text
stringlengths 0
100k
|
|---|
ppjg Constitution, corruption bush, Clinton, Democrat, liberities, Marti Oakley, Obama, Patriot acts, Republican, rights, tyranny
Marti Oakley (c)copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved
_____
Who, by virtue of all these listed activities and many more, was deemed a threat to the government? Read the bills. The only thing missing in them is your specific name. All of this brought to you by the Republicans during the Bush Administrations.
_____________________________
So now Bush and the neo-cons are blameless? And you want the Republicans back?
For all of you out there beating the drum for Republican’s to take control of both houses of Congress, I have to ask: Were you in a coma from 2000 to 2008?
While I surely do not support the current administration and its globalist agenda, and, while I believe Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid represent a clear and present danger to the country at large, I find them no more repugnant than say, Karl Rove or Tom Delay; their personalities and intentions no less malignant than those of the neo-cons who set the overthrow of the sovereign United States into motion. I find them equally as frightening in their contempt for us, as I did Dick Cheney and his crew of fascist driven cohorts. And now you want to put the masterminds of this coup’ back in control? What is it you think will change? What is it that you think these psychopaths and sociopaths are going to do to better the current crisis in our government?
How quickly and conveniently so many of you have forgotten that it was the Republicans, lead by the neo-con faction, who gave us the unconstitutional:
Patriot Acts;
John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007; a bill which gave the president the unlawful authority to:
declare anyone of us a domestic terrorist for resisting the growing tyranny of our own government;
to strip us of our citizenship without due process,
to jail us indefinitely without charges,
without notifying anyone of our whereabouts and
denying us access to legal council.
Who condoned and encouraged the illegal wiretapping and spying on American citizens for no apparent reason other than there was nothing we could do to stop it.
Who entered into unlawful civil assistance agreements with foreign nations to allow the use of their troops against us on US soil, just in case we get too upset over the loss of our freedom
Created the behemoth Homeland Security Department, a collecting of more than 21 intelligence agencies under one roof for no other purpose than protecting the Corporate Federal Government…FROM US!
The creation of Fusion centers in every state dedicated to intercepting emails, phones calls and collecting every piece of information they can on us
Creation of the FBI’s Infragard ; community leaders empowered to use deadly force to protect the infrastructure in case of an emergency (strange: since we own virtually none of our infrastructure having seen large portions of it sold off to foreign investors)
The absolute deregulation and oversight of banking, housing and Wall Street largely giving these greed driven fools a license to steal…..and they did.
The militarization of our local law enforcement agencies, now all under the control HSD, and many departments now an active threat to the public.
The refusal to secure the southern border
The creation of the Security & Prosperity Partnership, the framework for the North American Union, ending our sovereignty and national identity once and for all.
WE are the focus of every bill that came down; not foreign terrorists. It was our rights that were taken away. It was the citizens of the United States who were punished for the attacks on 9/11. There isn’t a foreign terrorist out there who gives a rats rear end what laws we pass regarding terrorist activities; not that we have actually passed any laws that would pertain to them. Every law passed, every right taken away, every right violated and every penalty assessed was levied against the citizens of the United States. So who is it you think the Republicans with their neo-con leaders were focused on? Foreign terrorists…..or you?
Who, by virtue of all these listed activities and many more, was deemed a threat to the government? Read the bills. The only thing missing in them is your specific name. All of this brought to you by the Republicans during the Bush Administrations.
The Democrats, doing their part to subvert our Constitution and our sovereignty, have expanded and enlarged an ever more tyrannical centralized corporate government. The Republicans if voted back into control will just continue the process.
We have no real options. The Democrats have been just as malevolent, just as malignant, just as destructive and contemptuous of us as the Republicans. Changing who gets to be in front of the camera first will not change the direction our country is headed.
We need a vote of “no confidence” on our ballots. If our elections truly do mean anything, if our votes really count, we need the option of saying “no” to any and all.
The situation has become one not of “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorist’s” (Bush 2001), it is instead:
“You are either with us or you work for the government”.
__________________________________________
Infragard
http://www.infragard.net/
Fusion Centers 2003
http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1156877184684.shtm
Security & Prosperity Partnership (now supposedly:inactive) current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_Prosperity_Partnership_of_North_America
http://www.spp-psp.gc.ca/eic/site/spp-psp.nsf/eng/home
North American Union2002
www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf
The Patriot Act 2001
http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
John Warner Defense Authorization Act 2007
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5122
Homeland Security Bill Signed 2003
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0073.shtm
|
An election recount, in Florida, again?!
Not likely, but some are pushing for it.
Donald Trump won Florida by more than 100 thousand votes. The results were certified.
Still, not everyone's happy.
Three voters filed a lawsuit challenging the results in the Leon County courthouse this week. They want a recount due to what they claim were irregularities in this year's election, but the idea isn't gaining much steam around Tallahassee.
"Our elections already been certified, Donald Trump is going to be our next president," declared Florida Governor Rick Scott.
Even Democrats aren't exactly thrilled. Strategist Steve Schale says energy could be better spent elsewhere.
"This is a waste of money chasing a tinfoil conspiracy and that money would be better spent organizing voters, registering voters, doing research and getting ready for 2018," points out Schale.
The court has ten days to respond to the filing.
Barry Richard knows a thing or two about recounts. He represented former President George W. Bush during the 2000 recount.
"In 2000 it all came down to one state, and that was the first time since 1876 that we had an election that was that close, in this case Clinton would have to get the election overturned in multiple states, and in each one of those states the difference is substantially larger than it was Florida in 2000," Richard explains.
In short, "It's not gonna happen," according to Richard.
The clock is also ticking; the electoral college meets December 19th.
The lawsuit would call for a hand recount of every paper ballot in Florida.
|
As the 1980s got underway, Houston's oil industry was in the midst of nearly a decade of opulence, supported by record crude prices that followed the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Sleek company cars plied the streets of the city. Membership at tony golf clubs soared. Corporate jets stood at the ready to whisk executives to anywhere in the world.
RELATED: South Texas tries to turn an oil crash into a soft landing
But just a few years later, it all came crashing down with the price of oil. The jets were grounded, cranes dismantled and commercial projects scrapped. Thousands of workers lost jobs and scores of companies went belly up.
Timeline of an oil bust October 1973 The Arab oil embargo leads to rising energy prices and mile-long lines at gasoline stations in the United States. December 1973 The U.S. rig count stands at more than 1,200. December 1981 The U.S. rig count reaches 4,500 even though oil demand declines after large consumer markets such as the United States and Canada slip into recession. March 1982 The beginning of the bust. Demand sinks below daily oil production and crude prices start falling. January 1986 The decline in oil prices accelerates, and U.S. crude prices fall by half in just a few months. Baker International and Hughes Tools, two oil field service companies, merge to ride out the downturn. 1987 Harris County has 30,000 home foreclosures. 1989 The worst of the bust is over after more than 225,000 workers lose jobs and 130 Texas banks fail. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Read More
"It wasn't much fun," said Patrick Fairchild, a geologist based in West Texas, whose Midland oil company went bankrupt when struggling lenders called his loan in 1986 - even though he was still making payments.
As Houston struggles through the latest oil bust, the 1980s crash remains the downturn against which all others are measured, an epic collapse that forced the region to confront its dependence on a single industry and begin a long process to diversify its economic base. Students of history can argue about which oil bust hit Houston's energy sector harder, but there's little debate that the 1980s collapse did far more damage to the local economy.
The colossal fall in oil prices that began in 1982 and accelerated in 1986 not only sapped Houston's wildcatter spirit, but undermined Houston's economic foundations. Houston lost more than 225,000 jobs, about one in eight, and unemployment rate climbed above 9 percent - nearly double today's rate. Office vacancies soared above 20 percent. Office rents plunged.
Loan payments to banks soon followed. Risky commercial real estate and energy loans went bad and hundreds of banks failed. Construction ground to a halt. More than 200,000 homes stood vacant.
"I remember seeing apartment projects started and not completed, new office buildings just sitting vacant, residential areas where streets got put in but never completed," said Keith Miller, senior energy lender at Mutual of Omaha Bank. "It was a low time for the Houston economy."
MORE HISTORY: Shell Oil helped ignite the growth of Houston's downtown skyline
After the shock of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, crude prices stayed high as the newly formed Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries controlled production to keep supplies tight. Imported oil prices averaged at a peak $39 a barrel - or more than $106 in 2016 dollars - in the summer of 1981, according to the Energy Information Administration.
But prices began falling in March 1982 amid a decline in oil demand as the United States limped through a recession and Europe and other nations slowed economically, in part because of expensive fuel prices. From January to June 1986, crude prices fell 52 percent, or to about $27 a barrel in 2016 dollars. The price drop accelerated as Saudi Arabia pushed its crude production higher.
The nation's rig count fell from a peak of more than 4,500 in late 1981 to a low of 663 in July 1986. Sales of oil field equipment plunged from $40 billion to $9 billion over the same period, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Drilling rigs were torn apart and sold for scrap, at pennies on the dollar. For people trying to figure out how much the machines were worth, the first question wasn't "How much oil can it drill up?" It was "How much does it weigh?"
Houses were just being evacuated. It was a crazy time.” — Patrick Fairchild
Attendance plummeted at the Offshore Technology Conference, one of the energy industry's biggest events. More than 100,000 people had packed the trade show in 1982; two years later, organizers had the conference without an exhibition because so few people would attend. By 1987, OTC attendance reached only 25,000, just one-fourth of what it was five years earlier.
A Wall Street Journal article claimed the most exotic dish served at one Houston dinner party was a plate of cheese balls. The New York Times wrote about a Houston dentist who reported an increase in teeth-grinding problems among the locals.
In the boom years, "you got a free car and all the gas you could put in it," said Mark Parrish, who worked for an independent oil company in the 1980s. "That was the first thing that went away. It was a pretty big hit."
Bigger hits followed. In oil towns like Midland, laid-off oil workers lived in tents, recalled Fairchild, the geologist. One lived in the cardboard box his refrigerator had come in.
"Houses were just being evacuated," Fairchild said. "It was a crazy time."
In many ways, the oil industry felt the repercussions of this epic oil bust for years. A generation of young petroleum engineers, for example, left the industry and never returned, leaving oil companies to grapple with a middle-age talent gap that persisted even into the recent oil boom.
The searing experience also provided a lesson that political, business and civic leaders took to heart: The region's economy could not depend so heavily on one industry. Efforts to diversify the local economy got underway, and today, sectors like the large and growing health care industry are tempering the impact of the latest oil bust.
RELATED: Houstonians fairly upbeat despite oil price crash
Banking in the region has changed, as well. The arrival of interstate banking in 1987 allowed out-of-state institutions to snap up troubled Houston banks, and helped stabilize the local financial system. Most of the region's banking is done by large national lenders, rather than scattered, small independent banks, providing greater access to credit and capital.
The oil and gas industry has again been battered, this time by a slide in prices that began in the summer of 2014. More than 170 North American oil producers and oil field services companies, many in Texas, have gone bankrupt, according to Dallas law firm Haynes & Boone. Tens of thousands of oil and gas jobs have been lost. Many companies continue to struggle under the weight of some $500 billion in high-interest debt that independent firms ran up during the latest boom.
The broader economy, so far, has held up much better than 30 years ago. The Houston area is still adding jobs, albeit barely. The real estate market is cooling, but not collapsing. Sectors such as health care and petrochemicals are still growing.
In an interview in 1989, the University of Houston economist Barton Smith said the oil boom of the 1970s and early '80s caught the city by surprise, and it perhaps grew too far, too fast, which intensified the bust.
"But we've learned a lesson," he told the Houston Chronicle. "All we need to do is remember it."
|
Kyle Reyes, CEO of Manchester, Connecticut's Silent Partner Marketing, has an unorthodox method of screening job applicants he likes to call the "snowflake test."
Who are these so-called "snowflakes"? For Reyes and his fellow Fox News viewers, it's "a young activist, a champion of character, an eighth place trophy holder."
Since appearing on "Fox and Friends" last week, thousands of resumes have flooded his inbox. Only two have made the cut.
"I was really taken aback," new hire Allison Paglughi told host Steve Doocy. "I was like, why does he care when I last cried, why does he care about my stance on police?"
Devon Farquharson, another new hire, defended Reyes' methods.
"I totally get it," Farquharson told Doocy. "I mean, with all the stuff you go through on a daily basis, it makes sense that we wouldn't want people who'd get offended easily."
SPONSORED
“A snowflake is somebody who is going to whine and complain and come to the table with nothing but an entitled attitude and an inability to back their perspective,” Reyes told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney.
"Who is a snowflake these days? Is it a political test?" Varney asked Reyes.
Reyes flat-out denied the assertion. But Varney pressed on.
"'Snowflakes' are liberals, you know that," the host insisted.
"I've met many conservative snowflakes," Reyes retorted. "Snowflake is a mentality."
"I guarantee that somebody's going to sue you, many people are going to sue you," Varney told him.
Watch:
|
The following files are included with this item:
Teleplasmiste
Frequency is the New Ecstasy Black LP
LP £22.00
Discs: 1
“Operating at the highest possible level. Outer Space, in fact.” – The Wire
“Comprehensively mind-bending.. envelope time and space through the essential purity of all-consuming sound.” – The Quietus.
“Spacey, in all the good ways. Inner Spacey. And Psychedelick as the day is looooooooooooong . You can’t tell where it’s from, this lilting music, but it’s definitely not here…” – Freq
The album comes in a strictly Ltd. edition of 300, 180 gram vinyl, thick (matte varnished) card stock, 180gsm printed inner sleeve, additional insert and protective PVC outer sleeve.
NOTE: These are the very few remaining copies of this LP. It is sold out in retail.
Vinyl Side A
1. A Gift of Unknown Things
2. Gravity is the Enemy
3. Astōdaan
Vinyl Side B
4. Fall of the Yak Man
5. Radioclast
|
March 6, 2011 — Mario Gleichmann
Welcome to another episode of Functional Scala!
In this episode we’ll going to recap and employ everything we’ve learned so far about algebraic datatypes and pattern matching for implementing a more extensive example. We’ll put all those little pieces together which we’ve discovered so far and see how they work in cooperation for building a little language which allows us to write, pretty print, step-wise reduce and evaluate arbitrary arithmetic expressions (considering addition, subtraction and multiplication on integer values). And as the cherry on top, we’ll discover some new flavour of algebraic datatypes and pattern matching.
It may be a good start to first give some thoughts on how we wanna represent algebraic expressions. Just consider a language of expressions build up from basic values (integer literals) and some operations on them (e.g. addition or multiplication of some integer values). For example, the following are all arithmetic expressions:
17
17 + 23
109 * ( 8 + 15 )
An expression in its simplest form might be an integer literal. That’s a legal expression for sure! And how could we represent such an entity within our little language? What about an algebraic datatype Expression? Right, mate! Good idea! Let’s write it down:
sealed abstract case class Expression case class Literal( x :Int ) extends Expression
Ok, so far we have a simple and neat product type, since we could express a whole bunch of different integer literals, just using that single value constructor:
val expr1 = Literal( 1 ) val expr2 = Literal( 17 ) ... val exprN = Literal( 532 )
Well, if you think that’s boring, you’re again right! So far, our Expressions are a bit too simple, right? How do you feel about adding some operations which will take some integer literals and act on them? The addition of two integer literals surely pose an Expression in itself. So let’s add it as another value constructor to our datatype, extending our expression language:
sealed abstract case class Expression case class Literal( x :Int ) extends Expression case class Add( a :Literal, b :Literal ) extends Expression
Aaahh, now things start to become more interesting. Our new value constructor also features some components, that is two integer literals which act as the operands for our operation Add.
val sum1 = Add( Literal( 17 ), Literal( 4 ) ) val sum2 = Add( Literal( 123 ), Literal( 321 )
In a sense, we’ve just created a recursive datatype (ok, indirectly), since those two components are also Expressions! Um, wait a minute! What was that? Those two components are also expressions? Yep, we just declared literals as being legal Expressions in its simplest form! But is there actually any reason why we restrict addition to act on integer literals directly? If we would allow arbitrary Expressions as operands, we could express nested Expressions within our language like this:
val sum3 = Add( Literal( 21 ), Add( Literal( 17 ), Literal( 4 ) ) ) val sum4 = Add( Add( Literal( 19 ), Literal( 2 ) ), Literal( 12 ) )
In fact, there’s nothing to be said against nested operations (unless you want to restrict yourself to ordinary, basic expressions). From this point of view, we could build arbitrary nested expressions in a recursive way. This recursice nature of building expressions is directly reflected within our value constructors! Observe:
sealed abstract case class Expression case class Literal( x :Int ) extends Expression case class Add( x :Expression, y :Expression ) extends Expression case class Mult( x :Expression, y :Expression ) extends Expression case class Sub( x :Expression, y :Expression ) extends Expression
See the recurive structure? We now defined an algebraic datatype with a recursive structure, allowing us to build arbitrary nested arithmetic expressions. Since there are several operations all acting on an arbitrary expression, we could mix them in every which way.
val expr1 = Mult( Literal( 6 ), Add( Literal( 3 ), Literal( 4 ) ) ) val expr2 = Sub(Mult(Literal(21), Add(Literal(103), Literal(42))), Add(Literal(17), Mult(Literal(29), Literal(7)))) val expr3 = Mult(Sub(Literal(6), Mult(Sub( Literal(5), Literal(3)), Literal(3))), Add(Literal(3), Mult(Literal(5), Literal(8))))
Ah, ok! We’re now able to construct arbitrary expressions featuring any level of nesting, so we could come up with some rather complex expressions. Hm, is there anything annoying?
A pretty printer
At least, we might got some problems when trying to read a more complex expression. It’s rather difficult to detect the correct nesting structure, resulting from the fact that operations are expressed in postfix notation within our little language. For that to change, let’s write a little function which takes an arbitrary expression and results into a string which represents the given expression in infix notation (which our brain is trained to scan and recognize).
Given the recursive nature of our expressions, we can mirror that fact directly within our function: we’ll pattern match against every possible value constructor for our Expression type, formatting them into their related infix format and than filling the gaps for every sub-expression (that are the operands for any given operation) by just formatting them recursively. Just watch:
val format : Expression => String = _ match { case Literal( x ) => x.toString case Add( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => "( " + format( leftExpr ) + " + " + format( rightExpr ) + " )" case Mult( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => "( " + format( leftExpr ) + " * " + format( rightExpr ) + " )" case Sub( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => "( " + format( leftExpr ) + " - " + format( rightExpr ) + " )" }
That’s all? Aye, mate! That’s all! We’ve just looked at every basic expression type and give an appropriate format. By binding the components for the value constructors of any given operation, we referred to them at the right side of a case expression being able to format them recursively before inserting them into their right place within the string representation for the current operation. This way we’re now able to pretty print any given expression, like the ones above:
println( format( expr1 ) ) // ( 6 * ( 3 + 4 ) ) println( format( expr2 ) ) // ( ( 21 * ( 103 + 42 ) ) - ( 17 + ( 29 * 7 ) ) ) println( format( expr3 ) ) // ( ( 6 - ( ( 5 - 3 ) * 3 ) ) * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) )
Ok, now we got a weapon for printing any given expression in infix notation, no matter how complex (read deeply nested) they may be.
Evaluation
What about evaluating a given expression? Finally, we might wanna resolve a complex expression down to a single integer value by evaluating all operations within that expression. Is this any harder as formatting a nested expression? Surely not! It turns out that we can rely on the very same recursive nature of our datatype! So while evaluating a single operation, we just evaluate the value for every operand recursively, again.
val eval : Expression => Int = _ match { case Literal( x ) => x case Add( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => eval( leftExpr ) + eval( rightExpr ) case Mult( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => eval( leftExpr ) * eval( rightExpr ) case Sub( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => eval( leftExpr ) - eval( rightExpr ) }
See the structural similarity to our function format, which’s again reflecting the structural similarity to our recursive datatype? Anyhow, now we can just apply any expression to our eval function and receive the final, resolved integer value, to which the expression evaluates:
eval( expr1 ) // 42 eval( expr2 ) // 2825 eval( expr3 ) // 0
Wow, our last expression evaluated to zero! Did you see that coming? Well, it would be nice if we had a function which could reduce a given expression step-wise, so that we could follow the single resolvement steps until we finally receive a single integer literal.
Step by step, oh baby …
For this to realize, we need to find a plan which expression patterns we’re able to reduce in which way. Surely, a given integer literal can’t be reduced any further. What’s about the addition of two literals? Well, we only could reduce it to a single integer literal, illustrating the result of that basic addition. As soon as their’s at least one more complex (nested) operand, we first need to reduce that operand solely, before reducing the whole operation in a next step. I think you got the idea: we just need to act on every operation in exactly the same way:
val reduce : Expression => Expression = ( expr :Expression ) => expr match { case Literal(_) => expr case Add( Literal(_), Literal(_) ) => Literal( eval( expr ) ) case Add( left @ Literal(_), rightExpr ) => Add( left, reduce( rightExpr ) ) case Add( leftExpr, right @ Literal(_) ) => Add( reduce( leftExpr ), right ) case Add( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => Add( reduce( leftExpr ), rightExpr ) case Sub( Literal(_), Literal(_) ) => Literal( eval( expr ) ) case Sub( left @ Literal(_), rightExpr ) => Sub( left, reduce( rightExpr ) ) case Sub( leftExpr, right @ Literal(_) ) => Sub( reduce( leftExpr ), right ) case Sub( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => Sub( reduce( leftExpr ), rightExpr ) case Mult( Literal(_), Literal(_) ) => Literal( eval( expr ) ) case Mult( left @ Literal(_), rightExpr ) => Mult( left, reduce( rightExpr ) ) case Mult( leftExpr, right @ Literal(_) ) => Mult( reduce( leftExpr ), right ) case Mult( leftExpr, rightExpr ) => Mult( reduce( leftExpr ), rightExpr ) }
Wowowow, hold on! What’s going on here? Everything looks familiar for the first case expression: there, we simply match the given expression against a single literal. We’re not interested in the given integer value for that literal (therefore the underscore), since we only return the given expression back in case of a match. Same goes for the first case expression matching against Add: since both operands mark some simple integer literals, we’ll return a new literal which represents the sum (by addition) of those two basic operands.
No need to get scared of the next case expression. There we wanna match against Add while the first operand being a simple literal and the second one a nested expression (we know that the second operand can’t be a literal – in that case there would’ve been a match on the first case for Add, right?). If we got a match – hence a literal for the first and a nested expression for the second operand – we’ll return a new (!) Add expression, were the second operand is going to be reduced and the first operand just remains the same. Now we got a dilemma: we needed to match the first operand against a literal pattern while also refering to it as a whole on the right side for building a new Add expression! But specifying a literal pattern prevents us to declare a variable binding for the first operand. And the other way round, if we simply declare a variable binding for the first operand, how can we be sure to match against a literal pattern simultaneously?
That’s the moment our new constsuct – the @-annotation – is waiting for! It’s just a way to bind a variable to a pattern! So in our case, we just match the first operand against a literal pattern and bind that whole pattern (that is the first operand, in case you’ve forgot it) to a variable named left. So if there’s a match, we have a convenient way to refer to the first operand on the right side while it’s guaranteed to be a simple literal.
Now it’s time to see our new function in action. Let’s take a rather complex expression and reduce it step by step:
val expr1 = Mult(Sub(Literal(6), Mult(Sub( Literal(5), Literal(3)), Literal(3))), Add(Literal(3), Mult(Literal(5), Literal(8)))) val expr2 = reduce( expr1 ) val expr3 = reduce( expr2 ) val expr4 = reduce( expr3 ) val expr5 = reduce( expr4 ) val expr6 = reduce( expr5 ) val expr7 = reduce( expr6 ) println( format( expr1 ) ) // ( ( 6 - ( ( 5 - 3 ) * 3 ) ) * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) println( format( expr2 ) ) // ( ( 6 - ( 2 * 3 ) ) * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) println( format( expr3 ) ) // ( ( 6 - 6 ) * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) println( format( expr4 ) ) // ( 0 * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) println( format( expr5 ) ) // ( 0 * ( 3 + 40 ) ) println( format( expr6 ) ) // ( 0 * 43 ) println( format( expr7 ) ) // 0
There you go. Now we’ve received a better understanding on how the whole expression’s evaluating to zero. We’ve kind of debugged the resolvement process, watching every intermediate step. Too bad, we need two know the number of steps in advance! So why not write a function which takes an expression and results into a list of expressions which represent the intermediate expressions after each reduction step until we reach a single literal:
val stepResolve : ( Expression,List[Expression] ) => List[Expression] = ( expr :Expression, steps :List[Expression] ) => expr match { case Literal(_) => expr :: steps case _ => stepResolve( reduce( expr ), expr :: steps ) }
Experts that we are, we can easily see what’s going on: the function just takes an expression and a list of expressions and then just acts on the given expression. If it’s a simple literal (the base case) then we can’t reduce the expression any further. We just prepend the expression to the list of expressions and be done. Otherwise we’re also prepending the expression but need to reduce it at least one more time. For our conveniance, we could come up with another function which just take a single expression and then starts the recursive resolvement steps just by providing an empty list at the start:
val resolve = ( expr :Expression ) => stepResolve( expr, Nil ).reverse
So if you apply the above expression expr1 to resolve, you gonna receive all intermediate expressions, starting with the given expression down to the final integer literal:
for( expr <- resolve( expr1 ) ) println( format( expr ) ) // will print ... // ( ( 6 - ( ( 5 - 3 ) * 3 ) ) * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) // ( ( 6 - ( 2 * 3 ) ) * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) // ( ( 6 - 6 ) * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) // ( 0 * ( 3 + ( 5 * 8 ) ) ) // ( 0 * ( 3 + 40 ) ) // ( 0 * 43 ) // 0
Summary
In this episode we saw algebraic datatypes and pattern matching in practice. We used both to implement a little language for building representations of arbitrary nested arithmetic expressions and operate on them. We recognized Expression as a recursive datatype, since operational expressions like Add or Mult may take some other Expressions as their operands, which is directly reflected by their corresponding value constructors.
In addition to that, most of our functions also reflected the recursice nature of such an expression in a similar way: they were matching against those different value constructors to handle each expression type individually while operating recursively on the operands for any given operation. There we discovered @-annotations which gives us a way to match against a pattern and bind that pattern to a variable for further reference.
We’re not at the end of our road, considering arithmetic expressions. As you’ve seen while debugging through the intermediate expressions during the single resolvement steps, we did some more needless reduction steps. Since the first operand of a multiplication was already zero, we still did some reduction steps on the right operand yet. We’ll see in the next episode how we could get rid of those unnecessary steps by applying some trivial simplifications to our expressions. In addition to that, we’ll see how to reduce the number of case expression within our function reduce. In both cases, we’re going to discover some yet unknown forms of pattern matching and will encounter a way for kind of creating your own patterns, leveraging so called extractors. Hope to see you then …
|
We’re pleased to announce that WebKit has a full WebAssembly implementation.
Dynamic Duo
WebAssembly is a no-nonsense sidekick to JavaScript. It isn’t meant to be hand-written; rather, it’s a low-level binary format designed to be a suitable compilation target for existing languages such as C++. The WebAssembly code that the browser sees will already have undergone high-level, language-specific optimizations. This is great because it means implementations don’t have to know about how C++ or other languages are optimized. Running expensive language-specific optimization on the developers’ machines allows WebKit to focus on target-specific optimizations. It also means that we can focus WebAssembly compiler optimizations on fast code delivery and predictable performance.
WebAssembly cannot do everything that JavaScript does. For example, WebAssembly cannot access the DOM except by calling into JavaScript. WebAssembly is meant to be used in conjunction with JavaScript. The JavaScript / WebAssembly dynamic duo work in partnership, allowing JavaScript to stay focused on taking over the world, while WebAssembly accelerates computation-intensive tasks.
JavaScript and its sidekick, cosplaying as 1966 Batman
The web wouldn’t be itself without security and portability. WebAssembly delivers on both fronts. It executes C++ code at near native speed with the same joker-less security guarantees that JavaScript offers. Our implementation supports WebAssembly on x86-64 as well as ARM64 platforms. Portable performance is really where WebAssembly shines: the WebAssembly virtual Instruction Set Architecture was designed to be an ideal compilation target for today’s modern processors.
Sidekick
WebAssembly fits in with the rest of the web platform, as a good sidekick would. It re-uses existing web APIs and exposes a new JavaScript API. WebAssembly has four core concepts: WebAssembly.Module , WebAssembly.Instance , WebAssembly.Memory , and WebAssembly.Table . A module represents code and is similar to a program on disk, whereas an instance is an execution of that program. There can be multiple concurrently executing instances of the same module. Finally, a memory represents an instance’s heap. It is contiguous, bounds-checked, and can be exposed to JavaScript as an ArrayBuffer . All WebAssembly memory operations operate on the instance’s memory. Finally, a table holds handles to WebAssembly functions, allowing indirect calls within an instance to target different functions with the same signature (in C++-speak: virtual functions and function pointers). Interestingly, instances can share the same memory, and tables can call directly across instances which enables dynamic linking.
Because WebAssembly exposes itself as a regular JavaScript object, we were able to reuse some machinery that already existed within WebKit. An interesting example is our reuse of our ECMAScript Module implementation to implement WebAssembly.Instance ‘s API. For now it’s an implementation detail—invisible to web developers—but integration with ECMAScript Modules is being discussed. For developers who use modules, interacting between JavaScript and WebAssembly would then be totally seamless. Behind the mask of modules, our heroes’ secret identities wouldn’t be revealed.
To allow sharing of modules between Web Workers and to prepare ourselves for future features like threads, we’ve made our internal representation of WebAssembly code thread-safe. This lets developers postMessage a compiled WebAssembly.Module across workers without requiring re-compilation, copying, or any other redundant work. Our implementation of postMessage for modules is simpler than a riddle: sharing a module between workers involves passing a reference to our internal module representation to the other worker. That worker will run the same machine code as the agent that originally produced the module.
Utility Belt
WebAssembly directly exposes 32- and 64-bit integers as well as 32- and 64-bit floating point numbers. Its instruction set is equally simple:
i32.add i64.add f32.add f64.add i32.wrap/i64 i32.load8_s i32.store8 i32.sub i64.sub f32.sub f64.sub i32.trunc_s/f32 i32.load8_u i32.store16 i32.mul i64.mul f32.mul f64.mul i32.trunc_s/f64 i32.load16_s i32.store i32.div_s i64.div_s f32.div f64.div i32.trunc_u/f32 i32.load16_u i64.store8 i32.div_u i64.div_u f32.abs f64.abs i32.trunc_u/f64 i32.load i64.store16 i32.rem_s i64.rem_s f32.neg f64.neg i32.reinterpret/f32 i64.load8_s i64.store32 i32.rem_u i64.rem_u f32.copysign f64.copysign i64.extend_s/i32 i64.load8_u i64.store i32.and i64.and f32.ceil f64.ceil i64.extend_u/i32 i64.load16_s f32.store i32.or i64.or f32.floor f64.floor i64.trunc_s/f32 i64.load16_u f64.store i32.xor i64.xor f32.trunc f64.trunc i64.trunc_s/f64 i64.load32_s i32.shl i64.shl f32.nearest f64.nearest i64.trunc_u/f32 i64.load32_u i32.shr_u i64.shr_u i64.trunc_u/f64 i64.load call i32.shr_s i64.shr_s f32.sqrt f64.sqrt i64.reinterpret/f64 f32.load call_indirect i32.rotl i64.rotl f32.min f64.min f64.load i32.rotr i64.rotr f32.max f64.max i32.clz i64.clz nop grow_memory i32.ctz i64.ctz block current_memory i32.popcnt i64.popcnt f32.demote/f64 loop i32.eqz i64.eqz f32.convert_s/i32 if get_local i32.eq i64.eq f32.convert_s/i64 else set_local i32.ne i64.ne f32.convert_u/i32 br tee_local i32.lt_s i64.lt_s f32.convert_u/i64 br_if i32.le_s i64.le_s f32.reinterpret/i32 br_table get_global i32.lt_u i64.lt_u f32.eq f64.eq f64.promote/f32 return set_global i32.le_u i64.le_u f32.ne f64.ne f64.convert_s/i32 end i32.gt_s i64.gt_s f32.lt f64.lt f64.convert_s/i64 i32.const i32.ge_s i64.ge_s f32.le f64.le f64.convert_u/i32 drop i64.const i32.gt_u i64.gt_u f32.gt f64.gt f64.convert_u/i64 select f32.const i32.ge_u i64.ge_u f32.ge f64.ge f64.reinterpret/i64 unreachable f64.const
The instructions are low-level by design, and it is this low-level quality that gives WebAssembly its power. WebAssembly was born as a compilation target, molded by compiler engineers.
OMG! BBQ!
WebKit’s WebAssembly implementation, like our JavaScript implementation, uses a tiering system to balance startup costs with throughput. Currently, there are two tiers to the engine: the Build Bytecode Quickly (BBQ) tier and the Optimized Machine-code Generator (OMG) tier. Both rely on the B3 JIT as their low-level optimizer.
WebAssembly modules can easily contain tons of code, some of which isn’t executed more than once or very frequently. This is why we opted to use two tiers: one that generates decent code quickly, and one that generates optimized code only when the engine thinks the code is hot enough to warrant it. BBQ compiles code about 4× as fast as OMG, but produces code that executes roughly 2× as slow as OMG. We use a background thread when compiling functions using the OMG. When OMG compilation finishes, we pause the executing WebAssembly threads and hot-patch the OMG compilation into the module.
WebAssembly being a low-level format—compared to JavaScript being a dynamic language—means that things aren’t as fickle when compiling WebAssembly. For example, WebAssembly statically tells us the types of all values within a function and gives us the signatures of all functions ahead of time.
BBQ 🔥
In order to produce executable code as soon as possible, the BBQ tier omits many of the optimizations possible in the B3 compiler. Additionally, the BBQ tier also uses a linear scan combined register / stack allocation algorithm. This allocates registers about 11× faster than the graph coloring algorithm that B3 usually uses. Avoiding expensive optimization allows WebKit to produce BBQ fast, so that BBQ may be consumed as soon as possible.
OMG 😲
When a function has been executed enough times, our WebAssembly runtime decides to optimize that function. Since WebAssembly does not require any type speculations, we only use tiering to conserve compile time. BBQ code contains only the profiling needed to detect when code has executed many times.
We share modules, along with all of their runtime state (like tiering-up from BBQ to OMG) between workers. Since we hot-patch the BBQ code, which might be executing on any number of threads, we need to be sure that each call-site can be concurrently updated to point to the OMG code. In order to avoid checking for new code on each call to a function, like JavaScript does, we track each call-site to every function, both in assembly and indirectly. Whenever the OMG version of a function is finished compiling, it replaces each call-site with a pointer to the code.
Mem-SIGNAL 🦇
One of the most important optimizations in WebAssembly is reducing the overhead on memory accesses while preserving security guarantees. WebAssembly specifies that all memory accesses are performed on a single 32-bit linear memory. We do this by reserving slightly more than 4GiB of virtual address space. This virtual reservation doesn’t occupy physical memory unless accessed. We use the hardware’s page protection mechanism to mark all but the lower pages as non-readable and non-writable. All loads and stores from this 32-bit address space can be performed normally, without explicit bounds checking instructions. If a load or store would be out of bounds, it will trigger a hardware fault that will ultimately result in a POSIX SIGSEGV or a Mach EXC_BAD_ACCESS exception. Our custom signal / Mach exception handlers then ensure the fault originated from a WebAssembly memory operation. If so, we set the instruction pointer to a special code stub that performs a WebAssembly trap and materializes a WebAssembly.RuntimeError in JavaScript. This optimization means that a WebAssembly memory operation typically results in a single load or store instruction. Overall, we measured a 15-20% speedup from this optimization on various WebAssembly benchmarks.
WebAssembly memory signal
💥 KAPOW! 💥
Get in touch with us by filing a bug, or contacting JF, Keith, and Saam on Twitter.
|
Mike McCarthy doesn’t look at Ty Montgomery as a receiver anymore. But does the Green Bay Packers coach consider the third-year pro a No. 1 running back after Montgomery made the full-time position switch midway through last season?
Ty Montgomery averaged nearly 6 yards per carry for the Packers last season. Jeff Hanisch/USA TODAY Sports
“I think Ty definitely has that ability,” McCarthy told reporters at the NFL annual meetings in Phoenix.
Montgomery averaged a remarkable 5.9 yards per carry last regular season, and he rushed for three touchdowns in the regular season and two more in the playoffs.
Still, there’s a big difference between the 77 carries Montgomery had in the regular season and the 239 carries that Eddie Lacy averaged per year over his first three NFL seasons. When Lacy signed with the Seattle Seahawks in free agency earlier this month, it left Montgomery as the Packers’ only running back. Since then, they re-signed Christine Michael to a one-year deal, but it contained almost no guaranteed money (just a $25,000 signing bonus) and his spot on the opening-day roster is far from assured.
This is a key offseason for Montgomery, who last spring spent the majority of his time working with receivers coach Luke Getsy. This offseason, he’ll work almost exclusively with running backs coach Ben Sirmans, who was instrumental in the conversion process for Montgomery last season.
Not only did Montgomery change positions last season, he also dealt with a significant health issue. He missed one full game and was limited in others because of complications from sickle-cell trait. Montgomery carried more than 11 times in a game only once last season and never rushed more than 16. That came in his season-high 162-yard, two-touchdown game at Chicago in Week 15.
“Obviously it’s a very heavy lifting position, so availability will be Ty’s No. 1 statistic,” McCarthy said. “He’s a very talented young man, very bright, obviously understands the whole perimeter part of the offense now, so his utilization and the variation that he gives us as far as alignments and assignments and the different things that he can do will definitely benefit us as far as our offensive scheme. He just needs to have a great offseason ... but this is a big opportunity for him.
2017 NFL DRAFT Round 1: April 27, 8 p.m. ET
Rds. 2-3: April 28, 7 p.m. ET
Rds. 4-7: April 29, noon ET
Where: Philadelphia NFL draft home page » • 2017 NFL draft order »
• Mel Kiper Jr.: Mock 3.0 »
• Todd McShay: Mock 3.0 »
• Todd McShay's Top 32 »
• Mel Kiper Jr.'s Big Board »
• McShay: Top prospects by position »
• Mel Kiper Jr.: Top 10 by position »
• Pro day schedule for prospects »
• Underclassmen who have declared »
• NFL draft player rankings »
Even if Montgomery proves to be a full-time No. 1 back, McCarthy has rarely relied on a workhorse ball carrier, particularly early in the season. He’d rather split carries to keep his backs fresh for the stretch run. Last season, the Packers went into the regular season with only Lacy and James Starks at running back, and injuries to both forced McCarthy into radical changes.
McCarthy and general manager Ted Thompson both said this week that they’re far from finished in the running-back-acquisition department, although neither would say whether that would be a veteran such as Adrian Peterson or someone in the draft, or both.
“Well, we’re short; we have two running backs on the roster,” McCarthy said. “I think that’s obvious. We’re going to have more running backs here in a month when we hit the [organized team activities] here in Phase 2, the middle of May after the rookie orientation camp, I think our roster will definitely reflect differently. We have work to do there.”
ESPN's Mike Sando contributed to this report.
|
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Were you warm and comfy behind the wheel with your coffee and favourite radio station during this morning’s commute?
How would you feel about strapping on a helmet and pedalling your way in to work? Research shows biking or walking in to work beats going to the gym, when it comes to keeping fit.
A four-year study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has found people who commuted to work by car gained more weight on average, even if they engaged in regular exercise, than people who did not commute by car.
Or you can look at it like this: Even if you bust your behind in the gym and run or do other exercise in your leisure time, it doesn’t do as much good in preventing obesity as simply being active on your way in to work.
To curb obesity, it is recommended you get 60 to 90 minutes of activity daily. Most people have trouble fitting that into their schedules, but if you ditch the car for at least part of your commute and for common errands, it is much easier to make being active a part of your daily routine.
But it’s a tough sell for many commuters News1130 spoke with this morning.
“I’m working in quite a lot of different locations and it would be quite the exercise, I would say,” chuckles Allan. “I’ve tried it before. I’ve used Skytrain and had to be careful when I was using it to makes sure there’s room and it wasn’t very practical at all, unfortunately.”
“I do cycle on a regular basis,” counters Al, while waiting for the B-Line bus with his mountain bike. “I do it for both [the economic and health benefits].”
“But I’ll be honest: I’m a teacher and I’ve just been off for two weeks and I’ve put on some pounds. Because I wasn’t going to school to teach, I was cycling less and I was exercising less. Even after two weeks, I did notice a difference in my weight,” he adds.
The authors of the study recommend creating more opportunities for everyone to walk or bike to work to improve public health.
|
This week, South Korea shouted a new entry onto the list of drone countermeasures. A research project by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), set to be presented in DC next week, uses sound to disable the internal gyroscopes that balance drones.
The paper, entitled “Rocking Drones with Intentional Sound Noise on Gyroscopic Sensors” targets Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) gyroscopes, the tiny sensors used by drones to stay level in flight. In normal function, these gyroscopes stabilize the drone against imbalances from wind or other movement. The researchers from KAIST wanted to see if enough deliberate, hostile external vibration--in this case provided by sound--could disturb the smooth flight of the drone. The answer was a resounding “yes.”
It turns out that the resonant frequencies, or sounds that vibrate at the same frequency as the targeted object, of many of the gyroscopes used in small drones are within audible range. To find that out, the researchers attached a wireless speaker four inches above the gyroscope in a target drone, and then turned it on while the drone was in stable flight. One of the targets was largely unaffected and stayed airborne, but another became unstable on all its axes and fell down to the ground.
Attaching wireless speakers to a target drone isn’t exactly a great countermeasure, so the researchers attempted other sonic attacks on drones. In a simulation they found that, if loud enough, directional speakers could disable drones from a distance of up to 120 feet, and increasing the decibels of the sonic weapon extends its range, to a point. But without the ability to track the enemy drone, it can just steer itself clear of the attack and continue to fly normally. (The kind of equipment needed to track incoming drones is more in the realm of a defense contractor than a research institute.)
Unless costs go down or power of the countermeasure goes up, we’re unlikely to see sonic weapons protecting skyscrapers from hostile drones. Fortunately, Korea has other defenses on hand. This past spring, they showed off an anti-drone system that used other small drones to attack and disable hostile quadcopters on the ground.
PCWorld
|
A newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report confirms that Planned Parenthood Federation of America and five other groups are using taxpayer funds to advocate for abortions as “reproductive health care.”
The report of the GAO investigation, which was called for by over 60 members of Congress in 2013, indicates that the six organizations—Planned Parenthood Federation of America; International Planned Parenthood Federation; Guttmacher Institute; Advocates for Youth, which claims to assist young women and youth of color access contraception and serves gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning (GLBTQ) youth; Population Council; and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)—spent over $482 million in federal funding between 2010 and 2012.
The report states:
In summary, two federal agencies, HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] and USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development], reported obligating about $236 million in grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts to the six organizations from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2012. Of this amount, HHS obligated about $107 million to the six organizations, while USAID obligated about $128 million to two of the six organizations, Population Council and member associations of International Planned Parenthood Federation. During this same time frame, the six organizations reported expending over $482 million in federal funding. In addition to funding they received directly from HHS and USAID, the six organizations reported expending funding they received indirectly from HHS and USAID as well as the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice.
In response to the GAO’s report, U.S. Reps. Diane Black (R-TN), Pete Olson (R-TX), Chris Smith (R-NJ), and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) said the following in a press release:
The report found that the six organizations spent $481 million in federal funding from Fiscal Years 2010 to 2012, as well as about $1.2 billion in combined federal and state funds under federal health programs that require shared funding. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) spent the greatest share of this public funding – approximately $1.5 billion in combined state and federal dollars, or an average of about $500 million each year.
The GAO also indicated, note the members of Congress, that federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) that provide health services not offered by the six organizations that promote abortion, served 21 million individuals without providing abortions. Black, Olson, Smith, and Vitter view these FQHCs as “offering a positive alternative to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.”
Black and Vitter have authored the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act which “would end Title X grants for ‘health care’ providers that perform abortions.”
“This report confirms what we suspected all along: hard-earned taxpayer dollars continue to be used to promote abortions,” said Black. “The GAO study found that Planned Parenthood Federation of America alone – the nation’s largest abortion provider – spent about $1.5 billion in combined federal and state funding during this reporting period.”
“This is shameful and we have a responsibility to stop it. As a nurse for more than 40 years, I know that abortion is not health care,” she continued. “In light of this report, Congress should act swiftly by passing the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would help cut off federal funding of organizations like these that promote the destruction of unborn life.”
As Black observed and Breitbart News reported earlier this week, the GAO report is released as Senate Democrats are working to upend a human sex trafficking bill that would help victims of trafficking in order to protect the abortion industry. The bill contains the Hyde Amendment which would forbid taxpayer funding of abortions.
“It shouldn’t take a GAO request from Congress for the American public to know where their tax dollars are being spent,” Olson said. “Yet, since I’ve been in Congress, this is the only way we can get answers.”
“Planned Parenthood—Child Abuse Incorporated—is responsible for killing more than 6 million unborn children, and it is unconscionable that this organization continues to be subsidized by the American taxpayer,” said Smith.
“Taxpayer funding should in no way support abortions. But when we hand out funding to groups like Planned Parenthood, we know exactly where it’s going – they proudly admit that the majority of their pregnancy-related resources go toward abortions,” Vitter said.
“The amount of government money that Planned Parenthood has received over the last three years is astounding,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, in a statement to Breitbart News. “The abortion giant committed close to one million abortions over that time period, yet the government continues to fund them and, still, they aren’t happy.”
“They successfully held up a bill in the Senate that helped victims of sex trafficking because it had a provision that prohibited government money from paying for abortion,” Hawkins added. “It’s sickening that taxpayers are continuing to fund this organization and Congress should be ashamed to vote in favor of sending Planned Parenthood a taxpayer check every year worth millions.”
|
Bio: Sidney George Reilly was a Jewish Russian-born spy of the most extraordinary type. Exactly who he was and who his father was is a bit of a mystery but he was originally named either Georgi Rosenblum or Salomon Rosenblum and after faking his own death in Odessa he fled the Tsarist regime and, traveling via either France or Brazil depending on who you believe, he arrived in London in late 1895. He was first recruited into intelligence work by William Melville, working for the Special Branch of the British police. When Melville took a fake retirement from Special Branch to become the covert head of the Secret Service Bureau (later MI5) he took Rosenblum with him as a spy. When Rosenblum married a wealthy heiress in mid-1898 he and Melville crafted a new identity for him: Sidney George Reilly. Reilly was soon put to work spying in the Far East and in Russia and after over 20 years of service he was inducted into the Secret Intelligence Service, the forerunner to MI6, in 1918. He was dispatched to Moscow with a mission to infiltrate and disrupt the Bolsheviks as part of the longrunning anti-Bolshevik SIS effort that also included Somerset Maugham, Arthur Ransome and Robert Bruce Lockhart. Lockhart in particular was close friend with Reilly, and later outlined their adventures together in his Memoirs of a British Agent in 1932. His son wrote the book Ace of Spies, an effective biography of Reilly. Reilly very much fed into his own legend, claiming to have spied for several different countries across four continents and listing numerous supposed wives and mistresses. He certainly loved the high life, fast women, adventure, deception and gambling. As such he was not only a very talented spy, in spite of his fabrications and exaggerations, but also served as a major inspiration for the character of James Bond. Lockhart was friends with Ian Fleming and recounted their missions together. In 1925, Soviet secret police pretending to be anti-Communists lured Reilly back to Russia and captured him. He was imprisoned for several weeks of interrogation and then executed. The Soviet’s public story is that he had been shot while trying to cross the Finnish border, and even after his execution rumours circulated that he had defected and had become a Soviet adviser.
|
BENGALURU: An alleged misunderstanding between two government departments more than 60 years ago is threatening the operations of industries located across a vast area in Whitefield The state revenue department on Saturday handed over rights to 711 acres of industrial land in Kadugodi to the forest department after finding that the land belonged to the latter. The forest department now wants all commercial establishments in the area to move out.Almost the entire portion of this land, barring a few acres that forms Dinnur village, had been converted to an industrial park by the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB). The board normally establishes a park only after receiving necessary clearance from the revenue department. Neither revenue department officials nor KIADB authorities were available for comment on the unseemly situation.But assistant conservator of forest BN Nagaraj told STOI that a government notification of 1896 had established the area as forest land, and subsequent records have maintained the same."Over the years, due to the negligence of revenue officials, the land was changed to revenue and handed over to the KIADB, which allowed industries to come up. We have been actively fighting for the land since 2006, and there have been several hearings before the revenue department. They have now acknowledged that the land belongs to us," Nagaraj said.He said the forest department on Saturday brought down a KIADB board in the area. It will soon begin demolishing structures across the 711 acres. "We will not disturb those in Dinnur as it is a village. But all commercial structures will go. From what we have learnt, the companies have already received compensation," the forest officer said.S Sampath Raman, president, Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the KIADB has maintained that the land was given to the revenue department by the forest department in 1950. "We believe the government when we buy land from KIADB. It goes through the legal process rigorously and then develops the land. They have always done a thorough job, but here is one case of dispute. The forest department should give up its claim as industries have already come in the area," he added.On Saturday, at least 150 people gathered in the area as the forest department went about demolishing the KIADB board."We have even filed an appeal before the high court saying the land is in a protected forest belt," Nagaraj said. "Now the question is, will the newly affected parties - the industries in the area - take the matter to court."
|
China’s Military Moment
Read more about the 5 flashpoints of the South China sea here.
Beguiled by undersea oil and gas deposits and the weakness of fellow claimants to the Paracel Islands, China launched a naval offensive to seize the disputed archipelago. To justify its actions, Beijing pointed to history — notably Ming Dynasty Adm. Zheng He’s visits to the islands in the 15th century — while touting its “indisputable sovereignty” over most of the South China Sea.
Chinese vessels carrying amphibious troops and operating under fighter cover from nearby Hainan Island engaged a South Vietnamese flotilla bereft of air support. One Vietnamese destroyer escort lay at the bottom of the South China Sea following the daylong battle. China’s flag fluttered over the islands.
The skirmish was real — and the date was Jan. 17, 1974.
History may not repeat itself exactly, but it sure rhymes. Back then, China exploited South Vietnamese weakness to seize the Paracels. Now, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has announced plans to station a military garrison at Sansha, a newly founded city on the 0.8 square-mile Woody Island in the Paracels. Formally established on July 24, Sansha will act as China’s administrative center for the Paracel and Spratly islands and adjoining waters.
This is the latest move in China’s campaign to consolidate its claim to all waters and islands within a “nine-dashed line” that encloses most of the South China Sea, including large swaths of Southeast Asian countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs). This month, a Chinese frigate ran aground in the Philippine EEZ after reportedly shooing away Filipino fishermen. That incident came on the heels of a late June announcement that PLA Navy units would commence “combat-ready patrols” of contested waters.
Beijing is reaching for its weapons once again. Unlike in 1974, however, Chinese leaders are doing so at a time when peacetime diplomacy seemingly offers them a good chance to prevail without fighting. I call it “small-stick diplomacy” — gunboat diplomacy with no overt display of gunboats.
Chinese strategists take an extraordinarily broad view of sea power — one that includes nonmilitary shipping. In 1974, propagandists portrayed the “Defensive War for the Paracels” (as the conflict is known in Chinese) as the triumph of a “people’s navy,” lavishly praising the fishermen who had acted as a naval auxiliary. Fishing fleets can go places and do things to which rivals must respond or surrender their claims by default. Unarmed ships from coast-guard-like agencies constitute the next level. And the PLA Navy fleet backed by shore-based tactical aircraft, missiles, missile-armed attack boats, and submarines represents the ultimate backstop.
Beijing can solidify its hold within the nine-dashed line by dispatching surveillance, fisheries, or law-enforcement ships to protect Chinese fishermen in disputed waters, stare down rival claimants, and uphold Chinese domestic law. And it can do so without overtly bullying weaker neighbors, giving extraregional powers a pretext to intervene, or squandering its international standing amid the anguish and sheer messiness of armed conflict. Why jettison a strategy that holds such promise?
Because small-stick diplomacy takes time. It involves creating facts on the ground — like Sansha — and convincing others it’s pointless to challenge those facts. Beijing has the motives, means, and opportunity to resolve the South China Sea disputes on its terms, but it may view the opportunity as a fleeting one. Rival claimants like Vietnam are arming. They may acquire military means sufficient to defy China’s threats, or at least drive up the costs to China of imposing its will. And Southeast Asians are seeking help from powerful outsiders like the United States. Although Washington takes no official stance on the maritime disputes, it is naturally sympathetic to countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Some, like the Philippines, are treaty allies, while successive U.S. administrations have courted friendly ties with Vietnam.
Chinese leaders thus may believe they must act now or forever lose the opportunity to cement their control of virtually the entire South China Sea. More direct methods may look like the least bad course of action — whatever the costs, hazards, and diplomatic blowback they may entail in the short run.
China’s motives have remained remarkably constant over the decades. Indeed, the map on which the nine-dashed line is inscribed is an artifact from the 1940s, not something dreamed up in recent years. Chiang Kai-shek’s government published it before fleeing to Taiwan, and the Chinese communist regime embraced it.
Now as then, the map visually expresses China’s interests and aspirations. Oil and natural gas deposits thought to lie in the seabed obsessed maritime proponents — most notably Deng Xiaoping, the father of China’s economic reform and opening project. Fuel and other raw materials remain crucial to China’s national development project three decades after Deng launched it.
The motive of averting superpower encirclement has also influenced Chinese strategy. By the late 1970s, Deng had come to believe that the Soviet Union was pursuing a “dumbbell strategy” designed to entrench the Soviet navy as the dominant force in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. The Strait of Malacca was the bar connecting the two theaters. To join them, Moscow had negotiated basing rights in united Vietnam, at Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang. Beijing believed it had to forestall a Soviet-Vietnamese alliance. Indeed, the PLA undertook a cross-border assault into Vietnam in 1979 in large part to discredit Moscow as Hanoi’s defender.
Beijing may view the 2007 U.S. maritime strategy — the official U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard statement on how the sea services see the strategic environment and intend to manage it — as a throwback to Moscow’s dumbbell strategy, predicated as it is on preserving and extending American primacy in the Western Pacific and the greater Indian Ocean. Chinese strategists fret continually about American encirclement, especially as the United States “pivots” to Asia. For China, it seems, everything old is new again.
Nor should we overlook honor as a motive animating Beijing’s actions. Recouping China’s honor and dignity after a “century of humiliation” at the hands of seaborne conquerors was a prime mover for Chinese actions in 1974 and 1979. It remains so today. The China seas constitute part of what the Chinese regard as their country’s historical periphery. China must make itself preeminent in these expanses.
Expectations are sky-high among the Chinese populace. Having regularly described their maritime territorial claims as a matter of indisputable sovereignty, having staked their own and the country’s reputation on wresting away control of contested expanses, and having roused popular sentiment with visions of seafaring grandeur, Chinese leaders will walk back their claims at their peril. They must deliver — one way or another.
And they have the means to do so. China has amassed overpowering naval and military superiority over any individual Southeast Asian competitor. The Philippines possesses no air force to speak of, while retired U.S. Coast Guard cutters are its strongest combatant ships. Vietnam, by contrast, shares a border with China and fields a formidable army. Last year, Hanoi announced plans to buttress its naval might by purchasing six Russian-built Kilo-class diesel submarines armed with wake-homing torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles. A Kilo squadron will supply Vietnam’s navy a potent “sea-denial” option. But Russia has not yet delivered the subs, meaning that Hanoi can mount only feeble resistance to any Chinese naval offensive. That’s still more reason for China to lock in its gains now, before Southeast Asian rivals start pushing back effectively.
So a window of opportunity remains open for Beijing — for now. Chinese diplomacy recently thwarted efforts to rally ASEAN behind a “code of conduct” in the South China Sea. Washington has announced plans to “rebalance” the U.S. Navy, shifting about 60 percent of fleet assets to the Pacific and Indian Ocean theaters. But the rebalancing is a modest affair. More than half of the U.S. Navy is already in the theater, and the rebalancing will take place in slow motion, spanning the next eight years.
Nor will the four-vessel U.S. littoral combat ship flotilla destined for Singapore (the first one is scheduled to arrive next spring) right the balance in Southeast Asia. These are not vessels designed to do battle against the likes of the PLA Navy. But having established the principle that most of the U.S. Navy should call the Pacific and Asia home, Washington can always speed up the rebalancing process, shift more forces, and even negotiate base access in or around Southeast Asia. Beijing knows that.
Beijing may have concluded that patient diplomacy will forfeit its destiny in the South China Sea. In Chinese eyes, it’s better to act now — and preempt the competition. The lesson of 1974: Timing is everything.
|
CANBERRA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Wednesday unveiled plans to deepen the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific, with 2,500 U.S. marines operating out of a de facto base in northern Australia.
China, already worried the United States is caging it in, immediately questioned whether strengthening military alliances would help the region when economic woes put a premium on cooperation.
“With my visit to the region, I am making it clear that the United States is stepping up its commitment to the entire Asia-Pacific region,” Obama told a joint news conference with Gillard in Canberra.
From next year, U.S. troops and aircraft will operate out of the tropical city of Darwin, only 820 kms (500 miles) from Indonesia, able to respond quickly to any humanitarian and security issues in Southeast Asia, where disputes over sovereignty of the South China Sea are causing rising tensions.
“It is appropriate for us to make sure...that the security architecture for the region is updated for the 21st century and this initiative is going to allow us to do that,” Obama said.
He stressed that it was not an attempt to isolate China which is concerned that Washington is trying to encircle it with bases in Japan and South Korea and now troops in Australia.
“The notion that we fear China is mistaken. The notion that we are looking to exclude China is mistaken,” he said, adding China was not being excluded from the planned Transpacific Partnership (TTP) on trade.
“We welcome a rising, peaceful China.”
But China’s rising power means it must take on greater responsibilities to ensure free trade and security in the region, he added.
“It’s important for them to play by the rules of the road and, in fact, help underwrite the rules that have allowed so much remarkable economic progress,” he said.
PEARL HARBOUR OF AUSTRALIA
The U.S. deployment to Australia, the largest since World War Two, will start next year with a company of 200-250 marines in Darwin, the “Pearl Harbour of Australia,” Gillard said.
More bombs were dropped on Darwin during a surprise Japanese raid than on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.
A total of 2,500 U.S. troops would eventually rotate through the port city. The United States will bring in ships, aircraft and vehicles, as well as increase military training.
Asked about the proposed deepening of U.S.-Australian military cooperation, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said China stood for “peaceful development and cooperation.”
“We also believe that the external policies of countries in the region should develop along these lines,” Liu told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
Liu added that “whether strengthening and expanding a military alliance is in the common interests of the region’s countries and the international community is worthy of discussion,” especially amid a gloomy international economic situation and with each country seeking cooperation.
But some Asian nations are likely to welcome the U.S. move as a counterbalance to China’s growing military power, especially its expanding maritime operations, and a reassurance that Washington will not scale back its engagement in the region due to a stretched U.S. military budget.
“The United States hopes to militarily strengthen alliance relations with Japan in the north and with Australia in the south, with the clear intention of counter-balancing China,” Su Hao, the director of the Asia-Pacific Researcher Center at the Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, told the Global Times, a popular Chinese newspaper.
OBAMA TO RAISE SOUTH CHINA SEA
The winding down of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has opened the door to greater U.S. attention to simmering tension over the South China Sea, a shipping lane for more than $5 trillion in annual trade that the United States wants to keep open.
Obama plans to raise maritime security in the South China Sea at a regional summit on Bali this week, defying China’s desire to keep the sensitive topic off the agenda.
China claims the entire maritime region, a vital commercial shipping route rich in oil, minerals and fishery resources. It insists that any disputes be resolved through bilateral talks and says Washington has no business getting involved.
President Barack Obama signs a guest book after participating in an arrival ceremony with Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, November 16, 2011. REUTERS/Jason Reed
“The United States is also trying to get involved in a number of regional maritime disputes, some of which concern China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a commentary from China’s official Xinhua news agency said.
Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei hold rivals claims to at least parts of the sea and tension occasionally flares up into maritime stand-offs.
Obama will make an “anchor speech” outlining the U.S. vision for the Asia-Pacific to the Australian parliament on Thursday before a whistle stop in Darwin. He then flies to the Indonesian island of Bali for the East Asia summit.
|
This piece was co-authored by Jay Shooster from NYU School of Law.
In a recent report by the World Health Organization, processed meat comes across as the new villain of public health. Processed meat undeniably increases the risk of cancer according to the report, which cited 800 studies, while red meat raises similar but less definitive concerns. These warnings are only the most recent pieces in decades of research showing the harm of eating animals, including a scientific advisory committee that recommended a reduction in meat consumption this year as part of the US Dietary Guidelines.
But another industry is causing chronic pain, intense emotional anguish, and torturous deaths. The victims of this tragedy are chickens -- over 60 billion a year worldwide -- who face intense confinement; ultra-fast Frankensteinian growth; and, all too often, being boiled alive in scalding hot water. Just this week, for example, an animal advocacy group released damning footage of Tyson Foods workers punching, throwing and ripping the heads off of live chickens at a Mississippi slaughterhouse. Too much meat is unhealthy for humans, but the devastation it causes for chickens is unfathomable. The crisis of animal farming, especially of chickens, has sparked a vibrant social movement that's driven, to paraphrase Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, not by our health but by the health of the chickens.
A crisis of unimaginable scale
In the US alone, the animal agriculture industry abused and slaughtered about 8.6 billion chickens for meat in 2013, over 3,000 times the number of dogs and cats killed each year in shelters. Nearly all farmed land animals are chickens for a simple reason: It takes hundreds of chickens to supply the number of calories in a single cow.
If these numbers appall you, then consider the severity of the suffering. Scientists have bred these chickens to grow so large and so quickly that they are often completely immobile. John Webster, Emeritus Professor of Animal Husbandry at the University of Bristol, characterized this selective breeding as "the single most severe, systematic example of man's inhumanity to another sentient animal."
These farms are so crowded that even the chickens who are biologically capable of normal movement are physically impeded from doing so. The space per chicken is barely larger than a sheet of paper. The confinement is so intense that they resort to trampling each other to get around, although most sit still, wallowing in pain.
At the slaughterhouse, workers shove their legs into metal shackles and hang them upside down while they are still conscious, sometimes breaking their legs. Then they pass through an electric water bath that immobilizes them, meaning they cannot move but are still conscious, before having their throats slit. Many die from this, but some are still alive when they are dropped into scalding hot water to remove their feathers.
Egg-laying hens
Raising chickens for meat is only one component of this global health crisis. Over 350 million chickens were raised for their eggs in the US in 2013. Of these, most were raised in battery cages so small that the birds cannot spread their wings, with an average space per chicken of less than a sheet of paper. Those not in battery cages still endure much of the same misery, like that male chicks are thrown in the trash to be crushed and suffocate. Once again, selective breeding has made egg-laying hens lay unnaturally large numbers of eggs (and unnaturally large eggs), which causes frequent prolapses, internal bleeding, and ovarian cancer. Perhaps worst of all is their utter depravation of natural behaviors like dustbathing, nesting, and caring for their young. Imagine being separated from your family and locked in a small box for your entire life.
We would never stand for this sort of treatment of dogs or cats. It's tempting to justify this disparate treatment on the grounds that chickens are somehow lower or inferior animals. But scientists have found that chickens feel pain in the same way and to the same degree as mammals, and even outperform dogs on many psychological tests. They have also demonstrated that chickens have complex social and emotional lives, with the ability to take the perspective of other birds and anticipate the future. In one experiment, chickens changed their feeding behavior from watching other birds on TV!
What people are doing about it
It's not easy taking on a huge industry. Intellectuals and activists noticed the cruelty of chicken farming decades ago, and a mainstream movement is finally gaining steam.
Investigations
Undercover investigations of farms and slaughterhouses by groups like Mercy for Animals have been extremely successful in bringing the hidden suffering of these animals to the public like the recent investigation of Tyson Foods. Videos like these have been so effective that the industry has lobbied to criminalize undercover investigations through "ag-gag laws," which have been condemned by the ACLU as "flagrant violations of the first amendment."
Unfortunately, investigations rarely lead to legal repercussions for executives and businesses that profit the most from this cruelty. That is because most of the violence that chickens are subjected to is not caused by malicious individuals, but by standard industry practices that are perfectly legal. Perversely, most state animal cruelty laws specifically exempt all "customary farming practices" from criminality. Thus, businesses and executives are effectively immunized from animal cruelty liability, as long as they can show that the cruel treatment in question is the norm.
Under the current legal system, it is almost exclusively poor and marginalized workers who face legal consequences for animal cruelty; workers who are traumatized and endangered daily by the standardized legal violence inherent to raising and killing chickens for food. Meanwhile, the powerful interests behind this cruel industry strive to portray these individuals as mere bad apples, instead of acknowledging that desensitization and abuse are inevitable results of the emotional toll that killing for a living imposes on workers.
Rescue
Some organizations like Farm Sanctuary and Animal Place rescue chickens and other farmed animals from these horrific circumstances. My girlfriend (Kelly) and I (Jacy) rescued two chickens from a battery cage facility last year. Seeing them heal has been a tremendous experience. One of them, Snow, was severely crippled when we adopted her and has since regained the use of her legs. Both of them have regained feathers and are now on hormonal implants to relieve them from the suffering and reproductive complications of excessive egg-laying. Emotionally, they have grown from shy and timid birds to becoming more confident and friendly. Snow even likes to sit on Kelly's lap and purr in the evening.
This month, Jon Stewart, former host of the The Daily Show, and Tracey Stewart, advocate and former veterinary technician, announced their founding of an animal sanctuary in New Jersey as part of Farm Sanctuary where they will allow visitors, like school groups, to gain personal connections to these animals and advocate on their behalf. Farmed animals are rescued in a variety of ways, sometimes from farms that are closing down or households that try to take care of someone and realize it's too challenging.
Some groups are taking a different approach. A group called Animal Liberation Victoria, founded by Australian activist Patty Mark, pioneered a tactic known as open rescue where activists nonviolently enter an animal farm, document the always gruesome conditions inside, and rescue one or more suffering animals. In the United States, Direct Action Everywhere, an upstart grassroots network, has used this approach to document the reality of "humane" farming, which still involves many of these horrific cruelties.
Incremental change
In response to the lack of legal protections for chickens, many organizations are working to pass laws and negotiate corporate policies that improve their welfare. In Massachusetts, for example, Citizens for Farm Animal Protection, a grassroots coalition organized by the Humane Society of the United States and others, is working to introduce a ballot initiative for the 2016 election that seeks to ban the use of battery cages in egg production, as well as gestation crates for pigs, and veal stalls for calves. Others are calling for the federal government to use their existing legal authorities to address the complete lack of any national standards for the slaughter of chickens. On the corporate side, groups like The Humane League have successfully campaigned for some of the largest food service providers in the world to commit to phasing out eggs from caged facilities from their supply chains.
Photo: Hampton Creek, makers of Just Mayo
Alternatives and long-term success
To many animal advocates, it seems impossible to have a system of chicken farming without immense cruelty. Producers will always be incentivized to cut corners; massive regulations would need to be in place; huge resources would need to be spent on enforcement; meat prices would rise drastically; and the chickens would still be slaughtered against their will. From this perspective, the animal advocacy movement will eventually need to shift to the replacement of chicken meat and eggs with ethical alternatives.
Fortunately, there are numerous alternatives that are growing in popularity. Beside the classic hearty meatless meals like rice and beans or veggie burgers, we have alternative meats like the Beyond Meat grilled strips. These strips, in fact, were indistinguishable from the chicken-based alternative in a taste test conducted on The Today Show. It's not just chicken meat, either. Multiple groups are developing and selling alternative egg products like Just Mayo, which was recently targeted with legal and other threats by the American Egg Board due to its stunning success. Fortunately, their pushback led the CEO of the American Egg Board to resign.
|
As an emergency physician, I’m always engaging in a fast-tempo, often awkward, all too stressful dance with strangers. Lately, though, I’ve noticed a particular gap in my own medical education and training, as well as in that of my colleagues, that’s further tripping up our steps: how to provide optimal health care for transgender patients.
The gap is amplified in the emergency room, where even under the best of circumstances the interaction we have with patients is typically rushed and never entirely comfortable — and where I’m usually meeting a patient for the first time and don’t have the patient’s medical history at my fingertips. Because transgender people are less likely to have health insurance and are four times more likely to live in poverty compared to the general population, the emergency room serves as a particularly important safety net for these patients.
Sometimes the patient is registered as the wrong gender immediately from triage, resulting in a strained communication from the get-go. Other times, a staff member lets out a surprised gasp as a patient undresses for a physical exam. Then there are the moments when providers call a patient a “he/she” or “they” on rounds. Private rooms are also hard to come by in busy, overcrowded emergency rooms, and patients may be inappropriately clustered by gender.
None of this, for the most part, is out of malice. Instead it’s because of our own ignorance — and stems from our lack of education and training on providing sensitive and evidence-based care for transgender patients.
|
Dudek To Miss 2016 Season with Torn ACL
Spring Practice No. 4 Update
Fighting Illini head football coach Lovie Smith announced after Friday's practice that sophomore wide receiver Mike Dudek will miss the 2016 season with a torn ACL. Dudek, who missed all of 2015 with an ACL tear to the same knee, was injured in a non-contact drill on Saturday (April 2) during the Illini second spring practice.
"Mikey Dudek will have season-ending surgery next week," Smith said to gathered media after Friday's practice. "It's really unfortunate. He worked himself hard to get back out here this spring and was excited about the season. Nowadays you can have successful surgery and come back as strong as ever and that's what we expect from him. He's a great competitor, a great guy. He's well liked by his teammates. Everybody is feeling for him, but they all know what type of guy he is. He'll go through this process again and will be on the road to recovery before you know it."
A native of Naperville, Illinois, Dudek broke school freshman records with 76 catches for 1,038 yards in 2014, totals that rank fifth and seventh, respectively, on the Fighting Illini single-season lists. He also tied with College Football Hall of Famer David Williams for the UI freshman receiving touchdowns record with six.
Dudek earned several freshman All-America honors following his huge 2014 season, including ESPN.com, Scout.com and 247sports.com, and was a second-team All-Big Ten selection while helping the Fighting Illini to a Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl appearance. He was the Big Ten's top receiver during conference play, posting 50 catches for 716 yards (89.5 yards per game) and three TDs in eight league games. He also led all FBS freshmen in receiving yards per game on the season (79.8 ypg).
Friday evening's practice was the team's second in full pads this spring. Unseasonably cold temperatures, wind and even a few snow flurries made for a tough day on the field, but by the time practice was over the sun was shining in Memorial Stadium. The Illini will come right back with a Saturday afternoon practice before an off day on Sunday.
My brother is going to be just fine. If I know one person in the whole world who can get through this adversity and prosper, its @MDFlash_7 — Chayce Crouch (@teccrouch7) April 9, 2016
Being @MDFlash_7 roomate the 1st go around of an ACL tear, there's no doubt in my mind he'll take this head on. Love you, Mikey. Go get em. — Tim Clary (@TClary47) April 9, 2016
I told them you'll be back this year. I still got my last season with you. Love you to death bro the comeback!! pic.twitter.com/OxOz3YqmaY — Justin Hardee (@jhardee_19) April 9, 2016
@MDFlash_7 Hold your head up man! Times like this build your character and shape you as a man. ???? — Jeff Allen (@JeffAllen71) April 9, 2016
Hurt for my teammate @MDFlash_7 but watching him work, I know he will comeback a better him. Praying for you bro ??????? — Caleb Reams (@SirClutch97) April 9, 2016
Praying for my brother @MDFlash_7 I know he wanted so bad to prove he was back! But with God anything is possible bro. Stay up love you fam! — Marchie Madness (@KingMarch2) April 9, 2016
Practice No. 4 Tweets
|
The incident occurred on the TG971 Thai Airways flight on Sunday, Swiss daily Blick reported on Wednesday.
Passengers on the flight told the paper that at around 11.30pm the Swiss, seated at the rear of the aircraft, started to cause a fuss.
Members of the cabin crew tried to calm him, but the man, who was obviously drunk, became aggressive and insulted staff and passengers.
“Like a madman he climbed over the seats, regardless of whether passengers were sitting in them or not. Children and women screamed in horror,” one witness told Blick.
Passengers forced him back to his seat, but the Swiss refused to stay there, so in a final, effective attempt to restrain him, they tied up his hands and feet.
The drunkard remained in that state for the remaining six hours of the flight, until he was delivered to Thai police on landing in Bangkok.
Three passengers were slightly injured in the incident, which was confirmed to Blick by Thai Airways spokesperson Boonroek Suppamitkitsana.
|
Image copyright Reuters
More than 100 Muslim women have complained about their treatment under two government probes into Sharia law.
The inquiries - one ordered by Theresa May when she was home secretary, and another by the home affairs select committee - are ongoing.
But some women have signed an open letter and said the aim was to ban Sharia councils, not reform them.
The Muslim Women's Network UK said the inquiries risked treating women like "political footballs".
However, the Home Office said its inquiry's chair, panel and advisers were "carefully selected and represent a wide range of relevant experience and expertise".
The councils are tribunals often used to settle disputes within the Muslim community.
The first evidence session on Sharia councils is due to be held by the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
But Shaista Gohir, the chair of Muslim Women's Network UK, said the inquiries could patronise women.
"Everyone wants to listen to Muslim women when highlighting their terrible experiences.
"However when it comes to the solutions, everyone thinks they know what is best for them," she said.
Image caption Shaista Gohir says shutting down Sharia councils would mean their activities "go underground"
"I do feel that there are people who are anti-faith, particularly anti-Islam, who are using women's rights as a guise, wanting to abolish Sharia councils.
"If tomorrow or next year you shut down Sharia councils, what would result is Muslim women stuck in marriages, abusive marriages sometimes, and the Sharia divorce service would actually go underground.
"That would result in less transparency, higher prices and more discrimination," Ms Gohir added.
What are Sharia councils?
Sharia councils are tribunals that seek to apply Islamic laws to everything from financial disputes to marital conflicts.
They are unregulated and largely unknown to the wider public.
The precise number of these councils in the UK is not clear, although research by Reading University suggests the total is about 30.
However, crossbench peer Lady Cox, a longstanding critic of Sharia councils, says women are "suffering" under the system and she has repeatedly tried to get legislation through Parliament to reform the councils.
"So many Muslim women come to me and tell me how desperately unhappy they are," she said.
"One lady came to me last week and had gone almost suicidal with the provisions of a Sharia council.
"So we need to look at the whole system and the way it operates."
'Raw deal'
Lady Cox rejected as "absolute rubbish" the suggestion that critics were using the position of women in Islam to attack Sharia councils.
"A lot of the women who support me are Muslim women, who don't have a voice.
"Some of the strongest support for what I'm advocating comes from Muslim women themselves," she said.
A Home Office spokesman said: "This government commissioned an independent review of the application of Sharia law as there is evidence some Sharia councils may be working in a discriminatory and unacceptable way."
He added that the review's chair, panel and advisers "bring strong academic knowledge, legal insight and credible expertise in religion and theology".
Labour MP Naz Shah, who sits on the Home Affairs Committee, said the councils could never be a replacement for the civil courts.
Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, she said: "Sharia itself is a code of conduct and the fundamental principle of Sharia is that the law of the land precedes anything, it takes precedence.
"You cannot enforce and have a second paralegal system in this country.
"As a British law-maker, I am very clear we have one law and that law is that of the British court.
"The Sharia is there to support women and communities to things that they want to access and that's a choice for them."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Labour MP concerned that Sharia councils 'run for men'.
But the Bradford West MP added: "There's lots of issues with Sharia councils - usually they are under-resourced, there's not that professional standard - what we need to be doing is supporting the Sharia councils.
"Sharia councils are sometimes last resorts where people who have lost legal aid; we've had austerity kicking in and the courts don't want to deal with small disputes, so they can act as a complementary arbitration service.
"But what we need to be careful of is whether they are discriminating against women and that is where the issue lies."
|
UK-based LOVE magazine has been killing it with their 2017 Advent Calendar. Every entry has been solid gold, but they've hit an early peak with Day 9.
Doutzen Kroes jumping rope in a perfectly cut swimsuit. Not sure what else we need to say, if you haven't already clicked play.
Doutzen announces that it's "jumprope day" and under Phil Poynter's direction she goes all in.
Then in keeping with the theme that's tied all the videos together, she finishes with a flourish and says, "Stay strong."
Coming from this sultry supermodel that's such a strong command we're ready to head to the gym.
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
We can't highlight a Doutzen Kroes LOVE video without remembering she has a killer Instagram. Check out select shots below.
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
|
When Dave Park’s thousand-dollar bicycle disappeared from his garage two weeks ago, he figured it was gone forever. Imagine his surprise when, stopped at a red light in his car at Lansdowne and Dupont streets on Saturday afternoon, he turned to his right and saw someone riding it.
Dave Park and fiancee Vanessa Crossley recovered Park's stolen bike by confronting a man they saw riding it. ( DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR )
“At first I thought: Oh, that’s a cool bike,” said the 35-year-old software developer. Then he spotted the customized handlebars, the $150 seat, the distinctive black grips with red stars on them and the new pedals he put on, and was stunned to realize it was his bike. “I couldn’t believe it. It was kind of like I hooked a big fish,” Park said. “I just needed to act.” Park decided to follow the cyclist. His forward-thinking fiancée, Vanessa Crossley, in the passenger seat, started filming the chase on her iPhone. They followed for a couple of blocks and then into an alleyway, where they confronted the rider.
Article Continued Below
Watch: the iPhone video Park felt no fear, he said; he was too caught up in the excitement of the moment. The couple rolled up next to the cyclist and informed him the bike belonged to Park. The rider, whose face is blurred in the video, was “shocked, but not super shocked,” Park said. The man said he got the bike from a friend. “There was no fight from him,” Park said, adding that he didn’t care whether the man was the thief; he just wanted his bike back.
“It was this golden opportunity, basically a dream come true for any person who’s had a bike stolen,” he said. Crossley stopped filming and pulled up a PDF of the police report describing the bike and showed the man. It matched, down to the serial number.
Article Continued Below
“That was just like, ‘Checkmate, buddy. We just dominated you.’ He kind of started to move away from the bike and I just grabbed it.” Park hopped on the bike and rode back to their home, near Bloor and Dufferin, and Crossley drove. Park, who at 5-foot-5 is not an intimidating presence, said the confrontation could have ended much worse had the man been less cooperative. “I would have run after him,” he said. “I probably would have gotten beat up, but I was going to try my best to get the bike back.” When he called police, he said, they told him he shouldn’t have accosted the man without calling them. Const. Victor Kwong agreed. “In this situation, we’re happy that it concluded okay, but there are many other factors to consider. Number one is always personal safety,” he said. “If you’re following the guy, perfect. Follow the guy, but call police. We would send someone expediently.” More than 3,100 bikes were reported stolen in Toronto last year.
|
The Los Angeles Rams have signed DL Cam Thomas per his agent:
A fifth-round pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, Thomas never quite broke through in his four seasons with the San Diego Chargers picking up just 15 starts. He spent his last two seasons as a reserve lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Thomas clearly slides in nicely at the reserve DT spot as the Rams have some competition building for the spot abdicated by Nick Fairley who was signed a year ago before heading to the New Orleans Saints in free agency this offseason. Behind Aaron Donald and Michael Brockers, you've got a glut of newly-signed Dominique Easley, position tweener Ethan Westbrooks and lowkey option Louis Trinca-Pasat.
Strangely, Thomas (2006-09) is the third among the former UNC defensive lineman teammates now on the Rams' DL along with DE Robert Quinn (2008-09) and 2016 FA addition DE Quinton Coples (2008-11).
|
The European Commission warned yesterday (6 June) it could sanction member states that don’t follow EU quota rules for asylum seekers by opening infringement proceedings against them as early as next week.
The warning came after the Czech Republic said it would not take in more migrants, citing security concerns.
The Czech Republic will not accept any further migrants from Italy and Greece based on the quotas for the redistribution of refugees across the EU, also due to the worsened security situation, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said after a cabinet meeting today.
He stated that the one-off mechanism of quotas will end in September and the Czech Republic will “not be active anymore”.
EU ministers approved on 22 September by qualified majority a plan to share out 120,000 refugees across its 28 states, overriding vehement opposition from the Visegrád Four (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic).
EU backs refugee plan in teeth of east European opposition EU ministers approved a plan on Tuesday (22 September) to share out 120,000 refugees across its 28 states, overriding vehement opposition from four ex-Communist eastern nations.
Last month, the Commission set a June deadline for Poland and Hungary to start admitting their share of refugees.
Commission sets June deadline for Poland, Hungary to take migrant share The European Union yesterday (16 May) set a June deadline for Poland and Hungary to start admitting their share of migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece or risk sanctions.
Slovakia has taken the EU to court over the refugee quotas, while Hungary conducted a referendum opposing the plan. Poland recently said it will not yield to pressure despite the threat of sanctions.
Poland defies EU over asylum seekers Poland refused yesterday (18 May) to yield to pressure from the European Union to take in any asylum seekers under a relocation scheme despite an EU threat of legal action.
The Czech Republic made clear its negative stance on accepting refugees last May. The Czech cabinet said yesterday the quota system “non-functional”, the Prague Monitor wrote.
The country has taken some 12 refugees from Greece, although it ought to accept about 2,600 people by September according to the quotas. Since May 2016, the Czechs have not offered resettlement for any refugee within the EU relocation programme. But by and large, the initiative is failing to reach its goals. By 12 May, only about 18,400 people were resettled within the programme.
Refugee relocations very far from target, Commission admits Member states have relocated only a small fraction of the 160,000 asylum-seekers they committed to absorbing from Greece and Italy, the Commission admitted today (2 February).
Chovanec said the ministry would prepare the country’s defence for possible proceedings that the Commission might start against the country for not meeting its commitment. He said the Czech Republic might be fined up to tens of millions of euros.
EU Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos yesterday warned that sanctions would be announced very soon.
“We will specify our position on opening infringement procedures against the member states that have not relocated anyone at all or have not pledged any places for almost one year since we all decided to do it together,” he said.
It is very likely that the sanctions will concern specifically the Visegrád Four. Other countries from Eastern Europe have taken modest numbers migrants under the relocation scheme, but it should be reminded that the migrants themselves are unwilling to settle in low-income countries. Bulgaria is a special case, as it not only accepts refugees under the relocation scheme, but is itself a front-line country exposed to the arrival of migrants across its southern border.
|
Since oil started moving by rail in unprecedented volumes in the Pacific Northwest in 2012, everyone involved has scrambled to catch up.
Oregon hired more rail safety inspectors. State firefighters and environmental officials trained for accidents and spills. Federal regulators adopted new safety standards.
And yet another oil train went off the rails a week ago in Mosier, a small Columbia River Gorge town, sparking evacuations and a fire that burned for 14 hours.
Oil trains are still not as safe as they could be. Despite nationwide attention, hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil continues moving by rail through small towns and big cities in the Pacific Northwest, posing risks on both sides of the Columbia River, along the Deschutes River and the Interstate 5 corridor.
Here are five ways the oil trains moved by companies like Union Pacific and BNSF Railway Co. could be safer than they are today.
1. Oil could move in safer tank cars.
The shortcomings of the tank cars carrying volatile crude oil across the country have been obvious for years.
When oil trains began hauling mile-long loads of crude a few years ago, they used an outdated rail car called the DOT-111. The car punctured easily and tore open in derailments. Now oil increasingly moves in a second-generation car called the CPC-1232. It's stronger, with a reinforced steel shield on each end. All the cars in the Mosier derailment were CPC-1232s.
But as that fiery wreck and several others have made clear, oil moving in those tank cars is still dangerous.
Under federal rules issued last year, DOT-111s and CPC-1232s are due to be phased out or retrofitted in favor of a newer car called the DOT-117. That process will target the most unsafe cars first.
But that will take years. Tank cars like those in the Mosier derailment can still ply the rails until May 1, 2025.
Even their replacements will derail, a daily occurrence on rail lines across the country. They are just less likely to release oil when that happens. The new DOT-117 will be thicker, with stronger brakes.
The rules "should result in fewer punctures and pile-ups like we saw in Oregon," said Namrata Kolachalam, a federal Department of Transportation spokeswoman. "The deadlines for retrofit of tank cars have been locked in by Congress and are the absolute last moment for railroads to meet these standards. Industry should work to beat those deadlines."
Michael Eyer, a former state rail safety inspector, said the safest tank car would be one called the DOT-105. It's used to move far more dangerous substances such as propane and anhydrous ammonia. But because it's pressurized, it can hold about a third less, Eyer said, cutting into profits.
"We can make it safer, we can do better," Eyer said. "It takes a degree of commitment that we don't have."
2. Tank cars could be required to better withstand fires.
When the oil train derailed in Mosier, it started a fire that burned beneath loaded tank cars each holding as much as 30,000 gallons of crude.
In other oil train derailments, that pool of flame created so much pressure inside tank cars that they exploded, sending massive fireballs into the sky. That didn't happen in Mosier. Despite the fire and smoke, no tank cars exploded.
But as a Chicago Tribune report found, federal rail regulators didn't address the risks of pool fires in new tank car standards unveiled last year. The Department of Transportation kept a 20-year-old rule that requires tank cars to survive a fire for 100 minutes without exploding.
Safety advocates and rail industry officials urged the federal agency to increase that requirement to 800 minutes, the Tribune found, or 13 hours. That's about how long the Mosier fire burned.
The federal government didn't listen and has no current plans to require that.
3. The oil itself could be made safer.
Crude oil was never supposed to explode.
The oil moving from North Dakota's Bakken formation is extracted by hydraulic fracturing. When it comes out of the ground, it's saturated with unusually high concentrations of flammable gases such as propane and butane - the same gases as in backyard grills and cigarette lighters. A 2014 investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found the oil moving through the state was unusually volatile.
Producers can strip out those highly flammable gases before the oil is loaded for shipment. The process is called stabilization. North Dakota oil regulators estimate it would add $2 to the production cost of every barrel.
Less volatile oil could still burn in a derailment. But nearby residents and firefighters responding to train accidents would be safer from reducing the size of any fireball.
State regulators in North Dakota last year set the first ever limit to tame the most volatile crude. It requires a less-intense treatment process estimated to cost 10 cents per barrel.
But safety officials and experts on crude oil say the limit, 13.7 psi, is too high to have widespread impact. The oil that exploded in Lac Megantic, Quebec, in 2013, killing 47 people, wouldn't have been affected.
The oil that caught fire in Mosier was also within the North Dakota standards.
It was still as volatile as gasoline.
4. States could minimize oil train traffic until they're safer.
Oregon and Washington can't ban oil trains. Because railroads enable interstate commerce, they're primarily regulated by the federal government -- not states.
But states can control whether those trains have more destinations.
In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee has the final say over a Vancouver oil train terminal proposed by Tesoro Corp. and Savage Services. The terminal would be the West Coast's largest, bringing up to four oil trains through Washington's side of the Columbia Gorge daily, loading the oil on barges to send to refineries.
Environmental groups have fought the terminal since it was unveiled. They say the Mosier crash will reinvigorate their opposition.
Eric de Place, policy director at the Sightline Institute, a progressive Seattle think tank, said it's up to elected officials such as Inslee to call a timeout on oil trains "until they can prove it's not going to kill us."
"I have to believe this incident is going to register with him," de Place said. "This incident will weigh heavily on the scale."
The Port of Portland said no to an oil train terminal in 2014 after developers contacted the public agency about building a terminal. The port studied the proposal, then publicly rejected it, citing oil train safety risks.
Port leaders haven't changed their minds. Though the agency hasn't received any proposals since then, Bill Wyatt, the port's executive director, said he still doesn't think oil trains are safe enough because of the oil's volatility.
"It's a toxic brew," Wyatt said. "I've personally come to the conclusion that regulators need to step up and deal with this at the source. This substance has proven itself to my satisfaction to be too dangerous."
5. Lawmakers could ensure that railroads, not taxpayers, are on the hook for the costs of a worst-case wreck.
This wouldn't make an oil train safer, but it would reduce risks to the taxpaying public.
When an out-of-control oil train derailed in Lac Megantic, Quebec, and killed 47 people in July 2013, its operator, the Maine, Montreal & Atlantic Railway Ltd., quickly went belly up. The company carried $25 million in insurance. The cleanup and rebuilding was estimated to cost more than $2 billion.
Taxpayers have been picking up the tab.
Starting June 18, Canadian transportation regulators are requiring railroads hauling large volumes of crude to carry $1 billion in liability insurance.
U.S. regulators haven't done the same, despite urging from the National Transportation Safety Board. Washington lawmakers passed a law requiring railroads to prove they had enough insurance for catastrophic accidents. It had little effect.
Railroads including Union Pacific and BNSF Railway Co. filed reports with Washington state regulators estimating a "reasonable" worst-case oil train wreck would cost more than $700 million.
That price tag is less than half the actual worst-case scenario that already happened in Quebec.
Railroads told the state they had enough insurance, but refused to disclose how much, claiming the information was a proprietary trade secret.
-- Rob Davis
rdavis@oregonian.com
503.294.7657
|
Correction: We have changed this article’s headline to one which more accurately reflects Dr. Jill Stein’s viewpoint.
The presidential campaign season is upon us, and the corporate-aligned, two-party duopoly is dominating the conversation taking place in American media. In turn, the corporate-funded media is selling only candidates whose agendas align and don’t disrupt commercial fundraising.
In this winner-take-all system, voters are left to choose between the lesser of two evils.
And Americans are growing weary of the status quo. Indeed, over 58 percent of Americans believe a third U.S. political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic parties “do such a poor job” representing the American people.
Support for endless war, crony capitalism, the Orwellian police state, apartheid in Israel and much more — the establishment that drives these policies is not only ignoring the cries for an alternative that will bring about real change and real peace, but it’s purposely leaving third-party candidates out.
As the fight for a viable third party rages on, Dr. Jill Stein announced her presidential campaign on June 22. She’s running on the Green Party ticket — the only party to not accept corporate funding. And her platform prioritizes people, the planet and peace over profits.
I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Stein about the struggle for a third party in the United States and hear her take on issues that matter most to the people. Take a look.
|
Lawyers defending Brazilian President Michel Temer against corruption allegations asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to remove the prosecutor general from the investigation, arguing he is no longer fit to lead it.
In a filing to the top court, Temer's lawyers said Brazil's top federal prosecutor Rodrigo Janot, who has charged the president with taking bribes and has said more charges are imminent, was acting "beyond his constitutional limits".
"We are not, it has become clear, confronting mere institutional action," Temer's lawyers wrote in the document seen by Reuters news agency. "Everything indicates that the motivation is personal."
Janot's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
READ MORE: Brazil congress to vote on whether to remove president
The request will be decided by Supreme Court Justice Luiz Edson Fachin, the judge in charge of a massive investigation into political kickbacks. Legal experts said it was unlikely he would agree to remove Janot in the middle of the biggest corruption investigation in Brazilian history.
Temer, the first sitting Brazilian president to face formal corruption charges, got some relief last week when the lower house of congress voted to block a bribery charge filed by Janot.
But Temer's opponents hope a second or even third charge from Janot could be based on more solid evidence of Temer's links to political bribes. That could push legislators to vote against protecting Temer from a trial as they worry about voters turning on them in next year's elections.
Under Brazil's constitution, any criminal charges levelled against a president must be approved by two-thirds of the lower house, and only then can the Supreme Court decide whether to put a leader on trial.
Anti-corruption push
Temer was charged in June in connection with a graft scheme involving the world's largest meatpacker, JBS SA. Executives said in plea-bargain testimony the president took bribes for resolving tax disputes, freeing up loans from state-run banks and other matters.
Janot alleged that Temer arranged to eventually receive a total of 38 million reais ($12.14m) from JBS in the coming nine months.
The prosecutor has said on several occasions that he is likely to soon file obstruction of justice and racketeering charges against Temer.
The case against the president is part of an unprecedented anti-corruption push that Brazil's federal police, prosecutors and some judges have pursued for over three years.
Investigators have uncovered stunning levels of graft engulfing Brazil's political and business elites. Much of it centres on companies paying billions of dollars in bribes to politicians and executives at state-run enterprises in return for lucrative contracts.
Temer and one-third of his cabinet, as well as four former presidents and dozens of politicians, are under investigation or already charged.
More than 100 people have been convicted, including former President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, who is free pending appeal.
|
AN: Thanks for the kind comments of reviewers frankenjones, wannasalad, Master Kosa, Gcohen, sedryn, and MilandaAnza from the last chapter. Now that the manuscript arc is over, the last arc is finally going to take focus. I'm seeing the end draw near! It has been a long while since I've completed a story that isn't a one-shot, so I'm quite excited. I've made plans for five more chapters, so if everything goes well, the story will be finished this spring. Thanks for having stayed with me for so long! Just a reminder, this last arc will have some focus on religion and its relationship with homosexuality. The characters' views by no means reflect my personal views, nor do I want to use the characters to pass judgement on anybody's views. I do apologize that as an atheist (with very little Christian upbringing in my childhood), there is just so much research that I can do before writing this, so if I quoted things out of context due to my ignorance, please don't take it personally. I just wanted to convey different viewpoints that seem to me common in our current society, how they affect the characters' interactions with each other, and also how the characters are not just embodiments of such views - that regardless of conflicts, there are still things that do not change between them. Hope you'll like it!
PS - and thanks sedryn for some useful suggestions! I really appreciate it!
(This is the July 2016 revised chapter)
Courtship of the Grad Student
Chapter 20
Elsa's car pulled into Anna's driveway. Anna hopped out, followed by the blonde who was struggling with holding the towel and pork buns and trying to lock the car doors at the same time. Anna laughed and returned to Elsa, taking the buns from her hands before heading over to unlock the front door of her home.
"Go dry yourself in the washroom. You're totally soaking my pork..." Anna's voice trailed off the moment she opened the door to see who was sitting inside her basement suite, "...buns."
"Buns?" Elsa wondered what the heck was Anna talking about. She moved to the side of Anna so she could cross the doorway, only to be similarly shocked, grounded to where she stood.
"Are you not going to come in, Anna?" A stern, male voice spoke. It was Anna's father.
"Why are you here?" Anna asked, a little accusingly.
"Am I not allowed to visit the place I rent?"
True, her parents paid her rent. It wasn't for this reason, however, that she had given her parents keys. She wanted them to come down and visit her whenever they wished, and this was not the first time they had surprised her like this. What she didn't expect, nor did she appreciate, was for them to waltz into her house and seemingly demand an explanation for what she hadn't done wrong.
"You're not here to visit, Pa. You are here because of Uncle Nik's wedding."
"It is not a wedding, Anna, but I am here to talk about it, yes."
"Then I have nothing to say," she answered, about to storm through the living room into her bedroom. Her mother stopped her by grabbing her wrist and gently easing her down to the sofa.
"Anna dear, let's just sit down first. Your father isn't meaning to reprimand you or anything," she said, turning towards Elsa, "And your friend is still standing there. Maybe you'd like to introduce us to her?"
Reminded that Elsa was still standing by the closed door, Anna reluctantly nodded. "Elsa, they are my parents, my dad Agnarr and my mom Iduna."
Before Anna could introduce her, Elsa took over and greeted the couple, "My name is Elsa Snow. I'm Anna's lab mentor and friend from the University of Arendelle. Nice to meet you."
Anna wanted to add on to what Elsa just said, but Elsa shook her head very slightly to stop her. Anna hesitantly swallowed her words. Elsa then stepped forward to shake Iduna's hand and Agnarr's. Though Agnarr did give her hand a solid shake out of politeness, it was clear his mind was elsewhere.
"Anna has told me a lot about you, Elsa. You don't mind me calling you by your name, do you?"
"It's quite alright, Mrs. Summers."
"Oh, Iduna is fine. Anna said that you've been helping her out a lot in the lab. I'm glad to hear that she has finally found a friend at university. You know, maybe we're just too nosy as parents, because Anna has had trouble making friends since she was a kid. She used to get so bored at home she'd bike around the halls, and there was this one time she crashed into our family's set of antique armour and broke off the gauntlet!"
"Fortunately, she has yet to break anything more expensive than a beaker at our lab," Elsa answered. This drew a laugh from Iduna, but Agnarr barely smiled. Understanding the situation, Elsa turned towards the kitchen, "I'm sure you and Mr. Summers are tired from your travels. Let me heat up some food for you. I just happen to have bought these delicious Chinese pork buns. I think you would like them."
"Thank you very much, Elsa. I really appreciate it," Iduna called after her. By then, Agnarr finally returned his gaze to Anna.
"I don't want to be saying this in front of your friend, but..."
"Pa, I said already. I'm not changing my mind about Uncle Nik. I support him."
"I know you love your uncle, but love doesn't mean to let him do as he pleases. Would you not turn in a murderer even if he were your relative?"
Anna felt anger flare up again, "A murderer? You're comparing Uncle Nik to a murderer? He just loves a man - how is that in any way comparable to murder!?"
"Anna," Iduna called her name softly, stroking her hand, "That's not what your father meant. You know this."
"I don't know what he means anymore..." Anna muttered.
"I mean that I love my brother as much, if not more, than you love him. I grew up with him, you didn't. But because I love him, I can't bear seeing him walk down the wrong path and forsake the salvation otherwise promised to us."
"Why do you have to take things so literally out of the Bible, Pa? That book is more than a thousand years old and has been edited who knows how many times to fit the political and personal agendas of whoever was in power at the time. How can you use that to condemn Uncle Nik? He's the kindest person I've ever known!"
"The Bible may be old but that doesn't diminish its value. As a Christian, you shall not cherry-pick whatever you want to hear and ignore what you do not agree with. The Lord is for you to follow, not for you to doubt."
"I never said I doubt God, I'm doubting the book written by humans, edited by humans, interpreted by humans! God is perfect, right? God is almighty, right? God loves us, right? Then why did God make gays if he hates gays?"
"It is a test, and I am trying my very best to help Nik pass this test. God did not create murderers for them to be murderers, or rapists for them to be rapists - God created them to be human, to have human desires, but they succumbed to those desires and became dictated by their evil. But so long as they repent, God is forgiving. They too can be saved. Don't you understand, Anna? I want Nik to be saved too. I don't want to see him descend into eternal hell!"
"You will not compare Uncle Nik to a murderer or a rapist!" Anna shouted, so loud that Elsa almost dropped the pork buns she was taking out the microwave. There was a deafening silence as Anna glared into her father's serious eyes, Iduna looked down towards the ground in powerlessness, and Elsa just worriedly stared at Anna.
"You need to calm down and listen to what I say, Anna," Agnarr said, only to have Anna shake her head at him.
"No. You are the one who needs to take your head out of your holy book and start looking at the world around you, Pa."
Anna did not wait for him to answer, opening the front door and running out into the rain. Iduna called after her to no avail.
"I will keep an eye on Anna. If you need anything, please let me know," Elsa said to Iduna before she followed Anna outside.
It was still raining heavily outside, but the mood had lost its romantic feel. Anna's excitement that Elsa had come to pick her up from the symposium, her plans to celebrate Elsa's victory over Weselton...it all dissipated. It was after she ran a full block down the street that she even remembered she had just left Elsa at her house. Feeling guilty, she turned back, but her feet stopped, refusing her command. She really didn't want to return. Images from childhood came back to her, the times her father would hold her up with his strong arms so she could reach up high into the skies and bat at falling snowflakes with her hands. The man she just faced was the same man she had always looked up to and depended on for protection. He was her idol, her shelter, her encyclopedia. Now, she lost it all. She knew what she had just said to her father wasn't wrong. It was unfair that she should feel even the faintest tinges of regret for saying them. But still, it didn't ease the clenching of her jaws, the furrow of her brows, the tears that threatened to fall. Why should she be the one to feel bad? He should be the one to apologize!
The rumble of engine and squeak of stopping tires caught Anna's attention. She turned towards the road where Elsa had just parked her car.
"Elsa?"
"So you were saying I was making your buns wet? What are you doing here getting yourself wet?"
Anna wanted to joke about it, say that she didn't have any buns with her now so it was okay, but those words wouldn't escape. She closed her eyes, hard, then uttered...
"I don't want to go home."
Elsa got out her car and drew Anna into her embrace. Anna fell limply into her arms.
"Don't be silly, Anna. Home is where your loved ones are, so...if you don't mind...I...I will be your home, okay?"
Anna hid her face into Elsa's chest, latching on, pulling close.
"Un...please take me home, Elsa."
The night had set in. Agnarr remained seated on the sofa while Iduna stood to take a call from the phone set on the cabinet.
"Alright. Thank you for taking care of her, Elsa. Please keep me updated. Goodbye."
With that, she ended the call and came over to Agnarr's side again, "Elsa just called. She said Anna is doing fine, just a little upset still. She'll be spending the night with her friends on campus."
"Her friends...I wonder if they are the ones teaching Anna these...abominations."
"Agnarr, please. You're making this more difficult than it needs to be."
"But what am I to think? My little girl has always been so good. She followed the Lord's words and had a kind heart."
"She still has a kind heart. That much I can see."
"Just showing her kindness in the wrong way." Agnarr was insistent, and Iduna felt it was useless to continue arguing with him. Still, Agnarr did not stop there, "She keeps getting hung up on my comparisons with Nikolas' sins and that of murderers and rapists without seeing the bigger message I'm trying to convey. A small sin, a large sin, is still a sin. Nikolas can only be forgiven if he repents. We all have sins and only repenting will save us. Why can't Anna see this? By attending Nikolas'...celebration of sin, she's doing nothing but encouraging him to continue down that path to condemnation!"
Iduna sighed, "That may be true, but you said already, Anna cannot see this, and the way you say it is not helping. 'Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.' The first line of Matthew 6.1. Saying that you are right and Anna is wrong repeatedly will not get you anywhere. Show her you love Nikolas as you say you do. Show her regardless of what sins Nikolas commits you will still forgive him and accept him. It's his wedding, for goodness' sake! It doesn't matter what we think of it, but clearly this is important for him. Why can't you just let Anna attend? Why shouldn't we attend?"
"So you're saying if he murders someone, I should go help him?"
"But he is not murdering someone. He is not hurting anyone. Even if he were a murderer, your obligation is just to stop the murder, not to kill the murderer. 'There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbour?' - James 4:12. Nikolas and Anna know of the Bible, have read the Bible, have made up their minds about what they think of the Bible, and your judgement of them will not change this. They have their free will to practice whatever it is that they want; this is what God has given them, what God has planned for them. Our love for them should not stop because of our perception of their actions. Even if they were murderers, we should still love them, accept them, give to them. We cannot demand others to live a righteous life. We can only demand from ourselves."
"But they are my brother and daughter! I can't...I just can't watch them go on like this!"
Agnarr was a tough man. Though not overly tall or muscular, he still held an impressive stature. But now, Iduna knew he was close to tears. He held his face in his palms and his voice shook with emotions. Iduna could do nothing but hold him in her arms.
"I know. I know you are worried for them. Then let us pray for the Lord's forgiveness. We must have faith that He will make everything right again."
It had been two days since Anna started living at Elsa's dorm room.
Classes were out. It was time for final exams to begin. Anna had four exams scheduled for next week, and one the week after, but she had yet to start studying. It wasn't that she felt she was already prepared, or that she just wanted to procrastinate - the moment she sat down by herself to study, memories would flood her. Her father's distrust and disappointment were more than she could take, not just because she loved her Uncle Nik and couldn't help but feel angry at the way her father was treating him, but also that her father was indirectly reprimanding her relationship with Elsa. She had a hard enough time realizing her own feelings and expressing them to Elsa, finally to have her accept them, and now her family told her this was all wrong? She had anticipated that this would happen, but even so, it still hurt when it did.
"Anna, you sure you want to keep working? Even Kristoff has taken a break to study. Would you really be okay for your finals?" Elsa asked while Anna stacked yet another box of P1000 tips. Hardly anybody used these, and the twenty boxes they had on their shelf would probably last them a couple months. Then again, Elsa really didn't have anything else for Anna to do. The biohazard trash had been autoclaved, the experiments she had planned were all completed while they awaited new enzymes to arrive, even the bench was sparkling clean.
"I'll take a look at the summary section of the research grant you were working on," Anna said, sitting down by the computer to edit the document. Elsa just stared at her back, not knowing what to say. In the end, she could only relent.
"Alright. I'll buy lunch from across the street. We can eat together after I come back."
Anna almost wanted to jump out of her seat and follow Elsa, but thought that she probably shouldn't. Ever since the argument with her dad, she had been clinging onto Elsa - if she kept doing this, Elsa would probably suffocate. She didn't want to be such a high-maintenance girlfriend.
"Cool. I'll wait here," she said instead, turning back to the screen. Elsa forced herself to tear her concerned gaze off Anna and made her way downstairs.
The lab building was emptier with the undergrads off to study, but the campus itself was busier. Students came and went from the libraries, dorms, and restaurants, making Elsa somewhat uncomfortable the moment she came out the building to walk among them. She held her coat tighter to herself despite not being bothered by the cold at all, hiding the bottom half of her face within the high collar.
"Excuse me, are you Elsa?" She heard someone call from a nearby distance. She nearly jumped, but did manage to gather herself enough to shift her eyes towards the voice.
"Iduna!?" She called upon recognizing the woman. Iduna smiled.
"Sorry, I called the number you gave me, but nobody answered, so I thought I'd come by to see if I can catch you around the lab building."
"Oh, that's my dorm phone number, so that's probably why nobody answered. Is there something I can help you with?"
Iduna smiled, gesturing towards the coffee shop in the near distance, "If you don't mind, would you like to have a coffee with me? It's on me."
"I can use some caffeine, but I'll pay. Please don't worry about it."
The coffee shop was very crowded. It took them ten minutes to get their coffee, and despite waiting another ten minutes, they still couldn't find a spot to sit. The tables were all occupied with students studying for exams, textbooks, laptops and notes all lying there - it didn't seem like anybody had the intention of moving out of their seats.
"Maybe we can take a little stroll? I'm not sure if you mind the cold though," Elsa suggested.
"No, a stroll would be perfectly fine with me," Iduna answered.
Thus, they made their way across campus to the small garden overlooking the ocean. The garden was a popular lunch spot during the summer, but with flowers wilted and trees bare now, it looked a little miserable. However, this made the garden nice and quiet - perfect for their conversation.
"So what would you like to talk about, Iduna? Please, be frank with me. I do not mind," Elsa said.
"Then forgive me if I'm too forward about this. I was hoping you could ask Anna to come back home," Iduna said. She displayed no hostility, but it was clear that she saw something about Elsa that Agnarr hadn't. "I know you've been taking good care of our daughter and I really thank you for that. I want you to know that I'm not blaming you for Anna's behaviour. I just think that she might be more willing to listen to you than Agnarr and I, so..."
"I...it's not that I do not want to help you, Iduna, but I'm not sure if it's really right for me to tell Anna what to do in this case."
"Of course, I'm not expecting this to be a magic cure. I guess what I'm trying to say is...it would be great if you could tell Anna for us that we still really do love her. She does have a home to return to. We don't want her to feel like we're pushing her away."
Elsa was troubled. With Anna still so upset, she didn't want to bring up the issue in front of her. She also didn't feel like she had the right to do it. What position should she take? What would be best for Anna and how could she decide this?
"I will tell her what you said, but I think it might be better for you to tell her yourself. After all, I think the words would sound different coming from you than coming from me."
"I know. I will," Iduna answered. She took a seat on the stone bench and stared out into the waters far below the railing. "Anna has grown a lot, far faster than I thought she would. I should be happy, but as a parent, it's sometimes hard to let go. You know what I mean?"
"I can only imagine..." Elsa's voice trailed off, but she had more to say - it just took her a while to gather the words. The past months with Anna came to mind, her awkwardness, her determination, but also that subtle uncertainty about herself at first. Now, that uncertainty was gone. Anna had grown. She now shone with a stronger light, and that shouldn't be something to be ashamed of. "But I think Anna's growth is a good thing. She is now more sure of herself than ever, and such confidence has enlightened those around her. I am proud to say she has supported me greatly. Though I may be her mentor, she was not the only one to learn from this process - I have benefited greatly as well."
"I see," Iduna answered, smiling to Elsa's sincerity. She was relieved to know that Anna now had someone who cared so much for her that she would speak favourably on her behalf even in her absence.
Elsa was surprised when Iduna suddenly placed a hand on hers. She widened her eyes, only to feel Iduna's warmth flow seamlessly into her veins.
"Elsa."
"Yes?"
"I am very happy to see that Anna has you by her side."
Elsa didn't know what to say, or even how to feel about what was being said. Should she lie and clarify that there was nothing going on between Anna and her aside from student and mentor? Or would that just make it worse, seeing as Iduna didn't specify what she meant here. She just nodded slightly for lack of a better response, but Iduna didn't seem to mind her passivity.
"You see, Agnarr isn't a mean-spirited person. Stubborn, yes, but ultimately, he has Anna and her Uncle Nik's best interests at heart. He doesn't mean to hurt them."
"...I guess I can see that."
"What he has seen in life is not what Anna has seen, so naturally, as Anna gains experiences that are different from his, and thus formulate opinions that do not conform to his line of logic, he becomes frustrated that he can no longer understand her. He is worried that she is being influenced negatively, but that's not what I think is happening. Like you said, I think Anna is growing up, and that's a good thing.
But I can't easily convince him of this. His brother, Nikolas...you probably know already, but he's getting married with a man. Agnarr thinks it will lead him to hell. He thinks that the only way to save him is to change him. I know not everyone will think this way, but this is Agnarr we're talking about. He's terrified, really, because he doesn't want to lose those of whom he loves to the eternal fire. Real or not, he believes in it. Anna may be right that he's foolish. But a fool will not recognize his own foolishness. Telling him that his worries are just nonsense isn't going to help him.
I...I know it's too much to ask of Anna and Nikolas to forgive him, but I don't have a choice. Someone has to take a step forward and make a compromise, and I've tried with Agnarr, but he wouldn't listen. Of course, I'm not saying that Nikolas should give up his love to please Agnarr, or for Anna to give up her support of Nikolas either. But is there any way to reach middle ground here? Maybe Anna can send Nikolas her blessings on paper, or by phone, or...just so Agnarr would not know about it? You see what I'm saying?"
Elsa was an intelligent person. Maybe she was not used to human interaction, but her power allowed her to understand her fellow human beings to a deeper extent than most. She knew Iduna wasn't lying when she said she was glad that Elsa was by Anna's side, but Elsa did take the hint that Iduna was not only referring to Nikolas' wedding when she talked about hiding Anna's conflict with Agnarr from him.
It was not that Elsa couldn't understand Iduna's thinking. She sympathized with her plight, and honestly, she had no qualms even if Anna were to decide to go along with Agnarr on the surface so as to not anger him. But...
"Iduna, I will be honest. I understand your concerns, and I really do want Anna to reconcile with her father, but ultimately it's her decision. I cannot promise anything in her stead."
Iduna nodded, "Of course. Of course. What am I saying?"
Elsa could feel disappointment in Iduna's aura. She really wanted to help her, but this was not the way to do it.
Instead, she sandwiched Iduna's hand with her own. "Please don't worry too much. I think we can trust Anna and her father. They love each other, and that alone should eventually resolve any conflicts between them."
It was an hour later that Elsa would return to the lab.
"I bought sandwiches. They're outside in your cubby hole. You want to eat now?" Elsa asked Anna. She turned around wearily.
"Yeah. You took so long I nearly starved to death. I need to revitalize."
"Right, right. Sorry I took so long, Princess," Elsa said, bending down a little to offer Anna her hand. Anna took it and Elsa pulled her up from her seat, leading her out onto the hallway where they retrieved the sandwiches.
They went down to the lunch room to eat. Long after the usual lunch hours, the area was empty. They took a seat by the Christmas Tree.
"Did you hear about the Decorate the Tree contest?" Anna broke the silence.
"So...sorry. What did you say?" Elsa wasn't paying attention. She had been thinking about her meeting with Iduna.
"Is something wrong, Elsa?"
Anna didn't ask why she was late, but Elsa really didn't want to hide anything from her either. After much contemplation, she finally spoke.
"I ran into your mother when I was getting lunch."
"What!? What did she say to you?" Anna grabbed onto Elsa's hand protectively. Elsa shook her head.
"Believe me, it's not something to worry about."
"What do you mean it's not something to worry about? Why did she come talk to you in the first place? About Uncle Nik? Or...does she know about us?"
"I think she knows, but she is not against it, which is why I'm saying it's not something to worry about."
Anna let go, sighing in relief. "Last thing I want is for her or my dad to start getting on our case. But Elsa, I swear, even if they say no, I won't change my mind about you. I won't let them hurt you, alright?"
"I know, Anna. I trust you."
Anna nodded, finally calming down a bit. She took a bite from her sandwich, but it tasted bland. Elsa rubbed a hand down her back.
"Easy now. I know things are hard for you, but you need to let it go sometimes."
"I don't know how. I mean, it's great knowing my mom is supportive, but Pa...I don't know how to face him."
"Your mom was saying that you need to know he loves you too. He still does and always will. He just has some obstinate opinions..."
"It's not just an opinion when he's hurting someone with it!" Anna shouted, then looked down to the ground guiltily, "I didn't mean to raise my voice on you. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I understand."
"I know you and Ma are just trying to help, and I thank you for that. But I can't just let my dad get away with hurting Uncle Nik, and me, like this! What right does he have to judge us? He says he loves us, but at the same time, he compares us to murderers and rapists. Murderers and rapists, Elsa! To him, my falling in love with you is like killing someone!"
Elsa reached forward to wrap her arms around Anna, letting her snuggle into her embrace.
"It's okay. Regardless of what he thinks, you and I know that our love is not like that. We're happy together. Our friends are happy for us. There is no reason to feel ashamed."
"I get it. I'm not ashamed either. But why does Pa have to be like this? While everybody else is happy for us, happy for Uncle Nik, he has to be such an asshole about it! I want to tell him about us, because I want all my family and friends to celebrate your presence in my life. But at the same time, I'm scared. I don't know what kind of horrible things he'd say, not just to me, but to you too, Elsa. I don't want that. I just don't!"
"Then don't tell him. It's okay. I don't mind."
She hugged Anna tightly, but Anna struggled and pushed Elsa gently away. When they faced each other again, Anna faced Elsa's gaze head-on. Elsa tried to hide it, but there were hints of worry and hurt on her face. Anna clenched her teeth.
"Elsa, tell me what my mom actually said to you. Did she tell you to go away?"
"No, Anna. I said already, she is happy for us. She wouldn't say that."
"Then what did she say? Say it. Don't hide it from me."
"She didn't say anything, really, but I guess what she means is that we should probably keep our relationship away from your dad. You know how he reacted to your uncle's wedding. He's not going to take it well if we were to tell him about us."
Now Anna made a fist. Her knuckles became white. She could feel her teeth grind together, and whatever guilt and sadness she felt about her conflict with Agnarr disappeared to anger.
"You did not promise her."
"Of course I didn't! Anna, I know this is between you and your dad. I'm not going to butt my head into this without consulting you."
"Thank you," Anna said, then grabbing onto Elsa's face with both hands, pushed herself onto Elsa's lips.
Anna did not beg for entry. She just entered. Her tongue invaded every nook and cranny of Elsa's mouth, her gums, her teeth, her palate, the crevice beneath her tongue. Even from her sitting position, Elsa was being pushed against the wall beside her, forcing her to shift so that she could lean onto the hard surface with her back. Nearly robbed of her breath, she pushed weakly against Anna, but Anna just held her hands down to her lap, drawing a moan from her. When Anna finally moved away from her mouth, Elsa was panting for air, but Anna wouldn't let her go, moving down to suck on her neck.
"Anna...not here...it's the lunch room for goodness' sake! Someone can come in here at any time...uuuun!"
The slight pain on her neck drew her attention. This was not the usual soft kiss, but a hard, possessive one. Only after hearing Elsa's cry did Anna let go, heaving as she stared at Elsa.
"Sorry. I...didn't mean to...did it hurt?"
"It's just going to leave a mark on my neck, that's all."
"Sorry. I should've asked first. I...I just wanted you to know, I'm not going to give in to my dad, or my mom for that matter. I have no intentions of hiding what we have between us. You are mine, and of course, I'm yours."
She was blushing at the embarrassing statement she just made. Elsa laughed.
"You're so silly."
"Oh come on, Els. Don't rub it in!"
"Fine, fine. I'll keep your feelings in my heart but forget the exact wording you just chose. Is that cool then?"
Anna nodded, holding onto Elsa's hand. "To prove my conviction, would you like to come with me to Uncle Nik's wedding? You know, as my significant other?"
"Just to prove your conviction?" Elsa teased.
"That and I'm sure you'd love Uncle Nik. I really want to introduce you to him and his husband. Is that okay?"
"Of course it is. I'd be happy to accept your invitation."
End of Chapter 20
- as usual, your comments, suggestions, and impressions are all welcome!
|
Electricity crews are scrambling to restore power to more than 40,000 homes and business hit by stormy weather in Sydney's south on Saturday.
After a sunny start to the day, the expected storms rolled in, with the Bureau of Meteorology issuing a severe thunderstorm warning for large parts of north-western Sydney.
Spectacular lightning and some hail was reported across chunks of western Sydney, and electricity company Ausgrid has reported that emergency crews are working to restore power to 40,000 residents in the city's south from Caringbah to Waterfall after the storm cut power to high voltage cables in the area.
Fiona Morris Storm clouds at Rooty Hill before the massive storm hit on Saturday.
READ MORE:
* Thunderstorms and high winds lash Sydney
* Thunderstorms cap of Sydney's wetted January in 28 years
* Northlanders should brace for thunderstorms and torrential rain, forecast warns
Endeavour Energy also reported that power has been cut to more than 18,000 homes and businesses across western Sydney due to the storm late this afternoon. That includes 6000 homes between Merrylands and Guildford, 3000 in the Hills district and 1600 in Liverpool.
NICK MOIR A massive storm hammer north-western Sydney earlier in the week.
A spokesman for Endeavour said emergency crews "are being hampered in patrolling these areas to make safe and commence the restoration process by ongoing lightning and heavy rain".
"Until these patrols are undertaken it is not possible to give an estimate of the time it will take to restore supply and we would appreciate affected customers being patient," he said.
Ausgrid crews were also working to restore power to about 1400 residents in Wahroonga and Waitara.
Weatherzone meteorologist Sam Terry said a severe thunderstorm had led to "significant rainfalls" in parts of western Sydney, including more than 15 millimetres in a 10 minute period near Badgerys Creek.
"That's more than enough to lead to flash flooding," he said.
Terry said the worst of the rainfall hit in places like Penrith, which saw 40 millimetres, and Toongabbie, which saw about 3 millimetres.
A "severe" gust of wind of 98 kilometres per hour was also recorded at Badgerys Creek, while Bankstown saw gusts of about 80 kilometres.
"You're likely to see some branches ripping off trees or loose roof tiles being moved around," he said.
The State Emergency Services has received about 300 calls for assistance in the last few hours, as well as six flood rescues, with spokesman Phil Campbell saying some callers were being greeted by a busy tone because the call centre was being "maxed out".
"Such is the volume of requests for help we're getting," he said.
It is the second storm Sydney has suffered through in two days, with Campbell saying the majority of the focus had again been in the west.
"We had 800 calls for assistance last night, so you could say it's 1100 for the weekend," he said.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued and updated warning just after 6pm saying that further storms were still possible.
Severe thunderstorm warnings are also covering parts of the south-west including Camden, Oran Park and Picton.
|
Another year, another set of climate records. Here are the top ten signs you are living in a warming world, 2012 edition:
1. Hot enough for you? Though it’s only mid-December, it’s already clear that 2012 will be the hottest year on record for the contiguous United States. “The warm November virtually assures that 2012 will be the warmest year on record in the U.S.,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently observed. “The year-to-date period of January-November has been by far the warmest such period on record for the contiguous U.S.-a remarkable 1.0°F above the previous record. ” The Web site Climate Central put it this way: “There is a 99.99999999 percent chance that 2012 will be the hottest year ever recorded in the continental 48 states.”
[#image: /photos/590953f92179605b11ad3c26]
2. More hot air. Meanwhile, global carbon-dioxide emissions continue to climb. According to figures released earlier this month by the Global Carbon Project, run by the University of East Anglia and the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in the U.K., emissions hit a new record high in 2011. Global CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and cement production increased by three per cent, to 34.7 billion metric tons. “These emissions were the highest in human history and 54% higher than in 1990,” the project reported.
3. The future of ice. On August 26, 2012, the extent of the Arctic sea ice shrunk to a record low, breaking the previous record, observed in the summer 2007. By the time the Arctic melt season ended, in September, ice extent was 1.27 million square miles below the 1979-2000 average. “The Arctic is the earth’s air-conditioner,” said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the snow and ice center “We’re losing that." (In The New Yorker this week, Keith Gessen writes about a new shipping route where ice used to be.)
4. The future of ice II. A team of experts from NASA and the European Space Agency reported that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are now losing three times as much ice each year as they did in the nineteen-nineties. The acceleration was particularly dramatic in Greenland, which is now losing five times as much ice as it did in the mid-nineties. “Both ice sheets appear to be losing more ice now than twenty years ago, but the pace of ice loss from Greenland is extraordinary,” Erik Ivins, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said.
5. Big trees down. A study by a trio of ecologists from Australia and the U.S. found that the world’s largest trees are dying at an alarming rate. The study blamed several factors for the decline, including land-clearing, man-made changes in fire regime, and rapid climate change. “Just as large-bodied animals such as elephants, tigers and cetaceans have declined drastically in many parts of the world, a growing body of evidence suggests that large old trees could be equally imperilled,” the three warned.
6. Six degrees of separation. A report by the global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers warned that the possibility of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)—a goal agreed to by the U.S. and virtually every other nation on earth—was rapidly slipping away. “Even doubling our current rate of decarbonisation, would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees of warming by the end of the century,” the report warned. (That’s 6 degrees Celsius; in Fahrenheit the figure is 10.8 degrees.)
7. Water, water. Global sea levels are rising faster than predicted, a recent report on the journal Environmental Research Letters documented. The finding has significant implications for coastal cities, like New York.
8. And the water that’s gone. Water demand from the Colorado River is going to outstrip supply in the coming decades, a federal study released this month warns. The forecast is based on a combination of population growth and climate change, and has obvious implications for the forty million people who currently depend on the river.
9. Not-so-great lakes. Last month, the Great Lakes fell to their lowest level ever recorded for November, and the lakes are within inches of reaching an all-time record low. High temperatures and low precipitation have been blamed.
10. Extreme weather. According to a report by the reinsurance giant Munich RE, the number of weather-related “loss events” in North America has quintupled over the past three decades. The report attributed this trend to several factors, including climate change: “Climate change particularly affects formation of heat-waves, droughts, intense precipitation events, and in the long run most probably also tropical cyclone intensity.” The report was released just two weeks before Hurricane Sandy.
Photograph by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum.
|
The Maine lawmaker behind a new bill this session that would legalize marijuana and regulate it similarly to alcohol told Raw Story on Monday that her proposal is modeled so closely after the state’s existing medical marijuana statue that the only thing which would truly change if it passes is the availability of funds in drug cartel bank accounts.
“We already regulate marijuana in Maine,” State Rep. Diane Russel (D), pictured left, said on Monday. “We already have dispensaries. We already do this. We just do it for the medical community. It’s not a huge step — it’s actually a very small step — but it has profound implications.”
Russell, currently serving her third term, watched a similar bill fail in 2012, but said she believes Maine has a much better shot at tackling the problem of black market cartel profits in 2013 thanks to the legalization victories in Colorado and Washington last November.
“Sometimes bills have to percolate before they really resonate,” she said. “When Colorado and Washington decided to regulate marijuana like alcohol, a real snowball came at me. I didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal, but in the end it’s become a real culture shift, and that shift has really happened across the country.”
Her bill proposes almost exactly what Maine already puts into practice dealing with medical marijuana: purchases will be limited to two-and-a-half ounces of cured and dried marijuana per person and only one purchase every seven days, individuals over 21 years old may not possess more than six fully-grown plants, licenses for sales must be acquired at cost to the business owner, a tax of 7 percent on each sale would be levied, and smoking in public would be punishable by a fine.
“Honestly, that’s what they came up with for medical marijuana,” Russell said. “I have no idea how they came to that number [for cultivation], but I wanted to be consistent with that law.”
If it passes, Russell said “there will be rulemaking” sessions much like in Colorado and Washington “to codify things like THC potency levels because of the fact that those are changing,” she added. “This is not your grandma’s drug. [Some marijuana] is significantly more potent than marijuana has been in the past.”
For Russell, regulating marijuana similarly to alcohol is a “logical” step that she said comes from her father’s influence on her early childhood. “He’s your everyman’s guy, never complained, just loves what he does, and all through my life he’s just been like, ‘They should just legalize it and tax the hell out of it!'” she explained. “And of course my mom, who has a Ph.D. in nursing and laid the groundwork for the anti-tobacco laws in the state, even came down and said, ‘I would never recommend prohibition, it doesn’t work.'”
Russell added that she personally has friends who “make a lot of money” and enjoy marijuana regularly. “They are not the image that the media presents, at all,” she said. “We’re talking about middle-class people. Sometimes they have wine at night. Sometimes they have bourbon. Sometimes they smoke a joint or put it in a pipe. This is not the group of people that I was told it was supposed to be, and I have not seen any ill-effects.”
If Russell’s bill passes the legislature, it will have to be approved by a majority of Maine’s voters in November. It would become law 45 days thereafter.
——
Photo: Shutterstock.com, all rights reserved.
Correction: A prior version of this article incorrectly said adults over 18 would be allowed to possess marijuana. The bill actually refers to adults over 21.
|
If 19-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps does it for his health, then it’s gotta be good, right?
That’s what many are wondering after spotting cupping marks -- those purplish circles -- on the swimmer’s upper body poolside at the 2016 Olympics in Rio this week. Phelps also posted a shot of himself on Instagram being cupped last year.
Michael Phelps (USA) of USA is seen with red cupping marks on his shoulder as he compete in the men's 200 meter butterfly heats. REUTERS/Dominic Ebenbichler
But doctors who specialize in both mainstream and alternative medicine say when it comes to the science behind the ancient Chinese practice, the answers are vague.
Dr. Adam Perlman, executive director for Duke Integrative Medicine, told CBS News, “Cupping has probably been around as long as traditional Chinese medicine has been around -- a couple thousand years.”
A look at Olympic "cupping" and athletes' pain
Traditionally, the process involves a glass that is heated inside using a flame and then placed on top of the skin, where it creates a vacuum and sucks the skin up into the cup. The aim is to release the tension in sore muscles, Perlman said. Some use pottery or bamboo cups, or a more modern device that relies on a hand pump to produce the suction.
“It creates, in effect, a big circular hickey,” he said.
Thanks @arschmitty for my cupping today!!! #mpswim #mp 📷 @chasekalisz A photo posted by Michael Phelps (@m_phelps00) on Sep 10, 2015 at 12:29pm PDT
Phelps isn’t the only Olympic athlete sporting the circular purple markings. U.S. men’s gymnast Alex Naddour posted a recent selfie on Instagram showing a hint of cupping bruising. And some of his teammates have tried it, too.
What the mark really is, Dr. Robert Glatter told CBS News, is a tissue injury to the skin.
“It causes blood vessels to dilate and increases blood flow,” said Glatter, an emergency physician at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital, who is in Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics.
The aim of cupping is to relieve any blockages in the flow of energy and blood and lead to better recovery, Glatter explained.
Heading to another training. One day closer to our goal!!! #TEAMUSA I hope everyone is ready for opening ceremonies tomorrow!!! A photo posted by Alex Naddour (@alex_naddour) on Aug 4, 2016 at 9:44am PDT
Internal medicine physician and certified personal trainer Dr. Michael Smith told CBS News, “The suction pulls the tight muscles and stretches the fascia, the connective tissue around the muscles, and in effect, allows blood vessels to expand. The theory is that the increased blood flow speeds healing. It makes sense, but it is not going to cure any problem the athlete may have.”
Smith, who is also medical director and chief medical editor of WebMD, noted that anecdotal evidence suggests cupping might temporarily relieve pain and stiffness.
Perlman said he first spotted an Olympic athlete with telltale cupping marks while watching the women’s gymnastic competition this past weekend with friends.
“I was pleasantly surprised to see cupping marks. It really speaks to this level of integration we’re seeing with many things that are considered complementary medicine,” said Perlman, who has tried cupping for back pain and said it gave him relief.
But both Glatter and Perlman said the ancient therapy isn’t scientifically proven to heal anything.
“There’s no scientific evidence. There are multiple trials out there but no quality evidence. Producing giant welts on the body which basically make you feel better locally but injure local tissue doesn’t have any systemic impact,” said Glatter.
Studies are underway looking more closely at cupping’s potential medical benefits. “There is really a flurry of research looking at cupping for fibromyalgia, back pain and blood pressure,” said Smith.
If athletes or anyone else is interested in trying the alternative therapy, they should seek a qualified health expert, said Perlman.
“People should be looking for someone trained in traditional medicine and licensed and trained in Chinese medicine and who has graduated from an accredited school,” he advised, noting that cupping is usually part of a more comprehensive medical approach, used in combination with other therapies.
|
It wasn’t when we moved in together, or when we got engaged, or even when we merged bank accounts (because we’re crazy like that) and bought a house that I knew my husband was in it for the long haul. All of those choices were significant, sure, but the real clincher–the moment I knew we had committed to the whole “what’s mine is yours” thing for real–was when we decided to merge our bookshelves. The actual process of merging said bookshelves? That was the first test of our soon-to-be marriage.
While I would never consider partnering for life with a non-reader (I dated one once. Reader, he was boring!), I think it’s important to note that hitching your wagon to someone who values books as much as you do is not without its landmines, the Great Joining of the Bookshelves being the first and most perilous. We have to start talking about these things if we want them to get better! So, if you’re not living with a partner yet, or you and your partner haven’t taken the bookshelf-sharing plunge, a few words of advice:
Ditch your old organizational strategies and create a new one together.
This is akin to giving up your old apartments and moving into a fresh, new place where neither of you feels territorial or afraid of stepping on the other’s toes. Unless by a miracle of the universe you’ve met someone who organizes books exactly the same way you do, trust me–you’ll be happier arguing about a new system together than about whose previous system was superior.
Show ‘em what you’re working with.
Spread all the books out on the floor. Move them around. Make piles that comply with your newly-minted system. Introduce your books to each other. Talk about which ones go together and why. Make eyes at one another over the piles. Congratulate yourselves on how well you’re doing with this relationship milestone.
Leave your Judgy McJudgerton pants in the closet.
Better yet, leave ALL your pants in the closet. How could organizing bookshelves pantless NOT be a good thing for your relationship? Apply this rule to all potentially unpleasant household tasks.
Compromise and defer.
If you haven’t already been on the receiving end of myriad well-meaning speeches about the importance of compromise, allow me to be the first. You might not think THIS book belongs in THAT pile, but if it’s your partner’s book, then she’s the in-house expert on it, and she gets to make the final call. Besides, you’ll get her back later when you put That Book By The Politician She Hates and Is Embarrassed You Like in a prominent spot on the “favorites” shelf people first see when they walk into the room. Oh no, I’m not speaking from experience here. Not at all.
Silently remind yourself that you have better taste.
Okay, it’s impossible to resist all judgment, so the operative word here is “silently.” Do not, under any circumstances, suggest out loud that one of your partner’s books isn’t good enough to hang out next to one of your beloved tomes. I repeat: don’t go there. You know you have better taste, and you’ll have to resign yourself to a lifetime of smug–and unspoken–satisfaction about it. Better start now. Some things actually are better kept inside.
Exit strategy? Who needs an exit strategy?!
Like committing to a relationship, merging your bookshelves is an exercise in hope. If you go into the activity thinking about how you’ll separate your books someday in the future, you’re doing it wrong. If you really must have the bookish version of a prenup, write your name in your books so you’ll know whose is whose. Tell yourself you’re only doing this so you don’t accidentally make notes in your partner’s copy.
Know when to fold ‘em.
Don’t beat yourself up if the bookshelf merging gets hairy. This is one time when it’s okay to throw in the towel. Better to decide early on that you’re a “we share everything BUT books” couple than to learn it the hard way years later, right? Of course, those of us who have managed the merge will sit in silent, smug judgment of you, but you’ll be happier, so who cares? Sit back, enjoy the beauty of freshly organized shelves, and remember that even if your books aren’t snuggling, you can.
Now tell me: do your share bookshelves with your partner? Would you? What guidelines did I miss?
|
Researchers at King's College London have identified a new mechanism by which skin damage triggers the formation of tumours, which could have important therapeutic implications for patients suffering with chronic ulcers or skin blistering diseases.
The study, published in Nature Communications, highlights an innate sensing of bacteria by immune cells in the formation of skin tumours. This molecular process could tip the balance between normal wound repair and tumour formation in some patients, according to researchers.
Although an association between tissue damage, chronic inflammation and cancer is well established, little is known about the underlying cause. Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), for instance, is one of several rare inherited skin conditions associated with chronic wounding and increased risk of tumours.
However, this study -- funded primarily by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wellcome Trust -- is the first to demonstrate that bacteria present on the skin can contribute to the development of skin tumours.
Researchers found that when mice with chronic skin inflammation are wounded they develop tumours at the wound site, with cells of the immune system required for this process to take place. They discovered that the underlying signalling mechanism involves a bacterial protein, flagellin, which is recognised by a receptor (Toll-like receptor 5) on the surface of the immune cells.
Although the direct relevance to human tumours is yet to be tested, researchers have shown that a protein called HMGB1 -- found to be highly expressed in mice with chronic skin inflammation -- is increased in human patients with Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). The study found a reduction in HMGB1 levels in mice when the TLR-5 receptor was removed from immune cells. This raises the possibility of future treatments aimed at reducing levels of the flagellin bacterial protein on the skin surface, or targeting the TLR-5 receptor.
Professor Fiona Watt, lead author and Director of the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at King's College London, said: 'These findings have broad implications for various types of cancers and in particular for the treatment of tumours that arise in patients suffering from chronic ulcers or skin blistering diseases.
'In the context of chronic skin inflammation, the activity of a particular receptor in white blood cells, TLR-5, could tip the balance between normal wound repair and tumour formation.'
Professor Watt added: 'Our findings raise the possibility that the use of specific antibiotics targeting bacteria in wound-induced malignancies might present an interesting clinical avenue.'
|
A WESTERN Sydney company has offered to build Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s giant upside-down milk crate artwork for a fifth of the $2.5 million set aside to pay for it.
“I am obviously in the wrong business. I should have been an artist,” said David Love, operations manager at Craft Fibreglass Composites in Wetherill Park.
Sydney City Council has set aside $1.7 million for Egyptian-born, Sydney-based artist Hany Armanious to design, build and install the 15m tall crate in Belmore Park near Central Station. A further $800,000 has been set aside for “project management”.
Mr Love said he could produce the giant crate from fibreglass cladding over a steel frame for just $500,000.
media_camera Sydney Mayor Clover Moore and the City of Sydney have copped criticism over their public artwork proposals. Picture: City Centre Public Art — Pavilion, by Hany Armanious
“The cost is in the tooling but there is a lot of repetition in a milk crate,” he said.
“We could build it in sections, transport it on a low loader and assemble it on a concrete base at the site.
“The artist is getting five times as much money to produce exactly the same thing — it’s a huge mark-up.
“But you know what artists are like, they sit around all day waiting for a commission while people like us are out making things,” said Mr Love, who has previously produced the medal podiums for the Sydney Olympics and more than 50 giant fibreglass koalas for a nature trail in Port Macquarie.
The planned artwork has sparked controversy, with Melbourne artist Jarrad Kennedy claiming he was the first to come up with the idea of turning a giant milk crate into art. His brown, 3m-tall sculpture was built in a Melbourne park in 2005.
media_camera David Love’s costing estimate to build a giant milk crate sculpture.
“If the artist’s intellectual copyright is already gone there would be nothing to stop us making more,” said Mr Love, with a keen eye on the business opportunities.
“Once we have made the moulds we could knock them out for any city in the world that wanted one.’’
But such a practical, no-nonsense approach to the project was greeted with horror at the City of Sydney. When presented with a $2 million saving for producing exactly the same thing, a flabbergasted press officer stammered: “But this is an artist who is going to build an artwork!”
A City of Sydney spokeswoman later said: “The City is commissioning an original piece of art by one of Australia’s most high-calibre artists. The City’s evaluation panel, made up of experts, unanimously selected the artwork.”
Mr Love was unimpressed: “I could knock out a giant wheelie bin for even less.’’
|
It may sound like a satire right out of The Onion, but its the honest truth: a Bellevue, WA-based company called mCig is trying to get people to inhale their vitamins.
The company's VitaCigs are $5 devices based on the same vaporizing technologies used in "e-cigs." The difference is that the VitaCig delivers inhalable, vapor-based, nicotine-free vitamins and phytonutrients. These "phytonutrients" include compounds derived from cannabis, but not THC, and in its annual report the company notes that VitaCigs provide "some of the effects that the marijuana plant provides, without the THC-induced high.
The same group does produce a separate line of cannabis mCigs for states in which recreational marijuana has been legalized.
The company claims to be "simultaneously disrupting Big Tobacco and Big Pharma," by providing the world's 1.2 billion smokers with a smoking alternative that is decidedly less harmful. Though the company makes no specific health claims for its vita-vapes, the very notion of delivering vitamins in vapor form seems to imply that the product creates a healthy habit.
Whether this is true remains to be seen. The concept of inhaling vitamins is new, and while in theory it is possible that some vitamins may be absorbable via the lungs, this mode of delivery has not been seriously studied. Little is known about dosing of inhaled vitamins, bioavailability, or bioequivalence with standard oral dosing.
VitaCig's "VitaJuice" formulas bear names like "Energize," "Calm" and the like. The manufacturer notes that "Every VitaCig includes the following base vitamins A, B, C, E and CoQ10." To this base are added flavorings and additional nutritional components alleged to enhance the intended effect of the formula.
For example, the "Grace" formula--presumably for joint health and balance--is supposed to contain "Mint plus cherry and collagen," while the "Relax" formula contains "Blueberry plus Black Currant and B-Myrcene, a natural turpene."
With it's clean yet colorful graphics, VitaCig is definitely going after a youthful customer base, one that is equal parts health- and fashion-conscious. Since its launch roughly a year ago, VitaCigs have generated just over half a million dollars in revenue--a modest figure given the billions in revenue projected by the Big Tobacco firms that have largely taken over the e-cig market. But company CEO, Paul Rosenberg, says that 21% of its current 30,000 customers are repeat users, and that VitaCigs as well as the eCig industry as a whole are still in their infancy.
In addition to the scientific questions around the biology of inhaling vitamins, the emergence of the VitaCig poses some significant regulatory questions: Should it be regulated as a dietary supplement? A medical device? A drug delivery system?
Like so many other new developments at the crossroads of technology and healthcare, this one defies easy categorization.
END
rrently in four formulations:
|
For many in the West, the idea that a church would take an overtly hawkish stance in the conflict in Syria is an utterly foreign concept.
But then, the Russian Orthodox Church is not of the West, says Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the church's most recognizable spokesperson, in his spartan downtown Moscow office.
"The idea that church and state should be alienated from each other is not a characteristic of Orthodox civilization," insists the wispy-bearded senior cleric, whose eyes almost seem to burn. "It's a characteristic of the West."
Not well known or understood in the West, the Russian Orthodox Church has been Russia's chief source of spiritual identity for most of its 1,000-year existence. Though it was nearly destroyed by the communists, it has since rebounded sharply to become once again the Kremlin's ideological bulwark.
As that relationship has solidified, the church has also integrated with the military. Russian media frequently run photos of priests blessing weaponry, including war planes, while Orthodox chaplains are embedded in most military units. And now, it is underscoring its enthusiastic backing for Russia's military intervention in Syria – a fight Father Chaplin dramatically describes as "a holy war against terrorism."
"Russia has been attacked [by terrorists] many times," says Chaplain. "This is not a religious war, not a Christian-Muslim conflict, but for us, the struggle against terrorism definitely has a spiritual dimension."
The 'Third Rome'
The Orthodox Church, which has deep historical connections with the dwindling Christian communities of the Middle East, was deeply alarmed by mass flight of Iraq's Christians following the US invasion of that country. When the conflict in Syria began almost five years ago, the church began lobbying the Kremlin to take a strong stand in defense of Syrian Christians, who are about 10 percent of the population. Experts say the church's insistence certainly played a role in President Vladimir Putin's decision to intervene directly in the conflict.
Christianity came to Russia via Byzantium, the eastern half of the old Roman Empire, which survived until the Muslim Turks overran it almost 600 years ago. The Russian Orthodox Church subsequently took up the mantle of eastern Christianity, and Moscow styled itself as the "Third Rome" with a special duty to protect the faithful of the Middle East, now living under Muslim rule. An 1853 proclamation by Czar Nicholas I claiming Russia's right to support Christians living in the Turkish Ottoman empire – which then included Syria and the Holy Land – actually precipitated the Crimean War, which pitted Russia against Turkey, Britain, and France.
"Russian czars and church for centuries maintained close relations with Middle Eastern Christians, and declared the right to support them. That's part of our historical consciousness," says Iosif Diskin, chair of the inter-religious affairs commission of the Russian Public Chamber, a semi-official civil society assembly. "But today it's not just the church, but much of Russian society that has become agitated about the fate of Christian minorities in Syria."
It's difficult to gauge how much the church's vocal support accounts for the public's backing of the war. But polls show that nearly two months into the Russian intervention, more than half still back the air war, though more than two-thirds say they would oppose sending in Russian ground troops.
"The level of trust in the church is very high," says Grigory Kertman, an expert with the state-linked Public Opinion Foundation. "It's not only religious people who say they trust the church, but even non-believers" tend to view it as a positive force in society.
'The origin and end of things'
When asked by pollsters, Russians overwhelmingly aver to be religious believers; in fact, over 80 percent say so. About 70 percent of Russians identify themselves as Orthodox Christians. The remainder come from one of the constitutionally-defined "founding" religions of Russia: Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism.
Few Russians bother to go to church on a regular basis. Chaplin says it's as many as 30 percent, other experts say the figure is more like 5 percent.
Whether they go to church or not, Chaplin argues, religious faith does shape people's consciousness, particularly with regard to the Middle East. "Many Christians, not just Russians, see the Middle East as the crossroads of world history, as the origin and end of things," he says. "There is a very deep interest in things that happen there."
The church maintains dialogue with Russia's other religious minorities about the war in Syria through the country's official inter-religious council and other avenues. Chaplin insists that they are all on the same page about the threat posed by Islamist extremism and the need to fight it.
The recent downing of a Russian airliner by a terrorist bomb over Sinai is a terrible tragedy, he adds, but it will not change the course. "It's not possible to fight the war against terror as if it were a computer game. It's a real war, and it will not go on without losses," he says. "This fight has become the reality of our times."
A church, speaking out
Chaplin denies the church is seeking to return to its czarist-era role as main arbiter of state ideology. But he does admit that the church openly lobbies for policies it wants: not just the war in Syria, but issues closer to home, such as abortion, religious teaching in schools, and the "wayward mores" of Russian women. The church demonstrated its political muscle recently by compelling the Kremlin to postpone a lavish state burial of members of the last czar's family over clerical doubts about the authenticity of the royal remains.
Under Putin the state has bent over backward to accommodate the church, handing over thousands of religious buildings and artifacts confiscated by the former Soviet Union, including many architectural gems, some of which had been state-run museums for decades.
Dozens of public organizations have sprung up to carry the church's views into public political debate, and their activities contribute to the growing conservative shift in Russian society on issues as diverse as LGBT rights and artistic standards.
"Some people say the church is only about matters concerning clergy, and should not speak out on secular issues," says Chaplin. "But we have overcome that Soviet legacy."
Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy
Critics say that whether the issue is war in Syria, or priests running hospitals, the growing political clout of the church is a big source of worry.
"In most of Russian history, the church was junior partner of the state, and served the state's interests. It's starting to look a lot like that again," says Nikolai Svanidze, a historian and leading TV personality.
|
Question: How can one deal with negative and insecure gossipmonger colleagues?
Answer: One way is to engage but steer them in another direction, towards making them think of proactive solutions for the issues at hand. E.g. ask, ‘So, what do you think you should do?’ or ‘So, how can we help them (realise this), to solve the problem?’ This will make the conversation less destructive and more constructive. Sound like a broken record if needed, using different words at times, using the same ones occasionally, to bring the conversation back to what is useful. Of course, when the topic is on something clearly untrue, explain why this is so, objectively and calmly. When others lose their powers of reason, you can be the voice of reason, without being pushy.
Question: What if one is in the same team and do not wish to be ostracised? Especially since the colleague and superior are on very close terms. The higher management seems uninterested.
Answer: Many do not really want to solve the problems they keep yakking over. But it still makes sense to urge them to go for solutions, to help them realise this is only sensible, again, without being pushy. Do it with a kindly smile. Prompt questions for personal reflection. Suggest solutions to transform their attitudes, if they are unwilling to do anything else in terms of confrontation for clarifications.
Question: What if one’s appraisal might be affected, if my conduct is perceived as not their cup of tea due to not participating in their negativity, to be ‘part of their team’ against others?
Answer: One’s responsibility at work is to do one’s work well. Make sure it is done so well that there is no reason to be ostracised for petty matters. Ideally, we should always take the side of what is right, to say and do what is right. But when this harms oneself too much for survival, it is perhaps better to leave the team, department or company before this happens, unless one is comfortable with potentially being sacrificed in various ways. A salary, when there are other options of getting it, is seldom worth excess suffering for. In the mean time, we should not take any side that harms others.
As above, sometimes, it is true that it is better to leave, when the conditions are too negative. In the Buddha’s teachings, this is why we are urged to reach Pure Land, because with his compassionate wisdom, he realised that this Saha World (Samsara here) has too many difficult conditions for most to work towards Buddhahood swiftly, without any discouraging obstacles leading to personal backsliding. Especially if not capable of transforming the very foolish yet, the Buddha too advised to keep away from the ‘company’ (pun intended) of fools. If not, one might become foolish eventually! It is good to do what can at the workplace, to a reasonable extent, so as to stretch the practice of skilful means in addressing the problems mentioned. If leaving, always leave on a high note, so that there will not be looking back in regret.
|
Looking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
Happy New Year!
I promise this post is not about Donald Trump, even though it starts with him. Here he is talking further about the whole hacking episode:
“I don’t care what they say, no computer is safe,” he added. “I have a boy who’s 10 years old; he can do anything with a computer. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.”
Trump’s proposal of a massive new executive branch courier service is intriguing as the foundation of his promise to create more jobs, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Rather, I want to talk about the myth that young people are all geniuses with computers.
As usual, I won’t claim any huge expertise here. However, I do interact with young ‘uns periodically, mostly pretty smart ones. However, even they generally have no real expertise with computers. Far from it, in fact. What they do have is (a) a general familiarity with the UI conventions of modern smartphone apps, and (b) a deep and encyclopedic familiarity with the handful of apps they use constantly. This provides a surface sheen of expertise, especially to older folks who don’t use smartphones much.
But dig an inch below the surface and most of them don’t really know much. Grab your stereotypical person on a street corner and ask them, say, when the French left Vietnam. Or what vegetable has the most Vitamin A. These take about ten seconds each to answer (1954-56,1 sweet potatoes), but most people struggle with stuff like this, and young folks struggle just as much as anyone. Ditto for any app they aren’t familiar with, especially on a platform they aren’t familiar with.
There’s nothing unusual about this. Ask a question about Facebook on an iPhone and you’ll get a flurry of activity from your average teenager but only a blank stare from me. Ask more generally about some problem on a Windows machine, and I can probably help you while your average teenager will now be the one with the blank stare.
On average, young people are more comfortable around computers than older people. Show them a new app and they’re generally willing to learn it, while us older coots probably don’t want to bother unless we really think it’s going to be useful. Younger generations also have different preferences thanks to these apps (text vs. phone calls, news aggregators vs. weekly newsmagazines, etc.). But that’s about it. In the sense of broad knowledge of computers and networks, or the ability to find information, or the ability to produce useful work with their computers, Xers and millennials aren’t any more savvy than the rest of us.
But the flying fingers on their smartphones, along with their deep familiarity with the apps they use, provide an aura of expertise so compelling that it seems almost genetically inborn. Mostly, though, it’s an illusion.
Of course, even with that illusion affecting our judgment, most of us don’t believe that ten-year-olds “can do anything with a computer.” For that level of idiocy, you really need Donald Trump.
1OK, I’ll confess that finding the 1956 component of that answer took me more than a few seconds. The French agreed to leave in 1954, and the last troops left in 1956.
|
In what was perhaps one of the least political New Rules he’s ever done, Bill Maher took a look at the value of tripping the lights fantastic on acid, and why it’s one of the least harmful drugs a child could ever take. He argued that many of the greatest innovators and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries were admitted drug users, including the recently passed Steve Jobs, who admitted to his biographer that taking acid was one of the best decisions of his life.
As is often the case, Maher brought up the drug in the context of Halloween, pointing out that acid is probably healthier than most of the candy kids eat anyway, and called for parents to “put drugs in the Halloween candy!”
Maher acknowledged that this would obviously be a controversial notion, but when you factor in all the drugs parents have their children taking (including Monster energy drinks) and the sugary snacks they consume on a regular basis, Maher argued that kids are on drugs, all right, just the wrong ones.
RELATED: South Park Creators Admitting To Dropping Acid Before Cross-Dressing At The Oscars
He criticized parents who use prescription medications to “control their kids,” suggesting actual parenting as a more effective method. Then Maher brought the subject to Steve Jobs, who was very open about his past drug use, and reminded us that some of the most creative people in the last few decades were heavy drug users.
Maybe there’s not a connection between LSD and genius, but it’s something no great American ever said about a Kit-Kat bar. If it weren’t for acid, you might not have an iPod, and you definitely wouldn’t have some of the best music in your iPod.
Maher went through a whole list of people who made great accomplishments while on acid: Francis Crick, the Beatles, and himself (during the filming of D.C. Cab). He pointed to a Johns Hopkins study that found positive psychological effects of “magic mushrooms,” and recommended the Republican candidates relax and take a few shrooms themselves.
Watch the video below, courtesy of HBO:
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com
|
on •
For as long as I can remember, I have experienced migraines with my menstrual cycle. Like clockwork, every month I can tell when I’m getting my period because they day before, I get a migraine. I have tried every remedy there is: migraine medication, acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractors, prescription pain killers, non-prescription pain killers, as well as hormone therapy. Over the years. I have seen medical and other health professionals in almost every field of medicine, health and wellness and still I have not found a solution to my monthly situation.
Three of the health professionals (Neurologist, Gynecologist and Naturopath) I have seen for this condition all agree that I should be on birth control because I have hormone imbalances that result in serious chronic headaches. As a result, I have been taking prescription birth control for over a decade now in an attempt to try and curb the severity of my symptoms.
Oh, one other detail. I’m a lesbian.
I have never thought twice about being a lesbian and having a medical need for birth control; but, there have been many shocked responses from both medical professionals and lay people when they find out that I take birth control.
“Why would a lesbian need birth control? Clearly it is not for sexual reproductive purposes!” seems to be the usual remark.
I am always taken aback that people are a) first confused as to why I take birth control just because I’m ‘a lesbian’ and then b) answer the question themselves.
“Yes,” I say, “You’re right. I am a lesbian and I do not use birth control for sexual purposes. I use it for medical reasons-I get chronic migraines.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” goes the usual response. “That makes sense!”
I have had similar experiences when being screened for a doctor’s visit.
Technician: “Any chance of pregnancy?” Me: “Nope” Technician: “Are you sexually active?” Me: “Yes” Technician: “Do you use protection?” Me: “Nope. I have been with one partner for the past three years and we have both been tested.” Technician: “And there is absolutely no chance of pregnancy??” Me: “Nope. I’m a lesbian.” Technician: “Oh.”
Now, I try my best to be patient and understanding but in this day and age, homosexuality is a known part of society and society needs to change and adapt to our out presence. My sister, who works in the field of women’s reproductive health, excitedly texted me all this past weekend because she was attending a health conference for LGTBQI medicine and I’m glad that there are conferences like this one happening.
The above interaction, which I have experienced at almost every single doctors appointment I have been to (I can think of two doctors, both gynecologists, who did not assume my sexuality) is annoying but fortunately, not blatantly discriminatory. I have had friends however, who upon disclosing that they are lesbians to their gynecologists, have had their appointment abruptly stopped with the doctor’s justifications of “why are you wasting my time? You do not need my services because you do not have sex with men.”
Interactions like these are demeaning and unprofessional to say the least. More importantly, experiences like these have put lesbians’ health at risk. The reproductive world and those working in it need to progress with dynamic populations of this world. From gynecologists to legislation to intake questions in a medical office, assumptions need to stop. Birth control is not only used for sexual purposes and not all women’s reproductive concerns result from having sexual intercourse with men.
Advertisements
Categories: Health
|
More than one million websites that run on the WordPress content management application run the risk of being completely hijacked by attackers exploiting critical vulnerability in most versions of a plugin called WP-Slimstat.
Versions prior to the recently released Slimstat 3.9.6 contain a readily guessable key that's used to sign data sent to and from visiting end-user computers, according to a blog post published Tuesday by Web security firm Sucuri. The result is a SQL injection vector that can be used to extract highly sensitive data, including encrypted passwords and the encryption keys used to remotely administer websites.
"If your website uses a vulnerable version of the plugin, you’re at risk," Marc-Alexandre Montpas, a senior vulnerability researcher at Sucuri, wrote. "Successful exploitation of this bug could lead to Blind SQL Injection attacks, which means an attacker could grab sensitive information from your database, including username, (hashed) passwords and, in certain configurations, WordPress Secret Keys (which could result in a total site takeover)."
The WP-Slimstat secret key is nothing more than the MD5 hash of the plugin’s installation timestamp. An attacker could use the Internet Archive or similar sites to determine the year a vulnerable site was put online. That would leave an attacker with about 30 million values to test, an undertaking that could be completed in about 10 minutes. Once the secret key has been divined, the attacker can use it to pull data out of the database.
WP-Slimstat is an analytics tool. Its listing on WordPress shows it has been downloaded more than 1.3 million times. People who operate websites that use the plugin should update immediately. Update: Some people associated with WordPress estimate the number of affected websites is closer to 100,000.
Post updated to change headline. It previously read: More than1 million WordPress websites imperiled by critical plugin bug.
|
Conroy announces mandatory internet filters to protect children
Updated
Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy says new measures are being put in place to provide greater protection to children from online pornography and violent websites.
Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.
Online civil libertarians have warned the freedom of the internet is at stake, but Senator Conroy says that is nonsense.
He says the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites.
"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," he said.
"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."
Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.
He says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.
"There are people who are going to make all sorts of statements about the impact on the [internet] speed," he said.
"The internet hasn't ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn't ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it's not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe.
"But that is why we are engaged constructively with the sector, engaging in trials to find a way to implement this in the best possible way and to work with the sector."
Topics: internet-culture, community-and-society, pornography, government-and-politics, federal-government, information-and-communication, censorship, australia
First posted
|
laravel new goldenticket
Let’s hop into our goldenticket directory and start up the basic application to make sure everything looks good. Run the command:
php artisan serve
Now if you browse to http://localhost:8000/ you should see the following screen letting you know “You Have Arrived” and your Laravel project is setup correctly: Before we start writing code, let’s update our configuration file to show debug info if we encounter any errors. Open up `app/config/app.php’ and update the debug option to true:
'debug' => true,
Now that we have our foundation in place, let’s make a simple form that we can use to send ourselves a new MMS ticket. Create a new view file in ‘app/views/’ called “home.blade.php”, and insert the following HTML:
<!doctype html> <html> <head> <title>Golden Ticket Distribution</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.2.0/css/bootstrap.min.css"> </head> <body> <div> <h1>Golden Ticket Distribution</h1> <form method="POST"> <input type="text" name="name" placeholder="Name" /> <input type="text" name="phone_num" placeholder="Phone Number" /> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send" /> </form> </div> </body> </html>
Here we’ve created a basic HTML page that contains a form we’ll submit to create a new ticket. We’re also including bootstrap CSS to help make things look a bit prettier. By adding the .blade.php extension we’re making our view a Blade template. We won’t taking advantage of the templating till a bit later. Last, let’s make sure our route loads this view. You’ll already have a route for ‘/’ in app/routes.php so just update it to load our new view:
Route::get('/', function() { return View::make('home'); });
Visit http://localhost:8000 and you should now see our golden ticket distribution form: Generating QR Codes Now that we have our Laravel foundation in place, let’s work on generating an image of our golden ticket. In this case our ticket will actually be a black QR code but that just doesn’t sound nearly as cool. We’ll be using the Endroid QRCode library to generate our QR code, so let’s install it using Composer.
composer require endroid/qrcode
First, we’ll create a new route that outputs our QR code image. To make our code a bit cleaner let’s import our QrCode class so we can instantiate it by name only. Open up your ‘app/routes.php’ file and add the following line right after your opening
use Endroid\QrCode\QrCode;
Now let’s add a new ‘/qrcode’ route after our ‘/’ route:
Route::get('/qrcode', function() { $qrCode = new QrCode(); $qrCode->setText("Golden Ticket"); $image = $qrCode->get(); $response = Response::make( $image, 200 ); $response->header( 'content-type', 'image/png' ); return $response; });
We’re instantiating a new QR code and using the setText function to set the content we want encoded in the QR code. We then get our image and return it our response making sure we properly set the headers. Kick off your server using ‘php artisan serve’ and browse to http://localhost:8000/qrcode. You should see a beautiful QR code that looks like this: We don’t want to just show the same QR code all the time though. Fortunately it’s easy to update this code to generate the code based on some data we pass in our query string. For our use case we’ll just be concatenating our name and phone number and base64 encoding it. Let’s update replace the first three lines of route with with the following code:
$name = Input::get('name'); $number = Input::get('phone_num'); $code = base64_encode($name . $number); $qrCode = new QrCode(); $qrCode->setText($code); $image = $qrCode->get();
We can now run our server and go to http://localhost:8000/qrcode?name=Charlie&phone_num=5555555 and see our dynamically generated QR code. Try switching the name and number data to see the code change. Ultimately we’ll need Twilio to be able to access this image. As a result, if you’re running on localhost you’ll need a way to make that happen. Ngrok is a great tool for exposing your localhost to the outside world. If you haven’t used ngrok before you can kick off with our multi-platform or Windows focused tutorials. Send MMS With Twilio The next ingredient in our sweet new app is Twilio MMS. We were super excited to launch Twilio MMS on US and Canadian long codes two weeks ago. It allows you to send and receive multimedia messages of many different media types. This new API is just the ticket to securely distribute Wonka’s golden tickets in the form of an image sent over MMS. We’ll be using the Twilio PHP helper library to send our message. Let’s install it using Composer:
composer require twilio/sdk
Remember that form we created at the beginning of this post? We’re going to have that submit to itself to send our ticket. Currently our ‘/’ route only accepts GET requests, so let’s update it to accept GET and POST requests:
Route::match(array('GET', 'POST'), '/', function()
Inside our route let’s check to see if the form has been submitted. If it has, let’s instantiate a new instance of our Twilio helper library and send our message. Replace the code inside your route with this:
if(Input::has(‘submit’)) { $AccountSid = "ACXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"; $AuthToken = "YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY"; $client = new Services_Twilio($AccountSid, $AuthToken); $sms = $client->account->messages->sendMessage( "+15555555555", // Your Twilio Number Input::get('phone_num'), "Congrats! Here's your golden ticket.", "http://XXXXX.ngrok.com/qrcode?name=".urlencode(Input::get('name')) . "&phone_num=" . Input::get('phone_num') ); } return View::make('home');
If you’ve sent SMS using the Twilio PHP helper library before this code should look familiar. We instantiate the library using our Twilio credentials. You can find these in your Twilio dashboard. Then we call sendMessage using our from number, to number and body of our message. Make sure to update the from number with your Twilio number. The new part for MMS is the last argument we pass. This is a URL to the media we want to send. This is the publicly accessible URL where Twilio can access our QR code image, make sure you update this to your URL. After you’ve updated the code with your ngrok url, start your php server up:
php artisan serve
Load up the homepage and submit the form using whatever name you want and your phone number. Shortly, you should receive an MMS on your phone that looks something like this: Putting the Packaging Together Our app is now fully functional but all Wonka lovers know that you have to wrap your product up in nice packaging. Let’s do a few small updates to make sure our app is polished. First, let’s add an alert div that lets a user know that they’ve sent the message. Open your home view and add the following code right after the closing tag of your form:
@if(Session::has('alert')) <div> <h2>{{ Session::get('alert') }}</h2> </div> @endif
This will check our session to see if we have an alert we need to show. If it does, we’ll show this div. We’ll be using flash data to store this alert. Flash data is session data that Laravel only stores for the next request. In our route, let’s add the flash data right after we send our message:
Session::flash('alert', 'Golden Ticket Sent!');
Now that we’re indicating to our user that form was submitted successfully, let’s also add some basic validation to indicate when something goes wrong. It’s our lucky day because Laravel makes validation easy. Let’s create a new validator right after we check that our form was submitted. We’re going to set name and phone_number fields to required:
if(Input::has('submit')) { $validator = Validator::make( array( 'name' => Input::get('name'), 'phone_number' => Input::get('phone_num') ), array( 'name' => 'required', 'phone_number' => 'required' ) );
When you create a new validator you pass two arguments. First, an array containing the data you want to validate. Second, an array containing the validation rules for that data. Now that we have a validator we just need to check if it has failed and display some information about what failed to the user:
if($validator->fails()) { $messages = $validator->messages(); Session::flash('alert', implode($messages->all('<li>:message</li>'))); } else { // Code that sends our MMS
We’re using flash data again and reusing the alert div we already created to show our validation messages. Rerun your code and leave the ticket code and/or phone number blank. You’ll now receive a message letting you know that those fields are required. There’s a lot more we can do with validation but this should be enough to get Grandpa Joe out of bed. A World of Pure Imagination We’ve now streamlined the operations at Wonka HQ with our MMS ticket distribution system. What you do next is up to your imagination! You could use a system like this at your next conference, hackathon or Willy Wonka-themed birthday party. Or maybe you own an airline and want to improve the way you distribute boarding passes. Whatever you build, I’d love to see it. You can find me on twitter or e-mail.
Authors Ricky Robinett
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
|
We’re Nextbit. We made a smartphone that brings the power of the cloud to everyone with an integrated cloud OS. We made it because we’re tired of waiting on others. Because we believe in a cloud-first future. And because no one else was making the phone we wanted. This is the phone we want, and we think you’ll want it too. Smarter. Powerful. Bold. And, direct to you. Now we need your help. Back us to help make next a reality now.
What people are saying
“This sleek but unassuming smartphone isn’t an iPhone killer or a Galaxy killer, and it won’t kill any other smartphones on the market. Instead, it’s a problem killer” BGR
“Nextbit is building a bridge between the mobile world and the one that comes next, the ambient one where everything is technology.” Wired
“It’s your phone and they’re letting you do what you want with it...” Phandroid
It’s a new kind of smart
Unlike anything before it — Robin has the cloud integrated right into Android OS, and it’s perfectly tuned hardware is optimized to take every advantage of it.
It's supercharged with the cloud
It can do what others can’t — seamlessly expanding its storage online so you always have the space you need for what you want most. By tapping the unlimited potential of the cloud, Robin delivers beyond its specs.
Its storage grows with you
Robin intelligently adapts to your storage needs, and automatically optimizes the space on your phone when it sees you need it. By learning the apps you use and the space you need, Robin offloads the stuff you don’t use to the cloud. So you can have everything you want (in the cloud), and just what you need (on your phone).
Robin backs up your apps and photos whenever you’re connected to power and Wi-Fi. (These are the default setting to conserve power and data, but you can change them to fit your needs.) After you’ve been using it for a while and start running out of space, Robin intelligently removes apps and photos you haven’t used in a while - even if you’re offline. Robin knows they’re already backed up safely. If you ever want an offloaded app or photo back, no problem. Just tap on it and we restore the full version right away. It’s hassle free, the way everything should be.
It’s the future of Android
Built on the newest Android, Robin will be familiar right out of the box, but you’ll quickly realize it’s a better experience. We like to keep things simple, and we’ve taken a light touch with the look and feel, streamlining everything so it’s intuitive in all the ways you want it to be, and organized so that what you want is where you need it. Because everything we do with Robin is based on up to the minute innovations on Android, it will always be running on the newest possible version. We’ll do our damnedest to ship it to you running Marshmallow, unless that drops after Robin ships. Then we’ll do an OTA update as soon as possible.
And storage is just the beginning
With Robin you’ll be on the frontier of a much bigger movement. We have big plans for future cloud-first features that will continue to intelligently enhance your experience by seamlessly adapting to how you live and work.
Robin doesn’t look like every other Android phone
It doesn’t try to fit in (except in your hand, where it fits very nicely, in fact). Robin is for people who are tired of the status quo and crave something with more personality. It’s designed to feel effortless — reducing clutter and increasing usability. The placement of everything is arranged so every port, button and sensor feels harmonious, symmetrical, and makes sense.
It lets you know what's up
Four tiny lights on the back give you subtle confirmation that Robin is connected to the cloud and working, without interrupting. Another LED on the bottom tells you when have important notifications, even if your phone is on silent and face down on a table. With a glance, you’re in sync with what matters most.
It's made by pros
Between us, we’ve got a fair bit of experience making phones (like the G1, Nexus, Evo, HTC M7 and M8). And we’ve partnered with Foxconn (the guys who build some of the most well known phones in the world) for hardware engineering and manufacturing so Robin's standout design is backed with proven quality. Put simply, Robin kicks ass. It’s got a suite of technologies that work together to get more from each other, and push its performance to incredible levels.
It's fast, it's powerful
Running a premium Snapdragon processor by Qualcomm means you can trust Robin to get the job done. It only uses what you need for what you’re asking it to do, so it’s always running optimally (Qualcomm powers a majority of the smartphones you know and have owned, after all).
It's ultra efficient
Robin is engineered for long battery life, and it’s designed to get you through a full day on a single charge. Our CTO, Mike (the guy who lead the power management team at Android from the start) wouldn’t have it any other way.
Robin manages your power based on what you use and supports quick charging. Even when it’s connected to the cloud, Robin won’t drain your battery. It only backs up when you’re plugged in and on Wi-Fi unless you say otherwise. And it doesn’t use any extra power to make more space when you need it.
Robin only needs a data connection to upload (back up) your data. By default we do this when it is charging and connected to wifi, however if you are never in that situation, you can change the defaults so it backs up in less strict conditions. After Robin is backed up, it can clear space on your device with no connection at all.
It’s secure
Security is super important to us, and we know it’s super important to you to. Personal data is transmitted encrypted and stored encrypted on our servers.
In addition, local Storage is encrypted if you choose that. We support the native disk encryption in Android. And because we’re using Google’s Authenticator for login to our server, you can always use 2-factor authentication.
|
Here is the information on the Cedar Valley CourtKings 2nd open tryout:
When: Sunday Feb 21st
Where: Cedar Valley SportsPlex 300 Jefferson St, Waterloo, Ia
Time: Registration at 6:30pm Tryout runs until 9:00pm
Also: There is a $25 tryout fee and you must bring your health insurance numbers/information if you are going tryout.
We signed two players from our first open tryout….who is next? You can email us and pre-register your name and basic information: email is cvcourtkings@yahoo.com.
We are looking for players who are out of high school and either have finished their college basketball careers or are done playing at the collegiate level.
The CourtKings first game is Saturday April 23rd at Sioux City, Iowa vs the Hornets. The home opener for the CourtKings is Sunday May 15!
You can also purchase your season tickets now online on this website. Just click on the tickets link!
|
The whole family sweated it out. Women and children joined in when the men grew tired of pushing the handle that was churning the wheel and pulling up rocks from the bottom of the well.The patriarch of the family, Sajan Rai, was down at the bottom of the well, about 40 feet deep.With two others, he was tugging at the rocks that had come unstuck after two rounds of explosions had blasted through them.Deepening a well is not an easy task, but the family was determined to bore through 10 feet of earth – it was their only hope of finding water to irrigate their fields.The monsoon has failed over large parts of north-west India. In Madhya Pradesh, 23 districts have been declared drought-hit. One of the worst affected is Tikamgarh in the north of the state, where the rainfall has been 52% below normal. According to the Ministry of Water Resources, the district gets 90% of its water requirements between June and September.
The reservoir at Mohangarh did not fill up in the rains.
The village pond at Achchara village has dried up. A herd of cows descended on the pond but found no water.
In Mastapur village, the local anganwadi does not supply daily hot cooked meals as it is supposed to. But people are happy to at least get a packet of ready-to-eat powder every month.
The tehsildar's office in Mohangarh.
It is hard work to deepen a well.
What has made the situation alarming, said district officials, is that this is the second consecutive year of abysmal rains. “The rainfall in 2014 was even lesser than 2015,” said Bhanu Prakash Sharma, the deputy director of agriculture in the district. “But the excess rainfall of 2013 had filled up the reservoirs and wells, and farmers managed to cultivate their crops by drawing water from them.”In the absence of a major river or dam, Tikamgarh depends on reservoirs and ground water for irrigation. Some of the reservoirs and tanks, built by the Chandela kings who ruled the region between the 9th and 12th century, sprawl over 40 hectares – about the size of a hundred football fields.But this year, the reservoirs have visibly shrunk and ground water levels have fallen. Last year, according to the irrigation department, the district had enough water to irrigate 35,000 hectares of crops. This year, the water can irrigate 6,000 hectares at best.Anticipating a drinking water crisis next summer, however, the district administration has decided to not even use that. It has placed a ban on farmers drawing water from the reservoirs for irrigation, or sinking new tubewells – in effect, ensuring farmers cannot plant the winter crop of wheat. “The rabi [winter crop] sowing has happened in less than 10% area,” said Sharma.Only those with fields near the rivers Jamani and Dhasan have been able to plant the crop. Or those like the Rais who have private wells and tubewells – provided they still hold water."The irrigation department has reported that a tubewell, when switched on, would pump water for one and half hours before running dry," said Sharma.In that case, shouldn't the use of private sources of water for irrigation be banned too? Shefali Tiwari, the district public relations officer, said that wasn't possible under the law. "But farmers are wise enough to understand the need for conserving water for drinking," she said. "After all, they would not want to put their own families at risk."In the villages, opinion is divided over the administration's restrictions on water use.Archana Soni of Mastapur village supports the administration's move to keep public reservoirs of water for drinking purposes. The village lies in Jatara block and is home to about 4,000 people. Only four of the 16 wells in the village have water, the middle-aged woman said. "By summer, even this water could run out. Humans can migrate but what would happen to the animals?"In the barren countryside, herds of cattle can already be seen scouring for water. "Only the milk-giving animals have been kept at home," said Soni. "The others have been set free. It's impossible to find fodder for them."But others living in the vicinity of the large reservoirs are agitated with the ban. "Please write down the names – Nadanwara, Kumehdi, Barana, Karri – all these reservoirs still have water," said Hanumant Singh Yadav, who owns six acres of land in Ranipura village. "Why aren't farmers being allowed to draw water from them?"Farmers are anxious because not cultivating the winter crop of wheat would mean depending on the state for their food requirements. Unlike neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, where the National Food Security Act 2013 is yet to be implemented, Madhya Pradesh was among the early states to implement the law which entitles ration card-holders to five kilos of foodgrains per person at subsidised rates every month. Eighty percent of its rural population is eligible for food rations under NFSA. About 51 million people have been already identified as beneficiaries, according to a statement on the website of the department of food of government of India.That perhaps explains why in the villages of drought-hit Lalitpur district in Uttar Pradesh, many poor people complained of not having ration cards, but there were fewer such complaints in Tikamgarh. The Sehariya adivasis in Mastapur village showed their cards and said they were getting monthly rations regularly. "Instead of 30 kilos, it could be 25-28 kilos," said Sevanti Devi. "But it comes on time."For many families, however, the question is whether the government rations are enough. "What does five kilos of foodgrains in a month amount to?" asked Gulab Vishwakarma, a marginal farmer who was planning to migrate for work soon.Across villages, people confirmed that dal and milk consumption had nosedived. "There is no milk even for children," said Archana Soni. "People are buying tins of milk powder for 40 rupees."It's not just food and water that's running low. The people of the area are facing a cash squeeze. The lack of rainfall has devastated the monsoon crop of urad dal and soyabean. "People have not even been able to recover their investments," said Virendra Kumar Kewat, the pradhan of Ranipura village.Official statistics capture the scale of the devastation. "The yield per hectare in 2013 was 868 kilos," said Sharma. "This year, it's down to just 375 kilos."Mandi arrivals of soyabean across the state were 35% less than last year, said Prem Chand Meena, the state's commissioner for agricultural produce.These statistics alone should spur the state to provide speedy compensation to farmers. For the record, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has made the right noises, repeatedly stating that relief payments to farmers should be made "on a war-footing". He visited Tikamgarh in the last week of October and is scheduled to make another visit to the district this week.But on the ground, despite his visits, the payments to farmers are stuck.Overlooking a large reservoir, set against the fort of Mohangarh, is a decrepit government building which functions as the office of the tehsildar, Lokendra Srivastav. In his fifties, Srivastav knows the Rajasv Pustak Parpatra, the Revenue Manual, well enough to be able to cite from it without even looking at it. "Section 6, sub-section 4, says relief would be given as per the rules," he said.According to the rules, a farmer with up to two hectares of land is entitled to Rs 5,000 as compensation for 25%-33% crop losses and Rs 8,000 for losses above 33%. Farmers with more than two hectares of land would get Rs 4,500 for 25%-33% losses and Rs 6,800 for losses above 33%.Was this enough given that local farmers cited the cost of cultivating two hectares of urad as anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000? "That's why this is called rahat or relief," said Srivastav. "It's meant to help the farmer, not compensate him for his losses."Even this meagre relief was yet to reach farmers. "We are yet to get a rupee," said Shivraj Bunkar of Mastapur village.The administration of Tikamgarh has asked for Rs 175 crore for relief payments. According to Sharma, the first instalment had already reached the district coffers. But its distribution had been delayed on account of an indefinite strike by patwaris, the ground-level revenue officials, who were asking for higher salaries.Tikamgarh has 27 revenue circles but just 18 patwaris. One circle encompasses an average of 500 hectares, or five square kilometres, said Srivastava. With fewer patwaris, the area under each would be larger. The understaffing perhaps explains why the process of estimating crop damage and providing relief payments is slow, regardless of whether or not there is a strike.Not only is the process slow, it is also inaccurate. Officially, the patwaris are meant to estimate the losses using crop-cutting – or measuring the output in a five-by-five metre plot of farmland and comparing it with the average yield in the area. But this method is rarely followed. "Eye estimation" or a cursory survey of the farmland is more common, admitted officials. "Bas nazar bhar dekh lete hai."Farmers claimed even eye-estimation rarely happened. "The patwari does not survey the fields," said Yadav, the farmer in Ranipura. "He sits in his office, or with the powerful people of the village, and depending on who's willing to pay him how much [as bribes], he decides what to note down as the crop damage."Srivastava denied the charge. "The patwari has to take down signatures of the farmers. How would he do that without going to the village and meeting them?"To this, Yadav scoffed and said it does not take much to fake thumb impressions.After ten days of hard drilling, and having spent Rs 8,000 on the explosives, the Rais had managed to make only a small dent in the rocks.Water had started to trickle out of the corners but the flow was nowhere close to what was needed to fill up the well.Around lunch time, Sajan Rai, the family patriarch, emerged from the bottom, exhausted. "Looks like we might need to carry out at least another ten rounds of explosions," he said. With each round costing Rs 3,000-4,000, this amounted to a heavy expenditure that few could undertake in a difficult year. Few, except the state.So far, seven state governments have declared drought. Six states, including Madhya Pradesh, have sought assistance from the Centre. In the last week of November, the Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told reporters that a central team was visiting the state to assess the extent of damage.Getting funds from the Centre might be the easier part for Chouhan's government. Using them well to make sure the most vulnerable people are protected would be far tougher.
|
We are proud to present the first ETF2L Ultiduo Cup! It will be starting on Sunday 10th July, from 20:00 CEST. The cup itself will run over two Sundays. The first 4 rounds will be played on Sunday 10th July, while the quarter, semi and grand final will be on Sunday 17th July. Simply create a 2v2 team and you’ll be able to signup. You can do this through Team Admin (top right), then teams (on the left), register team, fill in the details and you’re ready.
So what is ultiduo? The combo from 6v6 (medic and soldier) work together to kill the opponent combo. It is King of the Hill; the objective is to capture the point and hold it for 5 minutes. All games this tournament are best-of-three, so the first to win two rounds wins! If you want to see what it’s like, see the final from cup #4 here (#7’s VOD was unfortunately removed). Or you can try for yourself on a Ultiduo server located in London, UK: connect 94.76.215.26; password mission.
Please note: this cup is experimental. The focus of our attention is the whip for soldier (The Disciplinary Action). It resembles item named Haste in Quake (father of Team Fortress game series). You can discuss The Disciplinary Action here.
Setup – Cup of 128, best-of-three, single elimination
Prizes (provided by Angel) – $ 200 first place, $ 100 second place
Angel) – $ 200 first place, $ 100 second place Unlocks – Medic: Blutsauger & Ubersaw allowed; Soldier: all unlocks banned, except The Disciplinary Action. Shovel (or Frying Pan since they are identical) is allowed, The Disciplinary Action is no longer mandatory.
(or Frying Pan since they are identical) Merc Rules – See below
Bracket draw – Sunday 10 th July, 19:50 CEST (live on #etf2l)
July, 19:50 CEST (live on #etf2l) Map – koth_ultiduo_r_b7 (download here)
Sign-ups open – Now
Sign-ups close – Sunday 10 th July, 18:40 CEST
July, 18:40 CEST Server config – Here
Unlike most other cups, we run a ‘check-in’ after signups close but before brackets are drawn. This is to ensure only teams that are available to play are put into the brackets. To check-in, teams must join #etf2l (on IRC – here) between 18:40 and 19:40 CEST on Sunday 10th. This can be done by saying “teamname checking in for ultiduo” (replace with your teamname) in the chat.
We will also be quite lenient with mercs and defaults. We want as many people to play as many games. Therefore, if you do not have two players when you want to check-in, tell us and you can use a merc. This merc has to be used throughout the tournament and you cannot use your previous partner at any point during the tournament once a merc is used. We also want people to play their games as quickly as possible but appreciate this may not always be possible. If a team is 10 minutes late they will lose by default unless they have told an admin ( Imperium or Angel) in IRC that their game has started late.
For anyone wondering why this cup is single elimination rather than double elimination (like the last cup), we are experimenting. We may continue alternating (or not!) between the two types, we’ll tell you once we’re certain. Equally, we’re likely to play around/ask for feedback on unlocks new & old after this cup or in the near future. But for now, get signing up!
|
edit on 3-6-2014 by Blackmarketeer because: (no reason given)
I think of all the theories proposed, the wax seal embosser fits best. The "knobs" would act as stand-offs, allowing the seal to be pressed to a specific depth. Each face contains a unique design depending on where a letter may be destined or to whom it's sent. The holes may have contained a hardened wax design that would be changed time to time (to prevent forgeries). That could explain the wax residue in some of the artifacts. When it's time to change a seal, heat the dodecahedron, and the old wax melts away. Refill it and carve your new design and your back in business. (Hardened wax can still emboss soft molten wax.)Alternatively, the holes may have been left open so that once the dodecahedron was pressed into molten wax, it left the center un-embossed, where the signor could then press his signet ring to assure the recipient of who sent it. In a rank and file Roman province, there would have been different levels of importance of those sending letters (Generals, Consuls, Governor, etc.), so that might explain why the need for different designs in the faces of the artifact.Another factor in the mystery of these objects is that they are found in mainly European locations held by Rome. The use of letters and couriers sealed by wax may have been the reason why.Edit to add:Another reason for the variations in designs on the 12 sides might be to give the embossed seals a "progression", a crude enigma-like encoding. Each subsequent letter would use the next design in embossing only the sender and receiver would be privy to, say for instance, the next smaller seal impression on the dodecahedron. This way, if a letter is intercepted by an enemy, they would only be able to copy the seal design they have in front of them. They wouldn't know the seals vary and thus they'd inadvertently reveal the letter was compromised.
|
I Stopped Eating Meat and This Is What Happened During My First 12 Weeks
Zack Starikov Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 14, 2015
I didn’t think giving up meat was going to be easy but it never even occurred to me that it would hurt as much as it did. A bizarre run in with a pig while on a walk with my pug got me to give up eating meat. You can read the story here. My first 12 weeks of meat free!
Week 1: I felt great. I couldn’t understand why people claimed it was so hard to stop eating meat. I pretty much just ate tuna salad sandwiches, pasta, and peanut butter sandwiches. No complaints since all three are favorites.
Week 2: I started feeling sluggish. I started wondering if I was getting sick.
Week 3: I felt worse than I had the previous week. I was tired everyday and I felt as if I was gaining weight. I was angry most of the day and feeling anxious. My girlfriend claims the littlest of things agitated me.
Week 4: Girlfriend talked me into eating more vegetables. I started eating things like kale, chard and brussel sprouts. None of this tasted good to me but I ate it because it turns out pasta has too much sugar. Eating tuna everyday can lead to mercury poisoning. Apparently peanut butter is high in calories and too much of it can make you fat.
Week 5: I found myself spending more time in the bathroom. Not eating meat and eating more vegetables, tofu and seitan really started messing with my stomach. Perhaps it’s the stomach issues that made me really miss meat and regret my decision. My body started to hurt pretty badly and all sorts of muscle aches developed. Nighttime sleep came with chills and sweats.
Week 6: I started getting headaches and vomiting. My mood shifted from angry to sad. The chard still tasted disgusting but the brussel sprouts and kale started to grow on me. My body still didn’t feel right and I was spending a lot of time in the bathroom.
Week 7: The headaches and vomiting still occurred every couple of days. I started feeling less sad and more hopeful. My craving for meat decreased a little. Nighttime chills and sweating at night decreased as well. My body still ached but not as much.
Week 8: I felt as if I finally started recovering from having been sick with the flu. I was still spending a lot of time in the bathroom but the headaches seemed to have gone away. Chard still tasted gross but surprisingly was easier to eat than the previous days. Kale and brussel sprouts tasted better and my mood changed for the better.
Week 9: Bathroom trips not as frequent. Headaches disappeared. Chard still gross but edible. According to the girlfriend my skin was looking better. Had to tighten my belt because my jeans felt a little loose. Feelings of being more energetic and actually sleeping which I was having a lot of problems with.
Week 10: Happy and positive. Started choosing to use stairs instead of elevators and escalators. Sleeping almost 7 or 8 hours as opposed to half of that. Just feeling better. Bathroom trips still much more frequent than when I was a carnivore. Not feeling heavy after meals and definitely losing weight. Kale and brussel sprouts actually started to taste good and the chard surprisingly still gross.
Week 11: Feeling good. Bathroom visits under control. Pipes seem to flow better than all those times when I ate meat. Sleeping well. Enjoying Kale and brussel sprouts. Still eating chard despite the gross taste.
Week 12: Meat still looks good when seeing an ad for a steakhouse but the craving feeling extinguished. Feeling happy. Feeling good. Sleeping well. Developed craving for grilled brussel sprouts after not having them for 4 days. Feeling healthy.
Thoughts: Recently I read about how all sorts of chemicals are injected into the animals we eat and all the chemical processes used to make the meat look a certain way. It makes me wonder if what I experienced was a possible drug withdrawal from the chemicals I had gotten addicted to during my 33 years as a carnivore. I’m not really sure why I had such severe headaches that caused me to vomit or why I got the chills and the sweats at night after cutting meat out of my diet. Although I did not mention this earlier but aside from eating kale, brussel sprouts and disgusting chard I also made sure to eat hummus, fruits, other vegetables, brown rice, quinoa, oatmeal, beans, tofu, seitan, tuna fish once in a while, peanut butter, whole wheat bread, avocado, walnuts, brasil nuts, and drinking almond and cashew milk. Since giving up meat I have lost about 11 lbs and according to my girlfriend I am less irritable and moody…
If you need any advice on how to stop eating meat (break the habbit of eating meat, finding food alternatives, or overcoming pressure from peers about eating meat) please feel free to reach out and get in touch. I’d love to help in anyway I can.
|
Employees of The McClatchy Company, which operates The Miami Herald and dozens of other newspapers, will not receive 401(k) matching funds for 2012—a repeat of what happened to them in 2011.
“We often get asked when the 401(k) match will be reinstated,” said a Monday email to the company’s staff obtained by Romenesko. “Although reinstating a company match is a priority, the company’s financial performance must improve before we can start making matching contributions once again. For now, we will continue to closely monitor the company’s profitability to determine when we can reinstate the 401(k) match.”
McClatchy made the decision to withhold 401(k) benefits in response to falling earnings, an epidemic across the traditional newspaper media. But while much has been said and written about the difficulty of turning a profit in today’s journalism world, the labor side of things has been largely ignored. The news media’s current economic climate doesn’t just shrink newsrooms and kill magazines: it also reifies professional class barriers, making it tougher for aspiring journalists from working-class backgrounds to obtain steady jobs or big soapboxes.
McClatchy’s benefit cuts are a good example of how this dynamic plays out. By eliminating 401(k) matching payments indefinitely, the publishing company effectively raises the cost of being an employee, placing the burden on those workers whose retirement funds are not already secured. But most journalists face much more overt weeding out mechanisms well before they have a full-time job—in college, for example. Future success in journalism, as in so many professions, can depend heavily on attending the right school and making the right connections. As Dana Goldstein wrote in 2009, “In some fields, like political ‘think’ journalism, the Ivy League schools are grossly overrepresented. (Yep, that includes me. I went to Brown.)”
The news media is also one of the industries that has come to rely most heavily on unpaid intern labor—both to perform roles previously delegated to full-time staff, and to serve as a potential hiring pool for the occasional full-time job. Oftentimes, one unpaid internship isn’t sufficient; college students and recent grads are instead locked into a perpetual arms race to amass more credentials in the vain hope that they may one day be adequately compensated for their labor. The advantage, of course, goes to those young adults who are privileged enough to be able to eat and pay rent while working for free as serial interns.
If they’re lucky, young journalists might graduate from unpaid internships into careers as “permalancers”: precarious contract workers who, because they are denied full-time status, lack a full-timer’s pay or security. Sometimes even reporters with steady jobs will suddenly find themselves relegated to the permalancers pool: that’s the position which the editorial staff of Out magazine found themselves in after their editor-in-chief fired all of them and offered to hire “most” of them back as contractors.
New media journalism is not exempt from this process of class stratification. Though the blogosphere may have once been a relatively meritocratic Wild West back in the early aughts, it has since gained respectability. And as bloggers have become professionalized and institutionalized, online journalism positions have become just as coveted as their traditional media counterparts—in some cases, even more so. Few print publications, for example, would have the chutzpah to auction off an unpaid internship for $13,000, as the Huffington Post did in 2009.
In same ways, these are the same competitive pressures faced by many white collar professions. However, when applied to journalism, they can have unique and troubling consequences. Reporters, after all, have the job of informing the nation. The more economically homogeneous the industry becomes, the fewer reporters will be left who understand or relate to working class and lower-income needs and concerns. The press will instead become an outlet for the interests and attitudes of the privileged, with little in the way of dissent.
|
"Why do these people keep betting against my company?" Elon Musk is probably thinking as he grins. AP It looks like Tesla skeptics are running out of juice.
Traders are paring bearish bets against the company heading into its second-quarter earnings report, due after the closing bell on Wednesday.
This is not to say that Tesla is totally in the clear — after all, it's still the most-shorted company in the US market. What it does indicate, however, is that Tesla shorters may be growing tired of constantly losing money, and don't want to leave themselves vulnerable to a stock spike, should the company crush profit forecasts.
Short interest on Tesla — a measure of bets that share prices will drop — sits close to its lowest in more than 2 1/2 years, relative to shares outstanding, according to data compiled by IHS Markit. The measure has come down by more than five percentage points since the start of the year and now sits at 15.9%.
Tesla short interest sits close to the lowest in more than 2 1/2 years. Business Insider / Andy Kiersz, data from IHS Markit
Short interest peaked at a record high of $11 billion as recently as mid-June before the traders started paring the position, possibly encouraged by a 17% decline off recent highs. That said, the stock is still up 50% year-to-date, which could explain why Tesla remains such a heavily shorted stock when compared to the broader market.
The high short interest is also at least partially due to the changing nature of how the market's hottest companies are being traded, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky, the head of research at the financial analytics firm S3 Partners.
He says they're being used as proxies for hedging the broader stock market — the wisdom being that as these huge, influential stocks go, so does the market.
"Even with these large mark to market losses, shorts are not being squeezed into closing down their positions," Dusaniwsky told Business Insider in late July. Heavily shorted mega-cap companies are "the new non-ETF portfolio hedges," he added. "Managers are using short positions in these stocks to hedge their portfolios against large negative market moves.
Here is a list of the most-shorted companies in the US market, in decreasing order of total short interest. Data provided by S3 Partners and as of July 25:
|
"Don't use your phone while it's charging," "don't leave it plugged in overnight" and "always let it die completely" — these are just a few popular myths about smartphone batteries.
When it comes to battery life, there are many little rules for what you can and can't do with your smartphone. While plenty of real rules exist, there are several rumored ones you can simply ignore. Phone batteries have evolved so much over the years, becoming smarter and easier to manage. Most lithium-ion batteries, used by major retailers like Samsung and Apple, should last between three and five years, if you take proper care of it.
Here's the truth behind five major phone charging myths.
Image: Mashable
Myth 1: Using off-brand chargers destroys batteries.
The truth: Off-brand chargers, while not optimal, are fine. It's knockoffs you should avoid.
Don't go for cheap brand knockoff chargers when you can at least purchase inexpensive, off-brand chargers (as long as they're made by legitimate retailers, such as Belkin and KMS). The folks at Lifehacker ran a detailed experiment in which they pitted official chargers against knockoffs and off-brand models.
The results showed that off-brand chargers, though obviously not as good as the official thing, work just fine. Knockoffs barely even get the job done.
Myth 2: You shouldn't use your phone while it charges.
The truth: Use it all you want, as long as you're not using a sketchy third-party charger.
There are scary reasons behind this myth. People believe that using a phone while charging will make the phone explode, or electrocute the user. That actually happened to a Chinese flight attendant named Ma Ailun in July 2013, when she used her iPhone 4 while it was charging.
However, reports say it's because Ailun was using a third-party charger, not an original Apple charger.
If you're using the manufacturer-approved charger and battery, you should be fine.
Myth 3: Charging your phone overnight kills the battery.
The truth: Your phone is smarter than you think. Once it's fully juiced up, it knows to stop charging. That means the battery isn't even in use at all.
However, that doesn't mean you should be charging your phone all night, every night. You wouldn't fill a cup with water if it was already full, would you? Your battery life will last longer if you keep your phone charged between 40% and 80%.
Myth 4: You don't need to turn your phone off — ever.
The truth: Your phone may be a machine, but it still needs to take a few breaks. An Apple Genius said that in order to maximize battery life, you should turn off your phone from time to time, especially when you go to bed at night.
At the very least, Apple experts recommend turning your phone off once a week in order to preserve battery life.
Turning off your phone is important for Android devices as well. A simple reboot can help restore battery life.
Myth 5: Don't charge your phone until it's completely dead.
The truth: It's better to charge your phone every day than to do a "deep charge" from time to time.
Lithium-ion batteries, like the kind used in Samsung and Apple products fare better when they're charged. If you constantly let them drain to 0%, they become unstable. Your battery has a finite number of charge cycles, and every time it fully dies, that's another cycle out the window.
BONUS: Fact — heat will ruin a battery.
The truth: This is absolutely true. Heat and tech don't generally go hand-in-hand, and that's no different with phone batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries heat themselves, and get hotter while they're being charged. Cold weather can also have a negative impact on a phone's life, and a cold battery will die faster than usual in low temperatures.
Your phone will be safe if you keep it within its recommended temperatures; Apple says 32 degrees Fahrenheit is the lowest recommended temperature for an iPhone's environment. Samsung, on the other hand, guarantees its phones can function anywhere between -4 and 122 degrees.
Techquickie has a pretty neat video that explains some of these myths in detail.
|
The F1 season so far has a broadly positive balance sheet; it has featured two good races and two dull ones with little or no close racing, but the saving grace has been the close competition between Ferrari and Mercedes.
Because behind that there is a large gap to Red Bull, then another large gap back to the rest.
And on tracks where overtaking is hard and the tyres offer little or no degradation, like we saw in Sochi, then the cars run in performance order with no real chance for anyone to spring any surprises.
Those involved it the title battle are talking the other side up and predicting that it will go down to the wire in Abu Dhabi in November; the competition is finely balanced between Ferrari and Mercedes, but the reality is that everyone in F1 is holding their breath to see the step Mercedes makes in Spain.
A gap between the two front runners could easily open if Mercedes bring along an updated car to Barcelona that not only carries the aerodynamic and engine steps that all teams will be aiming to bring with this first major upgrade of the season, but also addresses its weight issue.
And if that happens then the field could spread out, to the detriment of the show.
To illustrate the point, below is the race trace from Sochi (click to enlarge), showing the gaps between the cars in seconds, see how they widen as the race goes on (end of the race on the right of the frame. The sharp drops are pits stops).
The gaps are large. Now imagine a clear gap between Mercedes and Ferrari.
Red Bull is in a race of its own and then the midfield is miles off. This is different from recent seasons, where Mercedes had a pace advantage over everyone, but the field was more closely grouped behind them and a Force India could score a podium, as it did twice last season. That's a pipe dream for this year.
Carlos Sainz commented on it this week: "If there is something missing in F1, it is that this gap is so great between the first two and the others," he said.
"If you look at the budgets, you know that it is impossible to reach them. So I hope Liberty finds agreement among everyone so that it [gap] can be reduced."
This is something that F1's new owners Liberty Media are well aware of; it's one of the main areas Ross Brawn and his team are working to resolve for the next generation, so that all the teams have more of a chance to compete and even to win.
Mercedes on a diet
There were suggestions at the start of the season that the Mercedes, with its long wheelbase, was around 8kg over its ideal weight, which equates to almost 3/10ths of a second at most F1 venues.
They have been working on a weight loss programme back at Brackley in tandem with the usual development programmes. So if that is added to a decent step on aerodynamics and engine, it could tip the balance in Mercedes' favour.
Ferrari has done amazingly well to produce such a competitive car from where it was last season.
However the pressure is on Ferrari as its record on in-season updates has been patchy in recent years. Many upgrades have not had the desired effect and kept pace with other competitors.
Anything less than a decent step from them on aerodynamics and engine and the balance could start to shift.
What Ferrari has in its favour is the way it uses the new generation Pirelli tyres, especially the softer end of the range. The Mercedes has a narrower operating window for the tyres, whereas the Ferrari has more bandwidth. This will take some time to resolve.
For Spain Pirelli has disappointingly chosen the harder tyres, despite the fact that in winter testing teams were using the ultrasoft and supersoft tyres quite happily. The ultrasoft is probably not the right tyre for the weekend but a selection of supersoft -soft - medium would have made for a more interesting weekend, as we flagged up after the first round.
Daniel Ricciardo has said as much in the Red Bull preview to the Spanish GP:
"We’re going for the harder tyres for the first time this year in Barcelona. I’m not sure if it’ll help us or not but I just don’t think it’s going to be good for anyone.
"The tyres are already hard enough so the harder compounds are just way too hard. Hopefully for Barcelona’s sake it’s hot and therefore these harder tyres work, but if it’s cold then it’s going to be a struggle for everyone."
Can Red Bull close the gap?
As well as the Mercedes and Ferrari updates, it will be interesting to see what Red Bull brings to the table in Spain. The energy drinks maker failed to live up to expectations with its 2017 challenger, which is not only down on power but also aerdyanamically less stable than its rivals.
Adrian Newey's team has been working flat out on a B spec car for Spain, while Renault has said that it will be delaying its revised engine, which addresses issues with the hybrid system, until June.
Last year, for reference, Red Bull was 1.7 seconds off the pace of the Mercedes in Sochi, but then in Spain it was just 0.6s (and they won the race after the Mercedes pair took each other out) so it shows the kind of gains that can be made.
The midfield battle is very entertaining, but even there its hard for the cars to overtake or pull interesting strategy moves on each other when the tyre choice is too hard. There will be movement as some teams gain more from development than others and Renault is worth watching as they seem to be unlocking performance now from their car in the fight with Force India and Williams for fourth and fifth places. Williams has only one driver scoring points and there is no chance of the other being replaced. Renault also has only one scoring points, but the other may be less secure.
What about Honda?
The most extraordinary story of the season so far, without doubt, has been the failure of the Honda engine, after a positive upward trend in 2016. The engine's problems are well catalogued, but engine fixes take time.
Behind the scenes Mercedes engineers have been working hard in a rare show of sporting camaraderie, helping the Japanese manufacturer to speed up the recovery process, to stabilise the parts that keep going wrong and to maximise the integration with the McLaren chassis. There is a lot to be gained and in many ways the future participation of Fernando Alonso in the championship beyond June may well depend upon it.
Alonso is currently diverted by the Indy 500 experience, which has given him a fresh motivation and distracted his attention from the F1 disaster.
A line was drawn in the sand after the testing and first race and the recovery plan will not spare Honda's blushes; nothing less than 'whatever it takes' will do to make the rest of the season respectable for McLaren and to give the commercial team something to sell against for 2018.
Alonso will get wiped out in front of his home crowd next weekend, but his mind will be on Indy. Once he comes back in Montreal, it will hopefully be to a clear sign of progress.
What do you think? Leave your comment in the section below or head over to the JA on F1 Facebook page for more discussion.
|
The far-right group Identitarian Generation was unknown in mainstream media before obstructing a humanitarian vessel transporting migrants rescued at sea last month.
In a scene reminiscent of Greenpeace activists blocking whaling ships with inflatable boats, members of IG’s Italian and Austrian factions,accompanied by Canadian alt-right journalist Lauren Southern, temporarily stopped a SOS Mediterranee rescue ship from entering the port of Catania before being intercepted by the Italian Coast Guard.
Since the action, Italian IG leader Lorenzo Fiato (pictured at top) said his group has crowdfunded 73,000 euros ($82,000) and recruited more than 150 members throughout the country. The funds will be used towards future actions aimed at ending “massive” informal migration to Europe, mostly by targeting humanitarian search and rescue missions like those run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which some have accused of acting as a “taxi service” for migrants.
|
Flickr/oknidius Restaurants are social places. Most folks don't like eating solo, so they try to drag friends along with them. And, as we all know, people don't have the same eating preferences.
But eateries have a solution for this problem: Anti-veto vote menu items.
And in the big business of chain restaurants, they're essential to success.
What exactly is an anti-veto vote menu item?
Here's a quick explainer from menu pro Mark Laux:
For example, let's say two people are riding in a car deciding what to eat. One says to the other, "Let's go over to Bobbie's restaurant. I'm hungry for their chicken pesto pasta." And the other one says, "I'm not in the mood for that, and they don't have anything I like."
Bobbie's just got vetoed. The chicken pesto pasta is a star on the menu, but the anti-veto wasn't strong enough.
In other words, the anti-veto vote items are there to make sure you don't get vetoed. Other than that, they are just background noise.
Fast food monolith McDonald's, for instance, knows that it needs to be able to convince groups of people to show up, and it knows that its mega-brand isn't beloved by all. It has to get customers who don't actually like fast food burgers.
So, while the "core" items like the Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets, and the Quarter Pounder with cheese sell like crazy to McDonald's regular customers, it still needs to make sure that those customers don't get vetoed.
McDonald's has three major anti-veto vote items on its menu, Laux explained to Nation's Restaurant News:
The Filet-O-Fish
The Southern-Style Chicken Sandwich
Salads
|
Alex Turner and Miles Kane to release 'Everything You've Come To Expect' in April
The Last Shadow Puppets, the duo consisting of Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner and Miles Kane, have announced details of their second album release in an exclusive interview with NME.
Turner and Kane speak to NME for an exclusive cover feature in this week’s magazine (available free in the UK from Friday, January 22).
Confirmed in the interview, the pair will release new album ‘Everything You’ve Come To Expect’ on April 1, the follow-up to 2008 debut ‘The Age Of The Understatement’.
‘Everything You’ve Come To Expect’ was recorded last summer at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studios in Malibu, California, a studio previously owned by Bob Dylan and The Band.
The album features Simian Mobile Disco‘s James Ford on drums, Owen Pallett scoring the string section and Mini Mansions‘ Zach Dawes on bass.
Explaining the long wait between the two records, Turner said that the band intended to release a trilogy and “wanted to write the second and third parts before we released the second”. Asked if fans would have to wait another eight years for the third installment, Alex added: “Well, I don’t know about that. There are lots of other things we have to factor in.”
Asked why now is the right time for the band to return, Kane joked: “It seemed to all align correctly. I did have to get [Alex] in a headlock briefly, but he came around.”
Sharethrough (Mobile)
On what it’s like to work with Kane again, Turner said: “It’s like John Lennon meets… Paul [McCartney].”
Speaking about the new music, Turner said of what to expect: “I think the last record ended up being just one thing. We talked about Scott Walker a lot and our record became perceived asa homage to that sound. This one, in my head, doesn’t wear its influences on its sleeve as much as the first one did. We were definitely listening to a bit of Isaac Hayes this time, but it was less of a big deal.”
Kane continued: “At that time [of the first album], all that stuff was new to us. We were discovering it for the first time. This time, it was just songs that we were buzzing off that we were inspired by.”
Turner describes new single ‘Bad Habits’, recently released, as “quite different to anything on the first record” and says of album closer ‘The Dream Synopsis’: “I’ve said the word ‘dream’ too much at this point. It’s my version of that Miley Cyrus tune about the dream she had about her dog.”
The ‘Everything You’ve Come To Expect’ tracklisting is as follows:
‘Aviation’
‘Miracle Aligner’
‘Dracula Teeth’
‘Everything You’ve Come To Expect’
‘The Element Of Surprise’
‘Bad Habits’
‘Sweet Dreams, TN’
‘Used To Be My Girl’
‘She Does The Woods’
‘Pattern’
‘The Dream Synopsis’
The artwork is below:
Read the full interview and see the brand-new photoshoot in the all-new free NME, available nationwide on January 22 and on NME.com. Find out where you can get your copy from the full list of pick-up points.
For all queries involving current subscriptions, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.
|
As a hopeless lover of timeless letters, especially ones of sage fatherly and motherly advice, I was thrilled to come across Letters from a Father to His Daughter (public library). In 1928, when his only daughter was ten and spent the summer in the Himalayas while he was in the plains below, Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of India’s struggle for independence from British rule, sent the young girl a series of short letters seeking to explain how the world came to be as it is. That daughter was Indira Gandhi, who would become India’s first and only female Prime Minister, tragically assassinated in 1984.
What makes these letters, which cover everything from the Big Bang to the ancient civilizations to the rise of the division of labor and trade, so spectacular is that Nehru speaks to young Indira both lovingly and with clear respect for her intelligence, treating a ten-year-old child as the future leader she would become. Indeed, we see in these letters the foundation of that becoming — a foundation of moral values for peace and justice, respect for those different from us, and immeasurable, indiscriminate kindness, a message rather bittersweet in history’s hindsight, given the context of Gandhi’s political reputation. Above all, Nehru takes great care to show the little girl that power is not a right but a privilege, one that ought to be used wisely and benefit those whom it is designed to protect and serve rather than the selfish interests of those who hold it.
In one of the first letters, Nehru reminds his daughter that we need to consistently step outside of our biases and boundaries, be those ones of geography or of culture, in order to fully understand the world:
England is only a little island and India, though a big country, is only a small part of the earth’s surface. If we want to know something about the story of this world of ours we must think of all the countries and all the peoples that have inhabited it, and not merely of one little country where we may have been born.
In a letter exploring the origin of different races, Nehru dispels the irrational beliefs that lie at the heart of racism by telling Indira the story of how early humans migrated across the earth and developed into different races based on the conditions of the lands they lived in:
We find that people’s complexions are the result of the climate they live in. They have nothing to do with the worthiness or goodness or beauty of a person.
Reflecting on the different complexions of people in different regions of India — fairer in the north where it is cooler and darker in the hotter south — and on the flawed cultural beliefs that associate fairer with better, Nehru adds a disclaimer about privilege:
Of course, it may be that some people, even though they may live in a hot country, do not work in the open and are rich enough to live in big houses and take care of themselves and their complexions. A rich family may live like this for generations and may thus not be affected by the climate very much. But not to work oneself and to live on the work of others is nothing to be proud of.
In another letter, he addresses the conceits of nationalism and the perils of stereotyping in equally simple yet poignant terms:
You will also see that most of us now living in different countries far from each other long ago were one people. We have changed greatly since then and many of us have forgotten our old relationships. In every country people imagine that they are the best and the cleverest and the others are not as good as they are. … This is all conceit. Everybody wants to think well of himself and his country. But really there is no person who has not got some good in him and some bad. And in the same way there is no country which is not partly good and partly bad. We must take the good wherever we find it and try to remove the bad wherever it may be.
He adds a prescient note on India’s own geopolitical destiny — a country that, nearly a century after Nehru’s letters, is emerging as a global force of innovation:
If we find anything good in other countries, we should certainly take it. As Indians we have to live in India and work for India. But we must not forget the world and the people living in other countries are after all our cousins. It would be such an excellent thing if all the people in the world were happy and contented. We have therefore to try to make the whole world a happier place to live in.
In a letter exploring the origin and social purpose of religion, Nehru explores the inner contradictions of religion, which haunt us to this day:
This seems horrible but a man who is afraid will do anything. This must have been the beginnings of religion. So religion first came as fear, and anything that is done because of fear is bad. Religion, as you know, tells us many beautiful things. When you grow up, you will read about the religions of the world and of the good things and the bad things that have been done in their name. . . . We see even today that people fight and break each other’s heads in the name of religion. And for many people it is still something to be afraid of. They spend their time trying to please some imaginary beings by making presents in temples and even sacrifices of animals.
In a letter on the origin of agriculture, which created a surplus of food beyond a tribe’s daily needs, Nehru ties this development to the invention of money and questions the warped dynamics of surplus:
If you think about it, you will see that this money is all surplus, that is people do not want to spend it all at one time and so they keep it in banks. The rich people today are those who have plenty of this surplus, the poor have none at all. … It is not so much because one person works more than another, but nowadays a person who does not work at all gets the surplus, while the hard worker often gets no part of it! This seems a very silly arrangement. Many people think that it is because of this stupid arrangement that there are so many poor people of the world.
In a related letter on the origin of the rich-poor divide, Nehru traces the rise of the patriarch — “the time when complications first began” — and how power structures developed, speaking with timeless prescience to present predicaments ranging from the everyday expressions of entitlement of the privileged in society to the large-scale issues that precipitated the Occupy movement:
Everything in [the early] days belonged to the whole tribe and not to each member separately. Even the patriarch had nothing special to himself. As a member of the tribe, he could only have a share like any other member. But he was the organizer and he was supposed to look after the goods and property of the tribe. As his power increased, he began to think that these goods and property were really his own and not the tribe’s. Or rather he thought that he himself, being the leader of the tribe, represented the tribe. So we see how the idea of owning things for oneself began. […] But as soon as the patriarch started grabbing at the things belonging to the tribe and calling them his own, we begin to get rich people and poor people.
In the next letter, Nehru traces how patriarchs swelled into kings, once again presaging with tragic foresight the state of politics and politicians today:
When the patriarch’s office became hereditary, that is son succeeded father, there was little difference between him and a king. He developed into a king and the king got the strange notion that everything in the country belonged to him. He thought he was the country. … Kings forgot that they were really chosen by the people in order to organize and distribute the food and other things of the country among the people. They forgot that they were chosen because they were supposed to be the cleverest and the most experienced persons in the tribe or country. They imagined that they were masters and all the other people in the country were their servants. As a matter of fact, they were servants of the country. Later on … kings became so conceited that they thought that people had nothing to do with choosing them. It was God himself, they said, that had made them kings. They called this the “divine right of kings.” For long years, they misbehaved like this and lived in great pomp and luxury while their people starved.
But Nehru reminds young Indira that even in republics, which have democratically elected officials rather than hereditary kings, things are bound to go awry once the entitlement of power poisons a ruler’s soul. He offers an example from India, a country — and by far not the only one — plagued by enormous political corruption to this day:
In India, we have still many rajas and maharajas and nawabs. You see them going about with fine clothes, in expensive motor cars and spending a lot of money on themselves. Where do they get all this money from? They get it in taxes from the people. The taxes are given so that the money may be used to help all the people in the country — by making schools and hospitals and libraries and museums and good roads and many other things for the good of the people. But our rajas and maharajas still think as the French king did of old L’etat c’est moi — “the state, it is I.” And they spend the money of the people on their own pleasures. While they live in luxury, their people, who work hard and give them the money, starve and their children have no schools to go to.
In another letter, Nehru traces the origin of trade and offers an observation on the downside of globalization that presciently speaks to today’s tendency to increasingly celebrate and prioritize locally made goods as a token of more conscious consumer choices:
Consider a piece of foreign cloth that is sold in the bazaar here. The cotton grew in India and it was sent to England. A great factory took it and cleaned it and made it into yarn or cotton thread and then into cloth. This cloth then came back again to India and was sold in the bazaar. How many thousands of miles it traveled backwards and forwards before it was offered for sale! It seems rather silly that the cotton that is grown in India had to go all the way to England to be made into cloth and then come back again. This seems such a waste of money and energy.
Once again, we see how young Indira’s father instilled in her from an early age the personal and political beliefs that would come to shape her. He writes:
You know that we do not buy or wear foreign cloth. We wear khaddar because it is more sensible to buy things, as far as we can, made in our own country. We also buy and wear khaddar because in this way we help the poor who spin and weave.
In one of the final letters, he returns to the question of money with a sentiment reminiscent of Alan Watts’s philosophy, reminding Indira that money in and of itself is meaningless:
We must remember that money is no good by itself. It only helps us to get other things that we want. It helps us to exchange goods. . . . Some foolish people imagine that money itself is a good and they collect and hoard it, instead of using it. This shows that they do not know how money came to be used and what it really is.
In one of the best letters, considering the question of what civilization is, Nehru pulls into question the power dynamics of our culture and the flawed baseline assumptions underlying them:
How can we find out if a person or a society is barbarous or civilized? Many people in Europe think that they are very civilized and the people of Asia are quite barbarous. Is this because the people of Europe put on more clothes than the peoples of Asia and Africa? But clothes depend on the climate. In a cold climate men put on more clothes than in a hot climate. Or is it because a man with a gun is stronger than the man without a weapon and is therefore more civilized than him? Whether he is more civilized or not, the man who is weak dare not tell him that he is not or else he might get shot!
Writing shortly after WWI, Nehru relates this issue of civilization vs. barbarism to the concept of war, posing a rhetorical question that rings equally, if not even more, true today:
Do you think it was a very civilized or sensible thing for people to kill each other like this? If two men fight in the streets the policeman separates them and everybody thinks how silly they are. But how much sillier and more foolish it is for great countries to fight each other and kill thousands and millions. It is just like two savages fighting in the jungles. And if the savages are called barbarous, how much more barbarous are the countries that behave in that way?
Ultimately, he tells his daughter that civilization is not a matter of external material evidence but of internal spiritual disposition:
Fine buildings, fine pictures and books and everything that is beautiful are certainly signs of civilization. But an even better sign is a fine man who is unselfish and works with others for the good of all. To work together is better than to work singly, and to work together for the common good is best of all.
Letters from a Father to His Daughter is at once enormously heartening and a vital reminder for readers of all ages and eras about how we shape the world we live in through our understanding of it and the choices we make in it.
Thanks, Saneel
|
BitPay , one of the top funded companies and most-used payment processor in the Bitcoin industry, is open to alternative block-size proposals – not just BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) 101.
Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine, CEO Stephen Pair reaffirmed that BitPay will adopt code to increase Bitcoin's block-size limit by December of this year, but said this no longer needs to be the proposal as implemented in alternative Bitcoin implementation Bitcoin XT.
BIP 101 is programmed to increase the block-size limit to 8 megabytes, then doubling every other year for the next 20 years. This proposal was publicly endorsed through an open letter from some of the leading Bitcoin companies in the space last summer.
BitPay, Blockchain(.info), Circle, KnCMiner, Bitnet, Xapo, BitGo and itBit vowed to adopt BIP 101 and ready their code for bigger blocks by December. Additionally, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong made a similar statement on Twitter earlier this week.
But when asked by Bitcoin Magazine, Pair indicated that BIP 101 is no longer the only option for the leading payment processor in the Bitcoin space. The BitPay CEO explained that alternative proposals will be considered as well.
“In December we will adopt the leading candidate solution, which right now is BIP 101, but that could change. This will hopefully help drive consensus,” Pair said.
As one possible alternative, Pair referred to a temporary solution that would increase the maximum blocks size to 8 MB over a four-year period:
“[Blockstream president] Adam Back made a proposal that is essentially the same as BIP 101, but has a less steep curve that doesn't stretch as far into the future. I prefer that proposal over BIP 101, but I'm not sure it will be ready by December.”
Drawing from his experience in the telecom industry, Pair sees a lot of opportunity to improve Bitcoin's efficiency and scalability by reducing resource usage. This would, in turn, decrease the risk of bigger blocks, which is why Pair believes an increase of the block-size limit is the best way forward.
“Either extreme on block size puts Bitcoin at risk. But I don't believe that a moderately larger block size will result in centralization because people can no longer afford to run full nodes,” Pair said.
“At the same time, a block size that is too small would result in fewer people being able to afford transactions. If only a few people use bitcoin for transactions, those people will eventually realize that they could conduct those transactions much more cheaply by compromising on decentralization.”
The Bitcoin community has been arguing if, when, and how to increase the maximum block size in order to allow for more transactions on the network for several years. The debate reached a climax in August of this year, when former Bitcoin Core lead developer Gavin Andresen and Bitcoinj developer Mike Hearn implemented BIP 101 in alternative Bitcoin implementation Bitcoin XT. Bitcoin XT has so far not garnered the required 75 percent hash-rate support among miners in order to activate, however.
While this makes an ecosystemwide adoption of Bitcoin XT seem unlikely, Pair did make it very clear that the maximum block size should be increased by December somehow.
“From our vantage point, we are quickly running out of time,” Pair said. “Bitcoin is at all-time highs regarding transaction volume, and BitPay has been setting new monthly transaction volume records every month for the last six months. We are starting to see Bitcoin used to solve very boring problems by people who could care less whether it's bitcoin or not. This to me is an early indicator that a tipping point is near. Hopefully, we find a consensus that doesn't put Bitcoin's lead as the most secure and liquid payment medium in jeopardy.”
Another proposal that has been gaining in popularity, and that was drafted by Bitcoin Core developer and BitPay employee Jeff Garzik, is BIP 100 . BIP 100 would allow miners to collectively vote on the block-size limit, and is currently publicly endorsed by 60 percent of all hashing power on the Bitcoin network.
Although the proposal was drafted by one of his employees (but not on behalf of his company), Pair is not convinced BIP 100 is the best way forward.
“I like the idea of a formalized consensus regarding the block-size limit built into the protocol, much like consensus regarding difficulty,” he said. “But I would have done it a bit differently than BIP 100. I also favor simplicity over complexity. Complex rules and processes bring additional risk. While there might be a debate about BIP 101's growth curve, it is a much simpler solution than BIP 100. In my opinion BIP 100 is too risky, and support or lack thereof from the mining community won't change that view."
|
Kitten-stomper gets year in jail REDWOOD CITY
A Redwood City man was sentenced to a year in jail Friday for stomping a kitten to death because his roommate's 4-year-old daughter had drawn all over the bathroom door.
Jesus Calderon-Franco, 33, pleaded no contest in December to felony abuse for killing the 4-month-old kitten, named Pucci.
At a hearing Friday, Judge Clifford Cretan of San Mateo County Superior Court also placed Calderon-Franco on three years' probation, although he is expected to be deported to his native Mexico after he finishes his jail sentence, said Steve Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney.
The incident happened Nov. 30. Calderon-Franco, who had been drinking, became angry that the girl had drawn on the bathroom door in their apartment, Wagstaffe said.
Calderon-Franco grabbed the kitten by the neck, squeezed the animal and threw it off the second-story balcony. He then went outside and stomped the kitten to death.
The girl's uncle saw the attack, and the father found blood on the sidewalk and the kitten dead in a nearby trash can. A necropsy revealed that Pucci had died of multiple fractures.
|
Nebraska Punk'd Into Ugly License Plate Design
So the Nebraska design community is up in arms over the state's new license plate design calling it "boring, uninspired and ugly." A site, Get Ready For Action, has been launched telling "The Story of How Gov. Dave Heineman Got Punk'd and an Entire State Was Shamed."
You see, four submissions were made to the Governor's office. College Humor saw then and told their vast audience to all vote for the ugliest of the four designs. That design won and is now destined to become the state's plate. That is unless this group of disgruntled creatives can mount enough support to get the thing changed.
In addition to the website, there's videos, images and a blog.
The goal of this effort is to "get as many people around the nation to laugh at Nebraska and the awful way our governor has handled the entire situation."
While the group agrees the "plates aren't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things," we offer up a more definitive viewpoint; It's a fucking license plate.
Be that as it may, the group hopes to "remove the notion that we are a boring, uninspired, and ugly state."
|
The BJP has decided to take up the issue of having Hindi or Punjabi declared as UT’s language in a meeting of Home Minister’s Advisory Committee scheduled to be held on July 27. The issue has been raised by MP Kirron Kher several times. She stated that communiques sent to people are in English because of which those staying in villages and colonies do not understand. She had emphasised that UT must send communiques in Punjabi or Hindi language as well so that it becomes easier for people to understand.
Advertising
BJP chief Sanjay Tandon said: “In Haryana, it is Hindi and in Punjab it is Punjabi. So why it is English in Chandigarh? If not Punjabi, at least Hindi should be adopted. People in villages do not even understand the communication sent by the UT Administration in English.” Around 15 issues of the city have been selected for discussion at the July 27 meeting. Issues like transfer of leasehold to freehold plots, Chandigarh citizens be preferred for jobs in Punjab and Haryana as well and others are also lined up.
The UT administration has recently re-constituted the Home Minister’s Advisory Committee for Chandigarh. The Union Territories are administered in accordance with the provisions of Article 239 to 241 of the Constitution of India. Under the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961, certain subjects pertaining to UTs have been allocated to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The MHA particularly deals with legislative matters, finance and budget and services for UTs.
Apart from Punjab Governor and UT Administrator V P Singh Badnore, other members of the committee include MP Kirron Kher, BJP president Sanjay Tandon, Mayor Asha Jaswal, former mayor Kamla Sharma, former nominated councillor Surinder Bahga, Congress councillor Devinder Singh Babla and others. The meeting of the committee will be held at the Union Home Minister’s residence in Delhi.
|
The White House is taking a stand.
According to a recent public solicitation, the Executive Office of the President is seeking up to $700,000 worth of standing desks. The cost is the government’s best estimate over a five-year period, although the Obama administration will end in January 2017, and the latter four years of the contract are optional.
The federal government posting was quite specific in that the desks had to be “Varidesk brand name or equal” and provide the contractor’s pricing for various models with up to three computer monitors. The larger Varidesks cost between $400 and $500 per unit.
The full minimum requirements are listed below:
1) A fully assembled height adjustable standing desktop that sits on top of an existing desk (no assembly [i.e., no clamps or arms]); 2) Keyboard/mouse tray included as part of the system; 3) Ease of use (multiple heights/positions); 4) The adjustment must be sturdy, stable and safe at all height extensions to accommodate individuals of various heights while they are in a standing position; 5) Durable, ability to withstand wear and tear; 6) Must hold up to 35 pounds; 7) Desk attachment should have an option that fits easily into corners; 8) No loss of work space; 9) Color: black unit; 10) Must be fully portable (easily moved from desk to desk) and easily stored (not cumbersome or bulky for storage); and 11) Minimum of one-year warranty included.
Optional accessories: 1) Standing mats, durable, sturdy, nonslip, and stable cushioning to support legs and back during long-term standing.
The standing-desk craze might have recently reached a new peak, but some high-profile Republicans in previous administrations have evangelized the antisedentary life. In a 2002 memo on interrogation techniques, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously questioned some of the limits on detainees. “I stand for 8-10 hours a day,” he wrote. “Why is standing limited to four hours?”
|
Digitization Requests You can contribute to the digitization of materials in the Boston TV News Digital Library. Costs and timelines vary between items, but explain your interests via email, and we will work with you to make more local Boston news content available to the world.
Description: Anthony's Pier 4 and ship “Peter Stuyvesant” sinking next to restaurant as a result of blizzard damage earlier in the year. Tobin (Mystic River) Bridge, full view from across water. Discussion between cameraman, reporter, and Anthony's Pier 4 representative on permission to shoot footage of the restaurant and ship. Several takes of reporter standup for story on Ed King's gubernatorial campaign, his spending as head of Massport, and his budget campaign promises. Exterior shots of Jimmy's Harborside restaurant, and TASC office building.
|
If you were typing up Dick Cheney's attack on Barack Obama's response to the Christmas Day attack in which someone tried to blow up a plane bound for Detroit, and hyping the GOP "strategy for next year's midterm congressional elections" of "portray[ing] Democrats as weak on security," would you maybe include mention of the fact that two of the four people who allegedly plotted that attack were released from U.W. custody in 2007, while Dick Cheney was Vice President?
Oh, you would, would you? Well, that's the difference between you and Mike Allen. Because Politico really is just a GOP bulletin board.
UPDATE: And just to be clear, Allen didn't get an interview with Cheney. No, he describes the source of Cheney's attacks as "Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO" -- which is a fancy way of saying "Cheney said in a press release." So to sum up: Dick Cheney sends Mike Allen a press release, which Mike Allen then copies-and-pastes it into a "news article" without mentioning key facts that would undermine Cheney's press release. Aren't you glad Politico got a spot on the Pulitzer committee?
|
Image copyright AFP Image caption Huge traffic jams are a way of life in metropolitan Manila
Officials in the Philippine capital Manila say they are putting measures in place after the city received the unwanted distinction of having the worst traffic in the world, it's reported.
Users of a road navigation app participated in a "Global Driver Satisfaction Index" poll, voting on their local driving experience based on factors such as traffic levels, road quality, parking and fuel prices, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports. According to members of the Waze application community who took part across 167 metropolitan areas, Manila scored 0.4 points out of 10, closely followed by Jakarta in Indonesia, and Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil. It's a finding which has led government officials to promise more to be done to help drivers in a city where the average road commute takes over 45 minutes.
Speaking at a media briefing, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said that officials were already looking for effective solutions to the city's traffic problems, but stressed that long-term measures were preferable to quick fixes. Traffic in Manila not only hampers economic activities, but also affects the health of motorists and commuters alike, GMA Network quoted him as saying. One of these solutions could be a mass transit system. Speaking to the Manila Bulletin newspaper, a planned "Mega Manila Subway line" would help ease the city's traffic problems, says Francis Toletino of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority. The city is currently served by a light railway system carrying millions of passengers daily, and current plans hope to have major transportation projects in place, including a new subway system, by 2030. "Subways will solve our problems," Tolentino says.
Next story: Uzbek film and music stars 'told to pick cotton'
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.
|
In an announcement on the New York-Penn website, several of the details spelled out accordingly:.
The yet-to-be-built ballpark will be located in the University Town Centre development, and will overlook the city of Morgantown and West Virginia University from the bluff above Monongahela River. The facility would be the home of the WVU Mountaineers' baseball team, a member of the NCAA Division 1 Big XII Conference, as well as a New York-Penn League franchise affiliated with a Major League Baseball club. Four New York-Penn League clubs currently share facilities with colleges and universities. The New York-Penn League's State College franchise, for example, is affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals and manages and maintains the facility it shares with the PSU Nittany Lions baseball team, a member of the NCAA Division 1 Big 10 Conference...
The ballpark is expected to start construction in 2014 and games in the minor league season as soon as 2015. Of course, Oliver has his fingerprints all over this.
"West Virginia University is very excited about the interest that the New York-Penn League has in the proposed baseball park at University Town Centre," said West Virginia University director of athletics, Oliver Luck. "The legislation authorizing the ballpark and a new interchange along I-79, which was authored by Senator Bob Beach, is moving through the West Virginia Legislature, and both college and Minor League Baseball fans are hoping that we will soon be able to celebrate its approval and hear the three best words in the English language, 'Let's play ball!'"
Ollie always did have a way with words.
|
On Sunday, Nintendo finally released Wii U, its new game console. We've raved about early launch games like NintendoLand and New Super Mario Bros. U, showing that the big N still has the magic touch when it comes to making great play experiences.
Unfortunately, Nintendo is still lagging behind when it comes to creating what consumers are increasingly expecting out of their devices: a feature-rich, multimedia online experience. Wii U, available in $300 and $350 configurations, has a bunch of these features – Netflix, a social network feed called Miiverse, a digital game shop – but all of them have distinct problems that make the user experience less fun than it should be.
Problems like this at the launch of a new piece of hardware are to be expected. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 had all kinds of problems when they shipped, and remember when the iPhone didn't even have copy-and-paste? Nintendo does have the ability to upgrade all of these features over time – and it should get cracking on them immediately. Until then, Wii U has over-promised and under-delivered. Here are the 10 things that tick me off the most.
The Big-Ass Firmware Update. ——————————-
The reason you're only reading about Wii U's online features now is that out of the box, it doesn't have any of them. You can't even connect to the internet on Wii U without first downloading a massive firmware update. Nintendo released this at the eleventh hour – almost literally, since it was released a couple of hours before the midnight launch on Sunday – and anyone who took home a Wii U realized that if they wanted to play games with online integration (that is, the way they were meant to be enjoyed) they had to first update the firmware.
Okay, no problem. Except the giant update – which contained Miiverse, Netflix, a web browser and God knows what else – was such a ginormous download that it took users around 90 minutes to pull it down. So be aware: If you buy a Wii U for Christmas, you're going to be spending a good part of Christmas morning and some of Christmas afternoon updating the OS first. Oh, and don't get impatient and stop the process halfway, or as L.A. Times reporter Ben Fritz found, you might permanently brick your new Wii U.
Brutally Slow OS. ——————–
This is the problem that makes every other problem seem that much worse. Clicking on anything in Wii U's menu, anything at all that you try to do, takes For. E. Ver. People can post text and images to the Miiverse feed, kind of like Twitter where you can draw pictures. But imagine Twitter where every time you wanted to view a new tweet you had to wait five seconds. Booting up, loading software, loading games, refreshing feeds.... Everything is accompanied by an agonizing wait.
Netflix. ———–
This should have been an early killer app for Wii U, and instead it just sucks. "Netflix will be great on Wii U," I'd tell friends, apparently talking right out of my ass. "Say somebody has to get a drink from the kitchen: They don't have to pause the movie for them! They can just take the GamePad with them! Or say you're browsing: You could show a movie on the TV screen, while you browse for more on the GamePad! It's going to be our Netflix machine for sure."
Netflix on Wii U, as it turns out, doesn't do any of that. The only difference between it and any other bog standard Netflix app is that you can show the movie on the TV or the GamePad. Convenient, but nothing you couldn't do – better – with an Xbox and an iPad.
Tiny Battery in the GamePad. ——————————-
Wii U's big defining feature, from which all things flow, is the GamePad controller. It features a touchscreen right in the middle that can display graphics perfectly in sync with the TV, allowing for new types of gameplay. Unfortunately, you'll find yourself needing to charge it constantly. This problem is compounded by the fact that even though Nintendo built the GamePad to hold a large battery, it ended up putting a smaller one inside the case, presumably to keep the cost of goods low. Oh, and you can't charge GamePad by plugging it into the Wii U console. It has its own proprietary AC adapter and it must be plugged into the wall.
Miiverse, the Social Network in Which You Are Not Allowed to Socialize. ————————————————————————–
I signed up for Nintendo Network, Nintendo's first (!) ever attempt to create an account-based online service for its players. I clicked through the Terms of Service, skimming them. As you do. OK, I'm not going to post anything offensive, no problem. I enter my details into my profile and throw Game|Life's URL and my Twitter handle in there so people know it's me. Big mistake. Minutes after I posted my profile, I got a message saying that I had posted prohibited content and that Nintendo had blocked my profile pending a change. The hell? Turns out that you are strictly prohibited from posting anything on Miiverse that might allow someone to personally identify you. It didn't specifically call out Twitter URLs, but I guess those must also be banned. Nintendo clearly doesn't want any stories in the press about harassment (or worse) stemming from people meeting on Miiverse. So it is doing everything it can to make sure its members do not know who each other actually is.
That's apparently not the only thing that Nintendo's eagle eyes are looking out for. Destructoid writer Jim Sterling said he had a message banned for using the word "idiot" in a funny Batman quote (it was later reviewed and re-posted). One parent said on Twitter that his son cannot use his first name – Killian – because Miiverse deems the word to be offensive.
I changed my profile to "Hi!" Nintendo has not flagged it – yet.
Wii, games, mario, song party Photo: Alex Washburn / Wired Photo: Alex Washburn/Wired
Content Transfer From Old Wii Is Terrible. ———————————————
If you have tons of content – game save data, Mii characters, and downloaded software – on your old Wii, you'll want to transfer them over to Wii U. The process is about as convoluted as can possibly be. You'll actually need to alternate between your Wii and your Wii U, which means either hooking them both up to the TV or swapping cables. First you have to get an SD card. Then you have to put it in your Wii U to "prepare" it for transfer. (You'll need an internet connection to do this so Nintendo can transfer the digital rights to the software.) Then you put it into the Wii and wait for, oh, about half an hour as it copies over all of the files from the internal storage to the SD card. (Admittedly, this is dressed up with a very cute animation of Pikmin hauling your files away.)
Then you put the card into the Wii U and wait another half hour as the Pikmin move the files from the SD card to the Wii U. But besides being time-consuming, there's also a big missing feature. If you had games already stored on an SD card and not on the Wii's system memory, you have to move them back to the Wii or else you can't transfer them. But if you have games stored on the SD card in the first place, that's probably because you ran out of memory on your Wii (not hard, since it only has 512 megabytes in there). So you are screwed. The transfer process will move over all of the digital licenses, but to get those games onto your Wii U, you'll have to individually download every single one again from the digital store, which will take forever.
Adding insult to injury, if you pop the SD card full o' games into your Wii U, it will actually recognize them, show them as icons on the menu, then tell you you cannot play them if you try to click on them.
Playing Old Wii Games Is Sub-Optimal. —————————————-
Wii U is, sort of, backward compatible with the vast majority of your Wii software, whether it was on disc or downloaded. But the way it does it is not exactly seamless. In fact, it's kind of like Boot Camp. You click on a Wii icon on the Wii U menu. This causes the system to actually reboot in "Wii mode," running the old Wii operating system. At this point, you can play Wii discs in their original 480p resolution, and access your downloaded games once you've transferred them.
So instead of simply being able to drop all of your previously owned Virtual Console classic games into a folder on Wii U's main menu, you have to navigate into the Wii mode, basically rebooting the system, to do it. Most things on Wii U take forever, but man does this take forever: one minute, 28 seconds, two controllers and five clicks from startup to gameplay.
And yes, even though Wii now has tons of internal storage, you can still only use 512K of it for old Wii games, meaning you'll have to still keep an SD card full of Virtual Console games in your Wii U even if you connect a terabyte hard drive to it.
You can't play old Wii games on the GamePad's screen. This would have been pretty amazing for the classic Virtual Console games – imagine just sitting back with the GamePad and playing the 8-bit version of Legend of Zelda while someone else uses the TV. Nintendo says it's going to release new versions of the games with GamePad support for the Wii U's eShop. Hopefully it will offer some kind of upgrade path instead of screwing its most dedicated big-spending customers.
Finally, I don't know about yours, but my TV will not let me go into "normal" 4:3 display mode when it gets a 16:9, 1080p signal. And that's what Wii U outputs all the time, even for the old games. So unless I want to play Secret of Mana stretched out like a freaking funhouse mirror across my whole TV, I have to manually set the Wii U's display to 480p.
Non-Functional Buttons on the Home Screen. ———————————————
Hey, remember like a week ago when Wii U was going to be released with "Nintendo TVii," a piece of software that was going to let you run your whole television experience using the GamePad, adding interactive content to football games and such? Yeah, that's not out yet. But there is a great big useless button on the GamePad screen for it. Also see: Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, YouTube.
Resistive Touchscreen Not Great for Fingers. ———————————————–
The GamePad comes with a stylus, which works well with the resistive touchscreen. But you don't always want to pull out a stylus pen; sometimes you just want to press a button with your finger and get on with it. That's not so good on this type of screen. One wants to, when using Netflix, just sort of lightly swipe with a finger and scroll through the cover gallery. Not so much.
Miiverse Is Just Plain Confusing. ————————————-
Contrary to Nintendo's every desire, I was able to find someone I knew in real life on Miiverse, 1up editor Jeremy Parish. Or I figured it was him anyway. So I decided to make him my first friend. "You must complete initial Friends List setup first," I was told. Okay, how do I do that? It did not say. I looked around all of the different sections of Miiverse and found nothing, nothing at all. Kept looking. Looked in the Wii U instruction manual. Nothing. Jumped out to the Wii U main menu. Nothing. Edited my Nintendo Network profile. Tried all of those things over again in case I missed something. Where the eff was the Friends List Setup? Finally hit the Home button and there it was, a button that said Friends List. Clicked it.
"Do you want to have a Friends List?" it basically said. "Yes," I clicked, exasperatedly. "Okay, now you have one!" it said (again I paraphrase).
That was the Whole. Entire. Process.
|
ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Thursday decided to sue Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan over his allegations that he was offered Rs10 billion for keeping mum on the Panama Leaks case, sources told Geo News.
They said that the decision was taken in a high-level consultative meeting, held to review the Supreme Court’s decision on Panama Leaks case.
Sources said that a defamation notice would be sent to Imran Khan over his claims. A team of legal experts has also been constituted in this regard.
During the meeting, the premiere rejected Imran Khan's claim, saying that he has always presented himself before the courts and people, further adding that lies and defamation have always failed against him.
Earlier, Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif dismissed the allegation by saying: "Imran Khan has made a record of lying, I have the right to take this up in the court of law."
The CM said that if the PTI chief's allegations of Sharif's friend offering him Rs10 billion as a bribe in Dubai is proven true, the public "should not forgive him till the end of days."
Meanwhile, Imran Khan has maintained that he would not reveal the name of the person who made Rs10 billion offer.
Speaking in an interview, Khan said that the person who made an offer is close to Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif but in case if he reveals his name, the person will get into trouble, further adding that the offer was made two weeks ago.
Khan also said that the Rs 10bn was just an initial offer.
While speaking during a gathering at Shaukat Khanum Hospital, the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf alleged that he had been made an offer during the Supreme Court`s Panama case.
"Just imagine how much money he offered me to be silent. Rs10 billion... If he can offer me this much money, just imagine how much he would offer to others. That is why if we don't maintain public pressure this issue then after two months it will be dragged to next year," Khan said.
In her reaction, Maryam Nawaz, daughter of Nawaz Sharif, on Wednesday said that she "fears for the fate of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman in the hereafter".
In her tweet, she noted that the PTI chief at times says that he was made the offer by an aide of Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif, while on others he says it was Hamza Shahbaz's friend who offered the huge sum to his affiliate in Dubai.
"I fear for this man's Hereafter! " the first daughter said in her tweet.
|
Despite a few accusations to the contrary, I’m a conservative. I don’t think government is the solution to every challenge; I believe in the importance of individual freedom; I value our traditions and institutions; and I think the best judge of how to spend my money is me. In Canada, this makes me a Tory, at least notionally.
But here’s the problem: I also support gay rights. I believe immigration makes this country strong. I think climate change is real and needs to be addressed. And I don’t care if you want to smoke weed. You would think these would be natural conservative values—if you believe in personal freedom, shouldn’t that include who you can love and what you can smoke? And surely prudently protecting our environment is the essence of being “conservative”? Unfortunately, several candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada don’t just disagree—they actively oppose these values.
This reflects a central tension in conservative movements around the world. In the least nuanced way, this is described as being a struggle between social conservatives and libertarians. In Canada we use labels lifted from two now dead parties, one side of this ideological battle are called “Reformers”, and the others are “Progressive Conservatives”. It’s not quite so clean cut, of course; and in truth, many of the leadership candidates have taken a little from Column A, and a little from Column B. But, overall, there is no question the CPC skidded out of the last election, swerved right, and crashed into the socon ditch.
My last column, entitled “Confessions of a self-loathing Tory”, complained that the Conservatives had grown so acute I was beginning to wonder if we needed a new party, one that accurately reflected the values of all those Canadians who, like me, describe themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially moderate”.
Apparently, I am not the only one asking this question. Over the last few days I have received over a thousand emails, phone calls and messages from Canadians in every province and territory who share my dismay with the direction the party is taking, and wonder what they can do about it.
Their responses are remarkably similar: these are voters utterly disenchanted with the direction of the Conservative Party. They want a smaller government, but they aren’t willing to abandon facts or compassion to get there. And they are tired of supporting a party that tolerates racism, climate change deniers and populist clowns. As one person wrote me: “Every day, it gets harder and harder to defend the party to my friends and family.”
In my column I proposed organizing three dinners, in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal, to spark a conversation about the current values of the party. I’ll be honest—I wasn’t optimistic that anyone would be interested in joining me. But the response was immediate and overwhelming. In fact, we had to quickly set up a website (newconservatives.ca) to handle them all. So far over 1,200 people have signed up, and we have expanded the dinners to include Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Halifax.
Not everyone is supportive, however. Some party members, pundits, and even one of the leadership contenders dismissed my criticisms as those of a crypto-Liberal. What they strangely don’t understand is that you don’t have to be a big-government, social-engineering Liberal to believe in climate change, gay rights, or immigration. And, if these Conservatives still insist on labeling these values as “Liberal”, they are committing political suicide. Just ask all the people who are joining us for dinner.
Other conservatives have called me “disloyal”, suggesting debates like this should not be held in the open. This criticism is the hardest to fathom, but suffice to say, I will never support a party that is too frightened, or too controlling, to allow transparent debate.
More reasonably, there have also been concerns that if the political right splits, it would take us back to 2003 and keep the Liberals in power indefinitely. Perhaps it is too soon to be talking about starting a new political party. Regardless, the first question should be, “Does the CPC still reflect the values of moderate conservatives, and if not, can it change?” But if the party can’t move back to the centre, that will also ensure the Liberals stay in office for a very long time.
So here is the plan. Because of the huge response from you, the readers, I’m going on a national tour this month. There are several people now helping me to find some great venues, and organize these dinners. We’ll be joined by a few of Canada’s smartest writers and political researchers. Odds are, we are going to be coming to your town—so join us. Go to the New Conservatives website, sign up, and we’ll be sending your invitation shortly.
This is a great country. It got that way because every once in a while people just like you cleared their throats and asked, “Can’t we do better?” These dinners will give us an opportunity to do just that. Some interesting things might happen, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Scott Gilmore is a member of the Conservative Party, and married to a Liberal Cabinet member.
|
BEIJING: German carmaker Volkswagen will recall almost 50,000 vehicles in China due to brake problems when using cruise control, according to the country’s quality regulator.
The company will recall Beetles made between July 1, 2012 and Aug. 6, 2015, and Golfs, made between July 1, 2012 and July 6, 2013, according to a statement posted Friday on the official website of China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (ASDIQ).
A problem with noise filters may cause difficulty with breaking when the cars have been in cruise control for long periods of time, ASDIQ said, adding that the problem created a “hidden safety risk”.
The company will fix the problem for free, it said.
Volkswagen’s business has been under the microscope since 2015, when it was revealed the company had installed software on 11 million cars that allowed them to defeat emissions tests.
|
Salman Khan's Bajrangi Bhaijaan got really good response on the opening day at the Indian Box Office and the shows have been booked houseful over the weekend as well.
Kabir Khan film that also stars Kareena Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Om Puri and Harshaali Malhotra has been doing well both at the domestic market as well as overseas.
Having released in over 4500 screens in India and 800 odd screens overseas, Bajrangi Bhaijaan has collected Rs 175 crores worldwide in its first weekend, within three days.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan Movie Review: Salman Khan's Finest Performance, Has Outdone Himself
Trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted the Saturday collections in domestic market, "#BajrangiBhaijaan Fri 27.25 cr, Sat 36.50 cr [Eid]. Total: ₹ 63.75 cr. FANTABULOUS... Should surpass #Kick opening weekend biz: ₹ 83.83 cr."
Bajrangi Bhaijaan joins the 100 crore club with its first weekend collection, film distributor Kiaara wrote, "#BajrangiBhaijaan Shattered All Records & collected Fantastic " 109 cr " on Weekend in India. @BeingSalmanKhan Power."
She further tweeted, "#BajrangiBhaijaan is the Biggest Blockbuster of @BeingSalmanKhan ever & it collected " 175 cr " Worldwide on Weekend."
The first weekend collection could not have been better, for the film has managed to enter the 100 crore club within three days. It's Salmania all over again, for the movie has beaten the record of Salman's previous film Kick which had collected Rs 83.83 crores.
Check out what the Bollywood celebrities feel about this movie...
|
Manchester United's revenue dropped by 14 percent and 17 million pounds in the second quarter of the financial year as they paid a price for missing out on European football.
United experienced healthy growth in commercial revenue but their broadcasting income dropped 39 percent over the three months, compared to the equivalent stage last year, as the cost of their absence from the Champions League was highlighted.
Deloitte Money League -- 10 Richest Teams (2013-14) 1. Real Madrid, £459.5 million
2. Manchester United, £433.2 million
3. Bayern Munich, £407.7 million
4. Barcelona, £405.2 million
5. Paris Saint-Germain, £396.5 million
6. Manchester City, £346.5 million
7. Chelsea, £324.4 million
8. Arsenal, £300.5 million
9. Liverpool, £255.8 million
10. Juventus, £233.6 million
But the new Premier League rights deal -- which is worth 5.1 billion pounds over three years from 2016 for live broadcasts in the United Kingdom alone -- prompted executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward to say United, who are third in the division, are in a healthy financial position as they contemplate a return to the Champions League.
Woodward said: "The recently announced Premier League broadcasting rights package for 2016-19, representing an increase just over 70 percent, once again demonstrates that we are part of the top football league in the world.
"Notwithstanding no European football this season, our revenues remain strong and demonstrate the underlying strength of our business model, with commercial revenues up year over year. On the pitch, the team is well-positioned to challenge for a top-four finish in the Premier League."
United announced record revenues of 433.2 million pounds for the last financial year and expect that to drop to between 385 and 395 million for the current year.
United's debts rose from 356.6 to 380.5 million pounds, due to the rise in the value of the American dollar against the British pound, while they paid 6.3 million pounds in net finance costs in the three months these accounts covered.
United's staff costs went down, supporting their claim three months ago that their wage bill will be lower after several big earners left the club and because they are not paying bonuses for involvement in Champions League football.
|
Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Almost every game will be required to carry a warning label like those found on cigarettes if a new bill introduced to Congress this week proves successful. Two Washington lawmakers want warning labels on most games.
Introduced by Joe Baca (D-California), the "Violence in Video Games Labeling Act" (H.R. 4204) would require all games rated E, E10+, T, M, and AO by the Entertainment Software Rating Board to carry a stamp that reads, "WARNING: Exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior."
The only games that would be excluded from the labels would be titles rated EC (Early Childhood). The label is to be placed in a "clear and conspicuous" location on the game's box and is not limited to physical games.
If it's signed into law, the Consumer Product Safety Commission would have 180 days to create rules that require such games to bear the warning label.
In a press release on Baca's website, the lawmaker lambasted the video game industry for not having a system in place to warn users of the "potentially damaging content" in games.
"The video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families, and to consumers to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products," Baca said. "They have repeatedly failed to live up to this responsibility."
Baca said the Violence in Video Games Labeling Act is a response to what he calls increasing evidence that games are connected to a plethora of short- and long-term "detrimental" effects.
"Meanwhile, research continues to show that playing violent video games is a casual risk factor for a host of detrimental effects in both the short- and long-term, including increasing the likelihood of physically aggressive behavior," he said. "American families deserve to know the truth about these potentially dangerous products."
Baca said studies from the journal Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the International Society for Research on Aggression highlight a connection between violent games and aggressive tendencies in children and teenagers.
Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) is co-sponsoring the bill.
"Just as we warn smokers of the health consequences of tobacco, we should warn parents--and children--about the growing scientific evidence demonstrating a relationship between violent video games and violent behavior," Wolf said.
A representative from the Entertainment Software Association issued the following statement to GameSpot:
"Unfortunately, Representative Baca's facially unconstitutional bill--which has been introduced to no avail in each of six successive Congressional sessions, beginning in 2002--needlessly concerns parents with flawed research and junk science. Numerous medical experts, research authorities, and courts across the country, including the United States Supreme Court, exhaustively reviewed the research Representative Baca uses to base his bill and found it lacking and unpersuasive. Independent scientific researchers found no causal connection between video games and real life violence."
This is not the first time Baca and Wolf have put forth legislation seeking to stamp games with warning labels. In 2009, the congressional pair brought forth the Video Game Health Labeling Act, which sought to place a health warning on games rated T or above. That bill was unsuccessful.
|
In the Ozarks, the normalization of white supremacist ideology started decades ago. Bret Schulte
HARRISON, Arkansas—Whether or not you think his policies are explicitly racist, President Donald Trump has brought white nationalism to the fore of the American zeitgeist. Efforts to make white nationalist dogma mainstream, though, didn’t start with Richard Spencer’s repackaging of upper-class racism as a think tank, or Steve Bannon whispering in President Trump’s ear.
In the Ozarks, the normalization of white supremacist ideology started decades ago. The credit goes largely to Thomas Robb, who in 1989 took control of David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The rebranding began with one of his first acts in charge. Instead of the creepy Grand Wizard moniker, Robb opted for the urbane: national director.
He wears suits and conducts himself with the mannered decorum of a news anchor, which is how he appears on daily KKK webcasts. One such program, called White Resistance News, features a backdrop of the U.S. Capitol. Robb is clean-cut, with a grandpa’s thinning combover. He markets himself and his group as Christian. He does not advocate violence.
Despite the terror the letters “KKK” can invoke, Robb makes white supremacist ideology sound almost bland. For example: “I’m a white person, my family is white,” he says. “I want to preserve their culture, their heritage. I want to have a future for my children and my grandchildren.”
Despite Robb’s polished façade, his websites and marketing materials contain plenty of raw hate. On his web radio station, for example, lyrics to a heavy metal song invoked an old chestnut of KKK dogma: smears against minorities as sexually violent (particularly toward white women) followed by the call “these migrants must be enslaved.” The Southern Poverty Law Center, meanwhile, has gathered a dossier on Robb which includes a number of his most damning proclamations, including: “When the Negro was under the natural discipline of white authority, white people were safe from the abuse and violence of the Negro, and the Negro was also safe from himself.”
The entrance to Robb’s compound, which sits some 15 miles away from Harrison near an unincorporated area called Zinc. Bret Schulte
Though Robb’s compound sits some 15 miles away from Harrison—up a hill from an unincorporated heap of marred trailers, dirt roads, and despair called Zinc, pop. 103—his Harrison address, and its history as a Sundown Town, has given the Boone County seat an unsavory reputation, even within Arkansas. In November, the U.K.’s Daily Mirror dubbed it “the most racist town in America.”
Robb calls the KKK “the first alt-right organization in the world.” He has erected billboards throughout the area that convey such messages as “Diversity is a code for #whitegenocide.” One that advertised a Robb web property, www.whiteprideradio.com, featured a picture of a sorrowful white girl and the note, “It’s not racist to [heart] your people.” Other hate groups have picked up on Robb’s idea of splattering racist messages along local roadways. The League of the South—a group set up to push Southern secession, because that worked out so well last time—set up shop nearby and launched its own billboard urging passersby to “#Secede.” (Trump’s election has not cooled the group’s desire to #secede: It erected a similar billboard in Tennessee a month ago.)
That Harrison, a town of just 13,000, is 96 percent white and located in the Ozark hills of a former Confederate state might make it an unsurprising breeding ground for white supremacists. But for the last 15 years, civic leaders have battled Robb for the town’s reputation. Organized as the Community Task Force on Race Relations, they have launched their own billboards, media-outreach campaigns, and diversity-themed events.
For years, the task force pitted what it thought were mainstream ideals of pluralism against the segregationist goals of the KKK. It enjoys the endorsement of business and city leaders. At a task force meeting in March, about a dozen beaming members, white and black, piled together for a group photo in the lobby of Harrison’s Chamber of Commerce to celebrate their latest victory: The town had won the Dream Keeper Award for 2016, presented by the state’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission for notable efforts to improve race relations, particularly among young people.
But if Harrison is any guide, establishment endorsements and task forces aren’t enough to push back the rising tide of white nationalism. Trump demolished the competition in Boone County, winning 76 percent of the vote—16 points higher than his already-sizable statewide victory. Task force members point out that the area is historically Republican, but Trump also topped Mitt Romney’s 2012 victory here by 4 points, and that was an election that had fewer and less-established third-party candidates to potentially take away from the GOP’s totals.
For the task force, Trump’s local victory came as no surprise, but even the group that has spent years fighting white nationalism reacted with shock on election night. “I honestly think that this shows Harrison is no different from the rest of the country,” said Layne Ragsdale, one of the task force’s founders. “This is not a Harrison issue. It’s an American issue.” Ragsdale said that she now feels less alone in the fight, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. The fact is the task force has been relatively powerless to stop Robb, whom since the election of Trump, has had good reason to crow.
Robb, who has affixed a Trump sign outside the entrance to his compound, says his membership is growing, though he refuses to divulge numbers. He believes Trump won because the alt-right represents a purer brand of conservativism than did the Neo-Cons of the George W. Bush years. “’America First’ is a conservative value,” he said. “Diversity is not our strength. Diversity will kill us.”
Robb’s compound itself reflects his effort to preserve the core Klan mission of white supremacy while trying to sell the group to the soccer-mom crowd as a family-centric Christian organization. Klan imagery drapes the walls of the drab wooden building that serves as the KKK’s main office, including a 1922 panorama of hooded men circling a burning cross. But off a back hallway, a playroom is filled with tattered toys. Bicycles and faded Little Tyke playgrounds dot the grounds, along with a Confederate battle flag waving over a playset. About 20 kids come each year for an annual summer camp. A new building is under construction that will house classrooms and a multimedia center for youths training for careers such as law and politics.
The compound reflects Robb’s effort to preserve the core Klan mission while trying to sell the group as a family-centric Christian organization. Above, the chapel. Bret Schulte
Yet, for all of Robb’s outreach via billboards, newsletters, and an array of web properties, his viewership numbers on YouTube are dismal. A recent check showed just 31 subscribers. Robb insisted numbers don’t indicate his influence but repeatedly declined to provide any evidence of something that might.
“He claims a large following, but it’s anyone’s guess,” says Kevin Cheri, a leader of the task force. “It’d be interesting to see [Klansmen] identify themselves but with the exception of Robb you don’t really see them.” Cheri, who is black, says he feels safe in Harrison and doesn’t believe it’s any more or less racist than other towns. Whether or not Robb is merely attempting to piggyback off of the success of the alt-right with his latest media pushes, the town’s story is instructive for what a prominent white nationalist presence does to a place.
The specter of the Klan, and the reputation of Harrison, has long struck fear into people throughout portions of the state. Black visitors often leave town before dark, if they visit at all. The presence of the Klan hurts the town in other ways. IHOP once passed on opening a restaurant in Harrison because, as former mayor Jeff Crockett says, the restaurant chain worried black employees wouldn’t live there.
The task force has continuously fought back for this image. In 2012 and again in 2014, the group succeeded in bringing to Harrison two Non-Violence Youth Summits, an event that is usually held in the much larger city of Little Rock and is sponsored by the Arkansas MLK Commission.
In between the two youth summits, the first Klan billboard appeared in Harrison saying, “Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.” Crockett met with the press and about 30 concerned residents in front of the sign. “The important thing is that we show the outside world this is not Harrison,” Crockett said. (The sign, of course, went viral.)
When Crockett lost his re-election bid, he told the local newspaper that being out front on diversity was at least part of the reason. Robb views Crockett’s loss as an expression of local support for his pro-white views. He thinks the alt-right is winning the hearts and minds of Harrison—and with the election of Trump, Americans everywhere.
The task force, meanwhile, believes its efforts to change Harrison’s reputation have not been in vain. Rather, it views itself as on the vanguard of a fight the rest of the country is just joining. “We’re finding out here and all around the country that this problem doesn’t [just] get fixed,” says George Holcomb, a former journalist who once covered the task force with some skepticism before joining it in retirement. “This is something you keep working on.”
|
The committee plodded through the health care legislation for a third day, as lawmakers debated the proper role of government in securing insurance coverage for all Americans. With many amendments still to be offered, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said it was highly unlikely that the panel could finish its work this week — the goal set by Mr. Baucus, the committee chairman.
Under the June agreement with the White House, drug makers pledged $80 billion over 10 years to help “reform our troubled health care system.” In the belief that their contribution was capped, drug companies have run advertisements in support of a health care overhaul.
Photo
The rebates proposed by Mr. Nelson would have more than doubled the amount of money to be given up by the industry.
Mr. Carper said the proposal to wring more rebate money out of the drug companies would “undermine our ability to pass comprehensive health care reform in this Congress,” because the drug industry would have opposed the legislation if it included mandatory rebates.
In arguing against the proposal, Mr. Carper said, White House officials told him that “a deal is a deal,” and he agreed.
Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the Nelson proposal could have caused job losses in the drug industry.
“If our contribution to health care reform exceeds $80 billion, you reach a point where you risk sacrificing someone’s job for someone else’s health insurance,” Mr. Johnson said.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Drug makers already pay rebates on drugs dispensed to many Medicaid recipients. Mr. Nelson’s proposal would have required them to pay similar rebates on drugs prescribed for another group: low-income older Americans eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare. The group includes people taking numerous prescriptions for multiple chronic illnesses, so they account for a large share of drug spending.
When Congress added a drug benefit to Medicare in 2003, about six million older Americans who had been receiving drug coverage through Medicaid were shifted into the new Medicare drug program. As a result, Mr. Nelson said, “the government pays higher prices for drugs, and the pharmaceutical industry got a windfall.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he was “not at the table” when the White House and the pharmaceutical industry reached their deal, so he did not feel bound by it.
Photo
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said that mandatory rebates were equivalent to price controls.
“Over time,” he said, “drug manufacturers would partially offset the rebates by charging higher prices for new drugs. The middle class would end up paying for this.”
In the House, Democrats on Thursday discussed how to meld health care bills approved by three committees.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi affirmed her support for creating a government insurance plan to compete with private insurers. A public plan would increase competition, lower costs and “save enormous amounts of money” for families, businesses and taxpayers, Ms. Pelosi said.
She scorned the idea of using the public plan as a backup to the private market, in case insurers did not meet certain goals for making affordable coverage available.
Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, and other centrists have proposed such a “trigger mechanism.”
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
But Ms. Pelosi said, “A trigger is an excuse for not doing anything.”
The timetable for bringing a measure to the House floor is uncertain, although Democrats said they were making steady progress. They said they hoped to finish writing their bill next week and submit it to the Congressional Budget Office for review, so the full House could begin debate in mid-October.
In the House, as in the Senate, Democrats are still trying to decide contentious questions like how to restrict the use of federal money for abortions and how to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining benefits under the legislation.
“We’re narrowing the areas that we have to bring to resolution,” Ms. Pelosi said.
|
A group of about 50 protesters broke into Wheeler Auditorium as entrepreneur Peter Thiel spoke to an audience of UC Berkeley students and community members, cutting the event short.
Protesters had first gathered at the intersection of Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way about 7 p.m., after four nights of protests against police brutality and the decisions not to indict in the cases of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man shot by a white officer, and Eric Garner, who died after an officer put him in an apparent chokehold.
Protesters first pounded on locked doors then pushed their way inside the crowded auditorium.
“We honestly didn’t think the protests would interfere,” said Pierre Bourbonnais, president of the Berkeley Forum and former marketing manager at The Daily Californian. “It’s pretty unimaginable and unfortunate. I’m in support of free speech, but this is not the right venue for that. I’m very disappointed.”
Bourbonnais said he had received calls and emails preceding the event that asked if the protests would disrupt the address.
Thiel left with his handlers as the protesters entered the auditorium, according to Bourbonnais. Protesters shouted, “No police state — no NSA!” as they stormed the stage. Bourbonnais described the protesters’ entrance as a “tug-of-war battle” between Berkeley Forum members and protesters.
The doors of the auditorium were initially locked, but a member of the audience shouted an expletive and unlocked them as he was exiting the auditorium, at which point the protesters entered.
“I just walked out of the door — I didn’t know they were out there,” said Cameron Hearne, a UC Berkeley senior. “I was overwhelmed with the commentator and walked out.”
Thiel had already given his keynote address, and the event had moved on to a student-moderated discussion. When protesters broke into the auditorium, Thiel was answering a question about whether political activism was worth risking a decrease in productivity.
“I can’t believe that (the protesters) thought that this was a politically acceptable way (to protest),” said Jacob Bergquist, a UC Berkeley freshman. “It made me very angry, because some of the people (in the audience) came because they’re just trying to make an impact on the the world.”
Thiel is the co-founder of PayPal and was one of the first outside investors of Facebook.
“It’s not that a lot of the people here disagree with their mission statement — it’s that we feel that it was inappropriate for them to come in and disrupt an event,” said Jonathan Lin, a UC Berkeley junior. “It was disrespectful for them to disrupt Mr. Thiel.”
Contact Adrienne Shih at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @adrienneshih.
Correction(s):
A photo caption previously accompanying this article incorrectly identified the photo’s subject as Peter Thiel. In fact, it pictured Haas MBA student Orion Parrott.
|
Photo: Getty
Scott Aukerman’s fake-talk-show/sketch-show hybrid Comedy Bang! Bang! is about to enter its fourth season. This year will be different, however, with the show airing 40 episodes, nearly as many as the previous seasons combined. With the new season starting Friday at 11 p.m. on IFC, Vulture had Zach Galifianakis, who has guested on Comedy Bang! Bang! (the TV show, podcast, and weekly live show, when it was still around) and famously worked with Aukerman on Between Two Ferns, to interview his old friend. The two spoke about the new season, early influences, and President Barack Obama’s appearance on Between Two Ferns. It’s mostly bits.
Part 1: Greetings, and early influences.
Zach Galifianakis: Scott, what a pleasure to sit down with you. Thank you so much.
Scott Aukerman: It’s always great to sit down across the table from a comedy titan because if there’s anything I can glean or learn from you, or if just some of your Hollywood stardom could rub off on me, I mean, that’s what show business is all about. So, thank you, Zach.
ZG: Oh, you’re too kind, Scoot. Scoot, when you were living—
SA: Stop right there! I mean, that’s a great question right there. When I was living? Yeah, I was alive, you’re right.
ZG: When you were living as a young man, let’s say teenager, were you thinking about getting into the world of comedy? Were you dreaming about that?
SA: So, teens from 13–19, I take it?
ZG: Yeah, I guess. Did they change the rules?
SA: I started probably getting interested in comedy at 13, when a girl that I was dating — that’s right, I was dating someone at 13 — I really just wanted to brag about that, but I’ll continue — she showed me Monty Python and the Holy Grail—
ZG: Is that a euphemism for something else?
SA: [Laughs.] She showed me her Monty Python and the Holy Grail and I said, “You know what? Comedians get laid, I’m in.”
ZG: So, that’s what you were influenced by, what you saw?
SA: I was very into that movie, and I started doing speech competitions in high school. I did one speech competition where I actually did a lot of scenes from that movie. And I got very into Saturday Night Live and David Letterman when I was 14 and 15. I really had an appreciation for it, and I knew I wanted to be a performer of some sort. I was doing musical theater, and the idea of being an actual, professional comedian seemed like a far-off dream that was unachievable.
ZG: Are you done?
SA: Yep, that’s it.
ZG: That answer was about 61 seconds too long.
SA: Do you want me to tighten it up? Okay, here we go. I saw funny movie, I said, “Me want do that.”
ZG: Perfect. And then, as far as influences throughout the years, were you influenced very young from, let’s say, Letterman, I would imagine?
SA: Letterman was my biggest influence. Also, Pee-wee Herman, I would say. Both to them in 1985. I actually saw Pee-wee Herman on The David Letterman Show. That was the first time I ever heard of him, and the fact that he was on The David Letterman Show, which I adored, made me think, Oh, wow, Pee-wee Herman’s probably pretty cool, which is why I went to see Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which became one of my favorite movies of all time. Those two were really my big influences. I went around acting like Letterman in high school, which would have been really annoying if not for the fact that I was super, super hilarious.
ZG: Who says?
SA: Just my own impression of it as I look back on those days was very, very funny.
ZG: Spot on.
SA: But I had a public-access television show that my friend hosted, and I did little funny Letterman-esque bits on. But then I took it over and I hosted it for a while as well. I was just doing a pretty shameless Letterman ripoff.
ZG: Have those been posted online anywhere?
SA: You know what? I played one of them at a UCB show in L.A. Jen Kirkman had a show where comedians were supposed to play embarrassing things from early on in their career or from when they were children, and I brought that in and I played it, and she got really mad at me and said, ‘You’re supposed to bring something you’re embarrassed by. Not something you would do today!” So I guess my sense of humor hasn’t progressed that much from when I was 15.
Part 2: Comedy Bang! Bang!
ZG: Right. And did you get free HBO because you were on Mr. Show?
SA: One would hope, but no! I’ve been paying for that goddamn channel for 20 years now.
ZG: That doesn’t make any sense.
SA: I don’t even get free IFC.
ZG: Oh, speaking of IFC. Tell us about your dog show. Wait, is it a new thing coming out now?
SA: The new season of Comedy Bang! Bang! is out on Friday, January 9. Season four, 11 p.m. on IFC.
ZG: Who were the big guests this year?
SA: Well, I have one friend of mine, a bearded gentleman who has lost a lot of weight recently.
ZG: Oh, Bruce Vilanch?
SA: Zachary, you’re in season four. Our season premiere has Ty Burrell and Nick Kroll. We have Maya Rudolph and Maria Bamford and Schoolboy Q and Horatio Sanz and Eddie George from the Tennessee Titans and hip-hop star Kid Cudi.
ZG: Oh, Kid Cudi. I think he lives in Venice, doesn’t he?
SA: Yeah, do you know his address? Can we put it in this interview?
ZG: No, but someone was telling me that they recorded with him, and they were in Venice doing it.
SA: Maybe you’re wrong, maybe you’re right.
ZG: It may have been Pat Boone. Is Reggie Watts on it this season?
SA: Yeah, Reggie, who has been my one-man band leader for the first three season, got the job being a real band leader on CBS’s Late Late Show with James Cordon, so he is going to be leaving.
ZG: That’s exciting! Do you have feelings about that?
SA: Yeah, I mean, I’m happy for him. I think it’s a great gig. He is doing half of the season with us, and then we have a really cool, touching good-bye episode with him halfway through the season, and then we’ll have someone new.
ZG: How cool. That’s very cool. Who do you have in mind for the new [person]?
SA: Well, I know there’s one comedian who, when I first started seeing him, would play the piano and tell his jokes while he was playing piano, and I’m hoping that I can convince him to do it.
ZG: Victor Borge? Yeah, that comedian you’re speaking of is no longer with us.
SA: RIP.
Part 3: The President Obama episode of Between Two Ferns.
ZG: Well, listen Scott, I want to thank you for your time. Wait, can I ask more questions?
SA: Do you want to ask any questions about the White House?
ZG: Oh, sure, I’ll ask about that. Scott, why don’t you tell us about the magical arrangement of Between Two Ferns in the White House? Walk us through that, because I don’t know if I was a part of it.
SA: Well, as we all heard on Howard Stern, Bradley Cooper set it up.
ZG: What?
SA: Oh, you haven’t heard about that yet.
ZG: No, what happened?
SA: Bradley told everyone that he’s the one who arranged it.
ZG: Oh, whatever, glory boy. I’ll have a word with him, but we were pursuing it as well.
SA: Yeah, but we got the word that it might happen. I didn’t really expect it to actually occur. Did you?
ZG: No. No.
SA: Even though we were sitting there in the White House, I kind of thought someone would rush in and say that North Korea had declared nuclear war or something and we weren’t going to be able to film the video.
ZG: Yeah, it was quite an experience.
SA: It was cool sitting there in the White House, though.
ZG: Had you ever been before?
SA: I’d never been. I went one time afterwards, but we were sitting there in the Map Room, which is where they planned World War I.
ZG: A lot of wars.
SA: So many wars. You really got a good sense of how many wars there’s been when you’re sitting in that White House.
ZG: There have been a lot of wars.
SA: It was definitely a very interesting experience, and one that I’m glad that I had with you because we made it pretty fun. You kept on sitting on the wrong chairs.
ZG: Yeah, we won’t get into that. I don’t think I want to make that public knowledge.
SA: I think I read you talk about it in an interview already.
ZG: Oh, I did? I think it was one from the 1700s, the chair I was sitting in.
SA: What I thought was weird about it was these chairs were out there, they weren’t taped off or anything.
ZG: The guy said to me, “I assumed that you would know not to sit in them.”
SA: Why? They’re chairs. The other thing was it’s not like they gave us any chairs to sit in.
ZG: Well, you know, I sat in it again.
SA: I know. He came and chastised us, and then you sat in it one more time.
ZG: And he looks at me and goes, “Man, I got to get you a chair!”
SA: Well, that’s my point! Yes! Get us chairs!
ZG: Can you get one without a plaque on it, please?
SA: Were you nervous?
ZG: Oh, yes. I was nervous. Yeah. You want to be respectful, but you assume that he knows the essence of the show. But I don’t know if he did. I didn’t feel confident that he knew anything. That would make one nervous if you thought he was stepping into a legitimate interview. I always go to the most negative thing. No one told him. I’m just going to be out there alone. I remember saying to Cody [Keenan], the speech writer, I said, “Did he see this question?” And I think it was the question, “What’s it like to be the last black president?” And Cody said, “I think so.”
SA: That’s not the ringing vote of confidence you want. But to be fair, he did great in it and seemed to really get it, and you were great in it. But I can imagine that must have been one of the more nervous times of your performing career. How would you rate it in terms of nervousness in your whole career?
ZG: It’s pretty high up there.
SA: I can imagine.
ZG: Yeah. I would say that, and my fourth take on Corky Romano.
SA: ‘Cause, you know, running out of daylight.
Part 4: Sleeping, Prince, good-byes.
ZG: And so outside of your talk show, what else does Scott do?
SA: Well, you know, I have a wonderful family. I have a group of devoted friends. I tend to eat three times a day. Really, if you take up an hour eating each time you eat, that’s three hours out of your day, and then you’re also sleeping eight or nine hours. Half of your day is gone already. Have you thought about what it would be like if we didn’t sleep?
ZG: Yeah, but I don’t need a lot of sleep.
SA: Really? How much sleep do you get?
ZG: I can do six [hours] for many days in a row.
SA: But what if you didn’t sleep at all?
ZG: That’s what my goal is.
SA: You should get there eventually.
ZG: I hear Prince doesn’t sleep.
SA: Yeah. I feel like Prince is the next step in human evolution. I’d like to think his penis is shaped like that symbol and hurts a lot when going in.
ZG: Hmm.
SA: I like your reaction to that. “Hmm.”
ZG: You know, I never thought about it that way.
SA: Well, Zach, what a wonderful note to end on, right?
ZG: What a great interview. Thank you.
SA: This is certainly not the next Frost/Nixon, but it was enjoyable for me.
ZG: Well, I mean, if you want me to Frost/Nixon, I can do that.
SA: Wait, who would you be? Nixon?
ZG: I haven’t seen the movie yet. Let me go watch it. I’ll get back to you.
SA: Okay, watch it and we’ll schedule another interview.
|
2016 Fantasy Football - Choose Article Fantasy Football Rankings ---------------------- Fantasy Rankings --------------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Quarterbacks - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Quarterback Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Running Backs - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Running Back Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Wide Receivers - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Tight Ends - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Tight End Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Defenses - 6/15 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Kickers - 6/15 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Rankings - 5/13 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Rankings: Dynasty - 5/13 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Rankings: Dynasty by Chet - 5/27 --------------- Fantasy Football Mock Drafts --------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 9/1 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/31 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Real Draft - 8/29 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/25 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: 2-QB - 8/25 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/24 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/18 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/13 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/11 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/4 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/4 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/2 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 7/28 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft - 7/21 2016 Fantasy Football 2-QB Draft - 6/9 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 Draft - 5/13 --------------- Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets --------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 PPR - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 2-QB - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 Touchdown-Only - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Custom - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Dynasty Rankings - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football PPR Rankings - 8/29 (Chet) 2016 Fantasy Football Spreadsheets - 9/7 --------------- Fantasy Football Articles --------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Stock Report: Training Camp - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Sleepers - 9/4 2016 NFL Preseason Recap, Fantasy Football Notes - 9/3 2016 Fantasy Football Preseason Stock - 9/2 2016 Fantasy Football Preseason Quarterback Targets - 9/2 2016 Fantasy Football Waiver-Wire Targets - 8/31 2016 Fantasy Football Busts - 8/31 Fantasy Football Auction Advice - 8/24 2016 Fantasy Football Round-by-Round Strategy Guide - 8/18 2016 Fantasy Football Daily Fantasy Football: Preseason Week 2 Streaming Options - 8/18 2016 Fantasy Football Draft Queue: Wide Receivers and Tight Ends - 8/17 2016 Fantasy Football Draft Queue: Quarterbacks and Running Backs - 8/16 2016 Fantasy Football Training Camp Notes - 8/10 2016 Fantasy Football Wide Receivers to Avoid - 8/6 2016 Fantasy Football Running Backs to Avoid - 8/5 2016 Fantasy Football Notes - 7/26 2016 Fantasy Football Late-Round Wide Receiver Targets - 7/21 2016 Fantasy Football Late-Round Running Back Targets - 7/19 2016 Fantasy Football ADP Values - 7/14 2016 Fantasy Football: C.J. Anderson Profile - 7/7 2016 Fantasy Football Favorite MFL Players - 6/29 2016 Fantasy Football: 2016 NFL Draft Fallout: Chip Kelly - 6/23 2016 Fantasy Football: Eli Manning Profile - 6/22 2016 Fantasy Football: Eli Manning Profile - 6/15 Fantasy Football Beginner's Guide - 6/7 2016 Fantasy Football: Running Back Drafting and ADP - 6/3 2016 Fantasy Football: Quarterback Drafting and ADP - 6/1 2016 Fantasy Football: Eli Manning Profile - 5/25 2016 Fantasy Football: Jordan Matthews Profile - 5/24 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Dynasty Draft Wrap-up - 5/18 2016 Fantasy Football News Reports - 5/15 2016 Fantasy Football: 2016 NFL Draft Fallout - 5/11 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 Quarterback Values - 4/30 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 Wide Receiver Values - 4/28 2016 Fantasy Football: Tight End Strength of Schedule - 4/25 2016 Fantasy Football: Wide Receiver Strength of Schedule - 4/21 2016 Fantasy Football: Running Back Strength of Schedule - 4/20 2016 Fantasy Football: Quarterback Strength of Schedule - 4/19 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 - 2/19 2016 Fantasy Football Sleepers: Philip Rivers - 2/16 2016 Fantasy Football: Quarterback ADP vs. Reality - 2/12 2016 Fantasy Football Fallout: Marshawn Lynch Retires - 2/11 2016 Fantasy Football Fallout: Calvin Johnson Retires - 2/9 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Dynasty - 1/21 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Tight Ends - 1/19 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Wide Receivers - 1/14 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Running Backs - 1/13 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Quarterbacks - 1/12
2016 Fantasy Football Stock Report - Week of Aug. 29
Sept. 7
Sept. 6
Sept. 5
Sept. 4
Sept. 3
Sept. 2
Sept. 1
Aug. 31
Aug. 30
Aug. 29
Tony Romo Back Injury
2016 Fantasy Football - Choose Article Fantasy Football Rankings ---------------------- Fantasy Rankings --------------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Quarterbacks - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Quarterback Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Running Backs - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Running Back Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Wide Receivers - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Tight Ends - 9/7 Chet Gresham's Fantasy Football Tight End Rankings - 8/30 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Defenses - 6/15 2016 Fantasy Football Rankings: Kickers - 6/15 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Rankings - 5/13 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Rankings: Dynasty - 5/13 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Rankings: Dynasty by Chet - 5/27 --------------- Fantasy Football Mock Drafts --------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 9/1 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/31 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Real Draft - 8/29 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/25 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: 2-QB - 8/25 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/24 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/18 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/13 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/11 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Standard - 8/4 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/4 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 8/2 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: PPR - 7/28 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft - 7/21 2016 Fantasy Football 2-QB Draft - 6/9 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 Draft - 5/13 --------------- Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets --------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 PPR - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 2-QB - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Top 250 Touchdown-Only - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Custom - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Dynasty Rankings - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football PPR Rankings - 8/29 (Chet) 2016 Fantasy Football Spreadsheets - 9/7 --------------- Fantasy Football Articles --------------- 2016 Fantasy Football Stock Report: Training Camp - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator - 9/7 2016 Fantasy Football Sleepers - 9/4 2016 NFL Preseason Recap, Fantasy Football Notes - 9/3 2016 Fantasy Football Preseason Stock - 9/2 2016 Fantasy Football Preseason Quarterback Targets - 9/2 2016 Fantasy Football Waiver-Wire Targets - 8/31 2016 Fantasy Football Busts - 8/31 Fantasy Football Auction Advice - 8/24 2016 Fantasy Football Round-by-Round Strategy Guide - 8/18 2016 Fantasy Football Daily Fantasy Football: Preseason Week 2 Streaming Options - 8/18 2016 Fantasy Football Draft Queue: Wide Receivers and Tight Ends - 8/17 2016 Fantasy Football Draft Queue: Quarterbacks and Running Backs - 8/16 2016 Fantasy Football Training Camp Notes - 8/10 2016 Fantasy Football Wide Receivers to Avoid - 8/6 2016 Fantasy Football Running Backs to Avoid - 8/5 2016 Fantasy Football Notes - 7/26 2016 Fantasy Football Late-Round Wide Receiver Targets - 7/21 2016 Fantasy Football Late-Round Running Back Targets - 7/19 2016 Fantasy Football ADP Values - 7/14 2016 Fantasy Football: C.J. Anderson Profile - 7/7 2016 Fantasy Football Favorite MFL Players - 6/29 2016 Fantasy Football: 2016 NFL Draft Fallout: Chip Kelly - 6/23 2016 Fantasy Football: Eli Manning Profile - 6/22 2016 Fantasy Football: Eli Manning Profile - 6/15 Fantasy Football Beginner's Guide - 6/7 2016 Fantasy Football: Running Back Drafting and ADP - 6/3 2016 Fantasy Football: Quarterback Drafting and ADP - 6/1 2016 Fantasy Football: Eli Manning Profile - 5/25 2016 Fantasy Football: Jordan Matthews Profile - 5/24 2016 Fantasy Football Rookie Dynasty Draft Wrap-up - 5/18 2016 Fantasy Football News Reports - 5/15 2016 Fantasy Football: 2016 NFL Draft Fallout - 5/11 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 Quarterback Values - 4/30 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 Wide Receiver Values - 4/28 2016 Fantasy Football: Tight End Strength of Schedule - 4/25 2016 Fantasy Football: Wide Receiver Strength of Schedule - 4/21 2016 Fantasy Football: Running Back Strength of Schedule - 4/20 2016 Fantasy Football: Quarterback Strength of Schedule - 4/19 2016 Fantasy Football: MFL 10 - 2/19 2016 Fantasy Football Sleepers: Philip Rivers - 2/16 2016 Fantasy Football: Quarterback ADP vs. Reality - 2/12 2016 Fantasy Football Fallout: Marshawn Lynch Retires - 2/11 2016 Fantasy Football Fallout: Calvin Johnson Retires - 2/9 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Dynasty - 1/21 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Tight Ends - 1/19 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Wide Receivers - 1/14 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Running Backs - 1/13 2016 Fantasy Football Forecast: Quarterbacks - 1/12
With OTAs underway, there will be updates daily to this 2016 Fantasy Football OTAs, Training Camp Stock page if anything noteworthy happens.If there's an injury or a player surprising/disappointing, I'll let you know about it and adjust myaccordingly. Follow me @walterfootball for updates.Christine Michael is ahead of Thomas Rawls on the depth chart. That won't last very long, but Michael is definitely worth drafting and even starting this week.Thomas Rawls is behind of Christine Michael on the depth chart. That won't last very long, but it just goes to show that the Seahawks are willing to ease Rawls into the lineup.Andy Reid said it would be a "stretch" for Jamaal Charles to play in Week 1. Not a surprise. I hope you avoided him.Darren McFadden may never be able to extend his right arm fully again. That's not good, in case you couldn't tell. I wouldn't bother rostering McFadden at this point.The Jets have waived Khiry Robinson. This well help Matt Forte and Bilal Powell, as they'll pick up short-yardage opportunities that the injured Robinson would've otherwise received.The Seahawks remain "uncertain" of Jimmy Graham's Week 1 status, according to Bob Condotta, Seattle Times. Why do people still believe Graham will do anything this year? No one has ever fully returned from a torn patellar tendon, and I don't expect that to change now.The Lions waived T.J. Jones. Jones had a ton of hype in the summer, but he won't be doing much this year. He's currently rotting on the practice squad.The Cowboys have kept Tony Romo on the active roster. This obviously means they expect Romo to return prior to Week 9. Then again, Jerry Jones has been delusional about Romo's health before, so I wouldn't make this a reason to stash Romo on the bench.Stefon Diggs' fantasy stock took a hit several days ago when Teddy Bridgewater went down with an injury. He should be back to where he was now with Sam Bradford as his starting quarterback. Bradford will get hurt at some point, but Diggs can post WR3-type numbers in the meantime.Kenneth Dixon, who I have on my Fantasy Football Sleepers list, gets a stock up in the wake of the Justin Forsett release. Dixon is banged up right now, but will return in Weeks 3-5. He had a great preseason, so I'd highly recommend picking him up and stashing him if you can.Justin Forsett was released by the Ravens. He'll likely sign on with another team, but he probably won't have much of a defined role.Carlos Hyde is still in concussion protocol, but is expected to play in Week 1. I wouldn't let this impact where I'd draft Hyde unless Hyde happened to be tied with another running back in the same area of the draft.Jordan Matthews obviously won't be as productive with rookie Carson Wentz throwing the ball to him. His stock definitely takes a substantial hit. I like Wentz more than the noodle-armed Chase Daniel, but the rookie may struggle and also spend more time running than Bradford would have.There are "real questions" about when DeVante Parker will return from his hamstring injury. I don't think it's worth rostering Parker unless you have a deep bench. There are better sleeper options.Adrian Peterson's stock didn't drop when Teddy Bridgewater got hurt, so it obviously won't rise in the wake of the Sam Bradford trade. I don't think Zach Ertz will be affected either. He'll have less of a chance to score touchdowns, but his receptions will rise, as rookie Carson Wentz will target him often.Reports indicate that the Eagles plan on starting Carson Wentz in Week 1 if healthy. Wentz is not worth a spot in regular leagues, but he obviously has to be snatched up in 2-QB formats. I like this move by the Eagles, as they didn't have much of a chance to win with Chase Daniel, who struggled in the preseason.Terrance West is the likely Week 1 starter in the wake of the Justin Forsett release, so he's worth adding. However, I'm not sure he'll hold the job the entire year, as Kenneth Dixon looked great in the preseason.Jamaal Charles has been practicing with the reserves and hasn't been hit in practice yet. I've written this a billion times over the past month, but make sure you avoid Charles and have Spencer Ware on your roster.Jimmy Graham is "no sure thing" for Week 1, according to Ian Rapoport, NFL.com. Of course he's not. Only one player has ever come back from a torn patellar tendon, and Robert Brooks had only one quality season after that happened. Graham is undraftable unless you want to take a flier on him in the final two rounds.Robert Kelley has earned regular-season carries, per Rich Tandler, CSN Mid-Atlantic. Kelley has been great this preseason, and he's currently one of my favorite late-round fantasy sleepers. I don't trust Matt Jones, so it's conceivable that Kelly could put together a big year.In the wake of the Jamaal Charles news that he could be out or limited in Week 1, make sure to pick up Spencer Ware!Jamaal Charles may not play Week 1, and if he does, it won't be a lot, according to Adam Teicher, ESPN. This can't be a surprise to anyone. Charles is completely banged up and hasn't regained his starting role yet. He's the No. 1 player on my fantasy busts list. Make sure to draft Spencer Ware!Ameer Abdullah told the media that he expects to get the majority of the carries this season. I'd be surprised if he didn't. Abdullah hasn't been seen much this preseason, which has held his ADP down. He's a nice value choice.Jimmy Graham has only been practicing "against air" since his return. There's no way Graham is going to be a factor coming off a torn patellar tendon in less than a year. I'd only touch him in the late rounds.Teddy Bridgewater hasn't been confirmed out for the season, but considering that players were puking at the sight of his non-contact knee injury, I'd say that's a safe assumption. The greater question now might be whether or not Bridgewater's career is over, which is sad because he seemed like a nice guy, and he was also a solid, underrated quarterback. I hope he'll be OK for 2017.Jamaal Charles hasn't regained the full-time running back role despite his return, as Spencer Ware has been handling most of the first-string duties. The Chiefs aren't going to use Charles all that much early in the year in an effort to preserve him for the playoffs. Plus, Ware has been very impressive. I've been avoiding Charles all summer, and I'd urge you to do the same.Stefon Diggs' stock takes a major downward spiral in the wake of Teddy Bridgewater's injury. However, I still think he's draftable. Diggs is a No. 1 receiver in real life, and Shaun Hill is a capable backup. If anything, Diggs could provide more value in the late rounds.Bruce Ellington is out for the year with a torn hamstring. It's a shame, as Ellington seemed like he could have a half-decent season despite the quarterbacking situation. I liked Ellington a bit as a late-round sleeper.Ladarius Green has been placed on the PUP list, as he can't overcome his concussion issues. He's not draftable.DeVante Parker tweaked his hamstring Monday. Parker had issues with his hamstring earlier in camp. These injuries tend to linger, so be careful drafting Parker unless you can get him super late.In the Live Fantasy Football Mock Draft I just did with Kenny, someone in the chat asked me about Adrian Peterson's status in relation to Teddy Bridgewater's knee injury. I don't think it's affected very much. The Vikings still have a solid offensive line, while the defense will help keep games close, allowing Peterson to rack up a substantial amount of carries. So, I'm not giving Peterson a stock up or down.Jamaal Charles hasn't regained the full-time running back role despite his return, as Spencer Ware has been handling most of the first-string duties. The Chiefs aren't going to use Charles all that much early in the year in an effort to preserve him for the playoffs. Plus, Ware has been very impressive. I'm making sure I obtain Ware in the late rounds of all of my leagues.Dwayne Allen missed Monday's practice because of hip soreness. Sounds like something I go through every morning. Allen is still a borderline TE1 for me, but this situation is worth monitoring, given Allen's injury history.Bruce Arians told the media that John Brown is still experiencing headaches. It's been a full month, yet Brown is still showing symptoms from his concussion. I'd completely stay away from Brown at this point.Tony Romo will resume training in three weeks. He's still undraftable, but I wanted to note this positive news. If Romo continues to have positive reports about his recovery, he'll be worth picking up as a flier around Week 5 or 6.It's Sunday at 4:50 p.m., and I just finished a real fantasy draft, which is why there's no Chargers-Vikings recap yet. It was an 18-round draft, and I needed a super-flier running back in the 16th round. Kenneth Dixon popped into my head. I would've listed Dixon here last night after seeing him play very well in the second preseason game, but he sustained a knee injury. I looked it up, and Dixon only had a sprain. The Ravens broadcasters really talked him up, so I took a chance on him late.I've written that Dak Prescott's impressive play means that Dez Bryant won't take much of a hit if Tony Romo goes down. I still believe that, and I think Bryant could remain a WR1. However, he deserves a slight stock down, as the Cowboys will be more conservative with Prescott at the helm.I'm not giving Ezekiel Elliott a stock up or stock down in the wake of Tony Romo's injury. The Cowboys will be more conservative with Dak Prescott, which will mean more runs for Elliott. However, Elliott could have slightly fewer scoring opportunities. So, only bump Elliott down if you're in a touchdown-only league.With Tony Romo out, is Dak Prescott draftable? I think looking at Russell Wilson's rookie campaign is a good barometer. Not that Prescott will necessarily play as well as Wilson, but it's a good indicator of how productive a mobile rookie quarterback can be. In Wilson's first eight games, he threw for more than 240 yards just once. He had just 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions, and he averaged about 20 rushing yards per contest. Prescott will have a better offensive line and No. 1 receiver, so there's more immediate potential, but he still doesn't seem like a great late-round option, though I can definitely understand the upside appeal.Tony Romo has a broken bone in his back and is likely to miss at least half the season. It goes without saying that Romo is now undraftable.
|
On the Sunday, June 9 edition of ABC News' This Week, the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees declared that recently disclosed National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of phone-call "metadata" and Internet traffic involving U.S. citizens was largely responsible for two high-profile successes in the War on Terror.
The 2009 arrests of Najibullah Zazi and David Headley, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), wouldn't have happened without such programs.
Leaving aside important questions about whether such far-reaching surveillance is constitutional or prone to abuse, the claims by Feinstein and Rogers present the simplest, most-straightforward argument for the efficacy of the NSA's PRISM program and tracking of telecommunications involving Americans on American soil. However controversial and unsettling to many people, say Feinstein and Rogers, these programs are indispensable to keeping us all safe from harm.
Yet neither case cited by Feinstein and Rogers comes anywhere close to proving that the controversial programs had anything to do with thwarting violence in the United States or anywhere else. If published accounts, including court documents, are to be trusted (more on that later), Zazi and Headley aren't poster-children for the sort of surveillance that has apparently become the new normal. Far from it: Zazi was put away by traditional methods of tracking and watching a criminal and Headley was a former federal drug informant (!) whose terroristic leanings were revealed to the U.S. government years before he took any action.
As ABC News reported (watch video at that link too):
Both Feinstein and Rogers said that the phone and internet surveillance programs has been instrumental in stopping terrorist attacks, citing the 2009 terror plot by Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado resident who was arrested in Sept. 2009 after plotting to bomb the New York subway system. Feinstein said the program also helped to track the case of David Headley, a Pakistani-American who traveled to Mumbai to scope the Taj Mahal Hotel for an attack.
As Rogers put it,
“I can tell you, in the Zazi case in New York, it’s exactly the program that was used,” Rogers said, later adding, “I think the Zazi case is so important, because that’s one you can specifically show that this was the key piece that allowed us to stop a bombing in the New York Subway system.”
Actually, the Zazi case seems to be a vindication of what Buzzfeed's Ben Smith calls "old-fashioned police work." That is, the staking-out of specific individuals to whom officials had been directed by specific tips. British and American court documents, writes Smith, show that intelligence officers were monitoring a particular email address that had been linked to "an al Qaeda associate" by British and Pakistani agents.
An FBI agent, Eric Jurgenson, testified [at Zazi's 2011 trial], “I was notified, I should say. My office was in receipt of several e-mail messages, e-mail communications.” Those emails—from Zazi to the same sana_pakhtana@yahoo.com—“led to the investigation,” he testified.
British authorities learned of that Yahoo email address when they searched a computer of a terror suspect arrested in London in early 2009. They clued the Americans into the address, who then watched it.
A 2009 NPR account of Zazi's arrest further underscores that his capture came about less from stratospheric surveillance of all possible communications and more from intelligence gathering and information sharing among federal, state, and local police. In 2008, Zazi traveled to Pakistan and trained at a known al Qaeda camp, where he apparently learned the rudiments of bomb making. He was placed under surveillance upon his return to the United States.
"I think what's striking about the Zazi case is not so much that new tools were being used, but that old tools were being used in a comprehensive fashion," says Sam Rascoff, who used to work terrorism cases for the New York Police Department's intelligence unit. "And that they were being stitched together in a thoughtful, strategic way, so that one tool naturally gave way to another."
The Headley case similarly points away from the sort of ubiquitous dragging of communcations touted by Feinstein and Rogers and toward basic police work. Earlier this year, the Pakistani-American Headley—who went by his birth name Daood Gilani until 2006—was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in scouting locations for the 2008 Mumbai bombings that killed hundreds of people. He has also pleaded guilty to conspiring to attack the headquarters of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons critical of Islam.
Headley/Gilani was hardly an unknown character to federal law enforcement before his 2009 arrest. For years, he was a highly prized informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), reported Pro Publica, and attended several Pakistani terrorist training camps between 2002 and 2005 while still apparently working for the DEA. In 2005, one of his wives (among his lesser crimes was being a bigamist), reported him to the Joint Terrorism Task Force after he allegedly beat her. The wife reportedly provided authorities with copies of tapes and other material showing he associated with Muslim extremists. Assuming standard protocols were followed, that incident would have triggered at least a preliminary report on Headley/Gilani, but it appears there was no follow up. Why not? From Pro Publica:
|
LONGVIEW, Wash. — In the morning, the industrial site nestled along the Columbia River is eerily quiet.
Lori Black is one of the first employees to arrive most days. She knows the site well, has worked there for 12 years. Five years ago, Millennium Bulk Terminals acquired the 540-acre site. Officials planned to convert an old aluminium smelter into a profitable industrial export facility. They restored a wetland area in one part of the site to show their commitment and began the permit process to export coal.
That was four years ago.
Today, there are more birds and fish on the site than workers, and the coal terminal project has yet to be approved. The project’s environmental approval process is nearing the longest in the history of Washington state.
The terminal’s extended delay has had an economic impact on Longview, where the unemployment rate is roughly 8 percent, higher than the average for both the country and the state of Washington as a whole.
If completed, the project will export 44 million tons of coal per year to East Asia and provide jobs not only in Longview, but further inland in states like Wyoming and Montana.
The Washington Ecology Department told The Daily Caller News Foundation its final environmental review on the coal terminal will be released in 2017.
Regulators want the project to mitigate 50 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions generated not only at the site, but also from the use of the exported coal in Japan or Korea. Supporters call the regulation unprecedented; no other project in the state has been forced to consider life-cycle emissions.
“The precedent that the [draft environmental impact statement] sets would have enormous impacts for businesses across Washington State,” explained project President Bill Chapman who is an environmental lawyer by trade.
“Imagine if Boeing were required to include a calculation of the emissions from every flight one of its planes may take. Or if Amazon had to mitigate for the impacts for every product it shipped, no matter the usage,” Chapman said.
Chapman’s staff is small. The site only employs a mere 36 employees. If approved, that figure would jump more than 10 times, all for the local community. The 300-plus jobs would be in addition to the 2,650 linked to the construction of the $680 million project, as well as benefits to coal-mining communities in other states. Supporters estimate the terminal will generate $5.4 million annually in taxes for the state of Washington.
“It’s an economy that used to have twice as much income and activity. With unemployment at 8 percent, this community needs jobs. And not just minimum wage or service jobs – we need family wage jobs, which is what the community is used to and what Millennium will provide,” Chapman said. (RELATED: DOWN IN THE HOLE: A Look At The People And Way Of Life Suffering Under Washington, DC’s Plan For Coal)
While at work, Black often talks about the future of her two sons and the town they call home. Her youngest son is in the National Guard and is studying at a community college with an eye toward a future in the legal profession, she says. Her eldest graduated from community college two years ago, but was only able to find work at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. He might have been lucky to find even that; the Longview Kentucky Fried Chicken is the only KFC for a 45-minute drive in either direction along the nearby I-5.
While both of her parents worked in timber mills, Black’s career followed a different path. After earning a university degree in California, she returned to Longview to try her hand in industrial work, eventually becoming an ore loader. It was difficult work, but she got the hang of it. When the site began using a safer automated system, she was elated. Yet, the improvement was short-lived as the smelter closed one year later.
The Man They Named The Town After
In 1923, Long founded what he hoped would be a modern city for workers at his timber mill. It’s possible the mill was the largest in the world at that time.
Long commissioned a number of structures the community still uses today, including a public library and the Monticello Hotel. The industrial focus of the town began to shift during World War II. The site of the proposed Millennium Bulk Export terminal was turned into a coal-fired smelter to produce aluminium, a key component of Allied war planes.
Long’s statue still sits in the park downtown. A few feet away, Eric Gray, 37, played with his toddling son. Gray works as driver for a company that escorts railroad engineers to their assigned trains.
Gray made his support of the project clear, “I would really like to see it happen, I work for a company that services the train industry.”
“We pick-up conductors and engineers from wherever they stop and the people who I pick-up tell me that they put a coating on the coal so the dust doesn’t go everywhere,” Gray said. “It is more profitable to these companies to keep the dust contained. That’s the biggest complaint about the project but, people who are complaining about that are complaining about it from a position of ignorance.”
At a café within sight of the Monticello Hotel, city councilman Mike Wallin described the local economy, “A lot of people in the community are facing job loss and foreclosure on their homes. The area is really hungry for growth and we’re not in a position to get a Honda plant or a server farm.”
“Our strong point, what we are good at is shipping and receiving and we can take advantage of that,” he suggested.
The faded sign of the Monticello Hotel notwithstanding, the town of 37,000 people he insists is a great place to live. “With more money to fund new school teachers and new public workers, it could be even better,” Wallin said.
In Longview, disagreement with the plan can often focus on aesthetic issues. Steven Haine took a break from his jog around Longview’s Lake Sacajawea Park to offer his thoughts on the project.
“The new terminal will mean that the view of the Columbia River from a cemetery will be obstructed, now what kind of legacy is that?” he asked, to which a fellow runner gave his nod.
Nevertheless the majority of residents who spoke to TheDCNF during a visit to the town seem to be in favor of the project and the need to bring jobs to Longview.
A two hour drive north in Olympia, Wash., the Washington Farm Bureau’s short office building sits in a clearing.
CEO John Stuhlmiller, explained why Washington farmers support the Longview coal project. Stuhlmiller believes coal exports will further develop trans-pacific trading networks that will benefit farmers. He said the silos and facilities built for coal could easily expand to include agricultural exports. Rail improvements needed to support the coal trade will also help agriculture.
Making his pitch for the site, Stuhlmiller offered a big picture argument, “We are an export orientated state and we need to stay that way. This site has been handling coal since 1941, look if this site isn’t built the coal is going to be exported elsewhere. Maybe it will be exported from Canada or Mexico which would be a net loss of jobs to us here in Washington.”
“We want Asian economies to use American coal which is often higher quality and cleaner burning than the coal from other countries,” Stuhlmiller noted.
The Washington Farm Bureau is joined by the construction trade in its support for the project.
Lee Newgent, the executive secretary of the Washington State Building & Construction Trades Council speaks for many supporters of the site when he expresses frustration with the long approval process, “This is Washington’s longest ongoing project and it’s a record holder and it gets longer every day.”
“If you look at Canada, our competitor, it is an 18-month process to get environmental permits,” he said. “In Washington, we embrace the fact that you need to have an environmental impact assessment but, you shouldn’t be able to stall it out for infinity.”
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.
|
A federal judge in Michigan last night shut down a recount of ballots cast in the presidential election, upholding a state appeals court ruling that presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party, who initiated the recount action, was not an “aggrieved” candidate under Michigan law, and had no standing or valid reasons for demanding a recount.
Stein is appealing the decision, but it is likely to yield the same result as in Pennsylvania, where the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas yesterday backed up the election board’s refusal to allow Stein full access to the city’s voting machines and their programming software.
Stein’s recount push in Wisconsin so far has yielded negligible change in the final vote count, according to Wisconsin Election Commission officials.
The Green Party’s recount project has generated a great deal of discussion on Leid Stories. We make room for discussion today.
|
U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran (Photo: Clarion-Ledger file photo)
Sen. Thad Cochran used his clout as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee last month to add $640 million to a spending bill for a ninth Coast Guard National Security Cutter to be built in his home state of Mississippi.
The Coast Guard, however, says it doesn’t need the ship and made that clear to lawmakers.
Cochran said he pushed to include the money in the fiscal 2016 Homeland Security appropriations bill because it’s “important to our national security.’’ The Appropriations Committee approved the spending bill on June 18 and it now heads to the Senate floor.
Earmarking, lawmakers’ practice of inserting money for home-state projects into spending bills, was banned by the Senate in 2010. But it’s still possible for a powerful committee chairman like Cochran to steer funds to his state.
Democrats and government watchdog groups complain that money for the cutter, which would be built in Pascagoula, could be spent on other Coast Guard priorities.
“This is essentially a $640 million earmark for Huntington Ingalls to build another cutter,’’ said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “It wasn’t in the president’s budget. The Coast Guard isn’t clamoring for it.’’
Coast Guard officials say they need only eight cutters, which they say serve as the centerpieces of their fleet. The cutters support maritime homeland security and defense missions. Three already are operating in Alameda, California, and one is operating in Charleston, South Carolina.
“We have a few more on the way to bring us to eight,’’ said Chad Saylor, a spokesman for the Coast Guard. “From a Coast Guard perspective, that’s what we’re asking for.’’
Saylor said the agency’s top priority is getting more Offshore Patrol Cutters to replace aging medium-endurance cutters.
“That will bridge the gap between the National Security Cutters and the newer fast-response cutters,’’ he said.
Earlier this year, Coast Guard Admiral Paul Zukunft told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security that eight cutters would complete the fleet and the Offshore Patrol Cutter will be a “critical piece’’ of the Coast Guard’s strategy.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, top Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, raised concerns about the cutter funding.
“The concern was that the Coast Guard had not said that they need that particular ship right now,’’ Shaheen said Wednesday. “I’ve already voted for it, so I think it’s a moot point.’’
The news that Cochran had inserted money for the cutter in the Homeland Security spending bill was first reported by CQ Roll Call.
Cochran defended the move, saying the cutter is needed to help protect against terrorism and other threats, and would help the Coast Guard modernize its fleet.
“The current Coast Guard production goal for only eight National Security Cutters is based on dated assessments and is insufficient to meet current or future requirements,” he said in a press release.
John Bruce, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, said it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to push for such funding, even against the relevant agency’s wishes. He noted that shipbuilding is one of the few high-dollar industries in Mississippi.
“For as long as we’ve had a budget in the United States, budgeting is a political act,’’ Bruce said. “Putting money in the state is good for the state.’’
Before the 2010 earmarks ban, Cochran had a long history of steering federal money for special projects to Mississippi.
“Mississippi is a poor state that needs every dollar and job it can get,’’ said David Bositis, a political analyst who specializes in Southern politics. “It is a good thing for Mississippi, whether the Coast Guard asked for it or not, and Cochran represents Mississippi.’’
Cochran said recently that defense spending supports many jobs around the country, and that building ships is something his state does well.
“There are always new ships being built in Mississippi,” he said. “We’re very pleased to be a site for the construction of world-class ships.’’
Read or Share this story: http://hatne.ws/1ISIB3R
|
The team behind the Department of Energy’s solar program SunShot internally calls one of its projects “the Steve Jobs solicitation.” That’s the one officially named “Plug and Play Photovoltaics,” which is using $21 million to support projects that try to turn the process of installing solar panels on rooftops into an easy, simple and ultimately one-step product — a far cry from the current lengthy and relatively complicated process it is today.
The goal is noble. The so-called soft costs of solar — everything that doesn’t include the hardware — make up over half of the total costs of solar panel systems. Making solar panels that can be bought off the shelf, installed by a handy person or even the buyer, and instantly connected to the power grid would not only reduce the cost of solar panels significantly, but could also expand the market considerably by making it more accessible.
Advertisement
Unfortunately, making solar panels plug-and-play will likely be complicated: Some company that is the Apple of solar won’t just be able to jump in and building new user-friendly products to disrupt the market. Startups have tried it on the hardware product side a variety of times, with little success to date, though there is still some interesting innovation happening around more niche DIY solar systems.
I don’t mean to downplay the innovations that have already made the process of buying home solar systems much more efficient. Companies like SolarCity and Sungevity have done a lot of heavy lifting in this area, creating new types of financing, marketing and ways to access installers, among other things.
The solar market is just so complicated compared to consumer electronics or even appliances, hampered with regulation and permits and filled with slow-moving utilities, that I think Steve Jobs would completely despise working in it, despite the fact that he was concerned with sustainability later in Apple’s life. I guess he had to face some of these issues when Apple launched into the phone industry.
There are some obvious explanations for why purely plug-and-play solar panel systems will be difficult. Namely, solar panels aren’t iPhones. They are heavy, usually installed on rooftops (though they can also be set up on the ground), have to plug into home electrical systems, need permits in most locations and, for net metering programs, need to be approved by the local utility. Plug-and-play solar in reality would probably look more like buying a washing machine: a buyer could order it online or in a store, but an electrician might have to come and install it.
Solar entrepreneur Danny Kennedy, founder of solar incubator SfunCube, has been working in the solar market for years and thinks plug-and-play solar probably won’t be coming any time soon, and maybe not ever. “Technology diffusion of services requires the vendor to keep it simple, and most of the stuff I have seen so far is too DIY for normal people,” notes Kennedy. He adds, “We need to take this out of people’s hands, make it painless and seamless with other lifestyle technologies rather than make it something you have to plug in to the grid to play.”
In that respect, making solar more plug-and-play will need a lot of little product innovations across all of these aspects of the solar process, instead of just one killer hardware product. Research firm the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems is working on just such a multi-faceted project with backing from the SunShot program, to make solar able to be bought, installed and connected by homeowners without outside contractors or consultants, and within a day. It says it’s using a “multidisciplinary team” that includes “manufacturers, utilities, local governments and research institutions,” to figure out how this would work.
What does this need from their perspective? Fraunhofer says some of the keys to its project are:
lightweight solar modules
self-sealing roof mounts
distributed power conversion (for safe, simple wiring on the outside of the building)
self-testing system components
a communications protocol that allows the installed system to easily communicate with local utilities and obtain the necessary permissions to access the utility grid
tweaking of national codes and local building requirements and regulations
So, yeah, it’s a little complicated. Fraunhofer has a $11.7 million grant and five years to try to do this. Partners on the program include Lumeta Solar; Petra Solar; Schletter; the City of Boston; the Town of Rutland, Vermont; Vermont utility Green Mountain Power; the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing; Vermont Law School; Tufts University and Sandia National Laboratories. Phew. North Carolina State University’s FREEDM Systems Engineering Center is also working on a plug-and-play solar project supported by SunShot.
One of the key aspects that could be truly disruptive to come out of this Fraunhofer project — and which Steve Jobs would probably approve of — are solar systems that can automatically check themselves for proper installation and instantly communicate with the local utility for permission to feed power into the smart meter. The utility could then remotely use software to grant the system permission or not, and the solar project could immediately start producing power.
In an era of the internet of things and always-on connectivity, it just makes sense to do this using computing and networks. It reminds me of setting up an Apple router.
There are also some big picture infrastructure decisions, as well as next-gen technology, that could help with making solar more plug-and-play. When SunShot first launched its plug-and-play solar solicitation in 2012, I attended a brainstorming session where interested participants gave these suggestions:
Have houses be solar-ready already: Develop a standard PV plug at the utility meter. Change the National Electrical Code. Have houses get smart solar-ready circuit breakers.
Use polymers and new materials that don’t need roof penetrations or specialized tools. Can a solar system fit over a roof like a bed sheet?
Panels that are very light can avoid some of these issues. Spray-on paint photovoltaics?
Add GPS to panels to help them self-locate for best sun generation placement.
The main target for this discussion has been the U.S. market and other developed markets that have regular access to the power grid. Ultimately, though, emerging off-grid rural markets could play an even bigger role with plug-and-play solar (though in the U.S., connecting to the power grid is half the battle). Companies are currently selling solar systems to rural villagers in Africa and India. Local entrepreneurs or home owners can install them, maintain and monitor them via cell phone networks.
Many of these systems aren’t powerful enough to serve the electricity needs of an American home, but perhaps these technologies and entrepreneurs could provide valuable lessons for programs like the one Fraunhofer is working on. While plug-and-play solar might be a far distant dream in the U.S., it’s already happening off of the power grid.
|
J.G. Keely Jun 01, 2007
it was ok bookshelves: contemporary-fiction, fantasy, religion, reviewed
Recommended for: the inconsolably confused 's review
I usually like historical fiction, but this particular example has been so mitigated by the poorly-hidden didactic tautology of its too-many-cooks legion of anonymous authors and editors that it was rather difficult to enjoy. It also fell into a similar trap to the somewhat similar 'Da Vinci Code', in that it utilized a lot of poorly-researched materials and claimed them as fact.
A lot of the data matched up poorly with other historical accounts, especially when it came to numerical data. It seems that the authors of this book had a need for an epic beyond epics, and several bodycounts beyond the capability of a pre-modern war.
There was also a problem with the moral and ethical position presented by the book. Normally, I'm not one to nit-pick about such things, since the exploration of ethicism is an important and interesting philosophical task; but, again, this book went in so many different directions with it that it was difficult to keep up. Though the intermittent noir-ish first-person narrative made a lot of moral claims about peace and justice and acceptance, the actual actions depicted by the self-same 'protagonist' were often in complete contrast, such as when he killed all the people in the world except one family.
In fact, the entire book seemed to be filled with sensationalist violence, sex, and incest. It's surprising that I haven't heard more crimes blamed on this book, which often orders the reader to kill people by throwing stones at them (I've heard the sequel, the Qur'an, is even worse).
Eventually, I began to suspect that the book was some sort of in-joke. I think that when all of the editors and writers saw what the other ones were writing, they decided to take their names off the book. Eventually, I guess they just decided to pull a sort of ultimate 'Alan Smithee'; but of course, once all culpability is gone, I think a lot of the authors lost their will to make this into a good book, and so it just got published 'as is'.
I know there are a lot of fans of this book, which makes sense, I guess, since it is really a lot like that Da Vinci Code book, which was also a bestseller. It is pretty fantastical and has a lot of really strong characters, like Jesus (though he's a bit of a Mary-Sue, isn't he?) and Onan. One of the main reasons I read it was because there's this really awesome Fanfic this guy Milton wrote about it, and apparently a lot of other authors were inspired by it, but I have to admit, this is one case where the Fanfic is a lot better than the original.
I guess it's like how sometimes, the first example of a genre ends up not really fitting because it feels so unsophisticated and erratic. I know that it can take a long time to try to get these ideas down pat. Maybe someone will rewrite it someday and try to get it to make some sense. Then again, it wasn't that great in the first place.
There was some really great writing in the book, though. Some of the poetic statements were really cool, like 'do unto others' or 'through a glass darkly', but I heard that those parts were stolen from Shakespeare, who stole them from Kyd, so I'm not really sure what to believe.
I think this is one of those cases where the controversy surrounding the book really trumps the book itself, like 'The Catcher in the Rye' or 'Gigli'. In fact, the Bible is a lot like Gigli.
|
French protestors are rising up in their millions against a ruling class determined to take away their rights. There is anarchy on the streets of France as the mainstream media continues to suppress the scale of events.
Thousands of masked protesters and police fought running street battles in France this week, with police using water cannon to quell rioters who hurled projectiles at them and destroyed storefronts, joining the millions of French citizens who have protested against new anti-worker laws that are designed to protect and enrich a wealthy elite at the expense of ordinary people.
The protesters in Paris represent all working class people united, mobilized, and resisting the greed of globalist elites. Police involved are violently fighting against the people and protecting the interests of the ruling class.
However as the government, police and mainstream media continue to suppress this important movement’s progress, the people continue to rise up.
Western mainstream media continues to suppress information regarding the scale and intensity of the revolution taking place on French streets.
While the world is distracted by the Euro 2016 football championships in France, the elites are taking away people’s rights and blood is being shed in the streets.
There is anarchy in the streets and the police are having trouble keeping pace. They have begged the protestors to stop the relentless protests, complained of exhaustion, and have even held their own protest against ‘the brutality of the protestors’ – that resulted in a police car getting torched.
The government have also tried to make protesting illegal, while they attempt to push the new laws through the lower house without a vote using a constitutional manoeuvre. With the two chambers unlikely to agree a final version, the lower house will have the final say, and the government is expected to use the same manoeuvre to pass the bill into law without a vote.
According to an opinion poll published on Tuesday, 73 percent of the French would be “shocked and appalled” by such a move.
The new law is referred to by the name of the Minister of Labour Myriam El Khomri, and was first presented by her in February, sparking a series of relentless protests that show no sign of stopping.
The El Khomri legislation was introduced in its original French as the “draft legislation aimed at implementing new freedoms and protections for businesses and workers.” To refer to this law as a new freedom or protection for workers is laughable, and is really a kick in the face for the people. What the law really does is expand protections and freedoms for the wealthy elite and no one else.
The protests began on March 9 with the movement being called “Nuit debut,” translated roughly as “standing up all night.” The French ruling class is trying keep control through the police baton in order to keep the masses down. The El Khomri bill essentially boils down to stripping people of their rights and giving more control to the elites. The French job market reform is outrageous for a country struggling with a high unemployment rate of 10 percent and a stagnant economy.
Although the movement is centered primarily around the job market reform bill, there are much broader concerns involved, such as: universal basic income, opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), amnesty for undocumented workers, solidarity with refugees, and the gender pay gap. France’s mobilized collective are on a progressive mission to create another world to realize social justice and demand dignity for ordinary people.
President Hollande and Prime Minister Manual Valls say they will not listen to the millions of protesters or the massive majority of citizens who disapprove of the law. Since the French protests began attempts have been made to hinder their cause. Every measure to dismiss the protesters has been attempted; everything from police teargas to the Prime Minister Valls portraying protestors as “rioters” and “ultra-violent youths.” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve had the gall to tell protesters “to find within themselves a little humanity, tolerance and respect. “
Even the police have tried to garner sympathy away from protesters when they claimed they were too “exhausted” to deal with continued protests. French leaders have threatened a ban on protests, with even tougher crackdowns by police, after Valls claimed that the protesters were out “to kill a police officer.” The threatened ban by the French government on demonstrations was reverted on June 22 after falling under harsh criticism and backlash.
|
More than $4 million was raised by 12 candidates in the third quarter of 2017 as the battle to become Oklahoma’s next governor continues to shape up.
The race, which will likely end up being the most expensive in Oklahoma’s history by the time it ends in November 2018, appears at least financially to be between four men: Republicans Todd Lamb, Kevin Stitt and Mick Cornett, and Democrat Drew Edmondson.
Third-quarter fundraising and expenditure forms were due to be filed Tuesday.
Stitt, a mortgage broker from Tulsa, made the strongest third-quarter splash, raising $811,000 in donations. He loaned himself an additional $800,000, according to finance documents.
Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb continued strong fundraising efforts by raising $620,000 in the third quarter. Lamb, who began the quarter with more than $2 million in his war chest thanks to strong fundraising and another $1 million left over from his Lieutenant Governor campaign, has the most money at his disposal of all the candidates — $2,413,830.65, more than a million dollars more than Stitt.
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett reported raising $592,157.29, the fourth highest total among the group behind Stitt, Lamb, and Tulsa attorney Gary Richardson.
Richardson reporting raising $25,000 in donations and loaned himself an additional $825,000, records show.
Drew Edmondson, the leading Democratic candidate in the race following the stunning withdrawal of House Minority Leader Scott Inman last month, reported raising $243,990.00 in donations.
Inman reported raising $69,628.70 in the third quarter, but withdrew from the race Oct. 25 in the midst of a special session at the state capitol as the legislature battled over the state budget crisis.
Inman indicated he would serve in the legislature throughout the year, and said in a Facebook post the day of his announcement that “The stresses and strains of my career, the time away from my family and the choice to wrongly prioritize my life’s decisions have brought me to this moment. I can no longer ask my wife and children to sacrifice for me. It is time for me to reprioritize what is important in this world.”
Dan Fisher, a former Republican state representative from El Reno, entered the race with a strong third quarter, raising $90,660.45 — a figure that included a $20,000 loan to himself.
State Auditor Gary Jones, a Republican from Cache, raised $32,200.00 in donations, according to records.
Connie Johnson, a former Democratic state senator, reported raising just over $17,000. With Inman’s departure, Johnson is one of only two Democratic candidates and is the only female in the race.
Joseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado was the only one of three Libertarian candidates to report raising more than $1,000 during the third quarter. Maldonado raised $1,837.08, but faced tragedy at the same time, announcing in early October that his husband — Travis Maldonado — had accidentally shot and killed himself.
Garvin County Sheriff Larry Rhodes told The Oklahoman that Travis Maldonado “held a gun to his head and told others with him it would not fire before he pulled the trigger,” the newspaper reported.
As far as expenditures for the quarter, Stitt spent the most money, $263,119.69, primarily on campaign consulting and advertising.
Third quarter fundraising
Kevin Stitt, R-Tulsa, $1,611,147.27
Gary Richardson, R-Tulsa, $850,232.77
Todd Lamb, R-OKC, $620,743.79
Mick Cornett, R-OKC, $592,157.29
Drew Edmondson, D-OKC, $243,990.00
Dan Fisher, R-El Reno, $90,660.45
Scott Inman, D-OKC, $69,628.70
Gary Jones, R-Cache, $32,200.00
Connie Johnson, D-OKC, $17,049.00
Joseph Maldonado, R-Wynnewood, $1,837.08
Chris Powell, L-Bethany, $757
Rex Lawhorn, L-Broken Arrow, $325
Third quarter expenditures
Kevin Stitt, R-Tulsa, $263,119.69
Drew Edmondson, D-OKC, $207,190.46
Todd Lamb, R-OKC, $190,911.82
Mick Cornett, R-OKC, $146,946.57
Gary Richardson, R-TUlsa, $103,157.43
Scott Inman, R-OKC, $60,997.12
Dan Fisher, R-El Reno, $27,633.99
Connie Johnson D-OKC, $25,775.93
Gary Jones, R-Cache, $10,966.72
Joseph Maldonado, R-Wynnewood, $1,758.75
Chris Powell, L-Bethany, $172.40
Rex Lawhorn, L-Broken Arrow, $0
Your financial support for our investigative journalism is now tax deductible. To become a Friend of The Frontier, click here.
|
ADVERTISEMENT
"Did you come in from Providence?" Lincoln Chafee asks me.
We are about half a mile from the T.F. Green Airport, just around the corner from the Rhode Island Army National Guard and the Don Rodrigues Karate Academy ("HOME OF THE CHAMPIONS!") in a non-descript strip mall with an H&R Block, a Rent-a-Center, an IHOP, a Chipotle, a Dollar Tree, and Chafee's cozy office. It is a pleasant-looking, comfortably ramshackle affair, with a mix of antique furniture and randomly acquired kitsch. There does not appear to be a computer, and the television set is a small model with a built-in VHS player; one of the shelves is filled with hand-labeled videocassettes. Two of the lamps have shades with ducks on them. On the back wall beside a modest but obviously sturdy desk is a map of the United States and Canada shaded according to energy sources and usage.
Seated at a little table in the middle, wearing a denim shirt with a button-down collar, white chinos, and tasseled moccasins with no socks on what must be one of the rainiest days of the year, is the former governor and senator, a Brown University classics major and ferrier who spent seven years in the 1980s trimming hooves at racetracks before running for city council here in Warwick. He is beaming, and wants to make sure I'm looked after.
I explain to him that I took the Acela train up from Washington, D.C.
"Well, I can run you back up to Prov," he says, still smiling.
"I can do it," Debbie, his assistant, says insistently.
"No, I can."
"Please, I'll do it."
"Well, either, or we could both go."
"Let's fight over it."
But they don't, at least not yet. Instead Chafee asks me about my background, where I'm from ("Where were you raised?" is how he puts it), whether I "came east to school" (I did not), and how exactly I managed to fall into journalism. When I say that I would love my work if it were not for the cost of living in the D.C. area, he nods.
"All the big cities — New York, San Francisco, Boston — are unaffordable for regular kind of people," he says pensively.
The implication here, I suppose, is that unlike him I am very clearly one of those "regular kind of people." He doesn't emphasize it in a nasty or condescending way. But it's something he seems incapable of failing to notice.
"Linc," as he has been known to family, friends, and enemies since childhood, is the sexagenarian scion of one of Rhode Island's so-called Five Families, the Lippitts, Metcalfes, Goddards, Browns, and Chafees who from the Colonial era until the turn of the last century managed in one fashion or another to control the political and economic destiny of the Ocean State. The dynastic fortunes of the Chafees have been exhaustively, indeed exhaustingly, traced from the early 17th century up to 1909 by William Henry Chafee, who in his rare and admirable magnum opus The Chafee Genealogy notes that, in keeping with the vagaries of Yankee phonetics, the surname has since the family's arrival on this continent been spelled alternately Chafe, Chafee, Chafy, Chafie, Chafey, Chaphe, Chaffy, Chaffie, Chaffey, and Chaffee. The present form seems to have established itself firmly by the time of Dudley and G. Dexter Chafee in the early 20th century.
R.A. Wheeler of Stonington, Connecticut, has carried Henry's research much further, showing how Elizabeth Chaphe, the wife of Charles C. Morgan, was, by way of Louis I, Charles II, Louis II, Charles III, Louis IV, the Second Earl of Arundel, Lady Mabel d'Albini, Sir Hugh de Cailly, Lancelot Lake of Normanton and his wife, Catherine, Silas Holmes, and many, many others over the course of some 1,200 years, a descendent of Charlemagne and Hildegarde.
And today, we have Linc.
Lincoln Davenport Chafee was born in Providence in 1956 to John and Virginia (née Coates) Chafee. One of his favorite childhood memories is of running up and down an empty compartment with his brother on a train bound for the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco. The boys were with their father, who was convinced that his party was about to nominate his fellow East Coast moderate Nelson Rockefeller. The party's eventual nominee was someone on whom little love was lost in the Chafee household. Barry Goldwater, Chafee Sr. said, "sounded like he was more concerned with being right than with winning."
The animus continues to this day. President Lyndon Johnson, "when he signed the Civil Rights Act — smart man — he signed away the South for the Democratic Party," says Chafee, who in 20 years of holding elected office as a Republican never once opened a copy of National Review. "Goldwater, a Republican, in '64 won six states down there.
"Because," he continues in a contemptuous faux-spooky whisper, "he voted against civil rights."
Chafee does not sound like a bitter man, but he is certainly a frustrated one, in the way that someone who has spent most of his adult life politically homeless can be. With Goldwater's nomination, libertarian economics gained a foothold in the Republican Party that it has never lost; two decades later what we now think of as social conservatism came into its own during the Reagan administration. By the time Chafee came to the Senate in 1999, filling the vacancy left by the death of his father, they were both relics.
Chafee sees his former party as a lost cause, given over to "fire breathers" and racists and cynics. He thinks most ordinary Republican voters are pulling the lever against their economic interests.
"Tax cuts for the wealthy!" he says, his voice screeching with high-pitched derision. "What is the average person thinking when they go to vote for someone who supports more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? The average person is gonna end up with a bill, but when the economy crashed millionaires still had their homes and their jets and still did fine."
How does he account for Republicans' continued political success, then? "You have to wonder if racism isn't in this conversation," he says. "I scratch my head at the return of the Republican Party starting in those oddball elections in New Jersey and Virginia [in 2009 gubernatorial elections] and Massachusetts — Ted Kennedy's seat! — and winning the House and finally winning the Senate. Was a lot of that fueled by having an African-American president? How do you explain the return to power of a party that got us into a totally unnecessary war in Iraq? Republicans were in power all those years before everybody lost their houses and lost their jobs, but they came back to power. How is that possible?"
Chafee also suggests more than once that it is "the social issues" that prevent working- and lower-middle-class people from voting for policies that would improve their well-being. I ask him what he thinks about the controversy that raged in the Democratic Party over Heath Mello, the pro-life Democratic mayoral candidate in Omaha, Nebraska, who lost despite an endorsement from and campaign appearances with Bernie Sanders after being virtually abandoned by the chairman of the DNC. Is it okay for candidates in his new party to oppose abortion and gay marriage? Could it actually help Democrats win races in places like Nebraska?
Linc takes a deep breath at first and pauses for nearly 10 seconds. "I would think that Sen. Sanders is right," he says finally. "Different points of view have to be welcome. Democrats have to start having a conversation on important issues. What does the average person want out of government? A better life for my children, so there's not this huge debt that's gonna cascade all around them. They want to be safe. I think post 9/11 there's still a — I call it the 'Fear and Anger Card,' which was played after 9/11. 'They're coming down Main Street tomorrow!' Come on. America's got the strongest military of the next 10 countries combined. We learned lessons from the Cold War. If you reach out to Mao Zedong, reach out to Gorbachev, good things happen. Talk about balancing the budget! That's where the money is. The old Willie Sutton line, 'Why rob banks? That's where the money is!' That's where the money is."
"The most important thing is the pocketbook issues," he says. "Be flexible in some of the other areas, social issues. What we really want our government to be doing is to keep us safe. Don't get us into unnecessary wars. Get us a surplus. Don't pass on our debt to our children. Get our roads and bridges, our Amtrak functioning properly."
He suggests that it was this unwavering focus on "the pocketbook issues" that made Sanders such a formidable opponent in the Democratic primary, in which Chafee briefly competed. "The crowds that Sen. Sanders would get during the campaign were just unbelievable," he says. "People would come from all over, and it was a mix of old hippies and idealistic millennials because he was an outsider — but he also had the experience of having been a mayor."
Linc starts tapping his desk.
"And having been a mayor, I know you have to pick up the garbage, you have to pick up the streets when it snows, you have to have the schools functioning, you have to have the police and fire responding when you call. He wasn't just a socialist or a dreamer. He could get things done. He was an excellent candidate in my view—"
He pauses.
"In this atmosphere of anti-elitism, of," pausing again and sneeringly slightly, "outsider thirst."
Here and elsewhere it is possible to detect beneath the caricature of Chafee as a gentle political naïf more than a hint of the old-time good-government Republican suspicious of the devious machinations of his newly adopted party and their amoral political machines. This is true not least in his discussion of the 2016 election and his erstwhile opponent Hillary Clinton. "The Clintons have been around a long time and they're near the DNC," he says. "It's not different here at the local level. If the state party wants somebody, the apparatus is going to run with them. But I just think she was a poor candidate. She just didn't appeal to the Rust Belt states. That's why I ran, to say, 'Let's give people a choice, this shouldn't be a coronation.'"
Did he ever think there was a chance for things to go differently?
"It was all rigged in the media," he says. "CNN had that debate. A farce. I do believe there was collaboration. The New York Times didn't even put it in the paper that I was running. I went through it again thinking, 'There's got to be a little blurb, a little box somewhere,' and so now we have Trump."
Despite his sunny demeanor — even when mocking his opponents or castigating half of the American voting public as racists happy to fall prey to demagogic appeals, a polite smile almost never leaves his face — Chafee does not strike me as very optimistic about the future of American politics. Fittingly for an old-school good-government New England reformer, it is the problem of money in politics that he thinks may spell our doom. His go-to example is single-payer health care. "You have to factor in the power of money," he says. "McCain-Feingold tried to do something about it, something that actually passed and was signed by the president. As long as you have the insurance companies donating gazillions of dollars and all those special interests, I think single payer, well, you have to back away from it. There's just too much money involved the cost of running these races in the House and the Senate and with Citizens United, it's unlimited. [Rhode Island ] Gov. [Gina] Raimondo is running ads now. She's not up till 2018, but there's a deluge of ads going up now."
When we are finished with our interview, he asks me again how I plan on getting back to the train station and suggests that I borrow an umbrella from him, an offer I politely decline after I point out that it will be impossible for me to return it, unless he would like me to send it back in the mail. On the ride question, once again he is insistent. So too is Debbie.
"No, it's fine," she says, "I'll take him." She also offers to take me to lunch.
"Fair enough then."
This is not the first fight that Lincoln Davenport Chafee has lost in his quixotic holdover of a political career. For his sake and the country's I hope it isn't his last.
|
Lance Franklin in the 2016 AFL grand final.
Australian footballer Lance “Buddy” Franklin has it; so does rugby league great Wally Lewis. Writers such as Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie had it, along with singers Elton John and Neil Young. Even the history books show people who had it, including Vladimir Lenin and maybe Socrates, Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte. It is epilepsy, a disruption of the normal electrochemical activity of the brain that results in seizures, some brief and almost undetectable, some violent and longer lasting. November is Epilepsy Awareness Month and a good time to refresh your understanding of the disorder.
According to Epilepsy Australia, 50 per cent of people who have one seizure go on to have more. For those at risk of recurring seizures, about 70 per cent can expect to gain some control with medication, while others seek advice on interventions including surgery, stimulation of the vagus nerve, a ketogenic diet or medicinal cannabis. Several states are running clinical trials of cannabinoids, which may help children with severe, treatment-resistant epilepsy. In August, NSW allowed doctors to prescribe cannabis-based medicines in certain circumstances, while Queensland last week passed laws to facilitate the regulated manufacture and cultivation of crops.
Cannabinoids will be discussed next week when the Epilepsy Society of Australia holds its scientific meeting in Canberra. International speakers include Daniel Freedman from the NYU Comprehensive Epilepsy Centre and Imad Michel Najm from Cleveland Clinic’s Epilepsy Centre, both in the US, and neurologist Jukka Peltola from Tampere University Hospital in Finland.
Read Next
Celebrities and public figures serve as an example of what can be achieved despite the condition. Across the world, an estimated 65 million people have epilepsy, about 250,000 of those in Australia.
Perth entrepreneur Samantha Hall was first diagnosed after a series of unexpected seizures while she was a student and was put on medication to control the symptoms. Unlike other kids, she never “grew out of” epilepsy, and a lesion on her temporal lobe ultimately was identified as the cause. In March 2008, Hall had surgery and hasn’t had a seizure since, helping her complete further study and co-found a sustainability consulting company, as well as launching a tech start-up, Rate My Space.
While not wanting to give others false hope that surgery will help, Hall says she always expected to get her epilepsy under control one day. “The key lesson for me is that I wish I hadn’t let epilepsy control my life as much as I did; it governed my decision-making and it destroyed my confidence, which has taken me years to rebuild,” Hall says.
Sunday is International SUDEP Awareness Day, focusing on sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. SUDEP is the most common cause of epilepsy-related death and it is often those left behind who campaign for research and greater awareness.
“SUDEP research has been very restricted due to a lack of funding,” says SUDEP Action’s Rosemary Panelli, from the University of Melbourne. “Bereaved families worldwide have been inspirational in leading the way through community advocacy and fundraising to help push research forward and to speed up prevention.”
Janine Mifsud lost her daughter Kirsty and was shocked to discover how little was known about SUDEP. Margaret Callaghan, who lost her son Matthew and supports research efforts, says she hopes the cause of SUDEP will soon be understood and discussed openly. Sue Harris, who lost her daughter Celene, is heartened by the fact SUDEP is becoming more well-known.
Education and support provider Epilepsy Action Australia has launched E-Tea for November, encouraging people to host morning or afternoon tea to raise money and awareness. “It’s not widely known but people with epilepsy face a multitude of challenges that prevent them from leading optimal lives,” Epilepsy Action Australia chief executive Carol Ireland says. “It can be a lonely and isolating condition, leading to anxiety or depression. It can consume families mentally and financially, and it can impact dramatically on children’s learning. Then there is the social stigma and exclusion that still occurs. Every day should be epilepsy awareness day, so please, pop the kettle on this November and make a difference to someone’s life — and have a great time doing it.”
Get involved via www.epilepsy.org.au.
Sean Parnell Health Editor Brisbane Sean Parnell is Health Editor and FOI Editor at The Australian and was a political reporter for 10 years. Sean is a member of the Open Government Partnership Media Council, has been interviewed for various TV a... Read more
Read Next
|
Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Tuesday reminded followers of the intrinsic relationship between wealth and the lotus in Hindu mythology, an obvious reference to the election symbol of the BJP.
Advertising
Sri Sri urged his followers to usher in “change” to save the country, which he said was on a “ventilator”.
“Lakshmi kamal pe hi baith ke aati hai (The goddess of wealth rides on the lotus),” Sri Sri said to a gathering of teachers of Art of Living (AOL), devotees, and other people in Vasant Vihar in south Delhi.
Expressing concern over the current state of India’s economy and politics, the guru said, “Desh ventilator pe hai. Isko bachana hai. (The country is on a ventilator. We must save it.)”
Advertising
An AOL teacher, who had come from west Delhi to attend the gathering, told The Indian Express that Sri Sri had asked devotees to vote for change. “Guruji said that we must now let the old government rest. We need a stable government and an experienced person to lead us,” said the teacher, who declined to give her name.
Sri Sri reportedly gave the example of an uphill ride in a car, when an experienced driver would be preferable to one without any experience. In the same vein, he is learnt to have said that if a person was undergoing surgery, he would want an experienced surgeon rather than an inexperienced one.
Responding to questions on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Sri Sri said, “AAP achchhe hain, magar kachche hain. (AAP are good, but they are inexperienced.)”
AOL volunteers had extended support in large numbers to India Against Corruption’s 2011 movement led jointly by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal. Most of them are, however, disenchanted with AAP now.
“Jhadu lagaane ke liye haath toh uthaana hi padta hai (One needs to use the ‘Hand’ to sweep with the ‘Broom’),” Surbhi Gupta, a 19-year old Delhi University student and AOL volunteer said, referring to AAP being supported by the Congress.
“I was extremely disappointed when AAP decided to quit in 49 days. The public gave them five years to show their work, and they should have performed in this period. This is the first Lok Sabha election in which I will vote, and my vote will go to BJP,” she said.
The BJP candidate from East Delhi, Mahesh Girri, met Sri Sri on Wednesday to seek the guru’s blessings before beginning his election campaign. Girri has been associated with AOL for over a decade, having served as the foundation’s international director, and led its various social initiatives.
AOL volunteers have been going around in their localities since January conducting “Happiness Surveys” that seek people’s responses on governance and the coming elections. The idea is to gauge the mood over the issues that will decide these elections, the relative popularity of parties, and levels of voter satisfaction or dissatisfaction over corruption, inflation, etc.
The volunteers have also been reportedly visiting colleges and educational institutions to encourage the youth to vote.
Advertising
Manju Marwah, a 29-year-old volunteer, told The Indian Express, “About 80 per cent of the youth we interacted with in colleges do not have voter ID cards. They are not concerned about the state of affairs in the country. But Guruji said we must encourage them to vote, explain to them the importance of exercising this right, and fulfill our duty as citizens of the nation.”
|
Generations of schoolchildren have learned that the Great Fire of London sparked into life at Thomas Farriner’s bakery. But the precise origin of the blaze has now been traced to a spot that does not sit within the infamous Pudding Lane, but is in fact located on a nearby street.
'The site had been left empty, because there was an assumption that – like with the Twin Towers in New York – they shouldn’t build on it'
The discovery – based on a planning document from 1679 found within the bowels of the London Metropolitan Archives and published in Country Life magazine – comes exactly 350 years after the fire devastated London, sweeping through 436 acres of the city and destroying 13,200 houses and 87 churches.
The blaze is known to have begun in the early hours of September 2, 1666, in Farriner’s property, where it is thought that the baker had left fuel close to his oven – to dry out for the next day’s baking. Farriner and his family escaped through an upstairs window, although the family’s maid was not so lucky, and became one of only a handful of Londoners to die in the fire.
'I assumed it was known. It was only later when I tried to check it that I realised that no one else knew' Dorian Gerhold
While Pudding Lane survives to this day, the true location of Farriner’s property has been lost in the mists of time. A commemorative stone placed on the site in 1680, which blamed Catholics for the fire, was removed in about 1750, because crowds of sightseers blocked the narrow passageway.
The Monument, the Doric column erected to remember the fire, bears an inscription that states only that the blaze began 202 feet away - the same distance as the height of the memorial itself.
Photo: Getty Images
Now the site has been rediscovered, after Dorian Gerhold, an academic who is researching buildings erected in the capital before 1720, unearthed a 1679 survey of the site of Farriner’s bakery.
At a spot towards the rear of the property, a note reads: “Mr Fariners grounde there the Fyer began.”
Mr Gerhold was able to cross reference the plot with later maps of the area – including the 1886 plans for the creation of Monument Street – a road that leads to the famous column.
Photo: Glyn Thomas Photography / Alamy
Those plans, combined with measuring 202 feet from the Monument itself, show that the oven was located on what is now the cobbled surface of Monument Street, 60 feet east of Pudding Lane.
Mr Gerhold said that at first he did not realise the significance of his discovery.
He said: “I assumed it was known. It was only later when I tried to check it that I realised that no one else knew.
"The site had been left empty, because there was an assumption that – like with the Twin Towers in New York – they shouldn’t build on it. Someone applied to use the land as storage, so people were sent to do a report, and that is what I found.”
Stephen Porter, an expert on the blaze and the author of The Great Fire of London, said that Mr Gerhold’s report, which will be published in the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Transactions journal later this year, was a “deft piece of research”.
'This is sound evidence' Stephen Porter, Great Fire of London expert
He added: “This is sound evidence and Dorian’s methodical account is also reliable. From this we know the location of the plot and the shape of Farriner’s property, which is good, and we now know with a reasonable degree of certainty where the fire started.
"This is a deft piece of research which identifies for us the location and layout of where the Great Fire began and helps us to understand the origins of the fire and how the disaster could have begun.”
Read the full article in the latest issue of Country Life magazine, on sale now.
|
McDonald's workers filed seven class-action lawsuits in New York, California and Michigan Thursday over wage theft violations.
The suits allege that McDonald's has forced employees to work off the clock, not paid them overtime and struck hours off their time cards.
The suits were announced in a conference call led by the workers' lawyers and organizers of the union-backed campaign to raise fast food wages across the country.
"We've uncovered several unlawful schemes, but they all share a common purpose -- to drive labor costs down by stealing wages from McDonald's workers," said Michael Rubin of Altshuler Berzon LLP, an attorney who represents California workers.
Workers in California claim that McDonald's (MCD) and its franchisees did not pay them for all of the hours they worked, and did not give them timely breaks.
The employees in Michigan allege that they would start getting paid only when customers walked into the restaurants, even if they showed up to work hours earlier.
New York McDonald's workers, who filed their case in federal court ,claim the fast food chain did not reimburse them for the cost of cleaning uniforms. They say it drives some workers' real wages below the minimum wage, which is a violation of federal labor law.
Related: The real budgets of McDonald's workers
These claims violate the federal Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which sets minimum wage, overtime pay, record-keeping and other standards for workers across the country.
News of these cases come hours before President Obama is expected to ask the Labor Department to issue tougher rules on overtime. The move is expected to lead to extra pay for millions of workers who aren't currently paid for extra work hours.
But wage theft at fast food chains has been an long standing issue. Last year, the New York State attorney general said he was investigating if fast food restaurant owners cheated their workers out of wages.
Since 1985, the Labor Department has found that McDonald's and its franchises have had to pay back wages more than 300 times for FLSA violations.
McDonald's said in a statement that it is currently reviewing the allegations in the lawsuits.
"McDonald's and our independent franchisees are committed to undertaking a comprehensive investigation of the allegations and will take any necessary actions as they apply to our respective organizations."
Related: My protest paid off: Fast-food workers speak out
Fast food workers have been striking since November 2012, campaigning for McDonald's and other chains to increase their minimum wages to $15 per hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.
The movement began with a small walkout in New York City and has since gathered momentum. Strikes this past December drew fast food workers in 100 cities, organizers said.
McDonald's in particular came under fire for setting up a "McResource" helpline for its workers, which helped its employees navigate getting access to government programs like food stamps and heating assistance.
The burger chain also caught heat for for releasing a budget planning guide for its employees on the McResource site. The sample budget was criticized as being out of touch because it didn't account for either food or gasoline, a big expense for low income workers.
The budget also left room for an income from a second job, which many called an admission by the fast food giant that its workers can't live on wages from one job at McDonald's.
The fast food chain has since taken the McResource site down.
The median pay for the fast food workers nationwide stands at just more than $9 an hour, or about $18,500 a year. That's roughly $4,500 lower than Census Bureau's poverty income threshold level of $23,000 for a family of four.
A report released in October by the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center and the University of Illinois found that more than half of families of fast food workers receive some form of public assistance. The report estimated that this aid carries a $7 billion annual price tag for taxpayers.
|
View all our training modules linked to on one page.
Coupons and offers to help you save money promoting your websites.
Links to useful audio and video information. We will create new SEO videos every month.
Creating a credible website is core to being linkworthy and selling to customers.
Learn how to track your success with organic SEO and PPC ads. Includes information about web analytics.
If you need feedback or have any burning questions please ask in the community forum so we can get them sorted out.
Tools to help you build and market your website.
The SEO Toolbar
Please bookmark this page on Delicious for your future reference.
Download & Installation Instructions
While our extensions were originally created for the Firefox web browser around a decade ago (and survived about a decade of browser updates by being frequently updated over the years), the Firefox 57 update killed any extension using toolbars. Thus we have to rewrite our extensions from the ground up, which has took longer than anticipated, but should hopefully be done soon. There are 2 work arounds to using our extensions today install the Comodo IceDragon web browser 52.0.0.4 & add our extensions to it once the browser is installed, first disable automated updates (pictured below) so that updates don't disable the browser
come back to this page using Comodo This version of Comodo was built using the core of a prior generation of the Mozilla browser as its core, thus extensions which worked in prior versions of Firefox still work in it. Install an older version of Firefox and turn off automated updates this option is significantly more tedious than using Comodo IceDragon. the linked article has over a half-dozen steps
Once our extensions have been rewritten we will update this page to reflect the change to support the newest version of Firefox.
Download Now!
If the Software Installation window is visible click Install Now.
If not, then: See if there is a yellow bar near the top of your browser. Click the Edit Options button on the yellow bar. Click Allow. Then click OK. Then download now Click the Install Now button.
As a final step, restart Firefox. If you want to install all 3 tools before restarting Firefox then that works too. :)
Why do Over 500,000 Webmasters use the SEO Toolbar?
Want to know why Google or Bing ranks pages? If so this is the Firefox extension for you. The SEO Toolbar pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market directly in the search results.
This Firefox toolbar is so good that even Microsoft blogged about it .
toolbar is so good that . And thousands of professional webmasters across the globe love it! See the reviews on Twitter:
Want to learn more? Watch this quick intro video, and read on
Download & Installation Instructions:
You have to be using Firefox to get this to work. If you have not yet used Firefox go download Firefox, and then come back to this page using Firefox as your web browser.
Set up your free SEO Book account, and you will get this tool + 2 other SEO tools valued at over $300 for free. Already have an account? Log in and your installation link will appear in the place of this message.
After you install the SEO Toolbar and restart your browser you may want to configure the extension settings to fit your preferences.
The Theory...
The SEO game is getting more complex, and it is requiring more effort to keep up with the changes. More and more tools are being released. Some are worth buying, some are not. The idea of this toolbar was to put the best competitive research data and the best SEO research tools at your fingertips - free of charge.
This tool was designed to make it easier to evaluate how strong a competing website is. The SEO Toolbar pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a more holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market right from your browser. In addition to pulling in useful marketing data this toolbar also provides links to the data sources so you can dig deeper into the data.
First Things First:
If you are casually surfing you may want to turn this extension off. To do so, click on the SEO Toolbar logo, then click on the "Turn Toolbar off" link at the bottom of the menu.
If the toolbar is off then you will see question marks near all the data points, likeso
To turn this toolbar back on, click on the SEO Toolbar logo, and then click on the "Turn Toolbar on" link at the bottom of the menu.
SEO Toolbar Features:
As you surf the web the SEO Toolbar pulls useful market research data right into your browser, including:
Link Information
Links: (Yahoo! linkdomain) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a domain
(Yahoo! linkdomain) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a domain Page Links: (Yahoo! link) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a page
Under the advanced information button you can also see details like
Uniqe linking domains: this comes from the fine folks at Majestic SEO
this comes from the fine folks at Majestic SEO .edu Link: (Yahoo! .edu linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a domain
(Yahoo! .edu linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a domain .edu Page Link: (Yahoo! .edu link ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a specific page
(Yahoo! .edu link ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a specific page .gov Link: (Yahoo! .gov linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .gov links pointing at a domain
Directory Information
Dmoz: searches the Google Directory to count the total number of pages from a site that are listed in DMOZ, and the total number of pages listed in DMOZ that reference that URL.
searches the Google Directory to count the total number of pages from a site that are listed in DMOZ, and the total number of pages listed in DMOZ that reference that URL. dir.yahoo.com: is a site listed in the Yahoo! Directory or not
is a site listed in the Yahoo! Directory or not BOTW: is a site listed in the BOTW Directory or not
Other Competitive Details
PR: (Google PageRank) an estimated measure of global link authority
(Google PageRank) an estimated measure of global link authority Age: age pulled from Archive.org, shows the first time a page was indexed by Archive.org's spider. The theory is that if Archive.org found a page so did many of the major search engines.
Advanced Information Button
Clicking on the advanced information button allows you to bring up a lot of SEO related details, including
Site background information
Site links
Page links
Directory listings
Traffic estimates
Social media information from popular social bookmarking and social news sites
And you can easily export all this data.
Competitive Research Links
Provides links to a variety of competitive research tools, including...
Compete.com
Alexa.com
Google Trends for Websites
Quantcast
SEM Rush
Additional tools/features...
IP address: IP address of the host
IP address of the host Search for sites on the same IP address: search Live Search based on IP address
search Live Search based on IP address Whois data: find out who runs a site
find out who runs a site Server header checker: is a link being 301 redirected? 302 redirected? how many jumps are there? find out using this tool (you may need to use it combined with the user agent switcher on some complex dynamic sites)
is a link being 301 redirected? 302 redirected? how many jumps are there? find out using this tool (you may need to use it combined with the user agent switcher on some complex dynamic sites) User agent switcher: change your useragent to detect how bots see a page or site (may require clearing cookies and restarting browser)
Highlight Nofollow Links
Highlight nofollow links. You can turn this on or off with the click of a button...this button
Rank Checker
We built our popular Rank Checker directly into the toolbar. Access it by clicking on this button
Watch this video to learn more about Rank Checker, or read the official usage instructions.
SEO X-ray
We built in our popular on page SEO analysis tool - SEO Xray. This allows you to look at things like on page headings, internal links, external links, and gives you access to our keyword density analysis tool.
Keyword Research Tools
Want access to keyword research tools right from your browser? We allow you to select your favorite tools from a list of a dozen different keyword tools! Simply put a checkmark next to the ones you like, then enter your keyword into the search box and you will see a number of tabs open, with 1 keyword tool in each tab.
We also link to our keyword density analyzer, keyword list generator, and keyword list cleaner at the bottom of this menu.
Highlight Keywords on a Page
The highlighter between the book and the green globe allows you to highlight keywords that appear on a page.
Ask SEO Questions & Find SEO Answers
The green globe next to the search box allows you to search SeoBook.com for answers to your SEO questions. Anytime you have an SEO question you can search our site, as we are likely to have answered most SEO questions at one point in time.
If you are a paying subscriber you can also use this search feature to find our training modules and to search our exclusive member's only forums.
Built in Feed Reader
We also built a feed reader directly into the toolbar, pre-populated with a bunch of great SEO blogs. You can delete any of these blogs from the list, and you can easily add any blogs you want to subscribe to.
Compare Websites
Want to compare 2 or more websites? We allow you to compare up to 5 at a time. Just click on the comparison button
Then double click in the URL box you want to add a site profile to. Proceed to the next box until you have listed up to 5 sites.
When you are done entering sites, click the get data button in the lower left corner. Once the data is pulled in you can
compare it within the window
click on any datapoint to go to the source
export the data to a CSV file
A Plug in With More Data & Easier Access
Options Panel
This tool has a built in options panel, accessible by clicking on the SEO Toolbar logo.
You can chose to turn data points on or off, change highlighting colors, add user agents for the user agent switcher, and change a few other settings.
Unrivaled Flexibility
This toolbar is designed to be exceptionally flexible. Lets say you wanted to add the spell check from the Google Toolbar into this toolbar, and you wanted to replace our PageRank dispaly with their PageRank display. To do this you would
right click near the top of your browser select customize from that menu select things to add or remove from the toolbars by dragging and dropping them. additional buttons will also appear in a "Customize Toolbar" window. click done at the bottom of the "Customize Toolbar" window when you are finished.
How to Update The SEO Toolbar:
This extension also will periodically update when we add new features. There is no need to reinstall this extension to get it to update. To update this extension
While in Firefox look at the menu across the top of your browser. Click on the tools link.(or hit Alt T)
From the tools drop down menu click on extensions menu (or hit Alt E)
At the bottom of the extension box click the find updates button. If there is an update available for any of your extensions there will be an Update Now button to the right of the extension.
Update Log
Updates will appear on our updates page located here
Installation Issues
Left Aligned With No Buttons
Having issues getting the SEO Toolbar to work? The most common issue users run into is a need to restore defaults (as sometimes they are not set up on install, or during updates). If you have this problem it will look something like the following image (with all the lines left aligned and no buttons displayed)
To fix that issue (by restoreing default sets) you need to click up top in Firefox (above the address bar), then click on customize.
That will open up a window which has a button at the bottom named "restore default set." Click on that and the toolbar should work.
Toolbar Too Wide?
Does your toolbar run long horizontally? once you go into the customize option (pictured above) you can decrease its width 2 ways
At the bottom of the customize menu make sure it is set to "icons" rather than "text and icons." If there are particular buttons you do not use much you can remove them from the toolbar.
The other issue some people have is that they accidentally turn it off and forget how to turn it back on. The on/off options are in the dropdown menu that appears when you click on the SEO Book logo.
Possible Future Upgrades:
Maybe proxy searching ability
Maybe a regular search box
We'll see. Depends on feedback :)
Leave feedback here.
Other Useful Related Firefox Extensions and Goodies:
SEO for Firefox is worth a look. It pulls in similar datapoints as the SEO Toolbar does, but it puts them inline with the search results.
Rank Checker is well worth a look. View a list of related useful extensions on our SEO extension page.
Conflicting Extensions:
There might be a few conflicting extensions. If this extension works on Yahoo! but not Google then check to see if you have some other potentially conflicting extension that is customizing Google. If it works on nothing then throw your computer out the window or read comments left by others here. If you still have questions you can ask them here.
Gain a Competitive Advantage Today
Your top competitors have been investing into their marketing strategy for years.
Now you can know exactly where they rank, pick off their best keywords, and track new opportunities as they emerge.
Explore the ranking profile of your competitors in Google and Bing today using SEMrush.
Enter a competing URL below to quickly gain access to their organic & paid search performance history - for free.
See where they rank & beat them!
|
It might have been a lot of work, but it was a labor of love that inspired Seneca Valley senior volleyball player Kate Davis to make the most of her senior project.
Davis organized a charity volleyball game known as Volley for Education in which her Seneca Valley teammates, school administrators, the Potter Baseball Tour and many others from the community played to raise funds for the Seneca Valley special education program.
“I went around Cranberry and talked to local businesses to see if they would help sponsor the event,” Davis said.
“They were more than gracious enough.”
By the project’s requirement, the event had to raise at least $1,000.
According to Meghan Lucas, former head coach for Butler’s girls volleyball team and current coach with Renaissance Volleyball Club, the event raised more than the required minimum, although she didn’t have precise figures.
Lucas served as Davis’s mentor for the project.
“Kate came up with the proposal and had to put in at least 20 hours of work in addition to the event,” Lucas said. “It was neat that Kate was able to use this as our senior project. We were glad to help out and this is something she can pass down to her teammates.”
The event was held July 20 at Cranberry Park and began with lunch at noon, followed by a series of sand volleyball games that lasted until dusk.
“I think this is important because some athletes lack a sense of importance in giving back to the community,” Lucas said.
Joining the festivities was an organization known for giving back — the Potter Baseball Tour. Headed by coach Jeff Potter, the tour was established six years ago. Each year, Porter takes his team on a 26-day trip to 26 communities to play baseball games and support local charities.
“The last two years, we have done things with Seneca Valley, so we were excited about being back here,” Potter said.
“I met Meghan five years ago, and we raised funds for a man with cancer with a volleyball tournament. You would think the boys’ favorite thing about the trip would be baseball, but it is this event.”
Potter said this is the first time his players have been away from home.
“I hope seeing this inspires them to do good things,” he said.
Davis was excited to have the Potter tour be part of her event.
“We held the event (on the precise day) so they could be here,” Davis said.
“It was awesome to see all the work that went in to this that led to everyone having so much fun.”
While Davis had fun putting the event together, she is thrilled to help the special education department at her school.
“My mom works in the special education department at Connoquenessing Valley Elementary School, so I know some of those kids,” Davis said. “We (the Seneca Valley girls varsity volleyball team) wanted to be a presence in the community.”
Jerry Clark is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at jeclark@tribweb.com.
|
Target is ringing in Pride month in a very big way, introducing a rainbow-themed clothing and accessories line as well as an inclusive ad campaign.
Unveiled June 8, the Minnesota-based retail giant's #TakePride line is available online and in select stores. It includes T-shirts, swim trunks and flip-flops, as well as headphones, iPhone cases and other products.
Pride Swim Short, Rainbow
The commercial that accompanies the campaign, which can be viewed above, pairs archival footage of LGBT rights milestones with colorful, time-lapse images and present-day Pride clips.
"We're not born with pride," a voiceover declares. "We take pride, pride in celebrating who we were born to be."
Pride Flip Flop Sandals, Rainbow Chevron
Laysha Ward, Target's Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer, said in a statement:
We’re making our message loud and clear: Target proudly stands with the LGBT community, both as a team member and team player through all that we do – from our volunteer efforts to our long-standing partnerships with groups like Family Equality Council and Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, to the very products we carry in our stores and online.
Pride Men's Sunday Funday, Navy
In 2012, the company created 10 Pride T-shirts, including two designed by Gwen Stefani, that were available online.
View a selection of products from Target's #TakePride line below:
|
Fox News host Sean Hannity. Image via Fox News.
A day after proclaiming America’s end if President Barack Obama is re-elected, Sean Hannity added to his pile of animosity Tuesday evening with a claim startlingly detached from reality.
In a discussion with Republican pollster Frank Luntz, comparing President Obama to former President Ronald Reagan, Hannity once again showed that he’s not keen to credit Obama for killing terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
“They’ve got a foreign policy that shows a lot of weakness,” Hannity said. “I know the President will say they got bin Laden, putting that aside.”
“And the public gives him credit for that,” Luntz interjected.
A reluctant Hannity replied, “But it wouldn’t have happened if he had his way, and I think that could be proven as well on tapes.”
Days after bin Laden’s death last year, Hannity, along with many other conservatives, decided to congratulate George W. Bush instead of President Obama, even though Bush once quipped that he didn’t know, or much care, where bin Laden was hiding.
Hannity also accused Obama of “flip-flopping” on his promise to go after bin Laden days before his inauguration in 2009.
WATCH: Video from Fox News, which was broadcast on February 7, 2012.
|
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is on track to reach the Republican National Convention in July with a score of delegates only 74 shy of the 1,237 delegate majority, according to a new calculation.
“By the time California and three other states count their votes from the last four primaries June 7, the brash billionaire businessman and TV star will be 74 or so delegates short of the 1,237 majority needed for the nomination,” reports the Washington Times’ chief political correspondent Ralph Hallow.
With so large a plurality in the offing, it is increasingly unlikely that the Republican establishment, fronted by 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, will carry through with plans to change the convention rules to wrest the nomination from Mr. Trump and hand it to an establishment-approved candidate such as Marco Rubio or John Kasich, or even a noncandidate like House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who is expected to be named the convention’s chairman and has the adoration of the party’s power brokers.
Constitutional scholar and lawyer James Bopp Jr. told Hallow, “I cannot imagine him not getting a majority on the first ballot if he’s only 74 delegates short of a majority.”
Bopp, who is a former Republican National Committee vice chairman, added, “Even if he were 174 short, if he had a substantial lead in delegates, it would likely be politically unacceptable for the anti-Trump forces to deny him nomination.”
Hallow’s full analysis can be read here.
|
We welcome this guest post from University of Chicago political scientist Paul Staniland. (Paul’s previous contributions to The Monkey Cage are here.)
*****
The New York Times has a fascinating piece on cooperation between politicians and Maoist insurgents in India. It concludes:
The politicians know how to use the Maoists in their areas of influence to their advantage. The Maoists may not believe in democracy, but they know that it is important to keep ties with politicians for short- and long-term gains. In public, both ridicule each other. But sadly, in this nexus, it is the innocent people who ultimately drown in the cesspool this nexus creates.
These forms of collusion are not uncommon. States cut deals with insurgents, politicians militarize elections by sponsoring militias and hit squads, and governments delegate authority to local actors in a modern form of indirect rule. Cooperative wartime political orders are common in civil wars: rather than a strict dichotomy between states and insurgents, there is often a messy in-between of tacit coexistence, shared sovereignty, and spheres of influence. Governments’ militarization of elections can lead to outcomes ranging from the co-optation of non-state armed groups into the ruling party to the unintended rise of anti-regime insurgencies (I have a working paper here that explores how electoral militarization plays out).
What can we learn from these politics? First, many states put up a Weberian “window dressing” that hides a grim world of coercion, corruption, and politicized neglect. Rather than a rational-legal bureaucracy providing services and representing public interests, private power is often built into state policy. Governments carefully try to manage and manipulate non-state violence, differentially enforcing laws to privilege supporters, throwing their weight behind armed allies, and only monopolizing coercion when it serves their political interests. In rural India, for instance, violence, the police, and politicians can be conjoined. Citizens can get frozen out of political influence as different kinds of armed actors dominate politics.
Second, democracy and violence are far from antithetical; instead, they can feed on one another. The Maoists exploit the needs of politicians for resources, protection, and votes, while politicians take advantage of the Maoists’ desire for money and a shield from state repression. In Karachi, mainstream political parties have armed wings; in the Philippines, local strongmen with private coercive capacity are integral to building and holding political power. As an Afghan official says of the armed group/political party Hezb-e Islami, “They can work in the government, and they can fight against the government.” This isn’t just the domain of weak states in the developing world – Chicago’s politics in the first half of the twentieth century involved links between ruling parties, criminals, and non-state armed groups (and allegedly still do).
These claims have important policy implications. State building was all the rage in the aftermath of 9/11, but it advantages some and disadvantages others, rather than necessarily creating a neutral, rationalized state. This helps to explain why the international efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan foundered in brutal violence, including party-backed militias, politicized security apparatuses, links between armed groups and the representatives of state power, and resistance by ruling regimes to the technocratic good governance initiatives of their foreign backers.
A push for elections may simply shift the nature of violence into a murky realm that, in Will Reno’s words, does “not fit easily into a simple schema of state collapse and ungoverned spaces.” Of course, in some cases reforms and international initiatives work as planned – but the consequences of state building and liberalization gone awry can be bloody and destabilizing. Even in a world where elections have become an international priority, politics on the ground can lead to enduring forms of order that have little resemblance to conventional wisdoms about how states and democracies are supposed to work.
|
Former President William J. Clinton expressed regret Friday over a verbal altercation between himself and Black Lives Matter activists during a campaign speech in Philadelphia. Clinton said people who disagree should be able to voice their differences in a civil manner. Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo
ERIE, Pa., April 8 (UPI) -- Former President William J. Clinton on Friday defended a crime bill he created 22 years ago, just hours after a verbal altercation in Philadelphia that saw hecklers aligned with the Black Lives Matter campaign interrupt his stumping speech there.
Clinton, campaigning in behalf of his wife's presidential bid, was targeted by several members of the eastern Pennsylvania audience, one of whom carried a sign that read, "Black youth are not super predators" -- a reference to a comment made in 1996 by then-first lady Hillary Clinton.
The Black Lives Matter movement has been critical of the crime bill, enacted in 1994, claiming it created a disproportionate number of blacks being imprisoned for non-violent offenses.
Clinton, though, took exception to the verbal assault Thursday.
RELATED Hillary Clinton rides NYC subway while campaigning in Bronx
RELATED Hillary Clinton rides NYC subway while campaigning in Bronx
In a 13-minute response, the former president said his bill lowered the national crime rate, diversified police forces and achieved bipartisan support:
"I don't know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out onto the street to murder other African-American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens .... You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. Tell the truth. You are defending the people who cause young people to go out and take guns." "I talked to a lot of African-American groups. They thought black lives matter. They said take this bill, because our kids are being shot in the street by gangs. We have 13-year-old kids planning their own funerals...Because of that bill, we have a 25-year low in crime, a 33-year low in murder rate. And because of that and the background check law, we had a 46-year low in the deaths of people by gun violence, and who do you think those lives were? That mattered? Whose lives were saved that mattered?
RELATED Hillary Clinton hits Bernie Sanders over NY Daily News interview fumbles
Although the salty exchange didn't address Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, the former president noted that his wife worked in Alabama for the Children's Defense Fund as a young lawyer, and was instrumental in fighting the spread of HIV in Africa as U.S. Secretary of State during President Barack Obama's first term.
"Hillary didn't vote for [the crime] bill, because she wasn't in the Senate," Clinton said. "She was spending her time trying to get health care for poor kids. Who were they? And their lives mattered."
Friday, Clinton sounded apologetic for the altercation during a speech at Penn State Behrend in Erie, Pa.
"I never thought I should drown anybody else out. And I confess, maybe it's just a sign of old age, but it bothers me now when that happens," he said, adding that he believes people who disagree should be able to do so in a civil manner. "I did something yesterday in Philadelphia... I almost want to apologize for it, but I want to use it as an example of the danger threatening our country."
"I rather vigorously defended my wife, as I am wont to do, and I realized, finally, I was talking past [the female protester] the way she was talking past me. We gotta stop that in this country. We gotta listen to each other again," he continued.
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has also been targeted by Black Lives Matter activists. During an October speech in Atlanta, also interrupted by hecklers, she promised to end racial profiling by law enforcement and the sentencing disparity between cocaine and crack.
"I know those young people yesterday were just trying to get good television and they did," the former president said. "But that doesn't mean that I was most effective in answering it."
|
BUSINESSES will be forced to cut staff or shut down altogether as crippling energy price hikes begin sweeping across the nation this month.
The small business lobby group says urgent action is needed to resolve the decade-long national deadlock on energy policy in the face of what’s being described as a bigger crisis than the GFC.
“This is the biggest business crisis I’ve seen in my lifetime,” said Peter Strong, chief executive of the Council of Small Business Australia. “The GFC was managed and it affected everybody, but this is only Australia and we cannot see a solution.
“What we’re hearing is terrible. We’re seeing closures have already started, I fully expect there will be more closures and staff put off. When you’re running a small supermarket, where do you find an extra $70,000?”
The price hikes hitting businesses of up 120 per cent — dwarfing the 20 per cent increases faced by households — have been partly blamed on the closure of cheap coal-fired power stations, including Hazelwood in Victoria and Playford in South Australia.
Another key driver has been the high price of gas, partially due to a shortage of east coast domestic supply.
Last week, family-owned South Australian recycling business Plastic Granulating Services was forced to make the “heartbreaking” decision to close its doors after nearly four decades, leaving 35 employees out of work.
Managing director Stephen Scherer said his monthly electricity bill had increased from about $80,000 to $180,000 over the past year-and-a-half. “It was totally unsustainable for a business our size,” he told The Advertiser. “It was heartbreaking.”
On Saturday, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was in Central Queensland’s Capricorn Coast visiting small businesses, some of whom are already paying quarterly power bills of up to $20,000.
“They are going under, and that’s before the price hikes,” Ms Hanson told The Morning Bulletin. “All our governments have to start waking up to themselves.”
She described the situation as “devastating”. “I’ve seen the number of shops that have closed or up for lease, small businesses are struggling, they’re going under,” she said.
“You’ve got owners that are working six or seven days a week just to make ends meet and what will be the straw that will break the camel’s back will be the rising electricity prices. I’m in fear now of what is going to happen in the state and around the country because it’s just going to break a lot of people.”
Ms Hanson said One Nation would support the development of a new coal-fired power station for North Queensland, echoing the pro-coal position of former prime minister Tony Abbott.
Mr Abbott last month caused friction with his outspoken criticism of the Finkel Report’s recommendation for a Clean Energy Target, which he described as “effectively, a tax on coal”. The Coalition party room adopted 49 of the 50 recommendations by chief scientist Alan Finkel, excluding a CET, but Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said such a scheme was still under consideration.
It came as the Turnbull government announced a “three-pronged” attack to address the energy crisis, including new regulations to restrict gas exports starting from January 1, 2018.
Mr Strong hit out at the Liberal backbench for being too focused on “ideology”. “The dissenters in the Libs need to shut up and go away,” he said.
“Tony Abbott in particular is the reason nothing has been done. The Finkel Report is a good report and it needs to be actioned. To promise power prices would go down [through scrapping the carbon tax] and to have them go up 110 per cent is one of the biggest policy failures we’ve ever seen.”
Mr Strong said small businesses would be “comfortable with a small increase in power costs” to address climate change, but what they wanted was certainty. “The first thing is power bills and quotes need to be written in plain English,” he said.
“The second, is we need to know when blackouts are coming, like in Victoria and South Australia, so we can prepare, go out and get our generators. With the power costs, we need to know in advance when they’re going to go up.
“Some people might say you can’t predict that, but that is a bigger problem as well. If you can’t predict that, how can you run a business?”
Mr Strong said he never had a debate with his members about “whether climate change exists”. “No one’s ever questioned the renewables,” he said. “Whatever happens they understand we’ve got to do something — we don’t have many climate change deniers.”
Last month, Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell called for both sides of politics to endorse the Finkel Report to avoid job losses and business closures. “Business as usual is no longer an option,” Ms Carnell said.
“Business as usual is lack of reliable power and exponential price increases. The most important issue here is that support from all sides of politics for Finkel gives investment confidence. These investments are long term. You don’t invest in power for two, three or five years.”
frank.chung@news.com.au
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.