Recag/C4_7 · Datasets at Hugging Face

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NEIL LENNON last night called time on flop Mo Bangura’s Celtic career – as he expressed his admiration for Wolves’ Leigh Griffiths.
Celtic boss Lennon has conceded for the first time that £1.5million strike dud Bangura – with no goals in just 16 appearances over three years – has no chance of making the grade at Parkhead.
Lennon will now try to ship Bangura out before next Friday’s deadline while trying to snap up two or three new signings, with Scotland cap Griffiths evidently on his radar and in his price range at around £1m.
On former AIK Solna and Elfsborg man Bangura, Lennon said: “It’s reasonable to say that he doesn’t have a future here.
“It just hasn’t worked out for both parties. These things sometimes happen in football.
“We’ve had no enquiries for him yet but his best bet may be Scandinavia again.
“You’re never going to get every signing right. Every manager, even the greats, has made a mistake or two along the way.
“Mo needs to get out and play because it’s going to be restrictive here.
While Bangura’s proved to be an expensive disaster – costing the Bhoys around £3m in fees and wages – Lennon is hoping he can strike gold with signings in the next week.
The Griffiths link just won’t go away and, with the player now trying to orchestrate a move by expressing his love for the Hoops, that one could develop.
Celtic have plenty of irons in the fire, with interest in Middlesbrough defender Rhys Williams, Peterborough striker Lee Tomlin and Charlton forward Yann Kermorgant still ongoing.
However, a move for Norwich and Scotland winger Robert Snodgrass looks to be outwith Celtic’s budget.
Lennon is also keeping tabs on a couple of Scottish stars – with scouts filing excellent reports on Ryan Gauld, Andy Robertson and Stuart Armstrong of Dundee United.
Partick Thistle’s Aaron Taylor-Sinclair is another who could easily be snapped up for a nominal fee.
Lennon admitted the transfer window is driving him nuts – and he isn’t convinced it’s a good system.
He added: “It’s a pain in the neck.
“Next Friday will be bedlam, absolute bedlam. You try to cram everything into a four-week period and everyone is doing the same thing. So it’s really difficult to get deals done. Then in the last couple of days it starts to get easier as clubs are willing to offload players, to cut their wage bill or players want to go.
“The last two days, you get names thrown at you from all angles. I don’t think it’s good for managers.
Celtic remain in talks with Joe Ledley and Georgios Samaras over new deals with the Welshman still more likely to sign than the Greek.
SALT LAKE CITY (CBSNewYork/AP) — Baylor heard all week about Syracuse’s vaunted zone, how long the Orange are, how difficult it is to find openings.
The Orange losing leaves just one area team standing in the tournament and they may not be around long either. New Rochelle’s Iona will square off with 1-seed North Carolina Friday night.
The San Marcos CISD Board of Trustees last month voted unanimously to hire Gregory Rodriguez as the coordinator of accountability and school improvement.
Rodriguez, who was chosen among 38 applicants, will be in charge of guiding teachers and staff through the ever-changing labyrinth of standardized testing regulations so students can meet ever-more-strict requirements.
Iris Campbell, San Marcos CISD spokesperson, said Rodriguez has worked in the public education field for more than 16 years. He served as the grant coordinator for Texas State University where he facilitated a multi-million dollar award by the U.S. Department of Education, Campbell said. Two years before that, Rodriguez was the administrative supervisor for Austin ISD, where one of his duties involved the development of new, innovative schools and academies with support from community partnerships.
Rodriguez’s predecessor, Joy Harris Philpott, recently left to work for Hays CISD. Like Philpott, Rodriguez will present major reports to the board of trustees to keep them abreast of what Eads called “constant changes” in rules and laws related to testing.
Lolly Guerra, San Marcos CISD assistant superintendent for human resources, said all the following figures related to Rodriguez’s salary will be prorated this year based on his Oct. 3 start date.
Philpott was eligible for the health insurance contribution but did not participate in the district’s health insurance plan, said Guerra. Philpott joined the district as the academic dean of San Marcos High School in July 2005 and became director of school improvement and accountability in July 2007.
Rodriguez, a native of San Antonio, served as the technology integration facilitator for San Antonio ISD for five years. He was a selector for the Texas Teaching Fellows in San Antonio for one year. In his early teaching years, Rodriguez was an English and language arts teacher and an English/Spanish teacher in Southside ISD and Southwest ISD, both in San Antonio. Rodriguez was also a Spanish teacher in Del Valle ISD for two years.
Rodriguez earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Spanish from then-Southwest Texas State University, a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Houston Baptist University in Houston, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the field of school improvement at Texas State University.
“He’s already finished all of his coursework, so he’d going to be ‘Dr. Rodriguez’ probably next year or so,” Eads said.
Agreed. It is unfortunate that a position like this has to focus on standardized test results, rather than graduation rates, college/career preparedness, etc., especially since the latter ought to be able to drive the former, over time.
SYN-SYN-ACK - Your networking news roundup has arrived!
Network admins: unpatched MikroTik routers are being scanned by a botnet again.
Netlab360 is one of the organisations to identify increasing scans on Port 8291, and says it's associated with a new Hajime malware attack.
The “Chimay Red” attack code the malware-slingers have used was patched against last year.
Aruba has launched an analytics offering called NetInsight. It's 2018 so it offers AI network performance analytics and assurance solution.
Part of Aruba's Mobile First Architecture, NetInsight is an anomaly-watcher that provides response and optimisation suggestions “based on data that is specific to user connectivity and RF performance attributes”.
The company also announced the acquisition of South African AI outfit Cape Networks. Cape Networks' focus is sensor-based service assurance for SaaS, application, and network services.
Uber's tragic fatal accident in Arizona put Nvidia's autonomous vehicle tests on hold, but hasn't dented the company's long-term enthusiasm for the technology.
Marvell Semiconductor this week announced its secure automotive Ethernet switch is to be integrated into the Nvidia DRIVE Pegasus Platform.
The switch silicon, Marvell's 88Q5050, includes features like trusted boot, deep packet inspection, and low power consumption.
Nvidia pitches the 320-trillion operations per second DRIVE Pegasus platform at “no human required” Level 5 autonomous operations.
The Ethernet chip gives Pegasus DRIVE a secure connection to sensors, cameras, controllers and the like, with blacklisting and whitelisting on all Ethernet ports.
It's five years since Juniper Networks first opened up its Contrail controller code as OpenContrail, but it seems the branding still associated the product too much with its inventor.
As part of its news dump from the Open Networking Summit, the Linux Foundation announced that the long project of moving all code under its purview was complete, and has renamed the project Tungsten Fabric.
AT&T (whose DANOS announcement we reported yesterday) also teamed up with Tech Mahindra to kick off the Acumos project, as part of the Linux Foundation's Deep Learning Foundation. The foundation's announcement describes Acumos as “a federated platform for managing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications and sharing AI models”.
The TM Forum, an 850-member telco industry organisation, joined in the ONS fun, announcing a partnership with – you guessed it! – the Linux Foundation.
The TM Forum said it wanted its open APIs adopted by other open source projects. It has more than 50 REST-based APIs, and claimed they're already in use by 4,000 developers in 700 companies.
Home Nigeria DG National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). Is’haq Modibbo Kawu not suspended.
Information reaching us revealed that the director-general of National Broadcasting Commission, (NBC) Mallam Is’haq Modibbo was not suspended by the Board of NBC after all, contrary to the news making the rounds. It is fake news that should be disregarded by the public.
An online version of a newspaper had reported that the Board of NBC suspended the DG, but in a swift reaction by Barrister Salihu Bandele Aluko, a board member, who signed a statement on behalf of the chairman of the board, Alhaji Ikra Aliyu Bilbis, Kawu was not suspended and remains the DG of the NBC.
Bilibis, held its quarterly meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, this week and it neither at any point discuss nor contemplate a so-called ‘suspension’ of the DG, Modibbo Kawu, who also actively participated in the meeting.
Hurricane Florence remains far out in the Atlantic, but Bermuda — and perhaps the Eastern Seaboard — remain on alert as various models show it could begin to impact those areas by next week.
The biggest question in the next few days: Will the storm take its previously projected turn to the north, or — as some of the latest models suggest — will it stay on more of a westerly path that could target areas along the mid-Atlantic, including North Carolina?
Wind shear has helped weaken Florence into a Category 2 storm with 105 mph winds as off 11 a.m., and it was about 1,115 miles east-southeast of Bermuda.
The track still remains in flux, though, as it currently continues on a northwesterly path at 12 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane center forecasters say it will slow down before turning toward the west by the weekend, and could produce swells and high surf in Bermuda by Friday and parts of the East Coast over the weekend.
Meteorologists and weather watchers are keeping a close eye on the path, and the changing models that have Florence shifting to the west.
While the immediate attention is on Florence, forecasters continue to monitor two other tropical waves that could develop into the next tropical systems — which could be named Helene and Isaac.
Conditions are favorable for the first, approaching the Cabo Verde Islands, to become Helene. It has a 70 percent chance of development by this weekend. The second has yet to move off Africa’s west coast, but still has a 50 percent chance of development in the next five days, forecasters said.
Gordon, meanwhile, has weakened into a tropical depression over Mississippi but will be a heavy rainmaker as it continues on a path to the north, eventually reaching the Great Lakes, forecasters said.
If you’ve ever wondered why the Western world put the United States in charge of popular music some time in the second half of the 20th century, have a look at the Eurovision Song Contest.
For while the folk music of that continent, with its goatskin bagpipes, accordion solos, oom-pah-pah bands and bouzouki echoes of Homeric prehistory, may be worth preserving from an ethnographic point of view, its commercial popular music culture is pretty bad, to make a sweeping but nevertheless valid, generalisation, and always has been.
This year’s Eurovision featured the usual overdose of over-emoting songsters from small nations rarely heard from outside the qualifying stages of the soccer World Cup.
The songs were mostly overwrought ballads of impossible love or fist-pumping anthems of cultish self-actualisation, although the winner, Israel’s Netta, channelled #MeToo with her song, Toy.
And the fashion stylings: all the leather and studs and eyeliner and gel, all the black lipstick like a gothy high-school fancy dress, all the cocktail wear for a provincial cousin’s wedding.
As for Jessica Mauboy getting panned by a British Eurovision historian and various other commentators, I don’t really know what Australia is doing getting involved in this music trashfest either.
In truth I can only bear to watch it with the sound turned down. But it looks bloody terrible.
I know. Abba. The greatest pop band of the 20th century etc, etc. But only in postmodern hindsight, with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan singing it.
And I know. Eurovision has a huge audience, even in this country, and it’s not all yayas and nonnas. But casting an ironic gaze over it from Northcote, Marrickville or Fortitude Valley doesn’t make the music sound any better.
The only exception to the general terribleness of European pop music is the UK, and they aren’t part of Europe now anyway.
And why is that? Because British pop music has been under the sway of American R’n’B since World War II and Caribbean ska and reggae since the 1960s.
The common denominator is the presence of black people making the music: the descendants of African slaves who were shipped to the western hemisphere in Europe’s colonising enterprises.
At the risk of launching an angry hashtag, I’d say that Europe’s contribution to 20th-century popular music was to deport and enslave the ancestors of the people who went on to invent it.
Do I write off an entire continent? No. There are many great things about Europe – great cinema; great literature; great art music; great food; some of the world’s best ancient ruins.
But her pop music? Pass the remote, please.
Matt Holden is an Age columnist.
Online critics are pointing the finger right back at Minneapolis police officials over a photo firestorm.
Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges recently posed for a picture, arm-in-arm with a black constituent, during a get-out-the vote event. The man is reportedly a convicted felon. In the picture, they are smiling and pointing at one another.
Calls to the mayor’s office were not immediately returned.
Police Department spokesman John Elder told msnbc they have no plans to comment on the matter. But online users continue to be vocal on what has now been dubbed “#pointergate” on social media.
Users didn’t appear to be as concerned about the content of the photo. Instead, they mocked the backlash, posting memes riddled with sarcasm and snark.
Within the past seven days, there have been nearly 27,000 tweets using the #pointergate hashtag, according to social search and analytics company Topsy.
Will Roberts save Obamacare again?
The decision by a federal appeals court to uphold the stay of President Trump’s travel ban made for a happy arrival Thursday night at O’Hare International airport. Vrouyr Joubenian lives in Lebanon but was born in Syria. He said up until the announcement of the 9th circuit court's decision he did not know what was going to happen.
Hands up who thinks that establishing processes in small business can be liberating and exciting?
Thought so. Well, they are and this video interview with The Process Ninja, Craig Reid makes the case well.
Craig lives and dreams processes and his tips are clear, relevant and easy to implement.
So if you're keeping everything in your head and finding the space up there getting a little cramped, hop over here and listen to the delightful, dulcet tones of Scotsman, Craig Reid.
University of Rochester Life Trustee Alan Batkin ’66 and his wife, Jane, have established a professorship in Jewish studies. Their generosity will help strengthen academic and research activities in Jewish studies, furthering the understanding of Jewish history, culture, language, and religion across the University and beyond. The couple made the gift in honor of two milestones: Alan’s 50th class reunion and the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.
In recognition of her scholarship and teaching acumen, Nora Rubel has been named the inaugural holder of the Jane and Alan Batkin Endowed Professorship in Jewish Studies. Rubel is also an associate professor of religion at Rochester and director of the University’s Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies.
Rubel earned a master’s degree in religion and culture from Boston University and her PhD in religion from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A faculty member in Rochester’s Department of Religion and Classics since 2007, she is the author of Doubting the Devout: The Ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish American Imagination (Columbia University Press, 2009), a coeditor of Religion, Food, and Eating in North America (Columbia University Press, 2014), and the author of multiple journal articles and essays.
Alan Batkin is the chairman and CEO of Converse Associates, a consulting firm, and currently serves as a life trustee of the University of Rochester. An alumnus of the University, he earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1966 and continued his education at New York University, receiving his MBA in 1968.
Along with his wife Jane, a retired school psychologist who currently facilitates bereavement groups for children, Alan remains active within the University and throughout his community. He currently sits on the board of four public companies and is an active board member of numerous non-profits including the Brookings Institution, the International Rescue Committee (where he is Chairman Emeritus), MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, the Mass General Center for Global Health (which he chairs), and the New York City Police Foundation.
Jane is a member of the advisory board for the Greenwich (Connecticut) Hospital Women’s Health Initiative and serves on the board of the Breast Cancer Alliance, the Greenwich United Jewish Appeal Federation, and the YWCA of Greenwich.
tarmac drive for two cars. Single GARAGE. West facing rear garden.
Comedy site Funny Or Die has enlisted an all-star cast of DJs for NCIS: Ibiza. a parody skit which packs plenty of marquee cameos into a two-minute trailer.
Steve Aoki and R3hab star as detectives, while Moby takes a turn as a long-gone raver and Martin Garrix delights as a test tube-focused forensic scientist.
The respect for captains Nicklaus and Player is a big reason Finchem (center) feels bullish about the Presidents Cup's future.
Almost from its inception in 1994, the Presidents Cup has been the golf event that works. What it has lacked in history, originality or natural rivalry, it has made up for by always being unerringly sensible.

NEIL LENNON last night called time on flop Mo Bangura’s Celtic career – as he expressed his admiration for Wolves’ Leigh Griffiths.

Celtic boss Lennon has conceded for the first time that £1.5million strike dud Bangura – with no goals in just 16 appearances over three years – has no chance of making the grade at Parkhead.

Lennon will now try to ship Bangura out before next Friday’s deadline while trying to snap up two or three new signings, with Scotland cap Griffiths evidently on his radar and in his price range at around £1m.

On former AIK Solna and Elfsborg man Bangura, Lennon said: “It’s reasonable to say that he doesn’t have a future here.

“It just hasn’t worked out for both parties. These things sometimes happen in football.

“We’ve had no enquiries for him yet but his best bet may be Scandinavia again.

“You’re never going to get every signing right. Every manager, even the greats, has made a mistake or two along the way.

“Mo needs to get out and play because it’s going to be restrictive here.

While Bangura’s proved to be an expensive disaster – costing the Bhoys around £3m in fees and wages – Lennon is hoping he can strike gold with signings in the next week.

The Griffiths link just won’t go away and, with the player now trying to orchestrate a move by expressing his love for the Hoops, that one could develop.

Celtic have plenty of irons in the fire, with interest in Middlesbrough defender Rhys Williams, Peterborough striker Lee Tomlin and Charlton forward Yann Kermorgant still ongoing.

However, a move for Norwich and Scotland winger Robert Snodgrass looks to be outwith Celtic’s budget.

Lennon is also keeping tabs on a couple of Scottish stars – with scouts filing excellent reports on Ryan Gauld, Andy Robertson and Stuart Armstrong of Dundee United.

Partick Thistle’s Aaron Taylor-Sinclair is another who could easily be snapped up for a nominal fee.

Lennon admitted the transfer window is driving him nuts – and he isn’t convinced it’s a good system.

He added: “It’s a pain in the neck.

“Next Friday will be bedlam, absolute bedlam. You try to cram everything into a four-week period and everyone is doing the same thing. So it’s really difficult to get deals done. Then in the last couple of days it starts to get easier as clubs are willing to offload players, to cut their wage bill or players want to go.

“The last two days, you get names thrown at you from all angles. I don’t think it’s good for managers.

Celtic remain in talks with Joe Ledley and Georgios Samaras over new deals with the Welshman still more likely to sign than the Greek.

SALT LAKE CITY (CBSNewYork/AP) — Baylor heard all week about Syracuse’s vaunted zone, how long the Orange are, how difficult it is to find openings.

The Orange losing leaves just one area team standing in the tournament and they may not be around long either. New Rochelle’s Iona will square off with 1-seed North Carolina Friday night.

The San Marcos CISD Board of Trustees last month voted unanimously to hire Gregory Rodriguez as the coordinator of accountability and school improvement.

Rodriguez, who was chosen among 38 applicants, will be in charge of guiding teachers and staff through the ever-changing labyrinth of standardized testing regulations so students can meet ever-more-strict requirements.

Iris Campbell, San Marcos CISD spokesperson, said Rodriguez has worked in the public education field for more than 16 years. He served as the grant coordinator for Texas State University where he facilitated a multi-million dollar award by the U.S. Department of Education, Campbell said. Two years before that, Rodriguez was the administrative supervisor for Austin ISD, where one of his duties involved the development of new, innovative schools and academies with support from community partnerships.

Rodriguez’s predecessor, Joy Harris Philpott, recently left to work for Hays CISD. Like Philpott, Rodriguez will present major reports to the board of trustees to keep them abreast of what Eads called “constant changes” in rules and laws related to testing.

Lolly Guerra, San Marcos CISD assistant superintendent for human resources, said all the following figures related to Rodriguez’s salary will be prorated this year based on his Oct. 3 start date.

Philpott was eligible for the health insurance contribution but did not participate in the district’s health insurance plan, said Guerra. Philpott joined the district as the academic dean of San Marcos High School in July 2005 and became director of school improvement and accountability in July 2007.

Rodriguez, a native of San Antonio, served as the technology integration facilitator for San Antonio ISD for five years. He was a selector for the Texas Teaching Fellows in San Antonio for one year. In his early teaching years, Rodriguez was an English and language arts teacher and an English/Spanish teacher in Southside ISD and Southwest ISD, both in San Antonio. Rodriguez was also a Spanish teacher in Del Valle ISD for two years.

Rodriguez earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Spanish from then-Southwest Texas State University, a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Houston Baptist University in Houston, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the field of school improvement at Texas State University.

“He’s already finished all of his coursework, so he’d going to be ‘Dr. Rodriguez’ probably next year or so,” Eads said.

Agreed. It is unfortunate that a position like this has to focus on standardized test results, rather than graduation rates, college/career preparedness, etc., especially since the latter ought to be able to drive the former, over time.

SYN-SYN-ACK - Your networking news roundup has arrived!

Network admins: unpatched MikroTik routers are being scanned by a botnet again.

Netlab360 is one of the organisations to identify increasing scans on Port 8291, and says it's associated with a new Hajime malware attack.

The “Chimay Red” attack code the malware-slingers have used was patched against last year.

Aruba has launched an analytics offering called NetInsight. It's 2018 so it offers AI network performance analytics and assurance solution.

Part of Aruba's Mobile First Architecture, NetInsight is an anomaly-watcher that provides response and optimisation suggestions “based on data that is specific to user connectivity and RF performance attributes”.

The company also announced the acquisition of South African AI outfit Cape Networks. Cape Networks' focus is sensor-based service assurance for SaaS, application, and network services.

Uber's tragic fatal accident in Arizona put Nvidia's autonomous vehicle tests on hold, but hasn't dented the company's long-term enthusiasm for the technology.

Marvell Semiconductor this week announced its secure automotive Ethernet switch is to be integrated into the Nvidia DRIVE Pegasus Platform.

The switch silicon, Marvell's 88Q5050, includes features like trusted boot, deep packet inspection, and low power consumption.

Nvidia pitches the 320-trillion operations per second DRIVE Pegasus platform at “no human required” Level 5 autonomous operations.

The Ethernet chip gives Pegasus DRIVE a secure connection to sensors, cameras, controllers and the like, with blacklisting and whitelisting on all Ethernet ports.

It's five years since Juniper Networks first opened up its Contrail controller code as OpenContrail, but it seems the branding still associated the product too much with its inventor.

As part of its news dump from the Open Networking Summit, the Linux Foundation announced that the long project of moving all code under its purview was complete, and has renamed the project Tungsten Fabric.

AT&T (whose DANOS announcement we reported yesterday) also teamed up with Tech Mahindra to kick off the Acumos project, as part of the Linux Foundation's Deep Learning Foundation. The foundation's announcement describes Acumos as “a federated platform for managing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications and sharing AI models”.

The TM Forum, an 850-member telco industry organisation, joined in the ONS fun, announcing a partnership with – you guessed it! – the Linux Foundation.

The TM Forum said it wanted its open APIs adopted by other open source projects. It has more than 50 REST-based APIs, and claimed they're already in use by 4,000 developers in 700 companies.

Home Nigeria DG National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). Is’haq Modibbo Kawu not suspended.

Information reaching us revealed that the director-general of National Broadcasting Commission, (NBC) Mallam Is’haq Modibbo was not suspended by the Board of NBC after all, contrary to the news making the rounds. It is fake news that should be disregarded by the public.

An online version of a newspaper had reported that the Board of NBC suspended the DG, but in a swift reaction by Barrister Salihu Bandele Aluko, a board member, who signed a statement on behalf of the chairman of the board, Alhaji Ikra Aliyu Bilbis, Kawu was not suspended and remains the DG of the NBC.

Bilibis, held its quarterly meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, this week and it neither at any point discuss nor contemplate a so-called ‘suspension’ of the DG, Modibbo Kawu, who also actively participated in the meeting.

Hurricane Florence remains far out in the Atlantic, but Bermuda — and perhaps the Eastern Seaboard — remain on alert as various models show it could begin to impact those areas by next week.

The biggest question in the next few days: Will the storm take its previously projected turn to the north, or — as some of the latest models suggest — will it stay on more of a westerly path that could target areas along the mid-Atlantic, including North Carolina?

Wind shear has helped weaken Florence into a Category 2 storm with 105 mph winds as off 11 a.m., and it was about 1,115 miles east-southeast of Bermuda.

The track still remains in flux, though, as it currently continues on a northwesterly path at 12 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane center forecasters say it will slow down before turning toward the west by the weekend, and could produce swells and high surf in Bermuda by Friday and parts of the East Coast over the weekend.

Meteorologists and weather watchers are keeping a close eye on the path, and the changing models that have Florence shifting to the west.

While the immediate attention is on Florence, forecasters continue to monitor two other tropical waves that could develop into the next tropical systems — which could be named Helene and Isaac.

Conditions are favorable for the first, approaching the Cabo Verde Islands, to become Helene. It has a 70 percent chance of development by this weekend. The second has yet to move off Africa’s west coast, but still has a 50 percent chance of development in the next five days, forecasters said.

Gordon, meanwhile, has weakened into a tropical depression over Mississippi but will be a heavy rainmaker as it continues on a path to the north, eventually reaching the Great Lakes, forecasters said.

If you’ve ever wondered why the Western world put the United States in charge of popular music some time in the second half of the 20th century, have a look at the Eurovision Song Contest.

For while the folk music of that continent, with its goatskin bagpipes, accordion solos, oom-pah-pah bands and bouzouki echoes of Homeric prehistory, may be worth preserving from an ethnographic point of view, its commercial popular music culture is pretty bad, to make a sweeping but nevertheless valid, generalisation, and always has been.

This year’s Eurovision featured the usual overdose of over-emoting songsters from small nations rarely heard from outside the qualifying stages of the soccer World Cup.

The songs were mostly overwrought ballads of impossible love or fist-pumping anthems of cultish self-actualisation, although the winner, Israel’s Netta, channelled #MeToo with her song, Toy.

And the fashion stylings: all the leather and studs and eyeliner and gel, all the black lipstick like a gothy high-school fancy dress, all the cocktail wear for a provincial cousin’s wedding.

As for Jessica Mauboy getting panned by a British Eurovision historian and various other commentators, I don’t really know what Australia is doing getting involved in this music trashfest either.

In truth I can only bear to watch it with the sound turned down. But it looks bloody terrible.

I know. Abba. The greatest pop band of the 20th century etc, etc. But only in postmodern hindsight, with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan singing it.

And I know. Eurovision has a huge audience, even in this country, and it’s not all yayas and nonnas. But casting an ironic gaze over it from Northcote, Marrickville or Fortitude Valley doesn’t make the music sound any better.

The only exception to the general terribleness of European pop music is the UK, and they aren’t part of Europe now anyway.

And why is that? Because British pop music has been under the sway of American R’n’B since World War II and Caribbean ska and reggae since the 1960s.

The common denominator is the presence of black people making the music: the descendants of African slaves who were shipped to the western hemisphere in Europe’s colonising enterprises.

At the risk of launching an angry hashtag, I’d say that Europe’s contribution to 20th-century popular music was to deport and enslave the ancestors of the people who went on to invent it.

Do I write off an entire continent? No. There are many great things about Europe – great cinema; great literature; great art music; great food; some of the world’s best ancient ruins.

But her pop music? Pass the remote, please.

Matt Holden is an Age columnist.

Online critics are pointing the finger right back at Minneapolis police officials over a photo firestorm.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges recently posed for a picture, arm-in-arm with a black constituent, during a get-out-the vote event. The man is reportedly a convicted felon. In the picture, they are smiling and pointing at one another.

Calls to the mayor’s office were not immediately returned.

Police Department spokesman John Elder told msnbc they have no plans to comment on the matter. But online users continue to be vocal on what has now been dubbed “#pointergate” on social media.

Users didn’t appear to be as concerned about the content of the photo. Instead, they mocked the backlash, posting memes riddled with sarcasm and snark.

Within the past seven days, there have been nearly 27,000 tweets using the #pointergate hashtag, according to social search and analytics company Topsy.

Will Roberts save Obamacare again?

The decision by a federal appeals court to uphold the stay of President Trump’s travel ban made for a happy arrival Thursday night at O’Hare International airport. Vrouyr Joubenian lives in Lebanon but was born in Syria. He said up until the announcement of the 9th circuit court's decision he did not know what was going to happen.

Hands up who thinks that establishing processes in small business can be liberating and exciting?

Thought so. Well, they are and this video interview with The Process Ninja, Craig Reid makes the case well.

Craig lives and dreams processes and his tips are clear, relevant and easy to implement.

So if you're keeping everything in your head and finding the space up there getting a little cramped, hop over here and listen to the delightful, dulcet tones of Scotsman, Craig Reid.

University of Rochester Life Trustee Alan Batkin ’66 and his wife, Jane, have established a professorship in Jewish studies. Their generosity will help strengthen academic and research activities in Jewish studies, furthering the understanding of Jewish history, culture, language, and religion across the University and beyond. The couple made the gift in honor of two milestones: Alan’s 50th class reunion and the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.

In recognition of her scholarship and teaching acumen, Nora Rubel has been named the inaugural holder of the Jane and Alan Batkin Endowed Professorship in Jewish Studies. Rubel is also an associate professor of religion at Rochester and director of the University’s Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies.

Rubel earned a master’s degree in religion and culture from Boston University and her PhD in religion from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A faculty member in Rochester’s Department of Religion and Classics since 2007, she is the author of Doubting the Devout: The Ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish American Imagination (Columbia University Press, 2009), a coeditor of Religion, Food, and Eating in North America (Columbia University Press, 2014), and the author of multiple journal articles and essays.

Alan Batkin is the chairman and CEO of Converse Associates, a consulting firm, and currently serves as a life trustee of the University of Rochester. An alumnus of the University, he earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1966 and continued his education at New York University, receiving his MBA in 1968.

Along with his wife Jane, a retired school psychologist who currently facilitates bereavement groups for children, Alan remains active within the University and throughout his community. He currently sits on the board of four public companies and is an active board member of numerous non-profits including the Brookings Institution, the International Rescue Committee (where he is Chairman Emeritus), MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, the Mass General Center for Global Health (which he chairs), and the New York City Police Foundation.

Jane is a member of the advisory board for the Greenwich (Connecticut) Hospital Women’s Health Initiative and serves on the board of the Breast Cancer Alliance, the Greenwich United Jewish Appeal Federation, and the YWCA of Greenwich.

tarmac drive for two cars. Single GARAGE. West facing rear garden.

Comedy site Funny Or Die has enlisted an all-star cast of DJs for NCIS: Ibiza. a parody skit which packs plenty of marquee cameos into a two-minute trailer.

Steve Aoki and R3hab star as detectives, while Moby takes a turn as a long-gone raver and Martin Garrix delights as a test tube-focused forensic scientist.

The respect for captains Nicklaus and Player is a big reason Finchem (center) feels bullish about the Presidents Cup's future.

Almost from its inception in 1994, the Presidents Cup has been the golf event that works. What it has lacked in history, originality or natural rivalry, it has made up for by always being unerringly sensible.