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AMERICUS, Ga. -- The suspect in a Georgia shooting that critically wounded one officer and killed another on Wednesday fatally shot himself after barricading himself inside a home Thursday morning, officials say.
Police had been searching for the suspect, 32-year-old Minquell Kennedy Lembrick, since the Wednesday shooting, which happened after the officers responded to a domestic disturbance call in Americus. They had said Lembrick, a convicted felon, was considered armed and dangerous.
Jodi Smith (left) and Nicholas Smarr CBS affiliate WMAZ
Authorities say Americus police Officer Nicholas Smarr died Wednesday and Georgia Southwestern State University Officer Jodi Smith was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition. Both had been officers since 2012. The officers were reportedly best friends and had graduated from high school and the police academy together.
Police offered a $70,000 reward for information leading to Lembrick’s capture. Thursday, a police official received a tip from someone he knew that Lembrick had come to his Americus home that morning. The tipster immediately left the home and contacted police.
SWAT teams surrounded the home and moved nearby residents out of the area. Americus Police Chief Mark Scott said as responders came to the scene, they heard what they thought was a gunshot. Hostage negotiators attempted to make contact with the person inside the home for more than an hour, unaware he had killed himself, Scott said.
Eventually, SWAT teams breached the door with a robot and a man officials believe is Lembrick was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Scott said Wednesday that Lembrick had an outstanding arrest warrant charging him with kidnapping and other counts when the two officers encountered him at an apartment complex where a domestic dispute had been reported. But officers didn’t know whom they were dealing with when they responded to the 911 call.
Scott said that typically, two Americus police officers respond to domestic violence calls. Smarr was awaiting backup from another Americus officer when his friend Smith heard the radio call and responded to assist, Scott said.
“He took it upon himself to respond and back up his friend,” Scott said. “They are model officers. They’re heroes, in my opinion.”
Scott said Thursday the victim was a woman with whom Lembrick had a relationship and said there was “clear evidence of violence” inside the home. The woman and her child were taken to a safe space.
After the shootings, Smith was airlifted to a hospital in Macon with critical injuries. Banks said Thursday morning the wounded officer remained in critical condition after undergoing surgery.
Fellow officers who knew them weren’t surprised that Smith, who worked on a college campus near the shooting scene, went to assist Smarr. The two men had been lifelong friends.
“They’ve been close friends since grade school,” said Lt. Chuck Hanks of the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, where both officers had previously worked as deputies. Hanks said the two men were still roommates, sharing a home in the county.
Sumter County Sheriff Pete Smith told reporters both officers were engaged to be married in the coming months.
“It’s tough,” Hanks said. “We’re a small community. You see these people every day. You work with them every day.”
Authorities initially gave different spellings for the first names of both Smith and Lembrick, but said Thursday that they had confirmed corrected spellings for each.
Within an hour of the shootings Wednesday, posts on Lembrick’s Facebook page appeared to indicate he didn’t want to be taken alive. One message posted from the account read: “other life gone not going to jail.”
It was soon followed by a four-second Facebook Live video showing a young man partly concealed by shadows saying, “I’m gonna miss y’all folk, man.”
Miles with the GBI confirmed the Facebook page was Lembrick’s. It was taken down soon after the messages were posted.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Vernon M. Keenan said Lembrick “wreaked havoc” on the small Georgia community.
“One officer was killed in the line of duty and the other is fighting for his life as we speak,” Keenan said. “But the perpetrator of these heinous crimes against law enforcement is not here.”
Authorities initially gave different spellings for the first names of both Smith and Lembrick, but said Thursday that they had confirmed corrected spellings for each.
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A Google security researcher who goes by the name, Forshaw, has taken the bold step to publish a security vulnerability in Windows 8.1 that is still exploitable. Forshaw makes the defense that he/she waited 90 days after first publication of the vulnerability before letting the world know how to exploit it, and so far, Microsoft has not patched the issue.
The post was made on Google's security research site where it discloses the vulnerability and how to execute the flaw. The vulnerability allows for an elevation of privilege in ahcache.sys/NtApphelpCacheControl and there is a demo application that can launch calc.exe using the method.
Windows vulnerabilities are nothing new, with billions of users around the world using various versions of the platform, it is likely the most targeted piece of software on the planet because of the install base. But, when these types of issues come up, the proper thing to do is to let Microsoft know of the issue so that they can fix the vulnerability.
The post does have a tag of MSRC-20544, which appears to be a Microsoft Security Response Center ID number, but no other evidence or what type of communication has occurred with Microsoft about the flaw. These types of issues are generally patched on the second Tuesday of every month, also known as Patch Tuesday.
You can check out the full details of the exploit from the source link below, but know that Larry Seltzer was able to properly execute the vulnerability following the directions within the post. The exploit was only tested on Windows 8.1, it is not known if prior versions of Windows are impacted.
Now that this flaw is open for the world to see, Microsoft will need to act quickly before this flaw is exploited in the wild and impacts consumers.
[Update] Microsoft issued the following response to the vulnerability:
"We are working to release a security update to address an Elevation of Privilege issue. It is important to note that for a would-be attacker to potentially exploit a system, they would first need to have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to a targeted machine. We encourage customers to keep their anti-virus software up to date, install all available Security Updates and enable the firewall on their computer."
Source: Google Security
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When you are the starting quarterback at the University of Texas, the eyes of the Burnt Orange Nation are constantly watching.
When you are the starting quarterback at the University of Texas, the eyes of the Burnt Orange Nation are constantly watching.
So for Longhorns junior David Ash, being a counselor at the Manning Passing Academy these past four days at Nicholls State University has been a nice calm before the storm of the college football season begins.
"I can't thank the Mannings enough for letting me come," Ash said. "Just getting to be around Peyton and Eli, seeing how they work, how they think, talking football with those guys and being around other great quarterbacks."
While he never attended the Manning Passing Academy as a high school player, Ash went to plenty of passing camps throughout Texas. He thought it was fun being on the other side of the counselor-camper equation, working with the 1,200-plus participating prep athletes.
"These camps are very similar: lots of drills, lots of wide receivers to throw to. You get thousands of fundamental reps," he noted. "I enjoyed being around the kids. It gives you a chance to see if, like, one day you'd want to be a coach."
Just like the young campers, Ash has been picking up subtle nuances of the quarterback position from the Manning brothers, particularly Peyton. What has caught his eye about the Broncos signal caller is way he goes through every drill as a real-game situation.
"He's thinking about every possibility — exactly what you're doing with your feet, what you're doing with your eyes," Ash said. "That's something you hear all your life as a quarterback, but to see someone who does it really well, you understand it so much clearer. It makes you want to make sure you're doing that in the game."
After a few down seasons for Texas football, Ash guided the Longhorns to a 9-4 record and comeback victory over Oregon State in the Alamo Bowl last year.
With 19 starters returning, Texas is expected to challenge Oklahoma and Oklahoma State for the Big XII championship in 2013, something they have not done since the 2009 campaign.
"We took a dip after Colt (McCoy) left. We've been in rebuilding mode, but we've been getting better every year since then," Ash said. "We set high goals for ourselves this year, and I think we can achieve them. That's the attitude I have."
FoxSports college football analyst Eddie George likes Ash's calm, cool demeanor on the field. However, he believes Ash has to become mentally tougher for Texas to flourish.
"David is phenomenal. I think he's very talented, but I want to see out of him this year is how he handles adversity," said the former Heisman Trophy winner and Tennessee Titans running back. "I thought that too many times last year, when he threw an interception he never really let it go and bounce back. I want to see if he's matured to the point where he can look beyond those mistakes and go to the next play."
Ash will be running a more up-tempo scheme this year implemented by co-offensive coordinator and former Longhorns quarterback Major Applewhite. He said they have meshed well as he enters his second season as a starter.
"We have a similar mindset about playing quarterback, and it's always good to have someone who been in your position and knows what it's like," Ash said.
Still, George believes the Longhorns need to develop a tenacity that has been missing the last few years.
"Mack Brown has done nothing but great things there, but they have lacked that championship attitude to challenge each other week in and week out, get that nastiness you need to win a championship," he said. "That Oklahoma game is a big one to see where Texas is headed."
Ash is confident Brown, known for being very player friendly coach, can instill that killer instinct and direct Texas back to championship glory.
"He's a man of integrity. That's why I came to Texas," Ash said, "because I wanted to play and win with someone who cares about his players."
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Each week, Gameoflegends.com tallies which champions were picked the previous week in competitive League of Legends, spanning domestic leagues in South Korea, China, North America and Europe. It’s a fantastic resource that helps give a clearer picture of where the pro meta stands as a whole.
This was the first week with competitive games on Patch 6.13, and while we did see some new champions pop up, a lot of the popular champions from previous weeks remained the same.
The two biggest risers this week in the competitive meta were Hecarim and Taliyah. After recent nerfs to teleport, champions that are able to quickly roam and make cross-map plays are becoming more important at the pro level. It’s why we’ve also seen a lot of Shen and Rek’Sai lately (as well as some Twisted Fate). Taliyah even saw some play in the top lane (going 2-0 with Splyce), but was mostly picked as a mid laner after her strong debut in Korea.
Another roaming champion also returned to the meta: Tahm Kench, who received buffs in 6.13 and was played in both the top lane and at support. The Kench has truly been unbenched.
The Kench has been unbenched by G2! #EULCS pic.twitter.com/a3Fo9iejeR — The Rift Herald (@TheRiftHerald) July 8, 2016
In terms of champions falling a bit out of favor, Ryze saw slightly less priority this week but still picked up plenty of bans. The jungle meta also continues to shift towards tanks and playmakers like Rek’Sai, Gragas and Elise rather than hard carries like Graves, Kindred and Nidalee, while utility AD carries remain the most popular at the position.
Here’s this week’s, over 87 total games.
Let’s break it down, position-by-position.
Top lane:
Total unique champions: 20 (up one from last week)
S-tier: Trundle (32 games), Gnar (29), Shen (28), Irelia (26)
And then: Rumble (14), Jax (7), Lissandra (7), Gangplank (6), Maokai (5)
New: Gangplank, Renekton (3), Taliyah (2), Ekko (2), Tahm Kench (1), Fizz (1)
Gone: Malzahar, Kennen, Gragas, Jarvan IV, Jayce
Jungle:
Total unique champions: 11 (up two from last week)
S-tier: Rek’Sai (50 games), Gragas (34), Elise (22), Nidalee (11, 36 bans)
And then: Hecarim (18), Graves (15), Kindred (12)
New: Lee Sin (4), Kha’Zix (3), Nunu (1)
Gone: Amumu
Mid lane:
Total unique champions: 22 (up six from last week)
S-tier: Viktor (28 games), Azir (26), Vladimir (22), Ryze (13, 41 bans)
And then: Cassiopeia (12), Karma (11), Taliyah (11)
New: Taliyah, Kassadin (9), Zed (3), Malzahar (2), Lulu (1), Fizz (1), Ahri (1), Yasuo (1)
Gone: Syndra, Karthus
AD Carry:
Total unique champions: 11 (up two from last week)
S-tier: Sivir (51 games), Ashe (37), Jhin (33)
And then: Lucian (21), Ezreal (18)
New: Kog’Maw (1), Jinx (1)
Gone: None
Support:
Total unique champions: 13 (up one from last week)
S-tier: Braum (62), Karma (26), Bard (23)
And then: Thresh (17), Alistar (15), Nami (11)
New: Tahm Kench (2)
Gone: None
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Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge[2] (March 16, 1916 – March 2, 2004) was an American actress of radio, stage, film, and television. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress."[3] She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for All the King's Men (1949) and was nominated in the same category for Giant (1956). She also provided the voice of Pazuzu (the demon) in The Exorcist (1973).[2]
Early life [ edit ]
McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, the daughter of Irish-American Roman Catholic parents Marie (née Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer.[2][4][5][6] She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago before embarking on a career.
Career [ edit ]
Radio [ edit ]
McCambridge began her career as a radio actor during the 1930s while also performing on Broadway. In 1941, she played Judy's girlfriend in A Date with Judy.[7] She had the title role in Defense Attorney, a crime drama broadcast on ABC in 1951-52.[8] Her other work on radio included:
She frequently did feature roles on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and was an original cast member on Guiding Light (before the Bauers took over as the central characters). She also starred in her own show, Defense Attorney on ABC 1951–52, as Martha Ellis Bryan.[10]
From June 22, 1953, to March 5, 1954, McCambridge starred in the soap opera Family Skeleton on CBS.[11]
Television [ edit ]
McCambridge played Katherine Wells in Wire Service, a drama series that aired on ABC during 1956-7, produced by Desilu Productions. The series starred McCambridge, George Brent, and Dane Clark as reporters for the fictional Trans Globe Wire Service.
Films [ edit ]
McCambridge's film career took off when she was cast as Sadie Burke opposite Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men (1949). McCambridge won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role, while the film won Best Picture for that year. McCambridge also won the Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actress and New Star of the Year - Actress for her performance.
In 1954, the actress co-starred with Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden in the offbeat western drama, Johnny Guitar, now regarded as a cult classic.[12] McCambridge and Hayden publicly declared their dislike of Crawford, with McCambridge labeling the film's star "a mean, tipsy, powerful, rotten-egg lady."[5]
McCambridge played the supporting role of Luz in the George Stevens classic Giant (1956), which starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. She was nominated for another Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress but lost to Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind. In 1959, McCambridge appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in the Joseph L. Mankiewicz film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer.
McCambridge provided the dubbed voice of Pazuzu, the demon possessing the young girl Regan (played by Linda Blair) in The Exorcist. To sound as disturbing as possible, McCambridge insisted on swallowing raw eggs, chain smoking and drinking whiskey to make her voice harsh and her performance aggressive. Director William Friedkin also arranged for her to be bound to a chair during recordings, so that the demon seemed to be struggling against its restraints. According to Friedkin, she initially requested no credit for the film—fearing it would take away from the attention of Blair's performance—but later complained about her absence of credit during the film's premiere.[13] Her dispute with Friedkin and the Warner Bros. over her exclusion ended when, with the help of the Screen Actors Guild, she was properly credited for her vocal work in the film.[5]
In the 1970s, she toured in a road company production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as Big Mama, opposite John Carradine as Big Daddy. She appeared as a guest artist in college productions, such as El Centro College's 1979 The Mousetrap, in which she received top billing despite her character being murdered (by actor Jim Beaver) fewer than 15 minutes into the play.
El Centro brought her back the following year in the title role of The Madwoman of Chaillot.
She also starred with longtime character actor Lyle Talbot (of ABC's The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) in the 1970 production of Come Back, Little Sheba in the University of North Alabama Summer Theatre Productions. In the mid-1970s, McCambridge briefly took a position as director of Livingrin, a Pennsylvania rehabilitation center for alcoholics. She was at the same time putting the finishing touches on her soon-to-be released autobiography, The Quality of Mercy: An Autobiography (Times Books, 1981), ISBN 0-8129-0945-3.
Personal life [ edit ]
McCambridge married her first husband, William Fifield, in 1939 when she was 23 years old.[5] The couple had a son, John Lawrence Fifield, born in December, 1941. The couple divorced in 1946 after seven years of marriage.
In 1950, when she was 34 years old, McCambridge married Canadian Fletcher Markle, an actor/producer/director who directed McCambridge in productions on Ford Theater and Studio One. Her son, John, later took Markle's name, thereafter being known as John Markle. During the marriage and afterward, McCambridge battled alcoholism, often being hospitalized after episodes of heavy drinking. She and Markle divorced in 1962, after twelve years of marriage. In 1969, after years with Alcoholics Anonymous, she achieved sobriety.
In May 1977, she played the role of the "Madwoman" in Jean Giraudoux"s 1943 satire The Madwoman of Chaillot. This allowed her to teach college theater students and celebrate the dedication of the Theatre building for El Centro Jr. College in Dallas.[5]
In 1979, McCambridge's son John Markle, a UCLA graduate with a Ph.D. in Economics,[2] joined the Little Rock, Arkansas investment firm Stephens Inc. after working for Salomon Brothers in New York City.[14] Markle was a successful futures trader, and quickly rose through the company's ranks, but in the fall of 1987, the company discovered that Markle had opened a secret account in McCambridge's name.[14] Soon the company found that Markle had been co-mingling the accounts' funds and charging losses to the Stephens house account, while crediting all revenue from winning trades to McCambridge's account.[14] Markle was later shown to have forged his mother's signature in opening this account.[15]
Markle was placed on medical leave,[14] then fired from his position at Stephens for mishandling funds. McCambridge refused to cooperate with Markle and the company in instituting a repayment scheme that would have kept the matter from becoming public.[14] Shortly thereafter, in November 1987, Markle killed his family—his wife Christine (age 45) and daughters Amy (age 13) and Suzanne (age 9)—and then himself.[5] He left both a note taking responsibility for his crimes and a long, bitter letter to his mother.[2] A $5 million lawsuit was filed against Markle's estate and McCambridge claiming fraud and misappropriation of funds. Although some of the mishandled funds had been handled under McCambridge's name through Markle's power of attorney, she herself was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing.[5]
From 1975 to 1982, McCambridge devoted her time to the nonprofit Livengrin Foundation of Bensalem, Pennsylvania. She first served as a volunteer member of the Board of Directors, then as President and CEO, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the treatment center, which at the time was a 76-bed residential program for both male and female alcoholics. Livengrin still operates today, and has 129 beds and 8 outpatient clinics throughout southeastern Pennsylvania, treating both alcoholism and drug addiction. McCambridge, through her celebrity and larger-than-life personality, helped bring public recognition to, and acceptance of the disease of addiction, as well as the benefits of seeking treatment for the disease. She freely shared her own story of addiction and recovery as a means of reaching others in need of help.
She was a staunch outspoken liberal Democrat who campaigned for Adlai Stevenson.[2]
Death [ edit ]
McCambridge died on March 2, 2004, in La Jolla in San Diego, California, of natural causes, two weeks before her 88th birthday.[5]
For her contributions to television and the motion picture industry, Mercedes McCambridge has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures at 1722 Vine Street, and one for television at 6243 Hollywood Boulevard.
Filmography [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
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Draymond Green is tied for second in the NBA with three technical fouls through 10 games. It’s not unusual for him to speak his mind to referees, just like he does to reporters after games.
Green on Saturday had the good fortune of seeing his Michigan State coach Tom Izzo before the Warriors blew out the Nuggets. Izzo had some advice for the reigning defensive player of the year, which Green spoke about following the 19-point victory.
From Anthony Slater of The Athletic:
Tom Izzo was in Denver to visit Draymond Green today. His message: Stop complaining about calls.
Draymond on the Izzo friendship pic.twitter.com/inp9VLMmBr — Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) November 5, 2017
Izzo went to the game to see Green and Nuggets budding star Gary Harris, who starred at Michigan State from 2012 to 2014.
Perhaps Izzo inspired Green to have one of his best games of the season. Green had 15 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and a block while finishing plus-34 in 27 minutes. Only Stephen Curry’s plus-44 was better.
Green went 3 of 4 from 3-point range, which included the first bucket of the game. He came into the game shooting just 26 percent from beyond the arc on the year and will look to continue shooting well Monday when the Warriors host the Heat.
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State secretary in the economics ministry responsible for maritime affairs, Hans-Joachim Otto, said on Thursday that he could not answer the repeated calls from shipping companies for soldiers or armed police officers to accompany their boats.
“We don't want desperadoes, so we are looking into a certification,” said Otto. He said security firms offering protection would have to meet certain standards. The government had until now always rejected such a solution, unwilling to give up the state's monopoly on the use of legitimate force.
He said the number of pirate attacks on German ships had risen from 100 to 163 during the first half of 2011. The number of successful hijackings had dropped though, from 27 in the first half of 2010 to 21 in the first six months of this year.
State efforts to offer protection have not made much of a splash, with the European Union mission ‘Atalanta' offering two operation teams – a German and an Estonian – but German ships alone undertake around 1,700 trips through pirate-infested areas each year.
The frigate Bayern left the marine base at Wilhelmshaven this Monday to take over the leadership of ‘Atalanta' mission for four months.
Otto justified the decision to allow private firms to take on the work saying that money transports were routinely accompanied or even undertaken by such companies – no-one would expect a police team to be stationed at every bank.
Shipping firms have started taking matters into their own hands, with a study published last week by the consultancy firm PwC showing 27 German ships already carry armed security men on board, with a further six employing unarmed security operatives. Just 17 percent of the 100 firms questioned said they thought the ‘Atalanta' mission added to safety in the pirate regions.
The Association of German Ship Owners (VDR) confirmed the move towards employing armed guards, but said it was only a second-best solution. International ocean law says that fighting piracy should be a matter for nations – armed forces fighting piracy should at least be under contract of a state.
“We would be happy to pay for it – it's not about saving money,” said Max Johns, VDR spokesman, acknowledging that arming ships carried risks. “The pirates are constantly upgrading their weaponry – it could come to exchange of fire which could be very bloody,” he said.
The problem of pirate attacks has led to hugely increased insurance premiums for ship owners, as well as taking costly diversions and making increased investment in ship security – as well as difficulties in recruiting.
“Around 200,000 additional shipping personnel are needed, including 50,000 officers, just for those ships on the global register,” said PwC shipping transport expert Claus Brandt.
The outlook for German shipping firms was slowly improving, the PwC report said, as the world economy pulls itself back from the crash and trade increases. Around 48 percent of those asked said they expected increased turnover this year, while 29 percent said they expected stable results.
The Local/DAPD/DPA/hc
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A 787 Dreamliner touches down. An all-new aircraft designed to fly from the US to Europe will fill the gap between the narrow-body 737 and the smallest 787 Dreamliners.
United Continental has taken a close look at an all-new jetliner that Boeing engineers are developing for trans-Atlantic flying, and the airline likes what it sees.
"What we've seen so far is very, very interesting to us," Andrew Levy, United's chief financial officer, said in an interview. "We certainly hope Boeing launches the airplane. We think there is a need for it."
An endorsement from United, a large Boeing customer, would go a long way toward making the business case for so-called middle-of-market jetliners. While the airplane concept exists only on paper so far, Boeing has honed the design to seat between 225 and 260 passengers and worked to bring production costs in line with prices that airlines would be willing to pay.
"I wouldn't be surprised if there is a decision to offer by this year," John Plueger, chief executive officer and co-founder of Air Lease, said of the first step in Boeing's process to formally introduce a new plane. "That might be a bit early, a bit aggressive. But that would not surprise me."
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United had been among the skeptics of the jets that Boeing has spent years developing to fill the gap in its product line-up between the largest of the narrow-body 737 models and the smallest 787 Dreamliners. As Boeing is designing a twin-aisle aircraft with the range to fly from London to New York, budget carriers are shifting more mid-range flying to relatively inexpensive narrow-body jets such as Airbus' A321neo.
After delving deeper into the Boeing design, "we're convinced, we get it. We understand the economics," Levy said in an interview Tuesday at the ISTAT annual conference in San Diego. "We thought a twin made no sense, but we walked through it and had our questions answered. From what we've seen, we like it. But it's a paper airplane. Hopefully they'll launch it."
BLOOMBERG A Boeing 737 MAX 9 on the production floor at the company's manufacturing facility in Renton in the US.
Timing and price are two of the critical elements that Boeing must consider in its high-stakes chess match with Airbus for market dominance. Billions of dollars of investment are at stake, and the payoff can be thwarted by factors ranging from cheap oil to supplier stumbles. Boeing has been planning its new family of mid-range aircraft, while Airbus has been marketing upgrades of existing jetliners: the A321, its largest narrow-body, and A330 wide-body jets.
Boeing's jet, which would probably be known as the 797, may begin flying in 2025, said Steven Udvar-Hazy, who co-founded Air Lease and is influential in shaping product strategy for Boeing and Airbus. The engine technology and break-through design of the new aircraft will be critical since it may fly through 2060, he said.
Shareholders of Boeing may balk at total development costs expected to range from $US10 billion ($A13.3 billion) to $US15 billion, Ron Epstein, an analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a note to clients Wednesday. But if the US planemaker spends too much time refining its design and manufacturing plans, it risks losing the market to Airbus, he said.
"If Boeing waits too long, Airbus may be an early mover and introduce an A322neo that could address this market," Epstein said, referring to a rumored new Airbus aircraft.
Udvar-Hazy isn't convinced that Boeing has figured out the magic blend of price, performance and production costs that will make the 797 a best-seller.
"Boeing has to really wrestle with that issue," he told reporters Tuesday. "As we sit here today, the cost of developing and manufacturing the airplane at a price that gives the airlines value -- I don't think that equation has been solved."
That's the most difficult task Boeing has, especially after what happened with the 787, when they "grossly under-estimated the R&D," Udvar-Hazy said in reference to the Boeing carbon-composite jet, whose costs are thought to have ballooned past $US50 billion. "I don't think Boeing wants to make a mistake, so they are really pinning down what it takes to make that airplane."
The key for Boeing is "not to overbuild the airplane," Aengus Kelly, CEO and executive director of AerCap Holdings, said in an interview, referring to technology and engine performance that can drive up cost. "If you overbuild it, you start encroaching on the 787 market. If you underbuild it, you run into the A321 market," which Boeing's all-new plane couldn't match on price.
Boeing envisions two models to fill the overlapping market segments served by its out-of-production 757 narrow-body and 767 wide-body jets, which were developed jointly in the late 1970s and early 1980s and share the same cockpit design.
"One will be bigger and fly not quite as far, one will be smaller and fly farther," Randy Tinseth, a Boeing marketing vice president, said in an interview. "To some extent you address the single-aisle market, to some extent you address the wide-body market and to some extent you are stimulating growth where no one has been before. And that has been a fascinating part of the whole project."
Airbus could counter by improving the wing design of the single-aisle A321neo to yield another 2 per cent to 3 per cent in fuel savings, or undercutting Boeing on price with a cheaper, lighter version of the A330neo, Udvar-Hazy said. The European planemaker wouldn't need to consider an all-new aircraft unless the Boeing plane proves to be a sales smash, he said.
United eventually will need to replace the 128 Boeing 757 and 767 jetliners in its fleet, and has studied Airbus's A321neo as a possible substitute for the aging narrow-body, particularly on flights from the eastern US to Europe, Levy said.
"The 767 replacement that is available now is bigger than we'd like," he said. "The 757 replacement that is available now is the A321, which is a great airplane. It can do 90 per cent, maybe 95 per cent of what we'd like it to do. But the other 5 to 10 per cent is really critical."
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A few Orlando/Toronto items to unpack in this edition of the blog:
Free Agency
The first days of July every summer mark when NHL clubs go out and sign the highly-sought-after marquee names that are available.
Orlando’s affiliate in Toronto is no exception – the Maple Leafs made some additions to their lineup at the NHL levels, notably grabbing longtime San Jose Sharks mainstay Patrick Marleau and plucking Stanley Cup-winning defenseman Ron Hainsey from Pittsburgh.
Several former Solar Bears were also involved in NHL-level transactions since free agency opened on July 1.
Let’s review, shall we?
Garret Sparks – The Maple Leafs needed to shore up depth in goal, so they brought back Sparks for two more years. It’s presumed that Sparks and Kasimir Kaskisuo will tag-team between the pipes this season for the Marlies.
– The Maple Leafs needed to shore up depth in goal, so they brought back Sparks for two more years. It’s presumed that Sparks and Kasimir Kaskisuo will tag-team between the pipes this season for the Marlies. Darcy Kuemper – Kuemper was briefly assigned to Orlando during his sophomore pro season in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign before eventually making his NHL debut with the Wild after the work-stoppage had ended. Now, he’ll take his talents to Los Angeles, where he’ll back up Jonathan Quick next season after signing a one-year deal.
– Kuemper was briefly assigned to Orlando during his sophomore pro season in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign before eventually making his NHL debut with the Wild after the work-stoppage had ended. Now, he’ll take his talents to Los Angeles, where he’ll back up Jonathan Quick next season after signing a one-year deal. Alex Gallant – Gallant’s time in Orlando was brief – the scrappy forward played only one game with the Solar Bears before he was dealt to the Utah Grizzlies during the 2014-15 season, but he inked his first NHL deal, a two-way contract with Tampa Bay, on July 1. My guess is he will be destined for the Lightning’s AHL affiliate in Syracuse, but if the stars are aligned, we could see another former Solar Bears player make their NHL debut in 2017-18.
– Gallant’s time in Orlando was brief – the scrappy forward played only one game with the Solar Bears before he was dealt to the Utah Grizzlies during the 2014-15 season, but he inked his first NHL deal, a two-way contract with Tampa Bay, on July 1. My guess is he will be destined for the Lightning’s AHL affiliate in Syracuse, but if the stars are aligned, we could see another former Solar Bears player make their NHL debut in 2017-18. Mike Liambas – Liambas’ NHL debut with the Nashville Predators last season was celebrated by the Solar Bears faithful. On the second day of free agency, Liambas signed a one-year, two-way pact with Anaheim; he’ll likely spend the bulk of the upcoming season in San Diego with the Gulls as the team’s enforcer.
What’s interesting is that with the Maple Leafs’ numerous additions, the team is almost up against the 50-contract limit imposed to NHL teams after signing 2017 first-round pick Timothy Liljegren to an entry-level deal on Wednesday, putting Toronto at 49 contracts.
How does this pertain to the Solar Bears? Currently, the Maple Leafs have only four goaltenders under NHL contract for next season: Frederik Andersen, Curtis McElhinney, Kaskisuo and Sparks.
Barring any major transactions that the Maple Leafs orchestrate prior to the start of the season that will free up slots for NHL contracts, my guess is that the netminder in question will be under an AHL contract with the Marlies, not unlike when Rob Madore played for the Solar Bears two seasons ago, when Sparks and Antoine Bibeau were the two primary goalies playing for the Marlies. In the event of an injury or call-up, Madore was readily available for a recall to the AHL when needed.
Development Camp
The Maple Leafs’ Development Camp wrapped up Wednesday at the MasterCard Centre.
This year’s camp featured a new arrangement, as the camp was divided into two distinct groups: Team Clark, consisting of Toronto draft picks, while Team Sittler was comprised of free agent invitees. The final two days of camp featured scrimmages between the two squads.
Last summer, seven members of Toronto’s Development Camp roster would subsequently suit up for Orlando in 2016-17. With 57 players in total participating in this year’s camp, one has to wonder which of these young men will be bound for the City Beautiful for this coming season. In fact, two members of the 2016-17 Solar Bears – Mason Marchment and Jeff King – were on the Development Camp roster.
In terms of preliminary forecasting, one player who I could see playing part of next season with the Solar Bears is former Maple Leafs draft pick J.J. Piccinich.
He’s an interesting case, as he was drafted by Toronto when he had committed to playing college hockey at Boston University. However, Piccinich left the Terriers after his freshman season and has spent the last two years playing major junior for the OHL’s London Knights. Toronto still has exclusive NHL rights to him until next summer (when he would have graduated from BU had he stayed), so the Marlies signed him to a two-year AHL deal earlier this offseason.
He scored a pretty nifty goal for Team Clark in Tuesday’s scrimmage, which can be found below.
Solar Bears head coach Drake Berehowsky was among the personnel helping lead the camp along with Maple Leafs director of player development Scott Pellerin, and while the Leafs, I hope to have some comments from Drake in the next edition of the blog. For now, here’s Pellerin’s thoughts:
Elsewhere in the hockey world:
– Keep dreaming, guys. I want a Maserati, but it’s not happening.
We can just see it now #WeWantJagr pic.twitter.com/KPgSTOKLHo — Florida Everblades (@FL_Everblades) July 11, 2017
– Orlando’s newest in-state rival announced their NHL affiliate last week. Jacksonville now joins Orlando as the second ECHL team in Florida with a Canadian affiliate.
– More affiliation news, as the Kalamazoo Wings announced Wednesday that they’ve reached an agreement with the Vancouver Canucks and Utica Comets.
– In terms of South Division news, the Stingrays announced the return of Patrick Gaul for the upcoming season on Wednesday. Gaul should be a familiar name for Solar Bears fans by this point, as he has suited up for the Stingrays for as long as Orlando’s had an ECHL team.
– The ECHL’s leading scorer for the last three seasons is heading overseas. Chad Costello was a home-run signing for Allen’s Steve Martinson back in 2014, helping lead the Americans to back-to-back Kelly Cups; now he’s taking his talents to Germany. It’ll be interesting to see how Costello’s departure affects the balance of power in the Western Conference.
Jesse Liebman is the Director of Communications & Broadcasting for the Solar Bears and enters his third season in Orlando in 2017-18. You can e-mail him at jliebman@orlandosolarbearshockey.com with questions, comments or blog ideas.
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Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump is set to speak by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, their first call since Russia denounced a US military strike against Syria last month.
Trump and Putin will talk Tuesday afternoon, a White House official said, in their third phone conversation since Trump took office. They last spoke following a terror attack in St. Petersburg , Russia, in early April, and also chatted a week after Trump's inauguration in January.
The call comes after Putin characterized a US strike against a Syrian government air base "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law." The US strike was in response to a suspected chemical attack by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, a Putin ally, on his own people.
Questions also continue to swirl over ties between Trump and Russian cyberintrusions during the 2016 presidential campaign, which the FBI and multiple Capitol Hill committees are investigating.
Trump on Putin
Trump said during the presidential campaign that he views Putin as a "strong leader" and hoped to be able to build a good relationship with him.
"I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there's nothing I can think of that I'd rather do than have Russia friendly, as opposed to the way they are right now, so that we can go and knock out ISIS with other people," he said in July 2016.
"I think it was Russia," Trump said, adding that Putin "should not be doing it."
"He won't be doing it. Russia will have much greater respect for our country when I am leading it than when other people have led it," the then President-elect said.
JUST WATCHED Trump's love/hate relationship with Russia & Putin Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump's love/hate relationship with Russia & Putin 00:52
In February, Trump told reporters he would "love to be able to get along with Russia:
"Now, you've had a lot of presidents that haven't taken that tack. Look where we are now. Look where we are now. So, if I can -- now, I love to negotiate things, I do it really well, and all that stuff. But -- but it's possible I won't be able to get along with Putin."
The Kremlin's statement after the US strike in Syria appeared pessimistic, saying the intervention had "dealt a serious blow to Russian-US relations, which are already in a poor state."
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How to File a Report
Accurately and fairly reporting problematic or disruptive characters will help to keep the TF2 community fun for everyone. The Report tool should not be abused, only file a report if you believe there is a valid claim of misconduct. You can file an in-game report against a problematic player or server by clicking thekey.Once you've pressedyou will get a notification appear on the left side of your screen, letting you know that the abuse report is ready to be made.By default you can selecton your keyboard to submit the report now, or you can selectto submit it later.If you choose to submit the report later you'll have a pending notification waiting for you the next time you return to theof Team Fortress 2.Clicking the notification will give you the option to create the abuse report by clicking on the eye icon, and it will give you the option to cancel it by clicking the red cross.From thescreen you'll Initially be able to choose from two check boxes,or. If you've checked thebox you'll be able to select the player name you wish to report from the drop down menu.Additionally the game will automatically take a screenshot of your screen when you click F7. If you're reporting abusive imagery it's a good idea to clickwhile you're looking at it to provide evidence to your report.Once you've selected a player's name the screenshot field will highlight them with a red box if they were within your view when you clickedOnce you've specified the person you'd like to report you will then be able to see thedrop down menu. From here you're able to select what you'd like to report the person for.Certain choices from thelist such aswill give you access to the another drop down menu. Here you'll be able to specify what you believe is wrong with the image you're reporting. The screenshot field will also change to the offending avatar.Below the main body of the report there is also afield. In this box you can provide a short description of what you're reporting and any additional information which might help the person reviewing it.When you're ready to submit the report click on thebutton. You can also save the information provided by clicking on. You'll then be able to click on the notification again and finalize any changes before submitting.
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The Cabinet and Europe: an update
Today’s newspapers are heavier than usual; not because of all the pull-out supplements, but because of all the stories about Cabinet attendees and Europe. Here’s our summary of the latest:
IDS’s row with Cameron. The Mail on Sunday reports that Iain Duncan Smith had an “angry showdown” with David Cameron in the latter’s Commons office on Wednesday. The cause? Apparently, IDS’s anger over how the Tory leadership has used the draft EU deal to politick for In, despite promising not to, and despite the silence of the Outers. Not only does this strengthen a long-standing assumption: that the Work and Pensions Secretary will campaign for Brexit. It also hints at how Tory Eurosceptics, generally well-behaved over the past few months, are starting to get angry: they feel that the rules of the game are tilted against them.
Patel to fight for Brexit. Another minister who wants to trade firm words with Cameron is Priti Patel. The Mail on Sunday says that she will “demand a meeting” with the Prime Minister “to tell him she will fight tooth and nail against his bid to keep Britain in the EU.” It does make you wonder whether the draft EU deal, and its aftermath, has made the Outers more determined to… well, out themselves.
Will Whittingdale encourage the others? An eye-catching claim in the Mail on Sunday (again) that John Whittingdale is going to fight the Prime Minister over his plans to restrict the advertisement of junk food around television programmes. Earlier this week, of course, Whittingdale became one of the few Cabinet attendees, along with Chris Grayling, to have really signalled his desire for Brexit. Is he going to become one of the chief provocateurs from within? And will he bring others, such as Theresa Villiers, over to his side?
The PM pleads with Gove. Michael Gove remains caught, it is said, between his loyalty to the Prime Minister and his own Euroscepticism. And both campaigns are trying to help him decide. The Telegraph reported, a few days ago, that Vote Leave is standing by Dominic Cummings, a former adviser to Gove, in the hope of attracting the Justice Secretary to their cause. Whilst today’s Sun on Sunday has it that “Cameron has begged Justice Secretary Michael Gove: don’t lead Britain out of the EU.”
May no more. Toby Young wants her to front the Out campaign, but perhaps it’s telling that the only other story connecting Theresa May with Europe in today’s papers is this one about refugees in the Independent on Sunday. Sure, anything can change as this simmering campaign heats up, but the assumption seems to be that, with her intervention earlier this week, the Home Secretary has decided to Remain.
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Dellen Millard is the young CEO behind Millardair, an aviation maintenance company housed at Waterloo Regional Airport’s hangar 53, where police were searching Monday.
A 27-year-old car and flight enthusiast charged in the disappearance of Timothy Bosma remains a central mystery to the case as a GTA-wide search closes in on a Waterloo airport hangar and home in his name.
He is charged with the forcible confinement of Bosma and the theft of his 2007 black Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck.
Property records and online postings reveal Millard inherited several pricey properties after he took over the viable family business following the deaths of his grandfather and father. He also may have owned the same model truck he is accused of stealing.
Millard’s Mississauga lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, said his client runs a “successful” business and is “completely in shock” by the charges.
“It’s a well-to-do family financially,” he said.
Paradkar added he has not yet seen the evidence against Millard, who is exercising his “constitutional right to remain silent.”
On mobile? Follow our live coverage .
Monday marked a week since Bosma’s disappearance and it remains a mystery what anyone would have wanted with the 32-year-old father or his truck.
Police say Bosma posted his car for sale online and was contacted by two men in their mid-20s, who arrived at his Ancaster home on foot. After leaving with them for a test drive, he never returned.
Just a day earlier, police allege the same men arrived at an Etobicoke business to test a newer Dodge Ram model, but returned that man and departed.
Millard himself appears to have already owned a Dodge truck.
A cherry red 2005 Dodge Ram 3500 was registered to Millard Holdings Ltd., an amalgamated company formerly helmed by his late grandfather, Carl Millard, and father Wayne Millard.
On Monday, Hamilton police confirmed a large covered trailer they say is registered to Millard’s company was found in Kleinburg, Ont. with a black pickup truck inside. Police did not say whether the truck is Bosma’s as they sought a search warrant.
A neighbour who lives next door to the Tinsmith Crt. address where the trailer was found said it first appeared in the driveway late Thursday and the home belongs to Millard’s mother, Madeleine Burns, who is listed as the sole owner.
“It was suspicious in that it was parked right up against the garage,” said Frank Cianfarani, who called the police to have them check out the trailer.
In court documents, Millard is listed as living on Maple Gate Crt. in Etobicoke, which was transferred from grandparents Carl and Della to Dellen and his father in April 2008.
He was also listed on a Derry Rd. W. home in Mississauga alongside his father in April 2008. That property was sold for $795,000 in June 2012, several months before his father’s death.
Millard purchased a rural Waterloo Region property on Roseville Rd. in 2011 for $835,000. That property is also being searched, Hamilton police confirmed Monday night.
According to Paradakar, Millardair performed aircraft maintenance with several staff at the Waterloo hangar, which was modernized after the company moved from a Pearson airport hangar in 2012.
But a Transport Canada spokesperson confirmed the company’s certification as an approved maintenance organization was cancelled this past February at the company’s request.
The maintenance and manufacturing branch of the government department oversees standards for aircraft operations in Canada and gives approval to do specific maintenance work.
It is not clear what work Millardair was continuing to do at the hangar.
Pictures posted to a Facebook page between March 2010 and February 2012 show Millard working on several cars inside what appears to be an airport hangar. A video posted March 2012 on the same page shows Millard inside a small helicopter, its propellers rotating as it sits on the tarmac.
On Monday afternoon, forensic identification officers were seen entering the hangar and taking photographs around the perimeter as a police van remained parked outside the building’s door.
With files from Kamila Hinkson, the Hamilton Spectator and the Waterloo Region Record.
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Breaking News: A 23-year-old Lamar University police officer accidentally shot himself in the foot while he was preparing for training at the LIT Multipurpose Building, according to information KFDM News has obtained from LU spokesman Brian Sattler.
Beaumont Fire Department dispatach says thecall came in at about 8:10 a.m. and he was taken by EMS to CHRISTUS Hospital St. Elizabeth. His injuries aren't life threatening. Dispatch says the bleeding was controlled and he was awake and alert when he was transported by ambulance.
According to LU, the officer accidentally discharged his personal weapon as he was clearing the weapon to put it away prior to class. A 9mm round struck the officer in his left foot.
Watch KFDM and stay with us online and on Facebook for updates.
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3x3x3 Cube Combined First Second Round Final 4x4x4 Cube Combined First Final 5x5x5 Cube Combined Final 3x3x3 One-Handed Combined Final Pyraminx Combined First Final Skewb Combined First Final Competitors Adam Quinn Aiden Buckley Alex Loughley Andrew Cirincione Andrew Strickland Aryan Paliwal Ben Zoller Benjamin Lohmann Blake Thompson Bobby Kirschner Brayden Beckman Brayden Rinehart Brenden Emerick Brian Perusek Bryce Moore Caleb Willson Carson Davis Channae Anderson Dave Reese Drew Brads Drew Griffith Dylan Cossin Eli Fox Ethan Henderson Evan Wasko Evan Wright Frankie Vostatek Gavin Precurato Grant Schwartzenburg Harsha Paladugu Hayden Aspiranti Himanshu Setya Ivan Krueger Jack Bohning Jack Pfeifer Jack Wagar Jacob Ambrose Jarett Butler Jerome Hotchkiss Joey Weixel John Beck John Shidemantle Joshua Franz Katie Cirincione Katie Hull Kayla Brown Kelsey Peterson Kyle Miller Landon Maynard Luke Shidemantle Mason Langenderfer Matt Weber Matthew Lu Matthew Moegling Micah Walker Michael May Natalie Fox Nathan Swihart Nicholas Johnson Nick Shafer Noah Price Payton Robertson Phillip Lewicki Rahul Rajaram Raymond Goslow Reese Walter Ryker Holsinger Sam Buchanan Sean Cutshaw Stanley Chapel Stephen Griggs Steven Cheung Teddy Anzevino Tyler Bair Tyrus David Hartman Vincent Scalesi Zac Jamison Zacary M Watkins Zachary Castrigano Zachary Garber [refresh] [show]
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I was wondering why this comic felt so familiar - all the jokes have been recycled from "Feliks' Adventures". There's May's overly friendly mother shoving the protagonist upstairs; the protagonist getting caught grabbing May's pokeball, and May slacking off to check her social media websites. Even the panel layouts seem borrowed from Lotty's nuzlocke (Grey holding the pokeball, May at her computer).
What caught my interest in the prologue was the potential relationship that could be explored between the grown-up Grey and the older "Mr. Birch". How has time changed these people? How does Grey feel about finally meeting his childhood idol? How will they challenge each other? So I experienced a case of mood whiplash when I moved from the quieter prologue to the exaggerated jokes of chapter one. I feel like I've read two separate comics.
You seem to have big plans for this nuzlocke so I'll wait to read some further entries and see whether everything really does happen for a reason.
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Tensions boiled over at Monday evening’s Toronto mayoral debate before candidates were even in their seats as Mayor Rob Ford’s campaign team clashed with debate organizers at the door.
Mr. Ford was accompanied by multiple campaign staff, including his brother and campaign manager, councillor Doug Ford, and communications representative Amin Massoudi.
But candidates were limited to one campaign staff member at the East York debate, hosted by the Parkview Hills Community Association, in Presteign-Woodbine United Church. The church has a limited number of seats and organizers planned to reserve as many as possible for residents of the community.
As the mayor and his staff attempted to get through the door, contravening the debate rules, the situation quickly became heated with pushing and shoving back and forth.
Doug Ford accused organizers of hosting a “biased debate” because Parkview president Justin Van Dette has supported rival candidate John Tory.
“He’s part of the John Tory campaign,” councillor Ford shouted. “He won’t leave, we won’t leave. It’s very simple. He wants to be biased.”
Mr. Van Dette did not deny supporting Mr. Tory when asked by reporters. On July 15, Mr. Van Dette tweeted during a debate that Mr. Tory “looks like the mayor Toronto needs.” He has previously tweeted other messages of support for Mr. Tory and has publicly criticized other candidates.
“Chow is pandering. Her anti-gun law won’t do anything. And pandering isn’t leadership,” he tweeted July 14.
But Mr. Van Dette, a well-known supporter of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party, insisted he had no sway in the debate.
“This is a community association debate. The rules were set up by a debate committee,” he told CP24. “There is a media panel that is running the debate with the questions. This is an opportunity for the community to attend. There are 40 some odd debates being planned in the future and if any of the people want to attend they can go elsewhere. If the mayor decides that he wants to come in, every campaign is limited by the standard one person per candidate.”
It appeared the Ford campaign was about to leave amid the pushing and shouting.
“You’ve got John Tory’s colleagues on the panel. Two of us are coming in or we’re leaving. It’s very simple,” councillor Ford said. “This is a closed-door meeting. Not everyone from East York is allowed in.”
But the Fords, along with Mr. Massoudi soon pushed past the door and into the church.
Mr. Van Dette said he “had no hands in the debate” and that the scuffle lacked civility.
“All we want is we want the community to be part of this debate and if we were to let every campaign walk in with four or five candidates, that would occupy 10% of the seating. We’re full down here. It’s very unfortunate. Every other campaign has respected the rules,” he said.
The debate featured about 150 people packed into the church’s basement, filling every seat and standing along the sidelines. Candidates fielded questions from audience members and journalists about jobs, transit and decorum at city hall.
Mayor Ford insisted that he would be able to muscle his agenda through another term, even though he has alienated many of his allies.
“These people come and go with the wind,” he said, suggesting that as his poll numbers climb, so too will his popularity with councillors. He was the only candidate on the stage who did not pose a question to his competitors.
John Tory, by contrast, was challenged on his transit plan repeatedly and he in turn challenged Ms. Chow on her intentions for the downtown relief line. She said she believed an initial eastern phase could be built in ten years.
Mr. Tory received a loud round of applause for defending the Scarborough subway and for his shots at civility at city hall. “I’ve never had a job in my life where you go down and act like a clown,” he said.
After the debate, Mayor Ford was alone in complaining it was “biased” because of a “partisan” organizer.
National Post, with files from Natalie Alcoba
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In the recent blog posts we've discussed invisible part of the object layout in the CLR:
This time we're going to focus on the layout of an instance itself, specifically, how instance fields are laid out in memory.
There is no official documentation about fields layout because the CLR authors reserved the right to change it in the future. But knowledge about the layout can be helpful if you're curious or if you're working on a performance critical application.
How can we inspect the layout? We can look at a raw memory in Visual Studio or use !dumpobj command in SOS Debugging Extension. These approaches are tedious and boring, so we'll try to write a tool that will print an object layout at runtime.
If you're not interested in the implementation details of the tool, feel free to jump to the section 'Inspecting a value type layout at runtime'.
Getting the field offset at runtime
We're not going to use unmanaged code or Profiling API, instead we'll use the power of LdFlda instruction. This IL instruction returns an address of a field for a given type. Unfortunately, this instruction is not exposed in C# language, so we have to do some light-weight code generation to work around that limitation.
In Dissecting the new() constraint in C# we already did something similar. We'll generate a Dynamic Method with the necessary IL-instructions.
The method should do the following:
Create an array for all field addresses.
Enumerate over each FieldInfo of an object to get the offset by calling LdFlda instruction.
of an object to get the offset by calling instruction. Convert the result of LdFlda instruction to long and store the result in the array.
instruction to and store the result in the array. Return the array.
private static Func < object , long []> GenerateFieldOffsetInspectionFunction ( FieldInfo [] fields )
{
var method = new DynamicMethod (
name : "GetFieldOffsets" ,
returnType : typeof ( long []),
parameterTypes : new [] { typeof ( object ) },
m : typeof ( InspectorHelper ) . Module ,
skipVisibility : true );
ILGenerator ilGen = method . GetILGenerator ();
// Declaring local variable of type long[]
ilGen . DeclareLocal ( typeof ( long []));
// Loading array size onto evaluation stack
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Ldc_I4 , fields . Length );
// Creating an array and storing it into the local
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Newarr , typeof ( long ));
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Stloc_0 );
for ( int i = 0 ; i < fields . Length ; i ++ )
{
// Loading the local with an array
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Ldloc_0 );
// Loading an index of the array where we're going to store the element
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Ldc_I4 , i );
// Loading object instance onto evaluation stack
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Ldarg_0 );
// Getting the address for a given field
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Ldflda , fields [ i ]);
// Converting field offset to long
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Conv_I8 );
// Storing the offset in the array
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Stelem_I8 );
}
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Ldloc_0 );
ilGen . Emit ( OpCodes . Ret );
return ( Func < object , long []>) method . CreateDelegate ( typeof ( Func < object , long []>));
}
Now we can create a helper function that will provide the offsets for each field for a given type:
public static ( FieldInfo fieldInfo , int offset )[] GetFieldOffsets ( Type t )
{
var fields = t . GetFields ( BindingFlags . Public | BindingFlags . Instance | BindingFlags . NonPublic );
Func < object , long []> fieldOffsetInspector = GenerateFieldOffsetInspectionFunction ( fields );
var instance = CreateInstance ( t );
var addresses = fieldOffsetInspector ( instance );
if ( addresses . Length == 0 )
{
return Array . Empty <( FieldInfo , int )>();
}
var baseLine = addresses . Min ();
// Converting field addresses to offsets using the first field as a baseline
return fields
. Select (( field , index ) => ( field : field , offset : ( int )( addresses [ index ] - baseLine )))
. OrderBy ( tuple => tuple . offset )
. ToArray ();
}
The function is pretty straightforward with one caveat: LdFlda instruction expects an object instance on the evaluation stack. For value types and for reference types with a default constructor, the solution is trivial: use Activator.CreateInstance(Type) . But what if want to inspect classes that doesn't have a default constructor?
In this case we can use a lesser known "generic factory" called FormatterServices.GetUninitializedObject(Type) :
private static object CreateInstance ( Type t )
{
return t . IsValueType ? Activator . CreateInstance ( t ) : FormatterServices . GetUninitializedObject ( t );
}
Let's test GetFieldOffsets to get the layout for the following type:
class ByteAndInt
{
public byte b { get ; }
public int n ;
}
Console . WriteLine (
string . Join ( " \r
" ,
InspectorHelper . GetFieldOffsets ( typeof ( ByteAndInt ))
. Select ( tpl => $"Field { tpl . fieldInfo . Name } : starts at offset { tpl . offset } " ))
);
The output is:
Field n: starts at offset 0 Field b: starts at offset 4
Interesting, but not sufficient. We can inspect offsets for each field, but it would be very helpful to know the size of each field to understand how efficient the layout is and how much empty space each instance has.
Computing the size for a type instance
And again, there is no "official" way to get the size of the object instance. sizeof operator works only for primitive types and user-defined structs with no fields of reference types. Marshal.SizeOf returns a size of an object in unmanaged memory and is also not suitable for our needs.
We'll compute instance size for value types and object separately. To compute the size of a struct we'll rely on the CLR itself. We will create a simple generic type with two fields: the first field of the desired type and the second field that will be used to get the size of the first one.
struct SizeComputer < T >
{
public T dummyField ;
public int offset ;
}
public static int GetSizeOfValueTypeInstance ( Type type )
{
Debug . Assert ( type . IsValueType );
var generatedType = typeof ( SizeComputer <>) . MakeGenericType ( type );
// The offset of the second field is the size of the 'type'
var fieldsOffsets = GetFieldOffsets ( generatedType );
return fieldsOffsets [ 1 ] . offset ;
}
To get the size of a reference type instance we will use another trick: we'll get the max field offset, then add the size of that field and round that number to a pointer-size boundary. We already know how to compute the size of a value type and we know that every field of a reference type occupies 4 or 8 bytes depending on the platform. So we've got everything we need:
public static int GetSizeOfReferenceTypeInstance ( Type type )
{
Debug . Assert ( ! type . IsValueType );
var fields = GetFieldOffsets ( type );
if ( fields . Length == 0 )
{
// Special case: the size of an empty class is 1 Ptr size
return IntPtr . Size ;
}
// The size of the reference type is computed in the following way:
// MaxFieldOffset + SizeOfThatField
// and round that number to closest point size boundary
var maxValue = fields . MaxBy ( tpl => tpl . offset );
int sizeCandidate = maxValue . offset + GetFieldSize ( maxValue . fieldInfo . FieldType );
// Rounding the size to the nearest ptr-size boundary
int roundTo = IntPtr . Size - 1 ;
return ( sizeCandidate + roundTo ) & ( ~ roundTo ) ;
}
public static int GetFieldSize ( Type t )
{
if ( t . IsValueType )
{
return GetSizeOfValueTypeInstance ( t );
}
return IntPtr . Size ;
}
We have enough information to get a proper layout information for any type instance at runtime.
Inspecting a value type layout at runtime
Let's start with value types and inspect the following struct:
public struct NotAlignedStruct
{
public byte m_byte1 ;
public int m_int ;
public byte m_byte2 ;
public short m_short ;
}
Here is a result of TypeLayout.Print<NotAlignedStruct>() method call:
Size: 12. Paddings: 4 (%33 of empty space)
|================================|
| 0: Byte m_byte1 (1 byte) |
|--------------------------------|
| 1-3: padding (3 bytes) |
|--------------------------------|
| 4-7: Int32 m_int (4 bytes) |
|--------------------------------|
| 8: Byte m_byte2 (1 byte) |
|--------------------------------|
| 9: padding (1 byte) |
|--------------------------------|
| 10-11: Int16 m_short (2 bytes) |
|================================|
By default, a user-defined struct has the 'sequential' layout with Pack equal to 0 . Here is a rule that the CLR follows:
Each field must align with fields of its own size (1, 2, 4, 8, etc., bytes) or the alignment of the type, whichever is smaller. Because the default alignment of the type is the size of its largest element, which is greater than or equal to all other field lengths, this usually means that fields are aligned by their size. For example, even if the largest field in a type is a 64-bit (8-byte) integer or the Pack field is set to 8, Byte fields align on 1-byte boundaries, Int16 fields align on 2-byte boundaries, and Int32 fields align on 4-byte boundaries.
In this case, the alignment is equal to 4 causing a reasonable amount of overhead. We can change the Pack to 1, but we can get a performance degradation due to unaligned memory operations. Instead we can use LayoutKind.Auto to allow the CLR to figure out the best layout:
[ StructLayout ( LayoutKind . Auto )]
public struct NotAlignedStructWithAutoLayout
{
public byte m_byte1 ;
public int m_int ;
public byte m_byte2 ;
public short m_short ;
}
Size: 8. Paddings: 0 (%0 of empty space)
|================================|
| 0-3: Int32 m_int (4 bytes) |
|--------------------------------|
| 4-5: Int16 m_short (2 bytes) |
|--------------------------------|
| 6: Byte m_byte1 (1 byte) |
|--------------------------------|
| 7: Byte m_byte2 (1 byte) |
|================================|
Please, keep in mind that the sequential layout for both value types and reference types is only possible if a type doesn't have "pointers" in it. If a struct or a class has at least one field of a reference type, the layout is automatically changed to LayoutKind.Auto .
Inspecting a reference type layout at runtime
There are two main differences between the layout of a reference type and a value type. First, each "object" instance has a header and a method table pointer. And second, the default layout for "objects" is automatic not sequential. And similar to value types, the sequential layout is possible only for classes which don't have any fields of reference types.
Method TypeLayout.PrintLayout<T>(bool recursively = true) takes an argument that allows to print the nested types as well.
public class ClassWithNestedCustomStruct
{
public byte b ;
public NotAlignedStruct sp1 ;
}
Size: 40. Paddings: 11 (%27 of empty space)
|========================================|
| Object Header (8 bytes) |
|----------------------------------------|
| Method Table Ptr (8 bytes) |
|========================================|
| 0: Byte b (1 byte) |
|----------------------------------------|
| 1-7: padding (7 bytes) |
|----------------------------------------|
| 8-19: NotAlignedStruct sp1 (12 bytes) |
| |================================| |
| | 0: Byte m_byte1 (1 byte) | |
| |--------------------------------| |
| | 1-3: padding (3 bytes) | |
| |--------------------------------| |
| | 4-7: Int32 m_int (4 bytes) | |
| |--------------------------------| |
| | 8: Byte m_byte2 (1 byte) | |
| |--------------------------------| |
| | 9: padding (1 byte) | |
| |--------------------------------| |
| | 10-11: Int16 m_short (2 bytes) | |
| |================================| |
|----------------------------------------|
| 20-23: padding (4 bytes) |
|========================================|
The cost of wrapping a struct
Even though the type layout is pretty straightforward, I've found one interesting aspect.
I was investigating a memory issue in my project recently and I noticed something strange: the sum of all fields of a managed object was higher than the size of the instance. I roughly knew the rules how the CLR lays out fields so I was puzzled. I've started working on this tool to understand that issue.
I've narrowed down the issue to the following case:
internal struct ByteWrapper
{
public byte b ;
}
internal class ClassWithByteWrappers
{
public ByteWrapper bw1 ;
public ByteWrapper bw2 ;
public ByteWrapper bw3 ;
}
--- Automatic Layout --- --- Sequential Layout ---
Size: 24 bytes. Paddings: 21 bytes Size: 8 bytes. Paddings: 5 bytes
(%87 of empty space) (%62 of empty space)
|=================================| |=================================|
| Object Header (8 bytes) | | Object Header (8 bytes) |
|---------------------------------| |---------------------------------|
| Method Table Ptr (8 bytes) | | Method Table Ptr (8 bytes) |
|=================================| |=================================|
| 0: ByteWrapper bw1 (1 byte) | | 0: ByteWrapper bw1 (1 byte) |
|---------------------------------| |---------------------------------|
| 1-7: padding (7 bytes) | | 1: ByteWrapper bw2 (1 byte) |
|---------------------------------| |---------------------------------|
| 8: ByteWrapper bw2 (1 byte) | | 2: ByteWrapper bw3 (1 byte) |
|---------------------------------| |---------------------------------|
| 9-15: padding (7 bytes) | | 3-7: padding (5 bytes) |
|---------------------------------| |=================================|
| 16: ByteWrapper bw3 (1 byte) |
|---------------------------------|
| 17-23: padding (7 bytes) |
|=================================|
Even though the size of the ByteWrapper is 1 byte, the CLR aligns each field on the pointer boundaries! If the type layout is LayoutKind.Auto the CLR will pad each field of a custom value type! This means that if you have multiple structs that wrap just a single int or byte and they're widely used in millions of objects, you could have a noticeable memory overhead due to padding!
References
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So, you want to know how to get through life without getting a job, eh? Don't want some annoying boss nagging your ass the entire fucking day? Lost all your motivation to do any work ever since she left and took everything of value that you've ever possessed? Maybe, you just don't like having to wake-up every morning to go to some goddamn small cubical where you are forced to do all of this seemingly pointless paperwork because you know your job is just going to be outsourced to Pakistan in a month, right? Well, lucky for you, this specially-priced guide[1] WILL help you achieve your lifelong dream of being a rich, lazy bum who gets to laugh at all of those poor, hard-working bums without having to own an oil company![2]
Contents show]
Why don't you need a job? Edit
Tip If those IRS bastards still try to make you pay taxes, tell them to shove it. They're sure to leave you alone, then!
Jobs, like food preferences, are a matter of taste. We live in a society where we are forced to conform and get a job so we can support the great capitalist machine. Unfortunately, very few people realize that there is another way, a way YOU can make money without sending in that damn application or having to take some stupid piss test. By not working and still making money, you will be able to live the life of leisure you always dreamed of, and you may finally get laid thanks to all that money laying around... After all, chicks dig dudes who have a lot of cash and can stay home to satisfy their wild, uncontrolled sex drives.[3]
There are thousands of people just like you who earn money without having to file income taxes papers every year. And, let's face it, isn't being able to tell the IRS to suck on it The American Dream? I think SO!!! This guide is guaranteed[4] to help you "pursue, capture, and strangle that dream"[5] until you are RICH!!!
Rip off a soda machine Edit
Tired of those cola companies overpricing their thirst-quenching soft drinks? Feel like the cola companies are committing some sort of crime by making you pay $1.25 for a lousy 12 ounce drink that will only take you two minutes at the most to drink? Are you just thirsty but lack sufficient funds to buy a drink? Wanna make your friends think you are some sort of technology wizard? Are you just so bored that gouging your eyes out with a salt shaker sounds like most fun thing that you have ever thought of doing to yourself? Well, the first and quite possibly the easiest way to make some quick cash would have to be by ripping off one of their lousy soda machines. It's a lot of fun, and you will get to exact your revenge on those damn cola companies at the same time! What more can one ask for?!? All you have to do is:
Step 1: Find a soda machine. In this case, use a Coca-Cola machine, namely because the Pepsi machines won't have any money in them. After all, who drinks Pepsi! Nobody. It tastes fucking horrible !
! Step 2: The next step, make sure there are no cameras or other people around.
Step 3: Now, take your crowbar and pry the goddamn thing open. If that doesn't work, use your crowbar and smash the motherfucker to bits!
Step 4: Take all of the coins and drinks you can carry out of the machine.
Step 5: ???
Step 6: PROFIT!!
You can keep doing this to get free drinks and any change inside the machine. There are many other ways to steal from soda machines and other type of vending machines, but this is quite possibly the easiest method. Remember, this doesn't work on all Coca-Cola machines, and this is classified as petty theft. You can go to jail for doing this. But hey, you won't mind getting thrown into jail. After all, they have FREE FOOD and FREE SEX!!!
Go on a game show Edit
Tip Go with your gut, you genius you!
Many people have become famous for being on game shows, like, um.... Ken Jennings! You know, the guy who was on all of those episodes of Jeopardy! That guy no longer has to work, and he can get any woman (or man... What? I don't discriminate...) he wants. Why shouldn't you?!?
After all, the chances of you going on a game show and winning are great! I mean, there are so few people who want to compete on game shows and win millions of dollars! And those people that are going on the game shows to compete against you are idiots! You are so much smarter, stronger, talented, and braver than everyone else! I bet you could go on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and not even have to use one lifeline (because you'll answer the first question incorrectly thinking you know it, despite the fact that you don't know shit!) .
Make an obscene 1920's wager Edit
Around the world in 80 days? Race across the sands of Arabia? Listen, you can do any of these things! You've seen all of those movies! You can even find some poor sap you will be willing to bet 40,000 dollars on a single coin flip! I even had a friend who used a double-sided coin to get a million dollars from Bill Gates![6] There's no way you could lose.
I had another friend who challenged his family to a home wrestling match, winner getting all of the life insurance money and the title of world's greatest wrestler. He won! Sadly, he decided that, because his son didn't tap out like he should have, it was not an honourable win and took his own life. But you won't have to do that! After all, you have no emotional investment in your family members.
I got another idea! You could bet some rich friend of yours that Johnny Carson will rise from the grave as a zombie tomorrow. Then, all you have to do is dress up your old grandpa as Johnny Carson have him go to your friends house rambling on about wanting to eat brains. He's got the smell of a corpse down already. You can appear out of nowhere doing that maniacal laugh of yours and tell your dumb ass friend to pay up.
Besides, this will even give you a chance to wear that cape, top hat, and matching curly moustache! Come on, I know you want to. Who would resist such a chance? I know I wouldn't. Dude, just do it![7]
Mug that old bitch Edit
That's right. The fourth way of making money without having to go through the trouble of getting a job is to mug old people. Most old people can't fight back making them great targets! Not only are most far too weak to ever fight back, but they also get social security checks from the government! That means... FREE MONEY! Ya`y!
This may seem like it is the best way to make money without having a job, after all, now you get to incorporate your love of assaulting old people with your quest to get rich, but you mustn't forget that most old people are weak and can be severely injured and possibly killed without much force. For some weird reason, people in today's corrupt society think they are "honourable" by acting like they care about old people. They don't. But if you end up severely hurting or killing the old person your mugging, you'll get thrown in prison!
And don't forget, some old people could easily kick your ass. But, as long as you don't hurt or kill the old person, you should be able to get away with stealing from them. After all, most old people are inept at remembering things unless they get hurt, so they'll probably forget to call the police. And please don't do it to your grandmother. That's just wrong. But, um, speaking of grandma...
Mooch off your senile grandmother Edit
Isn't it a shame that the old people in this nation get a ton of money they will never use? Sure, they need it to pay for their Alzheimer's treatments and extra-strength laxatives, but are they ever going to really use it? Your senile grandmother is the perfect example of waste. No not her adult diapers, the utter waste of money just waiting to be spent on your upcoming trip to the Bahamas.
Just tell her that it's your birthday and Bam! Twenty big ones right there. Next month, do it again! If she remembers that she gave you money last month, tell her that she doesn't remember your birthday and that she is getting old. Cry if necessary. She'll probably give you even more money![8] Not only will you be getting rich quick, you will be doing the proper thing every grandchild should do, all while visiting your elders. I mean, she has been lonely ever since grandpa left her for that 20-something year-old girl last March.
And hey! Don't even think about killing her to get your inheritance! After all, how do you know if she even left you any? The police will investigate her death if they smell anything fishy, whatsoever! You aren't even close to being smart enough to get away with murder! Trust me. You're not O.J.!!![9]
Other ways Edit
Tip If you're afraid of ever getting in trouble or being arrested, I recommended you read this.
There are many other ways to make money than those discussed here. You'll just have to trust me on that one. Some included:
Becoming an adult film star (This still counts as work but you are more likely to meet idiots with tons of money who will want to marry you. The bright side is free money and free sex!)
Sell useless reports online on how to get rich quick and be your own boss - remember on the Internet its buyer beware so once a sucker pays you, you don't have to refund their money!
Setting up your own wiki and holding fund-raisers to pay for the ever increasing need for bigger and better servers while actually taking most of the money for yourself.
See, jobs are only for stu-- Oh fuck! Look at the time! Sorry. I will have to cut our little conservation short. I can't be late to work! Boss'll throw a fit!! How 'bout I come over to your place later and talk more about this?!? Okay! Uh, see ya later!
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IF ONE were to judge by the recent behaviour of Russian lawmakers, the country is under assault. Not by foreign armies—though that threat, too, always looms large in the rhetoric of Russia’s political leaders—but by hostile and unfamiliar values, films, television personalities, even words.
Over the past months, the Russian Duma has been on a campaign to dig up and cast out what it sees as the many traces of foreign involvement or meddling in Russian life. Most egregious is a new law banning Americans from adopting Russian orphans. Another proposed law would require children of state officials to return home after studying abroad or perhaps bar them from leaving at all; yet another would require cinemas to show Russian-made films at least 20% of the time; or be subject to fines up to 400,000 rubles ($13,3000).
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Although all these disparate initiatives share the same underlying goal of somehow being seen to purify Russia and to serve as building blocks for a nascent (yet to be defined) ideology, they vary in their immediate purpose. Some, such as the adoption ban, were retaliatory measures, meant to lash out at the United States for its passage of the Magnitsky Act. Cynicism is surely at play, but one should not underestimate how sincerely much of the Russian political class is fed up with what it sees as hypocrisy and condescension from the United States and Europe.
Others, such as a nationwide ban passed last week on promoting “homosexual propaganda” to minors, were meant to aggravate social cleavages and to consolidate support among what advisers in the Kremlin see as the natural conservative base of Vladimir Putin, the president. Before the vote, Dmitry Sablin, a deputy from the pro-Kremlin United Russia, party cited the need to protect country’s “traditional values” and added, "We live in Russia, not Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Still more proposed laws were targeted against specific individuals: a provision to keep Americans from working in politically-oriented NGOs was directed at Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of Moscow Helsinki Group and a dual Russian-American citizen; another, since rescinded, would have made it illegal for foreigners to appear on state television if they “discredited” the Russian state, a clear missive to Vladimir Pozner, a host on Channel One who criticised the Duma on air for the adoption ban and holds an American passport. But it is telling that in order to discredit or to otherwise make life difficult for Ms Alexeyeva and Mr Pozner, deputies seized on their American citizenship–that, it would seem, is now the Scarlet Letter in Russian politics.
The efforts to purge Russian civic life of foreign elements reached a farcical crescendo last week, when Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the bombastic and clownish leader of Liberal Democratic Party, proposed a law that would bar the use of “Americanisms” and other foreign words. (Violators could face fines or even sacking from their jobs.) Gone would be the Russian cognates for “leader,” “boutique,” and “sale,” among dozens of others. “There is a good Russian word, zakusichnaya, not all just ‘bar,’ ‘restaurant,’ ‘café,’” Mr Zhirinovsky said in announcing the bill.
The notion of the law may seem laughable, but as Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Centre says, it is not that Mr Zhirinovsky in any way misread the current mood, but simply that he has an “unparalleled talent for hardening policies into a travesty.” Not much is likely to come of Mr Zhirinovsky’s initiative: after all, as many have pointed out, he might have to start by changing the name of his own party.
That raises an intriguing question. If much of this proposed legislation is never meant to actually be enacted, then what is the point? Above all, the various laws serve as trial balloons, able to test public mood and cast about for those anti-Western and anti-foreign measures with the most social traction. One United Russia deputy says, “Russian society is living through a transition to the restoration of conservative values”, a shift that the Kremlin and the Duma are happy to nurture, the deputy says.
At the same time, opportunists can use the moment to demonstrate their loyalty or to advance long-harboured ambitions. The United Russia deputy says this was case with the adoption ban, for example. Those “who have proposed such a ban many times before,” the deputy says, used heightened anti-American sentiment “to simply propose it one more time.”
Lastly, once started, any purge, of real people or of ideas and cultural products, quickly takes on a kind of self-perpetuating momentum. As Nikolai Zlobin of the Center on Global Interests explains, today’s Russian bureaucrats and legislators suffer from an “old illness,” in which “you cannot be wrong in proposing something too extreme”. Better to be on the safe side, then, and be more anti-American and anti-Western than is required, Mr Zlobin says.
Mr Putin appears to have settled on the formation of a new ideology. It is a blend of the church, patriotism, and adulation of the province, which serves to consolidate his rule and defend it against those social and political forces opposed to him. But precisely articulating this new Russian idea and why it is different than the Western one is difficult: after all, Russia is nominally democratic, capitalist, and nearly everything else that defines the West. That leaves one obvious move. “If you don’t have it your own idea, take somebody else’s idea and trash it,” says Mr Zlobin. “And then there’s your idea.”
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Geoffrey Morrison
Editors' Note: An updated article entitled Why Ultra HD 4K TVs are still stupid was published on January 28, 2013.
The latest TV technology buzzword is "4K." This magical alphanumeric represents a quadrupling of the now-standard 1080p resolution found on Blu-ray and most HDTVs.
Have no doubt, manufacturers are going to start pushing 4K (some already are).
The thing is, though, you don't need 4K, because in the home, 4K is stupid.
Check out Ty Pendlebury's 4K primer for more details about what 4K actually is, because I'm going to spend the bulk of this article describing why you don't need it.
As this is going to be a pretty numbers-heavy piece, let me cover the basic terminology up front. Blu-ray discs, and nearly all modern televisions, are 1080p. This means they have a resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels. Get up close to your TV when it's on, you'll see the pixels. They're tiny blocks of red, green, and blue (and yellow, if you have certain Sharp LCDs). The image at the top is a closeup of some pixels.
For this entire article, remember we're not talking about content, we're talking about the TV. You can definitely see the difference between content of different resolutions, but that isn't what we're talking about here. We're talking about the HDTV hardware itself.
HD was developed out of necessity given the larger TV screen sizes on the horizon at the time (Ooh, 42 inches!). Standard definition, 480i (roughly 640x480 pixels), looks right terrible when shown on a screen larger than 28 inches diagonal.
The 4K standard is roughly 4,096x2,160 pixels. I say roughly as there isn't a decided standard. So if a company says 3,840x2,160 pixels, that's basically 4K, too (it's more accurately called QFHD, or Quad Full HD). You see, 4K is a cinema standard, and given all the variations in screen widths because of different aspect ratios, it's hard to give one specific number. Suffice it to say, 4K is about double the horizontal and vertical resolution of what you have at home right now.
With the huge screens of most modern movie theaters, and the move toward digital projection, 4K makes a lot of sense. The prevalent 2K (2,048x1,080 pixels) digital cinema projectors are only slightly higher resolution than 1080p. I've seen a lot of these, and I can often see the pixel structure from most of the seats. You definitely don't with 4K, which is why it's a brilliant idea for movie theaters.
But 4K in the home is stupid. Here's why.
Brace yourself for some math
The human eye, for all its amazingness, has a finite resolution. This is why you can read your computer screen from where you're sitting, but not if you're on the other side of the room. Everyone is different, but the average person with 20/20 vision can resolve 1 arcminute. One arcminute is 1/60th a degree. If you assume your field of vision is 180 degrees (it's not, but go with me here), and you take 1 degree of that, you're able to resolve a 1/60th sliver of that degree. Close up this means you can see hairs on your arm, wrinkles on your thumb, and so on. At distance, these fine details disappear. If a friend waves at you from across a field, you can probably see the person's thumbs, but not any wrinkles or hair. Far enough away, you probably won't even be able to see thumbs, unless those are some really, really big thumbs.
One arcminute of resolution is a best-case scenario. On a black on white vision chart, this holds true. Reduce the contrast of the object with the background, add color, and many other factors limit your ability to resolve resolution.
This math, or just looking at your TV, tells you that you can't see individual pixels.
Your over-resolutioned TV
Let's bring this back to TVs.
Depending on technology, a 1080p 50-inch flat panel TV's pixels are approximately 0.023 inch wide. This is presuming they're square (many aren't) and that there's no intra-pixel distance (there is). The plasma I photographed for the lead image above measured 3 pixels per 1/16 inch, which is 0.021 inch per pixel. So we're in the ballpark.
Most people sit about 10 feet from their television. At 10 feet (120 inches), your eye can resolve an object 0.035 inch wide, if like I said above, there's enough difference between it and the background (or its adjacent pixel, in this case). The memories of the Westwood school system that told me I was bad at math compels me to show my work, so feel free to check my math:
2 x pi x 120": 753.98" (circumference of a circle, with you at the center)
753.98 / 360: 2.0944" (360 degrees in a circle)
2.0944 / 60: 0.0349" (60 minutes in a degree)
This math, or just looking at your TV, tells you that you can't see individual pixels. What's interesting is that a 720p, 50-inch TV has pixels roughly 0.034 inch wide. As in, at a distance of 10 feet, even 720p TVs have pixels too small for your eye to see.
That's right, at 10 feet, your eye can't resolve the difference between otherwise identical 1080p and 720p televisions. Extrapolating this out, you'd have to get a TV at least 77 inches diagonal before you'd start having a pixel visibility problem with 1080p.
Or, you can move closer. Beyond being a math exercise, let's be realistic. No one's going to sit 6 feet from a big TV. I'd doubt 7 feet, either. So if we say 8 feet (96 inches), or 0.028 inch on the resolution side, this means you'd need a TV that's bigger than 60 inches to really benefit from 1080p.
So if your eye can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on nearly all modern televisions, what's the need for 4K?
Is there a size/distance where you can see the difference in detail, below the raw pixel-size numbers? Possibly; it depends a lot on the content, the display, and the person. Remember, we're not talking about just being able to see something, we're talking about being able to resolve it. You might be able to see a single pixel-width black line on a white screen from great distance, but two black lines separated by a single white line will appear as a single black line. That's detail, and if you're too far away to see it (or the screen isn't big enough), then it's being wasted.
On the other hand, "seeing pixels" also means seeing the pixel structure around objects, square blocks for curves, that sort of thing. So there is such a thing as too close/too big, but it's much farther/bigger than most people realize.
The real world tends to get even more vague, which we'll get to in a moment.
4K 4 U, K?
So if your eye can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on nearly all modern televisions, what's the need for 4K?
Excellent question. There isn't one. Not as far as TVs go, anyway. You'd need a 2,160p TV over 154 inches diagonal before you'd be able to see the pixels. On a 4K 50-inch TV, the pixels would be roughly 0.011 inch wide.
Where's the crossover where 1080p and 4K become noticeable? It's not exact because of all the above mentioned variables, but suffice it to say at 10 feet, it's somewhere well above 77 inches.
Real world-ish
Let's put this in the real world. I sit 9 feet away from a 102-inch screen. At that distance, I can't see the pixel structure of a 1080p projector. If I lean forward a bit, so my eyes are 7 to 8 feet from the screen, I can see pixels on bright images. If I zoom the projector out to fill all 127.75 inches of my 2.35:1 screen, I can sometimes see pixels depending on the projector.
At this extreme size, and seated far closer than most people would feel comfortable, I would probably be able to see a difference with 4K.
When I reviewed JVC's DLA-X90R, I sure didn't see an increase in resolution. Admittedly, this is far from conclusive, as there's no native 4K content readily available (and the JVC can't accept it even if there was). If I sat about 5 feet from the screen, I could just make out the pixels. As more 4K displays come available, I'll see if I can find that sweet spot of viewing distance.
Your home
So that's the advantage of 4K: you can sit way closer to your television (which no one will), or you can get a way bigger television (also unlikely).
When you increase the resolution so significantly (and again, this is all assuming native 4K content, which hasn't been discussed), factors like the contrast ratio, the brightness, and in cases of projectors, the lens and screen material, all become significantly bigger issues.
A few years ago I did a TV face-off with trained TV reviewers and untrained participants with Pioneer's Kuro plasma (768p) against several 1080p LCDs and plasmas. Not one person noticed the Kuro wasn't 1080p. In fact, most lauded it for its detail. Why? Its contrast ratio was so much better than on the other TVs that it appeared to have better resolution. The difference between light and dark is resolution. If that difference is more pronounced, as it is on high-contrast ratio displays, they will have more apparent resolution.
Passive 3D (aka: one more thing)
OK, there's one other way that 4K is actually a great idea: passive 3D. Current passive 3D displays (from LG, Toshiba, and Vizio) are half resolution when viewing 3D. Each eye is getting 1,920x540 pixels. They claim your brain combines these into one "full HD" image, but from where I usually sit, I can see lines in the image, so I cry bollocks.
With 4K, though, passive 3D creates a 3,840x1,080-pixel image per eye, which is more than enough so that you don't see any lines. (Check out Active 3D vs. passive 3D: What's better? for more info on all this.)
Glasses-less (autostereoscopic) 3D displays have the same basic problem, with certain pixels reserved for certain eyeballs. Here, 4K and higher is also a good idea; one could say it's even a requirement.
Conclusion
The 4K standard is already here in the home projector space, more or less. Sony makes a $25k projector that's native 4K, while JVC has several models with the "e-Shift" pixel upconverter that puts 3,840x2,160 pixels on screen even though the LCOS chips are 1,920x1,080 pixels. A case can be made for 4K with larger screens at home. At the moment, though, light output limits screen size far more than resolution. For home projectors, let's just shrug and ask, "OK, why not?"
But with televisions, 4K is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. For every one of you thinking you'll rearrange your living room to sit closer to the screen, I'm positive there are thousands of others who wouldn't (or wouldn't be allowed to).
Sure screen sizes are going up, but how many of you are really going to put an 85-inch screen in your home, and sit close enough to it for 4K to matter?
Don't believe me? Get a chair, and sit close enough to your TV so you can just see the pixel structure. Now watch an entire TV show like that. Now convince your family to do the same.
There's this feeling of inevitability with 4K, like because we can do it, we will do it. I just wanted to point out early that regardless of what the marketing and hype will say, you don't need 4K.
So if someday there's a choice between a 4K 80-inch OLED and a 1080p 80-inch OLED, sure, pick the 4K. Move a little closer to it and presto. But inevitably there will be even smaller 4K displays, and unless you're sitting on top of them, there's no point.
Got a question for Geoff? First, check out all the other articles he's written on topics like HDMI cables, LED LCD vs. plasma, Active vs Passive 3D, and more. Still have a question? Send him an e-mail! He won't tell you what TV to buy, but he might use your letter in a future article. You can also send him a message on Twitter: @TechWriterGeoff.
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Bras are uncomfortable. They don't last through the day. They smell. For women, especially those of us who work out, these problems are omnipresent. Ask any woman at the gym and she'll likely admit she's got a change of bra with her.
But thanks to Canadian company Knix Wear, there's a solution.
Enter the "Evolution Bra," constructed to be eight bras in one. Its materials are anti-microbial, odor-killing, moisture-wicking and quick to dry. In other words: So long, boob sweat.
The bra is raising money on Kickstarter, and it's already blown past its funding goal. At the time of writing, the project has gathered $117,519 and 1,492 backers, and it has 30 days to go. Also, the more money the campaign reels in, the more sizes will be available to the public, along with a version that's slightly lined.
Created with functionality (rather than just design) in mind, the bra is available in sizes 32A to 38DD, and it will cost $55.
A photo posted by (@) on
"We have created a product that women have been waiting for," Knix Wear founder Joanna Griffiths told Mashable. "The bra, like its construction, is a chameleon: part fashion, part function, part everyday, part sports bra."
The bra comes with two sets of adjustable straps — in black and cream — that allow the buyer to wear the bra in multiple ways. Oh, and it's reversible with no underwire. It's truly like all our bra dreams have come true.
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Knix Wear, the company behind the magical bra, is more commonly known in the undergarment industry for high-tech underwear that was funded on Indiegogo in 2013. The panties are constructed from a similar odorless, moisture-wicking and seamless fabric. According to their Kickstarter, after selling 100,000 pairs of that underwear to women in 35 different countries, manufacturing bras was just the next logical step.
Function over design: Griffiths says she was moved to design a bra because she found the industry focuses on aesthetics rather than the functionality; it's more about making it pretty rather than comfortable and durable.
"I noticed that lingerie had a lot of frill, and not enough function, and felt that women everywhere were being underserved," she told Mashable.
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Over the last 10 months, Knix Wear has tested the bra on 70 different women with varying cup sizes. They put the bras through the usual rigors of a woman's daily life, like yoga, swimming, sleeping and working, to ensure that the bra will last. In a commercial for the product, the company says this bra will cut down your bra count by half.
The bra and panty technology boom: This year alone, major advancements have been made in the underwear industry to help women navigate periods and boob sweat with more comfort. In June, Mic reported on the company THINX and its revolutionary underwear technology that could "eliminate the need for tampons or pads" completely. The technology used four layers of fabric that, when used together, could remove moisture, resist staining and hold between two and six teaspoons of blood, much like a pad. The announcement sent shockwaves through the female population. According to the company's founder, the underwear has been selling very well.
"We're now doing weekly orders from the manufacturing facility just because we're trying to keep up with the demand," THINX CEO Miki Agrawal told Mic. "We did more sales in one day than we did in the first four months of 2015," she said, although she declined to provide exact sales numbers.
Earlier this month, innovative bras had a spot on a New York Fashion Week runway. A collaboration between technology company Intel and fashion designer Chromat created a bra that could eliminate boob sweat altogether.
During Chromat's NYFW show, model Alek Wek took the runway to debut a low-cut white sports bra that packed a genius punch: It can "sense changes in the temperature, breathing and perspiration of its wearer" and open tiny vents to prevent sweating, Mic reported. Unlike Knix Wear and THINX, however, this technology is still waiting for Federal Communications Commission approval.
h/t Mashable
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LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - The U.S. government’s efforts to recruit talented hackers could suffer from the recent revelations about its vast domestic surveillance programs, as many private researchers express disillusionment with the National Security Agency.
An illustration picture shows the logo of the U.S. National Security Agency on the display of an iPhone in Berlin, June 7, 2013. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski
Though hackers tend to be anti-establishment by nature, the NSA and other intelligence agencies had made major inroads in recent years in hiring some of the best and brightest, and paying for information on software flaws that help them gain access to target computers and phones.
Much of that goodwill has been erased after the NSA’s classified programs to monitor phone records and Internet activity were exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, according to prominent hackers and cyber experts.
A turn in the community’s sentiment was on show at two major security conventions in Las Vegas this week: Black Hat, which attracts more established cyber professionals, and Def Con, which gets a larger gathering of younger, more independent hackers.
“We’ve gone backwards about 10 years in the relations between the good guys and the U.S. government,” said Alex Stamos, a veteran security researcher who was to give a Def Con talk on Saturday on the need to revisit industry ethics.
Stamos has willingly briefed FBI and NSA officials on his work in the past, but said that he would now want their questions in writing and he would bring a lawyer to any meeting.
With top intelligence officials warning in March that cyber attacks and cyber espionage have supplanted terrorism as the top security threat facing the United States, the administration is trying to boost security in critical infrastructure and the military is vastly increasing its ranks of computer specialists.
The NSA, working with the Department of Homeland Security, has been lending more of its expertise to protect defense contractors, banks, utilities and other industries that are being spied upon or attacked by rival nations.
These efforts rely on recruiting talented hackers and working with professionals in the private sector.
Some security experts remain supportive of the government. NSA Director Keith Alexander’s talk at the Black Hat conference was well received on Wednesday, despite a few hecklers.
But at the larger and less expensive Def Con, where attendance is expected to top last year’s 15,000, conference founder and government advisor Jeff Moss asked federal agents to stay away.
Moss last year brought Alexander as a keynote speaker to woo the hacking community. But he said the relationship between hackers and the government has worsened since then.
“I haven’t seen this level or sort of animosity since the 90s,” Moss said in an interview. “If you aren’t going to say anything in these circumstances, then you never are.”
VILLAIN OR HERO
The NSA’s surveillance programs target foreigners outside the United States who pose potential threats to U.S. security or who can provide intelligence for foreign policies. But the secret projects also scooped up huge amounts of American data, according to documents leaked by Snowden, triggering sharp criticism from many lawmakers and civil liberties advocates.
“A lot of people feel betrayed by it,” said HD Moore, an executive at security firm Rapid 7, though he said he would continue to brief the NSA on software flaws that the agency uses for both offensive and defensive cyber activities. “What bothers me is the hypocritical bit - we demonize China when we’ve been doing these things and probably worse.”
Alexander took a conciliatory tone during his Black Hat speech, defending the NSA but saying he looked forward to a discussion about how it could do things better.
Black Hat attracts professionals whose companies pay thousands of dollars for them to attend. Def Con costs $180 and features many of the same speakers.
At Black Hat, a casual polling station at a vendor’s exhibition booth asking whether Snowden was a villain or a hero produced a dead heat: 138 to 138. European attendees were especially prone to vote for hero, the vendor said.
Def Con would have been much rougher on Alexander, judging by interviews there and the reception given speakers who touched on Snowden and other government topics.
Christopher Soghoian, an American Civil Liberties Union technologist, drew applause from hundreds of attendees when he said the ACLU had been the first to sue the NSA after one of the spy programs was revealed.
Peiter Zatko, a hacker hero who funded many small projects from a just-departed post at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, told another large audience that he was unhappy with the surveillance programs and that “challenging the government is your patriotic duty.”
The disenchanted give multiple reasons, citing previous misleading statements about domestic surveillance, the government’s efforts to force companies to decrypt user communications, and the harm to U.S. businesses overseas.
“I don’t think anyone should believe anything they tell us,” former NSA hacker Charlie Miller said of top intelligence officials. “I wouldn’t work there anymore.”
Stamos and Moss said the U.S. government is tilting too much toward offense in cyberspace, using secret vulnerabilities that their targets can then discover and wield against others.
Closest to home for many hackers are the government’s aggressive prosecutions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which has been used against Internet activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide in January, and U.S. soldier Bradley Manning, who leaked classified files to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
A letter circulating at Def Con and signed by some of the most prominent academics in computer security said the law was chilling research in the public interest by allowing prosecutors and victim companies to argue that violations of electronic “terms of service” constitute unauthorized intrusions.
Researchers who have found important flaws in electronic voting machines and medical devices did so without authorization, the letter says.
If there is any silver lining, Moss said, it is that before Snowden’s leaks, it had been impossible to have an informed discussion about how to balance security and civil liberties without real knowledge of government practices.
“The debate is just starting,” he said. “Maybe we can be a template for other democracies.”
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For several decades, scholars have questioned the existence of burial in Western Europe prior to the arrival of Anatomically Modern Humans. Therefore, an approach combining a global field recovery and the reexamination of the previously discovered Neandertal remains has been undertaken in the site of La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France), where the hypothesis of a Neandertal burial was raised for the first time. This project has concluded that the Neandertal of La Chapelle-aux-Saints was deposit in a pit dug by other members of its group and protected by a rapid covering from any disturbance. These discoveries attest the existence of West European Neandertal burial and of the Neandertal cognitive capacity to produce it.
Abstract
The bouffia Bonneval at La Chapelle-aux-Saints is well known for the discovery of the first secure Neandertal burial in the early 20th century. However, the intentionality of the burial remains an issue of some debate. Here, we present the results of a 12-y fieldwork project, along with a taphonomic analysis of the human remains, designed to assess the funerary context of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neandertal. We have established the anthropogenic nature of the burial pit and underlined the taphonomic evidence of a rapid burial of the body. These multiple lines of evidence support the hypothesis of an intentional burial. Finally, the discovery of skeletal elements belonging to the original La Chapelle aux Saints 1 individual, two additional young individuals, and a second adult in the bouffia Bonneval highlights a more complex site-formation history than previously proposed.
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A Special Announcement From Cornerstone Festival
Dear Cornerstone Festival Family:
We are so grateful to have been able to share with you the gift that has been Cornerstone Festival all these years. Our annual gathering in this truly special community has shaped and illuminated our journeys together and apart, beginning in 1984, when the first Cornerstone drew 5000 people to a small fairgrounds outside Chicago.
Through our peak years in the 90s when tens of thousands celebrated this festival's amazing unity-in-diversity amid the Midwestern countryside, to more recent belt-tightening days, we've traveled our ups and downs together in a way that will be a part of our lives forever.
In 2012, we'll be celebrating one final Cornerstone Festival together. Based on a range of factors – including changes in the market and a difficult economy – the timing seems right. This was obviously a hard decision, wrestled with over years and particularly over recent months. But with the decision made, we have the opportunity to come together one last time and bring to a happy, grateful – if tearful – close to this chapter of our lives.
In the days ahead we'll be making some changes to the lineup and schedule that reflect an adjusted budget. We hope to make this a special gathering to remember, to share stories and encourage one another with the vision of Cornerstone in ways that look back and ahead toward new things God is doing. Along with activities like art workshops, kids' programs, seminars, games, movies – and MUSIC, of course – Cornerstone 2012 promises to be a time of thankful reflection and sharing among people who've walked this significant part of their life's journey together.
Keep checking our website and Facebook page for changes and latest information.
Most of you know that Cornerstone Festival grew out of a labor of love from our church and community, Jesus People USA. The festival emerged from JPUSA's Cornerstone magazine and Resurrection Band. Our community continues to operate one of Chicago's largest homeless shelters, also bearing the name Cornerstone. We remain confident in God's faithfulness and grace to lead us on to new chapters in our ongoing journey.
Thanks again to everyone who's been a part of this amazing journey with us! What a privilege it's been. Most of all, thanks to Jesus: the stone rejected that became the true Cornerstone. Amen!
We look forward with mixed sadness and joy to seeing you all this summer, one last time on our Bushnell campground, for a very special Cornerstone Festival 2012.
In His grace,
John Herrin, Board President,
and The Cornerstone Festival Staff,
Genesis Winter and Scott Stahnke, directors
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Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Jan. 17, 2017, 9:55 PM GMT / Updated Jan. 18, 2017, 12:12 AM GMT By Daniella Silva
A woman who previously accused Donald Trump of unwanted sexual advances has filed a defamation lawsuit against the president elect — just three days before Trump’s presidential inauguration.
Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the “The Apprentice,” said in a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles on Tuesday that she filed the lawsuit over allegedly false statements Trump made in response to her accusation.
Summer Zervos listens as her attorney Gloria Allred speaks during a news conference announcing the filing of a lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan. 17, 2017. Mike Blake / Reuters
The suit, filed Tuesday morning, claims Trump knew his statements about Zervos and his other accusers would subject them to “threats of violence, economic harm and reputational damage.”
Allred said Zervos would be willing to dismiss the lawsuit without any monetary damages if Trump agreed to retract his comments about her and admit that the accusations against him were in fact true.
“Ms. Zervos is willing to dismiss her lawsuit if he will retract his false statements about her and acknowledge that what Summer said about Mr. Trump and his alleged conduct is and was the truth,” she said.
Related: The Allegations Women Have Made Against Donald Trump
Zervos claimed in an October press conference that Trump sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions during a 2007 business meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
She said Trump made unwanted sexual advances toward her on multiple occasions during the meeting, kissing her on the lips, pressing himself against her and groping her breast and body without her consent.
Trump has vehemently denied the claims. In response to Tuesday's press conference, Trump's spokeswoman Hope Hicks provided the following statement to NBC News: "More of the same from Gloria Allred. There is no truth to this absurd story."
On the campaign trail, Trump said Zervos and his other accusers were liars, according to the lawsuit, and that she and the other women were motivated to come forward by the promise of “ten minutes of fame.”
“In doing so, he used his national and international bully pulpit to make false factual statements to denigrate and verbally attack Ms. Zervos and the other women who publicly reported his sexual assaults in October 2016,” the lawsuit said.
Allred said at the press conference on Tuesday that Zervos told friends and family about the incident at the time, but did not go public at the time because she decided her behavior had either been “an aberration or a test” or that Trump felt guilty about his behavior.
That all changed in the wake of the October release of a leaked video from 2005, where Trump bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent. After the video and Trump’s statements during the Oct. 9th presidential debate in which he denied he had ever done any of the things he bragged about, Zervos decided to take action, according to the lawsuit.
Related: Ex-’Apprentice’ Contestant Summer Zervos Says Trump Made Unwanted Sexual Advances
“For the first time, Summer Zervos saw Mr. Trump’s behavior towards her for what it was: that of a sexual predator who had preyed on her and other women,” the lawsuit says.
Following Zervos’ allegations, Trump released a statement from a man claiming to be her cousin which refuted her claims. But Zervos fought back with another press conference in which a social worker and friend of Zervos said the former “Apprentice” contestant told her about the claims more than five years ago.
Prior to the release of the tape, a handful of women have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault for decades, including in court filings. The number of women has seen since grown in the wake of the tape’s release.
The video prompted a firestorm of controversy during the 2016 presidential campaign and an outcry from women’s rights groups.
Trump has since denied that he engaged in the behavior described in the tape and has said all of the accusations against him are false.
Zervos' suit also alleges emotional distress and is seeking financial damages.
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Today is International No Diet Day!
So for Wellness Wednesday, I’d like to share a little secret about diets:
Diets don’t work!!
What is a diet?
Well, technically we all have a diet. If you eat food, you have a diet. That’s not the same as being on a diet, which is what most of us think of when we hear the word “diet”. It has become a 4-letter word to avoid! Okay, so what does that mean?
Diets are a self-imposed period of food deprivation, and it’s usually a restriction of your very favorite foods too. Not just any foods (although don’t some fad diets seem like someone just randomly chose foods from a list?).
What happens when you are “done” with your diet? …Well then you go back to normal, right? You go back to eating those foods that you love, food that you enjoy- but do you actually enjoy eating it? Or do you feel guilty about it, waiting until the next diet to begin, to “get back on track” which we seem to think means avoid foods that we love? So begins the cycle of being on and off of a diet.
That doesn’t sound like fun.
Guess what, it’s not even effective! The cycling of weight loss and gain is actually detrimental to our health, and research has shown that weight cycling is a contributor to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other preventable diseases. And the multi-billion dollar diet industry is encouraging low self-esteem and poor body image.
Diets don’t work!
Instead…
Let’s truly enjoy the foods we love.
Let’s honor our body’s signals of hunger and fullness.Let’s eat the variety of tastes and textures our body naturally craves.
Let’s accept that every body comes in different shapes and sizes.
Let’s give up dieting for good!
How does that sound?
You’re probably thinking it sounds pretty good- freeing! Maybe it sounds a little more challenging or even scary. Of course it does, maybe you’ve been dieting for years or even decades. So how do you give up dieting?
The process certainly takes a little longer than following a tidy meal plan but real life isn’t tidy and easy- real life is messy! It takes a little more work to restore the healthy relationship with food we once had. It may have been a while since the last time you honored your hunger and fullness or even truly enjoyed your favorite foods. But the hard work is so worth it!
Work with a Registered Dietitian who specializes in a non-diet approach to health and wellness to give up dieting for good. A Registered Dietitian can help clear up all the confusing and conflicting information out there about fad diets, and help you on the journey to restoring your relationship with food.
Start today! How will you celebrate International No Diet Day?
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Celia Sasic wins Best Women's Player in Europe Award
Recently-retired Germany forward Celia Sasic has won the coveted UEFA Best Women’s Player in Europe award.
Sasic beat off competition from former FFC Frankfurt and Germany team-mate Dzsenifer Marozsan and Lyon midfielder Amandine Henry to land the award, which was voted for by a panel of 18 journalists.
Sasic scored the opener as Frankfurt beat Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 in last season's UEFA Women's Champions League final.
The 27-year-old ended last season as the top scorer in the competition and also topped the goalscoring charts in the German Bundesliga last term.
Capped 111 times by her country, Sasic called time on her career after the 2015 Women's World Cup, where she scored six goals.
"It's amazing [to win this award]," Sasic said after being presented with the trophy at the Champions League draw on Thursday.
"But I also want to say that this is a trophy for my team-mates from the national team and from FFC Frankfurt. I have the best job, I am a striker but my team-mates are the ones who give me good balls, so it's for them too."
Sasic is only the third recipient of the award, following in the footsteps of Nadine Angerer who won it in 2013 and Nadine Kessler who scooped the award last year.
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Honda wanted to get into the 4X4 SUV game in the early 90s so they used their stake in Rover Group to slap some badges on a Discovery and called it the Crossroad. It was a huge failure for Honda but provided vindication for Land Rover.
The story starts in 1979 when Honda decided to take a stake in British Leyland and assist to improve their car division. British Leyland became the Rover Group in 1986 and the partnership continued until 1994, when the Rover group was bought out by BMW. Honda provided lots of expertise in manufacturing and engineering for the Rover Group and most of the Rover car models of the 80s and 90s were modified Honda’s or contained Honda engineering. This allowed Rover cars to become somewhat successful and start to independently engineer vehicles towards the mid 90s.
Honda figured it could use its stake in the group to get into the 4x4 SUV market as demand was starting to grow so in 1993 they made an agreement to rebadge the Land Rover Discovery and call it the Honda Crossroad. Honda did not have any experience in the 4x4 SUV segment so they did not make any significant modifications to the Discovery. The only modifications to the Discovery were the lights, badges and wheel center caps. There was little thought and a lot of cost cutting put into the changes. Even the Honda badge on the rear of the car was stretched so it could match the Land Rover shape.
They had high aspirations of selling 1,200 Crossroads per year through its Verno dealer network which boasted 400 stores. The Crossroad actually sold terribly, where it only sold 171 in 1993, 620 in 1994, and 137 in its final year for a total of 928 sold. In comparison, even with its tiny dealer network, Land Rover sold more Discovery’s every year. Land Rover produced all of the Crossroads but they still felt vindicated knowing that the reason that the Discovery was more successful was due to the strength of their brand name.
The Crossroad is often listed in error as being marketed until 1998 and being killed off due to the sale of the Rover Group to BMW but the truth is that Crossroad was died due to its own failure. The Crossroad was suffering in sales and even the facelift that was completed in late 1994 did not help to give it a boost. The last of the models were marketed as 1995s and sold until the middle of that year. Honda had learned a few tricks and developed the CR-V which was released just as the last of the Crossroads arrived in Japan.
Honda had an interest in getting the Crossroad to the US market as well and once again slapping a different badge on it. This time they wanted to sell it under the Acura brand as an upmarket SUV. The first fault in the plan was that American Honda wanted large volume which Land Rover was not able to provide. Secondly, many Land Rover dealers in US had recently completed upgrades and up-fits in anticipation of the Discovery and were unhappy that their sales would be cannibalized. The idea was dropped and no further development went into designing a stretched Acura badge
The Crossroads have found a second life on the used car market and have been heavily exported to New Zealand. The Land Rover Discovery is a popular model there and holds steady on pricing so the Crossroad is an opportunity to get the same product at a cheaper cost. Most of the Crossroads that arrive in New Zealand get rebadged once again but this time back to Land Rover badges. The Crossroad name was revived in 2008 by Honda but this time it was a front wheel drive based SUV with a 4-cylinder that was developed solely by Honda. It suffered the same fate as the earlier model and was killed of in 2010.
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[Photo Credit: Expedition Portal, Flickr]
Bozi is the founder of Hoonable.com and creates articles on everything from engine swaps to late model car restorations. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or drop him a line at Hoonable!
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Pretty much the only thing that didn't go according to plan on Wednesday night for the Mets was the early departure of Yoenis Cespedes. The star outfielder was lifted from the Game 4 of the NLCS in the middle of the second inning and was replaced in center field by Juan Lagares. Later in the game, we found out that Cespedes was suffering from shoulder soreness.
Thanks to ESPN baseball insider Buster Olney, we can now say that Cespedes aggravated his AC joint and that the injury is not considered serious. The ailment was reportedly not incurred during game action, but rather when Cespedes went into the clubhouse to work out. Since Wrigley Field does not have a standard weight room, he did push-ups instead and hurt his shoulder.
The Mets have been known to dismiss the severity of injuries in the past, but the team's fans can be encouraged by the presence of Cespedes in the dugout towards the end of the game. With five days off until the World Series begins on Tuesday, October 27, you can pencil Cespedes into your Game 1 lineup versus American League opponent to be determined.
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re:design pays tribute to the friends TV show with iconic poster
re:design pays tribute to the friends TV show with iconic poster
all images courtesy of re:design
once a week, from 1994 to 2004, families around the world would gather in front of their televisions to watch ‘friends’. the concept was simple, take six people with lovable, zany characteristics, and place them in the heart of new york city. as a result of its popularity, a majority of viewers came to think of rachel, ross, monica, chandler, phoebe, and joey almost as real people. paying tribute to the show, re:design (eurydyka kata and rafał szczawiński) has created a series of 236 icons capturing the essence of the most important moments from each episode.
236 icons to represent each episode
‘we did grow out of the show but if we caught a glimpse sometimes, we still appreciated its charm,’ the designers state. ‘so when we realized 2014 was both the 20th anniversary of the first episode and the 10th one of the last one, we decided to celebrate this occasion with a tributary poster. in january, netflix made the show available online and we used this date as a deadline for our project. re-watching the show, we still enjoyed many of its aspects and we hope our collection of icons serves to remind other fans of their favorite times with the show.’
close-up of poster for season 1
season 1
season 6
season 8
season 10
designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
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The Romanian Village with Over 1,000 Wine Cellars
Wine culture and tradition can be found in pretty much all small villages across the Western Plains of Romania. Wine barrels are kept in hundreds-of-year-old cellars, dug right into the cliff face. One such place is Sălacea village near the border with Hungary, in Bihor county. This is an old settlement with archaeological evidence dating back to the Bronze Age. Over 94% of the entire population is now of Hungarian ethnicity, with the community being made out of two smaller settlements: Sălacea şi Otomani (Ottomans in English). Sălacea was first attested in 1067, and in 1215 appears again under the name of Zolos.
When the Hungarians settled in, there was already a Slavic community living here, involved in the salt trade. This is where the name of the village comes from. During those times, salt was an important trading commodity, on the account of it being a perfect food preservant and, of course, because there were no refrigerators around. By 1217, Sălacea had a large stockpile of salt and became a flourishing trading hub in the region. This is what made the first Hungarians settle here in the first place.
Over time, the salt trade diminished and was slowly replaced by wine making. In more modern times, wine growing has become one of the principal activities in the area. Today, Sălacea is known as “The village with 1000 cellars”. On the surface, however, it looks like any other village in the area, but once you go on any of its seven branching alleys, you begin to take a glimpse at the entrances of the 300-year-old cellars.
Suddenly you feel as if you were taken to another place in time, with these colored gates covered in ivy, and the utter silence of the countryside, only disturbed by the chirping of the birds. Within these many cellars, the villagers store their grains, potatoes or barrels of wine. Taking a stroll on these narrow streets, you’ll come across many of these century-old cellars, some under lock and key, while others without an owner and resting under an old walnut’s shade.
“The oldest of these cellars dates back to 1803. They have a length of at least 100 feet but can reach as much as 265. Their size is a direct correlation to their owners’ wealth; the bigger the cellar, the wealthier the family. The wines produced here in the Ierului Valley are kept clear, savory and cool. These cellars were built as to be as close to their owners as possible, either straight into the cliff face or with the possibility of them being partially covered with soil.” said Béla Horváth, mayor of Sălacea
Those who decide to visit the village will be able to see a 160-year-old household dating back to around 1850. This old house has since been restored and made into a museum. It’s made out of compacted earth and a reed roof. Everything was kept as they were during the 19th century, from the old house complete with family photos, ethnographical objects and religious artifacts to the barns, as well as the farming and wine making equipment.
(Source)
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A 36-year-old California dad named Sholom Ber Solomon doesn't exactly need any convincing from his 9-month-old daughter, Zoe, to play dress-up. He's got a flair for matching costumes, and the hilarious photos he takes with his baby girl are going seriously viral.
From ballerinas, to hula dancers, to literally a bucket of fried chicken, Solomon and his little lady have taken on quite a host of characters. The vintage shop-owner had a previous reputation for posing in silly outfits, but his act has now been dialed up to a 10 with the addition of the incredibly adorable Zoe. "I plan to take photos with her as long as she will let me," he told the Daily Mail.
Almost 3 thousand likes have piled up for the dynamic duo on Facebook, and their story is spreading across media platforms like wildfire. Let's be honest, we all kind of wish we had someone who would dress in fabulous matching costumes like this with us. Check out some of their most knee-slapping get-ups below, and don't forget to vote for your favourite!
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Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said that while Latino voters were central in a growing number of states — including Iowa, North Carolina and Virginia — nowhere were they more critical than in Colorado, Nevada and Florida.
The voting population of Latinos has been on a steady rise in Colorado and Nevada. In Florida, it has shifted from Cuban, a heavily Republican bloc, to include more Puerto Ricans, a group that has proved to be more Democratic in the state. The change has provided Democrats with a new pool of potential supporters.
“If you’re looking at a place to get new votes, that’s the place,” Mr. Messina said.
Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, a Republican who is campaigning for Mr. Romney, said here that while Republicans face a battle cutting into Mr. Obama’s lead with Latinos, Mr. Romney was catching up. “The same things are important to Latinos as to the rest of the Americans,” she said, adding, “President Obama has made a lot of empty promises. They see through his rhetoric.”
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Still, the challenges that Mr. Romney faces were apparent in a Las Vegas parking lot last Saturday where Ms. Martinez had just spoken to a rally of Romney volunteers. The group was almost entirely white.
In Denver, Luis A. Colón, who runs a small international trade company, has been meeting other Latino small-business owners receptive to Mr. Romney’s call to cut government regulation and taxes. “The stimulus money resulted in a lot of waste, and a lot of the jobs it created were construction jobs,” Mr. Colón said. “So when the construction was done, the jobs were done. We need improvement that’s more than just temporary.”
These last weeks are the culmination of a strategy years in the making for Mr. Obama. It now seeks to take advantage of a backlash among many Latino voters against tough immigration measures embraced by Mr. Romney during his party’s presidential primaries.
Mr. Obama’s campaign and its supporters have spent $8.9 million on Spanish-language television stations in Colorado, Florida and Nevada, compared with $4.6 million by Mr. Romney, according to Kantar Media, which tracks advertising spending.
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“We have been organizing on the ground,” Mr. Messina said. “And that is a community that is difficult to organize on the ground unless you have real support in the community.”
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Mr. Romney’s aides said they had put together what they described as the most extensive effort to reach Latino voters of any Republican presidential candidate.
“We care about their vote,” said Rich Beeson, Mr. Romney’s political director, adding, “This is the kind of election where we are going to be out there fighting for every kind of vote.”
Recent polling of Latino voters attests to the obstacles Mr. Romney faces. The Pew Hispanic Center survey found that 61 percent of respondents said that Democrats were more concerned than Republicans about Hispanic people; just 10 percent said Republicans were more concerned.
“Fifty-one percent difference,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, the center’s associate director. “That’s the largest number we have seen in our 10 years of polling.”
The poll showed Mr. Obama leading Mr. Romney among Hispanic voters nationwide 69 percent to 21 percent; in 2008, Mr. Obama took 67 percent of the Hispanic vote, to 31 percent for Senator John McCain.
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In 2008, Mr. Obama pulled in strong support among Latino voters, according to exit polls: 61 percent in Colorado, 57 percent in Florida and 76 percent in Nevada. The extent of Mr. Obama’s lead nationally among Hispanics suggests, analysts said, that he is doing well in those states this year as well, though it is difficult to assess the opinions of small groups of voters in a single state.
Mr. Lopez said that Mr. Obama’s strong position is in no small part due to his signing of an executive order giving temporary legal status to many illegal immigrants who entered the country as children. This became clear at an Obama field office telephone bank that hummed with Spanish and English as volunteers worked through lists.
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“I got involved as soon as I heard he signed the Dream Act,” said Adriana Ortiz, 37, whose sister came to the United States illegally from Mexico as a child.
“He did something for my family,” she added. “I’m going to do something for him.”
Mr. Obama’s biggest challenge is turnout. “There’s no chance that Republicans are going to win a majority of Mexican-Americans” in Nevada or Colorado, said Roberto Suro, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California. “It’s just a matter of how many turn out.”
Matt A. Barreto, an associate professor of political science at the University of Washington and a founder of Latino Decisions, which polls Latino voters, said Mr. Romney continued to pay a price for the tough immigration language that marked the primary, even as he now seeks to move to the center.
“Romney has moved himself into an area where his statements on immigration are not satisfactory; before, they were offensive,” he said. “His new language may not alienate as many people, but it’s not attracting people.”
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Before the beginning of the 19th century, the future was only rarely portrayed as a very different place from the present. The social order, like the natural order, was supposed to be static, with everything in its proper place: as it had been, so it would be. When Sir Isaac Newton thought about the future, he worried about the exact date of Armageddon, not about how his science might change the world. Even Enlightenment revolutionaries usually argued that what they were doing was restoring the proper order of things, not creating a new world order.
It was only around the beginning of the 1800s, as new attitudes towards progress, shaped by the relationship between technology and society, started coming together, that people started thinking about the future as a different place, or an undiscovered country – an idea that seems so familiar to us now that we often forget how peculiar it actually is.
The new technology of electricity seemed to be made for futuristic speculation. At exhibition halls in London, such as the Adelaide Gallery or the Royal Polytechnic Institution, early Victorians could marvel at electrical engines that promised to transform travel. Inventors boasted that ‘half a barrel of blue vitriol [copper sulphate] and a hogshead or two of water, would send a ship from New York to Liverpool’. People went to these places to see the future made out of the present: when Edgar Allen Poe in 1844 set out to fool the New York Sun’s readers that a balloon flight had just made it across the Atlantic, he made sure to tell them that the equipment used had been ‘put in action at the Adelaide Gallery’.
Bringing the future home, Alfred Smee, then surgeon to the Bank of England, told readers of his Elements of Electro-Metallurgy (1841) how they would ‘enter a room by a door having finger plates of the most costly device, made by the agency of the electric fluid’. The walls would be ‘covered with engravings, printed from plates originally etched by galvanism’, and at dinner ‘the plates may have devices given by electrotype engravings, and his salt spoons gilt by the galvanic fluid’. It was becoming impossible to talk about electricity at all without talking about the future.
A few decades earlier, there was a particular vogue for satirical prints with titles such as ‘March of Intellect’. The details varied, but all such caricatures portrayed essentially the same scene. Their landscape was dotted with an assortment of futuristic machines. Steam engines shaped like horses belched black smoke as they carried passengers on their backs or dragged coaches along railroads. Street vendors roasted whole oxen on mechanical, steam-powered spits. The skies were full of balloons and dirigibles, or flying contraptions driven by furiously pedalling gentlemen (and the occasional lady). My favourite, the aforementioned 1829 work by William Heath, features an enormous pipe, labelled ‘Grand Vacuum Tube Company: Direct to Bengal’. The conceit was that the hapless passengers would go in at one end and be whisked by vacuum halfway round the world to the far reaches of England’s growing empire.
This was satire, of course, not prophecy. The cartoons illustrated how limited a grip on reality the promoters of technological progress actually had. But for satire to work, its target needs to be familiar to the audience. The popularity of these caricatures speaks to the sudden pervasiveness of this new way of thinking about the future as the product of technological innovation. That a common response to this way of thinking was ridicule suggests just how uncomfortable and jarring it was, nonetheless, to many people. These cartoons might look like prehistoric steampunk from our lofty 21st century vantage point, but it’s worth remembering that early 19th century satirists did not really have to tweak reality that much to generate these fantasies.
Even the baroque-seeming vacuum-powered propulsion system had a basis in contemporary plans for pneumatic railways that worked along such principles. This seems to be the case for futuristic speculation more generally. All our futures tend to be made up out of bits and pieces of our present.
For the Victorians, the future, as terra incognita, was ripe for exploration (and colonisation). For someone like me – who grew up reading the science fiction of Robert Heinlein and watching Star Trek – this makes looking at how the Victorians imagined us today just as interesting as looking at the way our imagined futures work now. Just as they invented the future, the Victorians also invented the way we continue to talk about the future. Their prophets created stories about the world to come that blended technoscientific fact with fiction. When we listen to Elon Musk describing his hyperloop high-speed transportation system, or his plans to colonise Mars, we’re listening to a view of the future put together according to a Victorian rulebook. Built into this ‘futurism’ is the Victorian discovery that societies and their technologies evolve together: from this perspective, technology just is social progress.
The assumption was plainly shared by everyone around the table when, in November 1889, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Conservative prime minister of Great Britain, stood up at the Institution of Electrical Engineers’ annual dinner to deliver a speech. He set out a blueprint for an electrical future that pictured technological and social transformation hand in hand. He reminded his fellow banqueteers how the telegraph had already changed the world by working on ‘the moral and intellectual nature and action of mankind’. By making global communication immediate, the telegraph had made everyone part of the global power game. It had ‘assembled all mankind upon one great plane, where they can see everything that is done, and hear everything that is said, and judge of every policy that is pursued at the very moment those events take place’. Styling the telegraph as the great leveller was quite common among the Victorians, though it’s particularly interesting to see it echoed by a Tory prime minister.
Salisbury’s electrical future went further than that, though. He argued that the spread of electrical power systems would profoundly transform the way people lived and worked, just as massive urbanisation was the result of steam technology. Using steam industrially meant overcrowded towns and big factories, because steam power couldn’t be transmitted over a distance, he said. Electric power, on the other hand, would be decentred. So the future would ‘see men and women able to pursue in their own houses many industries which now require the aggregation of the factory’. It would generate ‘that unity, that integrity of the family, upon which rests the moral hopes of our race, and the strength of the community to which we belong’. What Salisbury’s electrical future really promised was a return to the past. But one combining the virtues of an agrarian moral economy with those of an industrial world.
Victorians couldn’t talk about electricity without invoking its transformative future. Even when the satirical magazine Punch poked fun at the pretensions of electrical futurists, its satire was a rather gentle affair compared with the vitriol such prophecies provoked half a century earlier. In ‘The Coming Force’, the cartoonist drew the electric fairy on a chariot, hovering over the electric light and surrounded by the domestic luxuries that electricity would soon deliver – frozen meat from Australia revived by electricity, or Christmas turkeys hatched by electric heat. Banished into the outer darkness were chimney sweeps and gas lighters. This was satire that endorsed the underlying message: the future was what electricity was about, and it was a future that would transform life at every level.
When the inventor Nikola Tesla appeared on stage in London or New York, carrying glass tubes glowing with electric light in his hands, he was giving his audiences a glimpse of that future. The stories that Tesla weaved around his construction of the Wardenclyffe Tower in New York, and its (ultimately failed) project to transmit power through the Earth, also worked by offering seductive visions of the future. At Wardenclyffe, Tesla built giant induction coils inside a 187 ft tower (his original plan was that it reach 600 ft) with the aim of producing a standing wave of electromagnetic energy inside the Earth, so that power could then be picked up at any point along the planet’s surface. Selling the idea to investors (primarily the tycoon J P Morgan) and the public meant offering them the future that was embodied in the tower’s steel girders and copper coils.
the power of the sales pitch rested on juxtaposing the fantastic with the everyday: Martians and better crop yields in the same package
Tesla was very good at selling futures in this way. Like most successful Victorian inventor-entrepreneurs he realised that, in order to sell his inventions, he needed to give his future customers tantalising glimpses of the world those inventions would inhabit. In a lecture to the Commercial Club in Chicago in 1899, Tesla submitted his plans to transmit power, send radio messages to Mars, and use electricity to produce fertiliser from the atmosphere almost all in one breath. The power of the sales pitch rested on this juxtaposition of the fantastic with the everyday (as it often still does): Martians and better crop yields both in the same package.
The same year he told the Chicago Times-Herald: ‘Signalling to Mars? I have apparatus which can accomplish it beyond any question. If I should wish to send a signal to that planet I could be perfectly certain that the electrical effects would be thrown exactly where I desire to have them.’ More than that, ‘I have an instrument by which I can receive with precision any signal that might be made to this world from Mars.’ Tesla was jumping on the bandwagon, set rolling four years earlier by the astronomer Percival Lowell’s study of ‘canals’ criss-crossing the red planet – the same wagon that H G Wells leapt upon with The War of the Worlds in 1897.
That both the mighty Tesla and Wells (then a struggling writer of scientific romances) saw fit to exploit spectacular new scientific ideas such as Lowell’s Martian canals alerts us to just how confluent were future fact and future fiction in the Victorian age. Another example of this sort of slippage is offered by the story of the telectroscope and Mark Twain. The telectroscope was supposed to be a device that could transmit vision in the same way that the telephone transmitted sound. Rumours that such a device had been invented first appeared in the New York Sun in 1877, just months after Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone had been triumphantly unveiled at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Then, in 1879, a French inventor, Constantin Senlecq, published a description of le télectroscope. A year after that, Scientific American printed a number of articles on ‘seeing by electricity’. And in 1897, another entrepreneur inventor, the Polish Jan Szczepanik, took out a patent for a device that transmitted vision by electricity.
Transatlantic mysteries: viewers gaze through artist Paul St George’s Telectroscope on London’s South Bank, ostensibly connected to Brooklyn, New York and ‘seeing by electricity’, May 2008. Photo courtesy Ryan Baumann/Flickr
That was what prompted Twain to write his story ‘From the ‘London Times’ of 1904’, published in Century Magazine in 1898 and written in journalistic style as a dispatch from the future. The telectroscope was central to the tale – as the instigator, and the agent, for solving a murder. The story starts with an argument between Szczepanik and a Lieutenant Clayton about the invention’s utility, moves on to the inventor’s murder, Clayton’s trial and conviction for the crime, and ends with his pardon, when the telectroscope reveals Szczepanik alive and well on another continent.
To put it all together and lend his tale the appropriate air of realism, Twain drew heavily on the various competing accounts that circulated around the telectroscope. In short, Twain had produced a fiction about a fiction. No device like a telectroscope was ever constructed (though it now features in prehistories of the television). The speculations on which Twain based his story had as little – or as much – basis in any actual instrument as the story itself. Facts and fictions were feeding on each other, just as they do now.
In some respects, Wells’s reputation as a writer depended on his ability to exploit this continual slippage in talking about the future. Without his status as an author of scientific romances, his first foray into non-fiction, Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought (1901), would have been impossible. Anticipations, like his novel The Shape of Things to Come (1933), quite deliberately melded social and technological progress, affirming what Victorian promoters of the cult of progress understood already: that the future’s technology and its culture were one.
It’s easy to pick and choose when reading this sort of future history from the privileged vantage point of now – to celebrate the predictive hits and snigger at the misses (Wells thought air travel would never catch on, for example); but what’s still striking throughout these books is Wells’s insistence that particular technologies (such as the railways) generated particular sorts of society, and that when those technologies were replaced (as railways would be by what he called the ‘motor truck’ and the ‘motor carriage’), society would need replacing also.
It makes sense to read much contemporary futurism in this way too: as a new efflorescence of this Victorian tradition. Until a few years ago, I would have said that this way of using technology to imagine the future was irrecoverably dead, since it depended on our inheritance of a Victorian optimism, expressed as faith in progress and improvement as realisable individual and collective goals. That optimism was still there in the science fiction of Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke, but it fizzled out in the 1960s and ’70s. More recently, we’ve been watching the future in the deadly Terminator franchise, rather than in hopeful film such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The coupling of technological progress and social evolution that the Victorians inaugurated and took for granted no longer seemed appealing.
Yet there does now seem to be a change in the air, and Musk’s bravura faith in the capacity of free enterprise to deliver what the state behemoth of NASA couldn’t is just one example. In 2011, the science fiction author Neal Stephenson set up Project Hieroglyph as part of an ambitious campaign to transform the genre and reignite ‘the iconic and optimistic visions of the golden age of science fiction’. Stephenson laments our ‘inability as a society to execute on the big stuff’ and suggests that science fiction has the capacity to generate an ‘overarching narrative’ that might offer scientists and engineers across the board a shared vision of the future they want to generate. I’m struck by the underlying assumption that producers of scientific fact and fiction alike should be engaged in a common project of technological future-making. Tesla and Wells would have approved.
Indeed, without them and their kind, we would not dream up the sorts of futures we dream up now. Telling stories about innovation was an indispensable part of Victorian inventor-entrepreneurs’ strategies for making their technologies real. Edison sold telegraphs and phonographs and cinematographs by painting futures in which these technologies made sense. These stories – and the slippage between the present reality and the imagined future that they represented – were critical in providing Victorians with a road map for progress.
The proliferation of futuristic fiction at the end of the 19th century, like Stephenson’s ‘golden age of science fiction’ a century later, also coincided with a particular kind of progressive optimism built around new science. That optimism depends on our buying a very particular story – a story the Victorians invented – about the entanglements of culture and technology and where that takes us. It’s a story we might want to think twice about, second time round.
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It is with great pleasure to announce that on Saturday, September 20th, 2014 starting at 3:00pm barVolo will be one of the 56 locations across the world chosen by Brasserie Cantillon to host Zwanze Day 2014.
If things were not already sounding good enough, we have also decided to merge this day with our 4th annual “FUNK NIGHT” - a night of funky brews and funky tunes which will showcase 32 funky beers and ciders on tap from Quebec and Ontario. For The Love Of Bugs, Barrel & Bacteria. This Will Be Epic And The Music Will Be Loud!
FUNK NIGHT (7PM - 2AM) SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2014
A. House Ales X Shacklands (Raspberry Saison du Pigeon w/ Brett)
B. House Ales 25th Anniversary Blend (Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley Wine)
C. House Ales X Shacklands Flipside (Brett IPA w/Galaxy)
D. Bellwoods No Rest For The Wicked (Sour Stout)
E. Bellwoods Warp & Weft (Tequila Barrel Aged Berliner Weiss)
F. Amsterdam Divination #3 (Barrel Fermented 100% Golden Ale Aged 3 Years)
G. Amsterdam X Bim X House Ales Distraction (Sour w/ Ontario Peaches)
H. Amsterdam Sour Cherry Imp.Stout (Aged 1yr In Moldovian Cigar Barels)
I. Amsterdam Reserve Saison (Blend Of 8 Barrel Aged Saison & Brett Beers)
J. Indie Ale House Ned’s Stash Flanders (Flanders Red Aged In Wine Barrels)
K. Indie Ale House Sun Kicked XO (Imperial Wit Aged In Cognac Barrels)
L. Nickelbrook Brown SixTwo (Sour Brown Ale With Brett.)
M. Nickelbrook Kentucky Sour (Amber Ale Aged In Bourbon Barrels w/ Lacto.)
N. Great Lakes X Bar Hop Gilligan Is Still Dead (Guava Saison On Brett B)
O. Les Trois Mousquetaires Gose (Sour Salty Wheat Beer)
P. Les Trois Mousquetaires Saison Brett (Belgian Saison With Brett.)
Q. Dunham Saison Reserve (Rustic Saison / Leo’s IPA Blend In Red Wine Barrels w/ Brett.)
R. Dunham Assemblage No.1 (Pale Ale & Propolis In Zinfandel Barrel w/ Brett.)
S. Hopfenstark Saison Station No.7 (Saison With 7 Herbs Aged One Year)
T. Hopfenstark Alexanderplatz Epilogue (Berliner Weisse w/ Raspberries)
U. West Ave. Bohemian Raspberry (Barrel Fermented Cider w/ Brett.)
V. West Ave. Schoolyard Crab (Barrel Aged Crabapple Cider w/ Brett.)
W. Spirit Tree DBL Pagan (Crabapple Cider w/ Toasted Oak Chips & Sumac)
X. Muskoka “Buh-dunk-uh-dunk” (Sour Wheat Ale)
Y. Le Trou Du Diable Oude Blanche (Sour Wheat With Passion Fruit)
Z. Dieu Du Ciel! Solstice D'Ete (Sour Wheat With Cherry)
+ Cantillon beers that are still available from ZWANZE DAY. Last year there was beer left
ZWANZE DAY (3PM-7PM) - SOLD OUT
Cantillon Zwanze 2014 Cuvée Florian Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Fou’ Foune Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Bruocsella Grand Cru Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Lou Pepe Gueuze Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Saint Lamvinus Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Vigneronne Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Cuvee Saint-Gilloise Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Rose De Gambrinus Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Bruocsella Grand Cru Lambic (Bottles)
Announcement: The ticketed 3-7pm session for ZWANZE DAY has sold out. We will be opening the doors to the general public as of 7pm for FUNK NIGHT. If any of the Cantillon beers listed below for ZWANZE DAY are left, they will be served during FUNK NIGHT
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The Old Lady's invitation to the League One club to inaugurate their new stadium is one of sport's most elegant gestures
They could have invited Barcelona, Real Madrid or Manchester United to inaugurate their fine new stadium. Instead a great Italian institution summoned the club standing 12th in the third tier of English football to join Thursday's opening ceremony and, if there has been a more elegant gesture in the history of football, it would be good to hear of it.
For it was Notts County, in 1903, who answered the call of a Juventus member, an Englishman named John Savage, to send a set of the club's black and white striped shirts to replace the pink numbers worn by the players of the Italian club since their founding by a group of students six years earlier. Thus did Notts, who were then midway through a spell in the old First Division, save Juventus from a century of being confused with pink-shirted Palermo.
Themselves founded in 1862, Notts are the world's oldest football club who are currently professional and, when their chief executive, Jim Rodwell, contacted Juventus with a tentative invitation to visit Nottingham for a match to celebrate next year's 150th anniversary, the response was more than he could have imagined. Juventus's young president, Andrea Agnelli, immediately called Ray Trew, Notts' owner, to suggest that they might become the first visitors to the new ground, which is built on the site of the unloved Stadio delle Alpi in Turin's northern suburbs. Notts have a league match against Walsall on Saturday but could hardly turn down such a request.
This was the night when their 200 travelling fans in the 41,000 crowd could watch Neal Bishop, Lee Hughes and Ricky Ravenhill rubbing shoulders with Alessandro Del Piero, Gigi Buffon and Andrea Pirlo – not to mention Dino Zoff, Giampiero Boniperti, Luis Del Sol, Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi, Claudio Gentile, Roberto Bettega, Ciro Ferrara, Angelo Di Livio, Edgar Davids, Paolo Montero and Fabrizio Ravanelli, who joined the pre-match parade to represent earlier generations. The future embraced its history, and vice versa, in a marvellous football occasion hosted by Agnelli, the fourth member of his family to hold the presidency.
Two and a half hours before kick-off the Notts squad made their way on to the pitch. They had been flown to Turin on a plane chartered by their hosts and been put up at a five-star hotel, receiving a police escort to and from Juventus's training ground. They looked around in awe, taking photographs of the stadium, which is steep-sided, with no running track, rather like a half-size Camp Nou in black and white.
The brilliantly staged gala featured a brass band, speeches, fireworks, a diva on stilts, film clips of Omar Sivori and John Charles on giant screens, the mass singing of Juve, Storia Di Un Grande Amore, huge replicas of the club's trophies, Agnelli cutting a ribbon with golden scissors handed to him by a Monica Bellucci lookalike, dancers dressed as zebras – Notts may be the Magpies, but Juve are Le Zebre – and a quietly devastating parade of 39 white-clad children representing the Heysel dead. And, eventually, a decent game of football.
Could Del Piero, in his 678th game, score his 285th goal and Juve's first in their new home? A Nottingham bookmaker was taking bets on Hughes beating him to it, after the veteran striker became the first Notts player to amass 30 goals in a season since Tommy Lawton. But Notts' manager, Martin Allen, withheld his top scorer until the second half, probably with an eye on the Walsall match rather than out of a desire not to steal the Juve captain's thunder.
The nearest Del Piero came in his 45 minutes on the pitch was with a shot over the bar from the edge of the area. Robert Burch, the Notts goalkeeper, made a couple of fine blocks in the first half, and eight minutes after the interval he saved a penalty from Fabio Quagliarella after Ravenhill had handled the ball but Luca Toni slid the rebound home, putting an end to the only real suspense of a genial occasion.
Three minutes from time Hughes had the satisfaction of becoming the first man to score a goal for a visiting side when he rammed the ball home from two yards after a free-kick had squirmed out of the hands of Alex Manninger, Juve's second substitute goalkeeper. Notts had been good value for their 1-1. Now back to Meadow Lane.
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ROCKVILLE, Md., Feb. 24, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Cherokee Nation signed an agreement with Indian Health Service Wednesday to secure the largest joint venture funding project ever among tribes. The agreement allows for IHS to fund the hospital at an estimated $80 million or more per year. The funding would last a minimum of 20 years, or potentially for the life of the hospital.
IHS is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that funds and provides American Indians health care.
The historic agreement opens the door for the Cherokee Nation to pay more than $150 million for the construction of a 450,00- square-foot health center in Tahlequah that will be the largest ever built among tribes across the nation under IHS. In the agreement, IHS will request funding for staffing and operating expenses each year for at least 20 years once the hospital reaches capacity.
"This agreement secured with IHS will be absolutely transformative for the Cherokee Nation and our ability to deliver world-class health care for future generations in northeastern Oklahoma," Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker said. "IHS saw Cherokee Nation as a good partner to deliver quality care and together we are making the health of Indian Country our top priority. This public-private partnership is going to create both construction and health care jobs and be a significant economic impact in our region."
Chief Baker, Chief of Staff Chuck Hoskin, Tribal Council Speaker Joe Byrd, Executive Director of Cherokee Nation Health Services Connie Davis, Deputy Director of Health Services Charles Grim, Chief Executive Officer at W.W. Hastings Hospital Brian Hail, IHS Principal Deputy Director Robert G. McSwain and HIS Director of Environmental Health and Engineering Gary Hartz signed the agreement at the IHS headquarters in Maryland.
"For more than two decades, the competitive IHS Joint Venture Construction Program has strengthened partnerships with tribes across the country and ensured that comprehensive, culturally acceptable health services are available and accessible to American Indian and Alaska Native people," McSwain said. "This new agreement with the Cherokee Nation for the facility in Tahlequah is an important step toward raising the health of our people to the highest level."
The 450,000-square-foot health center will be an addition on the existing 190,000-square-foot Hastings Hospital campus in Tahlequah.
The renewal of the joint venture program that will allow the Cherokee Nation to build and operate a new facility was made possible thanks to the leadership in Congress who championed the program through the budget process and federal allocations.
"I am extremely proud of the work Chief Baker and the entire Cherokee Nation have put into making this joint venture a reality. Oklahoma has consistently ranked at the bottom of all states when it comes to national health indicators. It is important that local, state, and federal groups and officials take steps that will promote health and wellness across our state," said Cherokee Nation citizen and U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). "The health center in Tahlequah will be a very big step, and I applaud the Cherokee Nation and Indian Health Service's commitment to promoting the health and wellbeing of all individuals."
Congressman Tom Cole, (R-Okla.), a Chickasaw Nation citizen, said this will benefit Indian Country and all tribes.
"I was delighted to learn about this historic partnership between the Cherokee Nation and the Indian Health Service that will greatly benefit Indian Country for years to come. As a strong supporter of joint ventures like this one and having seen the real benefits of similar facilities, including one built by my own tribe, I believe the future is indeed bright as the Cherokee Nation prepares to improve the health and well-being of tribal citizens by investing in this project," Rep. Cole said. "I applaud those who worked together to make this incredible vision become reality. Certainly, Oklahoma communities and generations of tribal citizens will be better because of it."
The new addition will create jobs and expand new specialty services, such as surgeons and endocrinology, which currently are not offered at Hastings, which the tribe has operated since 2008.
"This agreement will provide the Cherokee Nation an opportunity to better meet the demand and needs of our Cherokee Nation citizens and other Native Americans who access our health system," said Davis, who worked as a nurse in the original Indian Hospital in Tahlequah that was a five-room ward. "I'm so grateful for this partnership with IHS to ensure the future of health for our people and future generations."
Other services included in the new facility are ambulatory care, podiatry, a WIC program, audiology, dental care, eye care, primary care, specialty care, diagnostic imaging, a laboratory, a pharmacy, rehabilitation services, surgery, behavioral health, health education, public health nursing, public health nutrition and a wellness center.
A groundbreaking for the new addition will be held this spring.
The Cherokee Nation operates the largest tribal health system in the country with more than 1.2 million patient visits per year.
Photo Cutline: (L-R) Seated: Robert G. McSwain, IHS principal deputy director and Principal Chief Bill John Baker. Standing: Charles Grim, deputy director for Cherokee Nation Health Services, Gary Hartz, IHS director of environmental health and engineering, Chuck Hoskin, Cherokee Nation chief of staff, Tribal Council Speaker Joe Byrd, Brian Hail, CEO of W.W. Hastings Hospital and Connie Davis, executive director of Cherokee Nation Health Services.
About Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation is the federally recognized government of the Cherokee people and has inherent sovereign status recognized by treaty and law. The seat of tribal government is the W.W. Keeler Complex near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. With more than 330,000 citizens, 11,000 employees and a variety of tribal enterprises ranging from aerospace and defense contracts to entertainment venues, Cherokee Nation is one of the largest employers in northeastern Oklahoma and the largest tribal nation in the United States.
To learn more, please visit www.cherokee.org.
Editor's note: Find all the latest Cherokee Nation news at www.anadisgoi.com.
A photo accompanying this release is available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=39130
Julie Hubbard CHEROKEE NATION 918-207-3896
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WASHINGTON — President Obama has suggested that some critics have attacked him because he’s the first black president, and he accused Donald Trump of “exploiting” blue-collar fears.
Speaking to NPR in an interview released Monday, Obama said he has faced criticism because he’s “different.”
“If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, et cetera — which, unfortunately, is pretty far out there and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials — what I’d say there is that that’s probably pretty specific to me, and who I am and my background,” he said.
One “legitimate” criticism, he said, was of his failure to communicate his efforts to combat terror.
“We haven’t on a regular basis, I think, described all the work that we’ve been doing for more than a year now to defeat ISIL,” he said.
Obama said economic stresses and changing demographics are behind Trump’s rise.
“You combine those things, and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear — some of it justified but just misdirected,” he said. “I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that.”
Trump caused more controversy during a speech in Michigan on Monday night when he said that Hillary Clinton got “schlonged” by Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary there.
“She was favored to win, and she got schlonged,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post, using a slang term for penis.
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The first few minutes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are always guaranteed to be equal parts insane, hilarious, and chilling. You know Olivia Benson and Co. are in for a rollercoaster ride filled with twists and turns if, say, instead of your run-of-the-mill exsanguinated corpse (ligature marks optional), you’re treated to a dialogue-free musical montage or something even vaguer.
And the seventh episode of the 17th season (!) of Dick Wolf’s SVU, “Patrimonial Burden,” opens with a truly eerie sequence: a purity ball, with a 13-year-old girl making a virginity pledge to her father (and Jesus) to remain as pure as the driven snow until marriage.
“I make this solemn vow to you and my Creator to keep my thoughts virtuous, and to abstain from all sexual activity, until the day you give me to my husband,” she says.
It’s a particularly incestuous clip from the particularly incestuous reality series 13aker’s Dozen, depicting young, tiara-sporting Lane Baker, the fourth of 10 children in the Baker brood, celebrating in a hotel ballroom with her condom-despising patriarch, Frank Baker. But, while the daddy-daughter duo are making eyes at each other and slow dancing to An American Tail’s “Somewhere Out There,” the poor little girl collapses. When she’s taken in to the hospital, they learn that she’s three months’ pregnant.
DUN DUN.
Now, when Lt. Benson and Dets. Tutuola and Carisi arrive on the scene, the squad’s alarm bells go off when the Baker parents aren’t willing to let them speak to their probably-raped child, and are adamant that they’re “good parents” and she’s never dated anyone in the past.
Cue sick Benson Burn: “With all due respect, this wasn’t an Immaculate Conception.”
“Patrimonial Burden” was inspired by the real-life controversy surrounding Josh Duggar—the eldest child on the kid-collecting reality TV series 19 Kids and Counting who was forced to resign from his position at the conservative Family Research Council this past May when it was revealed that he’d molested five girls as a teenager, including four of his own sisters. After being enrolled in a Christian labor camp, Duggar’s father, Jim-Bob, reportedly took his troubled son to meet with Jim Hutchens, an Arkansas State trooper and friend of the family, where Josh confessed to his crimes, but was just given a stern warning (Hutchens was later sentenced to a 56-year prison sentence on child pornography charges). An official investigation into Duggar’s molestation cases opened in 2006, but by that point, the State of Arkansas’ three-year statue of limitations for filing charges after reporting the incident to a police officer had expired.If that weren’t enough, the Ashley Madison hack revealed that Josh Duggar, a married father of four, had two subscriptions on the infidelity site from 2013-2015, which he used to cheat on his wife. “I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the Internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife,” he admitted.
Now back to SVU.
Every SVU episode is a bit like a game of Clue, and early on we’re presented with four possible suspects: the creepy uber-religious father, Frank; the family’s pastor/lawyer, who wants Lane to only speak to the family’s local precinct; Chris Elliott (!), playing 13aker’s Dozen’s cameraman; and Graham Baker, 17, the eldest son (and Josh Duggar stand-in).
It’s all about their “brand,” claims Det. Rollins, herself heavily pregnant. “Look at what happened to the Duggars. Word gets out that one of those virgin Baker daughters is knocked up? There goes the TV show, the book deal, the multimillion-dollar chastity empire.”
Since the incident happened while Lane was in New York on a mission painting over graffiti, this gives the SVU team jurisdiction to investigate. And since Frank and Graham accompanied her on said mission, that makes them the primary suspects.
When Benson questions Lane, using her disarming voice and bedside manner, the girl admits to engaging in “sexual activity” while she was on her mission in New York. Since she “promised not to say” who her assailant was, Benson gets her to write it down. And the girl fingers Pete Matthews, the aforementioned 13aker’s Dozen cameraman played by Elliott. Making matters worse, the SVU team discovers footage Lane filmed of two of the underage Baker girls changing on his laptop.
Only Matthews had a vasectomy a decade ago, so he couldn’t possibly be the culprit. To further exonerate himself, he shares footage he shot of Graham feeling up his sister. Apparently Graham copped to it, took a leave of absence from the show, and was sent to Camp Righteous Path—an Evangelical Christian labor camp in Canada. Turns out he was sent there by Elias J. Barnes, a powerful local priest/judge, who had Graham’s records sealed. But a rogue cop gifts Dets. Tutuola and Carisi with the kid’s juvie records, which includes three complaints of forcible touching and one complaint of assault on a minor.
Before Benson can haul Graham into the precinct, however, his family sends him down to Ecuador on a mission. Complicating matters is the fact that Pam, the Baker mom, probably faked one of her pregnancies, leading the SVU team to believe that Graham may have also impregnated one of his other sisters—now 15-year-old Summer, who mysteriously disappeared during the show’s season finale three years back.
“If this is indeed incest, then Frank is the grandfather on both sides,” says Benson.
Now all of this, of course, could be solved if Pam agreed to have Lane undergo an amniotic fluid test, but since it’s against their Evangelical beliefs, she declines.
When they test the DNA of Tate, the 2-year-old suspected of being Graham’s rape/incest-baby, it comes back showing that the paternal side is not related to Frank, so the father couldn’t be Frank or Graham.
Meanwhile the 8½ months’ pregnant Det. Rollins has to go the E.R. after feeling chest pains, and is placed on bed rest (Kelly Giddish, who plays Rollins, was actually pregnant and gave birth just four days after the episode was filmed). When she questions why she’s having a child solo—the child is her former superior officer Declan’s, who’s deep undercover investigating a sex trafficking ring in Romania—Carisi comforts her at her bedside, saying, “Amanda, listen to me: I’ve been working for you for over a year now, and there is nothing you can’t handle.”Rollins has reason to be skeptical, of course, because she can barely handle her crippling gambling addiction (which got her beaten by a scar-faced bookie and almost fired from SVU), her prostitute-sister who’s in prison on multiple charges, and her domineering mother, played by Virginia Madsen, who will never forgive her for arresting her own sister. But deep down, Rollins is a good person, and Carisi, in his very New Yawk accent, speaks the truth.
Turns out Pastor Elden, the Baker family’s pastor/lawyer played by Ryan Devlin of Veronica Mars fame, was also with Lane during her mission—as well as another New York mission with Summer three years ago.And, it turns out Pastor Elden is a DNA match for both Lane’s baby and Summer’s. Except the pastor has gone missing. When SVU tracks him down, he’s in the family’s local courthouse about to marry Lane—with the Baker family’s approval, as well as the aforementioned judge/priest’s who had Graham’s juvenile records sealed—presumably so that she can’t testify against him. The Baker family believes Graham is the culprit, but when they’re told that Pastor Elden is the father, their faces drop.
It seems the pastor had told the family that Graham had confessed to him, and they took the man of the cloth at his word.
“I’ll testify. And so will Frank. I don’t care about the damn show, we want him put away!” shrieks Pam.
As an SVU obsessive, I mourned the loss of rugged and beloved Det. Stabler (Christopher Meloni), the bad cop to Olivia’s good cop. But the brilliant 16th season of the show—with its exaggerated ripped-from-the-headlines episodes tackling GamerGate, Ray Rice, Rolling Stone’s UVa rape story, a Trayvon Martin/Paula Deen crossover, and the fabulous James Franco/Shia LaBeouf crossover, with Shiloh Fernandez as a sitar-playing Franco/LaBeouf—made me see the light.While Meloni was fantastic on the show, and they were oh-so-wrong to shade him in last year’s season finale, SVU is as addictive as ever.
Rachel Dolezal next, please.
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Caught on camera: Female detective’s disbelief as colleagues question HER over 1986 murder
New video footage has been released of a shocked Los Angeles police detective after colleagues ambush her and question her about the murder of her ex-boyfriend's wife 24 years earlier.
Detectives lured Stephanie Lazarus to the surprise interrogation on the pretext that she would be helping fellow officers question an art theft suspect.
But as they began interviewing her about the 1986 killing of Sherri Rae Rasmussen, she realises what they are doing and asks if she was on 'Candid Camera'.
'Uncomfortable': Stephanie Lazarus asks two other detectives whether she needed a lawyer as they question her over the 1986 killing of her ex-boyfriend's wife
Lazarus admitted during the footage that she had confronted Ms Rasmussen several times, but said she had no role in her killing.
But as she got up to leave the interview room, she was stopped, handcuffed and arrested in connection with the murder.
Los Angeles County Superior Court this week rejected a request by her legal team to keep the video out of the case.
Lazarus has pleaded not guilty to the killing and is awaiting trial.
In the hour-long footage, Lazarus told the other two officers they were 'starting to make me uncomfortable' and asked whether she needed a lawyer.
'This is insane': The LAPD detective is shocked when she realises her colleagues consider her a suspect in the murder
She described their questioning as 'insane' and added: 'You're accusing me of this? Is that what you're - is that what you're saying?
'Am I on "Candid Camera" or something? This is insane. This absolutely crazy. This is insane.'
Ms Rasmussen, a 29-year-old hospital nursing director, was found bludgeoned and shot multiple times in the Van Nuys townhouse she shared with John Reutten, whom she had recently married.
Lazarus had been in a relationship while attending UCLA, but had broken up when Mr Reutten struck up a relationship with Ms Rasmussen.
Last year, DNA analysis of saliva collected from a bite mark on the victim's arm indicated the killer was a woman, disproving the previous theory that she had been killed in a botched burglary.
Charges: Minutes after the recording Lazarus leaves the room and is arrested outside by other officers
Detectives reopened the case and when they learned of Lazarus' relationship with Mr Reutten began tailing her and eventually collected a plastic utensil with her saliva on it which matched evidence found at the crime scene.
They then devised a plan to arrest Lazarus where one detective asked her to accompany him downstairs to the department's jail facility to help question a man about stolen art.
They then revealed there was no stolen art case, and began to question her about her relationship with Mr Reutten and Ms Rasmussen.
When she began to protest, they explained they had brought her down to the jail to spare her the embarrassment of being questioned in the office.
It was then that she got up to leave and was arrested by other officers outside the room.
Watch part of the interview below
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I recently got my hands on Red Barrels’ Outlast (finally). Thanks, Humble Bundle! I remember watching PewDiePie play this game back in 2013. Thankfully I only watched the beginning. No spoilers, nothing. This was my first experience.
I really was not ready for this. “This is just not for me”, I kept getting this unwanted feeling, “Fuck it, just a game.” I turned off the lights, the door, wore my headset and increased gamma to the maximum. (welp)
The main menu was creepy, really really atmospheric, and I was not even in-game. (lol) The slow, menacing orchestral music humming in my ears gave me shivers; and for the next 5 long hours, I immersed myself into the nightmares of Mount Massive Asylum.
This game relies heavily on tension-building and gore. It is scary, atmospheric, tense and unsettling. The jumpscares are well-placed and scared the shit out of me.
Time by time, I realised how defenceless and weak my character was. There were only two options – Run or Hide. Coming out of the locker and navigating in the pitch dark under constant fear of being ambushed by the madmen was the worst feeling.
I had a hard time gathering courage to come out of my hiding place. Many times, I spent a ridiculous amount of time hiding, doing nothing, yet being terrified in the background and hearing the sounds of the monsters patrolling every spot in the nearby area. Especially, hearing the sound of chains rattling in the ground completely broke my ‘what-so-ever’ courage. By the sound of these movements, I would go totally mad and just run out screaming YOLO!!! and random slangs…. only to get chased by the Chain Baba (Chris Walker aka Little Pig). T_T
However, as I kept moving on, progressing the story, things became less scary – in better words “similar”. Yeah, this game doesn’t have the variety to maintain the same level of horror. Luckily, the story slowly starts to unfold by this time, and believe me – It is awesome! We get to know the origins of all of this madness, we start to understand the characters and their motives. The game sheds more & more light on the story. The story is linear, yet managed to motivate me to keep playing, to uncover the truth. Reading the documents placed at random places, and the notes, which Miles Upsher wrote based on the events in-game helped me to get a clearer view and understanding of the game.
5 hours spent well playing this brilliant piece of work from 2013 and it was a new and good experience for me. Outlast perfectly does its job, i.e. scaring the players. All you need is some courage, handful of toilet papers and a pant near you (just in case… XD)
Honestly speaking, Outlast surpassed my expectations and is one of the best survival horror games out there. If you have this game on your Steam Library, and still haven’t played it yet or left it unfinished – well you are losing a shit ton of perfect horror experience.
Side note – Wish me luck, I’m going to play the Whistleblower DLC now.
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Pabst Blue Ribbon is doing better than ever, but NOT because it's a cheap beer in the midst of a recession.
Sales of Pabst Blue Ribbon are up a whopping 25 percent this year, according to Information Resources Inc.
"Well, of course," you say. In this economy, consumers are looking for low-cost options, and cheaper beers are going to do better than more expensive ones.
But Pabst raised its prices last year and now it isn't as cheap as you may think: The beer now costs $1.50 more than MillerCoors' Keystone, $1 more than Anheuser-Busch's Busch and Natural brands, and 50 cents more than Miller High Life, Crain's reports.
Yet, despite being more expensive, PBR is doing remarkably better than all those brands in profits.
Sassy or Trashy: Bikinis
Pabst's success actually comes from years before the recession.
Pabst managed to pull of a strangely effective word-of-mouth campaign that made the long-declining brand an "ironic downscale chic choice for bike messengers and other younger drinkers who viewed the beer as a statement of non-mainstream taste," reports Crain's.
Let's call a spade a spade: Those "non-mainstream," "younger drinkers" are hipsters.
Usually found smoking European cigarettes and/or cloves, hipsters are known for their despise of anything "mainstream" and their fondness for irony. They listen to bands that no one has ever heard of and start fashion trends that are cool because of their "uncoolness", e.g., trucker hats or vintage plaid shirts.
This is where Pabst Blue Ribbon comes in.
"It's an anti-establishment badge," said a major market wholesaler. "It seems to play to the retro, nonconformist crowd pretty well."
Celebrity Twitpics
Hipsters enjoy drinking a beer that isn't as "established" as other better-known brands, asserting themselves are more "genuine" and "unique" than the mainstream that surrounds them.
They should be careful though. With the incredible rise in sales, Pabst Blue Ribbon could become so popular, it may enter the mainstream, and hipsters will have to abandon it in favor of another "cheap" beer.
Matt Bartosik, a "between blogs" blogger, will drink any beer you buy for him.
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Hancock is a 2008 American superhero comedy film directed by Peter Berg and starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman. It tells the story of a vigilante superhero, John Hancock (Smith) from Los Angeles whose reckless actions routinely cost the city millions of dollars. Eventually one person he saves, Ray Embrey (Bateman), makes it his mission to change Hancock's public image for the better.
The story was originally written by Vincent Ngo in 1996. It languished in "development hell" for years and had various directors attached, including Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Jonathan Mostow, and Gabriele Muccino before going into production in 2007. Hancock was filmed in Los Angeles with a production budget of $150 million.
In the United States, the film was rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America after changes were made at their request in order to avoid an R rating, which it had received twice before. The film was released on July 2, 2008 in the United States by Columbia Pictures. Hancock received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $624 million worldwide, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 2008.
Plot [ edit ]
John Hancock is an alcoholic who possesses superpowers, including flight, invulnerability, and superhuman strength. While performing superhero-like acts in Los Angeles, he is often ridiculed and hated by the public for his drunken and careless acts, and becomes enraged when referred to as an "asshole." Hancock rescues Ray Embrey, a public relations specialist, from an oncoming train, which he irrationally derails to save Ray. Thankful and seeing him as a career opportunity, Ray offers to help improve Hancock's public image. Hancock meets Ray's family, his son Aaron, who is a fan, and his wife Mary, who takes an immediate dislike to Hancock.
Ray encourages Hancock to issue a public apology, and then go to prison for a time, until Los Angeles needs him properly. Hancock reluctantly agrees, struggling to fit in prison, and quickly causes trouble when he assaults two fellow inmates that refuse to leave him alone. Hancock is visited by Ray's family, encouraging him to be patient. Los Angeles' crime rate rises, and Hancock is eventually released to help, wearing a combat outfit. He foils a bank robbery orchestrated by Red Parker, with Hancock slicing off his hand to prevent him from activating a detonation switch. He is praised as a hero, and becomes popular.
Hancock reveals to Ray and Mary that he is amnesiac and an immortal, waking up in a hospital eighty years ago with no memory of his identity. He also learns Mary isn't Aaron's biological mother, and is Ray's second wife. Carrying a drunk Ray home, Hancock kisses Mary, only for her to toss him through the wall, revealing she has superpowers too. The next day, Hancock and Mary speak in private. Mary claims they have lived for three thousand years, are the last of their kind, and are siblings. Hancock disbelieves her about the last fact, and flies away to inform Ray, only for Mary to chase him and incite a violent battle across the city. Ray witnesses the fight, later confronting the duo. Mary admits Hancock used to be her husband in another life.
That night, Hancock stops a liquor store robbery, only to be shot multiple times, and is hospitalized. Mary appears, explaining that when the immortals paired up, they would slowly lose their powers, becoming mortals. The last time Hancock and Mary were together was eighty years before, when Hancock was attacked; his amnesia is a result of the attack. Parker, who escaped prison with several other criminals, attacks the hospital to get revenge. Mary is caught in the crossfire and injured. Hancock recovers, killing the criminals, but is further injured. Parker tries to kill him, but Ray kills Parker with a fire axe. Hancock throws himself out of the hospital, taking great leaps and bounds to restart Mary's heart, before flying off towards the Moon.
A month later Ray and his family receive a call from Hancock, revealing he has imprinted the Moon's surface with Ray's AllHeart marketing logo. In a mid-credits scene, Hancock approaches a criminal in New York City, who calls him an asshole.
Cast [ edit ]
Will Smith as John Hancock, an alcoholic superhero. [2] Hancock is invulnerable, immortal, possesses superhuman strength, reflexes and stamina, highly developed regeneration, and can fly at supersonic speeds. [3] He is also an amnesiac; his first memories are of waking up alone in a hospital in 1931. During his release, the duty nurse asked him for his "John Hancock", which he adopted as his current alias. Smith described the character, "Hancock is not your average superhero. Every day he wakes up mad at the world. He doesn't remember what happened to him and there's no one to help him find the answers." [4] To give a realistic appearance of superhero flight, Smith was often suspended by wires 60 feet (18 m) above the ground and propelled at 40–50 miles per hour (64–80 km/h). [5]
Hancock is invulnerable, immortal, possesses superhuman strength, reflexes and stamina, highly developed regeneration, and can fly at supersonic speeds. He is also an amnesiac; his first memories are of waking up alone in a hospital in 1931. During his release, the duty nurse asked him for his "John Hancock", which he adopted as his current alias. Smith described the character, "Hancock is not your average superhero. Every day he wakes up mad at the world. He doesn't remember what happened to him and there's no one to help him find the answers." To give a realistic appearance of superhero flight, Smith was often suspended by wires 60 feet (18 m) above the ground and propelled at 40–50 miles per hour (64–80 km/h). Charlize Theron as Mary Embrey, Ray's wife and Hancock's ex-wife who also has powers and abilities like him, but they are both becoming weak as they are close to each other. Theron described Mary, "She makes this conscious decision to live in suburbia and be this soccer mom to her stepson and be the perfect wife—she lives in this bubble. But when people do that it usually means they are hiding some characteristic inside themselves that scares them. That is Mary's case. She knows who she is and what she is capable of." [6]
Jason Bateman as Ray Embrey, a corporate public relations consultant whose life Hancock saves. Bateman said, "My character sees life through rose-colored glasses so he doesn't understand how people can't see the positive side of Hancock. I like being the everyman. I like being the tour guide, the one who tethers whatever absurdity might be in a film and helps make that tangible to the audience." [7]
Eddie Marsan as Red Parker, a bank robber who later becomes Hancock's arch-nemesis. Having previously filmed the low-budget Happy-Go-Lucky, Marsan found the transition to the big-budget Hancock to be a shock. Marsan said, "I went from being in a car with Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky to blowing up a bank in downtown LA."[8]
Film producers Akiva Goldsman and Michael Mann appear as executives listening to Ray's lecture.[9] Television host Nancy Grace also has a cameo appearance.[10] Actors Johnny Galecki and Thomas Lennon also appear in the film. Mike Epps makes an uncredited cameo in the post-credits scene. Daeg Faerch appears as Michel, the young French American neighborhood bully who is thrown by Hancock in the air for his incessant swearing.
Production [ edit ]
Development [ edit ]
[Vincent Ngo] told me the motivation for [the idea] was that he loved Superman . It inspired him, and he wanted to do a version of Superman that was more real and challenging. He wanted to take the Superman genre and turn it upside down. —Dustin Nguyen on his reclusive friend's spec script[4]
Vincent Ngo wrote the spec script Tonight, He Comes in 1996. The draft, about a troubled 12-year-old, and a fallen superhero, was initially picked up by director Tony Scott as a potential project.[11] Producer Akiva Goldsman came across the script, which he had considered a favorite,[12] and encouraged Richard Saperstein, then president of development and production at Artisan Entertainment, to acquire it in 2002.[11] Michael Mann was initially attached to direct Tonight, He Comes, but he instead opted to direct Miami Vice.[12] Eventually, Artisan placed the project in turnaround, and it was acquired by Goldsman.[13]
Vince Gilligan and John August rewrote Ngo's script,[14] and Jonathan Mostow was attached to direct the film. Under Mostow's supervision, a ten-page treatment was written to be pitched to Will Smith to portray the lead role in the film. Neither Mostow nor Smith was yet committed to make the project an active priority at the time. Several studios pursued the opportunity to finance the film, and Columbia Pictures succeeded in acquiring the prospect in February 2005. A second draft was scripted by Gilligan following the finalization of the deal with Columbia. The film was initially slated for a holiday 2006 release.[13]
In November 2005, Mostow and Smith committed to Tonight, He Comes, with production slated to begin in Los Angeles in summer 2006.[12] Smith's salary in his pay or play contract for the film was $20 million and 20 percent of the film's gross.[15] The actor had also set up a pay or play contract to film I Am Legend under Warner Bros. after completion of Tonight, He Comes.[16] Mostow eventually departed from the project due to creative differences.[17] Italian director Gabriele Muccino filled Mostow's vacancy in May 2006. Since Muccino was busy editing The Pursuit of Happyness starring Smith, which Muccino had directed, Smith switched projects to film I Am Legend first for its December 2007 release, and then film Tonight, He Comes afterward.[18] Later in the month, Muccino left the project because of an incompatibility with filming the story. Since Muccino was preparing The Pursuit of Happyness, the studio had delayed the production start for Tonight, He Comes to summer 2007, enabling Warner Bros. to begin production of I Am Legend with Smith.[17]
Filming [ edit ]
In October 2006, Peter Berg was attached to direct Tonight, He Comes with production slated to begin in May 2007 in Los Angeles, the story's setting.[19] Berg had been midway through filming The Kingdom when he heard about the film and called Michael Mann, who had become one of its producers.[20] The new director compared the original script's tone to Leaving Las Vegas (1995), calling it "a scathing character study of this suicidal alcoholic superhero". The director explained the rewrite, "We thought the idea was cool, but we did want to lighten it up. We all did."[21] Before filming began, Tonight, He Comes was retitled John Hancock,[2] and it was eventually shortened to Hancock.[22]
Filming began on Hancock on July 3, 2007 in Los Angeles,[23] having a production budget of $150 million.[14] Locations such as Hollywood Boulevard were designed to look damaged, having rubble, overturned vehicles, and fires.[24] Smith's character is also an alcoholic, so for scenes in liquor stores, the art department designed fake labels such as Pap Smear Vodka for the bottles because "brown-bag brands" like Thunderbird and Night Train refused to lend their names.[25] Reshoots were filmed in Times Square in May 2008, the late date resulting in the cancellation of the film's original world premiere in Australia on June 10, 2008.[4]
Visual effects [ edit ]
Hancock was Peter Berg's first film with visual effects as critical cinematic elements.[20] He considered the computer-generated fight his least favorite part of the film, citing limited control in making the scene successful. According to the director, "Once the fight starts, you're very limited and you're at the mercy of your effects guys ... unless they're really technically oriented ... it's definitely the time we have the least amount of control as directors." He and other filmmakers worked to cut down on the fight scene, believing that the film's success would come from the character study of Smith's character, John Hancock, similar to Robert Downey, Jr.'s acclaimed portrayal of Tony Stark in the previous May's superhero release, Iron Man.[21]
Visual effects supervisor Carey Villegas described Peter Berg's photography as "very high energy", to which the visual effects crew had difficulty adapting. Though the crew had estimated developing 300 visual effects shot at its initial bid, the final tally was approximately 525 shots. An unexpected shot was a scene in which Hancock shoves a prisoner's head up another's anus, and filmmakers initially attempted to film it conventionally, using sleight of hand techniques with cameras. Finding that doing so did not capture "the vulgarity of the gag", the crew was enlisted to use computer-generated effects. Visual effects were also applied in conjunction with the film's choreography, incorporating palm trees, twisters, and debris in the computer-generated fight scene and combining visual effects with a crane shot to portray Hancock's derailment of a freight train.[26]
Release [ edit ]
Marketing [ edit ]
The New York Times noted that Hancock's original story and controversial subject matter present a stark contrast to "a summerful of sequels and animated sure shots" and represent a gamble for "an increasingly corporate entertainment industry". Hancock had been reviewed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) twice, and both times received an R rating instead of the makers' preferred PG-13 rating to target broader audiences.[14]
The MPAA questioned elements including Smith's character drinking in front of a 7-year-old and the character flying under the influence of alcohol. Scenes that were removed to receive a PG-13 rating from the MPAA included a scene of statutory rape,[14] two of three uses of the word "fuck" (the MPAA only permitted one use for the PG-13 rating), and intense shots of needles going into arms. The MPAA allowed scenes of Hancock shoving a prisoner's head up another's behind and of Hancock having explosive ejaculation during sexual intercourse, though Berg chose to save the latter scene for the DVD, explaining, "It just wasn't that funny. Never was. You'd put it in front of an audience and there'd be two, maybe three people laughing. There was no way to do that and then regain even a modicum of emotional integrity." The director kept the scene with the prisoners since a Las Vegas test screening was overwhelmingly successful: "At the end of the day, I couldn't ignore an audience when they're laughing that hard."[27] With such elements, studio executives only became comfortable with Hancock when the marketing approach focused on action and humor. Berg noted, "The ad campaign for this movie is much friendlier than the film."[14] The MPAA ultimately gave the film a PG-13 rating, citing "some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence and language".[3]
Hancock was originally titled Tonight, He Comes and later changed to John Hancock before settling on its final title. Prior to the film's release, marketing consultants attempted to persuade Sony Pictures to again change the title Hancock because it was too vague for audiences, suggesting alternatives like Heroes Never Die, Unlikely Hero, and Less Than Hero. Despite the advice, Sony stayed with Hancock and anticipated marketing on the popularity of the film's star, Will Smith.[28]
Theatrical run [ edit ]
Hancock had its world premiere as the opener at the 30th Moscow International Film Festival on June 19, 2008.[29] To avoid copyright infringement, organizers took "unprecedented" steps to prevent illegal reproduction of the film.[30]
For the film, Sony created a digital camera package (DCP) having 4K resolution, containing four times more information than the typical DCP that possessed 2K resolution. Projectors for the higher-resolution package have been installed in 200 theaters in the United States with two dozen in evaluation.[31]
Prior to the film's opening five-day weekend in the United States and Canada, predictions for its weekend performance ranged from as low as $70 million to as high as $125 million.[32][33] According to CinemaScore, Hancock was given a B+ grade by audiences.[34] The film was shown in advance screenings on July 1, 2008 in 3,680 theaters in the United States and Canada, grossing $6.8 million. The film was widely released on July 2, 2008, expanding to 3,965 theaters.[35] At the conclusion of the five-day weekend, Hancock took top placement at the box office in the United States and Canada, grossing an estimated $103.8 million.[36] The film had the third-biggest opening 4th of July weekend after Transformers and Spider-Man 2. Hancock was Will Smith's fifth film to open on a 4 July weekend and was his most successful opening to date. The film was also Smith's eighth film in a row to take top placement in the American and Canadian box office and the twelfth film in Smith's career to lead the box office.[37][38] Hancock was also Peter Berg's strongest opening of his directing career to date.[39] Chad Hartigan, analyst for Exhibitor Relations, said about Smith's successful opening, "Audiences don't care what critics say; they're going to turn out for anything he does."[40]
Outside the United States and Canada, Hancock grossed $78.3 million in its opening weekend, drawing from 5,444 screenings across 50 markets, ranking it the third highest international opening of 2008 after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Iron Man.[41] Hancock averaged $14,382 per screen. It placed on top in 47 of the 50 markets in which it opened;[42] its strongest openings were the United Kingdom with $19.3 million, Germany with $12.4 million, South Korea with $8.5 million, Australia with $7.3 million, and China with $5.5 million. The Chinese opening was the fourth-biggest opening to date for the country. Other international performances included $3.4 million in Brazil and $3.1 million in Taiwan.[41] In Hong Kong, the film opened in first place with $1.3 million, averaging $37,300 across the 35 venues.[43] The film's overall gross for its opening five-day weekend worldwide is $185.6 million.[42]
In the following weekend of July 11, 2008, Hancock fell to second place in the United States and Canada behind Hellboy II: The Golden Army, grossing an estimated $33 million, a "modest" 47% drop in revenue (see second weekend in box office performance).[44] The film's recorded American and Canadian attendance was higher than the Smith feature Men in Black II in both films' second weekend, but it was significantly less than attendance records for Smith's other films, Independence Day and Men in Black through the same point.[45] Internationally Hancock expanded to 8,125 screens across 67 markets, ranking first at the box office again in 30 markets. The film's top opening grosses for the weekend included $11.4 million in Russia (589 screens), $9.9 million in France (739 screens), $4.6 million in Mexico (783 screens), $2.2 million in India (429 screens), $1.7 million in the Netherlands (90 screens), $1.3 million in Belgium (69 screens), and $1 million in Ukraine (81 screens). In territories playing Hancock for a second weekend, the United Kingdom dropped 45% to total $33.4 million to date, Germany 37% to total $24.2 million to date, South Korea 38% to total $14.7 million to date, and Australia 47% to total $14.4 million to date.[46] For the second weekend, with the 67 markets, Hancock accumulated an estimated $71.4 million in the international box office, only a $7.2 million drop from the previous weekend in territories outside the United States and Canada.[47]
In Hancock's third weekend of July 18, the film took top placement in the international box office a third time, grossing an estimated $44.8 million from 8,286 screens across 71 territories. The film had beaten The Dark Knight, which premiered that weekend in 20 international markets. Hancock had tracked 32% internationally ahead of its performance in the United States and Canada. It had opened in four new markets for the weekend, ranking first in Spain with $8.6 million from 562 sites and first in Norway with $1 million from 60 sites. Hancock also kept top placement in France, estimating $4.4 million from 741 screens for a total of $16.8 million to date.[48]
The film experienced a late resurgence in the international box office on the weekend of September 12, grossing $10.6 million from 1,425 screens in 31 markets. Making up most of the amount was $8 million from the film's premiere in Italy on 678 screens.[49] Hancock has grossed $227,946,274 in the United States and Canada and $396,440,472 in other territories for a worldwide total of $624,386,746.[1]
Home media [ edit ]
Hancock was part of Sony's experiment in providing content to consumers who own a BRAVIA television equipped with an Internet connection. The film's release over the Internet took place after its theatrical run and before its release on DVD. According to Sony executives, distributing Hancock was an opportunity to showcase BRAVIA, though the method has been perceived as an "obvious threat" to cable companies' video on demand.[50] The film was available to BRAVIA owners from October 28, 2008 to November 10, 2008.[51]
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 25, 2008.[52] The single-disc DVD provides a theatrical cut (92 minutes) and an unrated cut (102 minutes) as well as five featurettes and two documentaries. The double-disc DVD includes these features, a digital copy of the film, and two additional making-of extras. The Blu-ray Disc includes these, an on-set visual diary, and a picture-in-picture track.[53] George Lang of The Oklahoman described the unrated cut as "a rare instance when deleted scenes enhance the final product".[54] Christopher Monfette of IGN thought that the Blu-ray Disc was a "beautiful" transfer, the audio was well-balanced, and the featurettes were well-supplied.[55]
In the week ending November 30, Hancock placed first on three video charts: the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, Home Media Magazine's video rental chart, and Nielsen's Blu-ray Disc chart. With the year's Black Friday shopping day on November 28, Hancock was the top seller in the Blu-ray Disc format.[56] Over 5.38 million DVDs were sold for a revenue of $91,066,638.[57]
Reception [ edit ]
Critical response [ edit ]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 41% based on 220 reviews, with an average score of 5.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though it begins with promise, Hancock suffers from a flimsy narrative and poor execution."[58] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating, the film has received an average score of 49 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[59] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[60]
Todd McCarthy of Variety felt that the film's premise was undermined by the execution. McCarthy believed the concept ensured the film was "amusing and plausible" for its first half, but that the second half was full of illogical story developments and missed opportunities.[61] Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter said that the opening established the premise well, but that the film came undone when it began to alternate between comedy and tragedy, and introduced a backstory for Hancock that did not make sense. He said it rewrote its own internal logic in order to pander to its audience.[62] Stephen Hunter in The Washington Post said it had begun with promise, but that the change in tone partway through was so abrupt that the film did not recover.[63] Jim Schembri of The Age called the change in direction "an absolute killer story twist",[64] and David Denby of The New Yorker said it lifted the film to a new level by supplementing the jokes with sexual tension and emotional power.[65]
Jim Schembri wrote that Berg's direction helped to sell Hancock's "well-drawn" backstory,[64] Todd McCarthy said the gritty visual approach adopted by Berg did not mesh well with the "vulgar goofiness" of certain scenes,[61] and Stephen Farber said that Berg's frantic direction compounded the storytelling errors.[62] Stephen Hunter said that Berg had not understood that the shifting tone and plot twists were meant to be humorous, and that he had played straight what was supposed to be a dark comedy and subversive satire.[63] David Denby said Berg's style—especially his use of close-ups—was intended to showcase "genuine actors at work",[65] while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times insisted Berg had taken Hancock to heart and brought gravity to the film.[66]
David Denby described Smith's performance as contrasting with his performances in his other films. He said, "For the first time in his life, Will Smith doesn't flirt with the audience ... he stays in character as a self-hating lonely guy."[65] Stephen Hunter argued that Smith and his co-stars had misunderstood the material in the same manner as Berg. He added that the examination of Smith's character came across at first as an examination of "phenomenally gifted" black sporting superstars who were "marginalized", "dehumanized" and exploited as a product by society.[63] Manohla Dargis was struck by Theron's performance, saying that she enabled Smith to deepen the film's emotional complexity.[66] Todd McCarthy said that Smith's "attitude-laden quips" helped to carry the film's superior first half, and that all three leads performed capably, but he said no opportunity was offered for the supporting characters to register.[61] Roger Ebert writing in the Chicago Sun Times praised the three leads, saying that Smith avoided playing Hancock "as a goofball" and instead portrayed him as a more subtle and serious character.[67] Stephen Farber said that Hancock was a good showcase for the leads, affirming that Smith shone in a film that was only sporadically worthy of his performance,[62] while Colm Andrew of the Manx Independent said that despite the mix of themes "the laughs are frequent and genuine (no forced slapstick), the fight scenes exciting and the emotional stuff quite moving ".[68]
Jim Schembri concluded that the film was "refreshing, savvy, fun and fast". He said it managed to mix comedy and action successfully, and that the drama came across as surprisingly genuine.[64] Stephen Farber believed that the extended development of the film had reduced its quality, but that the visual effects were "stellar" and showed wit.[62] McCarthy praised the effects, but said the film was "both overwrought and severely undernourished."[61] Roger Ebert observed the film was "a lot of fun",[67] and Manohla Dargis admitted that it was "unexpectedly satisfying". She said that while it faltered and felt rushed towards its end, it had an emotional complexity and "raggedness" that spoke with sincerity about essential human vulnerabilities.[66] Stephen Hunter concluded that Hancock was ultimately "indigestible".[63]
Accolades [ edit ]
Hancock won the award for "Best Summer Action/Adventure Movie" at the 2008 Teen Choice Awards.[69] Smith's performance won him the award for "Favorite Movie Actor" at the 2009 Kids' Choice Awards.[70]
Possible sequel [ edit ]
Director Peter Berg said prior to Hancock's release that if the film pulls in as much business as predicted, a sequel, Hancock 2, would likely follow.[20] After the film's release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, actor Will Smith said that there was ongoing discussion about a possible sequel, "The ideas aren't ... developed, but we are building out an entire world; I think people are going to be very surprised at the new world of Hancock."[72] In August 2009, Columbia Pictures hired screenwriters Adam Fierro and Glen Mazzara to write the sequel, and the studio plans to bring back the producing team from the original film.[73] Charlize Theron confirmed that she would reprise her role, and Berg said to expect a third actor to star as another figure with powers like Smith's and Theron's characters.[74] In January 2012, Berg reaffirmed his desire to make a sequel.[75]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
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Police officers said they found a blackboard placed in a road near the killings that said “Raila Tosha,” which means “Raila’s enough,” and “Kick Christians out of coast,” suggesting a domestic source for the violence rather than a foreign one. Those implications, whether true or not, are bound to push the political temperature even higher.
Many Kenyans and security experts alike are confused about who is behind the attacks, which began last month with a full-fledged raid on what had been a sleepy coastal town.
At first, many believed the culprits were Shabab militants from Somalia, who have taken responsibility for the killings, including the attacks on Saturday night. In a radio address, the Shabab boasted that the same group of militants had attacked both villages and “disabled the enemy of God.” The Shabab promise to keep wreaking havoc in Kenya as long as the country has troops in Somalia. (Kenya sent troops into Somalia in 2011 in an effort to stabilize the country.)
But now it is not so clear who the killers are. The coastal areas hit recently are a hive of local grievances over land, ethnicity and economic opportunity. The Kenyan government is in the midst of building a huge, multibillion-dollar port in the same area, and many business interests are now jostling for a piece of the pie.
Last month, President Kenyatta attributed the attacks to “local political networks,” and the governor of the surrounding county was promptly arrested on suspicion of murder. Many people who know the governor insist that he is innocent. Some analysts, though, have speculated about whether local groups disgruntled with Mr. Kenyatta’s government might be cooperating with the Shabab to mount attacks against Kikuyus.
The most obvious victim is Kenya’s tourism industry, a pillar of the economy. Western governments, including the United States and Britain, have issued travel advisories, scaring away tourists. The Kenyan coast is usually packed in the summer with kite surfers, fishermen and sunburned European children digging holes in the sand. But now countless hotels have closed or nearly shut down, laying off legions of cooks, maids, waiters, drivers and many others who support their families with tourism jobs.
“It’s so terribly, depressingly empty,” a hotel manager said Sunday night. “It’s made me rethink all my plans. You just don’t know now. It may be time to buy some land in Europe.”
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If you look at the ingredients on a package of gummy bears — even organic ones — you'll see expected things like corn or brown rice syrup and sugar. But you'll also see something called gelatin. Seems innocent enough, but its source might surprise you. Gelatin is a yellowish, odorless, and nearly tasteless substance that is made by prolonged boiling of skin, cartilage, and bones from animals. It's made primarily from the stuff meat industries have left over — we're talking about pork skins, horns, and cattle bones. Ugh.
I guess if you're into the philosophy of using the whole animal, you'll be psyched about this. Plus gelatin contains 18 amino acids, so it does offer some nutritional benefits. But if you're vegan, you'll definitely want to skip the chewy candies and your great-aunt's Jell-O mold — they're made with gelatin, too. This animal-derived ingredient can also be found in some vitamins and medications, marshmallows (not Trader Joe's — they're vegan!), cheeses, yogurts, soups, salad dressings, jams and jellies, fruit snacks, and canned hams. If this tidbit of info grosses you out, you'll want to pay closer attention to these products' food labels.
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Two Birmingham men are charged with capital murder in connection with a robbery and deadly shootout near a downtown nightclub early Sunday.
Those charged are Steven Dunning, 22, and Roderick Robinson, 28. They are charged in the death of 26-year-old Vincent Perez Chancellor.
Dunning is in stable condition at UAB after he was shot during the 5 a.m. incident. He is under police guard at UAB Hospital, said Birmingham police spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards.
Robinson is being held without bond at the Jefferson County Jail.
Authorities said Chancellor and his girlfriend had just left the Platinum Club at 821 Second Avenue North. It was about 5 a.m.
As the couple was getting into their car in a private parking lot in the 700 block of Second Avenue North, Dunning approached them and demanded their money. Chancellor retrieved his gun from his car, and the two exchanged gunfire. Chancellor was shot twice in the leg.
He was found inside his car a short distance away in the 200 block of 17th Street North, near Birmingham Police Department headquarters. Dunning also fled in scene, in a silver vehicle, but was brought to UAB Hospital shortly after the shooting occurred. He also had been shot several times, Edwards said.
Robinson drove Dunning to the hospital, police said.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call homicide investigators 205- 254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205- 254-7777.
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WASHINGTON ― A company that Donald Trump frequently bashed for planning to outsource 1,400 jobs to Mexico said Tuesday that it had decided to keep most of those jobs in the United States.
“We are pleased to have reached a deal with President-elect Trump” and Vice President-elect Mike Pence to keep nearly 1,000 jobs in Indiana, the Carrier Corporation said on Twitter.
We are pleased to have reached a deal with President-elect Trump & VP-elect Pence to keep close to 1,000 jobs in Indy. More details soon. — Carrier (@Carrier) November 30, 2016
During the campaign, Trump frequently criticized Carrier, a company that makes air conditioners and furnaces, for its plans to shutter a factory in Indianapolis in favor of one in Monterrey, Mexico. Trump held up the company as an example of all that was wrong with U.S. trade agreements that make it easy for companies to save money by using cheaper foreign labor while laying off American workers.
Trump said on Twitter last week that he was negotiating with the company to change its plans.
T.J. Bray, a Carrier worker who’s been with the company since graduating high school 14 years ago, said he was returning from his daughters’ gymnastics class when his phone started ringing. Bray has been one of Carrier’s most vocal workers, many of whom protested the company’s Mexico plans.
“We’re happy, if this is the true, real deal,” Bray told The Huffington Post on Tuesday evening. “I’m hoping that my job stays.”
Bray said he hadn’t heard anything directly from the company.
“We saw what Carrier put on Twitter that they have a deal,” he said.
Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, had planned to lay off a total of 2,100 workers over the next three years, including 1,400 at Carrier. A company spokesperson declined to provide additional details beyond what Carrier had said in its tweet.
Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), who has criticized Carrier this year and proposed penalties for companies that offshore jobs, welcomed the news in a statement and said he was eager for specific details about the deal.
“For many months I have been fighting alongside the Carrier workers and pushing to keep these jobs in Indiana,” Donnelly said. “While this is good news, in Indiana alone, there are at least two other companies currently planning to move Hoosier jobs out of the country.”
One of the companies, Rexnord, has been planning to lay off nearly 300 workers from an Indianapolis plant that makes bearings.
United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard credited the union’s workers for bringing attention to Carrier with a viral video about the layoffs earlier this year.
“The dedicated USW members in Indianapolis who build quality heating equipment for Carrier deserve credit for bringing the union’s fight to save their jobs to the attention of the nation during the 2016 presidential campaign,” Gerard said. “We thank President-elect Trump for listening to our members and following through on his campaign pledge to persuade Carrier to keep production of quality heating equipment in Indianapolis.”
The New York Times reported that Trump and Pence, Indiana’s governor, would appear in Indiana on Thursday.
Trump had vowed during the campaign to stop companies from shifting jobs to Mexico by hiking tariffs on their imports, though that’s apparently not what he’s done with Carrier. The Times reported that Trump and Pence pledged to ease taxes and regulations and tone down Trump’s tariff rhetoric.
Trump may have had some leverage over United Technologies because the company gets a chunk of its revenue from government contracts.
A CNBC correspondent reported that part of the deal includes new “inducements” from Pence’s government.
Deal terms to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana include new inducements from state. Deal spear headed by former Indiana Gov Pence. — David Faber (@davidfaber) November 30, 2016
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DISCLAIMER: YES, IT IS APRIL 1, BUT THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOL’S DAY JOKE POST
This is a true story about a man who offered me $10,000 cash for my stock-standard Panerai PAM 111 in Business Class. It even had a factory strap. We’d been talking, chit-chatting through the pre-flight champagnes, then we’d both rolled into red wine. He was picking up some kind of motorbike in California. I had business in New York. He expressed an interest in my watch. What was it? And then, not much later, entirely out the blue, he propositioned me. “I’ll give you ten grand for it.” I blinked. “Sorry?” “Cash. 10 grand for the watch, as is. In US.” He reached down and unzipped the side pocket of his bag. Sure enough. As Diddy might have said back in the day, there was a big ol’ bundle of Benjamins. As I live and breathe. I’d never really met anyone who carried around fat stacks in their hand luggage. In a way, I was pretty impressed.
But of course, this man knew nothing about watches. He just knew that he was wealthier than me. And, as well as buying the watch, I could tell he wanted to prove it. His own Rolex, a Datejust of some kind, was in fact a lovely piece, but he could tell me nothing about it. It had been “a corporate gift”, he grunted, before his hungry eyes returned to my wrist and the PAM. Meanwhile, partly to stall, I regaled him with Panerai stories. Including the fact that Panerai and Rolex are in fact connected, their fates interlinked by the Second World War and by Italian frogmen whose Panerai designed watches contained Rolex-made movements. The truth is, the PAM 111 is only worth $6 or $7,000, but I still didn’t budge. I didn’t sell it. In fact, I didn’t really even consider it. Which was interesting to me, because I can be cold blooded when it comes to flipping a watch every now and again. Things are worth what they’re worth. Or so I thought.
The experience brought home to me an important truth about watches. The value you place on it rubs off on the piece itself. This guy didn’t just want to buy the watch; he wanted to buy the way I felt about it. And the stories that came with it. Watches are, I realised, completely unique objects in terms of the way we think and feel about them. When the man eventually nodded off in some Jason Statham movie after his sixth or seventh Scotch, probably also starring PAMs (Statham loves a Panerai) I sketched out why the deal was not done:
Obviously, the situation was suspicious. There were deeper reactions, to be properly detailed below, but the first was pure skepticism. That money couldn’t be real? What if it was a trick? What if it was drug money? What if it was money for drugs? The John Le Carre reader in me went instantly into a creative panic about the nefarious possibilities.
The story you have about your watch makes it more valuable than it really is. Today, buyers of luxury goods do not just want an object, they want a story to tell about it, too. If you can give them one, or several, they’ll pay more. Simple. After all, “The universe is made of stories, not atoms,” according to poet Muriel Rukeyser. Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn can prove it, too. In 2009, the duo embarked on the curious ‘Significant Objects’ project: they would purchase cheap trinkets and then ask creative writers to invent stories about them. They would then post the stories and the objects on eBay to see whether the invented story enhanced the value of the object. Without exception, it did. The useless, often broken bits of junk, originally purchased for a total of $128.74, sold for $3,612.51 — a whopping 2,700% mark-up. For example, a daggy globe paperweight was bought for $1.49 and, after Debbie Millman included a moving handwritten story in the eBay product description, it sold for $197.50. If a paperweight with a bit of a story about it can sell for way over 100 times its actual worth, what was this PAM’s true value?
Few objects become as “human” as a watch. This is largely due to their intimate proximity to our bodies and to the fact that they are attached to our hands, the parts of our bodies we commonly use to do whatever it is we do. When I’d overcome point one (the drug dealer suspicion wore off; this bored rich guy had more in common with Barry White than Walter White) and was actually considering parting with the PAM I’d looked down at it and noted the wear marks on the band where it sits on my workbench, a MacBook Pro. I became strangely sentimental about them. These marks were not there when I bought it boxfresh. They were as much a part of me as the scar on my eyebrow, or the callouses on my fingers from playing guitar. This makes the connection to the watch as an object far more personal and more physical than most things we own.
Your relationship with your watch is on a cycle. And it’s a slow-moving one. There will probably come a day (block your ears 111) when I will trade this PAM for another watch. It’s not a lifetime piece – despite all of the above, there’s nothing particularly special about it that makes it a ‘never sell’. But I realised, when the moment of the sale came on so abruptly, that I wasn’t ready. The decision to move your watch on is one that you inch toward, while slowly getting used to the idea of NOT having that patinaed strap and that polished silver case, and that sandwich dial, and that unusual small seconds and….
If my watch is going to be passed on, today or any day, I’d really rather it be to a good person. Because this guy was a jackass. Anyone who offers a stranger 10 grand for their watch on a plane, in any class, is an idiot.
Lastly, watch purchases are like sex. They’re much nicer when they’re not transactional. Which is why watch lovers usually seek solid ongoing relationships with retailers and dealers. (Hi Mike, hi Graeme.) So, to wrap up, yes I could have landed at LAX like the pimp I never was, with my first ever fat stack tucked safely away. But instead I strolled through customs, unafraid of a random bag check, with nothing to declare but an even deeper love for my watch.
This article first appeared in Revolution Australia. Illustrations by Lee Sullivan
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As the government has cleared the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations to increase compensation for government employees, there are concerns about how the huge cash outgo on account of the hike is going to impact the fiscal situation of the economy.
However, a section of experts are of the view that despite such concerns, on a net basis the pay hike will indeed be a huge boost to consumption demand and in turn contribute to the GDP growth.
A look at past data shows that this is indeed true.
The Sixth Pay Commission submitted its recommendations in March 2008 and they were implemented in August 2008. The pay hike was with effect from 1 January 2006.
The panel had recommended 20 percent increase but with arrears the effective hike amounted up to 40 percent.
The total expenditure on account of the hike could have been around Rs 43,000 crore. This has been arrived at through a simple calculation. According to the Seventh Pay Commission report, the implementation of the sixth pay panel had resulted in an expenditure of 0.77 percent of GDP. The GDP in 2008-09 was Rs 56 lakh crore. So the absolute outgo would have been Rs 43,000 crore.
So how did this impact the economy?
Take a look at the figures below:
In 2008-09, the year in which the hikes came into effect, the GDP growth stood at 6.7 percent. You have to remember that this growth has happened despite the fact that the global economy was going through the financial crisis. The next two years, the GDP witnessed a growth of 8.6 percent and 8.9 percent.
The nominal GDP growth too witnessed a slowdown in 2008-09 but saw a rebound in the two subsequent year - 15.1 percent rise in 2009-10 and whopping 20.2 percent rise in 2010-11.
In 2015-16, India's GDP grew 7.6 percent and in the current year the governmemnt has pegged the growth at around 7.5 percent. The GDP in absolute terms was at Rs 136 lakh crore in 2015-16. In 2016-17, the GDP stands at Rs 150.65 lakh crore (at current prices). What this also means is the impact of Seventh Pay Commission, if any, will be bigger than earlier.
This is not to say that the entire GDP growth for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 was because of the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission. As Richa Gupta, senior economist, Deloitte India, says there were many other factors such as MNREGA, the rural jobs scheme of the UPA that had boosted the rural income; some other UPA policies that were bearing fruit; there were bountiful rains and also India had built up forex reserves. It is also important that sharp monetary easing globally and domestically during the crisis period had resulted in dollar inflow and boosted growth. Nonetheless, the Sixth Pay Commission was indeed a factor.
This report in International Business Times citing global brokerage firm Bank of America Merrill Lynch says that the implementation of the hike had boosted two-wheeler and car sales and increased demand in the cement sector.
Another report in NDTV quotes Jai Shankar, chief India economist of Religare, as saying: "The arrears resulted in robust demand for consumer discretionary products that resulted in sustained stock performance over 3-5 years."
"In the aftermath of recent international developments (read Brexit), that have made the global headwinds stronger, a consumption demand boost owing to higher disposable income in the hands of government employees will provide some further cushion to growth in the economy," said Ranen Banerjee, leader - public finances, PwC India.
He also allays the fears of impact the huge outgo will have on the fiscal front.
"Concerns lie on the quantum of additional outgo of Rs 1 lakh crore. The total capital expenditure outlay of the government in FY17 is Rs 2.4 lakh crore. Thus, the capital expenditure should not come under threat owing to this. The outgo will also possibly be staggered across FY17 and FY18. The impending implementation of GST in FY18 may provide the revenue needed to fund this additional outgo," he says.
India Ratings chief economist Devendra Pant sees a Rs 45,110 crore consumption boost (0.30% of GDP) to the economy and Rs 30,710 crore (0.20% of GDP) savings increase. The rating agency believes after the sharing of central taxes with the state governments, the central government’s net tax revenue will increase by Rs 14,100 crore (0.09% of GDP) in FY17.
"The revised salaries of central government employees are likely to be paid from 1 July 2016. While the employees will get salary arrears from 1 January 2016, allowances will be paid only from 1 July 2016. Thus the gross impact of 7CPC is likely to be Rs 94,775 crore (0.63% of GDP)," he says
The government will collect income tax on this pay out and excise duty on consumption, after sharing the increase in income tax and excise duty with states. "Thus the net impact on the central government finances is estimated to be Rs 80,641 crore (0.54% of GDP)," he calculates.
The rater said the impact of pay revision of state government employees will be felt only in 2017-18. The Pay Commission award is expected to be less severe on state finances than expected earlier due to a lower arrears pay out. In all likelihood, the impact of a salary revision of the Seventh Central Pay Commission on state government finances will be Rs 1.58 lakh crore in 2017-18 (0.95% of FY18 GDP).
With inputs from Rajesh Pandathil
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I had a big editorial shoot planned with Dakota and a whole team of creatives, so I decided that I ought to meet her and photograph her first! I fell in love with her thick, wavy hair and delicate face, and I was super excited to finally meet her and photograph her! She looks so much like a woman from a Waterhouse painting that I cannot wait to shoot with her again! She might just be beginning, but she's definitely a natural! I stuck with vintage dresses from my shoot closet for our test shoot to make it nice and simple. This is one is an embroidered nightgown with corset-style lacing that I bought at an antique shop!
Model: Dakota Zordan
MUA & Hair Stylist: Laura Barone/Blend True
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The Canadian Press
A Calgary Flame stepping from the tunnel onto the Saddledome ice Saturday would have required scuba gear.
The Scotiabank Saddledome has been hit hard by the floods that ravaged parts of Southern Alberta.
The floodwaters reached the eighth row of seats in the lower bowl and submerged the Flames dressing room, team president Ken King said Saturday.
"That means if you were a hockey player walking from the tunnel onto the ice, you would be underwater yourself," he said. "It's very difficult to describe millions of gallons of water, sitting in that building."
A contract signed by former Flames captain Jim Peplinski was among some portable memorabilia saved.
But everything else on the Saddledome event level -- the nerve centre for games and concerts -- was "a total loss," King told reporters at a McMahon Stadium news conference.
The event level is the lowest floor in the building. The ice plant, ice resurfacing machines, kitchens and Saddledome staff uniforms are examples of what was under water Saturday.
"Everything that happens on the event level is drowned. Everything," King stated.
He stressed that the Saddledome was "real estate, a building" and the loss of life and homes Southern Albertans have suffered is more important.
But the Saddledome has been a part of the lifeblood of the city since it was built in 1983 for the arrival of the NHL's Flames and the 1988 Winter Olympics.
In addition to serving as the home arena of the Flames, Western Hockey Leagues' Hitmen, and National Lacrosse League's Roughnecks, it is a concert venue as well as exhibition space for the Calgary Stampede, which opens July 5.
City officials have not cancelled this year's Stampede.
"That's a move-in that's nine days from now," King said. "That may seem ludicrously ambitious, but this is Calgary."
King dispelled the rumour that the Jumbotron was on the arena floor when the Elbow River gushed into the building early Friday morning.
He confirmed, however, the electronics that operate the massive scoreboard were under about four metres of water "and not salvageable."
He couldn't begin to put a dollar figure on the loss.
"We believe our insurance is full and intact and will cover us for this eventuality," King said.
Next season's WHL and NHL schedules have yet to be released, but the WHL season starts the third week of September and the NHL's the first week of October.
"We're going to be ready for the opening of the season," King vowed. "That's our goal and our objective.
"If something between us and that that we're unaware of . . . and appreciate we don't know what's under there at this point. The quicker we can get in there and start pumping water, the quicker we're going to be able to answer that question with certainty."
But the floodwaters must recede before the restoration of the Saddledome can begin.
"We have equipment, the biggest water pumps in North America on standby for us and many of them," King said.
"We have people on standby to go to work, but they can only go to work and the equipment can only be put in place once we see the river subside and obviously the flood damage subside from our building."
The Flames vice-president of building operations said the water line was starting to drop in the arena, but urged people to stay clear of the Saddledome because it was not safe there.
"There's a lot of heavy equipment moving around," Libby Raines said.
Once the water is out, the Saddledome will be inspected, she added.
"We'll get our consultants in and make sure we get a thorough look at the building," she explained. "At this point, we're fairly confident that we should be structurally intact, but, again, we'll have that all looked at."
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and CFL commissioner Mark Cohon have called to offer assistance, King said.
The Flames also own the CFL's Calgary Stampeders and some hockey staff will work out of offices at McMahon Stadium starting Monday.
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DENVER (CBS4) – Responding to a CBS4 investigation, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged at least 56 of the DUI blood tests it conducted in the last six months were incorrect.
“The initial results in each of those 56 cases showed lower alcohol levels for the drivers than when additional quality assurance retesting occurred,” said Susan Medina, a spokesperson for the CBI. “There is no indication that any defendant was inappropriately charged with an offense based on test results showing an erroneously high level of alcohol in a driver’s bloodstream.”
The CBI opened labs in July 2015 in Pueblo and Grand Junction and since then has done about 1,500 DUI blood tests for the Colorado State Patrol and other law enforcement agencies. Medina said the faulty tests amounted to about 4 percent of the DUI testing the labs have conducted since last July.
The CBI said it learned of its erroneous lab results “in recent months“ when an independent lab checked two blood samples that had also been tested by the CBI and the independent lab — ChemaTox — discovered what the CBI calls “anomalies.”
ChemaTox told CBS4 it notified state authorities of the problems in December 2015. The CBI said it then checked some of its other DUI alcohol results and confirmed its lab testing problems.
“While a thorough review remains in progress,” said CBI, “it is believed the cause of the anomalies has been identified and corrected.”
Medina declined to say if the problem was human error, testing equipment, or some other factor.
Sarah Urfer of ChemaTox labs told CBS4, “I contacted CBI and said, ‘Look, we had an anomaly and it’s 24 percent different.'”
Urfer said the anomalies are important “because those are people’s lives at stake.”
David Miller, a Denver-based defense attorney who defends DUI clients, told CBS4 the CBI needs to come clean.
“It creates a problem with the integrity of the system. They’re not saying what the problem is so we don’t know what the problem is, so we’re going to have to get full disclosure to start with. I think it’s up to prosecutors now to look at each case and see if the convictions are proper in the first place and notify the client or lawyer as to what’s happening,” said Miller.
He said the CBS4 investigation revealing the faulty testing shows a “huge problem. It’s a big deal if you’re the person affected by it. It’s a big deal individually and if you look at the big picture, if you are the person affected by this it’s a very big deal.”
Miller said to re-establish credibility, the CBI needs to have all 1,500 blood samples it has examined since last July re-tested.
In many cases, blood drawn from a suspect is a critical piece of evidence establishing either guilt or innocence in DUI cases. There are an estimated 30,000 DUI cases in Colorado each year, according to the CBI.
Dr. Pat Sulik, a chemist with Rocky Mountain Instrumental Laboratories, checked 16 blood samples from the CBI in recent months. She said of those 16 samples, seven were problematic having at least a 5 percent variance from the readings she found. Of those seven, she said five had more than a 10 percent discrepancy.
Sulik said she would normally expect to have her results and the CBI results be nearly identical 99 percent of the time.
“To see this many discrepancies when the CBI just started this summer, this is, at a simple overview, way too many discrepancies,” said Sulik. “When we saw our first large discrepancy we retested the sample and gave ourselves a heart attack.”
Sulik said the CBI’s erroneous, lower testing numbers mean “they are not being taken off the road, the DUI law is not being enforced if the state lab is coming up with lower numbers.”
Sulik said in at least one case she checked, the suspect in a DUI case would have faced a more serious charge had the CBI lab testing been correct the first time around.
Ironically, the CBI only began doing this kind of testing after similar testing by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment came under fire in 2013 and CDPHE testing of DUI blood samples was shut down. In that case, defense attorneys maintained that the Department of Health testing was biased in favor of prosecutors and that staff was inadequately trained in handling blood samples.
In 2014 the state Legislature approved a bill providing nearly $2 million in annual funding and the hiring of five new full-time employees for the CBI to take over the DUI blood testing that was previously conducted by the Department of Health. Now the Department of Health is assisting in the investigation of the faulty CBI testing.
According to Medina’s statement to CBS4, ”After the review the CBI will issue amended reports to the law enforcement agencies that submitted the blood samples, and work with stakeholders to ensure accurate scientific results and prosecutions statewide.”
Mike Rankin, the CBI Director, said, ”While the CBI works extremely hard to avoid any testing errors in our laboratories, the quality assurance procedures served their designed purpose of safeguarding the integrity of the program.”
The CBI declined to answer any other questions from CBS4 citing an ongoing review of what happened. Medina said the agency might be able to provide more information once the review is completed.
Miller told CBS4 he intended to reopen any DUI cases he has handled in the last seven months that involved CBI blood testing. Urfer called the problem “very frustrating. I’ve been through this twice before. It seems like this should be a preventable problem. There are a number of labs that have not had these problems.”
CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass has been with the station more than 30 years uncovering waste, fraud and corruption. Follow him on Twitter @Briancbs4.
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For years, proponents of genetically modified crops have hailed them as a critical tool for weaning farmers from reliance on toxic pesticides. On its website, the GMO-seed-and-agrichemical giant Monsanto makes the green case for its Roundup Ready crops, engineered to withstand the company’s own blockbuster herbicide, Roundup:
Roundup agricultural herbicides and other products are used to sustainably an [sic] effectively control weeds on the farm. Their use on Roundup Ready crops has allowed farmers to conserve fuel, reduce tillage and decrease the overall use of herbicides. [Emphasis added.]
But in a just-released paper published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Sciences Europe, Chuck Benbrook, research professor at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, shreds that claim. He found that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready technology, which dominates corn, soy, and cotton farming, has called forth a veritable monsoon of herbicides, both in terms of higher application rates for Roundup, and, in recent years, growing use of other, more-toxic herbicides.
Benbrook found that overall, GMO technology drove up herbicide use by 527 million pounds, or about 11 percent, between 1996 (when Roundup Ready crops first hit farm fields) and 2011. But it gets worse. For several years, the Roundup Ready trait actually did meet Monsanto’s promise of decreasing overall herbicide use—herbicide use dropped by about 2 percent between 1996 and 1999, Benbrook told me in an interview. But then weeds started to develop resistance to Roundup, pushing farmers to apply higher per-acre rates. In 2002, farmers using Roundup Ready soybeans jacked up their Roundup application rates by 21 percent, triggering a 19 million pound overall increase in Roundup use.
Since then, an herbicide gusher has been uncorked. By 2011, farms using Roundup Ready seeds were using 24 percent more herbicide than non-GMO farms planting the same crops, Benbrook told me. What happened? By that time, “in all three crops [corn, soy, and cotton], resistant weeds had fully kicked in,” Benbrook said, and farmers were responding both by ramping up use of Roundup and resorting to older, more toxic herbicides like 2,4-D.
GMOs have added more than four pounds of herbicides to US farm fields for every pound of insecticide they’ve taken away.
Now, biotech industry defenders might counter that the surge in herbicide use is balanced by the other main product offered by the industry: seeds engineered to contain the toxic-to-insects gene found in Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a naturally occurring bacterial pesticide. The pitch is this: Rather having to spray corn and cotton with insecticides, plant our Bt seeds, and your insect problems are taken care of.
Benbrook found that the Bt trait indeed led to a reduction in insecticide use of 123 million pounds between 1996 and 2011. But that figure is dwarfed by the 527 million pound, GMO-driven increase in herbicide use over the same period. In other words, GMOs have added more than four pounds of herbicides to US farm fields for every pound of insecticide they’ve taken away. Overall, Benbrook found, GMOs have lead to a net increase in pesticide use (meaning herbicides plus insecticides) of 404 million pounds, a 7 percent gain.
And just as weeds developed resistance to year-after-year applications of Roundup, corn’s number-one insect pest, the rootworm, is quickly evolving to be able to withstand Bt-engineered corn, as I’ve reported before. Benbrook told me that in areas of the Midwest where farmers have been planting Bt corn year after year—an increasingly popular practice, since the explosion in ethanol production that started in 2006—ag university extension experts are suggesting that farmers spray other insecticides to supplement the failing Bt trait in their corn. “The goal of this technology was to make it possible not have to spray these corn insecticides, and now we have to spray them again to bail out this technology,” Benbrook told me.
The chemical war against pests will likely get yet another boost from the failure of Roundup. As I’ve reported before, GMO seed giants Monsanto and Dow are preparing to roll out seeds designed to resist both Roundup and older herbicides including 2,4-D, the less toxic half of the formulation that made up the infamous Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange. The industry insists that weeds won’t develop resistance to the new products. But last year, a group of Penn State weed scientists published a paper warning that the new products are “likely to increase the severity of resistant weeds.” Indeed, 2,4-D-resistant weeds have already been documented in Nebraska.
In his paper, Benbrook created a model for how a 2,4-D-resistant corn product, if released in 2013, would affect 2,4-D use. One of the actual benefits of Roundup Ready technology is that it has until recently made 2,4-D almost obsolete—its use on corn crops went from 4.4 million pounds in 1995 to 2.4 million in 2000. It hovered at that level for a while before jumping to 3.3 million pounds in 2010, as farmers increasingly resorted to it to attack Roundup-resistant weeds. If 2,4-D resistant corn is widely adopted, Benbrook projects, making what he calls “conservative” assumptions, 2,4-D use will hit 103.4 million pounds on corn fields per year by 2019. Overall, Benbrook projects a 30-fold increase in 2,4-D applied between 2000 and 2019. Because 2,4-D is so toxic, the result will not be pretty. Here’s Benbrook’s study:
Such a dramatic increase could pose heightened risk of birth defects and other reproductive problems, more severe impacts on aquatic ecosystems, and more frequent instances of off-target movement and damage to nearby crops and plants.
The only question on GMOs and pesticide use Benbrook’s paper leaves open is: When will Monsanto correct the absurd claim on its website that its highly lucrative technology has allowed farmers to cut back on herbicides?
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Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim made Kaiju (giant creatures inspired by the Japanese monster movie genre of the same name) all the rage this summer, and now X-Men director Bryan Singer is getting in on the craze. According to Deadline, Singer and his Bad Hat Harry production house are producing a "modern monster drama" for the SyFy network called Creature At Bay. It'll start with a 90-minute pilot episode written by John Cabrera, who created the digital series H+ (also produced by Singer). The pilot sounds like it'll kick off in a similar fashion to Pacific Rim (one of whose Kaiju is pictured above). Creature At Bay will take place in the aftermath of a Kaiju attack on northern California, after the US military successfully takes the giant monster down. Rather than focus on more huge battles, however, it sounds like Creature At Bay will take a closer look at how the attack and its aftermath bring the world's attention on a small town, presumably where the incident took place. There's no word on when we might see Creature At Bay — it sounds like the show is still in the early phases.
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Home > SPJ News > Groups urge officials to allow journalists to do their work at Standing Rock
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Groups urge officials to allow journalists to do their work at Standing Rock
2/21/2017
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Contacts:
Lynn Walsh, SPJ National President, 614-579-7937, Lynn.K.Walsh@gmail.com
Jennifer Royer, SPJ Communications Strategist, 317-361-4134, jroyer@spj.org
INDIANAPOLIS The Society of Professional Journalists and other journalism groups sent a letter today as the planned enforcement of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers evacuation order to those at the Dakota Access Pipeline camp is underway.
In their letter, SPJ, Committee to Protect Journalists, Native American Journalists Association, National Press Photographers Association and Online News Association urge officials in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to allow journalists to cover the events at Standing Rock safely.
The journalists at Standing Rock are doing the important work of letting the public know what is happening there, and they need to be able to do that work without fear of arrest, violence or confiscation of their equipment, said SPJ National President Lynn Walsh.
The groups contacted the Morton County Sheriffs Department last week to offer training to law enforcement and journalists there on ways they can peacefully work together. As of this afternoon, the sheriffs department had not responded.
The organizations additionally urge officials to drop charges against journalists who have been arrested while covering Standing Rock.
SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to informing citizens; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and fights to protect First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. Support excellent journalism and fight for your right to know. Become a member, give to the Legal Defense Fund, or give to the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.
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Larry Downes and Paul Nunes are co-authors of “Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation.” Downes is a research fellow with the Accenture Institute for High Performance, where Nunes serves as global managing director.
Writing recently in the New Yorker, historian Jill Lepore contends that the prevailing theory of business change — known as “disruptive innovation” — is grounded in poor research and circular logic. While it’s true that talk of disruption is thrown around carelessly (the meaningless advertising phrase “new and improved!” has been replaced with “disruptive and innovative!”), it’s equally obvious to any teenager with a month-old smartphone that the pace of business disruption is accelerating.
1. Disruptive innovations begin as inferior replacements for existing products.
Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen, the focus of Lepore’s article, argued in his 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” that successful companies can be upended by new technologies that first appear as cheaper products with fewer features, but improve quickly and ultimately take over. Think personal computers vs. mainframes.
But not anymore. Our research shows that especially in industries dominated by digital technology, the disruptors now arrive better and cheaper than existing goods, right from the start — think free integrated smartphone navigation apps vs. stand-alone GPS devices. “Disruptive innovation” is increasingly “devastating innovation,” or what we call “big bang disruption.” Businesses that wait for the disruptor to arrive before figuring out how to incorporate it in their products — as Christensen recommended — are already too late.
Companies can compensate for the increasing pace of change by watching for the early signs of emerging technologies while they’re still in the lab. Then they can start experimenting before it’s too late. Or, almost as good, before their competitors.
2. The further you are from the technology industry, the safer you are from disruption.
It would be comforting if only industries at the center of the information revolution — computing, communications, media, entertainment — felt the pain of disruption.
But with computers getting faster, cheaper and smaller over the past half-century, it has now become cost-effective to embed computing capability in nearly every product or service. Even the most non-digital industries — such as heavy manufacturing, transportation, energy and education — are feeling the pressure of digital technology as entrepreneurs look for the biggest opportunities for disruption.
In health care, for example, cheap sensors, cameras and displays (made cheaper by economies of scale, thanks to the sale of more than 1 billion smartphones and tablets since 2007) are being combined in wearable devices that can track a range of vital signs — baby steps toward giving patients access to their own health information and bringing spiraling medical costs under control.
What is true is that the more regulated an industry, the harder for the disruptors to enter. But those industries — health care, energy and transportation are good examples — are often the most inefficient, making disruption by better and cheaper technology irresistible. And often, when innovators finally break through, the disruption is all the more explosive. Recall how e-mail turned the U.S. Postal Service from a profit center to a financial black hole.
3. The best innovations come from proprietary R&D.
In the past few years, we’ve seen a wave of new companies — Oculus , WhatsApp , Instagram — acquired for billions of dollars, sometimes before they’ve even launched a commercial product. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.
What these start-ups have in common is that each quickly built a devoted audience of millions of consumers, often by giving away its experimental products and encouraging users to collaborate with developers. Cloud computing, reusable software and globally sourced parts make experimenting easy. Using crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, early users can even be recruited as funders, voting with real money for the products and services they’d most like to see in industries far from computer hardware and software, including food, clothing and industrial design.
Experimenting in public, of course, gives away the element of surprise that traditional forms of research and development treasure. But in exchange, the entrepreneurs not only build excitement for their future products, they also harness the power of the crowd to get it right — or wrong — quickly, at much lower cost and risk.
One important side effect of this experimentation: It’s a great source of free intelligence for incumbents looking for disruptors coming up fast in their rearview mirrors.
4. Once disruptors gain enough consumers, there’s no way to slow them down.
Markets experiencing deep disruption are often characterized by “winner take all” behavior, with consumers moving as a group to the better, cheaper new products and services they like best. (A series of TV commercials for the new HTC One smartphone tweaks that phenomenon by urging users to go “ask the Internet” rather than just listening to the ads.)
But even if existing companies miss the disruptors’ arrival, they can still slow the inevitable transformation of their business by engaging the legal system. Firms that are constrained in their own ability to innovate by regulatory restrictions, for example, can urge their regulators to force the disruptors to play by the same rules, a strategy that has tripped up start-ups including Uber , Airbnb and Tesla.
Patents and copyrights can also be deployed to delay the impact of disruptive innovation or even bring it to a dead stop. This past week, the Supreme Court ruled that Aereo, a service that allowed users to remotely record over-the-air television programs and replay them later over the Internet, was violating a complex web of TV-related copyright laws. The decision probably marks the end of Aereo’s business.
Whatever the scruples of relying on the courts, using them to slow disruption fails in the long term. But it can buy incumbents some time — time they often fail to use wisely.
5. Markets are so complex that no one can predict what innovation consumers will want.
The future, Lepore concludes in her article, is “unreadable.” The few entrepreneurs who pick the right new technologies and business models and hit it big are merely lucky. Winning the lottery doesn’t make you an expert on lotteries.
But our research on disruptive innovation revealed something interesting. For every major transformation, we found seers who had predicted it all, often with remarkable accuracy. Science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s 1964 vision for for 2014 — including ubiquitous video communications, self-driving cars and flat-panel televisions — have proved strikingly accurate. George Lucas and James Cameron, likewise, saw the potential of digital filmmaking decades ago and waited until it arrived before making the movies that were in their heads all along.
For the rest of us, the best way to embrace innovation while minimizing disruption is to find those seers. Of course it’s hard. They’re often the most passionate and difficult employees. But learning to listen to them, especially when their future doesn’t match the one we’re expecting? That’s the kind of leadership that leads to real transformation.
Twitter: @BBDisruption
“Five Myths” is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. Check out previous myths, read more from Outlook, or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service will honor Maya Angelou — the beloved author, poet, actress and champion of equality — with a Forever Stamp.
“Maya Angelou inspired our nation through a life of advocacy and through her many contributions to the written and spoken word,” said Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan. “Her wide-ranging achievements as a playwright, poet, memoirist, educator, and advocate for justice and equality enhanced our culture.”
The Postal Service will preview the stamp and provide details on the date and location of the first-day-of-issuance ceremony at a later date.
The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
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Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at about.usps.com/news/welcome.htm.
For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to about.usps.com/news/media-contacts/usps-local-media-contacts.pdf.
Follow us on twitter.com/USPS and like us at facebook.com/USPS. For more information about the Postal Service, go to usps.com and usps.com/postalfacts.
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DIY SSL Certificate Expiry Monitoring
healthchecks.io Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 14, 2016
In this post, we will set up a simple SSL certificate expiry monitoring, using cron, ssl-cert-check script and a fail-safe provided by an external service, healthchecks.io.
Let’s say you administer a website, namely example.com. You want to be sure that the SSL certificate of example.com is always renewed in time. Like seldom-used passwords, the annual or bi-annual certificate expiry date is easy to forget about until it is too late. You want to set up an automated system that will remind you 30 days before the certificate expires. Finally, you want something that will “guard the guards themselves”. If your SSL monitoring setup breaks down, you want to be notified about that as well!
The main building block will be the ssl-cert-check script. On Ubuntu and Debian you can install it with a simple
apt-get install ssl-cert-check
Here are its options:
$ ssl-cert-check
Usage: /usr/bin/ssl-cert-check [ -e email address ] [ -x days ] [-q] [-a] [-b] [-h] [-i] [-n] [-v] { [ -s common_name ] && [ -p port] } || { [ -f cert_file ] } || { [ -c certificate file ] }
-a : Send a warning message through E-mail
-b : Will not print header
-c cert file : Print the expiration date for the PEM or PKCS12 formatted certificate in cert file
-e E-mail address : E-mail address to send expiration notices
-f cert file : File with a list of FQDNs and ports
-h : Print this screen
-i : Print the issuer of the certificate
-k password : PKCS12 file password
-n : Run as a Nagios plugin
-p port : Port to connect to (interactive mode)
-s commmon name : Server to connect to (interactive mode)
-t type : Specify the certificate type
-q : Don’t print anything on the console
-v : Specify a specific protocol version to use (tls, ssl2, ssl3)
-V : Only print validation data
-x days : Certificate expiration interval (eg. if cert_date < days)
Let’s run ssl-cert-check on example.com:
$ ssl-cert-check -s example.com -p 443
Host Status Expires Days
-------------------------------- ------------ ------------ ----
example.com:443 Valid Nov 28 2018 928
Great, the status field says “Valid”. Now, let’s run it using a high certificate expiration interval (-x parameter):
$ ssl-cert-check -s example.com -p 443 -x 1000
Host Status Expires Days
-------------------------------- ------------ ------------ ----
example.com:443 Expiring Nov 28 2018 928
Perfect, the status is now “Expiring”. Now, the plan is to run this command regularly and get alerted as soon as the status is anything other than “Valid”.
The ssl-cert-check script has a few flags that will be useful inside a cron task: -q suppresses console output and -n sets the exit code, depending on the status.
$ ssl-cert-check -s example.com -p 443 -x 30 -n -q
$ echo $?
# prints 0
$ ssl-cert-check -s example.com -p 443 -x 1000 -n -q
$ echo $?
# prints 1
Next, let’s set up a check on healthchecks.io. Log in, and add a new check. Give it a descriptive name like:
A fresh healthchecks.io account for SSL certificate monitoring
Here’s how this will work: the check’s URL will need to be requested at least daily to keep it in the green “up” state. As soon as it is not requested for more than a day, its state will go to a red “down” and you will receive an email notification. If you prefer to be notified differently, in the “Integrations” section, you can set up Slack, HipChat, PagerDuty, VictorOps and Pushover notifications. You can add more email addresses to be notified, and you can also integrate with your notification systems using webhooks.
Now, with the check’s URL handy, we are ready to put together a cron command:
ssl-cert-check -s example.com -p 443 -x 30 -n -q && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://hchk.io/your-uuid-here > /dev/null
Let’s go over what this command does. First, we execute ssl-cert-check command. If the certificate is valid for at least 30 more days, it exits with exit code 0. Otherwise, it exits with a non-zero exit code.
Next, we chain the curl call using && operator. When two commands are delimited with &&, the second command only runs if the first command succeeds. In our case, if the certificate is valid, the curl command will run. If the certificate is expiring or expired, the curl command will not run.
The curl command has a few flags to suppress console output, and to retry transient HTTP failures:
-f, --fail Makes curl treat non-200 responses as errors
Makes curl treat non-200 responses as errors -s, --silent Silent or quiet mode. Don’t show progress meter or error messages
Silent or quiet mode. Don’t show progress meter or error messages -S, --show-error When used with -s it makes curl show error message if it fails.
When used with -s it makes curl show error message if it fails. --retry <num> If a transient error is returned when curl tries to perform a transfer, it will retry this several times before giving up. Setting the number to 0 makes curl do no retries (which is the default). Transient error means either: a timeout, an FTP 4xx response code or an HTTP 5xx response code.
Finally, we redirect curl’s output to /dev/null. If cron runs a command and the command outputs anything to the console, cron will email the output, and here we do not want that.
You can now see how this will all work together: if the ssl-cert-check command returns success, the curl command will run and keep the check in the green “up” state. If the ssl-cert-check command returns a failure, the curl command will not be run and the check will go down. And if something happens to the whole machine running cron, the check will also go down. When the check goes down for either reason, healthchecks.io will send you an alert.
Now it is time to add this command to cron. Pick or launch an Ubuntu or Debian machine you expect to be up and running for a long time. If you have a machine that’s dedicated to doing backups and similar background jobs, that is perfect. Log in as unprivileged user and use the “crontab -e” command to edit the user’s crontab:
$ crontab -e
In the crontab editor, add this line:
20 7 * * * ssl-cert-check -s example.com -p 443 -x 30 -n -q && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://hchk.io/your-uuid-here > /dev/null
Save the file and you are done. From now on, each day at 7:20 your machine will run an SSL expiry check and then notify healthchecks.io. If the certificate expires in less than 30 days, or if the machine stops working, healthchecks.io will send you a notification.
This is an example of how you can set up simple, reasonably robust monitoring tasks. If this setup seems too hacky for your taste, if you have no appropriate machine to run cron tasks on, or if you are looking for more than just a certificate expiry check, it makes good sense to look into self-hosted or SaaS services for SSL monitoring.
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Hairdresser Ep Weatherhead has a business that is going places.
The owner of the first mobile barber's shop in Australia, from Tuesdays to Saturdays she parks her converted van at different locations across Sydney's beachside suburb of Maroubra.
Together with one part-time member of staff, she cuts the hair of 40 men and boys on an average day.
The business - called The Barber Van - was set up in 2011 with 60,000 Australian dollars ($46,000; £31,000) of investment. Ms Weatherhead, 46, says she now has up to 1,000 regular customers paying 25 Australian dollars for a haircut.
She maintains a timetable on her website, so that users can check where to find her on a particular morning or afternoon. And she has all the permits she needs from the local authority to allow her to park and run her business.
Image caption Ep Weatherhead (left) now has up to 1,000 regular customers coming for haircuts
When Ms Weatherhead launched the mobile operation, she had been running a traditional bricks and mortar hairdresser salon for a number of years, but as the van quickly grew in popularity she closed the store to focus her efforts.
The Barber Van is part of a growing trend of Australian small firms hitting the road.
Led by the food sector, but now extending to other industries, more and more businesses are embracing the flexibility and significantly lower overheads that come from running their business on four wheels.
Mobile back rubs
Andrew Ward, founder of Sydney-based massage business 3 Minute Angels, says that launching a mobile massage centre is the next logical step for his firm.
Set up in 2002, his trained masseurs are currently hired by businesses to provide massages in the workplace, or at events such as conferences and trade shows.
Image copyright Vicky Tan Image caption Andrew Ward is hoping that members of the public will help fund his planned Divine Truck
Mr Ward also says that running a massage van could enable people to enjoy a neck and back rub while enjoying a better view.
"I thought if you could look out over the beach or mountains whilst getting a massage - that would be an awesome personal experience," he says.
To help fund the van, which he plans to call The Divine Truck, he has launched a crowdfunding campaign, hoping to raise money from members of the people in exchange for them being the first to be able to use the service.
Image copyright Shane Lo Image caption Andrew Ward wants his customers to be able to have a massage while looking at a good view
He aims to raise 10,000 Australian dollars, to which he will need to add up to 15,000 Australian dollars.
"Even at maximum cost of 25,000 Australian dollars the truck would be a business premises that is less than half the bond on a prime retail lease in Sydney that I was previously looking at," he says.
Mr Ward already has a hi-tech design for his van drawn up, including transparent plastic walls.
"I thought when people see other people getting a massage it will make them want one too," he says.
"Of course we have internal blinds, so if a customer doesn't want to look out, or have people look in, we can make any of the three transparent walls private."
Shark on wheels
Paul Sharp's travelling business - a museum called Shark in a Bus - is a labour of love.
Containing a varied collection of marine artefacts, the star of the show is a 5m-long (16ft) preserved great white shark called Frankie.
Image copyright Silke Stuckenbrock Image caption The Shark in a Bus museum tours Australia in a converted 1957 Leyland bus
Image copyright Silke Stuckenbrock Image caption But customers can be thin on the ground in Australia's outback
"It's my family collection," says Mr Sharp.
"Dad started collecting in the 1960s, and the exhibition has been displayed at various places. Before my father died he passed on the bulk of the collection to me. So I decided to re-interpret the display as a Shark in a Bus - a transportable museum."
Mr Sharp, who tours the museum around Australia, charges a five Australian dollar entry fee.
"Business is extremely variable," he says. "I have had anywhere between six to over 1,000 people through in a day. Last year... we had 15,000 people view the collection."
Mobile laundry
The voluntary sector in Australia has also caught the mobile bug, such as Orange Sky Laundry.
Launched in October of last year, the mobile laundry van provides free clothes washing for homeless people in Brisbane.
Image copyright Emile Ng Image caption Nicholas Marchesi (left) and Lucas Patchett allow homeless people to wash their clothes for free
Founders and friends Nicholas Marchesi and Lucas Patchett have their own generator and arrange to source a water supply for free from either local businesses or a council.
Today, they have a team of 130 volunteers and average anywhere from 10 to 20 wash cycles per day across their two vans, each of which has a pair of washing machines and dryers.
Growth plans
Back at Ms Weatherhead's mobile hair salon, she cannot afford to secure water supplies for her van.
"We only do dry cuts," she explains. "If you had to wash hair you would require a clean water supply, waste water supply and a whole lot of other stuff. I have priced it and it would be prohibitive."
Yet despite the restrictions on what haircuts she can offer, she has plans to expand across Australia.
In the meantime she has secured a regular contract with the Royal Australian Navy to drive her van to three naval bases.
"This represents the growth I have been waiting for," she says.
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Queensland premier hopes to win over angry voters by saying tough decisions were necessary to keep the economy strong
When Tony Abbott faces voters again, his pitch will have to be pretty similar to Queensland premier Campbell Newman’s. All those “tough” decisions were necessary to keep the economy strong. The Coalition offers certainty versus a return to “chaos” under Labor.
It’s a pitch designed to shift voters’ thinking away from their anger and deep disappointment with the Coalition incumbents and onto the alleged risks of the Labor alternatives, to recast heavy-handed decision-making as “strength” – which voters might not like, but can at least rely on in “uncertain times”. Newman used “strong” and “strength” dozens of time in his appeal to voters as he called the election, and the word “strong” is gratuitously included in the name of key Queensland government policies.
Like the federal Coalition, the Newman government adopted a crash-through approach in its first term - plummeting in the opinion polls after unpopular budget cuts, public service job losses, privatisations (now rebadged as long-term leases), controversial laws targeting bikies and clashes with the judiciary.
And, like the federal Coalition, Newman insists the reward is an economy better than it would otherwise be and a bright economic future just around the corner.
This means the Queensland election isn’t only an indicator of Tony Abbott’s unpopularity - measured by just how few campaign appearances he can make beside Newman - but also a test run for the federal government’s whole political strategy.
There are, of course, a few obvious weaknesses in the plan.
The promised economic benefits of all the budgetary pain are not evident yet. Federally, a surplus remains at least six years away, the deficit will be around $72bn over the next two years and national unemployment is predicted to hit 6.5%. The Queensland economy ranks fifth in the country, according to Commsec’s latest State of the States report. The state has the highest unemployment rate in the country, equal with Tasmania, at 6.9%.
Nor are the promised benefits from the unpopular asset leases tangible, or even detailed. Queensland’s Strong Choices plan proposes long-term leasing of ports, water pipelines and electricity transmission and distribution businesses to raise an “estimated” $37bn, but the scoping studies won’t be released until after the election, so this estimate is difficult to check. Of that, $25bn will be used to pay down debt and $8.6bn will go to the Strong Choices Future Investment Program - bolstered by the bonuses paid under the federal government’s asset recycling plan.
But exactly what “strong” future investments are to be funded is yet to be announced or scrutinised - although $3bn has been set aside for roads and $2bn for public transport. Most of these announcements are likely to come during the campaign.
So voters will have limited information to weigh up the effective privatisation of existing assets in order to fund new things, including public transport projects from which the federal coalition withdrew funding, and education and hospitals, from which projected commonwealth funding has also been cut.
The East West Link - bolstered by $3bn in federal funding - was supposed to be former Victorian premier Denis Napthine’s trump card, and that didn’t work out so well. And when its cost-benefit analysis was finally released - after the Coalition lost the state election - it turned out to have a benefit of 47c for every public dollar outlayed, a detail that might have been handy when Victorian voters were making up their minds.
Billions in road spending around the country is a key part of Tony “I want to be known as the infrastructure prime minister” Abbot’s re-election plan.
The upside of the Queensland - and possible also the federal - Coalition’s re-election strategy is that the popularity of their Labor opponents is mostly a function of being the only obvious alternative rather than of having a charismatic leader or an inspiring alternative plan.
Re-styling policies the electorate has judged to be punitive as necessary demonstrations of strength, while colouring relatively unknown opponents as an unnecessary risk, seems to be the Coalition’s best strategic shot.
If it doesn’t save the Newman government from a big voter backlash, that’s bad news for the federal Coalition too - whether Abbott campaigns in Queensland or not.
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‘Does for the commons what Marx did for capitalism in Capital. Omnia Sunt Communia will be indispensable to scholars and activists grappling with the most important question of our time: what system, if any, should follow the end of capitalism?’
George Caffentzis, author of In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism
'An ambitious and path-breaking work. It makes for a powerful and challenging book that all educators and activists in movements for social justice should read.’
Silvia Federici, author of Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle
‘This book is at once expansively curious and politically urgent. De Angelis does justice to the complex heat and light of the commons: our hidden past, our living present and our potential future.’
Max Haiven, author of Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power
‘De Angelis offers us a sweeping framework for understanding how commons can provide practical pathways for political and social emancipation. Timely, insightful and hopeful.’
David Bollier, author of Think Like a Commoner
'De Angelis has applied his considerable academic understanding to his practical experience of communing to advance a critical conversation on social change.'
Green Left Weekly
'An extraordinary new book.'
CounterPunch
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Valve keeps revealing more of its new Knuckles controllers for SteamVR in the most unexpected of ways. Earlier this week we saw a virtual prototype for the kit within SteamVR Home, and now a setup guide has revealed even more information.
A quick start guide for these new controllers has just surfaced online, letting developers know how to (literally) get to grips with them. There’s plenty of useful information for the curious, though, including the detailed look at the system’s various buttons below. As you can see, the device features two face buttons located next to its trackpad, with a system button below. A trigger sits on the bottom and a micro USB charging port is housed below too. You can even see how you’re meant to hold the device.
Following that, Valve has a lot information about how to install the device, but more interesting are the GIFs showing people actually using them. The first demonstrates how the user can let go of the core controller, with the grip then holding it in place. A strap is used to tighten and loosen the grip around your hand.
The post also details the finger tracking for the controller, which needs to be calibrated. Once organized, you can use the controllers inside SteamVR Home. Valve says that the current iteration of the controllers has a battery life of three hours, and they’ll take about an hour to recharge. That could obviously change for the consumer version of the devices, though.
This info dump suggests that some lucky developers may already have their fingers on the Knuckles controllers. What we don’t know is when we’ll be able to try them out for ourselves; Valve hasn’t provided a public demonstration of the controllers just yet. We’ll be eager to learn when they’ll be releasing, though at a guess we’d say the upcoming refreshed base stations expected to launch later this year would be the perfect complement to them. Perhaps we could even see them bundled in with LG’s upcoming SteamVR headset?
Tagged with: SteamVR
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Share. Release Date Coming This Week. Release Date Coming This Week.
A PS4 bundle consisting of the next-gen console and the limited edition of Infamous: Second Son has been confirmed.
After the below box art was leaked online through retail listings, Sucker Punch co-founder Brian Fleming explained the accompanying release date was incorrect, and that the real one would be revealed soon.
@Dzelly_igr @SuckerPunchProd No, that's not the correct date. We will announce the date this week officially. — Brian Fleming (@brian_fleming) November 13, 2013
If you're looking for something to do while waiting for the bundle to be officially announced, you can find out what's in the Second Son Collector's Edition, or check out any of the other PlayStation 4 launch content below.
More Must-See PS4 Launch Content:
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Junior Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.
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After the terrible results of the US election, and as many are offering great models of resistance, I thought it might also be useful to think about the role of art, and indeed the art world, to the degree that such an entity truly exists as a public sphere and political space, after the triumph of Trump. There are a number of reasons for this, partly since the type of populism represented by Trump attests to a broader culturalization of politics, and since some of the fault lines of the election, in terms of language, masculinity, and managerialism, are clearly evident within the field of cultural production today, particularly within the signifiers of globalism in the system of production, circulation, and reception that is contemporary art. Moreover, we should expect that, as cultural producers, we would be capable of offering a cultural analysis of the political shift happening with Trump, and ways of resisting it, in ways that goes beyond shock, surprise, and moral outrage.
It goes without saying that Trump represents a victorious return of unabashed patriarchy and unapologetic sexism, and that this is indeed deplorable and despicable. And the list of his ills goes on—in addition to Trump’s celebration of sexual harassment, there is also bigotry, racism, and climate-change denial, not to mention his somewhat dubious ideas about justice. In short, he can be said to be in direct opposition to everything that contemporary art prides itself on being, to all the core values of cultural exchange, muliticulturalism, permissiveness, abstraction, and speculation we hold so dear. While all the statements and views of Trumpism are surely shocking, they should not, though, come as any big surprise. A backlash against the cultural politics of the left, in particular feminism, has been happening for decades now, all over the former West, despite the growing awareness of racism and sexism. What we are facing is the following conundrum: through the efforts of decolonial, feminist, and queer theory and practice, more and more people consider, say, racism, to be unjust and simply wrong, but are nonetheless still racist! All over Europe there is a peculiar political language game going on, with far-right and center-right politics all claiming not to be racist, but nonetheless doing all they can to stoke racist sentiment in the populace, and happily implementing racists laws, under the guise of antiterrorism and anti-immigration. It should thus come as no surprise that, when polled, voters will not admit to supporting racist policies, but they will still happily cast their votes in that direction come voting day. This has become a consistent pattern everywhere in the former West, and it should thus not be surprising that it is happening in the USA as well. And, as cultural producers and theorists, the notion that there is a major difference between what we say, or think we can say, and how we feel and how we act, should also not be surprising.
Similarly, in regards to Trump’s blatant sexism: while it is clearly appalling, it is, regrettably, not surprising. After all, our little professional field, the art world, is certainly happy to cultivate similar larger-than-life male figures, both among star artists and star curators. And in our field, a man without any apparent qualifications more often than not easily gets the job over a woman with all the right qualifications, precisely as in this election… Is it even imaginable, we could ask, that a woman could have run a similar rogue campaign, boasting of indiscretions, dishonesty, sexual harassment, and personal greed? In my view, the roles these two candidates got to play are all too culturally familiar, and that a vast majority of male voters, and a high number of female voters, would be attracted to Trump should not surprise us after centuries of patriarchy. Trump is also in no way an anomaly, but has both precedents and contemporaries. We need only look at Silvio Berlusconi, much ridiculed in Western media outside of Italy (where the media couldn’t really criticize him, as he owned most of it), and who happily boasted of his business acumen and sexual prowess, and who, like Trump, was very upfront about the fact that his political interests and his business interests (i.e., personal enrichment) were one and the same. And for Berlusconi, various scandals and trials around economic corruption and the employment of underage prostitutes did not seem to harm him with the electorate—rather, many male voters actually found this appealing, as Berlusconi was simply doing what they would also do if they had the money and power to do so. I would argue that the same is the case with Trump—that many of his voters found his tax evasion and aggressive sexual behavior not something to merely tolerate or even ignore in light of other issues, but rather something to reward and encourage, as Trump was simply doing what “we (read: heteronormative men) would do if we were in his position.” There is a cultural politics of masculinity at play here, a sort of exaggerated, but ultimately fulfilled, culture of ladism, hipsterism, and beyond.
Trump also has his contemporaries, of course, in terms of alpha-male political leadership, and a protectionist politics of self-enrichment, and a combination of national capital interests and military power that aims to make the nation-state into a competitor on a global scale. As many have rightly pointed out, this is a rejection of neoliberalism and its migrating global elites, in favor of a nineteenth-century model of competing nation-states, using trade, colonialism, and military power to achieve supremacy, if not hegemony. Indeed, Trump has already indicated that the USA will no longer be the world’s policeman and moral epicenter, but, quite rightly, in fact, will acknowledge the decline of the American empire, and rather than place itself above the rest, will now play in the same field as Russia, China, and so on. Trump’s true contemporaries are thus Putin in Russia and Erdoğan in Turkey, where an autocratic male leader aggressively merges military power and the interests of a national capitalist class in an international and regional competition over market share and natural resources, and where the nation is united through the creation of not only external enemies (the rest of the world, basically), but also internal enemies, such as the Westernized LGBTQ community and the Kurdish population, respectively. This is the very same logic that is employed by Trump, naturally, in his construction of “we” as white Americans under threat of erasure from brown and black people, etc. What is significant here are two central points: the rejection of globalist neoliberalism, both economically and culturally, along the lines of Viktor Orbán’s vision of an “illiberal democracy” in Hungary, and the acceptance that the USA is no longer the world’s sole superpower, but simply one among a handful of large nations with big economies and big weapons—in essence, admitting that it is itself a rogue state. This return to nineteenth-century national competition is even more destructive than neoliberalism—its historical precedent led to the First World War—and a cursory look at Trump’s suggested economic policies should bring a chill to the world’s smaller nations, particularly those with natural resources. Trump has vowed to cut taxes while simultaneously increasing public spending on renewing public infrastructure, which will inevitably lead to an increased deficit in the national budget that can only be covered through neocolonialism, through what Marxist geographer David Harvey has termed “accumulation by dispossession.” As the world scrambles to come to terms with this, we also need to ask ourselves what the right cultural response would be, as both the values that we propagate in the art world—internationalism, multiplicity, permissiveness, etc.—as well as the economic structure that makes the contemporary art world possible—basically, what’s left of international patronage from the globalist upper classes—are both directly under threat here. Make no mistake, it is not just the relative autonomy of the arts and the privileging of the freedom of speech, but the existence of a field called the liberal arts, including contemporary art in all its guises—in its collected, if not collective, articulations—that is under threat. But if nothing else, the art world’s favorite theory of the moment, accelerationism, will now be well and truly tested, although it remains to be seen whether it’s the Marxist or the nihilist version that will come to pass.
This brings me to my second main point: just as we should not be surprised, even if appalled, by the election of Trump, we should also reject the widespread consensus that Clinton’s defeat is a defeat of the left tout court that should plunge us into a process of not only self-blame, but also depression and despair. If voters protested the effects of globalism, albeit through xenophobia, it was a rejection of neoliberal orthodoxies and managerialism, something Clinton represents more than anyone. The election of Trump must thus, in my view, not be seen as a defeat of the left, but as a defeat of the center. It is the defeat of neoliberalism and what Tariq Ali has aptly called “the extreme center” and its hold on the center-left through social democratic alignment with, and proliferation of, neoliberal deregulation. What this election and many across the former West show is that the extreme center cannot hold, and elections are now won not from the center, but from the left or right, and not through consensus, but dissensus. It is only here that political imagination takes place. Indeed, as the always reliable Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) has poignantly shown, there is much to suggest that the leftist candidate, Bernie Sanders, actually would have had a better chance of beating Trump than Clinton in the US election, which is hardly surprising, as Sanders also criticized neoliberal policies, but from the left. However, as we know, the Democratic National Committee did everything to prevent Sanders from being nominated, the same way that the center and the center-left have done everything to shut out the left in Europe, even when the numbers—and thus, nominally, the people—were against them, as shown by the continued attempts by Blairites to oust Corbyn, or the social democrats’ refusal to work with the new left of Podemos in Spain. So, the question for the left, really, is whether it will continue to be held hostage by the center, by having to accept the center’s candidates because the alternative on the right is so much worse. Well, we now have this progress towards the worse almost everywhere! Trump, Erdoğan, Putin, Orbán, Modi, Duterte, Netanyahu—you name it, the list of democratically elected demagogues is endless. As Vijay Prashad has written, we are now living in the time of monsters, and only a robust left, rather than a weak center, can provide adequate answers, indeed resistance. This has ramifications for how we think of contemporary art, which to a large extent has been the cultural expression of neoliberal globalism, despite its best intentions. This has to do with systemic issues rather than those of art practices themselves, and thus has to do with the international art world as a political economy and mode of governance.
Indeed, despite all its claims for democracy and openness, for soft diplomacy and even democratization on a global scale, the good governance and principles of selection and consecration in the art world remain amazingly non-transparent, almost counterproductively so. There are probably several historical reasons for the openness of the work and the closedness of the system, but, for better or for worse, this has made contemporary art, with its global modes of presentation and vehicles of circulation that are the biennial and the art fair, become the cultural expression of a late capitalism. Yet contemporary art is not only in the service of internationalist values and certain elites—indeed many practices and practitioners have consistently criticized the system, from within and from without; it has also promised access to this circulation, to the global elite: the promise of becoming a start artist or star curator is that you, too, can become part of this, more or less enlightened, elite, raking up the frequent-flyer miles as you jet between New York, London, the Gulf, and the Far East. But as this way of life is being rejected by both the so-called people and the new political rulers, we have to ask ourselves who and what we represent. For too long the art world has also been in thrall to the extreme center and its excessive governmentality, and we have had to accept statements from our leading curators along the lines of saying that art must not “be misused by political actors as a platform for their own self-righteous representation” and that “there cannot and should not be a connection between biennials and social movements.” We had to accept and even embrace this status quo, as the alternative—the emerging populist right and its blanket rejection of contemporary art—would supposedly be even worse. But now it is here anyway. The center has now eroded, both as a political and aesthetic discourse, and as an economic support structure. The center in politics proper is now also under attack from the right, and whereas this center has been willing to incorporate the ideas of the right politically—on immigration, austerity, etc., in an apparent respect for the voice of the people—it has been much less accommodating towards the left, as shown by the European reaction to the election of Syriza on a socialist and anti-austerity platform in Greece. Apparently, the voice of the Greek people, when rejecting neoliberalism, is of less importance than sentiments of anti-immigration, xenophobia, and downright racism in other parts of Europe. As with the weak and vanishing center in politics, the center in the art world needs to decide which way to turn; it can no longer hide behind abstract humanist values of great art transcending borders, categories, and history itself. The art world too is living in times of interregnum, as Gramsci famously phrased it in the early twentieth century, and as has been echoed not only by Prashad and others, but also, succinctly, by Zygmunt Bauman a few years ago in a truly prophetic essay.
In conclusion, it may be instructive to see what has happened to the liberal arts in the “illiberal democracy” of Orbán’s Hungary. Orbán and his government have systematically removed the autonomy of state institutions, replacing directors and staff of cultural institutions with political rather than professional appointees—with personnel that follow his ideology and nationalist policies. This did lead to protest, quite rightly, but it garnered relatively little international attention, and the response from the art world was a centrist one; the Off-Biennale for nonstate institutions was created, and it presented an interesting alliance between alternative spaces, artist-run spaces, and commercial galleries, but its aim was not to protest, but simply to show the potentials of art, its possibilities for speculation, beauty, and openness. Such abstract humanist values do not fight fascism. They have not done so historically, nor will they do so now. Something much more forceful is required, I am afraid. I do not want to suggest, however, any return to the historical avant-gardes and their resistance to fascism, as fascism today takes other forms, and art must thus also take other forms. It is not really a matter of art becoming propaganda and protest, although I am sure that much great cultural production will now be made in this vein, in opposition. I am, rather, thinking of the arts as a field, of how we will mobilize and find solidarity as art workers in a system that is already undemocratic, and in a democracy under siege. How do we act institutionally? In other words, my concern here is not so much with representation and critique—I have plenty of trust in artistic imagination—but rather in terms of how we govern within artistic institutions such as galleries, museums, biennials, art fairs, and art schools. Can we reorient these spaces away from the vanishing center, and towards a resurgent left, which is needed now more than ever?
—Simon Sheikh
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Nonetheless, last year, Republican members of Congress saw substantial short-term gains from using the threat of default to oppose Obama administration policies. Many still do. The thinking seems to be that if Congress threatens not to raise the debt ceiling, the Obama administration will be forced to make important concessions—for example, weakening the Affordable Care Act or reducing entitlements.
This thinking is understandable but dangerous. In any game of chicken, usually one side will blink. But if played over and over, eventually the two players will crash into each other. If a showdown over the national debt takes place every couple of years, eventually a default will take place. Republicans and Democrats should put aside their differences and ensure that this never happens. The bills in Congress would do just that.
Republicans might respond that the bills would amount to surrender. Why should they give up their source of leverage in return for nothing at all? But Republican members of Congress would retain their ability to negotiate over entitlement programs and all other laws. They could deny support of Democratic proposals unless the Democrats give them something in return. They can even shut down the government. All that they would be unable to do is destroy the financial system.
Some Republicans have suggested that if the debt ceiling were reached, Treasury could cut payments to other programs so that it can continue to pay interest on the debt. But it’s not clear that Treasury could legally do this, and even if it could, the disruption to the economy—as Social Security recipients, hospitals, soldiers, FBI agents, and others went without their checks—would be significant. And because Treasury would have to choose who gets paid and who does not get paid, Republicans would be handing over to the president enormous discretion that would enable him to refrain from paying for programs they care about. To say the least, doing so is in tension with their recent complaints that President Obama wields executive power too freely.
Other Republicans take the contrary view that these showdowns can’t really hurt the economy because the market doesn’t believe that Congress would ever force a debt default. If market players don’t believe that a default could occur, we needn’t worry that the threat of default will disrupt the market or that a default could even happen. But if that is the case, then House Republicans don’t gain any leverage from threatening to default—the threat has no credibility—and so they shouldn’t object to a law that formalizes this state of affairs.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for clear-headed negotiations with "close partner" Britain over its departure from the European Union, urging caution in the process.
Merkel issued the statement on Saturday, just hours after foreign ministers from the six founding members of the EU called for a quick exit from the 28-member bloc.
"The negotiations must take place in a businesslike, good climate," Merkel said after a meeting of her conservative party in Hermannswerder, outside Potsdam, to the west of the German capital Berlin.
"Britain will remain a close partner, with which we are linked economically," she said, adding that there was no hurry for the UK to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - the first step it must take to set in motion the exit process.
"It should not take ages, that is true, but I would not fight now for a short timeframe," Merkel said, in contrast with the more urgent call by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, who were meeting to the north of the German capital.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, George Vella, foreign minister of Malta, agreed with Merkel's assessment, saying that the exit should be done in a "reasonable way", adding that negotiations should be studied carefully, "to achieve the maximum cooperation of the United Kingdom".
Merkel and French President Francois Hollande will meet Matteo Renzi, Italy's prime minister, in Berlin on Monday to discuss future steps.
'Painful process'
Following the foreign ministers' meeting earlier on Saturday, the officials issued a joint statement saying, "We now expect the UK government to provide clarity and give effect to this decision as soon as possible".
Jean-Marc Ayrault, France's foreign minister, said the pressure would be "very strong" on British Prime Minister David Cameron at an EU summit on Tuesday to speed up the process.
The outcome of Thursday's EU referendum - a 52-to-48 split in favour of Britain's exit - caused financial markets to fall sharply and brought the British pound down to a 31-year low, its biggest drop in history.
There are now fears that the vote could set off a chain reaction of further breakaway bids by other EU members battling hostility to Brussels.
There are also worries the outcome could lead to the break-up of the UK itself after Scotland raised the prospect of another independence vote..
Donald Tusk, the EU president, has warned of a "painful" process, saying "any delay would unnecessarily prolong uncertainty".
READ MORE: What will happen after Brexit?
US President Barack Obama, who publicly threw his weight behind British EU membership during a visit to London in April, insisted that the "special relationship" between the two countries was "enduring".
Following the UK's vote in favour of exiting the bloc, Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen called for referendums on EU membership in their own countries immediately.
The British vote will lead to at least two years of divorce proceedings with the EU, the first exit by any member state.
Cameron, who led the campaign to remain in Europe to defeat, after promising the referendum in 2013, said he would resign by October and it would be up to his successor to formally start the exit process.
Cameron's Conservative Party rival Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who became the most recognisable face of the Leave camp, is now widely tipped to seek his job.
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The Chicago Sky has signed free agents Yvonne Turner, Shanece McKinney and Jacki Gemelos to training camp contracts. Per team policy, terms of the contracts were not disclosed.
Yvonne Turner, a 5’9 point guard, graduated from the University of Nebraska in 2010. In her senior season, Turner averaged 12.8 points and 3.6 rebounds per game and helped the Cornhuskers to a record-breaking 32-2 record. She was just the sixth player in Nebraska University history with 1,000 points, 200 assists and 200 steals.
Following her collegiate career, Turner played overseas in Australia, Germany, Russia, Turkey and most recently Poland. Turner is currently playing for Wisla Krakow in Poland where she is leading the Polish League in scoring with 16.9 points per game. This is Turner’s third WNBA training camp contract and second time in Chicago. She appeared in two preseason games with the San Antonio Stars in 2013 and was a member of the Sky’s training camp roster in 2014.
A 6-foot-4 center, McKinney averaged 1.8 points and 1.4 rebounds in 24 games with the New York Liberty in 2014 before she was waived prior to the start of the 2015 regular season. McKinney has played for three EuroLeague teams, including Union Hainaut in France, Cankaya in Turkey and Bembibre in Spain. The Louisiana State product led Cankaya to a TKBL regular season title in 2014-15 while averaging 14.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. McKinney currently plays for Bembibre and leads the team in points and blocks with 13.4 and 1.8, respectively.
Jacki Gemelos completed her first full WNBA season in Chicago in 2015 where she appeared in 17 games with the Sky. The six-foot guard recorded a season high of five points and two assists in Chicago’s 93-65 win over Seattle on September 6. Gemelos was drafted in the third round by the Minnesota Lynx in the 2012 WNBA Draft and appeared in training camp with the Lynx and Dream before making her first WNBA roster with the Sky in 2015. In her third year competing internationally, Gemelos is playing for Perfumerias Avenida in Spain where she is averaging 9.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists and has her team in first place in the Spanish League standings.
Turner, McKinney and Gemelos will join the Chicago Sky when training camp opens on Sunday, April 24, 2016. For more information or to purchase tickets for the 2016 season call 866.SKY.WNBA or visit CHICAGOSKY.NET.
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Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Darius Gray, former president of the Genesis Group, a support group for black Mormons, Wedn Green Flake, the slave of James Madison Flake, a convert to the LDS Church, was baptized at age 15. Green later was freed. Photo c Jane Elizabeth Manning [James] was a freeborn servant in Joseph Smith's household who joined the church. Photo courtesy of Genesis Author Russell Stevenson Courtesy photo Headstone of Elijah Abel. Photo by Leah Hogsten 09/25/2002 | Courtesy Mama Rine Clark Tamu Smith (right) and Zandra Vranes (left) are "Sistas in Zion" and have written a new book Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Darius Gray, former president of the Genesis Group, a support group for black Mormons, Wedn Author Russell Stevenson Courtesy photo Top Row, left to right: 1. Elijah Abel, a free black man, was the first black baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- | Jerri Harwell Genesis Group leaders at the anniversary gathering left to right: Darius A. Gray - Eugene Orr (counselors to Ruffi Genesis Group story: l-r Darius Gray, Ruffin Bridgeforth, Elder Helvecio Martins, Don Harwell. Green Flake entered the Salt Lake Valley with Brigham Young and the first pioneers. His name is among those inscribed on the statu Elijah Abel was among the first blacks baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Photo courtesy of Genesis. | Courtesy Mama Rine Clark Tamu Smith (left) and Zandra Vranes (right) are "Sistas in Zion" and have written a new book
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It’s Catcher Day at Baseball Prospectus, as we celebrate the expansion—both in method and in scope—of our new catching statistics. Given the age and breadth of some of these stats, we truly feel as if we are debuting our large adult child.
The statistics both apply to and measure players other than catchers, but they are all perhaps most important to catchers as we measure their total value to a team. The statistics are four-fold, covering three critical catching skills:
1. Running Game
a. Swipe Rate Above Average (SRAA) – the effect of the player on base-stealing success;
b. Takeoff Rate Above Average (TRAA) – the effect of the player on base-stealing attempts;
2. Blocking Pitches
a. Errant Pitches Above Average (EPAA) – the effect of the player on wild pitches and passed balls;
3. Framing (AKA “Presenting”)
a. Called Strikes Above Average (CSAA) – the effect of the player on strikes being called.
Obviously pitchers, runners and even batters can be subjects of these measures. We’ll publish those as well, providing deeper insight into just how aggressive Rickey Henderson was. But today is about catchers and not an excuse to mention Rickey Henderson. You never really need a reason to mention Rickey Henderson . . . but we digress.
Minor League Catching Models! And the Catcher Way-Back Machine
We’ve written about ‘retro-framing’ over the years, but now we’re publishing it—MLB framing now goes back to 1988. The pitch-by-pitch data used to generate MLB framing data for 1988-2007 (i.e. not PITCHf/x or Trackman) is also available for some of the minor leagues over the past decade. Triple-A framing begins in 2006, while Double-A framing begins in 2008—but just for the Texas League. By 2012 both the Southern and Eastern Leagues are included. 2015 provided a surprise splash of data from the NY-Penn League.
And it’s not just CSAA that we can extend. We can actually go as far back as 1950 for MLB with each of our other metrics. And we also take EPAA, SRAA and TRAA back to 2005 for almost all levels of the minor leagues.
Start Years SRAA TRAA EPAA CSAA MLB 1950 1950 1950 1988 AAA 2005 2005 2005 2006 AA 2005 2005 2005 2008* A+ 2005 2005 2005 A 2005 2005 2005 A- 2006 2006 2005 2015** Position SRAA TRAA EPAA CSAA Catcher YES YES YES YES Pitcher YES YES YES YES Batter no YES no YES Runner YES YES no no * TEX 2008 SOU 2010 EAS 2012 ** NYP only
Pre-1988 data is challenging because official pitch-by-pitch data is not available. While CSAA becomes unavailable, the other statistics can still be calculated. SRAA is based on stolen base attempts (so no change required), TRAA is already based on play-by-play, and it turned out EPAA works almost as well without pitch-by-pitch data, because play-by-play data turns out to be largely sufficient. It does require we scale the EPAA rate and chances to match pitch-by-pitch years, and the results do not have the additional accuracy afforded by the tracking data from 2008 forward.
Beyond the stats themselves, we’re including their run values in two other metrics, FRAA and WARP.
Extended Integration with FRAA and WARP
During their inaugural season, some of these statistics (namely SRAA and TRAA) were published solely as a percentage above or below average. That is useful for comparison purposes, but doesn’t tell readers what usually interests them most: the effect in runs the player has in each category. We’ve now remedied this, and all four statistics are expressed in runs as well. As to catchers, SRAA and TRAA are combined into the category of Throwing Runs, because controlling the running game involves both throwing guys out and deterring them from running.
TRAA only provides run value to catchers who are credited to have prevented runners from going—those who did go have their impact measured via SRAA.
SRAA runs are ATTEMPTS*SRAA*(SB_runs – CS_runs). TRAA runs are calculated as CHANCES*TRAA*((SB_runs * SB_rate) + (CS_runs * (1-SB_rate))). SB_runs and CS_runs are the linear weight values for stolen bases and caught stealing; SB_rate is the league’s success rate on attempts.
EPAA is expressed as Blocking Runs, and CSAA is Framing Runs.
For catchers, this information is contained in two complementary tables. The first table is Catcher Stats – Full Season. This table combines all results from all levels and teams for each catcher into one set of composite statistics for each catcher over each baseball season. The second table, Catcher Stats – with team stints, breaks down the data from the full-season table, so you can separate minor-league from major-league performance, and compare their tenures with different teams.
The runs categories, and their best / worst performers among MLB catchers for the 2015 season, are as follows. The run effect is in parentheses:
â— Throwing Runs (SRAA + TRAA) :
o Best: Russell Martin (+2.5)
o Worst: Kurt Suzuki (-3.8)
â— Blocking Runs (EPAA) :
o Best: Brian McCann (+0.6)
o Worst: Tyler Flowers (-0.8)
â— Framing Runs (CSAA):
o Best: Yasmani Grandal (+25.5)
o Worst: Carlos Ruiz (-.18.4)
As you can see, the importance of catcher framing is difficult to overstate.
Revised Model Extraction
All four statistics now used an updated mixed model procedure that, rather than extracting the coefficients for each player, performs a “with or without you” (WOWY) that separately totals each participant’s most likely contributions over the course of each season, both with the player involved and with a predicted-average player participating in their stead. The differential between those two totals gives us the seasonal value for each contributor, be it a steal, a ball in the dirt, or a called strike. The models are otherwise basically the same as we’ve previously described them before, and we welcome you to revisit those articles if you’d like more information about them, at these links: CSAA, SRAA and TRAA, and finally the recently-updated EPAA.
Of course, these statistics also still benefit from being mixed models in the first place. By applying shrinkage principles, the estimated values provided by these statistics are more accurate than raw averages. And by controlling for all participants in each play—rather than just assuming the others somehow cancel each other out—these statistics control for the quality of the opponents the catcher deals with, as well as the quality of his teammates.
Now go read all the great articles we have available making use—and occasional sense—of this wealth of catching information.
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We all know that managing PCOS can be a HUGE struggle. That’s why, on the last Friday of every month, I’ll be highlighting a Badd Ass Cyster who is taking control of her life and body. Scroll down to read about Shelby and how she lost over 50 lbs and spreads PCOS positivity across the web.
Badd Ass Cysters
What kind of woman takes control of her life and body? What type of woman gives PCOS the middle finger and never accepts “NO” for an answer? What kind of woman pushes herself and others? What type of woman is aware of herself and what she is capable of? A BADD ASS CYSTER, thats who. From here on out, I want to take the time every month to highlight a woman that I see kicking some PCOS ass. Kind of my way of saying “Hey girl, I see you and you are the bomb dot com”. Now, let’s get this thing popping…
Shelby, PCos Support girl
I’ve been a member of Shelby’s PCOS Positivity FB group for a while now, and I have to say I love the group… there are women spreading love and positivity– and let me tell you there is no negativity allowed! Shelby is definitely a Badd Ass Cyster and will check you if she needs to. At the same time, Shelby’s love and positivity shines throughout the group and she serves as a great motivation for women across the world to connect with other women with PCOS and get the support that they need. Shelby’s personality, kind heart, and spunky spirit is what led me to choose her as the Bass Ass Cyster for the month of April.
Shelby and I recently sat down and I was able to ask her about her journey and learn how she lost over 50 lbs with PCOS, how she manages her anxiety, and the advice she would give herself looking back. Watch the full interview below (20 mins) or scroll down to check out some highlights.
Interview Highlights
Her biggest struggle with PCOS:
If you would have asked me 2 1/2 years ago, I would be like infertility… that was such a scary and lonely time…
If you ask me now, it’s taking care of my health and being healthy. One of my biggest struggles has been my weight.
The process is slow for girls with PCOS, it sucks, but its true.
How she stays healthy and manages her weight:
Low carb diet Supplementing Strength Training Cutting out dairy
How she built the confidence to start strength training:
I would go at 4am when I knew no one would be there. Sometimes it’s just about taking little steps.
I downloaded the bodybuilding app.
It’s just the point of doing it, putting yourself out there, asking for help.
Some one will help you, they’ve been there too.
On her weight loss journey
It took me about 9 months to lose the weight and the first 3 months I didn’t lose anything.
Take progress pictures, pick an outfit, judge how it fits you, measure yourself– because there was a time that I lost 8 inches [..] but I didn’t lose more than a pound.
With PCOS, I’ve found that its all about patience and forgiving yourself.
I just had to stop quitting on myself, start trusting myself, and start forgiving myself.
On social media and being “real”:
Life is messy, and hard, and real, and I cry, and… I mess up and eat pizza.
I want to be an image of real and un-shit-together-ness
Advice to newly diagnosed Cysters:
If you need support, find it. If you need help, ask for it.
So, what do you think?
Did Shelby inspire you to get your shit together? Do you want to contact Shelby and follow her online? Check out her info below:
If you know know someone that you think she be the next Badd Ass Cyster of the Month, shoot me and email and let me know!
Chris@HelloPCOS.com
Thanks for reading and thanks to Shelby for sitting down for the interview!
Peace, love, and happiness!
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Soundgarden Made Decibel's Hall Of Fame Right Before Chris Cornell's Death?
As many of you know, I have been an avid subscriber to Decibel magazine for many years now and often share stories I read on my shows from tidbits I read about in the magazine. It is also a great place to find info on new and upcoming bands from the underground and more extreme reaches of the metal circuit. Now I have to admit, even though I was a Soundgarden fan back in the early 90s when they emerged in my world, watching Head Bangers Ball on MTV with the likes of Pantera, Metallica, Slayer, Alice In Chains, Nirvana and more. It seemed kind of strange to see them on the front cover of my fav metal magazine in 2017. At the same time it kind of made sense as it did back in the 90s.
I remember showing the magazine to my wife and laughing saying "hey look, remember Soundgarden? They are on this months front cover of Decibel and made the hall of fame in the magazine!" So I sat down, read the article and instantly was influenced to go listen to some old school Soundgarden and blast it loud, relive those memories from my teens and all of that. I noticed right away that Soundgardens heavy doomy riffs and melody's really fits in with a lot f music I listen to now days, especially doom and stoner rock.
Anyway, a couple weeks later Chris Cornell is all over the news after committing apparent suicide?
Now the thing that is even stranger about the Decibel Hall Of Fame induction is that they have a common rule for all albums inducted. All members on the specific record must be alive to be interviewed for the article.....
Is it a coincidence that this strange induction just happened like this a few weeks before Chris Cornell left this planet or what? - The Zach Moonshine Show
The Decibel Hall of Fame provides the definitive stories behind the making of extreme music’s most important albums. Each month the seven-page stories (upwards of 5,000 words) include interviews with every musician who performed on the inducted record.
Decibel Hall of Fame No. 150 - Posted May 1, 2017
The induction of any Soundgarden album into the Decibel Hall of Fame has not been an easy one. Ideally, this should have happened before Tad’s 8-Way Santa, as there’s no disputing that Soundgarden was a key grunge progenitor—going as far back as the mid-’80s—long before Tad Doyle and his crew were on the scene. But, as any longtime Decibel readers know, deciding to enshrine an album and actually making it happen, doesn’t always work out easily, or sometimes ever. Suffice to say, Soundgarden has been under discussion for years.
The recent Sub Pop reissue of the freshly remixed Ultramega OK (originally released by SST in 1988) offered a golden opportunity to approach the topic once again. This album, after all, was where Soundgarden revealed its metallic ambitions. Previous Sub Pop EPs, Screaming Life and Fopp, hinted at the heaviness the band was capable of, but this was the album that saw the band pivot toward the punk- and post-punk-informed Sabbathy sludge that would soon rocket them to multiplatinum sales. The solidified quartet of drummer Matt Cameron, bassist Hiro Yamamoto, vocalist/guitarist Chris Cornell and guitarist Kim Thayil was firing on all cylinders, with all four participating in the writing process in meaningful ways for the first time.
Ultramega OK, however, is an admittedly controversial pick to be enshrined. While there’s no denying the impact of songs like “Flower,” “Incessant Mace,” “Beyond the Wheel,” “All Your Lies,” “Nazi Driver” and “Head Injury,” the original release was marred by a thin, muddy and compressed recording—courtesy of Drew Canulette—that the band was completely unsatisfied with. Immediately upon its release, there were plans to remix it. But, because fate and fame interceded, it was put on the back burner. Soundgarden soon signed to A&M, went back into the studio to record its major label debut Louder Than Love, and UMOK was left behind.
The Sub Pop reissue, faithfully remixed and restored by the Godfather of Grunge Jack Endino, allows us to appreciate the quality of this remarkable album without the distraction of the original, sonically neutered version. UMOK was always a great album—the first true indication of Soundgarden’s range and musical prowess—but the remixed version illuminates just how impactful this material was. Indeed, the band itself ultimately felt strongly enough about UMOK that it undertook the painstaking process—nearly 30 year later—of making it sound how it was originally intended. And, in light of Soundgarden’s incredibly successful career, that speaks volumes.
– Adem Tepedelen
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Image copyright Elton John Image caption Sir Elton posted this image with the message that the "legal bit" had been completed
Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish have formally converted their civil partnership to a marriage - with the musician documenting the day on the Instagram website.
The couple have been hosting a ceremony at their Windsor estate in Berkshire with a number of stars in attendance.
David and Victoria Beckham, musician Ed Sheeran and actor David Walliams were among the guests.
Mr Furnish and Sir Elton, who have two sons, became civil partners in 2005.
Image copyright ELTON JOHN Image caption Elton John posted this photograph on his Instagram account. "It's beginning!! The Registrar welcomes our guests. #ShareTheLove"
Image copyright Elton John Image caption This image taken by the couple's son Zachary then followed
The couple's sons Zachary, who was born in 2010, and Elijah, born last year attended the ceremony.
One image - showing the newlyweds holding hands, with Elijah standing between them - bears the caption: "Zachary grabs David's iPhone and takes a photo of his brother while we exchange our vows."
Sir Elton has been including the hashtag #ShareTheLove on his posts on Sunday.
Friends of the couple have also been using the tag, with the Beckhams' eldest son Brooklyn writing: "Amazing day with family and special friends congratulations Uncle Elton and Uncle David #ShareTheLove."
The teenager posted a photograph of the wedding lunch menu, which included wild mushroom soup with truffle cream, beef short rib and caramelised onion pie and warm chocolate pudding with ice cream. Guests were served Laurent-Perrier champagne.
Sir Elton has posted a number of pictures to the photo-sharing website, where he has thousands of followers, including a picture taken at a window showing a garden, with the caption: "Good morning! Nice day for a wedding".
He later wrote: "The tables look stunning! We had red roses at our Civil Partnership 9 years ago and they brought us so much luck."
Image copyright AFP Image caption The Beckham family arrive at the ceremony
Image copyright AFP Image caption Singer Ed Sheeran was also on the guestlist
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The couple became civil partners in 2005
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The eldest son of David and Victoria Beckham shared the wedding menu on Twitter, as Daniel Boettcher reports
On 21 December 2005, they held a civil partnership ceremony at the Windsor Guildhall.
In March, the law was changed in England and Wales to allow same-sex marriage.
Sir Elton said at the time he was "very proud" of Britain for changing the law.
"Having our civil partnership was an incredible breakthrough for people that have campaigned for a long time - through the 60s and the 50s in England when it was so hard to be gay and hard to be open about it. And it was a criminal act.
"So for this legislation to come through is joyous, and we should celebrate it. We shouldn't just say, 'Oh, well we have a civil partnership. We're not going to bother to get married'. We will get married."
Image copyright Elton John
Celebrities gave their reaction on Twitter. Gary Barlow wrote: "What an incredible day." Graham Norton said: "Huge congratulations to Sir Elton John and David Furnish. Married at last!!"
Walliams said it was a "magnificent" day, while Hugh Grant tweeted: "Groom Groom - Britain races into the future. Congrats Elton and David. Congrats enlightened UK."
Guests also included singer Lulu, Burberry chief executive Christopher Bailey, as well as comedian Jimmy Carr who tweeted: "#ShareTheLove at the beautiful wedding of two beautiful people. Wishing Elton & David every happiness. X".
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After a year of high-profile police killings, calls for a national database have gained traction. But how would that work? Tom McCarthy investigates the challenges for law enforcement and government officials alike
The uncounted: why the US can't keep track of people killed by police
A year ago, in a bureaucratic shift that went unremarked in the somnolent days before Michael Brown was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri, the US government admitted a disturbing failure. The top crime-data experts in Washington had determined that they could not properly count how many Americans die each year at the hands of police. So they stopped.
The move did not make headlines. Before Brown was killed, a major government effort to count people killed by police could be mothballed without anybody noticing. The program was never fully funded, and no one involved was accustomed to their technical daily work drawing a spotlight.
But it had been a major effort. For the better part of a decade, a specialized team of statisticians within the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) – number-crunchers working several nesting dolls deep inside the Justice Department – had been collecting data on what they called arrest-related deaths. The ARD tally was more than a count of killings by police. It was meant to be the elusive key to a problem that seemed easy to understand but difficult to define. The program set out to track any death, of anyone, that happened in the presence of a local or state law enforcement officer.
Ramarley Graham's mother: 'They feel our lives aren’t worth the paperwork' Read more
A victim like Michael Brown, shot dead in the process of arrest, would make the count. A victim like Akai Gurley, shot dead in Brooklyn not in the process of arrest, would make the count. A victim like Eric Garner, choked and squeezed to death on Staten Island in the process of arrest, would make the count. A victim like Tamir Rice, shot dead in Cleveland at 12 years old with no arrest attempt made at all, would make the count, along with many other victims.
These people would make the US government’s authoritative count of people killed by police. If the count still existed. Which it does not.
With some states never participating, and major police departments such as the NYPD failing to report for some years, the Bureau of Justice (BJS) statisticians were never satisfied with their data pool. In March of last year, the bureau pulled the plug on the project, leaving the truth about the most high-profile year for police killings in US history – the truth about fatal police violence – to discarded spreadsheets, bad numbers and acronymed taskforces with little to show.
As revelations about patterns of abuse in Ferguson and beyond rattle the US criminal justice system from bottom to top, calls for a national police-killings database have once again gained urgency. But an awareness of what has been tried – and failed – remains elusive. And while even Barack Obama, after meeting with his post-Ferguson taskforce on policing, spoke of the “need to collect more data”, relatively little public discussion has centered on how such a count – a real count – would actually work.
Police killed more than twice as many people as reported by US government Read more
A detailed look at what went wrong with the arrest-related deaths count reveals challenges that run deeper than the unwillingness of local police departments to file a report when they kill someone, although that is part of the problem. The structural and technical challenges to compiling uniform data from the 18,000-plus local law enforcement agencies in the US far exceeds the reporting problem, in some cases.
However, interviews across the lower rungs of government – with dozens of statisticians, police officers and politicians over the course of the seven months since Brown’s death – reveals a concentrated, multi-layered effort across multiple bureaucracies to arrive at a meaningful national number for arrest-related deaths that might be the start of a true national accounting.
Michael Planty, a senior official at BJS, said statisticians in the Justice Department would rather put out no number at all than put out a misleading number. “We’re concerned about quality and putting out a number,” said Planty. “We don’t want to put out just a number.”
The White House, however, does want them to put out a number. Last December, Obama signed a renewal of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Act (Dicra), which was created to monitor deaths in prisons and jails but which mandates that the Justice Department count arrest-related deaths. The new law might resurrect the BJS counting program in enlarged form, with new funding and new support.
Representative Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, the author of the bill in the House, spoke to the urgency of keeping up the program. Simply collecting data on fatal encounters with law enforcement could promote restraint on the part of police, he said: “The fact that the criminal justice system recognizes that we take deaths seriously may encourage people to be careful.”
‘It’s ridiculous’: what went wrong with the super-count
The federal government counts many things very well. It counts the number of children who die each week from flu (11 during the week ending 17 January). It counts the average number of hours American men spend weekly on lawn care (almost two). It counts the monthly production of hens’ eggs (8.31bn in November). It counts nut consumption by non-Hispanic white men over the age of 20 (42.4% enjoyed nuts on any given day in 2009-2010). It counts how many women aged 15-44 use contraception (60.9 million, or 61.7%).
The US government is a virtuoso counter. So why can’t it count people killed by police?
Some people think Washington already does keep count. The government publishes two statistics every year that look an awful lot like, and are regularly mistaken for, comprehensive counts of deaths from interactions with police. The first is the FBI’s count of “justifiable homicides by law enforcement”, based on police reports submitted by state and local agencies.
The second is the Centers for Disease Control’s count of “deaths by legal intervention”, based on medical records and death certificates. Considerable scholarly exertion has gone into describing the flaws in each count. Not all police agencies participate in the FBI’s count, which is limited to deaths involving a weapon, for example, while the CDC misses cases, among others, in which medical examiners certify a homicide but fail to note police involvement.
Title 28 of the US Code, however, requires the FBI to publish the sum of whatever incomplete reports it receives. New objections to the bureau’s bad numbers were recently voiced by the FBI director himself, James Comey, in a speech last month at Georgetown University. Comey called crime statistics unreliable and said: “It’s ridiculous that I can’t tell you how many people are shot by police in this country right now.”
After Comey’s speech, Stephen L Morris, the FBI assistant director in charge of the uniform crime reporting program, said the bureau has been frustrated for decades by flaws in its national crime data collection system and a competing legal requirement to publish “the numbers provided to us”.
“We were ecstatic to have a director that has taken this issue on personally, because he was echoing, for the first time publicly, our frustration with this data,” Morris told the Guardian, speaking about “overall crime statistics” as well as “law-enforcement involved shootings”.
The FBI, which is a law enforcement and not a statistics agency, is working with a reporting program that is almost a century old and widely acknowledged to be inadequate. The program undertaken early in the George W Bush presidency by the BJS, in contrast, was designed to take advantage of current technology and techniques.
If it were possible to count people killed by police, it seemed, the BJS could do it. More than any other agency, the bureau is responsible for documenting how crime and punishment works in the US. Its best-known report, the annual National Crime Victimization Survey, is the country’s primary source of information on everything from rape and sexual assault among college-age women to firearm violence to crimes against the elderly.
But the arrest-related deaths program presented special problems. Just as there is no law compelling local law enforcement agencies to participate in the FBI’s uniform crime reporting, the BJS could not force participation in the count of arrest-related deaths.
Three states – Georgia, Montana and Maryland – declined all participation, which from the state’s perspective could mean extra work and compliance headaches. Other states submitted numbers for some years but not others. Washington DC dropped out of the program as resources and willpower dwindled. In other cases local numbers were reported to state agencies but then not up the next rung, to the federal government.
Erica L Smith, chief of the bureau’s law enforcement statistics unit, recalled the decision to end the count. “The data that we were collecting didn’t meet our data-quality standards, because we had little way of verifying that we were capturing all of the arrest-related deaths with that methodology,” she said.
The program had an unexpected benefit, however. It allowed the statisticians to estimate just how bad the FBI’s numbers were. The statistics bureau used a comparison between the FBI count of justifiable homicides by law enforcement and its own count, the arrest-related deaths count, to estimate how far off each count was. They published the results of their study early this month.
The results were stunning. The FBI was counting fewer than half of homicides by police officers, BJS discovered. From 2003 to 2009, plus 2011, the FBI counted an average of 383 “justifiable homicides by law enforcement” each year. The actual number, as estimated by the BJS study, was closer to 928.
Asked whether the FBI had ever considered suspending publication of justifiable homicide figures, given that those figures capture fewer than half of the deaths they purport to, the FBI declined to add to Morris’s earlier comments about frustrations at the “holes and gaps” in the data.
University of Missouri criminologist David Klinger, who has studied the BJS, FBI and CDC counts over time, said efforts to analyze their respective flaws were not likely to be repaid with insight. “Pardon my language, but if there’s a steaming pile of feces over in the corner, I don’t want to dig through it to find out whether it’s carrots or peas,” Klinger said. “I just know it’s steaming.”
“None of those three systems works. Paragraph – end of story.”
‘It’s our responsibility’: searching for an almost perfect number
Hilary O Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP, sees the country as having arrived at a crossroads comparable to what followed the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991. After the brutal assault, which was taped and broadcast on national news and showed King on the ground as multiple officers beat him with batons and kicked him, the NAACP conducted a series of hearings across the country on community-police relations.
“People perceived that African Americans were treated differently, more gruffly, more disrespectfully,” Shelton said. “That they felt that they were often targeted simply because they were African American. That was the perception.”
Representative Bobby Scott. Collecting data on fatal encounters with law enforcement could promote restraint on the part of police, he said. Photograph: Supplied
The perception, however, was not grounded in hard numbers. “That’s when we realized that we needed data,” Shelton said. The NAACP supported legislation, the End Racial Profiling Act, that would have awarded grants for data collection on racial profiling, but the bill was never signed into law.
Almost 25 years after Rodney King, there is a new call for data – and many suggested models for what might work. There may be a way to use federal money as an incentive for local law enforcement agencies to improve reporting. There may be a way to conduct a new arrest-related deaths count with blind spots eliminated. Technology may also provide an answer, through better video surveillance of police activities, or through internet searches of media reports that could document the overall problem.
“The absence of that database right now is a really tough thing, for everybody,” said John Firman, research director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the 120-year old police membership organization. “Because you’d love to be able to say, let’s look at trends, let’s look at incidents, let’s look at officer-involved shootings.”
Would the ideal count be top-down, with the federal government improving surveys of law enforcement agencies and other local data sources? Or would it be bottom-up, with law enforcement agencies improving their reporting? Would media reports or crowd sourcing play a role?
One flaw of the bottom-up counts is that they are based on a single source of information: the FBI uses data from local law enforcement, while the CDC relies on medical examiners and coroners. The statisticians running the top-down counts were encouraged to tap multiple information sources. That meant police and medical officials, but also media reports and close-at-hand agencies likely to be in the know, such as the offices of local and state prosecutors.
“That’s one of the challenges we had with the current [arrest-related deaths] program, was that states did different things to identify and collect this information,” said Planty, the senior BJS official. “And we’re trying to understand, did it really make a difference when we used, say, one source versus four or five sources? And I think it’s not a stretch to come to the conclusion that when you start relying on multiple sources of information, you’re going to get more and better information.”
Klinger, the University of Missouri criminologist, is working with the Los Angeles police department to develop a pilot program that would amount to a more muscular bottom-up approach.
“It doesn’t require, tomorrow, an act of Congress,” said Klinger. “Because what’s going to happen then is, it becomes a big political football, it becomes now, is it gonna be FBI, BJS, CDC – they’re going to be fighting over who gets the money. We don’t want any of that. What we want is, we’re going to have a program that is in place that has worked out as many of the bugs as we can think of. The federal government would merely have to pass legislation to fund a continuing effort.”
A key recommendation of the president’s post-Ferguson policing taskforce was that local law enforcement agencies be required to report to the federal government when their officers kill someone.
“There’s no reason for us not to have this data available,” the Philadelphia police commissioner, Charles H Ramsey, a taskforce co-chair, told the Guardian. “I know when this issue first came up, I was a bit surprised that we didn’t have a federal database that actually had all this data available. Now that we know that that does not exist, now it’s our responsibility to do everything we possibly can to develop that information and make it available to the public. And that’s what we’re in the process of working on now.”
For some people, the government’s failure to track officer-involved homicides is especially painful because it seems part of the institutional racism visited on African Americans by the US criminal justice system.
Of the many examples of racial disparity in criminal justice that BJS tracks – black drivers pulled over, black men imprisoned, black people sentenced on drug charges, black people murdered, black people sentenced to death – the arrest-related deaths data points to extra risk for African Americans. Black people die in disproportionate numbers at the hands of police, they are more prone to “accidents” around police, and their deaths are more likely to manifest as holes in police records.
“There’s a big problem here,” said Shelton, of the NAACP. “We saw what happened to Eric Garner. We saw what happened to Michael Brown. We saw what happened to Tamir Rice, and so many others who have died while in the custody of law enforcement. We have a problem.
“But in order to solve the problem, you have to have good data.”
Before long, the question of how many people are killed by police leads to the door of the only people who really know: the police.
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Japan's annual New Year's Eve combat sports spectacular added three MMA fights to its docket of action with official confirmation from DREAM and Golden Glory officials on Friday.
The show, with the messy title of "GSI presents DREAM 18 and GLORY 4 Tokyo - New Year's Eve Special," will take place from the Saitama Super Arena.
The trio of fights include DREAM lightweight champion Shinya Aoki against veteran Antonio McKee, ONE FC star Bibiano Fernandes vs. Yoshiro Maeda, and noted striker Melvin Manhoef battling Denis Kang.
The Aoki-McKee fight was actually supposed to take place in the spring of 2011 before it fell apart. Aoki (31-6, 1 no contest) has won eight of his last nine, most recently defeating Arnaud Lepont via triangle submission. The 42-year-old McKee (28-4-2) has won three straight, topping Chad Dietmeyer on the judges scorecards in March.
Fernandes (12-3) made headlines earlier in 2012 when he spurned a UFC offer to sign with ONE FC. He's currently riding a four-fight win streak after defeating Gustavo Falciroli in his ONE FC debut. The promotion is loaning him out to DREAM as part of a recently announced partnership.
His opponent Maeda, a WEC and DREAM veteran, is 30-11-2 all-time, and comes in with a two-fight win streak.
Manhoef is currently enjoying his first multi-fight win streak since 2008 after defeating Jae Young Kim and Ryo Kawamura in back-to-back fights to improve to 26-9-1 while Kang recently snapped a three-fight losing streak with a knockout of Hae Suk Son.
The DREAM/GLORY show will also include a one-night, 16-man single elimination kickboxing tournament which will feature some of the sport's biggest names including Semmy Schilt,, Remy Bonjasky, Gokhan Saki, Daniel Ghita and former Strikeforce fighter Sergei Kharitonov. The winner will earn a $400,000 prize.
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Complex systems, almost certainly, exhibit non-linear dynamics.
If so, how do we mathematically analyze such non-linear dynamic systems? This is a challenge since in mathematics we are well equipped to solve linear equations.
Before we embark on an approach let us pause for a moment to consider a nuanced behavior of complex system, which researchers till date, seemed to have either overlooked or ignored.
The fact is that it is not necessary for complex systems to always behave non-linearly as we might suppose. For most of its time, I dare say, all complex systems would behave more-or-less linearly, possibly within the limits of usual variations. Only at some critical juncture does a complex system show non-linear behavior. If it weren’t so it would have been nearly impossible to live anyway.
So, the answer to the question – ‘How do we mathematically analyze such non-linear dynamic system?’ is surprisingly simple — use mathematics for solving linear systems. We shall in a moment, see why that is a perfectly legitimate way of mathematically analyzing any complex non-linear system.
To do so, we start with the question on — why understanding linear systems is so very important?
The neat answer is: because we can solve them! Most of the time, it is enough to solve linear problems. However the more important reason that we do so is simply because fundamental laws of physics are often linear. For example, Maxwell equations for the laws of electricity are linear. Even the great laws of Quantum Mechanics, as we know of today, turn out to be linear equations. So, it is worthwhile spending time and effort on linear equations since if we do so, we are ready, in principle, to understand a lot of things including the non-linear behavior of complex systems.
But what do we do when complex systems actually start behaving non-linearly? Well, a non-linear equation cannot be solved in any other way but numerically — that is by numerical analysis as well as graphical analysis.
Hence, to sum up, any complex system can be understood by solving linear equations and by numerical/graphical methods. It turns out that for fifty percent of the time we would be happy solving linear equations for complex systems in physics and engineering and the rest fifty percent time we would be happy solving non-linear behavior with numerical and graphical analysis.
That seems to be rather fair. But more than that it clearly shows a path ahead to deal with complex systems involved in engineering and physics.
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British MP attacks Turnbull Government over Norfolk Island 'colonisation'
Updated
A British backbencher has launched a scathing attack on the Federal Government, accusing it of colonising and annexing Norfolk Island.
Key points: Conservative UK MP Andrew Rosindell is demanding Norfolk Island's Parliament be restored
In 2015 Norfolk Island's legislative assembly was scrapped
For several decades Norfolk Island was self-sufficient and self-governing
Conservative Andrew Rosindell, who is the head of the British Parliamentary group for Australia and New Zealand, is demanding the island's Parliament be restored and calling for a "totally new" approach from Canberra.
He and two other MPs who recently visited the island also want the Administrator, former Liberal MP Gary Hardgrave, to be sacked, echoing calls that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson made earlier this month.
"We live in 2016 not 1716," Mr Rosindell said.
"These days we don't believe in colonising and annexing small territories and countries."
In a bipartisan move, Norfolk Island's legislative assembly was scrapped last year to be replaced with a regional council.
The island, which struggled for years to raise enough cash to pay for services for its 1,700 residents, was also granted access to Australian welfare and forced to pay income tax.
Some locals welcomed the move and hoped the island's ailing infrastructure would be fixed.
But others, including several former members of the local assembly, were fiercely opposed and recently asked the United Nations for help in a bid to retain self-rule.
Mr Rosindell claims opposition to "Australia's takeover" is growing.
"Australia can be friends with Norfolk Island and look after them in the same way [Britain] looks after the Isle of Man or the Falkland Islands — we don't force them to be under the control of Westminster," he said.
Government rejects the claims
The Federal Minister responsible for the island, Fiona Nash, in a statement rejected the call to sack Mr Hardgrave "based on vague and unsubstantiated allegations".
She also said the Government was "investing $136 million" into the island in addition to the $27.5 million "gifted" before the assembly was scrapped.
The British Government believes Norfolk Island is a matter for Australia and points out Mr Rosindell's opinion has no link to government policy.
Despite his strong words, Mr Rosindell said he was a big fan of Australia.
He has repeatedly called for a special line at London's Heathrow Airport for countries that have the Queen as head of state and hopes that will happen once the UK leaves the EU.
"It seems crazy to me that an Australian turns up at Heathrow and is treated worse than an Austrian," he said.
He said Brexit was a great opportunity for Australia, New Zealand and Canada to work much more closely together.
"There's no reason we couldn't share High Commissions or diplomatic facilities in some places," he said.
"Norfolk Island aside, Australia and Britain agree on almost everything."
Topics: federal-government, government-and-politics, australia, norfolk-island, united-kingdom
First posted
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Most people think of bitcoin as digital gold in the form of an online token, but the idea of a scarce online good is only part of the story, says Nathaniel Popper, author of ‘Digital Gold.' 'The network in which bitcoin lives is also a hugely important part of bitcoin’s appeal,' says Popper. 'The network is an e-mail system for money where you can send somebody funds in Kuala Lumpur without having to go through a central service like a bank. You can simply send money anywhere.' Popper says a lot of 'millionaire misfits' were early bitcoin adopters because they loved the idea of a currency that no government could track and no bank could collect fees on. The future of bitcoin is now being driven by a tug of war between Silicon Valley and Wall Street. 'Marc Andreessen is the biggest Silicon Valley name who has put his reputation on the line for bitcoin,' says Popper. 'And what you are seeing on Wall Street is that all the banks have groups that are working on Bitcoin. They want to use it to increase productivity to streamline operations which is what Goldman Sachs is trying with their recent investment.'
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"Basic information about how the government uses its various law enforcement–related investigative authorities has been published for years without any apparent disruption to criminal investigations," a copy of the letter obtained by AllThingsD reads. "We seek permission for the same information to be made available regarding the government’s national security–related authorities."
-The number of government requests for information about their users
-The number of individuals, accounts, or devices for which information was requested
-The number of requests that sought communications content, basic subscriber information, and/or other information.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Apple is joining forces with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and several other technology companies and civil liberties groups to request via letter that the U.S. government offer greater surveillance transparency, allowing Internet, telephone, and Web-based service providers to give consumers regular reports on security related requests, reports AllThingsD.The alliance is made up of 63 different companies, investors, non-profits, and trade organizations that will publish a missive on Thursday asking President Obama and congressional leaders to allow them to report on the following:The request comes after news of a top secret intelligence gathering program called 'PRISM' leaked in June, where a number of tech companies, including Apple, were accused of providing the U.S. government with direct access to user data.Apple later clarified its position with a statement of its "Commitment to Customer Privacy," denying participation in PRISM and noting that the company conducts a thorough evaluation of each law enforcement request for data and aims to "retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities."The full letter has now been published . Direct link: [ PDF
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Fabulous image representing “all the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc.”, on a single sphere.
In the same scale, at right, “all the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density.”
Graphic by Dan Phiffer, via Fogonazos.
UPDATE: This post has been suggested on BoingBoing (wow!), and the power of the masses has quickly located the credits for it.
It’s by Adam Nieman / Science Photo Library (US). Some have doubted the accuracy of the graphic, but Dan Phiffer (check the link above) also updated his post with more info verifying that the representation is correct.
So correct, that Dr Adam Nieman was awarded with it in 2004 in the Visions of Science photo competition.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted in Miscelaneous
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Gaijin’s Ground Forces beta server is trundling over this weekend and all through next week, a bit like a tank might. Why that particular, elegant simile? Because the free expansion finally delivers on War Thunder’s great promise: to complement its ace military flight sim with tanks, tanklets and tracked vehicles of all kinds.
That means populating its servers with as many ashen-faced APV drivers as it already has doomed pilots on the line back to Blighty. Perhaps one of them might be you?
For a chance at a key, you’ll need to enter your email address into the magician’s box in this post. We promise it won’t be sliced in half, or appear just behind your ear, hanging on by its ‘@’. Instead, the box will punt out 500 keys to 500 new owners.
Please do follow us on Twitter and Facebook. That way, we’ll let you know where we’re up to in the coming days.
If you get a key, you’ll want to register, or login if you’ve already done so, at the War Thunder site. From there, click the ‘Redeem code’ button on the right-hand menu, download the CBT-launcher (direct link), and let it grab the beta client.
The beta server will be active from today across the weekend, and again from Monday April 7 – but be aware that the code will only activate on one PC:
Monday – 01:00 GMT – 07:00 GMT
Tuesday – 13:00 GMT – 19:00 GMT
Wednesday – 01:00 GMT – 07:00 GMT
Thursday – 13:00 GMT – 19:00 GMT
Friday – 01:00 GMT – 07:00 GMT
Saturday – 11:00 GMT – 16:00 GMT
Sunday– 1:00 GMT – 07:00 GMT & 11:00 GMT – 16:00 GMT
Right then: would-be War Thunderers, make yourselves known.
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"She's supposed to be a tree nymph," he explains, pointing to a photo of a nude woman wearing green body paint and hugging a tree. Thirty-six-year-old Gared Hansen holds up a photo of a naked blond whose body is airbrushed so that it looks like her skin has fallen away to reveal her mechanical interior. "Obviously," he says, "she’s supposed to be a broken robot."
"Right," I say, crossing out "cyborg" in my notes.
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There are shots of vampires, witches, mermaids and more -- all scantily clad or in the buff (see the slide show). We're sitting at the kitchen table in his home in Antioch, Calif., looking at Hansen's supernatural nude photography as his Rottweiler enthusiastically licks our feet. This hobby of his has twice gotten him suspended as a San Francisco police officer. Now he's suing the department, claiming it violated his free speech rights by punishing him for his extracurricular activities.
“I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy novels,” says Hansen, who looks part-nerd, part-hunk. “So my idea was to create a series of photos that had been digitally altered or in some way surrealistically created to look like various characters in the science fiction and fantasy novels that I enjoy.” Those include Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “A Princess of Mars,” and Roger Zelazny’s “The Chronicles of Amber,” books he eagerly takes down from his bookshelf to show me. “It’s just interesting to me and fun,” says Hansen. “I imagine it all when I’m reading the book, so it’s a way to put my imagination into reality.”
His dad hung out with the likes of Ansel Adams and taught him photography when he was a teenager, but Hansen has no delusions of grandeur. “I’m an amateur, so they’re not all great,” he says. Pointing to a shot that is black-and-white save for the woman’s bright red lips, he laughs: “It’s kind of a cheap amateur photography effect, but I love it. I think it’s great.”
Apparently the San Francisco Police Department disagreed. In 2009, a colleague found out about his racy hobby and notified higher-ups who launched an investigation. “The guy who did the investigation said it was wrong for a police officer to do this off duty, even though there wasn’t a correlation between my job and my hobby,” says Hansen. Ultimately, he was suspended on the grounds of unauthorized “secondary employment,” Hansen says, even though he provided tax records to show that it wasn’t a moneymaking venture. After that, he changed his photography website to make it clear that it was merely a hobby, not a business.
But then, as some media reports have put it, he was caught trespassing during a photo shoot at an abandoned hotel in 2010. That isn’t technically true, though, he says. “I made sure that I wouldn’t be violating any laws. Obviously, I’m very familiar with trespassing laws. It’s not just about being somewhere, it’s about what happens when you’re there -- if you’re asked to leave and don’t or you come back, or if you do some kind of damage or if you’re camping, or if there’s signage around a certain kind of property every so many feet.” None of that was the case, he says, and notes that local district attorneys threw out the citation “because it was obvious I wasn’t trespassing.” He was never fined and never went to court. Regardless, Hansen says he was told that if he wanted to keep his job, he had to stop doing his photography.
While Hansen took down his photography website to comply, his wife, who has posed for him herself and says she thinks his hobby is "really cool," created a new website to showcase his art -- but now that site is under investigation by the department, he says.
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“My guess is there’s probably a group of people in the administration that have a strong bias against my work because of the nudity in it,” says Hansen. “It might be a religious-based bias or something else.” He finds it “interesting” that the department seems to encourage other police officers’ creative photography -- just so long as it doesn’t involve nudity. “Just a few months ago, we had a contest called ‘Behind the Badge,’ and it was off-duty creative photography from San Francisco firefighters and police officers. So the department backs it as long as they like the content.”
There is an irony in the fact that this is happening in San Francisco, of all places. “There’s people walking naked down Castro Street and the police department tells us, ‘Oh that’s fine, they can do that,’” he says with a laugh. “There’s the Folsom Street Fair and the Gay Pride parade where people are walking down the street naked or in costumes where they’re basically naked.” Nude robots are a different story, apparently.
His hope is that the disciplinary rulings will be overturned and that “some sort of policy will be put in place that allows me my artistic freedom while not on duty.” Ideally, he says, it will also provide case law that “allows other officers around the country that same kind of freedom" to airbrush as many naked canvases as they want.
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Image caption Ken Russell was Oscar-nominated for his 1969 film Women In Love
Film director Ken Russell, who was Oscar-nominated for his 1969 film Women In Love, has died at the age of 84.
His son, Alex Verney-Elliott, said he died on Sunday following a series of strokes.
During his career, he became known for his controversial films including Women In Love, which featured Oliver Reed and Alan Bates wrestling nude.
He also directed the infamous religious drama The Devils and The Who's rock opera, Tommy, in 1975.
"My father died peacefully, he died with a smile on his face," Mr Verney-Elliott said.
Russell's widow, Elize, said she was "devastated" by her husband's death, which had been "completely unexpected".
She said the director had recently agreed to direct a musical feature film of Alice In Wonderland and had been working on the script and casting.
"He also had just completed an article for The Times on a review of the re-release of his film The Devils, so he was keeping himself very busy," she added.
Expert view Geoff Andrew, Head of Film Programme at BFI Southbank "Ken Russell was a brave and fearless film-maker who didn't mind, and even enjoyed, raising the hackles of people. He was fiercely devoted to making films about the arts, and made some wonderful work for television. At a time when British television was dominated by kitchen sink realism along came Ken who was into symbolism and metaphor. A classic film scene is the 1812 Overture sequence in The Music Lovers (1970). Richard Chamberlain, as Tchaikovsky, is festooned with ribbons while people's heads are blown off by cannonballs. It's the sort of thing that only Ken Russell would have made. He sometimes had an eccentric take, he was never less than entertaining. In later years, he found it difficult to get financing, but he did keep turning out films of note. In the 1960s and first half of the 70s he was very important. He brightened up British cinema no end."
Glenda Jackson, who gave an Oscar-winning performance in Women In Love and starred in a number of Russell's other films including Music Lovers, told the BBC it was "just wonderful to work with him and to work with him as often as I did".
"He created the kind of climate in which actors could do their job and I loved him dearly."
Jackson added that she believed the director had been overlooked by the British film industry, saying it was "a great shame".
"It was almost as if he never existed - I find it utterly scandalous for someone who was so innovative and a film director of international stature," she said.
'Creative force'
Joely Richardson, who starred opposite Sean Bean in Russell's 1993 BBC TV series Lady Chatterley, said: "I will forever feel privileged and honoured to have worked with the great Ken Russell.
"More than that, I was extremely fond of the man himself."
Lord Melvyn Bragg, who first worked as Russell's assistant in 1963 on BBC programme Monitor, said he was "an exceptional man".
"He was a glorious director at his best, his best films will be remembered. He was a tremendous ornament to the rather supine British film industry and he was the glory of the television arts industry," he said.
Film-maker Michael Winner hailed Russell's "duplicity of mind", adding he had made an "enormous contribution" to British cinema.
"He pushed the barriers completely and got away with it sometimes and didn't others, but he made some startling movies," said.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Martin Scorsese on 'fearless' film director Ken Russell
"He had an eye for the composition of each image on the screen - a great eye for imagery and then, of course, he had a great idea for the grotesque."
Friend and cultural commentator Norman Lebrecht said: "Among many achievements that spring to mind, he made British cinema less insular and self-referential.
"He was also a leading creative force in the history of British television. He will be widely mourned."
Russell later returned to more small budget, but no less flamboyant fare, including Crimes of Passion, Gothic, Salome's Last Dance and the cult horror-comedy The Lair of the White Worm, starring Hugh Grant.
The director also made an adaptation of DH Lawrence's The Rainbow followed by the gritty film, Whore, and even tried his hand at music videos, making Nikita for Sir Elton John.
Many of Russell's later films were dismissed as too eclectic and by the 1990s he found it almost impossible to get funding for his work.
He returned to the public eye in 2007, when he appeared on Celebrity Big Brother.
He lasted just four days before quitting the show after a disagreement with fellow contestant, the late Jade Goody.
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“At this point, fuck you all,” Khan wrote in a Facebook post that she said the university pressured her to delete. “Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of genocide?”
But the real battle started after Khan posted a sharp response to a Facebook post from a young conservative group, which criticized the student union for the proposed motion, saying that the union should “prioritize advocating for student issues, not attacking Canada.”
At the council meeting, the motion had widespread support except for a few students who strongly disagreed, Khan told VICE News. Some council members suggested that if Khan wanted to “question the legitimacy of Canada,” she should renounce access to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ahead of Canada 150 celebrations this past summer, Masuma Khan, a Dalhousie Student Union Vice President, drafted a motion to boycott any events associated with the anniversary on campus. Similar motions had been adopted by student unions across the country, and Khan didn’t anticipate the storm of controversy that would follow.
A Muslim Dalhousie University student is being accused of reverse racism and facing disciplinary action for a Facebook post calling out white fragility.
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A Muslim Dalhousie University student is being accused of reverse racism and facing disciplinary action for a Facebook post calling out white fragility.
Ahead of Canada 150 celebrations this past summer, Masuma Khan, a Dalhousie Student Union Vice President, drafted a motion to boycott any events associated with the anniversary on campus. Similar motions had been adopted by student unions across the country, and Khan didn’t anticipate the storm of controversy that would follow.
At the council meeting, the motion had widespread support except for a few students who strongly disagreed, Khan told VICE News. Some council members suggested that if Khan wanted to “question the legitimacy of Canada,” she should renounce access to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
But the real battle started after Khan posted a sharp response to a Facebook post from a young conservative group, which criticized the student union for the proposed motion, saying that the union should “prioritize advocating for student issues, not attacking Canada.”
“At this point, fuck you all,” Khan wrote in a Facebook post that she said the university pressured her to delete. “Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of genocide?”
To sign off, she used three hashtags: #unlearn150, #whitefragilitycankissmyass and #yourwhitetearsarentsacredthislandis.
“The university is policing speech and characterizing political speech as personal harassment. That’s a bit much.”
A few days later, a student named Michael Smith filed a formal complaint with the university, alleging that Khan “targeting ‘white people’ who celebrate Canada Day is blatant discrimination,” according to a copy of the document obtained by The Globe and Mail. Smith subsequently wrote an op-ed in the National Post, making Khan the target of a flurry of social media backlash.
“It bombshelled after that. I almost got impeached, I am dealing with this [disciplinary] process… It’s been very hectic and long, to say the least,” Khan said.
Following a formal investigation, Dalhousie’s administration found that Khan had violated the university’s code of conduct, which prohibits “unwelcome or persistent conduct that the student knows, or ought to know, would cause another person to feel demeaned, intimidated or harassed.”
According to Khan, the university took issue with her tone and use of profanity, siding with the complainant and finding it understandable that he felt offended.
Dalhousie’s Vice-Provost of Student Affairs, Arig al Shaibah, said she wouldn’t comment on specific student matters, citing privacy concerns. But respect and inclusion are at the core of Dalhousie’s mission, al Shaibah said in a statement sent to VICE News.
“These are complex issues, and it is my hope that all campus community members will play an active role in promoting critical and constructive dialogue about individual, relational and systemic opportunities to advance our equity, diversity and inclusion goals,” she said.
“No one who looks like me will have the power to oppress folks with privilege.”
Khan contends that it’s inappropriate for the university to dictate to her, as a racialized woman, how she should talk about race.
“The university is policing speech and characterizing political speech as personal harassment. That’s a bit much.”
Khan said terms like white fragility are regularly used in academia, including in classes that she’s taken at Dalhousie. As for the reverse racism allegation, Khan said she’s tired of having to explain why the concept isn’t valid.
“The people at the top don’t look like me and they have never experienced anything like what I’ve experienced. They will never know what that feels like,” said Khan. “No one who looks like me will have the power to oppress folks with privilege. It’s me who’s not getting the job because my name is different, it’s me who won’t be able to get that mortgage because people don’t want me in their community, it’s me who has to go through extra security checks at the airport, and gets called a terrorist when I walk down the street.”
The university proposed an informal solution that she attend leadership and coalition building counseling sessions. Khan, a well-known activist on campus, refused, arguing that she sees nothing wrong with her tone. “Anger is definitely reasonable for being personally targeted,” she said, and that the university has never made an issue of students swearing in any other context.
Now the case has been kicked up to the Senate Discipline Committee, which could potentially add additional penalties. Khan has enlisted the help of a lawyer, and a hearing is expected to happen in the fall.
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Best films of 2012
By David Walsh and Joanne Laurier
29 December 2012
As we noted in September, in our coverage of this year’s Toronto international film festival, “This year’s festival and the general state of the film world present a sharper contradiction than ever. On the one hand, the major productions of the American film studios, which dominate the world market, are more and more negligible, often painfully so. The summer and this fall so far have been especially miserable. …
“On the other hand, an initial list of films that seemed worth seeing in Toronto included more than 80 titles, an unprecedented number. We succeeded in viewing nearly 50 of those. And, while there were disappointments and obvious failures, the level of seriousness and honesty seemed to us higher than at any such event in memory. Several dozen films fell into the general category of the thoughtful and socially critical.”
A World Not Ours
Filmmaking on the whole continues to be far behind global events and human conditions. A self-involved, self-satisfied, upper middle class layer dominates the cinema world that remains largely oblivious to events going on in front of its nose. War, poverty, social disaster—all of this barely registers. Such people have loftier concerns: their own personal relationships, neuroses and unhealthy fantasies.
A Separation
By contrast, works such as Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours, Ra'anan Alexandrowicz The Law in These Parts and Far From Afghanistan (for all its unevenness), directed by John Gianvito and others, represent something different and opposed, an honest attempt to look at the world and assist an audience in orienting itself.
The Law in These Parts
The polarization in contemporary filmmaking and in the reactions to it has found specific expression in the US in recent months. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is the first significant film about that major American figure since 1939-40. In the final analysis, the timing is not fortuitous.
Some fifteen million people in the US have seen Lincoln, which is not of course a flawless work. Audience members, the anecdotal evidence suggests, generally watch the film’s drama unfold with rapt attention. To coin a phrase, one can hear a pin drop. There is an understanding, half-intuitive, that this is important subject matter and, moreover, that this monumental history belongs to those watching it. The Civil War was the second American Revolution, and features of the present situation, in an extremely contradictory fashion, are calling up its specter.
Lincoln
The Spielberg-Tony Kushner film, however, has been received for the most part by the liberal-left and what passes for “radical” press with either sullen indifference or outright hostility. Much of this layer decisively prefers either Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty or Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, or both.
That the New York Film Critics Circle bestowed its best picture and best director awards on Bigelow and her filthy film, which glorifies torture, assassination and the CIA, tells us nearly as much as we need to know.
The response to Tarantino’s latest toxic and artless, witless effort has been even more enthusiastic. We will write more about this when we review Django Unchained in the near future. But this much can be said. The “left” critics have made clear their preference for race, blood, irrationalism and mythology with almost a single voice. Some of the comments verge on the unhinged.
This milieu, a wing of the American establishment (and the same social element exists everywhere), is hostile to the revolutionary traditions in the US, to the population itself (which it ceaselessly calumnies as racist and backward) and to any “grand narrative” based on reason and a concern for historical realities and laws.
This social, moral and artistic gulf can only widen as the global situation heats up.
* * * * *
The best films that played in movie theaters in the US in 2012:
1. Lincoln, Steven Spielberg, 2012
2. A Separation [Jodaeiye Nader az Simin], Asghar Farhadi, 2011
3. The Law in These Parts [Shilton Ha Chok], Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, 2011
4. Citizen Gangster [original title: Edwin Boyd], Nathan Morlando, 2011
5. Tears of Gaza, Vibeke Lokkeberg, 2010
6. Being Flynn, Paul Weitz, 2012
7. The Queen of Versailles, Lauren Greenfield, 2012
8. The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Davies, 2011
9. The Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin, 2012
10. Central Park Five, Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon, 2012
Best director:
1. Steven Spielberg, Lincoln, 2012
Best performances:
1. Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln, 2012
2. Payman Maadi, A Separation [Jodaeiye Nader az Simin], 2011
3. Scott Speedman, Citizen Gangster, 2011
4. Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild, 2012
5. Sareh Bayat, A Separation [Jodaeiye Nader az Simin], 2011
Best supporting performances:
1. David Straithairn, Lincoln, 2012
2. Kevin Durand, Citizen Gangster [original title: Edwin Boyd], 2011
3. Tom Hiddleston, The Deep Blue Sea, 2011
4. Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild, 2012
5. Cecile De France, The Kid With a Bike [Le gamin au vélo], 2011
Best screenplay:
1. Lincoln, 2012
Best first feature:
1. Citizen Gangster [original title: Edwin Boyd], 2011
Best documentary:
1. The Law in These Parts [Shilton Ha Chok], 2011
The best films we saw in 2012 that have not yet been distributed:
1. A World Not Ours, Mahdi Fleifel, 2012
2. Far From Afghanistan, John Gianvito, Jon Jost, Minda Martin, Travis Wilkerson, Soon-Mi Yoo, 2012
3. Dormant Beauty [Bella addormentata], Marco Bellocchio, 2012
4. Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, Marina Zenovich, 2012
5. Underground: The Julian Assange Story, Robert Connolly, 2012
6. Detroit Unleaded, Rola Nashef, 2012
7. The We and the I, Michel Gondry, 2012
8. Fidai, Damien Ounouri, 2012
9. After the Battle [Baad el Mawkeaa], Yousry Nasrallah, 2012
10. Artifact, Jared Leto, 2012
WSWS reviewer Richard Phillips writes :
These are my favourite films of the year, all three from the Sydney Film Festival. Given the dearth of decent films in Australian cinemas this year—Spielberg's Lincoln will not appear until 2013—I've also included classics re-released on blu-ray and dvd this year. These are all high-quality remasters with interesting extras.
2012 films
The Law in These Parts by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz (Israel)
Caesar Must Die by the Taviani Brothers (Italy)
Beauty by Oliver Hermanus (South Africa). This was the only one given an Australian theatrical release this year.
Important remastered classics released on blu-ray and dvd in 2012
Children of Paradise (1945) (France) by Marcel Carné
Rashomon (1950) (Japan) by Akira Kurosawa
The Organizer (1963) (Italy) by Mario Monicelli
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) (US) by Roman Polanski
Trilogy of Life: The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972) and The Thousand and One Nights (1974) (Italy) by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Heaven’s Gate (1980) (US) by Michael Cimino
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6-7 310 Jr. OL Lafayette, Calif. / Acalanes HS Redshirt available
Year Games
Played Games
Started 2018 12 6 2017 9 3 2016 12 10 2015 0 0 GoDucks.com Biography AS A JUNIOR (2018)
Preseason
» Athlon Sports All-Pac-12 fourth team
AS A SOPHOMORE (2017)
Played in nine games at left and right tackle … Started the final three games at right tackles … Played all but one offensive snap (219 of 220) over the last three contests … Graded out at 80 percent or better in all three starts, according to Pro Football Focus … Finished with a top 10 grade among offensive linemen in the Pac-12 the last two regular season games … Helped pave the way for an average of 237 yards rushing the last three games … Part of an offensive line that helped the offense finish No. 12 nationally in rush yards per game (251.0) and No. 18 in scoring offense (36.0) … vs. Arizona (Nov. 18): Made first start of the season at right tackle … Graded out at a team-best 82.4, good for ninth in the Pac-12 that week … vs. Oregon State (Nov. 25): Graded out ninth in the Pac-12 for the second consecutive week at 83.2 after a season-best 78 snaps … Posted a season-best pass blocking grade of 85.4 … vs. No. 25 Boise State (Dec. 16): Played all 66 snaps and finished with a season-best 85.9 grade, which included a 89.1 run blocking mark.
AS A REDSHIRT FRESHMAN (2016)
Started 10 games at left tackle and played in all 12 games … Started the final nine games (all Pac-12) … Played every snap in three games … Had a pass blocking grade over 80 percent in five contests, according to Pro Football Focus … Graded out over 80 overall in three games … Helped Oregon finish No. 15 nationally in total offense (491.7) … Part of an offensive line that led the way for 200 yards rushing and 200 yards passing in the same game seven times … Helped pave the way for nine 200-yard rushing games en route to the team finishing second in the Pac-12 in rush yards per game (226.4) … vs. UC Davis (Sept. 3): Started Click to view Brady Aiello's complete biography
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The big news of the day is probably something to do with Greece, some election somewhere, or maybe Kim Kardashian growing a penis to one-up Caitlin Jenner. But if you’re a child of the 80s like I am, then the biggest news of the day is this:
Hasbro is bringing MASK back!
According to MTrakker.com, the toy makers included a slide for their company overview that included that unmistakable logo for the Mobile Armored Strike Klan Kommand. Needless to say, a movie adaptation is probably already in the works (they say Matt Trakker appears in the next GI Joe sequel).
If you don’t remember, MASK (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) were a bunch of toys with cars and trucks that transformed into tanks fighting a somewhat covert war against the evil forces of VENOM (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem). (Honestly though, I always felt that Vicious Evil Network of “Misogynists” was a more fitting name. After all, they only had one female operative, who was also a dominatrix). Venom was led by Miles Mayhem, who piloted the coolest vehicle ever: a helicopter that changes into a jet!
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As a side gimmick, MASK and VENOM forces also wore helmets that protected their identities while also giving them special powers. Some helmets can levitate objects, while others can shoot laser darts or make the wearer invisible.
Which leads me to my big rant… Matt Trakker’s Spectrum helmet. The leader of MASK wore a helmet that gave him powers of sound and light, and also represented what I hated most about cartoons: inconsistency.
Sometimes that helmet can shoot sound blasts like a weapon, help him fly, allow him to see in different spectrums, and other times it can bend light or something to create illusions – which annoyingly was another mask’s power.
I mean, just choose one power and stick to it, you know? It’s not fair on the other helmets who only have one power. It’s not One Helmet to Rule Them All because it’s technology. If you have the technology to make one super-helmet, make them for all your friends too, you selfish jackass!
Speaking of rings, the other big offender is the Heart Ring from Captain Planet. In one episode he’ll use it to tame animals, and in another episode he’ll use it to telepathically communicate with his friends. If you look in the internal production character bible, it probably says this: “Can’t be bothered defining the Heart Ring power. Just adapt to plug plot holes in every episode.”
Actually, the most powerful application of the Heart Ring was the one thing they never did on the show. For most guys with the Heart Ring, the first thing they’d do would be Wind and Water – at the same time.
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This piece of news got us thinking about other toys and cartoons from the 1980s that are due for their long awaited comeback. Here are the Top Nine Cartoons/Toys that Geek Culture would like to see return.
Drop a Facebook comment below!
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“Lock her up! Lock her up!”
This is when the Republican National Convention turned dangerous. Hundreds of Republican delegates on the floor of the convention during the official proceedings were shouting that the opposing candidate, Hillary Clinton, should be thrown in jail. The GOPers weren’t merely urging her defeat in November. They were demanding she be treated as a criminal and sent to the hoosegow. This moment marked the culmination of a meme on the right: that Clinton is not a legitimate leader and that her election would not be legitimate. By embracing this theme and placing it center stage at Trumpalooza, Donald Trump and the GOP were undermining, if not threatening, democratic governance.
It’s not news that the Trump movement has been laced with violence and extremism—and it has hit a fever pitch at the convention this week. On Tuesday night, minutes after the “lock her up” chants, defeated GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson linked Clinton to Lucifer (because of a college paper she wrote on leftist organizer Saul Alinsky). And on Wednesday morning, the news broke that a prominent Trump supporter, Al Baldasaro, had declared on a radio show that Clinton deserved to “be put in the firing line and shot for treason.” Baldasaro had repeatedly spoken at Trump rallies during the primary campaign, and when the New Hampshire GOP delegation cast its votes for Trump during the roll call vote on Tuesday evening, he stood next to Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, as Lewandowski enthusiastically read off the tally for Trump. And Trump once referred to Baldasaro as “my favorite vet.” So here we have a top Trump champion advocating murderous violence.
The call for Clinton’s execution is not as shocking as it should be. (Some Trump voters are down with this.) Hillary’s demonization has been the central organizing principle of the convention. (On Tuesday night, there were far more anti-Clinton speeches than pro-Trump presentations.) Delegates trot about Cleveland wearing “Hillary for Prison” T-shirts and badges. Vendors tell me these are the best-selling merch. On the floor, delegates wave “Hillary for Prison” signs, and no convention staffers stop them. Trumpers routinely state as a fact that Clinton has committed treason—they need not explain how: Benghazi, the emails, the Clinton Foundation, whatever—and ought to be punished for her crimes. The only reason she is not, they say, is that President Barack Obama and the corrupt federal government are protecting her. It’s all one big evil plot.
Within the ranks of Trump Nation, Clinton’s guilt has long been a given. In 2014, Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, tweeted, “Hillary must be brought to justice—arrested, tried and executed for murder.” At a pro-Trump rally he helped organize in Cleveland on Monday, Stone, after saying he had just met with Trump staffers, declared that Clinton had mounted a cover-up in the death of Vince Foster, a White House aide who committed suicide during the Bill Clinton presidency. Stone stated as a fact that she had ordered Foster’s body secretly moved from the White House to a park outside Washington. (The official investigations of the time concluded that Foster had killed himself in this park.) “We demand the prosecution of Bill and Hillary Clinton for their crimes,” Stone shouted, to the cheers of the crowd. He declared the Clintons had committed “treason.”
At this event, Alex Jones, a prominent conspiracy theorist and 9/11 truther, decried Hillary Clinton as part of a secretive global conspiracy seeking world domination. He shouted his catch phrase: “The answer to 1984 is 1776.” This was essentially a message of violence—a warning that citizens might have to take up arms against the governing elite to prevent tyranny. In other words, if Clinton triumphs, be ready to lock and load. (This has long been a deeply held notion on the right: We must keep our guns in case one day it is necessary to fight the wicked federal government.)
Trump has encouraged all this. By regularly referring to Clinton as “Crooked Hillary,” he signals that she deserves indictment and that a Clinton victory in November will not be acceptable. He has denounced the “rigged system” over and over. Well, what happens when a “rigged system” yields an outcome in which a “crooked” politician who ought to be imprisoned ends up in the White House? How can Trump and his followers abide by that? How could any patriot stand by and allow such a travesty to occur?
Trump’s convention has given voice to the most extremist portions of the right. It has sharpened the partisan divide. It has cast Clinton as a figure who cannot be allowed to take the White House—even if somehow she collects more votes (or the “rigged system” says she collects more votes). Trump has established a term sheet for this election that establishes an alarming dichotomy: If he wins, the process worked; if she wins, the game is corrupt and the results cannot be trusted. This is a perilous moment. There is talk of killing a presidential nominee and a foundation is being set for delegitimizing an election. And the convention is only halfway over.
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Attorneys stationed at John F. Kennedy Airport to assist passengers detained under President Donald Trump's travel ban issued statements Monday afternoon, saying they believe about ten people have been detained by Customs and Border Protection todayan Iraqi national, another person whose country of origin is unknown, and as many as nine others who arrived at JFK from Saudi Arabia around 11:40 this morning.
The ban, which was instated Friday, bars all refugees, as well as immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, for a number of months. It also bans Syrian refugees indefinitely.
"Among those being reportedly held include one elderly individual and one child," stated the JFK attorneys, who have formed the group NoBan JFK with support from the New York Immigration Coalition.
NoBan JFK believes the group detained today are the only detainees as of 4:30 p.m. Since Trump's travel ban went into effect Friday, they say they have helped release 42 detainees.
But those stationed at the airport, as well as attorneys challenging the executive order federally with the American Civil Liberties Union, caution that numbers are constantly fluctuating and difficult to confirm, as Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security are not cooperating with attorneys by providing official lists of detainees.
"The White House says no one is still detained, but our volunteer attorneys are telling different stories," said NYCLU Director Donna Lieberman on a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon.
"CBP isn't providing us with information, so all of the information we are getting is word of mouth from people on site," said attorney Salaam Bhatti, who has been volunteering pro bono at JFK. "Thankfully we have a great team here, working around the clock. Right now we have over 30 attorneys, and not just on site but also people off site who are helping draft pleas."
Rpts heard about 9 ppl from Saudi FLT 021 JFK Term 1 at 11:40AM held now for questioning, incl elderly & children. UPDTS to come #NoBanJFK — NoBanJFK (@nobanjfk) January 30, 2017
A stay issued in Brooklyn federal court late Saturday night ordered Customs and Border Protection to stop all deportations while an ACLU lawsuit is considered. And on Sunday, DHS reiterated Secretary John Kelly's decision to grant access to lawful permanent residents, or green card holders.
But ACLU attorneys said Monday that they believe CBP has continued to detain immigrants with various visas, as well as green cards, for hours at JFK. They said that chaos seemed to be the rule of the weekend, with mixed messages from Washington on how the order is to be implemented.
"What we've seen in practice is that lawful permanent residents who might have before Friday sailed through the admission process at a port of entry have been detained for many hours," said NYCLU staff attorney Jordan Wells, who spent much of the weekend at JFK. "While the agency fumbles around with the decision of whether to admit them to the country."
"We also know from numerous accounts that arrivals were pressured by CBP to withdraw their applications for admission into the country, both before and seemingly after the stay issue was ordered in our case," Wells added. "So what you have is the agency subverting the court's order by using coercive tactics."
CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment; DHS did not respond to multiple requests.
On Sunday evening, lawyers said, an Iranian man with a green card was detained and held for three hours at JFK after arriving on a flight from Morocco. The man is a lawyer, they said, and has lived in the US since 2009. He was questioned about his trip, family, and career.
While attorneys continue to organize at JFK, Bhatti said they are also beginning to coordinate with volunteers around the world, to set up similar legal assistance operations at foreign airports. As the number of detainees in American airports dwindles, the Department of Homeland Security has reiterated its intention to stop banned individuals from boarding flights to the US. There are already numerous reports of Green Card and visa holders being detained at foreign airports, including a CUNY student with an F1 visa.
"We are collecting information from attorneys from America who will be traveling abroad," said Bhatti. "We are slowly getting info from attorneys in other nations who want to help."
With continuing reports of lengthy questioning and hours of detainment, Bhatti acknowledged that immigrants and refugees who manage to get on planes to the US could get a hostile reception.
"It might be best to wait a month and let the dust settle," he said. "But we do understand, at the same time, that these are refugees who may need to leave their home country. If it's that kind of urgency, come here and we'll do what we can."
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It's tempting to start spouting "end of an era'' talk about Sydney. The Swans, after all, have just recorded their lowest finish for four years, have bid farewell to Adam Goodes and Rhyce Shaw, and probably to Lewis Jetta as well. There's another four players — Ted Richards, Mike Pyke, Jarrad McVeigh and Ben McGlynn — on the wrong side of 30. The back line looks in need of some regeneration, and up forward, given Lance Franklin's issues, there's an air of uncertainty. John Longmire's side was perhaps only a few sprayed shots at goal away from another against-the-odds preliminary final win. Credit:Getty Images But if they're the headlines, they also overlook the considerable detail which suggests that, as they have for most of the past 20 years, the Swans will keep on keeping on. Let's not forget that John Longmire's side was perhaps only a few sprayed shots at goal away from another against-the-odds qualifying final win. One which would have afforded an injury-hit line-up a critical week's break and earned more recovery time for indispensable midfielders Kieren Jack and Luke Parker.
Regardless of Franklin's absence, that would have placed an entirely different complexion on their preliminary final had they made it. And the midfield core which drives Sydney will be about for a while yet. Parker is still just 22, Dan Hannebery 24, Josh Kennedy 27 and Jack 28. Tom Mitchell, the likely next cab off the rank for a major midfield role, is also just 22. Then there's the likely gem that is Isaac Heeney, still only a teenager. That's in addition to the clutch of players Longmire continues to develop, including Gary Rohan, Harry Cunningham, Jake Lloyd, Dean Towers, Zak Jones, Brandon Jack and James Rose. Adelaide bowed out but can take pride in their performance after losing their coach in tragic circumstances. Credit:Getty Images In list terms, a significant step came a year ago, Sydney's list having gone from the second-oldest in the AFL to only the fifth-oldest, a figure that will fall again this summer with the departures of Goodes and Shaw. Yes, the Swans could be a little more dynamic and explosive, hence the importance of a player like Rohan in particular finally taking that next step.
But as a collective still good enough to win 16 games this season, only a game off top spot, it's not like there's a whole heap of work to be done. And while for many football people, the novelty of the Swans has well and truly worn off, the reality is there's no logical reason they're going to be taking a tumble down the ladder any time soon. The Last Word THE KUDOS Yes, they were systematically taken apart by Hawthorn on Friday night, but Adelaide's exit from season 2015 should play a distant second to an incredible act of resilience by an entire club in the face of unprecedented tragedy. Who would have dreamed when the Crows trudged from Domain Stadium in tears in round 15, shattered by the death of coach Phil Walsh, that this side would be playing off for a preliminary final spot? Adelaide won seven of nine games from that moment until Friday night's loss, leaders Taylor Walker and Patrick Dangerfield superb, their teammates following the example. They should be immensely proud of their efforts. THE UNLAMENTED
If Sydney, as has been reported, are to be released a year early from their contract to play three games a year plus finals at ANZ Stadium, it's hard to think of too many who will be shedding tears. While the playing surface for Saturday night's semi-final was better than what we've become accustomed to, the crowd, and atmosphere, still left plenty to be desired. The turnout of 31,162 was the second-lowest in 10 finals held at the ground, the empty bays of seats conspicuous and the lack of noise and colour still palpable. The SCG has always been Sydney's true home. About time it was their only one. THE ANSWER You just knew that after a subdued first final and a week of people questioning his intensity and appetite, Hawthorn skipper Luke Hodge was going to provide some sort of statement in his next appearance. The size of that statement was apparent from two minutes into Friday night's game, when the captain unloaded from 50 metres for the first goal. Four in total, 29 disposals and the usual ton of hard work and marshalling of the troops said it all, really. And you only had to see the reaction of Hodge's teammates to that first goal to get an idea of the regard in which he is held. THE SUB Few players, coaches or fans will be sorry to see the end of the substitute in two weeks' time. Which may be particularly good timing for North Melbourne's Lindsay Thomas, who twice now has shed the green vest just in time to play an important role in the Roos' two finals wins, kicking effectively the sealer each time. Thomas isn't seeing a lot of game time, but his forward nous and fresh legs could continue to be a handy ace up the sleeve for North coach Brad Scott for at least another week, if not quite the role the man himself would prefer to have.
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Pope Gregory VII summons Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV to Canossa. (Wikipedia)
Excommunication as a Restorative Measure
COMMENTARY
FATHER BRIAN MULLADY, OP
Why excommunicate people? Is this not a strange holdover from the medieval Church? Excommunication is a punitive device on the part of the Church and is more than merely denying holy Communion. It also publicly rebukes and shames the person.
The cause for excommunication is explicitly “obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin” (Canon 915). However, a case could certainly be made that the punishment of excommunication could also be attached to “rebuke a person from whose behavior there arises scandal or serious disturbance of order in a manner accommodated to the special conditions of the person and the deed” (Canon 1339, Paragraph 2).
The Church takes this extreme measure only after all other efforts to correct a person have failed. It should not be treated lightly. Some have viewed it as a way to bring errant Catholics (including Catholic politicians) into line. Though its intent is always to restore the offenders to truth and communion, its extreme nature often makes it unlikely that such a thing may occur. Failing reconciliation, excommunication can serve as a clear statement to the faithful of the serious nature of our moral doctrine.
There have been a number of difficulties that have arisen in the Church in the United States recently that have prompted both bishops and laity to investigate the possibility of the use of excommunication to seek to restore Church discipline. These have ranged from in-house Church matters like rebellion of parishioners against pastors to revisiting what possible reaction the Church can employ towards politicians who publicly and without compunction dissent from Church teaching on matters like same-sex “marriage” or abortion.
The history of excommunication leads to mixed results. In the early Church, St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, used the threat of excommunication against Emperor Theodosius I for his massacre of 7,000 people in Thessalonica. He told the emperor to imitate David in his repentance and readmitted him to Communion after several months of penance.
In the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV over many disputed issues, not least of which was Henry’s attempt to depose Gregory from the papacy. In his excommunication, Gregory also absolved Henry’s subjects from obedience. Henry’s excommunication produced a deep effect on both Germany and Italy.
In response, Henry was forced to come to Canossa and wait in the snow for three days; he did penance and was ultimately absolved from the excommunication. In medieval Europe, where almost everyone was Catholic, the emperor needed the Church, and so excommunication was effective.
A contemporary example of a positive result of excommunication occurred in 2010, when Mercy Sister Margaret McBride incurred automatic excommunication for her role in an abortion that was performed at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix. As of September 2011, a statement from the Sisters of Mercy reported that Sister Margaret has “met the requirements for reinstatement with the Church and she is no longer excommunicated.”
On the other hand, the excommunication of Martin Luther, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I had little effect personally or on their followers. The use of this as a weapon created sympathy for the offender and often led to a more solid backing of dissent. The Renaissance was a very different time in the life of the Church, and people did not take excommunication as seriously. Like every punishment, if used too much, too often or for reasons which are trivial or self-serving, as was certainly the case for many of the excommunications imposed by the Church in her history, people simply ignore it.
Today, many politicians could well look on excommunication as an asset to re-election, especially if the press looked upon such an “attack” as un-American. Also, a patchwork of action by a few bishops across the country would have little effect. The hierarchy would have to address errant politicians in a coordinated effort and be prepared to ultimately invoke more serious sanctions, with full realization that the Church could be perceived as un-American.
Obviously then, excommunication must be used with great prudence. The purpose of all punishment is the amendment of the offender and the consolation and peace of the faithful. Public dissent from Church teaching and scandalous libel of the clergy can lead to conditions in which the faithful may perceive a given doctrinal aberration to be true or experience great distress. The maxim of the law is: Silence gives consent. If a group of the faithful is causing scandal by supporting teachings or laws contrary to the natural law or by seriously disturbing the peace of the parish or the diocese, it could appear that the Church agrees with their position. Of course, one should attempt many actions to bring about reconciliation short of excommunication. Pastors are not tyrants, but shepherds, and all reasonable attempts must be made to enlist parishioners as partners.
As an example of action short of excommunication, in a very prudent and thoughtful letter to parishioners who were inciting others to hatred of the clergy and their bishop, while not directly mentioning the sanction of excommunication, Bishop Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, Wis., appended texts from Church documents that suggest the possibility of ecclesiastical censure. One such: “Canon 1373: A person who publicly incites among subjects animosities or hatred against the Apostolic See or an ordinary because of some act of power or ecclesiastical ministry or provokes subjects to disobey them is to be punished by an interdict or other just penalties.” Though the Church is respectful of disagreement, there are times when disagreement becomes calumny or can lead to the impression of moral relativism, a situation that the peace and public order of the Church cannot tolerate.
It is true that there are many Catholics in the United States who dissent from Church teaching on a number of matters, especially moral ones. For dissenters deeply involved in the public forum, failure on the part of Church authorities to provide some needed corrective is tantamount to carte blanche to the faithful to believe whatever they want. The impression is given that the truths of our religion are a smorgasbord from which one can pick and choose.
To be sure, if excommunication were used there would be many who would ignore it. On the other hand, to remain silent would suggest that even Church authorities do not take their own teaching seriously. Those who obstinately support causes like same-sex “marriage,” birth control and abortion should be ecclesiastically censured. This would include Catholic college professors who advocate such causes. Otherwise the Church runs the risk of being neither hot nor cold, but seeming to adapt doctrine to political or social expediency.
Though it is true that the Church does not have a political mission, prudence is not the same as avoiding trouble. In fact, where defense of truth is concerned, it is just the opposite. The Church does have the obligation to form the public conscience on correct teaching in both doctrine and morals for the sake of clarity and to avoid scandal, but a coordinated effort by the hierarchy would be essential.
Dominican Father Brian Mullady has a doctorate in sacred theology. He is a mission preacher and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
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Over the past six months or so, I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten to know Donovan. Most people know this man as @MrOzAtheist on Twitter. We’ve become great friends in such a short period of time. He’s been a solid source of support during difficult times, and I’ve been honored to have been his friend through times that were hard on him as well. Six months doesn’t seem that long; I feel like we’ve been great friends for so much longer.
If you know Donovan at all, you know how kind, generous and compassionate he is. You also know how committed to being an outspoken atheist he is, and how openly he supports and fights for marriage equality everywhere. I know marriage equality is an issue that matters to him more than most.
So, today is his birthday in Australia (his birthday is technically tomorrow here) and he is currently sleeping. I thought it would be cool for him to wake up on his birthday to us having raised some dough for an issue that means a lot to him. I can’t really pop by with a gift-wrapped lightsaber or storm trooper helmet, so I thought this would be the best way to to give him a gift on his birthday.
I’ve put together a Gofundraise.com.au campaign to raise 500 Aussie bucks for the Australian Marriage Equality organization. I’m asking you to help us reach $500 in donations for this worthy cause in honour of our favourite Aussie heathen, MrOzAtheist. If you adore him as much as I do, make this day extra special for him. Even if you can only spare a buck, every dollar counts.
Donate Now
Happy birthday, Donovan. I hope this day turns out to be one of the best days ever!
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On Monday, Kelly Slater surprised the the public (including the World's Best Surfers) in announcing his split with Quiksilver, his sponsor of 23 years, and plans to launch his own line with global fashion giant Kering.
Slater signed with Quiksilver in 1990 at the age of 18, just before winning the US$100,000 Body Glove Surfbout at Lower Trestles in a performance that put the surf world on notice. The first of his 11 ASP World Titles came just two years later, at the age of 20.
Here is Slater's open letter on the move:
There is little I can say that would give the credit due or cover the debt of gratitude I feel on a personal and professional level to Quiksilver. As a brand and on a human level, they have been a part of my life, career, and personal relationships for more than 23 years now, well over half my life. They've supported me through good times and bad, personal hardships and competitive triumphs, and never wavered in backing my choices and desires in all that time. Under the tutelage of Bob McKnight, Bruce Raymond, Alan Green, Pierre Agnes and Danny Kwock (and many others), Quiksilver signed me to a 100% sponsorship deal in 1990, finishing up my amateur career and guiding me into my professional life and adulthood.
Having their support group around the world allowed me to create a life I only dreamt of as a child...making a documentary (Kelly Slater In Black and White) about the start of my professional career, going on boat trips and small charter planes to remote locations I'd likely never see, taking long car rides and promo tours to places I'd otherwise never visit, doing film trips to tropical islands few people have ever seen, etc. There could have been no better partner for me to have than Quiksilver.
The memories I have of joining the team and becoming like brothers with my heroes and team riders Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones and making lifelong friendships with Stephen Bell and others has fulfilled my life exponentially. There aren't enough pages or words to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for the experiences that have come from this relationship we've shared together. So it is with a heavy heart and a lifetime of positive memories that I move in a new chapter of my life.
As I contemplate the amazing opportunities I've had in life and the amount of good fortune I've encountered along the way, I'm excited to announce today that I'm embarking on a new journey. For years I've dreamt of developing a brand that combines my love of clean living, responsibility and style. The inspiration for this brand comes from the people and cultures I encounter in my constant global travels and this is my opportunity to build something the way I have always wanted to.
So I am excited to tell you that I've chosen The Kering Group as a partner. They share my values and have the ability to support me in all of my endeavors. I look forward to exploring all of the new opportunities this partnership will provide, but this hasn't happened by chance, nor has it happened without an incredible amount of work by a few key individuals. As I embark on this new journey, I am sticking to my gut instincts and the belief that your dreams can become reality with the right intentions. I look forward to sharing more about it soon...
-- Kelly
Bob McKnight, Founder and Executive Chairman of Quiksilver, said the following:
"Kelly has been a part of the Quiksilver family for over 20 years. It's been an incredible journey watching him grow from a young surfer with great potential, to the 11-time World Champion he is today. We wish Kelly all the best as he enters this next phase of his career."
Todd Hymel, Kering's COO of the Sport & Lifestyle division, commented to Shop-Eat-Surf via email about Slater's new role:
"We are very excited about the announcement today and the opportunity to work with Kelly. Kelly is a surf legend/sport icon that encompasses many of the values true to Kering: most notably sustainability, transparency, and a constant quest to be the best at what we do through dedication and imagination."
"The partnership announced will be a multi-layered relationship with Kering supporting Kelly in the launch and the development of his own apparel brand, and acting as an operational partner providing assistance where possible in areas like sourcing, logistics, e-commerce, etc. In addition, Kelly will be an ambassador for Kering and be involved with certain initiatives at the Group level, notably related to sustainability, as well as at some of our brands."
Often celebrated as the greatest surfer to ever live, Slater owns 11 ASP World Titles, 54 elite ASP WCT victories and countless other accolades. At 42 years old, his ability to both compete with the world's best surfers and continually challenge for the top spot is the stuff of sports legend.
After finishing Equal 5th at the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast, Slater will next do battle with the rest of the ASP Top 34 this coming week at the Drug Aware Margaret River Pro from April 2 - 13, 2014.
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In what has become the prevailing WWE angle of 2017, the storyline reveal of Raw general manager Kurt Angle as the biological father of Jason Jordan continues to tease strong possibilities on a build toward WrestleMania 34 in April.
Beginning with a series of cryptic texts on Angle's phone in May and continuing through the July reveal of their relationship, the pairing of father and son quickly became a bright spot on Raw. But the storyline didn't truly catch fire until November when Jordan began to come into his own as a leading man.
Relying on scripted nepotism to gain opportunities his character hadn't yet earned, Jordan became a heat-seeking missile as a whiny babyface who drew constant boos from the crowd while subtly teasing a future heel turn.
Angle, who returned to WWE in March ahead of his induction into the Hall of Fame at WrestleMania 33, appeared as a guest this week on CBS Sports' "In This Corner Podcast" [listen and subscribe here] and spoke about Jordan's real-life evolution as a performer.
"I knew Jason had the ability to do it. I didn't know if he would have the ability to carry the storyline," Angle said. "I knew what he could do in the ring. I wasn't concerned about the fans saying, 'Oh man, this guy is actually pretty damn good.' We already knew that, and we were hoping that his character was [on the same level]."
While Jordan, 29, came to Raw with a reputation as a strong in-ring worker from his time as one half of former SmackDown tag team champions American Alpha, it is his vast improvement on the microphone that have taken his character and the storyline involving Angle to a whole new level.
"You know what's crazy? Everything that the fans have gone through the last three or four months, most of the fans can't stand him," Angle said. "A lot of the fans are saying, 'He's getting the wrong kind of heat because we really don't like him for real.'
"Everything that has occurred up until now, Vince [McMahon] already knew how they were going to react, so this has been working. As many fans will say 'it's not working' and 'get rid of him' or 'I'm not buying it,' now that the storyline has started to span out and developing further, it was a good fit. Jason is doing a great job, and he has carried the storyline very well. We will see where it goes from here but it should be pretty intriguing."
The way in which Jordan, as a babyface, has drawn such a negative response from the crowd has created comparisons to The Rock's initial WWE debut in 1996 as "blue chip" prospect Rocky Maivia. In Jordan's case, it was planned that way. Jordan has also drawn comparison to The Rock in how ready he appears for stardom at such an early point in his main roster career.
Angle agreed with the correlation.
"Yes, yes. We knew, and I knew personally, that this was going to make the fans sick to their stomach [of Jordan], but I wasn't concerned about how it was going to develop and where it is going to go from here on," Angle said. "It's gong to be a pretty cool storyline, and I think a lot of fans are going to say, 'You know what? This kid deserves to be in the main event level.'
"[Jordan] is developing every single week. He's getting better and better, and his promos and pre-tapes are getting better and better. His in-ring ability -- I said this before and I will say it again -- he has got to be in the top three or the top five in-ring performers from an athletic standpoint right now today. A lot of people would disagree with me but continue to watch him and see what he can do and you will see what I'm talking about here in the future."
Angle has made the rounds recently promoting the 25th anniversary of Monday Night Raw, which will emanate simultaneously from Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the Manhattan Center in New York on Jan. 22 (USA Network, 8 p.m. ET). Tickets are available for each event through all Ticketmaster outlets.
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It was happening, it was one of those days, one of those moods. I began to get hot, things were ringing up as wrong prices, people were waiting while I tried to get things worked out, waiting for managers to fix the system. Customers getting impatient in line, staring at me work. I started to sweat, I was seething inside. I was not blatantly rude to anybody, but I certainly was not overly friendly, and I most definitely couldn’t muster up a smile. It was taking all my energy not to flip the cash machine over, walk away and say “to hell with it!”. Little did I know, a similar scene was soon to unfold…
A Story About An Un-medicated, Undiagnosed Bipolar Cashier
I have been on mood stabilizing medication for several years now. Sometimes I think I am fine and wonder why I need any medication at all. Then I remember back to when I was not medicated. I remember the unbearable irritability, the profound anger and rage of a volatile and explosive mind. I was so irritable that I couldn’t even stand myself, I was literally getting in my own way and on my own nerves. I thank god often that I didn’t actually murder someone in a fit of rage. This kind of irritability and anger could result from just dropping a pencil or stubbing a toe. I’m not even going to talk about driving… Well… maybe just a little. The only way I could manage to not rip off my own head to relieve the anger was to imagine my car having undetectable go-go-gadget weapons that would just disintegrate any driver that would send me into a fit of road rage, which was almost any driver. I can’t even go into the things I imagined doing to people who honked their horns at me. Needless to say, after thinking back at how unstable my moods were I remember why I am on my medication and all is well with the world (for the most part anyway).
I am telling you this because I was thinking of an incident from back in the days of my unmedicated madness and thought I would share. At the time I am surprised that I did not spontaneously erupt into a ball of flame and combust from the heat of my own rage. It took place in a store where I worked customer service, which is quite possibly the worst job I could have in my unmedicated days, heck, even medicated.
It was around Christmas time…
I was working at a store that I would describe as a small version of Ikea. It wasn’t all that bad for the most part. I mostly worked organizing shelves and stocking merchandise, things I enjoy doing anyway. It is not that I am not a people person, but I do not do well with a large number of small, superficial interactions, especially if I am in the middle of doing something and am focused on it. I also hate being interrupted and having to drop what I am doing just because someone needs to ask me a question. If I am in the mood for it, I am great at it, but if not (and I am usually not) I loathe it. I’m pretty sure I did a terrible job hiding my complete and utter irritation with the customers. Especially when they were asking me how much something was when the price was plainly posted no more than 2 millimetres below the item on a bright yellow tag. Just like on every single other item in the store. Either way, I was completely out of line. It was never the customers fault, I just quite simply was not cut out for dealing with people and had a bad attitude and an un-medicated mood disorder. Some days I was fine but others, when my mood was off, I could be pretty bitchy. Typically I wasn’t put on as a cashier and worked as much as possible on the floor, left alone to organize and arrange just as I liked it. Besides, that was what I was really good at anyway. I didn’t mind just filling in on cash for someone to break or something like that, but I hated being assigned there for my shift. I would rather eat glass.
I will just give a little background note here: Around the time of the incident myself and some of the staff who had been there for years had recently found out that a girl who barely graduated high school, had no education, hadn’t worked in four years and had no experience was hired as a cashier for 75 cents more per hour than the rest of us. More than people with university degrees who ran their own sections, and had worked there for years. So there was a little bit on animosity brewing anyway…
So, on a busy day during the Christmas rush my manager decides I should spend my shift on cash. I requested that I please work the floor, but it wasn’t happening. A bitterness seed sprouts open in my gut, uh oh, that familiar feeling is brewing. So, swallowing my contempt I slowly moped to the cash. I kept up appearances but inside I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hide my absolute disdain for the hundreds of meaningless interactions I was about to endure. People started to enter, the store became more and more busy. It was the Christmas rush. I wasn’t even that experienced on the cash anyway so I’m not sure why he would put me there at the busiest time of the year. It was happening, it was one of those days, one of those moods. I began to get hot, things were ringing up as wrong prices, people were waiting while I tried to get things worked out, waiting for managers to fix the system. Customers getting impatient in line, staring at me work. I started to sweat, I was seething inside. I was not blatantly rude to anybody, but I certainly was not overly friendly, and I certainly couldn’t muster up a smile. It was taking all my energy not to flip the cash machine over, walk away and say “to hell with it!”.
Little did I know, a similar scene was soon to unfold.
I was barely holding myself together, but I was managing to keep things civil, ringing up the items and saying “have a nice day!”. You know, the basics at least. Then they came. The curtain guys. I will never forget those damn curtains. The first gentleman said hello, I responded the same and took the package of curtains to scan them. I didn’t engage in conversation and certainly didn’t give them a friendly smile, full of Christmas cheer, but I wasn’t directly rude to them either. Not good enough. The second man, with his smug face, his half smirk and is condescending attitude snidely remarked,”Uh, you could smile you know.”
I’m not sure where it came from, but before I knew what was happening my mouth was moving and I could hear my voice say, “Not for 8 bucks an hour I won’t.”. (Maybe some lingering bitterness about the 8.75 the unskilled labour was getting at the cash next to me?)
Oh shit, oops.
He glared at me and snottily said, “You’re a little bitch.” “I want to see your manager!”
Silence
Much of what happened next is a blur. I froze. It was as though every negative emotion hit me at once not allowing any of them to break through. The silence was palpable. There was a line up extending to the back wall of the store and only two cashiers. I glared at the men for a moment, then without a word I slid their curtains back to them without completing the transaction, left the cashier station, walked to the managers office and calmly said, “I need to speak with you right now.”
I was regaining my voice, emotions were starting to emerge.
My poor, clueless manager.
Trying not to lose it completely I informed him , my voice quivering from restrained rage, “They are pissed and want to speak to my manager, I really pissd them off.” Then it burst through and I snarled “But you can tell them that you are not my manager any more and I’ll be waiting for them outside of the store!”
By now I was livid, all the anger about the unfair wages amongst other issues I had with the staffing, hours and all the bullshit at the job bubbled up and as I gathered my things I proceeded to inform him that we all know about the new girl’s wage and all the other things that pissed me off about the store. Finally I said, “I told you not to put me on cash today.” and I stormed out the back door in a blaze of glory. Then, as promised, I awaited the men outside of the store. I watched them walk to their car. They looked back several times in fear.
“What are you doing?” “Are you following us?” “We are going to call the police!” they shouted in worried voices.
“And tell them what?”, I yelled. “That a 20 year old girl is going to attack two 40 year old men?”
I’m really not sure what I was planning to do, but I finally backed off and watched them until they were out of site. I’m pretty sure they were terrified.
Needless to say, I never returned to that store again. I hated working customer service anyway and it was worth giving up 8 measly bucks an hour to steal any ounce of pleasure they would have had complaining to my manager. It mustn’t have been very satisfying complaining to a manager about an employee who no longer works at the store.
Long story short, I no longer work customer service and I continue to take my medication regularly.
I am not proud of my behavior, but at the same time the emotions were so strong and so unbearable and overwhelming I couldn’t control them. If only I had known that I had a mental illness that was causing these powerful episodes. It was so difficult to live with.
Since being diagnosed and treated I live a relatively normal life. Of course I have up and down episodes but I know how to recognize them in time and I understand what is happening and what to do about it. I am so grateful to haver been diagnosed and been given a chance at a more balanced life.
It has been so long since I have been in such an unstable state that I sometimes forget what it feels like and how detrimental it is to myself and those around me. That is why, when I start to wonder if I really need my mood stabilizing medications, I think back and remind myself of the alternative, then swallow the pills.
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Internal emails between staff at North Carolina's environmental agency show state regulators were coordinating with Duke Energy before intervening in efforts by citizens groups trying to sue the company over pollution leeching from its coal ash dumps.
The emails were provided Thursday to The Associated Press by the Southern Environmental Law Center, which had filed notice in January 2012 of its intent to sue Duke under the Clean Water Act.
Within days, the emails show a Duke lobbyist contacted the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, where staff exchanged messages discussing "how Duke wants to be sued."
The agency used its authority to intervene in the lawsuit, quickly negotiating a proposed settlement where the $50 billion company would pay a $99,100 fine but be under no requirement to stop its pollution.
Also Thursday, Democrats at the North Carolina legislature said Duke Energy should be forced to move all of its coal ash to lined landfills away from water and make shareholders - not customers - pay for the cleanup.
House and Senate Democrats unveiled Thursday the framework of a bill they intend to introduce when the General Assembly reconvenes in May. They want Republicans in charge of the legislature to join them given last month's coal ash pond rupture along the Dan River.
Rep. Pricey Harrison of Greensboro is the chief author of the proposal, which also would repeal a 2013 provision critics say makes it harder to contain groundwater contamination at a waste dump.
"The House took immediate action designating a team of leaders and experts within the Environmental Review Commission on coal ash to begin working on both short-term fixes and long-term solutions," said Anna Robert, the communications director for North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis, in a statement. "Finally, the Democrats are acting on a problem that dates back to numerous Democratic administrations. We look forward to working with the Senate during the short session to eliminate the coal ash threat ? at Dan River and the other sites ? to North Carolina's waterways."
A statement from President pro tempore of the North Carolina Senate Phil Berger reads, "Sen. Berger is deeply concerned with the recent coal ash spill ? that's why he called for the General Assembly's Environmental Review Commission to gather information, assess damage and receive updates on clean-up and prevention efforts to ensure similar events never happen again. He believes fixing these problems should be an important focus of the General Assembly and is confident the information brought forward by federal and state regulators in their ongoing investigations will be helpful in creating a plan."
Other Republican leaders on environmental issues said this week they're collecting more information before deciding the steps to take.
AP reporters Michael Biesecker and Gary D. Robertson contributed to this report
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[Update: 23 October, We received word that Jeremy is now out of the SHU.]
We received word last night that Jeremy had been placed in the Segregated Housing Unit (SHU), also known as solitary confinement. He had previously been placed in solitary confinement during pretrial detention. Details are spotty, but this is what we know so far:
He was placed in the SHU on 10 October.
The prison, FCI Manchester, claims that Jeremy stole clothing, but we don’t know whether they allege that he stole from a guard or another inmate. Jeremy denies this accusation unequivocally, and it goes against his character.
We have been in contact with Jeremy’s lawyers, who are in contact with the prison to see if anything can be done to appeal his placement in the SHU.
Make no mistake: We firmly believe Jeremy has been placed in solitary confinement as retaliatory punishment for filing complaints against the prison for withholding his mail. The prison had begun rejecting books and even legal material related to Jeremy’s own case. Jeremy had written that he was willing to take his grievances to the highest possible level in order to see them resolved.
Because we feel this is a retaliatory measure, calling the jail or jail officials may be seen as aggression and may provoke the prison to further retaliate against Jeremy. Please, we beseech you, do not call the jail or jail officials at this time.
Solitary confinement is often described as psychological and physical torture. It’s often used to break down a prisoner’s will and spirit. As the CCR writes,
The devastating psychological and physical effects of prolonged solitary confinement are well documented by social scientists: prolonged solitary confinement causes prisoners significant mental harm and places them at grave risk of even more devastating future psychological harm.
Right now, the best thing everyone can do is write a note of encouragement, buy Jeremy a book, or donate to his commissary. All relevant information is here. If a book is rejected, Jeremy is notified and the book is returned to the distributor. Please contact us if this happens to you.
We will post updates both here, on Twitter and on Facebook as soon as we know anything. Please keep checking back, and thank you for your support.
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Peep the Concept Art from a Cancelled 1993 'Jurassic Park' Animated Series
Published Dec 06, 2016
While we await the colossally expensive sequel to Jurassic World , we can revisit the fictional dinos from the past with the concept art for a proposed Jurassic Park TV series.Called Escape from Jurassic Park, the show was developed by the long-gone Universal Cartoon Studios in 1993, and would've followed up the original Jurassic Park long before The Lost World.Now, the cultural archeologists over at The Jurassic Outpost have uncovered the concept art for the show, along with its original script. Escape from Jurassic Park would have taken place on the fictional, dinosaur-infested island of Isla Nublar. Until now, its concept art and script was only viewed by key executives like Steven Spielberg.Below, you can check out all of the art from the series. If you'd like to read an entire season's worth of scripts, visit The Jurassic Outpost here
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Feminism of the most absurd variety is big business for small bloggers. There are a group of women, mostly white, mostly college educated from middle class backgrounds that want to believe a narrative where they are the victims in a “patriarchal” system that is built for men. Being a victim eliminates all feelings of social responsibility or guilt. The problem with that, is as time marches on it becomes more and more difficult to prove the victimization of women in American society (and almost impossible in the UK and Canada). In comes the Microagression!
Microagressions are great to write about because they get the aforementioned professional victims, but also the people who disagree that such things are real. It’s down to such a science even buzzfeed, the bottom feeding shit aggregator site is jumping in. Lets visit these buzzworthy “microagressions” shall we (Note, for some reason buzzfeed after publishing this changed it to micro misogyny which was even more ridiculous and why I chose to make fun of them as actually being “micro misandry”.)
Bonus, from the comments (highlighted for your convenience):
Here’s my advice. Next time you see something about “Microagressions” don’t give them your clicks. Don’t let the terrorists win.
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Fans anticipating the star-studded music video of PSY’s “Daddy” were given a sneak peek of Jung Woo Sung‘s cameo through a photo that circulated on the internet on August 8.
According to Dispatch who released the photo of Jung Woo Sung and PSY, the photo was taken in the music video filming of “Daddy” held at Everland on August 7.
Wearing a green blazer with a white shirt, pants, and white shoes, Jung Woo Sung looks very casual and comfortable while seated with his legs crossed. PSY, on the other hand, is dressed in his signature suit and tie while standing near Jung Woo Sung.
After news of Jung Woo Sung making an appearance on PSY’s music video came out, the anticipation of the fans rose and many became curious of what the actor will do in the music video.
According to reports, 2NE1’s CL and “Little Psy” Hwang Min Woo will also be making appearances in the “Daddy” music video.
Jung Woo Sung was last seen in the box office hit “The Divine Move” which is about a pro-baduk/Go player that is out to seek revenge after being framed for murder. The movie was shown last July 3 and topped the box office on its first day of showing.
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