the MI5 Security Service website for an unprofessional lack of security, seemingly every time the web site design has been revamped by c.f. http://spyblog.org.uk/ssl/spyblog/mi5-email-subscriptions/ Here we go again: To quote MI5 's own "Cyber" section of their website: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/cyber Hostile actors A wide range of hostile actorshttps://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html use cyber to target the UK. They include foreign states, criminals, "hacktivist" groups and terrorists. The resources and capabilities of such actors vary. Foreign states are generally equipped to conduct the most damaging cyber espionage and computer network attacks. Hostile actors conducting cyber espionage can target the government, military, business and individuals. There are 4 sections of the MI5 Security Service website: Corporate brochure, history, "what we do" , "what we don't do", some news e.g. recent terrorism case convictions, speeches by the Director General etc.. The infamous Terrorism Threat Level, which has mutated over the years into seperate categories for mainland UK, Northern Ireland and "international" i.e. muslim extremist terrorism. N.B. there is no clear indication of what exactly the public is meant to do at each Threat Level. Should we "Be pure! Be vigilant! Behave!" or Keep Calm and Carry On" ? Job vacancy and Careers information for people thinking about joining Mi5 Security Service. A confidential National Security tip off web form Whilst the first two sections are important for the public image and reputation of MI5, the last two (Careers and Tip Off form) are of intense interest to our enemies. Even the https:// only website does use a Digital Certificate with good Transport Layer Security configuration, N.B. In common with GCHQ and MI6 there is no DNS entry for https://MI5.gov.uk i.e. without the "www." This tends to confuse the dimmer "hackivists" who frequently claim that their "script kiddy" Denial of Service attacks have somehow magically succeeded in a "tango down" of a non-existent website URL. Accessing the MI5 Security Service website may be illegal or dangerous if you are in e.g. the Middle East or Russia or China etc. so, for obvious reasons, they claim to keep your communications with them confidential. You may decide to use the increasingly popular Tor Browser to hide your originating IP address. Why then does the MI5 website betray your web browser meta data to one and possibly two foreign companies based in the USA i.e. CloudFlare and Google reCaptcha ? CloudFlare, whilst providing useful TLS and anti Denial of Service attack services, is under heavy criticism for forcing Tor users to fill in stupid Google reCapture puzzles #dontblocktorto proceed to a "protected" website. This is a minor inconvenience for most people, but it is completely inappropriate for an intelligence agency website with sensitive recruitment and national security tip off form features. https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/spyblog/images/MI5_reCaptcha/MI5_home_page_Captcha.jpg Regardless of whether a visitor is using Tor or not, if they want to to contact MI5 with a national security related tip off, the Google reCaptcha is embedded in the the "secure" contact form! https://www.mi5.gov.uk/contact-us https://www.mi5.gov.uk/contact-us i.e. there are image links which do not go to the local MI5 web server, or any web servers in the United Kingdom, but which are pulled from Google in California, USA e.g. the Google reCaptcha refresh image (and all the street sign or river etc. reCapture image tiles) https://www.gstatic.com/recaptcha/api2/refresh.png This creates a web log entry or "Internet Connection Record" in the new Investigatory Powers Bill doublespeak, in a foreign country, regardless of whether you fill in the form or not. If you are using e.g. Firefox without Tor and your IP address does not trigger Cloudflare, then you may be able to get to the non-Javascript MI5 web contact form https://www.mi5.gov.uk/modal_forms/nojs/webform/363 but most people will have been tricked into handing over their meta data to these US companies and therefore to the US government (on demand), instead of just sharing it with MI5 the Security Service in the United Kingdom

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