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Aboody is the descendant of generations of Iraqi Jews, once a community of 150,000. But after 1950, Jews were exiled and their heirlooms were pillaged.
“This belongs to me; it was taken by force. They didn’t willingly give it,” said Aboody, who lives in Port Washington.
Long Island’s Babylonian Jewish community is now fighting for the return of a treasure: torahs, prayer books and personal documents dating back to the 1500s and found by the United States in the headquarters of Saddam Hussein’s police. After 10 years and $3 million spent restoring the artifacts, which are now on tour, the U.S. has promised to return the archive to Iraq. Congressman Steve Israel said he wants the State Department to reconsider.
“They need to guarantee that these treasures will be accessible and won’t be returned to where we found them, in the the basement of the Iraqi secret police almost destroyed,” Rep. Israel said.
“What would they do with these artifacts? But it means so much to us. To take these back, it’s like taking my heart back,” Aboody added.
Harold Rhode, a former Pentagon official in Iraq when the artifacts were found, spoke to CBS 2’s Gusoff via Skype.
“This is not the heritage of Iraq. It is the heritage of Iraqi Jews. It is their personal property,” Dr. Rhode said.
Congressman Israel said the U.S. must be the custodian of the collection to ensure that scholars and Jews worldwide get to see it, study it and enjoy it. In Iraq, there are only four Jews alive today, Gusoff reported.
Pieces of the archive are on display at the Jewish Heritage Museum in lower Manhattan through mid-May.
TO GENERATE more business opportunities in Mindanao through technology, the online media platform is seen as one of the focal discussion points in the upcoming Mindanao Business Conference (Minbizcon) come September 13 to 15, 2018 in Tagum, City.
Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Incorporated (DCCCII) president Arturo Milan said the importance of having the online platform is also a good avenue in being adept with the changing technology in our society.
Milan added businesses in the present times are already changing, and the agricultural sector in the country must also catch up. In this way, he said, this could also be a good opportunity to even increase agricultural production in the country.
“We have also invited international guests from New Zealand, Taiwan, and even Israel to share their technologies with us,” Milan said.
DCCII vice president John Carlo Tria also said block chain technology will be another topic to be discussed during the business conference.
“The block chain platform is used for those businesses we can encourage as far as other countries to pull money and help fund certain agricultural technologies,” DCCII vice president John Carlo B. Tria said during Kapehan sa Dabaw.
After Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, Democrats are looking for a silver lining: winning back the House.
While the bitter nomination battle has revved up the GOP base — and boosted the party’s chances of keeping the Senate — Democrats believe Kavanaugh’s confirmation will further alienate the moderate and independent suburban women who will likely determine the fate of the House.
“This is going to mean that we win more Dem seats than we would have without this. This is absolutely going to help us in the House,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal Pramila JayapalOvernight Health Care: How 2020 Dems want to overhaul health care | Brooklyn parents sue over measles vaccination mandate | Measles outbreak nears record Democratic proposals to overhaul health care: A 2020 primer Dems counter portrait of discord MORE (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told The Hill.
Kavanaugh’s nomination has been embroiled in controversy since Christine Blasey Ford, a college professor from California, accused him of sexually assaulting her when the two were in high school more than three decades ago.
Two women have since come forward with their own sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh, all of which he has denied.
After the vote was delayed by a week so that the FBI could conduct a supplemental background investigation, the Senate on Saturday narrowly voted to confirm Kavanaugh.
Sen. Joe Manchin Joseph (Joe) ManchinOn The Money: Cain 'very committed' to Fed bid despite opposition | Pelosi warns no US-UK trade deal if Brexit harms Irish peace | Ivanka Trump says she turned down World Bank job Cain says he won't back down, wants to be nominated to Fed Pro-life Christians are demanding pollution protections MORE (D-W.Va.) crossed party lines to support the nominee, while Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska) was the lone Republican not to support Kavanaugh.
But Democratic — and even some Republican — strategists are warning that his confirmation could further exacerbate the GOP’s problem with women voters, who are more likely to turn out in a midterm election.
For President Trump Donald John TrumpImpeachment? Not so fast without missing element of criminal intent Feds say marijuana ties could prevent immigrants from getting US citizenship Trump approval drops to 2019 low after Mueller report's release: poll MORE, getting a second conservative justice seated on the Supreme Court has delivered him a legacy defining moment, tilting the court in a conservative direction for years to come.
But he could also face a whole host of headaches if Kavanaugh's confirmation helps power a 'blue wave' in the House, with House Democrats in a position to launch hearings, investigations, subpoenas and even impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Female suburban voters, who are already fired up by the “Me Too” movement and furious with Trump, are expected to form a crucial voting bloc in November.
That’s because the path to the House majority runs through suburban swing districts, where Republicans are defending dozens of vulnerable seats — including some that went for Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonImpeachment? Not so fast without missing element of criminal intent Former Bush assistant: Mueller report makes Obama look 'just plain bad' Seth Rich's brother calls for those pushing conspiracy to 'take responsibility' MORE over Trump in 2016.
Democrats need to flip 23 seats to win back the House after losing their majority in 2010, and the president’s party historically loses around 30 seats in the midterms.
In a potentially damning sign for Republicans, a recent poll from PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist showed that 52 percent of women believe that Ford is telling the truth, while just 27 percent side with Kavanaugh.
And Trump’s comments mocking Ford and bashing the protesters, many of whom were victims of sexual assault, did little to help the situation, according to strategists.
“Already outraged women across the country, and not just Democrats, but independent and moderate women, feel like the GOP doesn’t have a home for them, and that the prevalence of sexual assault is not being paid attention to,” Jayapal said.
There are already some signs that vulnerable Republicans are worried that Kavanaugh’s confirmation may hurt their own reelection races.
Rep. Barbara Comstock Barbara Jean ComstockGOP lawmaker introduces bill to stop revolving door Ex-lawmakers face new scrutiny over lobbying Trump suggests Heller lost reelection bid because he was 'hostile' during 2016 presidential campaign MORE (R-Va.) — one of the most endangered members in the House GOP caucus — posted a campaign ad on Friday touting her work combating sexual assault and harassment.
Republicans, however, maintain that Democrats have overplayed their hand in the Supreme Court battle, which has really galvanized and unified their party for the first time this election cycle.
Bolstering their argument, the PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll shows that the enthusiasm gap, where Democrats have long held the edge, has been essentially been wiped out in the wake of the Kavanaugh fight.
That could give the GOP a shot in the arm in the Senate, where a number of Republican candidates are vying to take down Democratic incumbents in red states that Trump won in 2016.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp Mary (Heidi) Kathryn HeitkampPro-trade groups enlist another ex-Dem lawmaker to push for Trump's NAFTA replacement Pro-trade group targets 4 lawmakers in push for new NAFTA Biden office highlights support from women after second accuser comes forward MORE (D-N.D.), who voted against Kavanaugh, is trailing her opponent Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) by 12 percentage points, according to a Fox News poll released this week.
But some strategists point out that the Republicans who are most fired up over this issue are mainly concentrated in areas that were already solid or tilting red, like North Dakota.
And they also question whether the GOP’s energy can last another four weeks, especially with Kavanaugh already on the bench and given the fast pace of the news cycle.
Whatever happened to patience? More than 81 percent of all online video viewers click away if they encounter a clip rebuffering, according to a new study by Tubemogul. The Emeryville-based video distribution and analytics startup took a close look at 192 million video streams over the course of 14 days to figure out how much rebuffers matter. The result: 6.81 percent of all streams rebuffer at some point, and around 2.5 percent rebuffer twice.
Tubemogul also measure how many times rebuffers occur across several popular CDNs. During its tests, Limelight (s LLNW) performed the best, while Bitgravity’s streams had to reload the most, with Akamai (s AKAM) being somewhere in the middle.
Tubemogul’s research is based on both short-form content as well as TV shows and other longer streams. The company told me that it wasn’t able to give any specifics as to how people interact with buffering in different situations, so we won’t know, for example, if users are more forgiving with Hulu streams than with YouTube videos.
However, Tubemogul was able to measure some significant differences between various popular CDNs. Only 3.84 percent of all Limelight streams sampled for the analysis rebuffered, it said. Streams served by Akamai were interrupted roughly twice as often (7.96 percent), while Bitgravity took the dubious honor of being the CDN with the most instances of rebuffering (12.48 percent).
This is great information as it arms us with more knowledge when looking for a reliable CDN. So the message here is that we should stay away from BitGravity when shopping around for CDN? It looks like their closest competitor in terms of cost is performing more than two – three times better when encountering slow load times.
I’ll bet if you broke this down by category, you’d find the defining issue is not the buffering, but the content quality. I’ll put up with buffering in my 30-minute Hulu show. But when that 2-minute YouTube video about a dancing cat buffers, it snaps me out of my trance and makes me re-evaluate whether this is really a good use of my time.
The vast majority of streams (by raw number) are the latter kind of content, so that makes the number of click-aways seem high.
You make a great point. Stay tuned for a follow-up bit of research breaking out longer-form video.
Fiber to the home will not help. The problem is not related to how big your pipe is but more to consistently being able to fill the buffer and not let it run out. *Unless you are doing HD to the desktop but, even than most people on cable today can sustain 1.X Mbps.
The issue is a combination of network interconnection between various providers and I/O problems on the server typical in long tail content.
The real interesting question is, was this HTTP Progressive (YouTube) or Steaming (Like FMS/WMS) and where were the clients and on what type of connection?
Was the content long tail or short tail (popular vs. not)?
What was the format and bitrate of the content (HD/SD)?
Frequently a video will spend more time buffering than the length of the presentation. Two seconds of play then three seconds of buffering. I seldom experience this with Hulu or other large content providers. One problem is that some providers stop the stream at the first reload and the user must start the presentation from the beginning to view it. It frequently takes many attempts to get all the way through it. Since I experienced this I just don’t bother waiting any more.
What we need is to offer faster internet service here in the U.S. We have the fiber cables underground already, but we’re not using it.
This study is interesting, but I would definitely be curious to see more supporting data, and if viewers were more patient with specific types of video content or platforms. As a new Internet TV network, we are just learning the importance of making our streaming content as functional as possible, especially for viewers with slower broadband connections. To think we could lose 80% of our audience on a single quick buffer seems a bit frightening.
Hulu buffers for me at least once per show (>10 seconds); yet I still watch because I highly value longform professional content.
For short form I believe the study is more accurate, myself and many of my friends will immediately leave a YouTube, Break.com or other video player experience if it starts buffering or fails to load.
That was my gut feeling as well. I’d think people are more forgiving with long-form content. You really don’t walk away from a 30 minute show if it buffers 25 minutes into the stream.
Unless these tests were conducted in parallel or with some control the results are dubious.
With the help of an engineer, I wrote this study and am happy to weigh in. A lot of the issues you raise were taken into account when we designed our video delivery metrics technology (InPlay), which tracks these metrics for dozens of top publishers/platforms.
So TubeMogul was able to tell us big CDNs perform better than small? Was the sample size and length of content the same at each CDN?
You sure these numbers are right? On TubeMoguls’ website it links to an article that says “192 streams over two weeks”, not 192 million streams.
I see the same thing 192 videos in the link from their homepage.
I fully agree ! The most important requirement we had when building our bespoke Web TV Player was that it loaded instantly … did we achieve that ?? Yes we did !
In fact its what our viewers love about our player , no loading issues, no buffering, it is on demand in every sense of the word, try it out for yourselves. We have yet to find anything else like it on the web.
Contractors sometimes need to add supplies or services to their Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts to respond to an agency's request for quote. But when must these additions be done: By the time quotes are submitted or by the time the blanket purchase agreement or FSS order is issued?
The need to add items to an FSS contract often stems from the rule that the supplies and services included in these orders must reside on the FSS contract of either the contractor or a team member.
Previous law let companies quote items both FSS and non-FSS, or "open-market items," in response to a request for quote if the non-FSS items were incidental to the order. For example, an agency could order ancillary non-FSS items, such as interface boards or cables, if it were ordering computers from a vendor's FSS contract.
The law changed in the late 1990s when the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the General Accounting Office decided that buying open-market items violated competition laws.
FAR 8.401 now lets an agency purchase open-market items in very limited circumstances and only if applicable competition requirements have been satisfied. Now when responding to a request for quote, a contractor may need to add supplies or services, such as labor categories or equipment, to fully meet an agency's requirements.
To properly add items to an FSS schedule, a vendor needs formal modification of its FSS contract from the General Services Administration's contracting officer. While this process is typically time-consuming, it can be expedited if the vendor is diligent and convinces the contracting officer of its urgency.
But the question of when the modification must be done is up in the air. The regulations are silent on the issue, which means the answer may vary from procurement to procurement. The most important factor in answering the question likely lies in the particular terms of the request for quote.
If the request makes clear that items must be on the vendor's FSS contract at the time quotes are submitted -- and quotes not following this rule will be rejected -- then vendors must be intent on adding items before the closing date. If the request is less clear on these points, there may be flexibility in the deadline for FSS contract modifications.
In one reported case on the issue, Sales Resources Consultants Inc., GAO upheld an agency's action where it accepted a quote for software that was added to the vendor's FSS contract after the closing date for quotes, but before the order was issued. GAO stated: "We fail to see any violation of FSS program requirements given that, at the time of the orders, the software was in fact on [the vendor's] schedule contract."
Contractors should take heed: Be earnest when adding items to an FSS contract to meet its requirements. Work closely with the GSA contracting officer. The terms of the request for quote likely will determine when the modification must be done.
Richard Rector is a partner in the Government Contracts practice of Piper Rudnick LLP in Washington, D.C. His e-mail address is richard.rector@piperrudnick.com.
Just imagine: your very own local area network, in the comfort of your own home. To technophobes, this may sound like the very definition of hell, with cables snaking around carpets and down hallways. But others envision a future in which the household intranet is invisible and painless.
In the latter camp is a new industry coalition, the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA). The group is out to establish a specification for building a home computer network out of the copper phone lines already coursing through millions of houses.
In theory, once plugged into this new household data-path, computers and other digital devices could share servers, printers, and modems, swap video and email, and do all the other things that local area networks ordinarily do in office environments.
"In the business world, the real power of the PC revolution was unleashed only when PCs were networked together. The goal of HomePNA is to extend that revolution into the home," said Rod Schrock, vice president and general manager for the Consumer Products Group at Compaq (CPQ), in a statement from HomePNA.
Compaq is one of the founding members of the new coalition, which also includes 3Com, AMD, AT&T Wireless, Epigram, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, and Tut Systems. Using the still-unnamed home networking specification, member companies hope to roll out products by the end of this year.
In a similar effort, many of the same companies belong to another coalition formed in March to push a standard for wireless in-home networks: the Shared Wireless Access Protocol. The membership of the Home Radio Frequency Working Group includes Microsoft, Compaq, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Motorola, and Rockwell Semiconductor.
And in February, Data General announced a wireless home server for running a cable-free network in homes and small offices.
The HomePNA specification represents another standard that the computer industry hopes will drive the fledgling home networking market. Predicting big growth in the demand for home networking products, HomePNA cited Dataquest research showing that more than 15 million US homes have two or more PCs, as well as Jupiter Communications projections that more than 15 million information appliance products will be purchased in the next five years.
"[The HomePNA specification] is just another protocol moving forward for us to be able to take advantage of and exploit in the home arena," said Andrew Hayden, a spokesman for IBM, which has been one of home networking's biggest promoters and developers.
"When you look at the retrofit market, you ask 'How do you put a network into [existing] homes?' This is one of the ways. You don't have to say, 'Tear out your walls.'"
IBM has even bigger visions for new homes, he said, in which new cables for high-speed Ethernet can be installed as houses are being built. But the HomePNA plan allows Big Blue to incorporate existing structures into the company's home networking future.
Notably absent from the HomePNA group is Microsoft (MSFT), although the company has shown support for technology developed by HomePNA member Tut Systems. HomePNA has adopted Tut's technology as the basis for its specification.
That technology drives Tut's HomeRun product, which creates a 1-Mbps Ethernet LAN over telephone wiring. Adapters connect computers and other devices to standard phone jacks. With HomeRun installed, a home's phone lines can simultaneously carry networking and standard phone calls, thanks to a technology called frequency division multiplexing.
A next-generation version of the HomePNA spec – already under development, the group says – will boost transmission speeds to over 10 Mbps.
The initial specification will be published for open use by vendors by the third quarter of 1998, the group said. It will coexist with current and future modem technologies, such as V.90, ADSL and cable modems, bringing Internet traffic into the home.
Warner Bros has informed us that while the new movie trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be attached to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse on June 30th, the trailer will be made available online Monday, June 28th around 4:00pm PST. So you won’t have to subject yourself to the Twilight sequel to see the new Deathly Hallows trailer. Check back on Monday to watch the trailer online!
The BBC is inviting viewers to join the world's biggest online climate prediction project.
Climateprediction.net has already been running for two years and has generated forecasts on the likely extent of climate change.
Participants download software onto their personal computers which run the program when the machine is idle.
Its newest, most sophisticated computer model is being launched on Tuesday in conjunction with BBC Four in the UK.
"The main change in this model is that it uses a fully dynamic ocean," said the project's chief scientist David Stainforth from Oxford University.
"Previous versions used a very simplified ocean, whereas this one allows us to see how the atmosphere and the ocean interact," he told the BBC News website.
The upgraded design should provide a more accurate representation of the real world, where heat and gases are continuously exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean, and should produce more realistic projections of future climate.
Climateprediction.net is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. It was established more than two years ago and uses the "distributed computing" approach.